heng

Granted. You meticulously plan your craft's layout, ascend profile, launch window, payload, and landing site. Calculating everything down to +/- 1m/s dv, energy requirements timed to arrive exactly at dawn on Minmus. You start. You fly, you land - rotating your single solar panel to get all the energy you need. By the time you return Squad released a new patch with a new aero, and your parachutes are now a tad bit too weak for a safe landing. The resulting crash manages to destroy your VAB. After payout and repair you have exactly 1 fund left. Time to start over. I wish the cafeteria food I am about to get would be a bit more tasty. Edit: ninja'd... ninjaed? ninj'ed? ninja-ed? Granted. You now speak perfect oxford english. BBC would hire you on the spot as anchorman/-woman... unfortunately you now live in scotland. noone understands you. I wish I knew how to properly spell "ninjae'd"(?)...

n - n: 0 n / n: 1 (or undefined) +, *, ^: 2 ... can anyone come up with something for 3 or does it end here?

Granted. New Horizon encounters signs of alien life beyond Pluto. Alien life discovers signs of sentient life further inwards to the sun. They metaphorically scratch their heads and start venturing inwards. They encounter earth, humanity... then the internet and cat memes. It is immediately decided to end it all there and now. Earth is now preserved perfectly in an unbreakable super-diamond casing. Kinda like an ancient fly in amber. I wish I would be a bit better in playing MW:O.

Anyone else finds this mildly annoying? Reach approximate orbit, get ready to finetune - fiddling with thrust limiting, waiting for just the right timing to perform .1m/s burns... and suddenly you get "contract completed" before actually doing the last few maneuvers... kinda anti-climatic.

This would be consistent with the tech tree mechanics... 'New' technologies and parts being rediscovered from leftovers of the original settlers. - "Hmm, I wonder what this part actually does... Hey, Jeb! Could you try this button-majingy-thing during flight? I'll pay you..." The original settlements could have been underground. Hence the lack of visible cities.

Granted. Those are space cookies. Before you can stop her, your mom eats a couple, congratulating you on their awesome taste. She leaves for a nice evening out with her friends. You still have a dozen cookies left, though. So you have that going for you, which is nice. I wish I had a couple of cziken20's cookies - without having to become his/her mom.

Also to consider: What you want, is it a sentient computer? or a sentient program? the difference is only in semantics, i know. but a very thoroughly discussed philosophical question... am "I" my thoughts, my feelings, my memories _only_? or is my "hardware" an integral and inescapable part of my "self"? Personally? I am part of the 'hard AI' opinion, that a deterministic program can achieve consciousness regardless of the underlying hardware - given sufficient complexity. Ever since i read 'Gödel, Escher, Bach'.

a) you do not want to use high ISP engines to escape the gravity well. that's what SRBs are for. yes, higher flow rate means less ISP. no, lower ISP does not causally correlate to higher thrust. you would not gain any thrust by this method. "specialization" is the keyword. one engine to lift off, high thrust, low ISP, another engine for orbital/deep space with low thrust, high ISP. I guess your approach would make sense if - and only if - your goal would be to have as few engines as possible. having only one multipurpose engine might save weight... but I do not think we have one...

B.b...but you _had_! A while ago. For a full 9 months! Granted. You are an embryo again. I wish I for a bottle of rum.

could someone kindly explain why very-long-baseline interferometry (VLBI) only works with radio telescopes? why isn't this used with optical ones?

Granted. But you already gave it away to Tery215. I wish for more coffee... or better: more sleep.

1400ly away.... star estimated 1.5 billion years older than our sun... Fermi paradoxed his way into this discussion again... :-/

me neither, is there any alternative source? or could someone keep updating this thread? and add some sarcasm signs to my Tsoukalos post? done

Is this a What-If thread or are you looking for new targets after sawing through Space X's struts?

Granted. You will be Queen for a day in a country of your choice, assassination attempts start immediately after your coronation. You will lead the country for 24h... the rest of your life. What will your verdicts be? What is your rule's legacy? What entry do you carve into the history books for you? I wish for all mosquitoes to spontaneously combust.

Attending will be, among others: -- Jeff Coughlin, Kepler research scientist at SETI Institute in Mountain View, California ... colour me intrigued :-D if the next press conference is held by Giorgio A. Tsoukalos, I will be very intrigued [/sarcasm]

*headdesk*

every idiot has its own cartoonist outlets. every viewpoint its mockers... who the idiots are gets decided by history, and even that may be only temporary. we mock them, they mock us. that's the way it should be. I couldn't disagree more with the cartoons message, but i appreciate its existence.

Granted. You are now Aquaman. Your next Comic/Movie settings will be a cross-over with Frank Herbert's Dune. I wish that I was a supervillain! Welcome to the forums.

Then we would actually understand what they were trying to say... and would like them even less. What if civilization came crashing down before we create a backup, i.e. nothing to continue? Space colonies, underwater cities, the AI revolution...

Wow. +1, NeatCrown! Uh, a fork bomb... isn't that exactly what bacteria are doing already? Granted. The universe's admin was very clever and installed a watchdog. Max number of spawned processes reached for your account. You account will be suspended. You are hereby expelled from the universe. I wish I knew how to cook up the perfect sushi rice.

Granted. You get arrested and sentenced to life for poisoning TrainEngie's pizza. I wish D. Adams would write another novel.

Because Earth is flat. There are no such things as "orbits". Pfft. You can clearly see the disc shaped shadow on the moon. If it were to go up for ever, it would run against the ceiling. This can't happen, because it would be proof that NASA is lying to us, thus all rockets are equipped with a failure module... It's a conspiracy. Why aren't Q-cumbers spelled this way?

Remember, you can always perform the Scott-Manley-Maneuver :-D That should help.

Well, everyone, didn't you? Of course, noone admits to it in public. Should I cut the green or the red wire?