tater

Yeah, I'm not big on videos for content that could be text. In the Blue Origin thread, a video was posted about the upcoming max Q test. It's ~4 minutes, and could have been summed up in a paragraph. A couple videos of actual tests were embedded in that one video, though. I could see still images, and for certain posts, an embedded video of the actual even in question. Ie: a video of the actual launch mentioned as a link.

They could name any orbital vehicle for "Dr. Rendezvous" (Buzz Aldrin's nickname back in the day).

RO is not supported, so there's your problem. Once 1.2 is officially out and RSS/RO is ready I plan on installing them again. Since SSTU is now pretty much required for me, I'll figure out how to make SSTU work, and post it here, though there may always be people who know what is required.

The question is when will we know about the live webcast of the launch... I need maybe 5 hours to get there... maybe less if I take my wife's car (going super fast in a SUV isn't as fun as it is in the bimmer).

http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2016/09/16/blue_origin_plans_to_test_the_capsule_abort_system_during_an_actual_launch.html BO is planning on a max-Q capsule abort test in October... wish they'd post the date so I could drive down there and watch.

I remember it just barely. I was 4. But my mom was a space nut, and we had family over, and she made such a big deal about all launches and flights that the repetition sunk in for me. The only other contemporary history I remember from that era was that there were always helicopters (Hueys) on the news (Viet Nam).

You directly replied to a statement that the first flights in KSP are required to be manned (which they are) with a statement that you can unlock numerous nodes without manned spaceflight, which is also true, but unrelated to the post you replied to. It's possible for you both to be right, even though you demonstrably misunderstood the post you replied to. Please, "dumb down" your reply about spaceflight to a post about non-spaceflight for me. That or explain how one can advance career mode at all without out ever hitting "launch" in the VAB/SPH with a crewed pod, even if only once.

I'm liking the stills, because I can look at it anywhere. I rarely watch videos.

Look at what I said, and what I was referring to. You replied to the below quote with, "No, your first spaceflight does not have to be manned." What he said here was correct, every KSP career starts with a series of required manned flights until you unlock a probe core.

In career, the only command part you have at the start is the mk1 pod. You can't even walk around without "launching" just that pod. (remember that the guy you replied to said "first career flights" not "first space flights.")

I don't actually use quicksaves, except when I have some bug or kraken... I don't have many such saves as a result, I always forget to save.

As long as we're indulging waterborne fantasies... Boeing LEO. Landing...

NASA could likely have forced Perkin Elmer to figure a new mirror, frankly. The testing mistake they made at Danbury was really inexcusable. They worked on KH, as well (wonder if they had to redo any of those, actually...) The guts were basically the same (spacecraft guts, not the science). Telescopes are telescopes, frankly. The largest space concern regarding that aspect of Hubble is very likely thermal design, and KH had similar concerns (they were principally concerned with angular resolution, after all, looking at targets on the ground, and the crazy temperature variation on orbit would be a big concern for either platform WRT seeing).The specifics of the optics are a mechanical issue, and while important, the electronics are a physically small component. Note that COSTAR itself would have cost a ridiculous amount of money, so add that to the launch costs. 3 billion in Shuttle flights, and a ~1.2B$ telescope plus costar (100M? more?) vs ~800M$ in expendable LV costs, plus 2x1.2B$ telescopes. 4.3B$ vs maybe 3.2B$. Of course Titan was not a bulletproof LV, there is every chance that the telescope goes the way of some sisters---1 KH9, and 1 KH11---that never made it to orbit in '85/'86. Anyway, even quibbling a lot over the numbers, they are in the same price range (which you are basically saying as well). On topic for the utility of stations, the notion would be that somehow ISS could have fixed HST somehow. You send a reusable tug. You send the tug to fix HST where it is, or you drag it back, fix it, then send it back up? Such a mission still requires a delivery from Earth (COSTAR, in this case), but they get routine cargo deliveries anyway, so that's not a big deal. Still if repair is an economic reason for a station, then we need to posit a commercial station that does nothing but repair to earn its keep. That seems incredibly unlikely. Every repair likely needs custom parts, so the lead time in repair work is months to put those parts (assuming they exist, and don't need to be made) on a launch manifest. Then the parts are sent to a station that might be no where near the target satellite... I'm not seeing it.

I should add that I almost always play in scaled up solar systems with life support on, and set to kill, into the bargain. I even test stuff in orbit, Apollo style, just to make sure I don't start a Duna EDL, only to discover that my lander has some fatal flaw.

I tend to think of probes fulfilling that role. I honestly almost never have any fatalities in my programs. Perhaps my kids are atypical, but they think the kerbals are cute, and are almost paralyzed with fear that they might kill them.

HST was designed with a 3m mirror, it was reduced to 2.4---because that's what KH had. The spacecraft was basically the same, obviously the optics (aside from diameter) and instrumentation would be different for astronomical use vs pointing it down. It's not really substantially different as a spacecraft, the form factor chosen was not accidental, it prevented them from having to reinvent the wheel. Regarding counterfactuals, yes, there are many. My point was that the counterfactual where HST is launched on Titan is necessarily one without Shuttle. I think your others with shuttle are certainly possible for the Shuttle case. I think as long as there is shuttle, HST is launched with shuttle, and is either repaired, not repaired, or replaced/not replaced with shuttle. Mine assumes a world without the money sinkhole that was Shuttle. Repair in such a universe seems pretty unlikely, as well (a sort of "Eyes Turned Skywards" future with LEO-specific Apollo CSMs as manned spacecraft, but they would lack the cargo bay, arm, etc for repairs). I also did not say mass produced in the generic sense, I said are "for space telescopes" mass produced (bad wording on my part, mea culpa). perhaps that caveat was not clear enough. Any such device is a one off, but for space telescopes "mass" production would likely mean no more than certain commonalities in spacecraft design, not instrumentality. The same is true of KH 11/12. There were built in a few blocks, and even with those distinctions, each was still "one off," and customized vs all the others. Heck, all the Shuttle orbiters were different, though "for space shuttles" they were "mass produced." That phrase was not ideal, but don't lose the forrest for the trees, the point was that such instruments would share common elements that would make making multiples easier. Thermal regulation, power, pointing, etc, are basically the same between HST and those KH units, changing instruments is easy (look at the COSTAR mission itself). This was not happenstance, the same contractors built them. The repair missions were certainly dubious in terms of economics. COSTAR was not the only such service mission, there were others at 1.5B$ each for the flight alone. My claim is primarily that HST could have been launched and replaced for less than 2 shuttle missions cost (and I stick to 1.5 B$ per launch, not supposed marginal costs when the shuttle never launched as often as planned). On the topic of space stations: As it relates to solar power satellites, you'd need to demonstrate that keeping crew on a station, presumably in LEO, 24/7/365 is economical for power satellite repair. That seems incredibly unlikely. If it was likely to need semi-frequent element repair, it seems like the best solution would be to design a power sat that has a framework built for a sort of "crawler" robot to be able to navigate on, and include spares on the power satellite itself. When a PV element shows sufficient damage to require replacement, the crawler grabs a new element, rides the framework to that section, removes the old unit, and snaps in the new one. They could ship those replacement elements in a container that docks (so they'd send more up as needed), and perhaps it would be possible to have the container deorbit when full of damaged units (the robot delivers the damaged part and places it in the rack where the new part came from). Maybe you could use a solar sail for this (or ion), time doesn't matter, the goal is to slow it until it deorbits. For satellite repair in general, it's worse, since each spacecraft is likely so unique as to require purpose built parts for any repair. These could certainly be delivered along with regular resupply in advance of a repair, but that means that repairs are on longer planning timeframes, which negates the need to leave the crew on orbit. If it's just a repair tug craft, that could remained docked at such a depot, and the crew brought up as needed... I suppose that requires defining a station such that occasional occupation counts, and it can merely be a parking lot for craft you might use. I tend to think in terms of full-time occupants being required for it to be a "station."

Felt compelled to fix it a little...

Yeah, the game certainly offers more way to make less useful stations rather than more useful (ISRU) bases. Stations are basically a circular rationale thing for learning about how to live in space. You build things to live in space so you can learn how to live in space. If life support was added, then station science could become required to unlock new LS capabilities, for example (assuming there was a way to link tech nodes to specific contracts/science. Here's a loony idea that actually incorporates "crazy contraptions" into KSP in a way that makes sense. Someone had mentioned movies, up thread, right? Add orbital/base construction. Then add contracts to "film" certain nutty contraptions as part of kerbal movies. Like "Stephen Kerman is filming a new blockbuster. He'd like you to haul Stephen, and 4 actors up to Kerbin Alpha (recognizes existing stations), then launch 2 craft containing at least parts X, Y, and Z each, and collide one into the other at at least 30 m/s within 1 km of the station, so it can be filmed." There's a crazy thing I might actually build.

Close enough. I didn't bother to try for the actual 1st stage look, but I could have, though it might add maybe 11 parts (needed a tick more closing up the cluster spacing I see). I used the vertical control to move the cluster into the tank.

NASA never uses "not Shuttle" to launch HST in the world of Shuttle (they had to throw everything at it to justify it). So the counterfactual is out the window in that case, so it's either Shuttle, no counterfactual, or yes counterfactual, no shuttle, IMO. Don't use modern telescope costs as analogs, use telescopes that are---for space telescopes---mass produced. HST was a Keyhole variant, we built several of them. That's why it's it would have been cheaper. The "best case" is not Chandra, the best case is Keyhole 11/12. We built 16 of them (17 counting HST) in ~35 years. About 1 every 8-9 years. In mid-2000 dollars, about 2 billion a pop. On topic, the rationale needs to include the total cost of the space station as well, if repair is its raison d'etre. ISS was up during the Shuttle program---what if Shuttle had to stop first at ISS, pick up an astronaut, then go to HST? Make sense (still grossly less dv than GEO) then? Fold the whole ISS cost into the repairs? Or another vehicle to get to HST from ISS. Fly costar to ISS, laid on tug, take tug to HST, repair, etc...

I have a Mac. I have both KSP versions installed still (1.1.3 and 1.2), and I can test on Yosemite and El Capitan (on my daughter's laptop).

The legs have worked so far in my limited testing (I don't do planes). The kerbals pass through them, which is not ideal, but certainly better than causing explosions.

Well, the billionaire bodily-liquiding match over who has the largest nonexistent rocket show must go on, right? BFR is bigger than NG2/3 . But wait, New Armstrong!

A small, directional antenna should be able to communicate with Kerbin from anywhere, the only thing that would change is the effective data rate. Even the omnis should really work anywhere assuming a decent DSN. What should change with distance is data rate, as a slower data rate is generally used to improve S/N. MRO has transmitted terabytes, for example, whereas New Horizons has 8 GB of memory, and is still sending back stuff that filled that memory during the flyby.

Untrue. Marginal costs are meaningless. Total program cost, divided by launches. Every launch cost around 1.5 billion using that measurement in constant dollars. Had Shuttle not been a thing, HST goes via Titan III? likely (or another variant, this is counterfactual, so they'd make what they needed). The launch is less than 1/2 what the shuttle launch added to HST, and there are not X repair missions at a cost of 1.5B each. If you imagine a more limited lifespan, you take the opportunity cost of not blowing billions a year on Shuttle and have new (better) HSTs popping out every 10 years or so. So HST could have launched on Titan, as other Keyholes did---HST and KH are un-coincidentally pretty much exactly the same (it's why the Shuttle cargo bay was the size it was, and why HST had the mirror it had instead of the planned 3m size). HST was to be launched in '86 (delayed from '85), had it been launched with Titan, they would have discovered the flaw in 1986, and would have had 7 years to build a new one and still come in at the same time HST became useful in 1993 with the COSTAR repair. Bottom line is that it certainly could have been replaced a few times for the multi-billion dollar cost of what, 5-6 total shuttle missions for HST? I agree that they are not cost-effective in the first place, and that they would likely have to be built there, but that makes them even less of an analog to KSP (the point of this thread) unless EPL were stock. So under the assumption that we don't leap so far into the future that we are manufacturing PVs and other items on orbit (well past any foreseeable future, IMO), any resupply will have to come directly from earth. I think if we have to posit delivery of supplies to GEO (lunar?), then manufacturing in GEO, then we might as well assume the station in question is an O'Neill cylinder at L5 a few km in diameter. Then the dv to GEO is only ~1.5 instead of closer to 3-5-4. Heck, you could go more near-future, and posit that such construction would be done by telepresence/robots. Why put people in a dangerous radiation environment for no reason? Long story short, I don't see GEO repair that requires 24/7/365 space station crew on call for instant repairs (the only reason to leave them there at a station all the time) as being a thing for a long, long time, if ever. For KSP, we don't have failures, so repair is not even a viable rationale.