Sling testing

[Spaceisbeautifulul]

Hello all, I've been playing orbiter (link incoming!) http://orbit.medphys.ucl.ac.uk/

And in it there is this one mission, where you sling from Jupiter to Saturn.

I went to play KSP to try and accomplish something near to that. I figured slinging from Eve to Duna would be a good start, because I didn't feel like slinging from Jool to Eeloo quite yet.

So anyways, here yah go, my first slinging operation test:

Here is a simple rocket I decided to use, basically an asparagus effect launch stage, and then a second stage with a nuclear engine and tons of droptanks on it.

Yes, I used asparagus effect. Hate me. I haven't used it all that much, but I needed something to get me into orbit and then to escape velocity, so asparagus seemed the way to go.

And after my first test, things didn't go so well.

The parachute even ripped off!

On my way up to orbit, I saw something sparkly, took nineteen screenshots of it, and got ONE back. I dunno what it is, but I have circled it, and a man with spaghetti in his mouth is clearly surprised by it as well. You may have to open it in a new tab to see the pixel.

I took a look around the map view to see if there was any debris, or possibly a passing space station that caused it, but instead, I found that Eve was in a perfect position to be seen.

After I got Eve and Kerbin into correct places for a transfer, I used up the rest of the mainsail to reach escape velocity, then jettisoned it. By the way, please never take out those shrouds around the nuclear engine, I love them to pieces (quiet literally).

On my first correction burn, I noticed fuel was not draining from my tanks.

Oh, so that's it. God damn that symmetry tool!

After successful getting an encounter that slinged me out to Duna, I decided to call it a day, because I had not aligned Duna for this. I just went for it, and I didn't have enough fuel to correct it. But anyways. That's that.

So yeah, I decided to show y'all this for those of you that are looking for a new way to get to far out places (slinging from Jool to Eeloo?) it requires much less delta-V, plus I get a feeling of authenticity whenever I find new ways to go places. Plus, I've always wanted to abuse planets for stuff like this.

PS: Has anyone else seen those pixels in the sky sometimes? I see them a lot, just never snapped a good picture of 'em.

PPS: The only mod used was chatterer (link incoming!) http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/chatterer/

Edited June 17, 2013 by Spaceisbeautifulul
Those small things...