Fuzzy Dunlop

I'd rush rush rush SLS for a test flight in the shortest time-frame possible, in the sincere hope it explodes and levels SLC-39B (ideally one of the SRBs would ignite in the VAB but I can't see a way to do that without endangering life). This is probably the best chance of getting congress to cancel SLS and free NASA from this millstone around its neck. I'd spin off the aeronautics programmmes (probably the most useful part) as a seperate agency - reforming NACA (NASA then stands for National American Space Agency). I'd cancel Orion becuase, while it is a perfectly good capsule, so is Dragon. There's little point duplicating the effort. I'd refocus NASA on what it's good at, space-based science and technology development. Planetry science (focussing particulary on the moons of saturn and jupiter, not mars so much), space-based astronomy and earth observation would be the scientific priorities. I'd also reinvest in the ISS, reviving the centrifuge accommodations module, to get some genuinely useful data from the $100 billion project. I'd focus on developing technology in the areas of propellant transfer, recylcing and life support and in-situ resource utilization. I'd also resurrect project prometheus, to develop nuclear power sources for deep space applications, and invest in next generation electric propulsion technology like VASMIR. I'd work with partners to develop a "mission module" providing habitable space and life support for long term deep space missions. When the Falcon heavy and manned Dragon are operating I'd send guinea pigs into deep space to quantify the effects of the radiation upon biological systems. This would be succeded by a manned mars flyby or near earth asteroid visit. If all went well work could begin on a manned mars mission using dragon and the mission module.

Heat it? how hot is jupiter anyway?

If you watch this animation the waverider rolls upside down just before booster seperation, then rolls upright again just after - anyone have any idea why?

In a general case sidemount means you can burn the core engines all the way to orbit, which has a couple of advantages: A) Your upper stage engines take some of the load a liftoff, so the 1st stage engines don't need to be as heavy (and expensive). You don't have to deal with igniting an engine at altitude.

Why? Energomash will sell the far superior RD-170 for much less than the cost opening an new production line...

Well most of that 9000 m/s comes from kerbin's orbit so really the ejection angle only effects the velocity you have just before leaving kerbin's sphere of influence. So ejection angle gets more important the further away from kerbin you want to go, its not so important for Duna or Eve but quite important for Jool

Other than a manned mars mission (which we don't have the budget/technology for anyway) what would nuclear thermal rockets be used for?

The thing about slingshots is that they depend on the mass of a body. So the Mun can just about push you out of kerbins SOI, whereas you will probably spend more fuel targeting Minmus than it will save you. Where you really make big savings is slingshots around Kerbin, Eve and Jool. And remember you can always have more than one slingshot around the same body.

Personally I would just quicksave an reload untill I get it right.

Well the phase angle changes depending on what transfer you want. The phase angle for a high speed transfer (i.e. the transfer obit extends beyond the orbit of the target planet) is different from a Hohmann transfer. What hjalfi is proposing is to keep the phase angle constant while changing the transfer orbit - untill he finds the orbit that matches the angle. There are some phase angles that have no orbit that works for them though.

I Duna has the same inclination as Kerbin, so this approach might work there. One way to do it is to get into a low kerbin parking orbit, quicksave, then burn into a transfer orbit and work roughly how much you missed by (either eyeball it or use the mission clock). Then reload and time accelerate till you get into the rough launch window.

You could try adding an SAS unit or two. That might help.

EndlessWaves has a point, you can probably ditch the small control surfaces and one pair of the large control surfaces.

The important thing about centre of lift is that it moves. This plane here (the X-2) is perfectly stable. It flies until the fuel runs dry without any control imput or ASAS. In fact neither of those would help becuase it has no control surfaces. If we look in the spaceplane hanger we see that the Centre of Lift is in front of the Centre of Gravity. The tail is angled downwards and generates no lift. This makes the plane pitch up. Let's rotate the plane in the hanger and see what happens to the Centre of lift. Now the tail generates some lift. The Centre of lift moves backward behind the Centre of Gravity. This makes the plane pitch down, and brings us back to the start. In flight the plane will bob up and down till it finds a happy medium - this is the essence of stability.

If the problems are only occuring above 30 km it's probably not a centre of lift issue. And it only occurs on 0.17? Maybe the order the tanks empty has changed and this is shifting the Centre of Mass?

Once they add re-entry heat we can aerobake ...I'll get my coat

It would help if you could post pictures of your planes. Two general things that might be wrong. Firstly the centre of lift may be in front of the centre of gravity, which will make the plane spin. Secondly if you have to many fins and control surfaces at the front of the plane the plane will want to fly backwards (like an arrow the feathers always want to be at the back). Either way, try moving the wings back a bit?

The point about less angle wasn't about planes exclusivley. Remember getting to orbit is all about -horizontal- velocity. The reason you go vertical at first is to give yourself enough time to build up the required horizontal velocity before you hit the ground, also to get you above the drag of the atmosphere (on bodies with atmospheres). Now on Kerbin there isn't much drag above 30km so once your that high you should just burn horizontal untill you get most of the required velocity. This will give you an apogee half-way around Kerbin, once you have that you can just coast up to it and circularize. What you don't want to do is just coast vertically upwards to 70 km, since gravity is leaching away your energy all the time your not in orbit. While you can just turn 90 degrees from vertical to horizontal its more efficient to level out in a smooth curve. The optimal curve depends on your design. With a spaceplane the wings generate lift so you don't even have to start vetical. And yes half throttle gives half thrust and half fuel consumption. It can be slightly more efficient to dial back at some points in the assent but it doesn't make a very big difference.

Stall is where the angle of attack of a wing gets so large that air stops flowing smoothly around it. It becomes turbulent and the lift drops to near zero and the drag also increases. That doesn't happen in KSP as the air doesn't flow so much as bounce off the wing (I think thats how the lift model works). I did some theory work on a very basic lift model. I reckon lift peaks at 45 degrees (makes sense since then the air gets bounced directly downwards). Drag increases exponentially from 0 at 0 degrees to a maximum at 90 degrees. So I guess you could say the wings "stall" at 45 degrees.

Firstly the jet engines can still supply useful thrust up till about 20km (and even after then keeping them burning will at least shed weight) so don't turn them off too soon. Secondly it sounds like your trajectory is too steep. I think you should try keeping the climbing angle at about 45 degrees after areospike ignition. Then gradually level off from about 20km onwards so by the time you pass 35-40km you should be more or less horizontal. Thirdly it sound life you may be trying to build a single stage to orbit (SSTO) design. This isn't easy, but you can look on the K-prize thread in the challanges forum for inspiration. Or look for SSTO in the spacecraft exchange.

If your in a polar orbit kerbin will rotate under you

An inclination that big will require almost as much fuel as getting into orbit in the first place. But you can make it much less costly by doing the burn futher away from kerbin (put yourself into a highly inclined orbit and change the inclination at apoapsis). It might even be worth slingshotting around the mun (I've used that to go from prograde to retrograde). But the simplest solution is just to launch north or south...

Thats not entirely true. The exhuast tempurature of a rocket engine shouldn't be limited by materials (ideally the exhaust shouldn't come into contact with anything). What limits the tempurature is the amount of energy that combustion can provide. Obviously a nuclear reactor provides far more energy.

If your playing in windowed mode the bottom of the screen sometimes gets cut-off (which hides the little triangle). So you might have to move the window up a bit.

I don't think you can "skip off" the atmosphere - that would require lift, which most spaceships in KSP don't have. What you can do is "skim through" the atmosphere and come out the other side.