DerekL1963

Merritt Island aren't the only pads at the Cape, and the Saturn V's weren't the only rocket to us a roll maneuver.

Long story short, NASA used a roll maneuver to align the rocket's axes with the stable platforms axes. Back in the days of analog computers and control systems this made life MUCH easier. They don't need to anymore, but they still do because rocket engineers are conservative stick-in-the-muds.

I'll keep plugging away at it then... thanks!

I'll test that, may not be until the weekend with the other stuff on my plate. No real hurry, because the storyline I'm planning needs some other yet-to-drop mods (not yours, Nert's) and a couple of weeks of setting the infrastructure. (Stuff that already happened in the time line like space stations and whatnot.) Oh, and mastering re-entry and transferring to lighter-than-air flight on Duna. No luck on that so far. Any tips on vehicle design and/or piloting techniques? I basically can't get sufficient buoyancy (even after dumping the drive unit) before hitting the surface.

Me? If not the day the thread was created (May 10, 2013), then the day before most likely.

I had to go dig it up off of Photobucket... This was the first image in this thread: Though I'd been playing since buying KSP in April, this was my tenth posting on the forums, a couple of days after creating an account. The file was named "screenshot6", but it's the earliest I have... everything that's not on Photobucket was lost in a HDD crash in '15.

Not so much for being too potent, as it's window of usefulness had closed. A surprise from the south made sense when we relied on the DEW line to warn us of missiles in flight coming in from the north.... But the PAVE PAWS radar system was coming online in the 1970's and partially closed that gap. The MIDAS early warning (launch detection) satellites of the 1960's weren't particularly useful... But the DSP series that came online in the 1970's provided 24/7 launch detection and track determination capabilities and the game was essentially over. The Soviets put up little fight when it was proposed to outlaw FOBS under SALT II in 1979. Trivia: Testing of the FOBS stage included it re-entering over the Soviet Union. One of the operating features was that it used a late, high thrust, retro burn to disguise it's identity as long as possible and the resulting steep re-entry reduced it's vulnerability to ABM systems. During the first tests the burns took place after sunset on the ground but while the RV was still in sunlight (presumably to make optical tracking possible) and the resulting plume was visible over a wide area. This resulted in a spate of UFO sightings.... Eventually someone in the Soviet Union put two and two together and realized why the CIA was assiduously collecting information on a small number of UFO sightings... And all subsequent tests occurred when the retrofire plume would not be visible from the ground.

And SAS (and the now defunct ASAS) didn't work at all like the current SAS. There was actually a prominent school of thought that since they did so little you could just do without them and save the weight. Also not missed from my early days: That awful ugly VAB. Before KJR and then the base game tightening up joints - spaghetti rockets and rockets whose lower tanks would try to shove themselves into upper tanks (and then blow sky high) when the TWR got high. Sometimes half, three quarters of the struts on some vehicles were dedicated to preventing just that. You really did need MOAR STRUTS!!11!!!1! for a vehicle of any size. Mainsails overheating and blowing sky high. Mainsails randomly detaching themselves from the booster and haring off on their own. (Yes, because of their monstrous thrust they could sometimes tear themselves loose.) A lot of people learned how to cluster engines simply to avoid using the very problematic Mainsails.

*And* the SPS/CSM evolved from a direct ascent lander - and I bet the configuration inherited features from that. Tucking what few greebly bits it did have up into the SM would have saved height and protected them from any recirculated plume and dust. Edit: Here's what the parts inside the SM looked like, minus the TVC actuators - https://airandspace.si.edu/collection-objects/rocket-engine-liquid-chamber-apollo-service-module-propulsion-system-sps-0

Installed a radiator... But with both a Nuclear Gyro Ring and a SAFER installed and running, a small radiator only radiated about .1% more when the thermal efficiency stabilized at about 60%. Now off to work on the blog post that's due in a few hours. Dude, language and attitude! We're all friends here, be cool.

SAFER has built in radiators. I did put a radiator on the ring at one point, but it didn't appear to do anything. Might have to retest. 3.0.6 is in fact what I have. Hooligan labs is not installed as this is a test install to work out why I was having reactor problems, then I'll start adding mods. IIRC, from previous experience, you only need the .dll and can safely delete everything else. The icon may be broken because Hooligan has not been updated for 1.4.1, it's unclear at this point what the author's intentions are.

I've had success using a crasher stage for the deorbit burn, then turning off the autopilot long enough to re-orient Normal+ to jettison it, then re-enabling the autopilot. So long as the difference in TWR isn't too great, I've successfully ridden a crasher as low as 20km before jettisoning it. The lower you go, the faster you have to be to re-orient to a no-reconcontact jettison orientation and then re-enable the autopilot though. It took some practice to get it right.

I second this notion - RT has a steep, counterintuitive, and unforgiving learning curve, and it's practically a mini-game in it's own right. And really, it's no more realistic than the stock CommNet. It's just unrealistic in a different way... It's claims to added realism actually date from the era before CommNet existed. Honestly, I find that the best place to get help with specific mods (unless they're wildly popular and widespread, which RT isn't) is in the mods specific thread in the add-on releases forum. That's where you'll generally find the real experts. That being said, what does the fine print on the contract say? You might just get away with pointing (via the dialog) from the launch pad.

"Build New Shepard" - define what constitutes a "New Shepard" and a "New Glenn".

Currently SLS and JWST are neck-and-neck in the race to see who will launch last... Relevant image, JWST estimated cost and launch date over time.

Installed MM, and got the reactor control UI on both the SAFER and the Nuclear Gyro Ring... Both seemed to work, though thermal efficiency on both steadily dropped, the battery steadily (if slowly) dropped, and even with 4 Twisters at full throttle the gyro ring power output as displayed stayed at "n/a" (even when the SAFER was off and the Ring was shouldering the whole load). Log: https://www.dropbox.com/s/w5udj1oxo5wgx1s/KSP_1002.log?dl=0

<- As my user icon. Worked with 'em for ten years. I helped load and prep (though not launch) the specific missile pictured.

1.2.2.... I recently deleted a bunch of old versions (saving the screen shots) to clear some hard drive space. Everything before that (back to 0.9.0) is saved on my backup drive. Everything before that (back to 0.19.1) was lost in a HDD crash.

<insert Homer Simpson reaction .GIF> D'oh. Though MM was installed in the original save, where the problems first showed up... I'll install it in the new save and get some logs later today. <Seriously, I feel really stupid here.>

The Soviet/Russians had/have a spacecraft designed to assist in reboosts which could be modified to assist with de-orbit - Progress. It's not clear whether or not Tianzhou has the same capability. It's also not clear at which point they lost control of Tiangong-1... and docking with an uncooperative target is a tall order even for a controlled vehicle, let alone an automated or autonomous vehicle.

Yes, they are relay antennas. https://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Parts#Communication https://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/HG-5_High_Gain_Antenna

Yes, let's be honest. The problem isn't deep bugs, the type discovered by "truly" playtesting a game. It's simple, basic stuff. Things like the installer installing into "KSP131". Like two new engines having their thrust vector and models off-center. Like bugs being found in canned missions. Like... well, you get the picture. These aren't bugs that require hundreds of man-hours to find the strange combo of circumstances that trigger them. In the case of the new engines (and I haven't yet mentioned the stats swap), it's obvious they didn't do even the most basic QA. 1.4/1.4.1 and MH are riddled with stuff that shouldn't have gotten "missed in dev".

That presumes you find failed rockets to be fun. I don't, I suspect many others don't either. What you find fun isn't necessarily what other people find fun. Stop presuming to speak for anyone who isn't you. Stop trying to force your preferred playstyle on others.

Nobody is asking for a tail fin to work with no aerodynamics. What we're doing is trying to explain to you that there are more to aerodynamic effects than just lift.

^^ Very sound advice indeed.