Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[alway]

all reactors have broken the wheels upon descending the landing strip XD

will put some in orbit before properly launching real microwave powered craft

For launch purposes, I recommend putting a bunch in a roughly kerbo-stationary orbit above the launch pad in addition to those on the ground. Circularizing with massive thrust and 519 ISP is insanely great.

[RedKing]

So.....finally picked up the full version of this. Have managed to do several sub-orbital missions to mountains, ice caps, highlands, etc.
Also made a science rocket with three science modules to pick up data for in-flight, low space and high space all in one go.
But now I'm running out of places to do science, and I still haven't a clue how to get to Mun with the tech that I have.

[BigD145]

You can get to the Mun without spending any science points. Hit up the wiki for Kerbin biomes you've missed.

[Greiger]

To Mun without fancy math in 5 easy steps:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

1. Get into orbit.  [Get more than 70000m up and have a horizontal speed a bit over 2000m/s check the map if yer circle only shows a 'Ap' and dips back into kerbin, you need to point the nose of your ship at the horizon and speed up. If you see a 'Pe' mouse over it and check it's height, if it's height is below 70000 meters speed up until it's above that.  Your Pe point will gain height using less fuel if you do it while yer ship is close to the Ap mark. If your Pe is above 70000meters, congratulations, you are in orbit.]

2. Click on a spot on your orbit line on your map about where your ship would moving towards the Mun. Create a maneuver node and click and drag the green mark closest to the Mun towards it.

3a. Doing that will cause a projected path to appear, with drag it towards the Mun until the projected path does some fancy curves and changes color when it gets farther out, that different color and odd curves indicates an encounter with the mun (or less likely Minmus, but a moon is a moon) and it's taking the Mun's gravity into account.

3b. If it never does that you are off target and need to remove that maneuver point. (stop dragging the green icon and click the middle between all the icons, then click the x that appears over it).  Once the maneuver point is removed click another point and try step 2 and 3a again.  It may take a few if it's your first time.  It may also help to aim a bit ahead of the Mun, ya know, aim where it will be, not where it is and all that.  You'll be using these nodes a lot, through your entire KSP career.  So might as well practice with them now.

4. Point your ship towards the blue circle on the compass and wait til your new timer next to your compass gets close to 0. At about 20 seconds turn up the throttle a little bit. You want that green bar half empty when the number hits 0 and very close to empty once you are about 20 seconds after 0 so adjust the throttle accordingly and try not to overshoot by much. (20 seconds is a rough estimate of a good time to start with lots of room for error, the amount of time you should use varies depending on how your engines are set up, weak engines need more time, strong ones need less.)

5. Once you cross the curved arrow icon on the map you are now in Mun's sphere of influence.  Congratulations, at the very worst you have pulled off a Mun lithobraking maneuver. Though you have hopefully set up a flyby instead.  Adjust trajectory for orbit or landing as desired.

[Silfurdreki]

Mün lithobraking: The only way a true Kerbal goes to the Mün his first time.

[Graknorke]

Mün lithobraking: The only way a true Kerbal goes to the Mün his first time.

Usually after parachute deployment fails.

[LoSboccacc]

Mün lithobraking: The only way a true Kerbal goes to the Mün his first time.

Usually after parachute deployment fails.

How would succesful chute deployment prevent smashing on the mun?

[BFEL]

Mün lithobraking: The only way a true Kerbal goes to the Mün his first time.

Usually after parachute deployment fails.

How would succesful chute deployment prevent smashing on the mun?

Clearly the chute is woven from hyper powerful solar sails, that's how.

[Sean Mirrsen]

The key is having the parachutes face towards the Mun, and have enough of them that the force of their activation slows your descent - not to mention having all that fabric acting as a cushion.

[Silfurdreki]

Now I'm wondering if you could actually do lithobraking and survive. Maybe a massive cushion of girders?

[BFEL]

Now I'm wondering if you could actually do lithobraking and survive. Maybe a massive cushion of girders?

In real life they did this a few times with probes and rovers and such I believe. So its definitely possible IRL.

In KSP its a bit harder due to physics being what it is. Its certainly not impossible, I've experimented with it and had lithobrake cages that could keep you alive at up to 70 kps (KSP uses kps right? I just realized I haven't played in a long time o.o)

Granted even at just 70 your ship would still end up getting incredibly messed up, I've had times where just the capsule survived, so its probably best to keep it as a "extreme backup plan"

[LoSboccacc]

Now I'm wondering if you could actually do lithobraking and survive. Maybe a massive cushion of girders?

Airbags:

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/83134

[BigFatStupidHead]

Girder segments are actually amazing for lithobraking. Beware though, as sometimes you will break the planet instead.

The old rule of thumb for flying to the Mun was simple - burn prograde at munrise. Certainly not efficient, but it works.

[RedKing]

Have gotten a probe into almost-orbit. Inevitably, it winds up being a "3/4 of the around the world, followed by smoking crater".

How on earth Kerbal do you get solid rocket stages big enough to get you up to orbit alt before switching to the liquid rockets? Mine always overheat or come apart horrifically. I'm thinking that maybe I'm trying to go too big and just need to stick to one solid booster rather than a glom of three tri-stacks.

[Eagle_eye]

For my bigger rockets, the first stage usually has something in the neighborhood of 30 of the doubletall rocket boosters. Just add more rocket.