Evrion

I failed, for a FORTH TIME! to get a Kerbal to Duna. This my ship design was WAY too wobbly during the Kerbin --> Duna burn so I aborted. Then blew up the Kerbal in atmosphere as I was a little too aggressive in getting him to land at the space center. BUT I did get a refueling station safely on it's way to Duna.

Yes! I love the idea of adding things to the game that make for more ways we can optimize rocket design. For me the game is all about learning rocket design and learning how to fly rockets. Anything that adds more to this learning process is adding more game.

15, scientifically minded. That's practically the target audience. No need to guide them. Just let them go! If they need encouragement, say you will take them out for dinner when they make it to the Mun and back.

Fuel Storage. Put another one in Mun orbit. Then use them. Launch a REALLY small lander into orbit, with barely enough fuel to get to dock. Refuel, then go to the mun station, refuel, and land, and come back using the fuel stations.

Showcase the heart of the game! For me, that's building, then flying. So: Build, then Fly a rocket. I recomend showing them a very basic rocket, like command pod, parachute, tank, engine. fly it. Then ask some basic questions to see what they want to do to try the goal of getting to orbit. How many stages? Top: fuel amounts, engine? other stages, how many engines, how much fuel per engine? Other ideas? Try to keep this design phase quick, so you can go back to it a few times. See what the crowd comes up with.

No. If you enter a sphere of influence with some speed (it is impossible to enter with no speed), then you will reach that altitude again with the same speed, and exit. aerobraking, retrograde burn, lithobraking, or something else to slow you down must happen or you WILL exit again. As SRV Ron mentioned, you can get very close, if you relative velocity when you enter is very low, then you might be able to get a stable orbit with a quick RCS thrust. But you can't get captured without something slowing you down.

As other have stated, in game, docking must be done a very low speed to work, which means that the orbits will automatically have to be matched. This isn't something you have to keep track of while docking, but is something you can check out if you want. Suppose: docking can be done at high speed. Then what? In a physics sense, this would be a completely in-elastic collision. So momentum, and not energy, would be conserved. Momentum is mass x velocity. So this means that the velocity of the resulting object after docking would have a velocity that is a weighted (by mass) average of the two velocities coming in. So: small ship in sub-orbital docking to a large station in orbital could work! If the station can survive the drop in speed given by the small ship. The effect of the drop in speed would primarily be seen on the opposite side of the planet, so best to do it at the stations periapsis

I think the game works for it's learning curve. Not that it's steep, or shallow, but LONG I love the part of games where you are figuring out how things work. In most games, that's done in the tutorial. In this game, that IS the game!

In order to launch you need: Some sort of control module (capsule or computer one) fuel (if using liquid) Rocket motor Connection between motor and fuel (automatic if the motor is under the fuel tank) On the launch pad: 1) "T" for ASAS 2) hold "left shift" to throttle up (little indicator on the left of the nav-ball) for solid fuel rockets, this isn't needed. 3) press "space" to activate the first stage. 4) crash many, many times

Docking was the hardest thing to learn for me in the game so far. I think that's because it requires cooridnation and physical skills that other parts of the game don't, well, maybe landing in no atmosphere. In any case, the biggest hint that helped me: go to the other ship, get it's port lined up, then go back for approach. And make sure you have ships you can control well without spinning out. Trying to slip sideways and spinning out at the same time makes it hard! Edit: I don't use mods

Congrats on Mun landing! You could try getting a remote (non-Kerbal controlled) rover to the Mun, and drive around a bit!

Perhaps Duna is popular due to the fact that NASA has rovers on Mars, so missions to Duna feel like you are imitating NASA. Personally: I've crashed two landers so far and busted up one rover. So atm it's a "Bermuda Triangle" for me. I have another lander missions planned ...

Eve - like evening. Venus (eve analog, kinda) is sometimes called the Evening Star, or Morning star, depending on when it's up. Venus is also the love Goddess (in Roman mythology), Eve is the name of the first woman (in the Bible/Torah) so there is some "important female" connection.

I have a rover at my Mun base right now that is actually quite stable, I've had to do some careful steering a few times while over 15 m/s where I was tipping over trying to turn on a slope though. I have two of the 4x4 panels set together length-wise. Then above those in the corners and in the middle the little struts. On those struts I have the rover wheels that look like they are filled with air, 6 of them, three per side. This means the Rover wheels are attached above the main frame of the rover. Then underneath is where I have the batteries and remote control module. All this gives low center of gravity with a wide wheel base. On top of the rover I have things that can't go underneath, like the command seats for Kerbals.

I've just done some testing on Asparagus staging vs. Disposable Fuel Tanks, a method I have been using. To define the terms as I'm using them: Asparagus staging - 7 Engines, all firing off of 7 tanks, fuel lines set up to use up the outer 2 tanks first, which are then dropped along with their engines. then the next two, and so on 'til there is one tank and one enigne. Disposable Fuel Tanks - Fewer engines, same number of tanks and same staging as Asparagus. Outer tanks do not have engines and therefore fuel burns slower, ascent takes longer. Outer tanks are dropped as they are used up. In my small scale test, (Small payload, second smallest large radius tanks, 1 mailsail or 7 mainsails) Disposable was WAY better, but asparagus got kinda burny, so air resistance probably played a large role. In my large scale (realistic) test, the results were much closer: Asparagus: 261,488m Disposable Tank (A): 192,342m Disposable Tank (: 288,071 All payloads are 72.1 tons. Asparagus method used 7 orange tanks plus 7 of the smallest large radius tanks so I could have 7 mainsails on full throttle. Disposable Tank (A) used the same fuel tanks, but 4 mainsails, 3 going full throttle using up 6 tanks, 3 dropped when empty. Then dropping engines and tanks to start up and burn through the last fuel tank with the extra engine. (Stage 1 - 3 engines up, one off, 7 tanks, Stage 2 - drop 3 tanks, Stage 3-drop 3 tanks and 3 engines, start up last engine) Disposable Tank ( is the same as (A) except that I added a set of fuel lines to the last fuel tank so I could do an Asparagus like thing to have the last of the 4 engines also throttled up the whole way. This amounts to a mix of disposable tank with asparagus. (Stage 1 - 4 engines up, 7 tanks, Stage 2- Drop 3 tanks, stage 3 drop 3 tanks 3 engines) Conclusion: Asparagus is good, but it may be possible to do better by dropping some of the engines.

Hmmm, I largely ignore numbers while playing, but I am interested in what is more efficient. It seems here that if direct shot from LKO is more efficient, then it's the orbital velocity from being in LKO that is helping here. The question then becomes comparing the speed boost you can get from Mun to the speed boost you get from LKO. FYI: My Mun assist is usually done in such a way as to put me in a solar orbit that is either larger or smaller than Kerbin's, depending on my intended destination. I do not have the patience to wait for the Mun AND the intended destination to line up, though i know that would be the theoretical optimum. So, I may just get less lazy and do some calculations (I'm thinking energy methods: Eg + Ek stuff, I haven't yet figured out how this delta-V stuff fits with the physics I know, so maybe that would be best) Or even better, run an experiment and try both methods.

Am I doing this wrong? When I read, or see videos of people going form Kerbin to other planets it seems they wait for the right time to leave LKO and do a single burn to the other planet. ie: LKO wait for right time (or even do the waiting before launch) burn to a Solar orbit with other planet rendezvous in it. I've been using a different method: LKO Wait for right time to get a push or pull from Mun burn to slighshot off Mun into Solar orbit. Align my orbit plane with the other planet Wait for the right time Burn to get encounter with the other planet. So I have two burns: 1 to solar orbit using a gravity assist from Mun. 1 to change solar orbit so I get the encounter desired. Other people have 1 burn: straight from LKO to a solar orbit with the desired encounter. I know the "other people" method is more like the NASA version of events and requires WAY less time warping. But I feel like I save on fuel (and thinking) using my method. I also understand the notion of: "do whatever you want, it's your game after all." Question: who is "right"?