Brotoro

Yes, there is a TR-18D double-sided decoupler between the Poodle engine of the Service Module and the top of the Lunar Module. BUT, I was getting some weird clipping happening when I built this rocket, and the ASAS unit and docking port on top of the LM were clipping into the coupler (so that the coupler appeared to attach to the top of the lander can instead of to the top of the docking port as expected). I didn't argue with the VAB strangeness, but when I try to rebuild this connection now (I did a quick rip-apart of the ship in order to answer your questions) the coupler mates to the docking port as expected. This will make a wider gap than shown in my old rocket, but will work fine (and may solve the weird problem I had with the engine shroud jamming on the top of the LM at separation). Don't forget the four long struts that run from the SIV-B stage to the Rear of the SM...otherwise this stack is too weak. The LM descent stage has its own LV-909 engine. On top of that LV-909 is a regular separator and then comes the LV-909 of the ascent stage of the LM. The four fuel tanks of the descent stage are attached radially to the sides of the decoupler. The cylinder you see in the center of the descent stage after the ascent stage separates is the engine shroud the the decoupler places around the LV-909 of the ascent stage.. I hope this answers your questions. If not, let me know.

Laythe receives 3.9% the illumination that Kerbin receives. But the fact that it has a quite thick atmosphere (with 80% the surface pressure of Kerbin) can mean it has a substantial greenhouse effect, especially if it contains a sizable fraction of carbon dioxide. And this greenhouse effect will help trap its heat no matter what the source of that heat is (be it energy from the sun or energy released from tidal friction within, working its way out). Either way the heat gets radiated from the surface as infrared, and the greenhouse effect makes it harder for the heat to escape. Because of the small distance scale of the Joolian system, tidal forces are much greater for Laythe than they are for the Jovian moons in our solar system. We should not be surprised if Laythe is warm...we should be surprised if it is cold. And the argument that this energy is released in the interior of Laythe does not hold water...it still has to work its way out and be radiated into space to cool Laythe...it can't just disappear inside. The observed fact that Laythe has polar caps tells us that the energy it receives from Kerbol is enough to push much of its surface above the freezing temperature of the liquid in the oceans (since the relative lack of heat from the sun at high latitudes is why the poles are colder than the equator). The simplest explanation for the oceans is still that they are mainly water (albeit with some additional mix of salts and/or ammonia).

I'm not going to do an Apollo 11 reenactment until I get version 0.21 because I like leaving my descent stage on the münar surface as a tribute to the Apollo astronauts...and if I did that now, it would probably just get destroyed by the new terrain in 0.21. Plus, I already have a descent stage still sitting there from my previous reenactment... So here is the previous reenactment instead: Acting All Apollo-ish I've seen several YouTube videos where people have done "Apollo-style" missions, so I wanted to do one of my own. Except I wanted my spacecraft to look and act as much like the real thing as could be accomplished using stock KSP 0.18.2 parts. Onboard for this mission were Nelemy "Neil" Kerman, Thompbles "Thompbuzz" Kerman, and Milski "Michael" Kerman. I didn't try to make the launch vehicle look like a Saturn V, since I needed to use what works. But it does have five mighty "F-1" Mailsail engines powering the liftoff. And it is the tallest rocket I've ever built. Once the most dangerous phase of the boost to orbit is over (the booster separations are completed), the Launch Escape System tower is jettisoned. Below we see the stage I call "S-IVB" completing the boost into orbit. The stage below it actually had enough fuel to complete to boost into orbit, but I cut off its engines and separated it so the the S-IVB with its "J-2" Poodle engine could do the job. I made three orbits of Kerbin to give the crew and flight controllers plenty of time to checkout the systems of the vehicle and then to get into position for Trans Münar Injection. The S-IVB stage performed the Trans Münar Injection burn to send the ship on its way to the Mün. It still had about a third of its fuel left after the completion of the burn, but this would not be used (since the job of the S-IVB is done at this point). In fact, oddly enough, at this point I transferred about half of the fuel from the Lunar Module's ascent stage tank into the S-IVB (to lighten the LM of its fuel load, which was too large, as dictated by having to use a Rockomax X200-8 "tuna can" fuel tank in that stage...as explained later). The trajectory chosen to get to the Mün is shown below. Although it doesn't look like it on this plot, the ship makes a figure-8 path around the Mün, and will end up in a retrograde nearly-equatorial orbit around the Mün. The plot also shows that the ship is on a free-return trajectory that would allow the ship to return to Kerbin at a proper altitude for reentry should the burn to place the ship into Münar orbit fail to happen. Time for the Transposition And Docking maneuver. Below the Command/Service Modules (henceforth referred to as "Columbia") separated from the rest of the vehicle. And here's where I ran into a bit of a problem. Even though I used the TR-18D Stack Separator (which releases both sides of the connection), the piece of debris representing the engine shroud did not separate cleanly from the top of the LM, getting jammed in place. Really, it should split into four panels and float away (that's just MY opinion, anyway). But because it is actually a separate piece of space debris, I was able to select it using the square bracket keys and the press escape to end its flight to make it disappear. With that nasty piece of space debris eliminated, Columbia was able to proceed with its turnaround. Below we see that Columbia has successfully docked with the docking port on the top of the Lunar Module (henceforth referred to as "Eagle" or "LM"). The LM descent stage contains an OKTO probe body, so that part of the ship was still under control so it was nice and stable for docking. Then the LM was then separated from the S-IVB and pulled away by Columbia. I had to disable the RCS thrusters on the LM to get this picture of the CM/SM pulling it away with RCS firing. For the trip out to the Mün, the spacecraft was oriented at right angles to the sunlight and put in a slow "Barbecue Mode" roll to insure even heating. Note that Columbia has deployed its high gain antenna for better communication with flight controllers. I suppose using an X200-8 tank instead of an X200-16 tank for the SM would have been a little more to scale, but I wanted to be sure I had plenty of fuel. Over the backside of the Mün, Columbia fires its engine to slow the ship into Münar orbit. The mission controllers are waiting on pins and needles to see if the ship comes back around the Mün at the correct time to indicate a successful Münar Orbit Insertion burn. The initial orbit was elliptical, but then I circularized it to about 60 miles (96 km), as is right and proper for such things. Nelemy and Thompbuzz have transferred over to Eagle and are checking out the systems, such as the landing leg deployment. Unlike Apollo, my astronauts needed to transfer between the two ships via EVA. What I had to do next was wait a while for the sunlight conditions at the landing site to be correct (daylight, but with the sun not too high so that good shadows showed any landing obstacles). Once the time was right, Nelemy and Thompbuzz separated in the Eagle and checked out all the controls and activated the various engines and thrusters. Below we see the Eagle floating in front of the Columbia, upside-down. "SOMEBODY's upside-down," says Nelemy. I performed a burn to put the Eagle into a descending trajectory, with a little plane adjustment to get it to pass over the target landing site. The map below shows the initial descent trajectory (still long at this point). The target landing site is near the southern edge of the maria in the upper-left, which I will refer to as "Mare Tranquillitatis" for today's exercise. Below we see the Eagle coming in for a landing on the relatively flat terrain. "30 feet, 2 1/2 down... faint shadow... 4 forward... 4 forward... drifting to right a little... O.K....". Man, that Thompbuzz can drone on. After landing, the descent stage tanks had a little under 1/3 of their fuel load remaining. It would have been a much closer thing if I hadn't off-loaded half of the fuel in the ascent stage tank. Then Nelemy would have also had flight controllers joggling his elbow with fuel level warnings as well. Here we see Nelemy getting out first after distracting Thompbuzz by giving him a sandwich. Pardon the crappy backlighting for the first steps on the Mün, but some things are traditional. I'm sure if you were a young boy sitting on the living room floor in Minnesota, you'd be spellbound by all this anyway. Below, Nelemy hops down to the surface of the Mün and flubs his line. But now that Nelemy is on the surface with the Hasselblad camera, we get much nicer shots of Thompbuzz descending the ladder. Navigating the path from the rungs on the side of the crew cabin and fuel tank to the angled ladder is a bit tricky...one must let go, then walk a bit along the horizontal rungs ("front porch"), then grab the angled ladder. Falling onto the top of the other structures can make the kerbal go all floaty-ragdoll, and looks embarrassing. Overview shot of the boys on EVA, just after Thompbuzz stepped onto the surface. Nelemy took this nice picture of Thompbuzz with the Eagle in the background. The descent stage of the LM has a cruciform arrangement of fuel/oxidizer tanks around the descent engine (FL-T200 tanks and an LV-909 engine). The areas between the tanks are filled with RCS tanks and assorted equipment and science instruments, giving the descent stage an octagonal layout, as is only natural for a properly-built descent stage. The descent stage also has batteries (located on the tops of three of the tanks, mostly to help fill an unsightly gap), and an OKTO probe body on top of the fourth tank. I had a hard time making an ascent stage that would have enough fuel, but still looked nice. It would be nice if KSP had some round radially-mountable fuel tanks in various sizes. So I made do with an X200-8 tank, which has way more fuel and weight than is needed (and that's why I pumped off about half of its initial load into the S-IVB tank to lighten the lander). The sides of the "equipment bays" of the LM are walled off a bit with solar panel packages, which you can just picture as general purpose equipment containers. But which CAN be deployed to recharge the batteries, in an un-Apollo-like manner. This nice picture of Thompbuzz checking out the slightly floating lander leg pads was taken by Nelemy. Below is a picture taken by Nelemy of Thompbuzz doing a standard kerbal jump from near the lander footpad. The height of the jump is not very Apollo-like, but at least mission controllers kept the boys from posing standing on top of the LM. Pictures of Nelemy? Sure...here's one Thompbuzz took of Nelemy checking out the condition of the surface under the lander. There was an unusual feature located nearby the landing site (or "nearby" after a lander hop to adjust location). Below is a picture Nelemy snapped of Thompbuzz standing on the monument. Here's a picture of Thompbuzz returning to the crew cabin. The high gain and radar antennas are made from cube and octagonal struts, and unextended omni antennas. There are some additional omni antennas stuck onto the ascent stage in traditional locations (not visible in this picture). With the crew back on board, it's time to head back up to the Columbia. The separator fires and the LV-909 of the ascent stage sends the Eagle's ascent stage upward. Make the first part of the boost vertical so that the ascent stage gets away cleanly and the thrust from a rapid turnover doesn't actually blow the descent stage over (I have it on good authority that this can happen). Good thing we didn't plant a flag close by in a slipshod manner, or it probably would have been blown over, too. I felt like John Stafford trying to handle the comparatively skittish ascent stage as I turned over, but all was well eventually. Below we see the Eagle ascent stage passing over an interesting valley. Left behind on the surface, as it should be in an Apollo recreation, is the Eagle's descent stage. I'll keep it there in my persistence file as my own little monument to Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin. Meanwhile, back in orbit, the Eagle returns to Columbia. I used the Columbia, which is easier to handle, to conduct the Münar Orbit Rendezvous and docking that is characteristic of an Apollo-style mission. Here we see Thompbuzz transferring back to Columbia in a non-Apollo-like EVA. The Eagle ascent stage is cast off to remain in Münar orbit as the three astronauts, safely back in Columbia, prepare for the trip home. Since the Mün lacks masscons that disrupted the orbit of the Apollo 11 ascent stage and caused it to eventually crash onto the lunar surface, I will manually remove this Eagle later. Around the backside of the Mün, Milski becomes relevant again as he fires the Columbia's engine to perform the Trans-Kerbin Injection to send the ship home. The Columbia falls back to Kerbin, after a midcourse correction to insure an ocean landing. Separation of the Service Module before reentry. The chutes are out in reefed condition. And we have three good mains at 500 meters. Ocean splashdown as befits the ending of a Apollo flight. Now where is the Hornet?

And when somebody uses the singular 'mare' do you think of female horses?

Probe ASAS? I'm confused.

Drove around an island on Laythe. A lot.

Food coloring. U.S.D.A. approved.

If hungry enough, people will try eating most anything. Besides (they may have thought)...babies love milk...how could it not be good for adults, too?

Eve no longer looks like Eve. I wonder what it has now for handy highlands.

NovaSilisko is on temporary leave from birthdays. Happy birthday!

It looks.....odd. The size of the craters is too uniform, with mainly two sizes. But mostly it looks weird because there are craters all over the maria (the dark, flat areas). In our solar system, the maria formed later, after the initial heavy bombardments that cleared most of the debris out of the solar system after the planets formed. Maria should have relatively few craters.

Yes...yes... But Levelord's VTOL was able to fly with and without the front cockpit/rover attached. How is balance maintained? This is wizardry!

They choose the datum ("sea level") elevation arbitrarily. On Mars they chose it to correspond to an atmospheric pressure below which ( elevation above which) liquid water could not exist no matter what the temperature was.

Depends on the terrain and the rover design.. On some terrain I can cruise along at over 30 m/s. On other terrain, I would not go over 10 m/s.

The fact that your service module propulsion system already worked to do mid course corrections and Lunar Orbit Insertion would not make you any happier about it not working when it comes time for Trans-Earth Injection. Yes...they could start the LM ascent engine by manually opening the valves.

The runway was not removed. The Easter egg that was by that runway was removed.

Parts. Parts everywhere.

The Saturn Launch vehicles, once man rated, had a 100% launch success rate.

The service module propulsion system would also lead to loss of the crew if it failed to fire for Trans-Earth Injection.

In before "can't cheat in a sandbox game.†I don't mind clipping that isn't ridiculous (like clipping big parts into a fuel tank, but expecting the tank to still hold the same volume of fuel). The game allows you to do some clipping anyway, so why complain when someone does a bit more. I'm just having the engineers modify my parts so they fit together better.

Sure you lose a tiny amount of delta-V from gimbaling motors... But you lose a lot more delta-V if your ship spins out of control because you forgot to include gimbaling motors to control it.

I save fuel for a rainy day. You never know when something will go wrong. I once time warped a bit beyond Kerbin on a return trajectory ( darn kerbals didn't come out of hibernation fast enough!), and it was a good thing I had extra fuel, or the ship would have been lost in spaaaaace.

Satellites CAN use tidal forces to stabilize them... It's called gravity-gradient stabilization. The satellite must be sufficiently long and thin for this to work (or have two parts tethered together).

I almost always wreak my VTOL when I try to land it in water and take off again. I've quit messing with VTOLs... I'll see how they do later with the new ASAS.

The mountain slopes around KSC and the nearby islands look overly steep...they look unrealistic. But I suppose they did that so you could fly your fighter through Beggars Canyon bagging womp rats, as Scott said. And craters all over the maria on the Mün look unrealistic.