Tw1

Mine was also Duna, with a larger version of my Mun rescue rocket. It was a messy trip, but they made it. I needed to send a second rocket to give them a way home though.

I'd love a grid to help aim. But I'm getting better. But landing at KSC from the Mun, with only one burn would be a very impressive feet.

My shuttle thing that takes satellites to a kerbosynchronous transfer orbit has about 7000m/s. (The satellite circularises with its own fuel, and the orbiter uses its leftover delta V to aim for KSC or KSC2)

There's something about it in the wiki. http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Tutorial:_Gravity_Assist If it works as well as you describe, I might have to give it ago. Especially, if you're less dependent on phase angles this way.

I see no reason why it couldn't be somewhere our own galaxy. Galaxies are huge. Nothing ever written about them does their size justice. Millions and millions of starts. They could be 100,000 light years away, and still be in our galaxy.

I avoid the word boat or yacht for anything that is not intended for water. Ship, I don't mind though. Vessel or craft are my go to words for talking about something that goes to space. Rover-probe is an unmanned, robotic rover, Rover is for something that's a simple exploration vehicle. I don't use it for craft that can drive, but are primarily intended for spaceflight. They are vessels or landers, or even vehicles. Vehicle the word I use for anything that's more complex than a rover, like my crane thing I use to move stuff on the Mun. I call the things that remain in orbit to take my kerbals home return modules, or recovery modules, in the case that they were sent as a rescue package. But only if they don't have any command pods or habitation of their own. That would make them ships or stations, depending on the size. Stations are bigger, more complex, and less mobile than ships. Bases are there for good, rather than temporary landers. I think that's about it.

I fly with them, because they're (mostly) exited and enthusiastic about going to space. My space program put a kerbal on the Mun to because it was there, and because they wanted to see if they could. I use probes when the kerbals aren't ready for a trip, like investigating the surface of Eve, or doing the 300 day long trip to Jool with little knowledge of whether they'll succeed. Some of the kerbals are maniacs. They have no concern about jumping in an experimental vehicle and flying of to the moon on a one-way trip. I let them, because I have two reliable rescue rocket designs that can take them home. Sometimes it's nicer to have them there. I imagine they help set up the satellites properly. Otherwise, things could go wrong with no way to fix it. Other times, they're essential for the mission. This rover-probe would've landed upside down without a kerbal to stand in the way of its trajectory, as it was deployed from the ship. The same model landed sideways on Moho, and required two kerbals to work together to turn it to the right position. On its own it may have ended up upside down. Sure, a different design could've avoided those problems, but the point is, astronauts/kerbals can find was to correct unexpected problems better than probes can. And lastly, it's nicer to have intelligent creatures there to witness the other worlds. I like to imagine some of my kerbals are artists, and make drawings and write stuff to bring back home. You can't do that with a probe. So basically, if the kerbals are willing, and have what they need to get there and survive, (and most of the time, return) They're more better than probes. Probes have their place, but so do kerbals.

This looks very cool. I am reluctant to download it at the moment though, as it would mean problems for long term missions I have ongoing. Unless you can suggest a simple modification I could make to the code for command modules, so I don't kill any kerbals? As a stopgap while I still have ships without the extra life support parts out there. Would just setting it to have a crazy amount of oxygen work? I may also wait to see if you're going to get custom tanks for this mod. I'd like to suggest giving the crew tank greater life support capabilities than the command pod. Because it's there for habitation, right?

Maybe, once they've got the Kerbol system filled with many things, and do add another system, a wormhole would not be a bad way to reach it. There's the above reasons, plus the fact that you could use conventional tech to get to the wormhole, and you'd need to intercept it like any other body. It would have to be pretty far out. My main concern is how much influence its gravity would have on the Kerbol system, but I don't know enough about wormholes to say. It may start to feel unrealistic if there ends up being ten wormholes just outside the Kerbol system, and they all just happen to lead directly to other solar systems

As it hasn't been raised earlier, what about glass domes, with water inside the glass segments? That should screen out a fair bit of radiation. I've been watching this thread for a while, before this comment. Your characters aren't 100% kerbalish,(#captainobvious) but they make up for it by looking pretty awesome.

Not a rule, but part of the system that requires you to look at the "what not to suggest" thread first. I don't really mind too much, ideas only get so much of a look even while they are up the top anyway.

Fission and fusion is far too slow for interstellar travel. We'd still be talking decades of travel time.

Not a bad idea. I wonder if the forum is able to work like this?

I tend to complete orbit with my transfer stage, so I tend not to get debris around Kerbin.

That's a very straight trajectory! Why did you chose that, rather than just a low periapsis?

While not so much of an issue at launch, as all your lifter's stages should all have a TWR of at least 1. Unless a problem happens, you might as well make us of all the fuel you've got. When landing, it's a different story. I fired of this transfer stage when landing on Moho because the hybrid ion engines did not have the thrust to stop me in time to land at the site I was aiming for. (Duney just had to go out and have a look...) Really, I should've started the burn earlier. Any stage that will hinder the rest of the mission should be dropped. If not, keep it.

I'd still have a place for Kethane even when stock resources are out. But then, it will be just one of many. Edit: Woo! Post number 333!

I'd like to see engine heat shields more like this: (Third time I've posted that now.) That will be better for SSTOs, reusable shuttles, and atmospheric landers. An inflatable shield sounds like it would expand too much and risk popping.

Bustard ramjets are pretty realistic, but it would be very slow for those of us who like managing multiple trips at once. It would take decades to get anywhere, and in that time you could've done many things in your own system. Also, the Milky Way galaxy is something like 120,000 light years across. Our sun's orbit has a period of 200 million years. We're not moving away from the other stars around us any time soon. We could have a few stars in stationary positions relative to each other. Each would have its own SOI. We would not need a barycenter or black hole in order to have a few solar systems.

I agree. If you look on the NASA's eyes website, and see how much stuff there is in our solar system alone, another solar system seems excessive.

That's a cool looking SSTO. What's the largest orbit it can reach?

There was a heap of discussion about this on the form a while ago. The interstellar motor they will implement will be hard to use, and not work very well for less than interstellar distances. But I agree with the guy above me, there are so many technologies that would need to arrive first, like gravity manipulation, which logically would change the way the game works. But maybe the Kerbals won't invent it. They'll just find it on the side of the road... Also, if we're far enough from the galactic core, maybe they don't need to have an SOI for the supermassive black hole. Just one for each star.

Mun Base One. Images from its landing, relocation, addition of extra habitat space, and the arrival of the Munar Ground Shuttle. And that last one is out of order because it just looks cool. (Note the altitude change between site one and the final site.)

So true, so true. Many space missions carry a plaque stating this mission is a mission of piece. I hope this attitude would be there when human meets kerbal. I'm now imagining a human in an Apollo style suit, walking on the Moon, when they spot a bunch of little guys 100 meters away. Then they wave and shake hands, because their communicators don't use the same radio frequency.

I hope so!