tazbertair

Gaaah! much derpitude was had by all. They are listed under 'relays' not 'probes' as they have RA-15 dishes. Guess what, relays were switched off in the tracking centre. So, now I have a long list of ships to choose from! Apologies for the distraction, as you were! Taz

Hi guys, hope you can give me some advice! I now have several probes out in the solar system, in career mode. They have comms (RA-15 dish plus tracking station is fully upgraded), but if I leave them and go back to the space centre I can never go back to them. They are not listed as available ships. If I move the map around, I can see them and see their comms network, but I can't fly them any more. I just tested it again with a probe to Duna, after completing a circularisation maneuver I went back to the tracking station only to see that the probe was immediately not available. Has anyone seen this before? Is quite annoying as I have several contracts to complete and I have to keep sending a new probe every time I start the game. Thanks Taz

you know you play too much KSP when you are driving along the motorway, you see the yellow and black striped plates on the end of crash barriers, and you think; 'Why did they put a decoupler on the end of that barrier? Oh... wait....'

I have the same problem at the moment. a2.5m tank/ poodle engine/ 2.5m decoupler/ 2.5m tank arrangement draws fuel from the top tank before emptying the lower one. The only way I have found to disable it is to right-click on the top tank before launch (or when I remember - hopefully before the stage below starts up!) then left click on the two green arrows beside the resources. They turn into red circles, indicating that fuel flow is disabled. Of course, it is slightly important to remember to switch fuel flow back on before you need that engine... For added hilarity points, I currently have a 50% fail ratio when staging - the decoupler seems to ram the engine straight up through the tank causing a massive explosion and no more fuel...

Hi, being a bit of a nerd I was reading the history of Project Mercury (This New Ocean). I am in the section about flight tests, especially testing the escape mechanisms. This little passage caught my eye... On Saturday March 18, 1961, after a four-hour delay caused by checkout problems, Little Joe 5A roared and soared up from the beach at Wallops Island at 11 minutes before noon. The takeoff looked good, but 20 seconds later and 14 seconds too early the capsule escape rocket again fired without the capsule. Warren North described the flight graphically: At 35 seconds the normal abort signal released the capsule clamp ring. A single retrorocket, which was installed as an emergency separation device, received a premature firing signal at 43 seconds. The dynamic pressure at this point was 400psf - ten times as great as dynamic pressure at apogee where emergency capsule separation should have taken place. The capsule tumbled immediately upon separating and narrowly missed the booster as it decelerated. The retropack and escape tower were inadvertently jettisoned or torn off as the capsule tumbled. Apparently the centrifugal force and/or the escape tower removed the antenna cannister, deploying both the main and reserve parachutes. The capsule descended on both parachutes, which were only slightly damaged during high q deployment. Hands up if you've done something similar......