PB666

I think you are missing the point. What we need is a sticky page somewhere with equations (e.g. excel) in a format that most people and utilize such that they need only plug their parameters into r = <Kerbin's radius> alt = <altitude> inc = <inclination> etc. And then the wonderful little program determines all the orbital parameters. Having 60 different equations does not help if you have to spend 3 days calculate something a program can do in 5 trillionths of a second. - - - Updated - - - G = universal gravitational constant g = acceleration due to gravity at earths surface

Wiki overstates the precision of G, best not to use more than 5 digits. The most recent attempt to determine G precisely found a confidence interval wider than previous estimates.

The surface plants and animals would have been toasted immediately, but there are plant roots and stuff under the surface that would have heated up over the 2 minutes and with limited air would have smouldered. The steam from vapor would have disappeared once it reached the surface (on a real humid day it would linger for a time), but the organic material would have produced particulates that would have lingered. Needless to say a horizontal SFRB testing is not the most environmentally friendly thing that you can do in a desert. The CO2 injections themselves prolly killed stuff that managed to hide underground near the site.

Earth, I have become very attached to it. Of course in 34 years I will switch my preference to Gliese 581c, since it will take 35 ly for the 2008 message to reach Gliese 581 and for the aliens who went in search of a new home, only to realize that it 581c was a hopeless plan, fortuitiously to receive the message and make their way to and conquer Earth. I want it on record in advance I was in favor of 581c also (that way their commander will save face and eat someone who likes Eeloo). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Message_from_Earth

There was a fly landing on the hill behind the nozzle at T -1 sec when a moment later a swift lizard snatched him between his jaw. In that brief moment he was thinking 'is this going to be my end?' Questions that should never be asked. That was the source of the smoke coming from the rocks.

Hey, I hear Kim Jun Un needs advice with this space program, you might apply

As a set for space si-fi movies, in space, lease it out!. When the Cannae drive comes on line you can keep it stable indefinitely (snicker).

No. Land it on Phobos. Turn it into the restaurant at the end of the Universe, send the menu to the aliens on Ceres.

Doing some sloppy math here if the earth has a period of a year and is 8 lm from the sun and object X is 1 ly from the sun (the object is roughly 67,000 AU from the sun) then its period would be TP(earth) * 67,0003/2 or 16000000 yrs (+/- a Planck's time unit). So if our precise astrological observations of the sun and objects nearby have been ongoning for say 400 years roughly the sun has wobble 1/100th of a degree or 1/6000th of a radian during that time. Lets start with that object within the Oort cloud, it would have cleansed the local area of mass, but their might also be Trojan comets at +/- 120' and 180 that act as balancers and all kinds of mass interior to the object in the Oort cloud. We can top that off with the fact that if there is 1 object that size there are probably other objects that are smaller, so then you have to consider the probability that these might have a balancing effect, in which case the wobble may not be directional to the object particularly when we factor in the contributions of Jupiter, Saturn and the two outer planets. Also, we don't know the gravitational constant securely past the 4th digit, which means we also do not know the suns mass to also beyond the 4th digit, our solar system is also is an incalculably complex N-body problem, other objects in the vicinity of the sun also pull on the sun. And the inner solar system objects are so close to the sun and there are so many unknown inter-actors (asteroids and the like) and given the underlying variable definition problems, the mass issues is not the only problem . . . . . . . . . . The point is that it would be difficult to distinguish a tiny wobble anomaly in the sun's historical motion from anomaly from all other possible sources mindful of the mass, but weighing more heavily the orbital period. Note if you did not catch the joke about the Planck's time unit .... go bang your head against a tomato 6 times.

no one's my nick, how did you guess. - - - Updated - - - let's start that thread up again!!!!! (not)

Over time maybe, the mass conversion to chemical energy strorage will take electricity. A electrolysis cell of extended life greater than 50% are not common, and mars produces 1/9th the electric power as earth, the inefficiency is actually a good thing since you have to keep the electrolysis warm to keep it operational. It would take a very long time to create enough hydrogen to go 'anywhere' inside the orbit of Neptune. Besides make hydrogen, it also has to pump hydrogen and also move terrain and scavenge the soil for water. - - - Updated - - - Shuttle as a people carrier was stupid, but as for a multipurpose carrier and people carrier is was rather versatile. I like the shuttle and I think its expenditure was rather miniscule. If you want to compare stupid with stupid lets talk about the Beagle or the mars missions that have disappeared. The shuttle was close to 99% successful in what it did. The fact is the US could afford the shuttle program, it could have been modernized and made more efficient or increase its payload to carry larger things to the space station. In the time we spend argueing about what the next platform should be, we could have executed a dozen shuttle missions, we could have assembled a mars mission in space. We talk about momentum in orbital mechanics and its importance, the shuttle program had momentum and we lost it. If you think about the Apollo mission (very expensive compared to shuttle) had we kept it going we would not be worrying about where the next base would be, we would probably already have bases on mars and the moon.

When you are thinking of creating a base you are thinking of how long you can use T+? of the same number of people, actually 'on the base doing stuff' instead of 'inflight waiting to do stuff'. The moon is 3 days away, mars is minially 6 months so you save alot of time and time = f(N, (food,water,disposables,etc)) Presumably if you get folks on the surface of the moon, the could dig down or cover up to block radiation, the could add weights in order to fight off the effects of low gravity on thier muscles and thier heart. So with these two disposed of you have mission length/individual is going to be a function of food, water and waste (which is really not a problem on the surface of the moon, yet).

Cargo bays for landers. - - - Updated - - - Scale mods, so simple.

Density of gases in space The sun loses about 109 kg/s. This loss occurs unevenly over the this gas radiates outward (below) [TABLE=width: 500] [TR] [TD=align: center]___Planet____[/TD] [TD=align: right]Sun Distance (~r; m)[/TD] [TD=align: right]4pi*r2 (m2)[/TD] [TD=align: right]kg / m2s[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Mercury[/TD] [TD=align: right]0.58 x 1011[/TD] [TD=align: right]0.42 x 1023[/TD] [TD=align: right]2.3 x 10-14[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Venus[/TD] [TD=align: right]1.08 x 1011[/TD] [TD=align: right]1.46 x 1023[/TD] [TD=align: right]6.8 x 10-15[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Earth[/TD] [TD=align: right]1.50 x 1011[/TD] [TD=align: right]2.82 x 1023[/TD] [TD=align: right]3.5 x 10-15[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Mars[/TD] [TD=align: right]2.28 x 1011[/TD] [TD=align: right]6.53 x 1023[/TD] [TD=align: right]1.5 x 10-15[/TD] [/TR] [/TABLE] The final column shows the mass of gas that passes any point at a given equitorial radius from the sun. There are discussions which involve the in-space refueling based on gas scavenging from space. The problem as we see above is that you would have to find a means of evacuating large volumes of space, but in actuality one could not evacuate space in the same way one might evacuate a chamber. In a chamber the molecules do not travel far before they strike another particle, and this constant richochet of particles push the gas from highest pressure to lowest pressure. In space particles travel a large distance before the strike another particle. But around the sun the particles move a way as a consequence of ionization, high-frequency excitation, and strong magnetic fields impart on that plasma a tremedous amount of kinetic energy. The wind travels between 0.3 - 0.8 Mm/s. Using a value of 0.4 Mm/Second. The plasma density is basically 1kg spread out over 400 sun-centered radial kilometer of square areas specified (1 / '4th column') and so basically the density is much lower or or spread around around 1020 m3 or 5 times the volume of the moon. Therefore non-directional evacuation will not work. The next table shows how much hydrogen one could ideally extract from a collector of 1 sq meter, point in the incoming direction of the solar wind in one calender year (31557600s) collected (kg/yr). It assumes that every bit of wind that crosses a section of a spherical surface at the given radius (specified by the planets orbital radius) will be collected. [TABLE=width: 500] [TR] [TD]Ship near orbit[/TD] [TD]Collection rate (kg / m2yr)[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Mercury[/TD] [TD]0.00000072[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Venus[/TD] [TD]0.00000021[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Earth[/TD] [TD]0.00000011[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Mars[/TD] [TD]0.00000005[/TD] [/TR] [/TABLE] So lets say one need 1000 kg of hydrogen for a rocket being returned from mars to earth, the mission will be for 2 years after which it needs the fuel to return. How large should the collection plate of the collector be? So for any given meter of collector at Mars radius collects 0.0000001 kg/2yr and since you need 1000 kg, this translates to a collector of surface area 1010. Lets argue that the collector in its simplest form is 0.1mm of D=1 plastic. Then 1 cubic meter of 0.1mm can cover 10000 m2, thus for 1010 square meters would be require 106 m3, the weight of 109 kg plastic. The amount of material to create the collector far exceeds any benefit one would get from collecting the gas. In fact if we assume it take 49 units of fuel to get 1 unit of plastic to mars, then we would argue that break even point for the Mars for an in space hydrogen collector would take 1 billion years. However, on the bright side at about the same time, and expansion phase sun will bring the hydrogen to mars. There are other proposed methods. Use EMF to coerce protons to a central site thereby increasing density. The problem however if one does the calculations it requires a massive amount of amperage at extremely high voltages to cover the size of area that would collect 1kg of protons traveling 400,000 m/s

Playing the devil's advocate here. Humans were a hell of alot more time efficient on the moon than the Mars rovers, the samples they have brought back from the moon are unmatched for any mission to any celestial in the solar system. The amount of science done from the Moon rocks is nothing less than incredible. The mars rover can do meters per day, it requires all this back and forth communication with earth. For human, tell them to go pick up 20 lbs of rock that human can scour the area of several football fields. And there is compromise, because if he is mounted with a camera, and computers or people back on earth see something of interest, they can ask for a refetch. Seriously, if we did not care about the lives of the astronaut at all, you would simply put 1 astronaut down where you placed curiousity. Give him enough food and water for 20 days in an isolation suit have him pick up rocks and carry them back to an a launch site which obtains minimally stable LMO and then dock with a vessel to get it back to earth, in earth orbit dock with ISS and put the rocks back on the next mission down to earth. You'de have scientist analyzing those rocks for the next 40 years. Don't underestimate the value of humans, they are many fold better at dealing with complex 'black swan' circumstances than computers. Just imagine if you had an astronaut right now walking up to the Beagle . . . . . . You would hear some Brits saying "Hail mary, mother . . . . . What you need for a geologist on mars is a mobile facility (with much more robust wheels) that can be assisted along behind him as he forages for "science". The problem with humans in the post Vietnam era is that you cannot treat them as fodder. Second that rock collector is probably going to be a trained geologist, so he has value beyond just collecting rocks, and third if you have a resource on mars that can cover 10 km per day, that is a very valuable thing to keep going. All of that should mean we have a manned mission to Mars - but the critical problem is keeping that one trained geologist alive its all about MASS and Landings and return vehicles. If mars is too hard, phobos is not, we could have a manned moon to Phobos that brings back a bunch of rocks. If we can get enough Station on Phobos then the emergency problem for Mars is much improved, since an emergency on Mars does not have to wait 9 months for a return window to earth.

But we now know we can target a landing site, so that if you one thing and you want to study it with heavier equipment, simply drop a robotized lab on top of it. The problem of slowing stuff in mars upper atmosphere is a matter of transport costs, you could make a lightweight frame in space that, using drogue chutes and larger chutes you really could slow things down. (remember that drag is the square of speed) So lets say that mars is 1% of earths atmosphere, that means that for an earth sized chute it will be going 10 times as fast when it hits the ground. (instead of 6 it is going 60 m/s) If you double the area you get it down to 0.707 * 60 If you quadruble you get it down to 0.5 * 60 = 30 if you octuple you get it down to .35 * 60 if you increase 16 times you get it down to .25 * 60 = 15 if you increase 64 times you get it down to .125 * 60 = 7.5 if you increase it 128 times you get it down to 0.08825 * 60 = 5.30 M/S If your goal is to return a rocket from mars this is a relative good solution, you don't need to go down to 5.3 m/s you can simple get it down to 20m/s and fire your rockets close to the ground to land (its relatively easy when you only have to correst for a small dV on landing) So the investment really is building such a frame in earth orbit and then spiriting it off to Mars. So here is one of my space port suggestions, Create a medium earth orbit thin metal frame building with sliding doors that can be used to assemble bulky stuff (Extend the life of the space station another 40 years) Instead of docking a rocket draft it into the facitility close the doors, disassemble the construction materials, and bungi them to the side of the building. You could even create such a facilitiy on Phobos and use robots (Although the problem with Phobos, Mars, Diemos is getting the power to do the job. Literally the side of the building could be solar.

Sure but when you have down time on one mission you can flip the switch on one of your old rovers and see if you can push it another 500 meters, and do some more sampling. Im glad to see they have Kepler back on line, crippled but still functioning.

The secret is not to get more fuel but to get that fuel to be ejected at higher speeds. The problem is that uses alot of energy, so that you need an energy generator that actually coverts a sizable more mass, and a device that can do so considerably more rapidly than currently possible, and withstand much higher temperatures. Theoretically laser containment fields like use in a fusion reactor can contain and super heat a stream of gas that is ejected at 100,000s or 1,000,000s of meter per second. All you have to due is use excitation frequencies that correspond to the absorption spectrum of the gases in a large number of states. Bill has caught the essential problem of the line of conversation, the whole thing begins with an essentially illogical proposition, if we had a warp drive that would take only 10 days to get from Earth to point X (lets say 20 to 100 ly), or 800 to 4000 times the speed of light, would make it a material composed almost entirely of the not-known-to-exist Tachyon. Since it is almost entirely tachyon it could not be normal matter and thus it is unnecessary to speculation the best configurations for a lander. Fundementally if warp is possible its going to be sublight and very costly which means it might take 300 years to go 100 light years, you are not going to waste your time with what is described basically a flag planting mission.

I think their strategy was to get information about the conditions on mars, some basic science about where to go and what to look for and then build better vessels with more comprehensive science. When the opportunity first hit mars, people had major worries about whether it was even possible. Now we know it possible and so we can invest more in the missions. Memory is alot more dense now than it was then, and you can easily have all the redundancy you want, but as the number of communication satellites in Mars orbit increases, you also can send alot more data, which means that the mission demands increase. I think they don't really need vehicles that last more than 4 years, after that amount of time they are due for technological upgrades and new instrumentation, time for a new mission. NASA really could plop out a new mars mission every year and within 20 years have a sizable exploratory coverage of mars without ever stepping foot on mars. Well at least Kepler's is back on line, with a much reduced information rate.

Yeah but with the suits on they cannot photosynthesis, so they have to have lights inside thier suits to keep the alive. There is actually not enough surface area on a kerbal to keep them alive, and since they have mouths you assume they eat something that feeds a redox reaction so, if it not O2, its chlorine, or Sulfuric acid or Nitric acid. BTW plants also consume O2 during the night cycle so . . . . . .

They can increase the cost in career mode, as long as the fix all the bugs.

I think that they thought that in 90 days the solar panels would be covered with dust and there would be inadequate energy to proceed. But the occasional martian breeze actually removed dust and kept it going. I don't know why the wheel system has lasted so much longer, the longevity may have been based on catastrophic risk that either never materialized or that they managed, with experience, to circumvent.

Thats cause UKers do stuff like this:

There are diminishing returns to Mars Rovers anyway, what is there now 4 versions of wheel landers (not counting the beagle, who apparently is still dozing in space sleep stage). Once the ESA and ASIANS have done their versions of the Rovers, it would be better to pick a spot and go down.

This is more romantic than it is well-thought out. This whole mars colony would be nothing but a great dependency on Earth, it would not place resources into the solar system it would consume resources like a coal-fired steam locomotive with a leaky boiler until gov'ts pulled the plug on the operation. If you want lots of carbon and oxygen just make take ammonium oxalate and transport it wherever that still is going to be cheaper than shipping the CO2 refining infrastructure to mars and build your colony on Phobos (once you have cleaned your base site, no dust storms, no need for extensive solar panel infra-structures).