Secular_Response

I haven't found a mod that has been broken by the update yet. Even MechJeb works fine.

Very nice part, KospY!

This looks like a great way to ditch excess crew before a rescue mission. "Right! You two, out!"

I just stumbled across this fascinating Wikipedia article on Lunar Orbiter 1 and thought it was worth sharing. There are plenty of details, enough so that a simulated mission could be easily accomplished. There's even a link to a pdf of the 1967 NASA performance report. Some interesting facts: - Earth parking orbit Aug. 10, 1966 at 19:31 (UTC). The Trans lunar injection burn occurred at 20:04. Nicely timed - only 33 minutes before TMI. - Took the first two pictures of the Earth ever from the distance of the Moon. 1,2 - Crashed into the Moon's far side on October 29, 1966 on its 577th orbit. Running low on RCS fuel. Not kidding. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_Orbiter_1

The mods that I use are MechJeb (automated vessel operations), Camera Pack (adds user-mounted cameras), and the empty pods mod (makes extra pods you can mount to the rocket for rescue operations, etc.) MechJeb Fixed Camera Crewable Empty Pods

Thanks very much for the detailed response! I should do fine now.

Thanks for the response, sir. If I understand you, instead of merely adding 6° to my 90° (newb mistake) I should launch at 6°? That's great!

Rather than making another topic, I would like to ask a related question here. Why would I want to achieve orbit and THEN change my inclination to match Minmus, when I can simply set my launch attitude to be aligned with Minmus when I reach orbit? The question, then, is: What is that launch attitude? Would 96° do it?

That is a huge amount of fuel on that lander. Try using half tanks instead. Try using a first stage with one stack of 3 fuel tanks with the largest motor, with three other stacks just like it mounted radially. Use fuel lines from the outer to the inner stack. Make the second stage just like the first, but with no radially mounted stacks, just the one with three tanks and an engine. Place the lander on top of that. One method I've found to get the most bang for the strut is to cross them. Where they cross is the junction between two fuel tanks, so it resists the tendency for the stacks to come apart. The arrow points to another feature, using structural pylons instead of decouplers. They work the same and it prevents the outer stacks from ripping off the engine and lower tanks of the middle stack when decoupled. This rocket is what I'm talking about.

Use the ascent autopilot with a setting above 70KM. The autopilot will shut off when orbit is achieved. Next, use the transfer tool (in Orbital Operations) and select the Mun. It will shut itself off when your path will intercept the Mun, but you still have to wait until periapsis and do a retro-burn until you have an actual orbit. When the orbit is achieved, use the circularize function. To return, just wait until you are on the opposite side of the Mun from Kerbin and do a pro-grade burn until your apoapsis stretches far enough to put you into a large Kerbin orbit (orange), then fast forward until you're far enough away from the Mun to avoid being recaptured by it's gravity. When your new orbit turns blue, do a retro-burn to reduce your periapsis to around 50KM (within the atmosphere) and you can ride it all the way down. I like to set the periapsis to 100KM to orbit Kerbin first, then use the landing autopilot, which has a 'select KSC' button that lets me land right back at the space center.

Very nice! Excellent choice of music as well. And I agree that rocketry is OCD heaven. No MechJeb for me. :-)

I also like the increased difficulty of .16. It\'s much harder to even reach orbit, but it\'s great when you do. There are a couple of things that get me into orbit now. One is using lots of struts. Even with the large decouplers, you can still improve their strength substantially by placing about three struts on each of the four inner... whatever they\'re called, there are four of them. Look down into the decoupler and put one in the center and one on each side, all leading up to the engine or wherever it will stick. Another is using the throttle wisely. As other commenters have stated, you don\'t need to thrust at 100% all the way up. As soon as I reach around 200 m/s, I throttle down to keep it there. It still climbs fine, and eventually my throttle is quite low, yet the speed keeps climbing. Great way to extend the lifespan of the stage. Yesterday I landed on the Mun twice. My rocket has the lander on top, followed by a tri-coupler and a stack of three tanks, three high. The bottom stage is the same as the second, a stack of three tanks, but four tanks high instead of three. I add radial decouplers and place three stacks of two of the largest tanks around the stage. Finally, I strut the hell out of the beast. It hasn\'t blown up on me yet.

I love the idea of using the claw to grab and de-orbit debris! I\'m a huge fan of doing things the hard way, since it\'s so much fun. But I don\'t understand why you ride the bitch into the ground. As soon as you have retro thrusted to ensure re-entry, let the debris go and nudge yourself back into orbit, then go for another piece. If you have enough fuel when you first reach orbit, you might be able to send three or more pieces of debris into the atmosphere before having to re-enter yourself.