shynung

Depends on the spacecraft used. Suppose you're going to space in a 3-man spacecraft. The craft was rated for three men, each weighing 75 kg (for a total payload-to-LEO of 225 kg). In this case, you'd take the payload capacity supposed to carry 2 men; you'd pay double compared to the other person riding with you (assuming he weighs less than 85 kg, which hits the spacecraft's weigh limits). If, instead, you plan to go to space using a 1-man spacecraft designed around the 75-kg-per-man figure, you're out of luck.

What about the ISS?

Mercedes-Benz never made aircrafts, they only make cars right from its inception. Daimler (the company it eventually merged with in 1926) never made aircrafts either; they make stationary engines. BMW, on the other hand, is the result of a restructured aircraft manufacturing firm, Rapp Motorenwerke, in 1917. They were forced to cease producing aircraft engines in 1918 in accordance to the Versailles Treaty, and consequently shifted to motorcycle production in 1923, followed by cars in 1928.

So, at most we're looking at, at most, 5 intelligent-life-bearing planet (could be more, but not very likely), only one (or two, but that's even less likely) of which have developed spaceflight. And that's assuming all 60 planets are indeed habitable. Though, I could also say that some of the life developed in the system might be emerging in the unlikely places, or developing technology in ways that we do not expect. Seaborne species, for example, might use other energy source to smelt metal (lava vents?), or simply use other materials in their place. That may not get them very far(still no rocket engines), but if they ever discovered the radio, that's enough for them to notice (or be noticed) that they are not alone in the system. I think the development of radio communication would be a crucial element in such a system. Humans got away with broadcasting detectable messages in the 20th century because there were nobody else close enough around to hear them. If the same thing happens in a system with more than one inhabited planets, they'll probably either think that the other species' transmission is background static (though a very odd one at that), recognize them as another species in their system, or believe the other 'voices' there are from deities.

Welcome to KSP Forum, Tinytank. One of the most prominent engines in KSP Interstellar is the thermal rockets. These need to be attached directly to a reactor in order to work. The thermal turbojet, which is the one needing intake air, also needs to be attached directly to a reactor. For both cases, any type of reactor (fission, fusion, antimatter) will work, assuming said reactors are online. Hope it helps.

I'm pretty confident by the time the sample reaches 100, it'd be pretty close to a 50/50 split. However, I'd be quite surprised if it is exactly 50/50 by then.

I think it would be boring to have all 36 planets in system #2 to be populated entirely by humans. I might as well say that the humans emerged on one planet and colonized the others, which were barren. I'd rather have only 4-6 planets reaching the space age, the rest being in various stages of civilization development eras, like industrial or pre-industrial ages (or tribals for that matter). They could have evolved from different species,depending on what creatures thrived on each planet. They could have first contact when they developed the radio, far before anyone have directly seen an inhabitant of the other planets. Interplanetary warfare, though, would be unlikely in my opinion. Why waste time and resources trying to obliterate another planet? They had to have something they gain to even think of attacking in the first place; invasions are expensive.

Imagine if somehow, most of the planets have developed life. Interplanetary alien communities arising from a single solar system... That would make a good sci-fi story.

We found several already? This universe is startlingly remarkable.

A black hole inside a star? That wouldn't last very long in that state. Most likely, it'd eat the star, turning into a bigger black hole in the process. Though, at this point, I'm starting to think of entire solar systems orbiting another bigger solar system.

I think this thread: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/82163-Do-you-like-trams-as-means-of-transportation belongs to the Space Lounge rather than Science Labs.

Makes sense. Aborts are only done when something doesn't work right, in which all involved vehicles would go into refurbishment anyway.

-snip- Space exploration doesn't have much supporters. People typically support things that have more immediate feedback, such as education, technology, or public services. Space doesn't have much use other than for research and national pride, in most people's view.

I'd ride trams only if they are separated from the main road (i.e. elevated). I live in Jakarta, where traffic jams are a constant problem. Elevated trams would get around the problem nicely. Though, it'd probably be crowded if one were ever built here.

Wikipedia may not be the ultimate grail of knowledge, but it is one of the closest thing to it accessible to a typical internet user. Also, I have read the relevant Wikipedia articles before I sent my posts. Where do you think I got all those numbers from? Once again, you failed to produce any convincing evidence for your hypothesis, and resorts to criticizing what evidences I and several others have managed to produce. Here's the article on Pangaea, timeline of human evolution, and more importantly the Agricultural Revolution.

Yep, I have a messy room The user below me never uses SRBs in KSP.

'sigh' Have you ever read Wikipedia, at least once? Here is a page on Pyramid structures. It has information on pyramids from various regions, including Egyptian, Mesoamerican, and even Chinese ones. Read every single one of them. If you're still unconvinced, check every single notes and citations on each page you visit. Verify them using the best methods at your disposal. Compare this to your own hypothesis about pyramids being in a past equator. Check each and every evidence on both sides. Analyze them closely. Evaluate your findings, and present it back here. Until you do this, any argument you make to support your hypothesis will be irrelevant, and most likely be received negatively.

Don't let the door hit you on your way out.

That's why the people at REL (the company that designed the Skylon) choose to use a hybrid spaceplane design, rather than a traditional rocket design. They are positing that by using a hybrid engine design, enough mass could be lost from the lowered fuel requirements to yield a usable cargo capacity.

I never believed that Pharaohs committed their entire lives to build a gigantic grave for themselves, so I don't need a leap of faith. All I know is that they were buried there. Whether this was their own will or otherwise, I have insufficient facts to have any hypotheses about the details of the process. Also, while it is tempting to think that the mainstream theories are false, it is a good practice to always look at the available facts that backs these theories, in order to understand why it was accepted. Should any new hypothesis appears, the actuality and accuracy of the facts and logical implications can make or break the resulting theory.

I didn't follow the study closely; I just stumbled into it when I was researching about cheap orbital rockets about 2 years ago. The study itself was from 2005, so if it does produce an actual engine, it should be well known by now. Though, I have a feeling that the rocket designs there make great SRB alternatives, if it wasn't for their low reliability.

In your first post: You were supposing that pyramids are aligned along a past equator. That can only happen if the ancient civilizations than built them (I'm assuming Egyptians and Mayans) lived billions of years ago, back when the Earth was very young. At that time, the land masses are not arranged as they are today; there was one huge continent at one time called Pangaea, which broke into the current continents. While it is possible that the current positions of pyramids have been in the equator, there is another problem. The first anatomically-modern humans first appeared in the fossil records about 200,000 years ago, specifically the species Homo sapiens(us). By the 10,000 years-ago mark, all other members of the Homo genus(which looked more like apes than humans) has vanished, leaving only us. At that time, farming crops was already discovered. About 6000 years ago, a proto-state developed in what is now Egypt, in which farming was widespread, and a simplistic government is established. Claiming that a civilization living 10,000 years ago can erect objects that precisely matches a former equatorial site from billions of years before them, using technology that leaves absolutely no trace other than the objects themselves, especially by a newly-evolved species that has just started organizing everything, is a pretty big leap of faith, no matter how you looked at it.

What Streetwind meant by that wall of text, is that a practical SSTO using current technologies would result in very low payload mass fraction. It's not the SSTO concept that's flawed, but rather the technical limits that's being pushed too far.

Your hypothesis revolves around the idea of why and how these buildings were built. The existence and composition of said buildings does not provide enough evidence to support said hypothesis.

There is a difference between hypotheses that is outright wrong, and ones that, while extremely unlikely, cannot be proven wrong. This discussion of ancient advanced civilizations are the latter. I'll give you a different example: There may be aliens on Mars. The possibility is still there. However, recent discoveries by several spacecrafts have observed that there are no signs that life has developed there. Would you, among all this facts, confidently claim that there are living aliens on Mars, on the sole basis of the very-unlikely chance that there actually are?