Mecha Pants

There has been some work on a Rocket System that uses CO2 as an oxidizer. Though my limited digging hasn't turned up much beyond this US government grant award from 2001 and a very interesting project summary.

Minor update to my entry, I feel like super thorough picture documentation is going to get boring to look through really fast. I'm probably going to limit it to a couple shots per event unless something cool or terrible happens. Up to two station modules in LKO now, A station core with room for 8, and a mostly empty spare fuel collection tank for plain LF and LFO. If I can come up with a proper interplanetary drive I can heft, I'll end up with a laythe mission at some point so having spare straight liquid fuel will be handy.

Trying to weigh the Pros and Cons of bringing kethane into my save. Using the SSTO I want to use (~13t cargo capacity) will make getting enough fuel up for operations beyond LKO very tedious. Especially if I want to maintain off world bases.

I added an image to my last post to get my entry started. I do have a question though, am I allowed to use standard planes for kerbin only missions? I'd like to place some navigation flags on on the surface to mark KSC 1 and 2, the island strip, and maybe a few at the "cool" anomalies on kerbin. Launching a SSTO seems a bit overkill for that.

If I were, to say, build an apollo-like mun mission with SLS parts as the lift stage, and then lock all the fuel tanks and build a still larger SLS part only lifter and lander to put that whole Apollo mission (lifter, transfer stage, and all) on the munar surface, would that be okay?

I evade by the time honored method of being just off camera when the lightning would strike. I'm standing, confused, but perfectly unharmed in the middle of a scorched spot when the camera returns. I trip as I walk away and accidentally conjure a flower pot and a whale into existence above the next poster.

To be honest, I built it with the piggyback module as the only measuring stick of lift capacity. Its cargo bay capacity and balance never even crossed my mind until after the first section was in orbit. It came down to starting fuel load, and a couple of "simulations" (quickloads) to see what I could do to get payload two off the ground. When hauling the station core module it needs to be fully fueled at the start, and it's basically a constant game of moving liquid fuel as far forward as it will go, otherwise it starts doing unrecoverable backflips at around the time the MK2 to MK3 adapter empties. It's still not easy, and that's the absolute heaviest payload it can lift, but it's manageable. With tail loaded cargo, it will not fly with full fuel. Full Stop. At the end of the runway it flips over backwards and is almost recoverable. It just recovers upside down and pointed the wrong direction. Any attempts to do much more than crash a little more slowly are hopeless at that point. Empty the rearmost Mk3 fuselage though, and it regains pitch control beautifully. It does lose payload to orbit capacity in this configuration though.

Edit: Oh wait, IIRC moderators have to approve images until a certain post count. that might be the issue. Edit #2: Going to go ahead and start my entry on this post with an Imgur album. ALBUM GO!

Still, the retrograde shot would have to come from somewhere, either Earth via rocket or luna via magnetic shot. I feel like it might be better served with some sort of hardened LEO -> Luna tug that could be refueled and refurbished on the moon and then shot back into LEO for its next cargo.

I may try a single class run after I finish with the other challenges I'm working through. It depends on how sick I am of hauling parts into orbit 12 tons at a time. I'll probably feel spoiled, being able to use the SPH to mount cargo.

Progress report: SSTO kinks worked out, two station modules in orbit (station core and crew return pod), gearing up for mission three which will give me a place for two launches worth of solar arrays. Decided against a decoupler to anchor the station core, as it would leave bits behind. I ended up using two clampotron Jr. instead. Edit: Fourth launch docked to station, awaiting return and landing Current station tonnage after launch #4: 29.2t

I'm working on an entry for the affordable space program challenge. SSTO's have never really been a strong point for me, much less all stock ones, and I'm enjoying the challenge immensely.

Banned for banning the banning bandana bandit banner

There was, once upon a time, a No time warp challenge. The goal was to get as many kerbals as far away from Kerbin as possible with only the time from your initial entry to spend. For every real day that passed after your entry, you banked 24 hours of time warp, go over that and it disqualified your entry. Someone even wrote a plugin that displayed how much time warp you were allowed before disqualification. I can't for the life of me find the post though, It may have been eaten in last year's purge.

Banned for launching Gourds into low orbit without a permit.

I'm using it in .23.5, it doesn't seem to have any issues on my end.

I'm actually working on the Affordable Space Program challenge with this craft, but I haven't had any feedback as to the legality of my initial Payload configuration. So here I am. I present the very blandly named Arrow V Cargo SSTO, with a piggyback'd station core assembly weighing 11.2 tons. I suspect I don't get marks for docking with a station if I bring it with me in the first place. (Sorry for the night screenshots) I can't stress enough how squirrely this got without a payload. There aren't any shots of the actual landing because I was too busy trying not to spin wildly out of control. The nose wants to climb even with all the remaining fuel moved as far forward as possible. it actually did back flips from about 20km to around 17km before I got it back under control. Edit: Fourth mission Docked! Now that I'm used to how it handles, it's not so bad to fly empty or unloaded. I do still abuse quicksaves a little though, because it likes to flip out at unexpected moments.

One thing about piggyback payloads, I'm learning that it's very important to mount them as far forward as possible, otherwise they lead to uncontrollable back-flipping as the CoM moves above and behind the CoL. Be very careful with your pitch, if you try it, I can't really pitch much past 30 degrees in the upper atmosphere without things getting really hairy in my current build.

I've given up on my previous attempt with claws, and I've run into another snag with my smaller, lighter SSTO spaceplane. If I have one station module that is significantly larger than my SSTO's payload space, is it acceptable for me to attach it to the top of my first lift with a decoupler, provided all further modules use the docking port in the cargo bay? For demonstration: The actual cargo bay is between the engine intake nacelles and is about as big as a mk2 fuselage section. I can fit single kerbal pods and small sub-assemblies, but not the lab or habitat units needed for an entry. so I decided to try and lift it this way. For the record, I'm surprised it even flies with that thing stuck on top.

Working on an entry of my own, but have run into a bit of a snag. I had planned to use the ARM claw as an extremely forgiving cargo hook for my spaceplane, but it seems for a fraction of a second physics turn off as it grabs. This makes my spaceplane and cargo loader/refueler clip through the runway and fall into the subsurface ocean. I'm going to have to do more experimentation to figure out a way past it.

If I remember correctly, solid rocket boosters stay active even when empty, and hyperedit refueling immediately causes them to reignite/explode.

I got bored and built a flyback SRB cluster with the new SRBs. This is the glide test variant, my "finished" ones have a standard jet inside the cluster and fly surprisingly well.

Another option would be have the legs end in wheels, and thus have the best of both worlds. Just lock the wheel down when you're using it as a foot, and use the legs as articulated suspension when you're driving along.

I'm not saying it would be easy, but I'm also not saying it's an unworthy effort. At ranges where Laser accuracy become about more than simple hardware precision it cuts both ways equally. Your target might rabbit as soon as you try to get a targeting fix, before your sensors get a solid lock. In space there is no stealth to speak of, other than physical isolation (on the other side of a larger object or what have you). The act of bringing an active targeting system to bear would be like shining a flashlight on someone in a dark room. Your target immediately knows that it has been painted and from where, before your Targeting equipment even get the return ping. At that point it comes down to system reaction time. The attack itself isn't where things would start moving, but the act of targeting. I'm thinking about one laser pulse system with multiple small emitter arrays scattered over the hull of a ship, paired with some variety of ablative armor to buy just a little time for the counter battery to locate any active lasers and fire. Ideally, the arrays would be set up in clusters of several small emitters and placed in such a way that the onboard computer could roll the craft in response to being targeted and swap from one random emitter in an array to another as they came into arc. This would spread the damage from the incoming attack over a larger percentage of the armor, buying more time, and make it harder to damage the laser system by targeting the dispersed emitters (so it's harder to do this same thing back). It would be walking a razor's edge, but it would be a workable defense mechanism. These emitters and their attached laser pulse systems wouldn't need to be as big as the sort used to cut into armor because they don't need to. So they could be reasonably expected to more nimble than their larger cousins. Laser emitters are always going to be the weak link in the system, you can't armor the lenses and focusing systems themselves, and by their very nature those same lenses and focusing systems will amplify an incoming laser as it directs the pulse right back into the heart of the system where it can do the most harm. Even if you shutter the emitter there will be residual heat and other evidence to pick any emitter that has been used out and target it, after which it's just a matter if buying time for the defense laser to do its thing. And as you can't hurt someone with your lasers shuttered the defense system has all the time in the world.

Some modern tanks actually use a similar system to disrupt laser guided missiles. I'd go for a more proactive approach, and build a system that detects the emitter lens coming on target and fires another laser into the weapon assembly to disable it.