adinfinitum

I'm no aerodynamics expert, but shouldn't body lift also be perpendicular to the part, just like the lift vector is perpendicular to the wings?

I haven't placed surface attached parts on the ceilings of the bays, but, at least in my experience, attaching a part to the ceiling attachment node is best avoided. I've actually never had problems if I clip into the service bay ceiling, as long as its attached from the floor up.

Got anything attached to the ceilings of those service bays? That's pretty much an invitation to the kraken, not sure why it would happen in one situation and not the other though.

One thing you mentioned is that the SAS always tries to return to where the last steering input stopped, I believe this part was an intentional design choice. It was a while ago, so I might not be exactly right, but in earlier versions of the game the SAS only held the heading at which it was engaged, and to change to a new heading you had to disengage the SAS and reengage once you had reoriented yourself. It was then changed that SAS would be automatically disengaged and reengaged when there was steering input. I don't have any sources other than vague memories, so if I'm wrong someone please correct me. The easiest way around this issue is to just tap the F key once you reach your desired heading, that resets the SAS so that it doesn't try to return to where steering input stopped.

In the spirit of space travel, I would have to say any food that comes in a squeezable pouch is good, and it keeps your keyboard clean too. Of course, the hard part is actually finding food like that, so I just stick to food that doesn't get your hands greasy or oily.

Along the lines of aesthetics, I wish that the game had versions of the landing struts that retract into streamlined bays. While not necessary, I personally prefer the streamlined look more than the utilitarian look, and it would be nice to have the option with landing struts.

I've had some similar weirdness with the trajectory plotting, but it's been in the Kerbin system. In my case it hasn't been the second encounter that doesn't display, but the first one. Specifically, there have been multiple times where I set up a Minmus encounter that also happens to encounter the Mun on the way back. After I have it set up and warp a little bit, the Minmus encounter disappears, leaving me with just the Mun encounter shown. If I'm careful and cross Minmus' SOI at warp below the highest two levels I enter the SOI as expected, and the shown trajectory is now correct. If I use those top two levels of warp I pass through the SOI without it registering as such, and continue on the previous trajectory that leads to a Mun encounter. This may be related or it may not, but there definitely seems to be some weirdness when the trajectory has multiple encounters.

I've got to agree that I'd rather have no description than what they've got now. Maybe I've just played too much Dwarf Fortress, but the KSP random description generator seems rather bad. Especially since they usually have nothing to do with the goals of the contracts, and seldom make any logical, or illogical, sense.

Unless you're using nukes you do need to add in the mass of the oxidizer.

I may be wrong in my math, but the equation listed is for a constant heading burn, and so a straight line velocity vector. Following the normal marker gives you a curved path, and so is less efficient.

I think it's just how KSP handles any sort of decoupler, whether it's launch clamps or whatever. I like to stick my launch clamps up high because it keeps it above the CoM, and I just like how it looks. This always makes them stage somewhere in the middle of the sequence. It seems the way it works is whenever you attach any decoupler, the game creates a new stage in the sequence below the stage of whatever the decouplers are attached to.

The burn time given by the game is simply the time required to accelerate the planned amount of dV, at the ships current max acceleration, given in the ship info in map view. From what I've observed it doesn't take into account the change in mass as fuel is used, so the longer the burn is the less accurate the displayed time is. I've searched an answer for this question before, and while I'm on my phone right now and don't have the link, I found that burning in the same direction as prograde at the maneuver, half dV before the node and half after, is the best approximation of an instantaneous burn. In other words, point at the blue maneuver marker and start at half the expected burn time to be the most accurate.

Besides SSTO to orbit space planes having the cool sci-fi factor, their advantage is that you recover the full cost of parts minus fuel. The cost of losing a few empty tanks really isn't much at all, and while it is a small distinction, I consider it much closer to SSTO than a traditional multistage rocket.

I'd have to say that if hovering the cursor over it and using the mouse wheel doesn't work, it might just be a problem Squad didn't consider happening.

Are they deleted when a craft is deleted in game, or do they stay then also?

What, you don't want to fly a craft that points down at a 60 degree angle when it's flying? Sarcasm aside, I just went into the SPH to mess around with it, starting with the lift vector facing backwards, and it doesn't look like it's possible to get it facing straight up, only to make it closer to backwards than before. I'm not a plane expert, so maybe there's a trick I don't know, but it doesn't look to be possible to me. Also, is that gonna be an F-117?

If you were using the default deployment pressure then it's almost a guarantee that your parachutes are gonna come out and burn up on reentry, 0.04 atmospheres is pretty high up in Kerbin's atmosphere. The parachutes have to be activated to deploy, but they don't have to deploy at the moment you activate them. Think of it as arming the trigger on the chute instead of deploying the chute. Perhaps they were in a stage that you activated before reentry? Because they shouldn't deploy if you haven't activated them.

I've gotta say, I'm a little embarrassed to say it, but I've been playing since before planets were added and I've never sent a kerbal out of the Kerbin system. I've sent probes to Eve and Duna, but I always got so caught up in building space stations and infrastructure that I never got around to it.

If you've got a decent resource infrastructure in place you could use them as switching stations for Kerbals. For example, launch a cheap rocket or SSTO plane to rendezvous with a station in low Kerbin orbit, catch a nuclear powered ship to a Minmus station, then ride a lander down to a surface base. Then you've only gotta pay for the first rocket, everything else only costs the time of fuel production.

The best way to do it would be to take the average Isp of the two boosters and the main engine, and use the mass minus solid fuel and however much liquid fuel is burned before the boosters burn out. That'll give you deltaV for that piece, and then you just find the deltaV after boosters detach, using however much liquid fuel remains, and add the two together.

And if you're not sure what to press, its the resource button first, then clicking on the resource name is what toggles the overlay.

I use them a lot, it's a whole lot easier to get a nice Minmus intercept setup when you use two nodes, one for the initial burn, and one for the mid course plane change. I don't like aligning planes in LKO because it cost more dV, and this is usually the only way I can see if I'll cross it's orbit at the right time.

Well I mean in most cases you wouldn't need max static stability, but if for example you have a tall light tower, and you're flying a kerbal back to base on Minmus you might want that extra stability, for any unintended collisions.

Ah yep, that makes sense, sounds like the best option for both landing stability and static stability would be to have six legs, with only 3 extended for landing, and the other 3 extending after you land. That way you get the landing benefits of 3 legs, and its harder to tip over once settled.

For it to be a true space elevator it would have to be a synchronous orbit, but that's because the concept use a flexible cable, if the top is too high or low the cable wraps around the planet. I'm pretty sure the physics range extension is only for in atmosphere, but you could still make a 2km long tower, maybe secure it to Gilly with a lot of clamps. I don't know how long it'd stay, because of the CoM being so far from the surface, but you could put a capsule on bottom, capsule on top, use it to transfer kerbals up and down instantly.