Codraroll

I'll take your word for it, but in what way is it?

At that point, one almost wonders why they just don't produce a bunch of them (the parts and assembly can't be that expensive once all the design work is complete, right?) and just try to get them to space on other launch vehicles.

Modern rockets use onboard computers for anything from guidance to fuel injection to communication with the ground. Question is, how much computing power/hardware is required to do these tasks, and sent up on a launch? Say, in terms of the capabilities of a modern mid-range laptop (minus, I presume, sound or graphics cards and anything like that), are we talking one tenth the computing power of one, or the combined power of 20? Or in other words, how much gaming fun could you have if you hooked a graphics card and a monitor to a Falcon 9? Are we talking Pong or KSP?

Presumably because a missile full of fuel and oxidizer went off right next to it. If I've understood it correctly, the RTG would be mounted as a heating element in an autonomous launch container to be placed on the seafloor, sort of an underwater, unmanned missile silo. It would keep the missile nice and warm, as the cold of the ocean floor might cause its liquid fuel to clot over time. However, it seems like during a test of this launch container the missile accidentally exploded, breaking the RTG and killing a handful of technicians present on the site. An accidental dirty bomb.

I read this thread this morning, but didn't get a chance to respond before now. Anyway, I think the briefest way to sum it up would be: Draw a border around your ship and any operations you carry out around it. Unless something carrying momentum (that is, mass at a velocity) crosses this border, your ship won't accelerate. As six pages of discussion demonstrates, it can be said more elaborately than that, but this should be the very core of it.

This brings to mind Weir's second book, Artemis, where Kenya (of all places) gets a pretty big leg up in the space race by providing a launch facility on the Equator and basically telling private companies that the red tape doesn't apply there. Then again, I suppose that if you can afford to launch a vessel to space in the first place, you could probably afford the fine too.

Nah, it's just launched in a configuration where the side boosters, the fairings and the second stage are all deployed at the same time...

It's too big to be brought safely back to earth in one piece, it's too expensive to bring back all of it regardless of how many pieces it's cut into, and its utility as a museum piece would be limited anyway (even if you had the exhibition space, it's not like you could do tours in it). If somebody want a full-size ISS on display, building a sufficiently accurate replica would be cheaper by several orders of magnitude. I'd focus on bringing only parts of it back. The cupola is probably the most iconic part of ISS, that thing could be pried off and taken down using a suitable craft. Maybe a solar panel could be folded up and brought back as an exhibition piece too, and all sorts of little interior bits could also be brought down in regular cargo missions. The guitar used by Chris Hadfield in the Space Oddity music video, for instance. The rest of the station would be deorbited piecemeal if I understand the procedure correctly. Yes, most of it would be lost forever, but its life would be well documented, and NASA tends to be good with making replicates of all sorts of flight-ready hardware. Every strap of velcro up there should have a twin somewhere on the ground. If the original is too inconvenient to conserve, at least the twin is stored for posterity.

I wish and hope for some colonization/permanent base rework. It would be so cool to have the option to establish bases (and launch sites) on other bodies, it would be a great reward for interplanetary exploration too as well as making it less intimidating for inexperienced players. It's easier to get to Dres if you start out of Duna, for instance, but it would cost a whole lot more funds to launch even the simplest spacecraft from there, so there would be a tradeoff. Either way, surface bases need some rework. Docking anything on a planetary surface is hellishly complicated, and the bases you end up building look something like oversized LEMs. A more convenient way to assemble surface bases would be really cool.

Off-topic question, but why do you use the spoiler tags so much? I can understand using it to hide pictures or longer paragraphs of text so the post can be scrolled over faster upon repeat page viewings, but for single lines of text I really don't see the purpose.

If I understand correctly, driving a rover on Mars is basically like: "OK, we've spent the past week finishing the terrain survey from the rover's current position, and the third party control agrees it's safe to continue onwards. Today's business for the entire team is making sure the rover traverses the next fifteen centimeters of landscape as calmly and controlled as possible. Maybe we can go ten more centimeters next week if everything goes well." Okay, maybe not that slow, but still, the rovers aren't built for a pace faster than that of a walking plush toy whose batteries are about to run out. How would they handle helicopter operations on a body so much further away than Mars?

SpaceX continues to be so very Kerbal. That 90-degree flip and horizontal flight across the surface is something I've done a lot of times in that game. RUD at the end and all.

Speaking of, wouldn't it be a good idea to rename the thread accordingly? "Boeing CST-100 Starliner" would work as a thread title, alternately with "discussion thread" at the end. Which moderator would we have to tag to get it done?

From what we've seen of construction at the Cosmodromes, this part seems credible and likely to happen. This part does not.

In completely unrelated news, might it be time to take the bit in brackets out of this thread title? It's not like the thread is that new anymore (two years and a month) and nobody would confuse it for the old thread anyway since that one seems to be lost.

The problem with using funny names arises when a tragedy occurs. It would suck to hear that three astronauts had been killed in a fire aboard a capsule named something corny like I'd like to buy that for a dollar. Or can you imagine a newscaster trying to solemnly break the news of a fire costing 25 lives aboard the expedition vessel Boaty McBoatface? People still talk about the tragic loss of the Edmund Fitzgerald, would they remember the lives lost as much if the ship had been named Chewbacca? Funny names are fine for unmanned probes or service vessels, but once you risk tying the fate of people to the vessel, something that can be said in a somber tone is to be preferred. Just in case.

Have you never had that issue before? When it comes to updating, the typical computer is like a six-month old baby who needs to pee. When it wants to, it does, and no force in Heaven or Hell can stop it. Doesn't matter if you're having an important presentation, the deadline is coming up to submit your thesis, or you're about to launch a rocket into space. Nobody can predict when an update will come, but when it comes, you can't stop it.

Looks like the tape is used to fasten a sensor cord or something. The engine looks as if it's mounted on a test stand.

You're new to the Internet, aren't you?

I can imagine it now, somewhere in the spacecraft there's a bathtub-sized chest filled to the brim with micro SD cards, each carefully labelled with a small letter code, maybe colour coded too. Strapped to its side, a phone book-sized index detailing what is found on each card. Finding the right card for what you want to watch would be like finding a particular piece of LEGO in a chock-full ball pit.

Why even use a second craft? Couldn't a buoy on a long line with a reel attached to the barge do approximately the same job?

Coming to this forum to try to convince people that the moon landing happened is sort of like walking into a pet store to try to convince the staff there that cats exist. You're kicking in very open doors.

Rocket launches to the moon isn't exactly something you can do in secret. Even in the early 70's.

Up to 100 %, depending on your definition of "something".

Whoever lands next on the Moon, I think it will ultimately be China who makes them go there. If the Chinese economy was to dip, or social unrest began to stir, announcing a Moon landing would be a very useful thing to re-ignite some national pride and faith in the Chinese government. A reminder of national grandeur for the population to rally behind. Unlike the various American players, China actually has a reason to launch a Moon program. Sure, NASA and co. would probably like the PR, but they're in no hurry and the benefits aren't quite justifying the costs. But China would use it to divert attention from really pressing matters, they could feasibly be put in a situation where they "need" to land on the Moon. The US government would probably take it as a challenge, though, and get the private companies stirring to get there first. So they could probably win another Moon race, but they wouldn't be the ones to initiate it.