Ten Key

Or, perhaps, a motorcycle.

No idea. But it seems I didn't listen either. Thread locked!

Hyperbolic intercepts.

Looks like that air show is scheduled to have one of these on display. . . Wings aren't quite the right shape, but it does have the pylon-like bits under the wing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilatus_PC-12

Kerbal Alarm Clock is pretty straightforward and very handy. It keeps track of all your scheduled maneuver nodes and pokes you if you're about to miss one. Welcome to the forums.

There was an Xbox patch that was supposed to fix the save game corruption issues, but it didn't seem like it fixed the problem. Anecdotally, I've seen some stuff over the last few years that suggests the Playstation 4 holds more of its memory in reserve for its OS than the Xbox One and has a slightly less flexible memory architecture. Normally this isn't a big deal, but if KSP is bumping up against the consoles' memory limits, this may be giving the developers some head aches.

I've been getting 3-4 scam calls a day for the last two weeks or so. The caller ID either reads "unknown", or is spoofed to my local area code, and it's always "Hi, this is so-and-so from travel company/employment agency/other, can you hear me okay?" The scam is, if you say "Yes", it records your voice and then some one else can supposedly use that recording to circumvent voice authentication software. I have no idea how well that actually works, but I'm really getting sick of it. Make that five times today! "Hi, this is so-and-so from the Windows Technical Department. Can you hear me okay!"

I would probably do a lot of stargazing.

Only three left in stock! Well. . .make that two left in stock. Thanks for the heads up Capsule. . .looking forward to having that one in my library.

Yes. As Regex says it's almost a statistical certainty. I also think it's likely that the universe is so vast, we'll never find it.

Okay, with a day to think on it (and an actual keyboard in front of me) I'd like to circle back and expound on the "theme" thing a bit. According to ye old internet, theme is "an idea that recurs in or pervades a work of art or literature". Theme is often treated as something you'd only see in English Lit classes, but for me it provides the essential threads that hold a story together. It provides continuity, and helps to focus the story in the reader's mind. Much of my writing consists of rather long chapters broken into smaller scenes, and I've had several instances where I felt each individual scene was good, but the chapter itself was not. . .the scenes did not work well together, did not flow naturally from one to the next. The chapter felt "boneless", like a collection of wind chimes with nothing to hold them together. Something to communicate to the reader, sometimes subtly and sometimes not, that all these scenes go together, all these scenes work together to communicate something beyond just basic plot. Longer works will typically have several themes. . .short stories will have just a handful, perhaps just one. Trying to write with a theme in mind is difficult, but I think it's useful to go back through a draft and try to find the threads that might help tighten up the writing. This will then inform the editing process-- the writer will have a better idea of which things need to be cut and which ones need to be reinforced. So, with all that in mind, I am seeing a useful thread in your story. . . Here we have Bob. He is still angry about his experiences, for reasons he surely feels are justified. But, he's having to work at that anger, isn't he? Something is calling him back, calling them all back, despite their better judgment. Reading through your story, I'm reminded a bit of this, and I think that's your theme. "Why we do what we do", or "What drives us", or whatever you want to call it, this is the thread that could tie your whole story together. For general feedback. . .your story is generally well paced and engaging. It doesn't skip over critical details, nor does it linger needlessly. It does a good job conveying a sense of camaraderie between the characters. There are places where it seems like the story can't decide if it wants to be funny or serious, and there are some parts that could be cut to improve flow, but as a first draft this is a solid effort. Try to avoid repeating words. In the first case, you could cut "dirty" out entirely. In the second, you could change that second "driving" to "use". There is nothing wrong with this sentence. But I might change it to something like "Bob felt the corners of his mouth pulling upwards, and he fought the urge to smile." Reinforce the idea that Bob is having to fight against his own nature, and play a bit to that theme. In contrast. . . . . .the underlined portions don't really support the theme. They suggest that Bob is forcing himself to come back, rather than being drawn back in spite of himself. I would probably cut those lines, and change up the first part of that last paragraph to smooth the transition. I don't want to tell you how to write your story-- I'm just offering the above as an example. Do you see what I'm talking about? Find the threads you like, the ones you want to focus on, and then use them to help you during the editing process. I'm not sure the "phlegm" thing is working. And I think steuben is right. . .the "k" words are getting a little deep. The parenthetical explanation is a little awkward. I think it would be better to move the "starstruck" description down to the second paragraph and only do it once. I don't think the underlined quote is working. . .based on the preceding paragraphs, Gene is obviously trying to restart the space program. To clean this up a bit, and to play again with that "in our nature" theme, I might have Bob's tirade interrupted by that snark cart. Scene break. Then we come back to find Bob still unhappy, but the hot anger has been cooled into something closer to resignation by the snacks in his belly. Give the reader a bit more of what happened to Malmy, but maybe keep it in Bob's head. Writing something that is serious and funny at the same time is an art I have yet to master. And there are places in this story where the humor and the "weight of the moment" are kind of tripping over each other a bit. Maybe, a little more like this. . . Still on the subject of balancing humor and seriousness (and theme ), the above line feels like it should be the "outro" for the "introduce the rocket" scene. I think there is some room for a little bit of cutting here, but I think the joke works best if it sharply contrasts the rest of the scene. Our heroes take in the decrepit VAB, the cobbled together rocket, Wernher's seeming obliviousness to all the problems. And then maybe one of those birds lands on the rocket and something falls off of it. There's a moment of stunned silence, and then. . . “Can we fly it now, pleeeease?” Jeb pleaded. Scene Break. I would cut out the crawler ride entirely. Open the next scene with Bob and friends in the final part of the countdown. You could maybe add some more thoughts about Malmy here. . .any tidbits you feel like dropping, this is a good place. And then a final sound off. . .Jeb, as the pilot, reports on the guidance system. Bill, the engineer, reports on the environmental systems. And Bob maybe has a bit of a moment. "Wait a minute, this is a suborbital flight! I'm a scientist, why am I even here!?" And Jeb makes a comment about not being able to reach the snack locker from the pilot's seat. Bob glares at him. Jeb turns serious, says "No, really, I can't reach the locker." and makes a grabbing motion. Bob hesitates a moment and then relents, and we get a bit of humor while giving Bob an opportunity to let go of his reticence. And from here on out, Bob's attitude improves markedly. ^ This is good. It brings the story full circle, and leaves the door open for more if you're so inclined. But it also stands on it's own if that's where you decide to end the story.

I'm still running my 0.23.5 save from sometime in early 2015. It's on day 193 in Earth days, which would be. . .772 six hour Kerbin days.

Hi Sirius. I'm on mobile at the moment so I need to keep this short. I've finished reading your story and should be back to you with comments in the next day or two. Before I do though, I'd like to ask you. . .what's your story about? I'm talking about theme(s) here, not plot. I find short stories more difficult to write than longer works. . .by nature the writing has to be more efficient to get its point across. And I feel like themes are usually something a writer finds after the first draft is finished. So now that you've got your story down and can step back from it a bit. . .what's it about?

The vehicle in that video is using aerodynamic down force to keep from exiting the atmosphere. As far as I can see, that down force is more or less the same as a continual "radial in" burn. While the stunt in the video is certainly fiction, I have no reason to think the basic orbital mechanics in Orbiter are wrong. If a continuous down force could be applied (say, through the use of Star Wars Space Magic), I seems perfectly sound for the Death Star to orbit a planet at a rate greater than escape velocity. And now, having more than exhausted my knowledge of the subject, I'm going to sit down and shut up.

^^ This.

Starfish

The KSP Weekly(s) appear as threads in The Daily Kerbal section of the forum. The thread titles always start with "KSP Weekly" https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/forum/66-the-daily-kerbal/ They normally appear on Fridays, usually later in the day. The Weekly(s) are also available on social media, but I'm not exactly sure where or how. I don't imagine they'd be too hard to find.

I had the same thing happen to me at around the same time with UPS. Northern Florida, two days in a row. The delivery guy was sticking "Sorry we missed you!" stickers on everyone's door without even bothering to ring the doorbell. I ended up having to pick up the package myself. I have always had the suspicion that UPS was giving their drivers impossible delivery quotas, and stunts like that were the only way they could keep from getting fired.

My understanding is that Sony's certification process for the PS4 is divided into different regions around the globe. KSP cleared certification for sale in North America, but not in the region that covers Australia.

That's a good point. That 2,800 m/s was from Apollo 7.

It was, but the only part of that concept that survived was the SPS engine. So the Apollo CSM ended up with a lot more thrust than it needed, but the overall mass and propellant loads were appropriate for missions to lunar orbit, not direct ascent. A cursory search of the internet shows that the Apollo CSM had a total delta v of around 2,800 m/s. A similar search suggests Orion's total delta v is around 1,850 m/s.

The Twelve Kingdoms is probably my favorite, though unfortunately it seems like few people have heard of it. The basic plot is in the same neighborhood as The Chronicles of Narnia, with perhaps a bit of Game of Thrones mixed in. The story is heavily character driven, and the first few episodes are confusing by design-- the protagonists have no idea what's going on, and so neither does the viewer. I have a feeling that a lot of people who do stumble onto Twelve Kingdoms don't make it past the first two or three episodes, and that is a shame. The story can get quite dark at times, but never gratuitously so. It's been a while since I've thought about Twelve Kingdoms, and looking back on it now it seems like it probably had more influence on my writing than I thought it did. It looks like all the "trailers" with the original sound track have been scrubbed off YouTube, but, maybe this one. . . I've been told the animation style is "old", and that can be off putting for some. I think the most recent release had some sort of digital art pass. . .at a glance, it seems like the biggest change was a more vibrant color palate.

It depends. In high school, yes. Once you get to college though, homecoming gets a lot more interesting. https://connect.ufalumni.ufl.edu/events/homecoming2017

Paint is to pictures what Notepad is to words. Not very powerful, but sometimes you just need something light and fast for a simple job.