HeadHunter67

...except for whether any of it works, or how well it works... that sort of thing. Kidney dialysis is one of the more significant technological developments of the program, enabling people with an otherwise terminal disease to live longer, productive lives and perhaps live long enough for a transplant. The space program continues to pay off in technological developments that eventually become things that impact and improve our every day lives.

Indeed - I don't need a better computer to run KSP, I just need to be able to fully utilize the system resources I already have. Certainly a 2 GB video card, 8 GB of RAM and a quad core should be sufficient. I am confident that we'll see it in development eventually.

Thanks so much for the explanation and advice! I think that helps me to understand how it all goes together. I've managed to cobble together a similar craft, though I reinforced the area between the tanks with modular girder segments and slapped some panels on them, just for an aesthetic surface onto which I could mount instruments and utilities. I also put a Adapter 02 on the bottom between the bottom of the TR-18 and the descent 909. I'm looking forward to testing it out - I took it out to the pad to make sure all the accessories worked - ladders are properly placed, lights, solar panels and comm dish look good. Separation works fine and the ascent module can take off even in Kerbin gravity (with the help of some Sepatrons), but the descent stage is, of course, far too heavy to take off from the Kerbin surface with only a 909 to power it. The only problem I'm encountering so far is with the recommended struts - maybe it's due to the slight differences in my lander design but I cannot seem to run the struts past it from the CM/SM to the SIV-B. I resolved the issue by putting cubic struts on the sides and running a pair if struts between each, but the ship still flexes more than I like.

I just have a few questions about the lander construction and the staging - particularly between the command module and the lander, but also of the lander's ascent and descent stages. I have been trying to construct something similar without much luck. Am I correct in seeing that the stack separator is the only thing between the CM's engine and the LM's docking port? Will everything assemble correctly in that way? More importantly, I continue to be confused by the center of the LM descent stage and how it separates. Does the descent stage have its own engine, separate from the 909 of the ascent stage? What is the hollow circular thing in the center of the descent stage? I think once I understand how those fit together, I can finally give this a try. Thanks in advance for any advice or help.

Even more than your amazing pictures, I am most moved by your story. The history of our space program has been a series of seemingly ordinary men and women accomplishing the most extraordinary feats - moving mankind forward one giant leap at a time.

Kudos to all those of you who landed at the Armstrong Memorial, especially those who did so in realistic Apollo-style craft! I'm not that experienced yet, only been playing for a couple weeks - so I did the best I could, and freehanded a trip to Minmus and back. Safe landing, safe return home and safe splashdown.

I'm mostly interested in the craft file for the rover, but the delivery vehicle is of interest, too. Seeing how others put things together is helping me to understand how to innovate in my own designs.

Those are nifty little rovers, and the craft is ingenious! Would you be willing to share the files for those of us without your engineering brilliance?

Yet... you married her! On the topic, the first thing my wife said when she saw the KSP "Munar Footage" trailer was "they remind me of Invader Zim", so I guess there's something to that, after all.

Figure out the time for an orbit by looking at your periapsis or apoapsis marker just after you pass it. Multiply that by the number of orbits you need, and when the MET timer in the upper left passes that number, you are on your final orbit.

Not that they will help until the last moment, but headlights might work. If you aren't opposed to MechJeb you can use it to set KSC as your landing target (you needn't use the autopilot if you don't want, but you can still get the purple indicator).

Here is the flag for my space agency, Kerbal Rocket And Space Headquarters (KRASH): It used to have a black star field background, it looked nice as a picture but that didn't work so well in the game. So I went with the gray "static" background because I imagine that's what the viewers at home would be seeing after that "landing".

Here at the Kerbal Rocket And Space Headquarters, we have been extensively testing a new lander design. While other space programs are trying to put a Kerbal on the surface of the Mün, we here at KRASH have successfully put a Kerbal on the surface of Kerbin! (Previously, the best we could do was get a Kerbal in a tracksuit up a ladder). The extra struts should help reduce the impact of hard landings, where the capsule has the tendency to uncouple. It's got a fair amount of fuel but in testing, consumed it all in ascent and then landing. It is expected to perform better in low-gravity settings, but there's really only one way to test that...

As for staging, I tend to drop the first stage right before I begin my gravity turn. Depending on the rocket, my second stage is dropped after I circularize my orbit. I find that this makes planning maneuver nodes more effective, because a projected burn can be way off if you have to drop a stage mid-burn. If I find I don't have quite enough fuel to complete a necessary maneuver before destaging, it's likely a sign that my rocket design may need a mall improvement.

I misspoke. More accurately, the engine generates power to the capsule battery while it is burning (as I mentioned, like the fuel cells on our modern spacecraft).

One would expect that communication is most of the reason a probe core uses power to begin with, and given that command pods generate electricity, it would seem reasonable that this is a byproduct of the fuel cells within them. The Space Shuttle, for instance. It's not a major issue to me, it just seemed odd that a cosmetic plugin would have an in-game impact. It's certainly still worth using, though I'm glad I'll be able to toggle off power drain.

Right... because it's all in my own mind that this looks like Africa: It's one thing to imagine a correlation in shape or form from something natural, it's another entirely to miss parallels in something designed by a human being, and its apparent influences. I'm not talking about seeing the Madonna in my morning toast.

Fair enough. Like I said, to each his own, there's no right or wrong answer and your points are good. With the Crew Manifest plugin you could give Kerbals different names that don't have "Kerman" after them at all - and thus have some Kerbalized "Russian" sounding names. That's what the OP was after in the first place, and I think it can add some depth and immersion, not to mention fun, to the experience. As for the bias of so many Kerbonauts having "Kerman" as a surname - maybe there's a lot of nepotism going on in the space agency. Or maybe it's just the family profession! For all we know, Gene is father to Bill, Bob and Jeb - which is why they wanted to go into space, to be like Dad. As we've seen here, imagination allows each of us a way to easily explain our game worlds as we see them.

I agree with Draeath - there's not really a sensible reason for chatter to cause power drain. All we're doing is listening to what would normally have been going on anyhow.

Yes, in fact, there is: http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/18-1-kerbal-crew-manifest/

This is such an immersive and entertaining plug-in. Now that I've used it, I wouldn't be able to play without it! I certainly hope Squad integrates this into the final product. Thanks so much!

Because the Kerbals in the game tend to have first names like Bill and Bob and Jeb... so I'm pretty sure those aren't Kerbal surnames. And the name "Wernher von Kerman" pretty much proves that. And you can be sure that Kerman isn't everyone's given name, unless the KSA has a serious hiring bias... So, given that there's at least one canonical Kerbal with an undeniably European name convention, I think that answers your question and supports my point nicely enough.

I was attempting a Minmus landing after watching Scott Manley's video, but I still haven't got the hang of navigation. It all looked pretty simple, but the orbit of the Mun threw off my Minmus encounter trajectory. Some quick thinking allowed me to convert it into a Munar encounter, but I used too much fuel getting into Mun orbit. I ran out of fuel at about 500m from the surface, and hit going about 26 m/s. Bounced a couple times, sheared off my engine and came to rest upright. Well, it was a landing that Jeb could walk away from, so it must be "good", right? (Though it's a LONG walk home...)

Have you, um... looked at the Kerbin map? One cannot fail to notice the geographic similarities. The main KSP spaceport sure looks like it's in a place shaped like East Africa, for instance.

If that were the case, lower verbal scores on the SAT would correlate with higher math scores. They don't, and I'd be very interested in anything that would scientifically support that ridiculous theory. I've never understood the people who think that the Internet (the world's predominant form of modern communication) should somehow be exempt from proper grammar and spelling. When else do such people use written communication? Quite likely, only on a job application - and any job that requires you to apply with pen and paper isn't likely a job for educated professionals at any rate. I'm not about to believe that these people suddenly write and spell better when they're not online. Communication and language are habits - one will tend to communicate the same way in all situations, unless there are rules or customs that specifically prohibit this. That's not the case here. As for the game? I don't think anyone's better or worse for doing the math, or not doing the math, or letting MechJeb figure it out, or whatever. It all depends on what one considers "fun" and what one is hoping to get from their experience. I stopped playing EVE Online because it became less and less like a game, and more and more like an engineering job. If that's what I wanted to do , I could get paid to do it instead of paying $15 a month for the privilege.