wumpus

Solid rockets might not be that odd (the most primitive gunpowder types have existed for centuries). Also remember that the capsules need only survive re-entry into a planet with ~3km/s delta-v to LKO not ~9km/s to LEO. Also, I don't think a kerbal year is that long: Kerbin's rotation is a bit faster. If you want things to prepare, download and install the realism overhaul set of mods. It will just work. Otherwise just set the date at sometime in the 1950s and don't sweat the speed you advance at (it will match history about as well as the tiny ultra-dense planets match our solar system and kerbals match human biology).

Thor save us all if it is an ice giant... Then again, I don't think Thor favored those who didn't trust in their own might as well, better do it ourselves.

While this looks more like a mod than part of the game, I'd suggest that Squad at least think about this type of thing (piracy vs. shipping and planetary navies vs. pirates) for some hypothetical KSP 2.0. It might at least lead them to an good game.

Nobody has posted this yet?:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uLvynZjMWM What forum am I on? (hint, it is a "Scott Manley talks into the camera" video).

The moon (and to a lesser extent the Earth) show some pretty big craters. Presumably plenty of asteroids *did* hit. If one of them grazed the atmosphere *just* right, it could presumably be captured. Note that aerobraking and location of deceleration only define apogee, and the remaining velocity will determine perigee. It hardly mandates being inside of the Roche limit. That being said, my guess is that this would work for Phobos and Deimos, with the moon (and maybe some others) generated from the original planets and the rest captured via 3+ body gravitation (and note that Phobos and Deimos have iffy futures). I guess a better question is "how many moons are stuck in Saturn-Titan Lagrange points"? That appears to be a natural spot for gravity-captured moons to wind up. Jupiter's big moons are tied together, making such things complicated. I'd also have to wonder what should be in Earth's. It might not have the size of Saturn, nor a neighbor like Jupiter, but wouldn't it accumulate some stuff in the (stable) Lagrange points?

Assuming the freighters are using Hohmann transfers, the obvious/easy way is before transit burns/after capture burns (everything beyond this assumes Hohmann transfers: shipping freight historically is done on the cheap, and our pirates can assume this doesn't change). Docking with a ship on a Hohmann transfer is another story. If you know the schedule, it is much easier: you just match the transfer (if you need to stay out of controlled space expect to pay a lot for lack of the Oberth effect). If the freighters know that pirates are out there, they won't publish a schedule but will still likely all launch within a week or so (note to pirates: the freighters are likely in a convoy). Assuming your spies know when the convoy launches, they can make an appropriate correction burn to intercept within a month or two. Note that if it makes much economic sense at all to launch freighters (we are assuming a Somalia situation instead of something like the Battle of the Atlantic where ships were lucky to make it across), the pirates can afford to make corrections for a late intercept and assume the freighters aren't yet looted. I'm guessing the thing to do is fire up KSP with hyperedit and see where you can generate intercepts to Hohmann transfers. My guess is that you might want a pirate base on something like a leading or trailing orbit of Earth or Mars. Ideally you would want an orbit similar to a Hohmann transfer that would line up (have a low delta-v to intercept) to Hohmann transfers during proper (least delta-v) approach. Note that pirates might have to make interesting choices between preying on Earth-Mars traffic vs. Earth-Venus traffic: presumably Mars has longer times between transfers and thus clumps the convoys up more. I doubt either planet gives a good place to keep a base that allows low delta-v per launch (although I think Earth-Venus has annual transfers: it sounds like there might be an orbit that could exploit that - of course, being too obvious means the Solar Patrol finds your base...). - [edit] Note I'm assuming that Aldrin cyclers won't match the freighter schedules, but I really don't understand Aldrin cyclers. My guess is that the freighter owners will plot the orbits of lost freighters and figure out fast which cycle paths the attacks are coming from, so the most efficient base is probably not the best one.

The [maximum] ISP of a NERVA using water would roughly be the same as the ISP of LH/LOX (same output), but I can't vouch for getting the same temperature (LH/LOX temperatures are limited by materials science, so that's your max ISP). Presumably H2O is easier to find than H2, it might be worth it (well, easier to find outside of massive gravity wells). Of course, if you didn't care how long it took your solar panels [or RTGs] to crack the water to hydrogen before starting your burn (it isn't efficient at all, and commercial H2 production cracks methane or other hydrocarbons), you would never bother with water.

Note that this ignores aerobraking. A planet can capture a moon on its own if it dips into the atmosphere (assuming it has one). I'd expect that real n-body physics is more likely involved in most captures (I'm curious to know if asteroids with moons involved capture or break up).

Pros/Cons of various stuff. Ion drives (most electrics here): Pro - great ISP, will deliver anything with minimal extra fuel schlepped up Earth's gravity well. Bigger Pro: actually exists and used twice in space. Cons - slow. Do not expect them to deliver humans (delivering chemical/hybrid rockets to deliver humans is another story). Will not escape Mars's gravity well. Might have trouble with Mars capture. Uses Xenon (but since you would need a more powerful system anyway, it should be possible to use argon instead (argon is less efficient, but more common than CO2 on Earth). Other electrics: Pro - great ISP. Much faster, might even deliver humans. Cons - don't exist yet. Delivery of humans probably requires solar arrays significantly larger than ISS has, and even larger cooling arrays. Chemical Pro - actually exists. If combined with electrical can overcome most of electrical's problems (this may require hybrid solid/liquid rockets for long-term storage in outer space). Note that current plans include mining the oxygen (the heavy part) from the Mars atmosphere for Mars liftoff (H2 delivery will be hairy. Any to-be-designed zero-boiloff system *will*not*work* for the H2 sent into re-entry for liftoff. You will have a tiny launch window from sending the stuff down to launching the return home rocket, and nearly all the H2 will be boiled off in the process. Using RP1 might make more sense by the time the whole system is designed). Cons - massive to the point of failure. Note that storing hydrogen for the return trip may be unfeasible (nobody has yet designed a working zero-boiloff system). Nuclear: Pro: great ISP Cons: Political boogy-man makes this a non-starter (media reports of protests over RTGs exist, NERVAs would be much worse). H2 issues also apply (see chemical).

I'd strongly recommend higher TWR. The Terrier has lots of advantages in limiting gravity losses, especially if you aren't coming down at a completely sideways angle. Also if you are using lander cans, are you using a NERV to get a larger "command module" to orbit around the Mun? Maybe a command module around Kerbin (keep it just for reentry). Remember you are wasting half your thrust while thrusting vertical at TWR=2.0 Anywhere close to that and a higher engine is better. Other issues: mk1 capsule: best for Kerbin re-entry. Does not need any docking gear (both docking ports, RCS modules, RCS tanks, lights on both ships...). Allows science dance when landed. landercans: tricky for Kerbin re-entry (I'm not sure how to keep them hot side down). Allows science dance. command chair: not for Kerbin re-entry. Does not allow science dance. At .1 tons makes landing trivial (but not always docking afterwards). Nerva engine: can haul from kerbin circularization (and probably a bit of ascent as well, just don't push it) to landing and back with minimal fuel (and thus mass for first stage). Note that if you use side tanks for stability and landing on the Mun, you might be able to pull off a single drop tank above your capsule (connected to the side tanks by fuel pipe) and drop that after circularization and/or munar insertion burn. You will likely want to build a landing structure (legs won't reach past the nerva engine) unless your balance is really good (last I looked finding a flat zone on the Mun was *hard*). There is a lot to say for the Nerva engine, but mostly it is getting to the Mun. If you can get the mass low enough for a decent TWR, it is ideal. If you have airbrakes, consider using a landercan and returning with the NERVA (don't think its possible without airbrakes, maybe behind a heat shield and large tailfin structure). Otherwise I would recommend just using the mk1 capsule and terrier (note the tricks with side+top tanks still work with the terrier, and are probably needed even more). The spark is for the last bit of landing, while the terrier can get you all the way to the Mun (although probably isn't for much of Kerbin circularization, much less ascent).

Since the stuff is hypergolic with itself, the rocket is ignited the moment fueling starts. Presumably the launch clamps have to hold it down until liftoff. It should act more or less similar to a chemical rocket (the uncontrollable burn part, not so much the fuel it up part), but I don't think the radioactive emissions would work well with a bell nozzle. It was not ever suggested as a real rocket fuel, more an answer to how you could get lots of crazy properties together in as few materials as possible. On second thought, presumably radioactive heating would detonate the ozone (no mater what magical means otherwise preventing ozone self detonation), and it would be all over then.

Note that for engines much larger than 1.25, landing struts won't reach from the fuel tanks to the engine. If you aren't interested/can't afford the scaffolding needed to build proper landing gear (or your rocket is too tall to land on all but the flattest areas), water landings are great. That big old booster that makes up your last stage to orbit? Slap on a few airbrakes, a few parachutes, and drop it in the drink (hopefully near KSC). Don't bother with complicated landing gear or trying to find that absolutely flat plane near KSC, anywhere at sea will do. You can probably do it with even less parachutes.

As a vacation joint, it would be so for asteroid miners. At a half-million a pop (from Earth), it won't be a destination for the .01%ers after the first few .1%ers scrounge up enough money to go. The real kicker is I don't see any reasons for humans to be onsite for asteroid mining (which might barely make sense now if you drop entire asteroids on reasonably safe trajectories onto Earth). On the other hand, there is always the question of who would immigrate to Mars, and what type of IP such a colony would produce. I'm still in the camp that it is Vineland and we are Vikings: we really can't afford to go that far.

Wouldn't an Xbox controller be ideal? You might want to put it down for anything but docking, but any console game controller with a USB connector (and drivers) should work.

I followed some links on the crazier ideas and ran into a usenet* discussion of the "most mad science rocket fuel ever". The idea was called O15. The idea was to take the isotope O15 and form it into ozone (don't do this. I'm sure this thread notes that concentrated O3 explodes on it's own). Now O15 has a half-life of about 2 minutes, and then decays into N. NO2 and O3 are hypergolic, so it reacts immediately. It also turns out that any release from that reaction doesn't compare to the O15->N decay, so it is pretty moot. Also nobody really explains where all the O15 comes from (of course, LH2 has similar issues and has to be topped off fast on the launchpad. It just makes O15 that crazier since you can't use it for outer space burns.) * and recalled at least two names from rec.arts.sf-lovers and comp.arch.

There should be means around much of the hydraulics. You would use freely swinging control levels connected to the controlled control lever (similar to how rudders can be made to work on large ships). Presumably the smaller controls can be directly controlled at the source (some sort of strong servo). The real issue is where all your R&D goes. Space X is putting it all into the Merlin* engine and rocket controls. This keeps their vision on tract and keeps any gained knowledge in house. Going with wings and replacing hydraulics keeps piling problems on top of problems, none of which matter at all in the long view of space flight. My understanding is that this was how the shuttle was originally planned (well there were plenty of proposals that look like this, I'm sure there were SSTO proposals as well, but this looks like it would have worked). Presumably in the 1970s it would have required manned controls in the first stage (or not, Buran flew entirely unmanned), and flown down. Considering that the Shuttle landed from orbit, this was presumably possible, but more expensive (for the first article) than a single shuttle. * and of course other engines. But keeping the focus on the existing parts keeps the same scientists and engineers focused on all their big problems. But I'm sure they spent the first few years investigating all the different ways to come down (the original design used parachutes. I'm pretty sure it took some severe convincing by repeated failure that retrorockets beat parachutes).

The name asparagus staging predates KSP by roughly a decade (or at least a description of the concept using the word "asparagus"). The concept is older than sputnik. Thread where I post a description of asparagus staging from 1953.

I wouldn't be too surprised if they couldn't retrofit a 1.1 falcon9 right now (all the tooling being changed to 1.2). They might be able to launch the thing as planned (gas and go), but there is no way that anyone would buy a launch it for even half the going rate of a 1.2. Landing the thing was an R&D exersize. February's* booster might possibly be re-used, but that is likely pushing it. * One of the next launches goes back to land, and I think another one is simply expended. Not sure which is which.

While fog might only occur at Vandenburg during winter, the Falcon typically launches in Florida. Dealing with humidity has to be normal operation. I'd still expect ice to have issues with direct contact with flames (although it doesn't work quite as well as you would think. In that situation the ice needs to go all the way to a gas to leave, requiring two phase conversions. Expect a lot of heat transfer required for even a little bit of ice). I still think that requiring the latch to work to avoid excess travel on the legs was the real cause of this failure. Not sure how much it will weigh to avoid it, and how many other places ice could cause similar problems (mostly with keeping the legs from extending at all).

Some notes: Icing has to do with altitude. While I'm not certain where the barge was, the flight launched in Vandenburg CA (a bit north of Santa Barbara) and was heading south. I'm guessing it was at least off the coast of Los Angeles if not further south of that. The recovered rocket is covered with scorch marks. The rocket is falling directly into the retro-rocket flames and at some point they cover the rocket. You have to wonder how the ice managed to form. Any de-icing solution would either be blown off on the way up or burned off on the way down. Spraying the legs on the way down seems an over-engineering nightmare. I'm curious what they mean by "latched". I'm an EE, so really don't know how landing legs are designed, but my instinct would be to have the things "failsafe" by limiting travel to full extension. I'd also expect the things to latch (at full extension) coming down, but what I saw wasn't the leg not opening all the way, but extending past enough to support the rocket. My guess is that this is what will be done next time (and it will weigh more. Which means they might not be able to do it until Falcon Heavy launches and they can retire Falcon9-expendable).

Don't listen to NFL announcers: "touchdowned" would be the least of their crimes against English. I can see Elon Musk having the same issue with Kerbal lawyers as Scott Manley's recent "space ships are serious business" youtube run ("what do you mean I had to maintain it for 10 seconds").

I still think they need to ditch the barge (or at least stabilize it), but that looks exactly like the failure description: landed, and then fell over on the failed leg. Of course, I wonder how well they can test that "weld the legs on" bit in rough weather.

This is probably true for the states (at least after a quick check I thought so), but it looks like in the UK R9 270s are hard to find, but R7 370s run the same price as the GTX 750 TIs. I'm pretty sure the AMD cards are a notch or two faster, but will pull something like 150W (maximum) vs. half that or so from the 750Ti. If you don't have a lot of reserve power in your supply, the Nvidia will keep you happy. I go here: https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/ for quick and dirty price checks, especially for places outside my country (can't vouch for accuracy in the UK, but you can typically click on the US prices and get the price they are claiming.

There are plenty of reasons to use electric power once you are in orbit. Mainly because solar panels and RTGs keep producing electricity without requiring any [more] mass. Most of the suggestions for using electricity to send spacecraft into orbit are mainly about not encumbering the spacecraft with the weight of the fuel (and engines). Electric propulsion means then include blasting the thing into space via laser (/maser choose whatever EM wave is efficient), railguns (all the problems of a cannon, with vastly higher cost), and probably even less sane ideas. The bit with the laser might even make sense, but I wouldn't be surprised if its harder than a space elevator in practice.

Wouldn't a black hole inside Kerbin be stable for a fairly long time? Not long enough for Kerbals to evolve from non-life (billions of years) but possibly thousands to tens of thousands of years? The problem with this is that *every* planet has a black hole in it. The worst would be Kerbol: you would probably need a fairly big black hole just to keep the fusion going. I like to think that they have neutron star material cores, but don't really believe that the stuff is stable without the huge gravitational pressures holding it together. Maybe there are some stable elements in the next row of the Periodic Table.