Jonboy

Well, some folks like to ask for advice from others before entering a new community. Every community is different, and each has different standards and vibes. But the real intention was to open a dialogue on what others want to see from the community, especially in light of the recent fuss about 1.0x, not to gather advice on how to make people like me.

I'm genuinely jealous that you get to play that much.

That has yet to be demonstrated. Nobody's ever built a system with no inputs but H2O and CO2 that can sustain life long-term. Edit: I'm not saying it's impossible I'm just saying it's really, really tough. And clearly beyond our current abilities.

Yes, I've noticed this issue when trying to store a Mun rover in a 2.5 meter service bay. I suspect part clipping was causing the thing to gyrate and flip over like crazy. The thing was a veritable Kraken machine. Be careful with those service bays.

I'm fairly new to the forum. Lately it seems like there's been quite a bit of complaining about the new aero and other aspects of 1.02. There have been a lot of duplicate threads and people annoyed at each other. My question for you is: how can someone like myself, a relatively new user, be good member of the community? What specific tips would you give to a new member? What is the role of criticism, both of the developers and of other users? How can all members work together to maintain a positive community? I would really like to hear your input and put it to use. Just make sure that your comments are positive. In other words, don't complain about what other users are doing. Instead, tell us what you think they should be doing instead.

If everything goes perfectly. Unfortunately, delays are almost inevitable when it comes to this kind of thing. Besides, the Falcon 9 still isn't human-rated after several years, and one would expect the Falcon Heavy to have to fly many times and jump through many hoops before being allowed to take humans to LEO, much less the moon. First off, Dragon V2 hasn't even flown yet. Second, SpaceX has not manufactured a satellite for a customer. The cargo Dragon delivers and returns a payload to the ISS, and they are payed to do this by NASA. They launch satellites for a variety of organizations, and they are payed to do this. For all of Elon's talk of going to Mars, SpaceX doesn't go anywhere yet unless someone is paying them to.

No, you can't be self-sufficient. There's an absolute dearth of usable resources. There are no incentives to live in a Venus airship except scientific research. Again, this is the only reason to live on Venus. But, as you pointed out, the challenges are significant and beyond our present abilities.

Is KSP fun? I think so. Do you? If not, you don't need to play it anymore. I am certain you could overcome your issues with aerodynamics in 1.02, just like thousands of us have, and continue having just as much fun as you did before the update. Or you can complain about it on the forum.

Suspended in clouds of sulferic acid dozens of miles above the most inhospitable solid planet in the solar system is better than standing on the ground on Earth? I mean yeah, natural disasters happen on Earth but it's still safer than a Venus cloud colony could be for a long time.

The next sentence makes it clear he's making a joke, one that I appreciated.

Exactly. Mars is just a little farther away, but has about the same amount of land as Earth, water in the poles and underground, and is much easier to return from. I'm not saying living on Mars is easy, but compared to Venus it's a vacation.

You're right, of course. It would have been more accurate for me to say that death would be caused by suffocation, I was speaking colloquially.

Well, most of the heat is due to the greenhouse effect from the atmosphere, not proximity to the sun.

Here's something a little easier, albeit crazy. An airship colony, filled with normal, breathable atmosphere, would naturally float high in Venus's clouds right at the point where atmospheric pressure is 1.0 atmosphere. With this setup, there's no need to design a vessel that can withstand a withering 90 atmospheres of pressure, or even the engineering challenge of preventing the inside air from venting out (as you must do in normal spaceflight in a vacuum). And at that altitude, temperatures on Venus are a balmy 32 degrees Celsius. The main problem, of course, is preventing the sulfuric acid from eating straight through your colony. Of course, it was the Russians who came up with this idea.

Steam says 1,200 hours.

It's not an exaggeration to say that the surface of Venus is a real life hell. The average temperature on the surface is 850 degrees Fahrenheit. The atmospheric pressure is 90 times that on Earth's surface. Down low, the atmosphere is almost entirely poisonous carbon dioxide, and higher atmosphere consists of clouds of sulfuric acid. It would be difficult enough to design a spacecraft that could keep humans alive during the decent and for any period of time after the landing without the entire vessel being crushed under the weight of the atmosphere. But any craft that landed with humans would want to return again. Venus has a thick atmosphere and gravity that is almost as great as Earth's. So you would also have to have an ascent stage, making the engineering challenges even more insurmountable. Tldr; Not for hundreds or thousands of years, if ever.

Eh, only in sci-fi (or Latin).

How does ancient fascination with Sirius prove anything about an orbital relationship to the Sun? You're ignoring the obvious explanation, which is that it's the brightest star in the night sky. Of course the ancients were fascinated by it; start brightness was the only metric by which we could measure stars until parallax measurement was first proven in 1838.

Clearly Squad is broken then, and we must fix them. /s

Seems like there has to be a thread at all times discussing "realism vs gameplay" and how Squad completely destroyed any sense of balance between the two with 1.0x. Seriously, this conversation has been had so many times in the last month, do we have to do it again?

Fuel depot in LKO, Eve Return, Jool-5 Grand Tour...

Just Over the Mun's East Crater: Valentina: Ascension 18 to KSC, how do you read? KSC: Uh, we read you loud and clear Ascension. Valentina: Altitude 5,000 meters and dropping. KSC: You are go for manual. Repeat, go for manual. Valentina: Roger that, KSC, I'm flying the lander now. Visibility is dropping to near-zero as the crater rim occludes the sun. How's my attitude, Lancas? Lancas: You're dead-on for yaw. Roll left two degrees, pitch up three degrees ... perfect. Surface velocity 150 meters per second. Valentina: KSC, we have a visual on East Crater Outpost. Altitude 2,000 meters and dropping, throttle at 100%. KSC: Attitude looks good, Val, continue with the slow pitch-up. Valentina: 500 meters at 20 meters per second ... 200 at 15 ... 50 at 5 ... landing light is on. We're on the surface, KSC. KSC: Good work boys ... er, and girls. Lancas: KSC, I'm looking out to the east right now. I can see the MOLAB about 15 meters away. The EMH is about 10 meters past that. The lights are on, looks like they're welcoming us home. One Week Earlier: With a thundering roar, the unmanned Sarnus V rocket pushed itself through the clouds, the fairing shroud concealing the cargo within. Since Ascension 11 had first landed on the Mun, there had been six more missions to the Munar surface. All but Ascension 13 went smoothly, and due to the ingenuity of the crew and Mission Control, even that crippled mission returned the kerbanauts home unharmed. With the Sarnus V having more than proved itself as a reliable workhorse, it was decided to revisit some of the initial plans for the ascension mission. Initially, it was assumed that each Mun mission would take two Sarnus V rockets to complete, with the first sending a MOLAB (Mobile Laboratory) pressurized rover along with other hardware for an extended Munar stay. The second launch would bring the crew in the MEM, where they would perform a precision landing next to the MOLAB. Unlike the Ascension 11-17 missions, where the kerbanauts only stayed on the surface for a few days at the most, these missions would have explored the surface for weeks, or even months. With the tiny battery-powered Munar Rover, Kerbals could only explore about 3 square kilometers around the MEM; with the MOLAB that would be increased to almost 1300 square kilometers. Ascension 18 (featuring Extended Stay, Mun Base, MOLAB) Phase A: Ascension 18 would consist of three total launches, or phases. Phase A consisted of a Sarnus V launch lifting the MOLAB and EMH (Extended Munar Habitat) all the way to Low Munar Orbit, where they separately descended to the surface under their own power. The MOLAB was powered by RTGs for reliability and contains a complete mobile geological lab for inspecting samples. The EMH is a two-story "Mun house", solar powered and capable of sustaining Kerbals for extended periods. With all systems operating nominally at the newly established East Crater Outpost, the go-ahead was given for the next launch, which would bring the crew to the surface. Phase B: Ascension 18 would break dozens of records with its extended Munar stay and improved research capabilities; but it would also bring the first female Kerbal to space. Valentina Kerman, a rival of Jebediah and experienced Air Force test pilot, was finally selected for an Ascension mission (KSP officials assured us it had nothing to do with a rumored KCLU lawsuit). Lancas Kerman would accompany her on Phase B, the month-long surface exploration, and Phildred Kerman would return the first CSM to Kerbin (nobody wants to stay in Munar orbit for a month in what's essentially a compact car). Phase B was essentially a normal Ascension mission profile, but with a precision landing bringing the MEM within a few meters of the East Crater Outpost. Once the crew was safely on the ground, thanks to Valentina's hours of practice is the simulators back home, Phildred performed the TKI burn and arrived home several hours later. Meanwhile, on the surface, Val and Lancas performed detailed checks of the MOLAB and moved into the EMH, which would be their home over the next month. Over the course of Phase B, several extended rover trips were performed, some lasting several days. The crew visited craters up to 20 kilometers away from the Outpost, and Lancas, an experienced geologist, gathered a trove of information that will help Kerbal scientists discover the history of the Mun's formation. Phase C: As Val and Lancas wrapped up their surface stay, a final Sarnus V was launched, this one with no MEM and only Bill Kerman at the helm of the CSM. After the TMI burn and Munar orbit insertion, the crew on the ground gathered their supplies and powered down the MOLAB and EMH, which would remain for use by future scientific expeditions. Entering the MEM, the Ascent Stage blasted the two Kerbals into Munar orbit, where they were picked up by Bill. One last TKI burn sent the CSM cruising back to Kerbin, where they splashed down under parachutes and awaited pickup by the Kerbal Navy. Val and Lancas had lived on the Mun for over a month. Where others had only visited the Mun's surface, they had vacationed there. But the boys back at Mission Control already have their sights on greater, more distant goals - Duna and Eve. Scoring: I was a little confused about the wording of the Apollo Applications Program section of the OP. It says that you have to do one AAP mission, and then it says to add 20 points for each additional mission. So it seems to me that reading it literally, if you do one mission, you get 0 points, and if you do two missions, you get 20 points. I'm not sure if that's how GregroxMun intends for it to work. Either way, I completed the parameters for the Munar Base and the MOLAB projects in this mission report, and I'll let him score it as he sees fit. Previous & Future Ascension Program Reports: Normal Apollo Program - Eve Flyby - Duna Flyby & Landing

Well, if you want to continue playing Kerbal Space Program, you will keep trying and eventually learn the new aero. Remember how tough it was to learn to get to orbit when you first started playing KSP? This is even easier because only a few things have changed, plus there are dozens of tutorials and videos to help you out. You have a couple options. You can politely ask on the forums for advice, maybe posting pictures of your rocket designs, and folks will be happy to help. Or if you truly think it isn't worth the effort, then you could just stop playing KSP and do something else with your time that you enjoy more. But instead of either of those, you're complaining on the forum and saying that "you don't know what to do" and that you're "desperate". Sorry if this comes across as harsh, but I just don't think this post is productive.

That's actually really interesting, but I'd never heard of it before. Do you have a source? I'd like to read about it in detail.

If I'm not mistaken, the focus for the Apollo Application Program interplanetary missions was manned spaceflight. Hence the use and reuse of Apollo hardware.