Earthlinger

I finished the designs for the Kerbin sea circumnavigation a couple of months back so I maaayyy put out something in the coming weeks.

Uh. About that. I made some boats and planes. However, it's exam season, and I don't want my limited free time to go to KSP, so I won't be playing for at least a month.

But...why?

*Bows* @Stormpilot As it turns out the name 'Rasputin' is not taken. There is however a Rasputnik, which is very clever...

Buncha paid-off judges, those, it must have been rigged

I'm back with more boats (and a plane). Boat is a WIP. The plane is a final product. I'd like to complain about how difficult it is to get a VTOL to land on a platform with minimal wiggle room. I'm probably going to noodle out the back of the boat until my rear stops clenching while trying to align the docking ports...

With...Sidewinders?

*Last visited March 31* Oh dear

I'm studying (undergraduate) molecular and cell biology with the aim of working in this and I've gotten the (admittedly fairly superficial) impression that it's happening a lot faster than most people think. I don't think it's going to be a gradual, high-publicity thing like fusion that builds up over decades. More likely than not it'll be research done quietly (relative to the general public, at least) until one day someone publishes an experiment featuring mice that simply do not die of old age. That being said the group that does this might not even publish if it's that sudden. There was some research that demonstrated the restoration (or outright generation) of fertility in infertile horses or some such thing, and the group involved has sat on their data for years because it's so controversial. There's also some poaching going on where companies set up by high-profile individuals (e.g. Altos Labs by Jeff Bezos) have been going around recruiting prominent researchers. I doubt Jeff's ability to sit on data as big as what they might eventually find, though.

Evolution.

Ah it'll chug along. In any case here's another plane: Carrier-compatible VTOL, 20k ΔV altogether, though this is in reality less as some liquid fuel has to be kept aside for the aerospikes. The intended operating procedure is to have them splash down into the water, then sidle up to the carrier deck and step up onto it with the aerospikes. It's a bit difficult to get them to align properly, but it's manageable. The carrier in the picture is a work in progress; I might make it a little bit wider so that the planes have more elbow room. And of course the superstructure is missing (as is hopefully evident).

Wow that is far more than I would have guessed was possible. This is an interesting challenge, I might try it...

This thread is oddly inactive. I have made a prototype VTOL: It can also dock to a carrier to refuel. At least in theory. I haven't tried yet.

I built this bugger: Still a prototype. It's possibly about as small as a carrier-compatible VTOL can get. Took a bit of tinkering to get the rocket engines to line up with the CoM and at present if it consumes too much liquid fuel and oxidizer combined, it moves backwards a little bit, but it's workable. Besides that I'm not sure I like the look of the radial intake. Might move it up a bit. I also wish there was a fin small enough to attach to the back, because the way it tapers downwards itches me the wrong way Anyways I built this thing because the scale between navy ships and planes is kind of off. You can make full-fledged boats that look massive, but drop a plane next to them and you'll find the wingspan is greater than the breadth of the ship. Irrespective of how small you get with Mk2 parts, a plane will always end up looking gigantic on top of a ship, unless the hull alone is well into 100+ parts. And so....navy gnats.