What did you do in KSP1 today?

[Duke MelTdoWn]

3 hours ago, mrmoo said:

And J.F. Kerman has declared that 'AeroKerb' (my space program) will land Kerbals on Minmus within the next 3 years to finally confirm whether the surface IS mint chocolate chip or bubblegum ice cream. 

Just don't lick it! Your tongue will freeze to the surface (speaking from experience).

[Duke MelTdoWn]

The past days I continued to play around with the concept of a cheap SSTO for small payloads.
These are derived from the 'Gisl' Light Shuttle.
The idea is to keep the frontal area small and use only a single Rapier.

A Commnet consisting of 3 relays around the Mun was established in Sandbox.
I was getting tired of comm blackouts during testing.
The 'Gler' Small Sat Launcher worked great to release the sats, but broke up when it landed back in Kerbins water.
Eric Meyer made this great tool to calculate the orbit for the parent ship: https://meyerweb.com/eric/ksp/resonant-orbits/

Spoiler

 

Because 'Gler' worked well, I started working on the 1.3 ton Micro Munlander 'Graup'.
Reentry testing went well (third time is the charm). The fuel tanks were destroyed on touchdown under parachute.
Newest version has landing legs, so Mun mission probably coming soon.

Spoiler

 

[SpacePixel]

 

This is the Superlifter. Small, compared to other large contraptions, but I hope somewhat more useful. This is my first spaceplane with larger than 5 meter fuselage at around 6.5 meters. Of course, the main use is lifting huge (but not too heavy, we've only 16 engines) payloads into low orbit. The fuselage, unfortunately, does look rather bland -- I might need to spruce it up with more flags, but I'm extremely happy with the wing. It does seem lifted off a subsonic airliner, but it grounds the vehicle with its more realistic shape and volume. The stabilizers are a little bit bigger and elaborate than strictly necessary, hopefully giving a mild sci fi vibe. The nose swivels up to allow payload deployment. 

[pinolallo]

For such a vehicle rapier is an overshoot: a scram turbojet and an aerospike will do the job a much cheaper cost. 

Edited 20 hours ago by pinolallo

[king of nowhere]

my circumnavigation of kerbin through mountains has found some of the most beautiful terrain ever

i like driving in such terrain, which probably makes me some kind of masochist

[mrmoo]

I designed and landed my Koncord-X in the Arctic with a built in rover so that my Minmus crew could 'practice' for EVAs when they land on the moon. 

Plane is here.

19 hours ago, Duke MelTdoWn said:

Just don't lick it! Your tongue will freeze to the surface (speaking from experience).

Scientists at the KSC have now decided that the crew will take a sample, bring it inside to allow it to sublimate and inhale it through their nose.

[Eclipse 32]

a few days ago, i passed a brain fart. i built a science space station(the first space station in this save). it has a lab and everything! everything, that is, except the science experiments. we're not letting Bob near the KSC until we get the engineers that made that mistake out of the country.

[Lyra]

11 hours ago, SpacePixel said:

 

This is the Superlifter. Small, compared to other large contraptions, but I hope somewhat more useful. This is my first spaceplane with larger than 5 meter fuselage at around 6.5 meters. Of course, the main use is lifting huge (but not too heavy, we've only 16 engines) payloads into low orbit. The fuselage, unfortunately, does look rather bland -- I might need to spruce it up with more flags, but I'm extremely happy with the wing. It does seem lifted off a subsonic airliner, but it grounds the vehicle with its more realistic shape and volume. The stabilizers are a little bit bigger and elaborate than strictly necessary, hopefully giving a mild sci fi vibe. The nose swivels up to allow payload deployment. 

How are you able to make the nose swivel? I've attempted reverse-engineering of nose/tail hinges with fairings a few times before but they either get stuck or summon the Kraken every time. Especially ones with lots of extra mass, like a cockpit or a fuel tank.

[kurgut]

Today, (well yesterday, but here's the mission report edited in a video format), our brave kerbonauts Jeb and Bob went to Minmus - in my IVA only career - to get an answer to every Kerbal most urgent, and ancient question : What does Minmus taste like ?

We now have the answer !

Cheers

Edited 9 hours ago by kurgut

[pinolallo]

Today I posted some stock beauties in https://kerbalx.com/
In a career game focused on Tourist contracts you need a very cheap SSTO very early in a game and these ships are made without the need of a Rapier engine, very flyable with docking capabilities. 

Actually I prefer some modded versions but that later on the game.

The  very good VSO  https://kerbalx.com/pinolallo/VSO

 

mass: 16.81t

cost: 25,200

parts: 39

crew: 3

and the FlashNight https://kerbalx.com/pinolallo/FlashNight-Stock

 

mass:19.82t

cost: 32,742

parts: 40

crew: 6

Edited 7 hours ago by pinolallo

[Eclipse 32]

math question, how strong would the FFT big fusion fuel tank have to be to survive lithobreaking at ~200m/s?