tater

Don't knock consumerism, it's why---entirely---we have SpaceX and Blue Origin (not to mention tax dollars that fund things like NASA). Paypal? Consumerism. Tesla? Consumerism. Amazon? LOL, uber-consumerism.

So the last 3 flights have indeed been "all up?"

I know this is theoretically possible, but it's so finicky that I stopped trying, frankly. It's not at all tricking in PF, so the stock fairings need to be made so they simply work, 100% of the time trying for this in stock, or they need to add an interstage part of that is what it takes.

You do a better and better job, perhaps, but there is not the same sense of excitement

Assuming large is defined by an ISS-like volume, it'll be 1-2 BA-330s. Done. Not much of a construction project.

Where do the poor live in a vertical city? Urban housing projects invariably produce "war zone" areas where no one who can buy their own place would consider living. The reality is that these concerns are sorted out by the marketplace. Areas become too expensive for criminals. If policy required that housing was mixed, the simple solution would to be to live in the nice countryside outside the vertical city. This is the fundamental issue with these design plans, they require a sort of centralized planning that is incompatible with real urban life. In a real city, I'd live someplace nice within that city, or I'd not live in the city at all (as an adult, with kids). I'd certainly be willing to live in a different kind of neighborhood as a 20 year old, up to a point. I think that this makes such a concept far more workable in more homogeneous societies... Japan, China, etc.

Yeah, industry is a huge issue, not everyone works in shops or offices. Were's the industrial zone in that parklike setting?

You could, but why should you have to?

Congratulations.

It's a space center, it can be paved. Perhaps the upgrades should be adding length, then additional directions of runway. Actually, each upgrade could also add secondary airfields. Tier 0: short, paved runway at KSC, plus the island. Tier 1: Longer runway (substantially longer), and an additional airstrip (short, paved, or airstrip as suggested, better than the current tier 0) on each continent. Tier 2: One additional runway direction (18-36) at KSC, upgrade some of the strips worldwide to a single, long paved runway. Tier 3: Add 13-31 to KSC, maybe upgrade some others, or add some in odd places on Kerbin. The upgrade costs would not feel so great as you'd be making multiple strips, too. Then make sure that landing anywhere else in the solar system is is a Bad IdeaTM.

It's Mars One, except that on the Simpsons, Mars One has more hardware than a laptop running powerpoint.

It's not dissimilar from the DRA in terms of landing separate components ahead of time, which makes a lot of sense. The commercial stuff... who knows.

I should add that I'd be incredibly excited to see skylon actually exist as more than a powerpoint presentation. I felt the same way about NASP back in the day.

I was partially just thinking about the new player experience of seeing the Mun (or wherever) the first time. i personally didn't look at any of the planets until I visited them.

I was merely comparing the existence of an actual engine, even if one is nonsense (or just ablating itself). So we have an almost certainly fantasy engine that is actually built, vs a plausible engine that doesn't exist.

My wife would add every medical show, ever. We never watch them, and if even a scene appears in a movie or show it's almost always as wrong about medical care as Star Wars is about physics (the only entertainment exception would be any of the zdoggmd videos on youtube... some, like Doc Vader even I get, but she was watching the others with another surgeon and they were crying they were laughing so hard---worth a look if any of you are medical people). Unrelated, another pet peeve of MINE is cannon balls that explode (in any pre-mid 19th century context other than mortars).

I'm not saying it would do anything, lol. I'm saying you could build it, turn it on, and then be able to say yes or no if it worked. Since you could likely make one in a garage, it could be done on a cubesat in no time. Skylon has what, one part that isn't imaginary? It's a cool idea, but at this point that's all it is, an idea.

I'm not actually proposing random generation, though OP is. I suggested an alternative where there is a library of vetted planets, and you can elect to have a new Kerbol system made of those worlds, and perhaps those worlds with a small scaling added. This, combined with "fog of war" would actually require the player to explore. Yes, you'd know the existence of most planets and moons at the start, but you would not have well-resolved images of any of them, and your data on their atmospheres would be largely confined to composition, not the specifics needed for landing there (i.e.: Venus in RL was a big ? before the Venera probe). Different people would have different ideas, but it's certainly worth discussing.

If this concept is cost effective, someone will build it. That's the only way something like this should ever happen, frankly. Some private entity should pony up the money (with zero subsidy) and have a go at it.

I don't think em-drive is a thing, but you could actually build one and fly it in very short order. Until they have a functioning testbed, they have no more that Orion ever had (we had nuclear bombs, and big pieces of metal). They've been working on it for decades.

Given that this would be an additional game mode, what's not to like about having the ability to actually explore, vs making the same craft over, and over again?

NTRs are a considerably more mature technology than REL's engine as a reality check. VASIMR is a considerably more mature technology. Heck, em-drive is more mature than the skyline engine, as is any engine type that has ever been tested in any way, at all.

Because 99.99999% of the landings in KSP should result in a total airframe loss. I'm fine with the landing strip being better, I'm fine with adding runways all over, and KSP runway upgrades should include making a crossed runway for different approaches: With all that, landing anywhere else (off a runway) in the kerbol system with an aircraft that isn't VTOL should be a "crash" not a landing.

In the US distribution is a tiny % of total cost. Single digit. only 11% of the carbon footprint of food comes from transportation, the rest is production. Part of the issue is that some crops are better grown in some locales. In the US the output per unit area of potatoes is 3-4 times higher in Idaho than Georgia, for example, so it is far more efficient to ship that crop from Idaho than it is to try and grow it someplace vastly less friendly to potatoes. The same is true for many other crops. On top of that, people have become used to being able to get any crop at any time, which could be wrong-headed, but that's a reality. Local growing is not a bad thing, all I'm saying is that the economics of it is not as simple as "grown nearby is cheaper."