Aegolius13

You are correct on this in some situations -- the Panther dry has a much higher ISP than Whiplash, so it can work well if you want to do a low-speed approach, or troll for science biomes, or whatever. But in the grand scheme of things, the total difference in fuel usage is probably going to be pretty minor - a Whiplash is not going to burn all that much fuel when throttled down low for a landing approach. On the other hand, as I believe @bewing was alluding to, high altitude is inherently good for fuel consumption. Since there's less drag higher up, you need less thrust to counteract the drag, which means you can end up using a lot less fuel, even with a lower ISP engine. 1 Panther / 2 Whiplash could also be workable, if you do want to do some low-speed cruising and the dry-mode Panther has enough thrust to keep you above stall speed. Or at that point, you could even look at the Wheesley or something.

Today I noticed the new model Mk2 lander can has two little side cargo bays with retractable doors! I went a long time without noticing this, so I thought maybe others would want to hear about it. I guess it explains why the more compact rover variant has the same crew capacity and all. It's a pretty nice feature to pack along valuable science experiments for the advancement of knowledge MOAR FUEL. Haven't checked whether drag occlusion works correctly, but keeping fingers crossed it does.

I'm not sure the modular approach would be in keeping for the rest of the game (i.e., we can't customize nozzles for LF engines, as much as we would want to). But it could be a great feature for KSP 2! However, I would very much welcome adding some additional features via new SRB models to choose from. A few that come to mind are: a 2.5m booster, with power proportional to the actual shuttle SRB; an SRB with gimbal; and a smallish, vacuum-optimized SRB a la Star-48.

Yeah, you're right - I had a total brain fart. You' could hit the same orbit but going the wrong direction...

Just throwing out crazy ideas -- I wonder if they could launch the Dragon 2 / Falcon 9 from Vandenberg, during the retrograde launch window (so the rocket would go mostly west)? I would think it has enough delta-v -- though it would require a more inclined orbit than launching everything out of the Cape. Of course, they don't have the crew infrastructure out there now, but maybe they'll eventually want it anyway (or NASA could make it worth their while).

See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pendulum_rocket_fallacy. Robert Goddard himself got tripped up by the same issue. Lots of good advice above (move SRBs down, make the fairing narrower). Along the same lines, if you need struts on your SRBs, put them at the bottom so they help move the center of drag down. (Struts are quite draggy). It's also generally helpful to have your decoupler closer to the top of the SRB, as that makes them detach more cleanly. Using advanced nose cones on the SRBs might also help push the center of drag back a smidge -- at least if the top of the SRBs remains higher than the center of mass.

You must opt out by recording your verbal objection on a Walkman and mailing said Walkman to Sony headquarters in Japan.

Wait a minute, you have to MAIL a PAPER copy to them in order to opt out? Of a change they made to an electronic document posted on a website, with notice provided only by a forum post? For a product that most if not all of us purchased electronically? Uhhh, I don't think so. That sounds a lot like the shenanigans that product manufacturers play(ed) to keep people from successfully submitting rebates.

They seem to be having trouble finding the button to switch from three-way to four-way symmetry on the engines.

I'm a little confused about these numbers. Are you talking about getting from LEO to the Moon and back? With a full Falcon second stage, but no hyrdrolox upper stage?

There could also be issues with Falcon's horizontal integration. Doesn't the Centaur need to be vertically integrated? EDIT - maybe this is different with DCSS compared to Centaur... unsure.

True. But I was referring to Berger's suggestion that you could do all future Orion missions this way.

I've heard Delta IV (regular and heavy) are basically impossible to human-rate due to properties of the RS-68, including the hydrogen fire at launch. If so, the options for manned launches seem to be: -Human-rate the Falcon Heavy and launch the Orion on that -Use two heavy-lift rockets to lift the Orion and upper stage, and ANOTHER, human-rated rocket (e.g., Atlas V orFalcon 9) with a crew capsule. Then transfer the crew to the Orion in orbit. If/when Vulcan and/or New Glenn become operational, could be a few more options.

You're right on all counts -- probe cores have built-in antennae that can work for remote control. But they're very weak. You can use the chart here to see your range with various combinations of antennae and ground station upgrades: https://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/CommNet As shown, the built-in antennae don't function as far out as Minmus, even with a max upgraded ground station. Seems like you have three alternatives: attach an antenna to the ship, give up on it and relaunch a new one, or deploy a relay network. You'll probably want a network anyway eventually, since you will get no reception on the far side of Minmus anyway. Just make sure to use of the relay antennae for your comsats. Even if you have a relay network, it's probably good practice to put at least a small antenna on craft that will be operating outside LKO. You never know when something will get in the way of your expected signal path and you need a little extra oomph.

I think that's what he's asking. In stock, since the Mun has zero inclination, you can target it and use its AN/DN. KER has a readout for equatorial AN/DN. That's what I usually use to find them.

It's passable as a sustainer or even core stage for really, really big rockets, but I feel like you kind of have to build around the Rhino concept to make this worthwhile. I've used it on some stupidly large mining rigs. You can save a lot of part count vs. using a ton of nukes, and the delta-v loss doesn't matter much on low-gravity bodies. However, the Wolfhound probably eats into this use-case now. It's also decent for redirecting large asteroids.

It shouldn't take much fuel to transfer from Mun orbit to Minmus orbit... you'd likely use a non-trivial fraction of that requirement just to rendezvous with the Mun fuel depot. So if you're not at great risk of running out of fuel at that point, it might not be worth it. And if you build it for this purpose, it could be relatively small. But without knowing the size of the ships you're planning on refueling, I don't think we can suggest a specific size. Are you doing some kind of Mun-Minmus grand tour to level up crew or complete tourist contracts? If you already have a Minmus station, it could make sense to just go there first, so that you can replenish what you used transferring from Kerbin. Also, if your ship is single-stage / reusable, it can be nice to do the Mun second when your TWR is higher.

On that note, you can always go high ISP / low TWR (like a single nuke or some ions) and start raising your perihelion before you get to Dres' SOI. This actually takes more maneuver delta-v, but your craft would have more delta-v available, so it works out fine.

The blueprint was hiding in ASCII this whole time! ▲

The compact Wolfhound counts as a 1.875 meter part, so I imagine it's generating a lot of necessary drag. If you keep it, you could convert those side stacks to 1.875 as well, or maybe somehow put one on your center stack. It's been well said above at this point, but I'm skeptical that Rapier/Wolfhound is the ideal architecture for this job. Might be worth trying Rapier/NERV, with just a little oxidizer to give your nukes a little extra time to work. Yeah, the Rapier's ISP sucks, but the "free" thrust (from a mass and drag perspective) helps to make up for that. You could save a little mass by using a lighter vertical stabilizer -- the Big S fin has way more yaw authority than needed. If you could move your ailerons further back (or to the front), you might also be able to save a little mass with the same pitch authority.

Obligatory mention for this excellent thread coming to the same conclusion:

Also worth noting that you can do a spaceplane without making it an SSTO. It's possible to design something that starts like a plane, and then stages off most/all of the airplane stuff (along with some engines and fuel, presumably) partway through the ascent), leaving behind something that's more like a rocket. But I've never tried that with Eve so can't say how well it might work there.

Welcome aboard! Can you elaborate on what made it fail? Did you run out of fuel? Did it veer out of control? Did it spontaneously explode? (Hoping it was the latter.) Also, what rocket did you use?

I for one am still waiting for the real "Falcon 9, " with three Falcon Heavies bolted together. Nothing less will suffice.

I wholeheartedly reject that scandalous allegation. As the record clearly indicates, I stated: I remain a member in good standing of the Order of MOAR BOOSTERS.