Forgettable

Yesterday I worked on a couple of crafts for my 100 kerbal to Duna mission. The interplanetary stage has to have enough thrust and delta-V for nearly 200 tons of landers. I think I finally managed it, with a 140 ton core, that has nearly 10,000 vacuum delta-V without the cargo and enough thrust to actually be able to lift off from kerbin. It's powered by 9 NERVAs. Each 25 kerbal lander weighs 45 tons, I am also including a few single kerbal landers, though I am having difficulty finding a way to put both a docking port and a parachute on it. Next, I've got to build, test, rebuild, retest, rebuild, an ascent stage to get the lander to orbit. A rather large assumption that I am making with my big landers is that the atmosphere and a few Mk-16 XL parachutes will eat a significant portion of the velocity on the way down and allow me to save fuel for a hypothetical return. Does anybody have some specific numbers for how much delta-V you need when landing on Duna? Come to think of it, this will be the first time I will have landed on a body with atmosphere...

When I was realigning some of the modules on my space station, I would undock and make my adjustments, transfer to the space center, and then reload the vessel. The vessel would then immediately dock without any chance of missing. I've used this method at least a dozen times. It takes some patience with the loading times but it is reliable.

I voted for rover design but now that I think about it, the design of rover's isn't as essential to my space program as the ability to go to other planets. I've seen a couple of tutorials on planetary transfers, but so far nothing that really clicks. Seeing somebody's video on the process would be very helpful. I look forward to watching your tutorial, regardless of the topic.

I don't use panels on my stations anymore to reduce the part count but when I did use them, I would usually leave them extended. I believe there were only a few times that I retracted them before docking. If I remember right, I only broke a panel once and I used a quick-save to undo the damage. One time as I was completing a nice, smooth docking maneuver, I came in very slowly and then stopped moving apparently for no reason. It took me a few seconds and a couple of long presses on the H key to figure out that I was contacting a panel, and pushing the entire station through it, without breaking it. I was somewhat surprised that the panel could withstand that and it caused me some frustration because I then needed to straighten up the station again and restart my approach. I wasn't very good at docking then, so it was a big deal to have to do that. Side note: I should really build a purely aesthetic station with lots of panels, cupolas, and satellite dishes.

I had found that the list was full of apparently randomly generated kerbals every time I opened the center. I had never seen less than a full screen and as soon as I left and came back in it was full again. Perhaps I am remembering incorrectly, but I am fairly certain I have never seen the list be anything other than full when I opened the Astronaut Complex. If the number of available kerbals does depend on the success of your missions, then it could be awhile before I restart my 100 kerbal mission to Duna that I cut just before the update.

http://xkcd.com/1106/ I saw this comic and was wondering what Kerbal Space Program was. I must have been busy at the time because I didn't google it. But a few months later I saw this comic again and looked it up. After a few dozen attempts at the moon in the demo I knew I needed this game. I requested and received it for Christmas from my brother. (College you know, I was broke) I have since been trying to convince everyone in my family and all my friends to buy it.

This has happened to me. I've got an interstellar 100 kerbal bus in orbit that I've been putting together over several days to learn that the fairings can't eject without exploding all my engines. I've been trying to edit my persistence file to put the engines back on but the trial-and-error tedium of the thing has put me off the game for a few weeks.

I like this idea! I have suffered from no small amount of grief trying to come up with craft names without any in-universe background information for inspiration. Names for geographical locations is a great first step toward a wider backstory for the Kerbal universe. If this project works well, I think it would be a great idea to try something similar with Kerbal history, ancient lore, religions, etc. Of course, that would be a much more difficult and in depth project than mixing syllables in interesting ways, but still... Food for thought.

I built a rover with a landing crane that was capable of picking the rover back up and returning it to orbit. When I brought this up to dock with my station before being towed to the Mun, I realised I had forgotten to put RCS fuel and thrusters on it. Rather than simply ending the flight I decided I'd send it into a high, elliptical orbit before de-orbiting so I could get some extreme atmospheric effects on the way back. I hit the ground around 3000 m/s if I remember correctly. The rover survived. Solar panels intact. I drove it around using it to "End-Flight" on all the other debris that survived. Later, I sent this same craft back up to space (thinking I had already fixed the RCS problem) and got it all the way to the Mun station before realising my stupidity. I attempted to deorbit but as I was burning toward the planet during the plunge, I managed to accidentally give it enough surface velocity that I missed the Mun by no more than 200 meters and soared off at an elliptical orbit inside that of Moho.

I've been working on a over-planned Mun mission where my lander, rover, and crew all came in separate vehicles to dock with the Munar station before descending to the surface. I was bringing over a new crew transfer craft for the return home because the original had far too little thrust. When I reached the periapsis to establish a stable orbit before rendezvousing I activated the engines to begin the burn. Then everything exploded. Everything. There was a cloud of debris where the vessel had been blown to nearly individual parts. I sent the pilot out to EVA in an attempt to reach a stable orbit for later retrieval but in my panic I burned in the wrong direction and he was lost. It was a sad day.

Okay... I must say I am disappointed that nobody has mentioned Ender's Game or any of its sequels. This staple of science fiction is among the very best of all the books I have ever read. The audiobook productions are incredibly well done. There are words for how amazing the Ender books are, but they are too glorious to be typed. Seriously. Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card read by Stephan Rudnicki. Greatest Sci-Fi ever.