KerbonautInTraining

I think that would go to my first ""truly Kerbal"" mission. I got a new PC for Xmas and my part count limit went from ~45 on the old one to ~120 while having reasonable framerates. Before, I always had to trim out everything that wasn't 100% necessary to the mission. Most of my missions were just a landing and brief EVA to plant a flag. (I don't play career yet) This was a relatively simple direct ascent, 3 kerbal Mun landing. I was playing in Kscale2 which makes payload fractions a bit smaller. Anyway, I brought a rover and various KAS/KIS goodies to experiment with because I'd never taken the time to familiarize them. There was some other ...interesting... stuff that happened but I'll make a mission report that goes into more detail (screenshots), as well as show my later mission to Duna which I'm pretty proud of.

Have you ever done something that wasn't productive at all but was somehow really entertaining? A couple random examples of mine would be messing around with a few Cupcake inspired ion landers on Minmus, building grasshopper-style VTOL rockets and practicing suicide burns, or building a massive rocket to see how quickly I could impact the moon (25ish minutes)

Sooo it's capable of pushing a payload with propulsion to Mars? The F9 2nd stage would be jettisoned shortly after TMI right?

Something I've been thinking about is how much easier upper stages have it. 1. No fairing or interstage, in some cases they don't have to stand up to any dynamic pressure 2. Higher nozzle expansion ratio (higher isp) 3. Lower TWR (more fuel for a given engine) 4. Lighter structure in general due to lower forces (although not really in the case of F9, the upper stage can pull 3+ G's) Tbh I'm sure there are more but I don't wanna get too far off topic.

Now imagine what sort of benifits this could give to, say, the space shuttle. The SSME's only spend like 90 seconds of their 8 minute burn inside any significant atmosphere.

Guys, it says the max vertical speed is 6 m/s. That's some pretty robust landing hardware if you ask me.

Just gonna add something here: The P66 people are describing is accurate, as it allows the commander to re-designate the landing site target. If no further action is taken after switching to P66 the LM will land itself wherever uses the least fuel. BUT: On every (I think every) mission, after letting P66 run for a bit, they flipped the navigation to "ATT HOLD" which is not unlike flying with SAS in KSP. Moving the stick determines the rate of rotation, upon centering it the LM kills rotation. During this time the throttle is controlled by the computer to maintain a descent rate. The rate of descent can be clicked up or down by the commander using a ROD switch. They then landed mostly by looking out the window and having the other astronaut (Buzz) read stuff from the instruments. Basically, load up a ship and fly it with the MechJeb translatron controlling your throttle and SAS on. [/Apollo nerdgasm]

Were you using a mod to time warp faster than default? For whatever reason doing that is like giving the Kraken an adrenaline shot. Usually what I do is this: Tracking station -> time warp to transfer window -> quit to main menu -> VAB -> launch vessel Same thing for time warping to a destination.

They were talking about putting something into lunar orbit, which involves a ~800m/s insertion burn at closest approach. (I'm assuming the "cubesat" payload doesn't have the necessary propulsion)

It takes like 3 days to reach the moon. LOX boiloff?

Meth. Not even once. I wonder when we're gonna know for sure what sort of damage was done to the paint job, or rather what it's gonna take to bring it back to shining white. Edit: You can see what looks like a downward facing RCS jet on the right. I'm pretty sure that's how they settle the propellant for the boostback burn.

I read somewhere that what you're describing is called the "Night Glider" mode or something. It's only done when propulsion isn't going to be in abundance, as it puts extra wear on certain components,

Found in the "What not to suggest" thread:

The F9 first stage has to travel downrange and reach a pretty precise state vector when it cuts off. New Shepard can go wherever it needs to to get back down to the pad even before separation. As long as its payload goes up it was a successful flight. Note that this is all comparative. Both companies are doing amazing things by increasing our accessibility to space and bringing it back into the public's eyes.

Passive aggressiveness is strong with this one. I love it how the second stage cutoff happened during the landing burn, I only noticed it the third time I re-watched the landing.

Assuming the cloud cover isn't too bad, I heard some people talking about it earlier.

Wait so is the launch gonna happen in darkness? Wondering if I should pull up the live stream on my living room TV

I think the fairing might provide structural support. I heard somewhere that the 2nd stage can get up to 6G's just before cutoff. [Citation needed] Also, T-6 hours

Somebody forgot to reset the live stream it still says "starting soon" Edit: They fixed it

I think inline engines similar to the "Ant" and "Spark" would be reasonable. Why bother with big monoprop engines? In real life they would be favorable because of the storable, self igniting, pressurized propellant. KSP doesn't model any of the aforementioned advantages, and currently has a very limited selection of tanks, so there's really no point.

It would be kind of like trying to crash a probe into the Sun, I'd imagine.

Question: How far from the launch pad is the landing pad? It would be so awesome if there was a static camera that could see the rocket go up and back down. I'm really hoping they have the same (or better) quality live stream they had for CRS-7.

Imagine if it landed successfully only to have it blow over... I wonder how quickly (if at all) they'll get people out there to secure it? I'd be surprised if they just left it standing until they could get it horizontal.

Awwww yiss

"And rocket landing" GUYS.