Expanding on this, the atmosphere meter works everywhere! It's a sliding scale from 0-1 Kerbin atmospheres, and the unlockable barometer science module is also fully function as a measurement device, very useful for values greater than 1 atmosphere which don't show on the default gauge. Parachute functionality will differ depending on the thickness of the atmosphere. Duna, for example, has a thinner atmosphere than Kerbin, while Eve has a thicker one making parachutes less and more effective respectively. Additionally, the game distinguishes between atmospheres with or without oxygen. Jet engines which require oxygen through an air intake will only function in those with oxygen. To my knowledge, this includes only Kerbin and Laythe.
As others have explained parachutes need an atmosphere in order to function, the Mün doesn't have one. I tend to brute force my way into the kerbiverse, and thus the most efficient way I have found of landing on the Mün thus far is done the same way. First establish a Low Münar Orbit (around 60-70k works for me), then kill all relative speed which will drop you straight down onto the surface. Freefall until 25k (should be going about 250m/s by now) and start a low burn (5%-ish Works for me when using two 909s for my landing stages). Keep the burn going until you get to around 6k (should be going about 50-60m/s by now). Burn harder until Your speed of descent is about 10-15m/s and keep steady until you can see your shadow on the surface below. Then it's just a matter of timing; you want to be going no more than 5-7m/s at touchdown for a smooth and controlled landing. It's not easy - I struggled through many attempts, and many courageous Kerbals are now a permanent part of the Münar surface in the form of a fine paste mixed with rocket fuel and struts. Eventually the technique I outlined aboved worked for me, and now I am able to regularly land pretty much any lander I send up there (as long as I have made appropriate sacrifice to the Space Kraken beforehand). Oh, and one last thing; never let Jebedy Kerman take the Controls - no matter how similar the name, he is not Jebediah! He will tell you it's fine ... he will even insist that it's fine, and he might even attempt to bribe you (his sister is not as hot as he claims by the way). Don't listen to him! He can be a passenger, he may be allowed to hitch a ride somewhere (preferably somewhere in High Solar Orbit), but never allow him to fly!
lol, I will orbit the mun or any other airless rock just above the surface. for the moon, that's around 6k I think... looks cool when you are ripping past the surface right above it.
Hehe, I have been tempted to try that, but my cojones haven't grown to sufficient size yet. Besides, aren't there mountains on the Mün that extend past 6k? Will have to check the wiki...
oweing to my large amounts of keyboard related troubles, I have barely broken atmosphere yet let alone collected enough science to get anything useful or even made it to mun
For munar descents; Suicide Burns are the most fun and ballsy, you build a craft that's perhaps a little overpowered, drop your orbit so your periapse is negative, then kick the engines up to full power just before impact. The burn, if you don't get it wrong and smash into the surface at several hundred meters a second, is incredibly fuel-efficient, as well as fairly accurate once you've got some practice done, but it is incredibly difficult to get used to, it's why all of my landers are near-enough the same power to weight; I can't be bothered to re-learn the setup for a different lander.
Oh I've had my fair share of encounters with severely unsuccessful suicide burns to know to avoid the concept. The only ones that I fare even worse with are the "Oh crap oh crap oh crap" burns...
If you want to make suicide burns then this equation is handy current velocity^2=final velocity^2(will be 0 as you want to land)+2*acceleration*distance Square your current velocity and divide by your acceleration as hand calculated from thrust and weight or given by a plugin. Divide the result by 2. That tells you how far above the ground you need to start burning. There's margin for error in that acceleration will increase as your mass decreases.
Welcome to the Jool probe and explorer mission Explorer nearly there probe making mucho science only took 12 years on a low fuel usage path lol (inc return)
my best aircraft thus far ( ok so its one of the inbuilt ones slightly modified to fly faster, but looking at my kerbals face...I don't think he gives a S***)
Because they're loads of fun! Also fairly difficult compared to rockets, for their size. Some fun challenges: -Take a rocket powered plane to Duna or Eve. -Take an air-breathing plane to Laythe. -Build a SSTO (single stage to orbit) spaceplane. -Fly an SSTO to the Mun! And back for bonus points, land for max swagging rights! -Fly and SSTO to Laythe. A real challenge certain to require a whole space program of refueling stations or in orbit construction. I'm still working on getting a stable and repeatable SSTO design between rockets. It's no joke!
I think that design would have some problems with horizontal stabilizer buffet from the thrust on the engines impinging on them. OK, so something I've been wondering about for a long time... Jet engines are pretty efficient, rocket engines are very inefficient, but they work outside the atmosphere. What if you combines the two? What I'm thinking about here is a combined cycle ramjet which at atmospheric altitudes burned liquid hydrogen with oxygen from the air, but as it got to exoatmospheric altitudes began feeding liquid oxygen to replace the atmospheric stuff. That way you could carry less of the heavier oxidizer which obviously increases your payload capacity. The only problem that's obvious to me is that a ramjet relies on air pressure to compress the fuel for optimum burning effiency, so the geometry of the combustion chamber would have to change during the transition from endo to exoatmospheric flight. It seems like this could be overcome with something like an aerospike which modulated the air intake in one phase of flight, but completely blocked the intake in the other, forming the rocket combustion chamber. My vision for this (IRL, not in the game which I admit I don't play) is a two stage to orbit system similar to the Virgin Galactic system using a large conventional aircraft to get a lifting body to 40,000 feet and mach 0.9 or so at which point the ramjets on the lifting body would kick in and accelerate it to escape velocity. Does this seem feasible to anyone else or am I completely talking out my ass? Is this idea or ?
It flies fairly well given the limited number of parts I had available (I am on a science campaign play through) but does not take kindly to sudden and severe changes in direction. Its engines also flame out at about 12,000 metres. Incidentally I transmitted over 500 science from my first mun landing today
RamJet Combo works well unless you need to tow some "tonage" into orbit for long missions. great for ISS recrew and simple Mun etc, but if you want an Eeloo mission it's a long way and rockets work out more economical (depending on how long you want you flight to take)
Thought I would share some of my pics... This was a fuel tug. It went from refueling station to ship's that needed fuel. That way I could have the station in low orbit. and send fuel to ships that were in high orbit so that when they leave the system, they don't need to use a lot of fuel. I named this thing bumblebee! I sent it to the moon, landing in all the different bioms to do science! I made it to several of them before going back to Kerbin. My Mun base! on the left is the lander that brought 7 kerbals to the mun. Background is the science station. and on the right is the crew module. This was me landing a rocket on EVE. It made the landing. just not back into space. damm atmosphere was too thick. couldn't get enough speed despite having a lot of Delta V. This was a crash landing in the mountains! Poor jeb checking out the view! The rover that i used on the mun and Minmus. RCS to flip it over. and the I beams prevent anything from getting damaged if it tips. This was the fuel tug, docking with the fueling station. This was a science mission to the north pole of the mun. Taking off to go back to Kerbin with the planet and sun in the background. Note the terrain...
The biggest "lander" that I have ever managed to safely land on the Mun. As you may imagine, the delivery vehicle for this is rather large... https://db.tt/x4CF83qG
