GigaG

You should remove references to Serious in the poll now that it is gone. I agree, it should be an optional planet pack. Does Kerbal Engineer work with these to give you intercept angles? I would love to use this mod, but I almost rely on KER now (I used to play without it, but now it's an addition to even my "mostly stock" games.)

Is there any alternative to this mod for .90? I know Telemachus (not fully complatible as of now, but epic-looking.) What else?

^I saw that. The Wikipedia article said that the DC-10 had them, but not for the rear part of the cargo bay.

The potential of the issue to cause fatalities also is a big deal even if the issue hasn't caused fatalities yet. Take the DC-10. Soon after its debut, a cargo door ripped off of American Airlines Flight 96 soon after takeoff from Detroit, causing decompression and partial collapse of the floor into the cargo hold. The hydraulics were not damaged, but the control cables to some of the control surfaces were, and the control cable for the #2 engine had been destroyed, causing the engine to become unusable. The rudder moved to its furthest right position, so the crew had to fight that. The flight was able to get back to the airport with no fatalities. The crew dealt with an engine shutdown, augmented the damaged controls with use of the throttle, and landed the plane with minor injuries despite partially running off of the runway. The cargo doors on the DC-10 open outwards, and thus need failsafe latches to keep them closed against pressure. As far as I understand, the flaw was that the door could be forced shut without properly engaging the locks. Despite upgrades after this, the accident happened again with tragic consequences. Two years later, a old DC-10 beloning to Turkish Airlines had not received some of the upgrades despite "manufacturing logs" stating that they had (either an error or deliberate fraud.) The baggage handler, who was fluent in 3 languages, could not read English nor Turkish and was unable to read instructions printed on the plane. He had not been trained to check the door using the modifications that the plane did have. Finally, the plane had an improper adjustment that allowed the door to improperly lock without applying excessive force. This combined to produce a tragedy. Turkish Airlines Flight 981 took off from Paris Orly airport carrying 346 people. The rear cargo door failed. The floor collapsed, this time sucking 6 passengers out. The damage was more severe than the American Airlines incident, damaging the tail engine controls and right wing engine controls and rendering the rudder and elevators uncontrollable. The plane went into a dive. By the time the pilots were able to arrest the dive, it was unfortunately too late, and the plane crashed at high speed, killing all aboard. After Flight 981, the latch system was redesigned. I do not believe any DC-10 has suffered a cargo door failure since (a 747 did in 1989 due to a combination of electrical failure and bad latch design, but that's another incident.) The point I'm making is that a severe failure that does not result in death is still a severe failure, and should be treated as a fatal flaw.

It could also be mistranslated. The other possible meaning is "We monitored for the presence of the plane until 7:55 AM, but it did not reappear." I'm hoping they got the word out to authorities before 7:55 if that interpretation is what happened. I'm guessing that they knew something was very wrong long before 7:55.

OP, Ceres is actaully closer than Jupiter. Here's my idea of the system- Kerbol-Scaled-down (this will hereby be assumed) Sun. Everything in KSP is scaled down by a factor of about 10 (although I don't know about Kerbol's scaling.) Moho-Brown Mercury Eve-Less harsh Venus. Has oceans and somewhat resembles a "giant, hot Titan." Known as an extremely difficult target to return from. Gilly-No real analog, just a captured asteroid which is the opposite of Eve in every way except being solid. Kerbin - Earth Mun - Closer than our Moon Minmus - No analog, kinda like a very large, blue-green captured asteroid. Duna - Mars Ike - Large moon of Duna. No direct analog, but more like Phobos than Deimos (both Ike and Phobos are unusually close to their parent body.) Still, Phobos is closer to Mars IRL if I remember correctly. Side note - Duna and Ike are tidally locked to each other, making it much like Pluto-Charon in a different position. Because of KSP's on-rails/patched conics system, I am almost positive they don't orbit a common barycenter. I wonder if they would IRL - I'm too lazy to look up that calculation. IDK if this is covered in high school advanced placement physics-mechanics. I doubt it, but I don't know. Dres - Rocky Ceres analogue. Well, we haven't seen Ceres up close quite yet, and I'm not sure how realistic the Hubble pictures are, so maybe Ceres is less icy than I think it is. Jool - Green Jupiter Laythe - A Kerbin-like moon with an oxygen atmosphere and a massive water ocaen. It orbits very near to Jool. Positionally (not a word?) similar to Io, physically not like any moon of Jupiter or any other planet (closest thing we have is Titan, a moon of Saturn with a thick atmosphere and oceans of cold hydrocarbons.) As has been pointed out in this thread, Laythe's water oceans may be heated by tidal forces like Io's volcanoes (although Laythe has none of the eccentricity that Io has, KSP is not a particularly realistic system, as I will point out below.) Vall - Europa analogue. Much bluer. Also, the real Europa is a bit smaller than Earth's Moon, while Vall is bigger than Kerbin's Mun. Tylo - Giant, light-grey (with a pinch of brown? I don't know) moon representing Ganymede. It is the size of Kerbin, but a bit less massive. Its gravity is the same as Laythe (a bit less than Kerbin) making it a challenge to land on (no atmosphere, so you must rely on a rocket engine to slow you down from your fast orbit.) Laythe, Vall, and Tylo have a resonance like the inner Galilean moons of Jupiter. Bop - A large captured asteroid, with a mostly brown color. Pol - As has been pointed out, it is like Io in color. Besides that, it is a tiny captured asteroid. To me, Bop and Pol are like the many tiny moons that orbit Jupiter. Eeloo - Analog to Pluto. This was planned to become the moon of another gas giant, but those plans have been delayed, if not cancelled. The appearance of Eeloo somewhat resembles the striped appearance of Europe. Like Pluto, its orbit occasionally takes it closer to Kerbol than Jool. It has no moons, however, as opposed to the several moons of Pluto. As I said before, Duna and Ike are more like Pluto and Charon in terms of "relatively giant moon" but not in position. The system is not very realistic. Without N-body mechanics, the resonant Joolian moons do not affect each other (IRL, Io's tidal heating is caused by its eccentricity, which is assured by other Joolian moons.) A more pressing issue is that the system (specifically the Jool system) falls apart with N-body mechanics. Vall is ejected from Jool quickly, and Pol apparently is later. Some guy made a simulation of this - It doesn't show Pol being ejected, but the video description says it. Whole Kerbol system- Jool system-

I don't fall straight down. I parachute down. I think I'll be using more drogues to slow myself so I don't tear myself apart upon full deployment.

Is Duna aerobraking and landing under chute more difficult with FAR? I'm worried about aerodynamic failures from high-speed chute deployment - that even happens in stock, where parachute deployment tears landers apart..

I was thinking that, about TWR. I just love SSMEs, I guess. Such a great engine. I guess I think of them as ground engines because of how they ignite, even though they do spend most of their burn time in vacuum or extremely thin air.

TAL/CUS stands for "Transatlantic Landing/Centaur Upper Stage" and is my concept for a partially reusable launch vehicle. It is probably idiotic, uneconomical and dangerous, but it might just be crazy enough to work. The first stage (TAL stage) resembles a giant Shuttle orbiter. Rather than a cargo bay, it has a fuel tank inside - a tank a bit smaller than an ET to power a 3-engine cluster of SSMEs to a ballistic trajectory. Because this is not an ultra-heavy launch vehicle, we don't have any SRBs, or we use smaller SRBs that can be attached over the wings, as this is essentially a linear launch vehicle and we don't have anything under the wings to attach large Shuttle-type SRBs to.) The front end of the TAL stage is a nosecone, which is concealed inside the interstage fairing. Above this is a widened, shortened Centaur upper stage, and above this is the payload. The rocket would work like any other, but the first stage would have an unusual return path. After MECO, the stage would remotely re-enter and land in Spain or another coastal area in Europe, with the intention that it can be loaded onto a barge and be brought back to KSC. Essentially, it would perform a Transoceanic Abort Landing (in this context, it is a Trans-Atlantic Landing, as this is not an abort - it is normal operation.) The Centaur is expendable, as Centaurs are. Issues- -Costs of moving a giant, precise rocket stage across stormy seas. The stage would be too big to use a Shuttle Carrier aircraft, and the SCA can't fly that far with a piggybacked payload anyways. -Need suitable, long landing strip with boat access. -Re-entry should not pass any populated areas. Zaragoza is pretty far inland. The TAL landing strips were not expected to be regularly used in the Shuttle era, but these will. -The diplomatic issues of landing giant empty rocket stages on foreign territory. Benefits- -Reusability. particularly of the SSMEs -The payload of a medium-sized Atlas V without the current controversial Russian engines. -Can fly longer on the first stage than a "flyback" design. Just a little thought experiment. Has this ever been proposed?

It worked for me in 0.90. This will be one of my "basic mods", along with Kerbal Engineer. This is one mod that needs to be "stockified." I hope you can get this in CKAN soon for 0.90.

Retrograde orbit contracts are not that uncommon. Be careful. Especially if you are going to one of Kerbin's moons or another planet, as you need to be careful about which side you approach from. If you are lucky and build small probes with excess delta-V (like me) and your orbit is high, you might be able to do a reversal after insertion in the wrong direction. Otherwise, you're screwed. So make sure you are following the dots!

Are physicsless parts still physicsless in flight?

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! R.I.P. OKTO2 2013-2014 (Seriously, though, the QBE got the same treatment. I actually just posted about the possibility of using it with a reaction wheel and battery instead of a normal OKTO.)

Can you install an incompatible mod? I know an officially incompatible mod that works well in KSP 0.90, but I can't install it even with "Incompatible" listed. Maybe you should add an option to override that?

The QBE now weighs just 30kg (0.03t), making it AFAIK the lightest probe core (haven't checked the OKTO2 yet, though.) The QBE doesn't have reaction wheels now, but a QBE plus a Small Inline Reaction Wheel costs 960 Funds and weighs 0.08t. The OKTO and HECS are both 0.1t, and cost 450 and 650 respectively. So for a bit more money, you can use the QBE and the reaction wheel in tandem to create a rather cheap, light probe core. The QBE only holds one Electric Charge, but even a Z-200 battery pack will let the probe be at 90kg. At this point it is more expensive, but still lighter. The Stayputnik could replace the QBE in this configuration, but it is heavier and has no SAS control. It is 300 Funds, and the QBE is 360 Funds. Saving 60 funds is not worth the hassle of having no SAS. The biggest con of this is that it will gulp electricity faster than a normal probe core. Also, you will have a very overpowered reaction wheel for a smallish probe. As for batteries, I didn't use the radial ones because I am not sure about massless parts in this version - a Z-200 is always massed, so this is worst-case. Do massless parts only count for launchpad weight now or do they affect flight physics?

Any news on how much progress has been made in updating this?

- - - Updated - - - What if a hypothetical new Magic Boulder had a toilet plunger on it? #ideas

Thank you. I knew that my ascending/descending nodes were off, but that was not really my question. As for 90 degrees, I think that's how I do my maneuver nodes, so I guess it makes sense. Thank you.

How does one go about doing trans-Minmus injection from LKO without maneuver nodes? I have a level 1 tracking station. I know for the Mun the idea is "wait until Munrise", but for Minmus, well, things are different. My orbit is 94kmx115km. My inclination is 3 degrees, with my nodes not aligned with What kind of ship is this? It's just a simple LV-909 ship with almost 2300 m/s of delta-v left. It was launched using a jet-powered first stage and a LV-T30 powered second stage. I'm probably going to use it for a Munar orbit mission, but I might send a modified version to Minmus, so I'd like to know this. (My calculations show I should have enough fuel to get to Munar orbit and back from LKO, so hopefully my current mission will succeed.)

Bump because this is obvious. Especially with the Mk3 parts.

Could a Minmus lander be worked out within these restrictions? You might not get the contract, but you do get extra science compared to the Mun (I think) for less delta-v. Of course, you DO kinda need the contracts...

Here's what I think - the top to bottom diameter is designed to hold a 1.25 radius fuel tank or so. The sides can be used for room for science sensors, etc... The wiki gives the fuel tank size equivalent. It certainly is for smaller probes. Hopefully 0.90 will include a Mk3 cargo bay.

I'm not voting, having not done both. I've done an Eve return, but it required ejecting and orbiting with the jetpack and sending a pickup ship after landing on Eve's highest mountain range. (Somehow I left its aerospikes burning fuel at low thrust post-landing, had I not wasted that delta-v I might have not needed ejection.) It also used the RLA stockalike mod, among others IIRC. I also needed the trajectory mod. Lots of quicksaving involved, too. As for Jool's moons, I don't usually do that. Here's my experience- -I've done Bop. I think I was planning on Pol too, but the lander was a tiny ion-powered lander with command seats and a docking port, and upon exiting the ship, the docking port would cause a Kerbal to kraken away at high speed, so I went home after Bop IIRC. -I tried to do Laythe, but the game suddenly Krakened out soon after landing and I don't think I opened that save again. -I once tried to send a ship with landers for Bop, Pol, and Vall, but the ship was so shaky at the docking portsthat it would be a nightmare mission to time warp through the series of long nuke burns. It also required a series of decoupling and redocking landers to the sides of the ship, which I failed at IIRC. I don't think I got the thing out of Kerbin orbit. Haven't opened that save since - I spent lots of funds on that mission, and it frustrated me. (This was my first Kerballed Jool attempt.) Those are not in order. The two that I listed first may or may not have been modded. As for which is harder, it depends. The Eve mission takes a lot of design, but it is made quite a bit easier when you accept using the Kerbal's jetpack for final orbit insertion. It also is useful to have the trajectories mod. Jool-5 also takes lots of design - but in that case you have to make several specialized ships, possibly dock them together in LKO, and then hope you can boost them to Jool and do the maneuvers to get to every moon. Both are really hard - it depends on your skill set, I guess.

Not very understandable, but Graham's number to the Graham's number power http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham%27s_number