ZaPPPa

The rocket family in 1960, to scale.

Yeah, I wanted to do something different from many of the other reports and figured it wasn't going to be for everybody :). Doing a story in 1st person limits the kind of pictures you can take and show and what you can describe, but it also shows a unique perspective.

1960 part 1 us up. This is a treatise on advanced rocket design intending to help you squeeze every last meter per second of deltaV out of your rocket designs. In a true space-race you want to be able to go as far as possible with the technology level you have available. This document should help you walk through the design process step-by-step for an early 1960's rocket. These steps should apply to any rocket design and I hope you'll learn some new tricks. I sure did while researching and testing this. If you have any questions, do not hesitate to ask

1959 part 2 added. I thought this would be a small addendum to part 1, but then I got an idea and four pages later, we have a whole new storyline .. Jeb's bad-ass trait makes an appearance. Also, for people who check the Imgur album, I upload new pictures with every chapter.

1959 part 1 is added. Lots more graphs to feast your eyes on... or not

Pretty much what @Dman979 said. Circularizing after apogee is not uncommon. I have read (on these forums and elsewhere) that NASA used to do this. It is actually inevitable if your upper stage has very low TWR. Just start pitching up once you pass your apogee. This will sound inefficient and it's true, you'll incur steering losses, but a low TWR is often the result of using a very light engine, so the reduced weight will make up for the 'inefficient launch trajectory' You can find the losses values in the 'Recorder' section of Mechjeb's custom window builder.

Max G is easy, just hit F3 after launch at it will list the max altitude, max velocity and max G. MaxQ is only available in Mechjeb (as far as I know). You'll have to make a custom window and put the "dynamic pressure" in it. There is no way to just get the max number, so you'll have to watch the number as you launch. I then pause the game and write down the numbers. MaxQ happens at between 10K and 15K altitude for most rockets and the heavier the rocket, the slower the Q changes, so it is easy to spot the max number. This picture has my current custom mechjeb window in it: http://imgur.com/NmI40qA What people may not realize is that I (have to) play every mission several times. Once for pictures, once for movies and at least once to collect data, then most times I play it one more final time to make sure I have collected all the science.

By the way, the last mission was number 99... I'm sure everybody can guess what mission 100 will be. (and I did not plan it this way, I did the count this morning and was surprised how it worked out..)

I used the CSV exporter from VOID and then created the graph with LibreOffice (for Linux), otherwise I'd use OpenOffice for Windows. I searched for some other charting tools, but could not find any good ones.

Good news: 1958 is up! Getting ready for manned space missions Bad news: XCOM2 is released tonight... that's going to slow down the updates I'm afraid...

This is caused by the SolverEngines 1.15 mod. Don't know why, but reverting to 1.14 fixed this issue for me. Not sure what any knock-on effects of this are though.

The mod used to get the initial images is called "Kronal Vessel Viewer" or KVV. I did the rest with Gimp (on Linux). If I were on Windows I'd use Photoshop or the free Paint.NET. There are a number of pretty good tutorials on Youtube about how to make Kerbal blueprints (this or this)

Turns out 1957 was quite the year for our fledgling space program. A new update wraps up the year (1957 part 4). Research on the first manned space capsule is reaching completion.. 1958 will be at least as exciting as 1957.

Quick overview of all rockets to date (1951-1957) scaled to size.

GGGAAAAAAAHHHHHH..., That was a lot of work (almost 20 hours), but there you have it.. 20 pages on plane design and how to read FAR (Ferran Aerospace Research) I even did some targeted tests with FAR to make sure turbulence behind the plane was modeled. I created three identical weight and deltaV rockets with various nose and tail cones. I made sure to offset the added weight of the nose and tail cones by removing lead ballast that I placed in a small tank. The results were quite clear: MaxQ Max Altitude Reached Max Velocity No Aero 33.34 110165 1245 Nose Cone 33.64 120610 1306 Nose + Tail Cone 33.98 124430 1328 Disclaimer: I am not an Aerodynamicist, but have worked a long doing data analysis for a (very) popular auto racing series.. Still, some of my conclusions/assumptions/terminology may not be 100% correct... or even 10% for that matter. I do, however, have my doubts about how the Center of Lift is being calculated by KSP. I'm not sure if the location is where it should be. I am aware that wing modeling is a little dodgy and that can have something to do with it. I do not think it matters much for the kind of planes that players will generally design, but using this game as a precision tool for optimal plane design is not going to work. Still, you can learn TONS from this game. I wish I had this around when I was young and wanted to become an aeronautics engineer... instead I settled for software engineer The craft file of the Taurus IVc can be found here

I don't see any oxygen listed when i take a brand new 1.25m cockpit. Your solution would probably be better.

I'd recommend moving the technology required for Oxygen tanks from 'Basic Capsules' to 'Survivability'. In my RP-0 story, I followed historic flight as much as possible and tried to break the altitude record in and X-15 class cockpit. My pilots kept dying from oxygen deprivation, which would not be available until I researched Basic Capsules. Basic oxygen masks had been available since WW2 (B-17 bombers used them), so should be available earlier. By putting it in the 'survivability' tech node, you are ensured that whether you research Basic Capsules or High Speed Flight first (both depend on survivability) you can reach space without dying of lack of oxygen. Water and Food can remain as is, as the X-15 is not meant for multi-day missions. @TANK_DEFINITION[*]:FOR[RP-0] { @TANK[Oxygen] { %techRequired = survivability } @TANK[Water] { %techRequired = enhancedSurvivability } @TANK[Food] { %techRequired = enhancedSurvivability } @TANK[LqdHydrogen] { %techRequired = hydroloxTL2 } } @TANK_DEFINITION[*]:AFTER[TacLifeSupport] { @TANK[Oxygen] { %techRequired = survivability } @TANK[Water] { %techRequired = enhancedSurvivability } @TANK[Food] { %techRequired = enhancedSurvivability } }

1957 part 2 is up.. More story!

Thanks @Geschosskopf, much appreciated. The whole mission log was meant as a simple log, but quickly kind of got out of control . Glad you like it. Also some good idea's got posted that I will incorporate Finally, 1957 part I is up. I finally accomplished the mission.. Lot harder than I though it would be. I added a number of pictures to the Imgur album that will show you what it looked like.

The latest mission I designed for myself (read: got myself into) is a little tricky, so it's taking some time to execute and write up.. In the meantime, is there any topic people want me to do technical details on? Obviously I cannot do a technical deep dive on a 'base on Mars' yet, because the storyline is still years away from that, but other stuff that fits the timeline. Or a piece of the backstory/history you'd like to know more about?

Update on Burney is posted. Best thing about this last chapter is that it was not planned at all, it actually happened exactly as I described it and then I just went with it. I developed such an attachment to these characters that I actually almost panicked when it happened. Also, I cannot believe there's over 80 pages already.

1956 is up... Comms network is being created and some more info about staging heavy rockets. Also... keep fingers crossed!

1955 part 2 is only two pages, so I added it to 1955 part 1

1955 part 1 is up. This chapter features and extensive explanation on how to manually calculate Hohmann transfers for satellites and allows for close-to-circular orbits without the ability to throttle or even restart engines.

I wonder if it would be possible to write a tool that can scan all the part configs, assign each part its own tech node and technology level and then auto-create a tech tree with connections going from low tech nodes to higher tech nodes... Though, even if this would be possible (and under the hood I cannot think of a reason why not), the tech tree user interface is not set up to handle a tree of that size.