Also - new version of the KSP is available. No more instant death from landing on the dark side of Kearth!
Also - some updated textures - which look great up to a point, but at a certain altitude start getting a little wonky. It's ok though. Doesn't really affect anything important. And the water textures are more realistic.
Also - downloaded a free orbital calculator program. The more I work with this thing, the more appreciation I have for how finicky orbital mechanics are. At low altitudes and orbits, there's a certain amount of brute force involved. But once you start getting up into somewhat higher orbits and start messing around with Hohman Transfer orbits (transferring precisely from one altitude to another) and doing things involving stable elliptical orbits... Wow. All of a sudden you're doing a LOT of change with rather small amounts of Delta V shifts. You can easily get knock yourself right out of orbit or achieve escape velocity with Delta V shifts of only 10s of Kilometers per hour in differences. I'm starting to be amazed at the sheer guts it took the Apollo astronauts to get to the moon and back using what amounted to a calculator and a slide rule!
Anyway - this has involved a few modifications to my designs. The main one being a modification to my main craft, the Falcon Mk 8 -
![[Image: Falcon_Mk_VIII_extended.jpg]](http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v28/Logan_Darklighter/Kerbal/Falcon_Mk_VIII_extended.jpg)
It's not much of a change. Just an extended fuselage for more fuel capacity on the top stage (Stage 3). But that counts for a lot when it leaves me with enough extra fuel to reach higher orbits with enough fuel to do some interesting things if I'm patient.
Like so:
![[Image: MK8_Hi_orbit.jpg]](http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v28/Logan_Darklighter/Kerbal/MK8_Hi_orbit.jpg)
No - they're not lost in space. This is not escape velocity. Just a HIGHLY elliptical orbit. I fully intend to get them home safely.
Notice how much fuel I still have? Plenty for de-orbit and return. How'd I get a craft that size that high up? Orbital mechanics. Basically adding Delta V on an already elliptical orbit at Perigee (Low point of the orbit) a couple of times. The perigee of the original orbit was about 75 kilometers. And the apogee was about 350 or so. I boosted the Delta V on the perigee end a couple of times for the classic slingshot effect. First time it raised the apogee up to about 650 Kilometers. I actually OVERshot the Delta-V on the second slingshot and figured out that I had achieved escape velocity from Kearth! OOPS! So I did a course correction deceleration. But I'm not sure at this point where the apogee is going to be now. I just know that I'm below escape velocity. So we'll eventually reach the top of the orbit and start to come back to Kearth. I'm just not sure where that's going to be at this point.
EDIT: Update: altitude is 9000 Kilometers and still climbing. I fully expect to break 10,000 Kilometers.
EDIT: Update: Looking at the situation again, I realized that my calculations might not be taking into account all aspects of my vector. Because the altitude was still climbing at a kilo per second at 12,000 even though my MPS gauge (Meters per second) was well below that. At this point I figured that the MPS was mainly showing horizontal velocity and that I should base a further course correction and return on knocking my vertical back only. Pointed straight back at Kearth and lit the engine until I canceled out my altitude gain. Now finally I'm falling back toward Kearth and I have enough fuel left to make any course corrections I might want to do. (And Bill and Bob are no longer panicing. >.>; )
![[Image: Falcon_Mk8_turnaround.jpg]](http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v28/Logan_Darklighter/Kerbal/Falcon_Mk8_turnaround.jpg)
Also - some updated textures - which look great up to a point, but at a certain altitude start getting a little wonky. It's ok though. Doesn't really affect anything important. And the water textures are more realistic.
Also - downloaded a free orbital calculator program. The more I work with this thing, the more appreciation I have for how finicky orbital mechanics are. At low altitudes and orbits, there's a certain amount of brute force involved. But once you start getting up into somewhat higher orbits and start messing around with Hohman Transfer orbits (transferring precisely from one altitude to another) and doing things involving stable elliptical orbits... Wow. All of a sudden you're doing a LOT of change with rather small amounts of Delta V shifts. You can easily get knock yourself right out of orbit or achieve escape velocity with Delta V shifts of only 10s of Kilometers per hour in differences. I'm starting to be amazed at the sheer guts it took the Apollo astronauts to get to the moon and back using what amounted to a calculator and a slide rule!
Anyway - this has involved a few modifications to my designs. The main one being a modification to my main craft, the Falcon Mk 8 -
It's not much of a change. Just an extended fuselage for more fuel capacity on the top stage (Stage 3). But that counts for a lot when it leaves me with enough extra fuel to reach higher orbits with enough fuel to do some interesting things if I'm patient.
Like so:
No - they're not lost in space. This is not escape velocity. Just a HIGHLY elliptical orbit. I fully intend to get them home safely.
Notice how much fuel I still have? Plenty for de-orbit and return. How'd I get a craft that size that high up? Orbital mechanics. Basically adding Delta V on an already elliptical orbit at Perigee (Low point of the orbit) a couple of times. The perigee of the original orbit was about 75 kilometers. And the apogee was about 350 or so. I boosted the Delta V on the perigee end a couple of times for the classic slingshot effect. First time it raised the apogee up to about 650 Kilometers. I actually OVERshot the Delta-V on the second slingshot and figured out that I had achieved escape velocity from Kearth! OOPS! So I did a course correction deceleration. But I'm not sure at this point where the apogee is going to be now. I just know that I'm below escape velocity. So we'll eventually reach the top of the orbit and start to come back to Kearth. I'm just not sure where that's going to be at this point.
EDIT: Update: altitude is 9000 Kilometers and still climbing. I fully expect to break 10,000 Kilometers.
EDIT: Update: Looking at the situation again, I realized that my calculations might not be taking into account all aspects of my vector. Because the altitude was still climbing at a kilo per second at 12,000 even though my MPS gauge (Meters per second) was well below that. At this point I figured that the MPS was mainly showing horizontal velocity and that I should base a further course correction and return on knocking my vertical back only. Pointed straight back at Kearth and lit the engine until I canceled out my altitude gain. Now finally I'm falling back toward Kearth and I have enough fuel left to make any course corrections I might want to do. (And Bill and Bob are no longer panicing. >.>; )