700NitroXpress

Yeah, Jool has an atmospheric height of 200,000 meters and gravity of 0.8 Escape Velocity of 9704.4 m/s

Come on, 500 parts... Pretty Please

Well, it just says descend in past the 138,000 meter mark, you never said we had to come in like we were landing, so I figured that a slingshot would be the best way to go. Speed limit looks good, that works for me. If landing is indeed possible, then I'll try doing it both ways with the same craft.

Are we allowed to pass straight through Jool's atmosphere and not stop and head straight down? Like a slingshot into the atmosphere and back out? Also, I think the part count should be 500 or 600.

Does Jool have a limit like the sun as to how far you can descend until you go boom?

If your asking, what points would you get for this. You would get +20 points because your payload is both shuttles. 1 launch = 1 payload. No matter how many craft are attached to it, the payload is the sum mass of everything that's getting lifter into orbit. Even if you had 4 shuttles on one launch, that's still all one payload for the launch vehicle. If you launched them separately then you would get 20 points each. The NASA Knows Best points are to encourage people to learn about NASA launch vehicles and recreate them to see if they can be used just as effectively here in KSP. So these are easy points that everyone can earn and they're meant to give a point buffer for garbage left in space, in case you have a lot of it.

If you're replacing your core ships, it costs you 25% of your total points to do so. The other time you had a Kraken attack so you get a free one.

Here's how I landed my Duna Command Center. Stations should have docking ports and spare fuel, also a lander to carry Kerbals from orbit to the surface. A base is really just a place to hangout while on the surface, usually store Kerbals.

Your real time is 36:35, in that screenshot your stopped and it took you 2 seconds to hit the button for the next screenshot.

That's a bug known as the Kraken. Your ship will spontaneously disassemble or blow up after traveling in deep space for a while. Time warp can also cause it to happen every now and then. But at least you have a good craft that's ready for the trip to Duna. Good luck with it. If you wind up loving Duna as much as I do, you should consider building a base of operations there. It's a good place to put up a space station, refueling depot, ground base, and store reserve ships, just in case you need to swap out a lander or something. I'm assembling a fleet there now. Got 2 bases on the ground right next to each other, and Gagarin Station in orbit. http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/55310-Duna-Command-Center

No external command seats.

It runs in real time. I never wait for what you would call an ideal launch window, that's just a waste of time, just punch it and you'll get there.

First, the docking port on the bottom will be fine as long as it's braced. For the transfer stage, use the inner tank to feed the outer two tanks and you'll have plenty of fuel to get to Duna and Back if you use all 1440 capacity tanks. If you want to carry 2 kerbals, then I would suggest putting another can on top of the current one, or put a MK1 pod on top of the can and attach a little parachute to it. Move the battery down below the can and get rid of the docking port on top. The top docking port didn't make sense to me as to why you had it there to begin with. Now that you have a docking port on the bottom, you don't need one on the top as well. Any of my lifters from Leviathan Engineering will certainly get your craft into orbit with no problem. The key thing to take away from my lifting designs is the use of slack tanks to the inner asparagus stages. Here's a link to my rocket building company on the spacecraft exchange thread: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/58749-Leviathan-Engineering I just added a couple new lifter designs today. For your craft, I would recommend the Ultra Light or the Leviathan MK-II. The Ultra Light should be able to handle it just fine.

Says you... JK! Actually, for the next 2 missions that I have planned, I have built equipment for you guys so you'll need to use what's given to you by Kerbal Space Command HQ. You'll get a fun little break after the Eve mission.

Technically... no. But since we are limited on parts and fuel supply, I'll say that this is about as close as you can get to a Saturn V rocket, since that rocket has 5 mainstall engines. So this will be good enough to qualify. Your strapping a shuttle onto a Saturn V basically, so good enough. You'll get +70 points for this.

Center is double the size of the outer boosters that feed the center mainstall. Payload goes on top. This one would be a Delta IV Heavy. You can also have an additional stage after the main engines are done to finish the orbit of the payload. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta_IV_Heavy

Yeah, I used this NASA Delta IV design to lift my satellites into orbit.

I made some improvements to the intake system on my plane so now all of the radial intakes are gone and I added 2 more ram intakes. So now it can fly higher and go a little faster. I just have to time that descent properly, it's been catching me up. I'm going to shoot for 33:30 or better, but it has to be perfect timing.

Yeah, you could. SABRE engines may be used when building SSTO's to carry payloads since I found this reference. For shuttles, there's shuttles like Sirine's and then there's NASA shuttles. The NASA shuttle get's the NASA knows best bonus along with the shuttle missions bonus.

If you use an unshielded docking port and you have something attached to it, it will tend to sink into the ship and cause explosions unless it's properly secured. The different in the docking ports is purely cosmetic. I love the shielded ones as long as it's on the top. You have an excessive amount of RCS on that thing. You only need one of those large tanks, you'll never use that much RCS fuel. Put one of the huge RCS tanks in the middle. Also put electrical generators on the center transfer stage otherwise it will run out of power while you're on the surface. Adding a large SAS module to the center is also a good idea. You want single direction RCS ports on the center part as well so you get better maneuverability out of it when docking. With these changes you could also increase the fuel supply of the transfer stage by having 3 of those 1440 capacity tanks. Then I would say that you'd be good to go. It's always best to have a little more fuel than you think you'll need. If you add enough fuel to it, you could do multiple landings with the extra fuel. I only used 720 units of liquid fuel to get that lander back into Duna orbit. So 2 landings on Duna in one mission is possible with that fuel loadout. If you have trouble getting it into space, check out my Leviathan super max payload lifter. 250 ton capacity, one size fits all. There's a video on that thread that shows you how to use it. I also have a smaller version of it that works just as well as this one. http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/57409-Leviathan-Heavy-Lifter

Here's my P.O.S. Space Shuttle and it carrying a little payload into orbit and back in Kerban airspace. Just a test flight and it handles like trash, but it flew. So that's good enough for my first one.

Yes, this will work as long as it's launched from the launchpad and lands on the runway using rocket power.

I'm sorry for any confusion. Shuttle missions was referring to Space Shuttle Missions, which is using the NASA space shuttle in the pictures of my previous post. Carry the cargo up into orbit using a rocket powered shuttle and then that shuttle must land on the runway. Master of Aerodynamics uses an SSTO all jet powered, then to liquid fuel oxidizer powered, to take cargo from the runway, into orbit, and then lands back at the runway. If you're unsure about anything or need clarification on what is posted on the original post, always ask. The beacons are awesome, very useful.

Here is a KSP Space Shuttle. http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/59599-Working-75x75-Space-Shuttle http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/59516-Mod-Craft-NASA-Style-Space-Shuttle-using-B9-Aerospace-and-Space-Shuttle-Engines http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/59499-Show-us-yer-Shuttles!

There's just one problem... this isn't a shuttle. This is an SSTO cargo lifter equivalent of the Skylon SSTO. The difference is shown below. This craft takes off and lands on a runway like the Skylon SSTO. A shuttle takes off using rockets from the launchpad and then lands on the runway like a plane. So you would get the Master of Aerodynamics bonus points for this of +10, not the Shuttle Missions bonus of +50. Also, space shuttles shouldn't have any jet engines or air intakes at all. They're all rocket powered. Skylon SSTO Space Shuttle