Wayfare

Here you go Uses the NERVA stage to get out of Kerbin parking orbit, but that's OK because it has a hilarious amount of fuel.

MUNSHINE XI-B Wayfare Aerospace, Engineering & Kitchen Appliances [ATTACH]34340[/ATTACH] Congratulations on your purchase, loan, theft or roadside find of the MUNSHINE XI-B Heavy Lift Rocket and Interplanetary There-Getter! Inside this brochure you will find the basic user operation guide of the MUNSHINE XI-B, a list of featured technology and recommended after-market parts, performance specifications and the broadest liability waiver we could come up with. WAYFARE AE&KA is proud of its product - it laughs at the Mun, makes funny faces at Minmus, banters amicably with Duna and has a functional love-hate relationship with Jool. It doesn't like Moho and Eve much, but then again, who does. The MUNSHINE XI-B is the latest evolution of the famous MUNSHINE series. It was the V-VII models of this series that first carried Kerbals to the Mun and Minmus, while the IX model (the first to be coupled with the ITG) brought Jebediah and his crew to Duna and back. After that epic achievement, the IX model served as the workhorse of the KSP fleet, later allowing that same intrepid crew to undertake a successful mission to Jool's moon Vall. The XI-B is a modernized version of the IX, featuring some innovative technology to make this rocket all it can be. MUNSHINE XI-B Heavy Lift Rocket [ATTACH=CONFIG]34338[/ATTACH] (pictured with ITG) The MUNSHINE XI-B HLR comes in at a launchpad mass of 637.7 tons (ITG excluded) and is able to bring a payload of up to 65 tons into a 100-km Kerbin parking orbit. First Stage: A cluster of five Rockomax "Mainsail" liquid engines with 12,800 liters of bipropellant fuel each, which will push this monster off the pad and into the first few degrees of a 20->80km gravity turn. Second Stage: Eight LV-T30 liquid fuel engines staged around another Rockomax "Mainsail" deftly bring the payload into a parking orbit of up to 100km (assuming 62-ton payload and halfway competent piloting; your mileage may vary; past performance does not guarantee future results; all liability waived). Interplanetary There-Getter [ATTACH=CONFIG]34339[/ATTACH] (pictured as launchpad mockup; colors may vary; bits may fall off) The ITG design was stolen from inspired by another rocketeer whose name our engineers have conveniently forgotten (if you recognize your design, please contact WAYFARE AE&KA so we may give due credit and avoid any costly plagiarism litigation). Weighing in at 61.5 tons, it uses four LV-N Atomic Rocket Motors to turn its 8,000 liters of fuel into 8248 m/s of delta-v in vacuum. After detaching the drop tanks, the ITG still retains 6,433 m/s delta-v and achieves a thrust-to-weight ratio of 1.90 at the surface of Duna - plenty to make it back to Kerbin in time for pretzels! Technology Boosters-B-Gone: The HLR second stage drops half of its outer boosters once they run dry, then the other half once the only fuel left is in in the central stack. In this way the HLR second stage maintains a positive thrust-to-weight ratio all the way to orbit, trading fuel efficiency for Jeb-proof stability and safety. Less-2-Lag: The replacement of the earlier models' Tonz-O-Strutz structural reinforcement system, Less-2-Lag reduces the entire assembly's part count to 282, providing a significant performance boost to flight control and tracking systems. Safe-R-Crew: WAYFARE AE&KA cares about your crew and your mission. The command module is safely sandwiched between two decouplers and fitted with twin parachutes to ensure soft survivable landing after re-entry to Kerbin. We've also bolted the drop tanks over the crew hatch to ensure that your Kerbonauts stay inside until well past the mission's point of no return. Recommended after-market parts Mk16-XL parachutes: Four of these can be fitted on top of the ITG's nuclear rocket sponsons to facilitate landings on bodies with sufficient atmosphere. Recommended for Duna! Mechanical Jeb: Make life easier on yourself and your Kerbonauts by leaving the hum-drum of ascent, landing, and ship orientation up to a powerful autopilot. Focus on the mission instead of on the stick! Protractor: Tape this handsome TI calculator to the side of your command module and let it do the nasty inerplanetary math - so you don't have to! Kerbal Engineer Redux: Recommended for those who like to custom-engineer rockets to their taste, the Kerbal Engineer will give you all sorts of useful figures on your design both during construction and flight. (User design modifications waive WAYFARE AE&KA of all liability, of which there already was none, so that just goes double). Liability waiver WAYFARE AE&KA accepts no responsibility for anything it ever does, has done, will do, might conceivably contemplate doing, or might be accused of doing by (a) third party(ies). Any complaints, death threats and/or requests for compensation after (failing at) use of a WAYFARE AE&KA product may be directed at your nearest garbage bin.

What's probably happening: near the end of your ascent stage, your craft is still quite heavy and your ASAS is fighting hard to keep it under control. When you drop that stage, your craft is suddenly much lighter. At the exact same time, your nine engines ignite. This gives you a very sudden boost in thrust-to-weight ratio while your ASAS still thinks it's trying to wrestle an elephant. It only takes a split second for the tremendous overcompensation to put your ship into an uncontrollable flip-over. Try cutting off your throttle and SAS before separating that ascent stage, then bring the SAS back online and gently throttle back up.

Wonderful work! Very evocative, great shots and choice of music. Particularly liked the yellowish lighting. I think the shot from 0:26 to 0:53 was a touch on the long side though, could have used another cut in there maybe?

Not on this rocket, but normally, placing wings gives you a lift arrow. I figured with four wings working in different directions, KSP couldn't figure out where the lift is directed. They cancel each other out in terms of actually lifting anything, creating nothing but roll. That said, I have a pretty poor grasp on KSP's lift mechanics and went by "what would happen if I placed four aerofoils vertically like that on a real rocket." I may very well be wrong. In that case, putting the wings back on could definitely help in bringing the wobble under control.

That second stage looks like a LOT of fun

Hmm, I took the "center of lift" arrow as an indication that lift did work directionally. As far as I know launching spaceplanes on rockets is a nightmare. Then again, as far as I know getting planes off a runway in one piece is a nightmare Not my field of expertise, wings, so hey - put them back on and see if that gives your rocket better structural stability. I did find that the ASAS wants to tear the ship apart but with only half the number of winglets, it no longer has the power to do that. I had no major roll issues though. Note that I switched the ASAS off when I - gently - started the gravity turn, and only turned it back on once the rocket was pitched over 45 degrees. Something else you might try is to shorten the central stack by one tank and then pushing the boosters up. This would extend your fairly rigid lower structure further up the rocket, reducing the sway at the cost of some fuel (but you gain a lot of that back in having less mass to push up, so the net loss in get-up-theredness should be mild). On the whole I don't think you'll ever get a truly stable rocket out of that design - you will need to babysit its ascent very closely. But I do think you can get it into orbit. It's a rocket that Jeb would call "fiesty"

Ah, true - and they look sexier too

Those are structural fuselages, no fuel in them - they're actually a pretty good way to build out your craft if you need to place some tricky modules (like those long nuclear engines) without sacrificing too much mass. Looking forward to hear what you think of them

You went a bit more radical than me it seems I still think the biggest problem with this ship is the payload. The interplanetary stage is just far too inefficient in terms of delta-v. It can easily be trimmed down to 60 tons - half the weight of the current payload - and will actually gain delta-v in the process. The trimmed version still has a TWR of 0.62 in low Kerbal orbit to make for realistic burn times.

There's two types of SAS: regular SAS and Advanced SAS. Regular SAS modules are powered systems. They exert force to keep your ship straight. And that's all they do. Advanced SAS modules have no power of their own, but can make full use of a ship's control systems, like RCS, winglets, and thrust-vectoring engines. It's like a control computer and only one can be active at any time. Rockets tend to tip over when they're top-heavy. As lower-stage fuel is depleted the bottom part of your rocket becomes lighter, which makes this worse. The answer is to either put less mass on the top, or build a shorter rocket!

I think the inner boosters should drop out just fine if your climb is steep enough, the problem was probably in my piloting Roll problems usually come from asymmetry. Struts do have a bit of mass but as long as that's evenly distributed it shouldn't be a problem. Your center of mass looked fine in the SPH. And as long as you can manually compensate for the roll it should fly OK.

As far as I can tell the problem in the abundance of SAS, winglets, and mostly: the wings you're using for structure. These wings have lift and as that is being applied "sideways" it causes the rocket to spin. I was able to get your rocket mostly stable by taking off the SAS, reducing the number of winglets by half, and taking away the structural wings. With that done I could install a large ASAS unit to control the remaining winglets, and put up some more struts to stiffen the upper structure. Result: catastrophic success! No more roll, but the next problem is in your stages smashing into each other during separation. So I ripped out the fuel lines to get rid of the semi-asparagus staging. With your entire first stage burning at full throttle I was able to get the craft into a gravity roll towards orbit. That's where I gave up because I couldn't learn upside-down controls But having pushed the apoapsis up to nearly 300km even on a counter-rotational trajectory, I do believe this ship has the power to make it to orbit, and from there, to interplanetary spaaaaaace! [ATTACH]34238[/ATTACH] Good luck!

I think I also figured what MechJeb's problem is - the long rocket takes far too long to turn towards prograde after it's coasted to apoapsis. You'll want to do that manually ahead of time, disable the ascent autopilot, and then just hit "Circularize" once you're close to your desired orbit height.

I really don't know a thing about spaceplanes I liked the way the outer stages slid out from between the wing. The second set got stuck though and caused some hairy moments before they dropped as well. It also seems to want to roll to the right a lot. I think you can take out the Advanced SAS modules on those inner stages because they really don't add anything (only one ASAS can function at any time). But I'm sure someone who knows about wings and stuff can help you better! Let me know if you have trouble getting to the Mun on a rocket...

Hi Analgoy, I fixed your boat [ATTACH]34219[/ATTACH] The problem I believe was in the Asparagus staging. The violent nature of stage separation combined with the sort-of weak structural integrity of your ascent stage (pylons on pylons does not make for a very strong connection), and the not-quite-symmetrical fuel line arrangement causes the rocket to wobble. This gets progressively worse as more stages are dropped. I don't think there was any one magic moment during ascent that caused critical failure: it was the build-up of structural stress throughout the launch that eventually caused stuff to go boom. So I took out the asparagus staging, re-arranged the fuel lines to suit, and presto! That said, I only fixed the primary ascent: MechJeb doesn't like your craft very much and has trouble controlling the very long rocket it is left with after jettisoning the boosters, to the point where it can't make orbit. You'll have to fly it manually after the gravity turn and make sure you start burning prograde well early to circularize your orbit. After that it should be ok... ...Kind of. I say "kind of" because I tried to stay as close to your original design as possible. Frankly, though, I don't think it will work very well. According to Kerbal Engineer you get a bit over 7000 m/s of delta-v out of your interplanetary stage. That's a good number but it's an awfully big stage for what it does. I've taken the liberty of also modifying your craft more thoroughly to create an ascent stage that will get you to a 100km orbit (assuming you take manual control after the gravity turn) with some fuel to spare for your exit burn out of Kerbin's SOI. The remaining interplanetary stage has more than 8000 delta-v for you to play with: [ATTACH]34220[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=CONFIG]34221[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]34222[/ATTACH] Yes, I stripped off half the nuclear engines. If timing your exit burns a few degrees early is problematic, I recommend you use Protractor to give you the data you need. Note that the centre stack of the ascent stage is a bit wobbly once the booster stages have come off: you may want to strut that up a bit if you find it causes you problems.

I've never uploaded my Artemis designs (some things are best left unseen), but I doubt I'm the first one to use that name Anyway, problems in Mun rockets must occur in one of several discrete stages. And when they do, it's usually because of a problem in an earlier stage. For example: your lander stage doesn't have enough fuel to return, because your injection stage burned out before reaching an intercept, because your orbital stage didn't manage to circularize completely, because your launch stage was too weak. The answer: solve it from the bottom up. But guess what's the key to a better bottom stage? A lighter top stage. Any weight you add on the top will need a bigger injection stage, which will need an even bigger orbital stage, which will need an even bigger launch stage... So solving your rocket from the bottom up really means solving it from the top down. I'd be more than happy to take a look at your rocket if you upload it.

Neil Armstrong completed his quest just fine. The stone lander is forever waiting for an astronaut who will never be coming home from where he's gone.

Jeb, Bill and Bob hijack a massively expensive Munshine XI rocket to observe the sunrise at the memorial to the ultimate space badass. [ATTACH=CONFIG]34111[/ATTACH] Totally worth it.

Hi Wingnut, Spaceplanes are not my thing, but if it's getting to the Mun you want, I suggest you do it on a rocket. Take it one step at a time: focus on getting a pod into a stable orbit around Kerbin first (about 100km will do) and bringing him back. Then try to get one to burn out farther, catching a Mun intercept, then coming back. Then, try to get an orbit around the Mun and come back. Don't try to land until you've got those steps down pat. Finally, go for a full-on "land on the Mun and be back in time for pretzels" mission. I would advise against using MechJeb at this point, because it makes going to the Mun and back about as exciting as shopping for groceries. Use MechJeb once you've done the Mun manually a few times. Preferably, do Minmus manually as well. It really helped me get an understanding of what goes on when you're trying to get from one body to another. The aides come in later, when you're trying more complicated stuff. If you find yourself stuck at any of the above steps, I wholeheartedly recommend . He's got excellent tutorials up for just about anything you'd ever want to do in stock KSP. Plus he's got one where his dad says "We'll worry about landing when we've taken off", which I'm sure is one of the finest quotes this game has ever produced One tip I might already give away: bigger is not always better. I ran though seven versions of my "Artemis" heavy lifter design trying to get to the Mun, all of which were stupidly overpowered to the point where they'd either collapse under their own weight on the launchpad, or drive the ascent stage right through the payload they were trying to deliver (including more than a few unfortunate Kerbal crews). Good luck!

I'd be happy to provide the craft file, but I think anyone should be able to figure out how to replicate the X-10 without too much hassle

"There was a demon that lived in the air. They said whoever challenged him would die. Their controls would freeze up, their planes would buffet wildly, and they would disintegrate. The demon lived at Mach 1 on the meter, seven hundred and fifty miles an hour, where the air could no longer move out of the way. He lived behind a barrier through which they said no man could ever pass. They called it the sound barrier." Over the course of nine test aircraft designs, I learned two things: 1. I suck at airplanes. 2. I don't need no demon to make my controls freeze up and my plane disintegrate. But at the nice round number of 10, I finally beat that demon through some truly Kerbal design: [ATTACH=CONFIG]34096[/ATTACH] The X-10 Supersonic Aircraft (Test) included such unique amenities as a U-B-Savd detachable cockpit and landing take-off gear. [ATTACH=CONFIG]34097[/ATTACH] Ening Kerman, the twelfth fourteenth latest in a long line of test pilots to try their luck at the stick of an X-series. [ATTACH=CONFIG]34098[/ATTACH] Ening's words at take-off: "Yeeeeaaaaargh!" [ATTACH=CONFIG]34099[/ATTACH] By a fair margin! The demon was defeated, the pilot survived, and I'm done with airplanes for now. Mission success!

Your ship is ridiculously overpowered, your ascent and escape from Kerbin were horribly inefficient, you burned up way too much delta-v getting a shoddy intercept years away, using not even the most basic of navigation aides or orbital calculations, running your nukes to over 90% overheat in the process, to finally put a lander on Jool's glitchy surface in some completely random spot. And you dumped almost an hour and a half of unedited stream on YouTube. All because shenanigans were called on you? You, sir, are badass Great job!

Cheers, I'll give that rule of thumb a go if when I get my crew into another pickle like that The biggest problem I found in trying to get back from Jool was that the slight inclination of its orbit led to several hundreds of millions of kilometers of "vertical" error on the intercept - and since I couldn't realistically alter that inclination until I was at a proper angle to the sun, I had to sit through a lot of maximum-warp transits to find out if my latest change to the exit path had done the trick...

Thanks for the reply Yeomans. I get the basics of adjusting an orbit, though doing some more practice runs around the Mun sounds like a good idea. What I'm asking for, though, is some guidelines on adjusting an interplanetary transfer when you're unable to burn in your perfect window. This window is determined by the planetary phase angle of the bodies you're travelling between, and the ejection angle at which you conduct your burn (modified for thrust/weight ratio). What modifications to a burn would you have to make if one or both of these angles cannot be achieved perfectly? In my situation, I noticed that changing the ejection angle had fairly disastrous effects in terms of delta-v expended. So I decided to try and compensate for a planetary phase angle that was either 2 degrees short or 3 degrees over the ideal angle. Now I was expecting both situations to require me to expend more delta-v, catching Kerbin either a few days before or after the perfect intercept point. But try as I might, even the slightest adjustment resulted in over- or undershoots off by as much as forty days. My final fudge worked, but I get the feeling I should have been able to solve it with some fairly simple maths, in terms of: "If your planetary phase angle is off by X degrees, adjust your ejection angle by X degrees to compensate."