cantab

Definitely formulating my plans for the Kethane Space Program, where the only fuel I use is from refining kethane. My idea is that I'll build a "Kethane Starter Pack" with a full big kethane tank, a converter, and other needed ancillaries, and park that near the launchpad. That will fuel the initial rockets that I need to bootstrap my mining operations.

And, I would say, there's a zeroth assumption here - what "optimal" means. In real life, "optimal" usually means cheap and reliable. If your rocket is cheap and reliable then you don't give two hoots that it uses up more delta-V and has less payload fraction. Considering that in general fuel is cheap, tankage is pretty cheap, and engines are expensive, then using as little thrust as you can get away with makes sense.

The real Moon's gravity is quite irregular, and the computers of the time couldn't fully simulate this, so the mission had to be prepared to make corrections. This quite possibly factored into the choice of orbits. Not a problem in KSP.

I've never heard of any processing technique to "untrail" stars on long exposures. Only physically counter-rotating the camera on an equatorial mount. Any more information on the specific deconvolution you refer to and demonstration of what it can do? Regardless, for Pawelk's question, you need to be able to do a long exposure of 15-60 seconds. If you can do that on your phone you're in with a chance. And you need the phone rock steady, so prop it up somehow, handholding it is no good.

Stars? Doesn't hugely fit...

On kethane scanning, it does indeed take a bit of waiting if you want to do a thorough scan. But you don't need to do that. All you need to do is find a suitably located deposit, and on anywhere not named Laythe that's pretty quick. Personally I find the finiteness of kethane part of the appeal. Be profligate with your fuel and you're going to use up the easy stuff and have to move on to more difficult-to-exploit deposits, just as humanity has done with Earth's natural resources. Be mindful of efficiency from the start, even when the kethane seems abundant, and it will help you out in the long run.

I remember my rockets, at least. I didn't know about the whole not going too fast thing, so I just kept adding MOAR BOOSTERS in stage 1. Think eventually it took 18 or so, with a single central stack, to make orbit. I also remember my first SSTO. Four 800 tanks and an LV-T engine. Made orbit but didn't have the fuel to deorbit. That made me learn how to rendezvous. Nowadays I can do an SSTO with half that fuel.

Thanks to the bugged Isp calculations, jets are actually even more efficient than ion engines.

That doesn't seem possible, other parts can't be attached to the legs. Docking port or claw solutions might be possible though, but probably tricky to make the conversion.

A watch, perhaps?

The Men in Black. Scott Manley's memories of spaceflight, WIPED.

You need the #0 in your imgur code.

Wouldn't mind hearing your full spec, since I also have a low-end AMD CPU and know that a 500-part ship is gonna put the game on my PC at maybe half speed at best.

A monocle?

He's in 6.4 times normal scale.

Jadis, Queen of Narnia. Ships can't sail when the whole world is bound in ice.

Captain Hook.

Rover wheels are very draggy, so in order to go fast at sea you need to get them out of the water. The only approach I can think of in stock is to have something that on land carries the floats (probably intakes) on the roof, and then rolls itself over in the water.

Humanity goes extinct. The Cylinators continue developing Mechjeb Space Program.

Each of the Kerbals report that they see the side of a rocket. The theory is considered debunked. The Kerbals wonder if if climbing something would do better. Send one climbing to the top of a structure around KSC to find out.

My furthest is from one of the boosters discarded from my Magellan rescue ship Not all that far out, but it's going pretty quick.

Most boats can handle a little land by running on aircraft gear, which they often have to get into the water in the first place. I suspect the fastest speed would be attained by a jetboat that only crosses land where it's essential. 100 m/s or more isn't uncommon on a speedboat, while a wheel-driven rover can't go much above 25 and a jet-powered rover is a deathtrap.

IIRC it's at KSC West. Not destructible yet, but one can hope.

Landed the second four Kerbals from my Magellan mission to Laythe and the Joolian system. That brings the last of my Kerbals back home, leaving only unmanned missions ongoing. Well, and the one guy who's retired on Eve.

Correctamundo! The first four lines are things you can use matches for, the fifth says they're not the intended use, and the last is that after you strike a match you'll throw it away.