PD

That changes.. EVERYTHING!!!! I\'ll have another bash at it in a couple of days when I have the hcance PD (will be working with the power of... MS Paint)

Yes, I know, sorry I was talking Real Life then.. OOPS! PD

^^That is a more accurate explanation of what\'s in the way of me doing a quick build too. PD

You should I did a TL:DR because I have no maths skills. Although the orbit would be only a little affected by the orbiting object, mainly by way of tidal forces acting on the object. Yes? PD

I do not believe they are possible as they require more than 1 active gravitational well (they make use of Lagrange points) and at present we do not model more than 1 celestial body at any given time. Shame though that is. Also, they require MASSIVELY accurate piloting (the launch window is about 1 second in length). To achieve that in KSP (even I the great believer) fear we don\'t have the instruments! PD

that was awesome. How many times did you practice that one?! I could never compete.. that was SPEEDY! PD

I\'m fairly sure that efficiency basically requires: Efficient burns (as hard and as short as possible, to limit 'gravitational drag') As few burns as possible. If you don\'t need to land on the Mun, then the most efficient way of doing things is to burn for a 'Free Return Trajectory'. How to achieve Free Return Burn into 120,000 parking orbit 090 degrees. Wait for Mun-rise. Burn for AP to reach about 14.5 Million m. Shut off engines and wait. You should head out to the mun, come fairly close to it between 500,000 and 1,500,000m of the surface, before being slingshotted retrograde to it\'s orbit. From there, just wait, and you will be re-captured by Kerbin, with a Periapsis either in the atmosphere or on the ground. You just got home without a single burn. Efficient? Yes! PD

Well I don\'t have it myself, but. I suggest: Parachute Command Module Fuel Tank Lander module De-coupler (rest of your rocket, example below). Fuel Tank Fuel Tank Fuel Tank Gimballing Engine De-coupler Tri-coupler Fuel Tank Fuel Tank Fuel Tank Fuel Tank Fuel Tank Fuel Tank Fuel Tank Fuel Tank Fuel Tank Fuel Tank Fuel Tank Fuel Tank (struts) Large Liquid Engines (I\'ve never made this rocket, but it\'s probably a reasonable starting point). PD

The spam issue is under control at the moment, so long as you stick to the pages you need, as opposed to just randomly surf around. (Even then, you should find it hard to find an actual spam advert, but you will find LOTS of spam/Delete tags left by editors such as myself). Just to point out (I added this note to the wiki after I tested the theory), that it isn\'t actually possible to achieve geo stationary orbit around the mun, as you get re-captured by Kerbin. And yes, orbits rely on gravity, and in a vacuum, a feather falls at the same speed as a double decker bus. Mass and size make no real odds. PD

don\'t know if this might be what you\'re looking for, it\'s my first shot, but I rather like it. I tried to give it it\'s Aussie Heritage to! PD

both values are stated on the KSP wiki! If you\'re looking for something to do with the game, it\'s a value and you can\'t find it on the forums, there\'s a reasonable chance you will find it on the Wiki! PD

Yeah I was like: 1. Reads question. A. I don\'t know what those abbreviations are. 2. Reads initial post for context. A. I still don\'t know. 3. Reads entire thread thinking that the poll might have been edited as a result of context to be found later. A. laughs when he reads the bottom two posts.

I wish my brain was still capable of Physics.. Why WHY wasn\'t this game designed all those years ago?! I\'m too rusty for anything but semi-scientifically throwing rockets towards the Mun and seeing if they come back! I\'m going to collate the results posted here into the wiki article now, and I hope that soon enough we should have a fairly comprehensive list! Thanks for your help with the research guys, we\'re really using our Space Program for some science here, which is pretty damn cool. PD EDIT: Also, thank you closette for the praise, very much appreciated!

Filled it in.. Why is it that I enjoy giving these people my money.. WHY?!

More like: There are three ideentical buttons, one for each crew member. For Bill and Bob it is lettered with: 'ABORT' For some reason testing showed that Jeb never used this button, and his has been re-labelled 'BOOST' 8) PD

Ahh, thank you for your helpful, speedy and (unfortunately needlessly) irate response. PD

Please may somebody tell me which mods I will need to have installed for this .craft file to work? I presume I can\'t just download it? PD

I\'m just wondering if we can take a mathmatical approach now that we have a few known orbit altitudes and speeds for Free return? I\'m no mathematician but I\'m thinking if I find the relationship between Circular orbit speed (as shown in the Basic orbit tutorial table) for the altitude, and the free return trajectory speed from the same height, that might be translatable to all other altitudes and related speeds. I am going to try this by doing the maths (as well as I can) and then testing the returned figures. EDIT: Either I\'m doing the wrong maths, or that idea doesn\'t work. What I did: I took the speed used in the original example by the OP. And took the percentage of that to the Basic Orbiting Table\'s idea of a circular orbit. It was about 132% (or close enough). I then boosted a rocket up to an 80,000m orbit, took the speed from the table and multiplied it by the answer from before (so something like 1.327...) This did not work. my Apoapsis ended up at like 9.5M. Clearly a little 'more' needs to be added on for that one, which suggests a non-linear relationship? Anyone with any expertise able to step in at this point? PD P.S. @Chimpychimp You should find that boosting retrograde to the Mun\'s orbital path, will mean that you end up slowing down on the Mun\'s gravity, before leaving it\'s SOI. Once that happens, you will naturally fall back to Kerbin. Hope that helps.

Both things I shall now work on. That seems to be a more useful challenge that the (as far as I can tell) not yet possible transfer into orbit trajectory without a burn. Perhaps the wiki entry could have a table of successful figures? I\'m going to try the direct shot now, I shall let you know. PD

Yeah, that\'s close but no cigar. You you let Jeb use his boosters from Kerbin and then just chill with no engines all the way to the Mun and back? With just shades and a parachute to get him home safe? That my friend.. is the challenge 8) PD

ohh interesting.. yeah 12,000,000 didn\'t work. I\'m going to 'shoot short' tomorrow PD

Having massively loved your technique I\'ve decided to write a tutorial on the wiki covering this topic. I hope you don\'t mind? here it is: Free Return Trajectory Also, I think that we might be able to tweak our entry speed to the Mun\'s ZOI by bringing the apoapsis in to about 12,000,000. I\'m hoping we\'ll make orbit? This might... not work Plan B is to shoot for about 11,100,000m, as we might be able to orbit in the opposite direction. We\'ll see what happens! PD

Yep, I did it from 120,000 and it works perfectly.. I was a little fast by accident, so my AP was about 15,000,000. But, it was a free return. PD

You genius... Do you realise how many 'experts' were saying an FRT was impossible with just 1 8-ball and the other information we currently have availible?!?! I\'m so pleased to see our community constantly pushing the bounderies of what is 'possible'. I remember when people said we would never get to Mun on the instrumentation! Nice work indeed. I\'m going to give it a try RIGHT NOW!!! --- *Mission controller walks into Jeb\'s room to wake him up* 'Jeb Its time to... umm what?!' *Jeb is sitting in a meditative state on top of an armed nuclear warhead... in his space suit* 'Oh, of course you\'re right, I shouldn\'t be playing with nuclear warheads when there\'s a Free Return Trajectory to perfect.' *The mission controller looks at the clock ticking down with about 6 days left on it. Jeb looks at him and says as he saunters out:* 'Ahh don\'t worry.. I\'ll get that when we\'re back.' *With that, he put on his shades. Leaving the controller to wonder how Jeb already knew about the new mission. It was the least of his concerns*

I think you guys know, but, thanks for solving my issue PD