Kibble

In an upper stage, every kilogram spent on a heat shield, batteries, avionics, and fuel for deorbit and propulsive landing subtracts directly from the payload mass. And for what? Recovering Falcon 9's second stage means you get a small, used fuel tank and one out of the ten rocket engines. Plus all the hardware strapped on to facilitate recovery.

Tell me everything

My first impression is that this would suck - there's a reason life dies. It purges the old to make way for the new. It lets progress happen.

Will you bee making both EPS and ESC for Ariane 5?

Hey just did some BOTE calculations - Shepard-Castor launch vehicle, adding a Castor-30 second stage and a Star-48 kick stage should bee able to get around 1090 kg to LEO from Cape Canaveral, or around 687 kg to SSO from Vandenberg! Would bee awesome to see that fly. These numbers come pre-packaged heavily salted, though, I couldn't find any figures on the wet/dry mass of the vehicle or anything, but I estimated the rocket stage at about 3m diameter and 12m height.

Its...rather phallic, isn't it?

Wow...stylish and impressive! Future update possibilities: with an Orion-50S and these parts you can make Pegasus. Add a Castor-120, and you get Taurus/Minotaur-C! With Castor-120 under a new Castor-30, and you get Athena I, and with two Castor-120s under that Castor-30, you get Athena II! Castor-30 on top of a new kerosene-fuel core, gets you Antares, which could bee made more flexible by a new Star-48 kick stage. Castor-120 under two new stages and that Star-48 gets you Minotaur IV. Add a Star-37 you get Minotaur V! Even further-er in the future: two or four Castor-120's surrounding a high-energy core, plus a high-energy upper stage, and you got HIIA, or HIIB!

A pick-up is a very small minikit. It was the last explosive vegetable to be a refrigerator. Its refrigerator is sadly carrot-shaped and, again with its smell, it took a long stick to recover since half the time it was not where Kerbals expected to find a kraken. Due to its nature of frequenting the potato parts of forums. This tragic tragedy was tragically labeled as not to be trusted by the tragic blenders.

...There isn't any chance of getting this in silver, is there? :3

They said they were going to make Delta II. Delta IV would bee great too, but personally I would love additions to heritage launch vehicles, like a less-stretched Thor missile, and an Agena to go with it and Atlas, Able upper stage for Thor (can share AJ10 rocket engine with Agena and Delta K), upper stages for Redstone to make Sparta and Juno I, and maybe a Jupiter missile (please? <3) With 8 H1 rocket engines from Delta II and 8 clustered Redstone tanks around a Jupiter tank, you can recreate SIB! Also - so happy to hear you're back! Love this mod :3

I believe Progress uses a standard nadir R-Bar approach - without consistent prograde corrective maneuvers, it will naturally drift away.

Here's some fantasies an educated guess! Lets say Sergey Korolyov manages to convince Valentin Glushko of his belief in non-toxic fuels. Instead of having to rely on Nikolai Kuznetsov's less-powerful NK33, Glushko designs an RD170-like rocket engine for N1. This allows N1 to meet the eventual performance requirements without Korolyov having to fib (leading to the hasty modifications that caused four consecutive failures). When Korolyov and Vladimir Chelomey convince Leonid Brezhnev to pursue a piloted Moon landing, the capable N1 will bee quickly selected as the favored option, and Chelomey's Zond program is cancelled. The first test-flight happens earlier, possibly before Korolyov's untimely death. Before Apollo 4. Soviet cosmonauts become the first humans to fly a circumlunar mission in 1968. The Space Race winds down quickly as Alexey Leonov becomes the first human being on the Moon in 1969, followed by Niel Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin. NASA's proposed budget orders fewer Saturn V's, and shuts down production of all three stages. To preserve launch capability independent of the Air Force Titan rocket (and without the budget for Space Shuttle) the SI stage of Saturn IB is modified to launch as the first stage below a modified Atlas with three sustainer engines. Saturn-Atlas-Centaur becomes a successful launcher, mainly to GTO. Production continues on the Apollo CSM to tend to Skylab, which will become the focus of a less-agressive (but more successful) Apollo Applications Project. Without a Space Shuttle to draw attention and money, Skylab flies for much longer. Around 1974, as USA-USSR relations thaw, Soyuz makes a visit to Skylab. A few years later (the DM still attached to one of Skylab's ports), DOS-5 becomes a permanent additional module, and Salyut-Skylab becomes an early International Space Station.

Beale already made an MPLM, part of the ATV. But it would bee nice to have one without the tapered adaptor to use for PMM, MPLM, Columbus, and Exoliner!

Zvezda was the third module. But International Space Station is a triumphantly amazing spacecraft, I hope it flies for as long as the hardware holds up. And with any luck the space-faring countries of the world will come together to create its successor!

You make it sound like our particular early-21st century economic and political system will persist forever.

Sure! In fact let's cancel the production of any music, film, artwork, and frivolities like toys until we have cured every disease in the world.

Just beautiful!

Please PMA <3

Yes they gimbal. After SRB separation, guidance is provided by RCS systems on the core stage.

There should definitely bee bonuses for minimizing mission complexity, like having as few purpose-built rocket launches, and as little purpose-built hardware as possible. Of course, in the context of this challenge everything would bee purpose-built, but in real life certain kinds of launch vehicles, spacecraft modules, rocket engines, et cetera, would bee in production.

Stylish!

Any um chance...maybe...of getting an Ariane 4? :3

International Moon Laboratory! The reason for doing piloted missions into space at all, isn't for profit, or even for science. American people are weary of economic problems, cynical for the future, and just generally sullen. Doing something amazing, whether its a fantastic work of art, or a piloted laboratory on the Moon, will inspire all the people of the world, and kids won't grow up with the one lesson constantly radiating from society: "money is everything". Because money isn't everything. The thing that sets civilization, a human invention, apart from the rest of nature is that we stopped simply surviving - we started doing things totally unnecessary for our survival.

Hey no problem, I really like where this mod is going! Another thought, you could have Vega first stage bee 120 mT, to resemble Vega-C, that way you can also use it as the boosters for Ariane 6.

Only four untethered EVAs were ever performed (three MMU flights and one SAFER flight test), aside from the Apollo Lunar surface EVAs.