What did you do in KSP1 today?

[NecroBones]

 

I tried putting some Space Shuttle SRBs on a Saturn V.   Because it needed to happen.   (No idea how heavy of a payload this will handle. Clearly more experiments are in order!)

 

[Gaarst]

Worked on the future of my RSS lunar program.

Got a station design for Low Lunar Orbit a few days ago. This will allow longer Kerbal presence around the Moon but did not change the way landings are done: a lunar rocket still has to be sent for a regular landing, with a lunar lander and command module, for a couple days in lunar orbit only.

But, now I have decided to use a reusable lander for landings. The lander will be sent to LLO empty of all fuel, and remain docked to the station until it is used; thanks to this reusable lander (currently named MRL, I'll let you guess the meaning), the lunar flights will spare the cost and mass of a lander and will only have to carry the fuel it needs for a lunar descent and ascent. Additional fuel storage of the station will make it able to do landings whenever fuel is available, so that a launch from Earth is not necessarily needed.

From then, when the station, lander and additional station modules needed to store fuel will be in orbit, a lunar landing will be possible anytime as long as there is enough fuel. Lunar missions from Earth will then be of 2 types:

1. Crew transfer + fuel: a large rocket (probably derived from my current Moon rocket but slightly smaller) will bring crew to the station as well as enough fuel for one landing (a bit more if possible).
2. Crew transfer only: a smaller rocket will only bring crew to the station, when landings are not planned or if fuel is already available for a landing on board the station.

The lander seats 3 Kerbals for an autonomy of over 7 Earth days, has only a single stage for both ascent and descent, weighs about 17t and has docking capabilities (RCS and docking port).

[AlphaMensae]

8 minutes ago, NecroBones said:

 

I tried putting some Space Shuttle SRBs on a Saturn V.   Because it needed to happen.   (No idea how heavy of a payload this will handle. Clearly more experiments are in order!)

 

That's the Kerbal way!

Still less than what I used as a radial booster to lift some of my fully-assembled and fueled 5000+ ton interplanetary ships into Kerbin orbit.  

20,439 tons!

[Evanitis]

Slinged our brave Asteroid Tamer Team out to leash a great beast. We have to report that the monster is captured. Now we'll need to break it so it abides our will. Than we can bring it home. This will not be easy, as this monstrocity weights a thousand tonnes. We named it Stimpy.

We have 136 dV when fully loaded, and it takes a few weeks to refill. We might need to call home so they send us moar boosters.

[SelectHalfling0]

My best precision landing (the flag is the exact point of the LZ). I did it first try without surface hopping.

[Puggonaut]

Edited a Video of the ISS using some different software , an mucked about with the special effects it comes with

Screenie from the Video , quite like the blue timt , an the bright flare affect . First attermpt at using this software , i think i'm gonna have some fun with it

Edited January 15, 2016 by Puggonaut 2

[MagicFireCaster]

Yesterday in an incredible maneuver i got my duna scanner to ike orbit with just some fuel remaining.

Also i made a lander for going to minmus and do some EVA readings contract

Next step is going to my mun oupost and leave some data for the science lab 

 

[Dr.K Kerbal]

13 hours ago, Hotaru said:

I enjoy sandbox but the lack of either goals or meaningful limitations means I tend to get bored fast. Sure, I could build a rocket and fly to Duna, but why should I? To prove I can? I already know that. In career I have better actual reasons to launch missions than "cause I felt like it."

I am also thinking about putting more detailed planning into my next save, already got some ideas for how to go about it (some of which I'm testing out on my current save, like keeping track of shuttle missions and station expeditions). 

And yeah, the mission control thing would be a lot of fun. I know it's been done, I saw someplace somebody did a whole Mun landing and return where the pilot was basically locked in a room with a computer and flew the entire mission from IVA, while "Mission Control" downstairs looked at the map, maneuver nodes, etc. and radioed him instructions. Back when I was playing X-Plane, before I got into KSP, I used to do some online flying and it was extremely cool to have a dozen or so planes all flying around the same airport being directed by a human air traffic controller. Maybe this is the sort of thing we'll get to do once we get stock multiplayer post-1.1.

 

Anyway, still working on my old career.

Super Aqualung "Silver" arrived at Duna with a space station core module, where it rendezvoused with the old "Kazak" landing craft left in Duna orbit by the Rumfoord expedition several years ago.

 

 

Erithis took the "Eric Idle" rover out for a brief trip from Base Coalwood on Minmus to collect some science data from the surrounding biomes. Since the only previous use of the rover was an eastbound circumnavigation, the excursion marked the first time the rover had ever been driven in a westerly direction.

 

 

Starlet Beatrix arrived at Coalwood (courtesy of its new landing rockets--this mission was my first time landing an SSTO on another planet). It dropped off the crew of Expedition 4, picked up Expedition 2 and the data from the rover trip, and refueled before departing for Bass II Station in Minmus orbit.

 

 

At Bass II, Beatrix dropped off the data and an additional scientist to bring the lab up to full operational capacity, as well as making some minor modifications to the station before undocking from the station and heading back to Kerbin.

 

Looks Super Awesome

[Randazzo]

Made another plane, then promptly crashed it. But, I meant to, of course.

 

 

[Ehco Corrallo]

I found a reference to The Martian in the description of the RTG. 

 

[Dr.K Kerbal]

I started a new game called NASA and I am building a lot of probes and rockets based on NASA's rockets. I am also doing NASA's Arm project and much more. I would love to show you pictures but I don't now how to. 

[Proteus]

didnt played ksp for a couple of days,now that i got some time,i decided to continue my polta mission.

took the lander from "fat boy" and landed on polta

group picture for the good old days

went for another biome 

found good base location,mission completed! o7

jeb doing last time eva in the orbit of polta

mother kerbin calls us home,its time to go back!

[RizzoTheRat]

13 hours ago, Evanitis said:

We have 136 dV when fully loaded, and it takes a few weeks to refill. We might need to call home so they send us moar boosters.

Is there a limit to how much ore you can pull out of an asteroid, or can you just keep landing mining and refining gear on it until you have enough to keep the engines running?

[bulletv1]

16 hours ago, Francois424 said:

I am always surprised at ppl making inter-planetary ships using the "minimalistic approach". How much D-V did it have ?

Never gone interplanetary before so it was a bit of an experiment It was about 2500-3000 if i remember correctly. Tips and advice are always welcome

[cyberpawn]

 today i construct big station for contract.. in future i'll add some docking ports for escape ships..

[monophonic]

7 minutes ago, RizzoTheRat said:

Is there a limit to how much ore you can pull out of an asteroid, or can you just keep landing mining and refining gear on it until you have enough to keep the engines running?

The ore supply is limited in asteroids. The rock will get lighter as you mine though, which helps with the thrust and dV as the ore depletes.

[Evanitis]

20 minutes ago, RizzoTheRat said:

Is there a limit to how much ore you can pull out of an asteroid, or can you just keep landing mining and refining gear on it until you have enough to keep the engines running?

There is - a certain percentage of the asteroid's mass is ore that can be mined. 86% in this case - that's ~860 tonnes. It would take a considerable time to mine that - even if I just jettison the ore instead of turning it into fuel and burning it. But by doing so, the mass of the asteroid decreases, so the availabe dV raises.. slowly.

BTW... the ships's available dV when fully fueled is like 3600 m/s. And that went down to 136 m/s since I started towing 1000 tonnes of mass.

[Ehco Corrallo]

I built a rover. 

Then I crashed it. 

Then I changed it. 

Then I crashed it and changed it and crashed it and changed it until...

The Dune Runner Mk III!

This is not the Dune Runner Mk III, this is the Dune Runner Mk II, which I managed to get about a fifth of the way from KSC to the north pole before it rolled. It does really well on hills and mountains and it looks great. 

[Geher]

3 hours ago, Dr.K Kerbal said:

I started a new game called NASA and I am building a lot of probes and rockets based on NASA's rockets. I am also doing NASA's Arm project and much more. I would love to show you pictures but I don't now how to. 

Just sign up at https://imgur.com/ and upload the pictures you want to show. Then you can pass the url of a picture here.

[RizzoTheRat]

So with ISRU conversion keeping the same mass (I think),  that would convert to 860 tonnes of fuel, or nearly 12 of those big Kerbodyn tanks?  I've not tried capturing an asteroid yet, sounds like fun.

[Hotaru]

Finally finished launching my Eve return fleet: a total of ten ships spread over six departures. Already underway are the flagship Constant carrying the surface hab and Super Aqualung "Red" with the core module for Eve Station.

 

Spacebus Phoebe left Kilgore Station with additional crew for the mission as well as the science and power modules for Eve Station. Depending on how the delta-v numbers work out (it has about 6600 m/s fully fueled with no payload) Phoebe might be able to make the round-trip from Gilly to Moho and back once the mining rig is up and running on Gilly.

 

 

The Eve Ascent Vehicle, partially refueled on-orbit, departed Kerbin unmanned (in what may have been my shortest departure burn ever, since its TWR is over 3 at Kerbin and it's going on a minimum-energy transfer).

 

 

Super Aqualung "Blue" was next, with the Gilly mining rig and a surface tug to land it.

 

 

Last to depart was the Eve mining rover and its transfer stage, which launched directly to Eve on a boosted RLV-320 reusable rocket.

[bulletv1]

After a failed interplanetary ship i used my new ion engines to send a probe of a fly by of Moho then out to Duna which it is now in orbit of. Still about 10k Delta v so will send it off to another planet at somepoint.

[PineCone]

I made the Brick MK1.

[SSgt Baloo]

Yesterday I had an epiphany: what if I flew a turbo ramjet-propelled plane at less than full throttle, instead of the hair-raising prospect of going full throttle the whole time?

Launch was at full throttle, because I wanted to get altitude ASAP.

 

This time, I only started to overheat once during a part of the trip when I lost too much altitude before realizing its natural equilibrium would not pull it up this one time. Also, this time I was able to land it on the runway. 

Edited January 15, 2016 by SSgt Baloo

[AlphaMensae]

9 hours ago, Proteus said:

didnt played ksp for a couple of days,now that i got some time,i decided to continue my polta mission.

took the lander from "fat boy" and landed on polta

I've been a long, long fan of Stewart Cowley's Terran Trade Authority books, and that thing immediately reminded me of many of the images used in those books, especially the work of Peter Elson, and this image in particular:

It's because it's so...round and non-standard.

Edited January 15, 2016 by Laguna