asmi

If your plane gets into orbit and have enough residual dV for deorbit, chances are that once refueled on orbit it will have enough dV to make it to Duna. Typical SSTOs have 1500 m/s dV or more, which is enough for interplanetary burn and Duna braking burn after some aerobraking (allthough that would be one hell of aerobraking!). Ideal aerobraking would be to dive around 18-20 km (so aerodynamic forces wouldn't tear vessel apart), but turn vessel bottom-first to completely stall all wings and control surfaces - remember that when stalled they generate maximum drag and minimum to no lift - in Orbiter it's usually called "pancaking atmosphere". Once out of atmosphere and if not captured yet, use engines just enough to barely get captured, and then lower orbit's apoapsis by multiple subsequent aerobraking passes, each time making sure your periapsis stays safe.

In order to solve this problem you could introduce third dimension into the mix, namely, deposit depth. Make it so deposits that are closer to the surface can be mined using lighter equipment (like radial drills), but contain less resources, deep deposits can be huge, but they'll require more advanced equipment (i.e. heavy drill) to extract. You can also make it so in order to find deep deposits, user would need to use different scanner which would detect the mere presence of the deposit, but getting any information about it would require landing and test-drilling to take samples. To give both light and heavy equipment a purpose, you can make them not interchangeable (i.e. heavy scanner can't find surface deposits, and vice versa).

Since you can't have the problem in question, your answer is irrelevant. How about NOT voting?

Another complication of using solids is that you can't transport the rocket empty to the launchpad and then fuel it there. Since vast majority of rocket mass is fuel, it makes a lot of difference when it comes to GSE costs, not to mention safety issue of handling fully-fueled SRBs vs empty liquid stages - latter can't explode since there is no fuel.

Actually not - manned Soyuz spacecraft are launched by Soyuz-FG rocket while unmanned are riding Soyuz-U. They are slightly different (changes mostly aimed to limit max acceleration, as well as other "man-rating" requirements), but, more importantly, they undergo much more rigorous pre-launch testing than their unmanned counterparts. And, to answer your next question, they don't do same level of testing for unmanned because it's expensive. Oh, and Soyuz-FG rocket NEVER failed - all launches to date had been successful.

How about just remembering where it is? KSC location is easy to find from orbit...

That's reassuring. We all know what happenned and I understand what they must have been going through, but I hope they will leave the past in the past and will allow us to continue enjoying their awesome work.

I'm not in a position to discuss legallity or illegality of what you're doing or planning to do since I'm not a laywer. My comment above is merely intended to point out that moderators can not allow nor disallow any re-use because we have no authority over it.

Will try it out tonight, sounds great! Just to set the record straight - moderators can not approve any derivative work. Infact it's illegal for them to do so. Only original authors have a legal right to do so.

Orbiter simulates very well one aspect of spaceflight that is intentionally missing (or almost missing) in KSP - need to learn. In Orbiter you have to read manuals, otherwise you won't fly anywhere.

My station is on 190x186x51.6 orbit, so I time my flights there either for direct ascent, or 1-2 orbit rendezvous. For flights bound elsewhere, I usually align launch window for direct departure burn without entering LKO orbit since in my Universe booster engines are not restartable.

It's actually the other way around - stock drag is insanely overpowered since it simply sums up drag of all parts without checking if those parts are actually exposed to airstream.

The general rule that I follow is putting elevators as far back as possible, and/or making them as large as it's practical.

Vessels that most "stock only" players built are more than likely to fall apart the moment you launch them with FAR as they are completely un-aerodynamic bricks. And while getting small payloads with FAR is easier, it's not so for heavier and bigger payloads. And piloting with FAR is completely different - if one tries to to stock-like 45° "gravity" turn, "he won't go to space today". As for DR, most of my reentry failures were not due to overheating and burning up, but due to over-G-ing. And again, looking youtube videos of some stock-only players, vast majority of them reenter using very speed trajectories, so they will most certainly over-G.

To everybody who thinks "stock is hard" I'd suggest to install FAR and DeadlyReentry and try to reach orbit and get back in one piece. THEN we'll see what is harder and what is not.

True, but that's not always possible - for example inclination changes need to happen when the vessel cross equator, otherwise only higher inclinations are available and LAN will change as well, LAN changes have to happen in most nothern/southern points of orbit - otherwise inclination will also change.

Center of lift shifts aft when vessel goes transonic and supersonic, so the moment arm of elevators decreases. To counteract this, move them aft (make longer tail), or increase their surface area.

Got it! Thanks!

But why are the values different? I've neves seen anything like that before...

Good stuff! Would be great to see it on video though!

Hello ferram! Just encountered an issue - it looks like the module is applied twice. Screenshot: http://www.asmitech.com/Stuff/KSP/FAR_DOUBLE_MODULE.png log file: http://www.asmitech.com/Stuff/KSP/FAR_DOUBLE_MODULE.LOG.txt

You can almost surely get away with trial-and-error approach while you're inside Kerbin-Mun-Minmus region, but going interplanetary will almost surely become a very frustrating string of "run-out-of-fuel-in-the-middle-of-nowhere", so learning some basics would definetly help. You most surely will need to understand at least the very basics of orbital methanics if you'll want to do renderzvous/dockings because it's very counterintuitive and will get you nothing but frustration and ragequits - how on Earth could you figure out that in order to get closer to the target, you need to burn away from it, not towards it? But these things are really very simple to grasp as KSP doesn't simulate whole bunch of advanced concepts/effects that you'd have to deal with in real life.

Take care of yourself first! We'll wait as long as it takes.

This is more of technology validation prototype than "production" vessel, but still... Climbing to orbit: http://www.asmitech.com/Stuff/KSP/SmallShuttle.png Reentering: http://www.asmitech.com/Stuff/KSP/SmallShuttleReentry.png I did mod engine a bit to make step 0.25 degree to allow for more precise control (default 1 degree is way too coarse and I was spinning out of control at SRB burnout & jettison). Speaking of which, can you make a couple of larger-thrust versions of this engine (something with thrust in order of 600-800 kN for middle-size craft, and ~1600 kN for heavy)? It would be extra cool if you would make it multi-engine assembly like real Space Shuttle had, but controlled all simultaneously. Anyways building and flying this thing was (and still is) fun!

Liquid Rocket Engines are the most expensive part of any rocket (not counting payloads of course). Fuel price is generally very small part of overall launch vehicle price (5-15% depending on fuel types). Commercial payloads (comsats) generally costs about 20-30% of the LV price, but some payloads (typically secret governmental sky sats) are MUCH more expensive than LV itself.