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I thought that the general consensus was that unmanned tech and exploration should come before sending kerbals out, like in real life, but I think we need a poll. I also added a question about the progression for aircraft and rocketry. All these are very important for the incentives structure of the game for the Science mode update. It's a major game design decision to make the player explore by sending probes first like in real like or limiting utility of probes because of lack of control. Especially because there is the lack of limitations imposed by life support, which would have made progression more natural by incentivising unmanned missions. Also I reached the limit for the number of questions, but do you think tech progression should unlock the smallest rocket diameter first or should miniaturization come later in the tree?

Description In the war with the Zxatan Imperium, the K93 Raijin single-engine multirole fighter aircraft developed for the KDF Military Airforce of the nation of Xenobia served as one of the main fighting force’s multi-role aircraft. Though it did not have stealth capabilities it was agile and capable of taking down the forces of the Zxatan Imperium before The Fall. After our forces were rebuilt we brought back this fighter in the form of K-93 Raijin Kai with increased engine power, redesigned airframe, wings, and cockpit as well as out new weapons system. New technologies like Remote-controlled or onboard-AI controlled Enhanced Night Vision and enhanced weaponry Enhanced single-engine Craft Details. Craft is Fully stock and requires Breaking Grounds DLC for Robotic Parts. NO MODS Does have 1 Flag Download Make sure if saved from here to name it Canopy.png or download form link below Comes with Stock Missiles for Roleplay Weapon bay can be supplied with up to 8-10 stock missiles or bombs or 16-18 AIM-9 Missiles or other layouts (BD-ARMORY OPTIONAL) TESTED Action Groups Stage - Fire Missiles - Fires xx Under weapon bay RCS - After Burner AG1 - Toggle Engines AG2 - Drop External Fuel Tanks AG3 - Open Canopy AG4 - Deploy Airbrakes AG5 - Deploy Chutes AG6 - Toggle Navigation Lights AG7 - Toggle Instrument Cluster Simulation. AG8 - Toggle Night Vision Downloads Below: Steam - https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2945010782 Kerbal X - https://kerbalx.com/InterstellarKev/KDF-K-93-Raijin-Kai Download Flags here: Dropbox: https://www.dropbox.com/s/rsoccs28zwiq3e7/Raijin%20Custom%20Flags.zip?dl=0 Google Drive: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BgM6a0w7vQkbPZ1GMkMb90Xw42amqlYp/view?usp=sharing Place flags in your flags folder in your kerbal space program install directory. Details Type: SPH Class: aircraft Part Count: 672 Pure Stock KSP: 1.12.5 Save flag below as window62 and place in Kerbal Space Program\GameData\Squad\Flags

note: it says the craft is modded but its 100% stock (stupid KerbalX errors mid upload! Details Type: SPH Class: aircraft Part Count: 600 Mods: 4 KSP: 1.12.5 Description Story After the war of the 2900’s the nation of Xenobia and its ally nations have all put in a joint effort in developing Six-generation multirole fighters. After great strides with the K-96 Tengu in 2998; 20 years later we have finally achieved success in the new K-81 Yamata and the sister unit K-80 Orochi. Together they create the legendary 8-headed serpent squad Yamata no Orochi. The K-81 Yamata serves as the protective unit to the K-80 Orochi meant primarily for drone usage but comes with a manned flight seat for optional operation. known to fly in the Delta formation. smaller frame and platform for higher stealth capabilities. This superior unit will dominate the skies for years to come. New technologies like Remote-controlled or onboard-AI controlled Enhanced Night Vision and in a Stealth Airframe with up to Mach 2.0 - 2.1 for fast engagement (at around 10 km). Craft Details. Craft is Fully stock and requires Breaking Grounds DLC for Robotic Parts. NO MODS Does have 1 Flag Download Make sure if saved from here to name it Canopy.png or download form link below Comes with Stock Misslies for Roleplay Weapon bay can be supplied with up to 3 (stock missiles) or 4 AIM-9 Missiles or other layouts (BD-ARMORY OPTIONAL) TESTED Action Groups Stage - Fire Missiles - Fires Under weapon bay RCS - After Burner AG1 - Toggle Engines AG2 - Open Main Weapon bay AG3 - Lower and Raise Missiles AG4 - Open Canopy AG5 - Toggle Radiator AG6 - Toggle Instrument Cluster Simulation AG7 - Toggle Night Vision (FPV MODE ONLY) DOWNLOADS Steam: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2943327785 Kerbal X: https://kerbalx.com/InterstellarKev/KDF-K-81-Yamata Flags Indium.png Google Drive https://drive.google.com/file/d/1AlyNTuNzkkIyMrJW_QitzZx2T6ywxbGO/view?usp=share_link Dropbox https://www.dropbox.com/s/9ymqw7tu5bcnxtu/Indium.png?dl=0 Name Flag Indium and make sure to place in your Kerbal Flag folder Kerbal Space Program\GameData\Squad\Flags A mod aircraft called KDF K-81 Yamata. Built with 600 of the finest parts Built in the SPH in KSP version 1.12.5. Flag name it Indium

Previously, I would have discussed this on Reddit in r/SpaceXLounge, but with the new moderation there they won’t let you discuss anything controversial or speculative. Starship and modeler pics seem to be the name of the game now. For several years I’ve been thinking of mission architectures that could get us back to the Moon by the 50th anniversary of the Apollo manned lunar missions. We missed the Apollo 11 50th anniversary, but we MIGHT have been able to make the Apollo 17 50th anniversary of Dec. 2022. This is where it gets controversial. The SpaceX architecture of making 8 to 16 refueling flights for Moon or Mars flights is a bad architecture. There is a reason why the Apollo missions used a launcher with 3 stages and then 2 more stages for the lander for their round-trip missions. For missions with that high a delta-v requirement multiple stages are critical. SpaceX by using multiple refueling flights is acknowledging that, just in a very inefficient manner. The point of the matter is SpaceX could have done a manned Moon or Mars flights with a single launch IF they had given their launcher a 3rd stage. The 3rd stage could have been comparable size to the Starhopper. Yes, I know the actual Starhopper was not space-worthy but the point of the matter is by continuing it’s development along side the Starship they would have had a space-worthy vehicle capable of lunar landing and return by now. SuperHeavy+Starship+Starhopper single launch missions to the Moon or Mars. It would have been so beautiful … See here: http://exoscientist.blogspot.com/2019/07/starhopperstarship-as-heavy-lift.html Anyone up to the challenge of a sim? Robert Clark

Welcome! So, you want to go to Tylo. Alright, keep reading then. But know this: Tylo WILL BREAK YOU. Why? It's as big as Kerbin, just a little bit lower surface gravity, but HAS NO atmosphere. That means you will have to brake ALLLLLL the way down to the surface burning precious fuel. You will find yourself orbiting very low (10km or so) with speeds of 2400 m/s, and if your TWR is lower than 1 you will fail. Simply. This is not a tutorial, this will not teach you how to do transfers between planets, nor how to construct a rocket. It will just tell you what to expect before arriving there. Ok, here we go: What you need: Basics - Since it's a manned mission, you need at least a scientist, to reset the science stuff and collect more. A pilot and engineer are optional, if you have a good relay network, that is. - About 19000 Dv total, to ensure you don't get stranded in space. My rocket had 19500 and ended at Kerbin with 1000 left, but I used some gravity assists in the middle to economize fuel. -Nuclear engines. Highly recommended for space. NOT FOR LANDING - Some landing engine with good thrust. NOT FOR SPACE FARING. What you need: Specifics - A rover: Tylo might be treacherous, but provide a very good ground for rovers! It's fun, actually. It will behalve almost like in Kerbin. Beware of speeds surpasing 40 m/s! -A lander: DO.NOT.MAKE.YOUR.LANDER.TOO.VERTICAL (like i did) or it will fall!!! I made a ship bottle shaped and it was a pain in the ass to land. My horizontal speed was between 1 and 2 m/s and that was enough for it to tilt to one side when touching ground. A wide-base lander would have been much better suited. -An escape ship: Once the fun is over, you need to return. Calculate about 3300 Dv to get to orbit from Tylo's surface, to hopefully your mothership, space taxi or whatever is waiting to deliver bak home. What to have in mind: -Bring lots of solar panels or isotopes, Kerbol shines too softly on Tylo to gather enough energy. -Big wheels on the rover wont hurt. -Save before landing. Even close to the ground your engines will fire uncontrolably at full force, aproach as slowly as possible, and reduce your gimbal. Consider Tylo as a super Mun. -Use Jool, Laythe or even Tylo to assist your interplanetary brake. Actually, every Jool mission should make use of its satellites to help you. -Too insecure to try a Tylo mission? Go to Pol first, it's close by but much simpler to land (surface gravity a noch more than Gilly) Have Fun! (manned mission to Pol, SOON!)

Kerbal Fighter Jet Endeavour Kerbin is at the brink of a global war. Nations across the globe are rushing to get their fleets of fighter jets ready for the day war breaks out. Awful for the planet, but now is the perfect time for aerospace corporations everywhere to bloom! Your mission is to design the best possible jet, but that’s not where it ends! You’ll also have to sell them… The leaderboard First of all you’ll obviously have to design an aircraft. The only rule is that the plane has to be manned, no drone battles here. External command seats will not be accepted either. The rest of the design is fairly simple really, apart from a few parts, you can do whatever you want (more on that later)! Of course the plane has to be capable of taking off under its own power. The banned parts are: BDA Armor All shapes and sizes of turrets Laser armament The use of the armor slider is also prohibited Further than that, if you wish to put in reaction wheels, RCS, whatever, go ahead, it’s all allowed! However, there’s a 100 part limit (don’t want to limit this competition to only the best computers). (optional)The second part is actually selling it. Every player can, beside sending in planes, act as a buyer for some imaginary nation. Everyone gets a budget of 10.000.000 credits to spend on a fleet of your choice (obviously you can’t buy your own aircraft). The best fighter won’t just fight well, it’ll also sell well. This way I hope to promote cheaper and more aesthetic designs as well as purely functional ones. As a plane designer you’ll have to write a sales pitch to convince buyers of your craft. The following data has to be in your pitch: cost, crew number, type (single engine, dual engine, …) and obviously a link to download your craft (preferably put that in the leaderboard as well). The leaderboard consist of multiple categories based on the amount of engines: - Single engine - Dual engine - Go crazy (basically everything that doesn't fit in the above 2 categories) The tournament itself will be organized in such a way that I don’t have to be present to lead everything, this way it can continue as long as people wish to, even if I am no longer active in the forums. So, how does it work? Planes will be taken together in groups of 5 (check the spreadsheet if you’re confused right now). If you wish to enter your plane, all you have to do is start a battle with the bottom plane of the highest rated group of 5. If you win, your plane enters this board and gets to fight upwards against the other 4 planes. The plane formerly on spot 5 drops to the lower table. If you lose, you start against the lowest rated plane of the group below. This process just repeats itself until your planes finishes somewhere. In the rare case that you don’t manage to win against anyone, you just put your plane all the way at the bottom of the lowest group (if that one is full, make a new one). Fighting itself will happen in 3 rounds of 2v2, all viewed from a neutral point of view for physics sake. Battles will be run in standard KSP physics, this isn’t a FAR competition, and it will never be. All fighting will be done by the BDA-AI, therefore the settings of the autopilot play a major role in the success of your aircraft. The actual order in which the battles are fought doesn’t matter, as long as all 3 are fought. If you win 2 your plane gets to move on. Moving up is seen as 1 offensive victory in the spreadsheet. Losing to a plane above is a defensive victory for the above craft. The battles are: - 2 of yours from KSC vs 2 enemy planes from the island runway. - Opposite of the round above. - Both groups of 2 take off from KSC in opposite directions. For the sake of easiness, it is not mandatory to record your battles. I’ll go ahead and trust all of you to be honest and fair in reporting your victories and defeats, if you however do wish to record the battle and provide us with a video, please do! Yes, I will play out and record battles for you. I still highly encourage everyone to do this for themselves. Should you want me to do them for you, do mention it in your submission, and keep in mind that it will take longer this way since I have other stuff to take care of as well! On top of that, I'm not very good at video recording, I can edit but probably won't take the effort to do that...  Mods required: - BDArmory for the latest version of KSP. - PhysicsRangeExtender (should already be installed for BDA to work anyway) - AirplanePlus Text editing any files (eg: raising hitpoints) is very much forbidden and if anyone gets caught doing this, all their planes will instantly be disqualified and the player will be banned from entering the competition again. That’s it! If you have any questions or feel like something could still be improved, feel free to write a comment about it and I’ll look in to it asap. Good luck!

Hello everyone, and welcome to my first mission report, which happens to be of my first interplanetary mission. This mission is a manned Eve flyby, under the title Odysseus. It was named after the legendary Kreek Hero of this title. The crew: https://imgur.com/TbtUuHI The crew stands before their launch vehicle in a PR photo shoot, just days before their departure. Mission scientist Madler Kerman (level 2). She has completed a mun orbital mission and a minmus landing. Mission commander and scientist Bill Kerman (level 2). He is a veteran of several mun landings and a minmus orbiter mission. Mission pilot Jenzon Kerman (level 2). He has gone on both mun and minmus orbiter missions. He also completed a tour aboard Prosperity Space Station, in LKO. Part 1: Crew Launch, docking, and departure https://imgur.com/a/7JmR9

Saelben's Space Program The Backstory Craft List Mission Log's Mod List As the mission progresses, data and activity will be added. Any suggestions are accepted. Thank you for joining me on this humble voyage. -SaelbenNoa

Venus she's easy! or maybe not. She's hot, and has great tracts of land. Not that its a high pressure arrangement to sample her wonderful science. It will take more time to float to her surface than to do three full moon missions. Playing a Career mode game (Hard setting except for load/save allowed) using RSS as my baseline mod. This is a 1.2.2 game so I’m using SMURFF, SpaceY and other mods to get to an acceptable power to weight ratio for launches, Using tweakscale and procedural fairings, SXTcontinued and near future mods for extended tech tree parts, community tech tree and SETI for an unmanned first push, TACLS for life support and I'm full enforcing a cleaned up orbit ( If i have to delete space junk it costs me 100k funds) and use Stage Recovery to get funds back (Set 7k Burnup Speed and 7-14m/s Landing, otherwise default) I tested various re-entries to make sure the 7k Re-entry speed was actually survivable for my designs. SCANsat and CactEye pad out the game but I’m using Comnet with only KSC ground station instead of RemoteTech for communications. Um oh and 104 mods in my CKAN installed list total... I have Saturn Second stage Nuclear and Timberwind nuclear engines in custom modded items, generally don't use them, specifically only on missions leaving from above 500km orbit. None of the designs is dangerous outside of the basic nukes in space argument. I use a minimum of 12m from crew compartments as a design requirement for nukes. Some of the more extreme nuclear engine design would warrant more though. If I’m using a Timberwind 450 the engine is likely 30m+ back just because of the amount of tank it needs to be useful. Regardless once i get the SSME available it was all that for main and second stages. I use Solids only if really needed or its a real simple mission. After Luna I started deciding what to do next, mars window was way out and I started to investigate Venus first. Time to set up comms. I probably could have got away without the comnet first but I believe its the first step given how many missions have failed because communications are crap. It also eliminated the need for huge antenna on the landers and probes. COMSATS Venus Comsat Network, sent 4 relays in an array planned aero-braking to drop dV, middle of aero-brake maneuver, deflated heat shield, and ejected compacted relay sats, barely staying out of atmosphere, each sat had barely enough maneuver 680m/s to get circular in a reasonable Eq. orbit. in trying to switch craft during the near disaster, got locked onto the structural frame that the relay sats coupled to during transit, (just some pipe sections a de-orbit motor and small probecore, mechjeb, antenna and batteries, one small solar panel). nothing burned up, very close but high drag really slowed it down fast. followed to ground, it litho-braked with the sacrifice of one of the spent couplers and I got my first Venusian data (telemetry & temperature). The Comsats got me a few more experiments and squarish 1200km orbit network (Intended to be 3000km). SCANSATS Scansat probes went out next, didn't have SAR yet. Radar altimetry, Biome scanner and Survey scanners along with High orbit and Low Orbit Science Sats, discovered that venusian day is longer than its year! Very long scan time, skipped two useful transfer windows. As the last of my Apollo moon missions finished scienceing the crap out of the moon I sent a second science/Scansat wave. SAR high altitude, recon and Survey detail sats along with my missing space science. Took a while to get all the gravity scans. Kerbal Alarm Clock estimates took front stage. My first comsats & scansats went to mars during this time so it was hectic. Descent to the surface! Originally I had intended to ignore Venus landings unless the were historical missions from RSS Historical missions pack. However the ease of landing space junk on the surface made me prioritize it given the shorter transfer and delay times for manned missions and sample return. Venera Missions, first two missions sent using my best guesses and did not include all the instruments since I did not have all at this point, using DMagic's instruments also. Midlands for the win. Stopped using the Inflatable shield because it was to hard to control drag, and it flipped on my first mission, lucky that a couple of solar panels was all that was lost. Landers overbuilt soviet style. Found out parachutes won't deploy at 12m/s in 70atm. drogue shoots in pre-deploy would not stop spinning, but full deploy brought the landers down straight. Any lifting surface is detrimental to landing except maybe airbrakes/gridfins. Reality is that they probably melted on the way down since they didn't include temperature control of any kind. past initial re-entry anything that is dropped will make it to surface probably with a safe speed (kinda 12m/s seems like max on higher terrain). Major Probe Volley! After re-design of the probes, left me with R2D2 looking canisters filled with science I tried sending two for testing. Mainly finding more accurate landing position. The agonizing wait during the drop! don't like x4 physical landings regardless of speed, read a book, made some tea. Determined that below 50k altitude ASL engines are indeed totally useless. Determined total batteries i could get away with. Solar is great assuming they survive re-rentry heat. Next eight came in as a docked cluster. Horrible experience with all eight lagging my computer. They consisted of unmanned landers, transmit only, everything possible to fully transmit, all biomes. Still very slow descent, probes hit 11m/2 without drogues, tiny landing gear, set of small airbrakes. Temperature was not an issue, though activated thermal panels cooled the pods. Even at 4xphysical time warp the descent was horribly long, cheated gravity to x10 for the 4th and later probes just to lessen the real time spent on the mission, took over 4 real hours to get all biomes sampled. Noticed during the first and second mission that engines and RCS became useless for anything except re-entry phase, determined 300-800 m/s of retro and 40-50 RCS got a good accurate landing, both mechjeb and trajectories projected over shot landings. Rovers might be faster than planes on venus. Trajectories as usual seemed more accurate. Sample return! Attempt one consisted of a real simple pod, stack of ascent rockets, stack of batteries and eight ducted fans. ran out of batteries at 20km, drag was to high for the system to get up. Second try replaced most of the batteries with capacitors and almost made it. The ducted fans didn't have enough thrust to get me above the point I needed for thrust on my bottom stage (4xlarge Ullage motors with flat ISP). floated back down. Third try, nukes, capacitors in drop pods, more ducted fans (too many). the ducted fans started crashing the computer with some bad interaction of mechjeb's dV calculation. Think it had something to do with staged capacitors, the ducted fans and some kind of circular calculation. After 12 program restarts including one full on computer freeze I gave up on the ducted fans. I think it can work. Fourth try, Balloons! Used the HL inflatable parachute. Made it too small. I didn't see the dirigible icon in VAB so I undersized the balloon and it wasn't enough to get me up to 50km. Also discovered the kraken hates unbalanced balloon lifted craft, spinning it until my probe core sped off at Sol escape velocity. Try Five. Bigger balloon, used RoverDude's control pod. was great but in dropping from the balloon frame I clipped a tank and blew up. Try Six. made it to orbit. Barely 165x147km Orbit and forgot a docking port. Using a Timberwind 45 design basis Nuclear rocket for everything except initial separation and orientation. Tumbled a lot, need cleaner separation and deploy-able control surfaces. Spinning and very slow ascent to be safe enough. Agonizing pain of slowly changing inflation of the balloon as the velocity dropped below 10m/s. Going above 30 resulted in explosive spin (actually five iterations of this design blew up on ascent) because I got impatient and inflated too fast. Try Seven. Changed balloon “Cirrus” real lift variant, started including life support (TACL) and more support in general. (return vehicle prepositioned in 350x350km EQ orbit). Lift vehicles started passing 500k for the missions, plus one 180k refueling mission in my planetary band parking orbit. Determined need for 140+ days on orbit life support and ~100days transit (3500m/s dV transit + 3000dv to bring it into parking orbit for re-use). So generally needing 13k dV for fast missions. Total life support of near a year. Loaded Solyent Green/Red life support mod for TACL. Tested 5 iterations most problems were hard to control on drop, re-entry. Had one burn up too bad for use, two had hard landings as they came in at an angle and fell over. Try eight. After a successful orbit and rendezvous and realizing my rcs balance and SAS sucked on the final manned return pod, removed all but 5days LS from pod. Pod is located inside a set of cargo-bay modules, Three cooling stages are included, larger amount of RCS. Has about 1200dV to spare for any orbital maneuvers. First unmanned test, drop from balloon at 0.35atm, drop first stage tanks, drop second stage tanks, drop third on way to circ burn, mechjeb ascent.... takes me in 180deg counter orbit. 14kdv to get plane change. /sigh Second test I get to balloon separation and drop, launch and start up, run into balloon and explode. Load and try again, manually pilot, then beginning the ascent guidance to nice clean 350k orbit. Try Nine. new design includes sepatron to get balloon spun away from vertical. Full flight plan unmanned test including return using a large nuke powered 5m transit bus. Optimized the balloon to get a stable point of 100m on earth, gave me >1atm on venus lift final so ascent using my normal motors is possible, Used timberwind 45 again as ascent motor and staged the tanks on layered side pods. Transit bus includes LS reprocessing, cargo bay with supplies and excess life support equipment space for 3 crew (Intended for one man missions) that includes an earth orbit return pod. Is 10tons of Fairing excessive? 750k funds to orbit, a refueling and off it went. Mission went great, max inflated to balloon from ground level, it goes supersonic immediately and starts climbing fast (150m/s peak), drop the science and landing gear stage just as take off happens. Nice stable verticle ascent with a little wobble. Fins might help be they are hard to include. Ballon shot clear and spun off to the side, ascent arced nicely past it and almost all my spare dV went unused. Docking went a little rough, not sure if its the Covered Jr. docking ports I used. So now I have an extra emergency return vehicle in orbit. 5million Funds well spent. Time for Real Manned Mission(tm). Manned (Womaned) Mission! Valentina did the first mission solo 144days of waiting, 96d+102d transit, 5 seconds of EVA (hot hot hot), and many minutes of up and down above venus. Now for 7 more times, all in transit, Valentina sits in the abort return vessel. A spare lander is coming along also. Rescue mission at worst case or if I miss a biome target. Best case 1.2m worth of orbiting space junk. Thought about exploring using a rover or folding aircraft, but its way to slow unless I’m right on a boundary even then its a serious mission to get one and also have the balloon launched rocket in the same place. I kinda doubt i could even get close enough for a rescue mission to actually work. Should have positioned a grapple rover to avoid to EVA problems (fire clad space suits). Now on to more missions, to places like the canyons (looked kinda dunish to me) as harley kerman plants his flag...too hot, oh well maybe just the EVA report. I wonder why he had that red bar over him during his EVA. I think I heard him swear at the ground control. Glad I installed chatterer also glad I didn't waste weight on the ladders. Kerbals must be highly compressible mushrooms! Manned mission ascents on venus involved, SAS set to radial out, gridfins retracted, set balloon inflation to 100%, drop landing stage and speed off into the sky. Final peak ascent speed 192.5m/s at 12-15km. Crossed 50km at 150m/s and dropping rapidly. oscillated at 0.80-0.63atm ~55-56km. Set mechjeb for ascent 350km -180deg Inclination (because 0=180deg on Venus for no apparent reason), Ascent path numbers [60km, 100m/s, 250km, 1deg, 35%] Let go of balloon, fire engines, active autopilot. Orbit 350x349km with 1600-1800m/s maneuver fuel, meet up with transit bus at 300km orbit. Off equator I had the bus maneuver a bit for plane changes. In those cases I had left it in a higher 500km orbit and it performed most of the plane maneuvers. Venus Rotates so slow that I didn't ever spend more than 500m/s to get co-planar even considering the lack of control over launch window. Only needed 100-300m/s to compensate for any bad timing in the Hohmann transfers. That said I’m pretty sloppy with rendezvous maneuvers. Really want RP-0 1.2.2 now, need to try this again. (Am i a masochist?)

Hi everyone! I would like to show you my lastest mission to Moho. It may help new players who have some issues reaching this body, or some of you looking for design ideas. Before beginning, note that this was done in Career mode. Transfer Window Planner and Kerbal Engeneer were the only mods used. This mission is completely stock parts. Let's get it started ! First of all, here's the goal of this mission : Fulfill 'Explore Moho' Contract. I'm using an 'apollo style' design in 3 different stages : - Main engines & liquid fuel - Hab module - Moho lander. The whole ship is approximatly optimized for this mission, in terms of weight and delta-V required, but some adjustments can still be done. My personnal challenges on this mission were : Create a 'half-reusable' asparagus nuclear cluster, made with mk3 LiquidFuel parts => using it for this mission, then refueling and reusing it for a closer one. Use high efficiency of the nukes to bring the less fuel possible on our cluster. There won't be any 'interplanetary kick' stage made of size 3 parts. Remember : less is more ! Bringing all the science done home with the crew. Enough talking, let's show you what it looks like ! The trick to catch up Moho is to slow down at your solar periapsis to reduce your injection burn in a significant way. This mission is a single example, feel free to comment or post yours ! Hope this will help !

We choose to go to Laythe, and do the other things, not because it is easy, but because it is FUN! The Kerbal Expeditions is a stock alike, sandbox save (currently planned for a total of 29 missions, including epilogue mission) in which I will visit Duna, Laythe, Jool, Ike, Eve, and Gilly for the first time post-1.0. Kerbals will land and return from Duna, Laythe, Ike, and Gilly. This plan will stretch my KSP skills to their limits and back as I strive to make good-looking interplanetary ships - and I hope we both have fun doing it. (reason why it's not career - i have troubles with Bluedog Design Bureau and their SRBs and adapters I just can't live without anymore.) MOD LIST (off the top of my head, at least the mods that I plan to use) Bluedog Design Bureau Tantares (for some station parts?) Procedural Parts ProbesPlus Trajectories! Kerbal Engineer Kerbal Alarm Clock Table of Contents; A New Beginning - Page 1 (doesn't count as mission)

http://jalopnik.com/congress-just-mandated-a-human-mission-to-mars-1786994598 Science reporting sucks, and so does Gawker Media.