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LAZARUS IS OUT NOW! Welcome to Lazarus: Awakenings. A whole new stellar neighborhood with a dark secret. ALMOST!

Brief Deep Sky (a sci-fantasy, far future agency... mine) would like to test the muscle of any agency capable of producing interstellar class ships. The challenge: To gather at least 2 super-heavy asteroids in orbit of either the homeworld or whatever celestial body that your space program doesn't mind performing full industrial exploitation of. The asteroids are presumed to be rich with 1 or more rare resources that won't easily, or at all, be found in the surfaces of most planets. This challenge is of the sort "something for you to do and use for progression" and is not "a comparison of ships built with the same parts/performance" so you will find generous limits on part mods. In fact... this should simply be impossible to do without part mods. If you wish, you may emulate this as a contract in a career game with the following specs (as a baseline anyway. Tune them as you see fit): +1 million investment +/- 5 times the invest amount if you succeed or fail +/- 30 if you succeed or fail Mission Reporting Provide at least these details of the vessel(s) you use: Ship dry mass, wet mass, propellants, launch cost. Mission start time, elapsed time, per asteroid, and total mission time. If you use one ship for all asteroids, then idle time between pursuing asteroids counts. Less time is better. Mass of each asteroid at the time of capture; Mass after you used out whatever necessary resource(s) to fuel your ship and parked the asteroid. Screenshots or video highly recommened but not required. (Honesty is key.) Mission Unique Bonus Participation (Anyone can get this) Big Daddy ISRU Program (A): Use the Ore to produce propellants other than <any stock resource> or LqdHydrogen. Big Daddy ISRU Program (B): Use resources other than Ore to produce your propellants. (You must keep all the Ore. The rest of your space program will find use for it.) Champion (Only one can get this) We run on efficiency!: Use the least average asteroid resource out of all the space programs. (Does not count if you rely heavily on gravity assists. We want those asteroids within the next decade at most, not next century.) No order is too tall: Bring the most asteroids. Rules You must be using a planet pack that makes asteroids wider and heavier. Known packs allowed: Galaxies Unbound JNSQ Whirligig World RSS HyperEdit, VesselMover and other obvious cheat tools not allowed, obviously. No restriction on part mods (except for propulsion systems). Propulsion system mods allowed: KSPI-E OPT Continued (for its Dark Drive) Far Future Technologies (especially with "Calvin's patch" or equivalent, that buffs their Isp's so that they're properly interstellar grade) Karbonite Plus (for Karborundum) MEV Heavy Industries Interstellar Technologies Propulsion mods and techniques disallowed: Wormholes, Jump gates or (other) FTL tech Anything resembling EM Drive, GN Drive, or other self-fueling/infinitely fueled engine Anything that causes engines to be infinitely fueled (I know of mods that contain "fuel cells" and "generators" that produce fuel, Ore or EelectricCharge for practically no cost) Any obviously extremely imbalanced or "sandbox fun" propulsion mod Goals / Points +1 for basic finish +3 if you bring a 3rd asteroid +2 for each asteroid (after 3) that you bring +1 if the target body has > 1g +1 if the target body has > 2g +5 if you use one ship and don't do parallel missions Un-scaled Asteroids If you would like to attempt this challenge without the asteroid sizing then the requirements are as follows: You must bring home 3 E-sized asteroids. Goal changes: +3 if you bring home 5 asteroids +1 for each asteroid (after 5) that you bring

Grond's Micrometeorite Shield Mod A mod that adds medium sized to extremely large micrometeorite shields for big interplanetary or interstellar ships. Currently there are two shield sizes, 10 meter shield with a 2.5 meter attachment, and a 50 meter shield, 3.75 meter attachment, and a pretty powerful antenna. Download: SpaceDock It is also available on CKAN! Dependencies: Community Tech Tree Recommended: Near Future Construction (heavily recommend) Near Future Propulsion Near Future Electrical (this one as well) Far Future Technologies Restock Restock+ Changelog: 1.1 - Added a 50m shield that doubles as a long range antenna, also fixed the file structure so it's not horrible; 1.1.1 - Quick MM patch to make the mod "technically" work without CTT, but I wouldn't recommend it because it makes all the shields cost the same amount of science; Licensing: All code and cfgs are distributed under the MIT License All art assets (textures, models, animations) are distributed under an All Rights Reserved License.

Wabi Sabi - Perfect Imperfection The Overview: Wabi-Sabi. A word that has held prevalence in Japanese culture for centuries. A word that holds so much meaning and depth, it lacks a proper translation into English. It means the acceptance of transience and imperfection, and appreciation of beauty that is imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete in nature. Wabi-Sabi holds an appreciation of both natural objects and forces of nature, appreciating austerity, modesty, intimacy, asymmetry and roughness. Our planets easily fit this brand. Instead of embracing perfect spheres, habitable planets, perfect and balanced solar systems, we have a different unique approach. Each of our bodies has something unique to offer. In this mod, you won't cheat orbit around each body, or just observe from afar in tracking station, but be motivated to say "I want to go there for myself", and furthermore, "I want to stay here and keep coming back". Planets are unique experiences. They shouldn't be one off screenshot generators, but full of worth, value, and creativity blended with realism. Everything from a super-kerbin with exotic ammonia based life, to a lonely vacuum planet should have a relatively similar amount of value and unique content. If you want solar systems crammed with content, uniquely hand crafted planets, with plenty of gameplay, offering new challenges and reasons to explore, then this is it. Quality > quantity. No filler. In-depth lore and story that will send you on an odyssey spanning the small cluster of stars you find yourself in, somewhere between galaxies. Coming soon™️. Incompatibility Screenshots: https://imgur.com/a/HYZcvaK (Check back occasionally, I will be updating this! Also also, stuff is heavy WIP so it might not be great as of now, please be nice lol) @Bendy SnowballCo-Developer, PR work, Director, Management, etc. @ballisticfox0 EVE help @ShbibePlaytesting @bobjonesisthebest:D Sciencedefs @Caps Lock Sunflare The Kopernicus Discord Server - Being a great help to me. I can't list all the names individually, but thanks @TheOrios system help/making, concepting @KerbinSphere Part making/modelling @Jason Kerman Their pole spike fixing python script @R-T-B Maintaining Kopernicus @TheProtagonists While their textures are no longer in use, I just think they are cool @RJVB09 Lightcurve Calculator @OhioBobAtmosphere calculator @JadeOfMaar System maps Soon This mod is licensed under CC-BY-NC-ND. Any reuse of my/Wabi-Sabi team's assets is strictly forbidden. Contact me at smushanoob#4556 or the discord server if you have questions about the mod.

NEW FORUM PAGE UP NOW Project Pile turns to Galaxy Mod 8 months ago, I set out to create an ambitious project known as Trilogy, to which I became very burnt out creating. As an escape from working on the same thing daily, I created Flamed Out, which became my first released mod. After that I began creating new projects and announcing them near daily. It began to get repetitive. Start a new project, cancel a project. Everything fell through. I took a break for a couple weeks. And in an attempt to streamline, I present to you; KIP Systems. My take on a GU style mod. *EXTREMELY EARLY WORK IN PROGRESS* Now, you may be wondering; Where did the name Lazarus come from? Many months of motivation getting less and less eventually caused me to quit modding for a while. I eventually came back with this mod, which is comparable to the story of Lazarus, a person who died and came back to life. "First Look"/Teaser: NEW TRAILER: The Roadmap https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Gcio4zoCganeWupOl5CfWUquvX93POIsGKJL4FQ6Wpk/edit?usp=sharing Discord https://discord.gg/RB5WbrGVar

Threads of the Month: April 2023 Edition Kcalbeloh System is a planet pack adding an entirely new black hole system with 30 unique celestial bodies, including a super-massive black hole, 4 stars, 15 planets, and 10 moons and asteroids, each with its own unique set of challenges and features. This planet mod provides a diverse range of environments for Kerbals to explore, such as a planet with surface torn apart by tidal force, binary gas giants with multiple moons, a planet tidally locked by its parent star, and a small moon with a twisted surface. Like the movie Interstellar, there are also a pair of wormholes available for Kerbals to jump between Kerbol system and Kcalbeloh system, adding another layer of exploration and excitement. If you're looking for an exciting and rewarding space adventure, Kcalbeloh System is an excellent addition to Kerbal Space Program, providing tens or even hundreds of hours of entertainment. I really appreciate everyone who has followed this mod. Also thanks to everyone who has provided suggestions, bug reports, or any other forms of help. Also, if you have a cool idea and want to contribute to this project, feel free to let me know. Get ready to blast off into the cosmos and embark on a thrilling journey through the Kcalbeloh System. Happy launching! System Map Are you sure you want to spoil it? Delta-V Map Credits @R-T-B for maintaining Kopernicus. @blackrack for Scatterer, Singularity, and EVE. @Vabien for maintaining Kopernicus Expansions. @Pkmniako for creating Niako's Kopernicus Utilities (Smoother Heightmaps). Kopernicus Discord Server: a really good community. I developed most of my planet modding skills there. I can't list all of the names but thank you all for your help! @JadeOfMaar for inspiration of the system map, and other help and suggestions. @DY_ZBX for Kerbalism and SpaceDust compatibility. @themaster401 and @Astronomer for some EVE textures from Astronomer's Visual Pack. @Sigma88 for SigmaReplacementsSkyBox, SigmaLoadingScreens, and SigmaDimensions. @OhioBob for atmosphere calculator. @RJVB09 for light curve calculator. @ballisticfox0 @GGzz12321 for nice screenshots. @Davian Lin and Jel for the Russian translation. @CoriW for ResearchBodies and FinalFrontier compatibility. @Iodyne @FrostyArchtide for Principia configuration. @chaos113 for helping with parallax scatter support. @Lithium-7@BadModder54@CashnipLeaf@Fio @Ade0924 @r-ISCO for writing part of science definitions. @Emperor of Ilve for helping with Rational Resources support. Reddit user 0_0_1 for some sunflare textures from Kabrams Sun Flare's Pack. And most importantly, credit to my girlfriend for allowing me to put time into this mod (The names are NOT in order of contribution) Winners of the Loading Screen Contest 2023 Gallery Change Log License Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0

My second greatest creation to date. Welcome to Flamed Out. What is Flamed Out? What planets does this add? Screenshots Future plans Known bugs REQUIRES: Kopernicus: KopernicusExpansion: EVE (WORK IN PROGRESS, MAY BE BUGGY FOR RELEASE 1.0): Singularity: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

The result of overworking myself. Heliocentric Presents: Flamed Out. What is flamed out? What planets does this add? Screenshots When will it be released? Discord servers to join for updates: https://discord.gg/Q6bpBARpXp (Personal modding server) https://discordapp.com/invite/XmVp23s (Kopernicus server, check #helio-mods for frequent updates)

Hello all! I have just completed building the ship Hail Mary from Mr. Weir's latest novel. Now, obviously there are some inaccuracies, one of the most glaring of which I will detail below. (!SPOILERS TO FOLLOW!) The ship in the novel was powered by an alien micro-organism called Astrophage, emitting infrared light at the 25.984 micron frequency. To simulate this I have simply included a transmission module from KSP's interstellar extended mod (henceforth referred to as KSP I-E) in my engine module which was incorporated in the config file of one of their lasers. Then, I added in a new resource labeled "Astrophage", with the approximate density of a cell (even more spoilers; in Weir's book a huge panspermia event occurred at Tau Ceti which means that all living organisms have the same rough properties and hence, same structures.) I then incorporated this new resource into the fuel tanks provided by KSP I-E, and voila! I now added the fuel tanks to fit the correct volume as specified by Weir. Except... not really. For some reason the fuel tanks only hold about 900 tons of fuel as opposed to the 2,000 they should. Despite following Weir's details as closely as I could ("largest diameter they could launch was about 4 meters... three fuel tanks side by side... estimate they take up about 75 percent of the ship's volume), I find that Astrophage has to be either too dense to be a reasonable cell or, more likely, I have messed the proportions up. With all that ranting out of the way, I will below post Mr. Weir's Hail Mary specifications as opposed to my vessel. Weir's ship specifications: Dry mass 100 tons, wet mass 2100 tons, delta-v 0.92c (acceleration to and deceleration from), 3 crew, induced comas, "a few months" of food supplies, 125m^3 internal habitable volume, ~500m^3 total volume My adaptation's specifications: Dry mass 104 tons, wet mass 1012 tons, delta-v not yet measured accurately due to time, DeepFreeze chambers (which Weir unfortunately explicitly said DO NOT EXIST on his ship.. grr.. are there any other mods that can simulate reduced consumption of resources while not eliminating it completely?), 70m^3 internal volume, 7 months of air and ~4 months of food/water for 3 crew. More details to follow on the layout shortly. Thank you all for your time reading this, and I welcome any feedback or input from any fellow readers to try to improve the design replication!

[KSP 1.8.1-1.11.X] (V0.4.1) Interstellar Technologies [Antimatter Catalyzed Fusion Engine Powered Interstellar Spacecraft - Kepler] An Interstellar Propulsion System mod, made by Kepler- At long last, after months of hard work practicing modeling, and after finally unlocking the secrets to textures, The mod is finally released. This parts pack will be used to expand from the mod Kerbal Space Program Interstellar Extended. Those parts are extremely imbalanced with going around the stock system. The engines are made off the base of the KSPI-E engines' statistics, [DEPENDENCIES] All of the required mods for Interstellar Technologies to function properly is now in the main mod folder. Note that the KSPI-E folder is stripped of some of it's parts, due to complaints of complexity of KSPI-E. [RECOMMENDATIONS] Those are recommendations to download to play with the mod. They are NOT required. - Far Future Technologies - TUFX - MEV Heavy Industries - Galaxies Unbound - A Stellar Odyssey - Interstellar Extended (The whole pack in order to get all the parts) - Near Future Mods by Nertea - Singularity (For Galaxies Unbound) The parts pack will be updated quickly, releases will be *quick*. I will be available in the KSPI-E discord server and the Galaxies Unbound discord server, please @ Kepler (No spacing) to make suggestions for future changes. Special thanks to @Cyne for helping me with learning to texture models. [Some of the Parts include...] - Daedalus Inertial Confinement Fusion Drive (v.0.1.0) - Antimatter Catalyzed Fusion Drive (v.0.1.0) - Kugelblitz Drive (Black hole drive) (v.0.1.0) - Laser Core Antimatter Drive (v0.1.0) - Multi Mode Interstellar Afterburning fusion drive (v0.1.1) - Multi Mode SSTO Fusion Engine (v0.1.6) - TRIGA Core Static/Pulsed Trimodal Nuclear Thermal Rocket (0.1.7) - "Coaxial" SSTO Fusion Engine (0.1.7) And so much more as the mod updates! [SCREENSHOTS] [DOWNLOAD] Primary (SpaceDock): https://spacedock.info/mod/2674/Interstellar Technologies - A KSPI-E Expansion For Additional Bugfixes and all (Probably mostly for science mode and that) please contact me through Discord through the KSPI-E or the GU discord server. The mod uses the CC BY-NC-SA License.

Estrela Dobre - A unique star system This mod was mostly born out of the idea of a planetary system with a main sequence star that is not the usual perfect (or near perfect) sphere. And that It seems that a star system mod with such a pair of deformed stars is quite rare! Also, there are multiple objects in the system that are a bit rare in other mods, and it has some lore surrounding some of the bodies! The current system Epafi & Adactus These two stars have a few nicknames lol... probably the most accurate one is "Beans", not "balls", because it would be a little... eh lol. When the system was first discovered, it was long thought it was a single star, but when scientists measured the mass and the brightness of the system, something didnt add up, however, when the one Kerbal found out a possible reason by accidentally dropping a mk1 light infront of another, it all made sense. The two stars, Epafi & Adactus orbit so close together, that they actually Touch. The two stars are 95% and 60% the mass of Kerbol respectivley. and they whiz around the system barycenter at 70km/s. Their SOIs do overlap a fair bit, and you can pull off some insane gravity assists of upwards of 70km/s! Ok, enough rambling about the two stars, now onto the planets! But first, a system map! havent done the delta V yet Size is to scale, but not distances Oyst and its moons Oyst is the closest planet, too close for liquid water to exist. It seems like a kinda boring gas giant at first, until you go into the clouds, as there will soon be some alien structures in the atmosphere (havent added them yet lol). Collait and Culair and their moons The reason I want these two gas giants to have surfaces is so there is something to actually explore instead of a GLOBAL BOTTOMLESS PIT OF DOOOOOOM!!!! (lol) Temporalis and its moon Hados and its moons Ichor and its moon Glacios - A large, oblate ice giant orbiting at the very edge ofthe Estrela Dobre system. It is 3 times the mass of Jool and will have five moons orbiting it. I decided to add Glacios due to discovering that the SMA of all of the planets in the system were for 1 solar luminousity instead of the actual system luminousity of around 0.76 solar luminousities. (Epafi is 0.76L while Adactus is 0.08L, but they constantly eclipse so it would average out to be around 0.76L) Glacios is technically landable, but due to general bugginess, its not reccommended to land here as there are 'magnetic anomalies' which upon entering its atmosphere, is like hitting a brick wall and will vaporize your craft. Glacios' moons - Pados - a duna sized moon that orbits near its rings Moon 2 - A kerbin sized moon that is covered in methane and ethane Periculum - an unstable duna sized moon that is covered in methane ice, but also has lakes of liquid oxygen and a thin oxygen atmosphere. Also, in the lore, Glacios is the only place in the Estrela Dobre system not touched by civilization due to its remoteness and difficulty to spot, and due to the way Excelsior was captured during the formation of Estrela Dobre, large bodies beyond Glacios just.. dont exist, the dust was disrupted there and unable to clump into planets. Next update will include these bodies (Scatters postponded to update after due to PQSCity being very difficult to work with) Excelsior - 0.1 solar mass, 12% the size of Epafi, and has 0.00081 solar luminousities. Orbited by a tiny wormhole and four lifeless worlds - system inclination is approx. 1 degree Calidum - eyeball planet dominated by desert, has a ring of water around its terminator, and a thin ice cap. Canite - devastated planet with a large portion of its surface blown off there will be a noticeable gap between planets 2 and 3, where stuff screams 'there should be a planet here' Periphial - a cold eyeball planet that is barely habitable, lost what little life it had in the great event, in a 1:4 resonance with planet 2 Neybiri - a strange, ice planet further out, has techno signatures, but no life. in a 3:2 resonance with planet 3. Pythros - 1.7 solar mass, with 3x the luminousity, it is a white main sequence star with five planets - system inclination is 26 degrees (avg of all planets) Prixos - a hot planet with planet of liquid lead orbiting quite close to Pythros Kataigída (pronuctiation of 'storm' in greek) - a very stormy planet with two moons Proxility - a habitable world that is 80% the size of Kerbin with just 0.8g and three moons that are around 110km radius! Bink and Bonk - a (nearly contact) binary rocky planet! Each planet is 790km radius, but spin so fast that the tips are at 0.6g. The binary will have seven moons, (the first two are Gongi and Dringo, a swamp and desert moon respectivley) Arcturus - 1.9 solar masses with about 10x the luminousitiy, it is a bright, light blue main sequence star with six planets - system inclination is 2 degrees (tho planets 3-5 have 0 inclination) Solis - the core of a gas giant with two asteroid moons, by far the most colorful planet in the sector with its surface coated in Bismuth with some seas of the metal Tumidam- a puffy gas giant with two moons Claudere - a planet between the sizes of Duna and Kerbin with one moon, covered partially in cities (name is 'close' in latin, as its orbit is the closest to Solaris Solaris - a large planet with two moons covered entirely in cities Adurere - a kerbin-like planet with sections of its surface burnt to ashes with one moon and a few fragments in orbit, has some cities Messis - a fairly large gas giant with five large moon, a couple of them having been terraformed for farming, a couple have mutant plants n stuff. name is latin for 'harvest'. the first moon is habenaro. there will be four other moons planet 7 - a gas dwarf with three moons (planned 5th system?? will not add in update due to lack of ideas of what to put around as it is a dying red giant being slowly sucked up by the black hole it orbits) Longinquus - a distant planet around the center of this system Bugfixes in the next update: Fixed normal maps for all planets Adjusted the inverseRotThresholdAltitude of various bodies to be higher than their pqs fades to solve the 'surface breaks apart' bug Distances to: Excelsior - ~44 kerbin au - takes half a year going 100km/s to arrive (by arriving, I mean literally smacking into the star) Pythros - ~771 kerbin au - takes about 12 years going 100km/s Arcturus - ~1800 kerbin au - takes about 27 years going 100km/s The systems are close together to not require interstellar warp drives or crazy engines, but not so close that they illuminate each other. The only exception of this is Excelsior as it is technically a satellite system. A few fun facts: -You can sometimes see Oyst from the surface of Temporalis when they are at their closest to each other! -You might sometimes see Hados from Temporalis due to its dust ring! -(unreleased) The wormholes are tiny, and near the stars, so going too fast past them could result in not going through to the other system, or will send you flying in a very sub-optimal trajectory like straight into a star -(unreleased) Excelsior is in an ideal position for a homann transfer despite its inclination! It will take about 60 years to get there though.. -Ichor's terrain goes sky high! literally! It goes to 19km, meaning theres just 1km between it and space! (next update will move the entire surface 900m downwards so the lowest point is much closer to the actual stated atm pressure) To Do: -Name bodies -Add bodies -Fix various atmospheres -Add biomemaps Misc. To Do list: -Sciencedefs! flavor text for every single experiment in (nearly) every single situation! -Add kerbal konstructs KSC on Termania -Add custom part model to the H-1 hybrid electric scramjet Recent update: -Changed Temporalis' inclination from 3.6 to 7.6 degrees to make it easier to travel to planets without insane inclination changes -Added a few more sciencedefs -Change the SOIs of the contact binary stars to 500,000km. REDOING FORUM PAGE (I DO have access to ksp while at college, am working on planets! woo! tho PQSCity is such a pain) DOWNLOAD Github Release v1.2 Spacedock Release v1.2 This mod is available on CKAN Credit for the gas giant textures goes to NathlessOne for creating them via gaseous giganticus Dependencies: Texturereplacer - adds the custom skybox, if not installed, you will just see the stock skybox Kopernicus and its dependancies - planet packs require kopernicus KopernicusExpansion - for the emissiveFX and wormholes (Glacios has a wormhole config part just for the effect of being right next to it) KSPCommunityFixes (disable stock maneuver planner as the game freaks out over Temporalis being a trojan and far away objects) In the next update, CTTP will be required as some bodies will use textures from there Recommended mods: (while it can be fun with just stock parts, these mods can greatly improve your experience) Near future tech Far future tech Kerbal atomics (dont use a nuclear reactor on Hados, I am fairly sure it wont end well) Procedural wings and parts (mainly reducing partcounts as rockets here tend to be quite big) Known issues: -Odd emissive clipping when next to lava -Desert airfield spawning somewhere on Temporalis when making history DLC is installed (I dont have that DLC, so i didnt know that was going to happen) As usual for planet packs, kopernicus is required for this mod to work. IMPORTANT: the maneuver planner MUST be disabled for the mod the run properly or the game will die attempting to calculate a transfer to Collait-Culair barycenter, which has the exact same SMA as Temporalis (current homeworld) the latest Kopernicus has disablefaraway colliders enabled by default so no need to go into its settings anymore Liscense is All Rights Reserved! this will likely change to one where if i vanish for a while it can be modified but I dont know how to specify that and I am still working on this mod so it is still AAR

Technology has brought the kerbals far, but has not brought them a new home. Instead, it has destroyed their home, and forced all kerbals to move onto a singular habitation ring. After thoroughly looking through old data, they reluctantly chose Dominion, a dead planet in a dead star system, to be their new settlement. Upon landing it was immediately noted that the atmospheric oxygen levels were perfect for Kerbal life. Dominion reached a population higher than Kerbin's and every previous colony combined. It was a golden age for kerbals, but all good things must come to an end, and unfortunately death is a repeating trend in this strange system. It was about time i returned to this project after 2 years. What is Trilogy? System Map Images (As of 7/3/23): Discord for development updates: https://discord.gg/xmvgYFSGSD This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Thread of the month May 2022. Please note that Galaxies Unbound will be on hiatus until after the summer for further enhancements. We appreciate your understanding and look forward to bringing you an even more stellar experience upon our return. Galaxies Unbound: A Stellar Odyssey © 2020 by StarCrusher96 is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

This is the most recent post on ToughSF: http://toughsf.blogspot.com/2020/11/nuclear-photon-rockets-flashlights-to.html Nuclear Photon Rockets: Flashlights to the Stars In this post, we will have a look at the concept of using a nuclear photon rocket for interstellar travel. They are an old concept that should theoretically be the ultimate form of relativistic propulsion. However, today they are unknown or unpopular. Why might that be the case? The image above is by David A. Hardy. The interstellar challenge The Daedalus starship. Interstellar travel is on a completely different level than interplanetary travel. The distances involved are orders of magnitudes greater. The shortest distance between stars is measured in trillions of kilometres. To face such distances, high velocities are required. The closest stars. A robotic probe might not mind spending several centuries to reach a destination. A human crew would want the trip done in their lifetime. Taking longer than that means running into technical and ethical trouble. The closest star to our Sun is Alpha Centauri A, currently sitting 40 trillion kilometres away, or 4.2 light-years. It would take 4.2 years to reach it when travelling at the speed of light. If we want to complete the trip within 20 years, we would have to travel at 21% of the speed of light. We also want to slow down at the destination. This means that we need a way to accelerate up to 21% of the speed of light, and then slow down back to zero - the deltaV sum is 42% of the speed of light. So how do we go that fast? The Falcon 9's Merlin rocket engines. Rockets are the space propulsion system we are most experienced with. There are many ways to measure a rocket’s performance, but only some are relevant to interstellar travel. Thrust, for example, is much less important when the trip will take many years; taking one month to accelerate instead of ten months is no longer a significant factor. Instead, let’s focus on exhaust velocity. Using the Tsiolkovsky rocket equation, we can work out the ratio between propellant and non-propellant masses of the rocket we are using. Mass Ratio = e^(DeltaV/Exhaust Velocity) DeltaV in m/s Exhaust Velocity in m/s A chemical rocket consuming oxygen and hydrogen propellants has an exhaust velocity of 4,500m/s. We find that for a chemical rocket to achieve a deltaV of 42% of the speed of light, we would need e^28000 kilograms of fuel for each kilogram of equipment, structure, engines and payload. That is a number that lies between 10^8428 and 10^13359. For comparison, the entire mass of the Universe is estimated to be 10^53 kg. Chemical rockets for relativistic travel are beyond impractical. The needle array of Enpulsion's IFM nano thruster. How about a rocket engine with a better exhaust velocity? Something like one of our most efficient ion thrusters? The Ultra-FEEP thruster that accelerates liquid indium to nearly 1,000 km/s is the best we can expect for now. It would still not be enough for relativistic velocities. To achieve a deltaV of 42% of the speed of light, we would need 6*10^55 kg of indium for each kilogram of dry mass. If you run the numbers yourself and lower the deltaV target, you would still find ridiculously high mass ratios being required. A deltaV target of just 2% of the speed of light, which would turn the trip to the nearest star an endeavour that spans about half a millennium, would still require a physics-breaking mass ratio of 10^579 from the chemical rocket, and a mass ratio of 453 from the Ultra-FEEP thruster. The lower value for the electric thruster seems much more reasonable, until you consider that indium is found at a concentration of 0.21 ppm in Earth’s crust. At our current output of 700 tons per year, a 1,000 ton dry mass craft would require at least seven centuries of indium production to fill its propellant tanks. To get away from these extreme figures, a logical decision would be to increase the exhaust velocity all the way to the maximum. The maximum is the speed of light. Photon Propulsion When your exhaust is light itself, the mass ratios required for relativistic velocities become decidedly modest. Light, more specifically photons, can be produced indefinitely ‘out of nothing’. In other words, if you heat up a surface, you can create a photon rocket that spontaneously produces and emits light without ‘running out’ of anything. All that is required is a power source. The more energetic the power source, the more photons that can be produced and the higher the photon rocket’s performance. The theory fits together neatly. The concept of using a nuclear reactor to heat up a surface so that it emits enough photons to produce appreciable thrust is at least 50 years old. Nuclear photon rockets could solve our problem of interstellar travel by harnessing the greatest sources of energy and utilizing the exhaust with the highest velocity. All the fuel they would ever need would be loaded up at departure, so they do not have to rely on the existence of any infrastructure at the destination or any assistance along the way. Perhaps they would have enough to return to us without having to refuel! However, ‘photon starships’ are not a popular idea today. They are not featured in NASA’s NIAC programs, nor are aerospace engineers dreaming up modern designs for them. What ‘catch’ has them relegated to relics of the past? Fission Photon Rocket A nuclear photon rocket from Boeing's PARSECS study. Let us start with the most familiar of nuclear energy sources: the fission reactor. A fission reaction produces about 80 TeraJoules for each kilogram of maximally enriched fuel. 95% of this energy is in the form of gamma rays or fission fragments; they can be blocked by a thick wall and converted into heat. About 5% leaks out in the form of neutrinos. This reduces the ‘useful’ energy density of fission fuel to 76 TJ/kg. In a typical reactor, the fuel is in solid form. Only a fraction of its potential 76 TJ/kg can be extracted in one fuel cycle. The products of fission, such as xenon-135 and samarium-149, remain trapped next to the fuel. These isotopes have a high neutron cross-section, which means that they trap and absorb the neutrons needed to sustain a fission reaction. Nuclear engineers consider these products to be ‘poisons’. If enough poisons accumulate in the fuel, the fission reaction cannot be sustained. The result is that a single fuel cycle achieves very low burnup of the fuel, which is the percentage of fissile fuel that has undergone fission. Typically, this is 1% to 5% of the total fuel load inside a reactor. On Earth, nuclear engineers deal with this problem by shutting down a reactor, extracting the slightly used fuel and sending it off for reprocessing. This involves removing the poisons, mixing in a small quantity of fresh fuel, and then returning it all to the reactor. A spaceship does not have the luxury of regularly halting its reactor while also lugging around a nuclear fuel reprocessing facility. Instead, we need to use a type of reactor that grants high burnup with no reprocessing necessary. The best option seems to be a gas-core nuclear reactor. In this high temperature design, the fuel and poisons are in a gas phase. It becomes easy to filter out the poisons as they are chemically very different from the fuel. We can have the fuel circulate within the core for as long as needed to achieve near 100% burnup. With the burnup problem solved, we can convert those 76 TJ/kg into heat. From a physics perspective, only about 0.77 grams of matter in a kilogram of fissile fuel becomes energy. This leaves us with 999.23 grams of waste after consuming the fuel. With no further use for it, we eject it to lighten the spacecraft. Imagine a nuclear starship designed specifically to make our next calculations easier. It consumes 1 kg of fuel per second. The average power output is 76 Terawatts. Thrust = 2 * Power/ Exhaust Velocity Thrust will be given in Newtons Power is in Watts Exhaust Velocity in m/s Those 76 Terawatts should result in 506.6 kiloNewtons of thrust. With a 95% efficient photon emitter, we gain a real thrust of 481.3 kN. After producing this thrust, we eject 999.25 grams of waste. Effective Exhaust Velocity = Thrust / Mass Rate Effective Exhaust Velocity will be given in m/s Thrust is in Newtons Mass Rate is in kg/s The ‘effective exhaust velocity’ based on this thrust and the amount of matter being ejected is actually 481.7 km/s. The critical point we make here is that while the thrust comes from photons travelling at the speed of light, exhaust velocity calculations must take into account all the masses being ejected. So what can a fission photon rocket do with an effective exhaust velocity of 481.7 km/s? It certainly cannot reach our desired deltaV. Achieving 42% of the speed of light would require a mass ratio of 10^113. Unless we have access to multiple Universes filled with highly enriched fissile fuel, this is impractical. Even with an extraordinary feat of engineering so that we could load a starship with 100 kg of nuclear fuel for each 1 kg of dry mass (and not have it immediately go critical), the achievable deltaV is only 2,218 km/s or 0.74% of the speed of light. Fusion Photon Rocket What if we used the better nuclear rocket: the fusion rocket? There are many different fusion reactions involving different fuels, but we are interested in those that provide the highest energy density. Proton-proton fusion provides a whopping 664 TJ/kg. However, it is very slow, taking thousands of years to complete, and it is not realistic to ever expect to take place outside of stellar cores. Next down the list is Deuterium-Helium3. About 353 TJ/kg is on tap. We won’t dive into the details of the various reactor designs that could be used, but suffice to say that near-complete burnup of fusion fuels is possible, and all the energy released can be converted into heat. If we compare the mass of the Deuterium and Helium 3 before fusing, with the mass of the helium and proton particles after fusion, we notice that 0.39% of the mass is missing. That is the percentage of mass converted into pure energy. It is a much greater percentage than nuclear fissions’ 0.077%. The list of particles involved in fusion reactions, with their exact masses. Let’s repeat the previous calculation for the effective exhaust velocity of a nuclear photon rocket. 1 kg/s of fusion fuels are consumed, for a power output of 353 TW. This produces 2,235.6 kN of thrust out of a 95% efficient emitter. We expel 996.1 grams per second of waste, so the effective exhaust velocity is 2,244.4 km/s. This is nearly five times than a fission photon rocket’s effective exhaust velocity. However, this is still not enough. Our desired deltaV of 42% of the speed of light comes at the cost of a mass ratio of 2.4*10^24. While we could gather enough galaxies together to fuel our fusion photon rocket, we want something more practical. The reality is that a plausible fusion photon rocket with a mass ratio of 100 would only have a deltaV of 10,335 km/s or 3.4% of the speed of light. Barely enough for a multi-century generation ship to cross the stars and certainly not enough for travel within a lifetime. Staging the fusion rocket will not help very much. Also notable is the fact that an effective exhaust velocity of 3.4% of the speed of light is actually lower than the exhaust velocity of direct drive fusion propulsion, where charged particles are directly released into space through a magnetic nozzle. DHe3 releases a 3.6 MeV helium ion and a 14.7 MeV proton. Their averaged velocity is 7% of the speed of light. A photon rocket is a very inefficient use of fusion energy. Antimatter Photon Rocket The ultimate fuel should give the ultimate performance. Nothing beats antimatter! There are many types of antimatter. There are antielectrons, antiprotons, antineutrons and their combined form, anti-atoms like antihydrogen. Antielectrons annihilate with regular electrons in a ‘clean’ annihilation reaction that produces high energy gamma rays and nothing else. They are however the hardest type to store. Antiprotons are much easier to store, especially in the form of frozen antihydrogen ice. The downside is that their annihilation is ‘messy’, as it releases a plethora of products. With solid shielding, enough of the energy of those multiple products can be absorbed and converted into heat. We set the efficiency at 85%. Each kilogram of antimatter contains a potential for 90,000 Terajoules of energy. It must be matched by another kilogram of regular matter, so the average energy density is halved to 45,000 TJ/kg. As we only capture 85% of that amount, the useful energy density is 38,250 TJ/kg. If we consume one kilogram of antimatter/matter mix per second, we would have a drive power of 38,250 TW. A realistic emitter would convert this into 242,250 kN of photon thrust. The effective exhaust velocity is 242,250 km/s or 81% of the speed of light. With such a high exhaust velocity, an antimatter photon rocket would be able to achieve the relativistic velocities we desire. A deltaV of 42% of the speed of light would only require a mass ratio of 1.68. That’s 0.68 kg of antimatter/matter mix for each 1 kg of rocket dry mass. We might even be able to go much faster with high mass ratios; travel times to the stars in single-digit years seems possible. However, antimatter is exceedingly difficult to collect or create. A mass ratio that seems acceptable for a conventional rocket would actually imply an unreasonable amount of antimatter. Existing accelerator facilities, if tasked with solely producing antimatter, would require about 3.6 ZettaJoules to produce 1 kilogram of antimatter. That’s 3,600,000,000 TeraJoules, equivalent to 286 times the total yield of all nuclear bombs today (1.25*10^19 J), or the total output of the United States’ electrical grid (1.5*10^19 J) for the next 240 years. If we were very serious about producing large quantities of antimatter, we could design a superbly optimized antimatter production facility, with very efficient antimatter capture mechanisms. Production efficiency can be increased to 0.025%. This means that 1 kg of antimatter would require ‘only’ 360,000 TJ to manufacture. An antimatter photon starship would ‘just’ need the combined output of all humanity (8*10^19 J/yr) for the next couple of millennia to fill it up. An antimatter production facility. In practice, the awesome performance of antimatter propulsion would be reserved for civilizations higher up the Kardashev Scale. Verdict and Consequences All the calculations so far have assumed nearly perfect use of the energy released by fission, fusion or antimatter reactions. We have also ignored the massive complications that arise from trying to handle the power of those reactions. Despite this best case scenario, nuclear photon rockets do not seem to be up to the task of rapid interstellar travel. Fission and fusion power are just not energy dense enough. Antimatter is far too difficult to produce in huge quantities. The ‘catch’ is that physics is not kind to photon propulsion. For this reason, this sort of starship will remain a bottom-drawer concept for the foreseeable future. What effect does that conclusion have? If we want to use rockets, we must accept that interstellar travel will be slow. Other techniques or technologies have to be employed to make crossings that last centuries. Cryogenic hibernation, life extension or digitizing the mind can enable the original crew to survive that long; generation ships or embryo seeding can allow another group of people to arrive at the destination. Robert L. Forward's Laser-propelled lightsails. If we instead want interstellar travel done quickly, we cannot rely on rockets. All the popular methods for interstellar travel depend on non-rocket propulsion, such as Robert L. Forward’s massive laser-propelled sails or the ‘bomb-tracks’ discussed in a previous post. The energy cost of relativistic travel is no longer derived from a fuel carried onboard a starship, but from an external source. This external source takes the form of large infrastructure projects and preparations that require many years to complete; we trade away the flexibility and autonomy of rockets to gain huge speed, efficiency and cost advantages. A consequence of non-rocket propulsion is that interstellar travel cannot be a whimsical affair. It has to be planned a long time in advance (which has implications for the stability of the civilization organizing it all) and it would be evident to all observers at the departure and destination what is going on. No ‘secret’ missions to other stars! Of course, a scifi writer might not like the sound of that. Their options lie in more exotic types of rockets, more advanced civilizations or speculative science. Examples of exotic rockets include a starship powered by a rotating black hole, where matter is converted into energy at 42% efficiency (an effective exhaust velocity of up to 252,000 km/s or 84% of the speed of light) or a Ram-Augmented Interstellar Ramjet, where the thin interstellar medium is added to the exhaust of a fusion reactor for a greatly improved effective exhaust velocity. More advanced civilizations handle enough energy to be able to produce large quantities of antimatter, overcoming the main difficulty with this fantastic fuel. Speculative science opens up the possibility of using ‘quark nuggets’ to rapidly and easily create antimatter, as well as wormholes and Alcubierre warp drives. Though, we must warn you, that these different options might be more troublesome than photon rockets!

This post cam way before KSP2. But. So we can prepare a challenge at first day KSP2 releases. This challenge will be to land on every planet and moon in KSP2. That means you have to visit every celestial body in one mission. This means you will need a ship capable of going to every celestial body in one mission. Rules: You can use multiple ships attached to a mothership. You can refuel. All of the ships or ship has to made at once. No multiple launches from the KERBOL SYSTEM. You have to place a flag on each planet or moon. (Expect Gas Giants) No mods. Try to do stock KSP2. Pictures, craft downloads, videos, and etc. (Evidence) No cheats. Science is allowed. Rovers are allowed to maximize science. Interactions with ships in Interstellar space is allowed. Interactions with colonies and other things outside of KERBOL SYSTEM is allowed. Contestents: Everyone is allowed to play and take part. In case of Cheating If someone think someone is cheating evidence from both sides to support their claim will be needed. Whoever provides the most convincing evidence will decided the fate of the challenge run. No Spam. Thank you and please enjoy this challenge. -Dr. Kerbal

So I was thinking about how the devs were going to approach the problem of new solar systems. As we all know by now, new solar systems are a major part of KSP2. It is the main reason behind the new parts and even the game. So how are the devs going to handle new solar systems? I came up with two ideas (feel free to suggest more): 1. Hand crafted planets If you are like me, then this is the first idea you had when you heard the words "interstellar travel". But this would be insanely limiting. First the devs would have to make a sun, planet, any moons and all the other planets and extra bits. But inspiration flags and the work that they are doing to make the stock planets look amazing can't be easy. Also KSP is a game of discovery and imagination. While KSP has all the stock planets named specific names, if you have hundreds of exoplanets, you will run out of names, and the community will want different names. If a planet is hand crafted, the devs will want to make the name themselves. 2. Randomly generated planets After hearing about No Man Sky and all the problems with that, I noticed something: I immediately realized how awesome KSP2 would be if the exoplanets were procedurally generated! You could fly around to the new system, name all the planets with cool names that you came up with (this is the planet of MOAR BOOSTERS in the Jebolar system), and you would be the only person with those planets. This would also take a huge load off the developers as they could just set this up and let people play. They could put in special features like canyons and caves, and let the game engine do the rest. This would encourage you to do interstellar travel, as no one has ever set foot on that planet. With the stock planets, lots of people have landed on Eeloo, and you can just look up a picture of what it looks like. But you would be discovering new landscapes! Many modern video games do this. Minecraft is the obvious one, World of Warcraft, No Man Sky, <--- Example of Procedurally generated terrain So in conclusion: Hand Crafted Planets Pros- More of a Kerbolar system feel Greater possibility of Easter Eggs and cool terrain More manageable amount Cons- Amount of dev time needed Inspiration may flag, resulting in boring planets/names Less exoplanets/solar systems Procedurally generated planets Pros - Much more exoplanets The ability to name them More terrain to explore Cons - Less of a 'homemade' feel that the stock planets have More CPU intensive (if you have a hundred planets) Less of a connect with fellow KSP2 players (its more difficult to make a post about your visit to JebBillBobVal if no-one else has that planet)

HI! In the forum we ask and try to answer questions about KSP2? What planets will there be? Is Minmus gonna have ice craem? Will Jeb return? Who knows! Will Jeb, Bill, and Bob return to KSP2???

Hey all, How do you set up engines such as the ELF Plasma Thruster in KSP InterstellarFuelSwitch in 1.8.1? I've tried attaching it directly to the Molten Salt Reactor and then also the Open Cycle Gas Core Fission Reactor, but it can never go above 0.00001 kN of thrust. I'm obviously doing something wrong, but all the tutorials are so out of date. What makes it even more confusing is that when I deploy the Gigantor XL Solar Panels, the engine can suddenly produce up to 0.00800 kN out of nowhere. Basically, could someone please explain to me how to set up plasma, fusion, and thermal engines in this mod? I can't get anywhere with it. Thanks

THE REACH: INTERSTELLAR Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License The Reach Interstellar is an interstellar based planet pack for more advanced players. The system sits at about two kerbal light years distance. The mod is meant to be compatible with several system replacer mods, and with any mod in the Interstellar Consortium. The system in question features 16 landable objects, and a red dwarf binary in the centre. Original mod: https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/193279-181-the-reach-planet-pack/&tab=comments#comment-3773652 Screenshots (By RJVB09): Planet List: Dowload on spacedock: https://spacedock.info/mod/2488/The Reach: Interstellar Credits: @RJVB09 for converting the textures to a less performance-heavy format, making the aurorae @Thomas P. for maintaining Kopernicus up to the update of this mod, no planets without him

KSP: 1.8 Windows 64bit Problem: I am having repeated index errors after installing GPP secondary to my save. Seems to be a comnet problem, perhaps only associated with particular parts. I haven't been able to figure out what exactly triggers it but sometimes on the launchpad I will lose all comnet access and will be getting constant errors index errors until I fully quit and restart. Mods installed: Koperncius GPP Secondary OPP Interstellar Extended REstock Log: Log

I have several vessels with the Orbital assembly docking ports from KSP interstellar extended. Recently, however, these docking ports have lost the ability to undock from other vessels/payloads. I hit undock in the context menu, the undock button disappears and nothing undocks. I've tried looking into the save file data, but I don't know what I'm doing or what I'm looking for. Can anyone help?

The Bahamuto Science Drill certainly is a very handy Part for Probes. Unfortunately that Thing is MASSIVE and doesn't really fit onto most Probe Cores; not to mention the RoveMate Rover Body (I like Rovers). It can't be scaled down by TweakScale either, what would make Sense in my Opinion since a lot of Probes carry Experiments like that-just reasonably sized. I know that the Interstellar Mod includes this Drill in a tweakable and rerunnable Version but I am a bit reluctant to install Interstellar now because it wrecks the Dawn Engine which I am using in some Probes that would the become useless. So I've been trying a bit to either way make the "stock" Bahamuto Drill tweakable or "extract" it from Interstellar. None of that really worked. I then came up with the Idea to add this Sample Extraction Function to the Drill-O-Matic (Junior of course) stock Parts instead. So here is my Question: Can I just copy the "Science Module"-Section from the Bahamuto to the Stock Drills .cfg-Files or is there anything else I have to keep in Mind? I did some minor Tweaks to the Game Files before, like increasing the Stress Tolerance of Wheels after they kept mysteriously breaking evenwithout much Stress on Eve, un-hiding the Mk 1-2 Pod from the Tech Tree or increasing the Mass of some OP lightweight Parts (Big Khleb...). But I wasn't succesful at adding "new" functions to Parts, as said above.

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From my own experience, I know that Interstellar Extended can be quite complicated to figure out, so I made this post to minimise the fuss. In the KSP @FreeThinker's Interstellar Extended mod, there is a number of very cool futuristic parts, and sometimes it can get quite hard to find out how to best use those parts. One of the best examples of such a feature is the Acullbierre drive (a.k.a the Warp Drive) As most parts in IE and in KSP in general, the Acullbierre drive requires a few more parts to function. To fully understand how a warp drive functions, we are going to use an example ship I’ve built. It’s parts fall into these main categories: -Means of control (Duh) - Reactor (mega joules generator) - Secondary power source (mega joules are considered a different resource, so it is best that there is at least a solar panel on the ship) -Acullbierre Drive -Radiators (an absolute MUST for almost any system in IE) Secondary Propulsion system (When exiting warp, you will be going at the exact speed you left at, so you will want to make some adjustments so that you don’t fall into or escape the planet you’re going after) With most parts being pretty self explanatory, there are two features I need to address: The drive and the reactor. Reactors are parts that generate electricity. Some do more than others but they may also require more resources or last less long. Make sure to read the description of them to make sure your ship has the required resources. As well as that, many reactors have different configurations, meaning that some can utilize different configurations of resources. These are different for every reactor, so make sure you choose the one that suits you best. (Most reactors can be fitted with an extra “thermal” reactor. Those utilize the excess heat your reactor/Acullbierre drive produce and repurpose it as electricity. They can go great with reactors as they increase the power output greatly) Acullbierre drive comes in three different shapes: small, large and compact. These differ in the amount of mass they can transport, so make sure you have the correct one (they can also stack BTW) When everything is set up and the reactors are working, go to the drive menu (via right click) to start the drive. CAUTION: this act will generate a lot of excess heat, so be sure you either have enough radiators or your actions are quick!!! When the reactor is charged (the exotic matter bar is full) select your destination on map screen, point there and turn the warp drive on! Tip: one of the readings on the drive menu is the current warp speed. You can increase and decrease that with the appropriate buttons on the menu. Make sure you you slow down quickly enough though!

I have been studying concepts for missions, and I think I might have one. It is basically an expansion upon the idea of a Saturn atmospheric probe whose relay will escape the Solar System. As of yet, it is nameless, but I have some ideas for what it will be. The carrier-relay probe will have a wide-angle camera with color capabilities, and a narrow-angle camera with only B&W. This is similar to the Ralph-Lorri dichotomy on New Horizons. It may also have some other instruments from the Voyager probes, such as a magnetometer, radio receiver, UV spectrometer, etc. Finally, it will carry an atmospheric probe to descend into Saturn's atmosphere. It will be released not long before the Saturn flyby, and after the relay passes from the shadow, it will relay the data collected from the atmospheric probe, as well as data it may have collected as well. The carrier-relay would look like a mesh between Voyager, New Horizons, and Galileo (with the atmospheric probe), possibly. It would be launched in mid-2034, have a 1.7-year-long cruise phase to Jupiter, then take about 4 years to get to Saturn. After that, a Haumea flyby may be possible, given enough funding directed toward it. A couple of questions, however: Since it's on an escape trajectory from the Solar System, what cargo will it carry for aliens to find? Would it be feasible to have a camera embedded into the probe to take a picture of the Saturnian atmosphere? To get to Haumea, how close would the carrier-relay have to fly to Saturn? Would it be possible to make a mockup of it using RSS? (preferably both imgur photographs AND a youtube video) These are two possible trajectories I might use. They aren't necessary, but is instead a template or guideline. https://drive.google.com/open?id=14YrJYsIIzYcgSTCZa_DjR8acOjPp26Ks https://drive.google.com/open?id=1GF_xSTJa7mQ37aFmDcRsh06SYOPoPD0e Share your thoughts below.