Jonboy

This week, on The Walking Thread...

Making a mental note not to use sarcasm on this forum, because apparently it is like a foreign language to some of you.

Screenshots are F1, hiding the GUI to make pretty screenshots is F2. As for the fuel flow, I usually just use two of the yellow fuel ducts per tank. Make sure you have one going in each direction and it should balance the fuel flow.

Over the last ten years Kerbals have been shooting various bits and pieces into the realm called "outer space". Despite the rockets being totally unreliable and seeming to explode every other mission, it was decided it was time for the fledgling "space program" to launch Kerbals into the heavens. Kerbals have plenty of experience now with falling in circles around Kerbin (something scientists insist is called "orbiting") in tiny, cramped command pods. They've even docked two spacecraft together in space, and left their pods for Extra-Vehicular Activities. But the Kerbal leaders were concerned that the new Space Program wasn't actually going anywhere other than in circles. The Ascension Program (Kerbals have never heard of Greek gods) was born from a simple dare: send Kerbals to walk on the Mun. For some reason, nobody had thought of it yet, and it seemed barely insane enough to pull off. The Hardware The Kerbals would have to do something they had never done before: design reliable, safe rockets to perform clearly stated goals. After years of careful revision and testing, under the direction of rocket scientist of Wernher von kerman, three main designs were created: Sarnus IB As the (many) bugs were being ironed out of the huge rocket that would land Kerbals on the Mun, it was determined that a smaller, more sane rocket was needed to test the Command/Service Module and the upper stage of the rocket that would become known as the Sarnus V. Includes a launch escape system. Sarnus V The Sarnus V was, at the time of its inception, the largest and most powerful rocket ever created. It carries the Command/Service Module and the Munar Excursion Module into Kerbin orbit, before the upper stage sends it on its way to the Mun. Includes launch escape system. Barf bags not included. Sarnus Modified Launch Vehicle Although they haven't actually built one yet (and have no idea how they would go about it if they wanted to), the eggheads at Kerbal Space Program think they can eventually strap four solid rocket boosters on the side of the bottom two stages of a Sarnus V and get a rocket that can haul 110 tons into orbit. Command/Service Module This is the main home and means of propulsion for the three-Kerbal crew once the Sarnus V hauls them into orbit. It has a service engine for Munar orbit insertion and Munar ejection burn, RCS for reaction control and docking, and fuel cells in case the crew runs low on juice. The bottom part (the Service Module) is jettisoned before reentry so that the top part (the Command Module) can return the Kerbals home safely. Munar Excursion Module This ungainly-looking lander will allow two of the Kerbals to engage in a "controlled" descent and landing on the Munar surface. After surface operations are complete, the Ascent stage lofts the Kerbals back into Munar orbit where they rendezvous with the Command/Service Module. The Munar Roving Vehicle The Munar Roving Vehicle (also called the "Mun Buggy") is a light, high-tech rover designed to operate under battery power. It provides the Kerbals with increased mobility while performing scientific operations on the Munar surface. Comes with two external command chairs. Warranty void if seatbelts not used. The Missions Ascension 4 An "all-up" unmanned test of the Sarnus V rocket. The booster lifted a dummy payload Command/Service Module and Munar Excursion Module into Low Kerbin orbit. While orbit was successfully attained, there were oscillations on launch and problems with the upper stage engines. Fortunately there is time to iron them out, because the next launch will not use a Sarnus V. Overall, the mission provided excellent data on the performance of the new rocket. Ascension 7 A manned flight of the Sarnus IB rocket to test the capabilities of the CSM in Low Kerbin Orbit. Kermund, Patdock, and Hermy Kerman were lifted successfully by the realiable Saturn IB booster, and spent eleven days testing the systems of the CSM. After the de-orbit burn, the Service Module was discarded and the crew prepared to splash down east of the Kerbal Space Center. Kermund: Ascension to KSC, how do you read? KSC: Loud and clear, Ascension. Kermund: We will not be wearing the helmets on the way down, KSC. KSC: You are under orders to wear the helmets, Kermund. You'd better have a good explanation for this one. Kermund: We've been in space for 11 days, and we've all got colds. I don't want to sneeze on my visor. KSC: Well let's hope you don't all break your necks on splashdown. Kermund: Thanks, babe. The Kerbals were fine without their helmets, but the officials at the Kerbal Space Center were very unhappy. They banned Patdock and Hermy from any future flights for going along with Kermund's antics. It turned out that Kermund was planning on retiring anyways, so he got off scot-free. Patdock and Hermy are understandably still mad at him for the whole thing. Still, the boys in Engineering were satisfied with the performance of the CSM, so they recommended the next mission push the boundaries of exploration even farther... Ascension 8 Jaysef, Keiger, and Milus Kerman were selected to be the first Kerbanauts to orbit the moon. The historic mission was launched on a Sarnus V booster, which pushed the CSM into Low Kerbin Orbit. The half-full third stage performed the Trans-Munar Injection burn, inserting the CSM on a free-return trajectory. The craft would return to Kerbin with no additional burns if there was a need to abort the mission. Jaysef: Alright, boys. The third stage is detached and we've started the "barbecue roll". That should prevent any issues from uneven thermal radiation. Keiger: I hate it when you use big words. I feel terrible. I think I'm going to be sick. Milus: Use the barf bag, I don't want to clean up your zero-g vomit! Keiger: They don't pack barf bags on the Sarnus V, remember? Cost-cutting measure ... uh-oh ... *barf* Jaysef: Ascension to KSC, do we have procedures for cleaning zero-g barf? Milus: Um, it's not just barf. We have a full on bodily fluid assault here, KSC. Jaysef: This is going to be a long flight. It was indeed a long flight. The crew had trouble sleeping and made a few stupid mistakes because of it. Fortunately none of them caused any real issues. After performing the first up-close observations of the Munar surface, the Service Engine was ignited for the Trans-Kerbin Injection burn. Just before reentry, the Service Module was discarded, and the Command Module came down over the grasslands on parachutes. (Since Trajectories doesn't work in 1.02, it's pretty tough to ensure a splashdown when you're coming all the way back from the Mun.) Ascension 9 Hermy, Neilken, and veteran commander Bob Kerman were selected for Ascension 9, a full "dress rehearsal" in Low Kerbin Orbit of the procedures and equipment that would be used in the actual Mun landing. The CSM and MEM were lofted to orbit by a Sarnus V rocket, where the crew performed transposition and re-docking of the CSM to the MEM. This maneuver involved detaching the CSM from the MEM, flipping the CSM around, and mating the top of the CSM to the top of the MEM via the Ascension docking adapters. Then the third stage of the rocket was ditched and the crew entered the MEM to inspect it for damage. Bob and Neilken then undocked the MEM, leaving Hermy to mind the CSM. Bob: Ascension to KSC, we're undocked and reorienting to burn the Descent Engine. Hermy, please try not to break anything while we're gone. We'll be back in a few hours! Hermy : If anything, I'm more concerned about Bob taking the MEM on a little joyride. Neilken: Can we just get this over with? I'm space-sick enough as it is. Bob: You're gonna love this jolt, then! Descent Engine ignition in three ... two ... one ... The Descent Engine successfully boosted the MEM to a higher orbit, where the two kerbanauts circularized. The engine had worked perfectly, and the Descent Stage was ditched, leaving only the Ascent Stage to rendezvous with the CSM. That engine also performed nominally, allowing the crew to redock with the CSM and transfer over before dumping the tiny ascent stage. After several more orbits, the deorbit burn was performed, the Service Module was jettisoned, and the crew parachuted down to Kerbin's coasts. (I can't even hit the water from LKO ) The boys at mission control were sure that they would soon be ready for the real thing. Ascension 11 As usual the crew for Ascension 11 was chosen randomly from a pool of experienced candidates ... wait a minute, how the hell is Jebediah on the flight roster? He must have pulled some strings, or else he's one lucky punk. Aldry, Jebediah, and unfortunately-named Billy-Bobzon Kerman were boosted to orbit on the reliable Sarnus V, the third stage successfully inserted the CSM and MEM on a free-return trajectory, after which transposition and redocking was performed and the third stage was ditched. The orbital insertion was executed on the dark side of the Mun, and the time for landing was near. After wishing the Jeb and Aldry good luck, Billy-Bobzon closed the hatch to the CSM and two two crafts were separated. The landing sight, near the equator at the bottom ridge of the Northeast Crater, was packed with craters, requiring Jeb to manually maneuver to find a landing spot. With a jolt, the two became the first Kerbals to land on the surface of the Mun! Mission Control was going wild, along with everyone watching on their TVs at home. Jeb and Aldry flipped a coin in the Low Munar gravity to determine who would be the first to set foot on the surface. Jeb won (don't tell anyone, but it was his one-sided coin), and suited up for EVA. Jeb: The hatch is open. I can see the Munar surface. I am descending down the ladder now. Aldry: What the hell ... Jeb: Uh, KSC. We have a problem. KSC: What is the issue, Jeb? Jeb: Somebody forgot to install the ladder on the MEM, guys. I'm just going to jump out, should be fine. KSC: Uh, negative Jeb. We need to review our procedures and get back to you in maybe an hour on a safe way to descend ... Jeb: Screw that, I'm already on the surface. This is awesome! Aldry joined him soon after he deployed the Munar Roving Vehicle to the surface. The two grinned uncontrollably at the magnificent desolation of the surface. They planted a flag, and prepared to take the rover to the lip of a nearby crater. a kilometer or so away. Peering over the edge, Jeb thought he saw a strange rock formation on the other side. Jeb: See that Aldry? Something's glimmering to the east...some kind of monument or monolith! Aldry: We're low on batteries as it is. We can't go check it out. Jeb: I gotta come back and figure out what that is. Aldry: There's no way you're getting on another Ascension mission. Jeb: That may be true, but the eggheads back at Mission Control are already talking about "Ascension Application Missions" after these ones. Maybe even to Eve and Duna. Imagine... Aldry: Let's just get back to the MEM before the battery runs out, Jeb. After wrapping up the planned science experiments, the boys grabbed the rock samples jumped gracefully to the Ascent Module door (the mechanic who forgot to install the ladder has already been fired ). The ascent engines pushed them up into Low Munar Orbit, where they were picked up by a lonely Billy Bobzon. After ditching the Ascent Module, the boys made the Trans-Kerbin Injection burn. Hours later, they reentered Kerbin's atmosphere and parachuted to a hero's welcome ... once the Kerbal Army sends a chopper to pick them up from the desert, that is. Points (and the Future) Here's the tally for the Normal Apollo Program goals, as far as I can tell (please correct me if I missed something). - Saturn Five uses 5 engines on the first stage, 5 engines on the second stage, and one engine on the third stage. +20 - Free-Return Trajectory until in Mun's SOI. +10 - Lander stored behind a fairing. +10 - Leave Descent Stage on Mun. +5 - Include Lunar Rover on Apollo 11-18 +10 - Stock. +20 - Launch Escape System. +5 - Use fuel cells for power generation only +10 Total Normal Apollo Program Score: 90 As Jeb mentioned, the boys back at KSC are already developing applications for the Ascension Program hardware for use in further exploration of the Solar System. These missions could extend the Kerbal's reach to other planets and moons, greatly expanding their scientific knowledge and leading to a great Space Age. Provided the Kerbal Space Program remains fully funded, that is. Thanks for reading, and thanks to GregroxMun for an awesome challenge! Future Ascension Program Reports: Mun Base and Molab - Eve Flyby - Duna Flyby & Landing

Not cheating. Just exploiting an obvious flaw in Squad's whole contract system.

This is really a fantastic idea. You're right, it will probably never make it into stock. But it would be a freaking awesome mod!

They'll need the Falcon Heavy and that won't be ready by 2019. Once they get the Falcon Heavy a lunar mission is certainly conceivable. For example, SpaceX could launch a cargo Dragon to the surface with rovers and supplies. Then a crewed Dragon lands next to that one for a stay that could last for several weeks. But remember that they would have to build the Falcon Heavy, develop lunar spacesuits, modify the Dragon capsules for lunar landing and return, perform tests and dry runs to ensure that the procedures are safe and efficient. It might be technically feasible in 2019, but it won't be possible without years of R&D. And as someone else noted, SpaceX has no interest in going to the moon, so I doubt it will happen.

Numbers and math are tools invented by humans. Just like any other tool, we use it to try to manipulate or describe the world around us. Humans began to see patterns in reality and created a system to describe and make predictions about those patterns. The universe doesn't care about math, just like the universe doesn't care about scientific laws. The universe just "is", and math and the scientific method are systems of tools we invented to make sense of the patterns we see.

True. It was only cutoff 26 seconds before first stage cutoff though, so it still ran for 142 seconds.

Well half of my scene changes crash the game now. At least it loads faster in 1.0x.

Yes, I've had contracts for Duna, Like, etc., although they didn't show up until I had already explored those bodies.

I went ahead and took a shot at the badge. Should be a little better than with the hand-drawn letters. Someone will obviously have to resize it for signatures, but here it is in higher quality: Edit: I just finished uploading all the screenshots from the Normal Apollo phase of my program, which I completed today. But it's pretty late so I'll write up my entry tomorrow!

Let's hope so.

You're on Minmus, so depending on how high your apoapsis is, it might not actually be that bad. What is your orbital velocity? It should take exactly double that to reverse your orbit burning retrograde. (You can always try quicksaving and see what happens.)

The first thing I did when 1.0 dropped was force myself to play career mode all the way through for the first time. I've been playing science mode almost exclusively since science was introduced since I wasn't a fan of career mode at first. I was able to unlock the whole tech tree only leaving Kerbin's SOI three times: once for an initial Duna survey that left a science lab in Duna orbit and 2 landers to grab science and return, again for cheap probe to land on Gilly for a contact, and finally another mission to Duna to drop a science lab base on the poles. The last two tiers were mostly obtained by grinding science from those two labs and another one in Munar orbit. I never really touched the tourism missions or the ones that ask you to perform science/evas on different locations, the payout is just too low. Satellite missions are a great way to grab cash though: a 7,000 credit rocket can easily get you any contract in Kerbin's SOI. "Build a space station" or "build a base" contracts have huge payouts and you can slap a science lab on those to grind science later in the game. Cash really never seemed to be an issue early on, because when you're in Kerbin's SOI you rarely spend more than 30K on a rocket. Once you start using Mainsails the cost increases, and once you're using SLS parts you're easily pushing 100k per rocket, which means you have to pile on contracts to make a profit. I only had to really grind for cash a few times for expensive building upgrades (like over two million to upgrade the R&D building. One cool thing was that I often found myself sending 3 Kerbals on missions at a time, something there was never really incentive to do before. Now, it helps to have Pilots and Scientists on most missions, although Engineers seem less useful. I mainly tossed scientists onto as many missions as possible to level them up for science grinding later in the game. Overall, I'm glad I forced myself to play through career, but I don't see myself doing it again soon. I'm glad there's finally a use for the science lab and incentive to build bases and space stations in stock. But since it's so easy to just grind science to grab the super expensive tech nodes, there's really no reason to go anywhere beyond Duna in career. I feel like without the labs, I would definitely have been forced to do Jool grand tour to unlock the last two tiers, which would have been cool.

Awesome, I'll try to keep the modifications to a minimum to reduce R&D costs. One other question, I'm assuming folks can post their progress as they go along and add the new points to their total? That way we don't have to complete 20 missions before we can start sharing our progress/scoring.

Can I suggest you add a goal for using only fuel cells for power generation? (Only for the normal Apollo Program) Edit: Also, for the Super Manley Kerbanaut challenges, does using Apollo/Saturn hardware mean that you can only use craft designed for the Normal Apollo and Apollo Applications goals? Or could you, for instance, modify the original Lunar Module for landing and Ascending from Duna by adding parachutes and fuel?

Another way to force people to think about how much fuel they're using in career mode would be to increase its cost, or to have the cost of fuel increase over time (perhaps the Kerbals are trying to get off their planet because they're using up its natural resources). It's interesting to think about.

The Fermi Paradox indicates that there should be millions of civilizations within the Milky Way galaxy, but we haven't heard from them. One troubling implication is that intelligent species are unstable and wipe themselves out before they can spread very far. Another is that life is much more rare than "back-of-the-napkin" estimates imply. In that case, our descendants may be around for very long indeed. Even if they are quite lonely in a big universe.

I really see this problem more with people disagreeing with the direction Squad takes with the stock game. People seem to have a very stubborn idea of just how realistic KSP should be. I personally like a bit of realism, and in the past I used mods like Deadly Reentry, Remotetech, TAC Life Support, Ferram, and Procedural Fairings to get it. Other people like to use mods that add warp drives and other "unrealistic" elements to the game. Now that Squad is adding some of these "realistic" features to the stock game, it seems like people are getting flustered because something that was previously "opt-in" is now "opt-out" (via mods). I would not have expected to see that kind of reaction to a mod suggestion, because the huge variety of mods that cater to widely different playstyles is exactly what makes the KSP mod community special. The knee-jerk reactions that people have toward other playstyles are exactly what causes silly cliques that judge other players for the way they play (Mechjeb is cheating, serious players use Ferram, mods are of the devil, etc.). it's unfortunate that others can't see past their own preferences.

Gravity assist eye candy: Took over 10 years for Rosetta to get from Earth to Comet 67P (and it swung by Earth three times and Mars once to get there)!

New planets would be cool, but I feel like Squad is going to be mainly working on polishing career mode and making multiplayer (which they have said they want to add).

The space program that NASA is running in The Martian is based on many of the concepts of the Mars Direct proposal that Robert Zubrin has been famously advocating for over 20 years now. Now that we have stock ISRU, do you think there's any way fuel production could be a part of this challenge? Actually, now that I'm thinking about it, I really want to design a Duna Direct challenge that uses stock ISRU to refuel the Duna Ascent Vehicle so that your Kerbal explorers can use it to get back home when they arrive. That would probably be beyond the scope of this challenge, though. Edit: Also, this challenge might require someone to have read The Martian to really understand the objectives. The basics of Mars Direct are freely available online for anyone to research, another advantage to a potential Duna Direct challenge.

I usually do one at a time, because in-game time is a basically limitless resource. However, sometimes I have saves where I simulate a realistic colonization effort of Duna or Laythe. If I'm doing that, I'll do launches at every transfer window to be more realistic and I'll end up with multiple sorties of ships in various stages of transfer at the same time (and a big queue of Kerbal Alarm Clock reminders so I can switch back and forth to make maneuvers as I time warp).

Aerocapture is still 100% possible in 1.0x, even at higher velocities. One heatshield should be more than enough for any duna capture (and if you're doing a low-energy transfer you probably won't need it at all). Jool and Eve are more tricky, but as long as everything's behind a shield, you should be just fine. The margins for your periapsis are a heck of a lot smaller than they were in the old aero, but it's definitely still possible (and useful). People have been doing this for years with Deadly Reentry and the new stock heating is much more forgiving.