What tech belongs in KSP 2?

[Vanamonde]

More personal remarks removed. From now on, these will receive warnings. 

[Guest]

23 minutes ago, SOXBLOX said:

Absolutely! Without a torchdrive, Kerbal players wouldn't learn brachistochrone trajectories. Even though it's basically impossible IRL to cool it properly, etc, we can still enjoy building, flying, and crashing it.

It's not impossible to cool, just hard. There are several radiator designs, most notably droplet radiators, that can have very low mass for their efficiency. Besides that, of course, the approach of slapping a massive number of radiators onto the craft isn't exactly unfamiliar to KSP players. Nobody said building a torchship will be easy. In fact, I hope it'll be quite a challenge to design a good one.

There is already a technology that could allow very high-performance fusion drives, basically a real life Epstein drive. Most of the cooling is open cycle, and amazingly enough, the principle the engine works on has already been tested:
http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/enginelist3.php#fszpinch
I do hope KSP devs use this concept for their torch drive, since flow-stabilize Z-pinch is a really clever trick. 

5 hours ago, Bej Kerman said:

But they are working on metallic hydrogen. Either not reading enough sources or a simple mistyping. Either way, the developers are probably smart enough to know the difference and maybe I'm wrong and I'm the one who hasn't read enough sources.

The dev comment referred specifically to the engines they were making. Current research into metallic hydrogen has nothing to do with space propulsion. And the reason these threads keep popping up is that there are serious questions whether the devs really know what they're doing, and whether their science is up to date.

Edited July 29, 2020 by Guest

[SOXBLOX]

I hadn't realized any fusion drive could do open-cycle cooling. Thank you for telling me! I hope we see that in-game!

Edited July 29, 2020 by SOXBLOX

[Bej Kerman]

18 hours ago, Bej Kerman said:

Edited 13 hours ago by Vanamonde

 

[Guest]

13 hours ago, SOXBLOX said:

I hadn't realized any fusion drive could do open-cycle cooling. Thank you for telling me! I hope we see that in-game!

Any thermal engine does open-cycle cooling, because that's how thermal engines work. Direct thrust engines pretty much always have very low thrust, and while their Isp is very high, they are less efficient overall than higher thrust engines, because their thrust is so low that it prevents them from using the best trajectories. Fusion in particular throws out very light particles are incredible velocities, so most fusion engine proposals are thermal engines. 

[Bej Kerman]

5 minutes ago, Dragon01 said:

they are less efficient overall than higher thrust engines, because their thrust is so low that it prevents them from using the best trajectories.

Why not split maneuvers into several burns at periapsis?

[KerikBalm]

2 hours ago, Bej Kerman said:

Why not split maneuvers into several burns at periapsis?

That only works until the last burn at perapsis puts you on an escape trajectory, but not an intercept trajectory. From then on its a long slow burn without your friend Mr. Oberth.

But absolutely, splitting the burns up and doing them at periapsis will work initially and give you some savings (at the cost of significant time)

16 hours ago, SOXBLOX said:

Also, some players have decided that since mmH is unrealistic IRL, we shouldn't have it in the game. But this is contrary to logic and the scientific process they claim to be defending. You do not overturn incorrect theories/hypotheses/whatevers by removing or censoring them from the public view, you present counterarguments for those who are interested. "A spoonful of honey catches more flies than a gallon of vinegar", right?

I don't accept that argument. Using the same logic, some sort of aether jet could be included. I think I've made my position clear enough - that I think mmH would fall into the categories of either old/disproven science (bad science), or that it fits into the category of an engine that works if a material with certain properties exists, even if it is extremely unlikely to exist.

Could we also include a "red mercury" rocket in the game? - if you're not familiar with the term, either google it, or substitue pixie dust/unicorn farts as only slightly less reasonable alternatives.

When explaining science, its good to show experiments that have disproven various hypotheses. When a hypothesis is under debate, you do experiments to test it. KSP isn't about doing science, but it does relate to educating people about scientific findings. And you don't do that by presenting bad science as if its a working technology.

16 hours ago, SOXBLOX said:

I personally look forward to playing KSP 2 in my own personal style, and I hope everyone gets the ability to do that. I believe that that is the magic of KSP.

Well, the beauty of KSP is its modibility. I wouldn't mind if they included the mmH assets, but had them locked by default... or perhaps a setting.

You can check "enable impossible technologies" similar to enabling stock vessels, advanced tweakables, etc. Without that box checked, any tech deemed to likely be impossible is hidden from the parts list.

I just want to prevent misunderstandings.

Maybe I'm overly sensitive, but recent events outside of KSP have really made me hate the spread of misinformation. As a society, its gone way too far, and is having serious detrimental effects on society - the climate, disease control, scientific funding, etc. I'm really really sick of it, and I don't want to see it grow within KSP (admitting that KSP already has some unrealistic things that *may* give people the wrong impression about some things)

 

[DunaManiac]

4 minutes ago, KerikBalm said:

Could we also include a "red mercury" rocket in the game?

The difference between Metallic Hydrogen and "red mercury" is that it does have some roots in reality. And that's enough for me. 

Anyway, that aside, I can agree with @KerikBalm that it probably cannot exist, but as long as it has some root in reality that's fine with me.

[KerikBalm]

4 minutes ago, DunaManiac said:

The difference between Metallic Hydrogen and "red mercury" is that it does have some roots in reality. And that's enough for me. 

Well, mmH is a substance claimed to exist with certain properties. Or you can say it is a claimed property of mH.

Now, many of the claimed properties for Red mercury have roots in reality. Superconducting materials exist... high temperature superconductors exist (how high you consider "high temperature" is up for discussion) - why not call one of them red mercury?

Stealh paint exists - why not call one formulation Red mercury?

Red mercury has been claimed to be a code name, not actually mercury (but at other times it has been claimed to have a relation to mercury). If going the code-name route, its then just a matter of asking if what it is claimed to be able to do has some basis in reality.

Superconductor? has a basis in reality

Radar absorber? has a basis in reality

Some kind of material that can aid in enrichment? some basis in reality, the chemical properties of different isotopes are slightly different (you would die if you drank too much di-deuterium monoxide instead of di-protium monoxide /dihydrogen monoxide/normal water)

Something that man make fusion explosions without a fission trigger? Well fusion reactors do that, some basis in reality...

So... we could take some property that has some basis in reality, and then say that it uses red mercury to do it...

Red mercury Orion drives: no fallout, can use by your colonies!

 

But basically, Red mercury is something that is 99.9% a hoax, that has been claimed to do pretty much whatever one wants (I think I've seen some bad UFO documentaries -those are infuriating, don't know why I'd even watch 1 minute- claiming reverse engineering of alien antigrav using... red mercury...). It might as well be pixie dust, but it sounds more technical, and is less obviously fake than "unobtanium", and unlike pixie dust, has a technical/technobabble explanation for what it does instead of outright magic

...

But in the end, its equivalent

 

[SOXBLOX]

2 hours ago, Dragon01 said:

Any thermal engine does open-cycle cooling, because that's how thermal engines work. Direct thrust engines pretty much always have very low thrust, and while their Isp is very high, they are less efficient overall than higher thrust engines, because their thrust is so low that it prevents them from using the best trajectories. Fusion in particular throws out very light particles are incredible velocities, so most fusion engine proposals are thermal engines. 

I didn't look at the design. If it's thermal, yeah, I know that trick. Thanks anyways.

[Guest]

11 minutes ago, KerikBalm said:

Red mercury has been claimed to be a code name, not actually mercury (but at other times it has been claimed to have a relation to mercury). If going the code-name route, its then just a matter of asking if what it is claimed to be able to do has some basis in reality.

Apparently, "red mercury" was a Soviet codename for Li-6, similarly to how Manhattan project called Uranium  (IIRC) "copper" (leading to an amusing moment when they had to order "honest-to-god-copper" once they wanted to use, well, copper  ). So, while most of the claims got no basis in reality whatsoever, a rocket running on it would likely be some sort of MPDT similar to the ones @Nertea made.

33 minutes ago, DunaManiac said:

The difference between Metallic Hydrogen and "red mercury" is that it does have some roots in reality. And that's enough for me. 

Anyway, that aside, I can agree with @KerikBalm that it probably cannot exist, but as long as it has some root in reality that's fine with me.

You could also say aether has some basis in reality, because Lorenz formulated a theory of aether that was not, strictly speaking, disproved. Only, upon closer inspection, his theory was mathematically equivalent to special relativity (which is why, when you study the subject, you'll be hearing of Lorenz far more than of Einstein, as his math was somewhat neater), so it doesn't allow aether propellers any more than SR does. Same with metallic hydrogen. Yes, the substance exists, but it has none of the properties that are required for it to be of any use in rockets.

[DunaManiac]

10 minutes ago, KerikBalm said:

Well, mmH is a substance claimed to exist with certain properties. Or you can say it is a claimed property of mH.

 

Yes, but the phrase "Red Mercury" is usually used in support of a substance that magically makes nuclear bombs work or more powerful. More than that, it's non falsifiable unless we have a nuclear bomb and was able to actually pull it apart and look inside it. There's also no evidence that it could be reliable used in rocket propellant, and neither can other kinds.

mmH however, is falsifiable, even though there is some debate within the scientific community whether it exists or not, and it may, just impossible to create, and it has shown evidence of if it were to exist, it would be able to be used as a rocket propellant.

 

[SOXBLOX]

3 hours ago, KerikBalm said:

I don't accept that argument. Using the same logic, some sort of aether jet could be included. I think I've made my position clear enough - that I think mmH would fall into the categories of either old/disproven science (bad science), or that it fits into the category of an engine that works if a material with certain properties exists, even if it is extremely unlikely to exist.

Could we also include a "red mercury" rocket in the game? - if you're not familiar with the term, either google it, or substitue pixie dust/unicorn farts as only slightly less reasonable alternatives.

When explaining science, its good to show experiments that have disproven various hypotheses. When a hypothesis is under debate, you do experiments to test it. KSP isn't about doing science, but it does relate to educating people about scientific findings. And you don't do that by presenting bad science as if its a working technology.

I just want to prevent misunderstandings.

Maybe I'm overly sensitive, but recent events outside of KSP have really made me hate the spread of misinformation. As a society, its gone way too far, and is having serious detrimental effects on society - the climate, disease control, scientific funding, etc. I'm really really sick of it, and I don't want to see it grow within KSP (admitting that KSP already has some unrealistic things that *may* give people the wrong impression about some things)

 

The paragraph you quoted was not an argument for mH in the game. You say you want to combat bad science. I would suggest that you create a blog, podcast, or YouTube channel to do this, rather than try to have the tech removed from KSP 2. Catch flies with honey.

[snip]Aren't people capable of deciding for themselves what is detrimental? Fine if you want to worry about it, but don't try to take away people's toys to "solve" the problems. Again, science doesn't sweep old ideas under a rug to hide them, lest some fool rediscover them and think they're science (flat-earthers, etc.). Combat bad ideas by showing people good ones. How about the devs put in a disclaimer. "For the sake of gameplay, some engines not possible IRL are included in this game" ?  I would be happy with that. 

Edited July 30, 2020 by Vanamonde

[Guest]

19 minutes ago, DunaManiac said:

mmH however, is falsifiable, even though there is some debate within the scientific community whether it exists or not, and it may, just impossible to create, and it has shown evidence of if it were to exist, it would be able to be used as a rocket propellant.

Actually, you're way behind the curve. Metallic hydrogen has been created. During these experiments, it had shown that it does not have the suspected property that would enable it to be used as rocket propellant. The updated theory, which explains the experimental results, does not predict any sort of metastability. Case closed. 

10 minutes ago, SOXBLOX said:

How about the devs put in a disclaimer. "For the sake of gameplay, some engines not possible IRL are included in this game" ?  I would be happy with that. 

Although that could work, I think removal is actually more likely. Have you watched any of the dev videos? They clearly are big on making KSP2 based on real science, and this sentiment strongly resonates through the game's marketing. 

You will have plenty of other toys to solve problems with. Just not those, but liquid core NTRs, for instance, which have almost identical performance. We are showing people good ideas (such as liquid NTRs), but I rarely see anyone talking about that. 

BTW, creating a blog is not a bad idea, but hardly mutually exclusive with trying to get bad science scrubbed from KSP2. Problem is, KSP2 likely will end up with more outreach, including children. It's vital that misconceptions are not given a chance to spread, because then it's whack-a-mole with the myths that just keep coming back (oh, and flat earth doesn't have anything to do with science, we knew it was round since ancient Greece. In fact, the Greeks even knew how big it was).

[Bej Kerman]

If Kerbals can make fuel from soil, what's the point of this thread? Most of what the developers have done is locked and in place so what people think no longer matters. Telling from all that has gone into the mmH engines, they're bound to end up in the game so there's no use talking about them.

[SOXBLOX]

So, for the sake of the debate, and those just seeing this thread, I will recap the arguments presented here.

It is now generally acknowledged that mmH is not plausible IRL. Both sides agree on this. The differences lie in whether the devs should keep it in the game.

One side feels that even though it doesn't work in real life, we should keep it in the game. No one on this side expects perfect scientific accuracy in a video game designed to be fun to play. It would be equivalent to a thought experiment, and as we can predict the properties of mmH, it would be reasonably hard science. 

The other side feels that since it isn't possible IRL, it should not be in the game. They feel public opinion of science might be damaged by misconceptions about mmH, esp. in areas like funding for science, etc., a valid concern, as KSP's influence is broad.

***

Obviously, I am of the first group.

The other side's reasoning has some problems. First, they ignore the fact that any misconceptions inclusion of mmH causes can probably be explained away in less than five minutes. If the misconceptions can be so easily dealt with, then it is less work overall to simply leave them in and provide an explanation or disclaimer.

Secondly, the same arguments they use for removing mmH could be used to make Realism Overhaul and Principia stock. Not everyone wants that.

Finally, they are concerned that presenting it in a realistic fashion might damage the opinion of society regarding science in general. This argument, aside from implying that the originators occupy a position outside of society, suggests something of what they think of "society" and "the general public". The problem is that "for the greater good" and "to protect society" can be used to justify many things, of which the removal of unobtanium from a video game is the least...counterproductive. These arguments are as old as humanity, and they always seem to lead to unfortunate events. Thus, this argument is fallacious.

It's absolutely not my intent to make these remarks personal, and I hope y'all won't take them that way.

***

Now, away from philosophy and back to the crux of the debate; I am quite willing to see a compromise. I would suggest that we find a suitable one quickly, so that, perhaps, the devs have a chance to implement it. I see a few possibilities, and would greatly welcome additional suggestions.

       We can remove mmH, and replace it with slightly more realistic tech with the same performance regime. Dragon01 has suggested liquid -core NTR's. The drawback is that mmH seems to be important in the motivation to build colonies. I see no such reason for NTR's to provide the same motivation. Also, I think fission fuels are pretty scarce or inaccessible in our solar system, excepting Earth's crust, so to stick with hard science...

        We can keep mmH, and add some sort of disclaimer. "Some scientific accuracy has been sacrificed for gameplay" or something.

         My personal preference, assuming KSP 2 uses something vaguely similar to KSP 1's tech tree, would be a sort of "tech tree editor". When you create a career (adventure?) game, you can move parts, categories of parts, etc. between nodes to suit your preferred progression. You should be able to add or remove entire types of technology as well, such as the "unicorn fart" engines. Drawbacks are that the community loses a common progression. I think, though, that the benefits in personalization outweigh the cost in collective knowledge of how individual games progress.

          The above would be functionally equivalent to a toggle for the presence of mmH in the game, though a toggle specifically for mmH might be simpler.

What solutions have I missed? I would like to know what others think of the "tech tree editor concept" as well. Has a system like that already been proposed?

I have enjoyed our debate regarding the topic, but I find that I have become too serious regarding it. So, at the risk of sounding grandiose, I believe I shall excuse myself from the conversation regarding reasons for removing/retaining mmH. Thank you all for the good time; you've made me think, and that's always a win! I hope you all get to say the same, and that we all enjoy KSP 2, regardless of what degree of accuracy it has.

[KerikBalm]

2 hours ago, SOXBLOX said:

It is now generally acknowledged that mmH is not plausible IRL. Both sides agree on this.

I'm glad that you agree, but as a post 17 hours ago shows, not all agree on this

2 hours ago, SOXBLOX said:

One side feels that even though it doesn't work in real life, we should keep it in the game.

Its worht noting that the polls seem to indicate that such a view is far from popular - but of course its far from a random sample, and people may have changed their vote if mH had explicitly been mentioned as an example in one of the categories

2 hours ago, SOXBLOX said:

The other side feels that since it isn't possible IRL, it should not be in the game. They feel public opinion of science might be damaged by misconceptions about mmH, esp. in areas like funding for science, etc., a valid concern, as KSP's influence is broad.

Well, the public science understanding is just one element to me. As in my "worried about magic tech" thread, I have a worry about the general spirit of the game (although my concerns about Rask and Rusk have been mollified), if it is unrealistic. I want to play a game that is as scientifically accurate as possible, but with concessions made for limited playing time/scope (no, I don't want to deal with Kerbal congress hearings on rocket programs, or boards of investors), limited computing power (can't have real sized planets and detailed planets at the same time), and gameplay.

mmH is not needed for any of these. If its just one engine, fine I could overlook it and not use it (similar to how I didn't use the OP wolfhound when it came out), but he concern of my "magic tech" thread was that if half the content of the game is stuff I don't want, its not a game I want.

2 hours ago, SOXBLOX said:

The other side's reasoning has some problems. First, they ignore the fact that any misconceptions inclusion of mmH causes can probably be explained away in less than five minutes. If the misconceptions can be so easily dealt with, then it is less work overall to simply leave them in and provide an explanation or disclaimer.

As this page of the thread demonstrates, its not easily dealt with. Its been a year since the debate started, on just one forum (the KSP community is larger than this forum community), and mH misconceptions are still alive and well. Its not easily dealt with due to the difficulty explaining it, the difficulty disseminating the explanation, and the trust that the devs have done their homework well.

So if they had a disclaimer in the game, fine. Calling it explodium would effectively serve as a disclaimer too...

2 hours ago, SOXBLOX said:

Secondly, the same arguments they use for removing mmH could be used to make Realism Overhaul and Principia stock. Not everyone wants that.

RO seriously slowed down my game last time I tried it. I'm ok with concessions made due to hardware limitations - its unavoidable (although I do play with a scaled up system).

I tried principia, but the UI was not so friendly, but in principle I very much liked the N-body mechanics.

2 hours ago, SOXBLOX said:

We can remove mmH, and replace it with slightly more realistic tech with the same performance regime. Dragon01 has suggested liquid -core NTR's. The drawback is that mmH seems to be important in the motivation to build colonies. I see no such reason for NTR's to provide the same motivation. Also, I think fission fuels are pretty scarce or inaccessible in our solar system, excepting Earth's crust, so to stick with hard science...

I think its the exact opposite. #1) mH would be something manufactured from hydrogen (you aren't going to mine it from a gas giant). There's no reason it couldn't be made on Kerbin. #2) NTRs pose grave dangers if the rocker 'splodes, a good reason to ban launching on Kerbin, but allow launching them on offworld colonies where you can freely spread fallout for hundreds of km across the barren world your colony is on. #3) Fission fuels are pretty common, and all heavier elements are much more easily found in undifferentiated bodies (small bodies like asteroids). Earth's crust is deficient in heavier elements because those mostly sank to our core.

The only think a mH rocket gets us that an NTR doesn't, is the absence of radiation (which seems like it will be a thing you need to account for in KSP2).

I'd argue its better to have the radiation component, for balance. Otherwise the mH engine just gets you and OP lander/ascent engine, superior to the standard chemical engines in every way, with no drawbacks.

and the magnetic confinement vacuum version... just seems like dumb technobabble to me, and the gameplay consideration (overheats/explodes in an atmosphere), just seems dumb and contrived to me, especially when you can just use lH₂ for good vacuum performance at the cost of reduced TWR...

Anyway, thats at least 2 engines I won't be using, and they haven't given us details on much else. @Nate Simpson has come on this forum, and acknowledged concerns about minor stuff like navball positioning/texture, and not things so core to gameplay as the engines (which I think its safe to say, generated a lot more controversy).

So I'm still seeing big alarms, and I will certainly not be purchasing on release.

[Bej Kerman]

When are we going to cover the bigger issue that Kerbals can already make fuel from soil? That's way more unrealistic.

[KerikBalm]

Do you actually want to debate mining mechanics in KSP2, or is this just https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism ?

If the former: in KSP2, it seems that they will have more diverse types of resources, and based on the shots showing a fusion powered craft in orbit over a gas giant (a good source of He3), it seems the resource extraction system will be a lot more detailed.

Also, in KSP, it wasn't "soil", it was generic "ore". If you were mining regolith with ice in it, its simple electrolysis to make LF+Ox. If its carbonaceous chondrite like material

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbonaceous_chondrite

Then you could extract water, or Carbon and organic compounds. Now, getting all that processing done in a 2.5m wide piece of machinery, that is a stretch, yes.

Being able to extract large amounts of material by drilling in one location, rather than stripmining a large portion of the surface, yes, unrealistic.

KSP2's more developed colony mechanics hold some promise of being more realistic, and we don't know how it will work, so can't complain about something if I know nothing about it.

Edited July 31, 2020 by KerikBalm

[Incarnation of Chaos]

Also I'd like to point out that between traditional Fission reactors (Which you'd need for exploration outside the inner solar system realistically beyond probes), and Fusion reactors (Which we know are in KSP2 due to the presence of fusion-based ship designs). The Lack of fissionable material isn't actually a BAD thing; this would provide a decent mechanism to limit usage of large atomic ships until later in the game where "Breeding" large amounts of fissile material becomes incredibly easy.

Though i will say i wish we knew more about the composition of the outer planets; yes we can derive very general ideas of what they're made of from just their surfaces and the conditions they formed in. But i think assuming too much could be pretty dangerous also, Earth is chock full of materials that really shouldn't be here in abundance that were delivered or concentrated via various impacts or geological processes. So finding Fissile materials in the outer systems may be easier than we currently think, but this is speculation at best.

[KerikBalm]

3 hours ago, Incarnation of Chaos said:

Though i will say i wish we knew more about the composition of the outer planets; yes we can derive very general ideas of what they're made of from just their surfaces and the conditions they formed in. But i think assuming too much could be pretty dangerous also, Earth is chock full of materials that really shouldn't be here in abundance that were delivered or concentrated via various impacts or geological processes. So finding Fissile materials in the outer systems may be easier than we currently think, but this is speculation at best.

Well, we know mars has Thorium:

https://mars.nasa.gov/odyssey/gallery/latestimages/PIA04257.html

Uranium on the moon (not surprising)

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.space.com/amp/6904-uranium-moon.html

As for asteroids, they are undifferentiated, so they should be more homogeneous, but that means lower more uniform concentrations:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0039914068800311

Certainly, it would be easier to mine it somewhere that geologic processes have concentrated it.

Also, the overall metallicity of other star systems may be very different. A distant star system may have very low metallicity, and fissionable material may be rare/non-existent... But nearby stars should have similar metallicity, so if the kerbol system has fissionables, the other systems should have some too

 

 

[Incarnation of Chaos]

23 minutes ago, KerikBalm said:

Well, we know mars has Thorium:

https://mars.nasa.gov/odyssey/gallery/latestimages/PIA04257.html

Uranium on the moon (not surprising)

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.space.com/amp/6904-uranium-moon.html

As for asteroids, they are undifferentiated, so they should be more homogeneous, but that means lower more uniform concentrations:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0039914068800311

Certainly, it would be easier to mine it somewhere that geologic processes have concentrated it.

Also, the overall metallicity of other star systems may be very different. A distant star system may have very low metallicity, and fissionable material may be rare/non-existent... But nearby stars should have similar metallicity, so if the kerbol system has fissionables, the other systems should have some too

 

 

By the time you can get to other systems; you're at the point where you can just use fusion to make fissionable material if you absolutely have to (Via Neutron Irradiation, not directly fusing them). Though i would start to question the utility at that point, and yeah iv'e known the Moon/Mars have them for a while (Most of the disscussion/debate is concentration). Asteroids are chock full of heavy elements (Iridium, Gold, Platinum), but as you mentioned at low concentrations throughout.

I was mostly just trying to say there's a little bit of "Wiggle room" for the abundance of many of these things due to the nature of it.  Also you could always have localized areas that are much higher/lower; just like Ore concentrations in KSP 1.

[Guest]

Mining fissionables on other worlds is not unrealistic. There's nothing about Earth that makes it inherently more likely to have fissionable material deposits than any other planet, unless we count geological considerations unique to every planet (but then, nobody says some other conditions can't concentrate uranium on other planets, too). The only reason we're not seeing more of them is that they're rare even on Earth, and it's been explored better than any other planet in the system, so we found a bunch. Making fission fuel in a colony is certainly within the realms of plausibility. 

Also, consider that many fission engines are reactors. Those, generally, stop working way before actual fuel is depleted, from accumulation of neutron poisons. I think that early on, nuclear reprocessing will be a major mode of reuse for nuclear rockets in colonies, together with plain and simple propellant restocking. A solid-core NTR, in particular, is an engine that can run for way longer than you can provide propellant for (without completely killing TWR, at least). 

On 7/31/2020 at 7:23 AM, SOXBLOX said:

The other side's reasoning has some problems. First, they ignore the fact that any misconceptions inclusion of mmH causes can probably be explained away in less than five minutes. If the misconceptions can be so easily dealt with, then it is less work overall to simply leave them in and provide an explanation or disclaimer.

This very thread, and the metallic hydrogen thread in the science forum, are excellent counterexamples of this particular point. There are several people who, despite multiple "disclaimers" from actual scientists, think mmH may still, somehow, be a thing IRL. The damage is already being done by those enthusiastic, "scientific" videos where we see the devs talk about it as it was a real thing.

It will be easier to remove the engines than to continuously try to explain that no, they do not really work. In fact, have you ever tried to convince someone to go against "common wisdom"? It's hard, most people will go to great lengths to justify the first opinion they formed. The concern here is that KSP2 might inspire metallic hydrogen engines to become "common wisdom".

On 7/31/2020 at 7:23 AM, SOXBLOX said:

Finally, they are concerned that presenting it in a realistic fashion might damage the opinion of society regarding science in general. This argument, aside from implying that the originators occupy a position outside of society, suggests something of what they think of "society" and "the general public". The problem is that "for the greater good" and "to protect society" can be used to justify many things, of which the removal of unobtanium from a video game is the least...counterproductive. These arguments are as old as humanity, and they always seem to lead to unfortunate events. Thus, this argument is fallacious.

So, what you're saying is that we shouldn't educate the general public if we don't have any reason other than "it's good for them"? This argument is made by scientists, and yes, for its purpose, they occupy a position outside the "wider society", because they have already received that knowledge through other sources such as university lectures. KSP2 falls into the "popular science" category (once again, by the devs' own admission), teaching scientific concepts to those either uninterested in full-on university lectures (often because they're studying another, unrelated subject), or too young for them.

All we want is to spread the knowledge of scientific facts. In fact, KSP devs seem to want that, too, but unfortunately, they have made a major blunder. To have someone pretend to teach while feeding people humbug is rather irksome, to say the least. It's not just about whether to educate or not, but about whether not to deceive. I think we can all agree deception is a bad thing, and that's what KSP will be doing if it includes metallic hydrogen. 

Edited August 1, 2020 by Guest