closette

Congratulations! I\'m so glad my design was helpful in achieving mission success! Coincidentally I just completed an 'aerobraking' return - on purpose - which took a few orbits before reentry. Intentional or not, it\'s a much gentler way to return than just smashing into the atmosphere! Still hard to choose a landing spot though - and I hardly ever hit snow. It sounds like you have the right idea, but what I do to to use the least fuel for returnin\' to Kerbin, is to cancel out the Mun\'s orbital velocity around Kerbin as much as possible when heading away from the Mun, so that when I leave the Mun\'s influence I end up falling nearly straight down back to Kerbin with a low periapsis to begin with. Then I immediately retrofire to lower the periapsis some more while I am still far away (and moving slowly). As for the Mun landing, brave of you to try and land on a single liquid engine nozzle! But yes, with the slightest horizontal velocity will cause the engine to break off, and/or the entire spacecraft to fall over on its side. Glad you were able to recover in time! I wish you many more safe returns, and please report back with any useful additions or changes.

Thank you Scruce for taking a look and your kind words and favorable comparison to the Proton! I\'m not worthy! One of my spacecraft\'s weak points is that falling back to Kerbin from the Mun at >3000 km/s, with only RCS thrusters for maneuver, makes it hard to choose a landing spot! Thankfully most of Kerbin is covered in ocean. My ideal landing site would be in water just off a beach - I can use any remaining RCS fuel to motor-boat to the shore. Now that I can get the 3 boys back home reliably, I am experimenting with aerobraking into Low Kerbin Orbit, which might let me have a bit more control of where to come down, but will make for a much longer mission.

Very kind of you to say so Andras - it took a LOT of trial and error to get there, in the course of which I realized I was following a bunch of 1960s space-race milestones, i.e. Kerbin orbit, lunar fly-by (Zond 3), Ranger series (impacting the Mun), Surveyor (soft landing but 1-way trip), Apollo 10 (Mun orbit and return), and finally a successful Mun mission. The 4-fold symmetry of the upper stages was shaped by my realization (trial and error) that I needed only 1 liquid engine but 4 side tanks and 4 fins for Munar transfer and landing, with the addition of enough RCS thrusters and tanks to complete the landing, and get back home. Of course the landing and return stages only work in munar gravity, so I could not test them on Kerbin first, which slowed their development. I found that 6 liquid engines were needed to get the upper stages off the ground and into orbit (I started with 3, not enough). The rest was dictated by stability requirements and my klutzy lack of flying skills (I use a laptop with no joystick, if that\'s an excuse!). If you\'ve been patient to read this far, I would also say that restricting myself to 100% stock parts actually helped me (1) learn a lot about orbital dynamics and delta-V budgets and (2) get a greater sense of accomplishment when I achieved a milestone. This is a very well-designed program in that respect.

Thanks for the kind encouragement Cezary, and for the landing gear suggestion. That might work for my ship, since currently I just throw away the descent engine + half a tank of fuel. Using the radial decoupler+winglet landing gear on that engine could allow me to keep it, land on it, and save more RCS fuel for the voyage home. As for landing with RCS thrusters, it helps to have 12 (8+4) of them! With no throttle control you have to 'blip' them on and off, but the force of 12 thrusters seems well matched to the weight of my lander, and that helps a lot as long as you keep the speed under 20 m/s. I\'ll definitely check out your blogspot site - glad there\'s another 'stock' enthusiast out there. (Nothing wrong with mods, I just prefer not to bother with them). Feel free to copy or link to my .craft file if you are collecting stock Munships on your site.

Thanks Capt\'n, I see your ship all over the forums. As forums go this one seems to be one of the most civil and welcoming. I\'ll contribute what I can and learn from everybody else.

For those running KSP on a Mac, I found iShowU HD to work very nicely, although running it while KSP is running will challenge older Macs and make their cooling fans spin like crazy! I would post a link to one of my videos but whenever I record a mission it seems to end in disaster. So I usually just stick with screenshots.

Hello everyone, I\'ve been lurking since before Xmas, and learning KSP when I should have been doing other things in real life! It\'s taken me a while to get our three heros to the Mun and back safely, but at last I did it! If you have time, please check out my 'MunandBack131A' rocket at the Spacecraft Exchange section of the forum. For any other new kids out there, and as a shout-out, I want to mention that I found Scott Manley\'s Youtube videos (under username szyzyg) both entertaining and educational when it came to understanding the orbital dynamics. I\'m sure many veterans have seen these, but here are a couple of my favorites: - The Best Way To Achieve Escape Velocity In Kerbal Space Program - Beginners Guide on How To Get To The Mun in Kerbal Space ProgramSee you in orbit! And if you haven\'t sent Squad your US$7 yet, please do so (I did). Closette

Hello everyone, I had a lot of fun and learned a lot as a newbie by downloading some of the ships posted on here, so it\'s my turn to give back I guess. I cobbled this rocket together while I learned KSP over Xmas vacation. After yesterday\'s new release I had to reverse the fuel lines, but I left the rest alone even though it\'s a little untidy - as a newbie it would take me a long time to rebuild it from scratch. Please take a look, play with it, and post and suggestions/improvements (including .craft files) below - 100% stock parts though! Here\'s the Munar Mission breakdown: - jettison the solids after launch. It\'s best to stay close to vertical until pitchover at 24km altitude, or you\'ll be fighting for control and wasting RCS fuel (which we\'ll need for landing and return later). - almost in orbit, the outer boosters run out of fuel first (the inner 3 boosters used the gimballed engines). - Munrise, and we are GO for Trans-Munar-Injection! The 4 'hip'-mounted tanks provide plenty of fuel for the trip, with some left over for braking while modifying our Munar approach. Relax Bill! - after Mun arrival and a bit of maneuvering to get to a desired landing area, it\'s time to jettison the 'hip' tanks, leaving one fuel tank for a controlled descent. Bill seems happier now. - after getting rid of the descent engine at under 1000m (with plenty of fuel left if you want to hover around looking for a level spot), land with the RCS thrusters only. If something breaks on landing, you can still do a 'touch and go' with 12 RCS thrusters to lift you back up. Personally, as a klutzy girl, I found that 4 fins are much better than 3 when it came to absorbing the impact. - lift off with the descent stage, point in the correct direction (270 degrees), then get rid of it, and fly home with two RCS tanks - landing with two RCS tanks attached can be a little rough, so drain most of the remainder in the atmosphere, saving just a little to reduce touchdown speed to less than 8 m/s. Water landings are preferred but our intrepid three kerbonauts will survive this one just fine. And there you have it! Looking forward to any constructive criticism, and hope this design proves useful/interesting to someone.

I\'m another one who pre-ordered and didn\'t receve the email.

Dire, I hope your directory problem is solved. Back to your ship Munatic II, I just made my first successful Mun-and-back trip with it (I had to do a touch-and-go on the Mun since I scraped off a winglet due to poor landing skills and the ship was about to fall over). I had a lot of fun with this ship, responsive to controls and just enough fuel (including RCS) to get the job done, as long as you\'re not picky about landing sites. Thank you!

@happy_trauma The first time I use your rocket it launches just fine. After I crash and try to relaunch, it collapses on the pad, even if I go back into the Vehicle Assembly Building first. This happens with some of my own rockets, but usually a trip to the VAB 'refreshes' the rocket enough so that it will stay together. I am using the latest version of KSP, but on a Mac, which should not make a difference! When I have time I\'ll try to add some more bracing struts and see if that helps.

Downloaded the .craft file, but for me it collapses under its own weight on the launch pad. Needs more struts! Thank you though for posting a 'stock' rocket - I don\'t want to be bothered with downloading modified parts until KSP has become more version-stable, but that\'s just me.