Kimberly

It has launchpads that allow you to launch from the ground. It does not have spacedocks, however. With Kethane, it has a mineable resource that can be processed into Rocket Parts. I would recommend you actually use both; they complement each other well.

It already has a use; it can hold parts from the Orbital Construction mod. Once KASPAR completes development, the module will be made to work with it, and whatever mod makes use of KASPAR (resupply mods, life support mods, perhaps Orbital Construction and such) will be compatible with the module.

Are you sure you're not confusing real life with Dwarf Fortress?

Have you ever jumped in an airplane? Did it hurt when you slammed into the back of the plane at 570 miles an hour?

By "assist" do you mean "visit"?

Which version of RemoteTech are you using? RemoteTech 2, compatible with 0.21, is currently still in development and may suffer from significant bugs. In RemoteTech 1, satellite dish connections are two-way. The dish on ship A needs to point to the dish on ship B, and vice versa, for them to communicate. (This is not necessary for omnidirectional antennae.) Usually, this means each satellite needs at least two dishes to communicate with its two neighbors satellites, if they are not within range of an omnidirectional antenna. Use the RemoteTech window to target satellite dishes. Keep in mind that at least one of the satellites in your network will need to have a connection with Kerbal Space Center--KSC has an omnidirectional antenna with a range of 5000 km.

I thin kerbalized advertising in return for a funding boost would be interesting, but it should also carry some downside. If prestige is ever implemented, then advertising should reduce prestige but increase money. Real-world advertising is obviously an awful idea; who would pay to have advertisements broadcast to them in exciting new ways?

Well I won't launch it, it'll be built at an Orbital Construction spacedock. It weighs like 250 tons. I took a look at your welding tutorial, and it didn't really enlighten me. Numbers like that tend to make my head swim. But I might give it another go later; I think it's fair to weld at least the ports together. I don't know about the modules, it probably wouldn't be possible to keep all of their functionality. (Just welding all of the docking ports would reduce the part count by 36.)

Thanks for the suggestion, but if I can get it to actually load in-game, it should snap together as soon as its in orbit--the docking ports are only very slightly misaligned.

The wiki does have their rotational period, under "physical characteristics". 52 980.879 s for Laythe (it's tidally locked, so same as its orbital period) and 105 962.09 s for Vall.

Wait, Mediafire doesn't allow encrypted archives? That's plain obscene! Most mainstream file sharing sites reserve the right to access your files (read the fine print!), but to disallow encryption in addition to that..

Funnily enough, serious opposition to the idea the earth was round arose mostly in the 19th century AD! Though that wasn't by real scientists, of course.

The physics is probably it...I can actually only select either all of the ring (by selecting the root part) or the first quarter of it, after that, there's no response when clicking on the modules. And trying to launch it didn't go so well either; I waited for 15 minutes and then decided it was never going to load. Would it work better if I made it with a central hub and made that the root part? It would allow for a the parts to be a basic tree structure branching from the center, with docking ports connections linking the branches. I'm off to experiment.

No, that would be much less organized.. It's easier to find things once you figure out what page they're on, than to scroll through a long list. I don't get the modern Internet obsession with "infinite scroll" design.

The Magic Boulder doesn't have a sphere of influence, so I don't think that would really count. No different from making a ring around a ship.

On the other hand, if you have the qualifications to become an astronaut, you can probably self-sponsor and would have a much easier time immigrating to the United States than most.

And though it might seem like whales, cheetahs, ants and whatnot get to have all the cool biological features, humans are the best at one thing--long-distance running. A human can outrun a horse!

Ah, thank you for the detailed info. Plugging in those numbers, that means my crime against nature has a radius of 25.4437172524 meters: This was just a proof-of-concept test configuration. I'll use more varied modules for the real thing, and have a central hub. I've calculated that to achieve a comfortable 0.4g, the station would need to rotate at just 3.75 RPM, protecting the station's wussier inhabitants from the Coriolis effect. (I'm aware you can't build circles in the VAB; there is precisely one docking port pair that is slightly misaligned. Ships can dock to themselves to create a functioning circle, so the circle should snap together after orbital construction.) Strangely, though it's light on the part count (just 108 parts for 160 meters' worth of ship), it lags something fierce!

No, and there isn't likely to be one--RemoteTech 2 is the 0.21 version; RemoteTech 1 is not intended for compatibility with 0.21.

I do think mods should generally have a liberal license, but hey, the law shouldn't force people to act just the way you want them to. And I can't imagine a modder suing anyone, even if the law is on their side; on the forums we basically work on a system of respect for the modders' wishes.

Returning to the landing site was definitely an abort option that was planned for, and which the shuttle was quite capable of doing in theory--though the maneuver would be risky.

After dropping the solid rocket boosters, the Space Shuttle initially had (what a sad tense to use!) enough delta-V to turn around, kill its velocity using the main engines and to speed up enough to glide back to the runway. This meant that, if a problem presented itself during launch, they could abort the mission. After picking up too much speed and getting too far away from the runway, the shuttle would no longer have enough delta-V to get back to the runway, and would be forced to continue the mission--that's the point of no return. After the point of no return, the shuttle still had the option of speeding up a little and landing at an airstrip in Europe, or otherwise getting into orbit and then deorbiting itself after going around the planet. As you can imagine, flipping the shuttle and burning back to the launch site is a mildly insane maneuver, so it was only reserved for very critical problems (and never ended up being used).

Silly question: how long is one of the modules with tapered ends? Or, if you have an easy answer, how long is a module with tapered ends with a Clampotron docking port on both ends?

Kerbal Space Program is, at the moment, a 32-bit application. That means it can't really use much more than the amount of RAM you have available anyway; we've all got that limitation. So it might still be worth a try.

I'm a prospective immigrant myself. If you're coming in from the military (as many astronauts did and still do), you're at a bit of a disadvantage, as people will with Green Cards can't become officers or get security clearance until they get citizenship--which is, if you ask me, a very poor system. But you can get over that obstacle eventually. The space program has always had a bit of an international flavor to it, with Wernher von Braun and whatnot.