Bill Phil

Well, the Thor engine eventually became the H-1, so it comes back around... the Saturn haf Thor (the first stage of Delta) lineage.

Or have a part that allows it be displayed like KER.

DC-X was a test article. A fairly successful one at that. “Not invented here” killed DC-X once NASA gained control of the program. Instead NASA began development of X-33 and Venturestar... which couldn’t even have a successful demonstration.

X-33 was a tech demonstration and would never go to orbit. That said they had trouble with cryogenic composite tanks (thermal stress), and the unconventional tank geometry didn’t help. Moving to metal would make the tanks work but they became too heavy. And that’s before the performance of the aerospikes is considered (worse than SSMEs in many regards). X-33 never flew, and neither did Venturestar. If only the DC-X was developed instead...

I’m not certain. But if the two events connected are not causally connected then it is allowed, as far as I know.

Wormholes are only allowed to connect events that aren’t in each other’s light cones, at least if you don’t want to violate causality, afaik.

SpaceX should've played this for the Falcon Heavy test...

There are multiple types of wormholes. Some have an actual throat, a region of flat spacetime between the two ends, that must be traversed. Interstellar was probably going for a 2001: A Space Odyssey vibe... Also, wormholes may not exist in nature. As such, they may need to be artificial. They're also more accurately described as a spacetime distortion that connects two points in spacetime (and they don't have to be at the same point in time, either, thus why they could create a time machine).

No wormholes, huh? Or even Krasnikov tubes? At least those are valid solutions of GR... Of course, any system that lets you get FTL (even just apparent FTL) runs the risk of becoming a time machine. This means that you might only be able to use it in one direction. For warp drives, you're causally disconnected from the universe, and can't turn it off from inside. This means that you need an external station to turn it off. But if you have near lightspeed travel, you could go to the target star near lightspeed and then warp back to Earth, and hopefully get stopped by a station that can deactivate the warp bubble... Honestly the most believable method would be wormholes. Orions Arm has a well constructed example, and Luke Campbell's Vergeworlds wormholes are actually pretty interesting. Of course there isn't any FTL travel, but causality could still be violated. Unless there are quantum effects preventing that... Whatever you think, if you're writing a story make sure to take into account the consequences. In Orions Arm wormholes are massive objects that must be quite far away from the planets in a solar system, limiting their effects. Meanwhile Vergeworlds has microscopic wormholes of similar mass to subatomic particles, and thus all sorts of things such as communication, energy generation, industry, and more are affected by this. Space travel may not even be necessary.

I don't see why having cool is bad. Nor do I see why we can't have both, as that is what we are doing even now. The manned program is pretty much just cool, and the unmanned program is science. Seeing as how NASA's manned program budget is less than half their total, they're doing more science than stunts. At least if we measure it based on monetary input...

This was a much needed addition. I always found it odd that maneuver nodes told what amount of delta-v was needed but not how much you had. Thanks a whole bunch. Desperately needed indeed. Now I'm thinking about a mission planning tool. Maybe something in mission control (another tab?) that looks like the tracking station view, but instead of vessels it has maneuver nodes and SOI changes. Maybe start off by defining an initial orbit (LKO, stationary orbit, synchronous, etc.) around a specific body and then treat it like map view. Make it so that players can save flight plans and then choose them in flight. Could be useful.

Squees Helmet removal and... Delta V? *passes out*

Make a gmail real quick.

The Martian came somewhat close. Only real issue is the strength of the dust storms. Of course there were production issues and inconsistencies between scenes, but that isn’t anything good editing can’t fix.

Well, the first Death Star destroyed one planet that was somewhat closeby. Starkiller Base destroyed multiple planets from many lightyears away, which would take more energy. Still, a whole star is definitely far fetched. I think it would’ve been more interesting if the Republic’s corruption was shown. Maybe a Republic faction is building their own Death Star or something, all in the name of the greater good.