Karol van Kermin

So in short: my formulas aren't useful if I do not take the change of gravity into account? Edit: Also, does gravity really change that significantly, so that I can miscalculate by about 500km?

Hey there fellow Kerbonauts! Recently I have been attempting to find an elegent formula with which I can calculate the apogee of a vertically flying rocket in a simplified system (no aerodynamic resistance and earth acceleration remains constant). I started off by defining the overall force F as the sum of all forces acting upon a vertically flying rocket. FT is the Force exerted by the engine and FG is the gravitational force pulling the rocket downwards (hence the negative sign): F = FT - FG To test my formula I built a small rocket and calculated that its Apogee should be at around 1017.391km. Because I was ignoring atmospheric drag in my formulas I assumed that the real apogee was going to be lower than the one I calculated. However, the opposite was true: In the demonstration my rocket reached an apogee of roughly 1500km. So I started thinking what could have caused such a miscalculation and I could not find an answer. I would love to hear your answers. Thank you very much for taking your time thinking about this issue and I apologize for my possible grammar and math mistakes. Fly safe!

Although you've shown me the math behind this, I still cant wrap my head entirely around it. Since the thrust is in both cases the same, the delta V between the fuel and the spacecraft should be the same. How does a faster speed of the fuel and the spacecraft relative to the spectator have more energy, even though the delta V stays the same. I know that the math makes sense, but I just simply dont understand why it makes sense. EDIT 1: Also, after having thought about it, I came to the realization that you need more energy to accelerate an already moving object than a resting object, even in a perfect frictionless enviroment.

Hey guys! So today I was playing some KSP and I built a rocket which is meant to orbit Kerbin at a low altitude first and then increase the Apoapsis up to 1 000 000 km (So I can get some sweet science from low and high Orbit). After having achieved the 1 mil km I did a stupid mistake and I had to revert to start.This time, I decided to go for a more lazy approach. I decided not to achieve Orbit and just fly straight up. Now something happened which doesnt make any sense in my current understanding of the world. I was only able to achieve about 400 000 km - less than half the amount I was able to reach when flying in orbit. I dont know how this can make any sense: In my first flight I was spending way more time in atmosphere, why I should have lost more speed than in my second attempt. Also I just dont understand how flying vertically results in much lower altitudes than flying horizontally "only". I would be very happy if someone could explain the mathematics behind that. TY very much in advance!

@DrLicor Wait, weren't there difficulties with refuelling in space? If yes, couldn't you just solve this problem by adding a mini centrifuge inside the fuselage?

@DrLicor A to its horizontal axis spinning rocket could in theory also fire its engines due to centrifugal force

As much as I understand, you have to mind in which direction the fuel is accelerating relative to the engine. If the fuel is being accelerated by the same force as the engine is, then Delta a = ~0 (there may be some minimal difference, as the outter structure is being affected by aerodynamic resistance in the upper atmosphere). This means, that the fuel is not - minimally - changing its velocity to the engine.

Hey there! I haven't been playing ksp for a while now, but in the meanwhile, I came up with an, in my opinion, good idea! Currently Ksp offers you a bunch of planets, on which you can land on and visit different biomes, to get more science. And thats pretty much all you can do with planets... In my opinion kinda boring . So my suggestion would be to make planets more interactive, and therefore much more interesting. As you may know, rocks are not solid. You can walk through them... But this is just one thing that bothers me. In my opinion planets also look a little bit boring. The textures are bad and surfaces can be either solid or fluid only. There isn't any kind of action on these planets. I mean, imagine big dusty storms on Duna! Or Geysirs on Jools moons! Just these little details would make the game so much more awesome! What do you think guys? I'd love to hear your opinion! Thank you very much!

Hey there, I would love to replace my KSP music with some badass music from interstellar, does anyone know how to? Thank you very much for your attention!

Hey guys, I'm sorry for being very inactive recently. Currently busy with school and my PCI-E Slot broke, so I have to buy a new motherboard and I'm also going to buy a new graphics card, which will provide you better images of my spacecraft . I'll start playing KSP soon. And also make sure this thread doesnt die!

everything, including your life :>

Huh, Wow! I dunno what to say, but... ... how much would you sell this me for? :>

Im going to learn advanced physics especially thermodynamics and chemistry in order to learn more about rocket engines and then, if everything goes to plan, I might start programming mods for KSP, but thats still far ahead and Im 15 only btw. sry m9 !

If you need me to fix your life..

Today I built my first SSTO in RSS and I am very proud of it... ...in my dreams :'(