scolton

My first trip to Laythe orbit. Beautiful full Jool rising! Don't know what happened to my other LV-N. It kinda just fell off randomly in deep space so I jettisoned the tank to save some weight. Should still have enough fuel to get back to Kerbin on the Poodle...

There's a really excellent and (relatively, in rocket science terms) simple aerobraking forumula that I've been using with good success to plan aerobraking adventures in KSP: http://www.planetaryprobe.org/sessionfiles/Session6B/Presentations/5_Forget_Aerobraking_Equation.ppt. I turned it into a spreadsheet which has served me very well, especially trying to squeeze every last ounce of fuel out for visiting Jool/Laythe. (I know there are other tools for planning KSP aerobraking but I found it exciting that a formula developed for real-life missions can apply fairly accurately to the game using only parameters you can get from the parts list and map screen!) Some Jool aerobraking fun: http://i.imgur.com/LEIFQTE.jpg

I was excited to see that v14 has landing gear! So I tried to make a mun-lander that looked like a fairly conventional rocket and had similar staging to the Saturn V. First and second stage to orbit. Third stage cleans up the orbit, handles TLI (TMI?), and parking in munar orbit. Final stage handles mun landing and return trip on one tank. (Barely, if flown very frugally. The amount of fuel left in the munar surface screenshot was just enough to get back) Edit: Updated .craft file to the correct version. I forgot that I added struts to the first stage rockets to keep one from occasionally breaking off on the pad.