RoboRay

I use Protractor to identify the correct ejection angle and just burn prograde for 20 degrees or so on each side of it. But you can do it with the maneuver planning system, too. Set up your transfer node normally, but don't start your burn until you are a couple of minutes away from it. Burn the same length of time after passing it as you did before it. Then shut down the engine and delete the node. Next time around, burn prograde before and after passing Pe, because it's exactly where your node was. When your Ap rises to near Minmus' orbit, make a new maneuver node at your Pe to complete the transfer.

It is 2km (maybe 1.9km, it's hard to be more exact since the distance scale doesn't go beyond tenths of a kilometer at that distance). I have a rover parked just off each end to help me line up with the runway when landing. This only shows one more rover off in the distance, in line with the runway, but I've added a couple more now, in 3km increments heading off to the west. These make it a breeze to line up for the landing while still almost a hundred kilometers out. I guess you could put a rover on each end and put another one near the middle, so you get the exact distance in meters instead of tenths of kilometers, then add them together.

I usually use one or two LV-Ns, to maximize delta-V, but I don't build enormous ships either. I think Bobcat HOME modules are about the most massive payload I've moved at one time... My typical interplanetary drive TWR is around 0.1:1. I always do a sequence of periapsis kicks if my burn time is going to be more than five or six minutes, and it usually is for interplanetary missions.

There's a mod for inflatable airbags, but I can't recall the name. You could always do a bouncy Mars-rover-style landing with them to cushion the jolts from the parachute descent. That might work well for small, lightweight mini-rovers.

Thanks! I don't really know a correlation between landing speeds from parachutes on Kerbin to Duna. I've got a gut feeling that 5m/sec may not be enough, though. I rarely attempt parachute-only landings on Duna; I usually go for parachute-assisted powered landings, letting the 'chutes do most of the work and hold the craft upright while I throttle the landing engines to hit the target descent speed.

You can't test parachutes on Kerbin because the unreefing is controlled automatically by height above the surface. You'll want a lot of parachutes for landing on Duna, though. Here's an example of me landing a heavier rover there... I slowed down a lot with retrorockets before the parachutes opened, and still used a little rocket thrust a few meters above the surface to cushion the landing more.

The surface pressure at the datum on Duna is roughly the same as that on Kerbin 10km above sealevel. So, if your plane flies well at 15km or higher in testing out of KSC, you've got a usable Duna Flyer. If you can only ascend to 12-14km, you can fly above the lowlands but will need to dodge the mountains and avoid the highlands. I prefer airships for Duna. Slower, yes, but much safer than planes and even safer than rovers. Faster than rovers, too. If you're building a permanent Duna base, check out the Hooligan Labs Airships mod.

If you're still burning fuel, throttle back all the way to cut the engine? If you aren't slowing below 80m/sec, you're descending too steeply. With the throttle back, just keep raising the nose gradually to bleed off speed. The plane's not magic*... it's going to slow down eventually if you're trying to hold altitude without thrust. *Some planes in KSP are magic. Your experience may deviate from reality. Do not taunt Happy Fun Ball. Warranty not valid on Eve, Tylo or Jool.

Jool is visible from Kerbin as well. Probably Eve, too, but I haven't seen it. Not sure about the smaller bodies.

I seem to remember the Curiosity guys at JPL mentioning in their Reddit AMA that some of them play KSP.

I do the same thing... look at pictures of other people's designs and figure out how to incorporate the best aspects into my own designs. Yes, it has sufficient fuel to launch, make a rendezvous anywhere in LKO, deorbit and conduct a powered landing on Kerbin without taking on more fuel in-flight. You only need to refuel if you're taking it beyond LKO. I haven't really paid attention, but I'm probably consuming 300m/sec or so getting back down to the ground. The atmosphere will provide most of the necessary deceleration. EDIT: Yeah, that's probably about right... maybe 100m/sec for the deorbit, less than 150m/sec to slow from terminal velocity a few hundred meters above the ground and another 50-75m/sec for actually setting it down. I'd plan to hold 500m/sec in reserve for the landing process, though, in case of problems.

The engine is roughly balanced with the Mainsail. Thrust is a little higher at 1800, but the engine also weighs a lot more at 10 tons. Atmospheric Isp is even worse than the Mainsail at a terrible 265 seconds, but vacuum Isp is better at 375s. That last one may be a tiny bit high, but considering that the LV-T30 is 370 secs and this engine is eight times as massive, it's not completely unreasonable. As to the reserve fuel, the craft weighs in at 107 tons wet and 22 tons dry, so that's a little better than the usual 6:1 ratio I get with most of my rocket designs. While I'm giving up the gains from staging, I'm also never lifting any dead weight from upper stage motors, decouplers, or other redundant parts. No parachutes or other recovery equipment, either, which improves the delta-V by a measurable amount. And remember, you do need to save enough fuel to land.

The Pegasus Clipper is capable of transporting a crew of seven to LKO with 1km/sec of delta-V in reserve. The fully reusable single-stage to orbit craft launches and lands vertically. Download the .craft file: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/14176520/Pegasus%20Clipper%20C.craft Required mods: NovaPunch and BobCat HOME Recommended mod: TAC Fuel Balancer Notes: A 3.75m HOME fuel tank is tucked away in the hollow void above the engine. You can access that tank for refueling by zooming your viewpoint inside the tail of the ship, but it's easier to pump fuel into it with the Fuel Balancer mod. An ASAS is installed in a similar void higher up. It can be swapped for an Avionics Package if smoother control during landing is desired. Two RTGs are mounted inside the engine bay, just above the RCS monoprop bottles. Action Group #1 toggles the engine. Action Group #7 toggles the ladders. With refueling in LKO, the craft can even reach Duna and return to Kerbin: http://imgur.com/a/rvkwl#0 She's something of a gas-guzzler on long interplanetary flights, though.

LOL, you got me there. My rule is generally "If I can do it with stock parts, I do it with the stock parts". I also only use mod parts that are balanced with the stock parts, or add features that are clearly missing and will be coming eventually. When the stock part or method appears, I generally have no more use for the mod. Example? I used to use a variety of rover mods like the DEMVs and CARTS stuff. Now, I use only the stock rover wheels. I don't feel like I've lost anything by not waiting for stock powered wheels. In fact, it was the ability to drive around on the surface that made me realize months ago that the planets and moons aren't plain and boring... they actually have some impressive terrain features. I just thought there wasn't much to see because I hadn't been getting more than a few hundred meters from my landing site. Using the mod parts until the stock parts were available gave me a way to explore and reasons to go places.

Oh, sure. There was meant to be a little humor in that one. Nevertheless, if I'm using an escape tower, it's going to be as effective as I can make it. What was the part count on your LES? 60'ish? Considering that part count is the primary limiter on game performance and craft size, doing something with dozens of parts that can be done with one part isn't always feasible.

Good plan. Install the LES only when you probably don't need it anyway.

Then there's no reason for an LES to even exist. Why bother at all, if it can't save you? Anyway, merely delaying a part of your vehicle still under thrust from overtaking you increases the probability that it will deviate from its default heading... directly at you. Every bit of speed away from the rapid unplanned disassembly is of value.

Outrun, no. Get out of the way, maybe. And, in any case, the primary design factor in an LES system (ranked just narrowly behind "reliability") is simply raw TWR. Accept nothing less than the maximum feasible for a safety system.

None of those are hacked parts. The tanks follow the same fuel to volume ratios as the stock parts, and the engine is balanced pretty well with the Mainsail (barely more thrust, much heavier, it's even less efficient in atmosphere, but better in space). I could build the same thing with stock parts, still SSTO, and it would be ugly. "Mod" and "hack" are not the same thing.

Exploding the launch clamps every time to deal with a incredibly rare bug that must strike less than 0.001% of the time (based on my experience, since I'm sure I've done a thousand launches and never seen it) seems to be a bit much. I mean, there's been at least ten threads here questioning how to fix the exploding launch clamps for every thread asking about the clamps sticking to their craft.

With orbital refueling in LKO, Pegasus can even travel to Duna and back.

The Pegasus Clipper SSTO is out of testing and now making scheduled flights to LKO:

Oh, I dunno about that... seven-seat capacity to orbit, which is about all the shuttle accomplished sometimes.

Disliking mods is one thing... but disliking mods that are made for an unfinished game to deal with incomplete features or problems the devs simply haven't gotten around to addressing seems to be cutting off your nose to spite your face. A lot of key components in KSP were once only doable with mods. Then, the mods are "retired" when Squad finally puts that feature into the game. Many of them were even on Squad's "to do" list. But suit yourself.

If you double the part count of your launch vehicle adding separatrons, your "escape" tower's TWR is still going to be too low to get out of the way of the still-burning boosters from your disintegrating launch vehicle. It doesn't do you much good to include "shutdown launch-vehicle engine" commands in your Abort group, because those engines are generally no longer even under your control if you need to abort. And if SRBs are tearing loose from the LV... well, good luck with your separatron system. You need a mod part for a functional escape tower; stock ones are just cosmetic.