Chruschtschow

I suppose that you want to get a reusable launcher design, so you don't have to rebuild it every time from scratch, right? If that's the case, you just build the rocket the way you described it. Then you take everything BELOW the command module, but not the command module and drop it on the small jigsaw icon. Then start a new design, build the payload and load the launcher from the jigsaw icon again. Which jigsaw icon? This one!

Hah, this one is easy for me since I landed... FOUR different designs. I didn't crash a single manned one yet, though that probably means that I missed out on a lot of fun to save the crews... My Number One to drop on something else than Kerbin. Also my numbers 2 (Minmus again) and 3 (Mun). My first manned mission to Minmus. My second manned mission to Minmus. It didn't do any refining, so I'm somewhere between: "Whoa, something big on Minmus!" and "Meh, major failure..." And my third manned mission to Minmus. Major success. The ship landed, it did mining... and I forgot to add a ladder, so you need some jetpack acrobatics to get back into the cockpit. Now I'm planning for a manned base on Minmus.

I wish I'd get an Euro every time that I hear this from my students...

Hrhr...

Poor Kerbals. It would be so much more difficult with those bigger planets and moons, the larger distances etc. "Great, Neill missed the moon. Again."

I'm pretty sure you wanted to say periapsis. An apoapsis outside of the atmosphere is no problem (at least theoretically). There MIGHT be a way to get into a Kerban orbit, but it involves other bodies, too. If you get enough speed within the atmosphere to leave it, if you have enough speed after drag to still reach the SoI of the Mun or Minmus, if you get there in the right angle, if you don't hit the Mun or Minmus and not get thrown into deep space, if you fall back to Kerban in the right way, you can get a stable orbit. Theoretically. With lots of ifs. I don't have the slightest idea whether you can fit enough engines and fuel on your flier to achieve it practically to reach this speed in the first place...

It won't be any longer, now that Jebediah has watered him...

This. If there are any covered up losses, they probably happened on ground. Except the Lunochod dwarf. That one sounds perfectly valid.

It depends... I like to start my rockets personally, but not always. Especially not, when it is the sixth start of a slightly modified new launcher that I'm testing. Right now, I'm sending vessel after vessel after vessel to Minmus. I like to do my injections personally and they are often less fuel intensive and have a nice equatorial orbit. But if it's the x-th ship again, I just start the script that goes from launch to Minmus orbit, while I look after the kids. And I love the informations. I was a little baffled when I found the nearly total lack of flight data. Where's my inclination? Where can I see my pe and ap without doing some mouse over? Where's my dv? WHERE'S THE MASS OF MY SHIP?!? And the Smart A.S.S. is so awesome. I always get the buttons for pitch and yaw wrong.

This my current Munar Miner which isn't working as intended. All parts between the converter and the fuel tanks have the "fuel crossfeed capable" qualifier. So this doesn't seem to be enough.

I'm trying to get my Kethane production started, too. But right now, it doesn't work. Right now I got some Kethane mined. The Kethane was automatically transported to the Kethane tank, though the drills didn't touch it and there were other parts than fuel tanks between the drills and the Kethane tank. Then comes the converter. The drills are attached to this one, but there is no connection between the tank and the converter. I suppose there has to be a line from the Kethane tank to the converter. I tried to produce both liquid fuel and monopropellant. Both didn't work. No connection between converter and liquid fuel tanks, so that one is a no-brainer. I need fuel lines. The converter had direct contact with my monopropellant tanks, so I suspect the problem lies with the connection between the Kethane tank and the converter. I suspect the stuff flows this way: Drill - no connector necessary Kethane tank - direct contact or fuel line to Converter - direct contact or fuel line from Liquid or monopropellant tanks Is that about right?

Wow, I'm really impressed about what you do with stock parts there. Your rover, the Zenith and Nova launchers, the supply craft, everything very polished. Awesome work. And thanks for that guide. I was wondering how to get multiple engines under a single tank. That will help to get more effective fuel usage.

RIBBONS!!! I love it when I can add another device and be it something small like one of the orbit devices

Come up with your own design. It's so much more fun and gives lots of hilarious explosions! And you will learn a lot about the game. This is my first space station: I sent it up in two parts, a main body and a long arm with big solar panels. The ship on the other side brought the panels and then redocked closer to the crew unit for some EVA fun. I had the great idea to make the solar array symmetrical, so there was quite some mass on both ends. The best way to describe the station was "metronome". Not a big success. I moved the crew to another station and sent it back into the atmosphere after about 8 in-game-hours. But what I learned there about building rockets that launch unwieldy stuff, docking unwieldy stuff to even more unwieldy stuff, and avoiding that stuff becomes unwieldy in the first place, will improve my skills in station building for sure. Really, build you own stuff. And it's so much more satisfying to do your own thing than to just copy the designs of experienced players.

At least, you can collect now both the Kerbal Lost and the Impactor badge for the Mun! ;-)

Every pod has a gyroscope. The strength of each pod's gyro - the torque - can be found here: http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Parts#Pods

Hey, nice video. I haven't seen all of them, but it's always nice to see when someone dabbles in science. I love the experiment for the effect of the drag coefficient. Very effective how you show the flaws of the drag model. However, there is some small mistake in video 1-2. You actually must not neglect the mass of the spacecraft to calculate the force. Proportional is proportional, regardless of the absolute value. If you double the mass of the spaceship, you double the needed force to lift it up. What you calculated there, is the acceleration of free fall, more precisely a formula for the calculation of the acceleration depending on the distance r. Which is fine, considering Newton's 2nd law: F=ma -> m_2 * a = G * m_1 * m_2 / r^2 -> a = G * m_1 / r^2 -> a = mu / r^2

Oh no, the Great Forum Purge of April 2013 killed all of my six posts. Since I'm a kerbonaut since April 2013, my loss is rather limited. At least I could use that second week for two probes on the surface of both of Kerbal's moons, a space station around Kerbal (ok, two space stations, because the first one was best described as a metronome...), a probe to Duna and finally my first Kerbal on Minmus: Duh... the ladder... I knew I forgot something...