Temstar

136,000L of harvested Kethane. Because I can Also this smaller operation: See here if you're interested in making something similar: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/50685-Modular-Base-Creation-Kit

You could just design a rover that attaches on the bottom of modules to drive them together: My modular base construction kit uses that technique: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/50685-Modular-Base-Creation-Kit

There's actually a relative easy way to line up horizontal docking ports if your base layout permits. Say for example you have this: Then it's a simple matter of raising up the legs on the modules that you're trying to connect to. What happen is that module then droops down a bit due to gravity and that docking ports lowers, as long as you get enough downward deflection and the two docking ports line up for an instant they will connect: You can find my base building kit here: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/50685-Modular-Base-Creation-Kit

According to my Zombie Survival Guide the best gun to defend against zombies is the M1 Carbine. I don't really agree since I hear the .30 Carbine round is very rare and almost impossible to get.

The reactor driven propeller idea seems a bit complicated. Perhaps it's better to look for mods that can give you air breathing nuclear jet engine. So it sucks in air like normal jet, heats it up using the reactor and shoots the hot exhaust out the back for thrust. Alternatively instead of a big and heavy reactor you might want consider the kethoelectric generator from the Kethane Pack. It's basically a fuel cell that consumes kethane to produce up to 75E/s. The generator itself is pretty compact and lightweight too.

When there's a zombie outbreak, always depend on the .22 - one of the most cartridge in the world.

Here's mine, I'll throw in some screenshots to prove it too since it seems we're a bit skeptical in this thread: Strategic Kethane Reserve and Refining Complex – Glushko Refinery Duna-Ike Exploration Fleet (double landing) Jool Exploration Fleet (quad landing, Pol didn't exist then) Eve Exploration Fleet (double landing) Low Kerbolar Observatory "Mohole" Explorer Program

It's got to be Bachem Ba 349 Natter It's so crazy it actually works (kinda)

Actually the truss pieces do have probe core, but they don't have battery so left on its own the core will die after a few minutes. I figure the probe core's slight drain in power is a good simulation on the need for power to maintain shirt sleeve environment inside the trusses. For first pieces anything with power generation will do, so that's the Tower of Power, the propellant depot, the stand along extractor, the tracking station. A base crawler or a crawler transporter will work too. Von Braun City actually landed with two loads of truss pieces (not including the Y truss) first before any modules and I linked those up and kept them alive by leaving a base crawler attached (I had two on site for assembly). Remember though the actual landing equipment for these modules generally have RTGs equipped, so they can stay alive indefinitely as long as you keep those landing equipments. If you're landing modules at your landing site but don't have truss pieces or base crawlers ready to assemble them then just keep the landing equipment attached until you are ready to start assembly. Adding first module to the start of Von Braun City.

Awww yes I remember the original threads, The release of this kit took so long partly because it turned out that to build the example bases on the Mun turned out to be quite a piece of work (who'll knew that launching 50 rockets to the Mun was so time consuming?) and partly become I took a long break away from KSP to work on other non-rocket related things. I like your base kit Rune, shame it's not compatible. Part of the reason why I came back to finish and release the kit is because I saw there still wasn't any major base building going on in KSP. I'm hoping that this kit sparks enough interest to see modular bases pop up everywhere just like space stations. I went to detailing my exact method in building the parts in the hope that we get some sort of "standard" when it comes to base building so that in the future modules from different people are compatible from each other.

Grab all the craft files here in one go: http://www./download/ff51vhul1uh2l7k/Modular_Base_Kit.zip Section 1: Base building basics Base Crawler The essential tool of modular base construction. This rover is designed to drive underneath compatible base modules and truss pieces and use its upward facing docking port to mate with the piece so that it can then be driven to its final position. Use translation mode to drive and turn on SAS for additional stability for modules with high CoM, particularly if cornering. Note that I find cornering easier if you disable steering on the centre pair of wheels. Note that this craft file is a SPH file Base Truss Pack From left to right: Straight Truss, Long Truss, T-Truss, X-Truss Long X-Truss, Eight Way Truss, E-Truss, Y-Truss with Tower The pressurised truss form the framework and backbone of a modular base. It's not much of a base you simply have a scattering of buildings across the landscape and the inhabitants have to spend four hours putting on an EVA suit just to pop next door for poker night. It's the fact that from a few simple truss sections you could form infinitely expanding patterns to attach modules that allows construction of a singular base made up of connected modules. The Y-Truss is a bit different. It's size and weight (what being able to house 3 kerbals and all) means it comes with it's own Launch Vehicle and landing package, allowing it to fly to the site of the base by itself and be used as the first centre section of a base to be put down. The Y-Truss launch vehicle is responsible for up to Powered Descent Initiate. For the other truss sections see below on delivery method. Base Truss Transporter This automated Mun lander is designed to carry four truss pieces to the Mun. You will find two examples of the truss transporters with trusses already loaded. To load your own, get rid of all the trusses and then load the ones you need for your own base. Then you are able to attach Base Crawler(s) to the truss pieces to also be carried along to your new base: Launch Vehicle role: trans-munar injection Section 2: Power, Habitation and Communication These modules provide basic functionalities required for a manned base. Tower of Power Solar power station for modular base construction, mounts a pair of Giganator panels on an elevated platform to keep out of the way of the best of the buildings around the base. Also contains a single radioisotopic thermoelectric generator as well as 2.5m large battery for night time backup power. Launch Vehicle role: placing payload in LKO Habitation Module Modular base habitation module with capacity for five kerbals. Complete with sunroof and easy EVA access. Launch Vehicle role: powered descent initiate, payload will land under its own power Base Radio Mast Radio mast with low and medium gain antenna for modular base construction, allows radio communication over medium range. If an ionosphere is present radio communication range may be boosted enormously by atmospheric refraction. Launch Vehicle role: trans-munar injection Base Tracking Station Modular radio communication facility equipped with high gain antenna, sensitive receivers and powerful transmitter, designed for deep space communication over very long distances. Launch Vehicle role: trans-munar injection Section 3: Resources These modules provide propellant storage and handling functionality for bases Base Bipropellant Tank Simple 6400L bipropellant fuel tank for modular base construction. Launch Vehicle role: suborbital trajectory - since the payload is full of fuel and has almost 9.5km/s of delta-V, the payload itself will be responsible for climbing to orbit, TMI and landing. Base Monopropellant Tank 3000L monopropellant fuel tank for modular base construction. Launch Vehicle role: trans-munar injection Tanker Rover Docking Bay Modular base component designed for docking with up to three compatible tanker rovers. Contains one horizontal docking bay and two top docking bays. To deflect the docking ports downwards to mate with heavily loaded rovers put this docking bay at the end of long truss sections and then raise their landing legs so that the docking bay droops downwards due to gravity. Launch Vehicle role: trans-munar injection Fuel Tanker Rover Mixed propellant tanker rover designed for transportation of fuel between surface bases. Launch Vehicle role: placing payload in LKO Note: using up fuel in the rover will cause CoM issues as the landing stage is designed to land the rover full or nearly fully fuelled. To ensure landing stage does not use rover fuel switch off the fuel flow from the rover's main tank. The landing stage does not have enough delta-V for TMI and landing without refuelling, so it's recommend that you either hang onto the final stage of the booster rocket and refuel in LKO so as to use the rocket for TMI, or refuel the landing stage in Mun orbit before attempting landing. Note that this craft file is a SPH file. Also, use action group 1 to toggle between all wheel drive/all wheel steering and cruise mode (rear wheel drive, front wheel steering) Surface Propellant Depot Surface based propellant depot designed to hold significant amount of both bipropellant and monopropellant. Four modular base compatible docking ports allows expansions of depot capability via expansion modules. Powerful built in electrical system reduce or eliminate the need for stand alone power modules for the base. Can also house eight Kerbals if depot needs to be manned. However, this particular module cannot be moved by Base Crawler due to its size and ground clearance. To move the module you must use its engines to "hop". This module is recommended for use as the first and core piece of a base. Launch Vehicle role: placing payload in LKO Section 4: Launch Complex Whilst we can't build spacecrafts from offworld bases, the below infrastructure allow you to refuel/defuel landed spacecrafts on the surface via construction of offworld launch complexes Crawler Transporter / Crawler Transporter Carrier Surface bases are not much use if there's no way for them to you know, interact with spacecrafts. One way to allow this kind of interaction is to use mods like KAS, however there are stock solutions to this: These Crawler Transporters are designed work in pairs to handle and move compatible landed spacecrafts by docking with the designated docking ports on the craft. The craft can then retract its landing lands and by carried around by the crawlers. The crawlers can then move the spacecraft back to the surface base and dock with it via standard base docking ports. This allows loading or offloading of resources from the spacecraft, hence allowing importing or exporting of resources from offworld bases. For bases with multiple launch complexes you will need N+1 Crawler Transporters, where N is the number of launch complexes to be serviced. Once a spacecraft has docked with the base the outward facing Crawler can be undocked to work on something else. You have two craft files for this. One is a SPH craft file called Crawler Transporter which is simply the rover. The other is called Crawler Transporter Carrier which is a craft with launch vehicle capable of landing a pair of Crawlers on the surface of the Mun. Launch Vehicle role: trans-munar injection Base Supply Tanker Nuclear powered, automated cis-minmus tanker designed for movement of propellant between Mun/Minmus surface and orbit. Compatible with modular base crawler transporters. Launch Vehicle role: placing payload in LKO Cis-Minmus Shuttle Nuclear powered, automated four man cis-minmus crew shuttle designed for movement of personnel between surface of of the two Kerbal moons, the moon orbits and LKO. Compatible with modular base crawler transporters. Not re-entry capable! Launch Vehicle role: placing payload in LKO Section 5: Kethane Exploration Kethane is one of the major reason why you would want to build a base. Below modules allow extraction and refining of Kethane. You will need the Kethane Pack for these modules to work. Base Kethane Tank 16,000L kethane tank for modular base construction. Launch Vehicle role: trans-munar injection Base Kethane Refinery Kethane refinery with kethoelectric generator for night time operation. Also houses one horizontal docking port designed to interface with compatible crude and product tanker rovers. Launch Vehicle role: trans-munar injection Base Kethane Extractor Kethane extractor compatible with modular base construction standards. Extractor is designed to plug into the base power grid for power, but when necessary the built in kethoelectric reactor could be turned on to cope with periods of power shortage. Launch Vehicle role: trans-munar injection Kethane Tanker Rover 16,000L kethane tanker rover designed for transportation of crude kethane between wellhead and refinery. Note, use action group 1 to toggle between all wheel drive/all wheel steering and cruise mode (rear wheel drive, front wheel steering) Launch Vehicle role: placing payload in LKO Kethane Extractor Cis-Minmus capable autonomous kethane extractor equipped with onboard scanner. Contains one tanker rover compatible docking port and one modular base construction compatible docking port. Onboard small converter allows self-refuelling and relocation after kethane deposit depletion. Powerful built in electrical system (including a kethoelectric generator) allows running of all systems day and night. note that this craft is compatible with modular base construction but cannot be moved by Base Crawler. To move the craft you must use its engines to "hop". This craft is designed to be a fully self-contained kethane extraction operation, however by using modular base construction you could add capability to it to expand it into a full-fledged base. Launch Vehicle role: trans-munar injection

Modular Base Creation Kit First, let’s have some pictures to fire up the imagination. Permanent Mun Settlement – Von Braun City Strategic Kethane Reserve and Refining Complex – Glushko Refinery Kethane Extraction Outpost – “Genesis†Gas Field As you can probably tell, these bases are not “single launch†one piece deals. There is nothing wrong with setting up a small outpost with a single launch, but just as with one piece monolithic space stations there are some serious limitations on the capabilities of such a base given that it has to fit a launch vehicle. To be a truly spacefaring civilisation one need to capability to build permanent structures on other worlds that are expandable. Instead of a single launch you should be able to add capability to a base by adding more and more modules to it, just as you would when building large space stations. Of course docking is easy in zero G, but a lot more complicated on the surface. Through much trial and error I’ve worked out a method to construct modular bases. If you are interested in the theory work behind the creation of this kit and/or want to know how to design your own modules compatible with this system you can read about it here: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/48876-The-art-of-modular-base-building How do I use the kit? Right, each module that comes in this modular construction kit is already equipped with its own Mun-capable launch vehicle, going to Minmus should be no problem as well since delta-V requirement is about the same. If you want to setup interplanetary bases then you may need to rework the launch vehicle to fit the delta-V budget. Each module is equipped with some kind of landing system and the description of the module will tell you how much work the launch vehicle is supposed to do. There are three strategies I use to go to the Mun to ensure compliance to the Clean Space Act. Launch Vehicle responsible for launch to LKO: the booster rocket will launch the module to a 75km x 75km orbit. Then it will separate from the payload and deorbit. The payload will use its own propulsion to burn for the Mun and then land Launch Vehicle responsible for trans-munar-injection: the booster rocket will launch the module to LKO parking orbit, then fire again to send the module on its way to Mun SOI. Once this TMI burn is complete the booster will separate and adjust using RCS so that it crashes onto the surface of the Mun. The module will brake into Mun orbit and then land Launch Vehicle responsible for Mun-deorbit: the booster rocket will be responsible for placing the payload into Low Mun Orbit. Then it will fire its engines for the last time to start the deorbit burn and separate from the module to crash on the surface of the Mun. The module will complete the powered descent. Assuming you already have the basics of going to the Mun and pin point landing down, flying a module down to the base is not all that complicated. Take for example this module: Here we are sending a module called “Tanker Rover Docking Bay†to Glushko Refinery. The docking bay allows tanker rovers carrying fuel or kethane to dock with the refinery. Now if you look under the description for this module below you can see its rocket is designed for TMI. Hence the core stage of the booster rocket is responsible for placing the payload in LKO parking orbit first before igniting for a second time here for trans-munar-injection. Once TMI is complete cut the rocket stage loose and use its RCS system to make some small adjustment to its velocity. For a prograde Mun orbit insertion a small amount of additional prograde velocity should make the rocket stage crash onto the Mun ahead of the payload which will go around. Right, base assembly is going to require you having mastered pin point landing. Fortunately these modules usually have a lot of spare delta-V so you have plenty of time hovering and get the landing right. Don’t worry too much about getting it spot on, as long as it’s within say 2km of the base it’s good enough. Once it’s down on the surface we’ll go about moving it… Now that the docking bay is down on the surface, we can move it around with this: I’ve imaginatively named this rover “Base Crawlerâ€Â. All the modular base parts have a bottom facing docking port and this rover has an upward facing one designed for docking with them. To get the cover underneath, first decouple the bottom rocket engine via the decouple option on the docking port. Then drive the rover underneath and ram the rocket engine out of the way. Once you’re under the module you will feel the magnetic attraction pulling on your rover. Commonly this shows as a rocking motion that pulls and pushes your rover back and forth. Counter this motion using your motor and eventually the rover will settle down dead centre underneath the module. At this point switch to the module and hit G to retract the landing legs and the module will sit down right on top of the rover and merge with it. So here we have the new docking bay sitting on top of our Base Crawler, now it’s time to get rid of all the rocket bits. Most of these modular base parts have a landing system that can be jettisoned once the piece is safely on top of the crawler. Most of the time this part contains the only probe core on the module so do not jettison the landing system until the module is safely on top of the crawler or else you won’t be able to retract the landing legs! Anyway in this case the landing equipment with the RCS systems and NTR and so on have a small SRB powered separation, so hit staging and it will shoot off, you may want to switch to this part and use the RCS to tilt it so it doesn’t fall straight back down. So now we’re ready to deliver the module to the base. Each modular piece will have at least one horizontally aligned docking port that will be exactly level with all the other modular pieces when the landing leg is deployed. So what you would do is simply drive the rover around so that this docking port is brushing against an available docking port on the base. Now there’s a problem here - if your module is heavy it will squash down on the rover's suspension and make the docking port lower by a bit. Add to this the little drop you get when you drop the module onto the rover and you'll usually end up a situation where the docking port on the piece you're trying to dock is lower than the available docking port on the base. Fortunately there is a simple way to get around this: What you do is park your module right up against the docking port, switch to the base and raise the landing struts on the structures (usually that means legs on base truss) closest to your new module. This causes that section to droop down a bit due to gravity. And during its downward travel if it goes low enough it will find the docking port on your new module and it will become attached. Then it's a simple matter of deploying all legs and undock the Base Crawler. And there we have it, the new rover docking bay delivered to our refinery. Note that for these modular base components I’ve used various members of the Zenith rocket family, attached to payload using Subassembly Manager. You may find these two resources useful if you need to take the rocket and payload apart and put them back together again if building interplanetary bases.

It can be caused by other things, for example the medium and large nose cones both have 0.3 drag, so sticking those on the front of your rocket actually destabilises it. Cupola is the worst at 0.4 drag and 4.5 tons, however cupola has some pretty beefy reaction wheels so it goes a long way to counter its own instability.

No no, aerospike drag value thing affects your rocket regardless of weather or not they are running. Drag for parts are calculated the same no matter what the part is actually doing, you can't cheat drag by just turning off an engine. Easy way to test would be to replace aerospike with say replace them with turbojet engines and watch what happen to the rocket during that period of flight before the aerospikes ignite. Turbojet is roughly the same mass but with 0.2 drag, so if you see the rocket then to go much straighter than you know the fault is with aerospike engines.

I can see you have a lot of aerspike engines, these are the culprits. You see for a rocket to be aerodynamically stable it must have more drag on its rear than at the front. That's why rockets have nose cones at the front and fins at the back. It's also the same reason why arrows have feathers (called "fletchings") at the back. When the arrow flies through the air if there's any deviation between the direction it's flying in vs the direction the arrow head is pointed at the fletchings will exert a force to pull the arrow back into alignment. Now in KSP most parts have a default drag value of 0.2, the actual drag they case on the rocket in flight is then their mass times 0.2. However when you look at aerospike engines you'll notice that they have a drag of 0.1. By putting lots of aerospike on the tail end of your rocket you create a vehicle that's more aerodynamic on it's rear end than at the front. So when this rocket is launched it's as if you're trying to throw an arrow with the fletching end first towards something. This configuration is known as "dynamically unstable" because once you have any angle of attack where the rocket is not exactly pointed at the direction it's going (say, when you start gravity turn) the aerodynamic forces actually force the rocket to go further off course rather than try to put it back to its heading. This is another engineering challenge for Eve return vehicle since you have to use some aerospike engines due to their great Isp in the atmosphere and thus you get dynamically unstable rockets. To correct this I recommend a lot of aerodynamic control surfaces so that the greater altitude control overcomes the instability. Once you're in the upper atmosphere where there's less air aerospike will cease to be a problem since the destabilising force becomes negligible.

It was extensively tested in the SERV challenge and no one could make it work. The theory goes by using wings to generate lift you could get away with a much lower TWR since the lift allows your spaceplane to climb very slowly at low speed. The low speed reduces your drag so that drag loses and gravity loses equal and you get optimal ascent profile. But it turns out that by climbing slowly you stay in the thicker lower atmosphere for longer and suffer more drag losses that way and the two effects cancel out. The additional complicities of a winged design (shifting CoM, the need to stage a spacecraft into a pure rocket in the upper atmosphere while still maintaining asparagus staging, landing a spaceplane with dodgy CoM on somewhere other than a runway, etc) means the vehicle is much much more challenging to design than a pure rocket. You're better off putting that effort into figuring out a system to drive your rocket up hills after landing and saving delta-V that way.

I hear the smallest Eve return vehicle using ladders is now under 10 tons, that means you could easily put such a craft on top of a rover and actually drive it to the highest peak. The highest peak on the new Eve in 0.21 is now even higher, though it's further away from the equator so some inclination change may be required for docking. Still, inclination change of say 10 degrees is easy for a return craft when it means you could have a small lander. This was the lander I used in 0.20 to return two kerbonauts back from the surface. I landed at just under 5km altitude: Here is the entire Eve stack leaving Kerbin: It was built up from 5 launches. One for the surface return craft, one for the Eve rover, one for the Gilly lander, one for mothership and one refuelling tanker run. The surface return craft was about 50 tons fully fuelled in Kerbin orbit. Here's the mission log: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/30909-Two-men-Eve-landing-and-return-%28image-heavy%29

Hang on, since we're discussing SLS Block 1, does that mean the Earth Departure Stage is not available? That kind of puts a big limit on what can be done, since no other upper stage currently available is really sized to do the kind of deep space work that you would want a SLS for. You can't get Orion and Altair to lunar orbit with a DCSS upper stage.

1050 ton to LEO is a lot, but 70 ton a pop is actually a non-negligible limitation. The Saturn V could loft 100 tons to LEO in one shot, so this SLS Block 1 with its 70 ton limitation couldn't actually repeat the Apollo landings without the help of an EDS, the best it can do is a two man one landing type mission in the form of the Soviet N1-L3. Still with 15 of those and judicious use of docking you could put together some pretty impressive missions. With 70 tons you could put into orbit: Orion + Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage, with enough delta-V for a quick loop around the moon and back, but probably not enough to actually go into lunar orbit A nearly full Earth Departure Stage, or a half full EDS with an Orion and Altair on top with enough delta-V for TLI 1/3 of a Mars Transfer Vehicle like that picture Drunkrobot provided 1/2 of a small semi-permanent moon base 10-11 Dragon capsules Personally, I think a good mission to aim for is something like First Lunar Outpost. First get some robotic rovers on the ground to get some better reading of the ice at the lunar poles and look for a good landing site to build a base (these can be done using weedy rockets like Delta, no need to spend a SLS). Then if it looks like that ice is worth studying and there's a suitable landing site spend two SLS to put together the FLO in orbit, then send it to land on the moon at one of the poles near were we expect ice to be. Then send another SLS with an EDS to land something like the Apollo LM Truck: With more supplies and a large rover down near the FLO. Then finally one more SLS with EDS to carry an Orion and Altair to send four people down to the FLO to conduct in-situ resource utilization experiments over a period of 45 days. Then from this point onwards the FLO will be nearly continuously inhabited by rotations of additional crew sent by SLS launches, with alternating cargo launches in between. This gives a total of six 4 man crew rotation for a total of 1080 man days. The ISRU experiments may well be satisfactorily completed without needing that many man days, in which case the left over SLS would be used to deliver future permanent propellant producing base components / Skylab style station / Asteroid capture mission depending on how many SLS are left and if any more are forthcoming given the success of FLO.

The little monitor showing them on the bottom right seems to indicate that they are wearing pumpkin suit inside the capsule, so it's probably pressurised since that means the crew need the capability to take off the suit and put on the EVA suit when they go outside. The IVA view is just because Squad haven't got around to make the pumpkin suit model so they just reuse the EVA model.

Stock fairings

Now now, NASA didn't sent up a female until the shuttle era, and since KSP imitates NASA closer than the soviet space program maybe it's just a case of "didn't bother until..." Harvester said that the capability and parts in KSP tends to follow the real life development in space programs, hence why we had progressions like introduction of docking. If Squad introduces female in the future you could just as easily reason that they're copying NASA's progression.

I can see why people argue that gender shouldn't be implemented in the game since it's nothing but a visual thing and the development time could be better spent elsewhere. With the game in the current state that is true, having female kerbonauts bring about as much to the game as having males but with random haircuts. But why does that have to be the case? Obviously KSP is suppose to draw a lot of analogues from our own space programs, what with one capsule looking like the Mercury capsule, one that looks like Apollo and so on. So does having female astronauts make any difference here on Earth? Yes of course it does! Propaganda value of Vostok 6 aside, there are some good scientific reasons to put woman in space even if it's just to figure out what would happen to them. Imagine if Valentina Tereshkova died upon MECO because by some freak biological reason only human males could survive in 0G and not females? I imagine if that were the case the space program would be radically different now with at the minimum much more focus on artificial gravity research. When Soviet managed to send a woman up in Vostok 6 it was very much considered another great achievement and another one of the "first" in the space race. Having woman in space is a right proper engineering challenge - you wouldn't be able to put one in an Apollo capsule and send her to the moon for one, since Apollo pee pouch only works with males. To be able to send up females in the shuttle or ISS actually involves engineering in getting the vehicle be able to support both gender. Since KSP is meant to be an analogy of Earth's space programs this issue should be actually a factor in the game. There's plenty of ways we could do this. For example maybe you had to do research (via normal method or say to send up a special one off capsule) to unlock "gender neutral" capability for your capsules, and only then will you be able to hire female kerbonauts. Hell sending female kerbonauts up alone should have scientific value.

I do it the Greg Egan way: Male: He, Him, His, Himself Female: She, Her, Hers, Herself Other: Ve, Ver, Vis, Verself

SERV losing the STS contract was more to do with the ambitious aerospike engine design and the fact that NASA pretty much already made up its mind before even starting the competition that they wanted a large spaceplane. That said it definitely wasn't what you would call an aerodynamic design. The idea was that yes, you lose delta-V due to drag at launch from the tubby shape. But then that tubby shape has already been extensively studied and tested during Apollo for the command module and is proven to make re-entry easier per Blunt Body Theory. Hence the thermo protection system on SERV will be simple and lightweight and that saving in weight of the TPS more than offsets the drag loss at launch. TLDR: under a realistic drag model drag will affect stubby rockets more than streamlined ones. But on the other hand under a realistic drag model drag isn't going to be a big deal like it is now so both streamlined rocket or flying pancakes will reach orbit easier. And since asparagus staging has a lot of advantages elsewhere it won't be going away.