RoboRay

Well, how big an injection stage you need would drive your lift requirement. I don't think he would say "injection" if only talking about launch requirements.

All that launch and staging info is good, but Bartybum was asking about injection stages, not launch stages. For transfer injections, there is no minimum TWR requirement. Note, however, that craft with low TWRs may require several orbits to complete their injections. Any time your total transfer injection becomes a significant fraction of your orbital period (for low-Kerbin orbit, more than 5 minutes or so) you can greatly improve your efficiency by breaking your injection up into a series of short burns (or periapsis kicks) split across subsequent orbits. This results in your apoapsis rising higher with each kick until you finally reach escape velocity and can complete the remainder of the injection normally, with a longer burn. In such a case, your sequence of orbits will look something like this:

Stock, no, (other than the 2-man lander can) but the FASA Gemini mod is fantastic and has the best IVA in the game.

In a nutshell, Isp describes how long an engine can produce 1kg (or pound, or stone, or whatever unit you prefer) of thrust from 1kg (or whatever) of fuel. This is why it's measured in seconds, as the value is a period of time. If an engine delivers one ton of thrust and has an Isp of 400, and you give it 10 tons of fuel, the engine could operate for 4000 seconds before the fuel runs out.

Sure. Take any plane up and fly it. Make some turns while holding the nose level and watch your speed decrease.

Just to clarify, what you're talking about is simply the pitch angle. "Angle of attack" is the difference in pitch between the nose and oncoming airflow. In KSP, it's seen as the vertical angle between the nose (w marker) and the prograde marker on the NavBall. AoA is not related to the horizon.

Two hours, getting captured into Moho orbit. I had to start the burn before I even entered Moho's SOI.

Ah... You're saying the NavBall is rotating the opposite direction, but it's really not. The NavBall is the one part of your spacecraft that never rotates at all. The rest of your craft is rotating around it. The NavBall itself is as fixed in space as the horizon of the world below you, which it represents. If you think of "turning the NavBall" you're going to get reversed controls and confusion. Treat the NavBall like a window you can see out. If you look out the front window and see you need to steer to the left, you use the controls to turn left and the world outside the window shifts to the right. You don't think off that as "moving the world to the right" though. The world isn't moving, just your craft. The NavBall should be treated the same way, as part of the unmoving world.

That's right. The marker is to the upper left, so you need to turn toward the upper left. S pitches your nose up and A yaws you to the left. This is normal. W pitches your nose down and D yaws you to the right. So, it turns you in the exact opposite direction of the example above. You don't pitch down and yaw right to turn upward and to the left. I'm not sure how you're interpreting the NavBall, but I wonder if you are confused about what it represents. Can you be more specific about what you're talking about with the NavBall? Exactly. That's the point of a command instrument... you don't have to figure anything out. The instrument has already done the thinking for you and is presenting you with the solution. The moving indicators are the solution. Just follow the needles.

The rotational indicator is not reversed. In avionics, this is what is known as a "command instrument." The rotation marker shows your target's orientation, not your own orientation. Your craft's rotation is referenced to the top of the instrument. If the mark is to the left, you roll your craft to the left. This brings your rotation closer to the target's rotation marker. The moving markers don't show you where you are, they show you where you want to go. You're not really moving the mark, you're moving your craft toward the mark... just like with the green crosshairs: you don't move the lines, you move toward the lines.

Right... your craft has negative dynamic stability from the drag of your wings and other aero surfaces near the front of the rocket. So, add even bigger aero surfaces to the bottom of the rocket... http://imgur.com/a/RoHw0

...IVA? There's a Big G IVA? You're killing me here! I can't wait.

Don't put things where the moving doors will collide with them?

My main issue with the 1-2 is that the seats are installed too low and too far back, rendering the forward windows useless. The FASA Gemini pod is a great example of how to position seats and windows, resulting in a fantastic viewing angle from tiny windows. Of course, it's easier to get it right when you use a real-world design with thousands of man hours of engineering behind it.

The current 1.25m steps, extended to 3.75m and 5m, actually produce reasonable facsimiles of the Saturn V.

There are both decouplers and fixed mounting points.

The advantage is that you only need to accelerate/decelerate your cargo/passengers/supplies, not the entire structure of the ship, at each end of the journey. You end up saving a lot of propellant mass by making your transfer and capture burns with small shuttles that normally wouldn't be suitable for a long interplanetary journey.

I fly in the real world, so I want my game controls to correspond to what's used in the real world.

Looks nice! There are some similar pieces in NovaPunch, but I never see anyone using them. They're quite handy, though, for people that want good looking engine clusters without clipping nosecones into the side of the tank. Consolidating the mounting point and the shroud into a single piece will cut the part-count a bit, too.

Of course. You never need more than one engine for an interplanetary spacecraft. Adding more actually reduces your delta-v capabilities. Adding one or two does really help your TWR, though, as it doubles or triples your thrust. Beyond that, diminishing returns makes additional engines less useful.

Sounds like a cold Venus. I don't have a problem with Venus. Consider it a target for remote-exploration only. Send probes and robotic rovers... not Kerbals. Except maybe Bill. Nobody likes Bill.

I do get descent guidance from MechJeb. I've found that (from about a 100km orbit) if you enter the atmosphere with your predicted touchdown point 30km west of KSC, you can glide right to the runway. If you want to be on the safe side and guarantee you don't come up short of the runway, deorbit to 25km west of KSC. This will put you at about 3000m right over KSC. Turn and circle around once and you'll be set up for the landing.

Winged Gemini capsule returns home: Full Mun Mission: http://imgur.com/a/RoHw0#0

I took FASA's Winged Gemini capsule to the Mun!

Winged Gemini goes to the Mun!