Nibb31

I'm with nhnifong. The problem is energy and physics. Those laws are not likely to change. It will always require LOTS of energy to boost mass into orbit. Even if we find better propulsion methods, the energy must come from somewhere, and I'm not sure that the energy potential of our planet is large enough to spend it on going into space.

You can get a cubesat into orbit for something like $50.000. These piggyback on commercial launch vehicles. They are still expensive for an individual, but as a research project for a university, it starts to be affordable. If you don't need to go to orbit, you can go for a PongSat, which goes up on a high altitude balloon: http://www.space.com/17589-pongsat-ping-pong-balls-space-balloon.html

No need to be snarky when people are just trying to help.

Some Russian ICBMs used a mass that moved inside to modify the center of mass to steer the rocket. Wacky, but it worked !

Again your rocket is too tall, you have too many tanks. You are using at least your first 3 rows of tanks just to lift the other 2, which is counter productive. Your thrust to weight ratio is too low and you hang around at low altitudes for too long, which is wasteful. Stick to no more than 2 or 3 large tanks on those 2m boosters. You will drop them earlier, but you will be going faster and higher. (Also, launching heads down is going to be uncomfortable for the crew !)

At last ! These are awesome and I'm so glad to see them back ! A few niggles though: - I find the KVTK tanks are much to big. They don't have an aerodynamic profile and they are much wider than the Angara tanks, so they stick out on the launcher. You should make them thinner or design a fairing pack to hide them for launch. Typically, you wouldn't need such big tanks when you're in orbit and using high ISP engines. The small KVTK has enough fuel to take you to Jool and back, so I really don't see the point in the larger ones. - The RD-0146 smokes in the VAB ! - You seem to have forgotten the decouplers and engine fairings that used to be part of the old Angara pack. I'd also love to see a mesh decoupler for the KVTK tanks.

That is a sound mission design. The problem is warping on an interplanetary transfer is not supported by any of the current docking mods. Chances are that the ship will break up. This is why a few of us have gone fore Duna Orbit Rendezvous (DOR) instead of Kerbin Orbit Rendezvous (KOR) for our mission architectures. http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/forum/showthread.php/22571-Two-Vessel-Mission-into-Duna-and-back%21

The reason it's spinning, is that as you drain your fuel, the back end of your rocket gets lighter and your center of mass moves forward with all the thrust at the back. Also, it is super top-heavy. Those Nerva engines wheigh several tons each. Why do you need so many of them on your top stage? You don't need lots of thrust in space. You should use that mass for fuel, not engines. If it's for a lander, 2 should be more than enough. For your boosters, it's the opposite. You have way too many fuel tanks and not enought engines. I'm pretty sure that each engine isn't capable of launching the fuel it's carrying. You are spending a whole lof of fuel just lifting the rest of the fuel off the ground, but you're not going anywhere. You shouldn't have more than 2 or 2.5 large tanks on each engine. Try cutting down on the fuel tanks. If you really need that much fuel (which I doubt), add more stages so that you get rid of the empty tanks and keep your center of mass as close as possible to the center of thrust.

I think that you have too much tankage. Try removing fuel tanks instead of adding more. I find that the optimal mass of fuel for those 2m engines is 2 big tanks. Adding more fuel tanks only decreases your thrust to weight ratio and is counter productive. In other words, you will burn longer, but you won't increase your delta-V because of the mass penalty. If you really need that much fuel, then add more engines and stages to get rid of the mass, but don't use more than 2 tanks on each engine. Also, use a fuel pipe to feed those 4 radial tanks into the central core. That way, you can fire all your 4 engines for liftoff without using the fuel from the central tanks. Your radial tanks will empty sooner, but you will be going faster and higher by the time you shed them, and your central core stage will still have its tanks full.

The US military budget is 700 billion dollars. Medicare and Social Security are 1.5 trillion dollars. NASA is 17 billion dollars. Anybody who thinks that the US is spending too much money on space has their priorities seriously messed up.

Use Land at Target until you are in the atmosphere. Then switch to Land.

Planning an IVA landing without windows pointing downward? Even the Apollo LM had downward viewing windows.

Because engineers and scientists are too smart to get into politics.

In my rocket designs, Whenever possible, I usually add a RemoTech or MechJeb module to the upper stage so that I can take control and deorbit it. Lower stages take care of themselves. It's a good practice that everything that goes up must come down.

Mods included the CbbP Dragon, the Crewtank, Novapunch, the Erkle Docking mod and some other parts from the old Kosmos pack that were home-resized-and-rebalanced (but with realistic ratios).

It is currently possible to do an interplanetary round trip mission with the current implementation of docking. http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/forum/showthread.php/22571-Two-Vessel-Mission-into-Duna-and-back%21

I guess those things are possible, but they pretty much negate the point of the game. You have 1.000.000x time warp. What else do you need?

delta V is the change in velocity. If you are going 1000m/s and you need to achieve 2500m/s to reach a particular orbit, then the delta-v requirement of your rocket is 1500m/s. In space, actual velocity has little meaning because it always depends on your referential (Kerbin, Kerbol, the Mun...). Delta-v is relative to your current velocity. It is also directly linked to your rocket, and therefore the fuel you are carrying.

Objects are only visible under 2.000m. Geosynchronous orbit is 2.868.400m, so I don't think your challenge is possible.

Kerbals in awe as they contemplate for the first time a beautiful sunset on another world. Inspection of an old rover abandoned there several years earlier.

Very cool !

1) Send a rover with an ISAmap antenna. 2) Put it in a polar orbit around Duna. 3) Do a full scan. 4) Pick a landing spot and land 5) Enjoy.

I have landed unmanned rovers on Eve, Duna and all of Jool's moons, including Bop. I have landed and returned manned missions only to the Mun, Minmus and Duna. The other planets and moons are pretty much out of reach of my technology for manned missions and it's against my ethics to send kerbals on one-way trips.

Now all you need is an engine capable of losing those 1200m/s of delta-V.

Do you think it's a good idea to land on irradiated soil?