ravenhawk82

Why go to the Mun when there's plenty of land on Kerbin? On a more serious note, despite having a liquid surface and gaseous atmosphere, Laythe is still toxic. The temeprature is below freezing, which means that it's not JUST water. I always thought of Laythe as a friendlier version of Titan, where there are surface oceans of liquid methane instead of water. There is also the element of exploration that would drive for going to icy places. We might know there aren't aliens in the Kerbol system, but the Kerbals don't

With all the talk of potential life on subsurface oceans on Europa and Enceladus, I think it would be pretty cool to have an analog to the proposed Europa Ice Mining missions. I know, aliens aren't going to be a part of the game, but it would still be a great way to get more science once you've worked your way up to high in the tech tree. Basically, you would start with a probe using a scanner of some kind to look for areas with an ocean underneath (Think similar to how Kethane detectors work). You would send probes into orbit around various ice worlds (Minmus, Eeloo, parts of Dres, maybe more if other planets and moons are added) to scan for evidence of sub-surface oceans. Once you find a suitable target, you would then build a drill to get through the ice into the ocean and collect science from the ice and water it finds. Honestly, I don't know if the game engine would support drilling like this, but if it's possible, it could present an interesting challenge to players and a good way to make science. Thoughts?

I'm on break at work and unable to try it out, but from looking at it, I can make a couple suggestions. First, I would suggest putting some standard SAS modules on all stages to assist in countering the rotation. Second, I would put a small RCS tank and some RCS thrusters on the lower portions of each stage to keep things stable on the way up and as parts begin to separate. Compliment these with some more RCS thrusters on your landing module to keep things nice and strait. This is almost standard on all of my larger rockets, just because they get topheavy and start to tip over as the huge lower fuel tanks run dry. I'm sure a more seasoned Kerbonaut can lend you some better tips, but these are just things I noticed right off the bat. Hope it helps a little!

Wow, I was using that page, but for some reason last time I opened it the image explanations weren't showing up Thanks muchly!

Hi all! I've been lurking here since I got the game a couple weeks ago, and figured that since I can now get to the Mun, it would be fun to try some more challenging targets. I have found several ways to calculate phase and ejection angles for planetary travel, but I'm not entirely sure how to use that data... Could someone kindly either explain these terms or point me to a source that can? I'm pretty comfortable with finding the right phase angle (I think... Jeb and I will find out soon enough ) but I can't find a solid answer for the ejection angle. Help is muchly appreciated!