RoninFrog

Saw a great Munar eclipse today!

Yup, I've seen it too. Definitely looks like a SRB that impacted the ground too quickly.

Landed my first SSTO Pandemonium I on the Mun and returned to Kerbin, landing on the runway! Munar Orbit: Landed near a crater, less than 300 m from the rim. Gotta go explore the crater. Don't trip, Jeb! Taking off was interesting, as I couldn't lift my nose off the ground. Eventually, I got off the surface by using a bump as a ski jump. Eyeballing the return trajectory: Not slowing down much, huh. I didn't capture the first time and missed a good shot at a runway landing, but by pure luck I reentered the second time over the desert peninsula, giving me a second shot at landing on the runway! Not gonna make it like this, but fortunately I have a smidgeon of fuel left in the tanks. Haha! Lookee there! This design might actually be useful in my career games. Fully reusable to Mun's surface and back.

Yup, exactly. Aliens start storing information in RNA, a piece breaks loose, and they're all dead. *Evil laughter*

-84 + oh not no!

I love the ISRU setup. Makes me want to get Breaking Ground.

Then I say, may I interest you in Ribonucleic acid? Instead of storing information on a cellular level, you can store it on a molecular level, leading to much, much denser storage of information. In fact, billions if not trillions of times denser. For comparison, the highest estimates of the information stored in our brain are 2.5 petabytes, and the storage capacity of a single gram of RNA is 455 exabytes, thousands of times more than a brain.

The title of this post should probably be called, "Beginners Luck". It was my first time making an airbreathing SSTO, so hardly anything here (such as a runway landing) should be attirbuted to skill. Craft in the SPH (not the VAB). Liquid fuel only, not a drop of oxidizer on the craft. 2 kerbals. Here is what happened...

-84 + Being a negative negative is better than being a negative. Double the negativeness, haha!

How big of a rocket is it? How many reaction wheels and what size? You can see if you are out of electricity by clicking the little gas can icon in the upper left.

I finished my Jool 5 yesterday, so today I built my first airbreathing SSTO! Got to orbit first try, ha! Here it is in the VAB *ahem* SPH. No idea what I'm doing, so I just eyeballed it. That's my usual way of building things. I want to be able to say, "I have never used the RAPIER engine," so I didn't use it. No oxidizer on the craft. Great shot of the Mun on the way up. About to get those plasma effects. Burnin' for space! I actually passed my Ap and started losing altitude for about a minute while burning for space. Kind of scary. SPAAAAAACE!!! The cockpit's heat bar got about three-quarters full, but no heating problems on the rest of the plane. And we have achieved orbit! Yay! Man! That's a whole lot of extra dV! Anyone think I can do a trip to the Mun on that? I am a noob in this department as I have absolutely no experience with spaceplanes...

-85 +

Yup. The Saia may be lying about the octopus dudes, but even if it (the Saia) isn't, we can handle it. Plant based cannibals, hmm? Well, at least they eat themselves and not us! Also, we need their technology. We don't need them. You forgot the nearly indestructible short green creatures obsessed with SRB's and explosions.

^^^^^^^^^ Yes yes yes yes.

I actually landed in the 'Midland Canyon' biome on Duna. Is that the right one?

Here are the Plan B's and unposted parts of the grand plan for overthrowing the aliens. 1. Before taking a few aliens prisoner on earth, warn them there has been a deadly viral outbreak killing the rest of the aliens on earth and that the virus has quickly spread so there are traces of it all over the planet. Provide them with hazmat suits and tell them they should warn their alien friends that landing on earth is unsafe and that we are working on a vaccine. When the other aliens hear their own species warning them, it will prevent them from attempting a landing. 2. Once the spaceship(s) have departed, keep producing the virus on earth and distribute tanks of it all over the earth to be used if the aliens attempt a landing. 4. If any alien ships start following the commandeered ship, just fire a nuke at them. Simple. 5. Once in orbit, leave a few crew members in orbit with control of the nuclear missiles. 6. On each of the nuclear missiles and the pod in orbit, install radio transmitters and receivers. If any of the signals go dead, all the nukes immediately detonate. 7. Monitor the heartbeat of all of the landing crew. If they all die, the crew in orbit will deorbit the nukes onto the most populated cities and detonate them. 8. If the surviving aliens try to resist, evacuate the landing crew and deorbit a few nukes onto the aliens. 9. It should be possible to locate all the alien ships after taking control of their planet. They should be easy to eliminate with their own technology.

So how would the plan be foiled? I've got a lot of unposted Plan B's that I wanna try.

Here is my entry for a single stage 3rd level Jool 5. Here is a screenshot of the craft: 7 kilotons, 8 ISRUs, 17 Saturn-V tanks, 17 kerbals, and 1 stage. There is technically room for 19 kerbals, but stuffing kerbals into airlocks is 'uncool'. Full mission report can be found here:

I finished my SSTO Jool 5! Mun: Pol: Tylo: Vall: Laythe: Bop: Duna?!? Kerbin:

Part 8 (the last): Mun to Kerbin! After refueling, I launched to the northeast to try to align my trajectory along the Mun's orbit. I also did the dV boost with the ore, just in case. Here is the HMS Sauron at full throttle, in all its might and glory: I burned early to get myself into a polar orbit. Just one more planet to scan! Oh man. Ooooh, man. The scanner is at 80% cutoff. At first, I thought, "Sacred bovine! Look at that beautiful ore!" Then I realized that all that glorious red is in the ocean. The second best I found was in the desert, I estimate about 11-12% based on the Narrow Band. Didn't get any good shots of the reentry, blast. The next picture I got is of the Sauron screaming in at Mach ~2.5 (The Sauron's terminal velocity) and 5000m altitude! Those kerbals in the crew cabin are experiencing nearly 8 gees, by the way. I don't remember how many quicksaves the landing took. The hard part was holding a steady retrograde, because setting SAS to causes the Sauron to wobble crazily, chasing the retrograde marker. Setting SAS to regular stability caused the retrograde marker to drift off of straight up, meaning I would tumble on landing. There was one particular attempt where I landed at about 8 m/s and for a few seconds, everything was fine. Then, one of the side boosters suddenly just peeled off and fell over like a felled sequoia. Eventually I got it by just waiting until the very last second and hitting 'Z'. Ore here is less than I could've gotten as I landed to the west of where I would have liked, but it doesn't really matter. All the kerbals piled out for a quick picture and a flag planting. Jeb, the flag is completely black in case you don't know. I would tell you to "do a better job next time" but there won't be one. Well, that's the end of this Jool 5! Should I get the kerbals back in and go do another? Or should I go visit Dres? Actually, there is a small crater on Tylo that I noticed had 10.00% on the Narrow Band... Based on my math that means it should have 15% ore, the maximum possible with default settings... Maybe it's time to go do some spelunking!

Part 7: Duna to Mun This part will be abbreviated as it is only a refueling mission. I actually used a transfer window planner, and I had much better luck with my Kerbin intercept! I fine-tuned my orbit enough that I got a great Mun intercept from way out in the interplanetary. The capture burn around the Mun was only 700 m/s! I was expecting more like 1700 m/s, so I have a lot of extra dV. I landed in the same spot as last time, so I didn't get out and plant a flag. Look at that extra dV !!! That is what I call "slightly obscene". The next leg should be the last. Unless I mess up the transfers again and end up on Minmus.

Oh, there are some cards I haven't played yet. It just depends on what actually happens during the execution of the plan.

Excuse me, but the Saia is dead. My plan probably wouldn't go very well, but it's worth a shot. If that plan is not an option, then I would vote to have nothing to do with them. They seem to have subjugated two other races of aliens from other planets and I don't plan on letting humankind be enslaved.

Those cupolas should have a great view when that thing takes off!