KSP: Europe's Lost Space Shuttles LIVE ON with MODS!

Did you know that the legendary ARIANE V rocket was designed around needing launching the now-forgotten Hermes Space Shuttle? Let's delve into an alternate timeline, made possible thanks to the amazing KNES mod for Kerbal Space Program!

Download the mod here!

Here's my original Hermes spaceplane video, made with stock KSP:
And the craft file:

My PC specs:
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090
AMD Ryzen 9 5950X 16-Core Processor
64 GB RAM
3840 x 2160, 144Hz

This video is intended for audiences 13+ years old.

[bobbyjeffsupremelordofcraz]

I'm pretty sure the cause of your docking port troubles are as followed: You had the bumpers extended on the shuttle's docking port, so it wouldn't properly dock. I think the acquire force should have been enough to hold the two together but it appears that this wasn't the case. Once the ports are together, you're meant to retract the bumpers to 'hard dock' with the station.

[csljr]

I love the message on the hatch at @25:13 - "To Open: 1. Eat Snacks 2. Pray for Kraken not [to] appear. 3. Press F" - a nice bit of humor from the modder/s

[LionCrafter]

At 22:22 you can just press f11 or f12 not sure witch one and it will highlight all the parts red so you can see it better.

[VISIONARY..]

I got the new "any landing you can walk away from" sweater and is by far my favorite sweater, it's super comfortable and keeps me warm. 10/10

[Armageddon_]

It might be that the docking ports need the correct orientation (like irl).

You see how the docking ports have these latches? I think you just kept mashing the latches into each other when they should be 45° offset.

[quoniam]

Some of the parts are really OP for stock KSP, I can recommand playing this mod on KSRSS, JNSQ, GPP or RSS... or any mod where planets are bigger than the stock ones.
Space Rider needs the winglets/control surfaces at the back for control (like Space Shuttle had under the engines). And that thing really exists, it was tested about ten years ago... never to be launched again due to lack of funds. And yes, it has its own parachute in the mode, you have two parts, one with a parachute, one with a paraglider, very useful to fine tune approach to beat the accuracy record on landing on the KSC... Not unlike the Kerbals own paraglider. In KSP, those Star Riders make excellent orbital rescue crafts ! (OP even...)
As for the two spaceplanes, those are in fact the two variants proposed. Hermes is the final project, the other one is one of the first drafts with single tail and opening cargo hold, Space Shuttle like. Dassault and Aerospatiale were competing until the program became too expansive and the governement decided to unify both both projects and seek funds elsewhere, until Germany decided they wouldn't benefit from it and the project was cancelled...
The Ressource module has usable radiators BTW.
You put a fairing on your payload when the pre assembled rocket has a fairing already... That's what happened.
BTW, Knes Ariane 5 has way too much delta V for Stock KSP. (unless it was fine tuned), back in the day, it was on stock Kerbin as powerful as a Saturn V IRL... In JNSQ, I just needed two Ariane 5s to complete a Mun landing mission (one for the lander, one for the mothership). That made things a little too easy.
I even made a habit of equiping the Core stage with parachutes and landing gear to recover it, the mission plan is to put the second stage and payload in an orbit (because it was so OP that it was a quasi SSTO in Stock KSP), detach, and wait until the Core stage was above the Desert peninsula to deorbit it and land it on or near the KSC itself... worked so well that my most accurate landing was 150m away from the VAB !
The Colombus was a German space Station project made it into EU project and eventually incorporated into the ISS as the Columbus lab module. The French had previously designed a micro space station, Solaris that never saw the light of day, Colombus being judged easier to build.
Sounding rockets are inspired by the French Veronique rockets launched from Agadir in Algeria (before the Algerian independance war). It even has the Cat capsule in which cat Felicette went up past the Karman Line.
The biggest Drakkar rocket in the mod is a proposed enhanced Ariane 4 variant that was named 5 back then, with a fifth engine in the center, Saturn V style. But as Ariane 4 was Hypergolic fuel powered, it was decided to design and completely new Ariane 5 with Hydrolox core and SRBs, Space shuttle style instead, with a reliability level worthy or civil aviation because it was supposed to be human rated.
The solid fuel stage you activated was in fact the Safety Abort system... You should discard it and not use it in nominal conditions.
As bobby says, those docking ports have a realistic working with the bumper. Disangage the bumper when docking. The bumper is mostly used to undock. They can be a bit finicky to work with though.
The Stock variant of the Ariane 5 proposed by the stock update is indeed smaller than the real thing but ultimately less OP than the real thing for stock scale, although, it will appear still too powerful for what it was supposed to do, scale wise.
Don't forget that the Knes mod also features British space capsules concepts !!!

[StreeHD]

it’s 2 in the morning matt you can’t do this to meee

[awilliams]

lol I did that too. I was doing a contract to rescue a stranded kerbal in low orbit. I got too close and gave him a massive blast of rocket power. I had to go chasing after him. The fun part is he had no life support so I tried to hurry (even though you get like an hour without life support)

[stone-lmzy]

bro that windows help center ? (or windows feedback) thing is so relatable

[rspaced]

Honestly these visual mods rival KSP 2 in terms of visual fidelity, absolutely superb

[Theover]

I’ve got work this morning, so this is a nice surprise while I eat breakfast, thanks Matt!

[galaxyas]

Place in symmetry, remove symmetry, color them individually?

[awilliams]

to deorbit automatically the PE must be less than 25km. Anything about 25km is on rails and will never de-orbit unless you control active vessel. So I always try to keep it below or even negative while launching.

[_sips_]

With the stage duplication I think because when you switched to tracking station it showed that it will not save changes that changes being because the craft of the stage was on a deorbit path :)

[toryunaminosaki]

o.o i really like that StarWatcher one. I could see it being used as the command section for an interplanetary vessel, perhaps to Duna, then when the craft returns to Kerbin, the main craft stays in orbit to be reused and the small section reenters under RCS to be relaunched with the next crew to dock to the same vessel.

[kaiperdaens]

Ssto and space planes are back yeeees.

[jamoecw]

I don't have the mod, but since they modeled real docking ports you need to get the axis correct. The little flanges that stick out help to line up the ports so the mechanical attachments can lock down precisely. basically you had to rotate the craft around the docking port's axis so the flanges are not hitting each other. Real life is a bit harder than KSP.

[robloxintelligenceagency]

I'm concerned on how he says "Jebeldiah."

[WubboxTechnologiesOffical]

16:24 How to (probably) fix this:

Use radial symmetry.

Edit: Fixed a spelling mistake

[ImmortalAbsol]

Practically landed in the car park haha 15:20