Temstar

By popular request: Crew Excursion Vehicle Demeter II: Being designed as a space taxi ala Soyuz, Demeter II is equipped with a powerful LES system to ensure crew safety in the event of launch vehicle failure, capable of outrunning the launch vehicle during all stages of the burn. When LES is triggered the following happens: launch vehicle liquid fuelled engine shutdown core stage retro-rocket fire deploy SRB recovery chute as drag chute to slow the booster down (in the event of an abort before SRB jettison). The SRB is not decoupled from the rocket itself since the dead weight of the rocket serve as ballast to slow the SRBs down emergency separation between spacecraft and rocket LES abort motor fire Spacecraft SM engine fire Once the spacecraft is clear of the rocket and the LES abort motor have stopped firing. Use action group 2 to jettison the LES tower (tower jettison has two additional Sepratrons dedicated for it, so you can fire even if the six abort motors are empty). On the other hand if things go well, SRBs are jettisoned at just below 5km. A cool feature is the liquid fuel tanks above the SRBs feeding the core stage - those have been fine tuned so they run out just before SRB burn out. Thus at the moment SRBs are jettisoned the core stage is still nearly fully fuelled. LES tower jettison after start of gravity turn. You can do this with either stage 4 or action group 2. A closer look at the core stage engines. The cluster is three LV-T30 + one LV-T45. Payload release. Upon release the core stage has three retrograde Sepratrons that will fire to slow it down for deorbit, but there's only so much three Sepratrons can do so I still recommend releasing the spacecraft when you're either suborbital or just barely orbital to ensure the rocket burns up by going below 23km. A closer look at the Demeter II spacecraft. Note the service module propulsion system - two LV-909 built together using engine clustering. Craft file: http://www./download.php?yov912e8qhxrznb Addendum: I increased retro-Sepratrons from three to six, given their weight decrease in 0.19 patch.

Eve actually has a slightly lower delta-V requirement compared to Duna. Being an inferior planet it also has a shorter travel time.

Even if the surface of Laythe is scarred by ionising radiation life would be able to survive in the oceans. Remember every 7 cm of water cuts radiation by 50%. You can safely swim in nuclear reactor's spent fuel pool. In fact diving into the spent fuel pool will actually cause you to receive less radiation than you would in everyday life from background radiation, as long as you don't dive to the bottom where the spent rods are: http://what-if.xkcd.com/29/ I've seen a few suggestion where deep space spacecrafts should have a "radiation shelter" where it's a small room completely surrounded (except for the entrance tunnel) by the ship's water storage tank.

Some ingenious person came up with this method. Unfortunately that thread got eaten by the Great Forum Purge. So here it is again. It doesn't actually require no clip: First we start with any spacecraft, put two (or whatever number you want to go for) of those new radial attachment point at the bottom. Now put the LV-Ns underneath Now to do the trick we need access to the top surface of that fuel tank. I like to use the girder for this. Okay now hold on to your butts I'm about to blow your mind: Grab the radial decoupler, keep the symmetry tool on and attach it to the top surface of the tank Rotate 90 degrees... Rotate 90 degrees again and place the radial attachment point. There, now you have short profile nuke engines. I like to put a short adapter underneath, I feel that it's just the right length for a seamless look.

When it comes to expansion modules on space station the foremost problem is always connection strength of the docking ports. A single docking port is okay for docking between small spacecrafts or between a small spacecraft and a station, but any serious space construction effort requires stiffer connections. The solution most people go for is multiple docking ports. But the thing I don't like about using multiple docking ports is their setup. Setting them up in the VAB by eye will mean there's always going to be small errors with alignment with the most common result in orbit being some of the docking ports connect while some refuse to engage when you dock. Fortunately now that subassembly saver/loader is available we finally have a way to build pixel perfect docking solutions: So with that bit of engineering resolved I started thinking about what modules Olympus II will need. Habitation Extension Module Poseidon Well first of all, seen as we already have an installation in orbit we might as well get some more habitation to go with it. So let's say a 6 man craft with some small orbital manoeuvring engines, docking capable and with some big solar panels to power all the scientific gizmo's and flat screen TVs and playstations inside. When you put these requirements together you get something like this: That's right, it's really a fully equipped small space station. Only unlike Salyut its propulsion unit is a lot more powerful and it has delta-V to change orbit to dock with a target. This means that should anything bad (eg, spacecraft accidentally ramming Olympus) happen it can undock from the propellant depot in a hurry and serve as a life boat, particularly if we also add re-entry capability to this spacecraft. The end result is this: Habitation Extension Module Poseidon, holding 6 Kerbals. Heavy quad docking port on one end and normal single docking port on the other. Four R24-77 engines for orbital manoeuvring. Two small solar panels and two giganator panels for more power than you know what to do with. Launch of Poseidon atop of a Zenith II rocket. Payload release. As with other members of the Zenith rocket family, Zenith II has a "smart" core stage designed to deorbit itself after payload release to ensure no space junk. For Poseidon solar panel deployment use action group 1. Poseidon coming into dock with Olympus II. To open the shielded docking ports use action group 3. Action group 2 can be used to toggle on and off the main engines, useful once you are docked with something. Crew transfer between Olympus II and Poseidon. One nifty feature is the matching telescopic ladders on Olympus II and Poseidon. If you dock them front to front and with the correct alignment you can extend those ladders for no-jetpack crew transfer between the three crewed modules. Planetary Manoeuvring Engine Zeus I set some pretty strict rules for myself when it comes to using NTR rockets. The idea being Kerbals are much like us humans and are not too keen on having high powered nuclear reactors flying overhead without some kind of plans on how to make sure they doesn't fall back down on their head. I particularly will not design spacecraft powered by nuclear engine that is intended for Kerbin re-entry. Thus the idea of a modular nuclear powered tug is attractive - once launched the tug can be docked to whatever spacecraft that need efficient deep space engine, the once the mission is over the tug can be detached, refuelled and then reused later on for another mission. This idea thus became the basis of Planetary Manoeuvring Engine Zeus. Zeus launch. Unlike other payloads I elected to build a custom launch vehicle around Zeus rather than use a prebuilt launcher underneath. The reason is two folds: 1. That's an awful lot of thrust that I'm not using if I don't fire the Zeus at lift off 2. Putting a decoupler underneath a cluster of LV-N when LV-N has those side shredding engine shrouds means you're building an accident looking for a place to happen. A shrouded centre LV-N engine will most likely blast away all the surrounding engine upon decoupling. Zeus burning for orbit. With six LV-N and 3200L of bipropellant Zeus actually has slightly better than 1 TWR at Kerbin surface fully fuelled. With max fuel level it has something absurd like 7100m/s of delta-V. It's powered by three RTGs. Zeus coming into dock with Olympus. Since Zeus only has one probe core for maxRot it has very little altitude control with RCS off. So when docking I always leave RCS on. Then once I'm aligned with the target I switch on ASAS on both ships to fix the orientation and just use Zeus's RCS for translation. Zeus and Poseidon, docked with Olympus II ****** Now that I have the whole Zeus - Olympus II - Poseidon stack assembled, I felt it was time for a trip: Trans-munar injection burn Success! The whole station successfully made it to Mun orbit, with two docked spacecrafts in tow too. The best thing about a modular design is that the different parts can be rearranged to do other things. With the propellant depot successfully placed in Mun orbit and all system checked out, I decided to bring the crew back. Undocking Poseidon and Zeus from Olympus II and joining them together results in a new deep space spacecraft. Trans-Kerbin injection with the newly assembled Poseidon-Zeus spacecraft. Aerobraking into LKO. Remember folks if you're going to aerobrake Poseidon use action group 1 to retract the solar panels before you hit the atmosphere. With aerobraking I figure that rocket nozzles make a pretty good heat shield substitute. After all it's a structurally strong part that's designed to endure high temperature and high gas pressure - not all that dissimilar to reentry. Separation between Zeus and Poseidon. Separation between Poseidon's habituation module and service module. Reentry and parachute release. I like to pretend that the shielded docking ports are re-entry hardened compared to the regular ones. Crew upon return. Although the habitation module can survive hard touch down as demonstrated here I would still recommend splashdown if possible. ****** Now then, it's all well and good if we have Zeus floating up there in LKO waiting for a mission. But if there's no mission for it in the foreseeable future the public would probably want the space program to retrieve it and safely bring it down rather than have this Sword of Damocles hanging over their head every day. For such situations I've come up with an answer too: Presenting: Downmass Tug. A space tug specifically designed to retrieve Zeus and other heavy quad docking port equipped vessels. Downmass Tug docking with Zeus De-orbit burn. There is a trick here with the deorbit burn - if you just want to bring the combination down then make sure you turn off the tug's engine before firing up Zeus. Alternatively if you have a lot of fuel onboard and want to burn some up to lighten the craft then you can leave the tug's engine on to fight Zeus's engine. Zeus will still overpower the tug but the long burn with engines fighting each other will quickly burn up the excess fuel. Re-entry and parachute deployment. Zeus is specially strengthen to be able to survive the violent jolt of parachute becoming unreefed. The heavy duty docking ports are also strong enough to hold together. Firing Zeus's engine before splash down to soften the impact. I recommend a splashdown speed no greater than 5m/s. Unfortunately after splash down the combination tipped over and broke. Fortunately upon close inspection it was only the Downmass Tug that was destroyed. Zeus was intact and all the nuclear engines are still attached so I would assume there was no nuclear material leak - a successful retrieval!

A long time ago (or not, forum TIME PARADOX), when KSP didn't yet have official support for docking I built a propellant depot using the docking mods then available. I got some pretty positive responses for it. These days with stock docking people are building huge propellant depots that dwarf the original Olympus. Nevertheless every now and then I get people asking me if I would release an updated version of Olympus. So here it is: Orbital Propellant Depot Olympus II, now with some new tricks up its sleeves... Olympus II features: 8000L of fuel + oxidiser, 1500L of monopropellant, 2800L of Xenon and 1705 electrical charge four standard docking ports for refuelling crafts for jr docking ports for small refuelling crafts built in small orbital manoeuvring engines two man capacity probe core and solar panels for autonomous control two heavy duty docking ports fore and aft for expansion modules Zenith VII launch vehicle for placing in LKO Note: action group 2 toggles the three small orbital engines on and off. Let's have a look at the Olympus II launch process: Olympus II at launch. The original Olympus used some fancy engineering to put a custom made launch vehicle underneath and had features like a fuel lines that went up to the depot from the booster rocket so the depot could fire it's radial engines in additional to the booster's asparagus core engines once all the boosters are gone to accelerate faster. This time around since I have the Zenith rocket family available I simply designed the station (and used only three R24-77 engines, instead of the big hulking Rockomax radial), weigh it up in Engineer Redux and put an appropriate sized Zenith booster underneath and I have a finished product. A closer look at the clustered engines on the LV with two pairs of boosters gone. Each of the six boosters are powered by three LV-T30 and a LV-T45, the core stage of the asparagus is powered by four LV-T30 and three LV-T45. Last pair of asparagus staged boosters jettison in the upper atmosphere. The core stage has something like 2000m/s of delta-V and is responsible for orbital insertion. Payload release. Notice all resources on Olympus II are still full - I've designed it so that the rocket should have enough delta-V to place the depot in LKO without having to fire up the depot's engines at all. When you have a space station / propellant depot, you don't want spent rocket stages floating around in the same orbit as it. As with all members of the Zenith rocket family Zenith VII has a smart core stage which is equipped with probe core, electrical and RCS system for deorbit burn to clean up after itself. As they say "once you build a road the cars will come". With Olympus II in orbit and open for business the first wave of customers showed up. Now if that was all there was to the propellant depot then I wouldn't have shared it considering the plenitude of other well made depot designs around. But Olympus II has one more important feature that I think sets it apart from others and it has to do with those funny looking 4x docking ports at the front and back: More on these docking ports and the modular expansion modules in my next post Craft files: OPD Olympus II - http://www./download.php?20ii5h5c9avclc7 HEM Poseidon - http://www./download.php?611g91f11ksnadl PME Zeus - http://www./download.php?ae08i3ipcom83ep Downmass Tug - http://www./download.php?gff7ttebe15a6mt

That's far from true. In hindsight the shuttle program didn't turn out to be such a good idea. Whatever it's achievement are it didn't achieve it's primary goal of cheap access to LEO. Instead it turned out to be one of the most expensive launchers on a kg to orbit basis. NASA is giving up spaceplanes to go back to Apollo style capsules with Orion. In the mean time Russia gave up on the Kliper (and Buran), ESA gave up on Hermes and China long ago gave up on their Tianjiao 1. The only serious work going on in space planes these days are USAF's X-37, Dream Chaser and Skylon. Compared to the three capsules in development ( CST-100, Rus and Orion) and three in active use (Soyuz, Shenzhou, Dragon). Basically both in KSP and in real life spaceplane have very narrow use. For lifting big payload to orbit expandable rockets are the way to go. If you want to lift people up or bring them down capsules on top of expandable rockets are quite adequate. The only really useful thing is if you want to bring people down AND G load must be small (say it's an orbital medical emergency), then you may consider a spaceplane. Otherwise, you basically only build spaceplanes to show off.

It doesn't take that much to lift an orange tank if you get your asparagus staging down pat: Zenith V for example can lift a full orange tank and two large RCS tanks to orbit and still have enough fuel in itself to deorbit the final stage, all within 159 parts + how ever many parts you use for the payload.

Delta-V wise it takes 9400m/s to reach LEO, it takes 4500m/s to reach LKO. Given the Tyranny Of Rocket Equation that 4900m/s make a huge difference in the size of the rocket required. In fact 9400m/s is similar to the amount you need to return to Low Eve Orbit from Eve's surface, and the few people crazy enough to design Eve return vehicles will tell you that such rockets are just about as large as Earth rockets (give or take asparagus staging).

With Eve and colonies in general, what exactly are you going to return to Kerbin? Surely not some kind of interplanetary trade in Blutonium? Kerbin is self sufficient and does not really need any kind of resources from offworld colonies given the expenses involved in getting them back to Kerbin (particularly in Eve's case). So really the only thing you may consider returning from colonies are people. Us humans are already toying with the idea that astronauts going to Mars should stay on Mars. Given the bravado of Kerbals when it comes to space travel surely they would run their own "Eve to Stay" colonisation program. So if the requirement becomes "once in a while we may need to lift people into orbit, starting from a 6.5km mountaintop colony" then it's not as difficult. Before forum got eaten the most successful ship in the SERV challenge managed to loft two Kerbals back to Eve orbit with around 14 tons of rocket. It was an "open air" rocket without a command pod, something like: So we don't know how practical it is when we consider it realistically, but still it shows that 7500m/s is within current engineering capabilities. For comparison it takes about 9400m/s to reach LEO from here on Earth.

I figure those ice caps are mostly frozen CO2, like Mars. Still even if there's frozen water ice in there it's going to be a lot harder to get it out, as opposed to just siphon it out of the sea. I thought the resource chart said it was water and Blutonium? I did seriously think about this and I think the solution is simple: build Eve colonies on top of those 6km mountain tops (or even better, floating airship cities). Have a fleet of "water" trucks that drive down from the colony down to the sea level to siphon up the water and drive it back uphill to the colony.

I know on first reaction everyone says Duna is more suitable for colonisation, but is that really the correct answer? I know if instead the question is between Mars and Venus then Mars is probably the more hospitable of the two. But while both Duna and Eve are more friendly than Mars and Venus I think Eve has some advantages that may put it ahead of Duna. Let's have a look at the numbers first, at sea level: Duna: atmosphere = 0.2atm gravity = 0.3G temperature = really cold Delta-V to orbit = 1,380m/s Eve: atmosphere = 5atm gravity = 1.7G temperature = 150 degrees Delta-V to orbit = 12,000m/s Okay, so Eve's sea level looks pretty horrible. However while there's no where on Duna where you could find a place with denser atmosphere and hotter temperate, there are places on Eve that's more friendly than its sea level. On one of those 6km Eve mountain tops you have: atmosphere = 2atm gravity = 1.7G temperature = 120 degrees Delta-V to orbit = 7,500m/s Now that's not so bad. The only real obstacle is the temperature, but 110 degrees is well within modern engineering capabilities. Aside from these Eve also have the following advantages: liquid water ocean - yes okay it's laced with radioactive isotopes, but water is water and you could always purify it. Having copious amount of water means you have no shortage of breathable air and source of rocket fuel. On Duna, even if subsurface frozen water exist it will be a lot more difficult to extract high availability of energy, both solar and nuclear. With plenty of cheap energy you could afford to actively cool your habitat, distil pure water and generally do stuff. Duna on the other hand with reduced solar panel efficiency due to distance to Kerbol and lack of nuclear fuel source will probably require large amount of solar panels/nuclear reactors shipped in from Kerbin to keep a colony alive. So what does everyone think of the possibility of a Kerbal colony on Eve?

So I decided to take MOLAB out for a night time cross country drive to test out its endurance, the whole trip is about 20km, the destination is one of the Mun archs where I will set up new base. I started here: MOLAB hauling ass and getting some hang time across the Mun. I discover that over long distance it's more efficient to drive in what I call "cruise mode". That is disable front and centre wheel motor and rely on only the rear two wheels for propulsion. On flat ground MOLAB is quite capable of accelerating to a breakneck 30m/s with just the rear two wheels. Going at 30m/s is dangerous as I discovered - I rolled MOLAB about 6 times during the trip, ever single time was due to me driving the rover too hard. Over flat ground I recommend staying under 25m/s and 20m/s if you're going over bumpy/uneven ground. Target in sight! Arriving at destination. I had to stop about half a dozen time to recharge battery during the trip. ****** As with any kind of space installation regular resupplies are essential for continue manned presence. On top of this analysis shows that Kerbals can't be trusted flying the Mosquito sensibly - soon as they get a handle on how to fly it they invariably start to attempt fancy aerobatic tricks with it and then it's a matter of time before they crash it. To rectify this problem I decided to develop a dedicated MOLAB Resupply Vessel for such situations: The MOLAB RV at launch, perched on top of a Zenith IV launch vehicle. This spacecraft is designed with three things in mind: resupply of bipropellant resupply of monopropellant replacement AMRV Mosquito crew rotation MOLAB RV waiting in LKO for trans-Munar injection with the core stage of the Zenith IV still attached. Zenith IV core stage in this case will provide the delta-V for trans-munar injection ala Apollo and Saturn V's third S-IVB stage. Trans-munar injection, separation from the booster and Mun surface impact experiment. I follow the Clean Space Act and so will not allow space junk. As with other members of the Zenith rocket family the Zenith IV's core stage is equipped with probe core, electrical system and RCS system for space loitering and orbit self-clean up. In this case after separation from payload I fire the engines prograde slightly to ensure booster will crash onto the Mun surface and thus leave no space junk. I suppose in real life a base like MOLAB will also be equipped with seismic monitors to detect Mun quakes. A manually caused Mun quake would allow mapping of the Mun interior via reflected seismic wave, just like NASA did with Saturn V's third stage. Deorbit burn and pin point landing. MOLAB RV doesn't have that great of a thrust to weight ratio with its two nuke engines so I recommend doing you burns with plenty of lead time. However since you'll generally not want MOLAB to drive a long way to the resupply ship you will want to land as close as possible to the rover. MOLAB RV does have a lot of delta-V in the tank (3300m/s+) so feel free to hover and fly around like a helicopter around your target to ensure a close landing. Docking and refuelling. Surface docking is surprisingly hard, probably because those magnetic clamps are not designed to over come the grips of 4 heavy docking legs and six heavy rover wheels. The trick to surface docking is to make sure the docking ports line up perfectly from above - ideally you want to do this on flat ground as non-flat surfaces cause wheels to slide sideways ever so slightly, throwing off your dock. I bumped the RV's docking port many times before I finally got a hard dock. One interesting feature is that if you retract the landing legs on MOLAB RV, MOLAB is actually steady enough to carry the RV around on its nose. It's not exactly a configuration I would recommend for cross country driving as the engines bells on the RV have very little clearance with the ground and MOLAB's balance is completely off. But it's still easy enough to move the RV around if you only need to move it a short distance. Mosquito deployment with action group 9. MOLAB Base. MOLAB RV is not designed for re-entry so if the mission is to rotate crew then you will need to dock it with a re-entry capable ship in either Mun or Kerbin orbit for crew transfer. This is intentional as I designed it for multiple resupply missions in mind where the RV will repeatedly shuttle between Mun orbit (where I have a propellant depot) and surface. Alternatively if you're not running resupplies for a while and MOLAB is setting up camp then MOLAB RV makes a pretty good base expansion for MOLAB so that it becomes an eight man surface base. Hell you could even use the ability to carry the RV around to dock TWO MOLAB RVs to MOLAB for max 10 crew. Edit: added craft file for MOLAB RV to first post

0.20 update: A modernised set of Zenith rockets have been released. Head to the new thread to get the craft files: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/33381-0-20-2-Zenith-rocket-family-%28modernised-for-0-20-x-with-perfect-subassembly%29 Also included is a brand new method of setting up subassembly that overcomes the major problem of Subassembly Saver/Loader - missing struts and fuel lines. With all the positive feedback I've been getting from Nova SHLLV I decided this calls for an expanded family of rockets all built using the same principle as Nova but spanning a wide payload range to suit all the likely needs of a space program. After all in real life space companies are generally separated into launch providers (who build and fly launch vehicles) and payload makers (SATCOM, GPS, space agencies, military, etc) who build payload and buy launch services. By having a family of tested and reliable rockets with well know performance stats ready to be tipped with payload we could save a lot of time that would otherwise go into building custom launch vehicles for each new payload. Thus, I present the Zenith rocket family. Features common to all Zenith rockets: >15% payload fraction asparagus staging with reliable staging sequence clustered engine core for sustained high Isp RCS system for on orbit attitude control, in case payload has low maxRot probe core and electrical system (including small solar panels) for space loitering and self-deorbiting Due to the common design of the whole family all Zenith rockets have similar ascent profile: 1. Turn on ASAS, throttle up to max and lift off 2. Ascend directly up and stage asparagus pairs once they run out of fuel. If you fly with either the proofing payload included in origianl .craft files or ones with similar mass then all but one pair of booster should run out just after 10k altitude (that's two pairs jettisoned for all except Zenith III, which will lose it's 3rd pair of boosters at 10k). Once you're done on your last pair of asparagus booster pitch down slowly to 45 degrees for gravity turn. 3. By the time your last pair of boosters run out you should be nearly horizontal. Use the core stage to continue to build your orbital velocity. 4. Upon reaching stable orbit. Decouple the rocket from the payload, use [] to change control to rocket, flip it around with RCS and perform an deorbit burn with the remaining fuel to ensure no space junk. All Zenith rockets have been tested to have enough fuel for deorbit burn while using the proofing payload. How to put payload onto of a Zenith rocket: I recommend using Subassembly Saver/Loader, but Payloader is okay too. 1. First you have to figure put how heavy of a payload you have: Here we have the stock Orbiter 1A, coming in at just under 20.5 tons. From our table of rockets at the top we can see that this is greater then what Zenith II can handle but well within Zenith III's capability. 2. Load up Zenith III, grab the rocket (everything from the decoupler down, remember the bit above is the proofing payload) and take your mouse to the purple Subassembly icon and "drop" it onto the icon. 3. Subassembly will prompt you for a name and category to save the subassembly, so give it a good name. 4. Now load up Orbiter 1A again, click on the purple subassembly button, browse to where you've saved your subassembly, clock on it and load. Your mouse will now have Zenith III underneath. Attach it to the bottom of the payload. In this case since Orbiter 1A has some pretty unusual geometry and I have lots of spare payload capacity I've decided to build an interstage between the payload and Zenith III to allow a clean attachment. 5. Unfortunately subassembly has some problems drawing struts and fuel lines going from radial parts to radial parts so these have to be fixed. Last I heard the author is working hard on fix this issue so maybe in the future this step will no longer be necessary. 6. Okay all done, let's fly this baby: Booster separation Payload release, notice all resources on payload still ful Deorbit burn with the remaining fuel in the booster. This ensures no spent Zenith stages are left in payload orbit as space junk. Craft files: http://www./download.php?zq8c09oaj0aayc5 Unzip those into your VAB folder. Each rocket comes with a proofing payload which is the heaviest payload I've tested that the rocket managed to successfully put into 75km LKO, the results were used to come up with the chart at the top of the page.

AMRV Mosquito These small rovers pack a lot of features into a small physical package. Weighing over just one ton fully fuelled it has: RTG for night time power small solar panel for day time hand and foot holds for one Kerbal RCS propulsion system with 80L max monopropellant capacity Avionics Package for stability during flight 105 electricity capacity Clamp-O-Tron Jr docking port for docking with MOLAB Some tips on flying the Mosquito: Keep ASAS on, you're going to need it for stability I recommend flying in staging mode and keep your hands on both WASD and IJKL controls for simultaneous control over all six axis Remember, by far the most powerful thrust direction is upwards, feel free to pitch and roll the Mosquito to use the bottom thrusters for manoeuvring like a helicopter instead of using translate control, it's quite effective. Go easy when coming to land, if you bump the top bars on the MOLAB you're likely to break the Giganator panels. Sometimes you may find yourself out of RCS fuel and unable to get back onto the MOLAB to refuel, you can rescue the stranded Mosquito by using the other one: Simply dock them together and transfer some RCS fuel over to the empty mosquito. Make sure to then also even out between the two tanks on board each for balance before attempting to get both up topside of MOLAB. If you would like to try the AMRV Mosquito interdependent of MOLAB you can find the craft file here: http://www./download.php?24hk08jesbllbjg MOLAB, Mosquito and Nova were assembled together using Subassembly Saver Loader (http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/subassembly-saver-loader/)

Back in the early days of the Apollo Program, each moon landing was suppose to take two Saturn-V launches. The one not carrying people was to carry a logistic vehicle known as "Lunar Truck". This logistic vehicle was never meant to come back to Earth and is designed to carry heavy gear that the astronauts will recover on the surface and use for long duration exploration. One such payload is a large rover called "MOLAB": Seen as I've already design an Apollo style lander (http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/46202-0-19-Apokee-Munar-Sortie-%28Apollo-style-spacecraft-MEM-Mun-Buggies%29), I thought I'll give a crack at MOLAB. MOLAB features: six man crew capacity self powered landing/hovering engine fore and aft anti-roll bars, ASAS and RCS system for additional traction control on low gravity environment when necessary huge monopropellant capacity for use in refuelling AMRV two AMRV "mosquito" and docking stations for multiple long range aerial sortie away from MOLAB robust power system for night driving full scientific package easy to use delivery system Let's have a look at that delivery system: Here is the MOLAB, perched on top of its descent stage which is itself on top of the booster rocket. To send this bad boy to the Mun I've elected to use my trusty Nova SHLLV (http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/24787-0-19-1-Zenith-rocket-family). MOLAB has two set of control - one for driving and one for rocket mode. To fly as a standard rocket it's essential to find the little probe core underneath (above the Munar Descent Stage) and set it to control. I won't bore you with details on how to attend orbit with Nova as it's pretty user friendly and anyway you can see more details about this booster in it's own thread (http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/44345-0-18-4-Nova-SHLLV-100-tons-to-LKO). Remember to switch on RCS for in space attitude control when main engines are not firing, you have plenty of RCS fuel for this. Once you get MOLAB and attached Nova core into LKO things get a bit interesting. You see Nova was designed to carry 100ton payload to LKO. MOLAB and it's Munar Descent Stage is under 60 tons, so Nova will only use up about half of its fuel in the core stage to finish climb to LKO. The rest we will use for Trans-Munar Injection(above pic), Munar orbit insertion and powered descent. Once around Mun, Nova's engines are fired again for Low Munar Orbit insertion. I generally find myself left with about 500L of combined fuel + oxidiser once Munar orbit insertion is complete. With a nice landing site picked out, fire up Nova for one last time for powered descent. By the time it runs out you should be on a suborbital trajectory. Cut the booster loose to let it crash onto the Munar surface and power up MOLAB's own descent stage to continue your powered descent. Powered descent is much like your regular powered descent from a capsule. The descent stage is just about on the CoM of MOLAB with a tiny tendency to pitch down, but that's well within the ship's ability to compensate for. Once you're near the surface use action group 3 to cut loose the descent stage. This will shut down descent stage engine, decouple the stage, fire retrorocket and activate the MOLAB's own small descent engines. You can also use stage sequence for this but remember to cut throttle before cutting loose the descent stage. MOLAB shortly before touch down. Powered by six Rockomax 24-77 it has plenty of TWR and over 400m/s of delta-V for hovering. I generally only use a small amount of fuel before touch down, the remaining could be used later should I ever need to fly the MOLAB over rough terrain. MOLAB on the ground, not yet deployed for surface operation. MOLAB deployed for driving. You can deploy it with action group 2. This extends all ladders, deploys anti-roll bars, switches on all scientific equipments and deploys antennas. MOLAB with main solar panels deployed (action group 1). MOLAB is equipped with about 5000 electricity capacity, two RTGs (two more on AMRVs when they are docked) and four Giganator panels for day time charging. AMRVs also add two additional OX-STAT panels when they are docked. This gives MOLAB infinite day time range and very far night time cruise range. Note that in this screenshot the navball has changed, you can change to this mode by right clicking on the lander can and choose "Control from Here". The odd solar panel position in this picture happened because I just happened to land on the Mun during a Kerbin-induced solar eclipse. MOLAB can hit 10m/s on the Munar surface fairly easily, but sometimes that's just not fast enough. For those who wonder "what's that flat top for" on top of MOLAB here is it's key feature - Advance Munar Roving Vehicles. The two "Mosquitos" carried by MOLAB are one man, high mobility rover/flyers designed for long range excursions away from the mobile base. They are RCS powered flying machines capable of seperating from MOLAB, flying considerable distance away to points of interest carrying a single pilot before returning to MOLAB and land on the "flat top" landing area to redock with the base for refuelling. A fully stocked MOLAB can support 18 max range AMRV sorties. More on the Mosquitos on the following post. Craft files: MOLAB (without the rocket): http://www./download.php?gut4ywcv3ubpwyw Put this in the SPH MOLAB LV: http://www./download.php?h4hdgo9lg1pdgmy Put this in your VAB for full rover and rocket stack MOLAB Resupply Vessel: http://www./download/2bxnbxkr4zbe595/MOLAB_Resupply_Vessel.craft

Career mode gives some interesting spin on the game. I for one think Rockmax Mainsail is a shockingly bad engine. However one mainsail cost the same as most 1m engines despite giving 6 times the thrust. Thus it becomes economical to build inefficent "big dumb boosters" that use more fuel to lift the same payload to orbit as smaller, more efficient, more cleverly engineered asparagus staging rockets with lots of aerospikes. That's quite a cool aspect because it mimics the real life difference in design between NASA rockets vs Russian rockets. NASA tried to develop a launch vehicle that could deliver payload to LEO by using cutting edge technology and try to build an orbiter that is reusable and they end up with a vehicle that cost astronomical amount of money per kg to orbit and is quite fragile. Where as Russians design throw away rockets that are so robust they can be put together on the ground horizontally then lifted to vertical at launch and end up with much lower per kg to LEO cost despite not reusing any hardware. One other thing I like to add after watching the first video: space junk. If I was paying for KSP to put up my satellite I would not be happy if they ditched a 2nd stage rocket engine right next to my satellite. After a few dozen orbit they might bump and that before you know that's 2 pieces of space junk we have in LKO. So I propose the following space junk rules: Hazardous orbital insertion penalty: -10,000 Kerbucks for releasing a payload within 2km of launch vehicle debris sharing the same orbit Space littering fee: -5,000 Kerbucks for each piece of debris left in non-decaying orbit by launch vehicle One up, one down bonus: +4,000 Kerbucks for each piece of debris de-orbited, debris may include defunct satellites

Why do you need your big interplanetary spacecraft to do docking anyway? Wouldn't the interplanetary spacecraft be the mothership and all the other little landers and tankers dock with it instead? My interplanetary carrier isn't as big as sanity's. And even though it does have 12 RCS block I would not consider it maneuverable enough to perform docking. Any why would it need to? It just need to be able to transfer between planets. Docking capability should be built into the landers and tankers and spacecrafts that want to dock with it and not the other way around.

I agree it's the big vectored engines that sake up a ship, but my argument is if you have the right amount of vectored thrust (ie, a lot less control authority than a ship powered only by mainsails) then a big ship can fly fine too with ASAS. In my case, it's the 7 LV-N cluster at the center that's gimbled on my ship.

I'm indifferent to RCS vs no RCS. I like it and I find it invaluable for small final adjustment weather it's powered descent or docking. That said I've also done both powered landing and docking (those two dockings were nailbiters) with only main engines so I agree that if you feel confident doing them the weight saving is great. However, I disagree that LV-T45 is a better lander engine because it's easier for lateral motion cancelling. When you're using main engine to cancel lateral motion you are using it much like a helicopter pitching around to stop to a hover. LV-T45's vectored thrust in no way help this process since you should only be firing your engines in bursts in a fixed direction against the direction you're moving laterally (and diagonally up of course, to not come crashing down). You're not going to be leaving your engine on and pitching and yawing all over the place with that lander like they did in that Apollo 13 movie. If you do that you'll introduce lateral movement to other direction while you adjust pitch and yaw. Since you're not yawing or pitching while the engine is firing and command pod reaction wheel by itself is powerful enough for pitch and yaw control while engines are not firing LV-T30 have the advantage of being lighter and more powerful.

There isn't really any tool to help you get close enough to get visual on target in KSP, it's going to be all manual flying. But don't worry it's not too hard, just takes practice and some patience. First time is always the hardest but eventually you get so good you can do it with your eyes closed. Okay so the steps I follow are: 1. Make sure the target vehicle is in a circular orbit, that is it's Ap and Pe needs to be about the same. I usually aim for no more than 30m difference. This is important as otherwise you'll have to deal with orbital phase and semi-major axis and all sorts of complicated stuff. Even NASA wouldn't touch that with a 10ft clown pole and used circular orbit for Gemini 6. 2. Okay so your target is in circular orbit and you've launched the docking vehicle into the same circular orbit. First thing you notice is that the two circles are not exactly on top of each other - that is their inclination are slightly different. If you were in your docking vehicle and target is close you will see it drift left and right. To fix this wait till you're at one of the two points where the two orbits cross (an orbital node) and thrust towards the direction of the drift. So if your target's orbit is drifting right (if the two of you are flying Kerbin prograde, that's means target craft orbit is south of yours after the orbital node) then burn towards right/south/anti-normal and watch the orbit. Once the two obits are aligned in inclination cut engine. 3. So now you and target are in the same circular orbit at same altitude and same inclination, except you're on opposite side of Kerbin. There are two ways to get to your target: catch up or slow down. Which you use will depend on which direction is smaller. To catch up, perform a small retroburn to dip your orbit on the otherside of Kerbin lower. Remember objects travel on lower orbit do so at a higher velocity, in addition to the fact that you travel less distance for one revolution. To slow down and let the other craft catch up, perform a small prograde burn to raise your orbit on the other side of Kerbin. 4. Once you've done this burn watch carefully how much the two crafts close in per orbit, ORDA is very useful because it tells you this information under the orbital tab when you select a target. Don't circularise your orbit when you reach the other side, keep one point at your target orbit's altitude and continue to adjust your orbit at this point. If you need the approach to be greater per orbit then make the difference in altitude at the othside bigger and vice visa. As you close in on your target you'll want to reduce the altitude difference at the furtherest point to avoid overshooting your target. Your last orbit before visual contact should have the altitude difference very small on the order of 500m, which at LKO will close in by about 5km per orbit. Once you are within 2km of your target you have achieved orbital rendezvous. All that's left is to fly in on pure visual reference and then dock.

So if you becareful and test out your spacecraft by first sending a chimp called "Kam" into orbit and as a result get beaten by the Kommunist for first Kerbal in space their premier will fly over, tour the country for a bit, visit a meat packing factory, eat some hotdogs and then proclaim "We've beaten you to space! But you've beaten us in sausage making"?

Is Kerbin orbit rendezvous allowed in addition to Munar orbit rendezvous? If so: http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/forum/showthread.php/23142-3-ship-mun-mission-with-docking

That's a legit niche and it exists: engine for Apollo style CM/SM cismunar spacecraft. So basically parachute, 3 man pod, decoupler, big ASAS, big RCS tank, 1600L tank and LV-T30, with a sprinkling of RCS thrusters and long lander legs. For such a spacecraft: Can't use one aerospike as you need booster underneath to get it into orbit. (Unless you only use parallel stage asparagus boosters) Can't use two or more Aerospike because that's too powerful/heavy Can't use one LV-N because they are too tall for lander legs. Can't use two or more LV-N because they're extremely heavy and not worth it for the amount of fuel you are going to burn with them Probably don't want to use Poodle because it's much heavier but only offers 20s better Isp. You don't need vectored thrust (see below) No point in using LV-T45, as it's heavier and have worse TWR. You don't need vectored thrust because for a spacecraft that size command pod's reaction wheel is more than enough And because LV-T30 looks better, it looks most similar to the SPS engine on Apollo SM.

Well once career mode is in it makes sense that the first capsule you get access to is the 1 man capsule. I mean if you're going to shoot people/Kerbal into space you'll probably want to do it one at a time at first, and you might consider starting off with dogs and chimps before doing it for real. Only later when you've mastered orbiting maneuvers in LKO would the space program gives you the go ahead to develope 3 men cismunar spacecrafts