AlamoVampire

i do not recall seeing sepratrons in the stock stuff...

Okay, I know how to make a rocket that stages and can dump external stages, BUT, my question is about those external stages and how to make them kick away from the rocket as they depart. See, when I dump my boosters they just sorta stay together and slow down as the parent ship flies away not really doing much more than sliding off like a glove. What I am after is like this: how do you make them kick away like this, or like this:

Jebediah on a ballistic re-entry after losing his ship and after some how surviving the re-entry he tries his best to slow down, sadly was not enough.

thats a good question. I know that when launches went to plan, the SRB's splashed down like 6-8 minutes post launch and were taken ashore by 2 ships, but the day of the disaster NASA had no choice but to abort the SRB's. Footage of which was only recently declassified in the last few years.

actually, yes we could have. not the shuttle, you are right about that, the next one up was still in the VAB I think, but, the Soyuz takes considerably less time to prepare and Columbia had enough supplies on hand to hang out while they got it ready. Keep in mind, at this point we already had the ISS up there and Soyuz/Shuttle were dock compatible IIRC. The few days that lead up to the disaster, Morton Thiokol were screaming at NASA that it was way way too cold to launch, and that cold caused the failure in the O-Ring, which was the problem as it was the O-Rings failure that provided the SRB enough lateral thrust to snap the docking points of the SRB - External Tank and force the SRB to nose over into the Tank, which ruptured it and sent the fuels into the exhaust causing that god awful explosion. Yes, it was a symptom of a larger issue, but that day, the O-Ring WAS the leading cause. That and a perception that they had to do anything after so many scrubs to get that mission into space.

simple to build: Probodobodyne OKTO at the core, turn on 8 times symmetry, grab yourself a TT-70 Radial Decoupler, and build out until it covers that huge circle in the center of the VAB. then, strut that thing like mad. each row gets a strut, then, come from the probe core to the first TT-70 and strut. then from that one to the one its holding and strut. do this on each row on 8x symmetry and bam huge web. then hook a rockomax stage sep to the core and fit that huge orange tank under it. set up asparagus staging on the 6 tanks all with mainsails and go for it. Key note: DO NOT link those tt-70's in the web into 1 massive stage. each set of 8 <each row basically> is its own stage. make sure you track where your launch supports are as well as engines and go for it!

What is truly sad about the Shuttle's 2 fatal failures is that BOTH were 100% preventable. We may have STILL lost the Columbia itself, but not her crew had they just tasked a satellite to snap pictures of her in orbit. They could have then either launched an emergency mission to rendezvous with it and take the crew down in multiple missions then sent columbia on a fatal reentry or increased orbit up to the ISS to try to make repairs with stuff sent up on a progress ship, either way, we messed up by not checking out Columbia when it was clear it took a massive hit during ascent. As to Challenger? Had the Shuttle Program just listened to Morton Thiocol and NOT launched as they were protesting them to NOT do that day, perhaps we could have NOT lost Challenger. A simple O ring got too cold and failed to contain the fury of an SRB. Those 2 disasters aside, it was a relatively successful vessel.

Okay, I want to ask a stupid question in this thread: where do you see how much your ship weighs in or is that a mod? btw, this may seem counter intuitive but, sometimes more is less, you can end up in a nasty circle of: needs more fuel to lift what you have, but, more fuel weighs more, which needs more fuel to lift, and around it goes :S

I am losing my mind with docking. I really do not want to run MechJeb if I can avoid it. I figure it is best if I learn how to do this whole rendezvous and docking thing before using mods. The thing is, no matter what I do, I simply cannot get my ships to meet up. I have read the advice here on this thread and many like it, I have watched every video I can find, even the only Blizzy linked, but nothing works. Still not sure how I did it the first time :S Here is what I am doing, and btw, this is the case whether I use the 1 man mercury/gemini looking command module or the 3 man Apollo looking one. Here is what I am doing, step for step. 1. Launch first ship into a stable 0 degree inclination Equitorial orbit between 150,000m - 200,000m circular orbit. Depending if I use the shielded dock, I will open it, then move to step 2. 2. Time Warp into my launch window with the target ship in the west about 30-40 degrees behind me. 3. Launch the same exact ship again so I know I have the proper pair of docking ports for a hoped for rendezvous and docking. I shoot for the same exact orbit, all be it a lower one. 4. Take a few moments to clean up the orbit and even it out if needed. 5. change to the larger orbital map 6. Set up a node to find the nearest intersection of my 2 ships. I try for an encounter that is 0.5 to 1.5Km in distance. These first 6 steps tend to go off like clock work with 0 hiccups. It is when I try to execute the burn for step 6 things get... interesting. 6A. Do said burn to alter my orbit into the projected one. 7. Hit X to cut my engines and look for the green circle in the sky. 8. Once I spot that bugger I do every single thing I can to arrest my speed in relation to the target, but this 9.999 times out of 10 ends up de-orbiting me, even on the slowest settings on my engines. Once managed to de-orbit myself trying to slow down with my RCS thrusters. Only had 4 on the ship too. 9. Get frustrated and hit alt-f12 to give unlimited fuel and RCS fuel. 10. Proceed to turn into a ballistic missile that can never achieve anything resembling a docking. By that I mean, that IF by some chance I do not de-orbit myself, I end up zipping past my target and cannot slow myself in time, which turns into a never ending circle of passes as those poor kerbals on the target vessel watch a frustrated ship cartoon it up. Any help?

2 things: 1: Never tell the KSP Program Managers they are too crazy to be rocket scientists, because they will make an absurd bet that they can build a flying spider web. 2: Never take that bet, because THIS happens: Side note, that probe in the middle? It is in close orbit of Kerbol after shedding the spider web and making a huge mess! http://img194.imageshack.us/img194/6199/3z9.png' alt='3z9.png'>

Right to Left: Bob Kerman, Jebediah Kerman and Bill Kerman, first Kerbol Rise on the Mun ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bob, Jebediah and Bill stand transfixed by their lander as Kerbol bathes them, their lander and their flag in sunlight. <left to right>

yes that is a shameless plug Blizzy78, but a useful plug

it might at that! I did notice when I launched mine, it had a slight issue with going BOOM on one of the stages during launch and caused me to only be suborbital when I took those pictures

Sojourner: I ran into the same issue, still no clue how to fix it, but, perhaps moving them further apart may solve it, will have to try that at some point myself when I do another docking. Secondly: Setting the docking port as a target actually serves a purpose w/out mechjeb. It lets you know just how far you are from the docking port you want to dock to. While that sounds obvious and maybe even condescending to say that, it is honest truth that knowing exactly how far away and how fast you are compared to that thing will solve many headaches down the road or atleast that is how it feels right now. Also, having watched many docking tutorial YT vids I see them set the port as target each time and I recall not seeing a mechjeb related docking tutorial, not saying they dont exist because I do not know for sure, so, wont say it.

Okay, so, I got a bit bored, and thought, everyone is making the Space Shuttle from NASA, but, the Russian Federal Space Agency is not getting any love, so, I showed some love! Behold my attempt at a <fairly decent looking I think> Soyuz space craft. In the pictures below you will see a few stages of the craft, all sans engine bell and liquid fuel tank for accuracy sake, but, they were there for launching XD This took several edits on the forum to get this as you see it XD Soyuz. in order on the image, left to right: Orbital Module, Descent Module, Instrument Service Module ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Soyuz after Jettisoning the Instrument Service Module ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Soyuz after jettisoning the Instrument Service Module on the right side of the image, and the Orbital Module on the right. with the descent module in the dead center ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Soyuz Descent Module under 8 parachutes. If you are wondering, i added the 8 chutes for pure symmetry, and it makes a full deployed chute descent at 2.5 m/s!! Hope you enjoyed the pics!

legs are too short but that engine bell held up XD

Does Jebediah Kerban know about this? all seriousness: WOW they are tiny!

interesting SSTO, but, it looks very capable never the less!

I am gonna need to try to update my keybindings for RCS translation. someone mentioned arrows with the right ctrl/shift keys for some of the translational moves.

and hopefully many happy landings on every rock I can find XD

Tank Buddy: thank you for those steps, I shall give those a try tonight. Blizzy78: it was a royal pain in my backside. No matter what I did I could not slow myself to less than 0.1 meter per second relative to my target. once I got that slow, it was hard as catching snow in summer, but finally managed to lock them together. I think I need more practice, but, I shall start by checking your link out. Thanks to both of you for the information! edit: Blizzy78: awesome video. I soo did some of what you show in that video, but, some of it was me not being used to the physics of space and, well, turning my ship into what amounts to a real expensive ballistic missile lol. So do not need that much thrust let alone keeping it CONSTANT XD I need to work on my docking for sure, and your video should help me out a ton. thank you!

side note: achieved docking for the first time, and oh my gawd it was a pain! had to resort to unlimited RCS/Fuel to do it :S but, it taught me stuff, so thats good yes?

I just landed on the Mun with a test lander, what could be better?

OH MY GOD!!!! I DID IT!!! I LANDED ON MUN!!!!!! yes, its just a PROBE lander to theory test my stuff, but its on MUN!!!! this taught me something: needs: MORE legs, LONGER ones too XD

update: found it. now i feel like a kerbal, full of courage, but just stupid enough to strap myself to a few blutonium reactors XD