Can't get to the Moon, despite flying high and having a powerful rocket

[Tyko]

15 minutes ago, Jeine092 said:

 

I went through them, but I crashed every single time they wanted me to fly into some direction. I can't do that, I'm sorry.

Crashing is part of learning the game. We all went through it...keep trying, make sure you  follow the instructions...

This isn't an arcade game, it's a complex physics platform that emulates many of the challenges of launching real rockets. It's no surprise it's going to take a while to learn. It took me 3-6 months before I felt I was really proficient.

Edited August 21, 2018 by Tyko

[Jeine092]

2 minutes ago, Tyko said:

Crashing is part of learning the game. We all went through it...keep trying, make sure you  follow the instructions...

This isn't an arcade game, it's a complex physics platform that emulates many of the challenges of launching real rockets. It's no surprise it's going to take a while to learn. It took me 3-6 months before I felt I was really proficient.

I know that this game isn't for me, I just wanted to try.

[Tyko]

3 minutes ago, Jeine092 said:

I know that this game isn't for me, I just wanted to try.

This game is fantastic if you're interested in learning about real rockets. After I played for a few months I had a working understanding of how NASA, Roscosmos and SpaceX launch rockets...that's a pretty cool thing to understand. But, yea, if you're not interested in putting the time in to figure that out it's gonna be tough.

The people above gave you a lot of amazing resources.

Barring that there's nothing that says you can't just have fun launching rockets and learn by trial and error. Strap things together and see what happens....just understand that it's going to take a lot of crashes and restarts before you can trial and error your way to the moon. In real life it took a bunch of very smart scientists several centuries to work it all out 

 

[Jeine092]

15 minutes ago, Tyko said:

This game is fantastic if you're interested in learning about real rockets. After I played for a few months I had a working understanding of how NASA, Roscosmos and SpaceX launch rockets...that's a pretty cool thing to understand. But, yea, if you're not interested in putting the time in to figure that out it's gonna be tough.

The people above gave you a lot of amazing resources.

Barring that there's nothing that says you can't just have fun launching rockets and learn by trial and error. Strap things together and see what happens....just understand that it's going to take a lot of crashes and restarts before you can trial and error your way to the moon. In real life it took a bunch of very smart scientists several centuries to work it all out 

 

I know, I'm sorry if I'm causing any trouble to anyone who's responding to me -- there's no malice in it, I'm really trying.

[KerbolExplorer]

This might help you:

If this doesnt help much if you have the DLC i could make a tutorial misión to get you there.

[Kryxal]

That rocket was easily powerful enough to reach orbit, and then some ... if you were to pitch maybe 10 degrees east immediately, and move the center engine into the same stage as the SRB decouplers, it might make life easier.

[Xd the great]

Can you get into orbit @Jeine092

Dont give up, use mechjeb.

[JeKnYan]

Two large Kerbodyne fuel tanks and an engine cluster will get you an AP of 1mil metres if you did it right. You need to also have an upper stage (preferably a medium Rockomax tank, with Poodle engine). 

[Jeine092]

18 hours ago, KerbolExplorer said:

This might help you:

If this doesnt help much if you have the DLC i could make a tutorial misión to get you there.

It's way too complicated for me to understand, sorry. I tried that.

 

12 hours ago, Xd the great said:

Can you get into orbit @Jeine092

Dont give up, use mechjeb.

I can go as high as 15,000 km.

 

2 hours ago, JeKnYan said:

Two large Kerbodyne fuel tanks and an engine cluster will get you an AP of 1mil metres if you did it right. You need to also have an upper stage (preferably a medium Rockomax tank, with Poodle engine). 

I play in science mode and didn't open much.

[Xd the great]

do you know what an orbit is?

38 minutes ago, Jeine092 said:

It's way too complicated for me to understand, sorry. I tried that.

 

I can go as high as 15,000 km.

 

I play in science mode and didn't open much.

 

[Jeine092]

47 minutes ago, Xd the great said:

do you know what an orbit is?

 

No. I just say how high I can go, that's all.

[KerbolExplorer]

47 minutes ago, Jeine092 said:

No. I just say how high I can go, that's all.

An orbit is when your periapsis is above the atmosphere of a planet

[Jeine092]

3 hours ago, KerbolExplorer said:

An orbit is when your periapsis is above the atmosphere of a planet

I don't know what periapsis is, but I usually leave these two blue strips.

[linuxgurugamer]

26 minutes ago, Jeine092 said:

I don't know what periapsis is, but I usually leave these two blue strips.

Periapsis is the low point of the orbit

[IncongruousGoat]

All right. You've said that you don't really understand what an orbit is, so I suppose I should try to explain what an orbit is from first principles. I'll try to lay off the math as much as possible.

Just as a disclaimer, I'm ignoring the atmosphere for much of of this explanation. The presence of air makes things needlessly complicated.

First off, gravity. All things with mass pull at each other, with the pull getting stronger as the objects get closer. For most of the stuff you interact with on a day-to-day basis, this force is so weak as to be completely insignificant, but when you deal with objects as big as planets, moons, and stars, the force of gravity starts to matter. Something important to note is that when a very large object pulls on a very small object, the small object is going to speed up towards the large object at the same rate, regardless of how much mass the small object has, specifically. So, for example, a 10-pound bowling ball will fall at the same rate as a 15-pound bowling ball.

If you're standing on Earth and you throw a ball straight up into the air, gravity will pull it back down. If you throw the ball at an angle, its trajectory (the path it follows as it moves) will form an arch shape (a parabola) - which means the ball flies along a curve. Now, this is the really important bit: the Earth is round. Gravity doesn't pull you down towards the ground, it pulls you in towards the center of the Earth. This means that, if you take your ball and throw it really, really hard, it'll fly so far that the direction gravity is pulling it will change as it travels. This is because the ball is moving with respect to the center of the Earth, so from the perspective of the ball the center of the Earth (and the source of all that gravity) is changing position.

If you throw the ball in just the right direction, at just the right height, and at just the right speed, the rate at which gravity pulls it down will match the rate at which the center of the Earth changes position from the perspective of the ball. The ball will then be stuck, "falling" in a circle around the Earth. This is called an orbit. If you were to throw the ball at a slightly slower speed, gravity would pull it down faster than it could move around the Earth, and the ball would fall back down. If you, on the other hand, threw the ball a little harder, it would travel away from the Earth for a while, slowing down as it moves further away, and eventually falling back down and speeding up to the height and speed that you originally threw it at. The path of the ball now forms an oval (an ellipse). The highest point your ball reaches on this oval is typically called the apoapsis, and the lowest point is called the periapsis. There are other terms that describe this oval, but for your purposes those are the two you'll want to know.

You're probably wondering, what do rockets have to do with this? Well, just trying to throw a ball (or a spacecraft, or a car, or whatever) isn't entirely practical. The speed you'd have to get to in order to orbit the Earth at 200 km up, for example, is approximately 7,790 m/s, which is 28044 km/h or 17425 mph. Way faster than you could throw, or even a bullet from a high-powered rifle. Plus, you'd need to have a starting point that's 200 km up. The highest point on Earth is Mount Everest, which is 8.8 km up. Not nearly high enough. This is where the rocket comes in. A rocket is just a means of getting your ball up to the correct height and correct speed, which it typically does by flying a curved path known as a gravity turn. This path heads straight up at the beginning, then slowly curves over to one side to build up the speed needed to get into an orbit. We have to use rockets because they're the only sorts of things that have enough thrust to take off from Earth and that work in space. Aircraft, for example, rely on the presence of the atmosphere, and so aren't useful sending things to orbit.

The numbers are different for KSP (the game's solar system is built to 1/10th the scale of ours), but the concepts and physics are the same.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask. I will do my best to answer.

[Luch]

Fly up to 70 kilometers. Then fly forward. When your speed will be 2300 m/s, press X on your keyboard. It will stop engines.

Then press M. You will see what is the orbit.

[Jeine092]

1 hour ago, IncongruousGoat said:

All right. You've said that you don't really understand what an orbit is, so I suppose I should try to explain what an orbit is from first principles. I'll try to lay off the math as much as possible.

Just as a disclaimer, I'm ignoring the atmosphere for much of of this explanation. The presence of air makes things needlessly complicated.

First off, gravity. All things with mass pull at each other, with the pull getting stronger as the objects get closer. For most of the stuff you interact with on a day-to-day basis, this force is so weak as to be completely insignificant, but when you deal with objects as big as planets, moons, and stars, the force of gravity starts to matter. Something important to note is that when a very large object pulls on a very small object, the small object is going to speed up towards the large object at the same rate, regardless of how much mass the small object has, specifically. So, for example, a 10-pound bowling ball will fall at the same rate as a 15-pound bowling ball.

If you're standing on Earth and you throw a ball straight up into the air, gravity will pull it back down. If you throw the ball at an angle, its trajectory (the path it follows as it moves) will form an arch shape (a parabola) - which means the ball flies along a curve. Now, this is the really important bit: the Earth is round. Gravity doesn't pull you down towards the ground, it pulls you in towards the center of the Earth. This means that, if you take your ball and throw it really, really hard, it'll fly so far that the direction gravity is pulling it will change as it travels. This is because the ball is moving with respect to the center of the Earth, so from the perspective of the ball the center of the Earth (and the source of all that gravity) is changing position.

If you throw the ball in just the right direction, at just the right height, and at just the right speed, the rate at which gravity pulls it down will match the rate at which the center of the Earth changes position from the perspective of the ball. The ball will then be stuck, "falling" in a circle around the Earth. This is called an orbit. If you were to throw the ball at a slightly slower speed, gravity would pull it down faster than it could move around the Earth, and the ball would fall back down. If you, on the other hand, threw the ball a little harder, it would travel away from the Earth for a while, slowing down as it moves further away, and eventually falling back down and speeding up to the height and speed that you originally threw it at. The path of the ball now forms an oval (an ellipse). The highest point your ball reaches on this oval is typically called the apoapsis, and the lowest point is called the periapsis. There are other terms that describe this oval, but for your purposes those are the two you'll want to know.

You're probably wondering, what do rockets have to do with this? Well, just trying to throw a ball (or a spacecraft, or a car, or whatever) isn't entirely practical. The speed you'd have to get to in order to orbit the Earth at 200 km up, for example, is approximately 7,790 m/s, which is 28044 km/h or 17425 mph. Way faster than you could throw, or even a bullet from a high-powered rifle. Plus, you'd need to have a starting point that's 200 km up. The highest point on Earth is Mount Everest, which is 8.8 km up. Not nearly high enough. This is where the rocket comes in. A rocket is just a means of getting your ball up to the correct height and correct speed, which it typically does by flying a curved path known as a gravity turn. This path heads straight up at the beginning, then slowly curves over to one side to build up the speed needed to get into an orbit. We have to use rockets because they're the only sorts of things that have enough thrust to take off from Earth and that work in space. Aircraft, for example, rely on the presence of the atmosphere, and so aren't useful sending things to orbit.

The numbers are different for KSP (the game's solar system is built to 1/10th the scale of ours), but the concepts and physics are the same.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask. I will do my best to answer.

Thank you a lot for such an answer full of details. But I don't know how it'd help me to land on the moon. Heck, I can't even beat tutorial, and it doesn't even include flying!

Although, I have a question. What if I throw the ball with the speed of light? Would it still fall down on Earth?

 

1 hour ago, Luch said:

Fly up to 70 kilometers. Then fly forward. When your speed will be 2300 m/s, press X on your keyboard. It will stop engines.

Then press M. You will see what is the orbit.

Thanks for helping, but I still crash...

[Scarecrow]

I would suggest that you forget trying to land on the moon for the moment until you have a much better understanding of the game.  At the moment you are trying to run before you can even walk. 

I would suggest the first step you should try and master is getting to orbit.  There are a lot of tutorials on Youtube that will show you how to do that, which involves more than just pointing straight up and igniting the engines.  In simple terms, you need to be going sideways fast enough that the highest and lowest point of your flight path are both above the atmosphere which, for Kerbin, is 70,000m.

If you fail at getting to orbit once you have an understanding of what you should be doing to succeed, you should be in a position to come back to the forums with an ability to explain more clearly what part of the process you are struggling with, and which will allow the more experienced members here to give you more detailed help.

[Luch]

25 minutes ago, Jeine092 said:

Thanks for helping, but I still crash...

Please record this. Maybe I'll show you your mistake.

[Jeine092]

5 minutes ago, Scarecrow said:

I would suggest that you forget trying to land on the moon for the moment until you have a much better understanding of the game.  At the moment you are trying to run before you can even walk. 

I would suggest the first step you should try and master is getting to orbit.  There are a lot of tutorials on Youtube that will show you how to do that, which involves more than just pointing straight up and igniting the engines.  In simple terms, you need to be going sideways fast enough that the highest and lowest point of your flight path are both above the atmosphere which, for Kerbin, is 70,000m.

If you fail at getting to orbit once you have an understanding of what you should be doing to succeed, you should be in a position to come back to the forums with an ability to explain more clearly what part of the process you are struggling with, and which will allow the more experienced members here to give you more detailed help.

I think that I always reach the orbit. I mean, I fly higher than Moon, how high should I go? I tried to put more boosters, but I just fly way too far away, and I don't see Earth anymore, whatsoever. Nothing. And even if I wait for years, I'm still in space and don't fall down. Maybe this is something like the moon and I just don't undersand something.

11 minutes ago, Luch said:

Please record this. Maybe I'll show you your mistake.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9r6XvM9iTFY&feature=youtu.be

I also put fire resistant things so I won't explode, and I didn't, but I crashed anyway.

[Superfluous J]

13 minutes ago, Jeine092 said:

I think that I always reach the orbit. I mean, I fly higher than Moon

Flying higher and reaching orbit are two totally different things. If you lived in England and I asked you if you've ever been to Paris and you said "I must have, I've gone as far as Canada!" you'd be making about the same comparison.

Getting into Orbit means you're going around a planet (or moon but they're the same as far as this goes). You can get into orbit without ever going to Mun, and to get to Mun (reliably and easily) you need to get into orbit first.

Getting to Mun isn't a goal. It's a skill. You need to learn this skill to play the game. Same thing with getting to orbit. You're not beating a final boss. You're acquiring knowledge. Ignore Mun for now. You've figured out how to get to space (it's 70km off the surface, when the music starts playing). Now you need to learn how to get into orbit. Once you can do that reliably you need to learn how to transfer to Mun from that orbit, then how to get into orbit of Mun, then how to land. Then, you need to learn how to get back into orbit of Mun, then transfer back to Kerbin, survive re-entry, and land.

Each of these steps will take time and gain you knowledge. If it sounds daunting that's because it is. But it's also likely to be one of if not the most rewarding experiences of your life.

[Jeine092]

3 minutes ago, 5thHorseman said:

Flying higher and reaching orbit are two totally different things. If you lived in England and I asked you if you've ever been to Paris and you said "I must have, I've gone as far as Canada!" you'd be making about the same comparison.

Getting into Orbit means you're going around a planet (or moon but they're the same as far as this goes). You can get into orbit without ever going to Mun, and to get to Mun (reliably and easily) you need to get into orbit first.

Getting to Mun isn't a goal. It's a skill. You need to learn this skill to play the game. Same thing with getting to orbit. You're not beating a final boss. You're acquiring knowledge. Ignore Mun for now. You've figured out how to get to space (it's 70km off the surface, when the music starts playing). Now you need to learn how to get into orbit. Once you can do that reliably you need to learn how to transfer to Mun from that orbit, then how to get into orbit of Mun, then how to land. Then, you need to learn how to get back into orbit of Mun, then transfer back to Kerbin, survive re-entry, and land.

Each of these steps will take time and gain you knowledge. If it sounds daunting that's because it is. But it's also likely to be one of if not the most rewarding experiences of your life.

Is there any mod to do it for me? So I could only throw off engines, gather science and run on the Moon?

[IncongruousGoat]

1 hour ago, Jeine092 said:

Although, I have a question. What if I throw the ball with the speed of light? Would it still fall down on Earth?

No, it won't. Remember how I said that the strength of the force of gravity depends on how close the two objects in question are? Well, what this means is that there exists a speed that, if you throw your ball at that speed, it won't fall back down. This is because it's moving fast enough that it's never slowed down any faster than the rate at which gravity is getting weaker as it moves away from the Earth. This is called escape velocity, and on Earth it's 11,186 m/s, which is 40,270 km/h or 25,020 mph.

From some of the stuff you've said, it sounds like what you're doing is heading straight up until you reach escape velocity. It's easy to see why this might be confusing - reaching escape velocity will result in you not coming back down, since you end up in an orbit of the Sun. However, it's not really a productive way of getting to the Mun.

5 minutes ago, Jeine092 said:

Is there any mod to do it for me? So I could only throw off engines, gather science and run on the Moon?

Well, there's always MechJeb...

But I tend to discourage its use in new players, since it can be used to avoid having to learn orbital mechanics, which in my opinion defeats the point of playing KSP in the first place.

[Jeine092]

7 minutes ago, IncongruousGoat said:

No, it won't. Remember how I said that the strength of the force of gravity depends on how close the two objects in question are? Well, what this means is that there exists a speed that, if you throw your ball at that speed, it won't fall back down. This is because it's moving fast enough that it's never slowed down any faster than the rate at which gravity is getting weaker as it moves away from the Earth. This is called escape velocity, and on Earth it's 11,186 m/s, which is 40,270 km/h or 25,020 mph.

From some of the stuff you've said, it sounds like what you're doing is heading straight up until you reach escape velocity. It's easy to see why this might be confusing - reaching escape velocity will result in you not coming back down, since you end up in an orbit of the Sun. However, it's not really a productive way of getting to the Mun.

Well, there's always MechJeb...

But I tend to discourage its use in new players, since it can be used to avoid having to learn orbital mechanics, which in my opinion defeats the point of playing KSP in the first place.

I watched this mod, and it just complicates the game.

Besides, I forgot that I won't be able to install any mods at all... I can only install games, and only if it's all written and doesn't require any complex actions.

[Xd the great]

Try this.