Pyotor Gagarin

I just discovered this thread and I love it.

Going to have to try this out. Comets will be a fun challenge.

That's weird. I used a mothership to take spaceplanes to the surfaces of both Ike and Duna. It then carried both of them back to LKO. - The plane that landed on Ike made a runway landing at KSC (with a different pilot), and I'm showing a progress entry for "return from the surface Ike" - The pilot of the plane that landed on Duna returned to Kerbin in the mothership's crew capsule, leaving the plane that landed on Duna behind in LKO. - I'm not showing an entry for "return from the surface of Duna". This leads me to believe it's the craft, not the pilots, that are being tracked here. I'm not seeing any other difference between the two landings.

Hey ksp devs, From the persistence file, it looks like the progress tracker is checking for the "returned" status of a mission on a ship by ship basis, rather than a kerbal by kerbal basis. I can see why this makes sense for unmanned probes, but there could be a problem if this system is used for a full career mode. A player who wants to transfer his/her lander pilot(s) to a mothership and dump the lander before heading home (as in the classic Apollo mission profile) will not get credited for returning from the surface. Am I misreading the file? If not, does anyone have some thoughts on this? Thanks for your time.

This info repository is a great idea inigma. I've been keeping a folder of kerbal related info-graphics since I started browsing the forums. Maybe you can find something useful in there. Also, consider cross-linking with the drawing board thread over in the tutorials subforum. Thanks for the time and effort!

Welcome! The drawing board has lots of great info, if you haven't been there already.

Welcome! Head over to the drawing board for lots of useful links.

If I had to pick five novels to show someone what hard SF is all about, I would pick: Niven/Pournelle: A Mote in God's Eye Haldeman: The Forever War (already mentioned) Vinge: The Outcasts of Heaven Belt Heinlein: The Moon is a Harsh Mistress (already mentioned) Pellegrino/Zebrowski: The Killing Star I really should have a utopia story in there, but I haven't found the right one yet:)

The Maths in Kosmo-not's Interplanetary How-To Guide are applicable for orbit to orbit transitions in general. The masses and orbital radii of the planets should be pretty easy to find on the internets. Hope that helps!

I tried to go with the "Hitchhikers Guide" theme:

Some people use the small "Rockomax 24-77" engines as large RCS thrusters. To do this you'll need to map them to control groups (and remember the numbers). You'll need six control groups for translation only. You would need four more for pitch and yaw, (and I guess roll control would have to be left out.) Clearly, this will take some practice to be a preferable alternative to the regular RCS system. Good luck!

Note: Q-thrusters are not reaction-less. They would push against quantum vacuum plasma instead of using onboard propellant. Still a far fetched idea, but apparently not breaking Newton's third law.

Something about quantum vacuum plasma thrusters seems a little too good to be true. Unlimited propellant. One whole Newton from only 3kW. Nevertheless, It looks like NASA's "Eagleworks" lab has been taking some interest in this concept over the last four years. So could Q-thrusters eventually take a place alongside Bussard Ramjets, and Antimatter Pion drives as a favored hypothetical method of starship propulsion? Could they surpass these to become a real technology? Or are they headed nowhere fast? Please share your thoughts and predictions.

I've had to make a few burns when the engine was pointing in the opposite direction of the command part. The retrograde maneuver marker is incredibly useful for these. I would love for it to be on the regular nav-ball, but I can see how that might be confusing;)

This looks incredibly useful. I love that the SOI-transition velocity scale goes up to 5000m/s!

May your parachutes hold true, and your landing gear never break. Welcome!

Possible RCS problems could be: No RCS monopropellant tanks (sorry, I'm starting with the most obvious) Not activating RCS. Just hit "R" At any rate, welcome and good luck with your missions! P.S. Do you play IL-2 Sturmovik?

Favorite real spaceships: Mercury and Gemini Favorite Sci-fi spaceships: Anything from Battletech

Really loving this thread. One of my older ones:

Yep it's intended to look somewhat like the Saturn V. And why was the Saturn painted black and white? Officially, the checker patterns gave engineers a way to measure rotation speed (from camera footage) if the rocket started spinning. Unofficially, It seems likely that the German rocket scientists at NASA had a lot of nostalgia for a movie called "Frau im Mond". The rocket in that movie was black and white, it rolled out of the assembly building vertically, was lit with spotlights, and launched after a countdown. The Russians painted their rockets green, rolled them out horizontally, didn't use spotlights, and they just hit the launch button when everything was ready.

I don't honestly think a planet could form in those circumstances. Just an attempt at humor. Since we're on the subject though, As I understand it, if a planet has a moon which orbits faster than the planet rotates, angular momentum will be dumped inward. The moon will move closer and the planet will rotate faster and faster over time. The moon eventually breaks up. In my layman's understanding, it seems possible that the debris field of a comparatively large moon could cause a planet to rotate itself apart temporarily as they combine to form a single planet. (Possibly a special case for the "orbiting equator" sci-fi story?)

It's worth noting, that any planet whose equator exceeded it's orbital speed wouldn't retain planet status very long. Mesklin still has a downward acceleration of three gees at the equator. (Much more everywhere else).