Nich

Escape trajectory and escape are 2 different things. Doesnt Kerbol list its escape velocity in the info window? That is at its surface so if your at Kerbins altitude you get to add all that potential energy although your best bet is to setup a sling shot for a highly eleptic orbit as close to Kerbol as is safe for max oberith effect and max solar power. I would also expect you would have to slingshot off one of the heavier planets further out and that should get you escape velocity. Although doing all that in 28 years might be tough.

That was long before I knew that and I was trying to save kerdits for a new launch pad. I have since learned you can just stick the engine on the top with no fuel and stage it at the correct time. You can also restage i.e. if you have to use an engine in suborbital to get orbital and need to test orbital just turn the engine off. Create a new stage and move the engine to that stage with the throttle off and hit space. It is almost as dumb as the fact that half the science from Kerbin comes directly from or within 1km of KSC. I was so pissed when I finally got to the north pole for the first time and only got 50-60 science. But that didnt compare to how pissed I was when I went to the south pole and found out they are the same Biome............ Nearly rage quit Also class E out of the systems doesnt seem that hard. Arnt asteroids like 90-95% resources? just drill convert burn, drill convert burn. Seems like it would just take time more then anything.

Ya I loved the Idea of the MPL at first but really you need 1-2 Mun landings to unlock it if it is the first thing you go for and buy then the Mun and Minimus are on farm. Not to mention by the time I got the Mun and Minimus fully explored my 3 MPLs with 10 scientist only made a little over 100 science. Now most of the tech tree is unlocked and a Duna Mission (where the MPL would really shine) because of the LONG transfer wont need any of the science as it should finish the tech tree. Even in hard mode the MPL is pretty worthless because you need most the science on Kerbin to open up stuff you need to land on the Mun/Minimus. If you go down the MPL path you really handicap your self

I have seen people delete the NEW requirement from station base contracts. This way you can move a station or upgrade a station to complete the contract which makes a lot more sense to me personally. I currently have 4 abandoned stations above kerbin 2 over the Mun 2 empty Mun bases. I have had a couple of those launch abandoned controlled by a probe core just because I know I will never use them. The last Minimus Base I just used as an opportunity to take 8 new recruits to get the Minimus flag and it immediately flew back.

I noticed this with my space plane attempts. Trying to punch out of the atmophere at 45-55 degrees adn 450 m/s wasn't nearly as good as a nice 30 degrees and 1100 m/s and burning like crazy.

I think the hardest one i have had was test the LV-909 through staging at some stupid altitude like 11-12 (really tight and a place you would never want to use an LV-909) and 300-400 m/s again really tight. I eventually got it but I probably lost 100k (half my savings) on the endeavor.

ROFL.... Kerbals aware of the changing physics. I laughed so had you had me in tears

Using the following equations we can calculate the impossible to achieve Holman transfer dV required. where is given in game as GM. For Duna GM = 3.014E+11 and r is 350,000 thus to orbit at asl we need 928 m/s, transfer to 60km is 36 and circulation is 34.5 giving a grand total of 998.45 As a matter of reference a Holman transfer off Kerbin is 2463 for a polar launch but 3824 is a more realistic number. Applying the same factor to our Duna launch we get 1550. With the addition of some parachutes Nichabell just might be a viable candidate for landing on Duna as well. After realizing the need for safety I decided I need a scientist and an engineer to repack the chutes in case the vehicle is not able to reach orbit. This also adds the additional benefit of multiple command pods for storing duplicate reports. Unmaned testing showed she could enter Kerbin with no problems (no atm landings my butt tin can) Electric generation was a bit low with only 2 panels so I have to upgraded to the 2x3 panel set. May I present the new and Improved Nichabell weighting in at 7.1t wet with 2686 dV (360 LF 440 OX) adn a TWR of just over 2. With the extended hopping capabilities on IKE I hope to reduce the landings two 4 total. Thus the new budget for IKE is wet lander 7.1t, 3 additional Ike Landings 13.5t, 8 additional Duna landings 36t, for a total of 56.6t

In the High altitude test plane it was found that the LV-909 performed quite well at .2 atm. At 9400 m the Terrier had an ISP of 290. from the following equation we can find thrust since I forgot to start the engine. (1.596+1.951)*5*290 *9.82 = 50.5 kN This is already close to the upper limit of what the lifting liquid engines can do in a vacuum now it is just a question of TWR. With the ASL gravity of .3g on Duna 50.5 kN can lift 15.43t with a TWR of 1. If we increase this to 1.5 it can only lift 10.28t as a rough estimate we will assume 3.3t is payload and average ISP of 330 giving dV of 3702. This is quite an encouraging start for the LV-909. especially since the payload to mass ratio is 32% (we can always add more LV-909s and fuel) before it is time to design a 1 LV-909 lander with 540 LF 860 OX I need to come up with an estimate for dV needed to get off Duna.

Stage 2 Duna Lander (Violes) Duna is the first Planet we have visited with an atmosphere. With an atmopheric height of 50 km and a pressure of .2 atm I suspect vacuum final stage lifters should be quite acceptable for ISP even at ASL. However first we need to do some high altitude test of the LV-909.

Stage 1 Ike lander (Nichabell) Ike has an ASL g of .112 which is about half way between the Mun at .166 and Minimus at .05. Because of this we will recycle and rename the Mun lander while adding additional science tools unlocked from the Minimus expedition. The Nichabell at 4.5t currently has 1991 dV however this will go down a little with the addition of additional science equiptment. With the addition of 6 missions worth of additional fuel (6*2.25) we are at 18t.

Day 30 Aldrick Kermin heads back from Minimus with the haul to science after exploring all the Bionomes I could find. The JSC (Jeb Science Cruser) was colossally overbuilt and completed its mission with 90+ percent fuel remaining. This was thanks in large part to a luckly landing with 5 biomes in hopping range. This amazing over expenditure was originally planed to go to Duna next however 2 contracts totaling close to a 1/2 million kredits requires a new ship. This will be our first planned mission. Stages of Planning will be 1. Ike Lander (7 landings from polar orbit) 2. Duna Lander (7 Landings from polar orbit) 3. Transfer (plan to investigate Mun / Ike slingshots) 4. LKO Requirements 1. No Kerbal deaths, every man comes home 2. This is a long trip so no crew will spend the entire trip in a command pod. Objectives 1. Maximize Science returns 2. Level as many Kerbals as possible 3. Preform the mission in a timely fashion.

Also if you have duplicate experiments in your MPL you can take the experments from the MPL load them into a command pod, all duplicates will be separated out. Then process the results that you have that arnt duplicated and send the command pod back. Really though 1 landing on the Mun or Minimus will net you 500-700 data which translates into 1000ish science before you get your first ship to duna can even leave and another 1500 by the time you get there. Another 3000 by the time you have explored Ike and Duna and returned you probably wont even need science from the trip if you had an MPL at both the Mun and Minimus. Then you just max out the admin and sell all your science.

I used them all the time when TWR is getting too low. Just enough punch to get your main craft up to 100-200 m/s when your in the 140 ton limit range

I call BS 1) who de-orbits a spacestation? 2) lowing PE 50k from 100k would give an orbital speed over 2500 m/s I am not even wasting the energy doing the math.

I was the same way by the time I had realized what just about happened the event had long passed. To make it even more rare I am pretty sure ships on time warp pass through each other. I was docking my lander at .3 m/s and accidently hit the third arrow rather then second one by the time I got back to the first arrow my lander was in the middle of the main fuel tank. explosions ensued.

Not sure on the increase to ISP but they definitely allow denser air to the engine which increases thrust. If anything they take energy out of the air so from a thermo standpoint they would decrease engine efficiency.

Or an example of someone who used up all their safety margin Was 6 dV enough to bring your PE into the atmosphere?

control from here just changes the orientation of the nav ball. I have also heard that some of the jitter is also caused by 32 bit floating point calculations

Not really. the small reaction wheel is over kill for most probes but the probe reaction wheel is a little lacking

I hate to say it but all of my old craft will simply require 3-4 passes at 40k. The big problem is that ships that used to barely survive with 2 chutes now need 3. If your like me with trouist in said craft be prepaired for lots of orbit lowing before entry and aiming for a water landing. At least the delta-v savings from easier launches offsets the fact just about every craft will need a heat shield.

No I am saying it is blunted for thermal reasons Drag has 3 regimes subsonic (<.85) transonic (.85-.99) supersonic (1-7ish) and hypersonic (7ish +) and the Cd (Fd = p*A*r*Cd*V^2 i believe it has been a while) value can change wildly at different speeds in the same regions but also changes as the object changes regions. in the subsonic regimes aka terminal velocities the flow is happy to go from the high pressure blunted area to the low pressure area on the sides of the craft. However going from lowpressure area at the sides to the high pressure area behind the craft needs to be done gradually (tapered) so the flow does not separate. Once separated you get a very large pressure drag on the order of 5x and the object would become unstable and flip randomly due to eddy currents. Transonic you would need a PhD to understand fully but basically has to do with the fact that some of the air is supersonic and some is subsonic and depends largely on the specifics of the object. Supersonic is the same as subsonic behind the shockway but at the shock wave you have an instant pressure and velocity change (speed and direction) not to mention shockwave interaction if everything is not behind the initial shockwave

88-92 on the runway depending on the config. topping out at 110 at 300 m/s and 1000m altitude

Launching into minimus aligned orbit is very easy. 1 Target minimus 2 Wait until your ship on the pad is aligned green bars going through Kerbin. (make sure you have enough bat or a tower attached so you don't run out of electricity) 3 launch with a minimal gravity turn until AP is 40-50ish 4 Turn the ship horizontal and use the heading indicator for 96 or 84 (depending if you need to go north or south) burn until satisfied. This should get you within .1 degree This can also be done with a gravity turn but corrections to the plane can be more costly then the savings. That being said if minnimus is at it highest or lowest point you can just launch equatorial with a normal gravity turn and fly-by at the assending/desending node

I foresee lots of kerbal scientist getting laid off now. I currently have 3 bases with about 10 scientist between them. I guess I can keep 2 for rotations.