Trebuchet-Launch

I may have... Wow. This one is going over the water. No mountains. Hopefully it goes in the right direction after the atmospheric bounce. *crossing fingers* EDIT: A world of blue below, with no inconvenient mountains. See screenshot50, attached. EDIT: Sonova... it's heading RIGHT BACK towards KSC EDIT: I have it consistently headed over the ocean. It's fine if I fire it off axis as long as it's not above 45 degrees elevation, right? ::loophole abuse:: EDIT: The SilberJeb's atmosphere bounce is so good, even the failures where the stupid thing decides to go home are further out when I End Flight out of irritation than anyone else's flights, and they've barely begun to glide. EDIT: I'm just gonna let this one fly until it crashes and see what kind of ground distance I get. EDIT: Posting an atmosphere bounce so people know what I'm talking about, screenshot 51. After re-entering the atmosphere, it deflects off the lower air, bottoms out around 7000 meters, and goes flying back up. I think this is bounce #2.

Final stats: Highest altitude: 54,521 m Ground Distance: 214,849 m Highest Speed: 1,504 m/s It has a *very* good glide ratio and slammed into a mountainside at 1289 m altitude. I can beat this. EDIT: New flight looks promising so far. EDIT: D'oh EDIT: Bouncing off the atmosphere is as unpredictable as bouncing off the tarmac. EDIT: Going back into the mountains. Ugh.

If you want ideas for low speed gliders, look at the Javelin challenge. We have some real winners there, stuff that glides for hours at less than 30 m/s.

Greetings, gentlemen! I woke this morning and had a bit of inspiration, an improvement in my design which would extend my range much further. And, indeed, it did, although my morning flight ended prematurely when it ran into a tall hill/short mountain... at 225 km out. So, now that I have returned for the evening, and after much thinking, I am tinkering with my new ideas. I'm wondering how far away you can get one of these, ultimately. Out of a decision to set my goal high, perhaps impossibly high, I am shooting for... I can't believe I am typing this - 1000 km distance. Is it possible? I no longer doubt it out of hand, at least... EDIT: I realized - why bounce off the ground? Bounce off the AIR. Dynamic soaring, Silbervogel style. Does it work in the game? YES. My version of the SilberJeb will dive into the atmosphere and then *back* above 10000m before gliding. EDIT: It's gliding directly towards a mountain range again. EDIT: This sort of thing will take a long time to perfect, given the sheer length of time a good glider can stay up. Perhaps I should retry all flights that are headed into mountains or going in inconvenient directions... EDIT: EndlessWaves, my approach started off as efficient use of thrust, along with the completely kerbal tactic of ricocheting the rocket off the runway (before we were allowed inclined launches). I am now incorporating gliding. My current design leaves the atmosphere, comes back in, goes back OUT of the thick air, and then does a final glide. EDIT: Not only am I aimed at the mountains, I am aimed at A mountain. So, this test flight is going to end soon.

OK, last hurrah for the evening. Highest Altitude: 23,520 m Ground Distance: 83,085 Supra's non-spaceplane record is going to be a tough one to beat. I'll see about taking another crack at it tomorrow.

Suprablaski, now combine your good glider with my bounce-launching for superior height and see what happens.! EDIT: Just had a fantastic bounce-launch with my horizontal one that topped out at just under 24,000 m. Gotta see how far it glides - if it glides. EDIT: [fist shaking] Uncontrolled spin made it re-enter facing the wrong way and it is gliding towards the space center EDIT: For bounce-launching, the height you hold the craft at really matters. Too high or too low will almost guarantee an explosion or knocking off your wings. A higher start gives you a more violent bounce and more elevated trajectory. It's possible to bounce-launch for less than 25km in height with the proper height, though. EDIT: It seems that, if I put a nicely gliding one into the thin air, it spins uncontrollably and then ends up gliding forever in a random direction... I'm trying until I get one going where I want it to go! EDIT: My gliders really miss home. They consistently end up heading roughly back to KSC after spinning all over the sky. EDIT: This one is flying AWAY from KSC, so maybe it will be a new non-spaceplane record. Supra's record is going to be hard to beat for that, though. EDIT: Just barely cleared 25km. Nuts.

And for space launching: I removed the landing gear, aimed at about 40 degrees, and let rip. The damage: Ground distance traveled: 170,405 m Altitude reached: 73,062 m Screenshot of end flight screen attached. I'm going to fool around some more but won't post anything unless I make a nice improvement. EDIT: screenshot42 is the spaceplane one I just fired 170km, now that we're allowed inclined launches. screenshot43 is my horizontally fired bounce-launch plane.

I had to go away for a bit, but I returned to stake my claim to a non-space launch. Ground distance 44,348 m Highest Altitude 4,282 m Screenshot attached. I'm going for the distance record for spaceplanes. Without needing to bounce I think I can really pile on the miles.

I have a bounce-rocket that glides well now, though. Perhaps your days are numbered. Or, y'know, someone else will improve on it, too. EDIT: This one corkscrewed all over the sky over KSC, which is why the altitude stinks. But, with enough bounces...

Curses! If I manage to put one into a suborbital trajectory that's a lot less straight up and down, though...

One of the screenshots in the pair I posted is the "just before death" shot of my initial bounce-rocket. It was, sadly, my best by far, but obviously ended a while ago. I can't take another screenshot of it. EDIT: I've been fiddling with my bounce-rockets ever since. The current one has a nice stable glide, so I'm trying to see if I can get it to bounce into a climb like I've managed twice.

I've kinda switched challenges to "Can I make an unmanned landing?"

There is pretty much zero control over WHERE the booster goes, though. I mean, it will straighten out nicely after the "bounce", but if it bounces off to the side it will do all sorts of crazy stuff. Right now I had one spin out and do corkscrews in the sky around KSP. All four wheels are intact and it's gliding around - I want to see if it will do an unmanned landing. (nope)

Two pairs of canards: one slightly biased to the rear and angled slightly down, to pitch the nose up. Put some wheels on the bottom. It will launch, bounce, and, if you're lucky, start turning up. If you're really lucky, it'll rip the wheels off on the bounce to get rid of the deadweight/drag. EDIT: Trebuchet invents new technique: lithostaging! EDIT2: Mostly you will just blow up on the runway or shear a wing off, though.

Here we go. This wasn't intended to be an 'official' flight, but, eh, 90k up in the air and then 86km away.

In the course of trying to get one to fly further than 8 km forward, I've accidentally created a single-solid booster which turns straight up and reaches space (suborbitally, of course). This is, needless to say, a surprise, and also means you can end up too far to see the purple diamond. EDIT: I suppose Suprablaski managed something similar. EDIT2: You can see the purple diamond from further out than I thought.

You know, after hitting ] and changing over to the unmanned booster, the "End Flight" screen will tell you how far it flew.

Yay, done. I will include the (zipped) .craft file for the Escape Artiste. Escaping Kerbol is fairly simple for prograde escape: put this monster in low-ish prograde orbit, circle around to Kerbin's night side, and light the engines again, full blast, when you're over the middle of the night. Just lay on the throttle and burn prograde until you escape. The time given to Kerbol escape will always be 68 years plus and never decrease. Prepare for a few failed launches from the SRB's hitting the left engine on staging from time to time, but other than that, it's fairly reliable.

The only serious enemy here is the "space kraken". I'm doing a stock mission with a rocket I know can handle it, and the kraken has trashed any ability to control the rocket. I'm restarting and trying a prograde escape this time.

You mean, reach Kerbol escape velocity, so that in theory it could escape the system? That's not exactly hard to do with stock parts.

If one person is in the orbiting spacecraft, you can control it. I\'ve been working on the Apollo style mission as well. I designed a lunar lander based on the CrewTank mod. After much design work, I\'ve made a fairly stable and capable lander unit. As a bonus, the lander stage works as a mini-space station to practice rendezvous with. If we had a 1-m CrewTank as well, I could build a seperate lunar ascent vehicle, too, and leave the CrewTanks behind to build up Munbases. Even as-is, I could land multiple units with 1 crew apiece and fly back on one of them. My main problem is the bulky stack I have to put on Trans-Munar Injection. Building a rocket which is both beefy and reliable enough to survive has been a problem. At the moment, I\'ve settled for Kerbin orbit testing of components. Building a booster to push the whole mess out to the Mun and Minmus is next.

Well, this rocket is a bit klunky... but, eh, fiddling around with rockets is half the fun of the game. Basic plan for flying to the Mun: (1) - Boost straight up. (2) - Around 10,000 m or so, start tilting over towards the 90 degree marker (3) - Once you get to the point where you\'re showing an apoapsis of 90-110 km or so, turn the engines off, coast until you\'re out of the atmosphere, and then punch the engines directly on a course of 90 (right on the border between the blue and brown on the navball) (4) - Your orbit should circularize once you pick up enough speed. Then wait until... (5) - Watch the horizon. Once the Mun rises above it, burn prograde (yellow circle) and watch on the map screen. Yout apoapsis will climb until, eventually, it shows Munar Encounter. (6) - Warp to the Mun (7) - Once you\'re in the Mun\'s sphere of influence, burn retrograde (yellow circle with X on navball) until you\'re in orbit (8) - Burn retrograde some more until you\'re on a collision course. Then more retrograde until you\'re falling straight down. Do yourself a favor and make sure not to land on the dark side. (9) - The rest is all about falling straight down and punching the engines from time to time to maintain a controlled descent. Try to land at no more than 2 m/s.

Dragstar-II achieves 467.2 m/s. I am going to see if I can beat it.

OK, Kerbal Drag Racing. Presenting: The DragStar-I. Attached are screenshots of the second flight of the DragStar-I. Top speed: 379.4 m/s This *was* good enough for first place, but someone has beaten me. Back to the drawing board...

Murs! And I have actual, rational reasons here. Unlike the gas giants, which would require far more work to be done on the game, Murs missions could be done after implementation of EVA and the ability to move from one vehicle to another on the ground. No docking necessary. A Mars Direct style mission plan would suffice: (1) Send unmanned return vehicle to Murs. (2) Send kerbals to Murs in descent vehicle. (3) Both capture into Murs orbit (4) Land the return vehicle (5) Attempt surface rendezvous (6) Transfer kerbals to return vehicle by EVA (7) Boost for home Oh - and as long as we\'re thinking about Murs, if we have Munoliths on the moons, Murs needs a Murs Face resembling Jeb or something.