Temstar

I recall a long time ago I saw on TV a particular scene that was stuck in my mind. It was a little... thing that flew up skywards propelled by a chain of explosions. Now that KSP got me into space flight I looked up that video again and found the source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4k_YZAXSEI To Mars By A-Bomb - The Secret History of Project Orion Fascinating documentary about a group of genius (Freeman Dyson of the Dyson Sphere fame, Ted Taylor - famous for being able to design very small nukes, Arthur C. Clarke all interviewed) trying to build an ocean liner sized spacecraft capable of single stage to Mars or the outer planes and return, propelled by some 2000 nuclear bombs. In case you wonder how big those Orion ships are, particularly that fascinating planetbusting "Orion Battleship" with its nuclear cannons and 25 megaton missile battery: Note the space shuttle for size

Because in trying to land a rover near an Apollo landing site there is always going to be some chance of things going wrong and the team losing control over the lander and it crashing into Apollo relics. Some of the Apollo relics like the retro reflectors are pretty useful and people still use them today to measure distance between Earth and the moon. If one of them or worse Tranquillity Base is destroyed by a out of control lander people are going to be pissed.

Your parking brake is on, it's the bottom button on the far right of the altitude indicator, shaped like a circle with a "!" inside.

The highest payload fraction for pure rockets for Kerbin launch should be around 16-17%, but if you can manage >10% I would consider that design pretty good. For Earth the payload fraction is usually around 4-5%. If you are interested in efficient 2.5m rocket design have a poke around at these: Zenith Rocket Family I've employed pretty much all the tricks I know about building boosters into those. The only thing really missing is the "hybrid asparagus staged SRB" thing I sometimes do.

I should probably get around to remake that engine clustering thread... What's the consensus these days with engine clustering? Is everyone still using cubic struts or the new fancy radial attachment points?

I say move the whole thing assembled to Laythe. I think the whole thing is under 50 tons and with that rear docking port there it shouldn't be too hard to come up with a nuclear tug for it. A lot of docking is required to assemble it though, you're going to be either pretty good at docking to be able to put it together, or you will become very good at docking after you put one together.

Having done this, I recommend against this kind of assembly between rover and normal landing leg supported craft. The reason is that due to different gravity your rover's ground clearance is actually different between worlds. On Kerbin a rover might be of a certain height, but then you test and confirm a standing craft can dock with this rover on Kerbin and you fly it to the Mun you will end up realising that the same rover sits higher on Mun since its suspension is not as pressed down compared to conditions on Kerbin. What I've seen people do instead is having the base all sitting on large landing legs with docking ports at same height - this is relative easy to test on Kerbin as landing legs are not affected by gravity. Then for moving around they have a very flat rover with a docking port facing up that can drive under the base module and dock with it once the module retracts it's landing legs and sit itself on the rover. The rover then drives the module around on the surface, place it where it needs to go and the module extends its legs again and lift both itself and the rover off the ground. The rover can then undock itself, drop down onto the ground and drive off.

Okay all done: Thread with craft files here: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/27653-0-19-1-Stargazer-Segmented-Orbital-Antenna-Array

Weather you're doing radio interferometry, communication with spacecraft far far away or build sinister superweapons, you need some sort of large antenna. The problem with large monolithic antenna is that they are difficult to design and even more difficult to install onto a working platform, either on the ground or in space. Aperture synthesis technology allows multiple small antennas to be combined into one large antenna, thus allowing large synthetic aperture antenna to be constructed in parts. Having attempted and failed to build a large one piece parabolic dish I decided to down this path. First to launch is the framework of the new array, consisting of a frame to hold 13 independent antennas which will be installed later, as well as central section with large RCS tank, orbital manoeuvring engines and fuel, a lander can in case it needs to be manned and two docked RCS tugs which will be used for the construction of the array. Array frame deployed on orbit. Next to launch is the Antenna Carrier - a small robotic spacecraft carrying a single antenna to be installed on the frame. Antenna installed. Installation of the antenna is relatively simple as the antenna is already orientated the right way with the base end forward. This first antenna is installed on the centre spot on the frame. With the antenna installed, the carrier can now be deorbited. But installing antenna one launch at a time will take too long. To facilitate rapid construction of the array I've designed a Heavy Antenna Carrier capable of launching four antenna to the array in one go Heavy Antenna Carrier docked with the rear docking port of the array. We can now go about installing the antennas onto the frame. Installing each antenna onto the frame is a little bit complicated. Since the Heavy Antenna Carrier carries each antenna with the front end docked to the ship both RCS tugs will be required to install an antenna. Each of those RCS tugs are equipped with 100L RCS tank, big stack battery, ASAS, four RCS quads and one large docking port on one end and one small one on the other end. The steps for assembling the antennas are: 1. Undock one RCS tug and dock with the rear end of an antenna with the large docking port 2. Undock the front of the antenna from the carrier 3. Manoeuvre the antenna + rug away from the carrier 4. Undock the other RCS tug and dock to the front end of the antenna with the small docking port 5. Undock the RCS tug docked to the rear of the antenna to clear that docking port 6. Manoeuvre the RCS tug still attached to the antenna to attach the antenna onto the array's frame, ASAS would be very useful here. 7. Attach the RCS floating around to the next antenna to be moved, refuel both RCS tugs. Once all four antennas have been assembled onto the framework the antenna carrier can then be undocked and deorbited. Before you do you'll probably want to refuel the array and the RCS tugs with any left over fuel in the carrier. The array, now dubbed "Stargazer" in various stags of assembly. The Stargazer Array, fully assembled and operational in LKO. Craft files: Stargazer Array(frame): http://www./download.php?bnmcay52wm6p4k1 Antenna Carrier(x1): http://www./download.php?1t4x8cjjkqaiziu Large Antenna Carrier(x4): http://www./download.php?do7h5u4sk1bv940

As it happened rocketry is inseparably linked to weaponry. From V-2 to R-7 to Atlas to Titan to even Project Orion. So it's difficult to totally divorce a game about building rockets from weapon making, regardless of the intention of the makers. In fact if Kerbals where a totally peaceful race that's never engaged in warfare, it's difficult to imagine how they ended up with a space program.

Due partly to a desire to stay stock and partly because rover antennas use more parts I've decided to build the array in orbit: Stargazer Array under construction.

There's lots of fuel on the ship so the problem is not delta-V but thrust, and it's easy enough to design some boosters to increase the thrust: The problem is gravity turn. The fact that the ship are made out of aerodynamic surfaces induces undesired torque forces on the craft once I start gravity turn. Usually vectored thrust can over come such forces but because the ship is so long the torque forces at the front of the ship has such a huge leverage that so far nothing I tried can keep it under control.

Brobel, are you able to refuel this thing in orbit? Specifically are all the fuel tanks accessible for selecting and non hidden behind that armour? Cos chances are any solution I come up with is going to involve using up a lot of that on board fuel.

I'm just a bit worried about the handling and practicability of that cruiser. At 563 parts and with that form factor it seems like it would be pretty unwieldy to perform orbital maneuvers and dock with. I say function must come before form.

For most engine clusters you can, you'll just attach the booster to the centre engine on the cluster if there is one or use an extender rod coming down from the centre node if there's no engine there. With LV-N you can't use the first option as the special LV-N engine shroud will destroy the surrounding engines when its staged. For large LV-N clusters I find it best to just treat the ship as the core stage of an asparagus and attach boosters radially around it: If you like just share the craft file for the cruiser and I'll figure out a way to get it into orbit.

Oh that, the trick is to stick a grey tank between an orange tank and the mainsail. Once you've done that you can fire the mainsail at full throttle as much as you want and they won't overheat. Have a look at this rocket for example:

I think that's the best approach for large vehicles or vehicles with awkward geometry that makes it hard to build landers around it. This is the approach I ended up using for my MOLAB heavy manned rover If you look carefully at that second picture you might be able to spot the exhaust from the 24-77 engines. The whole rover lands with three pairs of them. MOLAB on the Mun.

Look at his equations carefully, he's calculating delta-V in feet/s not m/s. Yes I know, those silly Americans.

Awww you're talking about Payload Assist Module. The reason why solids are sometimes used for final stage is because: 1. As mentioned, they're compact for the amount of energy they carry so they can fit inside small spaces like payload fairings or shuttle cargo by 2. They're very reliable because they're simple and have few parts that can go wrong. You won't want to have a situation where shuttle has got the payload to LEO but then have the PAM fail to fire 3. They can be designed as "spinners" where no guidance is needed at all and the PAM + payload is only stabilised by gyroscopic forces like a rifle bullet. This makes them very easy to install as an additional stage onto things not originally designed for them. You can't spin liquid stages because the fuel will vortex and behave unpredictably.

You should be using all your engines from the get go. No seriously, the idea of asparagus staging is you never carry engines as dead weight during the ascent, or in other words you have so few engines (and thus so little dead weight) that you NEED all your engines to fire for the rocket to get into orbit correctly. This save on weight can get pretty huge. Now let's look specifically at your ship for inefficiencies that's holding you back: Too much thrust, you don't need so much thrust for a rocket that size. Your TWR at lift off should be around 1.7 You're wasting an astonishing amount of delta-V if you drop 12000L of fuel. Remember the less fuel you have in the tank, the more bang you get out of the remaining fuel as the rocket get lighter. That second half of the fuel in that stage will probably be 70% of the total delta-V of that stage the 8 LV-T30 engine is again a source of inefficiency. Circularising and interplanetary transfer are both low TWR manoeuvres so you should use the same set of LV-N engine for them. That last 5-10 second of burn out of eight LV-T30 engine in a near empty stage is a HUGE amount of delta-V (probably 1000m/s or more) that you're throwing away. You're better off deleting the LV-T30 stage all together and just use the LV-N stage to circularise. And since now you have a smaller payload to orbit your booster underneath can be a lot smaller too. As for Laythe landing, since it has a pretty dense atmosphere you're better off using parachutes for most of your deceleration down. You only need a little bit of thrust before touch down to cushion the landing and since it's a such small burn, you're better off holding onto your LV-N and use them for this retroburn too. TLDR: LESS BOOSTERS

Here's my plan: That's right, a two man rocket without any pod! By saving some 800kg per passenger I could really boost the delta-V of that rocket. From Eve's surface it has somewhere in the area of 9000m/s of delta-V, which I've tested to be enough from 4.5km altitude and upwards. So the plan is I will first land the lander unmanned onto Eve: Save/load as necessary to make sure it lands on 5000m altitude or above and on relative flat ground to ensure safe return. Then the landing crew will be landed on a rover: The crew will drive to the ocean, take a sample, drive up hill to the rocket. Climb onto it and boost back into orbit to the waiting mothership. Here is the whole package assembled in LKO waiting for Eve transfer window.. The nuclear tug and the little RCS lander is for Gilly. The craft on the bottom docking port is a tanker rocket.

So I was looking at the dish on top of the tracking station one day and I suddenly though "that's not big enough!" After many a frustrating attempt at building a bigger dish in the VAB I gave up on the idea. But then an idea occurred to me: if James Webb Space Telescope could have a huge main mirror by using segments, why can't I build a huge synthetic aperture radar / interferometer array out of individual dishes? The result was this prototype: Looks pretty cool. I'm considering setting up an off world base (to avoid all that radio pollution of Kerbin) to construct an array. I have two questions: 1. I could either construct the array in space or on the surface or Mun/Minmus. If it's an orbital facility the array would be relatively easy to aim by moving the whole ship, but an surface base with a radar array has a certain... S.H.I.E.L.D. feel to it. Where would you build this array? 2. If the array is to to built on one of the moons, what would be the best way to build the ability to train (ie, tilt) the dishes into each unit? I've seen people build train like rovers with flexible joints between the train cars, how is that done? Also, I'm interested in seeing what everyone else has come up with for dish design.

I have one with the capacity of 159.5 tons to LKO fully tested and everything but I feel it lacks a certain... finesse? It uses 12 mainsails as engines instead of my usual engine cluster because I felt that with a rocket (and payload) this big the most important thing would be part count and not efficiency. As a result I feel it doesn't quite belong in the same family as the rest of them: Are you still interested? What kind of payload are you envisioning that requires 150t+ anyway?

Nothing says SPACE SCIENCE more than a neat array of radio telescopes