kahlzun

Yeah, me too. Seemed to fit the 'Real World KSP' thing, as well as being awesome! Seriously, if the real things worked this well, and had development continue, we'd probably have had asteroid mining operations back in the 80's...

I design payloads, work them within an inch of tolerances, and just add Ip stage, lifter, etc. I tend to work from the top down, i don't really have any specific lifter design (though there are a few repeated design aspects)

Subassembly mod to the rescue! This allows you to 'save' a set of parts for later use. Layout your ports, grab the 'root' part, drag it onto the jigsaw (which saves it), and then later add it to your new design! Note that it wasn't updated to .20, so here are some user-made patches.

The most efficient place to change the inclination is in the highest orbit possible. It's aristoltean: the longer your 'lever', the less force you need to exert to make a big change. Give me a lever, and a stable orbit, and I can Move my perception of the earth

My concern was mostly would uranium work as a doping material for an SRBs, replacing the aluminium? It would oxidise less violently, but the extra mass• would increase efficiency? Or thrust? How does the density of the doping material affect efficiency in a solid motor?

Hi guys! I understand that there is a method of boosting the efficiency of solid rockets by doping them with powdered metals, such as aluminium, to increase the Mass•. I have been offhandedly working on a 'everything nuclear' mod program, and I was wondering why aluminum has been chosen for this.. Would it work more effectively with a heavy material, such as uranium or tungsten or something? Uranium is flammable in a powdered form, and very dense, would this work just as well, more poorly, or better than the Aluminium doping process?

Materials that are resistant to oxidation: Platinum Gold Noble Gases already oxidised materials Some ceramics Some crystals As mentioned above, heat would be a big concern: you need a method of dumping heat from the pod, and so you'd need something hotter than the surrounding environment, or some kind of solvent which is dumped into the surrounding area, in order to keep cool. The timescale of a landing, with current or near-future technology, would not exceed minutes or hours at most. So, a rocket made of something with high heat (tungten ceramic perhaps), possibly with a crystalline coating (quartz or something). Some kind of active cooling system, possibly using something with a high heat capacity, like liquid lithium, which has the heat from the cooling system pumped into it, and then the hot liquid is sprayed out of the lander. Will crunch the numbers on efficiency later. [MATH] Ok, you can heat Lithium up to about 1600 K before it starts to evaporate, which is a LOT hotter than the surrounding countryside, even on Venus (~740K). Perhaps you would have tubes of liquid lithium running around the outside of the ship, towards the top, both to protect from landing, and because heat rises: which will help trigger an updraft around the ship, giving further cooling. Assuming a perfect heat dump into the lithium, and sufficient liquid mass, you could easily chill the ship to room temperature. [/math] Gravity is roughly analagous to Earth's (8.87 ms), so you'd need some kind of braking method, parachutes or balloons recommended due to mass and thickness of atmo, keep in mind Venus has a low wind speed, but a lot of force, so you'll need some protection against lateral motion.

aren't black holes pretty easy to simulate: single-point gravity attractor?

nicely made. Looks like a dead-set real crane.

well done! Now that is an achievement!

Well, i've decided to do something about this: Namely make a modified version of Clara's old KSPX panopticon, and murderise it. { title = PPD-1 Opticon Module manufacturer = Jebediah Kerman's Junkyard and Spaceship Parts Co. description = A variant on the "PPD-12 Cupola"- this command pod replaces the heavy glass with a few sheets of clingwrap, making it much lighter! However, it is significantly weaker, and may not survive a hard landing... mass = 1.5 crashTolerance = 8 } i also made it into a 'hitchiker' style module, because of reasons. Easy enough to change back if you need to. https://www.dropbox.com/s/33jd0xozitvxiow/cl_observationModule.zip

Calling a ship 'Event Horizon' is like leaving bait out for the Kraken. Well done for being not intimidated by associations

easily, yes. Do a Munshot, and miss. Then circularise. Easy.

Could the ground be white, and the purple colour just comes from the atmosphere? As in, purple light passes through, and makes the ground appear purple?

I wonder if you'll find one-armed-one-eyed flying purple particulates?

i think i still need more explanation, is it a variant on the Seat?

Other possibility is to copy the aerospike folder, give it a new name, and add, like, 10 degrees of gimbal to it. I wouldn't recommend changing the way stock parts work themselves, that way lies madness.

It would be cool if we could have different 'filters' for the camera! Press a switch, and we're seeing infrared, and can easily see through atmosphere or anomalies, press a switch and ultra-violet comes up, allowing us to see shiny things or something. I don't remember what the benefit of UV visibility is.. :S

You can land on the Mun. You're not orbiting it, and you're travelling at the same speed. Alternatively, if you have a satellite orbiting Kerbin at the same SMA as the Mun, just in a different quadrant (ie: 90 degrees from the Mun) then it will maintain a fixed position relative to the body.

Gotta argue with you there sorry, Jupiter may be solid if you go deep enough, but it's just solid due to pressure of the 'clouds', take away the atmo, and it's one big ball of gases.

I believe the active word here is 'gimbal'. The engines with the largest gimbal range (Mark 55's and the Poodle) might be helpful. Also note that the actual space shuttle didn't have an engine at the bottom of the giant tank, it was just the shuttle and the SRB's... Try replacing the aerospike with a T45, and adding some Mk55 engines to the jumbo tank, especially the side opposite the shuttle (so it's more balanced). Another trick is that you can clip a T800 fuel tank into the inside of the jumbo tank, and if you put it on the side away from the jet, it might balance out..

It's quite easy to do: add even a single chute and you should land safely. You will want 'tough' parts however, as they will get bounced around a lot.

I cant help but feel those cannons are not mounted in optimal positions.. i guess the recoil of a 5 inch wouldn't greatly affect a ship of that mass, but it's not 'centred' enough when I look at it :S

The Orion Nuclear mod makes it a lot easier to loft these kind of designs. Based off IRL tech too!

I'm a bit confused.. how is this non-hohmann? You're launching in a parabolic trajectory using a single, short burn, and allowing your momentum to carry you into the SOI of another body. Textbook Hohmann.