Skylon

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Cost of whatever can't be reused, including fuel. Sorry for not noticing this earlier All they need is to see that Kerbin is round, and if they think there is a projection on the windows, make them EVA and take their helmets off.

Formatting with cropped/resized pictures is weird... Chapter 3 Day 87, Year 1 I'm not the kind of kerbal who likes to write cheesy stuff in diaries...but I am writing in one now. Following a couple explosions small hiccups in production, the launch date is getting delayed further and further. Luckily, we haven't told the public the exact date... but the universities are getting impatient. And I'm getting worried. My colleagues and I have put a lot of money and effort into this 'project', and we don't have much left. Enough for two launches. That's all we've got. The second stage is nearly finished though, just working on the fairing now... Day 88, Year 1 The second stage is ready! Jerbod Kerman, an intern, got crumbs in the battery case, but he assured me they will function just as well, if not better, with crumbs in them. Work begins tomorrow on the first stage, right when Mike finds the blueprints! Day 95, Year 1 The rocket is complete! It really is good looking, and our simulations (which we only just remembered to do) show that it functions well, if a little low on thirst. Thirst? I didn't mean that, I meant thrust. Having said that, I am quite thirsty...and tired...tomorrow I will ask Jerbod to make me some coffee. Day 96, Year 1 Remind me to fire Jerbod. He managed to get me that coffee...on his second try. On his first try, he spilt it on the first stage engine, which was still horizontal, like the rest of the rocket. The residual coffee was relatively easy to mop off, but the same can't be said for my lab coat...seriously, that was new. Oh well, no time to complain, we have got a payload to mount! Day 98, Year 1 It turns out that not even 5 kerbals cant lift 2.970 tons. We found this out yesterday, and we had to build a crane quickly to mount that payload and fairing, but before long the rocket was rolled out and ready for lift off in two days... Tell me if there were any typos/errors, and feel free to give constructive criticism. Sorry if the chapters are a little short, but I need time to think between chapters. Most of this, as you can probably tell, is relatively unplanned, mostly due to impulsiveness and laziness.

Since the dawn of the Kinternet, flat Kerbin theorists have been annoying spaceflight and science fans. They never properly back up claims, ignore our evidence and complain about the taxes they spend on a 'fake' space program. To make them be quiet, we have to take them to space to see that Kerbin is round. The rules are strict to make sure they have no reason to reject the trip. RULES: No mods (other than for information), cheats or debug menu. Your craft must: Reach 250km high Have a safe abort system Have a low landing speed of under 5m/s Be completely safe with landing and abort systems Have pressurised cabins (no lawn chairs) Be able to be remotely controlled for testing Be able to be piloted by an onboard crew member Lose no parts on re-entry The ship can and is recommended to be reusable. It can have more than one stage, but only needs be suborbital. If the ship can take more kerbals than you can be bothered to add to the ship, just don't add them all Tell me if you think I did something wrong or missed something out SCORING: The scoring is rather simple. It is the cost (C) divided by the amount of kerbals taken to space (K). So Cost per Kerbal. The lowest score wins. I may have a go later, but I don't have access to KSP LEADERBOARD: - @digger1213 153.5 roots per kerbal - @qzgy 378 roots per kerbal - @Monkey29399 with 1548.5 roots per kerbal - @CairoJack with 2811 roots per kerbal - @Martian Emigrant with 4943 roots per kerbal - -

Interlude Three days later... krendit/Spaceflight/New mobile boom thingy company! kickback_clusterer: So I was looking through ExplosionsNow.kerb and I discovered that a couple kerbals from the KPayments lot were building a new privately funded rocket, called the Arthur-1 (wonder why they gave it such a dull name). But here's what's even more interesting: it's actually practical. Truth_tellar: Kerbin is flat, don't listen to the government propaganda privatejet: explain why SSTOs disappear under the horizon bottom first. Anyways it is a private space flight company, not owned by the government Truth_tellar: CGI! kickback_clusterer: get off my post @Truth_tellar Truth_tellar: I will believe in rockets when I see them launch! notblind: we have provideded enough evidence for are theory, prove you'res! kickback_clusterer: what evidence? You can watch a rocket launch. If you have a couple funds you can ride an SSTO to orbit SSTOdreamer: you can never post anything here without the FK lot trying to disprove what is clearly the truth. Back on topic i suppose. I hear they aren't even doing a demo launch. What crazy company decided to launch their payload on a rocket which has never flown? privatejet: seems like the FKers have gone now. Apparently it was just a collaboration of Ubacian universities that wanted to launch a couple of cubesats kickback_clusterer: well, let's just hope it goes well, or they will lose a lot of funds and reputation. Seems like they haven't told us the launch date notblind: @kickback_clusterer that is coz it is faik! kickback_clusterer: I give up... Truth_tellar: so you admit it is all a lie! SSTOdreamer: ...

SkyTech Aerospace: STP-1 'Vogon' Spaceplane STP-1A:

If you can make a craft that can take 2 months or more of supplies and dock that is under 2.7t, I will launch it on my Arthur-1 rocket and you will get some of the profit from government/tourist contracts if your resources are used. Or if you like I can pay you directly for the resources you provide. I am now working out the projected costs of StarGate-1

I've finished up the modules, and put them together: The picture came out badly for some reason, and Kerbalism says no E/C will be produced, but oh well. And I just noticed it needs more batteries, probably.

Not exactly 'artwork', especially compared to the simply astounding pieces of work on this thread, but here is a schematic of a space station I plan to build, StarGate 1: Probably incomprehensible to most, but L-1 is for logistics, C-1 for cargo, A-1 is an airlock and H-1 is for habitation

Here is a schematic I drew of the planned StarGate-1 station. L-1 is the logistics module, C-1 is the cargo module, H-1 (there are four of them, three not shown) are the habitation modules, and A-1 is the airlock module. A-1 will have a Cupola on the side to view Kerbin. The squares at the top are a bad representation of engines, and the straight lines are a small docking port. The straight lines with crosses between modules are normal sized docking ports. There are solar panels on L-1 and C-1.

Brilliant again! First launch, let's go!

@53miner53 how much do your station resupply modules weigh? I will probably only let you dock 1 or 2 for now. What docking port size(s) do they use?

5 of what?

SkyTech Aerospace: StarGate Station Modules SG-L1 Logistics Module: @Andiron would you like to have your Vincin dock to this instead? It would cost 1,000 unmanned, 1,500 manned and 50% of a tourist mission profit. This would be much cheaper than having your own VDT launched Or we could do some kind of collaboration in making the whole station. @TheEpicSquared it would be cool to have a manifest/list of ongoing/in construction missions, like maybe a probe going to the Mun or space station orbiting. And we could have a list and/or map of the satellites and their orbits.

I would like to schedule a launch of 6 of my SkySat-1As in Launch Configuration 1. They would launch to a 500km orbit. Since I would like to test re-entry of the Arthur-1 upper stage from a higher orbit, leave the periapsis of it after deorbits as high as it can be while still maintaining an impact. It will re-enter radial out for as long as possible, then retrograde. Use the RCS.

I have updated my launchers with porkjet parts SkySat-1A; No propulsion, removed two antennas. Weighs 0.29 tons https://kerbalx.com/Skylon/SkySat-1A Forgot to add solar panels in picture, added now to craft Here is Launch Configuration 1 of the SkySat-1As: https://kerbalx.com/Skylon/SkySat-1A-LC1.

Nice! I like the drawing style, and the orbit lines (I could not do them that round myself). Funny and entertaining so far...

That first SSTO is very cool and sleek. What mod is it? Kerbpaint? And are those stock wings? I think so

p=(C*sqrtR)*(D*sqrtT) Where p is price, C is comfort, R is reliability (number of kerbals who have been before), D is distance as decided by icantmakemodels and T is time. I need to fix leverage when I can apply the equations. You may notice that if no kerbals have gone before, the value is 0 due to the square root of 0 being 0. However, if no kerbal has gone before and it is the first kerbal (ever), they pay a bonus price. If it is the first kerbal to fly a certain craft to somewhere, but that place has been visited before by a tourist, then the value is ~0.1 Something like that anyway

I suppose you could, but you sorta want more values, with lower intervals. A custom one is more, well... customisable... and the kerbalism stats don't really tell you how they decide values.

Here is my proposed equation for comfort or C: C=(H/K)*((sqrtO*2)+S Where C is comfort, H is habitation space, K is the amount of kerbals, and O is the amount of Kerbals minus 1 (I could've used K again but I only noticed it afterwards and it would use too many brackets). S is for signal. If there is constant signal, the value is 1. If there is signal during launch and at the destination it is 0.5. If there is little signal the value is 0.1; kerbals won't fly if there is never any signal.

Yes, I think. But maybe also the Kerbals gone previously should be with diminishing returns also. I'm trying to work out an equation with price instead of n Not the best at that kind of thing though

Maybe something quadratic then with diminishing rewards, up to a certain point. Also comfort is not a numerical value. And of course redundancy/reliability is something to consider.

Duration at destination? Maybe an equation to determine price as well/instead? I'd one myself but... Good equation though.

I would like to schedule a launch of 3 Skysat-1Bs to 500km. If they don't have reaction wheels, tell me. They may have to circularise under their own power. If that is the case (and if it is possible), releases them at 60 degrees from each other, using a 2/3 orbital period. @TheEpicSquared