magnemoe

Yes, however two other benefit one is that you can fly to and launch from equator or other places, the other is that you don't need an rocket engine who works at 1 bar. Downside is as Nib31 says you need a special plane, B52 can only drop 20 ton or something. it makes more sense if you have an fast and high flying plane, however they get far more expensive to build. Something like Falcon 9 reuseable is far simpler.

This, add that plane launches has multiple abort options if something goes so wrong they can not reach target. Rockets has none, the escape system is to save the life of the crew just as an ejection seat in a fighter.

Falcon 9 has good payload faction going to LKO but a pretty weak one going to geostationary orbit. My guess is that this is because they uses only two stages and the second stage is overkill for this. If you added an small 3rd stage if should be possible to get the same payload faction as for ariane and other rockets going to GEO. Downsides would be increased complexity and cost with another stage. you might also need an larger fairing.

First small probe rovers can be used for exploring, benefit is that you don't need to take them home. I once landed rovers on the poles of all bodies except Jool, Bop, Pol and Gilly. Larger rovers is nice for Mun biomes, one place has 7 biomes within 10 km and multiple with 3. an rover with a claw is nice for refueling, rescuing kerbals is another use. Lately, make an fast, light and robust rover and see how much airtime you get on Mun

Is it only me who uses the radial intakes? they are much easier to place, put an second wing on top over them and you have something who look good too.

Some exception like if you get the 48-7S early. The LV-N and the skipper or mainsail too however they tend to give an good payoff while the small engines don't give much kickback. I did it with the 48-7S, the jet parts also require the intakes to be useful. Mid game the science payoff from many of the tests are more important than the money.

Have had plenty of problems, back in 0.23 I mostly had problems with memory limits, 64 bit has problems with mods as in lots of mod problems. Tried to use some B9 parts and it broke my save and last quicksave was days ago so I use the Skyrim practice, new hard save then I return to spaceport for new important launces or other milstones.

Someone was able to make an Eve balloon SSTO, it was giantic, you will not use aerospikes as you are out of the atmosphere then you start them so you want an high ISP and TWR vacuum engine.

Yes, however I have problem scaling up planes, they work nice for small payload, but I have problems scaling them up without B9 who I have problems with in 0.24 Fear that planes might get problems with bulky payloads to.

They know we have an oxygen atmosphere, that make Earth interesting and worth an visit this is an error in many sci-fi stories, if you you have interstellar flight you also have good space telescopes, even if you have hyper drive an space telescope would be smart, and yes you would deploy it at the edge of your operational range For the rest I assume slower than light. They would know we have life, probably that we have complex life, they can see various ecosystems on earth, assuming an 100 meter telescope in the outer solar system. And an advanced ecosystem will be very interesting to study, you will learn a lot about parallel evolution you might even find profitable products even if you can not eat it flowers from another star will sell well, templates for genetic manipulation will be more important. An slower than light flight like this will have colonization as one of their objectives. If they don't need planets they don't need to colonize here, might want to keep Earth as an base and resupply point if they are not interested in colonies, this is far cheaper if you can use the cheap local labor. Gunboat or simply apply for some patents if they are smart, carrot and stick combined works even better. Relativistic kill weapons has two downsides, if you hit someone with an self supplied asteroid civilization you will get counter-fire. If you hit the outposts of an empire you will face return fire followed by an invasion fleet who would be pretty angry at you. Note I guess an hit by an relativistic kill weapon will look pretty different than a huge asteroid so you don't even have to hit the empire for them to attack you.

I thought any normal glass like window glass blocked UV, guess the glass in the telescope do to. Anyway looking at the sun with magnification is a NO, repeat NO, DO NOT DO, exception might be gear designed and certified especially for this. issue is not UV but power, an red laser is dangerous too, you can start a fire with a simple magnifying glass and the sun. Let the sun project on something or as a fallback look at it trough an camera or other electronic connected to you telescope, so much better to fry the electronic than you eyes.

Makes sense, I know that the Norwegian version of FFA is not very happy about the stratosphere balloons amateurs has started to launch as people can launch them into air lanes. They are also very restrictive about UAV as they know people will use them for all sort of stuff if opening up. Was up in a small plane and I wanted to see if I could see out house, it was in the flight path to an airport so we was called from the traffic control and given an 10 minutes window until the next jet comes.

Lots of way to get air to move without fans, you can use other types of moving parts who would set air in movement, downside is that they would probably be more noisy or more bulky. pistons is just one, airfoils who flaps is another. An ring who generate air movement like the first thought who strike you about the dyson will not work as I see it, it will work with salt water or other conductive stuff.

Was an amateur group who sent a rocket up to 100 km, companies like spaceX don't count neither do various universities and research organisations. I see model rockets as rockets who use ready made fuel cells for model rockets they can not reach space, an amateur rocket includes stuff like Copenhagen suborbital.

I thought it dependent on screen resolution. Note if you use Kethane it show kethane mapping of Kerbin, this is just an overlay as it show even if you has not mapped it fully.

Interesting idea, using the atmosphere for orbital changes, and yes it would fit with the X37 profile.

I find sandbox boring as you can not do science, better to have a save after you filled out the tree with mun an minmus missions. No you don't need all the science from the Jool 5 mission either

Most expensive ship I have launched is 1.5 million and that includes an 750K construction facility who is designed to be overpriced as it can build other ship, room for 20 kerbals and fuel enough to reach everywhere except moho without drop tanks. Yes it needs spare fuel as its also a fuel depot for ship it builds. Also the core stage was oversize as it will be used as a LKO fuel depot.

It depend a lot of the mission, milk runs like returning to Minmus with a kethane miner has tend to run with low margins, more so if I have the fallback to dock with station if I'm to low to land. Going to Moho and 1 km/s spare is far below the safety margin, that is an mission who return should have 10 km/s and additional safety features like dumping stuff Jool is 2 Km/s, however 2.5 is a minimum and that is Laythe orbit after direct aerobrake. Now LKO is 4.5 km/s however in 0.24 I use a lot of SRB and they are less effective than shown in mechjeb dV view

Problem is that you still have the braking burn who is not only half the cost, but also very depend on where you intercept Moho, yes if your only after a flyby Eve is nice. Had Moho had an atmosphere it would just be a bit harder than Jool. Still remember my first probe to Moho, 2 km/s fuel left, had an speed of 6 km/s relative to Moho.

I would add some drop tanks on the transfer stage, the braking stage for Eeloo is brutal, I have had 4km/s braking but 3 km/s is more normal. Moho is in an elliptical orbit in a 7 degree plane difference, arriving at Pe while the planes align will be far cheaper, the worst is if you are arriving close to Moho solar Ap but not on. Currently setting up an Moho mission, 1900 m/s transfer burn, 1100 m/s plane change and 3500 m/s braking. Can probably save some here as I will pass closer to Moho than during the 3 node setup, this is a manned mission so I need 2.5-3 km/s for return too, in short I look at 9-10 km/s. Something like this. Tower is a ketane mapper who will also do orbital science. Then lander with science and goo containers and landing gear on droptanks. Crew living quarter, then an heavy orbital tug who will also work as engine module. it carries life support goo and material labs for orbital science and two lifeboats, an opperation if return tip is to expensive is to transfer crew to lifeboats dump the lander and living quarter to save weight. Two drop tanks and an bottom orbital tug who will help with the first 1000 m/s of the transfer burn, it will then transfer most fuel to the bottom drop tank and return to LKO. I will however have to pass the first transfer window, I do not want to launch this thing fueled and the first ketane miner will not be back in LKO in 7 days. The ship without the pusher tug is 80 ton. Lander with the expensive science gear can be landed back at KSC, tugs and living quarter can be reused.

I had serious problems in 0.22 - 0.235 because the scale of my operations started to run into the 4GB limit 1500 m/s Tylo lander style, in short I had to restrict myself hard to not creating a crashfeast. Currently however 0.24 64 bit has serious problems with mods but Im going for a 14 day vacation tomorrow so most of this is probably fixed tomorrow, mostly game crash then trying to load modules in VAB, kethane is not updated for 0.241 and so on.

if you talk about FM radio this is mostly about broadcast strength and antenna configuration. difference between 103 and 98 MHz is minimal. My guess is that the 103 is a local radio, in the old days FM was just up to 100 MHz and then expanded so many small stations use the high bands. Now if you go up to the 1000 MHz bands you usually get shorter ranges. Again this is part policy, you want many small transmitters as it increases the total bandwidth a lot. The high frequenzies also has far worse penetration but higher bandwidth so they are used for wifi and cell phones

You also get rounding errors, you can see this if you mine kethane under warp, at 1x the converter uses all kethane who is mined, at 100x the drills extract faster than the converter can convert. guess the same effect is active here, all the intakes calculate more air inn than the few engines use.

Yes, refueling the keyhole and similar large low orbit satellites would be an useful mission however it would not be week long mission. Test of part in space might be the best guess, something so secret they would not test it on IIS,