Hello! (I tried to think of something brief and witty, but I couldn't.)

[Bissotwo]

Hello.

I'm Miles, but feel free to refer to me as Bissotwo.

I bought this game last week, and since then have become quite proficient in the art of spaceplane dickery. I couldn't build (much less fly) a rocket to save my life, but I'm learning fast. I'm also trying to figure out how to design a working manned rover, but it's slow going. (I did try mounting a MK1 Lander-can atop the stock rover after removing the Skycrane, and attempted to navigate it around KSC. It could be driven, but would tip over on anything tighter than a wide turn.) A manned Mün landing is pretty much out of the question, unless I could somehow fly a spaceplane there and land it. My best friend is impressed to no end that I play this. She now looks at me like I'm some sort of rocket scientist.

I'm not.

Yet.

[Pecan]

Welcome and congratulations.

Most people find spaceplanes much harder to design, build and fly than rockets but those that like them have, indeed, flown them to Mun, landed them and returned.

Rovers are slow going - they're slow, accident-prone and more or less pointless, I'd recommend concentrating on something you find more fun. The trick to building them is to make sure you have a long and wide wheelbase but even if it doesn't crash there won't be much you can do with it anyway.

Try my tutorial (link in signature) for a long explanation of rocket design, from orbital satellites to a reusable, space-station based interplanetary infrastructure. There are also some spaceplane designs in there but it sounds like you won't need them :-)

[SRV Ron]

Witty post is not required. Going to the Kerbal School of Hard Knocks to learn Kerbal Rocketry is required. (Build them and see what works or crashes.)

For rockets, just start out simple with a capsule, parachute, and an RT-10 SRB. Do one flight straight up and see how high it will go. Observe how overpowered it is and its tendency to overheat. Note what happens to the RT-10 when it lands on the ground. Fly it again but use the d key to turn it a little to the East so you land in the ocean. Note what happens to it there. Put a decoupler between it and the capsule and stage at burnout. Note the results of that flight.

That first ship from Career;

Now, tweak that design by right clicking on the SRB in the VAB and turn down its thrust to 50%. Launch it again and note how high it flies. Tweak it some more to see if you can fly to over 33,000 meters.

Put a second RT-10 with a decoupler between it and your tweaked RT-10 with capsule. Fly that, note how high it can go suborbital. Do another flight with that design but this time, do an orbital turn starting at burnout of the first RT-10, Try to turn to aim for a apogee of 75,000 meters. See how far this sub orbital flight will go.

That second ship from career;

as you get the experience of what works, you can then experiment with the 1.25M liquid fueled engines and feel out how they perform. You will soon be ready to place Jeb in orbit and return.

Edited August 22, 2014 by SRV Ron

[Bissotwo]

I'll give it a look-see this Saturday, I'll have my PC up with KSP and my laptop up with YouTube videos and some jams (Dare I say it, some Space Jams?) Thanks.

(EDIT: Argh, forgot to put this in Courier New. Problem fixed. Is there any way to have my posts default to Courier New as my font?)