What did you do in KSP1 today?

krblman · May 23, 2021

Sent my own Blunderbirds mission to Eve

Rylant · May 23, 2021

So I am really starting to do end game stuff. Still horrible with delta v waste. The only place I have not sent manned missions and returned from are Moho, Laythe, Tylo and obviously Eve and Jool.

My designed lander for Moho works in sandbox, so I am in the process of sending it to Moho in my career mode. I have maxed science and have about 18 million in funds.

Today, I just designed a lander with lots of TTW and has about 5.4K delta v when starting in low Kerbin orbit. It also has mining and converting capability so I should be able to get to and from just about anywhere. I have been to and from Eeloo with it. I will probably have a tough time with Moho as I said I am not good with delta v management.

It is huge though; like 370 tons or something, so getting it into orbit is silly, but I do have a launcher that works. It is expensive, like 1.7 million or something.

At first I was thinking I still won’t be able to land it on Tylo or Laythe because I won’t have the delta v to get there and then do a fueled decent and it’s probably too big for parachutes? But then I realized I can send it to Jool, refuel at Bop or Pol, and then should be fine to land on Laythe and Tylo, so I should be able to do the Jool Moon tour in one visit. Pretty excited to try it. Jeb Bob and Bill are on their way. This should also level them all to 5 as well! I have lots of level 4s who have been to the Mun and Minmus (all of my Kerbals have) but then I send 3 to Eve, and 3 to Duna, and 3 to Dres, etc. So lots of them have been outside to other CBs, but none of my Kerbals have been to more than 1 other, hence everyone is level 4.

Today I had 3 return from Dres with it and 3 return from Eeloo with it.

After I do the Jool Moon Tour and return from Moho, I guess it’s time to get better at SSTOs? Also at some point I would like to take a stab at an Eve return. I will fail miserably lol.

Rylant

Admiral Fluffy · May 24, 2021

2 minutes ago, Rylant said:

So I am really starting to do end game stuff. Still horrible with delta v waste. The only place I have not sent manned missions and returned from are Moho, Laythe, Tylo and obviously Eve and Jool.

The places I have kerbals stranded on are Eve, the Mun, Duna, Dres, and Eeloo.

The kerbals stranded on the Mun got Krakend and are now stuck there near the North Pole

also, in Real life today I finished coloring jebadiah Kerman

ColdJ · May 24, 2021

Just pondering to the super brainy, nothing you can't achieve in space types.

If you made the solarsystems biggest ever cherry picker(folding and extending arm with a command chair or ladder at the tip) then went in to orbit around the gas giant. Could you lower a Kerbal all the way down to the surface?

OrdinaryKerman · May 24, 2021

On my dad's request, I installed KSP on his laptop. As a test flight, I launched a Mun landing mission, problem was I launched a slightly undersized lander with a massively inefficient trajectory. And accidentally staged the capsule decoupler. While landed on the Mun. Next time I'll have to send a rescue mission

Admiral Fluffy · May 24, 2021

1 minute ago, ColdJ said:

Just pondering to the super brainy, nothing you can't achieve in space types.

If you made the solarsystems biggest ever cherry picker(folding and extending arm with a command chair or ladder at the tip) then went in to orbit around the gas giant. Could you lower a Kerbal all the way down to the surface?

Seems plausible, but stupid. Better call Stratzenblitz for that one

ColdJ · May 24, 2021

1 minute ago, Admiral Fluffy said:

Seems plausible, but stupid. Better call Stratzenblitz for that one

Who be that?

Also, the world is the way it is today because people are willing to be stupid in order to see what can be achieved.

No stupid = No space flight, no Moon Landing, no rovers on mars, no SpaceX, No game called Kerbal Space Program to enjoy.

Caerfinon · May 24, 2021

6 minutes ago, ColdJ said:

Just pondering to the super brainy, nothing you can't achieve in space types.

take a look at the video attached to this ship.... same goal, different approach.

https://kerbalx.com/HoDeok/abc123

ColdJ · May 24, 2021

4 minutes ago, Caerfinon said:

take a look at the video attached to this ship.... same goal, different approach

I skimmed it very quickly. I am on a mobile dongle and 4 plus hours is a weee bit long.

They used a massive lander of sorts.

I was thinking that with Kerbal physics, if the main craft wasn't in the crush zone that the pistons and hinges, Kerbal and ladder might make it.

Caerfinon · May 24, 2021

Just now, ColdJ said:

They used a massive lander of sorts.

massive platform suspended at Jool's "surface" and then demonstrate a kerbal on EVA collecting science. :valwow:

ColdJ · May 24, 2021

1 minute ago, Caerfinon said:

massive platform suspended at Jool's "surface" and then demonstrate a kerbal on EVA collecting science.

I did say I skimmed it. Sorry if I missed the best bit. The last thing I saw was a lander can smashing in to the planet.

Admiral Fluffy · May 24, 2021

46 minutes ago, ColdJ said:

Who be that?

https://www.youtube.com/c/Stratzenblitz75/videos

ColdJ · May 24, 2021

Long before Elon Kerbal founded KERBOL X.

K.A.S.A had their early space program. And before the first Kerboid was shoved in a tiny capsule to see if a Kerbal would survive in space, K.A.S.A was tryining out ways to train future Kerbinauts on how to maneuver and land a craft on the Mun.

Recently de-classified photos show some of their early training. Before KERBOL X , K.A.S.A was landing craft back vertically on recovery ships in the Ocean.

Early attempts to land on the recovery ship TEK 66, built by renowned ship designer @chadgaskerman, had more times than not, 3 struts on, 1 strut off. Jeb decided to move the remote piloting system below the landing deck centre, in order to have something to target, and from then on was successful. It was Val who made the first dead on landing, only to find the recovery ship was so sleek that there was no way to climb to the bridge. After much discussion on looks vs utility. Ladders were installed, and all was good in the world.

ColdJ · May 24, 2021

@Admiral Fluffy

Memory jogged. I remember watching his helicarrier to laythe video. The guy must be running multiple super computers in parrallel proccesses.

Yep. if it can be done. He would be the one to do it.

Admiral Fluffy · May 24, 2021

1 minute ago, ColdJ said:

@Admiral Fluffy

Memory jogged. I remember watching his helicarrier to laythe video. The guy must be running multiple super computers in parrallel proccesses.

Yep. if it can be done. He would be the one to do it.

I saw that one too.

Also, I recreated this video.

JB182 · May 24, 2021

yesterday, i launched 2 new satellite, today, i plan to launch a space station

Cavscout74 · May 24, 2021

Lots of updates for my JNSQ save today since the game decided to play nice and not glitch out like it did the other day - new jets, Mun landing & return in my Apollo/Gemini mash up (Mk 2 pod, 2-seat lander launched Apollo style), new space station & the new 3-seat direct ascent lander made it to Minmus & back safely. As usual, almost everything interesting occurred at night.

Despite being on probation for his unsanctioned Minmus landing, Jeb was assigned to test a new jet design featuring the newly developed afterburning Panther engine since he was the only pilot available. It tops out at 360 m/s dry / 937 m/s wet at 1000 m and climbing up to 3km brings those up to 390 & 961. The wet numbers are as fast as I was willing to get rather than absolute top speeds - the engine heat bar was about a millimeter away from max in both cases.

Spoiler

There is also a 2-seat version, which gave Kelrik the engineer a chance to go mach 1+ horizontally at 31m instead of in a rocket going vertically away from the ground

The third Mun landing crew returned to dock with their GPV then returned to Kerbin. The GPV was left with over 800 m/s dV upon reaching Kerbin, allowing them to shed a significant amount of orbital velocity just prior to reentry

Spoiler

I really want to find that mountain in the background and try to climb it:

My Minirover with landing cradle was able to go to Mun's north polar area:

Spoiler

Safely on the surface - and Mun's gravity is weak enough that opening the ramp after landing wasn't really an issue. What almost was an issue was the rover - either the brakes need to be set before disconnecting it or a rear guard rail needs to be installed on the cradle as the back wheels rolled off and I nearly got stuck

It worked out, though:

I also started putting up a more permanent station into Kerbin orbit. It's still pretty small and I don't have a science lab unlocked yet but I got the 1.25m station core (with inflatable hab section) and a 2.5m fuel module. I miss having weldable docking ports in this install. I may try to use an engineer & KAS to remove the docking ports & attach the sections directly. I know that's just begging for a kraken attack, but it's worth a try

Spoiler

Either I messed up or the dV calculator messed up, because this thing was massively over-built. It was like one whole stage got missed - I only needed like 100 m/s in the hydrolox upper stage to make orbit (out of 1500m/s available). And it was an un-cooled hydrolox stage, so it's not like I could even keep it around for later

Next came a fuel module. To make launch more feasible, it is only half full - it will either require more launches to fill it or development of some ISRU capabilities

And of course, rendezvous happens at night....

Yeah I docked successfully before the sun came up. Lord only knows what would've happened if I'd had to do a rare daylight docking

Finally, my direct ascent Pomegranate-based lander made it to Minmus & returned safely. JNSQ's atmosphere is not friendly to the stock round pods reentering from Mun or Minmus so I made to 2-stage reentry vehicle - the conventional heat shield absorbed the initial reentry down to around 3500m/s, then is staged away (along with the payload bay), leaving the pod's ablator to handle the rest of the reentry. Worked pretty good, but i don't think I want to try staging much faster than I did - the pod got awful glowy as it was

Spoiler

Being Minmus, a substantial amount of dV was wasted in the transfer stage (about 600 m/s), but for Mun missions that would all get used.

Val became the first "official" kerbonaut on Minmus

They still had just over 1000 m/s as they arrived back at kerbin, allowing them to shed a significant amount of velocity with their remaining fuel, further easing the reentry:

First stage reentry starting. It's a good idea to make sure you transfer any life support supplies left over in the bag inside the payload fairing into the pod before you stage the payload away.

All went well and Val, Bob and some new guy splashed down safely in the Western Sea

Xt007 · May 24, 2021

Stretching the legs on the way to minimus

sweatbox · May 24, 2021

6 hours ago, Rylant said:

It is huge though; like 370 tons or something, so getting it into orbit is silly, but I do have a launcher that works. It is expensive, like 1.7 million or something.

Haha, a 1.7m launcher. And I thought my entire Eve rocket with station parts was expensive at 1.5. Guess I still have a bit to go

Side note: how did you make a lander with a bunch of TTW? Did you just use a bunch of the more powerful engines? Maybe Methane if using IFS?

Edited May 24, 2021 by sweatbox
Wanted to include a question

Rylant · May 24, 2021

29 minutes ago, sweatbox said:

Haha, a 1.7m launcher. And I thought my entire Eve rocket with station parts was expensive at 1.5. Guess I still have a bit to go

Side note: how did you make a lander with a bunch of TTW? Did you just use a bunch of the more powerful engines? Maybe Methane if using IFS?

So the entire ship was 1.7 m. I managed to tweak it to actually be smaller, more efficient with the launch and cheaper. The entire thing is like 1.2 m now. Essentially, the ship is a cylinder with the command module on top followed by the converter, science stuff, holding tanks. There is 4 cylinders in the side of the main cylinder. These 4 cylinders each contain fuel tanks and a rhino engine. The launcher is a mix of asparagus staging and a few Clydesdale boosters. The launcher gets the entire ship to 100k Kerbal orbit leaving the main ship in LKO with 5.4 k delta v, to go where I want.

Overall I am quite pleased with it. Interested in seeing how it takes on the Jool system tomorrow.

Rylant

Edited May 24, 2021 by Rylant