Elsig

I wasn't sure where to post this....it's not really KSP related, but it IS space related! I'm sure many has seen this video by now which is making the rounds in the news. Here's the video: (turn on youtube captions for the translation)I've been reading the various youtube comments as well as comments people have made under the many articles dotted around the interweb. It seems people are expecting meteorites to glow and travel at lightning speeds at this low altitude! Of course, us kerbonouts knows that when our s<strike>pacecrafts</strike> contraptions, <strike>fly controlled,</strike> tumble violently through the atmosphere like a glowing fireball awaiting the impending doom, it eventually reaches terminal velocity and travels at more "relaxed" speeds. Not that it increases the chance of survival, unless your name is Jeb and you land with your head in just the right position to soften the blow. Not saying that this IS a meteorite. But it is certainly very plausible. The expert on the video certainly seems sure in his case. Some people are saying the must have gotten a rock in the parachute by accident. I don't think so, you'd notice!!

http://kerbalcon.com/

Have you got docking ports unlocked? If so, I would assemble this in orbit and then take it to Duna

EDIT: As I posted this I realized that you perhaps meant a manned craft? Not just a satellite... I'll have to modify my craft to have a pod on it. I'm sure it can be done. Here's my very quick attempt! Payload... 0.12t. I'm sure this can be improved on a lot! I had lot's of fuel left. No mods (apart from mechjeb for stats, didn't use any of the auto pilots).

You're welcome. I can share the craft file if that would help. Is there an easy way to share craft files (ala image sharing sites like tinypic?). I never share files so have no idea.

Here's how I did it. I'm sure there's more efficient ways, but this works. 13 orange tanks 7 Mainsails 2 ASAS modules (needed for the torque, the new reaction wheels are two small) Decouplers (decoupled asparagus style) Struts, struts and more struts All tanks are arranged in asparagus style. The outer 6 tanks have no engines (fuel only) The challenge was to get your contraption into orbit and this does the job. However, your module is very wobbly. You need to add more struts to make it stable...I didn't do that, i did exactly what you asked. Got it into a stable orbit with all the tanks still full. Only Mod I used was Mechjeb for the delta v stats. Didn't use it for ascent. I made it into 100k orbit with 100 Delta V left in the last Orange tank (the one you see floating away in the photo).

You can set the Max debris in the settings menu in the game. No need to tinker with the cfg file.

Couldn't help it. I had to post this! If I had the time I'd edit the video to include some Kerbals! There's a challenge for you creative souls out there! WARNING: This song will haunt you for the rest of your day!

That's great advice and very helpful insight into why it flips! I'll try that and report back Thanks.

I've placed many a rovers on various surfaces where there's no athmosphere and have no problems with that. My latest mission is to place a rover on Duna to go with my existing Duna base. I've come across a hurdle however. I've got 4 parachutes to help with the descent. They are placed on the beams next to the wheels. Center of gravity is more or less in the middle of the 4 chutes. When I deploy them in the athmosphere everything looks OK. However, as soon as they fully deploy the rover flips up side down and i'm unable to rotate it the right way. I'm baffled as to how this is possible. Looking at my descent can you see a reason why this would flip when the chutes fully deploy? Seems illogical to me.

More is not always better! You got too many engines and too much fuel. Once your boosters are empty and ditched that one mainsail (or is it skipper?) engine does not have enough power to lift the two orange fuel tanks AND your load. I always use asparagus now, but here's one of my very first heavy lifters before I knew what asparagus was. I got this into my 300k orbit and docked with my space station.

DOH! I thought Protractor gave me the current phase angle and I had to wait until it matched the Olex one. I get it now!! And I managed to use it to get to Dres on first try without doing multiple orbits. Thanks for the help guys!

In the settings menu you can reduce the "Max Persistant Debris" to zero. That will clear all your debris.

I'm only a few weeks "old" when it comes to KSP. Whenever I'm flying to other planets I've not used any calculators (or calculated it myself). I've just use the maneuver nodes and gotten to where I wanted by trial and error. Sometimes my kerbals have spent years (decades?) in space awaiting the right window. Now I want to do things the right way. I'm not maths genius, nor do I have interest in calculating all this stuff so I'm using the tools that are available. I'm attempting to get to Dres using the Protractor tool and the Olex calculator. I've been to Dres before but I must have orbited Kerbol about 20 times before the right windows occurred! I'm currently sitting in orbit around kerbin at 110km. Olex is telling me I need to leave when Dres is at 82.06 and it gives me a picture which shows me that Dres needs to be about 1 o'clock. However, when I use the Protractor mod it doesn't match what the Olex picture shows. As you can see the Protractor is currently showing 84.74 but it's at 10 o'clock. I'm sure I'm doing it wrong so I'm asking the community for some help on how to use the tool. Thank you

I didn't think of Mechjeb! I have it installed but only use it for Delta-V and for putting crafts in orbit around Kerbin (done that too many times now so happy to sit back and watch mechjeb do it). Mechjeb worked a treat! I didn't use the autopilot but I picked a landing spot and burned manually. Had to do a few corrections on the way down but it worked! I hit my target almost spot on. I wanted to land on the ridge of a crater and it worked! The developer of MechJeb is a genius, that must be some hefty maths going on in the background! Cheers PS! How do I change the post to [Answered]?