M5000

My first SSTO looked like this: Your SSTO is quite more impressive as far as "actually reusable" goes...

Fear not, for I myself had 350ish posts and several reputation points. Time to rebuild.

There's been a lot of negativity lately with this whole thingymabober with the forum. I think we need a bit of cheering up. Let's uh, talk it out in a positive and constructive manner! Let's talk about what we /like/ about things. Here's the rules: -Number of "I" or "My" statements must meet or exceed the number of "You" statements, "They" statements, or "(insert someone who is not you)" statements. This is about your personal (positive) feelings. -Positive things only. This is not a criticism thread. This is a "You did this right, congratulations" and a "I feel good about ABC because XYZ" thread. If you want to criticize, take it up in another thread or somewhere else in accordance with the forum rules. -Seriously. No personal attacks.. Please. Keep it civil, positive, and happy. My vision for this thread is to demonstrate that the community hasn't gone completely sour like I feel it has recently. -If I find you trying to start things, I will take appropriate actions with higher authorities. Happy! So I'll start. -I like that the forum is up and running now! -I'm excited for .20. -I'm procrastinating my planetary bases. -I also await the final release candidate for this game. -I'm very glad I stumbled upon this whole thing. -My favorite mod so far is probably KW Rocketry or KSPX. -I personally think the entire team of higher-ups is doing an awesome job at handling everything, despite the situation. That's all I can think of for now, anyone else got some stuff?

So, being a fairly big sci-fi fan, I love my interstellar drives. Let's talk about those. Actually, I'd like to explain in particular one special type of drive that I've kinda conceptualized as a staple in my own sci-fi universe, and I want to know what you guys think of it. It may kinda already exist, but then again it may not. I don't know all the interstellar methods ever proposed. But here's mine. If you don't like sci-fi, now's the time to get out. The drive itself is a drive based on energy/matter conversion and that F=ma. I call it the "Instantaneous Point-Condensation Jump Drive Array" but Jayda drive sounds cooler. Another name for it may be "Quantum Phase Shift Mass Acceleration/Deceleration Drive". These both generally describe what it does. The drive works by taking the ship and essentially reducing all of its mass into an energous point in space. The energy is encoded with all the mass and energy for the entire vessel, in one single point in space. The drive then sets a frequency for the energy to oscillate at, so that it becomes very unstable and will collapse its energy form back into mass in a short period of time. The ship also, at this exact point in time, annihilates a small amount of fuel to impart a force upon the currently near-massless point in space. This will accelerate the point to a massive speed, as we all know from quantum physics that energy does have SOME mass, albeit tiny. This is where the resonance-stability breakdown frequency comes into play. Each distance for each amount of mass has a specific breakdown frequency. After a short and period of travel, the energous point breaks down and unfolds into its original massive form. Here's the basic layout of a jump between two points: >Set coordinates for desired destination >Determine exact distance to desired destination >Obtain exact starting mass of vehicle >Determine how much fuel will need to be annihilated to impart the correct amount of force to the condensed form >Obtain exact ending mass of vehicle after some fuel is annihilated >Determine the resonance stability breakdown frequency of the jump >Annihilate some fuel to impart a force while at the same time, doing the following: >Set up a resonance cascade to create oscillations in energy >The cascade will automatically convert surrounding mass into energy and condense it to a single point (good idea to use this in a vacuum, by the way) >Point will be accelerated to its destination >Resonant frequency of energous point will break down and unfold the structure back into its original form >Verify the jump was successful Foreseeable problems: -The jump may be off by several kilometers, due to the limitations of the precision of the measurement devices and propulsion methods. -Drive would be heavy and ungainly, large ships only. -Expensive. -Probably a bit risky, since a resonance cascade was in fact exactly what caused the Black Mesa incident. -People unlikely to get on board (no pun intended) as there would be a popular, yet untrue, belief that a quantum phase change would, in fact, wipe out their current stream of consciousness. -Unknown relativistic effects. Speed is far faster than light, nearing instantaneous. May pretty much mess up all of space time... So, is that not the coolest thing in the world? Sorry, I'm stupid lol..

I would think that if they were loose in your bloodstream, they'd simply all pool at the nearest point in your body to the magnetic source. To have simulated gravity, they would have to be attached somehow to, or integrated within your bones and muscle, so that you would basically "become" magnetic. Aside from that, the concept is generally sound in theory. Here's some other issues, though. -The gravity would not be quite as strong, I don't think. I mean, it could be, theoretically, but it's just a magnetic field that large would require tons of power. -Remember that magnetism's strength drops off much quicker than gravity, and builds up much quicker at close distances. Such a field would be very hard to control. Gravity is a much more gentle force than magnets at a close distance, and much more powerful at longer distances. Gravity is more "smooth", I guess I'm saying. -Power requirements. I mean, like a LOT of power requirements... -That magnetic field would most definitely mess with all kinds of stuff. The flux lines produced by that baby would be absolutely insane. It would be knocking out pretty much anything electrical, since you basically need to generate a continuous EMP for this idea to work.. So yeah this is pretty much the kill-all. You're literally EMPing yourself all the time if you want this kind of gravity. Honestly, I don't think it would be cost or effort effective. It's a battle between sending up a workout gym or sending up a massive generator and somehow not EMP the entire station. Buttttt.. If they were indeed attracted via a "magical fifth force", then yes I imagine this would work. Here's why... Think about the particles that make up your bones and such. They are attracted (as one effective object) toward the Earth during normal gravity, and the Earth is attracted to them. All this would be doing is replacing the particles in your legs with nanobots, replacing the Earth with the force receptors used in the system, and replacing the force due to gravity with a magnetic or magical fifth force. This would still exert some sort of stress on your body that it needs to remain resilient. Maybe you could have the nanobots use some sort of control moment inside of them and basically try to "torque" you toward the "artificial gravity source." Or, maybe you could have teeny-tiny gyroscope type devices that resist movement inside of the astronauts' space suits, so that any movement would become slightly resisted by a force.

I didn't seem to see the James Webb Space Telescope on there anywhere... Unless I'm bad at reading. Any particular reason for this?

I really wish the structural parts were crewable and had IVAs.. Would be really amazing..

Temstar, great work again. You are quite inspiring. ...I still haven't gotten the ten-wheel behemoth I was working on eariler to work correctly.

I use it all the time and it's definitely not cheating in my book. It should be allowed by default, really, or at least there should be a bit more tolerance for clipping. However, be careful because it can cause some WEIRD things to happen. Like, for example, upon physics-enable, having your entire craft literally explode into a ton of different pieces and have them fly over 2 kilometers away in all different directions. Yeah... That...

Why would you even think of Eve as a legitimate option to colonize? Colonies should be easily accessible and return-able by craft. Evacuating a colony should not take several ships, unless you REALLY have a lot of Kerbals. You need to be able to make frequent stops. Eve's delta-V requirements are simply not sufficient to maintain anything other than a prison. Let's talk about reality here for a minute. I'm going to remove myself from the KSP limitations currently in play, and pretend like we're actually planning a real mission. Because that kind of stuff is fun. We're going to assume that Duna is a very close Mars-representing planet, and Eve closely represents Venus. So, here's some of the preliminary problems you're going to face with Eve, and why my argument is massively in favor of Duna... -You're not going to have very much light. Even though you're closer to the sun, that atmosphere is going to pretty much stop any visible light coming in. Solar panels on a realistic Eve would be useless. Conversely, if you don't have light, that's another power requirement if you're going to do hydroponics to sustain breathing air and some sort of food for your crew. So, uh, that. -The pressure of the atmosphere would be enough to crush pretty much anything. You'd need some VERY resilient vessels, and crew would pretty much never be allowed to go EVA unless you had some kind of porcelain/glass (acid in the air, by the way) Newt Suit. Also, this alone would eliminate heat from the equation as a power generation method. -The only power generation you'd be able to do is a nuclear reactor or radiothermal generator. The nuclear reactor would be very large and heavy, and would need another launch to get it there, most likely. The RTG would be lighter by itself, but if left alone would immediately irradiate crew members to death. You would need to either keep it very far away and run large cables to it, or you would need to encase it in some sort of (inherently heavy) radiation shield... So uh, good luck finding power. Actually, you may be able to use a wind turbine, just make sure it doesn't break in the high winds or you'll be entirely screwed. -Re-entry would have to be done incredibly carefully, the g-forces encountered would easily kill crew if you didn't purposely try to speed yourself up to counteract the atmosphere so that you slow down slower. Parachute landings are a no-go until you get to about 50m/s or so., because they create too many G's. Also, the heat would probably melt the vessel before you got low enough to deploy your chutes anyhow... -Where are you going to get water? If you ship it with them and make them recycle their own waste water, that's more mass you have to send in and properly decelerate. If you decide to mine it, you're going to have to have some kind of mining rover that can extract it from the oceans, again, more weight to decelerate. This rover would have to be able to traverse VERY steep inclinations to reach the water, because your landing spot would HAVE to be on top of some kind of mountain, else return would not be practical. Once you extract the water, it would also be very salty from the sulfuric acid reacting with the minerals in the water and causing sulfates. So, there's another power draw. -Food? If you send them with hydroponics, that's a huge power drain. If you send them with a limited supply, that's not sustainable and is sadistic. -Return or resupply/crew changes. These would require a massive, ungainly rocket with tons of delta-V -Heat. Very much heat, but so much pressure that it can't really be used effectively. Here's some of the points about landing on a realistic Duna: -Solar power is a viable option. Solar power is very lightweight and safe around crew members. -Atmospheric re-entry would be much more viable, as the G-forces produced would not be deadly, nor would the atmosphere be thick enough to cause considerable heat. Landings can be done entirely by parachute if there are enough of them. -Leaving the surface would be much easier due to lower atmosphere and gravity. -Water could be extracted from the ice caps in small amounts, but separating it from the mostly carbon dioxide ice would be complicated. -Anything that was a threat on Kerbin to getting to orbit or doing atmospheric shenanigans is reduced. So is anything that's a benefit so there's that. Duna is the best place for a colony of what you said. Personally, though, my prime candidate for a colony has always been and always will be Gilly. -Lowest delta-V budget to get to the mothering SOI (Eve). -Gilly would likely have ice on it, as it is said to be a captured asteroid, and many asteroids contain some ice. -Any atmosphere a realistic Gilly would have would be absolutely miniscule. -Descent and return take incredibly small amounts of delta-V. -Close proximity to the sun would make solar power a very good power generation method. -Low gravity so base construction would be safer. -Crew would have to exercise to maintain muscle mass, as Gilly is essentially as low-gravity as a space station. -You still get to look at Eve. A realistic Eve (and the current Eve, really) should be meant for nothing more than a destination for one expedition, or as a prison planet for life-sentences. It just is not practical as a colony planet...

While the forums were down, I was playing with four new mods that I had luckily just downloaded RIGHT before they all went down. I got the Kerbal Attachment System, Hooligan Lab's Airship parts, Firespitter Plane Parts, and Damned Robotics. I also did another fun little project that's actually pretty much the coolest thing I've done in KSP yet, in my opinion, as far as successful missions go. So I made an airship with a "Kerbal Fun Crane" here is me playing around... On the launchpad: The airship is 100% electric powered and uses RCS to steer. It can steer without RCS but it takes FOREVER. Here it is in the air: Having way too much fun slinging Kerbals around like foxtails: And for the other little side project, I decided I wanted to put a craft in super ultra low orbit, so I did. This is the Knievel 1 ultra-low orbit probe, or ULOP, in a 3.8Km circular orbit around the Mun. The craft was obviously named after the famous daredevil Eval Knievel, for the daring stunt of being less than 300 meters away from the highest point on the Mun. (Wiki says 3500 is highest.) The orbit seems to be stable and you go over the terrain SUPER fast. It's so close you can see the terrain scatters.. A more lit-up picture, showing all the UI: I wanted to be able to have a base somewhere on the equator that could look up in the sky and see a little dot zooming past (I saw one of my station's labels flying overhead when I was on the launch pad one time and it inspired me.) So this will definitely zoom by. It is absolutely the coolest thing to watch as it zooms over the terrain at around 550m/s

For some reason, I'm not getting the moderatory block whenever I try to post, and my post count is currently under 5.. I also never got an email to confirm my registration, but I did contact help/support about it so maybe that's it... Anyhow, yes I did get deleted. Keep calm and carry on.

I'm still waiting for my account to be confirmed, I think.. Just chill out, they're trying. Edit: I CAN POST! Cool!