Dave Kerbin

Every action has an opposite and equal reaction. When the Kerbal pushes away from the ladder it also imparts a small force on the ship. Unless the ladder is somehow perfectly lined up with the center of mass that force causes it to rotate.

Mission 13 Make something up for Bill In theory mission 13 would be Lemgun's and likely a Mun mission since he hasn't gone, but slight changes in the flight rotation have been tolerated up until now in the name of mission success. At the same time Bill is also up for a mission before the rotation is begun again and he probably wants to go to the Mun and mess that up. I have no desire to waste an expensive Mun rocket for Bill to screw up lucky #13 so in light of the positive results from Pod #3 of the just completed biome mission I've created a special followup just for Bill, since there was one instrument that Pod #3 didn't carry. This mission will take all of Bill's considerable skill to complete. He might even die, we hope. After a long journey Bill manages to complete his task, to collect a surface sample of 'water' for the KSP.

Mission 12 Biome Explorer Retry Geofmin was in charge of fixing the biome explorer's launch system. As it turns out he just took the Mun 2 launch system and added the struts that had been discussed. He calls this a 'subassembly'. The struts certainly fixed the solid booster stability issues and a polar course was entered with staging proceeding as on previous Mun launches. The first issue came with the orbital booster. It was known in advance that this would have more delta-v then needed, and would likely need to be cut off and dropped before stable orbit was achieved to prevent it from becoming space junk. However what was not anticipated was the thrust issue. The LV-909 just didn't have enough power to get into stable orbit fast enough. Since the ship itself carried over 1000m/s of delta-v Geofmin decided to shutdown and dump the orbital booster ASAP, slightly increasing the thrust to weight. It was still not enough but with some changes in the direction of thrust it managed to put the PE at 52km, enough that the ship could easily coast through one orbit without significant degradation. A burn was planned at the AP, but due to a continuing manuveur the planned node was altered and when executed sent the ship in the wrong direction, lowering PE to 40km instead of raising it. More fuel had to be expended to bring PE back up to 70km, leaving too little fuel left to circularize. This left the explorer with an elliptical path with a small window during each orbit in which to deorbit. In theory any almost any point on the planet can be reached, but it could take a day of waiting for it to line up. With the situation accepted Geofmin got down to the task of landing each of his 4 biome exploration pods. Each pod is a self contained science lab designed to deorbit and study a Kerbin biome. Power for the probes descent is provided by a battery, though while connected to the mothership all batteries are recharged by the ships solar panels. Once all 4 probes have been landed the mothership, which contains its own science equipment in addition to Geofmin, are slated to make a polar landing to study the ice. The first pod is released and after lining up with it's intended drop zone, using a maneuver node keyed to 114m/s, its one time solid boosters are fired. After the long delay from Bill's failed mission, where he ejected or burned up all the pods without using even one, everyone had forgotten that the pods had to be fired backwards - the boosters are pointed 'up' with relation to the pod's control system. As a result the first pod was ejected in a permanent orbit, to run out of power in less then 2 hours. What science could be done in orbit and transmitted on the batteries charge was done, it had never been designed to transmit data from every instrument, just send temperature and pressure readings on the way day. Pod number 2 is able to deorbit, but overshoots its target landing zone, the desert, thanks in part to the difficulties imposed by the elliptical orbit. It lands in the grasslands north of the desert (on the continent with the big impact crater) earning about 20 science. Pod 3 is released but some time is spent waiting for the orbit to line up a landing zone. Belatedly it is realized that the pod is running on internal power and the landing zone is changed to the intended target of pod 4, the water. This returns some interesting results for 30 science. As the mothership's potential deorbit zone begins to pass into night, an attempt is made to make a long shot at its edge, tossing the final pod over the polar caps toward a mountain range. However this low altitude pass proves too much resistance and it lands near the edge of the polar region. 30 more science is returned. Finally the polar landing is begun. With limited fuel and a poor orbital profile a lot of guesswork goes into the burn. Fortunately things turn out well and the pod lands close to the pole. Despite repeating some of the experiments from pod 4 30 science is returned. Ultimately the mission is a partial success with over 100 science returned. Not a lot, but enough to keep things moving. If the Mun launch is to be reused the orbit booster will probably need an engine refit to help it push heavier cargo into orbit rather then being used as a long burn transit stage for a Mun lander. Also even with Gamma Correction turned on Afterburner is is still recording really dark images that can't be corrected in post-process because MJPEG has already discarded anything it deems too dark to see in the name of compression.

No, I don't think you can return without pushing. I can't clearly it perfectly, but I'm estimating that it weighs about 2.99t from what I can see (you can switch to the orbit map [M] and click the little i on the right to see the spacecraft's current mass and stats). From that I would estimate total delta-v of 174m/s, which is not to overcome the 242m/s required to escape Minmus sphere of influence. However in theory you could make it back - 174m/s would be enough to get you into a high suborbital flight at which time you could eject the engines, go EVA and push. However this is not an easy thing to do, especially since your first EVA will need to stabilize your orbit and then you'll need to contend with some difficult navigation to push out of Minmus SOI at the right time using only the EVA jets.

Right click, drag, this rotates the view. Mouse wheel zooms.

I agree, simple is the way to go. That's why I don't go heavy on the asparagus staging for untested manned rockets, it's a bit of advanced technique and if you build it wrong your ship will lose control and either spin or flip over. Onion staging, with or without fuel lines, works well enough and requires almost no previous experience to build and fly correctly. Oh, and since no one explained it for grumphie here is what we are talking about with 'asparagus' and 'onion' staging. Let's assume we have a rocket composed of 5 engines and 5 fuel tanks - one engine+tank is in the center, the 4 others are attached to the sides. In 'flat' staging (I don't know if there is a proper term for this) you would burn all 5 engines and then they would all be released at once, letting the whatever stage is above them start. This kind of staging means you need to carry new engines for each stage, and until that stage is reached the engine is dead weight. In 'Onion' staging the 4 outer engines are dropped first. To accomplish this there are fuel lines leading from the outer fuel tanks to the inner ones. This means that the 5 rockets are initially using fuel from the 4 outer tanks only. The inner tank remains full. When the outer tanks are empty they and the outer engines are dropped and the inner engines continues on with the full center fuel tank. You can also make a poor man's version of onion staging by just giving the center rocket a bigger fuel tank if you don't have fuel lines yet. In this type of staging we effectively reuse the center engine for 2 stages, saving weight. In 'Asparagus' staging the fuel lines are more complex. Assume that the 4 outer tanks are labeled 'left' and 'right', 'forward' and 'rear'. The left tank has a fuel line leading to the forward tank, and the right tank has a fuel line leading to the rear tank. The forward and rear tanks then have fuel lines leading to the center tank. When it takes off all 5 engines will be drawing fuel from the left and right tanks. When those tanks are empty they and the left/right engine are dropped and the ship begins using the fuel in the forward/rear tanks. When those are empty they are dropped too and we have with the center engine and the full center tank. This kind of staging is obviously more complex - bigger asparagus rockets can have dozens of seperately released tanks and a maze of fuel lines to contend with. The complex draining and dropping of tanks also leads to potential balance issues - if the tanks are not all placed at the same height, or don't drain uniformly the rocket's center of mass can shift, which means the rockets are now pushing it up and into a turn at the same time, causing it to spin rapidly or flip over.

Mission 11 Return to the Mun With Bill having stolen Bob's position on #10 I decided to make it up to him by making the next flight a Mun return while the launch issues with the biome survey mission where worked out. With advances in Kerbal technology some changes where made to the Mun rocket, now the Mun 2. With Geofmin working on the biome craft the engineers didn't alter too much, ultimately removing about 0.5t of mass thanks to some improvements in efficiency. Notable changes include fuel lines on the second stage, allowing for fuel tanks to be moved from the 3rd stage center to the 2nd stage outer. Many fuel tanks where replaced with the new larger T800 tanks. Launch clamps also improved safety on the pad while solar panels provided a source of renewable power. Bob would be able to do a lot more talking on this mission. A store bought thermometer is added when Bob asks for new science instruments, since he doesn't want to just duplicate Geofmin's mission. There where still some minor stability concerns with the solid booster stage. The solid boosters where observed swaying back and forth during flight. A set of the new structs might fix that. The 2nd and 3rd stage performed well, no issues with the improved fuel system which allowed half a ton of fuel to be removed from the orbital stage. Orbit goes normally and off to the Mun. It's routine now. Bob has no trouble getting in Mun orbit and starts to pick out a landing site. Bob chooses an interesting crater formation and begins his descent. There, Bob is on the Mun and is happy. Most of the science is routine, though Bob is able to find some interesting rocks and take a temperature reading. The return is a bit odd. Bob exits the Mun's SOI, however the exit arrives at a point before the AP in his Kerbin orbit. As a result a short time later he briefly re-enters the Mun's SOI. After he makes his re-entry burn the shifted AP brings him into the Mun's SOI for a third time. Return is direct with no aerobraking required, however from over 1000km out Bob was off in his calculations causing him to only slightly overshoot KSC for a water landing. A slight mishap also occurs during seperation. The service module, which falls faster, glances the command module as it passes. Fortunately there is no damage and both set down. Science is recovered from both modules. Overall Bob flew a good flight and proved that Mun trips can be routine. I'll want a little more science equipment before a third mission is sent. The biome mission is probably ready by now.

You don't need to dock to go to the Mun, you can actually make a more efficient craft without docking. If you are playing in career mode I'd suggest you research at least as far as Survivability. That gives you the LV-909 engine which is needed for any non-expert to reach and land on the Mun, along with landing legs which are also needed for a non-expert Mun landing. I'm getting a lot of use out of this image. The two techs I've marked as 'useful' are Stability which gives you radial decouplers; these make it much easier to stage your launch system, and General Rocketry, which gives you the LV-T45 engine which helps keep your launcher stable. To land on the Mun you'll need to learn the following: Building a spaceship launch system with stages, so that you can shed weight as you climb. This is probably the hardest part. Get into stable orbit above Kerbin (PE is above 70km) Use maneuver nodes (an expert can do it without them) to plot a course to the Mun. Stabilize your orbit around the Mun. Usually not difficult. Just burn retro-grade when you reach the PE of your Mun encounter. Land. This can be very difficult the first time. Return to Mun orbit. As long as you are careful not to overshoot (it's very easy to lift off) it won't be a problem, as long as you have enough fuel left. Return to Kerbin orbit. Use a maneuver node and it doesn't take much to push yourself back into a very high Kerbin orbit. Land. Just burn retro-grade at the AP to lower your PE into Kerbin's atmosphere. As long as you do it at the AP you'll use very little fuel.

Those rockets all look like they have just 2 stages for getting to the Mun, or a total of 3 powered stages when you include the Mun lander itself. While it is possible to make a 2+1 stage Mun lander I personally think it is easier to develop a rocket with 3 to 4 stages plus lander so you can shed as much weight as early as possible, which greatly increases the amount of fuel you'll have left over. Carrying the weight of most of your launch vehicle into space is going to use up most of your fuel. The first stage needs to get you off the ground and moving. Because it has to lift everything else it's going to need a lot of power and so it will weigh a lot by itself. You'll want to get rid of this stage pretty quickly to lighten things up. My suggestion is that this 'launch' stage should get you to between 3000-5000m altitude and moving at 150-200m/s. Solid boosters are a good choice unless you are experienced with fuel lines and drop tanks. Your third screenshot, Munar I, looks like it has a good solid booster stage (probably more power then you need, but if it's the first thing you get rid of that's not a problem unless your ship goes out of control). The second stage and third stage are two parts of the same thing. I suggest 5 strong liquid engines (LV-T45 are very good for keeping stability) to maintain the thrust/weight ratio needed to keep gaining speed in the low atmosphere. I would set it up so that you can drop the 4 outer engines as you reach higher altitudes (the center engine becomes the third stage), make sure the middle engine has more then twice the fuel if you are running without fuel lines. If you have access to fuel lines I would run a line from each of the outer engine tanks to the center engine's tank, and instead give the outer engines about 25-50% more fuel then the center, since the center engine will be able to draw from those outer tanks first. With fuel lines used you might setup the center engine with a T800 fuel tank, and each of the outer engines with a T800 and a T400. Drop the outer engines when their fuel supply is used up, which reduces the weight you need to carry substantially. After the 3rd stage single engine has burned all its fuel you should be close to the edge of the atmosphere (with an AP above it) and within reach of a stable orbit. The 4th stage should be a high efficiency orbital engine (LV-909) with a fuel tank like the T800, maybe a bit more if you didn't have fuel lines used in the previous stage. This orbital stage should stabilize your Kerbin orbit and then be enough to send you to the Mun and circulize your orbit there. Use any fuel left to assist your descent burn with the final stage, your lander. Overall my suggestion is that if you feel you are running out of fuel, add more fuel to the earlier stages, not the later ones. If you are not gaining speed in the atmosphere you need more engines (watch your m/s speed, if it starts to go down for part of the burn instead of up it means you don't have enough thrust and are wasting fuel), but try to shed as many engines as soon as you can, they weigh a lot and need extra fuel just to keep them along.

If you change the orientation of the camera and then thrust with WASD the Kerbal will reorient himself so that the translations are lined up with the camera. I think there is a key to toggle between that and the mode where he translates without regard for the camera. So basically if you tilt the camera up/down and then thrust forward/backward (W/S) he should change orientation to match.

Can you upload a screenshot of your rocket (side view), we might be able to identify what is going wrong. You can read my posts on building a Mun mission with basic but practical tech (no need for engine nozzle landings or jerry-rigged decouplers). Since you have the Science Jr. you already have Survivability which is the key technology. You also have batteries which are useful but not essential (though you wouldn't be able to transmit any crew reports en-route without them). If you don't have Stability researched you might want that, the radial decouplers make staging a Mun capable rocket much easier. I also had General Rocketry which improved the booster stage design and made it much more stable thanks to thrust vectoring. http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/53661-Return-soil-samples-from-Mun?p=709242&viewfull=1#post709242 http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/53159-Science-leads-to-wonderful-things?p=707046&viewfull=1#post707046

It's about simplicity. Do you want the devs and you to spend their time creating and playing KSP, or do you want an advanced cargo inventory simulator instead?

Crew reports can be transmitted at 100% efficiency so you don't need to store them. And even on Apollo they actually had a very limited quantity of paper since every ounce on the final module had to be lifted by additional fuel (which in turn had to be lifted by more fuel). A standard packet of printer paper is almost 5 lbs, which is was the Apollo astronaut's entire personal weight allowance (of their personal weight allowance they where permitted to carry at most 0.5 lbs of it down to the Moon with them in the lander). Overall though it's about simplicity - one sample/report of each type is much more straight forward then either a complex weight system (where loading a Munar sample increases the weight of the lander and uses up a volume allowance for space inside) or a system that allows you to place an infinite number of items in the pod which would just be silly.

No, both of those engines have much lower ISP, and when it comes to orbital maneuvers ISP is what will determine your fuel use. The LV-T30 already has an ISP of 370 in a vacuum. Unless you are willing to eject the previous engine (treat it as a stage) or the ship is very heavy you probably wouldn't get any improvement from fitting the LV-909 (390 ISP) since the weight of carrying both engines will reduce the efficency. Generally you would drop the LV-T engine and fuel tanks as a booster and use an LV-909 or the Poodle as an orbital engine. If your SSTO is intended to land without discarding parts it probably doesn't make sense to add another engine just for orbital changes.

There is no best spot. The transmission percentage represents the difference between telling the guys on the ground what you see and actually returning the samples to them for study. So crew reports are 100% because they are just reading the report right off the page, but things like Mun samples can only be vaguely described over the radio, you really need to bring them back to KSC where they can use lab equipment to study them.

Mission 10 was intended as a biome exploration mission to discover more about Kerbin. The ship carried with it 4 surface probes that could be detached and land at different destinations on Kerbin to take temperature readings, expose goo and use the science lab. Finally the manned module would make a polar landing to perform EVA and science there. I couldn't design the probes exactly as I wanted them - the radial attachment point for science Jr. is fixed so it is facing the wrong way (I needed it to face outward). As a result the parachutes couldn't be attached to the sides without blocking the science bay, so they had to go on the nose cone which looks a little silly. The Goo containers have an impact rating of 12, making them good landing legs. The light, along with antenna and thermometer not only help explore, they also provide the required weight balance to the decoupler. Weight balance is important since the probe deorbits with a pair of sepratrons. If the center of mass was even slightly off the center of thrust the craft could tumble instead of deorbit. The first problem started right on the launch pad. Bob was next on the rotation, which was of particular importance since he was bumped to make space for the new guy Geofmin and his famous Mun landing. But somehow Bill got into the capsule. Launch seemed to go ok, but the second booster stage developed a problem, it initially didn't provide enough thrust to maintain momentum. This has happened before but never for this long. The lost thrust pretty much ruined the mission at this point but Bill pressed on. As the orbital stage struggled to make up for lost delta-v Bill reordered his staging to eject two of the probes, hoping the loss of 2.2 tons of mass would help. It was still not enough. Unfortunately he burned through almost all his fuel before he gave in, which provided just enough to make his orbit pass over the pole, the target of the manned landing. At this point Bill, still head strong, attempted to reverse course so that he could hit the pole. He first restaged so that the 2 remaining probes solid boosters could be fired in aid of the manned ship, then ejected the probes to minimize mass before restarting the main engine and burning the last of its fuel. The results fell far short of what was needed and Bill coasted over the pole and made his descent to some common grasslands. Bill is now 2 for 3 in the mission failure department. The only thing he has succeeded in so far is replicating Jeb's mission but with a working parachute. Maybe I should let Bob fly a mission to the Mun to make it up to him while Geofmin works on a standard and reliable booster system aimed at putting 10 tons into orbit safely and Lemgun can be the one trusted to test it. Kerbonaut Status after 10 missions Geofmin - Genius rocket designer Bob - Master navigator Lemgun - Idiot savant pilot Jeb - Dead Bill - Breaks every new toy he gets. Recommended for mission to measure Suns temperature

Yes, if they get 2.5km from your pod they unload, disappearing from the game forever. Here is my staging and seperation. This is from 'mission 7', where I was first testing out the recovery system after my Science Jr. module was destroyed in mission 6 when it was just attached to the bottom of the pod with a single parachute. You'll notice that my seperation and chute are in the same stage step - since they'll be seperate from the pod they won't be able to receive any more instructions, so the last instruction is to both seperate and open chutes at the same time. I've also turned my ship upside down - this is just a safety precaution since as soon as the chute opens the module will slow down. If the module was below the ship there would be a minor collision. The stages are executed in rapid fashion at a relatively low altitude so they don't have a lot of time to drift apart (the engine section is going to fall faster, the science module slower) As you can see the engine section rapidly catches up and passes the pod section. The chutes fully open and they all descend in formation. The lightest section falls so slowly that there is time for my Kerbal to get out and walk over to meet it. However after recovering the active ship I would suggest using the recover button in the tracking station to get the rest, instead of 'flying' them and then clicking recover. I had a weird physics glitch that caused one of them to explode when I flew it from the tracking station. If you can't see them in the tracking station make sure the debris icon (left most) is selected.

I have been regularly using this to ensure samples land softly. There is a catch though - the physics simulation only works for objects within 2.5km of the active vessel. If you let a package go from orbit and don't follow it (you stay with the ship in orbit) the parachute won't work, there will be no atmospheric friction and it will be completely destroyed (deleted) by the game when it decides it has hit the planet. The correct way is to follow the package all the way down by switching focus to it ([ and ] keys). If you are returning more then one item at a time as I have (the pod descends on one parachute, science payload on a seperate chute) you'll need to keep them close together. Wait until you're closer to the surface before seperating and deploying parachutes, that way they will stay within 2.5km of each other despite descending at different speeds.

When you click 'recover' you are recovering the active vessel. EVA Kerbals, ships, debris and even flags all count as vessels. So if you are controlling your Kerbal and click Recover you only recover the kerbal 'vessel'. The same thing happens if you use a seperate sample return system (pod seperates from science container and they both descend on their own parachutes, useful if you have a lot of samples and need to ensure they land softly). After you recover your main craft you'll need to go to the tracking station, select 'debris' (unless you gave them a probe core) and recover the packages.

I'm really jealous of these ships that use a truss section to put goo containers and other parts 'inside' the ships radial space. It looks really cool, I've got to find a chance to make one like that.

If you've got the steam version then verify files is the best way. Exit KSP, right click the game in your Stream library and choose Properties. On the Local Files tab click Verify Integrity of File Cache. If any files are messed up Steam will redownload them. If you are worried about losing your save, just go into your KSP folder and copy the 'Saves' folder to your desktop first. You can move this backup to any installation on KSP (this is also how you move your save if you changed from the Squad store version to Steam Key) You can find the KSP folder inside your steam folder: [steam]\steamapps\common\Kerbal Space Program\saves

When you say you cannot select it, does it appear in the parts list at all or do you just have one part like a fuel tank? Try going to the science building and seeing what tech you have. If it doesn't show the command pod (or the other basics like an engine, solid booster and parachute) then your install might be messed up. Someone else reported that too, though I can't find it now to confirm if reinstalling fixed it. Make sure it's a clean install with no mods first, there is a chance some mods do things that mess up .22.

You can see I've got a Science Jr. attached to the radial decoupler. However I need to rotate it so that the 'bay' (the part that opens) is facing away from the spacecraft because I need the surfaces on the left and right side of the bay for parachutes. Using the Q and E keys will change its orientation, but then it doesn't attach to the radial coupler correctly anymore. Is this a limitation of the current tree attachment system? (ie there is only one 'radial' attachment point for the Science Jr.)

Aerobraking and other physics only work for the active vessel and any vessels within about 2.5km of it. Other ships just follow the orbit path perfectly ('on rails'), even if that path takes it through the atmosphere. They will normally stop if they fly directly into a planet (though on high warp I have seen a vessel manage to go right through Kerbin, it must have been on one side in the 1st frame, and had enough velocity to be calculated on the other side the next frame, resulting in no collision). To aerobrake two vessels at once they would need to be flying close formation, and to be honest I think it would be quite hard since differences in mass or orbit would quickly compound any difference in velocity, moving them apart. I deal with the same issue when returning my science samples as seperate craft - I need to wait until I'm low enough that I can deploy all the chutes around the same time, so that differences in descent velocity don't pull the ships more then 2.5km apart (in the atmosphere any ship that goes 2.5km away from the active vessel just vanishes from existence)

The first thing I'd do is make sure you're not trying to land an enormous rocket on the Mun. Pre-0.22 a lot of people got used to building massive rockets (moar boosters! moar struts!), but in reality a bigger rocket just makes things harder because of how fuel works. If you need to carry more fuel to lift a bigger rocket, you need to carry exponentially more fuel to carry that fuel. If you aren't doing it already I would make your return rocket as small as possible. You can see in my pictures I have an LV-909 engine, T400 fuel tank (180L of fuel), my science experiments and the pod (along with landing gear and parachutes). With that 180 fuel and a 390 isp engine you can deorbit a 5 ton ship, land on the Mun, take off and return to Kerbin with fuel to spare. Because my orbital stage still had fuel I used it for the deorbit burn, giving me even more fuel in the lander for safety. If you know how to do delta V math I would build a booster stage or stages with a combine delta V of 3500m/s, an orbit stage with 2000m/s and a lander with another 1900m/s. The lander design I've already told you about has that delta v, and the orbitor would be an LV-909 engine, 2 T400 tanks and a single T100 tank with decoupler.