CrashTestDanny

Well, this one really doesn't have enough open space for that, but I did manage to make it not flip by pushing the COM much higher. I know it sounds counter-intuitive, but that's usually the best solution if you have to push something heavy up from below... Danny By the by, this particular ring was severely ravaged by the Kraken once I hit about 80% fuel. Danny. I hate Krakens!

Yep! That's why I made my launcher longer! Danny

So someone asked for this thing to be doubled... It wasn't easy. Many good probe cores were sacrificed in order to learn how not to launch it, but in the end, all our efforts were rewarded with double the fuel capacity and a smaller total part count (unless you leave the last stage attached to increase capacity... I humbly present to you my latest pure stock and purely awesome fuel ring! (ok, maybe I don't do humble so well...) I included some images of the failures to 1 - give you hope that failure CAN lead to success, and 2 - hopefully entertain @RA3236 enough to get me into Spacecraft Friday again! But I guess I would like to know why this isn't considered a shared craft... ??? As always, my craft can be DOWNLOADED from Kerbal X. This is the non-crashing (and non-flipping!) version. If you want the crashing version, remove the struts between the center of the lifter's final stage and the outer ring... Of course, standard disclaimers apply. YMMV, etc. All warranties void if placed near a launch pad. Danny

Awesome looking SeaPlane! Love the wet bay! Danny

I'm good with that! It made some purty fireworks, several times! Danny

Well HOT DIGGITY DAM! One of my creations got mentioned! Quite the achievement, even if I am the plucky comic relief! Danny.

Hi @PointySideUp! Love the ships! Can't wait to drop a Science Smasher on some unsuspecting moon... Just launched the Nuke Tug Bus and love it, but I hope you don't mind a little feedback... 1 - The launch vehicle, IMO could and should be simplified. As-is, it tumbled around 50km and was kinda tough to get back under control. Made it to orbit ok, but was not really a launch worthy of such a beautiful craft. 2 - about 200 dV into the Minmus burn (with Rune's new Base In A Box in tow), the port engines flamed out. Turns out the internal fuel hose was routed kinda weird and not supplying fuel to the port side (I replaced with a symmetrical pair of hoses from the side of the mk-3 tank to the front end of the bi-couplers, which I suspect is what you intended). Other than that I love the ship! I took the liberty of creating a new launch vehicle for it - nothing fancy, but gets the job done Fairly Reliably I also created an imgur album of my launches with the various iterations of my new launch vehicle for your entertainment... My first couple attempts had an intermediate stage that would have taken the thing all the way to Duna, but the current version gets it to orbit with about 575 dV left at LKO. Again, thanks for all the ships and hope you like my little tweak! Also stuck something special [which I stole from @Rune] in the cargo bay of the Nuke Tug Bus... Danny. Ad Astra Per Abverto!

I loved the Heinlein too - Coolest little SSTO ever, IMHO. I saw it on KerbalX and am downloading now! Danny. Ad astra per casus!

It was long suspected that as a child, Werner von Kerman had helped Manfred von Kerman to give his planes a little edge during the big one. Of course, at the end of the subsequent conflagration, with all the "allies" vying to capture the famed rocket scientist, amidst the confusion all of the documentation of these early experiments was lost. Today, however, we have found proof that the first Kerbal in orbit may have actually been Manfred von Kerman! Recently uncovered diaries of both Manfred and Werner support this conclusion and document that the concept of "Moar Boosters" originated with this pair of aviation and rocketry pioneers! Danny

I was thinking about that, but she's currently 269 parts of pure awesome once assembled on orbit. I think double that would really hurt my PC. Maybe I'll try to figure out the fully assembled launch and then pull out all the docking ports used for tinker toying it and then I could probably double it with the same part count... Danny

It all started simply enough. Let's build a Station that is not only rigid, but holds huge quantities of fuel and is still all Stock! Of course, it's been tried before and a couple of our more negative colleagues just had to dwell on past failures, but we pressed on. We put something together in the VAB, but getting something like this on orbit is a bit tougher than mocking it up in the VAB, as you well know. So we began work on how to loft this behemoth to 80km. Many Launch vehicle prototypes were created, some results were entertaining and some were more like catastrophic. One thing that could be guaranteed with this much drag is that a single launch would almost certainly flip, and flip they did. In the end, two launch vehicles were successful, and both flipped before reaching orbit! This craft file includes the kit version with its simplified Launcher (why have 80 docking ports on a vessel if you're not planning to assemble it in space, right?). Though not required, use of GPOSpeedFuelPump is highly encouraged to make sure lower tanks burn first and keep the CoM high. When (not if - I need to work on that) the launcher decides to flip, cut the engines when pitch falls below 0 or increases above 90. Reignite ASAP When she comes back around between 0 and 90. Of course it would be easy enough to split into multiple launches, but I think getting it to orbit in a single launch shows more panache! Especially when you recover from one or two flips on the way! Assembly is a breeze. There are four types of connectors. The hub starts and stays in the center. On each of its 6 radial ports, there is an assembly consisting of one spoke (with two ore tanks), one ring segment (just a tank with two end ports), and one vertex. You will also find two RCS tugs attached to the bottom of the hub. For each assembly, you will want to use tug 1 to detach the ring segment and park it out of the way. Then attach tug 2 to the vertex port opposite the hub and pull the vertex and spoke away from the hub. Attach the free end of the spoke to the hub port just vacated. Immediately detach the vertex from the spoke and attach the port opposite the tug to the free end of the spoke. Detach the tug and park it. Attach the ring segment to the port adjacent the recently attached spoke. Detach the tug immediately. Repeat until the last assemble. For the last assembly, attach the vertex last - spoke and ring can go in either order. Without further ado Ladies and Gentlekerbs, I present to you a new Era in Low Kerbin Orbit refueling! Download the craft file from KerbalX As always, thanks for checking it out! All warranties are void upon ignition except this one: This craft is pretty much guarandamteed to flip between 10km and 15km, sometimes twice. It is very recoverable if you follow the instructions above. Danny

Thanks! Danny

I discovered that early in the game, crew accommodations are lacking. You have your mk-1 command pod and your mk-1 crew cabin and nothing else for quite a while unless you sacrifice some more important tech mods. If you want to perform multiple rescues or EVA multiple kerbonauts, the crew cabin isn't the greatest thing because its doors are inline and usually obscured by things attached to its nodes. This early-game ship allows you to take 17 crew up with an exposed egress point for each crew module. And it looks great doing it! The Starship Too v3 is designed to allow enterprising young Kerbals to conduct up to 16 LKO rescues and return your new slaves Kerbonauts safely to Kerba Firma! She doesn;t require high levels of tech or lots of funds to operate, just a pilot! If you have already unlocked the tech node that has fuel hoses (I hadn't when I designed it) you can increase the delta-V by adding a couple. You could probably add a couple more tanks to the first stage, too, but as-is, this ship will get to LKO with 3k delta-V to spare. You will need to burn about 1300 delta-V during re-entry as she has no heat shield, but slowing down with the engine is very effective - remember to do that high (69km-40km) as the poodle will be most effective then. Pop the drogues as soon as their safe followed by the main chutes as soon as they are safe and the landing is a breeze (as long as it's on water or flat and level ground). Download the craft file from KerbalX! Danny. How do you get 16 rescue contracts active at once? Use the moar contracts modlet!

After review of our wildly successful VSSTO Ray, we realized that the Vertical takeoff was really holding back a magnificent airplane and trying to force it to be something that is very impractical. Our engineers went to work, Feverishly adding landing gear, removing a couple engines, putting one back, and testing several times to make sure that we provide you, our loyal customer, with the finest Single Kerbal Excursion Craft that your funds can buy. Though we spared no expense, don't think this craft will break your bank! Coming in at only 31 parts, the H-Ray costs on 43,660 funds to launch and is 100% reusable. Ask Val - you need one of these! Download this ship on KerbalX! As always, best of luck! All warranties void upon ignition. Thanks! Danny. P.S. Tried to get some better pics - go view them at full resolution! P.P.S. Did I mention that this ship will get you to a 72k LKO with more than a thousand delta-V left over (1045 on my third flight!) This is way cool!

Thanks! It's not all that hard to build an SSTO though - just make sure you have enough sea-level delta V to orbit (3400m/s) in one stage and a sea-level TWR > 1.2ish (between 1.2 and 1.5 is best), and try to minimize drag. If you use KER to make the calculations, it becomes very easy to make an SSTO. I honestly could have done much better with this one maybe with lighter or less draggy components, but since I kept getting contracts to add cupolas to my space stations I figured it was time to use it as the basis of an SSTO. Danny

Yeah sorry - I'm not a very good photographer....

Very clever use of limited parts, but I generally use mechjeb for attitude hold (Smart A.S.S. in surface mode is awesome!). If someone were going to create a mod based on this idea, I would suggest the Variable Attitude Probe Orientation Rectifier (VAPOR); A single probe core that would allow for in-flight adjustments to it's internal orientation. And that's something I suspect you'll find NASA already has without much fanfare about it. All you modders are free to use that name, but please credit me for it if you do. Danny

I would recommend checking the work of @Temstar and then follow that up with reviewing and maybe downloading @Rune's base in several boxes. I have deployed several of Rune's bases (but have not done so in 1.1 yet) and they are a great starting point. Danny

What is this sleep of which you speak? Danny. Burning my candle at all 6 ends.

Ok man - sorry to pile on to your already busy weekend - have a great one! Danny. I think I'll go d/l 1.1.1.2 now

So here's what I've done to your Claymore... I took off the Mk7 nose cone, cause you know how I feel about it... I replaced it with A C7 2.5 to 1.25 adapter tank, full of fuel, and a shock cone intake. I moved the tail fin canards forward a tiny bit to give them some more authority and then I replaced the mains with the XL landing gear and the nose wheel with the medium landing gear. I also added the smallest antenna to the TCan in the back. I expected that these changes, as they were adding weight would make it harder to get to orbit, but I also ammended my flight procedure to use a pitch of 8 from 6km until I switch to closed cycle, at which point I lock the plane into a prorgade attitude. Although neither KER nor MH report any dV from the forward 3 tanks, I made it to a circular 72km orbit without touching the cargo and had about 120 dV left, which would have been plenty to rendezvous with any of my three 80ish km stations. I chose instead to bring Val up to K250 to pay a visit to the two lonely Kerbals up there. I used about a thimble full of the cargo (maybe 10% out of one of the three tanks) to get there and rendezvous and dock with the station. So I don't think you have much of a Claymore issue, but we can solve it with a minor landing gear update and a nose job... Danny. Plus I like the looks of the shock cone intake on the front! P.S. could you give us better download links please? Maybe KerbalX?

Ok, so on the Claymore issue... If we're talking about the exploding nosewheel issue, which I can reproduce at will, I can also avoid it at will: Here's how I fly it to have my nose wheel stay intact: 1 - I use MechJeb2 Smart A.S.S. 2 - SURF:SURF, Head 90, Pitch 15, Roll 0, EXEC 3 - parking brake on 4 - Z <SPACE> 5 - parking brake off 6 - correct heading as early as possible, EXEC 7 - she should rotate around 72 m/s, which saves the nose wheel 8 - around 80 m/s she will lift off 9 - retract - no turns below 200m (who are we kidding, we're not turning, we're going straight to space!) Well, maybe not. I have not managed to get it to space (as-is) because the Mk7 nose cone is (IMHO) a big steaming pile of poo and it explodes at about 1300 m/s. It's either not giving us the advertised temp or it heats up faster than other parts. I tried replacing it with a 2 to 1 adapter tank and a shock cone, but that prevented rotation at 72, so I used a Rocko 2 to 1 adapter (yuck) and shock cone and I got it to orbit with about 500 dV to spare, but I had to use the cargo in order to do that... Hope this helps. My flight plan for this is about the same as all the others: Initial pitch 15, drop to 10 around 1km, around 4k drop pitch to keep VSI between 5 and 10, around 7k get VSI as close to 0 as possible while building speed. As soon as I get a temp guage from the nose cone, pitch up to 25 and hold there. When the Rapiers drop to 50 kN thrust, set attitude to prograde, switch to closed cycle, and burn until my Apo is 70-72km. Circularize at 71-72km. I'm going to play around with that nose a little and see if I can't come up with something that looks better and can take the heat... Danny

Well, I learned a long time ago to keep the nose off the runway as long as possible - maybe that's helping me? It couldn't be that I cheat and land things with HE because I don't have a joystick and keyboard flying has been out of style for 30+ years... Danny. Claymore issue? I hadn't tried that one... yet...

Thanks @seanmcdougall! Danny

Not sure why I created this or what I'm going to do with it, but it's been kinda fun to fly... If you know about Rapiers, at low speeds they loose thrust as you gain altitude, so it's a little tricky on takeoff, but basically, just hit T Z <SPACE>, start pitching slowly right away to get airspeed and get the wing flying. A wheel or two might actually make a nice addition, but it was just kinda fun to do it this way. I make no guarantees about landing, as I actually haven't landed this yet... But she does get on orbit with 400-500 dV to spare on the Rapiers. Some of you cool folks feel free to update this and make it even better... Danny. Tough to make it any cooler looking though... Oh hey - maybe I ought to include the .craft? https://www.dropbox.com/s/ruk0iuwhmhrrfhx/Ray.craft?dl=0