jimmymcgoochie

A few things to consider: What if someone worse came along and took control of 1930s Germany instead and they actually won the war? The socio-economic situation at that time was pretty dire with rampant hyperinflation and so the promise of an economic, social and military comeback appealed to many; that won’t go away just because one person isn’t there, and who knows who else could step in to take the lead? If time travel was possible and you could go back in time and change a historical event, it’s almost certain that you would erase your own existence in the process (and the further back you go the more likely it gets) and so you would never go back in time to change that event, so it would happen anyway. Or alternatively, you might still exist but you wouldn’t know that you needed to go back in time to change the past because it didn’t need changing in your new version of history, so it wouldn’t change and you’re back where you started. You end up with a loop of “x happens > I go back and prevent x > x doesn’t happen > I don’t go back and prevent x > x happens”.

You don't have to know how to pronounce those words- nobody else will either, just make it up as you go along

Ah, the old “aggressive negotiations” trick. Anakin would be proud.

This might be useful in future. Ignore the KSP v1.4 at the top, the values are the same in 1.12.

Travelling directly against gravity uses 9.81m/s of delta-V for each second you're doing it, just to have a net zero change in velocity. Travelling perpendicular to gravity uses 0m/s of delta-V per second to counter gravity. Atmospheric drag in the upper atmosphere is more of a suggestion than something that actually makes a difference to a rocket launch. On Earth, it's just not worth trying to launch straight up; on Kerbin, the penalties are much lower and escape velocity can be reached much faster so it's not nearly so clear-cut. I saw someone saying something about direct ascent trajectories earlier- launching to the Moon without stopping in Earth orbit, or launching from the Moon back to Earth without orbiting the Moon first. Launching straight up from the Moon to return to Earth is possible and I've done it myself in RSS/RP-1, and it makes sense because the Moon has low gravity and is tidally locked so landing on the trailing side guarantees you can launch straight up and get a return trajectory (it also allows for unguided stages, saving mass on all prior stages). Launching from the Earth to the Moon without "orbiting", however, isn't a shoot-straight-up thing: the Soviet Union didn't have a restartable upper stage rocket engine at that time and so had to send their Luna probes straight at the Moon without stopping in Earth orbit first. The US did have a restartable upper stage engine- Agena B- and so could stop in low Earth orbit before performing a lunar transfer burn.

Vertical launch to escape velocity is a bad idea, for several reasons: Gravity. Every second you’re ascending vertically, you lose 9.81m/s of delta-V just not-falling. Real rockets pitch over as soon as they can to minimise this gravity loss and gain horizontal velocity towards orbit. Drag. A high-TWR rocket will encounter significant drag very quickly in the atmosphere, losing even more delta-V in the process. The structural and thermal stresses would also be much greater, requiring a sturdier rocket that can handle those stresses, which adds more weight. Mass. Higher TWR requires more thrust, which adds more weight, which reduces delta-V, which requires more fuel, which adds more weight, etc. etc. It’s a vicious cycle and not easily broken. Scale. Earth is ten times the radius of Kerbin, its atmosphere twice the height, escape velocity more than triple and density substantially lower meaning gravity decreases much more slowly. Launching straight up on Earth would be hideously wasteful. Sol system is inclined, no two planets are in the same orbital plane. Most launch sites are nowhere near the equator either, plus Earth has a significant axial tilt. It’s incredibly unlikely that shooting straight up would actually result in a trajectory that went anywhere near another planet, whereas launching into a parking orbit can allow a departure burn from any launch site, and once per orbit (1.5-2 hours) rather than once per day.

You’re trying too hard with all those different engines. Try swapping the Rapiers for Whiplashes and the Vector for a cluster of four NERVs, which will keep your fuel situation much more manageable as they both only need fuel and not oxidiser. If that isn’t enough to climb out of the atmosphere, a couple of SRBs slung under the wings or a pair of Swivels directly under your tailfins might give it the necessary kick. Ditch the big monopropellant tank and the docking port- that thing is too big to try and dock it efficiently- and then open the CoM and CoL markers and gradually drain fuel from the tanks to see if they shift to an unstable position as the tanks empty.

Watch out for those dust storms, they can get much worse very quickly and you wouldn’t want to end up aborting the mission early and stranding one of your crew, leaving then no choice but to farm potatoes in their own sewage to survive until the rescue mission gets there…

Do you have a controller or joystick plugged into your PC? Phantom control inputs are often due to that so if you do, unplug it and see if the issue persists.

Landing with an atmosphere might be easier, depending on if it’s thick enough to actually slow you down or just thick enough to be annoying. It’s the getting back where an atmosphere becomes a problem. It could also be a hindrance for those crater-skimming flyby passes for gravity assists.

I was thinking the same thing. I know JNSQ Tylo has an atmosphere but adding one to stock Tylo would make it even more of a nightmare challenge to visit with a crewed mission.

Option 4, use the object thrower to destroy them. It’s a bit fiddly to use but also quite fun to use on the KSC…

You’re misunderstanding what direct and relay antennae do. They are calculated separately by the game so a powerful direct antenna with a weak relay antenna won’t help you. A direct antenna can only provide a signal for the vessel it’s attached to. To relay a signal from Jool you’d need an RA-100 relay antenna on the orbiter.

One week’s worth of puddings from the VAB canteen says it falls over due to landing leg overstress within a munth.

This may be a bit off the original topic, but… Can ships be tracked through hyperspace or not? A great deal is made of such a thing being impossible in Ep. 8 and the whole Rose/Finn story is about disabling the MacGuffin that makes it possible, yet in Ep. 7 the First Order are able to track a single X-wing doing recon of Starkiller Base back to the resistance’s base without such a device and in Rogue 1 > Ep. 4 Vader’s ship manages to track Leia’s from Scarif to Tattooine- when logically it would have gone back to Alderaan instead- without any apparent effort.