What did you do in KSP1 today?

[monstah]

6 hours ago, Corona688 said:

So, nuclear rockets.  The latest batch of tourists get to ride one.  I'm not sure what to call it so 'flying potato squid' will do for now.

Naturally for anything combining nuclear with tourism it had one heck of an escape system on the way up.  Now docked at Station C's north gantry for complimentary crackers and refueling before the trip to Minmus

So, the passenger compartments are behind the nuke?  

[Corona688]

12 minutes ago, monstah said:

So, the passenger compartments are behind the nuke?  

The actually nasty part is beside the fuel.  Besides, passenger pods have 50m/s impact tolerance.

[Vermil]

17 hours ago, flatbear said:

did you post this on reddit/r/kerbalspaceprogram? it looks really familiar

 

Nope. Definitely not.

I'm not on Reddit and never have been.

This is fresh stuff. The rocket nozzles are still warm.

My post was authored directly in our forum's edit window, so it didn't exist anywhere in the whole world - not even on my own computer - until the moment I clicked "Submit Reply".

 

10 hours ago, flatbear said:

finally got my space plane into space.  should a space plane have rcs thrusters to dock or should it not have them?

 

 

I think so. They're indispensable for delicate positioning and maneuvers. And I think you will want to use your plane for refueling, rescue etc at some time.

 

Edited August 15, 2016 by Vermil

[flatbear]

38 minutes ago, Vermil said:

 

Nope. Definitely not.

I'm not on Reddit and never have been.

This is fresh stuff. The rocket nozzles are still warm.

My post was authored directly in our forum's edit window, so it didn't exist anywhere in the whole world - not even on my own computer - until the moment I clicked "Submit Reply".

 

 

I think so. They're indispensable for delicate positioning and maneuvers. And I think you will want to use your plane for refueling, rescue etc at some time.

 

Ah my bad, I must have mis remembered

 

I'll definitely add rcs thrusters to my plane then. 

[luizopiloto]

sent a new module to my Mun station...

[Crocket]

Wilwig and Seannard finally landed on the Mun in the Munmuncher, but they only have 55 units of fuel left, Eagle is in a 103x107 orbit, and Seannard accidentally broke a landing leg and knocked the craft over. Wilwig is now very mad. You wouldn't like him when he's mad.

KSC is now mounting a rescue mission!

[MaxwellsDemon]

On 8/14/2016 at 2:02 PM, flatbear said:

tried my hand at spaceplane design

not enough fuel to get into orbit though..... D:

 

 

 

Huh...   Something about that reminded me of an old model kit, the "Galactic Cruiser Leif Ericson"  (do a google image search and you'll see what I mean).  According to Larry Niven, that model was the inspiration for the MacArthur in The Mote in God's Eye...  wonder how that would look, Kerbalized?

[Vermil]

Plans met with RL today and lost. There was no time. Tomorrow maybe.

[flatbear]

I did the space x powered landing scenario successfully for the first time

[GoSlash27]

New career. Preparing to strip- mine the Mun for science.

 

[cubinator]

My work was mostly in Photoshop today, still can't manage a circular crater...

[maccollo]

Finished a KOS launch script for SLS that I have been working on. 

 

[Corona688]

I just wanted to design a miner that lands and docks atop something.  I didn't expect it to turn out this wicked-looking, whee.  It balances nicely, too.

...Though I forgot the RCS thrusters.  Again.  Sigh..  *revert*

Edited August 16, 2016 by Corona688

[Corona688]

So, the above miner is designed to refuel itself and lift a derelict MK2 cockpit from the surface of Minmus.  But it depends on the cockpit being upright, and it's not.  So I sent this tiny probe a day ahead to clamp on and restore power, so its own reaction wheels could set it in position.

20 meters isn't as good as the landing I was hoping for, but... I can work with it.

Edited August 16, 2016 by Corona688

[MaxwellsDemon]

After an away-from-keyboard hiatus over the weekend, I got back into the KSP swing...  Downloaded a couple of mods to try out, launched Horus 23 to Minmus (picking up a stranded engineer from LKO before trans-Minmus injection), and then started on a tourist contract (something I haven't done for a while), but when the game crashed I called it a night.  :\

[Stratzenblitz75]

Today, I sent 500 kerbals to Minmus... 

...Using only SRBs:

 

Edited August 16, 2016 by Stratzenblitz75

[jakubqwe]

Trying to finish career mode, just started playing after a long time .

 

[Red Shirt]

In a Captain Obvious moment I realized launching direct to polar orbit saves a bunch of dv from going to orbit then changing inclination. So my communications/resource scanning satellite turned out to be almost a single stage to orbit. 

With this stupidly obvious new found knowledge, I decided to apply it to a Minmus polar satellite. It has been a while but I wanted to fly without MJ and put the satellite in a polar orbit. Circular Kerbin orbit was easy as was changing inclination to match Minmus. Getting a node to intersect Minmus took some tinkering. It was a little messy actually as fiddling with nodes is kind of annoying and there has to be a better way (or something about how to do it I don't understand). Eventually managed to move the node around to intersect. Once in Minmus SOI I realized again how long it had been since I soloed. Changing my Pe location for a polar circularization burn was cheap but not as efficient as it would have been if I had gotten it right the first time. Piloting is not what thrills me in KSP but still it was satisfying to know I could..

[luizopiloto]

for the first time I did the reverse way... I downgraded a SSTO... and was able to perform a circumnavigation...  

[Vermil]

After some good rest, some video gaming, some cookies and tea, some more sleeping,.. some snacks and soda,.. (Mission Control: - FFS! - Guys?..)
...the gals finally felt ready to explore Gilly.

The two Rovers dropped perfectly without hitch when the button was pressed.

Madly drew the short stick and had to go first and test the ladders. Sure, Jebediah have already done that, but this is in very low gravity and you never know.
Yes, it was Madly who had that experience with the separator rocket crossing the ladder on Kronos_B at Laythe, but this time there was no scary moment. She climbed all the way down, up, and down again without problems. 

Next, she took the first step on the surface. This image is still in the beginning of that step.
Well, it might be a small step for Kerbalkind, but it's a huge leap for one little Kerbal astronaut.
Madly decided one step was enough and took the surface sample and planted the flag right there.

 

Which was maybe good, because it made it easy for the others to join her. One single step to the flag. ...And then the traditional group portrait. They have a few of those now.

 

There were some amusing moments when mounting the Rover, but the gravity is so low they didn't even get any scratches in their helmets. And you know, you learn after a while.

The Gals were unsure of what to do. It would sort of depend on how the Rover performed.
(This is where we remember that this Hover-Rover was scheduled to be tested on Minmus by Jebediah, Bill and Bob. That expedition unfortunately had to be cancelled due to that budget was used up by the emergency rescue mission they had to do instead, to pick up Tandan, Sigrid and Bilfal who crashed on Mun.)
Well, the new Hover-Rover, specially developed in anticipation of the low gravity on Gilly, performed brilliantly, exceeding all expectations.
They set out Westward.

 

Some may notice that this is a three-seat Rover, rather than the traditional four-seat concept that Dr Horst and Jebediah typically come up with.
Well, in this particular case it was important that it was perfectly balanced.

The Rover worked so well the gals eventually decided to circumnavigate the entire moon. Fuel consumption was negligible. But even travelling due West (as the sun) they outran the sun and it began to darken.

 

They had a discussion about what to do. Valentina wanted to go on. Madly and Kimene were in favor of stopping and waiting for the Sun to catch up.
One concern was that they wouldn't see anything - if there was something important or interesting to see -, another was the risk of soaring around blindly in the night. They could crash. Then what? A long way to walk.
The discussion ended abruptly when Kimene drily noticed they were running out of electricity. The solar panels don't work in the night. So Valentina had to set down the Rover.

 

Well, they had to set down a second time later, to wait for the sun again. Unfortunately, and to their mild disappointment, they never saw anything remarkable, even if the wild landscape is sort of fascinating.

But eventually they had closed the circle and approached their landed Ikaros_I rocket from the East.
And this was such a long and taxing Rover trip that we call it a day and leave them there.

Successes?  First manned landing on Gilly. First flag planted on Gilly. First surface sample. About 1,500 science points. Hover-Rover smashing success. First circumnavigation of Gilly. 

Well they don't have any more science abilities, so other binomes have to be left for others. Tomorrow, they'll likely start their journey home.

 

Edited August 16, 2016 by Vermil

[Guest]

I am planning several missions for Duna the next time it's in conjunction. In the interim, I have been refining my designs with practice missions to the Mun and Minmus.

I've tested and refined my rover delivery system. I've developed a system to land them on Duna: I have an aerodynamic fairing, a heat shield, and a big parachute which I expect will function like a drogue 'chute. I tested it by doing a low orbit re-entry on Kerbin, simulating the effect of the big 'chute on Duna by using a small drogue 'chute. It took a quite a bit of tweaking to pack everything behind a 3.75 m heat shield so that the rovers kept their wheels in the re-entry. But it worked, eventually; the 'chute is quite essential in getting everything to settle in the right position for touchdown. 

I'm also planning a kerbaled mission to Ike. Since kerbals aren't claustrophobic and don't get bored, I'm going to make the lightest possible lander I can manage, stick a Science Jr can on top of it, and stick that in front of a giant fuel drum with a tiny motor or three, and solar panels on the sides, everything connected up with docking ports. The idea is that that the contraption will make it to Ike, the lander will do its thing on Ike, re-dock with the orbital stage, and then head back to Kerbin. The fuel drum should be big enough for the round trip with a gravity assist/brake from the Mun, so it can then park everything in orbit around Kerbin. There, I'll RV with my patented Perfectly Safe Landing System: a 3.75 m heat shield with some random spaceship parts, a docking port, and three radial parachutes. The lander and science can will dock with the PSLS, which will then re-enter and land everyone perfectly safely.

I just simulated this with a Mun mission and everything went well; my lander was extremely tight on delta-V but that should be a little easier on Ike; I had to do a bunch of complicated orbital manoeuvring with my really slow orbital support module, but the principles are sound. Oh and I netted, like over 300 science from that experiment, what with the crew reports, EVA reports, returned samples, and whatnot, so it didn't go to waste.

Also thinking of doing some light exploration of Eve since it's now aligned usefully.

[eddiew]

Jay Kerman, Thystle Kerman, and Llew Kerman headed out for an anomolous signal on Mun, as suggested by Anomaly Surveyor.

Dah-dah-da-da-da-dah, da-da-da-dah, dah-da-dah, dah-dah-do-de-dah...

Kerbal Research and Development yielded a 3 man pod that is only 2.8 tons, and when compared to the 2-man-can's 2.66t, it became pretty much a no-brainer to redesign Munwolf III to fit an extra crew member. The sparks are also heavily researched, and now delivering an impressive 10% efficiency gain, while the Oscars are now pressurised for an additional 20% fuel. Which was a darn good thing, since I the design team borked the numbers and only provided 880m/s to the return stage. Fortunately this was enough for an atmospheric periapsis around Kerbin, and a mighty 1280 science points were returned.

Tweakscaled an octo girder up to 2.3m to give some space for sciences twixt the pod and the heatshield, and allowing some of the expensive DMagic Orbital Science packages to be returned home. Unfortunately, those lockers near the hatch and ladder? Those turned out to contain 150kg of equipment each, which was quite enough to move the CoM well off the physical centre of the pod. Another strike for me the design team. Jay Kerman was able to hold retrograde through descent, but it would have been hairy for a less experienced pilot. The Munwolf IV is already in planning to rectify these issues.

Mun textures and terrain were most likely improved by Stock Visual Terrain. Additional (green/blue) moon is Rald. Fat SRBs provided by Space Y. Surface experiments and lockers via Surface Experiment Pack.

[septemberWaves]

I conducted my first direct ascent profile mission to Duna and Ike. The rocket was pretty ugly (by my standards anyway) so I didn't get pics, but it wasn't as difficult as I once anticipated. I also somehow broke a landing gear on Gilly. I've decided to consider that a bug.

[luizopiloto]

Lauched a small comm. sat... :3

[NightshineRecorralis]

Almost finished with my spacestation!