Markus Reese

December, what is that structural beams pack you are using there? I like some of those pieces!

Guess one and only! I wanted to fly a third lab in, but due to it running slow, choppy and laggy, lab II had to be landed some distance away. A third would be impossible. Anyways, the two dorms can be clearly seen with horizontal solar panels. The Admin was the four engines vertical sitting structure, but instead can consider the comms building; The one using lander parts. Three classrooms would be the two lab buildings with tri vertical solar panels, and what I originally landed as admin, or the comms structure. Lastly, the statue is the cool virus looking building that originally dropped my rover to scout the area. Not wild, but no way to remove anything or land anything else.

Most kerbals seem to be brave or dumb. In the case of jeb, I think he is full of both!

KSC wasn\'t satisfied with the initial landing location, so a Rover II was sent up to site a new crater. A new one was chosen and approved. More mountains a bigger jumps gave it the go ahead. Dubbed Thorn Canyon Cat\'s Thumb Crater Cat\'s Paw Crater Cluster

Personally, I like the build one for the better control it allows me to bring with the ship. Setting up specific orbits and choosing landing locations, delivering payloads needs the exponentially larger rocket. You need more engines to lift a payload, and that means more engines and fuel to lift that fuel. Fortunately that is why I have a separate modded version of ksp. One for playing with default stuff, the other to make the rockets using the big mod items. It is the objects and the huge clusters of engines that really causes all the lag. A few large ones run alot better, and as such, allows more fun. With alot of the added objects, you can do cool stuff like sat networks, and lunar colonies.

For ease of simplicity, I like to bank 22.5 off vertical upon entering stratosphere, and then I will bank over to 45 after entering the Mesophere. After clearing into the ionosphere, I boost to nearer to my ideal peak altitude and apply fully horizontal thrust to accelerate up to orbital velocity. inertia and pitch angle to carry me up to the altitude. Ideally it would be a gradual bank over so that you are hitting optimal altitude the same time you achieve orbit, but difficult controls makes a staged set of turns better.

Lunar rover down. the Jeb team is too valuable to keep on a permanent deployment, so they were responsible to operate it remotely. At least that is what they were told. It was more the life support and ZO2 systems are expensive and didn\'t want to take as big of a loss in case jeb couldn\'t handle keeping the throttle under control. Also, It was determined the landing thrusters were oversized, making control a tricky situation. Forgetting the lower Munar gravity, the ones used were too large. Further modules are being refitted with smaller vernier radial rockets.

The orbits on the satellites are all within a few km of eachother and almost no variation, (close to perfect circular). Equatorials are at 250km, Polars are at 750km, and Mun is at 1Mm. One of the equatorial satellites wasn\'t lined up correctly and is orbiting slightly slower, might need to scrap and replace it or design a more permanent and adjustable placement satellite. I hope to be finishing up a flight tutorial video this weekend, I will be posting it up. Has some of the more advanced control stuff I used that really helped me out a bit. Done without mods and what can be done without needing calculation sheets, etc. Is how I got those orbits. No mod programs or spreadsheets were used, just by feel. One drawback to the perfect equatorial placement is leaving kerbin on that trajectory. Had a couple close flybys on a heading of 270 departure, whoops. Flip side, I am getting better at placing my parachute landing locations. Good for when we get more planets. This was lined up entirely from +100km orbit before jettisoning retrograde engine.

Doctor, looks like you still have an engine there? Still recoverable!!!

Hello all, been flying to the muns, built different rockets, but now I have startet working with the expansion packs and other mods. Most recently, I have set myself up a fair sized challenge inspired by a challenge from the challenge threads. Here is my original inspiration was the munar campus thread, But expanding it to be something more grand hopefully. Will fill in the stages as I get more done. Should be completed over next couple of days now that the main com satellites are done. To cover the Mun wont take as many since only 3 or so will be needed in longer range orbit. Stage 1: Kerbalcast system Full planetary comm system coverage to ensure full time communication with Mun base, as well as scouting rover command. This is done using the Powertech and Dynasat mods, so is an actual commnet for ROVs, as well as communications to the muns or any future discovered planets. Stage 2: Munarcomm system satellite commnet for the Mun for full time coverage. Polar regions no covered, no planned polar excursions with remote systems. Stage 3: Rover scout Scouting planned base location which currently is the dark side of the moon. Stage 4: Establish structures as per campus challenge, plus a communication bunker. Have the setup completed. Looks not too bad if I do say so myself. I love horizontal structures, they are nice to land. This also fits within the 3m half panels, allowing a smooth and aerodynamic flight. Stage 5: Land some assorted ships on mun Cannot perform this last task alas. The system is becoming to laggy and unstable to land any more vehicles at this location. :\'(

Campus in production, I pushed it a bit further though and decided I needed to set up a comms system first. Plus need to land a rover so I can survey the ground first Hopefully will be done tomorrow provided all landings go according to plan. Some interesting designs coming 8)

Before SAS existed, Jeb decided to try his hand at making a gyroscope to balance a launching rocket. http://youtu.be/nPlLzz-b1Ns

Launch pad! I might do a modded one to cut down on overall objects so I can go bigger.

Good for those long term flights, dang these big ones are tough to launch. At the limits of my PC for this one. Hopefully more optimization will run it smoother, so this could be made more functional than flashy. Capable of mun landing and return after jettisoning the main habitation components on the outside.

Largest Mun and minimun to date: I can re-design both since 4 solid boosters overkills the mun escape, and really makes it difficult to capture kearth orbit. Mun Minimun mountain I really need a better computer, or some more optimization is needed to get bigger stuff into orbit.

Aaah! On it!

The no beyond 5 for the moon is near impossible. I have done a horizontal landing on the moon and it is very difficult because of mun\'s gravity, you have to have an upwards aim to keep the vertial velocity down. Just use 5 angle pitch, and is near impossible to maintain without doing little balerina spins to prevent de-orbit velocities. Since mun doesnt have the smooth ocean landing, a low velocity is required as well to prevent cartwheels. Will attempt, but probably going to have to break some rules. Edit: Read post two above this one, some good hints. Though I like more control over trial and error, but it will help

The only reason for the no mods, is not sure what all is out there, cannot make it too easy

My heron design. Getting stable boosting can be such a hassle. Might re-design something more with better looting initial tanks. Edit: Was actually getting ready to fly when you posted challenge. Plane is landable too, but I missed the runway and landed on grass, crashed on taxi before screenie. Another boostered vertical takeoff space plane, this one landed on the minimun. Cute and short thing, but is lunar ready. That includes acheive orbit of kerbal on launch, and then return, as well as getting a stable orbit of either Mun or miniMun.

It was a day that will live in the memories of all kerbal kind, a potential disaster began to unfold on the first orbital test flight of the Minimun 2 X-prize space plane. A calculation error resulted in all fuel being consumed just prior to acheiving orbit. With no burn fuel, the ship began an uncontrollable glide decent back to Kearth, right into the center of the Karcific Ocean. :-X Kerbals young and old watched as brave commander Gregger Kerman glided the experimental craft in an attempt to perform a never thought possible water landing. Without any experience or training, the crew had only instinct to rely upon. At the last moment, all RCS rockets fired in a lift and braking maneuver while Gregger flared up in an attempt to stall forward speed and decent. The plane struck hard in a firey collision as the outer orbital rockets broke free and residual fuel detonated. The rear tail immediately snapped off with collision with the water and the landing gears sheared away. Engine turbines shattered. The front came down with enough force to shatter the nose. But the crew was alive, shaken but okay. The design of the plane, remained water tight and boyant with the now empty fuel tanks. The following image was taken by the rescue helicopter. We can see the crew is calm and relaxed through the onboard camera. Desiring further studies into the possible necessities of further water landings, the KSA challenges designers to come up with and perform crafts capable of saving the crew in the event of a water landing. Guidlines and rules. 1. Default components and unmodded gameplay only. Sorry, but that means no mechjeb too. 2. Ship must be able to acheive orbit. 3. Successful water landing of orbital stage. This means all boosters required to acheive final orbit, IE stuff that would be jettisoned once in orbit. 4. Three screenshots. Pre-launch, orbit, and water landed. Following scorings: 1: First to water land 2: Largest water landed vehicle 3: Style points; /10 points for each category a) Threading the Needle - Smaller body of water, the better. Land Ho! - Being as far away from land as possible for landed water body c) Tonka Tough - How intact ship is after landing