SlabGizor117

I've taken a look and although it has good thrust, the ISP isn't far from 1.25m engines. Maybe the TWR? Idk, just wondered. Thanks! -Slab

I would love to have some silly Kerbal style names for LF/Ox like Explodium. SQUAD has done an amazing job with the style of KSP and I love what they've done with female kerbals for example. Like some people say, you can't apply chemistry to KSP. Rocket science is too much for these poor kerbals already. Specifically though, I don't know if, instead of LF/Ox in the resources tab, it should be called its humorous name, I feel like that would be shoving stupidity down the throat of some people who may not appreciate unrealistic things like that. The other extreme though, would be having Wehrner(Sp?) Von Kerman say in the tutorials, we like to call the LF Explodium, Oxidizer *insert funny oxidizer name here*, and RCS fuel maneuverodium. The best would be to find a balance of seeing that often enough to perhaps sway community discussion to call them by that name in the same way people use "Rapid unplanned disassembly", but not to be forced to see it that way ALL THE TIME. - - - Updated - - - Why must you ask so many frivolous questions? To be honest, most engineers don't even know how it works. Rumor has it that prisoners are used to fill the fuel tanks of toxic fuel with 5 gallon buckets and that prisoners on death row are selected to walk up to the engine with a match. Fatality rate is 90%, if they don't die from the blast, they jump off the edge of the landing pad and the exhaust coming out the side of the pad chokes them. A dark side of Kerbal Space Program that gives the question the reputation of frivolous for a good reason. It also cuts down on needless equipment such as remote ignition and automatic gantry fueling. - - - Updated - - - Dang it, this is the KSP forum! Get out of here with your redditisms!

Cool, thanks Bob! I keep thinking you're Bob Fitch and now I have it in my subconscious that Bob Fitch is from Ohio.... XD

Yeah, I'm not afraid of SRB's, but I think the Delta IV Heavy is a cool rocket and I've had really good luck with launching space station parts on a Delta IV type lift stage. In case I didn't make it clear, the Delta IV doesn't use fuel crossfeed and the center stage has a little bit more than the radial boosters so that not all three engines burn out at the same time. My "Delta IV" uses fuel crossfeed and thus doesn't need extra fuel in the center stage. A little bit different, but it works. Also, to Scotius, I know I could use radial fuel tanks for my nuke, but this is my first inerplanetary mission and I underestimated the fuel consumption of the nuclear engine. Lessons learned: 1. More nuke fuel 2. Cut off fuel consumption of lander so your nuke doesn't use the lander's fuel forcing you to land with RCS originally used for orbital rendezvous with transfer stage. Thanks for the tips guys! -Slab

I suck at embedding photos, so here's the link. http://imgur.com/a/mMjW3 Also, I forgot the docking port on top of the lander so I couldn't dock and bring the lander home anyways, let alone having enough fuel for it.

I landed on Duna, first try! And for the first time ever, I made it with more fuel than I needed. Sorta. I'll try to edit in a pic of my rocket, don't have time now, but my first stage was a Delta-IV Heavy type stage, 3 orange tanks, 3 mainsails, no extra fuel in the center though, used crossfeed as well. Second stage was a step down from the orange, forget the name. Lt-800? idk. That, and a skipper. Then a transfer stage with a nuke to stay in orbit around Duna and then a Liquid fuel and RCS probe with parachutes, LFO for soft landing and ascent. Well I ended up with a fraction of a unit in fuel to get into orbit with my nuke, and unbeknownst to me, that included my lander. So I soft landed with two radial parachutes and RCS and I don't think I'll be getting into orbit or back home... But I still landed! I don't know if I inserted my pic right, I'll edit with a pic of my rocket next time if I didn't. Any suggestions for a noob interplanetary Kerbonaut? My lesson learned was more nuke fuel, and to cut the flow from my lander, lol! - - - Updated - - - Yep, didn't work. I'll post it when I get back home! Fixed the pic for you. The one you want is Imgur's BBCode link.

Cool, thanks for posting, guys!

lol, I mean aesthetic missions, not crafts, like I said, such as putting a telescope in orbit or making a crew recovery plane, just some "roleplay" sort of ideas.

I had an idea one time to try playing KSP and recover my kerbals at least, if not the craft too, manually with aircraft. I put a "GPS/Comms" sattelite in orbit and I saw in Scott Manley's Interstellar Quest one episode, to test some plane or something, he put a "telescope" in orbit. So what are some other ideas for "aethetic" missions, just for pretending and fun?

Thanks, nice to know this thread is still alive, lol! I may do the oberth effect, I feel like I would have to dip into more than that to justify it though. Also, Thanks Bob and Cantab, what should I write instead of 100km? Also, I'll keep posting as I write out bits and pieces for advice and correction. Thanks for your help guys! -Slab

Hey, for anyone still paying attention to this thread, I started my essay! Here's what I have so far: Expository Essay Orbital Mechanics Do you ever wonder what keeps the Moon in orbit around the Earth? Or, the Earth around the Sun? Well, first, let’s figure out what an orbit is. An orbit is defined as the curved path of a celestial object or spacecraft around a star, planet, or moon. So, how does an orbit work? Let’s take the International Space Station, for example. What is it like on the ISS? You feel weightless and float around. To the body, it feels like you’re constantly falling. The truth is, it’s because you are. When you’re in orbit around Earth, gravity is always pulling you towards earth, but you keep missing. An orbit is where you’re falling towards Earth, for example, but the gravity that pulls you towards earth is canceled out by sideways motion. Any slower and gravity pulls you down. Any faster, and gravity has less effect on you. When you see a rocket launch, you’ll probably notice that the rocket tilts on its side very soon and very aggressively. This is because it takes so much sideways motion to get into orbit. In fact, the ISS orbits the earth approximately 16 times in one day. Here’s an example: The Boeing 747 jet has been used many times to carry the Space Shuttle on its back from Edwards Air Force Base to Cape Canaveral, Florida. Its max speed is 614 miles per hour, and the Earth’s circumference is about 26,000 miles. That means it would take a 747 around 42 hours to make a trip around the Earth without refueling or landing. Well, the ISS is going about 4.76 miles per second, and around 17,150 mph. That’s almost 90 minutes per orbit. So yes, it takes a lot of sideways velocity to orbit Earth. So what about different kinds of orbits? There are three main orbital trajectories: Circular, Elliptical, and Hyperbolic. There’s a parabolic trajectory, but it’s never really used in real life. First, though, to understand these, there are some terms to work out. The universal terms are Apoapsis and Periapsis. That is, AP-oh-ap-sis and PER-ee-ap-sis. These are two opposite points in an orbit that represent the highest and lowest point in an orbit. Apoapsis is the highest end of the ellipse and Periapsis is the lowest. With Earth, for example, the beginning of “spaceâ€Â, assuming it’s defined as the point at which there is no atmospheric drag, is at 100 kilometers. So say, in an elliptical orbit, one end is at 150km and the other is at 300km. The 150km end is the Periapsis and the 300km end is the Apoapsis, although in an Earth orbit, they’re called Apogee and Perogee, from the root word Geo, meaning Earth or ground. Likewise, the Apoapsis and Periapsis of an orbit around our moon would be Apolune and Perilune. Or for the sun, Aphelion and Perihelion. So next is the part I worked so hard for, Circular, Elliptical, and Hyperbolic trajectories. Parabolic is getting thrown in the gutter. - - - Updated - - - EDIT: Instead of "In fact, the ISS orbits the earth approximately 16 times in one day." I'm gonna change it to "Because of this, the ISS orbits the earth approximately 16 times in one day." Sound good? - - - Updated - - - EDITED EDIT: Actually, it'll be, "In fact, the ISS orbits the earth approximately 16 times in one day because of it's speed."

I've had the same problem, you probably have to tweak the thrust limiter for the radial engines in flight.

This is not what I needed. XD -Slab

Welp, I give up on acting like I'm smart. Bye!

The 4. Change root might be helpful for something like what you tried, attaching a rover to a decoupler. You know how when you pick up your whole spacecraft, you have to pick it up by the first part you placed? That's the root part. If you press 4, you have to click a part, I'm not sure what exactly it does, so I click the original root part as in, say, my capsule, and then you click the new root part you want. So if you have a rover with a cubic octagonal strut on the top that you want to attach to your decoupler, click new root (4) and click your original part, for example your probe core if it's unmanned then click the cubic octagonal strut. Then you can pick up the whole rover by the strut and place it on the decoupler Also, in case it's confusing, the node is the green attachment point on ends of fuel tanks and such. Hope this helps! -Slab

Yeah, I changed that to hyperbolic, I must not have saved it. Thanks for the help!

Yes but you're not answering my question exactly lol, what exactly is wrong in my definitions, and what should they say instead?

Ok, so thank you for the help, now what would you change "*Parabolic – A suborbital trajectory where one must accelerate to achieve orbit, and the vertex is the Apoapsis *Circular – A theoretical, perfectly circular orbit in which there is neither an Apoapsis nor Periapsis. Also, “Circular†is used to this degree of whole number calculations: a 150.0km by 150.0km orbit is called Circular, but no measurements are more precise than the meter *Elliptical – The exact definition of every stable orbit, where there is an Apoapsis and a Periapsis *Hyperbolic – A parabola-shaped interplanetary trajectory in which the vertex of the parabola is the Periapsis and one must slow down to achieve orbit" to make it correct? I mean, this all makes sense but what exactly in these definitions is incorrect? And how would you change them to make them correct? Like I said, you're not writing my essay for me, these are only notes to help me write it. Thanks! -Slab - - - Updated - - - Also, I know Hyperbolic trajectories aren't strictly interplanetary, I plan to use a hyperbolic trajectory around the moon to illustrate the same for my essay. - - - Updated - - - A better way to say this is, I know now that a suborbital trajectory is an ellipse, but is it flat out wrong to call it a parabolic trajectory?

Yeah, like I said I'm not gonna make it complicated but if my original definitions are wrong, then I need to correct that, but I don't have a good understanding of how to correct "A parabolic trajectory with the vertex as an apoapsis" for a sub-orbital trajectory into the fact that it's actually an ellipse without getting complicated, and that's what I need help with is trying to figure out for myself how exactly this works and how to make it simple.

I didn't do a good job of explaining this in my notes because at the time they were only for me to read and understand, but I planned to elaborate in my actual essay. Originally, before I realized I was wrong, I defined a circular orbit as: "A theoretical, perfectly circular orbit in which there is neither an Apoapsis nor Periapsis." I say theoretical because aside from theory, there is no way to get a perfectly circular orbit as you could continue "zooming in" to smaller and smaller measurements where the orbit was not perfectly circular, to infinity, even. Like I said in the question on having neither a Periapsis or an Apoapsis in a perfectly circular orbit, from my understanding, a perfectly circular orbit is: 150.0000000000000000km by 150.0000000000000000km. And, further, from my understanding, if you had an orbit that was: 150.0000000000000001km by 150.0000000000000000m, then it wasn't circular. All that to say, people still use the term circular when measuring an orbit by 150.0km by 150.0km. It may be that your true orbit is 150.01 by 150.00, but like I said, nobody practically measures their orbit more precisely than the meter, and so even if it is, like I said, 150.01 by 150.00km, it's still called circular because we measure it as 150.0 by 150.0. Hope that helps! -Slab - - - Updated - - - So I still need help with putting all this together into an easy to understand list of definitions, because I can't list all the nitpicks and technicalities in an "Orbital mechanics for dummies" essay. How exactly would you define the revised list of terms?

Well, considering that an Apoapsis is defined as the apsis which is farthest from the center of attraction, and the Periapsis is defined as the point in the path of an orbiting body at which it is nearest to the body that it orbits, In a theoretically perfectly circular orbit in which the Apoapsis is 150.0000000000000000km and the Periapsis is 150.0000000000000000km, there IS no Periapsis or Apoapsis considering there IS no higher or lower point in the orbit. But, if the Periapsis is 150.0000000000000000km and the Apoapsis is 150.0000000000000001km, it's an ellipse. Correct? -Slab

Awesome! First, let me say that although the fancy words are a bit confusing, this really helps. Thank you so much for the corrections, what you're saying makes alot more sense. But, my essay is kinda a "Orbital mechanics for dummies" paper and if I can't say that a sub-orbital trajectory is a parabola, my only other choice is to say that "If you assume a gravity vector that is normal to a flat surface, then the trajectory is a parabola. Over short distances this is often a close enough approximation. In the real world, however, the ground is curved and the gravity vector points toward the center of curvature. This makes the trajectory a segment of an ellipse." So, with all of this new information, I'm having a hard time putting it together into a clear thought and understanding that I can make simple. Maybe a little help along the lines of what MarvinKitFox did to kinda redo things and explain them better. I don't mean write my essay for me, but like I said I'm having a hard time understanding this clearly. Basically, I don't know what I want XD a bullet point list of corrections I guess, but not something that will, like I said, write my essay for me, just something to get it clear in my head. Thanks so much for the help! -Slab

So, I'm working on a school project essay on none other than orbital mechanics and basic maneuvering - Terms, mechanics, maneuvering, types of orbits, etc. Here's my notes so far on terms: Orbital terms: *Apoapsis – Highest point in an elliptical orbit or parabolic trajectory, opposite of Periapsis *Periapsis – Lowest point in an elliptical orbit or hyperbolic trajectory, opposite of Apoapsis Types of trajectories: *Parabolic – A suborbital trajectory where one must accelerate to achieve orbit, and the vertex is the Apoapsis *Circular – A theoretical, perfectly circular orbit in which there is neither an Apoapsis nor Periapsis. Also, “Circular†is used to this degree of whole number calculations: a 150.0km by 150.0km orbit is called Circular, but no measurements are more precise than the meter *Elliptical – The exact definition of every stable orbit, where there is an Apoapsis and a Periapsis *Hyperbolic – A hyperbola-shaped interplanetary trajectory in which the vertex of the hyperbola is the Periapsis and one must slow down to achieve orbit So most of you who, unlike me, know anything about orbital mechanics past terms like semi-major axis, Oberth Effect, and Sidereal Period, probably already know what's wrong: Parabolic and Hyperbolic. I kinda flew by the seat of my pants explaining Parabolic and Hyperbolic because just from looking you can tell that a Sub-orbital trajectory is parabolic, and from light research I know that a hyperbolic trajectory is interplanetary. Here's where I cut corners: "Parabolic trajectories are(only) sub-orbital trajectories in which the vertex is an Apoapsis and one must speed up to achieve orbit." "Hyperbolic trajectories are(only) interplanetary trajectories through the SOI of a planet in which the vertex is a Periapsis and one must slow down to achieve orbit." So, I looked up some pictures of a Parabolic, Circular, Elliptical and Hyperbolic trajectories all together such as this: http://www.insight3d.com/resources/educational-alliance-program/astro-primer/primer63.htm and along with everything else, none of them showed a sub-orbital trajectory as parabolic. It seems the only difference between parabolic and hyperbolic trajectories is eccentricity, which can't be right, and it also shows that a parabolic trajectory could be interplanetary too. I was pretty proud of my "seat-of-my-pants" definitions and this kinda wrecks it. :/ Let me know the correct way to define these terms, I'd love to see how my definition compares to what it really is. Thanks for reading! -Slab

Lol! Thanks for the help, I was getting REALLY frustrated and I was kinda in a bad mood already, sorry for the whining. So, download module manager? Will it be too hard to figure out how to move the module to stock parts myself, or what? - - - Updated - - - Ok, I did some more googling and I'm pretty confused. XD Could you tell me how exactly to do it? I can't find any decent tutorials - - - Updated - - - Wait, I found a config in KAS for all the stock parts, could I put that in a different file or something? I found a .cfg in the KAS file and pulled an example out for the stock RCS port: @PART[RCSBlock]:HAS[!MODULE[KASModuleGrab]]:FOR[KAS] { MODULE { name = KASModuleGrab evaPartPos = (0.0, 0.00, -0.18) evaPartDir = (0,0,-1) storable = true storedSize = 6 attachOnPart = True attachOnEva = True attachOnStatic = False attachSendMsgOnly = False Shouldn't this work?

I'm pretty sure I'm not a noob, I've been googling for 30 minutes trying to figure this out. I have KAS installed and I want to be able to attach small parts to a satellite in orbit just for fun, kinda like the shuttle repairing hubble. I clicked edit container on the KAS parts container and the only parts I have a choice to put in the container are KAS parts. No Cubic Octagonal Struts, no torture chairs(external command seats) no batteries, no RTGs, only KAS parts. Shouldn't I be able to attach STOCK parts?? I tried attaching those small parts on a capsule just to test how KAS EVA works and I could only grab and place KAS parts. I saw in a changelog that the modmaker added the ability to "grab and store the 3 rung ladder" which I assume is the Pegasus I Mobility Enhancer, and I couldn't put it in the parts container, couldn't grab it off the side of the capsule... I don't understand, it's really frustrating me. I just watched a Scott Manley IQ episode where he built a minmus rover out of Cubic Octagonal Struts, an RTG, wheels, and a command seat. What am I doing wrong??! Is there a Config to edit to add stock parts?? Ugh... I'm so confused and frustrated XD Sorry for the whiny rant, like I said I'm getting really frustrated. I hope I can find a solution. D: -Slab P.S. .90 Sandbox mode with KAS .4.10