55delta

Found a news story on someone having built a sonic tractor beam. That is, it uses sounds to move or levitate very small objects. Apparently, if you can assemble one yourself, if you have parts from Arduino and access to a 3D printer. CBC article here. Build video here. Explain of how it works here.

Well, I could see something like Telltale's Minecraft: Story Mode happening. The plot-hook that immediate springs to mind for is either a prequel to the founding of the space program or (just as likely) re-establishing the space program after it was cancelled. There's plenty of world-building to work with already. We already have the characters of Jebediah, Bill, Bob, Valentina, Gene, Wernher Von, not to mention secondary characters of Mortimer, Linus, Walt, Gus, Dinkelstein, Dawton, Eumon, Bobak, and possibly Kirrim. That's not to mention the businesses and organizations that are mentioned as well. There should be plenty of stuff to work with and flesh out into bigger world.

Just a small correction, it was Cyrano Jones, not Herry Mudd, who was selling tribbles. That said, if you hadn't seen the show for a while, I can understand someone mixing up both con-men. The other thing mentioned about tribbles is that they make a cooing sound when touched that is said to have a tranquilizing effect on most people (except for Klingons.) So they aren't necessarily vermin, but their population could grow rapidly out of control. Although, it does seem that tribble populations increase explosively exponentially to an unrealistic degree. On the other hand, it's not that you'd have to look far to find cases of animals in real life who are relatively harmless, yet will out-populate their food supply after a short time.

How about we try not to get ourselves too tangled in this conversation here. First off, I don't see how tasking MRO to find probes, crashed or otherwise, counts as re-purposing, as I'm sure (without looking it up) that it's one of the many purposes of MRO. Second, much as I'm sure everyone at ESA is trying to find a silver lining to their probe crashing, we don't really need to over-analysis whether that part of the mission was a success or failure. The purpose, as a simple question, was 'Can they land a probe on Mars?' which even the data from the TGO would have told them, 'No, ' So, arguably a success in that they have an answer. This is as opposed to something like Beagle 2, where there wasn't even an answer to that simple question until the probe was re-discovered. Although, whether you call it a success or failure, it's rather cold comfort to ESA, which is now committed to landing a rover on Mars while only having checked off only one of the large number of failure modes that can occur when sending a probe to Mars.

For a re-cap, the orbiter has finished the capture burn and they re-acquired signal to it. But they do not have a signal on the lander and are waiting on a relayed signal from either Mars Express or MRO.

Implement Real Solar System in stock, but leave stock parts unadjusted.

Simulate N-body physics through code similar to the following: when game_time = (1 hour), prograde_vector = prograde_vector + rand(0-359) degrees

Make SRBs one time refillable, add the ability to make solid fuel at a refinery, and then have all vehicles start empty and require fueling.

In an effort to add more realism to KSP, remove all throttle controls.

Having KSP require the player to submit a complete flight-plan before allowing a vessel to fly.

And here I thought there'd be more arguing over whether Elon down-played the dangers of interstellar radiation or was low-balling on an estimate of $10 billion. Well, there's plenty of time for that. Well, I think it's a mistake to depend on SpaceX to provide us with all the answers on the workings of a Mars colony. It's a long time to 2025 or 2050. Still, is it too crazy, or just crazy enough?

Add more planets to KSP...by adding a second copy of the current solar system.

While we wait for accident analysis, here's something to chew on. So Spacecom, that is, the Isreali satellite operator, is attempting to recoup their losses. Word has it, that they told their investors, that they are asking SpaceX for either a $50 million payment, or a free launch. So, think SpaceX will pay out or give them a free launch?

I am sure many of you are aware Einstein's rather famous E = MC2 equation, concerning converting matter into energy. We also know that it works, given that it's the underlying basis of nuclear weapons. But I'm not interested in nuclear weapons. Instead, I'm wondering if the opposite is true. Now, from a mathematical standpoint, it should work in reverse, a sufficient amount of energy should be convertible back into matter. But would the math be right? Is there anything known in physics that proves that this equation is reversible? Do we know if energy can be converted into matter?

Oh, this sort of thing. Well, I could try to explain how the dilithium crystal regulates a matter/anti-matter reaction, which then converted into energetic plasma for transfer everywhere power is needed. But I'd rather recommend books instead. I both recommend The Physics of Star Trek by Lawrence M. Krauss and Star Trek The Next Generation Technical Manual by Rick Steinbach and Michael Okuda. The rest then becomes a matter of opinion. Have fun.

Some I hate to break it to some people, but NASA doesn't want any of their orbiter probes to land anywhere. Orbital probes don't go through nearly the decontamination process that they put landing probes through. Since it turns out that some bacteria can survive some incredibly harsh conditions. NASA doesn't want to find that they are later either accidently mucking up an environment or that they are re-discovering life from Earth. Since there are moons around Jupiter and Saturn that could have their own life, NASA doesn't want their orbital probes to crash or land on those moons, on purpose or on accident. That's why the Galileo probes was sent into Jupiter and why Cassini will be sent into Saturn. Sorry, but it's for future science. But we are eagerly awaiting some of the planned landing missions that are in the works.

So Wackjob is back? Awesome! Well, I hope you are enjoying the newest update. You know, I've never seen a 1km rocket before, I wonder what that would look like. So we're rooting for you here.

Having and keeping tabs on development of Space Engineers, I have to disagree slightly. This must a far-flung future where there was major flooding before all the water on the planet froze. That looks like pretty good replica. I'll make to check it out some time.

You know, I think you just told me the problem with asking why SpaceX does most things. We just don't know what things they know and no one here is going to ask Elon Musk (or his PR rep) for an answer. Well, I'm done here. Best of luck.

Well, I feel silly. I forgot two other reasons why SpaceX wants it's own facility. First, they will want more landing pads. If I recall, there is one rocket landing pad and that's because SpaceX built it. So they likely want landing pads for RTLS launches, Dragon V2 landings, not to mention a dedicated dock for unloading landing barges. The second reason I can think of is SpaceX's commercial crew program. If SpaceX is recruiting and training astronauts, they'll need their own facilities. All other training facilities not only belong to someone else, but are in constant use by someone else. That's what I can figure, anyway.

I can see those as being some decent reasons for building their own complex. Thanks for the info.

Well, I'll admit I don't know that much about individual rockets. But let's see... http://www.spacex.com/falcon9 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlas_III Guess I couldn't find the stats for New Shepard in a five-minute search. Anyway... So I've found that an Atlas III is 52.8 m (173.2 ft) tall, has a mass of 214,338 kg (472,338 lb), and is 3.05 m (10 ft) in diameter. On the other hand, a Falcon 9 is 70 m (229.6 ft) tall, has a mass of 541,300 kg (1,194,000 lb), and is 3.7 m (12 ft) in diameter. I'm lead to believe that New Shepard is also smaller than a Falcon 9 rocket. But I think the point it clear. Unless ICBM row was overbuilt, I wouldn't try to fit a Falcon 9 on those pads. As for LC-37A, as you mentioned, it's likely at the time that ULA still wanted to use it and SpaceX didn't want to bump elbows during scheduling. Amusing as it would be, There's no one pad anywhere that I know of that could host competitive orbital rocket launches.

Sure, there are pads that no one is using and I can only speculate on some reasons why they wouldn't lease them. But, if it were me, I won't get a lease on those pads if in any way I had to re-build either (or both) the pad and the facilities to launch what I wanted to. Now, land on the east coast may be expense, but I doubt it's as expensive as demolishing any (or all) parts of the place, then re-building it to suit new needs, while also paying that lease. In many ways, better to start anew on land you'd own for decades to come. Although Wikipedia says something about Brownsville being commercial-only launches, if that means anything. Also, if they have any plans to get BFR/MCT development underway, SpaceX prefers to do testing at it's own facilities. They did similar with the Grasshopper. But that's just my guess.

Why? You noted yourself that SpaceX plans more launches. I hear buzz about a launch 'every few weeks.' Whether it's too aggressive a schedule or not, they'll need more launch pads. Also, they need more launch and integration facilities to go with them. As well, I guess they didn't want to sign more leases, or they wanted facilities that met their own specifications. More launch pads, same number of leases, and whatever facilities they want. Who knows, maybe they plan to integrate payloads via very slow assembly line?

Let's see...for someone new to the franchise, I would starting with the first episodes of whatever series would be available. The premise of each series is covered (to various extends) in those first episodes, the quality of the first episodes ranges from good to decent, and it's much easier to decide if you'd want to watch the rest of that series. Let me give you some names then. For Star Trek (what we call The Original Series), episode: Where No Man Has Gone Before. For Star Trek: The Next Generation, episode: Encounter At Farpoint. For Star Trek: Deep Space 9, episode: Emissary. For Star Trek: Voyager, episode: Caretaker. For Enterprise, episode: Broken Bow. Although I can't really recommend the series Enterprise if you're starting out, it is weaker and tougher to like. For the franchise wiki, it's called Memory Alpha. If you just plot synopsis and reviews, I'd recommend SF Debris' Opinionated Guides (although they are opinionated to humorous degree.)