Kibble

BLEO mission-capable capsules have very different requirements and standards than LEO. It wouldn't just be "modifying" Dragon to make it work - I'm sure qualifications would require major changes to the basic design, particularly radiation shielding. Orion is already developed, and ready for its unique and awesome task.

Shuttle II would make a fine name. This vehicle has more in common with Space Shuttle than Atlas III had with Atlas II. Alternatively, for a more poetic name, how about Friendship! I think it sounds nice, it's a virtuous trait, and it references America's first piloted orbital mission, Friendship 7.

I think Orion is prettier, and I am very fond of the ATV-derived service module, and its classic R4 and AJ10 rocket engines. Piloted spacecraft just don't look right without the launch escape tower on top!

It was actually internal space limitations.

CKAN will still install RO for previous versions, it automatically checks compatability.

That's not nice. Also how can an opinion be "wrong"? I was just trying to give my advice on how to accurately represent this beautiful space vehicle. If discussion isn't welcome, there is no reason this should be on a forum.

Artist's renditions are not official sources. A particular egregious recent example - note the glaring inaccuracies in this rendition of CST-100: http://www.collectspace.com/images/news-022015e-lg.jpg There is absolutely no reason to paint the tank, for the exact same reason there was no reason to paint Space Shuttle's ET. The orange spray-on polyurethane foam insulation provides all the necessary thermal protection, that's why it's there. This is the reason Delta IV is unpainted orange, the reason HIIA and B are unpainted orange. Ariane 5 is also unpainted, but uses light-colored bricks of insulation instead of spray-on foam. You are right, that the most official source is actually hardware that has flown. This particular bit of hardware has flown (unstretched), as part of Space Shuttle. Plus it looks way better.

Pretty new models! But what was wrong with the old ones? You should make the wings on Pegasus radially attachable parts, so you can make a regular Orion 50XL like for Taurus! Also are there going to be RO configs?

Anyway, I just wish olives tasted sweet. fluwpnn

Make science not war! Personally, I think FASA looks ugly

Flags are actually a pretty recent invention - they might not be around forever. A nice symbol that would by definition be applicable to all human beings without any exclusion or prejudice could be a depiction of our brain in profile, as seen by MRI. It's our one physical feature that, when not present, really takes away our personhood.

Waiting for the "right technology" to come along has never been humanity's style. If we can go to Mars with what we have, there is a good chance we will, rather than sit around and wait until a heavenly-Isp politics-immune super rocket engine gets "invented".

Soyuz sets the modern standard, as it has been the primary way of getting human onto orbit for a long time, and, along with Shenzhou, is one of the only two piloted spacecraft currently flying.

Are you sure it would pay off? If you had a reusable lander on Lunar orbit, assuming hypergolics, the fuel has to be about four fifths of the total mass, meaning the refuelling spacecraft would require nearly the same launch vehicle as a whole other lander. Of course the refuelling vehicle doesn't have to have the complex and expensive habitable component but the TLI rocket stage, on the other paw, would have to be refuelled by a copy of itself, maybe without the main rocket engine. The final component of the stack, by nessecity, has to return to Earth. Personally, Lunar orbit rendezvous really seems like the only plausible means of lunar landing and return, without mature ISRU infrastructure.

Earth Orbit Rendezvous style lunar landing architectures studied for Apollo required a minimum of ten launches of Saturn C1, the rough equivalent of extant GTO-optimized launch vehicles, like Ariane 5 and Proton. Falcon Heavy matches the capability of Saturn C3, but C3-based mission modes still required a minimum of four launches!

No I didn't install RP-0 (sandbox best!). I looked and the configs are definitely there. Could the actual Tantares files just be in the wrong place, and the configs aren't referencing them correctly? I really don't understand coding and junk

Hey anyone got time for an almost certainly dumb question? I recently acquired access to a KSP-capable computer, but after installing RO, and Tantares and Tantares LV via CKAN, almost every single part (except Proton and R7) are "non-RO"! Anyone know why and how to fix? .~.

How can we know the effective Isp of a rocket engine that has never been flown, tested, or even built and which is powered by fuel for which we have only ever produced nine atoms, and only kept for 17 minutes? His point is still sound - fast interstellar travel is quite impossible, and will remain that way for a very, very long time.

There is no reason to force ourselves to learn complicated procedures that we don't need yet, when there is a simpler solution that works. When we first invented boats, they were simple canoes. We used canoes for a long time, even though canoes can't travel across oceans, and we would eventually have to cross oceans.

This makes the assumption that we will fly nuclear-thermal rocket engines, and the further assumption that we will fly nuclear thermal rocket engines as the primary propulsion on a piloted spacecraft. EDIT: Explanation It would be a long time of a nightmare of political negotiations trying to get it to happen, decades most likely. Meanwhile solar-electric propulsion is matured and developed, as nuclear-thermal technology falls further and further behind. By the time you might have flown the first test nuclear-thermal rocket engine, a solar-electric rocket engine will be superior in all ways, especially cost.

Well there's your problem! Since a piloted Mars expedition means a huge IMLEO, you pretty much have to use high-energy fuel to get it to TMI. And high-energy fuel hates rendezvous and docking events. If the rendezvous doesn't go completely smoothly, there's a week of orbiting to sap all the hydrogen from your tank, and BOOM you got a whole extra super-heavy-lift launch, and the mission is delayed a few more months, while the astronauts twiddle their thumbs in the transfer habitat. If you use storable fuels you get the new problem of having to design a huge hypergolic rocket stage, and a ridiculously massive rocket to launch it.

The last few centuries are pretty unique in human history - we discovered industry, which brought unimaginable progress. Most of the time we're not in a technological revolution of this scale. The last time was when we discovered agriculture!

I finally have access to a KSP-capable computer again! Here's the inaugural launch of this (RO, of course!) save :3 Woof! Go, Kibble Space Program!

Just 500 years? Anatomically modern humans appeared around 200 000 years ago, but only started migrating to anywhere out of Africa 130 000 years after that.

The key phrase there was "any time soon".