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[nogoodnames]

My Eve mission went amazingly smooth for something with such a bumpy start. The transit vessel got there with enough fuel left over to establish a nice, circular near-Eve orbit. Here's the photo album:

Spoiler: Breaking off from the transit vehicle (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Beginning the de-orbit burn (click to show/hide)

Fun fact: that fuel tank still had 95% of it's fuel left when I completed the burn and ejected it. Such a waste.

Spoiler: Sunrise over Eve (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Coming in for a landing (click to show/hide)

It kept gliding for several minutes after that last picture before I was finally able to force it down and apply the brakes. With the drone's ability to basically glide indefinitely in Eve's atmosphere, coupled with the hours of ion thrust available and the second drone still in orbit, I can essentially explore all of Eve if I wanted to. Sadly I forgot to include any scientific instrumentation on the drones, so no useful readings for future manned missions.

Also, first thing landed on an alien planet! Yay!

A tip for anyone who tries something like this in the future: Make sure the net aerial lift on your rocket is zero! It is absolutely horrifying trying to deal with a rocket with unbalanced wings.
The program seems smart enough to figure out the proper control orientation for the craft if you right click the command part select "Control from here" so you don't have to worry about opposing craft having opposite control schemes.

[LoSboccacc]

Δv is a pure number (scalar) and represent how much change in velocity your craft can do.

when applied to a specific direction, it becomes a maneuver, and the vectorial sum applies between the previous velocity vector and a unity vector pointing in your craft direction multiplied the Δv expended. (approximatively, because it is always assumed infinite impulse)

Spoiler: on wiki about the infinite impulse (click to show/hide)

this is the difference between the maneuver calculated using vectorial math and the actual maneuver using a finite impulse


from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta-v

notice that without staging you can change the dV of a rocket only by augmenting the impulse (higher efficiency engine) or augmenting the fuel fraction (total fuel mass / total craft mass)

i.e. in the asparagus rocket if you actually don't stage from outer to inner even adding another outer layer only marginally change the fuel fraction leaving more or less the same impulse and fraction in proportion to the craft mass, resulting in minimal gain for much more lag

[Skyrunner]

Mun mission album!
It has all the descriptions, too.

Learned things: To change a radically different inclination, you need to burn multiple times. Don't try to do it all on one node !
Also, Mun orbits are extremely sensitive to rocket thrust. I almost flung the Lander out of orbit because I accidentally the throttle for only one second.

Seeing that orbiting Mun is extremely easy, I think my huge ship should fly to a different target. The Mun is just anti-climatic.

[ank]

Δv is a pure number (scalar) and represent how much change in velocity your craft can do.

when applied to a specific direction, it becomes a maneuver, and the vectorial sum applies between the previous velocity vector and a unity vector pointing in your craft direction multiplied the Δv expended. (approximatively, because it is always assumed infinite impulse)

We add the vectors right?
I'm not sure I understand what you mean by "multiplied Δv expended"

Isn't Δv the theoretical velocity you would gain by burning prograde(or loose by burning retrograde).
If you burn perpendicular, you are not really gaining any speed, but you are expending Δv


In most normal sentences(like we have those....) Δv just means POWER! you don't have to think about vectors, just look at it as a number that describes how much you need to burn.

[alexandertnt]

If you burn perpendicular, you are not really gaining any speed, but you are expending Δv

I think (my physics is rusty) you would actually gain speed if you burn perpendicular. Actually, if you got your current speed in the original direction (which should remain the same) and your new speed in the perpendicular direction, the new speed at a point in time might be square_root(x*x + y*y), where x and y are your original direction speed, and y is the new (perpendicular) direction speed.

[Sean Mirrsen]

You wouldn't gain speed if you burn perpendicular to your velocity vector, as that would just be you turning the vector, not adjusting its length. At least, relative to a body you're orbiting. You would gain speed in any frame of reference where your thrust direction isn't perpendicular to your velocity though, such as if you dropped off a probe and burned perpendicular to your common orbit. And note that you will only not gain velocity if you keep turning to perpendicular as your velocity vector turns - if you burn in one direction, you will only burn perpendicular for the first umpteenth of a second, after which you will slowly gain speed.

(I mean, think about it - gravity is already doing exactly that, pulling you in one direction constantly. If you're on a perfect circular orbit, your speed does not change, but the velocity vector keeps turning because of the force of gravity acting on it in a perpendicular direction.)

edit:

Spoiler: Is it still an SSTO if it docks to interplanetary boosters and flies with them without transferring fuel? (click to show/hide)

[ank]

If you burn perpendicular, you are not really gaining any speed, but you are expending Δv

I think (my physics is rusty) you would actually gain speed if you burn perpendicular. Actually, if you got your current speed in the original direction (which should remain the same) and your new speed in the perpendicular direction, the new speed at a point in time might be square_root(x*x + y*y), where x and y are your original direction speed, and y is the new (perpendicular) direction speed.

You are correct. The new velocity vector would be each of them added together.
If you apply 1 force unit to each end of a straight angle, (like left and forward) you can calculate the hypotenuse via Pythagoras theorem. If not straight angles you can use sine.
anyways, you'd end up with about 1.4 force units for the combined vector.

But that makes me wonder, in that case do we subtract the first vector from the result vector to get delta-v? that would make sense actually, since delta-v would then be vector applied.




Anyways, back to space stations!
After about 300 explosions i finally did it!
I brought the Circularium into orbit:

What the hell is that!?

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

You can't possibly means that's a spaceship?

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

There's method to the madness:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

This is the huge central piece to my new space station... it includes 8 NERVA engines.
There is a central square docking port, and 8 square docking ports on the ring.

Now I gotta refuel the thing, and add a bunch of modules.

[Graknorke]

Well, there goes my pride at landing something on Minmus without it going up in booms.

[Karlito]

http://kspwiki.nexisonline.net/wiki/Key_Bindings

[Rose]

You can check the controls from the main menu, but the easiest way to use the RCS is to switch to docking mode, by clicking on the middle of the three icons down by the staging counter. that lets you use WASD, shift, and ctrl, to control the RCS, and space toggles between moving and rotating.

[ank]

or press r

[BigD145]

You can check the controls from the main menu, but the easiest way to use the RCS is to switch to docking mode, by clicking on the middle of the three icons down by the staging counter. that lets you use WASD, shift, and ctrl, to control the RCS, and space toggles between moving and rotating.

You can't check controls while flying, which is unfortunate. Having a printed keybinding is a good thing.

[Anvilfolk]

Holy cow, that's some epic space station :O

It has tons of fuelthingies in the middle, apparently undetachable... still! What are your plans?

[ank]

Holy cow, that's some epic space station :O

It has tons of fuelthingies in the middle, apparently undetachable... still! What are your plans?

This is going to be the main hub and engine of my new moveable space station.

Gonna attach lander modules and habitat and refuel it.
Then, it's off to Jool!
Gonna bring a lander for each moon.

Also, it needs a spaceplane... anybody got a good design that can get to orbit from Laithe? (very simmilar to Kerbin)

Getting it to space was a real hassle, it's the heaviest thing I've ever put into orbit.

[Skyrunner]

D: That shim is bigger than mine Dx

* Skyrunner feels puny now xD