Jimbimbibble

Here's my go at Rocket Science 101. I achieved an orbital velocity of 105.3km/s. Launch! My ship has about 21km/s of dV. I made it to LKO with almost enough fuel for escape remaining in that mainsail. I'm combining a bi-elliptical transfer with a powered gravity assist from Jool. It didn't take very much dV to lower my solar Pe thanks to Jool. Half-way through my Pe burn, still under 101km/s but I have 15min to go until out of fuel. Engine shutdown! Mission accomplished. Still going like a bat out of hell past Eelo.

I believe MechJeb has an aerobraking calculator. You might try using that but you're going to need to get your velocity to within 0.1m/s or less.

But that's alright because most of the ascent can and probably will be at low speed because of the thick atmosphere.

Yeah, you're probably burning it with the SAS, especially if you landed on uneven ground. Your design should be working.

Jet engines actually don't work on Eve because it doesn't have an oxygen atmosphere. However, the Kethane mod has a Kethane-fueled jet engine that works on Eve.

The challenge is: Rocket Science 101. You must achieve an orbital velocity of at least 101km/s. Yes, that's kilometers. MechJeb, KER, and similar mods are allowed for information provided they don't control your ship. Besides that, stock only no cheats and haxoring. I don't have time to upload pictures right now, but I'll do it later today. During my attempt, I got >105km/s with a creative bi-elliptical transfer to make a low sun pass and a 30min burn at Pe. I was still going 51km/s by the time I passed Eelo's orbit!

Alright! I got this one. I built my rover in the SP hangar and was too lazy to move it to the VAB so I just launched from the runway. Launch! This thing is unbalanced... Minimus transfer. Malmal has landed. His rocket is beside the rover. 824.5m/s the wheels are still on the ground, but Malmal is having second thoughts. 880.0m/s the wheels have just lifted off and Malmal realizes he's not coming back. Yep. Definitely not coming back! If he had the right phase angle, he might be able to land on Duna... I'm not sure how to score myself because liftoff occurred somewhere 824.5 and 880.0. Maybe 850 is reasonable?

The challenge says "into a low Kerbin orbit, AP<250km". It does not say it has to be a stable orbit and there is no Pe requirement, therefore you beat the challenge.

While we are all interested in phallistic missile technology, the current challenge is infiniglider. In order to post a challenge, you must complete the current challenge.

FYI, infiniglider is impossible with FAR. Deflecting controls with FAR increases drag and creates no phantom forces.

In HORSE you typically have to make the shot in order for it to be valid. However, I do agree that this one is pretty easy. Maybe, the rules can be changed so that the poster has 24hrs to provide proof? That would give us a chance to try it before seeing the answer.

Here's my go at putting kerbs on the VAB. Launch! Deploying Parachutes. Victory! Ok, so if I understand the rules correctly, it's my turn to post a challenge. The challenge is: BASS ACKWARDS. You must land a plane in the opposite direction that it took off from. This is not to be construed as landing on/from the other side of the runway. The plane must actually fly and land backwards under aerodynamic lift from wings, not under engine power or parachutes. Oxidizer and parachutes are completely forbidden as is VTOL. Here's my attempt. Takeoff! Reversing the engines. Notice that the cockpit is backwards. My controls are reversed too! I forgot that would happen. Landing! Notice the plane is pointing retrograde on the navball.

I see that you're not opposed to using mods, so I would suggest using Kerbal Attachment System. It includes winches and other parts you can use to help you lower the rover to the surface. It's also just a really cool mod.

Go with the 1.25m parts only. You honestly don't need to use any 2.5m parts for an Eve lander if you're only flying with 1 kerbal, so the bigger parts only complicate things and force you to use less efficient engines.

If you're concerned about electricity usage, just deploy some solar panels.

The physics engine only simulates objects within 2.3km, so having a lot of ships doesn't really cause lag. Anything outside that radius is treated as a single point on rails, which takes very little CPU time. Your idea about using the persistent file as a backup works exactly as you said. The ships folder is not needed to do this because the persistence file contains all the information about active ships. You just wouldn't have anything in the VAB. You can even trade the file with people to do a multiplayer-like thing. Just make sure that you have all the required part files when you load or it will delete any ships that have missing parts.

One thing you also might consider is using Kethane for your Jool station. You could mine Kethane from Vall or Pol so you don't need to send a lot of refueling missions. You can probably land and take off an orange tank from Pol using no more than 2 LV-N's.

Playing probes first with RemoteTech 2 installed could be an interesting combination. It would definitely be harder than stock.

G is the same, but the masses of everything are different from the real world counterparts, so the specific constant (G*m) for a planet or moon would be different.

The only way to do it in 1 burn is to have the planet lined up perfectly, which could take a very long time (or not happen at all). You would either have to hit Bop exactly at one of the nodes with your current inclination or combine your plane change and transfer burn. Both options suck unless you can do precise calculations and there is no mod for it that I am aware of. Just make your plane change first and then go for intercept. You'll lose some dV but it's worth avoiding the hassle, especially since your orbit is so high.

If you can't right click it, there isn't a way to do the transfer in stock ksp.

Come in no lower than 25km (your Pe before entering) and maintain an angle of attack somewhere around 10-20 degrees based on the design. The lift from the wings will allow you to skip a few times and stay in the upper atmosphere for a while and that should make reentry survivable. Also, you will likely stall and have an unplanned staging event if your angle of attack is too high, so be careful.

Great point. Kerbal Engineer is a must. One thing to point out, though, is that your lander could be a lot smaller. You can get it under 500t if you use 1.25m parts and cut weight in every possible way.

Better yet, just grab all the science, store it in the pod, and decouple everything else. You can do that now in .23 by right clicking on an instrument.

To clarify, wings can never directly increase your velocity, but the reason you get so much more dV with spaceplanes is that you can gain a lot of altitude with an air breathing engine before switching to rockets. It's the engine efficiency, not lift that gives you the benefit. Wings add mass and drag, so don't add a bunch of them. Just use what you need to get up to 20-25km and let the rockets take you the rest of the way.