tater

So I'd rephrase OP's request to, "Why can't they make time progress in career so I don't feel like I've taken 50 days to replicate the last 60 years of space exploration?" Some (easy?) ways to add time progression to KSP: 1. Life support. 2. Have anything built in the VAB/SPH spin the clock forward some time period to launch, perhaps based on mass and number of parts. Perhaps any saved craft type that has launched at least once gets a substantial time discount. This build time might be on the order of a Minmonth. 3. Change fund payment in career. Give the player a budget per 50 day period (that's 1 Minmus month = Minmonth), then have a "Warp to next fiscal month" button. Not enough funds for your Mun rocket? Warp to next month.

It's best to tell the navball it looks just fine, and you didn't notice any change at all.

People can't agree on which way to hang toilet paper rolls (bizarrely, since there is clearly only one proper way), but we're the lowest type of society if we are "disunited?"

Honestly, part of their appeal is failure. Seriously. During the Space Race, one reason the US won---aside from that hard to miss series of Moon landings---was the fact that we did it in the bright light of day. Live, on TV, possible warts and all. I would argue that this is why SpaceX has more fans than Blue Origin's Soviet-style PR machine, they are more transparent. I think that from a "fan"standpoint, it likely invests people with a sense of ownership/team spirit/etc to participate, even if only by virtue of being an audience, in the process.

Yeesh, I should not type from my phone Look at the typos.

Wumpus, your argument pertains far more to Bezos and BO than SpaceX I think. The possible income stream from SpaceX seems highly limited in a pure market, and the most cash is like the same place all the other launch providers look to, pork. As an old dude, and jaded realist, I tend to agree with nibb31. That said, I like the new private space race, such as it is, and I appreciate the fact that it's even possible for some people to be starry-eyed right now. I was like that decades ago, then had it beaten out of me.

Or they could make time actually meaningful, in which case the current window would be too soon. Dear diary, today is day one of our new space program, and after 3 grueling minutes of work we launched into orbit! By later in the day, we were on our way to the Mun! Dear diary, today is day 5, and we've already explored the Mun and Munmus... now to build a base. To think we only thought of rockets a few days ago! Career is so broken.

Wow, they did that on purpose? So not a bug, but a poor design choice.

Um, no. It can't happen in a time frame any reasonable person would define as "soon."

You are not absorbing the amount of energy I'm suggesting. The KE level I suggest is catastrophic. Over penetration won't happen. One, any such colony has meters of regolith as cosmic ray shielding. Then the ship/projectile moves through the air in the middle at many km/s, then does the same on the other side. Spalled particles rain inside. That's assuming it hits solid. If it is detonated at some range, an entire side is blanketed with smaller particles of the same high velocity.

Then realistic means at most anti-sat weapons in earth orbit, as nothing else is remotely plausible in the distant, foreseeable future.

This is the entire point of my original post in this thread. Every single aspect of the scenario in question needs to be stated as the "given," including the relevant politics, goals of combatants, etc. You could argue that everyone has an Age of Sail sensibility, and they board with cutlasses, too.

That's fine as long as it can actually pay for itself. Right now, first class, nonstop from NY to Tokyo is about $20,000 round trip, and the random day I picked has 9 flights (kayak). There are 6 flights starting at 22k for today. So there is already a market for ~$10,000+ seats (one way). The trick is to figure out if that is feasible.

They cannot possibly move fast enough. To have even a chance of a miss vs a single projectile the station needs to offset itself randomly by a cross-sectional radius. Say it's an O'Neil colony cylinder, and the radius is 2 km. That means it needs to be able to (best case, end-on to attack) move 2km unpredictably between detection, and impact. That only allows for a chance the weapon will not hit, not a guarantee. If dv is cheap/free because magic drives, then the weapon has the same. At some range, the weapon can disperse shrapnel one way or another. Then evasion become even more difficult.

It's fine as long as there is a market such that it profits at the end of the day.

This is another cart before the horse thing. Businesses exist to serve the needs and demands of consumers. There is certainly a demand for faster air travel, but that demand requires that the price point is roughly the same as the current price scheme. I doubt there is sufficient demand in the billionaire class for hypersonic aircraft past the corporate/charter level (it it's even justified for that).

All government functions with the implicit consent of the governed. That's an observation, not a theory. Revolutions have happened, and will happen to demonstrate that this is true. I'm not terribly concerned about the affairs of large groups of irrational people. My ancestors did, so I would like to think I would do likewise. The favor I do to space exploration is paying taxes in the country that does the vast majority of space exploration. What people are doing in places where they can't even make technology from 100 years ago themselves... has no bearing on space exploration, anyway.

All modern famines (last 100 years or more) are 100% political. People are starving because of their own choice of government.

Yeah, it's all about price. Regular airliners currently fly well below what were normal cruising speeds in the 1960s to maximize fuel economy and keep costs low. Unless hypersonic can compete with current fare structures, it's a tiny niche market.

People can help themselves, and in fact, that's the only long-term solution to whatever their problems are. Enabling their continued failure (as people, cultures, nations, whatever) is worse than pointless. I'd personally rather spend money on space exploration than most "helping people" nonsense.

You can't solve everyone's problems. You spend money on what you want to spend money on, and anyone with a different set of priorities is welcome to spend their own money on whatever they like.

I think as long as it is perceived as dangerous, then you are correct. 50k is nothing, really. 1st class long-haul is already almost half that, and if you're paying 18k for an airline ticket, you likely spend rather a lot once you are at your destination. The problem is as you say, that once the price is that low, then you need huge numbers to make money. Their pricing structure needs to be right at the edge of what attracts enough customers while still making profit. Bottom line is that I don;t see reusability as changing things that much because there is no need for so many flights.

Did you not read what I wrote? I said that to find a population of possible customers, the price had to be orders of magnitude cheaper. You are arguing with me by presenting my own statements. I said: I was saying the price would have to be on par with Everest to likely have a pool large enough to find people willing to take the risk. So not millions, but ~$50-75,000.

No. Mentally ill people are more likely to commit suicide. @HebaruSan said it more directly than I did. It's sampling bias, nothing more.

The exact same thing could be said of most astronauts, they are really just passengers, too. You'd go for the experience. It makes a good story at cocktail parties... whatever.