SRV Ron

This has worked well for a first suborbital with the limited parts; Once you get decouplers, you can advanced to this for Mun orbit. With probes, a lander can be built along with rockets for deep space. They don't need to be monstrous creations either. They just need to be efficient. This example uses 5.5 tons of launcher to place a ton in orbit. Asparagus staging was used on the cluster of six LV-30 boosters. It has more then enough fuel to land on Duna and should be capable of landing on Eve or Laythe.

This, in career mode or sandbox, will easily make Mun orbit and return. It takes careful management of the internal battery to complete the mission. It can be done with ease once you have learned hos to do the orbital turn and planning efficient maneuvering burns in map view.

Here was one close call upon reentry to Laythe; The booster came flying by the lander several minute after staging.

Start the gravity turn due north, W,S key, with a slight aim West. There will be some drift at first due to the rotation of Kerbal but most will get cancelled out by the time you reach orbit. From there, you can fine tune the inclination. Keep in mind that map mode indicators will go nuts if you get the orbit exactly circular. This example is OK.

It works because once you establish an orbit, your speed keeps you from falling into the planet. (Actually, you are always falling to the planet but because of your horizontal speed, the surface of the planet has curved away from your ship. So, your ship falls into a stable orbit.) Because the pull of gravity is balanced by your speed in orbit, any additional thrust will expand that orbit with none being expended to fight gravity. Your ship will then find a new balance in a higher orbit, or, if far enough away from the planet, escape its gravity well altogether. Therefore, the fuel savings once in orbit VS the brute force straight up launch. It,s not a lot depending on design, but it can make a difference between completing an objective or coming up short on fuel close to it. Using my test rocket, it took 16.3 tons of launch vehicle to send one ton to Kerbel escape going straight up but only 14.6 tons of launch vehicle to send the same ton to Kerbal escape via going into orbit first to use the Hohmann transfer effect. Actual results, of course, will be dependent on your efficiently of your launch vehicle. Asparagus stage Liquid fueled will be far more efficient then SRBs pancake designs where this Novapunch Mod design placed a orange fuel tank into Mun orbit.

Are they connected with fuel lines point in the right direction as in the example pictures? This one is asparagus stage in threes. Fuel is drawn from three tanks until gone. They are ejected as fuel draws from the next three until gone. Then, they are ejected as fuel remains in the center tank.

You can use an Apollo style lander leaving the command module with its return fuel in orbit. Do plan on using engines for the final descent with parachutes since parachutes alone won't be enough to slow down to a safe landing speed. Parachutes can do most of the work otherwise. Try to land in a low spot to get the maximum effect from the parachutes. Small probes with parachutes can use thrusters alone for landing. Gilming got stranded when his lander came in too fast. I was unable to test if this lander could have returned to Kerbal without refueling.

There is a list of those that didn't make it back when you visit the recruiting center.

Even NASA never did a direct launch to the moon. They launched to orbit, then did the Lunar insertion burn when they reached the insertion window. However, they had to deal with orbital inclination where in Kerbal, we launch at its equator and can do a gravity turn to a direct intercept bypassing getting into a circular orbit.

According to the staging column, they are in the correct location. The problem is that the SRBs didn't connect to them.

Thats because they have failed to fasten to them. When properly mounted, there will be a larger gap that, when the decoupler is selected, the booster will be part of it. It is a common problem we have all faced. The decouplers stage, but the boosters remain attached. Try removing the boosters and reattaching them to the radical decouplers until you get a bigger gap. For an abort, you will not be able to do so while the SRBs are fired. They are likely to destroy the rocket if staged before burning out. Otherwise, you can always abort by hitting x to shut off the engine, then stage to eject the capsule and wait until you are dropping back to Kerban before deploying the parachute so you don't lose it.

Notice the photos just posted. Launching straight up uses more fuel. Hohmann transfer is done so that the escape runs parallel to Kerban's orbit. If done when the intercept window to Duna or Eve is present, the longer burn expands or contracts the solar orbit in relation to the prograde or retrograde of Kerban, you will get the most efficient intercept. Otherwise, you will have to loiter in orbit until that window is available.

OK, just ran the test. Launch weight is 44.84 tons for this rocket design with SRB, LVT-45 and LVT-909. Empty weight is 1.54 tons. For the stats, I will use probe weight at Kerban escape. The test rocket which is easily steered into an orbital turn after booster staging neat 10k; First test results are the straight up launch at dawn; Probe weight, 2.75 tons. That works regardless of direction launched. This is the test results of achieving a 100k orbit. The maneuver mode has been set to about the same path as the direct launch. And, after the escape burn, the probe weight is now 3.07 tons, a savings of 0.32 tons of fuel. So, it appears that Kerbal Physic work where getting into orbit first allows you to take advantage of the Hohmann Transfer effect for the more efficient escape.

Actually, straight up to Kerbal escape. I will test later as the design I posted earlier is stable enough to do a gravity turn to orbit and the escape burn from there to prograde or retrograde to Kerbal's orbital direction around Kerbal. The other design had spin issues making it impossible to do an orbital turn.

Replace the SRBs with the equivalent weight in liquid fuel tanks and engines. You will gain more delta V, probably enough that you could reduce the weight by using LV-909s which will place less demand on the launch vehicle. Add bracing to stabilize them to the core tank. I'm assuming that you are using career Mode parts for this design where Rocomax parts would be more efficient with a simpler design .

The ship looks way to complex and inefficient. If it is slow to get to speed the first 10,000 meters, it is under powered. If it is glowing at 15,000, you are way overpowered. Either way is highly inefficient for placing a 40 ton payload in orbit. An efficient design should have boosters that can lift a good percentage more then their own weight. I believe ideally, you can get close to 20% of the launch weight into a 100K orbit. This design I was playing with to place a 40 ton fuel can in orbit. While using Novapunch mods and asparagus staging, it has sufficient efficiency and stability to do the job. A slightly modified design placed the same full fuel can into Mun orbit. Some monoprop fuel was needed to circularize that orbit. Note, no fuel was used from that Rocomax orange tank.

Design your orbital vehicle with enough power to get your apoapsis over 100 k and about 1,500m/sec orbital speed before those engines are staged. Your smaller one will then have sufficient power to get to orbital speed using the momentum from the initial launch to reach the apoapsis. This is the idea behind this small probe launcher which can also place the same probe into Mun or Minmus orbit. That will work with any design that has insufficient power to lift off from Kerban by itself. Even monopropellant thrusters will work as long as you have enough burn time to get to orbiting speed as you reach apoapsis.

Ideally, one would try for a figure 8 intercept. IE, if you fail to do the circularize burn, the intercept will slingshot you back to an aerobraking landing on Kerban. (It won't look that way in map mode.)

That testing was done from another designs that were unstable to attempt to get into a 100k orbit for a later escape burn. They all left Kerban's SOI at the same time but the probes launched at dawn or dusk had added or subtracted from Kerbal's orbital speed once they reached escape from its SOI. I have a career mode design that made Kerban escape upon a straight up dawn launch that is stable enough to test doing an orbit, then escape burn. The results of the efficiency should be showing the escape speed once the probe crosses Minmus orbit after it has consumed all of its fuel. I'll test it out later this evening.

With testing, I found the best way for a Kerbal escape is to launch straight up at dawn for getting to the outer planets, launch at dusk for the inner ones. Launching at midnight or noon is less efficient because you are not adding or subtracting your escape speed to the orbital speed of Kerbal. This is assuming that you have the ideal thrust so that you are not wasting excessive fuel fighting Kerbal's gravity during the early launch phase or getting excessive drag from the atmosphere.

Convert the images to jpg and post them with links to a photo hosting site such as imgur. Then, we can see what your creation looks like. There is no charge for doing so.

In career mode, without the launch stabilizers, you will have to be mindful on how a rocket sits upon the engines on the pad. Too much weight on one engine and the whole thing will fall apart on the launch pad. So, if you add a ring of boosters, make sure they are sitting evenly on the pad and not all of the weight on the center engine. Once you get launch stabilizers and struts, you are good to go on the big designs.

Check where the center of thrust is to make sure that it is in the center core and not off to one side. Rotate the camera view to make sure that the COT is not wobbling to one side or the other. If that is OK, the instability problem may be related to twisting of a booster during launch which will require bracing to fix. Example, this design would spin out of control if it didn't have a SRB break off during flight. Once braced as shown, it flew properly with only the one SAS stabilizing it.

With the limited parts at the entry level of Career Mode, your first rocket for suborbital flight should look like this; Note how staging should be set up for this first attempt. With more levels unlocked, an orbiter will look like this minus the solar panels. This, with proper power management and careful maneuvering planning, will reach Mun orbit and return; Keep trying, look at the videos in the tutorials, learn what works and what doesn't. We all started where you did at one time or another in the Kerbal School of hard Knocks.

A Dyson Ring of satellites is possible. A sphere would be subjected to massive destruction at the two nodes unless care is taken to place each ring above the other. Still the computer will be bogged down if KSP is doing calculations on thousands of individual objects in orbit. A solid ring, such as was computer generated in Starship Trooper, is very unlikely due to tidal forces from the Earth and the sun that would distort it to the point of failure. A sphere enclosing a sun in the temperate zone with an internal biome, such as was shown in Star Trek Next Generation, is physically impossible. Building a sustaining space colony inside a rotating bio cylinder with an artificial sun, similar to the Babylon 5 station, is feasible.