wronkiew

Career mode space train to Duna, waiting for the escape window. From left to right: 1. Duna/Ike/Kerbin lander 2. Duna ascent stage 3. In-space lab module 4. Liquid fuel for NTR 5. NTR 6. Lander fuel Unfortunately the stack got the wiggles during assembly and destroyed one of the deployable solar panels on the lander. I blogged an earlier space train mission to Gilly here.

That is hilarious! I got a mission to put a satellite in keosynchronous orbit, but the indicator showed retrograde. It took a few launches to convince me that was what I was really supposed to do.

I'm suggesting a change to that feature for career mode.

I ran across a missed opportunity to move the game forward that shouldn't be too much trouble to implement. Jeb was killed trying to land on a cliff on Kerbin. He touched down two legs of the landing vehicle, then the whole thing pivoted upside down and exploded. It seemed impossible that anyone could have possibly survived such a crash, but the astronaut center listed him as "missing". Miraculously, a couple of missions later, Jeb was back! He must have survived somehow and wandered back onto the base. Here is what was missing. Why didn't I have to go mount a search and rescue mission to get him back? Earlier I had to rescue an unfortunate stranded in orbit using nothing but my rendezvous skills and the flicker of starlight. Jeb could have popped up as a career mission with no reward but his triumphant return and maybe some reputation points. Then I'd have to demonstrate some pinpoint landing skill to complete it.

Oh, they landed it. Took some finagling to keep Jeb on the ladder. Quite an EVA report!

Some more suggestions: Add orbital rendezvous objectives. Bring two separately-launched spacecraft within 50m of each other and recover at least one of them. More advanced objectives could be swapping crews and docking. Add an abort test. Design a spacecraft with functions assigned to the abort key. Hit the abort button while in the lower and/or upper atmosphere and recover what's left of the craft successfully.

Ah, excellent! I hadn't gotten that far yet.

HarvesteR mentioned that the Kerbin biomes were created as a way to get initial science points. I think that's great, because it gives the Kerbals a chance to test their spacesuits and hardware in various environments, like NASA sometimes does with craters, barren islands, and undersea laboratories. After playing career mode in 0.22 for a while, I think there are some additional opportunities for science that I was sad to see were missing: Points for flight control and SSTO tricks. Right now you get points for recovering a suborbital mission with the control module intact. There should be a new category for landing a craft with all parts it launched with intact. Points for low altitude, suborbital, and (massive points for) orbital. I'm pretty sure it's possible to do the low altitude task with just the initial parts. Points for successful VTOL tests. There should be a bonus for landing a ship that launched without any parachute parts. It's probably not reasonable to expect players to be able to do this until they have developed landing legs. Science for crew reports during reentry. Not only would this be valuable science IRL, it requires a degree of player multitasking needed for more advanced missions. Finally, I would like to see the tech tree reworked so where a technology has two prerequisites, both need to be researched before the more advanced one is made available. Thanks for the awesome game!

Nice blog! The LV comparison was fun.

Not to discount your argument that private space has benefitted from advances made by NASA, but I think your numbers are off. From Wikipedia: Also, there is a big difference between payment for services and seed funding.

There's the Google Lunar X-Prize worth about $30 million. If there are any winners they will be the next to land on the Moon. Not with passengers, obviously, but it's a start. NASA itself simply does not have the money or the ability to even plan a credible manned Moon landing under the current constraints. It is possible that that could change five years from now, but only if either SpaceX is wildly successful or the mandatory spending problem simply evaporates. Major government procurement reform would help there too. One private company seems like it has the right set of people to make a go at a private human landing: Deep Space Industries. They have published some papers about manned Moon landings, although their spiffy web site advertises an asteroid mission. I think asteroids are more interesting anyway, can't wait to see them in KSP.

Yeah, that's not going to fly with the Wikipedia editors. Want to help? Get an article published about Scott Manley in a mainstream publication. This comes pretty close to meeting the notability guidelines: http://www.globalpost.com/dispatches/globalpost-blogs/the-grid/kerbal-space-program-video-game-inspire-new-generation-astronauts

Oh, that would be cool too. The models would definitely be less useless if you could refuel from them.

I've been wanting something like this too. I often use KAS, but it feels a bit like micro-managing to have to EVA in the spaceport. How about dedicated landing pads on the grounds. When you land there eventually a fuel truck drives up and refuels everything and recharges the batteries. Something similar for the runway too.

I haven't taken her out yet, but here's my orbital construction project, the KSS Lodmund Kerman: Craft files, all stock parts: Core/Propulsion Fuel Tanks Crew & Cargo Command pod Observation pods Design and construction detailed starting here.

I do hope that some who play KSP go on to become engineers or entrepreneurs who build the rockets that can take the rest of us into space. The community that has sprung up around this game has collected and shared knowledge of space flight mechanics to an extent that I think is unprecedented.

I'd say the fans of KSP are statistically more likely to become astronauts, but that's not saying much. They're still more likely to be crushed by an asteroid.

I don't think the game needs it. With the technology available to the Kerbals in the stock game, there is essentially no difference between implementing more star systems and leaving them as an unattainable infinite painted bubble. There's plenty more that can be added to the Kerbol system to make the game better. Clouds, wind, resources, terrain details, structures, asteroids. Leave interstellar travel for another game. I'd support making stars and planets be a pluggable thing, as long as everyone understood that interstellar space is full of krakens.

Yes, I think that is probably contributing to the stability problem. I have a lot of SAS units on the ship and multiple command pods. I tested the main engines again with ASAS off and found that it was pretty smooth.

Interesting idea! It would involve quite a bit of rework of my vehicle design, but it would definitely reduce the forces on the middle section. I'll have to think about it.

I've been assembling fuel depots and interplanetary craft using the docking ports since about 0.18. The regular clamp-o-tron has been ok for the small stuff, but as soon as the structures get big it gets too wobbly. I thought I'd try out the Clamp-o-Tron Sr. for my newest project. Unfortunately, as soon as I turn on the main engines the whole thing bucks around like a bull. And that's with mostly empty fuel tanks and half the ship unfinished. So, I need something more stable for on-orbit assembly. Normally I'd break out the docking struts, but I'm trying to keep this stock. So, what can I do to make a stronger connection with the parts that I have? My ideas: - Multi-port regular clamp-o-tron: is this better or worse than CoT Sr? - Multi-port clamp-o-tron sr: Holy %#$@ this would get heavy - Single clamp-o-tron sr with shock absorbers My thinking with the shock absorbers is that a central port surrounded by structural fuselages or something would help to keep the whole thing more stable. I'm not sure how well it would work with the KSP physics simulator. Oh, and it has to allow fuel flow somehow. Anyone have a better idea?

For me, overcorrecting ASAS has been such a pain in the butt that I'm not going to want to play 0.20 after the update is released.

Progress report: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/entry.php/688-Stock-Space-Cruiser-Progress-Report-2013-07-14

Nice! Can it actually make orbit from there? Mine falls apart if I put the whole thing on the launch pad. And yeah, I know I'm going to have to rebuild it when 0.21 breaks everything. I'm just playing with the pieces for now, making sure everything fits together.