Reddeyfish

A quick google search reveals this post for 1.0.2: The sweet spot for aerocapture is usually (depending on the angle at which you intercept Duna and thus your speed when you get there) between 17-22km. Any lower and you usually end up lithobraking. (http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/118934-Duna-Aerobraking-capture-landing-Observations-in-1-02/page2) I'm guessing it's still about the same in 1.0.4. Go as deep into the air as you can without hitting the ground.

how are you deactivating them? If you're using custom action groups, there's a bug where sometimes only one side of the plane will be linked to the action group. You can fix it by redoing the action group linking.

the engine isn't to be used, it's only a weight. As of 1.0, the CoM of jet engines was changed to be well forward of the actual engine.

You'll get better answers if this is posted/moved into the addon forums. You also probably know more about this than I do, but one starting place would be to look at the MM Config for already existing mods.

there isn't a hard boundary, since it is always possible to reach mars no matter what the relative phase angle is. (for the worst case scenario: burn continuously towards mars until the halfway point, then flip over and burn retrograde to slow down) Therefore, the transfer window length depends on the power of the spaceship being sent. The window ends when the spaceship no longer has the delta-v to make the transition at the current phase angle. Also, IRL it is possible to launch from earth, do an orbit around the sun, then use earth again for a gravitational assist. (e.g. the Rosetta mission). If the mission to mars chooses to do that (probably a probe), then calculating the length of the transfer window gets really complex because of the gravity assist. rosetta mission flight path:

yep; learn orbital interception and docking first. If you can't dock, the station is going to be absolutely useless as a station. (If you can't dock to it, it's the same as a really big ship) And yes, there are many good space station designs that don't have high part counts and are easy to get into orbit. Science Lab + Orange Tank + Hitch-hiker Crew Can + 2.5m battery + 2.5m probe core (or 2.5m service bay with any probe core inside) + radially mounted solar panels+ radially mounted docking ports + docking port on each end + antenna makes a good basic station.

The delta-v bar doesn't show in IVA. However, instead of moving to the map you can switch to external view (normal view of the ship) to remove it via the delta-v bar.

Did it have a heat shield? Radiators?

If you have a sat contract, it will show up in the map. If you don't, then it doesn't matter for polar orbits. If you want to do it in a single burn, you'll need to burn both normal/anti-normal and retrograde. The retrograde part of it kills your previous orbital direction, and the normal/anti-normal part recreates your orbital velocity for a polar orbit. (the same applies for any other 90 degree-ish change) If you're moving into a polar orbit and don't particularly care about which polar orbit, then burning at apoapsis will work perfectly well and be the most efficient. If you care about which polar orbit (i.e. for a sat contract), then burn at the inclination points relative to the target orbit.

With a SOI system, it is completely impossible. When inside a sphere of influence, only the main body of that sphere matters. All other bodies are completely ignored. Therefore, you can think of a sphere of influence as if it was a single body floating on it's own, so gravity acts as a conservative force for the spacecraft with respect to the body. If you have 100 m/s at 100,000 km on the way in, you have 100 m/s at 100,000 km on the way out. Now, KSP doesn't simulate SOI exactly, because of things like rounding errors (as mentioned above), so it is possible (but rare) in KSP for it to happen. EDIT: and ninja'd

A massive part of why I started playing KSP was because of the frequent mentions of KSP in XKCD comics (tech/STEM/science webcomic, if you haven't heard of it).

2/3) the runway in KSP is not perfect. Even when fully upgraded, it's slightly angled (I think downward and to the left, but I don't remember). Also, non-fully upgraded runways are quite bumpy.

Maybe try using girders/I-beams directly under the tank to take the main part of the weight, combined with landing legs on the edges for suspension?

You can try using a Klaw to grab the Stayputnik and bring the kerbal home. Recovering the Stayputnik will also recover the kerbal inside. Also, do you have any mods installed? This is something that needs to be reported as a bug.

Jet engines won't work outside of the Kerbin and Laythe atmospheres. The engines on those planes are going to be worthless.

pretty much, as long as the orbit is more-or-less circular (or equally elliptic with all the other sats). If one sat is extremely elliptic while all the others are circular, there will be problems.

you can't deorbit them alone in 1.0.4 anymore; they'll overheat at about 65k. http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/127610-Is-this-even-possible-Does-someone-want-to-try-it They'll survive everything else if they don't overheat, though. Also, kerbals tend to be more resiliant when landing on their helmets, not the other way around.

they're a container for small parts. For example, if you want to have a HECS probe controlling a 1.25m rocket, it will be more structurally sound and more aerodynamic if you have the probe inside a service bay. you can also put things like solar panels and goo canisters inside them so that they won't generate drag when launching.

Docking ports definitely have a niche. Klaws can only be mounted on the end of a rocket, since you can't attach stuff on top of them, whereas docking ports can double as decouplers. I personally like putting the docking port on the tip of a rocket, placing a nosecone and upside down fairing base on top of it, and being able to undock and get rid of all the aero stuff without having to do a full stage seperation.

yep; I generally set them all as 'stations', hide the stations from the map view, and then use the 'base' group for both stations and bases.

that will only happen if you have angle snap turned on. (angle snap will also snap the offset tool). Turn angle snap off when offsetting if you don't want that to happen.

you can do this with Infernal Robotics, but IR has a lot of other stuff that you probably don't want.

Burning just before 50/50 is still correct for suicide burns; the time to node (time to impact) for a suicide burn assumes that you're moving at your speed from orbit. Since you're cancelling all your speed with the suicide burn, you're not going to be going at that speed for the whole burn. If you were to burn when the time to node is the same as the burn time, then you would have only covered half the distance to the ground when the burn competes and you've killed all your velocity. The same effect also causes some wierdness for large inclination changes (greater than 60 degrees) in low orbits. For those, you'll want to burn closer to 33/66 (1/3 of the burn time till node).

open up the flight log. If you've been firing the engines and you don't have any "<part name> was damaged by engine exhaust from <engine>", then there is no thrust loss and there is no extra heating.

If you are saving funds by having drop tanks, it's still a better design than a 'pure' SSTO. Categorization doesn't matter.