shynung

I'm planning to launch 2 main ships to the Joolian system, both having separate crew, separate landers, and will do the landings separately from their respective counterparts (each Joolian moon will be landed twice, on different locations). No significant mission overlaps, other than some rendezvous, and possibly fuel transfers and crew swaps. Is this still acceptable under the original rules, or am I going to the freestyle category?(If I am, I don't mind.)

How usual? Last time a rocket comparable to Saturn V exploded on the pad was the N1 disaster, and that created one of the biggest non-nuclear explosions ever made. The presence of an NTR on top of it may not change much of the explosion, but makes the resulting cleanup more complicated.

That may be true. However, I read somewhere else in the science lab that used radiation suits are considered low-level radioactive waste. I'm assuming that most of the waste and rubble that comes close enough to the fuel rod fragments themselves are within this category, though I may be wrong. Also, I object calling the amount of rubble from an exploding rocket the size of Saturn V as 'usual'. It'd be devastating, NTR or not.

Radiation or not, having uranium nuclear fuel rod fragments scattered on any location would warrant holding back on its further use. Heavy metals have a negative effect, both on the environment and on people living on it. Most likely, some sort of nuclear waste cleanup would have to be conducted, which takes some time, especially in the middle of a launch pad rubble, the result of a 105m rocket exploding.

Not to mention a really heavy blow to the national ego, along with close to 2 years worth of repair work. When N1 blew up, it took 18 months to rebuild the launch pad. If the same N1 has an NTR upper stage, there could be years before the same pad can ever be used again.

...And finding out that those mission happened to perfectly plausible, proved by successfully doing said mission the next night.

It still will take an awfully long time until this phrase become relevant. Forget antimatter, we haven't even have a working fusion reactor as of now.

Well, at least NASA cares enough about the environment to not fire it in the atmosphere (other than a few tests in a desolate area). Regarding launch failures, I don't remember the last time NASA have gotten themselves a pad explosion for the last 30 years or so. If they are to fire the NTR only when in LEO, then I see nothing too dangerous with the exhaust; it would have scattered too widely to have any visible effects. Not really sure about NK, though. But I won't delve further into that.

I thought bacon comes from pigs. Also, Martian microbes could have evolved traits that work better for Mars-bound organisms. Good for genetic engineering stuff. Killing them might not be a good idea.

I see. Though, I can't help but feel somewhat insecure. I don't know what would happen to people's health if Saturn V-Ns were to start flying. I wonder if they ever heard of the N1 accident. Have they ever thought of what would have happened should a Saturn V-N were to suffer the same fate? At least, we don't have to worry about it for now. Even a single NTR rocket test is probably enough to cause significant public uproar. They're getting nucleophobic for some reason.

Aren't high-temperature gaseous hydrogen quite reactive already? I thought they would ignite in contact with the air. So high-temp GH2 is not pyrophoric?

....Aaand I have a feeling that Squad isn't going to listen any further, seeing their records so far. The Curse plan is already set in stone, and I believe so is TT's. Squad makes a great game, but doesn't manage it well. I'm likening their situation to a player getting himself to orbit by a barely-working rocket; it flies well enough, but can't do anything else. They should really set their ears up for their own people, lest their own game get bought by some other developer with more community support. I still think TT's decision to pull the plug is a foolish one, seeing that some people still enjoy it (I heard one user complaining that their favorite stockalike mods is about to disappear, this along with KSPX). He's making the situation worse, especially for the end-users. Looks like I'm stuck with whatever things that are still in store now, seeing that the original developer just quitted and I have no modding skills. Though, I'm sure I could find (or make, or request) a worthy alternative to this, short of B9 (too many parts, computer cannot take the strain).

They actually did? So they went back to the Soviets' early-rockets-design-protocol. Thank god they didn't fly that one. In that case, their designs are probably supposed to work solely in deep space. Neither upper stages nor LEO tugs.

What they were saying can be boiled down to this: We don't seed other planets with Terran microbes to see whether said microbes would survive, because simulating the planet's surface conditions in a lab is much cheaper, yet generates enough data to say whether survival is possible, without contaminating said planet, thereby changing its conditions significantly, rendering any search for ET life pointlessly hard, because one now needs to distinguish it from Terran-based life, which would have evolved differently from their Earth-bound counterparts, and could very easily be mistaken as ET life. TL;DR: It's not a good idea. Then, from this point: The argument goes off-rails from technical difficulties to ethical matters. Chaos ensues.

I'm quite sure no rocket engineers are stupid enough to expose nuclear fuel rods directly into an expansion chamber that has a direct access to everything outside the rocket. Therefore, I don't think we should expect any significant radioactive materials coming out of an NTR's exhaust gas.

Very decent heatshields are heavy, and will probably weigh down the entire craft significantly. Also, 'just a little more than drag' probably won't get you very far in the thick part of the atmosphere; it'd take ages to go to orbit. Most likely, it'd get too far from the emitter before it ever reaches to orbital speed.

With proper shielding, even an actual NERVA prototype engine would probably spew no radiation-emitting particles out of the exhaust. The real danger comes from, short of an actual crash, the reactor itself going critical beyond specs. In the worst case scenario, you're looking at a Chernobyl-style explosion (radiation shields are quite heavy). Even then, there's probably a big red EJECT REACTOR button somewhere on the control panel, set to decouple the reactor and send it away with Sepratrons.

It is? Pardon my ignorance; I have never sent a mission to Eeloo before.

If I were you, I'd stay at 800+ km until launch window appears, then lower the periapsis below 80 km. Then, I'd burn at periapsis. Or, go to the tracking station, and time-warp from there. No minimum orbit limits, so you could stay at the 80 km orbit. Good luck with your mission!

Because walking to a destination takes less energy than running to the same destination, therefore being more efficient? Using your exoskeleton analogy, mechanical objects, especially one as complex as an automated exoskeleton, would probably need a powerful energy source, which is often not readily available, not to mention the constant need for maintenance. Biological legs, on the other hand, require only regular intakes of food, which people already do, in addition to keeping oneself healthy. Alcubierre drives work in principle by bending, or warping, the space around it. How it is supposed to do this, however, aren't certain as of yet, but I predict it is likely to involve some complicated machinery that makes fusion reactors look like middle-age technology. Nuclear thermal rockets would be much simpler by comparison, even if we included the scoop to make it a Bussard ramjet. By these arguments, I think that, even if Alcubierre drives were already invented, they would not be a commonplace technology for quite some time. How long, however, I am not certain.

My first advice? Start from a lower orbit; the Oberth effect will help conserve fuel. Personally, I usually start transfer burns at between 80-100 km in Kerbin orbit. It does not matter how elliptical/circular the starting orbit is, what matters is to do the burn at the lowest altitude possible. Also, I'd suggest using a different engine. I somewhat recall that KW Rocketry has one with 410 seconds of ISP. Use those instead. P.S. This advice also works on non-Kethane ships. The principle is the same. P.P.S Here's a good read on the subject.

I have stashed SM's Spaceport stuff into a Mediafire account. No plans to re-release it, though.

By pulling the plug on your mod, depriving players of a good addition to a great game? I don't really understand the logic behind your actions here. Could you enlighten me further on the subject of how replacing a barely-functioning mod hub site being replaced by a third party site, while giving a 30-day grace period to move all the stuff in there a bad idea? Or is it about Curse in particular, seeing what reputation they have? In any event, I have stashed all your current mods downloaded in May 10 in a Mediafire account. I have no intention to release the link for the moment, but I'm probably going to tinker around with it. The outdated node for the Mk3 and Mk4 fuselages won't repair themselves.

Ironically, you just missed my point. What I meant was, why would someone go to a nearby star in the flesh, rather than using probes or rovers? No matter how fast the ship is, if you're doing an interstellar Apollo mission, funding it is going to be difficult, especially if the same mission could be done efficiently with a smaller, cheaper probe. Besides, testing the interstellar drive for a Terra/Jupiter/Saturn shuttle would probably have made more returns of investment. Even if we can send another ship to another star, the most we're going to launch is probably a probe. Also, enlighten me further on how an FTL ship is going to be cheaper and more practical than a Bussard ramjet ship for any specific mission. How about a 100 ton ship to Gliese 581c (22 lightyears away)?

Put a dozen of SLS boosters on said asteroids. Blast them into each other just before impact. Watch parts scatter around.