fireflower

It's not really a problem. You can limit yourself to the ÃŽâ€v for escape velocity. And you can do what the Indian Mars probe did: Make multiple burns.

Sorry, but the quantum encyclopedia which we must always assume is both right and wrong is really just wrong today. Most of the Chinese and Japanese populations are atheists. Together they have most of the world's atheists, people rather different from the type of atheists we have in the West who are almost all apostates. Since the New Atheism began (ironically, with the writing of an important book, in 2005) it's had a measurable impact on the numbers of atheists and nonbelievers in the West, but the West in general is just a tiny fraction of the total human population.Really though, the facts are irrelevant. User NASA_fanboy is angry. In English, the word for insane and the word for angry are the same word: Mad. That's helpful. As we are all devotees of the space program, we can all understand his anger, even if we do not approve of it. We all share his frustration at 40 years of regression, even if we do not agree on what caused it or even know the facts of the matter. Many of us may hold some form of religion close to our hearts, or at least take issue with openly criticizing it, but when a person is this angry, the force of his anger forces me to assume he was personally and irrevocably hurt by some form of religion. Even if we do not approve of that, or even support it, we must understand and respect it as an elemental force of nature. It's inherently ridiculous to accuse homosexuals (for instance) of bigotry against the religious bigots who hate them. That said, I don't think we should be discussing any of these political issues. I seem to recall reading we weren't supposed to in the forum TOS. And after all there are better places to argue for or against religion.

Yep. The Greatest Generation raised the Worst Generation. I'm not sure what he could have done to stop it though. He did plenty, with beautiful and realistic visions of the future that became very popular. What was he supposed to do? Eliminate decades of lead build-up from the environment? Beat up children and tell them not to be so ****ing selfish when they're adults? Take hostages and threaten to kill them if Nixon kills NASA's budget?

NASA budget cuts. I want to hear the talking heads warning America of the risk of NASA budget cuts. I want to hear them say NASA budget cuts could destroy the world. Politicians will insist on expanding NASA's budget to destroy NASA budget cuts.

I just wish the damn flags would stop getting blown up when I blast off. I've got to jettison the landing legs and parachutes! It's not an option to carry them halfway to orbit!

Early in career mode, I just sent one kerbal. First in a Command Pod Mk1, then when it became available, the lighter Mk1 Lander Can. Explored most of the Kerbol system in that damn can. Must have been lonely on long missions like Eeloo. But while developing heavy landers for Tylo and Eve, I realized I had to mount them securely to the superheavy lifters that carried them to orbit. So I really had to use the Mk1-2 Command Pod, simply because it had a large base so everything fit securely. At that point I had the ÃŽâ€v to spare.

The German Democratic Republic.I've used spaceplane SSTO's to shuttle crew to orbit. It's cool and all, just not the most practical thing.

If you're already at a circular 80 km orbit, look at your navball for your orbital velocity. Calculate, using the basic algebra of the helpful video posted above, the velocity of a 4000 km orbit of Kerbin. Keep in mind that the values for Kerbin and Earth are very different. Subtract one from the other. That is the ÃŽâ€v you need to go from 80 to 4000 km orbit. Burn prograde to raise your apoapsis to 4000 km. Then wait until you are at your new 4000 km apoapsis and burn prograde to raise your periapsis to 4000 km as well.

I should add, with the high part count typical of massive spacecraft, lag becomes an issue. Particularly if I join two of those spacecraft together, I start my burn at an orbit of 166 km. This is because the rendering distance for the surface of Kerbin is 160 km. At and above that altitude, the high part-count is much less of a problem. The extra 6 kilometres gives some buffer distance for rendezvous and altitude loss due to long burns. I suppose if there's a place to put a gas station, it's there, but I haven't done it.

Same management. Billionaires tend to be adamant supporters of property rights. If they buy your business, they may tell the press you're independent, but if they tell you to do something you do it. All 148 of Murdoch's "independent" editors supported the 2003 invasion of Iraq, for instance. That culture of obedience goes hand-in-hand with economic planning whether its state corporations or public corporations, as well as the hideous errors caused by the knowledge problem of planned economics. "Cars" compares rather well to Homer Simpsons car, the Trabant.

What in the name of Gabe Newell's neckbeard - the other ports of KSP don't have a 64 bit version? Eat your vegetables, kids, there are PC gamers who still use Windows.

The refurb costs were so high NASA didn't save any money reusing the SRB's and main engines. SpaceX isn't landing its first stage in salt water for that reason, and the Merlin engines are not as high-performance so as to cut down on refurbishment costs. It doesn't need to if SpaceX takes contracts away from existing carriers. Arianespace is already feeling the heat. That said, there is an air of the post hoc in your economic factoid. It is possible - and does happen from time to time - that a technological achievement can change the market itself. I can imagine a cynic expressing disdain for the concept of steam locomotives because "the carriage market isn't expanding." Not all technical achievements are created equal. This is not a flash-in-the-pan technology. The SpaceX businessplan is to reduce costs to orbit by a factor of 10. That does involve technical achievement, but it's primarily an economic achievement, and one that opens the market for space access to a great many other businesses.Consider the input–output model of quantitative economics. SpaceX is not, according to this model, in the aerospace industry. SpaceX is in the transportation industry, and transportation is the one underlying industry that joins all the others together. At the moment the only customers for this type of transportation are governments and communications companies. Reduce the cost of access to space enough and you have literally every other industry on the planet using your services. Tourism and extraction are just the beginning.

I'm pretty sure it's the GPU that's relevant when it comes to graphics, not the CPU. Unless you don't have a GPU, at which point, use linux. I am running a humble old laptop and launching ships with names like "LEVIATHAN" with part counts over 900. I don't have a GPU to speak of, just some integrated mobile chip from back when AMD and Nvidia were on speaking terms. Sure, I turned down the graphics settings, which is a good start, but I didn't know about the Ubio Welding mod or the ocean tweak. The big difference is the OS. When I found this laptop it was unusable because of its modest computing power and because Compaq, in the folly unique to corporate America, shipped it pre-installed with Vista. It would take a half-hour to boot. Its original owner was replacing it and told me I could have it for free if I got it to work. So I blasted it with linux. There are slimmer distros out there, but ubuntu 12.04 is the distribution for migrating gamers, as the linux port of Steam was made for it. It's also the easiest to install and use; the distro's old tagline was "linux for human beings." Not that Unity is much better than Metro, but I replaced that desktop environment with gnome, and earned all the pretty ribbons you see in my signature. I've sinced moved on to lubuntu, as its DE (and everything about it) is designed to be lightweight. Less RAM and clockcycles consumed by the OS means more RAM and clockcycles available for KSP.

Basic interplanetary travel. This part you should know: 1) From LKO, create a maneuver node of @ 1 km/s ÃŽâ€v, at the planet's terminator. 2) Burn, warp to SOI transition, and target your destination planet. 3) From heliocentric orbit, create a maneuver node equal to the ÃŽâ€v for a Hohmann trajectory to your target. 4) Move that maneuver node around until it vaguely intersects with your target at some point, and burn. This is the part you don't seem to know: 5) Find the next AN/DN with your target along your Hohmann trajectory and burn normal/antinormal until inclination is 0.0° exactly. The rest follows for completeness: 6) Warp to SOI and burn radial in/radial out until your periapsis is above the surface. 7) If target has an atmosphere, consult data on aerocapture. If not, set up a retrograde burn at periapsis for orbital insertion.

I've used two kinds of fuel depots: Minmus orbit and at-target rendezvous. The reason you don't want to have a naked space station in some arbitrary orbit above Kerbin is because it's not just about the fuel you get there but the ease of getting there. Minmus has enough gravity to make it a lot easier to rendezvous with than a station orbiting Kerbin. The idea with using Minmus is that you're less than 50 m/s ÃŽâ€v from an interplanetary trajectory, so if you refuel at a station there, you save almost 1 km/s ÃŽâ€v. The problem is Minmus might not be at a convenient place in its long orbit for your interplanetary burn. Also, once you develop heavy-lifters, it's just not worth it. An extra 1 km/s ÃŽâ€v is no longer a big deal when you can throw 400,000 kg into LKO, especially considering the extra work you have to do. Making a stop at Minmus is just the final step; first you have to build the damn station, move it to Minmus, and keep it fueled. Even if you're fueling it with kethane from Minmus itself, it's a lot of effort for 1 km/s ÃŽâ€v. Kethane requires you build yet another spacecraft, a lander/ascender/tanker, and land, mine, process, and ascend every time you want to fly an interplanetary mission. No thanks. The second kind of fuel depot is just a fuel tank with an engine and a probe core you throw at your destination. When your crew gets there, lands, and ascends back to orbit, they rendezvous with it to siphon the gas to fuel their way home. This is what I did to get the crew back from Moho, except I staged a depot at both Moho and Eve, because the first depot didn't have enough gas to get the crew all the way back home. Again, this is superseded by heavy-lifters. You can go anywhere in the Kerbol system if you have a 23 km/s ÃŽâ€v asparagus-staged NTR, and answer to no one. Ultimately my advice is very stereotypical of KSP: Build a bigger rocket. Devise a heavy lifter so outrageously overpowered you aren't scrimping and saving for every m/s you can find. There is no honor in ÃŽâ€v poverty. When you roll that beast out of the VAB I want the heavens to tremble.

I understand the physics. I was pointing out that the same rocket would be less efficient as a rocket (starting mass relative to payload delivered) if it used LH2 exclusively all the way to orbit. Compare to Energia, which used/will use RP1 in four booster rockets and LH2 for the main engines. What I did not know, and feel bad for not looking up myself, was this: Now it makes a lot more sense to retool the F-1 engines to burn LH2.

But it makes it so much less capable as a launcher to use LH2/LOX at the bottom of the gravity well.

KSP fudges the spatial dimensions, true. ISP, however, is measured in seconds, and KSP doesn't fudge the time dimension. From looking at the ISP range of kerbal engines, they're roughly equivalent to a space program that only uses RP1/LOX. That isn't really about the engines but about the chemistry of the bipropellant. A great philosopher once said, "respect the chemistry." Human space programs have access to cryogenic fuels like LH2 that has a base ISP over 450 seconds. That isn't "ten times more powerful" than a KSP engine that gets 330 seconds of specific-impulse, especially when you consider the density issues of LH2 compared to RP1. As a rule of thumb, at lower altitudes, the higher density of RP1 trumps the higher efficiency of LH2. A tripropellant system was proposed for the US space shuttle's main engines that ran on RP1/LOX at low altitudes then LH2/LOX at high altitudes. Now and again people ask about a LH2/F/Li tripropellant because it has the highest ISP in chemical rocketry (550 seconds or so), but that's an engineering nightmare and an environmental catastrophe, and once again, they're not "ten times as powerful." If you're interested in human-scale rocketry, there's a realism modpack you could install. Because LEO ÃŽâ€v is no less than twice the LKO ÃŽâ€v it tends to be a humbling experience.

I'm pretty sure there's no difference since Disney bought Pixar years ago.