ZooNamedGames

I think the pod is fine- the problem is the Gemini rocket parts needs to be 2.5m. Instead the 1.875m parts should be like Jupiter or Thor rocket sizes.

Yeah and it’s a lot more accurate with real engine designs. What I’m suggesting isn’t witchcraft. https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/29753/are-side-boosters-sometimes-angled-even-if-they-are-symmetrically-arranged Real rockets have solid rocket motors that can gimbal (note- Solid rocket motor is the correct term in this instance). Not to mention offset angled SRMs are completely normal in aerospace. It’s how the Atlas V gets away with only 1 SRB (something you can’t do in KSP without spamming SAS, using RCS or using the vector rocket engine to compensate for the angled thrust- all while keeping the single SRB vertical). Yes- maybe you don’t want to be bothered with angling your rocket nozzles- but with them set to face towards 0° (down), you won’t need to. This simply solves a lacking area of KSP. This literally makes replica builds far more accurate- not to mention offers a vastly wider range of uses. So this definitely would do nothing but expand the game. Also an autopilot has nothing to do with this.

But you don’t need a second SLS to launch the lander. Use an expendable FH.

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO PROGRESS BABY. THE ROCKET IS REAL. Brb getting the actual tweet. https://twitter.com/JimBridenstine/status/1174808785166188545?s=20

Ha, you should see the Gemini adaptor section. Gemini replicas (at least for me) are a disaster since I have to make the Titan stage a 2.5m part rather than use the nice and sleek new 1.875m engines and fuel tanks since they're the same size as the Gemini and the Titan is wider in diameter than the Gemini requiring that conic adaptor section to be included in replicas.

That's not really a good reason. A lot of things shouldn't be added if you just want iffy rocket launches. But some people want more realism or more accurate launches (myself included), so that kind of stuff gets added. Otherwise we'd be stuck with 1 or 2 SRBs and no Vector engine, no radial engines, no xenon engine- you get the point.

Sorry to divert from Starship- But I see Wikipedia has the inflight abort test flight of D2 penned in for September. Did I miss i it or has SpaceX just completely forgot about it?

I may be team anti-SpaceX but I’m not stupid. Commercial is essential to us going back. NASA is only launching crew. NASA only has one rocket and it’s niche is solely crewed launch capability to lunar orbit. They can’t (ignoring shouldn’t) use SLS for such simple cargo as LOP-G. Even at the peak of SLS proposed production pace- it’d be 2030 or later before we even have the same amount of hardware as we would after 5 years using commercial. Falcon Heavy, Ariane 5 and the Atlas V are all trusted vehicles capable of doing the job cheaper, faster and on time.

The exact idea I’ve felt about it since the beginning. Set a challenging goal so we have to work hard to meet it and even if we fall short- it’s miles further than we were before.

Conspiracy. Technical issues, but forum remains up, functioning normally and moderators can still 'like' things indiscriminately without (apparent) technical issues.

Apollo- inline thrust. Copernicus- asymmetric thrust.

NASA left a lot up to the post concept phase. I’m still wondering how they intended to side-heft a X-15 in those early concepts for an orbital X-15 using the Navajo missile. So something tells me they don’t do all the math and sometime just design things to do what they think will work based on back of the envelope calculations. Which is likely the case for NASA concepts like Altair and Copernicus and any asymmetric builds joined together but docking ports.

The size of the ISS?

Except we used them and knew what would happen? It’s scaling up by leagues instead of incrementally that’s the problem.

It’s only weaker with larger builds due to the increased stresses involved- and its not that we can’t but that we aren’t prepared for what we don’t know with such scales. Could we make a massive multijoint vessel with 8 modules to speed off to Mars? Yes, we have the vehicles and the technology to do so- what we don’t have is the knowledge of how those vehicles will behave under the circumstances of acceleration, deep space flight or anything else since we haven’t made something to those scales. We don’t know what could happen- not that those make it impossible to do- just irresponsible to take risks and to wave potential unknowns just because we’ve done something far smaller and simpler than such a larger task as I described.

Those are upper stages at that point- it becomes a tug (to me) when it docks and then is transported. As on earth when I think of tugs, I generally don’t imagine they come preattached at launch. Ie tug boats and train tugs.

ISS gets a piddly boost of a few dozen meters per second- even considering it on the same level as injection/orbital insertion maneuvers is what’s truly silly- As to Apollo- 2/3 dockings didn’t lead to burns. There was only 1 burn which I’ll admit meets the criteria I set (the LO capture burn), though only Apollo 13 meets the criteria of using an engine not connected to the crew module at launch (by using the LM descent engine). Whats magic is docking large spacecraft and making sure they don’t shear themselves apart due to the acceleration forces of a burn. The larger the vehicles the larger the forces at play- which goes from mildly denting thick metal frames and beams with something to the size of Apollo to tearing it like paper with bigger builds. It’s something we simply don’t have experience with. ACES honestly is the best way to get experience without being too overly ambitious. It’s smaller sized but can be used to have payloads flown to it. Slowly maybe we can see multisegmented payloads. A kickstage attached, then something else like an upper stage. Slowly growing to a more complex vehicle of your scale. Life isn’t KSP- we can’t just jump from one tier level to the other without consequences. We need to know what can happen when things change and scale a big part. The difference between Artemis and your plans is that Orion goes to a destination, Orion does not tug any payloads- not even a lander like Apollo did. All modules will be deployed commercially as will the lander. Orion will just be a ferry between the earth and LOP-G. No tugs involved.

I’d support literally any of your LEO construction projects if we had literally any experience building anything that actually traveled. So far we have a single multi piece space station that’s locked to earth orbit and a 50+ year old capsule-space probe combo that stands as the only vehicles to actually dock then boost their orbit with crew. Even without crew I can’t immediately think of any payloads that rocked and traveled- though admittedly if someone can cite a spacecraft that did so and traveled beyond LEO- I will wholly admit my fault here, and concede that my point is only true for manned spaceflight. It’s also lower risk in my opinion. Less to go wrong for the recovery to be botched and requires less development time.

NASA could rush it's development and make an unsafe vehicle and an unready vehicle however NASA is methodical and precise in it's work. If you want to get frustrated, get frustrated with the politicians as NASA has been committed to the SLS since 2010. They've just been side tracked, and delayed by every possible hurdle politics could throw at NASA- and today, NASA has finally managed to overcome all of them to make SLS a real vehicle and soon it'll finally be fully built. Not too long after (around the same time as SpaceX is deploying LEO payloads with Starship), SLS will be sending the first crews to lunar orbit since the 70s. Starship, is no where near the same degree of ready as SLS/Orion. Orion, though unmanned, is at least has all of the details of a crewed flight ready- merely sticking in the life support. Starship has no plans for crew space, what it will be designed like, the life support systems, life support capacity, life support testing, and a dozen other things that would prove Starship as remotely ready. Not to mention it's LEO only whereas Orion and SLS is going all the way to the moon. Despite it's 20km hop coming up- it's still a water tower. It has no re-entry systems (no thermal tiles or the now abandoned plan for metholox cooling ports), no payload space/capacity. At best it's comparable to New Shepard, seeing as they do much of the same thing (or at least will once it flies)- taking off, going to altitude, and then coming back down to power land at a set destination. Only difference is New Shepard at least has gotten to the stage it's carried payloads. Starship has not and cannot unless a modification to the design is made to make payload support feasible.

Issue is it was a paper rocket up until 2013-2014. No hardware and a constantly shifting design (akin to a lot of rockets in development)- and a true need wasn't established until after the Shuttle was retired and NASA was left empty handed. NASA intended to smoothly transition into Constellation but after President Obama cancelled it, that wasn't feasible (and there's plenty of discussion on this thread that goes into the specifics as to why the programmed was delayed, but who, why and so forth so I won't retread those topics). Yes, progress has been slow- but that's the nature of bigger developments. I'm just happy to have what we have- and not at a breakneck pace as some companies do... or at least one of them.

It's exciting for me since I've been reading the news feeds almost habitually since 2014. This is a huge leap in it's development. No longer is it a "piece of a rocket", just a "component". It will be a complete vehicle once these engines are attached. No longer a 'paper' rocket. Now a real vehicle. For me at least, it's massive. When will it complete? I'd expect by the end of the month. Maybe sooner. Aligning the engine section is the slowest part, since they have to connect electrical systems, plumbing, hydraulics, data relays and a whole smorgishboard of other things. x4 for multiple engines.

Only reason I mentioned it was because I oddly recall that being the case like 4-5 years ago. Maybe I was wrong though. I'm feeling like the Mandela Effect is screwing with me.

I'm sorry to steal @Barzon Kerman's thunder- but he recently posted this to my discord server and I felt this deserved to be shared. Hype time boyos. The final piece is in motion. We're about to have a full rocket. I'm so excited and hyped.

Compared to when I joined this community- the merchandise offering is... well let's be clear- none existent. Yes, we've heard that they are working to rectifying the issue, but no real progress has (visibly) been made, and though initially the explanation was that they were experiencing growing pains from their partnership and joint work with T2, it's been 3 years (nearing 4) since, and no solutions have been made. Though I have no numbers in front of me, I'm guessing, that despite the communal request for merch- they haven't made it a priority since the original merch didn't bring in much profit. Providing no real incentive to relaunch the merch yet. Yes, undoubtedly KSP2 has been the priority of Star Theory and T2- But that doesn't mean that non-game developer members of staff can't focus on it. Something that a community manager (like @St4rdust ) should be capable to do. Admittedly lawyers might be needed since we are working with the KSP IP, but with current online conferencing technology, having members of a team scattered all across the globe is no longer an actual limitation. Though they may be intending to relaunch the store roughly around the same time as KSP2 releases, but that could be a year away, and I can't imagine drafting up T&Cs for a single IP- with a few manufacturers/distributors would be that costly in time (or actual funds). It also possible- seeing the recent expo which has been debuting KSP2 footage, that they already have stores ready and in the works. They had some substantial model replicas of Jeb, a rocket, flag and such- which takes planning, discussion and coordinated work with a manufacturer and production team to make them. Perhaps those teams are also hired to make regular consumer merch? Who knows. Point being- this is a sad day when my dirty KSP mousepad, holey KSP shirt, Jeb Plush, and single 3D model of my Saturn Shuttle build is the remains of a bygone era from when Squad/T2's interest into their brand expanded beyond the screen and allowed us to show our Kerbal love in real life. Long live KSP Store. We miss you dearly.