SRV Ron

The designer of this lifter was having broken coupler problems in flight. I traced it down to the failure occurring during the gravity turn on the payload stage. It took a set of cubic struts with braces to fix the problem. Better joints would certainly solve a lot of problems with large rockets falling apart before launch.

This all stock 200+ tons to orbit on one Rocomax decoupler. Without a set of braces, it will break during flight. But, do add other braces to stabilize the load to the booster. Install them for greatest engineering effect, triangles give the greatest strength and prevent twisting forces, not just slap on braces.

When you get to the equivalent of two orange tanks under a Mainsail booster, you start losing lift efficiency for your payload since most of the thrust will now be needed lifting the booster with little left for the upper stages and payload. Start your rocket with the payload you want to place in orbit. Then add one booster stage and test launch. Continue a stage at a time until you have achieve your goal of placing that payload in orbit. It prevents you from building overly huge inefficient launchers that fall apart or are hard to control. And, asparagus staging will be most efficient regardless if you go stock or mod. SRB rings are ok for the first stage either as boost or lifting stage alone. Examples; 200+ tons in orbit with fuel to spare. Launched 1450 tons. This design all stock onion stage. This one used mods for 100+ tons to orbit. Booster ring, then asparagus staging.

When demoing the program with your goal of a Mun landing, maybe do Minmus due to its ease of landing there and its green cheese color, have several flights already in progress. A couple in orbit, some orbiting Mun or Minmus, some landed, and others ready to go. You could start with a quick building of a simple suborbital that crashes because there was no parachute and coupler. Then show one properly built. Next, a gravity turn VS straight up that shows the difference in reentry forces. Go to a orbital flight. Take one in orbit and show how to do a Munar insertion and capture. Land one on Minmus. Do the exploration. Launch and return showing how aerobraking works. Show that the shallow angle places less stress on the Kerbal then a suicide plunge. All that will depend on the time available, But, do move things along with time acceleration as needed explaining that the real world is not condensed as the Kerbal world is. If time permits, use the stock game to reduce confusion, let some of the students build and fly their own designs. While a video is OK, having the actual program being displayed on a big flat screen TV or projector is even better. That is how I demo it to groups.

This was placed SSTO as a challenge on low cost satellite with a scientific instrument; A slightly larger version with 50% more fuel orbits Mun. You can, of course, go as big in one launch as your computer and design skills can handle. In this case, over 200 tons of payload; So yes, you can build a 200 ton station to place in orbit in one launch as opposed to this challenge of placing five full orange fuel cans into orbit.

In theory, that will be true. In practice, it is difficult to get the right combo of parts, when the big fuel cans and engines needed, are not available in stock at present. Results are that either there is an overbuild with loss in efficiency, design becomes an issue due to bracing needed to keep things together, or that frame rate suffers. For return to Earth flights with a payload that landed on an airstrip instead of having to be recovered at sea or some remote place on land, the Shuttle was most cost efficient. However, a Saturn 5 launcher would have been far cheaper in delivering large payloads as 70 tons of spacecraft would not have to be returned to Earth and completely overhauled for every 25 tons of payload placed in orbit. A Saturn 5 placed the converted third stage of some 100 tons, known as Skylab, in orbit. Note that the Russians are still using the same 40+ year old throwaway rockets for lifting heavy payloads and astronauts to the ISS.

You can keep the old save, start a new one, then go into the VAB or SHB folder and copy the Craft files and sub assemblies to the new Save folder.

Generally, the burn time is based upon 100% thrust of the last burn measured. If you end up staging during the burn, the time will change. Practice will determine how best to set up when to start a burn when you know you will have to stage. Watch the orbit as it changes and cut power with the X key when you have achieved the desired result. You can also reduce thrust when nearing the capture or desired path for more precise cutoff. The mod tools do help but in the long run, it will be your experience that will help in planning when to start the burn with the ship you are flying after setting up the maneuver.

In Career, lots of science points can be collected in a flyby set up for a return trajectory. That simplifies the rocket needed for such missions. Later ones can be designed for orbiting and landing for additional science points from the tech unlocked from the fly by missions. A maneuver for a Mun flyby that results in an aerobraking landing on Kerbal. The early career rocket capable of the mission. Do add Goo canisters and do EVA reports to max out science points upon recovery.

Reviewing the first few post is standard procedure done to block spam bots. You will soon have instant access to posting. The fact that four of them are already showing indicates you are legit. Enjoy and happy flying and modding.

Replace those Mainsails with Skippers. You will get much better performance. Also, engines may be breaking loose sitting on the pad. Launch clamps may be needed.

Just a guess from the photos presented. Looks like struts are uneven with cross bracing needed to stop the twisting that is causing the rocket to lose pitch and yaw. This design had issues with similar handling problems until it was cross braced. And one similar to your design that another poster was having issues with until bracing was balanced across the core stage coupler. In that case, a coupler broke when the rocket reached this stage of the flight. It was oscillating during flight and broke when the rocket executed the orbital turn. It took a set of cubic pieces with struts anchored to the coupler to fix. If the problem can't be solved from information only, try posting the Craft file for others to examine for what is causing the failure and a possible solution.

One other thing that can cause the error. If you are using a free account, you are limited to the number of images you can have available on Imgur for upload to web sites. Once you exceed that limit, older images are no longer available via your links to websites. They are not lost, they just won't be available until you delete some active ones. The solution is to sign up for a paid yearly subscription which is actually quite inexpensive compared to other hosting sites.

Like the Earth's moon, are there craters at Mun's pole that are constantly in shadow that could qualify?

Exotic is out of the ordinary, but only by your definition? As you gave no explanation why those designs don't qualify and instead launched into promoting censorship, here are two words of advice from this retiree, Grow UP!

Who can forget the slinky rocket? No braces, only donuts tanks. It can make orbit when matched to the proper engine. And, of course the 57 Heinz probe launcher. (Probe on the top did go Voyager.)

Small efficient probes and landers

Actually, there are far better designs for that combo. However, as a tutorial under Career Mode, with no vertical decouplers available, this design works just fine for a deep space suborbital flight to gain science points and lands in the perfect spot in the mountains. (Parachutes on the booster useless, but a nice touch for recovering the first stage in some future version of KSP.) The decoupler was in the correct orientation but snapped into the wrong place causing the LV-909 to lose all of its thrust.

Most certainly the problem although I couldn't get the fuel tank to attach when the decoupler hooked up in the wrong spot. Tested the flight as set up on the tutorial. First stage powered to 23,000 meters, second stage to 109,000 meters. AP at 369,000 when launched straight up and will land in the ocean. Edit, Nope, landed just West of the high mountains. Jeb landed perfectly in the flat valley surrounded by mountains and hills. BTW, running KSP Stock and the internet browser at the same time. The Windows key switches to the browser and the KSP icon on the taskbar back to KSP. The design, although odd, is capable of a quality sub orbital. Edit 2, except that it is so stable it is extremely difficult to do the orbital turn.

While now too late, this all stock got 43.7G on vertical reentry. The other post was for acceleration at burnout with the mod booster. Vertical decouplers used to keep this from blowing up from overheating during powered flight. Edit, note, only the stack decoupler functioned. The vertical ones did not fire off.

Start simple. Tweak as needed to get the mission done. Design multistages from the top down and test each stage so it does what you want it to before adding more.

Jeb is supposed to be return safely. However, he is now lost in space waiting rescue which makes the challenge a failure. Anyhow, stock only was not specified, only the usual cheats can't be used, such as infinite fuel, and you have to fly the rocket yourself.

A two stage SRB from NovaPunch mods hit 32.2G at second stage burnout around 68,000 meters. Unfortunately, Jeb is in solar orbit crossing Moho.

Updated mini ship all 0.5 parts. Capable of going anywhere short of a suicide plunge into Kerban. Note, core engine not fired and was actually more spin stable when not in use.