rpayne88

I doubt you know the answer, but what about the one made by engineering students at University of Maryland, College Park?

I don't have time to flip through 95 pages of this thread, so sorry if this has already been asked. Is it possible to build an SSTO with FAR. All my attempts seem to spin out at 12km despite the fact the only engines I'm running up there are rockets. I burn very little jet fuel, and this happens right after I ignite the rockets. The jets are off and rocket thrust is not hitting any other part of a perfectly symmetrical space craft. Another problem I've noticed is that the max speed I can get on jets is at most 400m/s, and this is usually while they are careening all over the place. This is a far cry from the 1500m/s at 25km suggested for SSTOs.

If you kill all horizontal velocity and drop to the surface, you will still gain horizontal velocity due to the rotation of the body you are trying to land on. You are better off, as SRV Ron said, using a reverse gravity turn. Starting from LMO, burn until you are on a sub-orbital trajectory. The wider the arc, the less fuel you have to burn to slow yourself down. You mostly just have to kill your horizontal velocity, meaning you are not losing dv to fighting gravity. After this, simply follow the retrograde marker on the navball until it is straight up. Do not let it deviate from this attitude. By this point, you are on your final approch. Just keep the retrograde marker where it is and burn until touchdown. Depending on the size of your lander, you should aim for between 5-8m/s on touchdown. Don't forget to drop the gear and make sure you still have enough fuel to get back into orbit unless you plan to launch a rescue mission. As a piece of advice, for your first Mun landing, I would suggest having a lander with a TWR> 2. The higher the better. While you only need a TWR> 1 to land, the more thrust you have, the more abrupt your maneuvers can be. Honestly, this is not needed to land, but landing on just enough thrust will not give you a lot of time to correct a mistake.

So long as they don't start launching nukes, I don't care. Just because they claim something does not make them right. I can't unmute my laptop now, so I can't watch the videos, but there is some evidence on the moon that confirms there were landings. For example, Apollo crews place retro-reflectors on the surface for the purpose of measuring the distance between Earth and the Moon. Also, I'm sure that with a powerful enough telescope, you could see the decent stages for the LEMs. If we never landed there, how would such equipment have wound up there? I think this case is still an issue of private national disbelief for the Russians. As said in the article, they were the pioneers for the majority of space exploration. We (the U.S.) only managed to beat them to the Moon. Nothing else before hand.

Is there a bonus for making it reusable. I managed to get a rocket up to a 160km x 160km circular orbit with everything attached and it is almost completely reusable. The only thing it jettisons in an irrecoverable way is its nose cone. I have yet to dock it, but that is because I have yet to put a station up that has 0.625m docking ports. I'll still post it, but, unfortunately, I may be disqualified. I use FAR on my rocket to accurately model its aerodynamics. Since this makes the game harder for me and does not effect add any parts, is it okay for me to submit my entry once I dock it?

I'm currently building a large interplanetary ship in orbit. I want it to be able to go any where. My question is, what engines should I use to propel it and how many? I want it to be able to reach Eelloo and return with out jettisoning any tanks. My goal is to have it get into low orbit and deploy a lander. I already have the lander designed, but I need to know how to get it out there.

I'm using a Dell 17R SE. Currently, it has a 3rd gen Intel i7-3630QM quad core, 8GB RAM, 64-bit Windows 7, NVIDIA GT650 video card, and HD4000 GPU for less graphically intense programs. The down side of it are its weight (7.29Lbs,) short battery life (2 hours max while playing KSP while unplugged,) and the fact KSP will NOT utilize the resources in it to their fullest. KSP is a 32-bit game, meaning the quad core processor and 8GB RAM are underutilized. I learned this fact after I bought it. If and when the devs fix the under utilization bug, this extra power will come in handy. Until then, I can run 500+ part ships at 60fps with the highest graphic settings available while also running Word, Firefox, and Macafee (sp.?) at the same time.

I may be wrong, but I believe you are partially incorrect. True, orbit is "free falling around the Earth (or Kerbin, Mun, whatever,)" but as you increase your altitude farther from the center of mass of the object you are orbiting, the less gravity you will experience (Scott Manly.) But, as said above, this subtle change is not enough to place you in orbit.

Although, at those speeds in the lower atmosphere, drag would likely rip your wings off the fuselage.

Not quite. There is still a small safety margin on most rockets. Also, if your talking about the actual flying, lets not forget the sims. I forget who, but a former NASA astronaut said he would be rich if he was paid a nickle for every time Mission Control got him killed in the sim.

If I may give some constructive criticism, I have one issue with this. I know you did not allow mods to prevent people from using absurd 100K fuel+ 100K oxidizer for 1 mass mods and stuff like that, but what about mods that make the game harder, such as FAR and Deadly Reentry. Using FAR on an SSTO makes cargo bays a necessity and Deadly reentry makes heat shields mandatory for atmospheric landings. May I suggest adding a separate category for players who use realistic mods to complete this challenge. Also, I have two questions: how are you scoring this and, what about the space ship portion of the challenge. I assume it is an orbital tug to tug your SSTO+ Rover combination to Laythe, Duna, and back. Does it have to be reusable or any thing else like that.

Same thing happened to my plane... I think

Pardon my French, but where the hell was the RSO? Or do the Russians just not care due to Boikonour's remotness

I don't know how to upload ships, but I built a pick-up for crew retrieval. I can usually land my payloads within 20Km of KSC, so I can usually drive out and pick them up. To make the pick-up I took a cockpit, added a structural fuselage, battery, and SAS behind it. On top of the structural fuselage, I put 2x2m panels on top with rover chairs. Teh put cubic octagonal struts with strut connecter between them. I left the rear unstruted and place a ladder. Then added wheels, RTGs, lights, ect. I have a feeling, though, this is a fairly common design.

I got it tested at the Kennedy Kriger Institute in Baltimore. My parents thought I was autistic when I was five, so they got me tested. I did not wind up being diagnosed with autism, but I got an IQ test at the same time. So, the 142 came directly from clinical psychologists.

My mom is a teacher and those are the exact words she uses. Maybe that is why I hated school despite having an IQ of 142. The reason they teach students to pass the test rather than teach the material in the most effective way possible is because, at least in my local school system, schools are funded based on their test scores. The higher a school scores, the more funding it gets. Anyway, this has nothing to do with .21, so maybe a new thread should be started.

copied the wrong quote, see below

Piracy? Where did that come from? Both sketch up and blender are freeware. It is impossible to pirate them. Sorry for putting this in the wrong section though.

I'm trying to get started with modding. I already know how to program the parts I make, but I can not, for the life of me, model the parts. I've tried Blender with no luck. So, what are some intuitive and easy to use, 3d modeling programs. I already know how to use sketch up, but that's about it and I don't thank that would work with animations.

I'm planing a challenge, but I need to know something first. The challenge will involve a part limit set so that most players will be able to compete in it. I'm trying to find an average here. So, the question is: how many parts can you have on the pad before your computer starts to lag below 30fps. Don't worry about exact part count or fps. 32fps is approximately the same threshold as human eyes can see at (or so I've been told,) so if you can see lag, you are below 30fps. I'll look at this thread 48 hours from now and use the average as the part limit in the challenge.

The whole story. My mom say an article in a magazine for an online outdoor game called geocaching. This led to a guy with the username of "Falcon Loader" who suggested that I may be interested in the Civil Air Patrol. That led me to a flying activity with them. A few months latter, a guy I was there with posted a link to the website on face book. I saw it, thought it was interesting, and I've been hooked ever since.

Can I use Damned Robotics?

I'd say FAR, KW rocketry, B9, subassembly loader, and vanguard parachutes. FAR remodels the aerodynamics so parts produce drag and lift in a realistic manner. I primarily use KW for its fairings. It also provides new fuel tanks and engines ranging from 1.25m to 3.75m. B9, although a bit "buggy" for me, adds multiple, believable, hard sci-fi parts. These are mostly structural and propulsion parts useful for constructing spaceplanes. Subassemly loader allows you to build an launch vehicle and place different payloads on it. It basically saves portions on ships so you don't have to build entire portions again. This is highly useful for orbital construction, saving you the time and effort of rebuilding the same LV several dozen times. Finally, vanguard parachutes adds parachutes to your Kerbals. In the event of an emergency (which will likely happen if you try to build spaceplanes,) this will allow your Kerbals to eject or "bail out" of their "death trap." In the future, though, you should post questions like this in either "general discussion" or "how to."

I've been trying to build an SSTO capable of carrying payloads into orbit. I believe that, despite what the engineer says, it has enough dv to achieve orbit. However, between 10 and 12km, it begins to spin about its lateral axis. I already know about flame outs, so I'm cutting my jets with about 0.50 intake air and continuing on rockets. Is this a design issue, a bug of some sort, or is it impossible to build an SSTO while using FAR? Please see the attached pictures for more information. Edit: I know the decouplers prevent it from being a true SSTO. Those are used to ditch the spent SRBs/ RATOs which have a parachute attached to them.