Superfluous J

I don't know about space ships but aircraft do it all the time. It's SOP when you land earlier than you thought, and therefore have more fuel than you would normally upon landing.

Interesting idea. If I ever had problems with separating radial stacks, I'd probably give this a try. But I seem to be one of the lucky ones who doesn't even try that hard and never gets interstack collisions. I thought it was because I used the Stock Bugfix modules but IIRC that particular bug was fixed in 1.0 so we're all playing with the same decouplers now.

I can't help but read this thread's title in Jerry Seinfeld's voice. "What is the DEAL with MARS? I mean, are those MOONS or ASTEROIDS? The WORLD wants to KNOW."

Not to spoil the next episode, but this not only isn't entirely accurate, it doesn't work - at least not perfectly - due to KSP's penchant for lying about what will happen to your ship when you spend any amount of time near an SOI boundary. Step 3 isn't right, you want to eject at about the midway point between the -grade vectors and the radial vectors. And you also probably want to add a couple m/s of dV to your ejection so you pass through the SOI boundary cleanly.

That ship is really large. You don't need mainsails (and surely don't need 5!) to reach Minmus with anything less than a Grand Tour mothership, and even then it may be too much. Make your rescue ship a lot smaller, and the lifter's size will decrease in kind. I see you have KER. Build a smaller lifter (I see you're using Terriers, they're great. Try to make your lander with only 1 Terrier) and then build a lifter/transfer vessel RESTRICTING YOURSELF TO 1.25M PARTS. Get your m/s about to what you have on that guy, and marvel at how much smaller the new ship is. Just remember to not sacrifice control or power generation and you'll be fine. Regarding flipping, Mainsails are very heavy and the front of your rocket is a bit draggy. Regarding the side boosters exploding, the only thing can think is that perhaps the mainsails are so powerful that they're causing some sort of stress breakage in the struts or decouplers, once you toss the first 2 and lower the total mass of the rocket significantly. Regarding landing sideways on Minmus, I feel for you We've all been there (I still do it). A well-made rocket should be albe to right itself on Minmus though, without using the engines. Just rotate it with WASDQE so it's upright. I'm assuming you stranded 3 guys on Minmus? You may have bitten off more than you can currently chew. I suggest making a one-man rescue vehicle to get your space legs, and then a 2-man rescue vehicle to pick up the other 2 guys. KSP is a game of (a near-infinite amount of) baby steps.

Like a YouTuber would MIND a link to his channel My schedule is best described as "Sporadic." Generally every 3rd or 4th day, but usually newer series get quicker releases for the first few episodes, and semi frequently (though less in Winter) life happens and I don't release as much, sometimes going a week without a video. My ego tells me this is why my numbers remain low

Cheaper launches!

I'll be doing it next episode. I "figured it out" by fiddling with maneuver nodes for about an hour (thanks Precisenode!) I think it comes down to 3 things: 1) Eject from Kerbin at the AN/DN of Aptur. 2) Use about 760m/s (from 100km orbit). Ideally, one more m/s than you need to escape. 3) Set it up so you eject on whatever side Aptur is on when you eject. (This one may be dodgy, fiddle with the maneuver node a bit). Then when you come into Aptur, you should be basically going its speed, so it only takes a few m/s to get captured, and a couple hundred to get a nice tight orbit. I think the maneuver node said 380 to come to a complete stop. Note: I haven't done any of this yet, it was all just plotted with maneuver nodes. However, I'm comfortable enough plotting multiple maneuver node plans to be sure I could nail them.

I started a new series on YouTube, featuring this planet pack. I've just scratched the surface and so far I'm super impressed with it. But I'm not here (just) to pimp my video. I'd also like to say thank you. KSP was getting a bit stale, and I was stuck in a "already done it" rut. Well, tonight I nosed to the grindstone and figured out exactly how to get from Kerbin to Aptur. It felt good to not know something again, and to have to actually figure something out. I'd feared those days were behind me I'm not sure it's the best way, but it costs less than 1km/s of dV from Kerbin orbit to Aptur orbit so I'm happy!

Yikes that's terrible. I hope you and your family are and stay okay!

Yup. (I needed one more character)

Very cool ship. Reminds me of the Gunstar from Last Starfighter.

True, but I've always gotten by with placing things with 2- or 3- symmetry when I wanted - for example - 6 or 12 similar stacks that - for whatever reason - I can't tweak the way I want them after I've added them with symmetry. The classic example is asparagus staging, which is fallen out of favor since 1.0 but I still use sometimes. I've always just added the radial stacks 2 at a time with 2-symmetry and never even considered trying to add 6 at once and then split them later. Gizmos and snapping makes doing it even easier now actually, because your stacks can always be exactly the same height without much fuss.

Having been on the wrong end of a bomb scare I can admit it's easy to go overboard, though I don't know any of the particulars in this case. I also have enough life experience to know that - in general - people can be jerks.

A new series is here a new series is here!

I started a new series!

I actually feel bad for having never used it. I'm not even 100% sure the mechanics of it. It's one of the very very few stock parts I can actually say that about. In fact, the only other part I can think of in the same category is the asteroid telescope, and that's not even stock (yet).

The absolute best thing about this mod is how quickly you forget it's installed. Until you play an instance of KSP without it.

The real question is how many of the answers could a monkey be pedantic about.

Better than that there is (as usual) a mod to help you. Install Enhanced Navball and you can both resize the navball and slide it left and right along the bottom of the screen.

I didn't mind the wording on that one. As someone who records himself talking and editing those files on a near daily basis for a disturbingly long time, I knew it instantly. The only question (other than the Polio one) that gave me any pause at all was the altitude / boiling water one. I COULD have figured it out based on air pressure but instead went with the fact that all cooking instructions say to boil longer at higher altitudes, which implies that boiling water is not so hot up there If I'd thought for a few more seconds, I'd have remembered that room temperature water will boil in a vacuum, too, but I can't control the way my brain decides to dole out data.

HDD. When a multi-terabyte SSD won't bankrupt me, I'll switch. So hopefully my next computer.

Yup. all I knew was it was NOT Einstein, Newton, or Curie.

This is why Imgur needs an automated gif creator.

Oh geez if you want to start a flamewar just suggest MechJeb.