EtherDragon

I just got him back to Kerbin after sending a rescue mission in my Let's Play Kerbal Space Program Career Mode Episode Three. He got stranded in orbit around the Mun after running out of gas... SPOILER: He's home now. =) Video included:

Episode 3 is posted, so check it out.

I just completed putting together this video that demonstrates the difference between some ascent profiles and looks into why we launch and ascend the way we do. Enjoy! Excerpt from the Video, to use as a Checklist: Remain vertical and keep velocity under 200m/s until reaching 15,000m. Switch the ball to orbit mode and pitch to follow the indicated flight path while increasing the throttle to 100%. Adjust throttle to keep the apoapsis about 60 seconds ahead of the rocket's position. Once the apoapsis reaches 75,000m, cut the engines and prepare for circularization. Complete the circularization burn to achieve a stable orbit. If you have any feedback, you can definitely post it here, or in the video comments.

Also, you are probably getting uneven drag across the tops of your boosters. As soon as your ship leans over a little, the flat tops of those boosters will cause uneven atmospheric drag; so cap 'em off. Since your rocket is so tall, definitely add aerodynamic fins (with control surfaces) on the bottom. Lastly, are you using fuel lines for asparagus staging? If so, double check they are set up correctly, and that you aren't burning fuel unevenly.

Getting to another planet is a series of burns in the right places to minimize fuel used to get an encounter. Using a ship with a low Thrust to Mass ratio makes it more difficult, but it's not impossible by any stretch. Here is a list of maneuvers to plan and execute. 1. Escape Kerbin's Sphere of Influence (SOI) Based on your description, it may be that you need to execute your Kerbin Escape burn in several phases. If it takes you 10 minutes to complete a burn, by the time you have finished, you are no longer adding velocity with respect to your orbit. Instead, try doing several shorter burns (all at the Periapsis) of no more than 2 minutes each. You only need to repeat these burns for as long as it takes to set your coarse to leave Kerbin's SOI. 2. As soon as you leave Kerbin's SOI - plan and execute a course correction to get an encounter with your destination planet. Since this is in interplanetary space, the length of the burn is no longer a factor, like when attempting to escape Kerbin. 3. When you are at an Ascending or Descending Node, plan and execute another coarse correction to trim your destination approach. 4. As soon as you reach your destination planet's SOI, plan and execute another burn to set your periapsis where you want it. Since your ship has a low Thrust to Mass ratio, you will want to practice the art of Aerocapture. Aerocapture is a technique where you dip your Hyperbolic fly-by into the atmosphere, allowing atmospheric drag to slow you down enough to establish an orbit. 5. Adjust your orbit at the Apoapsis, to achieve whatever kind of orbit you want to explore the area. (If I'm doing moon flyby's like in the Jool system, I might have a highly eccentric orbit...) Quick question, did you build your interplanetary craft to be modular? If so, send up a more powerful engine cluster...

Episode 2 is also available: This is my third mission, where I attempt to land on Mun with the parts I have. (SPOILER ALERT!) something blows up... Check it out, thanks!

From now on, I'll use the first post to show my most recent episode! 0.22 Season Finale, Episode 16 has our crew headed back to Jool with a full set of upgraded probes, but issues plague the crew on their journey... Here is the first episode, and series play-list! This is my first let's play series ever. My new youtube channel, Korbital Mechanics features Let's Plays. Soon I'll be adding Labs / Tutorlais and Science content demonstrated in KSP! Come check it out... Link to my Let's Play - Play List:

Definitely true - but landing on Minums is as easy as the Mun if you are using your hands. As far as fixing inclination - you don't have to. =) Just schedule your arrival so that Minmus and your ship meets a node upon arrival - which saves a fair amount of Dv.

I have been improving my Apollo style Mun mission and doing some rescue missions of previous not quite successful Mun round trips. (I stranded a couple Kerman's out there...) I can report, that I have successfully depopulated Mun for now, returning all stranded Kerman's to Kerbin. Then I worked on a two-seater SSTO space plane, loosely based off of my successful 1-seater. It can reach 100x100 and land under it's own power... Soon I'll be doing Munar "sight seeing" tours with it. The new space plane uses two Torboidal(sp?) rocket engines for the upper stage, giving it a nice little bump in efficiency once in orbit.

Apparently I've been doing it wrong the whole time... Landing on the moon in 4 easy steps: 1. Get some dashing socks 2. Toss back a couple. 3. ??? 4. Profit! BTW, landing on Minmus is just as easy, actually. You spend about 60 more Dv to get there, but about 100 less Dv between insertion and landing.

The scenery - there is actually some interesting land features to find on the faces of the various planets. Try to land as close as you can to a target spot... then land there AGAIN (doing it a second time is very hard!)

KSP is just like Minecraft in that sense. You can put together (within the limits of the parts available) whatever you want, go and do (or not do) whatever you want. The sandbox is definitely extremely complete. I do spend an awful lot of time in the VAB and the SPH: Phase 1 (short): Build the first prototype of something. Phase 2 (short): Make the first unmanned launch. Phase 3 (long): Tweak it based on test launch results - go to phase 2. I spent most of the day yesterday working on my first Space Plane (a single seater) that could make it into 100x100km orbit (that's where I have parked my Interkerbin Space Station) and back under its own power, without needing to refuel. I got the thing making orbit and back perfectly, only to find out that the thing is horribly unstable when its fuel has run out. After hours of tweaking and testing, it turns out that relying on a control surface (or a wing section with one built in) at the front of the ship creates unrecoverable stability issues when the CoG shifts as much as it did without fuel. So, after a couple hours messing around with the wing configuration, I finally got atmospheric handling to work great at all fuel levels. It will make a pretty nice looking unpowered (completely empty tank) glide to ground level (a bit rough on the landing, but survivable) with a glide slope of 10 degrees and angle of attack at 20 degrees with neutral controls. Yes, I spend a lot of time in the VAB or SPH working on my ships - but honestly, that's 50% of the fun. Doing the missions are pretty awesome, but saying you made the thing that is capable of doing that is also pretty awesome.

Today in KSP I assembled a craft capable of entering a stable orbit at Jool, my first time there. The ship was assembled in orbit in three stages / launches, the Engine Module, Fuel Module, and Command Module. I used Aero-braking (set altitude to 120,000m) to enter orbit. Jools moon-space is crowded! I was looking for a way to sling-shot my self out of orbit, when the moons, pulling me this way and that changed my orbit enough, next thing I knew I was in a collision coarse with a moon and no fuel to avoid it. That's ok, really that craft was meant for inner planetary round trips, I'm actually surprised it made it all the way to Jool, much less got into orbit.

There are many factors to consider, here is a summary of what has been discussed so far: On Launch: The rotation of the body you are launching from adds some velocity to help you get into orbit. For planets, like Kerbal, this means the best way is to go Counter Clock-wise, as seen from above, because the planet is already rotating in that direction. If you choose to go Clockwise, you need to burn extra fuel to overcome the momentum imparted from the planet's rotation. On Establishing an orbit with Moons: This one really depends on your ultimate goal. If you are planning orbiting a moon (such as Mun) and want to go interplanetary, then it's best to capture an orbit that is counter-clockwise. This is because when you want to reach escape velocity (for the moon and planet) you get to use a lot of existing momentum - the orbital speed of the moon and your orbital speed around the moon. Note - doing this it's best to leave when the moon is between the planet and the sun if you are headed to an inner planet, or when the planet is between the moon and the sun when you are heading to an outer planet. On the other hand, if you simply want to establish orbit on a moon and return to it's host planet later, it's more energy efficient to go clockwise - as at Apoapsis you are going very slow. When a moon passes you (because it is going faster) your craft will have an easier time reaching an orbit by burning just enough to let gravity pull you along the clockwise side. Otherwise you have to use more thrust to overtake the moon and get a counter-clockwise orbit. What about landing on a Moon? Well, again it depends on the particular moon. Most moons rotate so slowly that it doesn't matter - so you actually save fuel by choosing the best insertion orbit (in most cases, clockwise). But if the moon has a decent rotation period, then it's definitely best to orbit in the same direction as the rotation because the energy spent overcoming rotation (as in planetary take-off from before) is more than what would be used correcting a free return trajectory into a counter-clockwise orbit. For interplanetary insertion - always go for Counter-Clockwise. Yes it's true that you save a bit of fuel by allowing the planet to pass, and go clock-wise - but the distances are so great that you can make any reasonable correction burn to get the orbit insertion point you want in less than 20delta-v. Also, going counter-clockwise on a planet allows for one of the coolest orbital insertion maneuvers - Aero-braking.

I have several suggestions to improve usability in the assembly bays: Action Groups: There should be a "Default" action group added which represents the default state that any system is set to on the launch pad. This would allow us to start off with certain Gimbals locked, Gear Extended, and Torque disabled for example. We should be able to test and toggle action groups in the VAB to see how parts are going to animate. Lights, Gear, and Solar Panels, for example. Any action that can be Toggled should also have "Activate" and "Deactivate" entries in the available actions. For example, Gear can be Toggled, Raised and Lowered, but an Engine Gimbal can only be Toggled; there should be Lock and Unlock options for engine Gimbals as well. Staging Interface / Screen Add a right-click menu to the Staging Stack icons, that is the same as the part that it is associated with. If I right click on the Engine of my rocket model, I get a menu with stuff to look at, I want to be able to see that same menu from the Staging Icons. Add a "Orbital" read-out that contains just a few vitals like Apoapsis and Periapsis heights and eta, next Ascending / Descending degree and eta. This could be another hover / toggle-able panel next to Resources. Alternately, the Flight instrument (altitude, rate of ascent, atmosphere) should be toggle-able between Surface (or Flight) mode, as the current mode, to Orbital mode that displays the basic orbit vitals. Nav Ball (Staging, Docking, and Orbital modes) The throttle should be click-able - allowing the user to set the throttle with a mouse click. RCA and SAS buttons should be click-able. Stage Light should be a clickable button to allow us to Lock / Unlock staging. Orbit Screen The Kerbal Space Center should be a permanent "Flag" location that's always an available target from the Orbit screen. EVA When we are controlling a Kerbal on EVA, give us a simple fuel read-out gauge in one of the corners of the screen.