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If you were a Kerbal, would you fly in your own rockets?


jwilhite

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First 14 is an blank no, rovers are total death traps, the ones with the smallest wheels are pretty safe as they are slow, still it would be in an rover seat not an pod.

Tested and stable launchers, yes not so scared of SRB, they are not able to destroy the pod, yes MK1, MK3 or the aircraft ones can also survie spashdown with parachutes.

Else Eve and Tylo is no, would go for other bodies.

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Absolutely I would, because my designs are awesome.

In the real world, designs are very fine-tuned to the exact performance needed to complete the basic mission, but KSP doesn't really give you enough feedback for that. So, to be on the safe side I made all of my designs a bit more capable than they really need to be. Maybe I want a spaceplane that can fly far, and I end up with one that can go all the way to Laythe without refueling, and that same design can also go to Duna and back (including landing and takeoff on Duna itself) with ease. Maybe I want a large rover with refueling capabilities, and end up with a 600-ton megarover that's more of a slightly mobile base. And so on.

End result, I'd feel very safe in one of my designs because unlike NASA craft they're NOT built by the lowest bidder. My unmanned craft might be a bit riskier, but the manned stuff is now all very well tested, stable designs so I'm not even worrying about the prototype flights any more.

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Rockets, yes. Easily. Anything of mine that launches a crew is almost 100% reliable, and usually heavily tested before on automatic.

Airplanes, not in a million years! I just can't make a good aircraft!

Rovers, well, if I drive slowly, yes.

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Airplanes Yes because I build modtly flyable designs and I'm pretty good at piloting planes anyways, at least in KSP.

Rovers Hell yeah. If it's a motorbike on Duna.

Rockets Maybe because my rockets have a very spotty reliablilty records as compared to my planes.

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Does being a Kerbal include what seems to be immunity to radiation? because my craft make heavy use of the LV-N

Is there a possibility of a rescue mission?

* My large SSTOs with FAR? Nope... too many quicksaves and loads needed to get those things to orbit... although I could easily redesign them so that the command pod can eject to safety after unplanned aerodynamic disassembly

Although most of mine now are unmanned and use probe cores... so they're fine to take a mission payload up... I would want a seperate ride up though, instead of taking my seat in the payload on the way up.

* my small SSTOs... sure. (it can be my ride to the mission payload the large SSTO took up, that way I don't even have to worry about reentry and landing with the small SSTO)

* Minmus... sure... at least for my "standard craft" some of my early career mode craft don't do too well when I don't even have maneuver nodes, and my part list and # and craft size is very limited

* The Mun... eh... I've had too many craft tip over... probably because I insist on using an LV-N for maximum fuel economy when biome hopping carrying science experiments. I could make a craft I'd be comfortable in, however. (and I have gotten better at landing on flatter places, and not tipping over)

* Duna - lots of tipping, LV-N obsession... maybe, depends on the mission. The ones where I send down Habs, rovers, etc... sure.

There may be multiple ascent vehicles/ shuttles to dunar orbit where the fuel depot is.... I'd go on such a mission. If one shuttle tips over, the remaining ones can still get everyone to the return vehicle.

* Eve - LOL, nope, not with stock Aero. With NEAR/FAR, its easier, and using kerbal engineer (or carefully considering every part on a spreadsheet, as I did before KER), I'd be confident the ascent vehicle would work (I suppose I could be with stock aero first - but for me to go, the mission would have to first send the unmanned ascent vehicle... and then if it gets to the surface intact and upright... I'd take a rentry vehicle down to the surface (with aero surfaces to get me close to the lading site)

*Eeloo... Sure... why not I can pack on the dV easily enough, and its nice and flat.

The same goes for dres (though its less flat), Bop, Pol.

Laythe I would want the ascent vehicles to go down first and be intact, and then I can ride the Hab down (my laythe missions also include redundant ascent vehicles... one a horizontal land plane with parachutes for near vertical landing, and another tail sitting vertical launch and landing vehicle)

*Tylo... ehhhh.... I'd have to build the craft to have much more dV reserves than the landers I've used in the past

*Moho... likewise... I've made the lander a bit too small because of the dV requirements (and I wanted to leave a fuel depot there for multiple landings, so I wanted at little fuel used as possible). I'm not sure how comfortable I'd be knowing that half the time the craft runs out of liquid fuel, and needs to circularize and rendevous on ion power (and also uses ions to de-orbit and throughout the landing sequence).

Of course, IRL, such ion engines couldn't do that.

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I would absolutely fly my own rockets, mostly because I have a safe(ish) safety record with my designs, and I really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really...

...really really really really really really want to go into space, so I will take any opportunity to do so!

I trust myself enough :D

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If I was a Kerbal, I wouldn't have a choice about it. I would be randomly selected from a pool of others, randomly placed in a random seat on a random mission, most often resulting in a random ending. Plus, being a Kerbal it would be in my DNA, or RNA, or KNA, or whatever it is that Kerbals have that carries the inherited instinctive urge to go to space. So again, I wouldn't have a choice.

If, however, I did have a choice, I would only choose to go on missions, regardless of the destination, that had:

a) snacks

B) beer

c) hi-def sports channels

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Assuming real life doesn't glitch parts into the ground when I leave them then I'd live in my moon city. My cruisers are okay so long as the launch clamps can handle. I wouldn't ride in most of my rockets though. I usually forget to add something important (like parachutes, sas, struts). I've also been known to not check the stages where the clamp release in an earlier stage from main engine start. My scariest launches are when I have a 2000 ton cruiser on the pad and hit the space button and the engines didn't fire (holy crap) and I mash the space bar till they do.

Land bases: yes. Most of my launches? Not in the slightest.

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