trekkie_

If you can't tell, the bottom stage is 8 tanks of fuel, 1 aerospike, and 2 gimballing engines. Upper stage is the capsule (duh), an ASAS, 2 fuel tanks, and the tiny engine. It actually broke the height record. Here's the pic: The Mun ended up doing some pretty and weird stuff to my trajectory at one point. Height: 1110 km Speed: 3811.2 m/s Specific Energy: 5.198025643976608 MJ/kg Edit: I just realized how similar my rocket is to khyron's. Huh. Edit2: Here's the weird stuff getting captured by the Mun does to you: The "Escape Mun" point kept going around in circles. that's not a 10 tank design, it's 11 tanks. now we could argue if whether it's a handicap for you or not, but there is also a benefit on weight when it comes to escape trajectories, gravity turns, speeds, and rocket design. see, even though those 2 half tanks add the same fuel, they also allow you to add 2 extra engines, the thrust of which negates any extra drag. if you were to add 2 engines with the standard full size tanks, you would have to take away essentially a whole tank from your center fuselage of tanks, which does make a difference in pretty much every aspect, especially since those two engines 1) balance your weight distribution, and 2) add more initial thrust. 3) allows you to keep more fuel in the center for the aerospike or 20 thrust lv909 engine. all in all I would say this would mean a disqualification. and honestly, I don't really believe the distance either. the fuel simply couldn't burn that long at full throttle continuously, and that's taking into account your 20 thrust final stage engine. from my experimentation with all different types of combinations and flight trajectories in the 10 tank challenge, it simply doesn't add up. in fact, I took your design for a spin and did not get as far, whether going straight up or ascending at an angle to gain speed, etc. and the irony is, I actually did break the distance record with it (even though it's disqualifiable anyways)....just not the distance you listed. (i.e. you cheated and lied...perhaps even used a different design outside of the rules, because even coasting or throttling wouldn't get you that far in a time frame of 15 minutes). tsk tsk. you should be ashamed of yourself. total flight time, full burn immediate decouple: 14:56 your flight time: 15:12

the issue is lack of symmetry. you're creating a lot of disproportionate weight on the bottom, both before the decouple and after. also you're just using regular RCS on the back, but the 4 pronged one on the top, which could cause some issues (plus 2 sets on the final stage area rather than one would help alot). I think all of that combined is the source of your problem. rework the design a little and I'm sure it will go away. first I would try to reduce the spin as much as possible without RCS then activate it to take care of the rest. also, I'm not sure if ASAS works when disconnected or not, I usually put it right below the command module. it's really important to catch a violent spin early on or no amount of RCS will get rid of it.

you mean like this? it's a transit orbit, so I pass through kerbin orbit on the periapsis. I think that deserves some extra credit although, out of fuel so can't land, no parachutes so can't land, and it would probably take a million years to actually catch up with kerbin itself since it is almost always in a different area of its orbit when I intersect its orbit boundary. only use for such a circumstance would be deep space matter collection and drop off or deep space photography/mapping. since it's an elliptical orbit, depending on where other planetary bodies would be in their orbit, I could get pretty close or intersect with, anything at or below its distance....eventually. also... but I think we will need more than stock parts (better new parts) if there are deep space additions to the game, because the fuel required to make maneuvers in deep space would make it nearly impossible to get such a craft off the ground and have enough fuel left for large space travels -- it'd be too heavy and use too much fuel. circularizing such large orbits would take a lot of fuel. not to mention landing, or taking off, or recircularizing for return.

I'm the only front runner in distance that's why I said jet engines are cheating. while they do have their disadvantages, such as usable altitude, they can lift a lot of weight almost effortlessly and consume fuel VERY slowly. I used jet engines to move this... and they can lift this to several thousand meters and more in a short time. it weighs 50 tons. in comparison, an F-15 weighs only about 22 tons fully loaded.

If you didn't know how to raise or lower landing gear, I suggest you check out the key bindings options under settings to get familiar with the controls, otherwise you won't get very far and will waste plenty of hours doing everything wrong. this isn't a game where you can just learn how to play through experience, you need to know and utilize math and controls precisely.

Altitude: ~521,000 Meters Velocity: 1575.7 m/s Total flight time - 8:15 I achieved the height by gravity turning at 15KM to line up to go into orbit at 100km, which kept me from losing some velocity and allowed me to gain some, then pointed straight away from the planet for the remainder of the flight. full burn from lift off to finish, immediate staging separation as well. IMO using Jet engines is cheating.

my bad yeah I do tend to overshoot hehe. I'd appreciate it if a mod can move this thread to the proper area for me.

Designed solely with stock parts and the mechjeb guidance system. The Reaper series is a collection of 1 & 2 stage orbiter/lander craft. Take one good look at the Mk1 prototype and guess how it derived its name. It comes in two basic functionality; return and non-return landers. All are basically the same but with slight differences. The pack contains primarily just the landers themselves; you will have to install your own first stage rocket items to reach orbit or anywhere else you want to go, however there is one lander with a fully functional first stage setup that will get you into orbit, escape velocity, etc. Tweak around with it as much as you like. It's really nothing too special, but I like it. Note: The extra amount of braces actually seem to make for a very stable flight during liftoff. I think it has to do with the drag physics. There certainly doesn't seem to be any detrimental effects to having soo many braces (especially since once you're out of the atmosphere drag means nothing). plus you could definitely put some heavy loads on them no problem, and they can take catastrophic spinning gforces like no other when the load is heavy.

never gonna happen lol, out of fuel. I was actually trying for mun then overshot it and burned the last of my fuel arching myself to follow the suns orbit lines. they're going to be floating around the sun for a long long time. It wasn't really the suns orbit that made it special, it's the fact that it's a transfer orbit. given enough revolutions around the sun I'm sure it'll eventually catch up with a planet and smack into it.

oh by the way, this was accomplished manually.

yeah I would say lower those tanks directly below the engine, just a slight bit. it may be possible that the tanks aren't 100% structurally stable and wobble a tiny bit (even if you can't really see it) and it causes them to ever so slightly knock into the engines.

I think its doable. a cool maneuver I can think of is a close flyby in an elliptical orbit of mun, with a rover-ish design that uses airplane wheels rather than rockets and is released by a decoupler. I'm sure it's possible to fly close enough to drop one of those off and have it roll off the inertia, but since mun isn't flat, the rover would probably flip over from the speed bumps or turn a crater into a ramp that launches it, or just crash and burn on impact due to the speed (maybe small rockets attached to the front and facing the opposite direction it will be moving might slow it down). I guess you could also just land on mun with rover-ish shaped parts attached to a decoupler directly below the cockpit and an engine, then take off. but the biggest issue with that would be fuel and descent speed due to the extra weight.

easier than landing on mun pictured: large stable elliptical transfer orbit of the sun and the kerbal homeworld. (approx 3 year orbit cycle) (fullsize: http://imageshack.us/f/827/ksp2012080319584229.png/ -- http://imageshack.us/f/254/ksp2012080319364478.png/ )

D.S.O.L (pronounced "diesel") stands for Deep Space Orbital Lander. Designed and engineered by one of Kerbal's most illustrious Fortune 500 companies, SpaceTech; who are best known for their catchy motto 'Where no mun has gone before!". This craft is capable of attaining any orbit (and landing), including an advanced highly elliptical stable transfer orbit of the sun and the kerbal homeworld. The craft has a simple but elegant 3 stage rocket setup, and a very stable lift off (with advanced S.A.S.) and also maintains 100% structural integrity even when the engines are pushed to their limits (i.e. no wobbly bits!). It is relatively easy to maneuver and stabilize in space due to its RCS thruster placement and adequate supply of RCS thruster fuel. The first stage will give you approx. 230,000 to 450,000+ (K) height before burning out and needing to be jettisoned (depending on how you burn it). Its capabilities are primarily limited to the pilots performance. Great for beginners and experts alike!