N2maniac

Hmm, a decent design challenge...

All you really need is about 4km/s delta v past orbital. Considering that getting to the Mun, landing, and taking off again is about another 2km/s, it isn't much more difficult.

...That sounds like a challenge...

I feel like the OP of this thread has abandoned it.

With a 1/r2 force law, orbits will never look from that top down. Under a r2r1 force law (positive exponent!) they will appear like this (try a mass on a spring or a long pendulum, they generally do this). There is a relation between the power of r that a force law takes and the shape of an orbit under that force law (in terms of what rotation angle is progressed as the altitude does 1 cycle), but I can\'t remember it at the moment. Many powers end up with the non-circular orbits not being closed for 1 cycle, with -2 and +2 being notable exceptions. Edit: The +r solution is r^1, not r^2. I do not know why I was thinking Hooke\'s law was r^2...

You can reach escape velocity for Kerbol fairly easily (should be about 4-5km/s over Kerbin\'s orbital speed at that altitude) but you never leave the SoI. It just becomes a slow journey at some point with a speed asymptotically approaching ship\'s hyperbolic excess velocity following its hyperbolic orbit.

Whether or not radiative heat transfer is important at 2km/s, it may be important at higher re-entry speeds or aero-capture. An aero-capture maneuver at high speed would avoid the highest conductive/convective heat flux deeper down, yet have a potentially high temperature initially (suppose it was 8,10,12, even 21km/s). Not trying to nag or negatively criticize, just bringing up a point.

You know that time warp that you use for deep space, orbital, or trans-Munar missions? Without a complex implementation it would require everyone to share a time warp setting.

Wow, suddenly it makes sense. That would just about match what I have found angle-wise.

If you start in a low kerbin orbit and try to aim at the Mun with a single burn to raise the apoapsis to its orbit, you are looking for what angle to have you vs the Mun when you start the burn. I did some calculations for this and it seems the 90 deg mark that is often quoted is a bit off. My best explanation: Looking from above, position yourself in the 6 o clock and the Mun in the 2 o clock position (rotate the camera/wait on your low orbit to come to it). From there do a prograde burn until apoapsis reaches the Mun\'s orbit. In v0.15, you should see the SoI change to know you got it right. In other words, like this you will do 1/2 a rotation in the time it takes the Mun to do 1/6 a rotation (roughly) Example: Once you see the SoI change you can figure out what corrections you need to do. My advice is wait until you are 1/3 to 1/2 of the way there since it does not work very well to adjust your course near kerbin (unless it is an arrival timing).

Last time I checked Kerbol seems to have very tall mountains. I crash well before hitting altitude=0m.

How the heck do you get it to do that?

How do you figure that? A perhaps naive assumption would be something like a=v2/(2d) However, since 10km/s is faster than the speed of sound in steel and likely whatever the ship is made of, an interesting effect will happen where the back of the ship doesn\'t 'know' the front has hit something until it also hits it.

Wait, how is VTOL defined? Is a rocket technically a VTOL?

Since nobody else seems to attempt this: Record title: World Water Speed Record Record statistic : 27.7m/s Game version when record achieved: 0.15 Screenshots: Note: That sail-like object is actually about 20 standard control surfaces. This is to keep it from going under. Mods used: none This feels like reverse steampunk or something using jet engines and aircraft parts to make a boat of moderate speed.