EtherDragon

I got an early start this Friday, and already uploaded Episode 6! Mun-shot for Science! Too bad I sort of ran out of propellant on the return trip... Time to mount a rescue!

Very nice tutorial! I am working on a full YouTube video lesson on Kepler's Laws of Planetary Motion - and in doing so derived a very useful equation: r = 1 / (2*sqrt(d^3 / t^3)) r is the portion of the target's orbit that will be completed during a Hohmann Transfer Orbit given that: d is the Semi-Major Axis of the Destination t is the Semi-Major Axis of the Hohmann Transfer Orbit

What tree-items you choose only make a difference on how you go about getting your Science! It does not impact how much Science! is out there to grab. If the Probe is not able to return to Kerbin and be recovered, then yes - you are limited to sending the results home. Kerbin, Mun, and Minmus all have various biomes around their surfaces (craters, lake beds, etc...) but all planets have a "High Over" and "Near" biomes for different orbital heights. In the R&D building there is the new Science Archives (added for 0.23) which gives you a run-down of places you've discovered and the science you've done at any given place. As you gain new instruments, you can go back to places you've been before, and try the new instrument. Tips: Repeat successful missions with new Science instruments, as you get them. If you can transmit at 100%, do so - then repeat the experiment, but keep the data (assuming you can recover this particular mission on Kerbin). For Kerbin, Mun, and Minmus, get into a low orbit and do lots of EVA reports - these can be transmitted back for full credit. Every time you fly over something that looks interesting, get a new EVA report, while above it, to see if it is a new Biome you haven't discovered yet. Tune in to my to get further inspiration if needed. You shouldn't have to replicate my missions exactly - I try to explain the fundamentals, rather than do step-by-step walk-throughs, so players can learn how to Science! in their own way.

It's very important that you don't start an EVA unless you are either LANDED somewhere, or actually in Space (e.g. 70,000m altitude above Kerbin) or it's likely that your little guy will be sheered off and lost, as you experienced. Even when you are in space - sometimes your guy lets go and drifts away very quickly. This is usually (but not always) due to something being close to the hatch causing confusion. If you are flung off in to space, the first thing is not to panic - just bring up your EVA controls with the R key and get oriented. Then quickly neutralize your apparent movement - usually face toward he craft and press the "W" key until it seems like you aren't getting further away. Once stable, EVAs are all about patience... Thrust a little bit toward your ship (W key). Use a bit of Up or Down thrust (Shift / CTRL) as needed, and Side to Side (A / D). Just remember to use small pulses. As long as you are within about 2km - you don't need to worry about Orbital Mechanics - you can treat space at that range as if it's purely Newtonian; thrusting that-way makes you go that-way (when compared to your target craft).

Guide: If you can reach orbit around the Mun, you can LAND on Minmus. Assuming you are in a Kerbin Parking Orbit... Step 1 - Departing for Minmus: Plan your Minmus Burn for when Minmus is just over the horizon, and adjust from there. Since Minmus has such low gravity you really want to use an accurate Hohmann Transfer Orbit - only commit enough Delta-V to reach Minmus SOI, and let Minmus take over from there. If your planned burn has you arriving at the right place but missing Minmus due to orbital plane inclination, don't worry - just proceed and plane change later. Step 2 - the Plane Change: WAIT! Shouldn't you do the plane change before departing? Actually, NO. You will save a bit of Delta-V by doing your plane change later after departing. Plane Changes are actually inversely effected by the Oberth effect. The deeper you are in the gravity well, the higher your velocity, the higher the Delta-V required to perform plane changes. If you are very very lucky, and you arrive at Minmus at the Ascending or Descending node, no plane change is required at all. But chances are, you will make your only mid-course-correction at one of the nodes. Adjust your plane, and tweak your approach to Minmus at the same time. Step 3 - Minmus Encounter: Once you are just inside Minmus' SoI, plan a burn either Radial In or Radial Out (those blue circles) to adjust your Periapsis to about 15km. Step 4 - Minmus Orbital Insertion: Standard circularization burn at the Periapsis to create an orbit. Step 5 - Descent: Now you can descend and land - take your time, Minmus is very light in gravity, and very forgiving - so don't be in a rush. Step 6 - ??? Step 7 - PROFIT: Transmit your 100% value experiments, and keep the rest. Step 8 - Heading home: It takes very little Delta-V to ascend from Minmus surface, circularize, and depart Minmus toward home and reentry. Step 9 - Kerbin SoI: Burn Radial In / Out to get your Periapsis to 25km - easy peasy re-entry. Step 10 - do nothing: No further maneuvers are needed. You will reenter, parachutes, land, win! Good luck! My latest episode has me land in Minus, actually:

Hey, you're not alone in this - I'm an "expert" with my own dedicated KSP YouTube Channel and everything! And I still managed to strand Jeb in orbit around Mun (this episode will be posted on Friday, the 24th). Basically, I still fudge my own rule: If the stage is not able to complete it's assigned task - abort the mission. Munar orbital insertion is where my mission started falling apart - using fuel from future stages. I should have stopped, let my ship fly-by, and taken Jeb home. But no, I went ahead and landed - He managed to get into a 20kmx6km Munar orbit, and is awaiting rescue. 'Course Mission Control is saying "Screw Jeb, rescue the Science!" =p Landing on and returning from Mun, takes a good understanding of how to properly stage your mission to minimize the amount of useless mass you carry with you. If you have an empty fuel tank during any of your burns (Not counting Ascent to LKO) - find a way to redesign so it can be ditched as soon as it runs out of juice.

Consider the Dv budget required to enter Duna circular orbit, and leaving that orbit again. I doubt that a refueling station there would help you save anything (would actually cost more to utilize) than going for direct ascent. If you want Duna's help, the best option is through gravity assist. Basically, a fuel depot around the departing and arrival planets should be plenty. Stick a depot around Kerbin - suddenly your modular SSTO can un-mount its RAPIERS, and connect a pair of Nukes - refuel, and be ready to head to Jool. Stick a depot around Jool - and that same SSTO can easily use the various moons to gravity sling back to Kerbin for direct reentry.

Yay! A chance to plug My YouTube Channel, Korbital Mechanics! Watch both seasons 0.22 (complete tech tree without Mods, or cheese) and 0.23 (in progress). It it certainly easy to get enough science to progress through various stages of the tech tree with all the places and types of science that is out there to explore in KSP. But there are some tools (without mods) that will help you maximize the science you receive for any area. Here are some basic tips: 1. Repeat known successful missions with new science instruments! When you get a couple new science instruments, go repeat some previously successful missions with the new instruments. Often times, new instruments further up the tree get you a lot more science for the same mission. The new Science Archives allows you to easily see places where a couple experiments can still be done. 2. Do lots of the repeat experiments (when applicable) while orbiting over interesting places. For instance, EVA reports when over various places on Mun get you a bunch of science to bring home, without needing to land. Another example - land near the edge of a crater, take a surface sample in the crater, and another surface sample just outside the crater. 3. Transmit any science that gets you 100% transmission, then do the same experiment again to bring home. Crew Reports can be transmitted for 100% science return. Then you can immediately do another crew report (this time, keeping the results) for more science assuming you recover the pod after landing. A lot of this is dependent on a solid fundamental grounding in Rocket Science, though. Designing ships capable of reaching interesting places, and returning samples safe and sound is where most of your trial, error, and frustration will (and should) be; not in figuring out how to fiddle a science tool. Anyway, check out Korbital Mechanics Let's Plays for some inspiration. I don't use any mods, cheats, or try to cheese the research system - just pure going out, and exploring new places with new ships and experiments. Good luck!

I wonder how this experiment might change if you did part of the burn with some / all engines, and part without them For instance, say it's a 5 minute burn with 3 engines, but a 15 minute burn with 1. What if you did the first minute with all 3 engines, and finished the last 12 minutes of burn with just one engine? In this way you might be able to capture the largest improvement from Oberth effect, while still gaining lots of Delta-V. Also, try the same experiment with 1 nuke and 2 regular engines. There is definitely a point where the extra mass of extra nukes works more against your Total Dv budget than using a lighter, less efficient engine for things.

Yes, Quicksave is not short for "Quickly save my game"... It's actually short for "Quickly save my keyboard from RAAAAAWGE!!!" As far as docking is concerned: Once you have a matched orbit, and are within 2km of the thing - you can literally take forever. Do not rush it, be patient, and let momentum do what momentum does. Docking is exponentially harder for the "MUST GET THERE NOW!" type players. Learn to do it right - learning to do it fast will come with practice.

I don't use any add-ons and do my calculations using a calculator, pen, and paper. Many of the calculations are simplified approximations (for instance, calculating a suicide burn for landing), but they are good enough to get the job done. Others I did the algebra to change them around for my purpose and can use them exactly as they are (calculating optimal phase angle for interplanetary departure, for example). For teaching, there is math to be demonstrated in KSP that can be spanned across many levels of math, basic arithmetic through trig.

There are lots of ways that KSP could be integrated into math lessons. A couple examples are: Using the rocket equation, calculate the percentage of fuel required to achieve a certain Delta-V. Using Kepler's Third Law of Planetary Motion, calculate the amount of time it takes to complete a Hohmann Transfer Orbit from Duna to Kerbin.

It's pretty complicated, and with KSP, there isn't perfect math to calculate the trade-off between TWR and Delta-V for various mission goals. For lift-off to orbit, your TWR needs to be high enough to accelerate to near-terminal-velocity, which means you have to have >1 (or your not getting off the ground). TWR of 1.2 seems to be just about right (again, no solids maths to prove it either way) as higher TWR means you are carrying around extra rocket mass that ultimately goes unused, reducing your Delta-V. Once in Orbit - it's a whole different game; the more Delta-V, the better. Generally TWR has little bearing (other than convenience...) which is precisely why you need multiple stages, so you can switch over to rocket motors that are better for each phase of launch to mission.

I got an early start this Friday, and already uploaded Episode 5!

Happens to all of us - It usually takes me a couple days thinking about how to simplify an orbital mechanical problem to work it out to my satisfaction. But, a lot of that time is spent trimming out unneeded complexity. For instance, I just finished work on this little guy: R = 1 / (2*sqrt (Ad^3 / Ah^3)) Where Ad is the destination semi-major axis Ah is the Hohmann transfer semi-major axis Which simply tells you what portion of the target's orbit ® will be completed during your Hohmann Transfer (used to plan interplanetary encounters).

You are correct, these alignments are somewhat rare - but not impossibly rare.

Step 1 - The transfer: To land on Moho you really have to be at the top of your optimal Kerbin-Moho transfer game. Suboptimal transfer courses literally cost thousands more Dv to pull off. Try using a tool like the Interactive illustrated interplanetary guide and calculator for KSP Step 2 - Mid course correction and encounter: To land on Moho you have to make a really optimal mid-course correction to get your periapsis around Moho as low as you can during your encounter. Try waiting until you are about 10x the distance away from Moho's SoI to make this correction. Burn Radial-In (the circle with four pips pointing in) to bring your Periapsis down low. Moho has no atmosphere, so no aerobraking is available. Step 3 - Capture: Get ready for a long burn if you are using nuclear engines - although the blue maneuver pointer will say "go that way" burn directly retrograde instead at the time indicated; this is the most efficient way to apply thrust (and you need all the efficiency you can get!) since a fair bit of your burn will be outside of the optimal Oberth effect range. Remember, you are at the fastest point in your Sun-centered orbit and will be whizzing by Moho at nearly ludicrous speed. Step 4 - Return: Get ready for a trick... You don't need enough Dv to get all the way back to Kerbin, you only really need enough to get as far as Eve, from Moho. It may take some waiting, but look for a time that allows you to use Eve as a gravity assist to get to Kerbin; this will save a ton of Dv. Step 5 - Capture / reentry: In Kerbin's SoI, burn Radial-In to get your Periapsis to about 25km, which should be plenty deep enough for full reentry. Good luck! (Hey! You should capture it on Video and post it!)

Ah, I see what you are asking... T= 2 * pi * sqrt( a^3 / mu ) => T/(2pi) = sqrt(a^3 / mu) => (T/2pi)^2 = a^3 / mu => mu(T/2pi)^2 = a^3 => cube-root(mu(T/2pi)^2) = a

Who likes Bonus Material? I do! I hope you do, because it's Monday, which means Bonus Material! In this bonus video I make an atmospheric plane with some science stuff attached and get some science from places near the Kerbal Space Center!

Don't time-warp too fast - your circularization burn should be executed at the Periapsis - it's the most efficient time to do it. Duna's SoI is pretty large, similar to Kerbin - it may not be possible to easily spot Duna when you are near the edge. But you should be able to identify your periapsis distance in Map mode. Depends on your total mass, but it should be strong enough to circularize around Duna - might be a long burn though.

That's a nice tutorial! I have a video you should check out where I go over the mathematics of why asparagus staging works as well as it does. It doesn't demonstrate staging as well as you did, but it goes into detail about how/why the math ends up working in your favor when you use asparagus staging. Check it out:

Friday on the flight deck! That means a new episode of Let's Play KSP Career Mode! In episode 4 we redesign our rocket to use some new air-breathing capabilities - giving us plenty of juice to reach orbit around Minmus! Thanks for watching - please feel free to comment on my channel!

That is obviously spaghettification caused by the presence of one or more black holes - Camelotking should have waited for a launch window that did not include black holes flying through the system.

"My god, it's full of stars!"

Adding more Rocket Engines increases Thrust and will improve thrust to weight ratio, but actually decreases your total Delta-V. This video explains why: It depends - as long as you aren't going faster than terminal velocity, you're fine. Here's another video that explains why to care about ascent speed (among other things): Nuclear engines are for interplanetary travel - not really for descent or ascent. The best method seems to be to bring along a lander capable of reaching the surface, and ascending Duna all on it's own - to dock with your Nuclear-Engine equipped Mother ship in orbit. There are mods to see the effect of adding subtracting fuel and mass has on Delta-V. But the main factors are (from the video above) the more efficient the engine - the more delta-V AND the higher your Fuel to Mass ratio the more delta-V. But Fuel-to-Mass ratio diminishes in return rather quickly. It actually turns out that the best way to maximize delta-V is to do three things: Use efficient Engines, Have a relatively high Fuel to Mass Ratio (but no need to go insane), AND use frequent stating to ditch empty mass once fuel is expended. Absolutely, lots of players here have permanent refueling stations spotted around the Kerbol system. Well I have many questions actually, and am a bit confused about a few things, but this will do for a start : ) YW!