The second quote here is exactly the problem I'm having. For example, when I load a craft onto the Launchpad, I can see the parts that are part of KSC itself (concrete pads, roads around it, track to VAB, etc), but none of the surrounding surface of Rhode is visible at all, just the black void.
I should mention that I'm not playing on any sort of rescale, nor have I gone into the files to muck about with the planets themselves, but I do have RealExoplanets installed, could that be giving me an issue? (i'm not really knowledgeable about modding)