kunok

In real world they need to make modifications to make this modular change compatible, in KSP we just quit the subassembly, so already done

The new name for this version will be Soyuz 2LK. It wouldn't use the third stage, the Block I, using directly a Fregat upper stage, it will look a lot like the old vostok. Is made to be able to get 2 to 3,9 ton to heliosincronous orbit, filling an actual gap between the standard soyuz and the soyuz version without the lateral boosters. This is my source (sorry in Spanish, my googlefu don't encounter anything in english, but look the pictures) http://danielmarin.naukas.com/2016/11/30/soyuz-2lk-el-nuevo-cohete-ruso/ Original sources in russian: http://www.vz.ru/news/2016/11/21/844867.html http://izvestia.ru/news/640024 http://samspace.ru/news/press_relizy/8680/

Too many? too little

That's the ones that changed the official name wolfram to tungsten without making it in the regular ways?

Not simplifying the language, it isn't the same. Just make a coherent pronunciation/writing, update the orthographic/pronunciation rules, most european languages did several times that, not changing even one word definition. Examples https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_orthography_reform_of_1996 That problem happened in every single language, someone should start. If portuguese speakers have been able to reunify the grammar why shouldn't be able english? Or do different dialects, but normalize it.

I'm not really sure if I pronounce correctly in english so better I explain myself. I say laite, val, pol, just as is spoken in Spanish, after all this is a game from mexico the only doubt is that there isn't "th" in spanish but supposedly you don't pronounce the "h" anyway. Somewhat oftopic, isn't there any writing normalization initiative in english linguists? Because I think is time... If you know one language you should be able to pronounce/write every word of them even if is the first time you read/hear it.

You forget to put the paper

What NASA is precisely doing is science, research and development of new techs and solar system bodies. Is the private corporations like spaceX that aren't doing science. They use the NASA research to make goals, it's the current trend in politics public research funding and private use of that development. What obsession with the vector... Is only a transport device, no the end itself. Lot's of mass produced goods have a raw materials cost of only 2% or less, so what? I designed something than the prototype cost were more than 1000 times the raw material, in fact, they didn't even put the raw material cost in the bill, and I don't think the mass production would get to that 2%. That kind of oversimplification of costs that musk makes is very naive. The cost of to transport any space good usually is tiny compared with the cost of the space good itself. Space is a very damaging environment, you can't send cheap stuff out to GEO and expect to work fine. @ISEWhat I think is really weird is that you think that space industry didn't advanced in the last years but the automobiles industry has advanced a lot. Automobiles are almost the same that the ones 60s, only making changes for diminish a little the fuel use, and the esthetics/aerodinamics. There is little mechanical advancement, and most of it come from the better manufacturing techniques (easy example: the change to more aerodynamic profile, this rounded profiles were because the improvement in 5 axis cnc mills, so we can easily manufacture round dies), not really from research or development. Electrical cars come from the development of batteries, which wasn't done by the car industry. But if you see the technical improvements and changes in the space industry they are pretty huge, just don't focus only in the launcher, is only a transport device for a good, look the good itself. Maybe the problem is the lack of interesting goods for the average joe in space? The lack of human space travel? We have better than ever meteorological, and earth observations services, the commercial communications satellites nowadays are only usually limited by the amount of fuel for correcting the orbital perturbations, we have better than ever Space research, for example, the james webb telescope is already finished and would go to space in less than two years (IIRC), we have impresive rovers in mars, there are even more being manufactured, we have lots of orbiters in the solar system and more are planed. May I suggest respectfully than you have a biased view? NASA and other space agencies needs better marketing departments, that's for sure.

Is hard science that we currently can look every meter of the surface from the space, so obviously there is no stealth in earth, no? That's a problem of resolution and field of view, you can't really look everywhere unless you have a very huge infrastructure, that would be pretty vulnerable. There is no stealth in space but you can't look everywhere anyway

If its easy to manufacture, because if not it would be a niche product like the current cryogenics superconductors. People tend to forget that

A reddit link discussing to the Chinese investigation : https://www.reddit.com/r/EmDrive/comments/4h8whq/new_emdrive_results_from_professor_yang_in_china/ And we have a link to the paper, is in chinese but the figures are in english. The abstract In order to explore the thrust performance of microwave thruster, the thrust produced by microwave thruster system was measured with three-wire torsion pendulum thrust measurement system and the measurement uncertainty was also studied, thereby judging the credibility of the experimental measurements. The results show that three-wire torsion pendulum thrust measurement system can measure thrust not less than 3mN under the existing experimental conditions with the relative uncertainty of 14%. Within the measuring range of three-wire torsion pendulum thrust measurement system, the independent microwave thruster propulsion device did not detect significant thrust. Measurement results fluctuate within ±0.7mN range under the conditions 230W microwave power output and the relative uncertainty is greater than 80%. http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=39772.0;attach=1113532

Can be a good example of how the aviation engines were far more developed than the rocket ones, because Kuznetsov bureau were an aviation engines bureau, and that this expertise was somewhat isolated to the space industry.

You don't really need a magnetosphere to be protected from the solar wind, look to Venus, it has a ionosphere protecting his atmosphere, with is made by the solar light (UV and more) ionizing the atmosphere. Is a lot harder to understand than the normal magnetosphere thing, though, and you will be losing more atmosphere than if you had a magnetosphere, but then again look to Venus. The radiation protection is given by the thickness of the atmosphere, not the magnetosphere. In short if you have a thick enough atmosphere to have a significant ionosphere you will have solar wind protection, and that atmosphere will protect you from the radiation itself.

The son of Krushev (the president of the URSS in that time) was in a rival design bureau competing for the same goal. Little resources and too divided. Ironically the Capitalist state went full centralized, focused and public funded and the Communist state went to competition between companies (or design bureaus if you prefer that way) with poor public funding.

You can get an ion engine operating in that regime, but it's pretty useless, too little trust and would need too much energy IIRC, so an excess mass in the generators that make them inviable.

That's not expected, the expected trust to weight ratio is ridiculous, as best is like an ion engine without propellant. And the Chinese team already discarded that it works so I won't put any hope in it. The problem with flying cars is energy density, not the engine.

In 2 body interactions (or patched conics that KSP uses)? In stable orbits no, parabolic and hyperbolic can have other orientations. But remember that the patched conics is a huge simplification

To a backbone like @Kryten says have some sense for unpopulated isolated areas, but i don't really see that big investment. And for that wouldn't you need an ITU application? We can't forget that nowadays is somewhat common in new installations to use hybrid electric-optic fiber cable for electrical distribution, https://sc01.alicdn.com/kf/HTB1Cv9VFVXXXXbGXFXXq6xXFXXXI/202158697/HTB1Cv9VFVXXXXbGXFXXq6xXFXXXI.jpg , the hybrid cable is not much more expensive than the normal one, the bigger cost is usually the labor cost and the electric poles, not the cable itself. This alone is getting the fiber backbone bigger and bigger. And regular optic fiber is getting more and more distributed. Here we have the submarine fibber map http://www.submarinecablemap.com/ most populated islands looks like there already have fibber, and there is the public terrestrial transmission map http://www.itu.int/itu-d/tnd-map-public/. Why France, USA or Germany doesn't appear? Why this isn't a public knowledge? @wumpus I don't expect that a single element of the phase array space capable to be smaller than a regular telephone antenna, and you would need lots of them. The smartphone GPU doesn't really consume that much compared with this kind of communications.

An iridium "dumbphone" ain't little (for a dumbphone) and is more than 1000€, with a very limited bandwidth https://www.amazon.es/Iridium-Teléfono-satélite-Tarjeta-GRATUITA/dp/B00IJHGSIO/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1479733338&sr=8-1&keywords=iridium+telefono . The theoretical spaceX's one won't be cheap at all, and if its an smartphone would be very very expensive, and very very big. For the terminals part: What gain are we really discussing to an omnidirectional antenna? What power will it need? How big will be the batteries? For the satellites part: What are the maximum connections expected for every satellite? Every satellite have an useful area of what? Earth's area /4400? That's 116909km^2 for every satellite, more than the area of Portugal with has 10 millions of persons. @Nibb31 it can't be too similar to an DBV-T antenna, after all, the DBV-T is only a receptor and very directional one, the source of signal is fixed in space. An omnidirecionall antenna will be pretty big, or you will need a tracking device (a mechanical one or a phase array). The more I think the less sense it makes to me. Not for a distant future, but too early. Other problem with space networks is that almost every step you make to make the space communications affordable can be used too for the earth based one for cheaper. I really expect that space communications will decline

To be fair, most times this is not intentional, is just a consequence of cheaper manufacturing and optimized products to get more efficiency (so less security margin). Everybody wants the old freezer nuclear blast rated (as in that indiana jones film ) with current prices and A+++ electricity efficiency.

In spain you have an universal regulated (is not subsidized AFIK only regulated) 1mb/s with a 5 Gb fast limit currently for 24€ (it goes to 128kbs or something like that if you download more than 5Gb) for home internet since 2011 http://www.movistar.es/particulares/internet/ficha/movistar-suba-1mb , that's the worse you can get, and is a universal service for every unpopulated isolated place in spain, not the regular one. And we are one of the worst, if not the worst, in the EU in prices and quality. A company offers a cellular connection 20GB/month and unlimited calls for 30€ is very popular here http://www.yoigo.com/tarifas/tarifas-de-contrato/la-sinfin/ and even if you use the full 20GB you get the slow connection rate. I have friends that only use this, they stoped to have internet in home. In the other hand I use a simple 400MG/month for only 5€ because I don't need more and was the cheapest one.

The chinese research groups says that the device doesn't work, when they get better instrument the trust disappeared Source in spanish (the final PS) http://francis.naukas.com/2016/11/06/se-filtra-en-reddit-el-articulo-sobre-emdrive-revisado-por-pares/ paper (the paper and the website is in chinese, i can't get it in the irregular ways...): dx.doi.org/10.13675/j.cnki.tjjs.2016.02.022

Or is just better regulated and have better competency. And a population density higher, that helps a lot too EDIT: That's why USA market can't be extrapolated to the rest of the world

The shape of the dragon limits its capability of reentering too, is after all a LEO capsule

Sure, probably not in my principal save but yeah. If the performance is reasonable, of course. Also: what about if any impact, broken parts, make the debris density in that orbit bigger? So this makes an impact really significative. Unattended spend stages should break and make more debris with the time, if they still have fuel or batteries.