RoboRay

Actually, when discussing an orbital direction, it is standard practice to refer to an orbit opposing the rotational direction of the body as a retrograde orbit. Prograde/retrograde have complex usage and are not limited to discussing the motion of a spacecraft. Referring to an orbit with an inclination of greater than 90 degrees (meaning that it's orbiting westward against the direction of the planet's spin) as "retrograde" is correct.

It's nice to see I'm not the only one with range-safety concerns. I do the same thing, executing a slight pitch-maneuver of about 5 degrees after rolling to align the NavBall vertical and lateral axis with my view orientation just after coming off the pad. Of course, what we are doing in KSP is not an actual gravity turn. I wish MechJeb hadn't used that as a generic term, because it's led to a lot of misuse. I only recall one person attempting an actual gravity turn (where gravity provides the pitch-change for the turn, not player control inputs) in KSP.

Depending on the destination, a near-optimal launch window will be many (6-hour Kerbin) days wide. If your final Pe Kick raises your Ap to the Mun, that's still an orbital period of just six hours or so (or is it 12? I forget). Your earlier kicks will result in orbits of no more than an hour or so. As long as you start your kicks a day or two before reaching the ideal phase angle, you're good. It's only if you push your Ap out to Minmus or beyond on the final kick that you really have to plan ahead, because your orbital period becomes many days long. And the delta-v difference between pushing Ap to Minmus and stopping at Kerbin is too little to really worry about, unless your craft is ridiculously marginal for the mission. As the efficiency costs of adding engines, a second engine is almost always worth it. You're doubling your thrust, as you note. It's when you start adding more engines that diminishing returns really start to kick in... You need four for the next doubling of thrust, then eight, then sixteen... it rapidly becomes counterproductive, especially when you consider all the extra mass in support structures to hold those engines.

Don't circularize at the Ap after each short burn! You're wasting a vast amount of fuel. You only need to raise one side of your orbit to get a departure trajectory, not both. Just keep making a short prograde burn each time you pass your periapsis, pushing your Ap higher and higher. In addition to not wasting fuel raising both sides of your orbit, you also get a big boost from the Oberth effect because your fuel possesses greater kinetic energy during your burns due to your high speed as you pass Pe. Your sequence of orbits should like this: Any time your total injection burn exceeds five or six minutes, you should break your transfer up into a series of these "Pe kicks" where you burn for just a few minutes each time you pass the ejection angle (where you put the maneuver node). The key is to burn equal amounts on each side of the angle... So, if you start the burn 90 seconds before reaching the node, stop the burn 90 seconds after passing the node.

The big conical fuel tanks and engine assembly are from NovaPunch. I think the rest is all stock. After refueling in LKO, it can even go to Duna and back, but it's a bit of a gas-guzzler.

Yeah, with his voice two octaves higher than normal. Pete Conrad was definitely Jeb. The "class-clown" of the early astronauts, and absolutely fearless. I've met a couple of the men who went to the moon, but I'm sad to say I never met Pete.

You're not going to see significant improvements in efficiency. You get the exact same results by using the maneuver planning system to establish the prograde component of your transfer, then adding the normal component to achieve your desired arrival inclination before making the combined burn. If you're doing it manually, normal burn followed by prograde burn, the gain is probably less than the margin of error for making the precise burns and the inevitable corrections. And you're incurring additional steering losses on the inclination change, since you're burning 90 degrees off prograde. I'm willing to bet the outcomes will be equivalent to the differences that would result simply from hand-flying the same trajectory change multiple times. You'll also need to take into account where your AN and DN are along your orbit, because that's going to alter the inclination change you need. If your AN or DN is along the line between Kerbin and the Mun, your calculation will be correct. If your crossing nodes are off that line, you will need more or less of an inclination change depending on which pole of the Mun you intend to pass over, and the variation will increase as the position of your crossing nodes get further from the direct line. Now, the big question... did you calculate using the distance to the center of the Mun from Kerbin's center, from Kerbin's surface, or from your orbital altitude? And remember, you're not injecting from a position directly in between Kerbin and the Mun... you're almost halfway around, depending on your orbital period. Yeah, the difference will be small, but it's enough to matter when you're trying to obtain maximum efficiency, since you need to avoid any course-corrections. (And just to make sure you understand, the AN is just the location where your orbit crosses the plane of the Mun's orbit while you're moving north. Your AN isn't 1.2 degrees... your orbital plane is inclined 1.2 degrees compared to the Mun. It's the incorrect way you keep using the term that was causing the confusion I had... It's like looking at a traffic speed-limit sign on the side of a road and saying "My speedometer is 50kph." Sorry, but it just doesn't make sense. )

Sir, you now have my undivided attention!

The relevant scene: "Spider" is one of the top three episodes of the series, which is a must-see for anyone interested in spaceflight.

Oh, now I think I see... you're trying to do what I was suggesting, but in the opposite order (figuring out the required inclination change first, then setting the prograde burn). While that is a viable method, I think you're making it much, much harder on yourself than it needs to be by going about it in that way. You won't get any feedback on whether or now you've set an accurate normal component until after establishing the prograde component. The inclination you need to set will also vary with your starting orbital period around Kerbin, so there really is no simple answer to your specific question. It's a lot easier to reverse the order of operations, setting your prograde component first (whether by maneuver planning node or by actually making the burn), and then making the fine adjustments to attain your desired inclination. You can actually see the effects of your normal-axis changes as you make them this way, instead of shooting blind and hoping you got it right.

I'm still confused by "I can see what the AN would be if I didn't hit the Mun." The altitude of your AN or DN doesn't really have any meaning, other than it requires less delta-v to adjust your inclination via burns along the Normal axis at the crossing node when your crossing node is higher, because your velocity is lower. However, you don't need to do much of a Normal burn at all to attain a polar orbit around the Mun, and you don't have to wait until you're at the crossing node to do it: Immediately after you make your transfer injection out of LKO, turn toward north or south (along the Normal axis) and make a tiny burn while watching your Periapsis at the Mun (setting Conics Mode to "0" helps see what you're doing). You want to adjust your Pe to be directly over the north or south pole. When arriving at a body, the latitude of your Pe influences your inclination. If you put your Pe along the equator, you'll have a low-inclination equatorial orbit, while putting it over a pole yields a polar orbit. Setting up your arrival trajectory from LKO requires very little fuel, since you're effectively at your Apoapsis in regards to the Mun. You may have to make a bit of Prograde/Retrograde or Radial burn to get your Pe exactly where you want it. You may find it helpful to make these adjustments with RCS, as they don't require much push and RCS allows you to thrust in any direction without turning the craft. You may even be able to roll these adjustments right into your transfer maneuver planning node, but the coarse control offered by pulling on the handles makes it tricky. The Maneuver Node Improvement tool hasn't been updated for 0.20.x yet, but it reportedly works. It makes fine node adjustments easier, by allowing you to type in the exact amounts of delta-v to apply along each axis. You may still need a slight Normal burn after entering the Mun's SOI to pin down a precise inclination if you want a specific angle. Do this while passing over the Mun's equator, as that's the only time you'll be able to select any arbitrary final inclination. Also do it as high as possible, so it requires the least amount of propellent.

It's a 50-year old idea, so there's no patent worries.

Even with a very justified increase in weight for all that glass, 4.5 tons is rather much for a one-kerbal cockpit.

The AN and DN are simply the points where two orbits with different inclinations cross one another, so I'm not sure exactly what you are asking. Can you rephrase the question without using that term?

A built in throttle control would be fantastic, even if it's just a cruise control that attempts to maintain whatever speed you have when you activate it.

It's definitely not in orbit. It's hovering, meaning it or something else is continuously applying a force to hold it there.

Well, since we're doing vertical launch/landing SSTOs too, now... This craft was inspired by the McDonnell Douglas DC-X Delta Clipper:

Each engine needs to see a linear or branching tree of fuel tanks. If it can see more than one route to a single tank (either by forking then merging, or by looping), you break the fuel-flow logic and can get asymmetrical draining.

I've seen blacked-out parts before, but never a whole craft. Rebooting fixed it. It happens to stock parts, too, so it's probably not an issue specific to this mod.

Yes. If you are orbiting directly along the equator in an easterly direction (heading 090), your orbit is not inclined (inclination is zero). A perfect polar orbit would have an inclination of 90 degrees. While a retrograde equatorial orbit (heading west), is technically also not inclined, it's customary to refer to it as inclination 180 to eliminate confusion. Any inclination greater than 90 is a retrograde orbit.

Interesting. Any replacement would have to be a pretty simple texture then, without any distinctive details. It might actually be better to make a new model and retire this one. I'm kind of surprised nobody else has ever made a cylindrical cargo bay with big swinging doors like this one. At least, as far as I know. New art assets is just something I don't have the time to manage myself, though. The 1.04 version with all three bays consolidated into a single part.cfg and calling the same model is uploaded now, by the way. Delete your old cargo bay files, as I tested it and the transition is seamless for your existing craft.

Unfortunately, it is what it is. I don't have access to the source material. Yes, this I will be doing. It didn't even occur to me when I was adapting the files for 0.20 that I could roll them all into one part.cfg; then I saw that being done in other mods.

Kulk smash!

You don't put in heading... you put in inclination. It's working correctly.

118 or so of those pages were before the thread was dumped into the fan-fiction forum, from the general forum. There has always been an active "general pictures" in the general forum, for the last year (at least). This thread needs to be moved back where it belongs.