EnDSchultz

I was tearing my hair out trying to figure how to answer this, but finally went with "no". I don't miss the Shuttle Program because, as stated, it was needlessly expensive, met none of its goals, and confined a huge chunk of NASA's investment to LEO. But do I miss the Space Shuttle? Hell yes I do. It was a cultural icon, and we'll probably never see such a stunning and memorable launch vehicle again.

Absolutely nothing special at all. I just felt like posting it because it's the first rocket I built to send to Jool. Or, more specifically, to Laythe; as evidenced by the parachute and lack of landing legs. So here it is, in case some crazy Kerbonaut out there wants to try their hand at it. Despite my best efforts the radial boosters have a tendency to cause it to roll, hence the winglets. It may be somewhat overkill for just sending one Kerbal with no equipment, but it was the first thing to come out of my design process and it worked, so I stuck with it. With the large fuel tank the upper stage should have plenty of delta-V to get you to Jool or pretty much anywhere else, but obviously it's not designed for powered landing. Not that this would stop Jeb from trying. Flight notes: The ASAS is more of a formality after I discovered it causes the vessel to wobble a bit too much to be...safe. As mentioned, you'll probably need to fight some roll but the radial boosters burn out pretty quickly so this shouldn't be too much of a problem. Flown well, the first stage core should be able to complete your LKO insertion and get you to about 2800m/s on the ejection to Jool. I haven't tried setting the upper stage down on any of Jool's other moons but I suspect it could be done if you're gentle and have burned through enough fuel.

I'm guessing it's the "getting back" part. Returning safely (or just returning at all) to Kerbin requires a few more thousand m/s of delta-V than just reaching the destination. The rocket equation demands that for every pound of fuel you need for the return trip, you also need an extra pound to get the first one to the destination. So any stock rocket rated for interplanetary return to Kerbin is going to be gigantic. At least until we get docking or fake in-situ fuel production.

Admitting Kerbonauts into rehab for months or years after every catastrophe is expensive and inefficient. No, at the KSC, we just wipe their memory instead.

Very small issue, dunno if it\'s present in others, but I notice the Mk. I command pod could use a bit more buoyancy; on splashdown only the parachute module is actually above the surface. Or maybe it\'s just wonderful minimalist Kerbal engineering in action? ;P Edit: Nevermind. Seems this is just how it\'s supposed to be.

Named for their original purpose of putting a comms satellite into orbit (The Kerbal were never very inventive with naming things), these are a pair of unmanned, 3-stage designs that can put a moderate payload into LKO; possibly farther. The first stage of the 'Heavy' variant was shown to be quite dangerous due to lack of gimbaling engines, so KSP engineers begrudgingly added a set of control surfaces to compensate. Just something I threw together with a lot of blood and tears, sifting through pages of parts trying to find the ones that fit together without payload parts sticking out. If there\'s enough interest I\'ll try to compile a mods list and post the .craft files.

Minecraft, another wonderful indie game by another wonderful developer. I\'d go play it now, in fact, but I\'m too busy destroying absurdly oversized rockets. I\'d also give you a warm welcome, but I\'m in no position since I just got here myself. But I can wish you happy launchings. And remember, failure is Fun. As for music, I imagine putting Tchaikovsky\'s 1812 overture to a montage of spectacular failures would be appropriate.

I am indeed an Orbinaut. Unfortunately not as much as I used to be since my upgrade to Win 7 has left me with some of the notorious framerate and performance issues. Still, there\'s a certain nerdy comfort in the precision of premeditated, calculated transfer burns with MFD\'s. Something KSP, so far, is slightly lacking in. The smaller scale allows for a lot more wiggle room for winging it, but I can only imagine a few on-screen nav aids will grow high in demand when the rest of the solar system starts getting implemented. ...blast, there I go. I\'ll stop babbling now. ;P

One day, good sir. One day soon, I\'m sure.

I found this sim via, of all things, listening to an interview with Martin Schweiger, creator of Orbiter. I was originally going to babble on about various things I like about this sim and how it offers a clever blend of simple, intuitive presentation and complex spaceflight principles, but that was getting too verbose. So a simple 'Hello. Nice game you\'ve got here' will have to do. Hello. Nice game you\'ve got here. ;D