cantab

A vehicle capable of a trip to (insert destination here) without refuelling is useful both IRL and in KSP. The complexity and duration of the trip are both reduced. Overall cost may also come down if the vehicle can refuel at its destination from fuel produced there, rather than requiring the fuel to be shipped into a depot somewhere.

Firespitter likewise has a water launch gadget, but I'm among those who've found it too glitchy to use. There seemed to be a race condition causing the craft to be moved then moved back and destroyed.

No, no, and no clues yet

Whoops. Yes it was meant to be miles, and no it's not an explosion.

With low-TWR upper stages I've found I need a steeper-than-normal ascent profile. I believe it's because a low TWR will waste more thrust in percentage terms overcoming drag, so it needs to get higher to reduce the drag losses.

OK, here goes. Speeding I am harmless, Miles in which to move, But slow me and confine me, And I will level all.

Nice. So this suggests then that the SSME's are already capable of propelling the shuttle straight with the ET attached. Which kind of makes sense since that's what happens after the SRB's are dropped in a normal launch, though by that point the ET's half-empty.

Suddenly get an idea while I'm snoozing in the morning: is it a Swiss Army Knife?

Rifles? Tenchr

I don't think it could happen the same way because games nowadays are distributed on cheap-to-produce optical discs and even-cheaper-to-offer digital downloads, not costly cartridges. (The 3DS still uses cartridges, but I bet they're much cheaper in real terms than the carts of the crash-era consoles.) Online retailing also means publishers aren't beholden to non-specialist shops to carry games; even if every bricks-and-mortar store stopped giving them shelf space they could still sell and market games widely. Technology's advanced too, to the point that most platforms are capable of producing visually and auditorially acceptable games. The advancement has also lead to diversification. Nowadays a decline in one type of game, eg big-budget "Triple-A" PS4/XBox One/PC games, need not be matched by a decline in other types of game such as mobile titles or the 3DS. That's not to say an overall industry recession is impossible, but outside of a wider catastrophe we're not going to see game sales suddenly drop by 90-something percent.

Technically, you wouldn't. Though it was never done, the shuttle could have taken the external tank with it into orbit. There were ideas to use the tank for stuff like space stations, but nothing ever came of them.If it were instead refuelled on-orbit and used as a drop tank, with an additional tank in the payload bay, you'd get something like: Isp = 450 s (SSME) Orbiter only: m0 = 69 tonnes m1 = 94 tonnes dV = 1300 m/s External tank: m0 = 120 tonnes m1 = 856 tonnes dV = 8600 m/s From a pure delta-V perspective, that could make a trip to lunar orbit and back. Indeed it might be possible to use the payload bay for a lander instead of extra fuel. Of course there are other complications. The SSME's would need modifying to be restartable, and perhaps increased gimballing to propel the shuttle straight. I'm not sure how much of a problem fuel boiloff during the trip would be. But worst of all, how are you going to get over 700 tonnes of fuel up there to refill the external tank!

Sea-level delta-V, vacuum delta-V, or actual expenditure? And if the third, do you know a way to record it?

Yeah, treating it like a rendezvous should be OK. Or you could make a course correction at some point. Possibly without even setting a manouvre node - just use dabs of RCS and watch how the close approach changes.

A box of chocolates? An accordion? A bank?

Rivers? Though I don't get the last line in that case...

Clocks or watches?

Hmmm...a plough?

Well, the low speeds of real rovers are down to a few considerations that are lessened or absent in KSP. Planetary rovers can't be driven in real-time so need to be highly automated, and that automation needs to run on a processor that's much slower than what you can use on Earth. Moon rovers can be remote controlled but with a non-negligible signal lag. Thus the manned moon buggy went significantly faster than Lunokhod which in turn was faster than any of the Mars rovers.Also real space missions are of course expensive. When it cost you a billion dollars to get your rover there you're going to drive it carefully! In KSP we can be reckless without much consequence, even in a no-reverts career mode run a crash probably isn't that big a deal.

I think there are better suited forums for that side of your personality than here.

Darnit. It fitted really well too. Hmmm...astrophotography? Doesn't fully fit though... EDIT: Nvm. Stupid internet went down for ages. EDIT2: TheMechanic, is yours a flint?

At one point you had to start building your rocket with a command pod, and thus normally design it from the top down. Even though it's no longer obligatory that's still the most popular way to do things and has advantages. With that in mind, it makes sense to make the first stage placed be the lowest numbered and the last stage fired.

Is it vexx32, the forum member here?

Dream Chaser's cool and all, but what does it really offer that's unique and would really benefit NASA?

No. Unless you subscribe to vitalism, why would it be?

Could Extraplanetary Launchpads or something similar do the job? Perhaps with a little cheating to stock it up with raw materials.