Robotengineer

The first time I saw a planet through a telescope was when I was about 6 or so, but I don't really remember it and can't say much about how I felt as I didn't really feel anything special. Last year I got a modest refractor (80mm) and looked at Saturn and Jupiter, and was quite amazed (especially given the aperture). Saturn's rings were clearly visible, and I could see 4 bands on Jupiter, though not as clearly as Saturn. It was beautiful and kind of awe inspiring. Having primarily seen pictures from missions, seeing the real planets with my own eyes was simply awesome, and the fact that we had sent spacecraft there (and that I may one day visit as well) was simply fantastic. This year, I have tried looking at Mars but it is simply too low on the horizon to get any detail (it being summer in North America and me not living in Brownsville or Florida). Which kind of sucks given that the next opposition is in 2018. At least by then I should have my telescope project finished...

Lifestyle? It is life.

It makes no reference to the fact that you are in control of the craft you build. It almost sounds like it's a 4X ('puts you in charge of a ... alien race, the Kerbals') where you build rockets that go out and mine, explore, etc. without your direct involvement. Perhaps that's not blatant, but it is still misrepresentation.

Accuracy shouldn't be a 'nice bonus.' If it exaggerates some portions of the game, so be it, but blatantly misrepresenting it is something completely different. Ok, I wasn't aware of those. The only console games I ever see being mentioned in the tech/gaming news I read are the AAA titles (racing, FPS, RPG) and occasionally an interesting indie, (like Limbo).

"Who said rocket science wasn’t FOR EVERYBODY! Kerbal Space Program puts you in charge of the recently launched space program for a fun & clever alien race – the Kerbals. These little guys are counting on you to build spaceships, rockets & vehicles that can take off & hold on during COOL space travel missions, without hurting them in the process… EXPLORE SPACE, DISCOVER NEW PLANETS AND CONQUER THE UNIVERSE. You’ll have a collection of parts & tools to accomplish this, each one with unique functionalities that will affect your ship & it’s chances of taking off (or crashing). THIS ALL HAPPENS IN A Realistic, physics-based space flight simulator that ensures everything will fly (or crash) as it should in real life." —PS4 Store (Thanks @Mad Rocket Scientist) Did the person(s) who wrote this even play the game? It doesn't mention that the player is flying the craft after it launches... Not to mention the fact that it appears to be written by an overly energetic 6 year old. Are there any strategy games for consoles? I haven't seen a Civ, DF, or EU4 console port. In fact, the majority of major console releases are either FPS's or third person RPG's. (Not that those games aren't available for PC, just that the PC has a more diverse array of genres than consoles.) Imagine if KSP was more like Orbiter and didn't have the 'lolsplosions' factor; it certainly would not get a console port, and the only people who might want a console port are those who already own the game on PC and want to be able to play it on their console. And judging from the description of the game in the PS4 store, 'lolsplosions' is what it's being marketed as.

I think it is the idea of stereotypical console owners invading the forum, i.e. PC master racism.

103. Having a forum game in the Kerbal Network section. (What is this if not a forum game?)

My wallpaper is an image I took a few years back. It's the best photo I've taken.

Only if it was a 'luxury' pickup. I seriously doubt any of the bells and whistles Tesla might offer would entice normal pickup users.

Looks like the concept artist chopped a Model X in half lengthwise and stuck the raised rear of a Model 3 on the back, it's not pretty.

Not necessarily. Is the Mongolian Steppe or Northern Europe more habitable than sub-saharan Africa? What about the migration during the colonial period? I seriously doubt the 'migrants' to colonial Australia were destined for greener pastures. Colonial explorers were seeking riches and goods, not a new home for their people. Of course, mass migration has almost always been need driven, but they couldn't have migrated to the colonies had pioneers not explored and tamed those areas prior to their arrival.

Including lag or not? My longest in-game burn was about half an hour, for a NERVA or ion interplanetary transfer, IIRC. I have launched some massive launchers that easily took that long due to part count, in both RO and normal KSP, those took about 20-30 minutes, IIRC.

Burn cut-off!

Quite cool, I didn't realize Juno was so big.

I wasn't suggesting UE4 specifically, only using it as an example of an engine that has source access. Every other game (that I have seen) that has similar scale to KSP has been on a custom engine, AFAIK. There is Astroneer, which is on UE4 (not sure if it is as big as KSP though). http://astroneer.space

Unity (the game engine KSP runs on). It is horribly optimized for what KSP needs and is not open source, (unlike Unreal Engine 4), so the devs can't customize it. As far as in-game engines go, the poodle, just because it is ugly and has a horrible name.

But that's the point, by the time manure hits the fan people will care even less about space exploration and colonization than they do now (if that's possible). I was more thinking rare-earth metals, and other rare elements and compounds necessary for space travel. Money isn't really an issue right now. The USA could easily fund a colonization program if they had the will to do it. All you need to do is take a brief look at the political situation in the USA (and to some extent, in other parts of the world) to realize that universal birth control, education, and commonsense action on climate change are not going to happen. If politics manage to drag us into a new dark age, would it not be better to jump ship with our brightest and best than try and fix a sinking ship? But space colonies don't face the sort of religious and ideological opposition that birth control faces. Heck, even climate change can be slowed and countered with relatively simple science and engineering, the main problem is ideological opposition. So yes, pills are cheaper than O'Neill colonies, but you are going to have a much harder time getting Congress to pay for the pills than getting them to pay for colonies (or something cheaper but similar). NGO's can provide birth control that the government won't fund, but their funding is more limited. I guess if that were the only point, but space colonies are about more than just preserving our species, they are about expanding its reach as well. By purpose I meant more the imperative set down by the laws of evolution, i.e., that every individual feels the need to reproduce and keep their genetic material in the gene pool. Obviously we have moved beyond individual need to reproduce to a desire to preserve the species as a whole. And really, if the universe has no purpose, there is no big plan, etc. What difference does it make to you if people think there is? Personally, I agree with you that the universe has no purpose. But rather than seeing that as a disincentive to expand into the universe, I see it as all the more reason to go. In a Universe with no purpose, there is no good reason not to go. I'll refer to @tater's response on the postwar period. All the more reason to spread. Even if we are a just an infestation, there is no reason not to spread. After all, the Universe has no purpose, no feelings, it is just a vast open space, one that we can start to fill. Such an informing and useful post. /s If you are going to bother to post, at least post something pertinent to the discussion.

Isn't it just standard medical procedure that you sterilize the needle for any injection? If it was someone wiping down the guillotine with rubbing alcohol before a beheading, then it would be more humorous.

I'm excited, not sure if I'm exited though. Civ VI and No Man's Sky are the two game I am looking forward to this fall.

For the same reasons I've laid out before, distributing the risk from extinction events, giving that government's population a greater chance of surviving, opening new markets and giving that country an edge in the coming space economy. All of these require long-term thinking, something that is in short supply these days. What scarce resources might we deplete with a colonization effort now? But who is going to provide the free birth control, and how are you going to deal with the ideological behemoths that are staunchly against birth control and the general idea of population control? Giving people free education without also providing work that requires that sort of education would create a volatile atmosphere in which you have a lot of highly educated unemployed people. By giving people an education, you are giving them the promise of a better life for them and their families, and if you fail to deliver, they might turn on you. But distributing birth control and educating girls can have unwanted effects. Just from an engineer's point of view, building colonies is simpler because it is an issue of physics and math. Issues of people, on the other hand, tend to be more difficult due to humans unpredictable nature. Primarily our gene pool. There is no universal culture across our species, though the one that would most likely be carried into space would initially be our current modern/western/secular culture, which would probably morph into something else. It's not that extinction itself is nihilistic, it's your attitude towards it. If I were to die tomorrow, the world would go on the same as ever. Someone else will do what I would have done, and I would be forgotten. So what? I still want to live, I still want to achieve my goals, I still want to make a difference. You are basically taking our species as a whole and saying they are an insignificant twig on the tree of life, no more valuable than any other species, past, present, or future. Even though that is true from a macro point of view, it really has nothing to do with the consideration of our future. We can hypothesize about what possible species might follow us if we get wiped out, but it ultimately doesn't matter because we won't be around. Our purpose as a species is to perpetuate our species (and whatever it evolves into), the same as any other species. Just because we will eventually be wiped out doesn't mean we have to just go with it and not fight it. In the grand scheme of things, I would rather our species (and its descendants) stay around, just because it is better to exist than not to exist. I tend to have a 'rage against the dying of the light' attitude, whereas you seem to have an 'all things must pass' attitude,' correct me if I'm wrong. As far as peace goes, I was referring more to the postwar order, rather than the past few centuries of our civilization. I'm not suggesting the this relative peace will last a long time, but hopefully we have left behind the massive world wars of the early to mid 20th century. Europe is also I'm talking about general secular western civilization/culture. It really doesn't matter what other cultures/civilizations think, because if you just look at the achievements of western culture (which has incorporated parts of other cultures) they greatly outstretch those of other civilizations. We went to the moon, cured polio, invented the computer, etc. Of course, we can debate whether or not technology is the best marker for how advanced a civilization is, and the arts must be taken into account as well. The fact that there have been hundreds of other cultures/civilizations doesn't diminish the achievements of a few, just as the fact that there have been millions of other species doesn't diminish the achievements of our own. There is a fine line between humility (which I support) and not caring about one's species at all. I would like to add that I support multiculturalism and diversity, which is why I prefer to refer to our species rather than my civ, culture, etc. Almost all of those are either necessary parts of developing colonies or side effects of development. I also never said that it would be governments that would do most of the colonial development.

If it is perfect enough and we have loads of extra resources, why bother going at all? We are already exploring for science, but our governments don't care enough to seriously fund colonization efforts, no matter how 'perfect' our situation may become. (In fact, having a 'perfect' situation would likely be a disincentive towards colonization, rather than an incentive.) As far as resources go, we can only mine, harvest, and reuse so much, and will eventually run out. lol. And how exactly are you supposed to stop increasing the population? Put in place a world-wide 2-child policy? Birth control in the water? Genocide? How are you going to deal with the outrage sparked by such policies? Do you seriously think that slowing and eventually stopping population increase is an easier problem than the relatively simple engineering and logistical problem of near-earth colonization? Climate change is an equally difficult problem. Until we can get backwards people to accept the science of climate change and start acting on it, the problem will continue to get worse. Climate change and population growth aren't like the cold war prospect of nuclear annihilation, where everybody lost should we go to war. Climate change and population growth are both problems that will affect only those young enough to live with the consequences (like myself) while the majority of those who either flat out deny climate change or don't think it is as dangerous as many think it to be won't even be around to deal with the consequences of their own inaction. They are in effect damning myself and my descendants to deal with the effects of their recklessness. You just said nothing lives forever and then said that there aren't threats where a space colony would guarantee survival, which are contradictory statements. Space colonies aren't about guaranteeing survival, they are about prolonging our species and diminishing the risk of extinction. And really, isn't that a rather nihilistic attitude? So what if you can support more people in a post-apocalyptic earth colony? You want both so the risk is distributed across the colonies, and you aren't wiped out if one colony fails. It really doesn't matter whether our descendants evolve into a different species, as they are still our descendants. So... The fact that our civilization has brought about one of, if not the, most peaceful eras in human history, globalized the world, saved millions of people with modern medicine and technology, and created an open and welcoming society to almost everyone is just another civilization? Roman (and Greek) civilization are the primary influences for our modern civilization, so they are in many ways preserved in our own civilization, just as our civilization will be the foundation for a new one. It's a continuum, not a set of distinct civilizations. I don't think anyone is arguing that for the next couple of decades we are going to be stuck here. All I'm saying is that we shouldn't dally on space colonies, and should start preliminary work on them now.

Yep, because this planet will continue to be able to support an increasing population, while also dealing with climate change, the threat nuclear war, and NEO's. The continued existence of our species is such a minor, niche interest.

Exhaustion

Ok... The only reason I knew they used sintering was because I had been looking into bonding teflon (PTFA) to aluminum. The third joke from the bottom reminded me of a quote from a book I read. NASA was using cadavers for impact testing, and one of the people working on the project asked if the uni students doing the work ever but the cadavers and the front seat and drove in the HOV lane.

Do you know what deadpan humor is?