tater

The end goal would be for the next generation station/habitat. ISS was built the way it was largely as busy-work for Shuttle. The ability to maximize habitable volume per launch is valuable when we are not seeking to cobble something together out of many small parts that happen to fit inside Shuttle.

It was political to suggest that space agencies could create an economy where none exists. There is either a market for something, or there isn't. A false economy of servicing an agency isn't a real economy.

Space agencies are part of the government, and the only thing the government can do with an economy is screw it up, they certainly can't create an economy.

The slingshot certainly has some interesting possibilities for mission requirements. Right now it would be the sort of "grand tour" stuff we have (hit the SoI of X worlds)---those are missions I never do. A more vague requirement that suggests visiting Jool after entering the SoI of 2 other worlds would be kind of interesting. If the game had a built in transfer window planner, perhaps it could look for gravity assist geometries.

It entirely depends on how one is defining "worth." If the metric is "amount" of science done, then manned isn't worth it. If the metric is a sense of adventure, spirit of discovery, exceptionalism, however you want to put it, then I think it is worth it. I send loads of probes in KSP, actually, since I almost always play with LS, and a scaled up system, getting crew to distant places is hard.

I was gonna say that if I paid for that, I'd demand a refund, it's pretty ugly... but I think I did pay for it.

Real international cooperation would require countries other than the US actually spending meaningful amounts of money, which they don't.

^^^Preach it, brotha'!

@Snark is spot on. I would reiterate as well that part of the slow-motion is the superabundance of caution used. 2.5 billion is a lot of money, even if it is dirt cheap compared to a manned mission. The researchers know that this rover might be the single biggest scientific effort of their own lifetimes, so they don't want to biff it. If they were budgeted hundreds of billions, such that perhaps the rovers were cheaper because of some economies of scale in production, and per haps also just cheaper robots, because they are sending many, so all their eggs are not in one basket, then they could be a little more aggressive in their use. Combined with better self-driving capability, they could cover ground faster. Honestly, I think this is just a matter of time.

Yeah, I saw that in the settings, I should really just turn it on, it's not like I ever don't use it

Yeah, looking much better. I think they are just using a surplus of caution, NASA-style. There was a great post on nasaspaceflight by a guy saying that NASA can make anything boring, lol.

Yeah, the challenges for manned Mars are non-trivial, particularly given the risk-averse nature of NASA planning (not a bad thing, there's no plan B halfway to Mars unless you thought about it ahead of time). It's interesting to note that we haven't sent anything like a current state of the art robot rover anywhere yet. I'd say the state of the art is now private, not NASA. It will be interesting to see rover designs that incorporate the lessons of self-driving car research. Imagine Google during millions of simulated kms of offroad driving per day and applying that to Mars rover technology.

Note that I can be in favor of manned spaceflight, but I can do so without deluding myself that somehow "boots on the ground" = more/better science gains. If we're going to go to the trouble of sending people, then yeah, they will attempt to maximize scientific return. The $ per unit science done will always be higher with people going vs robots, however.

Those are not comparable, because you are comparing a low-cost rover to a high-cost manned mission. Give the rover the same 50-100 billion, and you'll have more, and/or better rovers. They will spend far longer on the surface, and will work longer hours within that longer time period. When I took a lunar geology class from Jack Schmitt, I never asked him if his sample collection was qualitatively better than any of the other Apollo missions, and if so was it because of his training, or because Apollo 17 had a more interesting landing site. My gut says that given the volume of rocks they collected, and the limited collection area, it was likely pretty comparable.

http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html#public The imperial overlay on the video is triggering me, lol.

There is no planetary science that cannot be done better by robots, and that reality is diverging from manned exploration at a rapid rate. None, particularly on the Moon, as nearly instant telepresence means that you can still look at a wheel problem and note stuff under the surface. Even in the '60s would could have collected more samples with robots given the same effort---but there would never have been the same effort without the manned stunt aspect. Pictures of the Earth... can be taken without astronauts. The only reason to send people is to send people, but don't fool yourself that more or better science is part of the reason, any data gathered by people is gravy, it's not about that.

I love the fact that they are making this boring.

I think many (most?) clipped together craft I see posted here look awful. I also misspoke, there is a part I always clip. I clip the KER module so that it disappears, because it's ugly. As I make rockets, and not aircraft, there is not really a need.

I imagine that spaceplane people would only be helped by SSTU-ing this parts. I honestly don;t bother with he stock tanks---or crew parts, actually---at all any more. Regarding station parts, what's your target functionality/aesthetic? Obviously I could imagine a bare-bones truss/tank system as one element, but what would the crew part variants be? Or would they be only variant in what they have aside from crew (built in functionalities like the current capsules)? Would variant length parts be possible, with crew number changing with length? Are IVAs possible (I know they're not your favorite thing ) in that case? Looking good, as always.

Musk tweeted that the landing was at the limit of what F9 can deal with, and the intentional crush core of the legs (meant to be replaced) went past limits.

The moon is not an example of the superiority of humans at all. Probes to the moon are not remotely comparable with Apollo. Given the same resources, probes would have gathered more samples. They would have left more experiments. People only did more because we spent more. That's even assuming the same 60s tech. Right now, resources being equal robots are always better than people for everything except the raw adventure/stunt aspect of it. I'm fine with sending people, but it should be argued for "just because," not because it has any rational reason behind it.

I'd be happy if they fixed unclipped wheels and legs, as I never clip anything.

Drink more water. (sorry, my wife tells people that all the time)

$40 billion would provide vastly more science return as probes than people. Every kg of people, and stuff to keep people alive (in other words a large percentage of the mass delivered to Mars) could instead be samples returned, or additional probes. The ability to have more autonomous rovers, etc is increasing rapidly, nothing we've landed has been nearly as sophisticated from a self-driving standpoint as a google car, for example.