Mr. Peabody

Last night's Superbowl was one of the most unusual games I can remember. Naturally, since I am originally from the state of Georgia, I was routing for their team, the Atlanta Falcons. The first 3 quarters of the game looked very promising for the Falcons as they posted a 28-9 lead over the New England Patriots at the end of the third quarter. However, in the fourth quarter the Patriots made a stunning comeback scoring touchdown after touchdown and surging into the lead with just 3 minutes left in the game! The Patriots eventually won the Superbowl with a final score of 38-24. I'm not sure if this is exactly how it happened but my only explanation for this is that the Patriots must have been holding back until the fourth quarter putting their best players on the field at the last moment, while the Falcons withdrew some of their best players from the field thinking they had the game in the bag. Congratulations to all you New Englanders. Hopefully the Falcons will have a better season this year. No, I'm not a football fanatic.

Thank you so much! I wasn't aware "take command" had been updated.

I'm not sure if everyone feels the same as I do, but I think command seats should be treated as regular command modules. I use command seats regularly when I need a light weight control system for a boat or a small vessal and its a real pain having to EVA a kerbal to board a command seat if its the only control system on the vessal. There is already a mod that treats command seats as regular command modules called "take command", but it only supports v1.1 as far as I know.

I'm aware that that most people on this forum are probably astronomy buffs, so you probably know about some of these already, but just in case there's some you haven't heard of here's the list of the top 7. February 11th: Comet 45P/HMP will be making its closest approach to earth. February 26th: Astronomy lovers in the southern hemisphere will see an annular solar eclipse, aka a "ring of fire eclipse". March 29th: Mercury, Mars, and the Moon will all be close together in the sky. Mercury will also be in its highest and brightest position in the sky. April 10th: Jupiter will reach its opposition and pair up with the Moon and Spica, the lead star in the constellation Virgo. August 21st: Much of North America will experience a total solar eclipse as the sun darkens daylight skies in a narrow swath from Oregon to South Carolina. November 13th: Jupiter will pair up with Venus low on the horizon creating a spectacular conjunction. December 13th: The beautiful Geminid meteor shower will reach its peak activity close to midnight when the waning crescent moon will depart the night sky. Be sure to mark your calendar!

I love watching live rocket launches. It's just amazing when you think that this vehicle that will launch in just a couple minutes will carry its payload all the way to earth orbit. The whole launch really excites me, almost as much as 4th of July fireworks.

One of the things I really like to do in KSP is build boats and ships. One of these days I'm going to launch one to Laythe and do that challenge.

Rest in peace Gene Cernan.

202,586 people initially applied to go to mars. Volunteers are not a problem. Isn't that a cool looking poster?

I don't think living on mars would be at all boring. At least for the first few decades there would be a lot of exploring and colony expansion. Also, what young person wouldn't jump at the chance to be one of the few humans to live on and explore mars? I know I would. I would also argue that mars explorers would have social contact with earth through satellite internet (eventually) and radio communication. As for "comfortable" stuff, if the early colonists never left their comfortable couches to go on an uncomfortable voyage to the new world where would we be now?

No, they should put an easter egg in the form of a golden nose, because Tycho Brahe lost his nose in an accident and it was replaced with a gold one.

I agree with you there. Outposts should be built on the moon first so that problems can be quickly resolved without excessively risking astronauts lives. After we have learned how to build a outpost on the moon, we'll be ready to build an outpost and eventually a colony on mars. Veeltch, morality isn't being "natural", its the difference between right and wrong. I'm not saying that any of the above mentioned things are necessarily wrong, just that we will have to decide whether or not we want them.

I thought I'd make a thread highlighting some of the the problems that future mars colonists might face. The first problem that would need to be overcome would be how the colony would be re-supplied until it became self sufficient. Re-supply missions might take as long as 16 months to reach mars, deliver its cargo, and return to earth. Unless a new engine technology were perfected, such as EM drive, a large fleet of re-usable spacecraft would need to be built to re-supply the colony. Another problem is more on the moral side. Assuming the colony was built, what kind of laws would be made to protect the colonists, and how would these laws be enforced? Should the colonists be medically altered to adapt them more for a life in space? Children born on mars might never be able to return to earth because their weaker skeletal and muscular systems might be fatally damaged by earth's higher gravity. Mars colonists would have a much higher risk of cancer due to higher radiation levels. In a closed environment such as a habitation module or, eventually a closed cell city, with so many colonists close together, would epidemics would be much more prone to occur? I don't mean to be pessimistic, I am totally in favor of a mars colony, but these are all unanswered questions that will need to be addressed before such an undertaking. We are at a crossroads, both technologically and morally and our decision will impact future generations for decades to come. My question is, which way, humanity?

I visited Duna today, besides working on a SSTO VTOl similar to Thunderbird2. Who else loves Thunderbirds Are Go?

Sounds like an interesting idea. I may try it the next time I'm on KSP.