Gaarst

You said this earlier on: I understood this quote, in its context, as you saying that replacing coal plants by solar panels would actually be worse than keeping the coal plants. I apologise if I didn't understand your point correctly, but even then, my argument about qutoing the article is still valid. Not saying there shouldn't be a debate though: now that it is launched and has evolved, whatever was said initially doesn't really matter anymore.

Right now maybe, but if we take this seriously (as it is intended to, and as we are supposed to do if we apply) a failure wouldn't be "cool", considering we would have spend at least a few hours (a big few) planning this mission

Wow, sure seems like a revolutionary way to think math ! Where's your Fields medal by the way ?

I am indeed using my university access to read the article. Also, I'm pretty sure that posting the entire article here is illegal. I am not criticising the fact that you're not willing to spend $32 on an article. And neither am I .....-ing (whatever this means) at people who don't have access to it. I am criticising the fact that OP started a debate and drew conclusions based on an article that he obviously didn't read. While the introduction/abstract of a scientific article is meant to contain an outline of the article itself, it is far from containing the entire article: for example, the conclusion of the article, which I quoted, explicitely states that OP's concerns about solar electricity being worse for the environment than "fossil" electricity shouldn't exist.

FAO it is then. Still keeping LMP as an option though... May I suggest you to keep OP regularly updated with candidates/crew so that potential applicants can see which roles are taken ?

Well, I think I'll go with either FAO or EECOM, can't really to decide which one to choose though. I'll still consider LMP, if by any chance I happen to have 3 available days. Not that likely, but I'll do my best to keep informed about the role. Thinking about it, wouldn't it be a good thing to have a backup crew in case the original crew dies is unavailable for some reason ?

This seems really cool! I'd enjoy participating in some way, but I don't really know what role I could have, and my availabilities strongly depend on the date of the mission.

I'd like to see poll asking who even uses star system in the forums. Never personally used it, and most of the time I don't even notice if a thread is rated or not.

Reading the entire article (at least the conclusion) actually helps understanding there should not even be a debate as originally stated by OP: You can't just create a debate whilst having only read the introduction of an article. PS: If there's any issue with quoting a limited access article, please tell me.

*knock knock* Hello !

In terms of what we know ? Thing is, as I mentioned in my previous post, we don't know what happened at the instant t=0. Conventional physics, including the very notions of space and time, break down around Planck's time (~10-43 s after the Big Bang) and we need a new theory bringing together quantum field theory and general relativity to only hope to know what happened back then. This is very similar to the issue with black holes: describing a singularity requires using relativity and quantum mechanics together, which we can't today.

Actually, the exact admitted value for G is 6.67408x10-11 N.m2.kg-2 It is surprising that even today, with all the technology and all the satellites orbiting Earth, we can achieve only 6 significant figures for the value of G, right ? Well, as it turns out, G is never used on its own for orbit calculations, so we defined a new value: the standard gravitational parameter µ, so that: µ = GM. µ is unique for each body, as it depends on the body's mass, and it can be determined directly using orbital measurements, with no need for the body's exact mass. Therefore, µ values are often known to 10 significant figures: for example, µ for Earth is 3.986004418x108 m3.s-2

No it doesn't in KSP. In real life it would impact the period because instead of using only M in the equation you would have to use M + m (m being the mass of the orbiting satellite) but we don't use it in KSP for 2 reasons: 1) For an artificial satellite orbiting a planet, m is so small compared to M that basically M + m = M 2) KSP uses on-rails orbits for celestial bodies. That means that even if you were considering a vessel ten times the mass of Kerbin, Kerbin would remain at a fixed point, and the other body would orbit it without taking its own mass into account.

G is indeed the gravitational constant, but it is not the same as g ! G is a constant and equal to 6.67x10-11 N.m2.kg-2 for all bodies. g is the gravitational acceleration at Earth's surface and is defined by: g = GME / RE2 = 9.81 m.s-2 Where G is the gravitational constant, ME is the mass of the Earth and RE is the Earth's radius. Make sure not to mess up the two while doing calculations, or you will end up with completely wrong results.

I don't really know about the new water physics, for 3 reasons: 1) My only interaction with water so far in KSP has been recovering floating capsules and crashing planes. 2) As said above, we don't actually know what it will be made of. 2) The old 0.90 aero was bad. 1.0 was supposed to make it better*. A simple look at all the comments complaints about it since then gives you an idea of the reactions we can get with water physics. Less people build boats though, so I expect the forum to be less of a civil war than with 1.0. There will be people complaining though, no matter how good the update is. * not saying I don't like 1.0.x aero, it is fine by me

The semi-major axis a for a orbit of period T around a body of mass M is given by Kepler's 3rd law: T2 / a3 = 4À2 / GM Rearranging for a gives: a = (GMT2 / 4À2)1/3 To get the semi-major axis of a geo-synchronous orbit, just use the body's period of rotation for T (6h for Kerbin). Note that the heights used here are distances to the body's centre of mass, not its surface. The semi-major axis is a property of elliptical orbits, and is not given as it is in KSP. You can calculate it from periapsis and apoapsis heights: a = (Pe + Ap) / 2 For circular orbits, the semi-major axis is equal to the radius of the orbit, so a can be replaced by R.

...except that KSP crashes even when not modded, so forget that actually.

Got actively frustrated at my inability to make SpaceY, Real Fuels and configs, and Real Plume work properly together. After witnessing my boosters doing nonsense, my engines running forever and my hydrogen leaking faster than a NSA program, I decided to try and fix that tomorrow...

We don't know. It is as simple as that. We can't go further than Planck's time because that's when physics really start to do fuzzy things, and we cannot currently describe these fuzzy things, like really not at all. That is until we find a working theory of everything, and even then we might not be able to describe it properly.

Depends on what you mean by "nothing" and "something": If you mean creating mass, then use Einstein's mass-energy equivalency (E = mc²) to convert from one to another. So yes it is possible. If you mean creating energy from an empty vacuum, then again it is possible thanks to Heisenberg's uncertainty principle: basically, very small amounts of energy are allowed to exist for very short times. There are also other various effects allowing the same kind of stuff (eg: Zero-point energy), but they rely on quantum physics and are way too complicated for me, so you'll have to ask someone else for those. Precising your question would allow to give a more complete and accurate answer.

SMRUFF rebalance mass ratios for engines and fuel tanks to more realistic levels. This will increase the efficiency of your rockets. Real Fuels completely overhauls the fuels system. It gives you realistic masses and Isps but is a lot more complex than stock. I also suggest installing at least one large parts mod, because you will realise that 3.75m parts show their limits very quickly for larger payloads (eg: KW Rocketry, SpaceY...)

It actually only takes a small quite significant amount to extra delta-v to cut it down to like 10-ish minutes... IIRC, some have done it in less than 5 mins, but that's quite old. Would be interested to know the post-1.0 record.

Apollo missions actually lasted between one and two weeks. I don't remember the duration of your typical Mun mission, but recall that Kerbin days are 6h long. A 4 days mission would actually last 24h.

I don't want to start a debate here, and pardon me if the topic is not allowed to be discussed or leading to forum wars; but I actually wonder how much the forum would change if rep was removed ? I wouldn't know if that would bring positive or negative change. Or, it may have no impact at all.

Remove visual mods if any, and part mods. These are the two types of mods that use the most memory, AFAIK. I remember reading RO devs (was probably NathanKell) comments saying you shouldn't install all of RO recommended + suggested mods. So remove the part mods you use the least, or manually remove some parts from mods if you want to keep part of one mod. I don't know how CKAN handles manual file editing though, but it should be fine. Also add Active Texture Management if you don't have it yet, and use the aggressive release if basic is not enough.