Elios

i dont see an issue with it if you want fly by hand you still can but this will be great with .17 since small errors get big when your shooting for other planets

not rude but i dont like that that US is hitching rides just doesnt sit with me but the point of the shuttle was to well shuttle stuff to and from a space station seems wrong to kill it right when its really useful life would be getting started shuttle is pretty safe really the foam issue only came put when the eco nuts made them change foam types on the ET http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/aeronautics-and-astronautics/16-885j-aircraft-systems-engineering-fall-2005/ watch the videos here youll learn more about the shuttle then you ever thought the SSMEs are the safest engines ever built buts 2012 we shouldnt have throw way most of a rocket just to get to leo Shuttle makes sense if you make lots of launches if it was flown like it was designed to be not with NASA every thing must work most of the systems on it where fail-op, fail-op, fail-op, fail safe main computer comes to mind were it was designed to fly with as few as 2 out of the 4 running NASA insisted on always having all 4 running heavy lifting is still needed if you want to do more things like Hubble again why throw away stuff like that when you can keep upgrading it Hubble proved this Shuttle also has one thing that no other space craft can do thats bring back payloads imo this alone is reason to keep it flying

NASA can come up with some great fixes on the fly top 3 1. CO2 filter rig on Apollo 13 2. Skylab sun shade 3. ISS solar panel "cufflink"

Convection flat out doesnt work in a vacuum the engineers that built the APU sub systems found that out the hard way when the blew up an APU in a vacuum chamber test the heat had no where to go so it started to heat the fuel line which for the shuttle APUs is Hydrazine not fun stuff and BOOM another fun fact about cooling on shuttle the cooling loop is the things achilles heel its the one system that if it fail would basically make them have to de-orbit on the spot if any one of the 2 coolent pumps failed but just about every thing makes heat so you have dump it over board and the only way to do that in space is radiate it out you can do other tricky things like use flash evaporators but your going to run out of water at some point thermal control is a big issue on spacecraft would be nice to see it added to the game at some point

very cool you should get a hold of the mechjeb guys and see if they can add this in to the pack next update

Shuttle it really could of been so much more if the bureaucrats hadnt mucked it up the Shuttle was ment to haul stuff to a space station when that got pushed back the program just went to hell then right when we get completed station they take it out of service? its like using a train to build a train station then once the station is done you rip up the track the Orbiters airframe is about as good as it was going to get for what it was designed to do some of the systems needed some upgrades but that would be cheap imo they should build 4 new airframes with new tech kept whats left of the fleet flying till they where done then retired the old ones now we have no heavy lift and no way to get crew to the ISS other then the Russians and Soyuz is even older and its having issues now too the last few launches has major safety issues

see i think the issue is every one sees it as an autopilot hint its not its a guidance computer which is not the same thing its like calling the Flybarless computer on my RC helis an autopilot hint again its not now sure you can do a simple burn with out out lets see you do any thing more advanced i have yet to see any one doing free trajectorys around here other then one set of videos and some of use would like to play it as a sim in which case a guidance computer is needed btw mechjeb sucks for planes other then basic heading hold and alt hold again i think the issue is the push button to win there needs to be a bit more involved in the user entering the right data in the first place once there are objects with highly elliptical orbits youll be screaming for guidance computer

nice im expecting you try my challenge when .17 comes

NASA doesnt and has NEVER flown ascents by hand PERIOD NASA hasnt made burns by hand since Mercury and Apollo XIII and only then because they didnt have the power to run the computer NASA had to milk 2 amps out the LEM to get the CMD computer powered for re-entry on XIII if NASA thinks its a good idea to have a guidance system im going to use one the only part of the shuttles flight thats hand flown is final to touch down every thing is flown by the computer that said i think there should be more interaction not just push button to burn for the Mun you should have enter some Nav data for the burn ie how long, what way to keep pointed etc

so no one thinks this would be worth trying when we get some more planets?

a gasket failure in a liquid fuel engine would of blown up on the pad when some thing goes wrong with liquid engines it goes fast

but back on topic early liquid rockets were as bad as any thing else at the time watch the first part of "When we left Earth" tons of liquid rockets that never made it off the pad more that blew up in flight and the early ones also had no throttle it was all or nothing the SSME was the first one to be designed to run at less then 100% and that was only down to 50%

almost all the early NASA attempts were unmanned same with the USSR at the time NASA wanted to make almost every thing controlled from the ground but the pilots would have none of it they didnt like the idea of just being along for the ride all flights that NASA made the assent was computer controlled only re-entry was done by hand with lots of help from the ground the even shuttle is flown by the computer until final the whole computer revolution was kicked off by the space race also most early liquid rockets were the same way all go or stop the SSME was the first throttle-able engine

yup even the shuttle the plan if any thing went wrong when the SRBs where burning you had to ride it out

Figure id post this so every one can know about it http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/aeronautics-and-astronautics/16-885j-aircraft-systems-engineering-fall-2005/index.htm Every thing you ever wanted to know about the design of the Shuttle covers pretty much every thing right from the guys that designed each sub systems if you havent watch it you should great insight on how some thing like that gets built and some good lessons on how you can do stuff in KSP

yes they are the bell shape is tuned for full open there are a lot things that go in this other then that but thats the big one running at any thing other then full messes with this great video on this in relation to the Shuttle here and link to rest of the videos from MIT all talks from the guys that designed the shuttle systems fun stuff http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/aeronautics-and-astronautics/16-885j-aircraft-systems-engineering-fall-2005/

Challenge: in the theme of Voyager 1 and 2 1 probe fly by as many planets and moons as you can should keep people busy for a wile when 0.17 comes out useful links http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_Grand_Tour http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_program http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pale_blue_dot ok rules 1. first probe full points half points for 2nd probe 2. flyby = enter a planet or moons SoL 3. MUST be a free trajectory gravity assists only after leaving the kerbin/mun/minnus system ie you get one burn to put you on course 10 points a planet 2 points per moon for first probe 5 and 1 for 2nd probe if you have to make more then one burn -5 point per burn after the first 4 points for the "Pale blue dot" image ie take an image of Kerbin from 6 billion kilometers you can use warp to get the right alignments be for launch with no point loss uses any modes or edited parts you like again only get one to 2 burns any way since it must be a free trajectory

is mechjeb using a PIO control loop by chance and if so is there away to edit the gain on it? seem like gain is WAY to high (controls twitch / hunting) very much like when i put the gain to high on my RC helis tail gyro the tail will "hunt" for center oh and any to get a space craft to roll to the right heading be for starting the turn? i have a few that are very pitch sensitive that need to be rolled on to the right heading first

what about stage and a half set ups like the real shuttle?

pmed i need some OMS pods

deorbiting things would be best mostly keep stuff out of your main orbital tacks 0, 6, 51 dec etc using a retro rocket mod can help too along with proper staging

http://i.imgur.com/x7vBK.jpg here is my derp shuttle