Thinner and thicker atmospheres

[vger]

Well yeah, but.. it'll be Europa when we have 'plate tectonics' at work, and a way to burrow down into the theoretical seas beneath the ice.

[Jouni]

There's actually been a lot of discussion about how IRL rockets start their gravity turn almost immediately, while on kerbin it's much more efficient to ascend straight up for 10 km, then turn because the lower atmo is so thick.

There are also other differences. The atmospheres of stock planets are very high compared to the size of the planets. As a result, a rocket has to climb a lot to reach orbit, while gaining horizontal velocity isn't that important. Also, it's generally a bad idea to drop spent boosters on people, so the rocket has to be over ocean or other uninhabited area pretty soon after launch.

Maybe the way you build them. My 200 ton rockets are <10 m wide.

The graphics engine lies to us. As NERVAfan said, the cross section of a rocket is a linear function of its mass in stock aerodynamics. For every tonne of mass, the rocket has 8 square meters of cross section.

[LethalDose]

The graphics engine lies to us. As NERVAfan said, the cross section of a rocket is a linear function of its mass in stock aerodynamics. For every tonne of mass, the rocket has 8 square meters of cross section.

0.o

I assume this is fixed in FAR?

[NERVAfan]

The order of planets? After Mars (Duna) and dwarf planet Ceres (Dres) comes Jupiter. Also the way Jools first three moons are set match the orbital characteristics of Jupiter's large moons Europa, Tycho and Io.

Io, Europa, Ganymede. Tycho is a crater on the Moon.

[tychochallenge]

Io, Europa, Ganymede. Tycho is a crater on the Moon.

Tycho also happens to be my name!

[NERVAfan]

There are also other differences. The atmospheres of stock planets are very high compared to the size of the planets.

Yeah, dramatically so.

Kerbin's atmosphere ends at 69077 m (according to the wiki) or 70000 m (according to the Knowledge Base in-game... weird that there's a discrepancy).

According to the wiki, the pressure at that "cut-off" altitude is 10^-6 atm.

Kerbin is a bit less than 1/10 the size of Earth. The International Space Station orbits at ~400 km (it varies) and Hubble is 559 km (according to Wikipedia) -- scaled to KSP, both (and most LEO spacecraft, really) would be well within Kerbin's atmosphere.

Earth's atmosphere doesn't have a sharp cut-off altitude, of course, but the pressure there is WAY less than 10^-6 atm!!!