csiler2

That is the coolest looking SSTO I've seen yet. How did i miss this when it was originally posted?

As I recall, it also had a command interface most similar to that of a fighter jet. It's a shame that some of the Gemini- and Apollo-derivative programs never happened. Gemini moon landings and an Apollo Venus flyby? Awesome. Too bad research from MSL has shown that astronauts would have exceeded their radiation doses on an interplanetary mission.

I don't play Eve, but this is pretty sweet. Just don't fly it around in my save file, Jeb might think there's an alien invasion and shoot it down

You know, seeing Grissom in the thumbnail reminds me that he was a driving force behind the design of Gemini as an aircraft in space instead of a pod that happens to contain men. He wanted to make sure that aviation-trained astronauts felt comfortable in the Gemini capsule after the fiasco of his Mercury 7 flight.

I voted for the white radial as I can't really find a good use for it. The poodle is almost as worthless. I usually use the smallest rockomax 2.5m tank and slap a 909 on the back for my orbital SMs. I get less TWR, but I get better ISP and I get a nice spot for my RCS tanks on the back.

Does it have any engines, or is it non-functional?

Was your docking clamp attached to a decoupler or directly to the tank? I've seen the same thing and I think that passive crossfeed happens when the docking clap attaches directly to a tank. Crossfeed won't happen when it's docked with another docking clamp.

Cool design. Did the capsule have any equipment other than the docking adapter?

Great post Spatzimaus. I think you laid everything out quiet nicely. Fuel-wise, a gravity turn is the most fuel efficient because you are not flying in opposition to gravitational acceleration. Remember, the goal of achieving orbit is to move fast enough that you miss the planet as you 'fall'. Alas, I haven't calculated anything using calc or physics equations in ten years, so I can't give you any solid math supporting or disproving the advantages of direct ascent vs. orbital ascent. Obviously the former requires more fuel, which is why NASA ditched the plan for the space race, but the later requires more time. I think the major difficulty for direct ascent beyond fuel considerations would be timing. You'd want to makes sure the KSC launchpad is in the proper position before lift-off. Personally, I will continue LKO rendezvous as I like the margin for error for navigation checks, etc. I'll continue to do so even after resources are implemented because I'd rather launch a smaller rocket into orbit and refuel it there rather than try and lift a lot of fuel to achieve the same task. Does anyone know what NASA does for interplanetary probes?

Your rocket designs are so amazing it makes me want to throw my hands up in disgust Out of curiousity, do you find that adding the smallest rockomax tank to your boosters on the Nova improve their performance by allowing 100% thrust? I tried it on a single stack design, but found that the joint was too unstable. Instead I took the 10% cut in thrust so that I could have two orange tanks of fuel. Also, I'm curious about how you approach your design process. Do you start at the top or the bottom of the rocket?

I usually perform approaches the same way as Falofonos, but you can use maneuver nodes even if you only have one intersect. Just plant the node where your ship will be during closest approach and increase/decrease your orbit until your close approach is 1-2Km. Perform the necessary burn, making sure you have enough reserve to slow down and then begin rendezvous operations. Of course, this isn't as efficient as waiting it out, but I believe Scott Manley pointed out that you can always have a rendezvous if you have a single intercept and enough fuel. The double-intersect approach has the added bonus of giving you an idea of whether or not your catching up to or falling behind the target craft. I use the same technique in the double intersect as the single intersect, but I try to wait until the closest approach is within 10Km ahead of me.

I assume you're referring to the Apollo 1 fire? Many of the contributing factors to that accident have little to do with NASA doing "things as fast as possible." Probably the biggest contributing factor to the fire was NASA's classification of the test as a low-risk test instead of a high-risk test. NASA was aware of pressurized oxygen-rich fires in the past, but they only thought about them as a space-only risk. Their contingencies dealt with fires in space, not on the ground during tests that had a 100% success rate relating to fires at that point. It was a failure of imagination that lead to the test being rated low-risk instead of high-risk. Had the test been properly rated as a high-risk test, NASA may have taken a closer look at the plugs-out test design as well as their capsule environment design. They would have at least made sure there was a much larger safety crew on site with proper equipment and emergency routes to save the astronauts. Of course, the fire might not have happend had the contractor properly QCed the capsule. The other major contributing factor to the accident was management and quality control at North American Aviation. At the time, NAA's management hierarchy was a mess and there was no clear line of communication when problems arose or when NASA submitted notes for changes to module design. This lead to some design flaws and miscommunication between NAA and NASA over proper module operation. This problem was completely outside of NASA's control and would not have changed even if NASA had taken their time. In fact, NAA went through a forced restructuring as a result of the Apollo 1 fire, guaranteeing better QC and program management for the rest of the program until NAA merged with Rockwell-Standard in 1967.

I would disagree with SecondGuessing. At the time, the Apollo program pushed a lot of boundaries in regards to engineering, structural sciences, material sciences, computing technology, communication infrastructure, and related space and lunar sciences. A lot of money was dumped into the program for political reasons, i.e. beat the Russians, but it was still a great achievement of science and engineering. I'm reading "Stages to Saturn" about the design and development of the Saturn rocket family and it's pretty obvious that creating the launch vehicles alone lead to a lot of innovation that changed multiple industries. That's not really the case these days. The pushes made in the 60s and 70s for the space program made it easier to maintain manned programs today. Russia launches with derivatives created in the 1960s and NASA's SLS design currently relies on derivatives from the same area. There's not much pressure for innovation in manned spaceflight, especially when there is little political pressure to move beyond LEO. Sure, the ISS is working on microgravity experiments relating to biology, material and structural sciences, but we won't really be able use these discoveries on a large scale until there's serious pressure for man to push off the Earth. I personally don't think we'll see many manned missions beyond Earth orbit until mankind is forced to begin colonizing space due to resource scarcity on Earth. Manned missions beyond Earth orbit will really only revolutionize life-support, food preservation, radiation shielding, and other technologies necessary for long-term viability in space. While there is some need for these technologies planet-side, their biggest impact would be to space programs.

Amen, Sal. Honestly, sometimes it's nice to have a little clean out, even if it's unintentional. I'm so excited about where the game is going. Squad does great work!

I wander away from the KSP forums for a couple months and come back to find them reset?! That's crazy. I'm happy to see that the forums are alive and kicking, even if they did suffer an unfortunate roll-back. Squad is the best at space and I hope they keep it up!