Mike Scudder

You all may have noticed the recently reported discovery of a cold (-13 degrees C) brown dwarf only 7.2 light years from earth. I really like the idea of a cold brown dwarf out in the equivalent of the Oort cloud, with moons (or would they be planets?) with a frozen ice surface that could be landed on. And to have it come with a electrolysis plant stock part so you can manufacture your return fuel from the ice.

Doing it as an exciting bit of game play would be the real reason. As for the excuse, the space race scenario is one case where you want to get to your science before your opponent does. Another reason in the upcoming tycoon mode might be to save on outsourced recovery costs, if there is a price to be paid for recovering craft which depends on distance from the launch facility.

1. The TT18-A Launch Stability Enhancer defaults to the first stage. Almost always this is where it is wanted. 2. When a sub-assembly is added to the base of the central core, the stage sequences are not jumbled together 3. The ability to select from the column of stage parts on the right the part you want to attach to next

A real life rather neat technique used in the Corona program was snagging parachuting capsules before they hit the earth. A trapeze with winch could be added to the parts for jet aircraft, perhaps a sample return capsule as well, one that wouldn't go onto rails and be eliminated if it got too far from its ship. It could receive a bonus of some sort on science return.

A bumper using the same mechanism would be nice. So that falling parts that impact other parts could bounce rather than break.