Thiel

That is how shock heating works.

67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko would seem like an obvious candidate to get added.

Hit the barge, but too hard for survival https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/588076749562318849

I've always built pointy rockets. It's an appealing aesthetic.

Well, rather than resort to mysterious destruction of crops they could try showing themselves.

If you apply lateral forces to real docking ports they break.

Because it's very hard to do in a structurally sound manner. It took years to construct the ISS and it doesn't have to deal with any sort of heavy acceleration.

That really says it all about fluorine chemistry and why you don't want rocket sized tanks of any of it.

I doubt it's going to be an issue. The legs caught fire during take-off. During a real launch they'd be folded away.

Plus it takes power in real life as well.

The ISS doesn't have to undergo any kind of meaningful levels of thrust, a spaceship is.

It's a lot bigger.

I don't know why they chose the Torque3D engine, but as I understand it the physics they're using are completely custom made.

As I understand it, the guys who did much of the soft body physics work have moved their work to the Torque3D engine because CryEngine was too expensive to use.

AFAIK most air breathing proposals falls apart because the rocket doesn't stay in the atmosphere for long enough for it to make sense when you take the added structural weight in to account.

Actually, they're kinda picky on that subject. Aside from the obvious stealth issues, having an engine droning in your ear is less than helpful when using a radio. And they're going to be even more wary of the heat issues since they're likely to operate them in really hot climates. They're also going to be very worried about stuff like dust ingestion and how to get the fuel cannisters out to the troops. Despite their drawbacks, Lithium-Ion batteries does have the advantage that mil-spec chargers will accept just about any combination of voltage and frequency and they're built into just about every vehicle in their arsenal.

Heat management is also going to be a major issue for micro engines. Lithium-Ion batteries can get pretty hot when charging and discharging at high rates and they're about 80-90%. AFAIK the thermal efficiency of those micro engines hasn't been established yet, but your average gasoline powered car engine has an efficiency of about 25-30% when running under optimal load. That means you've got at least seven times as much heat you need to dissipate. Another issue is that the engine needs air to work. What's going to happen if you stuff it in a pocket? Noise and vibration are also going to be an issue. Who is going to buy a noisy phone even if it does have a fabulous "battery" life.

The last two are Asterix and Obelix and Lucky Luke and the Dalton Brothers.

CO2 emmisions scales linearly with fuel consumption. The size of the engine doesn't have anything to do with that. About the power density graph you have to remember that so far we're only capable of accessing 40% of it at most.

How would they have gotten any? As a rule it's a bad idea to be in the splashdown area of large aluminium tubes.

I can see the argument for killing its performance in atmo, but on the other hand ****s and giggles experiments like ion powered planes are a big part of what makes KSP such a great game.

How would that help?

It's not really optional though. You can't update to .24 without getting it.

It quite handy if you have an asymmetrical design.