RainDreamer

I started out with a set of cheap relays first in close orbit to make sure connection can be reached all around kerbin before putting things into higher orbits. It makes thing easier.

The problem is that, in space, those fragments and debris would not just simply fall back to the ground. It would travel forever, and may one day hitting unintended targets like civilian. If we have energy weapons that can simply vaporize stuff, that would be a good thing to use in space.

I wonder about the reliability of those 3D printed objects when reliability is such an important aspect of instruments, tools, and components to be used in a spacecraft.

Lol, I wonder how I am going to fly those beasts into orbit with NEAR. But I have been attempting to build my own tiny crane too. The result wasn't that good, but it serves the purpose when nothing else is available: Here is my second attempt at building a more stable crane/space plane hybrid, but I gave up on it at the moment, since the thing can't take off in anyway. Gotta think of a new design. Not many can fit a cargo bay, and not many can be flown with NEAR.

Baby kerbals.

I think a manned war spacecraft would probably like a death star, but much smaller. Spherical design with thruster all around allow better maneuverability in 3D space, the same with sensors and weapon placement. The pilot/crew would just be inside a shielded core, viewing space all around through sensors and can fire from any angle. But I think the most important aspect of these spacecraft would be in the information hardware and software to protect against hacking and disrupting sensors that prevent detection of incoming threat. Information warfare will become much more advanced in space combat, I would imagine.

Nope. Funny that I didn't search for "crane design" but I searched for "ground construction vehicle", which didn't give me the guy's crane design video. That is useful. Though I can't fly something like that with NEAR. Will try to figure a way.

Planet surfaces can't be grabbed. When grabbed, the grabbed object and the vehicle with the AGU will become one vehicle and you can manipulate it. Can't do that with a planet. If you want to anchor yourself underwater, try KAS, there is an anchor part.

I look at this and think: "we are going to need bigger wings"

I always thought the kerbals are unisexual plant people. They can sustain themselves through photosynthesis, they are radiation resistant, and they multiply very fast. Maybe their evolution skip all that sexual dimorphism and the whole mating process. They just reproduce by themselves. Maybe the way they produce is to simply be splattered into a million pieces, and each pieces will one day grow into a full kerbal by time. That is why they have this space program, sending themselves to other planets and kerbin to be splattered when the rocket inevitably explode and grow more kerbal.

I don't think it is in the interest of any nation in earth to conduct war in space. The kessler effect from all that debris left behind moving at orbital speed would prevent any kind of subsequent space travel in the future for all sides, and war would just have to continue on the ground in the end. Interplanetary war, however, might be different. I imagine there would be little spacecraft-to-spacecraft battles due to difficulty of detecting and catching up with spacecraft moving in space as a lot of people has already mentioned. It would just be mostly spacecraft dropping things (likely huge kinetic payload like an asteroid or an artificial one, which is both hard to destroy when intercepted, and the fragments when destroyed still pose a threat) from orbit to hit planetary targets. And due to the speed involved, neither side will have complete protection from the other's attack. In between two balanced powers, this would just result in mutually assured destruction, like with nuclear weapons today. Whichever side can afford to lose more would be the one that "wins".

It is a good guide. I am using B9 and NEAR, however, so I can't use those design. But it does serves as a good guideline in space plane design. Interesting design, I didn't think about two cargo bays on the sides to allow more cargo to be sent at once.

I have plans to build a ground station, and I need a ground construction vehicle to tow and move air dropped components around and attach them. The problem is, I had no idea how to build one in-situ or how to transport a fully built one from KSC to landing site due to the size involved. And I have seen people with such vehicles in other planets! Is it possible, or did those people just use extraplanetary launch pad?

That is a very good tip. I have been looking for a way to transport most of my space station parts to orbit for cheap, and I think of space planes, but since the parts varied in mass significantly, I am having second thoughts. If I have to design a different space plane for every single part, it might be better to just launch a few at once with a bigger rocket. Though I will give it another go and see if I can make a multi-purpose cargo plane. I will mark this as answered since there doesn't seem to be much response and I will be asking something else, but if anyone got more tips for building general purpose cargo transport planes I would gladly take note.

When designing cargo transport space planes, which of these two approaches, in your opinion, is better: Designing around the cargo - each type of payload have a different design fine tuned to it and different ones will not fit/unbalanced. This would give an easier time flying, but you will have to have different design for each payload. Designing around the space plane - focus as much as possible to get the space plane fly most efficiently, with generalized cargo space that fits most payloads. This may cause some problems from flight to flight due to different payloads with different mass and this require pilot skill to compensate, but you can use one design for a lot of things.

In the worst case scenario that the space plane is completely incapable of re-entry and you want to salvage the plane still, you can use KAS and do it the kerbal way: attach a bunch of chutes on it! They may burn, but they may slow your craft enough that you can survive atmospheric entry. On an unrelated note: Is FAR any more memory intensive than NEAR? I want to graduate to FAR after getting the hang of aerodynamic with NEAR, but I am hitting the limit with mods here.

Have you tried to fire the engine and use the engine gimbal to help you pitch up? Just do it in short bursts. This really sounds like my first attempt at huge space plane too... I think the plane need some redesign. More brakes, more control surfaces, account for moving COM, etc. But if you want to salvage this thing, it is going to be difficult.

Usually I try to keep my plane stable when I am hitting dense atmosphere around 35km until I reach about 10km and below before pulling maneuvers. Otherwise I would be thrown out of control quickly with the speed I am falling. Once I hit the below 10km mark and properly slowed down, I can pretty much glide the whole way down with ease.

I am no expert in space plane design, but I think the problem is because of the lack of control surfaces. Some small winglets, or even stabilators before the front wings might help a bit more here. Also, the parts behind the two main wings seems to be fixed trailing edges and not control surfaces - they gives better aerodynamic profile but not particularly useful in controlling the plane directly (as far as I know). If aesthetic/size/space is a problem and you don't want to put winglets at the front, you can try making the wingspan longer and adding a lot more control surfaces. I hope someone with more experience than me can come in, I am interested in this too.

So here is just blind guessing, but do you have any difficulty controlling pitch during atmospheric flight? Is it difficult to lift the nose up during nose dive?

Can we get image of the SSTO? And what is your flight profile like? Usually I try to extend my atmospheric flight a bit to get closer to orbital speed before switching to close cycle mode to save fuel. Close cycle mode on SABREs burns fuel like crazy, so the more horizontal momentum I get before going to orbital height, the more fuel I save from not doing the same horizontal burn in outerspace where the engine eats much more fuel. But it varies between crafts, so I can't say exactly how long you should do it or at what altitude.

Thematic names: Slingshot. Arrow. Cannon. Hermes. Space Lawn Dart. Functional names: SDV100K - SSTO (Satellite deployment vehicle 100km - single stage to orbit). SP-SC (Space Plane - Satellite carrier).

Do science experiments on mun and send them back to kerbin or complete contracts. Use the science strategies in admin building that exchange rep/fund gain for science, it is OP, dishing out science in the thousands if your contract has high enough pay.

Yeah, I am using the aggressive setting straight from the box, though I don't know it well enough to dare modifying it to be even more aggressive. I am thinking of getting texture replacer too in hope of reducing even more ram usage. Though I don't know how much more it would help since texture replacer seems to do little more than what ATM already has done.

So I reached the point where no matter how I try, I can't fit in another mod and crashes getting much more frequent. Time to do some house keeping. I won't be presenting you with a list of my 67 mods and ask what I should remove, because that would be a pain for everyone involved unless it is easier to help me with that. So first, I want to ask about how mods use memory so I can trim them: What are the most memory expensive parts of a mod? I know that textures for part mods is the number one cause, but what about cfg files? I have been trimming down mods by removing parts I barely uses, but that leaves quite a bunch of empty cfg files. I wonder if they use memory even when there are no parts for them. How do you determine how much memory a mod use? Does plugins use enough memories to matter? I got a bunch of those and haven't touch them yet.