Leafbaron

I feel like the only reason to have drop tanks on a spaceplane is if your closed cycle engine can't produce the TWR to push you into orbit when the air breathers kick off.

Thanks again for stopping by tonight @Kerbart Hopefully the progress continues! haha.

once again, Thanks you for the valuable pointers @Kerbart! I will definitely take these to heart!

Thanks for the tips @Kerbart you'll have to watch my broadcast and tell me what you think. I know for sure I need to work on my speaking. Fortunately my voice settled years ago, the bad part is that I was not blessed with a booming baritone Barry White voice haha.

Hello all! I have started streaming on twitch and will be streaming KSP and other various games I play from time to time. So if you'd like to see me play KSP and get into some shenanigans please stop by. My twitch user name is the same as here (Leafbaron). Since I am new to this, any constructive feedback is always appreciated. Thank you for your time and consideration! Leafy.

another option, without waiting for discovery with either kerbnet or scan sat. is to use the mechjeb landing guidance. hover the mouse where the green line intercepts the planet when passing over a station and boom! GPS coordinates.

I believe from duna's surface the Dv required to get to this orbital velocity is yea, 1200-1500 m/s. You can see for your self. just open up a sandbox save and put a craft in orbit around Duna with the same parameters and let me know what the orbital velocity is.

sorry i was trying to get this to merge with my answer above.

Looks like you're trying to figure out the orbital velocity for Duna at 60km circular orbit? either way, i believe you need to use meters for your distance from central body and also SMA not km. 3.0136321*10^11 * (2/380000-1/380000)=793061.0797 SQRT(Ans)= 890.5397687 m/s

What do you mean by this? Some asteroids pass very close to Kerbin in favorable inclinations. so that are easy to capture because with a very small push they can be captured in a stable orbit and then tweaked down to LKO <250km. Asteroids do contain a finite amount of ore to my understanding.

never made an attempt to collect science from Kerbin via plane or the like.

don' forget to get out and push! walking the spaceship home is always an option.

I think so. If the right asteroid comes along and is easy enough to capture. The plus side of doing this versus launching fuel to a depot is the fuel you get from the asteroid cost nothing, excluding the cost to get it to LKO. and I assume that the asteroid will supply more fuel that it took to get it there by quite a margin. So even if we do factor the cost of fuel getting the asteroid to LKO doing so will result in a net positive.

seeing kerbals get spaghettified always makes me laugh.

I would say an even more relevant figure would be the cost of the launch vehicle not including the cost of the payload then divide that figure by weight of the payload.

I imagine the theoretical limit would be close to 0. if you use a spaceplane with ISRU and had an asteroid in LKO. Once you reach space a release payload you could then restock on fuel from the asteroid and return to KSC as though you hadn't used any fuel at all, less the 30-40 m/s required to deorbit.

I can see a benefit to sending a MPL to other bodies when the prime directive of the mission is colonization. I.e. a one way trip to the other body where there is no intention of the kerbals ever returning. This way you can get the maximum science from your experiments instead of transmitting them at a reduced percentage of the total science value.

I have had the same issue with every plane and spaceplane I've ever made except they pull to the left, only slighly. If i were to leave it unchecked and carry all the way to the end of the runway before lifting off it would aim me square at the light on the end of the run way. very small pull over 2.5km

i've been under the predication that weight limit is on the launch pad. 3.75m would be the size of parts like the kerbodyne fuel tanks, i imagine putting 2 of them next to one another is okay. and absolutely no refueling of any kind.

thanks @Tex_NL I meant to include that in my response.

correct, silly me haha

I would suggest building a plane with either whiplashes or panthers and lots of fuel. These engines can operate efficiently from 16-20km at speeds of 1100 m/s or greater. should be able to get there with no problems.

for all of you who didn't know, i was paraphrasing Space Odyssey by David Bowie

ground control to major tom there something wrong can you here me major tom? can you here me major tom? we forgot your ladder major tom.

I usually take my protein pills and put my helmet on commencing countdown engines on, 10, 9, 8 check ignition and may god's love be with you. 7, 6 , 5, 4 , 3, 2 ,1 Lift off. usually how I do it.