Nibb31

After launch, start tilting the rocket towards the East, very slowly, so that you reach a horizontal position when you reach 70000m. To reach orbit, you want horizontal speed more than altitude. Reach 2300m/s, and you will be in orbit.

The plan for the current DSH concept is to use a SEP tug, which would basically be an upscaled version of the standard Boeing 702 ion powered comsats. http://www.gizmag.com/nasa-solar-propulsion-space-tugboat/21289/ http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/RT/RT2001/6000/6920verhey.html

No, only one instance of the dll is required. It can be shared by many parts. It's usually best to only use the latest one.

You have way too much fuel on that rocket. I'm pretty sure you could remove the second stage and you would gain in performance.

You really need to get the zero relative velocity thing figured out. When your relative velocity is zero, this means that your orbit matches exactly the orbit of the target. Are you sure that the target is selected in the map view? Does the navball say Target ? If so, it's as easy as pointing your ship towards the yellow retrograde marker, and burning gently until it gets to 0. There really isn't anything difficult about it. Maybe you should explain what you are doing wrong. Then you can approach it gently with RCS only. Don't burn too fast, and don't hesitate to zero out your relative velocity when you start going too fast or you are overshooting. Do you know how to manoeuver a Kerbal in EVA with RCS ? Learn how to do that, go around you ship, align with it, and get back in. The principe is the same with docking a ship, except that you use the translation RCS controls IJKLHN instead of WASD. You just need to be patient and follow the instructions. It takes several days for Soyuz to rendez vous and dock with the ISS.

Percentage of what ?

50 thrust is way more than enough for a capsule that size, with 300 units of fuel. I have no idea what cBBp was thinking when he put 400 thrust on it with 2000 units of monopropellant fuel. I bet it could SSTO from Duna with those figures, which is totally over the top.

What happened to the engine?

If you ever thought the opposite was true, you're in for a big disappointment...

Mars One isn't going anywhere, so it's probably a good example of why crowdsourcing (or even private funding in general) wouldn't work for such a huge project.

There are seats on the side of it.

A manned mission to Mars would cost several billion dollars. You won't get that kind of money through crowd sourcing.

Most mods work without any problems on 0.20.

If you want to attach pictures, host them on another site, like imgur, dropbox or imageshack. Once they are published on the site, copy the URL, then in the forum, paste the URL between tags.

I don't even understand the appeal for spaceplanes in KSP. The flight model is so crazy that it doesn't feel like flying a plane anyway, none of the aircraft respond like actual aircraft, there is no lift or stall... It's ridiculous and pointless. I might try to build one when the aerodynamic model is finished, but until then, there really is no point.

These were released a couple of days before 0.20, so they install like legacy plugins for the moment. The correct link is here: http://electrictomatoes.com/ksp/LazTekSpaceXLaunchPackSmall_1.0.zip

Cut your relative velocity to 0. To do this: 1) Make sure your target is selected and the navball is in Target mode. 2) Point your ship towards the yellow retrograde marker and burn until your relative speed is 0. 3) Then, to approach your target, point your ship towards the pink marker and burn gently. Do not exceed 2 or 3 m/s. Take your time. 4) When your vector (yellow prograde marker) starts moving away from the pink marker, repeat from step 2. 5) When you are within 1 km of the target, forget about the navball, switch on ASAS on both ships, and use only your translational RCS to approach (IJKLHN keys) exactly like you would in EVA.

Only add rescaleFactor if you want to convert the Dragon to 2.5m diameter. This will allow it to fit to either the Laztek or the KerbX Falcon. Because of the size reduction, I also reduced the crew to 4, the engine thrust to 50, and the Monopropellant to 350, which is enough to rendez-vous a couple of times, deorbit and land. The original tank size was bit unrealistic. I also added a node inside the trunk for cargo, which could be an extra RCS tank if necessary.

Why would you want weapons in a spaceship. There are no enemies in space. Or maybe you are talking science fiction. In that case, you might as well have magic engines, magic weapons, and magic enemies. And you will always win because you are the hero. This is supposed to be the Science Lab forum, not Fantasy Land.

Once in orbit around Kerbin: 1) Go to map view, and select the Mun as a target. 2) Go to MJ Manoeuver Planner and select Hohmann Transfer to Targer and click Create and Execute Node. 3) After the burn, go to MJ Warp and select SOI and WARP 4) Once in the Mun's SOI, go to Manoeuver Planner and select Change Periapsis, enter your altitude and click Create and Execute Node. 5) After the burn, in to Manoeuver Planner and select Circularize, specify at Periapsis and click Create and Execute Node. 6) To land, go to Landing Guidance, set your coordinates and Auto Land. You can avoid step 4 (and save fuel) if you edit the Manoeuver Node before burning in Step 2, but you wanted foolproof. Ideally, the Hohmann Transfer should have settings for a target Periapsis and whether you want a prograde or retrograde orbit at the target.

Yes, they were intoxicated and could have lost conscience. They were very lucky.

I don't think that Slayton was grounded for political reasons. If that was true, they probably wouldn't have promoted him to be the boss of the astronaut corps where he could have made even more noise He did finally fly on Apollo's final ASTP flight, which was a quite elegant way of thanking him for his role during the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo (although it nearly killed him!).

An ejector seat could only be used above a certain altitude and below Mach 2, which the shuttle reaches in only a couple of minute. If you ejected at any other point, you would be instantly killed, but even within that small window where you could eject, you would probably be fried by the exhaust. Also, it would only work for the crew on the upper deck. Crew on the mid deck could not eject. Columbia actually was equipped with ejector seats for its first flight, but they were removed afterwards because they were pretty useless.

Try it and tell us. There is no reason why not.

The Soviet pack, and KSP in general, could also do with a nice APAS docking port. The old probe and drogue is fun, but a lot of missions would benefit from an androgynous port and it would make ISS and Mir more realistic.