Musil

Thanks, @Alchemist. Yes, you can't get a 180º change, but at Eve it is possible to get 90º. If you get into it's SOI perfectly at the dark side, you can get a very good turn in the retrograde direction. I managed to reduce my ships orbit from one with apoapsis at Kerbin and periapsis at Moho to an orbit with apoapsis at Eve and periapsis halfway between Eve and Moho, but I think I had some deceleration from the atmosphere too, lowering my speed significantly without getting capture. I am not sure I get the point of going to Dres first... Or was that part of another mission? @Armchair Rocket Scientist: Yes, I was aware that the Messenger probe used several gravity assists, but I thought they had all been at Venus. Should have done my homework better. I find your name funny, btw. I majored in philosophy, and philosophy it is usually described as "armchair science", so being an armchair rocket scientist seems the perfect way to describe a KSP player

I don't think sending an empty tank to Gilly and then sending it full to Jool is going to be economic. Better to make that base at Minmus. Better yet, I think, would be doing it at one of the smaller moons of Jool, if that's your final destination.

Thanks! That's really good. It hadn't occurred to me to use Moho for the assists, because it's so small... But that is a good way to do it. Going to try it.

I think lextacy understood getting into Eve orbit and then escaping to Moho. If that's the case, that's not the plan: you use the gravity of Eve to slow you down or change your inclination; in one case you can get your Sun apoapsis at Eve's altitude and your Sun periapsis at around halfway to Moho's orbit; in the other, you get the inclination change for almost free. You don't get captured at Eve for this, so having the fuel there when going to Moho would serve no purpose. The idea is that when going back, instead of going Moho->Kerbin, you only need to go to Eve, refuel and then go back home. Geting captured by Eve is for free: aero-capture means decelerating is no problem. That said, having a refueling base at Moho would be very good if you are thinking about doing more than one mission. If not, geting the equipment there would probably be too d-v expensive... depending on how much the equipment ends up weighing.

I think this time they are doing the test build separately for different features... maybe?

Yup, pretty much it. I do't have DRE in my current install, but I dont miss it so much because in the end I did such smooth re entries that I could get a capsule down without even the need for shields (you would need FAR aerodynamics for that, however).

I tried going to Moho with a gravity assist from Eve. Ultimately failed, but flying by Eve with AVP was worth it.

I was playing around with different ways of getting a gravity assist from Eve to get to Moho. I discovered... quite disappointed, that it doesn't seem possible to get the inclination change and the retro push at the same time. I tried it getting two separate encounters with Eve (and once you have done the first change to your orbit, getting the second encounter takes about 7 in-game years, unless you want to burn as much fuel as you save), but this happened: -If I did the inclination change first, when I tried to get the retro assist the encounter changed my inclination anyways, so there was no point to the first encounter. -If I did the inclination change first, not only was it a lot harder to get the second encounter, I was just unable to get Eve where I needed it to make a decent deceleration. So I think it is probably best just to settle for one of the assists. But I am wondering witch one. These are the pros and cons: -Getting the inclination change saves about 1500-2000 d-v. That's nice, but then my relative velocity to Moho is still very high when I get there. Also, I wonder if doing the inclination change at, say, Kerbins altitude, would not be a lot cheaper. -Getting the retro assist can make my relative velocity much less, but I still have to do the plane change, and much lower than otherwise. I did get to Mohos SOI on one occasion, combining the two assists... Almost managed to land, I was about 500 m/s short of d-v and the ship crashed horribly. The ship had only 12.000 m/s at launch, so that was not bad at all... If I would put a nuke on the deceleration stage I would get there, but I was too impatient and wanted a poodle, just so that the burns wouldn't be so long every time. So, if you have gone to Moho without just putting a dozen jumbo oranges in you ship to do it, what's your way of getting there?

I think not. I certainly have never used it; just a gmail account. And you can access google docs without gmail, I believe.

I am currently planing a Moho mission and I would certainly like the option to refuel at Eve. Maybe not on the way there, since the point of this mission is to use the gravity assist of Eve to help me get to Moho with as low a relative speed as possible (and salve all the d-v of the plane change), but at return it would certainly be nice to go Moho-Eve instead of the aggressive Moho-Kerbin. For the Jovian system it would be endlessly useful. I also like the idea of having a refueling base at the Mun or Minmus to explore that moon. In my last career, I ended up sending like a dozen Apollo style missions... I would have saved a lot of money and time by just refueling the lander there.

Well, that sucks... There is still no user, so I think Alexin should go.

I can't believe this got so little attention. I was doing the same thing and came across this in my investigations... Awesome stuff. I disagree in many ways, but I shall consider this work a great breakthrough, with many an insight that can change a man's world view. Not like that silly plant theory...

I used to have that rule too, that kerbals need extra space. The result was I always overbuilt my rockets and never went anywhere, always getting bored first during the in orbit construction phase. Specially when I played with TAC! Now I decided kerbals are subterranean reptiles. They go into hibernation in long trips and don't need much food or space. Pankake-asparagus rockets I do hate. But with a Delta-IV design I always get more than what I need for my lifting stage, so I don't see the need anyways.

Oh, but we do. Have you heard of something called the Shoe Event Horizon? Only, with rockets instead of shoes.

Oh, I had Orpheus for that. Persophone is nice too... I name my career munar program the "Archer" I, II... And instead of Mercury, "Messenger". It gives me a sense of epicness.

I am also on a mac. I recommend getting the Unarchiver to handle that kind of file (it's free and handles most of this kind of trouble). It's what I used to open the file. Correy says he is living in a cave. Also told me to give you, and the rest of kerbalkind, the finger for asking... he's very rude, for a kerbal. But he has been alone there for... "Caronte" is the spanish for "Charon", though the phonetics of the English translation are for once much closer to the Greek than the Spanish (I just noticed that... and it's surprising to me). I still normally name my vessels in English in single player... just not to break immersion. Considering the ship is designed for long voyages through the black emptiness, it seems appropriate. Also, I love that now all the craft's in orbit have pictures.

Yeah, it was weird for me too when I stopped using FAR. But I was a bit fed up with it... Can't wait for stock aerodynamics.

With perfect gravity turn, 4600 d-V should put you in a stock orbit... Depending on other things too, like TWR. I also had some trouble yesterday learning how to imgur. Felt a bit silly when I figured it out. How did you get the Visual Enhancement mod to work? Tried it once with 0.90 and it was all pixels. And then there is a huge discussion on the thread of people trying unsuccessfully to make it work...

The stranding of Correy with images. I am thinking about doing a full mission log... but not sure if there is a point to it, really. I was unable to get any nice screenshot's of Correy at Tylo because I noticed too late the moon is tidally locked and Jool never rises where I landed.

It's definitely a problem with my drive. I am unable to open anything using the "Open in Drive" option. Thanks for the concern, guys. EDIT: solved. Don't know how or why, but it fixed itself.

I think it's just me. Monstah and you did edit files after I could no longer access them. For some reason, they still show up on my side bar... So... blame my internet.

Hey, I can't access the docs folder anymore. Is it a problem on my end?

Despite precise fuel calculations for the Mothership, my re-usable-multi-purpose-Jool-system-lander failed to have what it needed to land on Tylo and take of again. More pictures coming in an album.

I quite frankly don't understand how the Duna Conqueror is supposed to work. Where does the lander go, and so on...? How will it not be unbalanced? So I decided to make a ferry to take a heavy duty lander to the Jool system.

Should be stock.