Aethon

Welcome to the Forums. I would agree with Majorjim. Any ship that will land and return from Mun will land on Duna. One of the great things about KSP is there is so much to do. Perusing the forum will provide you with many ideas on new mission concepts with varying degrees of difficulty. Duna mission? SSTO? How about a Moho orbiter, or an Eve sample return? Space stations are fun, however in my experience, new players tend to make them too big, but hey, that's fun too. You are only limited by your imagination. As far as running multiple missions at once, check out K(erbal) A(larm) C(lock). For many reasons, I find it an absolute necessity. Good luck!

http://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/frozen-carbon-monoxide-in-pluto-s-heart In reference to todays' close up mosaic of Tombaugh Reggios' carbon monoxide ... uhhh... ice field(??) I guess. I don't see any impact craters there either. After a review, I'll mention some other interesting parts of the conference. "This means that there are active landform creating processes operating into the geological current time. Some of the craters appear partially destroyed, perhaps by erosion, and there are also hint of parts of Plutos' crust that have been fractured and thus that indicates there has probably been some forms of techtonics" -Jeff Moore "We still don't have a good measure of the lowest atmosphere... we think all the atmosphere on Pluto is sort of compressed into a very thin layer near the surface where the winds can be up to a few meters per second.. and those numbers are good enough to launch or loft particles off the surface, you know, micron size.." -Randy Gladstone.

Yes. Was looking for that first image as well now. Good work. As I understand, this image shows a higher res. view of the left center of the heart shape, informally dubbed Tombaugh Reggio (mouthful). In the full screen view, it sure looks to me like the smooth, younger surface has flowed south into the mountains, rather than being 'snowed' or geysered into position. Also looks like the mountains on the lower left of that image, have blocked part of this southerly flow of material. (squeal) Oh and Plutos' atmosphere extends out to 1000 miles?!?... O.O

If you watch the NASA press conference, there's a shot of eyes on the solar system, currently showing 30,800/mph relative to Pluto. Sorry. Eyes was my only source. - - - Updated - - - Edit- Four minutes of me squealing like an eight year old girl. Don't forget Norgay Montes: The first solar system object named after a Nepalesian, Tenzig Norgay the first man up Everest. I imagine they're bugging in Nepal. And yes Camacha great naming schemes. Clever diplomacy. I hope the Russians are proud. This just shows the need for more press conferences. So much, new cool ooooooo, no one had a chance to ask about Persephone.

I've decided to start calling the moated object Persephone ( because she's not supposed to be there like that )- and she's obviously the broken spear point from a prehistoric alien moon hunter. Someone pull the string tied to NH's monkey pilot and have him maneuver back to Pluto please.

IIRC. It was traveling 30,000 MPH relative to Pluto. Do your own math.

Hmm. I like it. I was working on similar speculation that maybe the boulder (moated) was darker, absorbing more solar radiation and melting the surrounding area, like a black rock in a snowbank. Can't wait for the press conference.

I was editing as you were typing. Sorry. - - - Updated - - - Perhaps the ocean is deeper below the surface and the shrinkage ( Do women know about shrinkage??) occurred in the upper portions of the crust. We'll need to send a geologist there ASAP.

*Speculation* I'm not sure I'm seeing erosion on Pluto, but I'm trying to come up with an erosion mechanism that doesn't require liquid. N2 snow on Pluto is not going to be slippery like Earth snow (I'm pretty sure even the water ice Mts. won't be slippery) it will be more like sand or fine ash, but under the .06g of Pluto it won't be held to the surface as strongly as here on Earth. If there is erosion, perhaps it's a form of Nitrogen glaciation where the 'snow' slides to lower elevations, altering the terrain. I can't wait for more images! That little piano all the way out there, chock full of science, and we can't see it. It's killing me! Worse than waiting for x-mas as an eight year old. E: Oh and what makes a moat around a boulder on Xaron?

*Speculation* After watching this, and the way the original image sits on Pluto, it looks to me as if the mountain chains run longitudinally away from the pole, which makes me wonder whether warm, young, juicy, bloated Pluto shrunk as some volatiles were lost to space, and these ice mountains were sort of wrinkled up as the body got smaller. Almost like what compression does to planetary poles in KSP. What say ye?

Yes. You must have missed this one in the Sci. lab. False color Pluto by Unmanned Space Flight Forum user ZLD. Highlighting areas of different surface composition. http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?showtopic=7986&st=300&p=223375entry223375

Here we go:

See post #1284, next page.

Must be something before then, though I just heard him say it. I'm speechless. This changes the way we view icy objects. Water ice bedrock mountains comparative to the Rockies?? Great images. Craterless surfaces?!? A giant water ice cube as a moon?! Resurfacing without tidalism?!? The Heart rename ( Tombaugh Regio ) was a nice touch. Young Tombaugh was quite emotional, as well as myself. and Cthulhu Regio,. Super cool. Can anyone link me to a lagless youtube review?? I'll be back later with more coherency.

It's been front page http://www.nasa.gov/ all week. Minimal digging there will find it. Alternately this. LAG BEGONE! http://www.space.com/17933-nasa-television-webcasts-live-space-tv.html On a side note: Why do you and RIC have no rep? (or How RIC got his rep back daddyac. Give a dog a bone?)

Because the Plutonium decays, causing a power loss of 3 watts per year, and they want to be able to run at least a reduced instrument load for the next 25 years or so, to get the higher tech (than Voyager/Pioneer) NH science package out past the heliosheath.

DSN IS now receiving NHs' signal. Huzzah! https://eyes.nasa.gov/dsn/dsn.html

Wow Frida, that's beautiful. Analyzing. Can you link us?

I wish I was smart enough to combine this: With this...: "Bring out the gimp.."

Around four and a half hours from nao. More information concerning the false color 'jawbreaker image' http://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/pluto-and-charon-shine-in-false-color

DSN in Madrid just sent a signal out. Eyes says NH is 'targeting Earth'. Must be sending home data... or dead...

So would Pluto have had a primordial Hydrogen atmosphere like the inner planets? If so, speculation on the mechanism for it's loss and the acquisition of the Nitrogen?

(face palm).. Oh yeah.. Obviously. Thanks Frida. I got up way too early for this, and I see communication now. So I was discussing this in the KSP Steam chat, since this is a spacelike event, from our perspective, the flyby hasn't happened yet??

Yes 45 years to Pluto one way, sorry. Riddle me this space nerds.. A check of the DSN at this second shows no dishes communicating with NH. My understanding was one of them should be sending a signal to the spacecraft through Pluto/Xaron atmosphere? Eyes on the solar system shows it should be. https://eyes.nasa.gov/dsn/dsn.html