AppleDavidJeans

If you all want no-stop access to this thread, just bookmark it in your browser. Simple enough.

Mebe they should sticky the top 5 threads in Mission Reports.

And to follow up on that, a SSTO is a spacecraft that can get into orbit all in one piece from takeoff to orbit, and landing. That means no staging or any of that stuff. Hope that helps

Brotoro, I'd like to know the design process that you went through in building the Ladyhawk. I'm building an SSTO spaceplane derived from yours. Thanks.

Huh...the results are oddly perplexing.

From Part 22 There is a way around that, or so I'd imagine because of irl aerodynamics and stuff. Back in the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo days, the crew went through a radio blackout due to the ionization effects. But when engineers were designing the Space Shuttle, they found during testing that a "hole" appeared in the ionization envelope at the tail end of the spacecraft, allowing uninterrupted contact (of course there were still blackouts, although a few seconds in length due to that the shuttle was actually switching TDRS satellites) throughout reentry. So they took advantage of that and placed the antenna there. Now, I don't know the exact dynamics of the Ladyhawk, but given that the Ladyhawk has a similar profile to the Shuttle, I'd take a guess the hole's gonna be at the tail end, so I'd place the "antenna" on the tail. EDIT: Oh lol It appears you have a little strut on your tail. Guess you can have your kerbals drill out a cavity in your tail and the strut piece and put some wires and an antenna in it.

Lol when I first saw this, I got so hooked that I didn't go to bed until I finished reading this.

I tend to steer clear of launchers using only solid rockets unless they have a liquid fuel stage as the final stage, for fine-tuning. The trick irl rocket makers use for solid rockets is that since solid rockets' thrust is related to the surface area being burnt, they vary the surface area by putting ridges and grooves along the length of the rocket to produce variable thrust per mission needs. KSP doesn't simulate that. So that's why.

Technique: Disposable RCS control for purposes such as delivering modules to space stations using tugs. For decades, kerbal engineers have had tremendous experience delivering modules to stations using tugs. They could do it right every time. But a nuisance that made for eyesores was, they had to provide some sort of RCS control so the module could dock, and the RCS couldn't be anywhere on the craft, except around the CoM, to provide optimal control.They got around this by slapping parts on the tug to drag the CoM down to below tug level. Then late in the spring of star year 5034, General Jebediah Kerman ordered that in order to keep launch costs down, they couldn't drag down the CoM by slapping on useless parts on the tug until the CoM was below tug level. Because of this, the station constructions had to be halted for 5 years while the engineers wracked their brains, but none of the technique ideas floated around came to fruition. Then one day, a young engineer named Appledavidjeans Kerman invented what he called "disposable RCS thrusters." This was an ingenious idea, and the admin monkeys at Squad decided to award him a bunch of medals that were too long to read, and a lifetime salary boost so fat that he couldn't decide what to do with it except chuck it into his savings account. ***NOTICE: Though I used mod parts as part of this demonstration, this can be done using stock parts on anything. I used stock parts for the technique part.*** Now here's a graphical explanation of what the problem is: See that CoM? It's in the module and not the tug. That's the problem. See why in the next paragraph. Recall that RCS thrusters work best if they're equally balanced around the CoM in any arrangement. I could just slap on the thrusters there, but after I jettison the tug, which is the half white, half-checkered engine + tank, after I deliver the module to a space station, the RCS are useless (unless you had a RCS tank module on the station) and an eyesore. I can't drag it down by slapping on parts to the tug, cause that would also be an eyesore and probably impractical. So I came up with this technique. This can be used on anything, stock or mod. How it's done: Recall that Cubic Octagonal Struts can be rotated into a spacecraft in the VAB or SPH to provide hidden attachment points for parts. That's the key to this technique. Turn on 4 side symmetry (that's what I use) and put the struts on inwards, around or balanced around the CoM, and then put on any type of separator (ideally a tiny one such as the TR-2V Stack Decoupler). MAKE SURE that the arrow on the separator points to the module, otherwise the point of this technique is ruined. Put on another set of struts, then place the thrusters on. The end result should look like this: Now the moment of truth: It works! Yeeeeeeeey! And in case you had any doubts, I did not have Infinite RCS on. But we're not done yet. I did not dock this module, but no need to for purposes of this demonstration. I could jettison the thrusters at any point, including after docking. I now will demonstrate the point of this technique. Moment of Truth again! IT ALSO WORKS!!! YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEY!!! Word of advice: I'd be mindful of solar panels if there are any nearby when the thrusters are jettisoned. Fold them first is what I'm saying. Quod erat demonstrandum. In case you were wondering what are the mod parts I used for this demo, the module is from fusty's (through sumghai) FusTek Station Parts pack and the tug is an upper stage from frizzank's FASA pack. Sorry I didn't use only 100% stock parts for this, but this came to me on the fly and I had to get this out to everyone

OMG. Now something to hide those big, honking ugly parts in.

Lel. I'll rephrase. What is your ultimate goal with Laythe?

Ah R.A.P.I.E.R. (How appropriate of a name...) engines. Guess that makes the B9's SABRE engines redundant now, don't it?

Brotoro, what is your endgame here with Laythe?

This one downloads in .7z format? Can't you use the more mainstream formats like .zip or .rar?

Finally! Thank you Brotoro!

Can you change the Soyuz ST payload fairing texture so that it doesn't say the Galileo mission on it?

Brotoro, have you ever thought about swapping out the stock command pops with stock command pods that have built-in Mechjeb like this one? I've noticed that you sometimes forget to slap on the Mechjebs, which meant falling back to your methods of using landmarks to guide your craft to the desired landing point? I'm pretty sure that the capsule specs would be the same. You could write it in as a software update.

Granted, but your KSP probe explodes 10 seconds after launch

holy flipping crap. That's very good.

Wow...this is epic. I've got this bookmarked in my browser.