Never lose track of your debris.

[Mashpatatas]

TL;DR After what must have been a crash on Kerbin there's now an undeployed radial parachute on escape trajectory away from the Sun.

I'm new to KSP. I started a career mode and was trying out different part combinations, thinking bigger was better.

After an inevitable string of failures, I decided to make the most basic possible rocket to practice controls and trajectory.

Of course, more failures.

Later on, I discover the tracking station and the concept of recovering vessels. I look to the debris column....

...and I find there's a piece of debris shooting out of Kerbin orbit - not orbiting but moving (and accelerating) away from Kerbin.

Upon closer inspection, it was an undeployed parachute from one of my tiny rockets, and it was, by my best guess (as there was no trajectory showing on the screen) independently orbiting the sun.

Between that discovery and now, I got really carried away with a mission and sort of forgot about the adventurous debris that couldn't be tied down. It's been 114 in-game days and this undeployed parachute is 3.5 trillion meters from the sun, traveling at 342 km/s. It still doesn't show the path, but there's a periapsis marker at 9.7 billion meters on the opposite side of the sun and the description reads, "On escape trajectory out of the Sun".

What could cause this? Is it the dubious physical time acceleration?

[SyberSmoke]

First, Smaller is ALWAYS better when it comes to rockets. There comes a point where you get to big and all your doing is lifting fuel to lift more fuel to lift even more fuel...to lift a 6 oz doughnut with rainbow sprinkles. Try to make things as SMALL as possible...heck, use a mod called Mechjeb, you can use it JUST to manage your Thrust to Weight ratio and expected Delta V. This way you can get an idea of what you can do with small.

Second, Smaller engines, while less powerful are usually more efficient. No they do not have the AWESOME POWER OF GOD...but when your in space, you do not need a Mainsail. Instead try a Quartet of much smaller engines...like the LV-909 or the Rockomax 48-7S They are small...but instead of guzzling your fuel...they will sip it. Also, use the Mk. 1 Capsule a bit, it is not fancy...but it is light and that means you have less to worry about.

As for the question...No idea. It may be some time till it can even be a problem. I mean Your still talking 1 billion seconds until it gets to that point in space. That is about 11,574 days...yeah...not much to worry about. May be the Kraken will eat it.

Edited December 16, 2013 by SyberSmoke

[Whackjob]

First, Smaller is ALWAYS better when it comes to rockets. There comes a point where you get to big and all your doing is lifting fuel to lift more fuel to lift even more fuel...to lift a 6 oz doughnut with rainbow sprinkles.

Exhibit A:

Exhibit B:

Edited December 16, 2013 by Whackjob

[SyberSmoke]

Yes well...you have to start some where before you get wacky. Or may be just allot strut happy! Oh yeah...struts...lots of them...because the physics can be strange...

[Vanamonde]

The discussion is getting away (far away) from Mashpatatas question, which was about anomalous debris speeds. On that subject, collisions with the ground are the most common cause of that sort of thing. A piece is thrown out of the wreck with a disproportional share of momentum. It usually happens to control surfaces, though, through a software loophole which allows them to generate lift while jittering. I don't recall hearing of it happening to a parachute, but it might be related.

[Spatzimaus]

First, Smaller is ALWAYS better when it comes to rockets. There comes a point where you get to big and all your doing is lifting fuel to lift more fuel to lift even more fuel...to lift a 6 oz doughnut with rainbow sprinkles

Sorry, but this is wrong. Let's say a rocket can carry, say, 10% of its weight to orbit as payload. If you double the rocket's mass, that payload percentage doesn't decrease; if anything, it increases slightly as certain components (like cockpits, batteries, etc.) won't always need to be doubled as well. For a given payload size, then, it's nearly always better to launch a bigger rocket if possible. The exponential nature of rocket sizes (the Tsiolkovsky Rocket Equation) says that you get less effect out of each successive linear increase in size, forcing you to launch gigantic rockets to get even a minor improvement in velocity over smaller rockets, but it's never a BAD thing to increase your booster in size, and almost never a GOOD thing to go smaller. The only real benefits to going smaller:

1> Economics, which KSP doesn't include at all

2> Ease of steering, which was a major issue back in older versions before flywheels were separated from SAS, but which is now a non-issue in KSP

3> Stability, although it's usually nothing you can't fix with more struts and/or large-part mods like KW Rocketry. (In real life this one's much more of a concern.)

4> Lag, since Unity's lack of multithreading forces us to limit our part counts unless we want to slideshow our way to orbit, but again, KW Rocketry and such make this a lot better. (In real life, this one's less of a concern.)

In older KSP versions, add 5> You'll run into the launch tower if you go too big. Thankfully, that's gone too. In real life, you also have the difficulties involved in moving fuel from your tanks to your engines, but KSP doesn't have that either.

Bottom line, for rockets there's not a benefit to keeping it small. My own giant booster (11848 tons) is slightly more efficient than any of my smaller designs; the only reason I don't use it for absolutely everything is that its part count (800) is just too high, but I've got a smaller 233-part version that can lift anything up to about 200 tons to orbit. If you're not using a heavy payload then the benefit is slight, but it's not actually better to use the smaller designs.

[AlternNocturn]

I often find debris shooting out away from the Sun, and I'm never able to pinpoint which mission it came from. Maybe the Space Kraken stole the parts from my VAB.

[Commissioner Tadpole]

I don't have debris. ._.'

I wish I could have some.

[Tidus Klein]

Granted: your Kerbin is now 100% surrounded by debris. You can't launch anything without hitting it.

I have yet to make such a high velocity monstrosity. Though I know I will some day

[Sirrobert]

That piece of debris probably got a kick from the Kraken.

That's how we call bugs that blow up spaceships here. One of the versions catapults stuf away at that speed

[Madrias]

On one of my saves, I'm sure there's plenty of accelerated debris flying around.

[Demon_82]

In my earlier 0.21 sandbox game I had a nice explossion of a space station, leading to a fleet of about 100 debris pieces going in escape from Kerbol at about 25Km/s, and I found that already impressive, I suppose your explossion had to be far more amazing for reaching that speed xD

[Gemberkoekje]

Regarding small vs. big:

I think everyone should start small, and get a feeling on what does what, and which is good at what. Also looking at youtube vids can help with this - I used to think the Atomic engine was totally underpowered. Which it is, as long as you try to use it as a staging rocket.

So I used to have big fuel tanks with big rockets under them, and only recently I've learned to appreciate the smaller items. If you use them correctly, it makes getting things done easier, such as getting things into orbit without the whole rocket exploding to bits.

I don't think small is better than big per say, but if you're just starting out, it's probably better to start small, and really get the best out of your experience.

[thescientist]

It happened to me while loading a vessel outside the Kerbin SOI. And so the kraken destroyed my high tech probe launching it at about at a 970 times faster than light speed (!!l!!).

It may happen, and the only things that can save your green astronauts are the magic F5-F9 buttons (quicksave-quickload), either the phone number of Doctor Who could help.

Edited December 16, 2013 by thescientist

[ComradeGoat]

Bottom line, for rockets there's not a benefit to keeping it small. My own giant booster (11848 tons) is slightly more efficient than any of my smaller designs; the only reason I don't use it for absolutely everything is that its part count (800) is just too high, but I've got a smaller 233-part version that can lift anything up to about 200 tons to orbit. If you're not using a heavy payload then the benefit is slight, but it's not actually better to use the smaller designs.

There's a good reason to keep landers small: they're dead weight you have to haul to your destination, which adds up to more fuel burned getting there. If your destination is, e.g., Moho or Dres, that matters, hence this chap:

Over 3000 m/s delta V for under a tonne.

[Mashpatatas]

OP here, I appreciate the input about big vs. small, but I only mentioned that in my post to show how the explosion that launched the debris was from a very, very small rocket (like 288 units fuel and the first engine you get in career mode) that crashed very near to KSC. The "space Kraken" is a good enough explanation for me.

[Spatzimaus]

There's a good reason to keep landers small: they're dead weight you have to haul to your destination, which adds up to more fuel burned getting there.

Again, that's not a reason to keep it small. Take your little 1-ton lander. Now double its size; double the fuel tank, double the engines, double the number of landing legs, and so on. Do that, and you'll have a vessel that's exactly as capable as the one it replaces. Its delta-V will be identical, which means it'll be just as capable of reaching Moho and such. In fact, it'll probably do slightly better, since you won't need to double up certain components, which might give you enough leeway to add the science components, antennae, etc. you'd need to make a more capable design. While increasing in size might not be a very efficient way to improve your performance, it won't actually make your design less capable.

Back to the original point of this thread. I personally never leave debris; all of my boosters are SSTOs that safely deorbit themselves after delivering their payloads, and I use spaceplanes as much as possible. The only debris in my game are a bunch of discarded boosters near the launch pad, from back when I was still unlocking the necessary parts for my SSTO boosters, so I've got nothing in orbit to worry about. If you don't feed the Kraken in the first place, he won't do things like accelerate your debris to the speed of light...

[samstarman5]

If we had Buckaroo Banzai on our KSP teams, then we could send our rockets straight through any mass in the system. That would actually be about the most ideal way to achieve a gravity assist. I figure that is what happened with OP's craft/debris, where most of it was sacrificed to allow that chute to achieve the 8th dimension. Unfortunately for OP, they most likely have Lectroids in their system, now.

And you thought the Kraken was annoying...

[Vanamonde]

Guys, even the OP has now asked everyone to keep the discussion to his debris question. So, let's please do that before warnings are required. Thank you.

[Mashpatatas]

If you don't feed the Kraken in the first place, he won't do things like accelerate your debris to the speed of light...

So if there's debris all about that makes anomalies more likely to happen? What are the conditions for the Kraken to strike anyway? I didn't have much debris, since my previous rockets pretty much exploded on "landing" leaving only a few capsules and, of course, the flying chute.

[Mashpatatas]

It happened to me while loading a vessel outside the Kerbin SOI. And so the kraken destroyed my high tech probe launching it at about at a 970 times faster than light speed (!!l!!).

I think I had a similar encounter, with a probe orbiting the Sun which I was trying to maybe get close to Eve. The thing was moving at a snail's pace so I decided to do other stuff while it flew around. In fact, during the hiatus is when I checked on the infamous flying debris. When I loaded back in the screen was completely black, besides the HUD, and it was showing my altitude as 666666m and my speed as some-number-or-another nanometers per second (why is that prefix included in a game where you launch rockets? O.o ). I could tell from the way the HUD changed that I was watching a slideshow so something must have been happening behind the blackness. I alt-tabbed and an error window popped up, terminating the game. After booting the game back up (I had no knowledge of quicksaves) that probe was gone, along with another four functioning probes in stable orbits around Kerbin which I'd launched earlier. These were unfortunately all of my active launches .

If this is the Kraken's work then I've met him two times in four days of owning KSP! One of the encounters erased all evidence of my space program. I get a feeling he (it?) will be my arch-nemesis.

[robly18]

-snip-

Please marry me.

[Nibroc]

I had a wing end up in a solid kerbin orbit after a spaceplane crash. Pretty neat.