What did you do in KSP1 today?

[numerobis]

Kerbin

Altitude/ Isp

0 /229

By "0" do you mean the launch pad? It's about 70m up, which would explain why the Isp is not 220.

The Isp depends on the altitude of either your control pod or the root node of your craft (I forget which, but they're usually the same). If you have a *very* tall spacecraft you can score an extra few seconds of Isp on launch.

[Starman4308]

By "0" do you mean the launch pad? It's about 70m up, which would explain why the Isp is not 220.

The Isp depends on the altitude of either your control pod or the root node of your craft (I forget which, but they're usually the same). If you have a *very* tall spacecraft you can score an extra few seconds of Isp on launch.

Bonus! Hang it from clamps, and move everything to the top of the VAB.

[GoSlash27]

By "0" do you mean the launch pad? It's about 70m up, which would explain why the Isp is not 220.

The Isp depends on the altitude of either your control pod or the root node of your craft (I forget which, but they're usually the same). If you have a *very* tall spacecraft you can score an extra few seconds of Isp on launch.

Numerobis,

Yeah, I mean on the pad. But my point isn't that you can score a few seconds of Isp by building a taller rocket, but rather that your rocket spends so little time in the "atmospheric" regime that you may as well not even bother worrying about Isp (atm) figures in your calculations, at least for vertical lifters.

Just do the math for the whole launch assuming vacuum numbers, and you'll be pretty much dead- on.

Prior to this, I was designing my lifters on the assumption that everything short of orbital injection was atmospheric figures and the injection was mid-way between atm and vac. In truth, the boost phase prior to gravity turn is midway between atm and vac, and all of the rest of the lift is vacuum.

Best,

-Slashy

[cantab]

Landed the second four Kerbals from my Magellan mission to Laythe and the Joolian system. That brings the last of my Kerbals back home, leaving only unmanned missions ongoing. Well, and the one guy who's retired on Eve.

[coreross]

I had the perfect Kerbal style disaster. Explosions and all, almost lost the station.

[GoSlash27]

I had the perfect Kerbal style disaster. Explosions and all, almost lost the station.

http://youtu.be/zjd9oiLdV0s

Kraken attack. That's a bummer.

Best,

-Slashy

[glen.mack]

I made Iron Man armor

[Vagani]

I made a new car:

[Kowgan]

I noticed I'm spending way too much time in the VAB finding solutions, and no time at all actually flying these solutions. I think this post also fits the KSP Sins confession thread.

Anyway, today I found a pretty satisfying (though probably not original) way to fit a small rover payload inside a rocket. But I got my brain in a loop, and I can't stop thinking I'm missing something else to figure out. If I even make any sense.

I need some sleep.

[Norpo]

Realize that "Ah, who cares, I *basically* got the center of mass aligned with the center of thrust" is not enough. EVER.

Remember, everyone.

Symmetry is good.

Losing 3 kerbals due to fuel tanks not working right is not.

I tried to use the skycrane to save them, but turns out it doesn't work well on kerbin... Also, the fact that I think I misaligned it with the rovers actual center of mass didn't help, either.

Back to the drawing board!

[Jouni]

I started planning a Tylo mission in the 6.4x Kerbol System. My current estimate is that I'll need around 7000 m/s for Kerbin escape, 5000 m/s for Tylo insertion, and 5000 m/s for the return trip. The lander itself would need around 13000 m/s. I'll probably launch some probes to check the delta-v requirements before sending the lander.

Here is the first lander prototype:

With 383.9 tonnes of mass and 13557 m/s of delta-v, it's actually quite small compared to some stock Eve landers. The final ascent stage can be reused for the return trip, so I'll just need to find a way to get another 12000 m/s for the lander and a 35-tonne mothership/reserve fuel tank.

[Concentric]

Two kinds of rescue and putting up Bastion, my new space station.

First, the failed shuttle mission. I tried to make an atop-SRB crew shuttle that could dock in space and then fly back to the runway previously, but it didn't have the lift or centre of lift to land on the runway safely. Also, it was running out of charge, and had no emergency parachutes - which was worrying for Bill and Jeb.

Enter the drone. In the cargo bay is a small monopropellant probe with several parachutes and a decent battery that can dock onto the back of the failed shuttle. Afterwards, the drone can fly back to the runway.

A safe nose landing with parachute assistance - still on the same continent as KSC, which is a reasonable success.

And with a long, fuel-less glide, the drone returns to the runway, too. The upshot of all this is that I decided not to put any shuttle-escape pods on the station.

---

Bastion's design ended up massing 59.04t, for almost 130k funds, so I needed a 60t lifter. Above is the lifter design - it took a couple of reverts but I managed to get 60t to 100km circular with deorbit fuel remaining. This was also an opportunity to perform LFB and Mainsail tests. Once I was happy with it, I reverted and saved it as a subassembly.

The launch went well - I even managed to cram in another part test with some additional separatrons. Further, I added some parachutes on the lifter core for the return. Unfortunately, as I decided to put Bastion up at 150km instead of 100km, I needed to drain a little fuel from the station's tank to complete the higher circularisation, so I wanted to refuel it a little, as well as crew it.

I could also get the suborbital aerospike test with this spaceplane. It did need a little rocket-boosting in flight to cross certain altitude/speed barriers, but on the whole, it performed admirably. Haven't named it yet, though.

Put the equivalent of an FL-T100 tank into the core and topped off the station, and then I realised that I'd forgotten to fill the crew cabin. Ah well, Bill can stay, and Jeb will fly off to pick up Londen for a contract.

Decoupled and deorbited the lifter core, landing in the ocean in the 76% region of Kerbin, which is good enough. In the mean time, Londen caught up with Jeb in his orbit, so it was time to rendezvous.

And a safe return. Phew. That's quite a bit of leftover fuel, so this may be suitable for topping-off missions to Bastion, if the need arises.

Bastion can hold 16 crewmembers in its cabins, and has a Jumbo-64, an R1, and 16 axial xenon tanks as fuel storage. Additionally, it has room to be expanded, perhaps a tank on the Sr at the bottom, and some arms on the basic docking ports. Smaller ships would likely attach at the Jr docking ports. All in all, a decent investment into infrastructure. Now, I just have to use it.

[Loerelau]

That's why I love the game!

Always the nice surprises!

[NecroBones]

The lander itself would need around 13000 m/s.

Depending on your starting/ending orbital altitude, you might be able to land twice.

[cantab]

He's in 6.4 times normal scale.

[Seshins]

After many many moons of playing just Sandbox but occasionally dabbling with career mode ive started a proper career save. I kind of got sick of not having an forced objectives in Sandbox so here we are!

So far just mucking about in the kerbin system - but after sticking it out for a few hours i have to say ive developed a new appreciation for career mode. Still feel like its bare bones and occasionaly have "meh" moments but really look forward to what 0.90 and beyond will bring.

[NecroBones]

He's in 6.4 times normal scale.

lol, missed that part.

[ScriptKitt3h]

I crashed a colony ship on Pol. (I was going to ram into a mountain when the ship was trying to do a flyby.)

The rear looks flat since a massive "tail section" of fuel and cargo was there, but got wrecked in the crash.

Curse you, buggy gravity assists!

[Seshins]

HA i imagine that Kerbal is thinking "ffs"

[ScriptKitt3h]

HA i imagine that Kerbal is thinking "ffs"

Yup.

That, or mourning his four comrades who were in the very rear of the tail section, got their Hitchhiker can knocked off, and then blew up a few hundred feet away.

[AndrewBCrisp]

Been a while since I posted to this thread...

Anyway: My Orbiter 9 mission (spending 20 days aboard the KerbalHab space station) just passed the halfway mark. KerbalHab is in a 15 degree inclined orbit, but I'm thinking of increasing that to 30 degrees with Orbiter 10.

Meanwhile I launched the biggest rocket built in months: Mun 2, sending 3 kerbals into Munar orbit and back again.

Mun 2 on the launch pad.

Mun 2 performs its Munar escape burn, after successfully circling the Mun for three hours. The capsule splashed down safely a "day" later.

[andrew123]

I made an aircraft carrier.

Successful armed landing on the JMSDF Takeshima.

Javascript is disabled. View full album

Only 540 parts.

Javascript is disabled. View full album

[xub313]

I sent a probe into Jool's atmosphere. I'm using the antenna range mod so I had to send another probe with a comunitron 88 to fly just above it so I could send the data to Kerbin.

I also started my Eve station.

[astropapi1]

Only 540 parts.

Only

That would melt my laptop.

[andrew123]

That would melt my laptop.

I'm running KSP on a low-end AMD CPU. No lag during the landings.