Rakaydos

People seem to be approaching this from a "Real world physics + magic" approach, hich of course doesnt work in a consistant fashion. After all, as Clark said, any sufficently advanced technoligy is indistinguishable from magic. But there is a correlary to that. Any sufficently UNDERSTOOD magic is effectively a technology. A setting where physics dont match our own, but the Laws of magic are understood and exploited to the point where they might as well be a technoligy. If anyone plays D&D, there is a fan-setting called the Tippyverse where they look at the rules of the game as written, and take that as the laws of physics for the setting. A permanant teleportation circle is a far cheeper way to ship goods to another city than a caravan- Resetting traps of create food and Water and Fabricte create a post-scarcity society. I've tried writing up my own version of an Explored magic setting, where every creature runs on magic energy, and getting access to more than a normal amount of magic lets you do things you just didnt have enough power for, before.

Airforce gets the big money nasa doesnt, but can only spend it on "defence related activities." So if they need to test their classified spysat tech and the like, instead of waiting for nasa's next launch and letting all and sundry see the payload on the way up, they have their own private launch platform, one that can stay in space for YEARS doing operational tests, then return the payload to the engineers for analysis.

Even if the body is large enough to have significant gravity, it's still gong to be less than a planet's. And you dont have an inconvienant atmosphere.

We can do a lunar flyby any time. I believe Orion is supposed to do a manned lunar flyby by 2018. It's what happens NEXT that is being discussed, and this 3 planet alignment doesnt happen every century.

I'm going to put this here: http://www.scifiideas.com/science-2/colonizing-asteroid-cores/

You might try launching it from jacks. Instead of landing gear, use structural girders. For lift off, throttle up, then fire enough sepratrons to get your nose in the air.

There can be, literally, a bolt on fix for that. Send up an inflatable hab in a separate launch, and a better engine as a third, and assemble the craft in orbit.

Let's hope it doesnt turn out like "Twitch Plays Pokemon"

Mods, I would like to request a thread split, to pull the Venus atmospheric habitat discussion into it's own thread.

I downloaded FAR, and immediately lept into a "Spaceplanes only" Carear mode. So far I've unlocked Material Science and Turbofans. Biomes visited: KSC, Runway, launchpad, Ocean(island), Ocean (water, still needs material science), Shores, and Grassland.

The rich and famous heading to the first Space Casino in human history.

For the sake of ending this pointless argument, let's declare Landis Land "not terraforming" and something deserving of it's own thread. (where terraforming concerns can be ignored) AngelLestat, would you care to make that thread?

Atmospheric drag, I think. And Gravity losses.

The problem was, the ISS was/is in an orbit inclined enough to be accessable to russian launch sites- not quite a polr orbit, but far beyond the shuttle's ability to alter it's plane. Try taking a normal orbital booster in Kerbal, nothing interplanetary, from an equatorial orbit into a 45 degree inclination, without refueling. THAT is why they couldnt dock with the ISS.

So you ship up multiple moduels and assemble in orbit, right? And if the heatshield cant handle reentry at interplanetary speeds, can it at least handle a high-upper atmosphere aerobreak into an eliptical orbit? Will the moon be in a position on return to put the module into a capture slingshot around Earth? (Or vice versa, slingshotting around earth to circle the moon and meet up with the L2 platform) Or possibly a combination of approaches? After all, if the life support can handle a 500+ day trip, a few weeks with careful orbital manipulation shouldnt be a problem.

note that you can do each of those at different biomes. IE: Launchpad, Runway, KSC, Grasslands, Shores, Ocean, Lower Atmosphere, Upper atmosphere, Low orbit, high orbit.

Or, inversely, doing commercial spaceflight for Gene Kermin instead of bringing back yet ANOTHER soil sample for Verner von Kermin. Should be more interesting than the current science system...

The thing about Lagrage points, is they break the DeltaV Roadmap by having easy access to slingshots. The hoffman transfer to the station is the easy one. The drop into minmus SoI can be done with RCS, but you probably need a burn (with oberth) to reach low kerbin from Suborbital Escape Minmus.

I am looking at putting a refueling depot 2,250 km ahead of the leading side of Minmus. (Minmus's SoI is only 2,247 km) with a circular orbit at exactly the same radius as Minmus's, so the relative velocity remains zero. How much deltav is needed to reach such an orbit from Low Kerbin? How much deltav does it take to lift kethane from minmus, given a ballistic escape launch? What would be the longitude (laditude would presumably be 0) of the best minmus launch site to reach the station? (presumably the point directly under the station, but minmus's rotation may throw this off) How much deltaV would it take to slingshot a cargo past minmus such that it drops to low kerbin orbit to the east? and how much to the west? EDIT: and how long should I allow for to drop to LKO, before any major transfer windows?

I roughly matched Minmus's orbit from just outside minmus's SoI- tommorrow I intend to refine it so my ship/station hovers in defiance of the laws of nature 2250 KM over minmus. (minmus's SoI is ~2247.5 km) Then I'm going to start shipping Kethane to it.

I'm not interested in playing KSP with other people. I AM interested in opening a second KSP window for my Ion probe burns, while I go manage a completely different mission. Kerbal multiplayer will let me do this. So multiplayer.

It will be interesting, once contracts are in the game, to see if you can do a 100% contract based tech tree, buying all your tech with reputation and money earned from missions.

Contracts are the solution to the "one type of mission" problem. If your contract is "test RCS in Eeloo SoI", you dont need to bring a lander or heavy science along, you can just send a probe to pick up some easy money and reputation. Heck, keep a probe in Jool orbit waiting for "Test RCS/reaction wheel/solar panel at XXX" and do multiple contracts with the same platform.

I dont see the problem with kerbin soil samples- if you can reach orbit easilly, great, you quickly reach far enough in the tech tree that the KErbin tech multiplier is useless to you. But if you're trying a fancy "hard mode" of career, such as Spaceplanes Only, you need soil samples to unlock the basic tech needed to complete the challange. (good luck getting into orbit without wings.)

From a cynical perspective, it keeps congress from pulling the plug. Cancelng a space probe is just money. forgetting about actual people in space is political suicide. It also lets nasa push ahead their other, infrastructure based programs, like the L2 station, as "nessisary to the mission"