kerbiloid

Kerbin, a 600 km planet with 9.81 m/s2 gravity... If this physics is not enough weird... OK, OK... Probably vice versa: all feel unhappy. Because they are already just at the ceiling of the oxygen consumption and any lesser concentration means a depression, while any greater concentration means an intoxication. Better there would be 17% of oxygen. Then any pot with ficus will give them a real euphoria because it means 1% of oxygen more! Yes, and giant spiders with kilometers of web providing a ready-to-use space elevator. (Similar to Brian Aldiss's "Hothouse / The Long Afternoon of Earth") A planet with a mountain a hundred miles high is called "an asteroid". It's this mountain itself. On any other planet a mountain height (as well as a pit depth) is very limited by gravity Heightmax ~= 3 * YieldPointOfRock / DensityOfRock * GravityAcceleration, So, no mountains higher or pits deeper than ~30 km. Back to the theme. A tidally-locked Mars-sized planet revolving round a (super-jupiter / brown dwarf) exactly at the Roche limit. Yes, it is being destroyed, but so what? All we need — to live there several thousand years, then we find another such planet. On its sub-Jupiter hemisphere there is zero gravity and stones are flying up to the sky. So, to launch something into space you need just to put this thing on a railcar, bring to the sub-jupiter side and release from the ropes. Of course the railcar would be attached to the railway to stay on the planet itself. Rich with water ice (at least — was, at least — on the outer side), that's obvious. On the outer side there is a crater or cleft (yes, this planet is a poor, poor thing): 10-30 km deep. Humans and NPC live inside this cleft / crater. Its bottom level keeps a normal air pressure, they can breathe without spacesuits. Also it's warm there: because this planet is being destoyed by the tidal force, so to get enough heat is not a problem. (Idea of a habitated cleft is stolen from W.H.Hodgson's "The Night Land") There is no significant air above the edge of the cleft/crater., so no atmo drag there. I.e. living beings are living in an air blob inside a well, on its bottom. It's a small and homey habitat 10-20 kilometers in diameter, with lakes and gardens (or at least with algae tanks). This is a flat location easily being mapped for navigation or game purposes — a sandbox. All industry is placed inside rocks around this location and all pollution exhaust is thrown away right into space, keeping this oasis green and happy. There is a an elevator on the side of the well — to get out of there, and a circumplanetary railway Which is also used as a launchpad (see above). The sub-Jupiter hemisphere is something like this, but more optimistic

We definitely need a way to find out that Solar System 30 million years later — just to watch this perfomance and to verify our theories..

Fairchild XC-120 Packplane Convair Model 118 Bell Model 65 (Body from a glider, wing from Cessna, gear from a helicopter, 2 turbojets, VTOL)

KSP integrated with kOS used as a motherboard firmware. An embedded operating system, windows/linux-killer. Ready to use on a desktop and board computers, driving a car, piloting a (space)plane and managing both greenhouse and smelter at once.

Amazing picture! If the quad were reusable, that's how an EvilScientist / KerbalDarkLord personal rocketship would look like. Launching from the DarkCitadel, returning all stages onto the platform of the cargo elevator at the citadel's backyard to be reattached and refueled.

Yes, but just because Apollo 13 performed a non-stop flyby around the Moon, and only several small corrections were required. If their accident happened on a Lunar orbit, not sure if LEM engine would be enough to return. (Interesting. I need to calculate this later.)

According to Musk, one flight costs about 60 M$. According to wiki, one F22 costs 66 M$. F22 weight ~= 22 t, Falcon dry weight ~= 30 t. So, Falcon ~= F22. Any fighter is by default an expendable resource, that's why they are produced by the hundreds and thousands. Falcon lifespan say ~= 10 flights (the best of Shuttle engines was used for 19 times afaik). I.e. any reusable Falcon flight would cost at least 10-15 M$ including the refusbirhing. Not much less than a single-use flight. So, while F22/F35 are produced by thousands, not much sense in a reusable rocket.

While the whole expedition depends on a single Apollo's main engine: to inject the Moon orbit, to correct it from 100 km to 15 km, to intercept the lunar ascent stage, to run home, to correct trajectory two or three times. Also two fuel and engine systems on LEM don't look like more reliable decision than only one.

100x budget → NASA is dismissed due to anti-monopoly laws.

Typical level of 1905 engineering looks like: Not very close to a rocket engine of V-2 which had required efforts of whole Germany industry. Gas welding quality is far from arc welding, though. Not that they would can into space.

Now they can compare how Kelly's twin brother has withstanded a year without space,

It's much easier to achieve scienctific results and glory sending unmanned probes to other celestial bodies than by creating replicas of already existed ships and modules. Also, robots and avatars are the future of spaceflights. So - yes, they will. And by the time when they do this, usual space crew will look like that:

They could produce 3 g of antimatter per year and sell it, getting more money.

It would be difficult to build a spacerocket made of cast iron and rivet steel, as both alumina electrolysis and arc welding have appeared after WWI. Also probably the very first attempts would be made with the smokeless powder solid fuel motors, as IRL, because it would take decades to create more or less powerfull liquid fuel engine. Imagine that: both US & SU had their nuclear reactors (and more-or-less bombs) working in 1940s, while the primitive alcoholic V-2 was an outstanding thing for them both. So, the first 20 years of 1900 space race would be dedicated to unproductive attempts to launch a rocketplane-shaped ironclad, full of rivets and tamped with powder. Then there would be 1930s and fantasy coalesce with IRL-history.

You would try with the golden ratio (φ = (sqrt(5) + 1) / 2 ~= 1.618... ) As: φ-1 = φ - 1 φ0 = 1 φ1 = φ φ2 = φ + 1, φ3 = φ2 * φ = (φ + 1) * φ = φ2 + φ = 2φ + 1, etc

Yes, you are right, I've took a look in the book - indeed, Soyuz-18-1 had separated after the LES had been ejected.

Pictured that Super Starlight project where they stop and return.

Btw about SpaceX Dragon. Its mass is ~=10 t (more or less). It has 8 SuperDracos, each 73 kN also used as internal LES. T/W ratio = 73000 *8 / (10000 * 9.81) ~= 6 g. Dragon's "pad abort test" description also says about 6 g. But absolutely all known LES systems (either escape towers, or ejectiing seats) give 12..18 g. Because on a launchpad you need to run away outside from the explosion wave, while duriing the ascent you need to overcome an insane rocket which still accelerates. If you divide Falcon thrust by Falcon mass without Dragon (say, it has successfully separated), you can see that with those 6 g the Dragon can overcome the rocket only in the very beginning of every stage working, while they are full of fuel and heavy, Say, the second stage without Dragon in the final of its burning would accelerate with T/W ~15 g. So, for me it looks like: in orbit you need 0.5 g to land you need 2 g to rescue you need 12..18 g Dragon has 6 g. I.e too overpowered and heavy for landing, but too weak for rescue. So, the Dragon option is even worse than Orion/CST-100 problems.

It's a converted ICBM Topol, so probably this depends on how often they will be retired..

According to what I can find: Svobodny was a test site also used as a cosmodrome for unmanned crafts, mostly with converted military rockets used as launch vehicles. It was cancelled in 2007 due to a low launch traffic. But then it was decided to build a full-featured cosmodrome Vostochny, which would allow manned flights too. It's being built near the Svobodny place, using its infrastructure.

"Brakes are invented by a coward". But once in 1980s I have read a large article about similar projects (American or British - I don't remember): "Starlight" and "Super Starlight" interstellar laserships. I can't google them up, sorry. In 1980s they were in a paper. An unmanned spacecraft (large mirror disk) propelled with a laser beam pressure. A mighty laser orbits the Sun and continuously accelerates the mirror disk to the Barnard Star. The former of them ("Starlight") would do a non-stop fly-by. But the latter (and bigger) "Super Starlight" - was not only to stop, but also to return back. Idea was: the craft consists of three stages - concentric mirror parabolic disks: as a giant flat Hanoi tower. All of them are miror-like from the Sun side, but the 2nd and 3rd stage disks are also mirrors from the target side. On start they are looking as one giant mirror, of course, Laser beam pressure simply accelerates this thing in the Barnard star direction. Once this thing reaches a deceleration point, the widest disk (say, it's the 1st stage) is separated and slowly moves away in advance, Laser beam still presses them all, but as the 1st stage area is much greater than the 2nd one, the laser beam parabolically reflected from the 1st stage, presses on the 2nd+3rd stage from the rear side with greater force than it presses its subsolar side. So, the 1st stage continues its acceleration, but 2nd+3rd stages decelerate until it completely stops near the destination point. Then 1st stage is no more required (anyways, it's already far from the main craft) and says farewell. The mighty near-Sun laser still continues its work. Now the second stage disk separates from the 3rd stage - and all repeats: the subsolar side of the 2nd stage works as a parabolic reflector than concentrates the beam on the rear side of the 3rd stage. So, the 2nd stage accelerates and flies away - in chase of the 1st stage, while the 3rd stage runs back to the Sun. Mighty laser stops, 3rd stage returns back to the Solar System, trtansferring scientific data. When the 3rd stage reaches the Solar Sytem, the laser starts again and simply decelerates the 3rd stage. Re-entry probe with the interstellar matter examples returns to the Earth. So, probably somebody in NASA had found his granny's old magazines, took a look and now we would await for an amazing new series of animations on youtube.

The thermodynamical equilibrium inside a normal star (like the Sun) is guaranteed by radiative transfer, while in red dwarves - by the convectional transfer. As a result, a red dwarf is a big lava-lamp with continuously varying luminosity, So, if the planet is not covered by a thick atmosphere like Venus, its surface temperature would be unpredictable and unstable, too. Also this would cause unpredictable hurricanes.

Another real Soviet/Russian spaceship - TKS. Although it haven't ever been used as a manned ship, it was designed, tested and certified as a heavy replace for Soyuz. It has been successfully launched several times as unmanned cargo craft docked to Salyuts and to Mir. It's re-entry vehicle (VA) is, in fact, an escape capsule attached to a large and heavy habitat module (FGB) - rather than in other spaceships where re-entry vehicle is a full-featured command module. It has an escape tower and its de-orbiting engine was placed on the nose of the capsule, enforcing the escape tower by their simultaneous ignition. One of its launches (unmanned) has been aborted due to malfunction, and the escape pod successfully landed engaging LES. In fact, only two Voskhods had no escape system except an emergency parachute. Btw, during manned flights LES of Soyuz has been successfully used not once, but twice: on Soyuz-18-1 during the ascent and on Soyuz-T-10-1 when the rocket exploded on the launchpad .

Not exactly aircraft (but contains an aircraft, too) French submarine "Surcouf" fitted with 2x203-mm turret and an airplane hangar. KAX (Kerbal Aircraft Expansion), NAS (Naval Artillery System) and submarine/warship mods - three in one.

Probably you know about this comix.