FlyingPete

I do tend to ignore/decline most of the 'test part' contracts. Especially if it's something like 'test the large SRB on a Kerbin escape trajectory' or something else nonsensical. Sometimes I'll collect a couple of the simpler part testing contracts though and combine them into one launch. People like SSTL do this in real-life with micro satellites. Sometimes the contracts are pretty close to what you wanted to do anyway- I was planning on putting a space station around Minmus to aid exploration there, when a 'build a new station around Minmus' contract came up. All it needed was a station with slightly more crew space that I'd originally planned.

I honestly haven't been drawn in by the 1.0 hype. I always thought naming 0.90 a beta version was a bit premature, since there were still elements to be introduced- thus making 0.90 the final alpha, and '1.0' the actual (feature complete) beta version. Since there seems to be no end of complaints regarding the changes, I figure I'll stick in 0.90 for a while and wait for it to blow over. When's 1.1 coming out?

I like playing career, and have done since it was introduced. There's the strategic element of choosing which contracts to accept (especially at the start when you're limited) I like the challenge of having only a limited selection of parts to begin with, and again the strategy of which science nodes to unlock when. In sandbox it's far too easy to build a giant mega-launcher that can go anywhere, whereas with career you have a greater element of realism. One thing I've never bothered with is any of the strategies. Early in the career, you don't have enough of either science, funds or reputation to trade one off against another. Later, you have plenty to go around and none of them are really worth bothering with. The only time they're useful is when you've completed the tech tree and you can trade 100% of your science for funds.

If it proves possible to make bricks from Martian soil, it's certainly a cheap form of ISRU. If you could build a strong structure using these, you'd need only an inflatable inner shell to make it airtight- effectively the same as a bicycle inner tube.

I've recently discovered these guys. Their basic concept is to base music around old public information films. The latest album seems relevant to KSP- it's based around the space race from 1957-1972.

According to Newton, rockets don't move- if we define the rocket as the structure and all the fuel it contains. In a vacuum, we expel the exhaust gases in one direction. The force exerted on the rocket by the expanding gases is what gives it its thrust. However, the center of mass of the system as a whole doesn't move from its original position. What you need for the rocket to be efficient is to direct all the exhaust gas in a single direction- any expansion of the gases sideways doesn't contribute to thrust. Jet engines (and propellers) work differently- they take in their reaction mass from the atmosphere and accelerate it- in this case the acceleration of the atmospheric air provides the thrust.

5.) Ascent from Jool surface to low Jool orbit.... just in case someone decides to give that a go

I think this is an interesting scenario- essentially a reversal of what happened IRL with the Shuttle-Mir program, with some Apollo-Soyuz elements thrown in. Von Braun was originally pushing for a 'wet workshop' adaptation of the Saturn V's second stage for Skylab rather than the converted third stage we actually got. I reckon, if the focus was on the AAP rather than the shuttle, we might have seen a modified version of this larger module added to Skylab, and later some Russian modules. ISS 20 years early!

Let's assume that, for whatever reason (equipment faults, change of US government, not enough boosters etc) the Apollo program was hit by delays in 1969. As a result, Alexei Leonov becomes the first man on the Moon instead of Neil Armstrong. How would the rest of the space race play out? With a Moon-capable spacecraft nearly ready, I think the Americans would still get to the Moon shortly afterwards, but obviously only claiming 'second prize' to the Soviets. I think the result would be that a new race would begin- to establish the first permanent surface base, or to be the first to Mars. Or perhaps the Soviet program would lose momentum after they won the Moon race. Either way, I think the Americans would have tried to go one better.

Simple: can a plane take off with a strong tailwind (assuming a long runway). The situation is identical apart from the observer's frame of reference.

For me, it's definitely the 'Lego brick' ability to build just about anything you can think of out of a pile of parts- just look at the variety of completely different solutions people come up with to the same set of challenges. This is what brought me over from Orbiter.

I have a few things to finish on 0.90, so I probably won't update straight away. When I do, it will be starting from scratch in a new save.

I don't think there'd be anything substantial to be gained from doing a repeat Apollo program- it would just be the same as what was done in the last century with slightly different technology. If we're going to the Moon again, it should be to stay. The same with Mars- think of what we've learned over the years with unmanned probes/rovers, and how much more you could learn from a couple of geologists on the ground. Setting up a permanent human presence on another planet would be the next 'giant leap', particularly if it was a multinational team that was sent.

I want to complete my 'Project Magellan' polar circumnavigation of Duna. I have all the equipment in orbit, now rounding up crew members to send on the mission. I'll let someone else find the bugs in 1.0 for a while

With the right flight profile, you can do a lot with quite small craft. Here's my crew shuttle. It can carry 6 Kerbals to orbit with fuel to spare for rendezvous with the space station where I keep my Mun/Minmus transports. There's also a bit of payload capacity- in this case the rover riding piggyback. I prefer to use regular jet engine/radial rocket engine combos rather than the RAPIER engine as the atmospheric performance is better. I also built a modified version of the design as an unmanned tanker aircraft. It doesn't lift a vast amount of fuel, but it's cheap to operate and uses relatively small amounts of fuel to get there.

Working with near-Earth asteroids is more useful IMO. Once you've got the technique of off-world mining sorted, not only do resources become cheaper, but you can start building things in space rather than shipping everything up from here. Ultimately, we need to find alternatives to mining from the Earth. There's a finite amount of everything, and no matter how good you are at recycling and conservation, sooner or later you'll run out.

Off to try drilling the Kraken....

This sounds similar to an afterburning turbofan, though for some reason these seem to place the afterburner in the gas turbine core rather than in the bypass.

Hydrogen has to be manufactured somewhere, which takes an input of energy. So the 'well to wheel' efficiency is generally worse than battery electric.

IMO, the only real advantage hydrogen has is that there's no need to change your 'fuelling habits'. Just as we do now with petrol and diesel, you could drive the car until it's nearly empty, pull into a filling station, connect a hose and refuel. Otherwise it's just another type of battery, and not really a very good one. The thing is, fuel cells have been around for decades (the Apollo spacecraft used them for power) so why do we not use them already. It's not like with battery electric where we're constantly working to improve/ waiting on energy density.

In 3001: The Final Odyssey, humans have constructed such a ring at geostationary orbit. It's supported by four towers equally spaced around the equator, which also serve as space elevators. In the narrative, it's fairly well described how weight gradually reduces as you ascend, reaching zero at GEO. The towers would be under tension at the top (hanging from the ring) and compression at the bottom (standing from the ground) with a 'swing' point somewhere with nominally zero forces on it. The advantage of building such a thing would be that there would be no need to launch a spacecraft from the ground again- you'd just transport the components to GEO and assemble it there. In fact, if you extended the towers to a higher altitude, they'd be going faster than orbital speed and so you'd get further savings in delta-V by simply letting go at the right moment.

So recently I learned about an early type of jet engine, developed mainly by the Italians in the 1940s- the motorjet. It works similarly to the turbojet, except rather than the compressor being driven by an exhaust turbine, it's driven by a separate piston engine. The hot gas from the combustion chamber goes directly to the nozzle- with increased energy due to not driving a turbine on the way. It's basically something between a boosted ramjet and an afterburning ducted fan- depending on how the compressor is set up. The thing that interests me about this design is that you have two operating modes- the 'cold' jet thrust provided by the compressed air, and afterburning mode where the compressed air is heated for increased thrust. You'd have two distinct combustion processes, and so two degrees of freedom to control the thrust produced. Now, these engines pretty much died off when a functioning turbojet became practical, but I wonder if they'd still be useful today. Particularly, part-load efficiency of a piston engine doesn't drop off as much as it does with a gas turbine, plus there's the option to reduce fuelling or switch off the combustion chamber and run on the compressed air thrust only. There's also the maintenance reduction associated with not having to deal with a gas turbine. I reckon there's potential here for fairly small, fast aircraft doing short hops between remote areas. Most likely you'd use a turbodiesel engine so that both combustion processes can use the same fuel.

I've no doubt that the resource system will continue development past 1.0. So maybe when 1.1 or 1.2 comes around we'll have a more elaborate resource tree.

Time to stick some crew cabins and an engine to a rock and go exploring

So the rover made it safely to Minmus station. Well, almost. Due to a lack of RCS on the rover, it was dropped off a short distance away, while Lodzor Kerman transferred to the lander docked to the station and brought it over. The rover was brought to the surface attached to the lander's top docking port. Getting it onto the ground was a bit awkward- it was necessary to use the torque of the rover's probe core to shuffle it from the roof of the lander. Lodzor got out to help put the little 4x4 back on its wheels. The rover drives pretty well, though suffers from the usual lack of traction you get on Minmus. Lodzor was having such a good time motoring about that he forgot to detach the docking port to improve ground clearance. With the docking port detached on the move (in a strangely explosive manner) the Lander Rover has very good clearance over obstacles. The best way to stop on the icy flats turns out to be to steer sharply and let it skid to a halt. The probe core provides enough torque to prevent a rollover. Things did get somewhat interesting during the descent from the landing site- an uneven bit of ground sent the rover airborne. Careful control was needed to get the orientation correct for landing. Climbing hills, however, was a problem. There simply wasn't the weight on the four wheels to prevent them from spinning on acceleration. The solution was to disable the front pair of motors, and use the rover's SAS control to lift it onto the rear wheels. With the whole weight now on two wheels, the situation was improved and Lodzor was able to complete the survey mission. Another contractor satisfied.