G'th

There's a couple convenient spots. LKO (~75-80km) is a good place to put a fuel station you intend to use to your designs that have an upper stage with no fuel loaded at launch. This lets you take larger payloads into Low Kerbin Orbit with lifters that would otherwise be unable to lift whatever your payload is, the reason being because you take out a lot of the weight (in fuel) from the upper stages, with the intention of loading that fuel while in LKO. The downside is that you have to be good at rendezvous as the low orbit isn't very forgiving. Anywhere from 150km to 300km is a good spot for stations you intend to use with part heavy crafts as well as just crafts in general, as at this altitudes you wont' be rendering Kerbin's ground details anymore and will instead just see the texture of it, so you'll gain a better amount of FPS. Due to the medium orbit you'll have plenty of room for rendezvous and it'll be a good staging point for most transfers. Little downsides. Orbit around either Mun or Minmus or a distance farther out than either will be a good place to receive returning interplanetary crafts that you intend to send back out, as it won't take much to enter Kerbin's SOI at an orbit closer to one of the moons or the station itself compared to trying to reach a station at LKO for instance. Downside is that crafts coming up from Kerbin will require a good amount of delta v to get to the station.

Never. Tried them dont' like them. I prefer drop pods and general lifters (be they expendable or otherwise) for my LKO infrastructure. Not only are they just plain simpler and more rugged for their purposes, but the drop pods in particular are just cooler.

This. Regardless of how STS was still overly complicated for what it was doing , the programs two catastrophic failures happened because NASA administration let it happen.

Wonder what would happen if I put a warp drive on the back of a basket rig.

I, being the sort that has little to spend with his money (mostly because he doesn't spend most of his paycheck every week unlike a lot of other people his age), would jump at literally chance of augmented reality. So if putting some kind of micro or nanochip inside my brain means I get AR capability, then hell yeah!

Hmm, this is true. Presuming it works then presumably the payload penalty would be irrelevant.

Wouldn't be simpler, ultimately cheaper, and more practical to just attach large parachutes to the boosters? Perhaps using some kind of minimal guidance system to rotate the booster as it falls so that the parachutes can open without either tearing themselves or the booster itself apart? I can't imagine parachutes (even ones strong enough to bring down a booster) would cut into your payload that much. Seems to me a powered descent is overly complicated for what they want to do. Like using a fork lift to change a light bulb. (not an accurate analogy but you get my point)

You know, I never though I'd be utterly and completely fascinated (I watched all this guys videos last night. Every single minute) by something that to most people is probably about as exciting as watching Harry Potter go to the bathroom compared to the big picture of what this was all a part of. Makes the entirety of the Apollo program seem even more real than I've ever felt it was. (And thats not to say that I ever doubted what we did. But actually seeing and hearing it makes all the difference) Its also just plain awesome to see the astronauts screwing around at times. But anyway, just thought I'd share this for those who haven't seen it. I had hoped I could find similar recordings for Apollo 11, but so far my search has not yielded much more than what I've already seen just from growing up so close to Kennedy. (I can walk there from my house )

Welp, the first few flights were incredibly successful considering I never build my initial rockets to go any higher than 70km. My third flight sent Bill into an almost orbital flight with an apoapsis of ~200km. Took me a bit to realize I needed to be paying attention to my apoapsis on the Orbit screen rather than starting at the navball the entire time. Next flight should be orbital. Mission reports will follow here soon. However, for the sake of simplicity in designing my ships (and because I'm too lazy to deal with finding a realistic tech tree that I like) I've decided to unlock the entire tree after I do my first orbital flight. Now, that being said, I'll still be following a general progression (IE, I won't jump from my equivalent of John Glenn's first orbital flight to Neil Armstrong stepping on the Moon in the next flight) with my ships and of course, they will all still be flown by IVA. Its just that now I won't end up in the Apollo area of progression and still be reliant on one-man capsules.

That is amazing.

So, I've finally come up with an idea for a challenge that I haven't seen here before. And that is to see who can build the best interpretation of the Saturn-Shuttle concept by NASA. Background: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn-Shuttle The Saturn-Shuttle was an initial idea by NASA to bring the STS Orbiters into LEO. Rather than the expendable tank and dual SRB's we all know and possibly despise, the Saturn-Shuttle concept would have had the Orbiter attached to a modified Saturn V. The way it would have worked is to have the Orbiter attached to an expendable tank (as was done with the SRB system) which would fuel its SSME's, and that would be placed atop an S-IC stage, which was the first stage of the Saturn V. The S-IC would be able to be recoverable after jettison, and the expendable tank would obviously be left to burn up in reentry or otherwise crash into the ocean after the Orbiter's SSME's propel the pair into LEO, and the Orbiter itself would perform its mission as usual. So, the challenge here is naturally to produce your own interpretation of this concept in whatever way you feel is necessary. I unfortunately don't have an example (mostly because a catastrophic failure has necessitated the rebuilding of my own Saturn V. That, and I still need to make my own Orbiter) but sooner or later I'll have one. You are allowed to use almost any mod (See Restrictions below) you feel is necessary to accomplish this task. The basic one to have is B9 Aerospace, which will make designing an orbiter much easier. You will be scored according to this system: Tier 1: The Basics Those that fall within this tier will be those who simply produce a Saturn-Shuttle system that can deliver an Orbiter into LKO, utilizing the components listed above. IE, a recoverable S-IC first stage coupled with and expendable fuel tank that fuels the SSME's which propel the Orbiter into LKO. Mission Success is achieved via the successful recovery of the S-IC and the Orbiter. Those who accomplish this tier will be awarded 5 points. Tier 2: Mission Ready Those that fall within this tier will not only be those who meet the qualifications required by Tier 1, but who also manage to accomplish some kind of mission with their Orbiter within Kerbin's SOI. This can be literally anything from simple supply run to a space station, to a fly by of a moon, simple orbit, etc etc. Mission Success is achieved via recovery of the S-IC and the Orbiter, as well as the accomplishing of your self-chosen mission. Those who accomplish this tier will be awarded 10 points. Tier 3: Exceeding Expectations Those that fall within this tier will be those who completely exceed the original point of the Orbiter's while using the Saturn-Shuttle concept. This naturally includes every conceivable mission beyond Kerbin's SOI. This will also include Mun and Minmus landings. Success is achieved via compliance with the success conditions of the previous tiers, as well as accomplishing the mission beyond Kerbin's SOI. The third condition of Tier 2 can be substituted with the condition of this one. As such, you are not required to do something within Kerbin's SOI to still be considered tier 3. Those who accomplish this will be awarded 20 points. Multipliers: True Space Transportation: For each Kerbal carried by your Orbiter (beyond the basic 3. You lose no points for only having 1 or 2 kerbal crewmen however) add one point. Precision Landing: 5 points may be added if you land your Orbiter back at the KSC Runway That looks like a Saturn: 5 points may be added for how closely your rocket resembles the actual Saturn V S-IC stage. That looks like the Enterprise: 5 points may be added for how close your Orbiter resembles the actual Space Shuttle Substitution is for chumps: 10 points may be added if you accomplish a dual mission, accomplishing a task not only within Kerbin's SOI but also outside of it. I'm Cheap!: 10 points may be added if your Expendable fuel tank is made to be recoverable as well, producing an entirely recoverable system. I don't have much RAM: 20 Points may be added if you accomplish any tier with purely stock parts. Mods such as MechJeb or Kerbal Engineer do not count against this multiplier. Look Ma! I can fly!: 30 points may be added if you decide to comply with and succeed at actually flying the S-IC stage back to KSC, as was intended via the Saturn-Shuttle concept. I did not include this as a requirement in the base challenge because I couldn't see how you'd manage to fly the S-IC back to KSC, even in real life. Restrictions: No Hyperedit No KSP Interstellar or other future propulsion mods. As this challenge is meant to explore a concept that was meant to be feasible in the late 70's and early 80's, no future propulsion methods may be used.

As it stands, probes are best used for emergency science. IE, you're stuck in a rut and want/need a node. You can send a probe somewhere with a lot of science transmit it all and bam, a nice science boost. Impactors with reusable experiments are best at it. They can grab science from several different altitudes all the way down to just before the surface and with a quick hand can transmit them just as quickly. They're also useful for non-space station objects that you intend to leave alone for a long time, like mapping or communication sattelites (utilizing mods like ScanSat, Kethane, Remote Tech etc) that don't have much of a reason to seat a kerbal.

Takes about 5 minutes or so (i don't know, I usually alt-tab out while I wait for the music to come on) Not all that bad all things considered.

Considering it wouldn't have taken much more to put men in at least orbit of Mars and then back to Earth back in 1969, and considering that 10 billion budget is more than enough to cover an Apollo launch (taking inflation into account), then this wouldn't be hard just using conventional, already developed propulsion. You'd have the headroom to build the required rocket to get to Mars (Mars is the only realistic interplanetary target for manned mission atm is it not?) plus whatever you'd need to build to get you back, and still with just enough headroom for whatever else. The real problem is how much of the hardware you'd have to (or decide to) reengineer if not completely reinvent, which is what's going to start eating into your budget the deeper you go with this. Considering the existence of SLS and the fact that no one can seem to decide how humanity should design a manned Mars mission, this is going to be a prevalent problem. Its not just a matter of designing the propulsion method. Its a matter of designing and constructing what you're putting on top of it.

This should be fun, I would think. After experimenting with RasterpropMonitor and a bunch of other mods that make going all IVA truly feasible (including Lazer Mod which gives first person EVA. Still has a third person transition between IVA and EVA, but I can deal with that as a limitation of the game) I've decided to dedicate an entire save to doing nothing but that. All IVA (or more accurately, first person) missions, all the time. Naturally I'd have to use third person for testing purposes past Apollo level (I already have a set of crafts I can rebuild in my sleep that will accomplish everything up to Apollo rather easily) as well as for probes and such but beyond that I certainly think I could do it, and it would probably be the most immersive experience ever frankly. I already have experience going first person from flight simulators (particularly combat flight sims, so how I'll be able to react to problems whilst in IVA will be interesting) so, much like the real astronauts, I'll have at least some idea of what I'm doing going in. Right now I'm getting a save started and my first rocket launch will be completed shortly. But, before I really get into it, anyone have some mission ideas or even mod suggestions (i've got almost all the major ones already. And I mean that. See mod list below) to throw at me? I can't imagine there's many mods that I don't have already so mission ideas are more what I"m looking for beyond the basic Mercury and Apollo missions I plan on doing (gemini is meh. I already know the technology works ) Here's the mod list I'll be using, as they appear in my folder: AIES Aerospace ASET B9 Aerospace Chatterer Crew Manifest Deadly Reentry FASA FScience Home Grown Rocket parts RasterPropMonitor (With MFD) Kerbal Attachment System Procedural Fairings Joint Reinforcement Kethane Klockheed Martian (Shuttle engines) KW Rocketry LackLusterLabs MechJeb (I plan on limiting its usage to docking (because i still suck at anything more than the Apollo turn around) and lift off on some of my more fickle rockets. Possibly also for any maneuvers I don't trust myself to make) Spherical and Toroidal fuel tanks Modular Fuel Tanks Final Frontier 6S Service Compartments NovaPunch Porkworks Hab Modules LAZER Mod ScanSAT Starshine Industries (stock alike parts. Can't remember how the mod was called on here, sorry!) Station Science (PLUS Costly Science) Stretchy SRB ThunderAerospace (TACC Life Support) Kerbal Alarm clock Tweakable Everything As for how I can fit all that into one stable game, welp, magic. That and I delete a lot of the odd parts out of NovaPunch that I've never found a use for. (No offense intended there )

Well, firstly, what you'd be doing is not reinserting yourself into a free return (which is more or less impossible unless you confuse terms, which you're doing, but thats okay) but instead, you'd be doing a Trans-Kerbin injection. IE, reinsertion into Kerbin orbit. A free return is where the gravity from one body causes you to sling back into the influence of the body you came from. IE, you use the Mun to sling yourself back into Kerbin Orbit. But anyway, what you would do is wait until your periapsis and then burn prograde until you get a Kerbin encounter, in essence doing the same maneuver you used to go to the Mun in the first place. Thats the basics of it. Without precisely controlling where and in what direction you burn you'll likely wind up with an ending Kerbin periapsis that is gigantic and will possibly require a lot of tuning to change into an orbit that will allow you to return to Kerbin. You can check this once you get the Kerbin Encounter, as you'll get an orbital path show up around Kerbin. This path is what your orbit will look like once you leave the Mun's influence. This however can be fixed most efficiently while on the way to your Kerbin encounter point. After getting the encounter, simply make a maneuver node somewhere along your path and play with it to change your periapsis, inclination, etc etc to wherever you need or want it.

Why not Snacks?

While its not exactly like a Hall of Fame, a similar feature can be had out of the Final Frontier mod. It gives individual kerbals achievement ribbons, such as being the first in space, first to step foot on Mun, etc etc. I see a Hall of Fame as a way of adding more persistence to your save games. Not only will you have the bits and bobs that you left behind to remind you of missions past, you could have records of those bits and bobs and the missions that put them where they rest. A fully realized HOF could not only display your achievements but also records of the missions that accomplished them.

Just delete everything out of the FASA folder that you don't want. OR, make a new folder and copy the towers over. There's really no need to make a separate upload for just the launch towers. Indeed he did. And to that all I can say is EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Are the Apollo parts also going to have accompanying Saturn parts?

Welp, while stargazing (or more accurately Mungazing) whilst landed at Kerbin, I started to look at the Mun. I've always liked to look at the various body rises and sets, and seeing the Mun rise and set was no different. Well, as I watched the Mun go across the sky, I noticed something rather strange, even when I wasn't zoomed in. You see, I can quite easily make out the Mun moving in the sky, bit by bit (which relatively speaking is probably closer to km by km). This of course didn't phase me at first as I just figured I was at some low time warp. But alas, I was playing in real time, and the Mun was still moving across the sky at such a speed that the movement was quite visible. I would imagine this is simply a matter of how the simulation works in tandem with the lower scale of the Kerbalverse. However, it still seems strange. Is the orbital velocity of the Mun properly scaled down from a realistic one? IIRC, the Kerbin/Mun system is supposed to be more or less a scaled down version of the Earth and the Moon. If so, then shouldn't the Mun be moving much, much slower across the sky?

You could just delete the parts out of the FASA folder that you don't want. You wont' break anything aside from things that are meant to work together but with little else. (Like the docking ports or the Crew compartments for example). That's the best go-to option for anyone who wants to trim what they are loading into their game. If you need more after trimming the parts you don't want or don't use out of the big part mods like B9, FASA, AIES, etc then you can go to the memory reduction mod and reduced texture packs and such.

You may want to look into FASA's new launch towers. They aren't the exact same as the old launch tower, but they provide a similar look without the risk of destroying your rocket (because they act as launch clamps) as well as a mostly optimized presence. Here's my Saturn V with it:

While it may or may not be a bug and/or mod effect of some kind, in my KSP tundra can be found in a lot of places. There's a hill to the west of KSC that has the Tundra biome present on it in my saves.

Another way you may want to look into to attach rovers to your ships (particularly once you gain JR docking ports) is to go for side attachment, ala one of my older crafts: As you can see, the docking port on the rover* connects to the docking port on the lander craft itself. On the other side of the craft I either attach a counter weight (usually the equipment box I attached to the back of that particular rover) or another rover or some other design. Later revisions to that particular setup ended up utilizing a test bed rover for a variety of purposes such as kethane mining, power generation, etc etc while the other rover served as a general purpose exploration rover. Doing it this way eliminates the need for a sky crane system (which can get complicated when utilizing multiple rovers) while also eliminating the headache you'd have trying to design the rover to be deployed from under the lander craft. *I also disagree with the idea of not using your actual crafts as sub-assemblies. If you build the craft properly (IE, from the point it will attach to your main craft out, usually a docking port or stack decoupler/separator) then you'll be able to easily use things like rovers or lander's as sub-assemblies.