Kibble

But surely years less than if they designed it from scratch. Generally my question is in the post-Shuttle era whether it would be more effective to modify USOS derived modules to be capable of rendezvous and docking like Russian modules do, or modifying Orion SM as a space tug?

On piloted missions, I like to attach Moon Buggy to the side of the lander via radial decoupler. Vaguely like what J-class missions were like, without complex KAS stuff.

Once Orion is flying, could a ESA service module be modified to act as a space tug for Node 4?

I'd like to humbly request that you continue supporting DangIt too :3

Sad </3 At least Space Station's (and Mir's) spirit will live on in OPSEK. I hope Node 4 launches, so all the hardware heritage of USOS doesn't go to waste.

Luna is just Latin for "Moon" isn't it? It is a pretty name though, and doesn't sound (more) wierd to say without "the". OTOH we call the Planets after their Latin names, so maybe "Luna" should be standard!

Does this mean Roskosmos will continue supporting Space Station as well as OPSEK? AFAIK the systems on board Service Module are inseparable, and necessary. Could USOS function as an independent facility?

I probably say "the Earth" most often, because sometimes it just sounds wierd without the "the". Like in 1968 the Apollo 8 astronauts went to Moon. Ideally we should say that, but etymologically saying the ​Moon sounds better.

Aww thats the most adorable spaceplane SSTO!

Sandbox with self enforced don't-use-anything-crazy. (Easier, with RO!)

I made this chart and it compares the ~30 currently in-production orbital rockets. Its a histogram comparing the number of rockets to payload inserted on LEO in metric tonnes, subdivided based on the four extant rocket fuel types (Yellow-orange for solid rockets, sickly reddish-brown for hypergolic, smoggy dark grey for kerosene and O2, and etherial lavender for O2 and H2) Block IB System, Falcon Heavy are included because I think they are very likely to fly, and because they make up a unique payload class. Oh and Long March 5 in its various configurations is also included. Since some rockets are configurable to to multiple payload classes (like Angara, Delta II, Delta IV, or Long March 2/3/4) I included multiple data points for each configuration with a fairly significant payload difference. For example in the Atlas V family there are data points for each number of SRMs from naught to five, while the fairing diameter and whether its SEC or DEC doesn't much change payload class. Plus IIRC, DEC has never flown. I think it shows some interesting trends - some fairly apparent, like how high-energy rocket fuel is reserved for large payloads, and solid fuel rockets are limited to very small payloads. Some other interesting facts I learned - about 16% of all extant rocket families use RD-170 (and direct derivatives) as primary propulsion, and more than half of all kerosene-fuel rockets use RD-170 as primary propulsion. Thanks for looking at this thing I made! I think its pretty interesting, and I hope some of you guys do too. Which is likely because this is a forum for a game about launching rockets.

Sorry for the overly loquacious title, but thats the most concise way to sum up this problem - enough mass concentrated in one place (like a planet) will eventually reach hydrostatic equilibrium, and be (approximately) a sphere. But if the body is rotating, it will become flattened along its rotational axis. For some reason I haven't been able to find anywhere online describing an formula to calculate the magnitude of this flattening effect! Not even on wikipedia </3 Do any of you guys know how?

His name is Twinkie Pie - but its a misnomer, he is the biggest, manliest alpha cat ever! Seen here at one of my dad's Dungeons and Dragons sessions. With dice on his paws, even though he almost never lets anybody touch them, or else he'll bite your face!

Seconded - and pretty diagrams too! (except I already use separatrons for the landing rockets, and they look fine)

RTGs in real life generate weakling-weighing-98-pounds amounts of electricity. With the Realistic RTGs plugin wouldn't it make Lunniy Korabl useless without additional electrical generation or a bunch of unsightly batteries?

Haha! I assumed Kerbals were birthed from a vat of rocket fuel.

Mars has little that can't be found other places in the solar system. Planets in general are hard to get to, and the only thing they have in abundance as compared to Small Solar System Bodies of the inner Solar System is CO2 atmospheres. But this isn't limited to Mars - Venus has an even thicker CO2 atmosphere, and is easier and faster to get to, and arguably easier to establish a permanent piloted outpost on. Your primary assertion that growing food is only possible on Mars is false - we have grown plants in micro-gee environments, specifically the Bion satellites, Skylab, Spacehab, and Space Station. Small Solar System Bodies are much more accessible - just (relatively) small, airless bodies in outer space - the robot's natural habitat. They also are extremely numerous, not just among the Asteroids, they thickly populate the inner Solar System. Unlike the Planets, their entire mass is accessible (not limited to how deep you can dig) and they appear to vary enormously in composition. If you can find volatiles like methane or CO2, water, and ammonia buried in the rock you have all the CHON elements right there. With water you can make (well, water), oxygen and hydrogen for rocket fuel, oxygen for breathing, hydrogen for Sabatier stock, and hydrogen peroxide for rocket fuel. With ammonia you can make hydrazine for rocket fuel, and you can process it with hydrogen peroxide to make nitrogen tetroxide. A layer of regolith seems to be ubiquitous in SSSBs and can, like on The Moon, be used for radiation shielding. However that isn't to say the Planets are useless, they make the task of capturing small bodies for resources extraction much easier, with aerocapture onto orbit. This would very likely happen at Mars or Venus, since nobody is going to let you aerocapture a space rock thru Earth's atmosphere! They also provide you with a bunch of gravitational acceleration which, while it makes it harder to take off from, it makes a more comfortable environment for astronauts without rotating facilities, although with Kirk Sorenson's xGRF concept, rotating piloted spacecraft have been made very viable.

Aw I hope we still get Fregat - its the best hypergolic upper stage! EDIT : LK is looking gorgeous!

CNSA is developing Long March 9, a perfectly suitable rocket to land Tiangong-derived modules on the Lunar surface. That's not true. You could construct and keep up a piloted Moon base without advanced ISRU techniques. We have been soft landing robots on The Moon since Luna 9 - we could have an equivalent of Space Station resupply missions. Long March 3B landed 140 kg of rover, and Long March 5 with an appropriate upper stage like 3A3 could presumably land about a metric tonne. Moon rocks are rich in titanium and oxygen - easy to extract, useful, and burnable as rocket fuel. Not to mention large quantities of volatiles presumably extant at the Lunar poles. The hydrogen detected by LRO could very well be in ammonia and water ice.

"Its not abduction if they liked it!"

I remember...doing the Time Warp!

Sure I'd love to be abducted by extraterrestrial beings! Especially if I live to tell about it, but even if not I probably still would.

For me, learning to rendezvous and dock was a lot of fun, I still do it by hand.

Ceres has a semi major axis near the lower-end estimates for where the frost line is. In fact detecting a stable patch of exposed volatile ice, water or not, could tell us more precisely where the frost line is, and where to find volatiles in the Asteroids!

Will the legs be separable from Blok E? Also awesome, Lunny Poligon!