Rune

You know? This thread IS proving something to me: most KSP players that post on the forum are very nice people, showing respect for other people's beliefs and moderation and a calm approach to discussing touchy subjects. I honestly thought the thread would be non-stop flames by page two, but I'm liking 90% of the answers, whether I agree with them or not. Definitely Rune. So kudos to us!

After spending so much effort on the sunshield, the rest of the craft looks a bit rushed and lacking detail, IMO. But I'm just nitpicking, it looks very good.

If you increase the number of stages (say, three), I think you could drop the weight on the pad a bit. Using H2/LOX as fuel might give you a tiny further advantage (the Delta IV is very light for its payload, for example). But yeah, around there is the minimum. Rune. Lowest cost would be a completely different problem, as is also proven by the Delta IV.

Hey, I stopped myself from going into "full broadside" mode against creationism and their arguments about the theory of evolution (which can never be more than a theory, like anything else, unless it stops being scientific). But I doubt the rest of the people will. I started an atheist, but nowadays I'm less... I guess you could say fundamentalist about it. Even verging on agnosticism, but not quite there yet. So if I turn out to be wrong (might be, I have no proof one way or the other), I think any decent deity would forgive my lack of faith. Basically, I see the whole question as irrelevant without further evidence, so why waste time until we are much closer to figuring out this whole thing we call universe. The bad part, is how many people have killed and been killed defending and imposing beliefs that cannot in any logical way be defended with any rational argument (because faith is inherently irrational, as a lot of people have pointed out). If you want to have faith, fine by me. But don't even try to get someone else to do the same thing, that's what I say. And organized religions... those are blatant tools for control, and I hate those. Period. Jesus Christ (a widely accepted and documented historical figure) would drop to his knees in tears if he saw how his admittedly wise words were twisted by the many christian sects after his death. Chief among them the mess the formerly high priest of the sun god that ruled the Roman Empire compiled as the present-day bible when he switched religions (and made his whole empire switch religions with him, for political gains). Rune. The only thing I believe without proof, is that everything is ultimately knowable. Even if I will never see it explained on my lifetime.

Yeah, I also noticed the "gimballs are not smart" thing... by having them fight normal control torques and turn a giant ship (tractor designs work better structurally) into a horrible spaghetti thingy. Which is why, on tractor designs, I turn them off completely and steer either with RCS or control torque. Could use a polish, that.

Actually, it is 50 tons less, at least on the Block I, which is likely the only one that will fly, if it even flies. Yeah, 70mT and 2-3 billion a year to get there. And they call that progress. Rune. Then again, as a jobs program, it's perfect, most of the money goes to pay salaries.

What follows are all the designs that 0.25 and 0.90 made completely obsolete. They do still work great on the older version, though: Rune. For posterity's sake. Beware of the deceptively small-looking spoilers!

The old thread went up in flames in the great crash of '13, but I was able to salvage something from google. Then, of course, everything got horribly outdated, but in one form or another, here is the good old R-SUV. Building stuff for the forums since 0.19! (I think. I know for sure I started the game on 0.17, just before docking). It is a work in progress, of course, and new ones will be added as I post them, generally to the top of the sections because newer is usually better. All stock, even if the screenshots show some mods (I do play with them). If you find something I missed, a shout is appreciated and I will clean the download or fix whatever needs fixing. So without further due... the sales pitch! Welcome, fellow space traveller!! Here at R-SUV, only the finest and flight-tested vehicles out of an actual aerospace engineer-in-training. And they even sometimes work! Disclaimer: Some, but not much, piloting skill required. After all, I can fly them, so they shouldn't be too difficult. --SPH SECTION-- Simply put, we deal with winged things in this section. Anything that needs a runway to take off belongs here, be it to start a long-range flight, or to put payload in orbit in a cheap way. A very cheap way. So fasten your seatbelts, make sure your seat back and tray are both in the full upwards position, and all your luggage is correctly stowed... --VAB SECTION-- And because this game is about rockets, I should really have a section on them, shouldn't I? --PAYLOADS SECTION-- Because, contrary to popular belief, there is a point to launching all those awesome craft. Putting all this awesome stuff on orbit! Well, that is all... for now! I will add new ones as I make them, if they are good enough in my opinion. Everything here can go to the stock repository directly if someone links. Feel free to tinker with them, modify, steal ideas, whatever. After all, I do the same! Also, remembering action groups for every ship is out of the question for me. Check them out on the assembly building before each flight, that's my motto. Oh, and comments are always appreciated if you test any of them out. NOTE: Most of the outdated craft can be found on a backup post just below if they are from the 0.9-0.25 period, or on page 9 on this thread if they are even older and the gods of the Internet kept the links safe. Go there if you haven't got enough with the ones on this page, most of them still work in the new versions! Rune. Ad Astra per kaboom!

Nelson on that video: "NASA is being flatlined". I know he didn't mean to say that, but for once a politician actually spoke the truth. As in, there's no heartbeat and the patient is slipping. Rune. Not their fault, really, NASA does what it's told by Congress.

So, since you don't allow us to touch the controls, and we all have to use the same craft, the only variable is how high you start? Seems rather pointless, doesn't it?

Looks awesome, and you fly it like an ace. What to say, other than good job? Rune. Also takes the "faithful" statement to a whole new level. Even the RCS firing reminds me of the real one.

Well, that's your gameplay, and I'll never fault you for it. When I get a craft somewhere, it usually stays there, so I like refuelling and easy handling, but that's my own gameplay, lot's of waypoint stations and shuttles everywhere. But, you know, you still inspired me, so... Rune. What's the problem, again?

I didn't see that before the purge... else I would have already copied it! Looks awesome!

They look cool as boop, but I'm afraid this would be too laggy for my taste. Plus, for me RCS and docking is kind of a must, but that's just personal preference and a lot of dockings on my back. I might try to design something similar with a smaller cockpit and payload (and hence, parts), though... Rune. I do have an i5, but playing on yellow time is frustrating IMO.

It saves "some" orientation. I know because when you load the same save a lot of times (because, say, you keep on getting the suicide burn wrong, not that that's happened to me... ^^'), it will always start with the same orientation... which has nothing to do with the orientation you left the craft in. Rune. File that as quirks of the game.

Quite the opposite, for a given rotational period (rpm's), the "centrifugal force" (which is not a real force) is directly proportional to the turning radius. So the longer the "rope" is, the slower you turn for the same acceleration. In fact, at very short distances, the acceleration may become significantly different between your head and toes, so that would feel incredibly weird. Plus coriolis would become more significant, relatively speaking. Still, the energy contained in the system would be the same for the same acceleration and mass, so the length would not matter in the energy requirements to spin it up. Only a longer rope would be heavier, so it would matter in real life. For a practical number, around 50m radius would be OK (longer even better), but forget about centrifuges ~10m in diameter, unless you just want a small fraction of a G, or you just use them as beds. Studies seem to indicate somewhere between 6 and 10 rpm humans get sick (as in motion sickness sick) due to coriolis effects.

Amazing what you can get on the internet these days. Rune. Mom, can I have a rocket engine for christmas?

I just read the agreement you refer to: more paper studies, not a cent changes hands, and no one commits to any real metal-bending. So it might be good PR, but I wouldn't be holding my breath for a moonbase. As to liquid rockets, if you have access to a lathe or something similar, I would just try to build my own. You will learn a gazillion times more, you can make it small so you don't blow your house up when (not if) something goes wrong, and you can choose safer fuels and oxidizers. Like hydrogen peroxide and alcohol, I recommend starting there. Pressure-fed is also way easier and safer.

You know the first thing that crosses my mind every time I see grasshopper land? Especially this time with the cool aerial footage... There's a spaceship landing "like God and Robert Heinlein meant them to". Rune. And then there's a big grin plastered on my face.

Well, there's propellers. Assuming you have a compact and light fusion reactor (probably part of your main drive) you can get essentially unlimited electric supply, and then electric fans can be just as effective as wings, and allow hover. Wasted weight outside atmo, but... it would look cool as boop.

Holy crap, that is scary. You really can just buy that? As a private citizen? Turbopump, thrust vectoring, igniter, digital control system... that is a very advanced and complicated engine. I would love to take one of those apart! But I would be very, very careful about fueling it, or lighting it. As in "only under expert supervision", and I'm studying to build that short of stuff. Rune. You would think that's the kind of thing that falls under ITAR.

Hey, it was the middle of a war, and slave labour actively sabotaging the production, as you say. It's quite amazing it worked as well as it did. I'm sure the T-model production line was similarly primitive compared to the ones Honda on Chrysler has today. We won't get to the rocketry equivalent of a 2013 car production line if we don't keep at it, and fail considerably along the way. Payloads... well, humans are plentiful. But I must confess I am more interested in bringing stuff back, people can be grown elsewhere. Rune. I've often been accused of looking out too far ahead. But I already gave my opinion on the present state of affairs.

+1. Yeah, uninformed support can be worse for the cause, sometimes. But I stick by Tsiolkovsky's words: "The Earth is the cradle of humanity, but one cannot stay in the cradle forever." Considering how expansive and plague-like our species is, we have little choice anyway. Rune. It might be selfish, but I root for us.

Yeah, I saw that coming while I was writing ^^'. But then I thought, if he can ("...in Human history..."), why not me? As long as I don't mention the Mayflower and pilgrims (I had in mind the Vikings when I mentioned the first Atlantic crossing), I should be OK. Yeah, we are nomads. But first of all, we are curious monkeys: we try stuff to see what happens. As to space being hostile: Duh. But so is 90% of Earth, without technology, to naked primates. And with enough technology, you can literally re-build you favourite place in the middle of the sky. If I leave Earth (and I don't mean me personally, though I would like to), I want to go somewhere better, with a climate I choose, a gravity I choose, and as much room as I choose. If you don't get it yet, I'm talking about free-floating rotating space colonies. So any comment about temperature or surface pressure is irrelevant: I choose those to suit my needs. As to abandoned technologies: you are making my point for me. Yeah, we abandoned blimps, but that is because nowadays we fly in planes, or helicopters. We still fly. Land transportation still happens even if a lot of land vehicles were bad ideas, like nuclear cars (it seems, however, that we are on the verge of electric cars, and if the electricity came from nuclear plants... but I digress). Space tourism is not a technology, it's an idea waiting for the right technology to implement it. So is human expansion beyond Earth. Reusable rockets may be the solution (I personally believe they could bring the cost down by considerably more than an order of magnitude), or they might not be. But then, that just means we have to come up with something else to make it happen. Like using transistors instead of vacuum tubes (or abacus) to perform complicated calculations. And at some point, I have no doubt someone will come up with a material suitable for a space elevator (nothing in physics is against it, and we have promising candidates, even), and then we are set: importing materials to Earth becomes a source of energy, and exporting people something trivial. Rune. Now let's see what other people wrote. This is a popular thread!

Oh, I want to also point out, you folks make a fair amount of valid points about expendable present-day rockets and their inherent limitations. But while you are very right, vacuum tubes also had their own limitations, and we found a way around them to build impossible computers. If I tried, I could find thousands of other examples. And while we are at it, I will also say that I find a moon base to be a big waste of time at the present moment, just like SLS would be (see my feeble attempt to try to get back on topic? ). But we all have our opinions, right? Mine is a bit more informed than some, and less than others. Don't discount any of them until you have analysed them with an open, critical mind. Rune. Who knows? You might learn something or refine your position, I do that all the time, and don't feel ashamed when I do.