Orbiting

[Kevin W.]

This is my plan for my eventual space station. The green is the core block. That will be launched first, followed by the t-shaped gray, which will be a truss system. To that, I will attach a bunch of solar panels, which is the blue. Once those are up and functioning, the red bits, which will be the habitation and science blocks, will be launched and docked. They will be followed by another truss, which is the smaller gray part. That will serve as the dock for the fuel tanks, which are the orange. As this was a rough sketch in MSPaint, only the X and Y axes of the image are viewable, but the cross portions will also extend along the Z axis. Thus, there will be space for five different fuel tanks and there will be five solar arrays. However, it's also possible that the Z axis of the fuel spar will be used for smaller fuel setups since I clearly won't need three Jumbo tanks to get to every planet.

The darker blue is an interplanetary vehicle docked to a fuel tank. It will launch in an Apollo-type formation and the CSM will dock with the LM with the LM's engine facing towards the CSM, at which point two of the Kerbonauts will EVA and enter the LM. Then, the LM/CSM will dock with the fuel tank using a docking port atop the LM. The combined fuel tank/LM/CSM will then undock from the station. Once a sufficient distance away, the CSM will undock from the LM and move to the opposite side of the fuel tank and dock directly with it using the docking port by which it was docked to the station. Thus, the CSM and LM will be indirectly attached in the proper Apollo orientation, with their respective engines facing opposite directions. Unlike the Apollo missions, though, the CSM and LM will have a massive fuel tank between them. This, combined with engines that will probably be attached to the fuel tank, will enable interplanetary travel.

Once said planetary travel is over with, the LM will re-dock directly with the CSM using a docking port on the side of the CSM. Once docked, the two Kerbonauts will EVA back to the CSM. The LM will then be undocked to float to its oblivion and the ship can return home. Judging by Scott Manley's Eeloo video, a three-Jumbo tank design with some additions should be sufficient to accomplish a journey to any of the planets and back. Whether that holds true once I actually get to the point where I can implement my grand design, we shall see. All I'd have to do is just occasionally launch a new fuel tank and dock it to the station to replenish it and voila! Fueling station.

Obviously I have an EXTREMELY LONG WAY to go before I can do this, but hey, every man who was involved in the moon landings dreamed big before learning the nitty gritty of rocket science.

[Coneshot]

Well, easier said than done considering my launcher is an uncontrollable mess that can't seem to make a minor course correction without going into an uncontrollable spin. How do I make it stop when I'm making the course corrections?

it's not aerospikes is it? lol everything I ever launched with those turned into a pinwheel as soon as the tailfins left the atmosphere!

EDIT: lol it's late here and i failed to notice this post is 6 pages long... having read it I now realize this reply didn't quite apply.. oops

Edited July 15, 2013 by Coneshot
Caffeine deficiency

[Nabiscovinco]

Well +19343534 to you, Kevin. You actual have some sort of plan for your station. My engineers went with the "lets put this here because docking is hard and this port is closer," method.

But yeah, and if the orange tanks represent the ACTUAL orange tanks, you have to decide if you want them full or not. I'm not a 'master' but am assuming putting a full orange tank into orbit is not a simple task.

[BananaLee]

I like your ambition with the Space Station, Kevin. Having just recently put two vessels into orbit myself (after about 14 hours of slow, hard slog), I found a slow but sure method of development is the best way to go forward.

I've used the Wiki Campaign (http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Campaigns) to good effect since it slowly lets you build up with the theory that eventually you'd learn docking, etc. and space station building.

Key learnings for me are: -

a) In atmosphere, it's best to use winglets or fire straight up and get out of atmosphere ASAP (this is more important since I have the Ferram Aerospace aerodynamics mod)

A joystick is extremely useful (my life has become 100x easier since I pulled out the old joystick)

c) The Flight Engineer mod is great since you can figure out delta-vs, and when in flight, you can watch where your apopapsis, etc. is in flight.

d) Cheaper is usually better, I try not to add kit if I don't have to. Little example is what I used to put my Sputnik into orbit

Either way, best of luck in your endeavours, and happy to help (from one noob to another )

[Kevin W.]

Once again, I am at a loss.

I went back to basics. I watched Scott Manley's first KSP 101 video to make sure I was doing everything right. I built my orbital rocket EXACTLY the way he did. One-man command pod, parachute, fuel tank with engine, decoupler, 3x fuel tank with winglets and engine. Sure enough, just like every other launch, it started to wobble and I can't make course corrections without the rocket immediately swinging back the other way and wiping out the correction I just tried or over-correcting and missing the direction I'm aiming for.

I really don't want to give up on this game but I am really starting to get upset.

[Nabiscovinco]

Wow. Um... how are you launching? Are you trying a gravity turn, or just doing the straight up method?

[Kevin W.]

I'm launching straight up but it inevitably ends up moving off the center of the navball and when I try to correct it, things go to hell. The one time I managed to get up to 10KM without much trouble, I tried to do the gravity turn and it wouldn't work properly. I can't get it to stop at the proper point and trying to correct it again just makes things worse.

I swear, this is with as basic a rocket as possible. I'm not trying anything complicated.

[stupid_chris]

I'm launching straight up but it inevitably ends up moving off the center of the navball and when I try to correct it, things go to hell. The one time I managed to get up to 10KM without much trouble, I tried to do the gravity turn and it wouldn't work properly. I can't get it to stop at the proper point and trying to correct it again just makes things worse.

I swear, this is with as basic a rocket as possible. I'm not trying anything complicated.

Are you using those wielded parts again?

[Kevin W.]

No. Stock parts. I built the rocket exactly like he built it in the video.

[Mr Shifty]

I'm launching straight up but it inevitably ends up moving off the center of the navball and when I try to correct it, things go to hell. The one time I managed to get up to 10KM without much trouble, I tried to do the gravity turn and it wouldn't work properly. I can't get it to stop at the proper point and trying to correct it again just makes things worse.

I swear, this is with as basic a rocket as possible. I'm not trying anything complicated.

Can you post the .craft file of the rocket you're using?

Usually when this happens to me, it's one of four things:

1) The control point of the rocket is not the top-most part. When you're on the launch pad, right-click on the top-most part and click "Control from here".

2) You have ASAS on and it's trying to fly your rocket. Check to see if the light is lit on your NavBall.

3) You have MechJeb running and it's trying to fly your rocket.

4) I've found a rare bug on a couple crafts where a part gets duplicated and clipped over itself so it's impossible to see. The only way to get rid of this one that I know of is to replace each part one by one until you find the one causing the problem.

[Nabiscovinco]

Ok.

How about no gravity turn? I know it may seem weird, but it may be too advanced (sorry, but it might be the case).

Secondly, are you ONE HUNDRED precent sure you put SAS on? Most of the time, it is because there is no SAS.

Thirdly, does your engine gimbal? If it doesn't, there is no way for the rocket to correct itself once it is out of the atmosphere without RCS.

[Kevin W.]

Can you post the .craft file of the rocket you're using?

Usually when this happens to me, it's one of four things:

1) The control point of the rocket is not the top-most part. When you're on the launch pad, right-click on the top-most part and click "Control from here".

2) You have ASAS on and it's trying to fly your rocket. Check to see if the light is lit on your NavBall.

3) You have MechJeb running and it's trying to fly your rocket.

4) I've found a rare bug on a couple crafts where a part gets duplicated and clipped over itself so it's impossible to see. The only way to get rid of this one that I know of is to replace each part one by one until you find the one causing the problem.

1. The only thing above the crew pod is the parachute. As I said, I built it exactly like he did in the video.

2. I didn't have an SAS module on the rocket and I didn't turn it on.

3. No MechJeb. This rocket is entirely stock.

[Starwaster]

No. Stock parts. I built the rocket exactly like he built it in the video.

Do you know about turning caps lock on for fine tuning corrections? It damps your controls a bit so it's harder to over-correct.

[stupid_chris]

Get an ASAS module on that rocket and activate it on launch. You definitely want that on nearly every rocket you are going to build.

[Kevin W.]

Do you know about turning caps lock on for fine tuning corrections? It damps your controls a bit so it's harder to over-correct.

OK, I'll do that.

[Starwaster]

Can you post the .craft file of the rocket you're using?

4) I've found a rare bug on a couple crafts where a part gets duplicated and clipped over itself so it's impossible to see. The only way to get rid of this one that I know of is to replace each part one by one until you find the one causing the problem.

I've actually had that happen quite a bit on a few ships and I've gotten to where I'm thinking that it's happening when symmetry mode is on and you click to place but not all parts are placeable. i.e. one or more are red.

But worse case scenario is that I have had a few craft become permanently corrupted where I couldn't delete the extra parts because they become impossible to drop or delete. The GUI actually became unresponsive for some actions! (and sorry that's actually getting close to OT but this hit a chord with me)

[Kevin W.]

Alright, I've solved the wobbling and the control issues. Now, going off of what he said to do in the video: I'm running out of fuel before I can finish my orbital burn. Ugh.

What's the recommended apoapsis height to cut my engines at?

[Kimberly]

Alright, I've solved the wobbling and the control issues. Now, going off of what he said to do in the video: I'm running out of fuel before I can finish my orbital burn. Ugh.

What's the recommended apoapsis height to cut my engines at?

It has to be at least 70 km, or you'll be in a decaying orbit. You don't really need to go over 75 km. The rest is question of having a high enough thrust-to-weight ratio and burning long enough.

[stupid_chris]

Alright, I've solved the wobbling and the control issues. Now, going off of what he said to do in the video: I'm running out of fuel before I can finish my orbital burn. Ugh.

What's the recommended apoapsis height to cut my engines at?

Well, the thing is you might not want to always burn at 100%. Usually, you don't want to accelerate faster than 30m/s², which means about 3Gs on your G counter. Also, when below 10km, you want to be really careful with not going faster than terminal velocity. Usually, keeping your speed below 150m/s under 4km and then below 200m/s below 10km does a good job. That will save you a heck lot of fuel. Then, an apoapsis of 75km should do a good job for a beginner.

[Kevin W.]

OK, that answers my next question. I knew I had to throttle back at some point but I wasn't sure when.

Anyway, here's the rocket I'm using. As you can see, it's 100% stock and is as simple as a two-stage rocket can be.

[Johnno]

Alright, I've solved the wobbling and the control issues. Now, going off of what he said to do in the video: I'm running out of fuel before I can finish my orbital burn. Ugh.

What's the recommended apoapsis height to cut my engines at?

I went onto youtube and just put in 'scott manley kerbal basics' and got the 'complete beginner's guide' thing. For fun I watched it on one screen and played the game on the other, doing exactly as he said in the video. If you really can't follow that video and get into orbit then there's no helping you. Nothing anyone says will ever help you if you can't follow a simple video like that. I'm starting to think you're just trolling everyone and seeing how many pages of this nonsense you can get people to help you through.

It shouldn't be possible to run out of fuel before getting to orbit, I put it into a 100x100km orbit like he did and had heaps of fuel to spare. No ASAS and for the first time ever (I've never even needed it myself) I tried the caps lock fine control mode... You shouldn't need an ASAS to begin with and the fine control made it even more redundant.

And just to prove to myself that you couldn't possibly fail with that tutorial rocket, I put it on the pad, full thrust, didn't decrease thrust at all to conserve fuel, got to 10k, pitched to 45 degrees, kept burning full thrust, staged and continued full thrust until AP was 100km. Got to AP, burned another 1000 m/s for a final 100x144km orbit, and still have 20% fuel left in the last stage the pod is attached to.

So no, you couldn't have run out of fuel. You're either lying or not following the tutorial.

[stupid_chris]

First, is that an LV-T30 at the bottom? You're gonna lose some control authority when you get nearly out of the atmosphere with it, so an engine that can gimbal like the LV-T45 will be much more useful in that case.

Also, for the top stage, if you were to switch to an LV-909, you would not only save fuel from efficiency, but you would save fuel by having less weight. That small engine can easily boost the small stage you have, and it can gimbal. It's a really good engine honestly.

[Kevin W.]

So no, you couldn't have run out of fuel. You're either lying or not following the tutorial.

Come on, comments like that are unnecessary. I'm trying here. I'm frustrated but I'm still trying. I'm not trolling anyone.

[Johnno]

First, is that an LV-T30 at the bottom? You're gonna lose some control authority when you get nearly out of the atmosphere with it, so an engine that can gimbal like the LV-T45 will be much more useful in that case.

Also, for the top stage, if you were to switch to an LV-909, you would not only save fuel from efficiency, but you would save fuel by having less weight. That small engine can easily boost the small stage you have, and it can gimbal. It's a really good engine honestly.

Well that explains it. He wasn't following the tutorial. Scott's rocket indeed has a LV-909 on the last stage, it is a LV-T30 though since it burns out just not long after 10km and there's plenty of control from the winglets.

*sigh*

[Johnno]

Come on, comments like that are unnecessary. I'm trying here. I'm frustrated but I'm still trying. I'm not trolling anyone.

You're right, I apologize.