Bill Phil

So, in lay men's terms: a space shotgun.

What has more potential? A set of already built tools? Or a chunk of material of equal mass? The chunk of material has more potential.

Yeah, making nukes insanely expensive would limit their use. But if it's too expensive, then no one would use them. Although, reusable space tugs would counter-act that... As they say: "Once it's in space, it's in space."

Um, isn't Eeloo based off of Europa. So it's not a coincidence.

Or, better yet: Lower the default Kerbin science modifier. There's just too much in the Kerbin-Mun-Minmus system, that there's no reason to even go to other planets except money, and there's plenty of test contracts and science from x-place or planting flags on x-body to keep you afloat. This has really been bothering me for a while... And I'm sure it's more than just me being bothered. They should be expensive, though. Nuclear reactors are by no means cheap. And add a very scientifically expensive pre-requisite node for nuclear reactors and nuclear fuel storage. That way it makes sense.

Orion hasn't been just a constellation in a while, remember NPP Orion, back in the 1960s? Hmm, if they had an Orion NPP as a payload... Now THAT would be interesting!

Well, the occasional great idea ( a la cameras) should get a comment from Kasper or something... It would at least make it seem worth it to post.

It would make cinematics a lot easier... I agree.

If the spacecraft is supposed to endure typical micrometeors and more, than it can survive a long time. Then you have missiles that easily be tracked, and easily avoided at a long distance. Now, the acceleration is not a big consideration due to the small change further out equals big change closer in law. Or whatever it's called. Chances are a missile won't have as much deltav as a full-fledged spacecraft, so the target can easily change it's velocity and get a completely different orbit. The missile most likely doesn't have the deltav to intercept. Although, if the missile is S-IVB sized....

Interesting. Can't wait for 3d printed engines in space. *crosses fingers*

That's assuming that pieces big enough to be a problem would be untrackable. And if you consider that some kind of armor would be used... It's much less of a problem than you would think.

It should just be "Jessy" Kerman. Heck, I've seen an Anny Kerman already...

High thrust isn't entirely necessary on solar system scales. It will all depend on the craft specifications.

I think that's just it, NO2 isn't a very efficient reactant, so the advantage gained is lost. Not to mention Hydrazine is very hard to handle... Maybe not hard, but dangerous.

Just because that have high ISPs doesn't mean we can't have the same propulsion system, possibly with a higher mass ratio and thus more deltav. There is a weapon in development with no casings, actually, caseless ammunition has existed for a while, though that's not what I'm referring to. If I recall correctly, it's a weapon that's a tube with bullets stacked and it uses electricity to ignite the powder.

That's very true. In fact: If you can get a vehicle to evade you into another orbit that it's not planned for, it can no longer perform it's mission. That way it's neutralized. Perhaps that's what space combat will be. Forcing them to leave their target orbit at certain times could change everything about the mission. Say, if a nuclear-armed craft is on an Earth-Mars transfer, and you rendezvous with it, you can force it off its transfer trajectory significantly. And if you last long enough, the nuke ship will run out if propellant. Sounds more likely than gun to gun battles.

It'll probably be a miniature version of the ISV Venture Star with some sort of propulsion system. Maybe GCNTR? Now that would be something... Actually, come to think of it, a highly elliptical orbit has more energy at Pe than a ~circular orbit, so if you perform a rendezvous like that, it could be used for space "dive bombing". The craft would probably be buses that carry super dense chunks of metal that is released a la MERV. Your station probably wouldn't survive that...

I believe she said "trip" but I could be mistaken. Plus it's relativity and time dilation and they were really close to the black hole: practically in the debris cloud.

My main Poodle complaint is the small TWR. But besides that it's great. Personally I think that a new Poodle-Skipper interim with decent ISP and 3x the thrust of the Poodle, but at nearly twice the mass.

I never said it was good, just that it's not a NERVA. Heck, a modern NTR wouldn't be a NERVA and would probably have an ISP advantage of 50 seconds or so.

When you start looking for parts in everyday objects. ... On the side of the road...

I agree. It's especially useful if you have a slow desktop and it takes nearly 5 minutes to exit.

I'm fine with starting manned. If you think about it: There was a study in the late 1930s about landing on the Moon. An actual study! Of course it used solid rockets for main propulsion, but nonetheless... So the idea of a manned capsule came first, just no one had the guts to do it. Oh, and the British manned V-2 concept... Basically, it is realistic. Although choosing in the difficulty panel would be good.

So, like those Apollo manuals. The ones based off of car manuals. I have one. But if you did this with KSP I'd buy it in a heartbeat.

Because it's easily available. If you could choose in space, you should use propane. It's simple compared to kerosene and is much more efficient.