kimjongspoon

If possible, you should try to recover the first stage. Part of the environmental impact of a product or service is its design and production, so if you can limit the amount of gas that has to be burned in shipping new materials to the factory, or in generating the electricity for its manufacture you can drastically reduce the carbon footprint of the product. Given this, recovering the first stage unharmed would reduce carbon emissions due to production, so smack some parachutes on the first stage if you can spare the mass. Hydrolox engines are a great choice for environmentally friendly engines, but you should also think about how hard it is to make the engines and what carbon footprint their production costs. Cheaper engines, like the RS-68 and the RL-10, are easier to make than the RS-25, RL-60 and J-2X, so less carbon is emitted during their construction process by its satellite services. As far as names go, Artemis was the greek god for for hunt, wild animals, and the moon and it sounds cool IMO. I think its a great idea, can't wait to see it!

Icarus VIII M+ This is Icarus VIII M+ on the pad (it blew up on loading, oops). It's core engine is an RD-171 burning RP-1/LOX at 7,904 kN of thrust, and its boosters are UA 1207s, with 14,234 kN of thrust combined. The TWR is very high due to the massive output of the SRBs, so the RD-171 is throttled down after about 8 seconds to prevent high atmosphere losses. After separation of the boosters, the RD-171 is throttled back up to 100%. It is throttled throughout the flight to keep the acceleration at about 3.5g, stretching its burn time. Icarus VIII only differs from the M+ version in that it lacks SRBs. The second stage of Icarus VIII is a J-2 burning LH2/LOX. It burns for about 4 minutes, and puts the third stage just below orbit to prevent orbital debris As you can see here, the second stage buns out at -600,000m periapsis, meaning that the third stage only needs to burn about 125m/s to achieve a circular parking orbit. The upper stage of Icarus VIII is powered by an RL-60. It is carrying a generator module for EDLAB. I chose not take Nautilus back to LEO and then into LMO to put the lander down due to time, so I sent this one by itself. I use Icarus VIII and its variants to send probes to main belt asteroids and even small payloads to Jupiter.

@winged, what engines do you use on the ascent vehicle of Challenger?

I launched my Delta II replica recently, I thought I'd post it. Delta II 7320 This is my model of the Delta II 7320. This was one of the most popular launch vehicles in US history, seen here in the 7320 variant with 3 GEM-40 SRBs The 7320 uses three SRBs that are ground-lit, with a long-burning first stage. The first stage does most of the legwork to get Delta to orbit, with the upper stage only burning about 3 km/s ∆v. The only major difference between the real Delta II and mine is the upper stage. Delta II used an AJ10-118K, while I used a Russian Kerolox engine with twice the thrust (can't remember which one right now). It is seen here carrying a small payload to Nautilus Delta II was used to launch a lot of the GPS satellites for the US, and notable payloads include the rovers Spirit and Opportunity, the Spitzer space telescope, and the Dawn spacecraft which orbited Ceres and Vesta (they did all launch on the heavy variant, with 9 GEM-46 SRBs).

Icarus V 594H My Icarus V line is my must customizable. I launched the flagship of the line, the Icarus V 594H recently to put a 15t payload into LEO. The light variants of this line uses two LR-79s and GEM 40-ish procedural SRBs, while the heavy variant uses an LR-87 (Aerozine 50/NTO config) and GEM 46-ish boosters. 6 of the boosters are ground-lit and optimized for atmospheric flight, while the other 3 are air-lit and vacuum optimized. The naming system for Icarus is pretty similar to that of Atlas V. The first number is always 5 (Icarus V), the second number is the number of strap-on boosters (0, 3, or 9), and the last number is the number of RL-10Bs on the High-Energy Upper Stage (HEUS). The H designates that it is the heavy variant. I V 594H has a payload-to-orbit capability of about 16t. It was built with an older SRB and RL-10 tech level, so if it is upgraded it can lift just under 20t. The egg-shaped fairing makes it look a little dumb, so I think I'll replace that with a conic one in the future. All of the Icarus V launchers have a modification of the HEUS. They have between 2 and 4 RL-10s, with a burn time of around 6 minutes (stages with more engines will be extended to meet this 6 minute burn time). This is carrying a KIS lander for my moon base to Nautilus. The struts around the outside of the KIS module are part of the OMS pack that makes it easier to dock.

My current generation of crewed spacecraft is the Ceres line. I launched the first group of three Kerbals to Nautilus on a Ceres 2B onboard Titan 121 Titan 121 uses an RS-25 SSME and two large SRBs to power it into orbit. The SRBs each provide about 2200kN of thrust, while the RS-25 provides about 2000kN Titan 121's TWR after booster separation is about 1.16g, and they separate at about 40km. This is Titan w/Ceres after LES jettison. The LES has a fairing to protect the parachutes and capsule from the jettison motor exhaust (and it looks cool). Ceres 2B on-orbit. The upper stage of Titan uses a single J-2 engine to put up to 20 tons into orbit. Ceres only weighs 15t, so its a bit overpowered for low-inclination LEO launches. The launcher was designed to be able to put Ceres into retrograde LEOs, or high prograde orbits. This is Ceres approaching Nautilus. I used the wrong docking ports on Ceres, so the Kerbals had to EVA to get aboard. Ceres's service module has about 1100km ∆v, so it can insert itself into LLO if it wanted to (no reason it would but its useful to have lots of on-orbit ∆v)

Just finished design of a new Ion bus for my manned trips to Venus and Mars. I had to upgrade its launch vehicle to my Ithaca line, which uses 20m fuel tanks, groups of 9 F-1As on the lower stages, and M-1s on the upper stages. The Ithaca 1 can lift 230 tons to LEO, Ithaca 1-M can lift 320t, and Ithaca 1-H, which uses three of the cores strapped together, can lift a smidgen over 700t. This is Courage in the VAB, solar arrays and radiators extended in all their glory. It has enough ∆v to leave about 200 tons in low mars orbit and get back to LEO in one piece. This is Courage folded up and encased in the support structure that prevents it from wobbling on ascent (I don't want any Iris re-creations). The fairing had to be kind of big (about as tall as the rest of the launch vehicle). This is the Ithaca I-Ms' first stage. It uses 8 of the Ariane 5's strap-ons plus 9 F-1As. When I launch this thing (it's gonna take a while to build), I can post a better picture, but this is as far as Hangar Extender will let me zoom out. I plan on accompanying Courage with a couple of unmanned Ion tugs to bring along more supplies for a long-duration mission. Their tentative names are Honor and Commitment.

@Matuchkin, I started playing RO/RP-0 when Scott Manley started his series on it way back in the day. I've just moved my save up through the updates since, and I got to learn how the mods and everything work as they would occasionally break part of the save.

I love seeing other RO craft, so here are some of mine. Ill post more in the future. This is my ion tug Nautilus. It is taking parts of my Extended Duration Lunar Analysis Base (EDLAB) from LEO to LLO (had/lab module, KIS equipment container with the solar arrays stored, and the life support module). The next trip will take the rovers which move people and have claws to move modules together, two landers which will bring the kerbals to the surface and back to LLO, and one more KIS module with parts for the solar array. I increased the thrust in each of the ion engines to about 2kn (I know its unrealistic, but I'm not going to wait years to burn). It still takes about 8 burns to complete TLI. My line of heavy lifters that use Kerolox engines is the Kronos line, and this is the peak of its development: The Kronos X heavy. It can lift about 300t to LEO, has 15 F-1 engines, and 4 SRBs. 2nd stage is 5 J-2 engines burning LH2/LOX. The framerate on it is pretty bad, taking over 30 minutes to complete the 9 minute launch. My Icarus line of launchers is used for small to intermediate payloads. Icarus I and II were were my first reliable launchers for small LEO satellites. Icarus III was used for over 40 launches of LEO comsats, and the troublesome Icarus sIV led to the incredibly customizable Icarus V series. Depending on core engine choice, number and size of boosters, and size of expanded Centaur-X upper stage, it can lift between 4.8 and 16 tons to LEO. Icarus VI was a disaster, but the Icarus VII series is comprised of the I VII 795 (a big Delta II with an RS-25 main engine) and the I VII 791H (A big Delta III with an F-1A main engine and J-2 upper stage). The pictures below are the launch of an I VII 791H with a resupply of 6 million xenon to Nautilus. Icarus VII 791H with 46t of Xenon Icarus VII after sea level booster separation and ignition of the vacuum-optimized boosters. Icarus VII after separation of the vacuum boosters Xenon refill docked at the unmanned Nautilus. Refilling Nautilus underway Things left for my next trip to the moon: I need to send up two Rovers, two landers, a KIS container module, and 6 kerbals. I'll post pictures of those too. It will be another Icarus VII 791H, a 3 Titan 121s (RS-25 main engine and large boosters, and an Icarus V 594H.

I've been using this with RO/RSS/RP-0 on some ion tugs, but It doesn't seem to be working. The engine stops thrusting in time warp, but the alternator still says that it is producing electricity (in this case it is draining electricity, thats how RO makes ion engines deplete electricity). It gives me this null ref: NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object PersistentThrust.PersistentEngine.CalculateDemands (Double demandMass) PersistentThrust.PersistentEngine.OnFixedUpdate () Part.ModulesOnFixedUpdate () Part.FixedUpdate () I'm using the 1.1.3 version of the mod, I apologize if this has been fixed in the 1.2 version.

Here's the log.

It says in the OP that AEIS and FASA are supported, but they hang for me when im loading them. It seem like they are trying to load files that dont exist, because AEIS hangs on AEIS_Aerospace/Engine/AEISVR1vulcan/part/VR1vucan, but there isn't a folder called "part" in the AEISVR1vulcan folder. I removed it, but it did the same thing for FASA when I did. I've tried redownloading and reinstalling, but the same thing happens. Any ideas? Mac OSX, KSP 1.1.2, All of the RO required and recommended mods, all of RP-0 required mods, and the newest ModuleManager. Thanks, KJS

Not sure why, but when I use scatterer in 1.1 on a mac I get pretty crippling fps as long as the camera is pointed at Kerbin. If the camera is pointed at an ocean it gets even worse. I used it in 1.0.5 and it worked great, but now suddenly im getting bad fps.

I had the same thing happen. Just go into your save file and under the REF = X section of a specific vessel, change it from 10 to 11 if around the moon and 11 to 12 if around Mars.

Il try again, thanks for the info.

It loads all of the textures and the little yellow loading bar is full, but it never loads the start screen.

Quick Question: It says that this is for KSP 1.0.5, but when I download and read the VERY IMPORTANT.txt, it says to have KSP 1.0.4. I'm pretty sure that's what's causing my KSP to hang upon loading everything. Edit: Also, is it for RSS 10.3.1 or 10.4.1, both are mentioned in the OP. Thanks!

I was in the same boat, but Realism Overhaul and RP-0 got me out of it. I like the greater challenge (To get to orbit you need about 9500 m/s dV, getting into orbit of Jupiter takes about 20k m/s). If your computer can handle it, you should check it out.