Drunkrobot

On my first manned minmus mission, I landed in one of the ice lakes. Since I name my moon rockets after Apollo landing sites, I called the ship "Hadley", since it had the whole she-bang for Apollo 15, rover, ascent stage etc. I called the landing site "Sea of Hadley" in honor of the ship that got me there.

If my puppy was a rocket engine, he would be an LV-909. But my favourite engine has to be the 30. Why settle for a boring, inefficient and prone to failure mainsail when a bit of skill in the VAB can leave you with a mighty cluster of solid awesome.

Gosh darn it, we have yet to lose a Kerbal in space, and we're not about to lose one on my watch! Seriously though, I haven't lost a Kerb in my current program yet, or be forced into doing a rescue mission. But given the choice between leaving a Kerbal stranded, or losing 5-7 hours of my life getting him back... I would rescue him, no questions asked.

Awesome McCoolname

Well, I took some notes of what people here have done, and I made a brand spanking new lander! Much heavier than my old Tranquility lander, my new Hadley is capable of a J-class apollo-style excursion, landing two men and a rover on the surface of a moon, with loads of fuel to spare. I should have a complete debrief on the excursion tomorrow!

Tokay... I love you. Have my babies.

Thank you, it's great!

Running windows 7. It seems my problem is getting into Program files. I tried everything I could think to use.

Me, in my space rocket: Yeah! We gonna space! Meanwhile, at the VAB... ASAS:...did that idiot forget to bolt me to the rocket AGAIN!?

Hello, I'm trying to add a flag to my game, but I am not sure how to open the Games folder. (Wow, talk about a scrub-lord...) Can someone tell me how to get from the desktop to the gamedata, and I can manage the rest of the way there. It might be useful to know that I have the game via steam.

I am a relative newbie at forums, but this one... is brilliant. The people are friendly and informative, the managers are responsible and just. In a sense, KSP really is a multiplayer game, since if you try to do it alone, your not doing it right.

A student, riding on the highway to hell (GCSE exams). After that, I'll be doing my maths/science A-levels.

These designs are incredible! I would love to have an infographic-style visualisation of Kerbin and the Mun. Kerbin in the centre (the location of the KSC in the middle) with the Mun to the side, with part of its orbit shown as a curve around Kerbin. If you can fit it in, write the words "Nobiles enim sunt sidera" around Kerbin, in "low Kerbin orbit". It is a crude (quite kerbal, even) translation of "Be noble, for you are made of stars".

That's amazing! Though I was thinking of stock part only...

My most capable lander I have right now is Mun-capable. It is little more than the smallest rockomax tank, a 2-man lander can and two 909 engines. I really want to make some heavier stuff, so I can bring more equipment to the Mun (rovers, hab modules etc, to prepare for resources) or at the very least, be able to lift off from atmospheric bodies, like Duna. In that case, I have no idea what sort of size of lander I would need.

Light or heavy, manned or unmanned, show off your landing crafts here! ...yes, I do ulterior motives. I'm about to start a manned interplanetary program, and I'm terrified of leaving the little guys stranded on Duna.':l Edit: this thread has been more popular than expected! I have learned a bit more about heavy landers, and I don't see a lander megathread anywhere, so I've changed the title. Please inform me if I have made a mistake anywhere.

When trying to make predictions, it is good to leave as few unknowns as possible. Can a silicon-based biochemistry exist? Possibly. Can a carbon-based biochemistry exist? Definitely.

Assuming the station itself had a huge mass, or the mass of the projectile wasn't that high, then the problem of the recoil wouldn't be that impossible.

I loaded my moon rocket to check the optimisation. God, I'm boring...

There is a problem with technology-based Kardashev scales, in that they are not universal. An alien civilisation may not have an industrial revolution like ours if their planet does not have hydrocarbon (coal and oil) reserves. If the gravity field strength of their planet is like Mars or Venus, then they could circumvent some stages we need to go through to achieve safe, cheap and reliable space access, only needing chemical rockets. The modern scale measures the power and information available to a civilisation, because ALL civilisations need power and information.

Much of the development costs would be downsized, as much of the craft would be fuel and tanks, parts which could be standardized. Also, money may be less of a problem, as now the moon mission can be done as an international project, spreading the cost, and the public is more likely to want it funded, since a moon base is considered "more prestigious" than a LEO lab.

The reason why the Apollo program was so "expensive" was because it needed its own launch vehicle to get that much equipment (the CSM, the LM and the S-IVB booster stage) into LEO, the previous projects only needing converted missiles. Saturn V had a LEO payload of 120,000 kg. The international space station is a mass of 450,000 kg, with it being completed in only a little more than a decade. I love the ISS, but if something of that mass can be built in LEO, then surely a 'moon tug' with a manned lander can be built within 40 YEARS, even if you have to use standard rockets ( Atlas 5, Ariane 5, Proton etc).

You ready for your underwear?- Commander Neil Armstrong, Apollo 11

In 2009, NASA estimated the total cost of the Apollo program, from research and development to actually buying Apollo 17s flag, cost the US $170 billion, in 2005 dollars. The total cost to the US of all wars since 2001, all two of them? $1,440 billion. Is Apollo a waste of money? Possibly. Is it a massive waste of money? I don't think so. How much would you pay for the universe?- Neil degrasse Tyson

The tale of a lonely probe, sent by its masters to explore another world, that must now discover, and conquer, a great evil that threatens to destroy the universe. Admit it, who else would see that movie?