First Orbit!

[electricsheep]

Congrats! I'm very impressed it only took four attempts. It took me dozens of trys. Not even counting the many rocket designes that collapsed on the pad, or exploded before leaving atmo. Mostly I was just trying to slap parts together and see what happened without being burdened by any thought process. I was so excited by the first orbit I took a screen shot, also showing many of the previous failed attempt tracks.

[FITorion]

My orbit attempts were back in .13

A lot. 1 command pod, 1 fuel tank, 1 engine, 1 solid booster, No fuel flow between fuel tanks.

I think my ship that made it to orbit had about 5 stages... and the one that made it to Mun orbit with out an orbital map was about 7. Good times.

I always love seeing people excited about their achievements.

[The Jedi Master]

My first orbit took me 31 tries. Yes, I counted.

[Moesly_Armlis]

necromancy blame it on beta 0.90.0:

Now beta 0.90 offers a fiscal (2 contracts) and weight restraint (18t) for the first orbit. in my current carrer at the hardest setting, Bill's attempt was wobbly because of lack of SAS (Jeb was already leveled up). That wobbly flight into orbit and then the spinning in circles that got me pondering back on my first orbit back in 0.23, it took me literally three days and uncounted attempts. I was not interested in anything else (ocd).

Just a quick examination of the settings and not looking at the tutorials or manual or wiki or youtube or internets, just trial by fire. There was alot of fire. Possesing me was the challenge to complete this solely on my own. Did not even know about SAS (I was rifling rockets letting them spin as the vessel ascended), just intense staring at the navball (the prograde marker? - i thought it was navigation guidance and followed it like a lost puppy for many, strangley successful, sub-orbital flights) and a crap tonne of clicks on the keyboard. And the space bar cursed me and caused me so many woes because I would stage instead of throttle.

Calculations were never done (recently I dusted off my abacus and sliderule and calculated the dv and TWR calculations for my first orbit attempt in my current career) just a gut understanding about TWR was my only guide. The vehicle was as I remember a huge unsightly beast with too many stages and by my standards today overly overpowered (mbs*). Up until this time orbital mechanics was only witnessed and attempted in angrybirdsspace.

But upon success there was that warm happy, happy, joy, joy, kerbaly feeling .

Upon seeing the Mun up close for the first time then I was so "game on".

*mbs -> moar booster syndrome

Edited December 18, 2014 by MoeslyArmlis
BringBackTheBarn

[SkyHook]

IT took me 3 or 4 attempts. I watched Scott Manley before attempting though. Congrats! May your kerbals be safe and your rockets fly safely!

[FishInferno]

It took me a few attempts, and then I saw a video that said "gradually turn over at 10km" (please note that I didn't really know what he navball was at this point). I got a perfect, circular orbit. Then i saw a video on the whole 45-degrees thing and I tried that and failed the first ten times. I though that you were supposed to get 45 degrees on the HEADING indicator. (Granted I didn't know what the heading indicator was)

[wolfedg]

I remember those days back in .18. It probably took 30 or so trys to get into orbit, but in so doing i developed the gravity turn method i use on most missions to this day. That would be the 15 degree per 10km method. I start going straight up till 10 km and then pitch over 15 degrees every 10 km until im flying level at 40km. I only deviate from this method if i dont have enough thrust at high altitude and need to keep my angle up to prevent my periapsis from sinking, which doesnt happen very often anymore. Just on experimental crafts and spaceplanes(which generally have their own custom ascent profile per ship)

Edit: correction on the angle i think its more like 22.5 degrees per 10. Now that i think about it. In other words 1/4 of the way to leveling out each turn. Sorry im hooribad at math.

Edited December 19, 2014 by wolfedg