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DISCLAMIER: The Auora crew transport is not retired. It just isn't capable of lifting the payloads the Ranger can. So Andrew the Astronaut Industries presents the SSCT-1 "Ranger" Download link: https://kerbalx.com/Andrew_the_Astronaut/Ranger-V02 What do you think?

Is there anything else to say?

I made this little page on what I found orbiting. Come back later to see more, except with Kerbonuats involved (for doing research on the area I'm showing you guys). https://goo.gl/photos/V5jaYAkN8WCWNv5b6 Sorry about the external link, I couldn't figure out how to get it into the post. It wouldn't let me... Kerbals coming soon!

Ive decided to start streaming KSP give my a shot if you're interested! twitch.tv/walia66 Feedback would be great Streaming now

Someone suggested trying to land a rocket on the helipad on top of the VAB. I did that and then took it a bit further by flying a 77 Ton rocket up to space (71,000 m) and then landing it on the helipad.

So I decided to take on the challenge of building a fully reusable launcher in KSP. Second stage recovery proved to be a bit more difficult than I thought. But in the end I'm happy with the result. Both the Booster Stage and Upper Stage are fully recoverable, in the configuration in the video the crewed module is also reusable. The only piece of discarded hardware besides the fairings is the O.M.P or Orbital Maneuvering Pack. The Skywalker Booster is designed to return to the launch site for LKO missions. In the event the Skywalker Booster needs to be used for GTO missions or beyond, it can be recovered at an alternate landing site downrange. The Skywalker Launcher can also be used for Polar Orbit Missions with recovery sites prepared to accommodate both stages.

Hey guys! I can't find a topic where you post your custom flags, so I decided to make one! If there is already one, please let me know. I thought I might start it off with my new flag, The Galactic Industries Flag! Feel free to use it if you want. Any others?

The latest part in the KSP Fun with Jets Series!

Ok, if you've followed my Kerbal career at all, you know that though I may not say it often, I clearly have a preference for building ships to satisfy the mantra "Go Big or Go Home". SexyLifter36k follows this pattern while retaining all of the grace, sophistication, and good looks of my previous SexyLifter launchers. Unlike previous SexyLifters, this one has everything you need for a successful launch. No more worrying about adding your own aerodynamic surfaces, rcs, or reaction wheels, 36k even comes with the latest and greatest in probe core technology, the Probodobodyne HECS2. You can launch her empty and use her as a tanker (be sure to throttle back a little), or stick a payload on top and watch your concerns about how to get it on orbit vanish as she flies effortlessly to space. With no additional boosters, 36k can lift 2.5 big Kerbos full of fuel up to an 80km orbit and still have 100+ delta-V when she is done. 36kN of [vacuum] thrust will move most anything being built. Thank you for choosing SexyLifters for your next project! This fine launch vehicle can be downloaded from KerbalX! As always, thanks for looking at my craft! Danny. Go Big. Just Go Big!

So someone asked for this thing to be doubled... It wasn't easy. Many good probe cores were sacrificed in order to learn how not to launch it, but in the end, all our efforts were rewarded with double the fuel capacity and a smaller total part count (unless you leave the last stage attached to increase capacity... I humbly present to you my latest pure stock and purely awesome fuel ring! (ok, maybe I don't do humble so well...) I included some images of the failures to 1 - give you hope that failure CAN lead to success, and 2 - hopefully entertain @RA3236 enough to get me into Spacecraft Friday again! But I guess I would like to know why this isn't considered a shared craft... ??? As always, my craft can be DOWNLOADED from Kerbal X. This is the non-crashing (and non-flipping!) version. If you want the crashing version, remove the struts between the center of the lifter's final stage and the outer ring... Of course, standard disclaimers apply. YMMV, etc. All warranties void if placed near a launch pad. Danny

Welcome to Empress of the Stars, the last word in luxury space cruises. This beauty lifts effortlessly (and without unintended explosions!!) from the pad to arrive on LKO with nearly 600 delta-V left over, while carrying 7500kg of ore. Attach a mining dropship to the front universal dock and this SSTO can truly take you and 35 of your favorite (or wealthiest) Kerbals anywhere you want to go! Now I know it may seem a tall tale given some of the other launches I posted screenies of, but this launch went exactly as shown here. No muss, no fuss, no unplanned rapid disassembly, straight to space! I didn't monitor the flight path, but I got the impression she was a little high, so might have got there a little more efficiently, but I'd be surprised since I started with about 3800 and arrived on orbit with almost 600 left. Anyhow, of course, YMMV. Exposition of the ship to simulated atmosphere or vacuum voids all warranties expressed or implied. Have fun and be safe! And also of course, this craft may be downloaded from KerbalX! Danny. Ad Astra in Luxuria!

A few days ago I came across some of @Rune's new designs and @PointySideUp's stuff and was inspired by their pure awesomeness. I thought, how could I get just a little of their awesomeness into all of the ships that I launch? That's how the SexyLifter series was born. But then I was trying to loft up this behemoth fuel ring that the God's own firecrackers would just run and run from. The mammoth engine wouldn't even get me a TWR of 1 with the smallest S3 tank and I've been playing mostly without part mods lately, so I needed a new solution for a heavy lifter. Well, not really a new solution, clearly people have plastered lots of engines on the bottom of a tank before, but still I think there's a certain grace and elegance in these particular designs, heavily inspired by the aforementioned and my good friend @Cupcake... Anyhow, to cut this short, here is a pack of lifters and accessories stored as subassemblies for your building pleasure! From left to right, we have: 1 - MainSail+ Two Big Reds on top of a MainSail with struts, fuel hose, raidal decoupler, and two separatrons. Add tanks to the top to adjust per-stage TWR and add dV. 2 - Mammoth+ Two Big Kerbos on top of a Mammoth with struts, fuel hose, raidal decoupler, and six separatrons. Add tanks to the top to adjust per-stage TWR and add dV. 3 - SexyLifter9k Powered by a Mammoth 9 (another subassembly in this pack - not pictured separately), lots of fuel, stack attach. 4 - SexyLifter9kL More fuel... 5 - SexyLifter9kXL Still more fuel... 6 - SexyLifter18k I'm really proud of this... Building on the success of the 9k line, our engineers (ok, it was just me), decided that if we turned around the internal fuel hoses, we could split the side stacks of the SexyLifter and add a second Mammoth 9, providing a whopping 18kN of pure awesome THRUST! Stick that under a huge payload (I lifted about 400t to orbit today) and add radial asparagus stages and you're good to go! Well, KerbalX doesn't take anything but craft files and this is multiple craft files, so I put the SL18k on KerbalX, but the whole pack can be downloaded from my dropbox: Click here to download the archive! As always, thanks for looking! Danny. Ad Astra per Potentia!

I sadly am unable to repeat this bug after rebooting the game, so I'm posting this comedy rather then as a bug report. Although this bug is incredibly entertaining, it is a bug. It most likely has something to do with clipping the armed landing gear with other parts. This craft spawns under the launchpad and performs the landing gear bounce down there, rather than the usual spawning on top of the runway and bouncing. I thought it was just the runway at the start but upon further investigation it appears as though this craft clips completely through every single structure in the KSC with exception of the actual ground. Kerbal can still enter and exit the craft, although the kerbal is also nocliped on everything.

Ok, The image above has been photoshop'ed - original was too dark anyways... but anyhow - the ship itself is a real thing - it flies, not only that, it also makes it to orbit with fuel to spare and some payload to boot! Ironically, this is a first for me in KSP (see signature below for why this is ironic) Really, all my previous Kerbal spaceplanes were more or less death traps less-than-perfect pieces of machinery... This one, on the other hand has only cost the lives of about a dozen or so kerbals to become a veritable "ticket to space" deal for anyone willing to settle for a South-of-Unbelievable payload tonnage (w.r.t. what my usual rocket designs (aka: madness (yes, you are reading multiple nested parenthesis)) would allow) but 15 minutes after takeoff (a rather hair-raising experience, however little hair kerbonauts may have) it gets you this far: That is space! Sweet! - In fact it's a very precise 150x150km orbit, made possible by the tiny-but-trusty OMS thrusters you can see here above well... that and the SABRE-RAPIER combo I got mounted on that thing - But if those don't become the end of you, they're actually quite a nice ride Anyways - the murderous contraption SpacePlane has enough "hoomph" to get as high as Kerbosynchronous orbit is - That much we know from actual testing! It did indeed manage to fly there, even several less-capable versions ago... It only came short of some little details such as that whole "circularizing" thing, (which had the engines go "pffth") and afterwards, that pesky reentry deal didn't work too well either, as that cost us a couple of main elevators redundant control surfaces and brought about an unsurvivable supersonic nose-first crash uncomfortable emergency landing scenario... but that was only a test flight, the ship is clearly not meant to fly THAT high But to space, it does get you! - And after you get up there, there's science to do: It's equipped to handle the toughest conditions an addon-loaded space environment can throw at it - hazards include: - Deadly Reentry - RemoteTech2 - ECLSS - Engine Ignitor (not applicable here, tho - but the ship is equipped for rescue missions, if needed) - FAR - & whatnot... So there you have it: The WindStar SSTV EX-4A (Swift Space Transportation Vehicle; EXtended version 4; post-prototype revision "A") She can even do landings too! A well-planned reentry gets you subsonic just above the bay where KSC is located (what's that place called again? - there was a map once, wasn't there?) Do mind that CG-shifting is VERY important for this thing... Might be the doings of FAR - Just like the Concorde, once you go supersonic your center of lift shifts way back, so we gotta pump fuel from the strategically-devised [cough] learned the hard way [/cough] forward tanks to move the center of gravity in accordance, lest the elevators cause a lot of unnecessary drag - and/or eventually max out and we stall/plummet to our fateful (yet oft-repeated) demise The process then repeats during approach, just before landing there's a slight moment of terror workload increase for getting the CG back into place for subsonic transition... if not, the thing stalls, and once that nose goes up, it ain't coming back down anytime sooner than the whole thing goes just that same way.... Anyhow... The Airbrakes are extremely effective, quite a relief after coming in for touchdown at just about 300km/h... that tail-strike wheel is something of a secret-to-success here... oh, how many good kerbonauts had to die before we got that thing figured out... ...but then we can taxi back on whatever momentum we have left! wheels stopped and everybody is still alive! unbelievable! indeed! if you want the .craft files, here you go - just note that it requires pretty much every major mod out there in order to load up... oh well... that's reckless high-profile engineering for you, isn't that right? But in that zip you'll find every iteration of the design process that brought us the EX-4A - and development continues! who knows what the future may bring for Kerbalkind? any similarities to the G42-200 Starliner seen in the signature below are purely coincidental and/or because both are somewhat ripped off from the Skylon a bit cheers!