Jacke

Logs and context--in this case a screenshot--are the minimums needed to track down any error, especially after @linuxgurugamer said he didn't know what you were referring to.

Welp, considering the low amount of mass in the Inner Solar System Asteroid Belt, I suspect there's not much more mass in the Kuiper Belt. I think the upper limit, even considering there'd be more ices, would be 10 times the mass of the Asteroid Belt. My gut feel is even with dropping all of both belts on Venus, there wouldn't be enough mass and thus angular momentum to change the spin of Venus sufficiently or even marginally. Also, the problem with dumping ices including water ice on Venus is Venus doesn't have a cold trap, which Earth does at about 21km. Water freezes out there and it's lower than the ozone layer, thus keeping most water protected from the hard ultraviolet that will break water apart, leading to the hydrogen escaping. Water in Venus's atmosphere will diffuse up until it gets exposed to hard ultraviolet, where it's broken up and the hydrogen lost. Even avoiding future hydrogen losses, I don't know if there's enough water in the Kuiper Belt to bring the amount of water on Venus up to Earth levels. The amount that would be absorbed into the crust and how fast is very variable.

It's going to be over 800 years. There's no new technology that can cause Venus to radiate heat faster than a black body, that's the physics of the universe as it is. As Venus is not a black body and it radiates into an interplanetary medium that is warmer than absolute zero, it will take longer for it to cool.

But corporations need a ROI that's measured in money. SpaceX has been riding on government contracts and some selling of satellite launches to external customers. Same as every other real operatimg space company. That isn't going to get anything significant to the Moon or Mars because there isn't an immediate ROI except with government contracts. Common Sense Skeptic isn't finding or creating drama. They're doing a proper job of criticizing SpaceX and Elon Musk. If you don't want to even bother watching one video, well, that's you not wanting to risk it, 'cause the marginal benefit of one view is minimal. And the burden of proof is on the positive: you have to prove that Starship will actually have such performance, as nothing with that performance has flown. And they haven't release real financials of sufficient detail to be checked, so like @mikegarrison, I'm not going to believe numbers cheaper than current jet aircraft. That reminds me. It's not the space suit so much as the pad crew, all in black. When their suits should be anti-flash, which means they should be in all-white, same as what navy crews wear at action stations.

But Kennedy made that commitment as a shot in the dark but with certain knowledge, like the successful testing of the F-1 engine and what the planning was at NASA for a timeline that was realistic. And it was being committed to by a nation with deep pockets and a lot of expertise in many areas which could call on more. It still didn't get much beyond Apollo 17, Apollo-Soyuz, orbital satellites, and orbital stations, of which the International Space Station is the latest. Because to do things of that scale takes political will and/or economic possibilities. Which didn't extent to more Moon visits or a base there. I'm not dismissing the goal. I'm criticizing the execution. And a lot of this isn't transparent, as it would be if it was a government program. We don't know the true finances of SpaceX. But a lot of what they say isn't possible. Starship isn't going to carry 100 people; it can barely manage 18. Watch the Common Sense Skeptic's videos. He goes into a lot of details. Elon Musk isn't some altruistic genius; he's a billionaire CEO and this is the current line he's pushing. I want more space exploration and missions. But I want realistic ones, not some fantasy that doesn't pass the least muster when real science and engineering are used.

I've yet to watch the video linked in the first post. However.... I once read about a back-of-the-envelop calculation on how long it would take Venus to cool from its current temperature to a living one if it was a black body, ie. a perfect radiator. Was about 800 years or more. I think that alone stops consideration of Venus terraforming until a lot of the other stumbling blocks, like no magnetic field and slow rotation, have some sort of good solution.

Exactly. And no launch vehicle has a perfect record--except Atlas 5, which I think is more a product of the low number of launches (though even it had one failure which was resolved by the upper stage). Most launch vehicles now start around a 10% failure rate and get down to 1% or 2%. And a failure going to orbit with a crew means the vehicle needs abort modes that accommodate the various failures. The Space Shuttle flew for most of its regime without a launch escape system or a sufficient set of abort modes for circumstances (and even the first flights ejection seats would likely not be good enough, same as those on Gemini). And the Shuttle lost two crews. This is a far greater catastrophic failure rate than any other form of transportation. Flying Starship with crew without a launch escape system is tantamount to killing people. Far too many people talk as if Starship is a proven system. It is not and is most certainly open to justified criticism, both in its technical design and in its economics (see the series of videos starting with the one below). And don't bring up the case of needing a separate civilization on another body to guard against catastrophes on Earth. A truly independent Mars settlement would likely take over a century to establish. Better to improve the robustness of Earth societies and keep observation for threats so they can be dealt with promptly. I saw people go to the Moon and I saw what happened to space exploration without sufficient political and economic reasons to continue: it mostly stopped and got cut down to what could be funded for research and what was either profitable or pushed for national security: Earth observation, GPS, geo-stationary, and orbital stations. We may be getting another Space Race which will increase the political will to do more. Let's make sure that more is better sustainable, like Mars Direct (as in the latter chapters of The Case for Mars) rather than poorly planned boondoggles.

Well, at least we have details on the numbers for actual produced tanks and jets that actually perform. We have nothing but vague promises for Starship. And others with better information on what the components cost say Starship isn't going to be delivered for those prices and will not carry 100 people anywhere. Check out the rest of Common Sense Skeptic's videos on this. He's done a lot to get real information, not unsupported CEO promises. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgKWj1pn3_7hRSFIypunYog And the proof of the pudding will be in the making. I am confident Starship will be no more than an heavy lifter to LEO and even that is not guaranteed. And if it carries people, without a launch escape system, people will die.

I'll challenge that, for any design variant of a spacecraft roughly Starship's size. You can't build a good main battle tank or high performance jet for 5 million dollars each, even in bulk. And a spacecraft of Starship's size is going to be more complex and thus more costly than that. To eat the pasta on Mars needs water and energy, as well as a kitchen with life support. None of those is going to be trivial to have. But having proper rations for the duration is indeed important. I don't think you get it. You must not have read the later chapters of The Case for Mars, where Zubrin laid out chaining together successive Mar Direct missions to establish a base and then a colony. I think that's the better example of an exploration plan that can be developed into a colonization project if and when the will is there.

Good to see you back, @dvader! As the Caveman Ladder SME, I have a question for you. What happens to a Kerbal on a ladder during regular and physic time warps?

I'm not familiar with Mars Direct 3.0. But I read Dr. Robert Zubrin's original work and thought the original Mars Direct laid out the only reasonable plan to explore Mars and possibly lead to a colony there. Each mission 2x Saturn V sized launch vehicles, first the Earth Return Vehicle, uncrewed, which makes the fuel using carried hydrogen and ISRU, then 2 years on, the Mars Habitat Unit to take out the crew. Ground checkout of the spacecraft to reduce cost and increase reliability. Good abort modes throughout the mission. And chain them to perhaps create a colony. As others have pointed out, there's a lot of challenge getting to Mars, surviving on Mars, and creating a colony on Mars. Primarily sufficient benefit to doing so with such challenges when there's damn little return possible. And then there's the problem: Elon Musk is a billionaire CEO who's actually rather shady and done a lot wrong. This YouTube channel is rather strong on this, but they've made careful arguments that hold together. Elon Musk is not someone to be in any leadership position in a critical program. He's all flash and no substance. And now he's running out of ways to string this out, because many of his misdeeds from the past are finally coming home to roost.

Long ago when I tried starting a NCD run, I found the best way to get the Flying Low situations for the KSC biomes was to have someone outside of a 2xMk1 Roller and push it, with PAWs up for both the experiment(s) on the Roller and for EVA Report. As the Kerbal is pushing the Roller, click the button in the PAW. Don't get Flying Low, reset and try again. Eventually will get the Flying Low situation due to the bouncy movement of both the Kerbal and the Roller. For the Kerbin biomes, the Kerbal can just jump and click to try to get Flying Low, while for the other experiments just try pushing the Roller to catch the Flying Low on a bounce. Or actually use a flying craft. Note, that it is impossible to get Flying Low situation for the KSC micro biomes, as you have to be touching the particular building to be in the micro biome.

As I mentioned recently, when I checked the numbers back a year or so ago, NCD needed nearly every bit of EVA Reports in the Kerbin SOI or to go interplanetary. That includes almost all of the Mun and Minmus biomes. I know nothing of the exact biome and situations with the 4 new launch sites (see here if interested). Unless there's a lot of mini (area) and micro (touching building) biomes on each, they aren't going to change the numbers that much as they will still have the Kerbin Landed and Flying Low situation multipliers. And unless they are exactly like the KSC biomes, they may not even have the razor-thin Flying Low situation which gives the better payout. Even 1 or 2 Kerbin orbit missions with EVA reports, the easiest to get, may give a better payout. It won't be soon, but after KSP 1.12.1 releases, I'll eventually get back to KSP and start checking things out to update my Science Checklists. When I do, I'll report back to the Clan what the number changes are. Even knowing the exact location of the 4 new bases, a mission has to get there to get any possible extra science. I'm not familiar with the best Caveman practices in Kerbin expeditions, but I suspect they'll still be challenging. As for the new ladder effects, it's been a while since I did anything in KSP or Caveman. Our best reports so far indicate there's still challenges using them. I imagine they still won't prevent separation of the Kerbal and the spacecraft upon time-warping, so even with the best case performance, the whole mission would have to be flown real-time to gain benefit. Or it'll still be the drift-and-recapture we've seen in the past. I suggest a Caveman with experience ladder flying check things out and report back to the Clan what they think.

It's not so much this mod as what @linuxgurugamer mentions as a new feature in KSP 1.11: I'm not playing KSP at the moment. But I wonder what this means for KSP Caveman? Does it make carrying a Kerbal on a ladder easier in 1.11 ?

It's been a while, but I did an analysis and for NCD you either have to go interplanetary or get almost all the EVA Reports in the Kerbin SOI. Which means flying a Kerbal (usually Bob the Scientist) outside from launch on until all EVA Reports on the current mission have been taken.

It's been a long time since I last used MechJeb's Ascent Guidance, but I found with each rocket design you needed to play with the parameters to see how well things performed. Eventually you get a good set that works even with slightly different rocket designs.

The F-1 engine started development under a USAF contract in 1955. Like the ABMA, Von Braun's team, it was eventually transferred to NASA. Where the Saturn development was all done. All this was for heavy LEO lift.

If @alexustas was doing anything with Private Division, I'd think that would be announced. Mod developers come and go. Some have come back after a long time away. I'd like to see @alexustas back as well. But there's no way we can predict if and when.

Failing the de-orbit burn would not have killed Gagarin. As a safety measure, Korolev designed Vostok to have sufficient reserves for the crew to last until its orbit decayed. It's also why Voskhod had a reserve retro rocket, as with its larger launch vehicle, it was launched into a too-high orbit to use that backup, especially with a larger crew.

We've had this conversation before. Besides the Kessler Syndrome threat, massive LEO satellite constellations, due to being very close and the inverse square law, are a greater source of light pollution that even an extreme interplanetary economy with thousands of fusion torch drives. And that light pollution is now, not in some imagined future. No matter. With the impact on serious amateur and professional groud-based astronomy--which is the majority of the research done--I imagine someone will do the exact math and observation and publish the numbers on the amount of damage. The fact that Elon Musk didn't even think or care about the light pollution aspect speaks to his true nature.

It's also a threat of climate change among other issues. https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-01-26/is-bitcoin-mining-worth-the-environmental-cost

Followed by....

Of course, there's still Emmy Noether's Theorem, so the way space looks and acts, that means there's conversation laws. And a glibly designed Portal system ain't going to work. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noether's_theorem (Fun fact: the whole universe can break those conversation laws because there's no way when considering the whole universe to do the things that lead to them. 'Course, there's no way to leverage that.) Larry Niven for his teleportation system in his SF stories imagined a huge compensation mass floating in the Great Lakes to prevent breaking the conservation laws. Something similar would have to be done.

There are two comet tails. The dust tail trails behind the comet in its orbit and is the curved one. The ionized gas tail points directly away from the Sun as it is pushed away by the solar wind. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comet#Tails

I am almost certain of it. I tried looking for the exact posts I remembered, but could only find various comments in the Kopernicus threads on solar math issues that involved the modules from December to February. You'd have to get a hold of @R-T-B to get the certain difference between KopernicusSolarPanels and KopernicusSolarPanel.