Armchair Rocket Scientist

Not sure if anyone has mentioned this yet, but Scott Manley's launcher for Reusable Space Program was very similar:

In real life (and hopefully in future versions of KSP) rockets with multiple gimbaled engines can point them in opposite directions for roll control. I would imagine the roll authority that would provide would easily counteract the torque from moving fuel around (although steering losses would eat up some of the delta v savings).

Thanks to the Oberth Effect, the lower you burn off your fuel, the more you get out of your dV. Even for an escape trajectory, a gravity turn will give you better efficiency, as seen . In addition, getting into a parking orbit gives you much more flexibility on when you start your transfer burn; if you miss your burn window in a 30-something minute orbit, you can try again on the next orbit. If you miss your burn window on the launch pad, you'll have to wait six hours for Kerbin to rotate back into position.For optimal efficiency, you should use a prograde parking orbit, so you can take advantage of the extra velocity from Kerbin's rotation. Then you should perform your transfer burn such that you escape Kerbin travelling in the same direction as Kerbin orbits, giving you a hohmann transfer out to Duna. This will give you the lowest possible velocity relative to Duna when you encounter it. Finally, tweak your encounter to fly as close to Duna as possible, taking advantage of the Oberth Effect again to make your capture burn easier. Then you can perform any aerobraking necessary to get your final orbit. The same principle applies to superior planets (Dres, Jool, and Eeloo). For Eve, the principle is the same, but you want to time your burn to escape Kerbin travelling opposite Kerbin's orbital movement, cancelling out some of your orbital speed relative to Kerbol and fall inward to Eve. Moho is more complicated, because it has such an inclined and eccentric orbit.

While I don't know how heavy your ship was, how much fuel it had, etc, it seems like using that RCS fuel to add to your velocity would have gotten you an extra 200 m/s much faster than just dumping it. Holding H for five minutes vs. WASD for fifteen or something like that.

Hydrocarbons or molten sulfur seem like possibilities for Eve's oceans...

The models look nice, but the Ditto engine is severely underpowered. At the moment the Ditto has: Mass: 5.2 tons Thrust: 520 kN Isp: 330-350 A skipper has: Mass: 4 tons Thrust: 650 kN Isp: 300-350 A cluster of 3 LVT-45s have: Mass: 4.65 tons Thrust: 600 kN Isp: 320-370. To put it another way, the Ditto has a TWR of 10.2. The stock with TWRs like this or lower have a vacuum ISP of 390 or better (with the exception of the ant engine). Likewise, the stock engines with a vacuum ISP of 350 or worse have TWRs of 16.6 or better (again with the exception of the ant engine and the large radial engine, which is the KSP community's least-favorite engine according to this poll). The way I see it, you have two options: 1. Keep the mass and ISP the same, and increase the thrust to 800-1000 kN, creating an intermediate between the Mainsail and the Skipper (in which case the model might have to be a little longer). 2. Reduce the mass to 3-4 tons, increase the ISP to 320-370, and decrease the thrust to 400-500 kN, creating an intermediate between the Poodle and the Skipper.

I used the Docking Struts mod in 0.20, but I don't know whether they still work. http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/docking-strut-2/ Note: simply searching the Spaceport will result in finding a different, broken version.

The lazy method is to select debris from the tracking station and hit "terminate." As mentioned, you can also ditch your final stage with a periapse that intersects Kerbin, then get into your final orbit using your payload. I normally use reusable launch vehicles. The first stage (and any boosters) are suborbital; the second stage has a probe core, batteries, solar panels, parachutes, and Mechjeb (optional). For a vehicle which can land on its parachutes alone, a reserve dV of 500 m/s should be plenty provided you're in an orbit with a low periapse, but you should test you much you need for a safe recovery.

Hmm... that makes much more sense. I'd certainly like to be able to test whether things like skycranes and rovers would function properly in low gravity without going through the process of building a launcher to get them to their faraway destination.

Not even a kerbal engineer would build a spacecraft with a nuclear reactor on board, then use a completely redundant RTG to power the reaction wheels and landing lights. Besides, unless you're a rover or have ion engines, RTGs and solar panels are pretty light... and if you do have rover wheels or ion engines, you probably shouldn't have a nuclear engine in the first place. If you tried to land on an extreme slope, the legs' range of motion wouldn't be enough to keep you upright anyway, and you'd probably slide down the slope, hit a bump, flip over and explode. This would mostly be to keep the crew's pencils from rolling away. Although actually, adjustable-height landing gear would be perfect for getting the docking port on a base to line up. Judging by the diagram, the helium-xenon seems to be like a car's radiator fluid; it transfers heat from the hot reactor to a radiator, but isn't consumed in the process. According to this, somewhat salty liquid ammonia is blue in color. Laythe ought to have active volcanoes or cryovolcanos, which could introduce upwellings of hot brine to the ocean. Once the water froze and sank, dissolved ions would be left in the ocean. After billions of years, you get a salty blue ammonia ocean.

So, I have several ideas for relatively small adjustments to the properties of some parts. I decided to put them all in the same thread to avoid cluttering up the forum. #1: Make the nuclear engine generate power even when inactive, and not consume oxidizer. As mentioned by this site: http://ares.jsc.nasa.gov/HumanExplore/Exploration/EXLibrary/docs/MarsRef/addendum/A5.htm#A5.3 "The solid core NTR propulsion system represents a "rich source of energy" in that it contains substantially more uranium-235 fuel in its reactor core than it consumes during its primary propulsion maneuvers. By configuring the NTR engine as a "bimodal" system, abundant electrical power can also be generated for a variety of spacecraft needs. During power generation, the reactor core operates in essentially an "idle mode" with a thermal power output of ~100 kilowatts. The reactor thermal energy is subsequently removed and routed to a turbo-alternator-compressor Brayton power conversion unit using a helium-xenon working fluid, as shown in Figure A5-6. A space radiator system rejects waste heat and also reduces decay heat propellant loss following propulsive burns." In other words, atomic rockets have a nice hot nuclear reactor sitting there which can generate all the power your ship needs. Also, they don't actually need any oxidizer. It's possible to inject oxidizer into the exhaust of an NTR to increase the thrust (usually called a "LANTR"), but if our nuclear engines did that they wouldn't be getting an ISP of 800 and their TWR would be better (even accounting for Kerbal engines having lower TWRs than real ones). #2: Make Laythe's atmosphere provide fuel to air-breathing engines instead of oxidizer. Also, add "oxidizer-only" fuel tanks. Realistically, even with tidal heating and greenhouse effect Laythe should be too cold for liquid water; its ocean is more likely to be liquid ammonia (and its crust water ice). This also means that strong oxidizers would be horribly unstable in its atmosphere. However, methane is a perfectly reasonable substance to have in the atmosphere of an ammonia-ocean world, and it's what Kerbal rocket engines use for fuel! #3: If a craft with landing legs touches down on sloped or uneven ground, have the legs automatically adjust to keep the vehicle vertical. This could be toggled on and off. When active, this feature would cause the uphill legs to partially retract (but not beyond the point where part of the vehicle would collide with the ground.

As someone who launches a lot of unmanned craft, I second this. Sifting through a bunch of communication and navigation satellites in the tracking station to find your probes can be annoying. For that matter, it would be nice to have a separate craft type for launch vehicles.

So... basically, you're suggesting getting rid of sandbox mode? That's up there with "require an always online connection to play" and "make parachutes DLC for an extra $9.99" in terms of angering the player base.

This seems as good a place for a first post as any... Going for style points. Launch to 80 km+ orbit, land by KSC, Launch to 80 km+ orbit again, land by KSC again. Oh yeah, and every part of the vehicle can make a safe landing (assuming none of the boosters collide or something else silly like that). The Vehicle Stage Separation during first launch That big stage doesn't fall apart when its chutes deploy. Orbit #1... Landing #1... Launch #2. I had extra fuel, so I decided to launch into a retrograde orbit this time. Passing 80 km again. Coming home... Safe landing #2! Not quite as close... Jeb contemplates the long walk back to the Astronaut Complex. Anyway, I believe that's 350 points + a whole bunch of style points.