Hotel26

Wildfire 3 on a high-speed test run. We've switched to the twin Big Berthas because they seem less vulnerable to wave impact, fish strike, floating plastic debris, etc. And our engineers feel this is the best way to tow Duckboat 3. We'll post this update bulletin... Then I'll get the result in the next 5 minutes. You know the drill... P.S. being a nautical man, from now on I will use the traditional kerbal term for your "meters per second". That's 'knots', abbreviated with a 'K', as in 108K on that test run pictured above.

If you've ever wondered what Kerbals do for tourism....? Well, this is the Wildfire 2 cruise ship going through sea trials. 102 m/s and rock stable. Turns on a dime with differential thrust. It's amphibious, of course, so no ports/docks required to visit the little coastal towns for golden sands and grappa. It's equipped with a spacious hold which will contain a high-speed pontoon boat for extra fast excursions to shore, reef snorkeling and/or water-skiing. The KSC-to-Antarktika run is very popular for vacationers aiming to escape the summer-time heat of equatorial KSC & environs. Cruise company is planning a first launch, "around the planet" tour, for no particular reason, other than the "Free Marketing"... (Kudos to @Lisias for the original hydrofoil design. It's not a hydrofoil anymore, though.) This is the launch, 'Duckboat', under development. (Under water, more like it. It does just over 20 m/s. I'll be putting chutes on it for reasons; very KSP reasons.[1]) [1]

Very constructive! Nice work.

Just culled this from a KerbalX entry... And I quote: Hmm. Does that sounds like a +1 for "Unrealistically draggy"?? Jest sayin'...

Starling is designed for stratospheric/hemispheric operations. The North/South Pole route. KSC to/fro BKB. 180 degrees. Tagline: Anywhere to anywhere. Minimum time, jetway to jetway. Currently, 2 km/s at 30km on 0.31 lf/s. Still tuning for the 'sweet spot'... The boys in the workshop have dubbed it a 'space glider'. Big wings to milk lift/control from skimming the thinnest of atmosphere. RAPIERs to get up and down from terra firma; closed cycle to punch up the strato-speed and Dirty NERV to sustain them all aloft.

I'm missing a trick, am I not? I should be using the coupe Mk2 cockpit, with a leading shock intake, like the rest of the pack. So be it. Starling, now a "space glider":

This is Starling: Don't think 28,250 is yet quite high enough for thermal stability... (That's a kinda euphemism in our aerospace industry, as ya know. Translated: "not ready for passengers".) It's a kind of triple coffin corner with speed, lift and heat... One thing I like: it gets there fast and then one punches the speed up on Closed Cycle. Bingo! (Capt. Donsted Kerman, Lt. Arhat Kerman, Requiescat In Pace. "They will be missed".)

Very neat way to solve the "getting to space" angle. Well done and congratulations on hitting your objectives!

A very good move, as a picture tells a story of 1k words. From my own experiments, attempting to fly fast and level at an altitude where the Mk2 cockpit will stay cool, one benefits from a larger wing area and some angle of incidence applied to the wings (to generate sufficient lift while allowing the nose to stay prograde, reducing body drag). Won't matter so much if your goal is going to space. In both cases, mass is your enemy. (swjr-swis succeeded where I failed because (amongst other things) he cut the mass to the bone -- and has a bigger wing area.) Zooming out: is your objective "doing science"? Or "getting there quickly"? Your machine might make a very good science harvester, flying lower, slower and further with a Panther.

Thanks for the correct terminology, bud!

It came to my attention that RAPIERs could still breathe (at certain speeds) at altitudes upto 28-29 km. But not that I could sustain in level flight however. So my experiments moved to suborbital speed hops. Then my focus turned to 'skip gliders': My current version uses two RAPIERs and a small amount of LOX to boost speed at AP one time only. (That center RAPIER pictured is now a drogue. No sense loitering in the pattern when time is of the essence!) Current testing is pole-to-pole with fuel tankers parked at each pole for refueling.

Since I can use gravity assists, encounter at periapsis is always better. It's not intuitive (hence the disagreements) but I think it is now clear-cut. See: https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/197273-moho-periapsis-for-return-trip-to-kerbin/&do=findComment&comment=3872499 Borrowing the table from that citation: "I have been able to determine the orbital speed at Apoapsis and Periapsis of a) Moho and b) an HETV with apoapsis at 13.318 Gm (Kerbin altitude):" alt: 3.949 Gm alt: 6.054 Gm Moho 18,278.8 m/s 12,185.9 m/s HETV 20,614.6 m/s 15,917.9 m/s dV 2,335.8 m/s 3,732.0 m/s I think the "explanation" is that the two fastest speeds of those orbits "match" better than the fastest and slowest speeds of the orbits, respectively. (Obviously, since they do.) In addition, this suggests that if you plan to meet Moho at one of its ecliptic nodes -- without a previous inclination change -- its DN is preferable because it is closer to its PE than its AP. Mr Shifty (quoted above) is correct in noting that the dV saving in my table above (1.4 km/s) is offset by a higher price in establishing a deeper Kerbolar periapsis, but that's less than 1.4 km/s.

Correct. If you can plot the transit well enough to get a Moho encounter, without any en route adjustments, that would qualify as a CAT II mission. Good luck, Brave Sir! (Don't forget to load your 4 kerbals. )

Good idea! Put a power grid above the roads and charge a fee for cars to raise a contact device up to the cable.

Leg 15 [prev] [next] [progress] [click & arrows] Departed: -20.713/67.441 @ 3.256.4.8 Airborne: 68m Heading: 205 Distance: 471.9 km Altitude: 4.0 km Arrival: -59.210/31.415 Dick is happy today to finally fly what he calls "the Great Circle route". (Instead of going directly toward the ultimate destination, the "great circle" route is a more leisurely meandering toward any point of more proximate interest.) In this case, he has packed his fly fishing tackle and will be heading to a gorge at the foot of a prominent mountain on a lonely, southern island. Hooray. Dick is today, also, to set a new distance record: 471.9 km. Go, Dick!

Ehm, that's the early Mendeleev keyboard...? It's expanded to hundreds of keys now...

Including tweaking the Spring and Dampener settings, yes?? I set Spring:1 and Damping:1.5 by default on all craft as a starting point and then tune as required from there. There can be aerodynamic causes for 'bucking' but the above addresses the common causes. Tho this does sound like one of the aerodynamic causes... Another ritual of mine is to set Snap in the Hangar and then Absolute Rotate the landing gear to ensure it is true in all 3 axes. After that, I'd take a look at which point makes contact first. (E.g. if you're landing on the nose gear first, problemo.) Slow, full flare landings are always safer.

Good idea. I think a single Ant+Oscar would do it. And dump the extensible solar panels. 2,860 kg with 220 m/s dV. (You can be sure you'd find me in the line at the space port to purchase a CAT 1 ticket, however!!)

Here's my formal submission of the Pod IV mission. Pod IV weighed in at 3,076 kg after separation from its Escort Transit Injection Booster. See slides 3 and 4 in the following for Escort TIB burn back result and Pod IV initial mass after separation... The following sequence shows highlights of the "fox hunt" at Moho. Note slides 3 and 7, showing intercept distance and closing speed, arrest and capture with remaining dV of 4 km/s: I am submitting this mission under Category 2. I have to say that chasing down the Pod IV in Moho SOI has been the most thrilling exploit I have ever enjoyed in KSP. Reason enough!

Penny drops...

Well, I believe I have qualified an entry, technically. It's initial mass, leaving Kerbin SOI solo, is 3,194 kg. I present Pod IV: Furthermore, the final version (shown above) will have only a single PB-X50 xenon tank, reducing its total mass to 3,101 kg for a dV of 968 m/s. I am not going to post this provisional, CAT 2 entry on the leader board at this time and you will see why, based on the following (click + arrows for slide show): Slide 4 shows that I elected to accept a very bad starting point (KAC indicating a transfer window but not aligned with Moho's DN). As a result Slide 5 shows a 19km flyby of Moho at a speed of 7km/s!! 5.9 km/s dV would be required for capture. I do believe that it should be possible to arrive at Moho from Kerbin apoapsis with considerably lower speed differential[1] (particularly if one tunes for a higher, slower Moho SOI periapsis). The upshot is that I will make a formal entry with Pod IV when I am confident also that I could plausibly demonstrate the CAT 2 ("asteroid") capture by a waiting vehicle. In addition, I may elect to take advantage of the 'free' boost from the TIB and use a highly-inclined burn to reduce much of the 7-degree plane change from the get-go. Here's the part list: Hitchhiker, 1K battery, PB-X50 xenon tank, Okto 1 probe core, Dawn ion engine, 6x solar panels[2], 2 pair of 2.5m docks with separators. The final items make the module gangable but were jettisoned to go "solo" for this test. [1] minimum bound 2,335.8 m/s [2] I gave myself the luxury of 6 of these 1x6 solar panels to potentially fully power the Dawn, but the combination of 1K battery and two of these is enough to give full power for a 300 m/s dV maneuver, which is more than I used in total. I was particularly proud of the canted configuration of these which align the bank off the prograde radial and I think make it possible to rotate the craft into one of two positions that ensure close to maximum power from all panels. These panels are only 17.5 kg each, but I figure I can shave 70 kg if required. Finally, note from slide 5 that only 46 units of xenon gas were consumed in making the rather miniscule course corrections (of the order of 43.4 m/s). Since I do regard this exercise as a 'design collaboration', if any one wants to proceed with a similar design and make a further improved entry for CAT 2, I would be thrilled to see it!

Wonderful job and most illuminative! I'll certainly create a class also for transfers performed without gravity assists to encourage other entries. (My current prototype is a whopping 10.997t!)

We didn't even have jet packs in my day. Splash down (if you could, but always welcome after the f.i.e.r.y re-entry) and swim for it. Lucky to get the occasional sachet of shark repellent, we were...

No no. This is the new procedure for sending trainees to the KSS... They need to pilot themselves close enough on first launch to immediate rendez-vous and then jet-pack across. Or wash out... Standards have progressed so much since those "early pioneer days" of the Space Agency!

Incidentally, I should point out that my strategy for the TIB is to use a super-over-powered Escort. Five (5) Rhinos and a TON of fuel: no need to finesse the return, particularly for such a light payload. It has plenty of capacity for a simple "burn back". [Note: old 4x Rhino model depicted] If you find this approach palatable(?), there will be no reason to expand the Stipulations in a complex manner. What do you think?