SlyReaper

My last Laythe aerobrake required dipping down to 17,600m to get into orbit. Always depends on your approach angle and speed. Took so much trial and error I'm surprised I didn't wear out my f5 and f9 keys.

The meter was originally one ten thousandth of the distance from the north pole to the equator through Paris. It got retconned to be related to light speed when it turned out they got the measurement wrong.

So what? It's fun to think about.

If it's the density thing, then how could such dense planets form in the first place? Could this be a far distant future, trillions of years away, where stellar nucleosynthesis has generated a far greater abundance of heavy elements? If that were the case, I'd think the kerbals wouldn't just be green, they'd glow green. As for Kerbol being a brown dwarf, I guess that kinda kills my idea of G being the only change required. But then I never expected it would be that easy. Maybe instead of (or as well as) changing G, you could increase the strength of the strong nuclear force or electromagnetism to cause all materials to be more dense? So I'll just go with "all the physical constants differ in such a way as to form a solar system that resembles ours, only much smaller"? If you consider the fundamental physical constants as variables, it forms a fairly huge multi-dimensional parameter space - it's not beyond the realm of possibility there exists a combination that would result in the kerbalverse.

Been having a bit of a think about the Kerbal universe. How its planets and moons are minuscule yet somehow have comparable surface gravities to real-life planets and moons. Would this be realistic in a universe where all physical laws are the same except for a higher value of G, the gravitational constant? Planetary bodies would be able to form with less material, stars would be able to maintain fusion pressures at their cores with less mass. I've given this maybe 5 minutes of thought, so can anyone think of an objection I haven't thought of? I'm good at maths, but I have had considerable to drink this evening, so it's possible I've forgotten something.

708: Some Kerbals whose last names aren't Kerman. 709: Stargates 710: A planet shaped like Jebediah's head.

Not a rule, just unsporting.

I think the poll is only open to entrants. I guess the OP is able to choose who is eligible to vote. But thanks for your vote anyway.

So, m1sz... Caught.

I thought 0.18 was recent. I feel old.

I just made a , and noticed that on the way, my intake air dropped to zero, but my turbojet engine was still working. It did eventually flame out, but that was long after the intake air had reached zero. Is that a bug, or am I just not understanding how air intakes work?

I would have giggled like a schoolgirl too. That looks like great fun. What mods are needed to do that?

Just as a heads up, I've recorded a video of my Algol 2 beastie flying into orbit here: And flying to Jool and Laythe here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mtNUnVZ4KE Yes, the wing broke off on landing. You'll just have to take my word for it the thing is capable of landing intact if there's a runway or a flatter area. And an updated .craft file with the ascent instructions in the description: http://www./view/lpqp6jtsnl6y1ep/Algol%202.craft Previous post updated.

But almost none of that energy would be imparted to the spacecraft itself, so it would do almost no damage. It would pass straight through, leaving a microscopic hole. It might be a good idea, if you're travelling at these speeds, to build the hull out of something that can slowly repair itself.

So, a popularity contest? I'll take a punt at this, and show off the SSTO I took to the far reaches of the kerbal solar system and back. These are screenshots taken at the time, so they might fall outside standard challenge rules. A slightly earlier version of my SSTO: I built on that concept by adding more intakes, some RCS, and moving the landing gears slightly. It has two RAPIER engines, and a shielded docking port at the back, in between the two engines. The docking port comes in useful in this flight: Docked with an orbiting fuel tanker, and replenished my fuel and monopropellant. At this point, I had a choice to make. I reckoned I could get into low Duna orbit and back to Kerbin easily with this. Or I could be ambitious and do a Jool flyby. As it happens, I went ahead and did the ambitious thing. On course for an encounter with Jool. Arrived in the Jool system. Some mid-course corrections along the way earned me a close encounter with Tylo. Got a good view of Laythe on the way through. Tylo (after some last minute course adjustments because I realised my course was going to eject me from the solar system): That encounter left me on a fairly big orbit. I didn't have enough confidence that I had enough fuel to get home with a simple burn, so I did a small burn with RCS at apohelion to get another encounter with Jool. I hoped to use a combination of gravitational slingshotting and Oberth effect to plot a course home. Jeb has already been in this plane for over 6 years now, and it'll be a few more years yet. Must be getting a bit musty in that cockpit there. Trimmed the orbit a bit more. Got the post-encounter apohelion roughly down to the orbit of Duna. I think I'm going to make it. Got my return trajectory. A sight for sore eyes. And down. I can't believe I actually pulled that off. Mission Elapsed Time was just shy of 5000 days. So yeah. Not just single stage to orbit. Single stage to Tylo and back. Well, kinda. Refuelling in orbit might be considered cheating for something that claims to be "single stage". Mods used: Krag's Planet Factory, and Cloud Mod. Neither of them give extra parts, so it's 100% stock. Number of parts: 49 Craft file: http://www./view/lpqp6jtsnl6y1ep/Algol%202.craft Not sure what you mean by ascent profile description in .craft file, so a verbal description will have to do, I'm afraid. It requires the entire runway to take off, so it's lucky the runway is slightly raised. Once flying off the end of the runway, bring the nose carefully up to about 45 degrees and level off once you reach about 20km altitude. You should be able to reach almost 30km altitude and ~1500m/s before the engines switch over to closed cycle. When that happens, bring the nose up again and fly it into orbit like you would with a rocket. Edit: a video. Edit2: another video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mtNUnVZ4KE Also updated the craft file to include ascent instructions in the description.

Any prizes for greatest range for an SSTO? Because yesterday I flew an SSTO to Tylo and back.

For an interplanetary flight, is there any disadvantage to just waiting until Kerbin rotates to the right position and then just burning straight upwards? As opposed to getting to Kerbin orbit first. So for example, if I want to go to Duna, I'd wait until the Kerbal Space Centre was on the day/night terminator and then launch straight upwards and just keep burning until I got my apohelion to the orbit of Duna. So you don't get the Oberth advantage from the in-orbit burn, but you don't expend the fuel to circularise a low Kerbin orbit, and you spend slightly less time in the atmosphere due to the lack of gravity turn. Does any of this make sense?

My first visit to Eeloo looked like this: Arrived, landed, flew all the way back to Kerbin. I later did a somewhat more elaborate visit with a ridiculously over-engineered monster of a ship, and this time I filmed it.

Ion engines. Because who needs free time really?

Now that we have the engines, may I be the first to say these bad boys make SSTOs almost trivially easy. I've never managed to do an SSTO before now. With this new engine, I did it on the first try. It's fantastic. I need to fly one of these things to Laythe and back.

Made my first SSTO with the new RAPIER engine. Forgot the tail fin, but still managed to land it in one piece.

IT'S OUT!!! ...is what I'll say when it's out.

Your post is already on page 50.

Is it out yet is it out yet is it out yet? Oh boy oh boy oh boy is it out yet?!?!? Is it out the atmosphere yet?