LN400

There are free/no account hosts for images online. Tinypic is just one of them.

It depends on the trajectory and velocity but the one way trip from LKO to Mun encounter can take from less than 4 hours to more than 6 hours (a Kerbin day). Return trip about the same.

What's the awkward bit? A pic from map view/tracking station, a few numbers (inclination, apoapsis, periapsis, eccentricity) would help a lot.

Well I'll be damned Good luck! EDIT: So, this challenge still stands then. After watching the video, he did indeed land on Mun but not on Minmus. before that.

If you are looking for silly ideas, how about Using ONLY SRB + sepatrons, go to Minmus, land, go from there to Mun, land, return to Kerbin. Shouldn't take too long, if it can be done at all.

50/50, that's interesting and something I haven't considered. Mine has been more a 1/3 for the first stage then 2/3 for the final stage, in a 2 stage design.

Thank you for that. I am however particularely curious about each stage in a multi stage rocket, that is how you distribute the dv among the stages, from the lifter to the injection stage.

For a rocket starting at the launch pad, and heading for a low Kerbin orbit (71,000m or thereabout), and with minimum 2 stages, maximum 3 excluding the payload, what are your rule of thumb numbers for each stage in terms of delta v? I would like to hear from you what figures you go for.

Just to eliminate a possibility no matter how unlikely. You say the command craft was missing. Did you verify that all the filters on the slide-down menu on the map/tracking station light up or was any of them dark? Other than that, inclination as mentioned above can cause problems if the altitude is low enough.

I see this as on topic myself so: The use of SRBs depends. Their main problem is you have no way of reducing their thrust once they fire meaning you can end up going too fast in the dense atmosphere wasting dv or even worse, seeing the ship tear itself apart or overheat. Their burn time is often in the 20-50 seconds range. Combining SRB with liquid for 20 seconds might mean you won't be able to burn enough fuel for the main to have enough TWR after the SRBs burn out. Again, this is all down to specific desigs and each design need its own solution for thrust. Some do well with a too weak engine combined with SRBs, other designs are sub optimal or just plain madness. Then there is price. Sometimes an single oversized main is the cheaper option.

One problem with running at full throttle is that each rocket is more or less unique with its own mass, its own drag profile etc. Full throttle could mean a sensible acceleration all through the dense atmosphere, and a sensible rate of change of TRW, for one design and the same engine on another rocket with the same mass but a very different drag profile, as an example, could mean lost dv. Problem arises when there can be quite a leap in engine performance. You could find that the engine you need can deliver say 500 kN but the only engines to consider either deliver 450 kN or 900 kN (again, I am pulling numbers out of my big hat but as an example they do just fine).

What you can do to find what throttle cap to set by working out the total mass of the whole show going to space, payload, fuel, tanks, engines, everything. Let's call the total mass M. Figure out what your initial thrust to weight ratio (TWR) should be. Some like 1.30, others like 1.50. Let's call this TWR A. Look at the engine data in the VAB and look for max thrust, both for vaccuum and atmosphere. Decide which one of these is most relevant for the stage you're building. Let's call this max thrust T. Now work out: A * M * 9.81 / T The number you get is the sought after cap so if you get say, 0.52 then cap the throttle at 0.52. If you get a number larger than 1, get a bigger engine. EDIT: Changed the word acceleration to TWR. I guess I was in a hurry the fist time.

Wondering here as I play KSP using Kerbal Engineer Redux and looking at the available flight info in the tracking station. Would it be possible/wanted to have extended (flight) info showing in the tracking station in stock game? I am thinking of information like: Orbital period for flights and/or planets/moons. Ascending/descending nodes (together with apoapsis/periapsis nodes) without the need for setting up maneuver nodes, for other bodies to aid in setting up transfers. One can calculate some of this but some things one can't readily calculate (at least I can't). It would be of great help in deciding if say a satelite network is on track or if the satelites are drifting, without having to actively fly the satelite with the disturbances in the orbit that leads to.

Sent off a 70+ ton beast of a fuel depot to Minmus as per contract... I REALLY don't want to spend more on that project now but at least I will have a depot in orbit ready for a future mining operation and pitstop for outbound ships. Also ticks me off a bit the fairings knocked off one of the solar panels before they were deployed. Oh well, 3 will have to do.

I remembered why Kerbal Alarm Clock is absolutely essential for me. Having 4 ships on their way to Minmus, 3 space stations than need transfer and docking, incoming rescue missions, satelites everywhere mapping all the things while waiting for their transfer windows, and the trendency for all the things happening at the same time, it was a nightmare before KAC. Still mild panic regularely as I realize I overlooked that ship incoming for aerobraking when that robot needs a crucial burn but at least I can wing it and not lose any ships... I hope...

With the dish antenna, only the antennas within the cone, within range AND not behind any horizon can be connected to. With omnis, it's within range AND not obstructed by any horizon. Once a connection is possible, the signal is routed along the shortest path back to KSC. You can toggle linkage to see which links are up and which are down. Note the checkbox with a dish and rod antenna symbol on it. There are several overlays through that button so click through them all.

It does ineed appear (hard to tell exactly from the image) that the problem is like Streetwind said (it isn't necessary though to target KSC specifically). The directional can't "see" through planets so if KSC is below the horizon or plain at the other side of Kerbin) then you need the omni to link up with the hub networks unless one of the hub sats are within the dish cone and in range for its own omni antenna.

Have you tried running the 64 bit exe? (Assuming a 64 bit system)

You would need a full two-way link at least in the previous versions of RT. However, there is a setting dialogue box available on KSC when you look at the entire base, that is not inside any building that allows various new settings. I am not entirely sure since I haven't played around with it much but have a look at the settings to see if anything sounds applicable. One thing to notice about the antennas is that they come in 2 classes: Omnidirectional and directional. Generally, dishes are directional so they need a target and can only cover what's inside a narrow cone while omnidirectional antennas don't need to be pointed at any particular target. The onmi directional antennas have shorter range than the directional ones of comparable size. To cover the entire Kerbin + the 2 moons, I have landed on a system of 4 omnidirectional satelites around Kerbin using the 2.5Mm range omnidirectional (since it's available pretty early on in career mode which I play). These are the hub network for Kerbin relaying everything else back to KSC. In addition, I use 2 satelites with one 2.5Mm omni and 2 dishes that will reach the moons. This way, there will always be at least one dish that can contact Mun and Minmus. Around the moons I use 3 satelites of the same type as the 2 mentioned just above. Only battery capacity has been adjusted for longer orbital periods and possible eclipses.

Thanks tons for that post. I had some idea about flux but I wasn't entirely sure, especially because this is a game and not the real world so how things worked here was largely guesswork on what the various fluxes meant. Now I know so thanks again.

One note on Sauron "dying" when others did not. As Vanamonde mentioned, there are a bunch of demi-gods and demi-demi gods behind the scene. One of the most powerful, if not the most powerful, demi-demi-gods was Sauron, being the right hand of the devil himself (source: Silmarillion). So, that old codger was far from a regular issue mad, evil villain. His "dying" was part what the 5th Horseman said, and his real godly self returning to the gods' domain for some r&r.

I am looking at KER's thermal display and it has all sorts of parameters and numbers I assume are read from the game, that is they are not numbers created out of thin air by KER. Now the question(s): Is there a nice, easy to read write-up on all the parameters, how they relate to one another, to the external environment, which figures matter more than others and why, etc etc? If there isn't, could one who has a good grasp on these things in physics give an easy to read explanation to what it all means? I do have some idea and a few are self explanatory but the others not so much and I am pretty much guessing on their meaning and significance.

Thanks. I have 2 rescue robots + a 7 man 9 ton behemoth inbound from Mun. They have enough fuel to drop the apo to at least 85km together with the aerobraking. I will attempt steeper descents and see how that goes. Also a good opportunity to see what a cluster of drogue chutes will do on that big one. EDIT: I will have to test the 1 bay design in sandbox game later as my budget isn't open for much non-contractual testing at the moment. The tier 3 R&D is horribly expensive but after that, I should have more dosh to spend on those tests.

I found it to be different. Shedding off a small fuel tank and a 909 (little more than 0.5 t in mass then), to go heat shield first sees the g-meter make a jump, not just the kick from the separator, it stays higher indicating a greater braking force indicating greater drag. Shedding that to go pod only sees an even greater jump on the g-meter. Same as before, it stays higher so it's not only the kick from the staging. I still have had chutes, solar panels, anything that wasn't shielded by the pod, or engine, or heat shield or whatever, blow up long before I reached the low atmosphere. The idea of going anything but bottom/shield first is to me slightly terrifying.

What concerns me the most when it comes to using aerodynamics like described above is heat. Last return almost ended in shouting and cursing. The returning ship was Pod Mk I 2x Equipment bays with assorted science gear Heat shield with 40 units. + parachutes. Total mass less than 2 tons. From 45,000 meters and all the way down to around 16,000 where the heat dropped, KER told me the pod was about to explode almost constantly. I went shield first or so I thought but even then did the pod get heated up to just below critical. Exposing solar panels and parachutes has also ended in rapid evaporation of those parts. Seems to me having anything other than the heat shield exposed is a sure way to see fireworks. This is with an initial apo at 71,000 and peri at 40,000-55,000.