TarkinLarson

I recently reinstalled the game and started a new career after a break. After unlocking probes I started to send a few out to the Mun and Minmus in practice runs for manned missions. I had intended on doing a jaunt around Minmus. Without ways of generating electricity I had disabled several batteries so I could wake up the probes at intervals and save power when nothing was happening. I began my thrust out to intercept Minmus. All was on plan until I had to stage to discard what remained of the final orbital stage at full throttle. But when it came to power down the rockets on my probe nothing happened. It was stuck on full throttle. I hadn't turned any batteries on!!! Oh well. I accepted that I'd have a Kerbol orbit in around 5 days and I let it be, knowing that I'd gain science from that earlier than I had expected.

Hello everyone, I played KSP when it was fairly early on, but burnt out at release and took a break. I've recently installed it with news of 1.0.5 coming and have been thoroughly enjoying myself again. I've started a new career and so far have got to orbit, orbited the Mun and have done some contracts to send satellites into certain orbits for practice. Although I use MechJeb (mainly just for DeltaV calculations) I haven't unlocked the later stages where it does all the hard work for you, so I'm still on manual flying. I must say the progression is now a bit better in career. I feel a bit happier doing things in an iterative process, step by step. This feels rather natural at the moment, and hopefully in 1.0.5 the contextual contracts will improve on this even more. I didn't think I'd come back to KSP for a long time, so good work to Squad for keeping it up with the updates!

Cheers. Ok I thought I might be going a bit too far with it. I wonder if the local effects might include increased humidity in cities. Then again I completely forgot that water vapour is a product of combustion so I bet the difference is negligible.

So, there's all this talk about hydrogen fuel cells being what cars will run on in the future. If all cars transferred from internal combustion to fuel cell what would the effect be on the earths water system? I know it's a (mostly) closed system but would there be less water in the ground, sea or lakes? Would there be more water in the air as vapour. How much water vapour would be released every day, month or year? Would this effect cloud formation or rain? Would taking the water from the sea cause extra salinity? Or am I getting this all wrong and the amount of energy we get from hydrogen so great and it's so efficient that we won't actually use that much water?

I agree there will never be zero gravity, but also agree with the above quote. Zero G/Micro G... in this context you're maybe being pedantic? You will perhaps notice that I do use the phrase micro g, interchangeably with zero g in my OP. I understand the difference, but felt that this debate should be about the effects of it on how humanity would develop biologically if there were many generations in space, without getting bogged down in the detail of 0G of 0.00000001G

Wait... didn't Russia sent that satellite up for a Gecko procreation experiment recently? I believe it also kept fruit flies and other things too? I believe they lost control of it and it's orbit would degrade in a few weeks.

Would all the liquid and nutrients needed for the fruit and plants flow in the correct way? I guess osmosis would work exactly the same, from and to areas of different concentrations. I guess there would be no 'up or down' for the plant except the direction of light, but I have a feeling that genes would dictate that things would grow in the right places though. I've never seen a watermelon grow over time. What shape are they when they are newly developed. Does this change with time? Do they start out spheres and then change to oblongs? Or the other way around?

Thanks for all the great responses. I was perhaps a little flippant in my original remarks. I was not confusing evolutionary changes per se with individual changes. I understand that there will be profound changes to individuals which may eventually lead to them not being able to existing in a 1g environment again, at least without (I assume) lengthy and gradual rehabilitation. Perhaps I also misclassified this as [biology] too. Being as there are many ethical dilemmas surrounding this and the lack of experimentation, I was looking for an estimation or even a slightly 'sci-fi' answers. I get that without actually doing this, we won't know. From what I've seen and read there will be many consequences. The ones that stand out to me are ones including development as a child as an intergral part... things like the inability to actually walk. That is very interesting. I hadn't even thought of that. Even development of the inner ear too!

Are there not any ideas or theories, not necessarily proof so far? Have there been any studies into other creatures reproducing in low/micro gravity situations?

Hypothetically... if one were to have several generations of people living in micro/zero gravity, and they had children, in micro/zero gravity and so on and so on, how would this affect their biology. Would our toes grow bigger so we can grasp onto the innards of space stations? would our legs shrink and be less powerful? would our heads and brains expand due to blood flowing out. I assume we'd be all bloated and have terrible hearts and maybe never be able to return to a full 1G environment without breaking bones and suffering cardiac failure? Would there be any other aspects that might change?

Surely, something you can do is to build the entire base in the editor. Then break it down into smaller parts for launch? Would that help a bit, unless that is something you already do? It will not compensate for the suspension/weight issue, but at least all the ports are completely lined up. You could always try to construct it on one of Minmus' flat 'seas' to test the sag of the suspension first.

I support you entirely in your statement. I was perhaps a little simplistic, but I just wanted to get across the point that sometimes things do change around us regardless of our intervention. A lot of people may (I have no proof or research on this, so it's anecdotal) instinctively want to keep everything the same, perhaps incorrectly. But, we need to do need to compensate for our actions, however it is within an already dynamic and ever changing environment. Trying to keep on track however, what would you propose as a solution to the OPs question? If in the case of a run-away non self repairing climate change/global warming, what interventions could humanity then do to cool or rectify the situation?

This sounds better. If the wind was blowing and you could not compensate then it would be your fault really. Randomly blowing up due to a lightning strike would be horrible.

I don't to upset you, but this has been in since 0.22. Check out the Wiki page for iterations of the nose cone, here To not be so negative though... it is used for atmospheric data. So you can get science from flying it around Kerbin or other planets with atmospheres.

That's answered a few of my questions. I was suggesting that gravity was an unusually 'weak' force in the context of the 4 fundamental forces (weak nuclear, strong nuclear, EM and Gravity). You explanation is a little simpler and often the simple ones are the best. I do enjoy that we (at least from your explanation) do not know why gravitons transmit momentum in the opposite direction. There's always something new to learn isn't there? No, I am British. My spell checker must be French . Thanks again.

I'm just trying to embellish your idea here, or provoke extra thought. I do like the idea of weather What would cause the failure? Wind? Rain? Lightning? I can understand how these would make things a little more 'realistic'. What kind of weather prevents launches now? Surely a sprinkling of cloud wouldn't stop a launch? There are some mods out there that do include extra terrestrial weather too like the recently showcased sandstorms on Duna. Perhaps when biomes become more widespread we will see something similar to this. I can at least see clouds appearing to make a more picturesque Kerbin.

I concur. The point of this was not to discuss climate change itself, but in the event it happens and will not right itself over time short enough to be tolerable by humans, human intervention will be required to make it more of what we consider a tolerable climate. Ideas like the giant space mirrors/shades, swinging a comet by our atmosphere to 'drag' off excess atmosphere, genetically modifying crops to use up or fix more CO2 etc are what the OP was after. If it was at such a stage that a natural cycle would not return it to normal, it would take the entire human race to right it again. Unfortunately some of the ideas will probably be unthinkable (or deemed unethical) at the moment but will probably appear more reasonable later. Alternatively some of the ideas that include eugenics, genocidal and anti-human rights paths and may become irrelevant as many people may starve and die in resource wars and civil disorder before we get to a point where 'irreversible' change takes place. So in fact we may not have to reduce the population actively because lots of people will die anyway. This is a very sad state of affairs in my opinion either way. I would not like to see anything like this, but as things change people panic. Some of things like eating less cows/livestock and converting to insects or agrarian sources of protein would help a long way. Also increasing density and public transport so we don't need to use cars and fossil fuels. I don't think high density living has a very good effect on personal and mental wellbeing (at least it doesn't for me) though so, but again these can only prevent further change. To actually cool a warming climate would be very difficult. Eventually all the things we will do unless you look at the causes of things. IF climate change is down to humans and CO2 and Methane and other greenhouse gases then we'd need a way to reduce these in the atmosphere (and also production of these gasses). Fixing bacteria or artificial processing plants would need to be used, although these come with risks and would have to be on a grant scale. We could create polymers from the CO2 in the air, rather than digging it out of the ground? Perhaps we would see the rise stromatolite like creatures in the seas. Unfortunately if it's a bit more related to cycles of the Earth and Sun and general, non-human, climate change we can't do anything about, then we would perhaps be foolish to intervene and we should just 'roll' with the changes. In this case it would be arrogant to think we could make such an impact on Earth, or even try and change what it does. Trying to cool Earth might make us plunge into an ice age instead!?!? One thing, however, I would like to say is I often think that humanity is a little arrogant in thinking the planet should stay exactly how we want it (or how it is at the moment). Species evolve and become extinct over time regardless of human intervention. The same with the climate which changes over millions of years. I am not arguing against human induced climate change to any degree. I am just wondering how many people want to keep everything exactly how it is, when in reality it is meant to change.

I partially agree with you with perhaps moving the lights or making them shorter or into the runway like catseyes style lights. However there would normally be obstacles at the end of the runway at 'normal' airfields like trees and pylons etc. I too have often created things that struggle to take off, but have found this to do with the landing gear being too far back of the CoM. Could do with them fancy lights at the beginning of the runway that tell you if you're coming in too high or low. I think they're (after a quick google) Precision approach path indicators (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precision_approach_path_indicator). You get two red and two white when you're just right. Other variations indicate you're too high or low. I seem to remember the flying instructor having a good laugh whilst asking the tower to turn them off whilst I was coming into land once. So having them turn off would be good too, but they could help no-end with having an optimal approach angle especially for new people and those who tend to struggle with depth perception in a 2d (as in the game is a 3d projection onto a 2d screen with no 'real' depth perception unless you use 3d glasses etc) game.

Unfortunately I would have many questions... If I could have two, that are closely linked I would choose the below in bold. How fast does gravity travel? How do we know? The idea of if a concentration of mass (like the Sun) disappeared it would take a few minutes for us to 'fall' out of orbit tickles me. I always had a fantastical thought that gravity is so weak because it 'leaks' into other dimensions and so we only feel a portion of it's effects. My brother had an interesting, but perhaps naïve view on gravity. He believed it was actually not mass attracting us together, but vacuum (or something in the apparent nothing-ness) pushing us. Matter was actually neutralising or blocking this force and was an area of 'null-gravity' so that is in fact why two massive objects appear to attract each other. Really they are being pushed, but the matter is blocking internal pushing. It also helped in justifying why items with short distances between had more 'attractive' force between them... the space between them was smaller than the space pushing them together from outside the system. It would also go to explain by the universe it expanding at an ever increasing rate (which if I remember correctly is the latest paradigm). Interesting thought exercise, but I'm pretty sure it's been proven wrong (How? I don't know).

I have to agree with you here, It's very easy to make a 3 part SSTO as you've said. It will also give you quite a bit of fuel left after you're in LKO too! What does this mean for the challenge? SSTO does not necessarily mean a 'space plane' so it can be done easily. Should we put wings on it, have to have wheels? Land again on the runway - with our without a parachute? I'm not actively trying to pull your challenge apart, please don't take my post that way. Perhaps you should add extra points for where you can get to, or DeltaV left over etc?

Has anyone said Keredits as an alternative to Kredits? Just has a more comical sound to me.

This was part of my idea too. I could either deorbit them, or use them again later perhaps. I usually deorbit jetissoned lower stages with probes or Mechjeb (radially attached as a probe controller), however there are times this is undesirable, difficult or impossible. At later times I may wish to tidy up the space at 100km or so above Kerbin so a tug to do some cleaning would be great. As you've said as well you could put them in a cluster together, and being as (I've read, but not yet been able to test) we can transfer fuel through the claw that would be a in space refuelling site perhaps. Cheers again. I still haven't had a chance to test it properly, but thanks again!

I second this... wasn't it called Universe Sandbox though? I would more describe it as a 'toy' than a game. You need a pretty beefy computer to do anything large though once you get fed up of creating small solar systems and annihilating planets.

Oh man I love chats like this. This is one of the great things about the KSP community. My mind has been blown... this is really interesting and am enjoyed keeping up with some of this conversation at least at a basic level. Time travelling electrons! It makes you realise how big and amazing the universe really is... even at a particulate scale. The thing that really entertained me is that you can smash two photons into each other, that have no mass, and they can produce something with mass, at the cost of energy (so keeping the whole thing constant overall). It really just reminds me to think of matter/energy rather than have them as two different things. Would your reversing the antimatter's spin and other issues with the symmetry actually form a 'mirror' universe. Kerbals with goatees?

I've done a little Googling to find out about light being an anti-particle of itself, and this was a very good academic link which explains it quite well and concisely if anyone is interested... http://van.physics.illinois.edu/qa/listing.php?id=1153