tater

Physics is imaginary? Do tell.

Heck, what about just "jets in space?"

I'm "hiding" behind basic physics and chemistry, have you heard of those? Again, by your analogy antigravity wood should be fine, or propellers that use the "ether" of space. Why not those?

Why not add ether propellers, or liftwood (anti-gravity-wood)?

If you want an "anywhere" (sort of) jet, perhaps a nuclear ramjet. The one the US tested was ~170 kN thrust.

Using jets anywhere? You can certainly "borrow" atmosphere as propellant, but you'd still need oxidizer. If adding "jets anywhere," they should also add "liftwood" or ether propellers.

Most all the new parts have been plane parts, though, and the current rocket parts are often really ugly by comparison to the sleek, well-thought out plane parts. New plane cargo bays? Stunning. New rocket service modules? They look like a 5 year old did them. More parts is great, but given KSP's "load everything" paradigm, U5 cannot come soon enough for me, I see 100 plane parts and think, "wow, I could add one of those cool parts mods minus those, and not crash the machine..." If memory wasn't so critical (Mac here, I already have texture quality turned down to 1/2) I'd not care as much, I'd just add more mods. I have used some of the mk3 adaptor parts on large vessels a few times.

That's awfully tight, though. I honestly don't see squad redoing the characters at this point. A slightly larger pod would do. 1 heatshield for it, and 2 decouplers that work as adaptors. 1 from 1.X to 1.25, and another from 1.X to 2.5. The latter would make it look like a gemini of sorts, the former would have no historical analog, but would be vaguely Ares like.

Porkjet might specialize in plane parts, but his hab mod is also nice, and how hard is it to make a decent texture for an existing cylinder?

Um, they are used to make planes. I make rockets (and spacecraft). At least if the 64 bit hype is correct, I can add rocket parts without crashing my machine, while continuing to ignore the plane parts. A plus is that I never upgrade the SAB or runway. The latter is a nice rover testing facility. A better poll might ask what percentage of the parts you actually use are plane parts (add all parts in all launches in a save). Plane parts are about 1/3 of total parts at this point. If you use considerably fewer than 1/3 plane parts, these additions are not really helping you.

I use plane parts to help increase my RAM use so that I can eventually crash. That's pretty much it.

I don't care in the least as long as they fit. Assuming kerbals are not going to be made 10-20% smaller (or more), then 2 in a 1.25m pod is pretty much impossible, except as a tandem. I think something along the lines of the shape I posted as a tandem would be fine, it need not be a side-by side gemini-like thing, it just needs to FIT 2 kerbals,

Doesn't work for crew cabins, as the crew needs to actually fit. Including their gear. I don;t care what scale metric you arbitrarily chose, in the end, the crew parts need to hold crew, and kerbals have utterly different conformation than humans. They are little green men, not people. - - - Updated - - - Yeah, look at my 2d picture, the seats have the back down. - - - Updated - - - The first image shows the seats the wrong way, which I corrected, leaving the rest the same. This is looking down through the docking port. - - - Updated - - - I will add for clarity. Rational people don't care what the diameter of the part is as long as the kerbals actually fit inside. If it is a part without an airlock, then all crew need to be able to wear helmets. (and it should have some space for them when off). It's jarring to see a kerbal on EVA, then be utterly stunned that they fit inside. It's also a peeve about hatches in KSP. All that art needs to be redone such that when your kerbal is clinging to the door in orbit, it is clear he can fit though it. The game forces you to see them superimposed in a way that makes the wrong-sized hatches leap out at you.

Regarding 1.5m as a minimum, it might work with helmets with the opposing seats (feet facing each other). I don't think 1.5m works side to side.

What possible point are you attempting to make here? The stock parts are 1.25m, Tantares (some nice parts) has a 1.5m gemini. As my pictures demonstrate, 1.5m is probably big enough, 1.25m is not. I'm saying that the helmets need to fit, if they fit in 1.5m, then use 1.5, if 1.62387m is better, use that (or round up to some even number). Huh? REAL means the real world. Saying KERBAL helmets need to fit in no way calls forth the real world other than the obvious fact that you should not be able to put a 1m diameter object inside a 0.5m diameter object, that's just silly. If kerbal helmets need not fit, why not have a 7-crew, 1.25m part? What's the difference?

Except the decoupler is also too big. That image also shows how awful the stock 2.5m tank textures are.

Why? Any non-command parts can simply be rotated accordingly (as-if those kind of EVAs even mattered with crew transfer any more). You also need to reconcile the IVA with the hatch placement. How does the crew get out if it is UNDER the middle seat? Seems like it needs to be where all 3 crew can get at it.

Astronauts wear helmets big enough for their heads to fit in. When they take them off, they put them someplace. A kerbal cabin has to have room for them to wear the helmet, and if they remove it, requires storage. Period. In the extant capsules, they are wearing their helmets on IVA, so they need to fit. Any part where they remove them is fine, but then there needs to be room for helmets to lie around. If you want to play the "real" card, then would a real space program arbitrarily set the diameter of a spacecraft, then require future crafts to match that, regardless of RL needs? Why wan't Gemini exactly the same diameter as Mercury?

That is wrong for two reasons. One, the pod would actually have to be larger since you'd need to also store the helmets when removed. Two, the entire craft needs to be depressurized since there is no airlock, so if one goes on eva, the other must be helmeted.

It should BE stock (minus the hatch placement on the mk1-2 pod, I think offset is better from an RCS standpoint, though 45 degree RCS parts make this less critical)>

Dropping sanctions is a de facto gift of hundreds of billions. It's certainly a ballistic missile program, the 2 technologies are the same. The US and Soviet rocket programs started that way explicitly, and the Soviet program stayed that same way a long time (NASA, while "civilian" uses the same defense contractors, and military pilots that it always has). It is naive to make the Iranians somehow less military-minded than everyone else on the planet.

Cool. Like 9 parts, 1 of which is for rockets (except designed with a plane in mind). Yippee. Meanwhile, the rocket fuel tanks look like they came from a junkyard and indeed most rocket parts look terrible.

Why would a pilot breathe, eat, or leave CO2 at a higher or lower rate than a scientist?

Ah, right, he's right. They need to be on their backs. - - - Updated - - - So I made this (sorry, Ven installed, not stock). It could have been shorter, I wanted to give as much vertical room as possible near the seats to be safe. My external walls of the fairing are actually larger (slightly) than 1.25m, as well. Sue me Here are the guys inside: I tried sliding them closer together, then their bodies clip, and they still fit like sardines, touching the walls. Working so hard to try and cram them into a 1.25m pod seems really dumb, when in the real world, they'd just make it slightly larger. Now, if you want tandem, they easily fit in the same design, above. Make a single, large hatch that goes from the back, to the front of the pilot (top seat, with forward-facing window notch like Gemini).