TheDarkStar

I think it's the hole at the north pole. Just be sure to get a good lander, since the entire area is rough.

The persistence file is in saves in the KSP folder. You need to delete it from there.

Leading kerbal scientists have decided that the population of Kerbin is too large and random kerbals need to be used in the space program. Their new program involves research on the highest possible speed that you can make a kerbal hit Kerbin. They only use their own technology (no mods allowed, except MechJeb) and refuse to make their rocket parts better (no cfg edits). They want an image to prove the results (A map view image of the kerbal's speed at less than 200 meters above Kerbin) and an image of the starting rocket (or airplane). Results (Leaderboard): 1. 2. 3.

My 3m pod landers usually have a large first stage to get off the ground. Second stage completes orbit and gets to the target moon. Third stage is for deorbiting and landing. It has a large tank and fuel lines to take fuel from my return stage if necessary. The return stage is above the command module and uses 1m large tanks and the most efficient engines. I usually have enough fuel in the lander stage to land on the moon, go somewhere else on the moon, take off, and get back to Kerbin.

cfg edits are allowed? Step 1: Get to Kerbin escape with only one stage (easy since you can make one engine have negative consumption and very powerful) Step 2: Get Kerbol velocity to 0, still with only one stage (easy for the same reasons) Step 3: Decouple command module with extra-force decoupler (it's simple to calculate the force needed) and extra strength command module cfg edits might not be a good idea.

Look in the Challenge board. Occasionally, people will post their text campaigns there, although it could be two or three pages back.

I believe that's 0.1% lightspeed, since light goes at about 300000000 (3x10^8) meters/s, and you are going at about 300000 (3x10^5) m/s. That's amazing.

Not really, but we know that 1 gas giant and 4 rocky planets will be added this update, and 3 more gas giants are planned. Also, the pictures Nova's shown are similar to an idea he had for planets (before he was a dev).

Check the dev's users and read through their posts.

If you burn exactly between apoapsis and periapsis for the plane change, you don't change either one. When playing, it's not really possible to do this, but you can try to get close.

This challenge has been done twice. However, a third will be needed in 0.17 since the 0.15 version used engines that have since been weakened, and the current one uses the fuel bug.

Thanks, I found why I was having trouble.

Does the efficiency equation follow order of operations? Edit: No matter what I do, my answer makes no sense. Could someone check for my entry to see what I should be getting?

Here's my entry. It's not the highest, but it's fast. It uses the aerospike engines only, so no jets. On the launchpad: There are 4 aerospike engines and 10 fuel tanks. Part is hidden in the image. Another image that shows it better. At burnout: I boosted straight up until 20km or so, then tilted. Total mass is 12.935.

OP: That video is very nice. I wish weather was implemented so that you could time-lapse that too. I wonder how long it took them to go out of business after they started funding KSP.

The lander just landed 20 minutes ago. Now to see whether it had a KSP landing or a NASA landing.

Try putting your parachute in a separate stage. The lower atmosphere will slow you down to 100-300 m/s, slow enough to avoid tearing off the parachute. Deploy at at least 400 meters above the ground to get 200 meters of braking (it takes about 200 feet between the parachute deploying and opening below 500).

Add lots of RCS tanks and thrusters all over, and add dozens of struts. You really don't want it tipping below 10k meters or so, since that will easily cause massive explosions. Also, put the largest engines you have on it. Put an extra small stage near the top in case you don't quite get far enough.