tater

So half the launches on Earth will be SpaceX? Of the 82 in 2015, 21 were Chinese. Zero of those stop being Chinese. 3 or 4 were Japan... ditto. 24 were Russian launches of Russian payloads (I'm counting ISS resupply, but not crew, since commercial crew will reduce those. I'm not counting any launches with non-russian payloads included, we'll put those out for bid). 11 more are clearly nationalistic launches (Iran, etc) not up for grabs. So of 82 launches in 2015, 60 are completely off the table for SpaceX to have launched. That leaves 12 launches up for grabs.

The next gen is really FH, which is more boosters. But again, 8 a year being used only 10 times is every current launch on earth. There is not a need for vastly more launches.

I don;t care that much about rovers, I was just curious as that's the only way I ever use wheels.

That seems incredibly unlikely. They have been making ~6-7 rockets a year, launching one every other month---and we don't know if that was the max they could make, or if the manufacturing people were needlessly idle. If they immediately started full reuse, with a 2 month turn around and a doubled launch rate, they'd be out of the manufacturing business for a few years until they used up the lifespan of the boosters. If the turn around drops considerably lower than 2 months, then they stop needing rockets even faster. They will not take every launch (there were 82 successful launches last year) on earth. What are they saying for reuse, 20 launches? Let's say 10 for kicks, and that the max they can make in a year with the current crew is 8 (since they stopped early last year after the accident). So they make 8 per year, and they get reused 10 times. That's 80 launches. So they'd have to idle manufacturing every other year unless every single launch on Earth uses only the Falcon 9. That's not even remotely plausible. At best they double launch rate to 12-ish. They need 2 F9s, and maybe a few extra for expendables if that is needed. Manufacturing must suffer unless it is very scalable downwards.

I don't tend to ever clip anything, but regarding wheels, does "clipping" via normal rotation count, since sometimes that buries part of the part? Not the rotate tool, just using shift-qwe/asd keys. That's pretty much required for rovers given the awful way symmetry works with wheels.

Yeah, I suppose it is the lack of real "federalism" regarding EU budgets. In the US it's long past these United States, and well into the United States as a single entity. I'm with you on Mars---and because I consider manned flight to be a PR stunt, I don't see the RoI on spreading it around. Bragging rights are the only reason to go, so it dilutes that to have an international effort. That's a primary issue with the conception of these programs. People in favor usually pretend (and may even believe) that "science" is the reason for them, and hence internationalism makes total sense. The reality is that if it was about science, they'd be pitching an international sample-return mission sans astronauts, not a stunt.

That makes some sense for ISS, but not really for Mars. It's really about collecting samples for the most part (plus nebulous, circular medical experiments). That's fine, then they are passengers, though, not equals. My primary beef is really with ESA. The EU is not Brazil, they should be able to come to the table as big boys, like I said, the GDPs are functionally identical, and they get subsidized defense into the bargain. Why should space only be the major responsibility of one set of taxpayers? I'm pretty down on Orion/SLS, for example, but I think the SM should not be coming from ESA. If that cancels the program, good. I don't see it saving a meaningful amount of money. Heck, I don't see the Mars mission contributions as meaningful in your example. The City of NY public school system spends almost 30 billion a year. That's just school for children, not universities. The amounts we are talking about here are trivial for an entity as large as the US or EU. The school system in Albuquerque spends almost 2 billion a year, I think that an 18 trillion $ economy can manage to spare 50 billion over a decade. I'm getting to the point that I'd rather not go at all than to foot the bill for the majority, then get to get nothing but abuse in return---not here, but generally the US seems to be the object of ridicule from Europe that makes me in my weaker moments become pretty isolationist, and I have the feeling I'm not alone in that. Yeah, that's what I was thinking. Seems wrong that the people who the pictures belong to (the taxpayers) should have to wait, though.

No, time needs to matter. You have an annual budget? You can easily unlock the entire tech tree with huge numbers of flights before even the first optimal Duna window happens. How can an annual budget be meaningful if Jeb has never seen a rocket before on Day 1, and by Day 40 he's prepping for a large munar base mission? The only way to have budgets is to dole out the money for an annual budget a little at a time. Say every XX days. Add a warp button like the warp to morning that warps to the next fiscal month (say a Minmus month, which is ~50 days).

The other thing about reuse is how it impacts production costs. If you are reusing rockets, then you don't have to manufacture as many---but manufacturing most efficiently requires that you are always making rockets (like most everything, you have employees that need to be paid all the time so you retain that capability). What will the impact of this be? We have no idea. So they save a certain % on reuse, but how much to they lose by dragging their feet on new production?

I'm still on yosemite (which I hate), so I haven't "upgraded" to el cap, which I assume I will hate more.

OS? My mac (mid 2010 i7 iMac) seems pretty happy with it. I can load it up on the laptops and test those as well, I suppose (not sure what OS is on my wife's, might even be Lion).

I agree completely, though ISS is a special case for a number of reasons. How does one define getting credit, though? As a US taxpayer who just 5 days ago read through and signed the "book" the accountant gave us to sign (our tax return report is a cm thick or more), the wound is somewhat fresh It's like driving a quite nice car off a cliff every year, and from that perspective, 10% savings isn't worth it to me, I'd rather see us spend 100% (for Mars, I don't care about ISS). On topic, I'd want an "international" Mars mission only if it was fairly divided, one share per flag on the outside, and astronaut/cosmonaut/whatever inside. So NASA/ESA would be 6 astronauts, 3 from NASA, 3 from ESA, cost split. Add in Russia, and I'd want 2, 2, and 2. Even split. I'm disinterested in any splits that are not totally even, I'd rather we go it alone than that. As an aside, what are the rules for distributing imagery from ESA probes, etc? I notice that they hold images proprietary and only release them rarely (Rosetta as a recent example), vs JPL throwing most out there almost immediately (look at the raw Curiosity feeds, or downloaded New Horizons stuff for example). I assume this is because as a taxpayer expense, the images are owned by all the taxpayers, not by the PIs, so they are required to do this by law---is ESA different?

Easy to replicate. Run 1.1 (1230) on a mac (I'm using yosemite, 10.10.5). Sound music is garbled. Seems worse on loading screen. Sound elsewhere seems sorta normal... but different (and not in a good way).

The comm lag issue will become less and less of a thing as the robots become more intelligent. Manned space is because it's cool, period. Science is just a happy bonus to manned missions, all possible planetary science is better done by robots than people.

Cool, I'll get to test again tonight.

I've posted about this as well, but budget also requires that time be meaningful.

As a watch, it's not worth it. As a text triage device? That depends on how impolite checking your phone is at work. As a fitbit? On workout mode it drains the battery far too fast (might work for a short run, but it won't last for bagging a peak if it's an all day hike). I use some of the other apps sometimes, notably my altimeter app, but again, the battery life issue is huge---I notice it most on the workout app. Like I said, I like it, but I think it's overpriced.

The EU has a nearly identical GDP to the USA, so I expect their budgets to be identical, at least on any future cooperative project. Russia's GDP is about the same as Canada, so I'd expect 10X less. The ISS was a jobs program for Russian rocket engineers so they'd not work for bad actors making missiles, so I get the point in them not spending the same amount, that was sort of the point. There really is no excuse for the ESA not having a budget similar to NASA's, however, particularly when the EU spends less on the defense of the EU (since the US spends for that as well). The thread is about a Mars mission, BTW. So I'm strictly talking about that, not ISS, not Shuttle---yeah, shuttle was a waste of money, but the ESA argument to that should have been to build something better (not hard, frankly (can you tell I'm not a Shuttle fan?)). So if a Mars mission was to cost 100 billion, and ESA was along for the ride, then they pony up 50 B$ worth, or stay home, IMHO (less if other countries outside the EU drop the shares, but their share should equal NASA, regardless). I think it's entirely fair to require equal % of GDP contributions for international missions---what would be more fair?

8% of the money. That's it for ESA. It's not like all the hardware needed to be built anywhere else. My point stands, there is no reason why the EU should not commit the same funding as a % of gdp that NASA does as a % of US gdp. For a Mars mission I'd rather the US go alone than send anyone who is not pulling their weight financially. Note that Canada need only pay a fraction as their gdp is 10X lower then the US or EU. If you are going to argue that the EU should pay less, why? Does the EU have no interest in spaceflight? I personally don't think they are any less competent, so why should they not participate as equals?

Funds are now Pounds Sterling? Loads up fine on my Mac (Yosemite). Seems smooth. Don't have time to play, but it seems to work OK.

Move asteroid to Earth.

There is no "blockade." The asteroid belt is not much of a thing, and if Earth actually needed any, they'd simply get some, or are you somehow assuming a colony can become not only self-sufficient, but make claim on some vast, empty area of the solar system with any sort of plausible force behind that claim? It's just not a thing.

The only issue with RSS (or rescales much above maybe 4X) is that the parts need to scale, or it becomes frustrating (hence RO with RSS). 3.2X is so playable with stock parts I'd actually prefer that to be the "easy" stock game. It just feels better, I don't know how else to put it, and you barely notice the rescale once you do it. I've done 6.4X with stock parts as well, and that actually works, but it's more challenging perhaps for new players.

This would be explicitly an option for replay. The default game would be unchanged. So anyone that wants the "common" experience can have it. Note that if you apply a seed to the random choices (regardless of how the planets are actually created), then people can share those as well. People play 10X Kerbol, 6.4X, 3.2, 2X, RSS, etc, etc. I'm not sure it's an issue. I didn't play very long before I abandoned regular scale completely (though I make a point of playing through a new career with each major update to test it).

Yeah, this is another reason I suggested a library of planets that could be picked semi-randomly. I say semi, because I think that the right kinds of worlds need to be in the right kinds of locations (no ice world in close orbit of the sun, for example).