jjwb22101

It dosen't quite work this way. There are two important points on a rocket with regards to (static, and without gimballing engines) stability. One is the center of mass, which we should all be quite familiar with as the point where the rocket balances. The second is called the center of pressure or lift, depending on weather you are dealing with rockets or aircraft. This one is a bit more difficult to explain, and pretty darn hard to find, but it's essentially the point where all the aerodynamic forces balance. You want this point to be behind the center of mass, because effectively this is where any aerodynamic force will be applied, and the aerodynamic forces you discussed in your post will only make the rocket point the correct direction if the center of pressure is far enough back. This point is manipulated by changing the shape of the nose of your rocket, or much more so by manipulating the shape and locations of fins. This is why model rockets always have large fins at the back. Most modern rockets designed to go into space will use thrust vectoring, which completely ignores all of the above, though the less stable a rocket is, the harder it is for the vectoring to compensate.

I'm a student at TJ (the High School Satellite). I did a small amount of work on the project (nothing major, just helped with a few uplink glitches), and I'm really excited to see it here. GODSPEED TJ3SAT! There's a countdown on my school newspaper's website. http://www.tjtoday.org/ Currently T-1 hour 25 minutes to launch!

Secondary payload for this launch includes the first high school built cubesat from my high school. I helped work out a couple of minor things on it, but didn't really do a significant amount of work, sadly. GODSPEED TJ3SAT

Only happened to me once. A spent stage from a command pod i launched into orbit collided with the station i was trying to dock to. Not sure if it counts, but it definitely ruined my day (not to mention the days of anyone living in the station).

RIP Scott. You will be missed and remembered. Godspeed.

Aside from the lack of n-body physics (those get really demanding really fast), the planets being so dense that they could not be made out of any material known to man, and the lack of a proper aerodynamics implementation, KSP is actually a decent physics simulator. Though yeah, all of those flaws may be a bit of a problem for using it for a physics test...

Permission wholeheartedly granted! Welcome aboard!

And just to prove return capability:

DID IT! And this was with the stock Aeris 3A no less, so there's no real need for a .craft file. Currently trying to do it with the Ravenspear Mk. 4, but the results so far have been many explosions upon landing. EDIT: Got the ravenspear down without it exploding, and i also think i set a new time record, 2:18.

Yeah, I had a station in orbit around Duna explode in .20. Needless to say i was really bummed...

I completely agree. Managed to get out of catholic school, but memorizing things without understanding their real-world implications and meanings is a pointless education. Also, seabas, you are correct about it only calculating gravity for one body at a time. It does this because N-body physics (taking into account the gravity of more than one body) would be exponentially more difficult to calculate as more planets and moons are added.

Not quite. Remember, this was in the early days of computing. Most pocket calculators have more computing power than the LM, and the entire spacecraft's computer system is outpaced by a modern smartphone.

I would assume that this is kind of the purpose of this challenge, to see if it is doable or not.

I had a similar problem to Sal, except it was the capsule that fell off after my lander fell over. The winglets i was using as landing legs (this was well before they were introduced) apparently didn't work very well to stabilize my lander. Poor Bill, Jeb, and Bob.

Triton, simply because nobody else really cares/knows about it.

The one criticism I have for you is that this challenge seems to be more of one limited by the computer that people have access to, instead of actual flight skill.

School, Solved 225 Rubiks cubes (fingers hurt like crazy right now), came home and launched Bill to the Mun with a rover. Sadly, Bill has been a notoriously bad driver, and the mission was lost after he drove into the command pod at high speeds...

Yeah, I think that's a first. Definitely cool!

That would be precision controls, and it should be more than enough less power for most small ships.

A quick clarification for those of us who do not know the difference between model rocketry and High-Power rocketry: model rocketry is rocketry using motors with less than 160 Newton-seconds of total impulse each, or less than 320 Newton-seconds of combined total impulse, along with some other weight and construction material constrictions. High-Power rocketry is that conducted with more than 160 newton-seconds of impulse in one motor, or a cluster of motors totaling over 320 Newton-seconds of impulse, and allows the use of both larger rockets, and those constructed out of metal. High-Power rocketry requires a certification from either the National Association of Rocketry, or TRIPOLI, another rocket organization.