TeeGee

So is everyone saying that engine heat production is realistic as is? SO when a space shuttle launches, it has to throttle its max thrust to 60% of max the whole way up to avoid melting the engine bell?

Is there a craft file that modifies the heat limits that ENGINES can take? Everytime I run my SSME's in RSS they overheat and explode unless I throttle down to 60 %.

Well the way I figure is that on the way up, the tank functions as my nose cone. In the way down, I need to increase drag so a blunt nose would help. I dunno. It looks ugly but she gets the job done. Besides, I don't believe in using shuttles for transporting payloads into space. They are too inefficient, too sloppy, too complicated and too expensive. I built this craft to prove to myself I can make a shuttle, I never intended on using it. I guess Im like Russia was... I've already built an SSTO rocket that transports 3 kerbals into LEO and it only has 1 stage (the pod has extra 300 delta v for orbital maneuvers and is staged voluntarily). She has an LES tower I built myself and shes safer. When I try to reenter with my shuttle, shes in perfect control BUT requires constant monitoring to ensure she slows down enough AND reaches the landing strip. It's just too needlessly complicated. I'm now looking to build 2 stage heavy lifters that are unmanned.

3 Kerbal SSTO VOLUNTARY 2 Stage. That's what V2S means. Using: Realism overhaul, real solar system, real engines, real engine engine ignitor, FAR, Real Fuels. It uses 2 SSME's to get into orbit and Hydrolox Fuel with MNH hypergolics at the top stage.

I did it with Real engines, RSO, RSS, real fuels, engine ignitor, far, etc. Unmanned and therefore 100% safe SHUTTLE. If this was real life, I'd use the same nose as the real shuttle but have the bottom of my tank fit over it like a glove and have it flush with the neck of the orbiter. The tank pumps would feed in through the nose, past the cargo hold and into the engines at the back. During decouple while coasting to apoapsis, undock with bottom of the tank, rcs thrust out of the nose pocket to free the head of the spacecraft, and continue on.

Can someone explain what each arrow color represent (in the build aid)? I've looked at the tutorial pics on the first page but I'm not very clear what they all mean. Green = direction of thrust Red arrow = ? Red ball = DCoM (dry center of mass) Red spinny thing = torque (which I asssume represents tendency for a craft to spin due to its thrust vector?)

Yeah I'm already using that mod... along with real engines, engine ignitor and rss.

And when I put the SRB's on, all hell breaks loose.

Ok so I am building a space shuttle and have been trying to use it with this mod and failing miserably. How do we use the rcs aid to build a shuttle? Do we WANT torque? Do we want the green arrow point straight up because I can NEVER get it to do that. I'm just frustrated and at a loss. I've adjusted trim, I've rebalanced fuel, I've done everything I can to make this stupid thing fly in RSS and RSO but it 1) Always wants to do a front flip even though NO torque is showing in the VAB 2) I can't control the craft other than go straight up. I've attached rxn wheels to my shuttle etc. It's starting to really irk me.

Sigh, building a shuttle in RSO is even harder now. I can't get the damn thing to fly straight off the launch pad. I've moved the CoM higher and higher, srbs more ventral and stick can't get the thrust vector to fly through the CoM.

So the ascent guidance mechjeb gives us is accurate?

Ok, NOW I've made it into LEO! Finally, it took me a few tries to find a adequate ascent profile but I did it with too much delta v AGAIN (about 9700 m/s), that put me into a 912/209 km orbit with my second stage alone and no engine restarts (real engine ignitor). So I cut down my delta v in the VAB to about 9500 m/s. THE hardest part about flying into orbit isn't the delta v, it's the ascent profile. You gotta make sure you don't hit your apoapsis going up when you are trying to bring the periaps up as well. I'm still unsure when to begin my gravity turn, I used to start edging at about 150 m/s after launch and pitch to 45 degrees until I reached my target apoapsis but that's not good enough here. You NEED the first stage to start circularizing early in the flight. Does mechjeb screw everyone up as well when they are trying to maneuver during the ascent? It's like it doesn't know what to do even when I explicitly dictate directions for example hold roll 180 degrees and pitch 30 and heading 90 etc. It flips out my rockets everytime. Something that scared me... my rocket ended up being HUGE. It was 3 stages (only took 2 to make orbit), was super tall and intimidating to fly, but she did very well. The only problem I have is performing a roll maneuver with the RD 170 in my first stage... she can't gimbal and roll so I put tail fins on her to help, which worked. I really need to work on my ascent profile though. Any tips?

I DID TAKE A PICTURE!! I knew I did! Here is the craft on pad with mechjeb on showing delta v. Before the LES is ejected: After: OH MAYBE I know what's going on! I'm using the Kerbin version of ROS! It uses less delta v than the Earth version? http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/78895

Now I'm worried.... how did I do that?? I thought making LEO required 7800 delta v so I gave my rocket 8000 to compensate for drag or a suboptimal launch. I reached apoapsis of 130 km and burned at 0 degrees to bring up my periapsis. When I started nearing my apoaps, I lifted my nose up to 5 degrees ish and since I couldn't throttle up I burned my apoaps all the way up to 350 with a periaps of 40 km. I took a screenshot as a momento but the game didn't record it!! EDIT: YES IT DID!!! See post below!! Im gonna go into my VAB to see what is going on because everyone is shocked to see this...

Congratulations on the release everyone!

I made it into that orbit with ~8000 m/s delta v... it takes 7500 m/s to make LEO doesn't it? I reached the 350 apoapsis with my second stage by accident, my periaps was about 23 km. I staged and used 73.5 m/s delta v to circularize. I think u may have misunderstood me. I'll try to be more clear in the future. I've built shuttles before with FAR and B9. the CoM and thrust vectoring are a huge pain in the butt. Gimbaled engines help, but I have the most problems with the SRB's and getting them to counter balance the 3 SSME engines. If it isn't perfect, the entire thing flips. And that's without payloads! If I decide to build a shuttle, it is going to have to lift as much if not more than the RL shuttle, function exactly the same way and have the exact same specs (almost). It can be done, it will just take a lot of trial and error. If I can improve on the shutle design, I will, but as of right now I need to get it off the ground first. Honestly, I would much rather have a kerolox based shuttle rather than a hydrolox based shuttle BUT the SSME's are designed for hydrolox and they are one of the few rocket engines that can throttle... something that is very important when attached to psychopathic boosters like SRB's.

Well, for the first time I have built a manned orbital vehicle that has made it to LEO. I finally decided to give this mod a try, got every mod I wanted in it (pretty much) up and running, slapped on mechjeb for delta v calculations, built a 3 stage kerolox rocket and launched 3 intrepid Kerbals into the black. I ended up giving too much delta v (8000 m/s because I like to be liberal with delta v) but couldn't throttle down when I was nearing apoapsis because I am using real engines and ignitors so I ended up in a 350 km/350 km orbit (after circularizing with my 5oo delta v crew pod). It happened too fast to compensate. What really caught me by surprise was that pods no longer have control moment gyros, I had to use RCS to make attitude control adjustments. THAT put a HUGE grin on my face! Now all this mod needs is a realistic sound mod that can mute rocket engines using sfx from modularsfx (ahem atmosphere sound enhancement ahem). =) I feel so accomplished right now. I am getting psyched up for my lunar mission and can't wait to get there! Then I'm gonna go to Mars... that will be super exciting because even WE haven't done that yet! I'd like to say thank you to all of the creators of this terrific mod and its supported packs, it hits the sweet spot I wanted in KSP --- being close to realistic as possible. The only issue I had was taking a screenshot after making orbit, for some reason it wasn't recorded in the screenshots folder. Oh well. I'm still debating whether I should build a space shuttle, I know I can but is it practical... hmmm. I'm sure I can build a space station with fewer launches using a heavy lift rather than using a shuttle.

Awesome! Thanks for the answer!

What I was trying to say was building a craft that had almost half of its delta v come from its boosters and the rest off of its core rocket. I would never use hydrolox as a fuel for a lifting rocket. It's way too volume inefficient and requires massive tanks to provide sufficient delta v to make orbit. Instead of building a rocket that is "pancaked", why not build a taller, thin rocket with a lower aerodynamic cross section? The only real issue is that LF boosters are delicate and don't take splashdown or sea water very well. Or if you give it too much delta v, they may burn up on reentry. I personally think it is worth investing research on finding ways to give boosters more delta v and better survivability for reuse. Why can't LF boosters use convection cooling from the tanks to protect it from reentry heat? For example, like the SSME's do. During staging, keep some liquid fuel/oxidizer circulating around the tank like ribs that would help cool the rocket as it reenters the atmosphere. Build lighter parachutes OR keep the cooled fuel you used as reentry protection to slow down the rocket moments before splashdown.

Kerbal revelation I had today watching a saturn 5 documentary. I was watching them assemble the S1 booster for the saturn 5 rocket and saw the cluster engine config used to get the payload up into space when I thought to myself... why don't they use less central engines and fuel but use bigger boosters? I started staring at the shuttle and realized something... those SRB's donate extra REUSABLE delta v to the rocket. What do I mean? Well, the srbs donate change in velocity for the spacecraft as a whole, are jettisoned, and reused after. When we built the saturn 5 rocket, every stage was discarded after staging and was not recoverable. So I had a revelation that I needed to test out in KSP, what if I lowered the total fuel and engine count in my central rockets, but used bigger BOOSTERS that I jettisoned and recovered? SO I went into my VAB to load up my 3 kerbal rocket that had a 4 engine cluster and 4500 delta v (with FAR you really only need 3500 but Im over zealous). Step 1) I removed all but 1 rocket on the central vehicle and shaved the tank size (I use procedural dynamics) down to about 2300 delta v ish with a TWR or 0.5ish (at launch) Step 2) I put 2 boosters on the sides, with liquid fuel in each. These boosters DON'T feed off the central tank at all, and once they are empty, are jettisoned ala Shuttle srb style, deploy chutes, and are recovered. Step 3) I opened KES/Mechjeb and adjusted fuel to satisfy my delta v requirements and launched... It worked. Not only did I make it to orbit with MORE than enough fuel, I cut out 1 rocket engine, reused 2 rockets with 2 fuel tanks, and only lost 1 engine + a smaller LF tank in the process. Before I adjusted to this tactic, I had lost 4 engines and 1 large LF tank in the process of getting 3 kerbals into orbit. So then I asked myself the question... why doesn't NASA adopt HUGE boosters and smaller core rockets? For example the orion rocket. I think it has 4 or 5 SSME's at the core with 2 SRB's on the sides as boosters. Why not dump the SRB's and 2-3 of the SSMEs, cut the fuel down in the central vehicle and use stronger LF boosters on the sides that are recoverable? Why not build 2 maybe 3 engine LF boosters if you need it, you can build as large a booster as you want because all of that is coming home after staging? If I built the Orion rocket, I'd prob use 2 ssmes on the central vehicle, and use the 2x2 engine SSME's as booster rockets. Take the a good chunk of LF/tank space out of the central tank and give it to the staged boosters. You don't loose lifting ability and you gain more reusability.

Yup, delayed at about t minus 6 min, I was watching the live youtube stream.

Yeah I use AJE so getting into orbit with airbreathers is no longer an option. The tactic I used to always use before was to overshoot the runway and nose down when I was getting close to the KSC to produce that extra bit of drag before my pitch up maneuver. I was always afraid of not making the runway with enough speed to maintain lift. So when I did my retrograde burn, I would reenter and aim for a target just at the tip of beyond the runway using my wings to adjust my lift on the way. Normally I would try to preserve my speed because my landing point was soo close to the runway... maybe I should do my retrograde burn and aim for a peraps that is BEFORE the KSC, and use my wings to bleed off airspeed for lift. I honestly don't know what I should be doing because gunning for the runway leaves me with super high levels of airspeed in thicker air.

Yeah I know, but without a landing assist (mechjeb or KE) on my ship it's difficult for me to judge whether Im on course by having to constantly jump into the map and back to flying again. I've tried doing navigation purely in map mode but there are some things on my craft that can't tolerate the heat very well and end up burning on reentry, so I try to keep those things out of the flames. I usually have a transponder probe at the site but didn't put one in this save because I forgot to.

Yup, that was one of the reasons. The biggest problem was that my landing inclination was off, therefore putting my glide slope to the side of KSC by a few km. That meant I was forced to turn at high speed in thicker air that ripped my wings apart. 1) I need to slow down 2) I need to drop DIRECTLY onto the KSC (like I usually do). I added airbrakes onto my craft for more control. I realized how fast I was coming in when I was on final, gear down, 200 m from runway and my velocity was still mach 1.2. Yeah, I was coming in waaay too fast and because i was so off course, when I adjusted my heading, the aerodynamic surfaces ripped off everything. Cooool. Does anybody know how to perform s turns? I tried doing them in upper atmo but was noticing my heading kept changing so I went back to doing s turns up and down (not left to right). I even managed to slow down to mach 4 but still came in too hot and wings ripped off. Any good reentry with FAR tutorials?