TythosEternal

I tried writing a response to this thread, and it turned into a giant catalog of my family's GW-BASIC and MS-DOS library. I forced myself to limit by games I launched from the command line (sorry, BASIC and boot-up) and then tried to think of which one I spent the most time on. The clear winner was TIE Fighter. It's hard to explain how awesome it was to find a good 3d space sim, and on top of the technology (dynamically-transitioned, continuous soundtrack, anyone?), the training and campaign setup was pretty neat. The best part, though, was the story! Zahn had just finished the Thrawn trilogy, and LucasArts folded in Thrawn himself (as well as some of the new Zahn technologies and other lore) as your commander for certain campaigns. It doesn't get much better than that. Who needs textures, anyways?

I have a lot of space backgrounds, but here are two of my favorites: First, this beautiful silhouette of Endeavor against the Earth's limb, by way of Wikipedia: Another is a composite I assembled outlining the different bands of solar activity seen by the SDO, one of my all-time favorite space missions:

sin^2(z) is just sin(z) * sin(z). Sometimes we place exponents after an operator but before it's arguments. This helps clarify, in theory, that we are raising the result of the operator by a power, and not the arguments themselves.

Agreed. Gilly has a small gravity well, but you've already sunk most of your fuel cost by the time you get there. Mainly it just take patience, more than skill or expertise.

I appreciated the minor touches of the BSG remake for exactly this reason. They didn't get everything perfect, but they are one of the few shows to decouple linear and angular momentum for a majority of dogfight maneuvers. They also made some effort--again, not perfect, but appreciable--to minimize the whole sound-in-space paradox.

Here! Jobs for good engineers never seem to be in short supply, but I know everyone has their own experience. It seems to be more about how picky you want to be than whether or not you can find someone willing to hire you.

33.5 / 20 = 1.675

The state of the game is closer to "release" than "under development." Most updates have more in common with an expansion pack than a patch job. With that in mind, I would be delighted to give Squad more money. I want then to continue doing a great job, and to continue adding more and more great stuff to the game. I don't think they can sustainably do that in the long run if every user is paying a low one-time fixed price. Combining the conclusions of the above two paragraphs, I would be happy to see Squad move to a small fee per "expansion" (a couple of dollars). So long as they continue to hold their regular releases to a consistently-high standard, I think this would provide a more continuous income stream without impacting the user base in overly-tragic ways. I know I'd shell out a few bucks a year to keep being part of this experience!

Dammit... Why did I try to load this page on my phone? Thanks for sharing!

I am reading a most fascinating book right now ( The Red Rocket's Glare, by Asif Siddiqi), that addresses (among many other things) this exact phenomenon. The history of manned spaceflight in Soviet Russia was strongly influenced (he argues) by an industrial-age ideology known as Cosmism (the famous rocket scientist Tsiolkovski being one of several major advocates), whose adherents believed in scientifically-driven progress of a collective universe seeking to immortalize every human being (including those already dead, by way of resurrection through applied scienctific development). The term "cosmonaut," in this context, addresses a discrepancy between those who seek to travel the stars ("astronauts") and those who imagine space travel as a key step to expanding humanity into racial perfection and immortality (as preached by Cosmist philosophers). While the Soviet Union was never big on such broad, borderline-religious ideologies, the populist (and quasi-athiest) appeal of this message synergized nicely with propaganda themes of the time. By extension, ICBM development (which then led directly into the Soviet space program) was performed by many individuals who were inspired by such beliefs and narratives fostered within that community (combined, of course, with the infamous Russian inferiority complex that perceived the "west" was headed in the direction of similar accomplishments). I suspect that Siddiqi is incorrect in crediting this term solely to the influence of Cosmism on the Soviet space program. However, it seems possible that this was one major factor, and one I'll admit I hadn't considered before. Most likely, I think, the term originated as a Russian equivalent for minor reasons such as these l, which contemporary narratives and political expediencies then forced into sharp juxtaposition with the "western" term, "astronaut." Nonetheless, the text is a good read that I'd strongly recommend.

Good discussion so far, but I would point out one additional item: just because you've gone orbital (or beyond) doesn't mean turning your reactor on is perfectly safe. Many interplanetary missions, particularly those going to Jupiter or beyond, will return past the Earth to repeatedly gain momentum. If you have already turned your reactor on before your final pass, you have to a) be very good about controlling your slingshot trajectories, and be able to justify the additional risk of repeated passes with a live reactor and it's associated by-products. My understanding is that, at least for NASA, there's actually a formal review process for this mission planning decision that's something akin to an EIR.

This is, without exaggeration, one of the most beautiful pictures of Mars I've ever seen. Thank you for sharing it here, and again, many congratulations to the successful team!

I think I understand what you are trying to do, in which case you should ignore all the nit-picky whiners and (as usual) just listen to Red. This analogy will make the best translation between KSP Kerbin-centric and IRL Earth-centric orbits, but there is one more step: make sure you scale by the rotational periods of the respective planets (i.e., roughly 24 hours for Earth vs. 6 hours for Kerbin). That way, your ground-fixed orbits will line up. Basically, divide the period of the desired Earth-centered orbit by 4 before you plug it into the above equation.

Working in industry, there are a lot of opportunities to proselytize KSP to my coworkers. For example, two days ago a customer was complaining about being asked to teach his friend's 12-year-old about rocket science. Needless to say, I made an argument that a simple, quick purchase and install of KSP would be a much more fun and educational approach than trying to teach the rocket equation to someone who doesn't know exponentials. My favorite gimmick (if you could call it that), though, is to include Jebediah and the Up-Goer Five on the "questions" slide of my presentations. Never fails to provoke a question or two. The next step is usually to show them Build-Fly-Dream, after which most folks (fellow engineers, in particular) are usually sold.

NASA's Balance Mass Challenge: Using “Dead Weight†on Mars Spacecraft to Advance Science and Technology Official press release: http://www.nasa.gov/solve/marsbalancechallenge/#.VCD09PldV8E ADHD version: This is a proposal paper outlining a mission plan. It does not involve the construction of actual hardware. There is a monetary award for the winning team. I have two separate motions, if you will: I propose we put together a KSP InnoCentive team (I have already registered, but not yet submitted a solution). This team will be responsible for submitting a written proposal for this challenge. I will organize the team and act as the interim manager until a formal organizational structure can be put into place. If you are interested, please send an email to [email protected] with a description of the functional role you'd like to play and the specific contributions you will be able to make to the project. While the team will be responsible for converging on the final concept, it's only appropriate to open up the brainstorming to everyone in our community! Given previous discussions, I would suggest we start with the following ideas: Phobos orbiter/lander/impactor High-altitude spectroscopy (i.e., complement the MAVEN and MOM mission discoveries by mapping specific distributions) Infrared mapping (single-instrument MGS follow-on) Let the goings-on begin!

TheAwer, you beat me to this! However, despite the common thread of "how to get a free ride to mars," I'm spinning this off into its own thread. They are independent projects.

Does the Q (Star Trek:TNG, with occasional appearances in other series) count?

Satellite communication (SATCOM) can take many forms, but the most common description is a space-based microwave-band transponder (or network of transponders) that serves to relay information between two or more users (who could be on the ground, at sea, in the air, in space, etc.). Beyond this, there is a very diverse array of implementations. One of the simplest is a geostationary repeater, which simply receives, filters, and retransmits any waveform it "hears" on a particular band. Users can then "bounce" a signal "off" of the repeater to transmit to other users outside their line-of-sight. More complex SATCOM implementations can feature cross-band transmission, support for multiple services, cross-links to other satellite in the same constellation, and even (if you don't mind shelling out major cash) complete point-to-point coverage from a large network of low-earth satellites (a la Iridium). SATCOM networks can be robust and flexible. Networks exist for the transmission of phone conversations, radio channels, television networks, and many more. Most leverage a range of microwave bands (Ku and Ka are two of the most common). Putting such communications in space has a number of advantages, including coverage and cost (believe it or not, a handful of communications satellites are frequently both much easier and much cheaper than, for example, laying down a new trans-oceanic fiber network).

Successful test-firing of the Liquid Apogee Motor (LAM) engine after 300 days in hibernation. The full insertion maneuver will take 24 minutes (today's test was just under 4 seconds), and is scheduled for the morning of the 24th. It's getting so close... very exciting!

Here's some context, for reference: Based on the above, I was mistaken in my original assessment--I had the impression that this was a theory-and-experiment requirement, whereas it actually seems to be more of a research project. In that case, researching appropriate work regarding (for example) Helium-3 harvesting and developing a realistic mission plan would, in my opinion, be an excellent candidate. Here are some good starting points for reading: https://www.wpi.edu/Pubs/E-project/Available/E-project-031306-122626/unrestricted/IQP.pdf http://arc.aiaa.org/doi/abs/10.2514/6.IAC-04-IAA.3.7.P.02 http://www.incose.org/cleveland/RS09/Abstracts.htm The second item is an AIAA article. If your adviser can't help you access a copy, give me a PM. The third item includes an abstract of interest (second in the list); I'd recommend reaching out to the author (his UW profile, http://www.wisc.edu/directories/person.php?name=HARRISON+H+SCHMITT&email=schmitt%40engr.wisc.edu, might be your best shot). Don't forget Google Scholar... http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=lunar+helium-3&btnG=&as_sdt=1%2C5&as_sdtp=

Let me use some Google-fu to look up some more details about this particular program, and I'll get back to you later tonight. If you're intent on researching and writing about a particular mission, the Helium-3 research is a good topic, provided you can find sufficient source material. Something the community would be happy to crowd-source and translate, if needed, I suspect.

The problems you mentioned are well-studied and basically solved, in the sense that all the interesting work was done years ago. This is particularly true for the restricted two-body design space. What novel developments have recently been made or discovered are nearly all multi-body, non-linear, and/or non-spherical solutions with very specific applications. Within that domain, there is room for some juicy mission-planning problems, but you will need a heavy background in multi-variable calculus, differential equations, and nonlinear optimization. I can't answer with this particular perspective, but I suspect they are looking for more novel and scientific problems and approaches. People with the relevant experience in the program are welcome to correct me if this isn't the case. Too easy, and to imprecise. The closest real-world topic I can think of that is both marginally relevant to KSP and appropriate for the 11th-grade level (forgive me if your skills are above that level; they probably are if you're thinking of these kinds of ideas) would be the modeling of solar systems formation, a la some kind of geophysics-based Planet Factory. Run initial protoplanetary disc distributions through an angular momentum and accretion model (or models) and see what stabilities converge (I.e., planets form). Specific post-convergence material distributions would be particularly interesting, I think. You could then conclude by comparing the results to something like the published Kepler distribution findings. This, of course, is just one suggestion. At your level, focus on math and physics. Take as much calculus and AP physics as you can (AP chemistry is also a good one). Labs and science-based extracurriculars (i.e., rocket launching, hobby electronics, taking extra science classes at your local college, etc.) are also good steps, since you will need these to appeal to a good engineering program. In college, focus on strong fundamentals. Learn project- and design-based techniques from a solid set of labs. Choose one specialty at the beginning of your junior year that you can stay passionate about and sink your teeth into. If you can get your name on a paper by the time you graduate, you'll have a substantial leg up. After college, either get a Masters developing your specialty with an appropriate program and/or field expert or go straight to getting your foot in the door by any means necessary (including an unpaid summer internship, if you don't have better choices). Once your foot is in--even it's just a technical writing spot--everything will start falling into place. Just make sure you self-advocate and have a good work ethic. Good luck!

I find it very encouraging, and exciting, that they've successfully managed to up the launch tempo with so few problems. I think it's fair to call CRS--and it's contractees--a solid success.

The physics of the game is pretty straightforward--with the exception of the drag model. I'm still trying to understand it (granted, I haven't tried that hard), and I do this for a living.

That's pretty neat! I'm surprised I hadn't seen something like this before. You did a good job. If I can nitpick one thing... That looks like a Dragon V1; was there a reason you didn't go with a V2 graphic? Thanks for sharing!