wumpus

I should point out that since these "non gravity turns" lock onto prograde they have no steering losses (although there might be aero losses if fins are used to maintain attitude). "True gravity turns" that can't manage to always point prograde will have losses equal to the cosine of the angle between actual attitude and prograde. "Lock onto prograde" appears more efficient and easier to optimize (only variables are initial angle and possibly TWR).

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11875409 ["How to publish DNA sequences with copyright protection."] [it's behind a paywall so I didn't read it, but if the NIH is publishing such via the Nature publishing group, that should be scary enough.] While patenting and copyright may be designed to protect two different things, it looks like copyrighted genes have already happened. This is a pretty big thing since there aren't any "copyright examiners", you just pay your $35 and get your copyright (possibly slightly more if you are storing large amounts of data). And as you mentioned, they are different frameworks designed to protect different systems, so all the exceptions to copyright law are unlikely to be useful for those using genes. Note: while there were plenty of google hits on how to copyright genes, there was little to say if they held up in court.

Don't underestimate the outrageous amount of power a GPU (typically part of a phone chip) represents, I'd be surprised if you can't [physically] build a phased array into a phone. Hopefully they won't have a "you're holding it wrong" issue, the physical array will be pretty constrained. This leaves the big issue of what frequencies spacex can use: established companies will do everything to keep them off the spectrum, while such antenna wouldn't interfere with existing towers. I suspect the political/economic battle is even more difficult than building and launching thousands of satellites. The actual phone might be an afterthought (although since the physical antenna would have to be different, this painfully inflate the price of compatible phones. Again, economic issue.

It would be hard to imagine a part that doesn't already exist in the mods, and porkchop has made his parts available via mods. Optimization sounds like an ongoing process, I suspect that consoles still need some (more like could use some. Results I've seen imply that such really isn't the critical thing I expected when the idea of "KSP on Bobcat" was first floated).

Not sure if metal fatigue killed the Iowa, all the explanations I've seen center around the powder. Did they discover that even creating new and safer powder would still be dangerous in old turrets? Ship to ship the main point is likely more defensive, basically 60,000 tons of pure naval nightmare between friendly carriers and [large] hostile ships, but the real mission (that they were recommissioned for) was shore bombardment. I don't think the US Navy ever drafted (in significant numbers), but I'm sure that plenty picked the Navy, over being drafted by the Army (one friend of my father joined Dec 8,1941 when told by a Navy recruiter that his line was significantly shorter than the Army recruiter's line). Lack of a draft meant far fewer sailors.

If you have a contract to make a movie based on the game "battleship" and use "battleship" as the title of the game (and presumably include the quote "you sank my battleship" to note a major plot point), you have two choices: Follow the classic "anti-hi-tech" Hollywood trope. Go into great detail about how the differences in countermeasures for the entire rest of your Navy don't help at all against battleships, and that is why they work well together. One allows you to write the script in a matter of days and sell it to people who see game-based movies. The other takes lots of research and probably needs Tom Clancy's name on it to find the people who would watch it. I'm hardly surprised in the direction they took. I'd worry more about "Jurassic Park" and other movies people might have seen. Or even "Contact" considering the book was written by Carl Sagan and didn't seem to be anti-science at all (I remember people claiming the movie was "anti-god": the book ends with a message from the creator of the universe acknowledging his/her/whatever existence). There really isn't much hope about fixing the second issue in Hollywood. And it isn't Hollywood, it is all fiction and similar works. The laws of conservation of characters mean that for any large group of people, they will be represented by a single character in a work. It isn't just science, it is pretty much anything (and if you obviously need a larger group, don't expect to ever learn the extras names: they will be included in the required shot and never be seen again). The fact that science is largely ignored by the population (and thus the understanding that such portrayals are the same as everywhere else) is the real problem. You won't get an exemption to include 'the whole team' just for science (especially if the Nobel committee is perpetuating the problem).

Some notes: SRBs tend to give great "bang for the kerbuck" in terms of delta-v and thrust. They dominate the "lost cost non-recoverable" contests for lifting things into low kerbin orbit. Don't underestimate a SRB's ability to put lots of thrust on the pad (but don't expect to find many cases where you want to fire a SRB *after* launch. They can happen, but are only going to be found by the most dedicated users of SRBs). Asparagus staging makes less sense since typically larger engines work better than "asparagussing". It still gives an improvement, especially for extreme cases like Eve, but is hardly a required trick in KSP anymore. There is no reason for different asparagus stages to be equal size, in fact it is likely sub-optimal for them to be. You almost certainly want the first stages you drop to have much bigger tanks than those you drop later. I suspect that the current practice of "asparagus is done at equal size" is due to simply copying designs that were made for the souposphere (where constant TWR was optimal). Asparagus can be generalized many ways. Drop tanks (asparagus without the engines underneath) are still quite useful. If you really want cheap (low cost/low mass/low drag) and can pump fuel throughout your rockets (which requires improving [I think] you science building in career mode) you can stick a fuel tank *above* your payload. Have a small vacuum engine as a last stage, then put 2/3 of your fuel above the payload (and remember to set fuel flow or otherwise keep pumping that fuel). This gives you a "free extra stage" and plenty of delta-v bonuses.

I think the thread about 1.3 was deleted. The catch is that pretty much everything to improve the sandbox is either tiny details or canceled (IMPORTANT NOTE: this simply refers to "stock KSP", expect awesome mods because they don't have to be for everybody). And of course everything needs to be debugged on three [not counting Mac & Linux] platforms now. The devs know they've grabbed the low-hanging fruit and even the moderate level fruit, and aren't really sure if Squad is willing to pay to pick the whole tree. Career mode is less nailed down. I suspect that any replacement devs are much more likely to be lau game designers willing to fix career mode than those working on numerical simulations and physics bugs (consider how Harvester and co. slew the Kraken by re-mapping the coordinate system to center on the player, that was absolutely critical to making interplanetary exploration work, but don't expect any issue like that to be seen by the current crew).

They might have to rebalance fuel cells, batteries, solar, or NTR won't cut it for planes (well batteries might for short distances, but you really want a fuel cell).

An easier answer is to look at the number of people who consider themselves to be "good at STEM (any discipline)". Then compare those to people who might have issue with being told that they weren't smart enough for such things. Now along comes Hollywood (and anybody else with something to sell) who will claim that everybody's opinion is as good as a fully trained scientist's detailed research. It's a lie people want to believe, so Hollywood (and anybody else interested in a sale) tells them such. I'd claim that you would see an upswing of "opinion>facts" propaganda in the 1970s, when the Sputnik/Apollo push had died (and thus there was no longer a pro-science propaganda push) but the resentment hadn't. I'd say that there was such a resentment at the time, but its hard to tell. But don't underestimate the power of a lie people want to believe. Nukes, chemical weapons tend to be pretty abstract (well, nukes to the present generation. Anybody who had to duck and cover might think otherwise). Personal failure hits hard.

To be honest, that is the expensive part. Drugs that kill cancer in a petri dish are a dime a dozen (and every new science reporter breathlessly points out how their favorite isn't getting funding). A bigger issue seems that those same companies can control publication (and the fact that null data wouldn't be published anyway only compounds the problem). It simply compounds the issues of "p fishing". I'm somewhat surprised about the "bad math" you are talking about. ~25 years ago, my college roommate failed out of psych grad school due to poor math abilities (greatly annoying his EE PhD father). I suppose that had he survived the class, he might 'revert to the mean' when writing papers. Or maybe that generation (which was force to learn math) was what improved things so much. I have to wonder if these studies are only possible now that the math used is good enough to test them. I've seen similar complaints about the media, claiming that in the "good old days" reporting was serious and accurate (just don't look at H.L.Mencken's descriptions of how it was made in the "good old days"). The issue is that often you can get citizen-recorded video on youtube to check "the media"; in the "good old days" you took what they gave you (although everybody knew that "60 minutes" was incredibly biased against whoever they were smearing).

I was under the impression that this had been attempted with disastrous and often fatal results, leading to the fear of the sound barrier. Not only that, but the "flight envelope" implies that the plane can structurally handle slower speeds at lower altitudes (like the end of a dive) than at higher ones. Even if the wings stay on after the dive (which itself is hardly certain), pulling out is another problem. The P-38 had control issues that were never understood (even with Kelly Johnson himself working on them) until after supersonic flight was understood (the P-38 was sufficiently fast to have these issues). Don't expect WWII control surfaces to work after (or even before) breaking the sound barrier. - Note, presumably the German jets had the same issues only worse, but I've never heard how they handled them.

I'm pretty sure they are more concerned with pointing at specific angles (for telescopes). They might find a use for millimeter precision now that they have it, but I'm pretty sure the work was for angles. How would they measure either their location or the correct position to the millimeter, anyway?

Irridium has an 86 degree inclination and appears to be pretty low for "global coverage" constellations, so expect Vandenburg launches. While any such constellations should require as many satellites for each plane as a facon heavy (or possibly even the big boy should they ever build it) can carry, does it really cost much delta-v to change planes in polar orbit? I keep thinking that if you increase/decrease your orbit the satellite will rotate with respect to the rest of the constellation. To a certain degree I suspect that this is designed to give the Falcon Heavy a mission. I'm curious to see if they decide to recover the center stage or not.

Both the X-29 and X-31 were designed to do that (post stall manuevering, presumably researching for dogfighting). The key being to get to a stall via climbing, never by slowing down (well, losing energy; you might not be going fast after your climb). Of course, I'm fairly certain such tricks aren't possible in a P51 (the X-planes use directed jets and multiple computers). I'm not sure the Air Force decided to use such capability in non-research planes: even if both your enemy and his wingman were busy, you would be a sitting duck for anti-aircraft fire. But somebody at least built a plane that could do those things.

Cascaded steam engines are an old trick to get more work out of your steam. They were mostly obsoleted by the steam turbine, but I'm pretty sure cascaded turbines are still used (if not always needed). To really get the dregs out of your power you might need to use something like a freon-substitute, but you can still get real power if you are willing to pay for that last bit of efficiency. In the end, it all comes down to $/Watt. I wonder if you could make a "thermocouple glass" material like "fiberglass" (connecting the right ends sounds like a pain) that makes adding a thermocouple that easy. Much like PV solar panels, efficiency really isn't the point (at least until the roof is covered) it is all about the manufacturing issues and $/Watt (note that added temperature range *is* critical, and the researchers wisely dismissed efficiency issues).

While that will produce "a" gravity turn, and any gravity turn will require zero navigation losses, I'm fairly certain that the optimal path into orbit doesn't depend on the moment of inertia of the rocket (which would have to be carefully designed in the VAB to match the ideal moment of inertia). One obvious benefit to limiting yourself to such "ideal gravity turns" is that you still have a variable to account for, the initial angle of attack. This "start the turn" can basically be done on the pad (not recommended, no means of measuring your angle in the VAB) or after launch (preferably by mechjeb. And do so as soon after the launch as possible*). *done IRL as well. But presumably not fast enough to prevent Antares from blowing up the pad at Wallops (they probably start turning for safety before it would make sense to turn for efficiency reasons (which is still well before 10km)).

Glassification pretty much solves the problem as well. You take your waste, mix it with a bunch of sand, and then hit it with a ton of electricity (very easy to get at a nuclear power plant). The results lock up the waste in such a way that any erosion will still disperse the waste evenly and at extremely low levels (which are going to be extremely low anyway after a few years. Presumably by the time you pull the spent rods out of a pool, most of the nasty stuff has decayed). If only coal ash were so simple. I'd be surprised if dealing with PV manufacture and the eventual (every decade or so) replacement and (possible) recycling thereof was such a non-issue. About the only [non made to fit an agenda] [other than esthetics, certainly a classic Holland windmill facade would be too expensive] issue for wind turbines is the [current] need for rare earth elements and the means to produce them. Remember how we knew that "cold fusion" wasn't fusion? Neutrons. Those same neutrons are going to irradiate fusion plants something fierce, so expect a decommissioned fusion plant to have all the issues of a decommissioned fission plant (although more about anything near the plasma being radioactive than the spent fuel issues).

While I wouldn't expect them to replace a satellite that still works, I'd at least assume the ability to add capacity if possible. I suspect that the real reason is that you want a load that more than a single provider can put into space, although this is more a "make sure you can get into space (any one provider can be grounded for months at a time)" than "have a chance to negotiate" (although I'm sure the later helps).

Think about xkcd's "orbital mechanics knowledge" cartoon. Pretty much everybody on this forum has stronger grasp of orbital mechanics than people with actual physics degrees (just don't ask me to go back to the Maxwell Equations). I remember the time that I figured out that even in Moon is a Harsh Mistress, RAH had to carefully palm the issue of the Moon's escape velocity and the efficiency of lunar lifters to make the orbital bombardment of Earth sound reasonable. Even "the good ones" often botch it. Not everyone is Arthur C. Clarke (thank God, his characters were horrible). Hopefully if word gets out about a writer working on stuff in orbit, somebody at a con will pull the writer aside, hand him a steam code and insist on landing on the Mun before writing another word.

They keep talking about "waste heat" and >1000C. Why can you stuff a thermocouple in there and not a heat engine (water pipes and whatnot)? Auto cylinder temperatures are less than that, so I'm pretty sure that any such "waste heat" is for industrial use, where adding a turbine could be economically justified (you can do the same on a car and improve mileage by 20%, the real kicker is if you cool the water afterwards (lots of water, heavy) or keep adding water (inconvenient needs to be pure/filtered). Thermocouples make good sensors, and might generate some power if you don't want to run a wire (for power) through the firewall. But I don't think anybody takes them seriously for real power generation.

Am I the only one somewhat surprised that this is even an option? I'd suspect they would be crowing about being able to launch even bigger (and better) birds into GTO. Assuming that bandwidth is limited by power (and thus S/N)*, doubling the power of the bird (which I'd assume means at least doubling the number of solar panels and radiators, which should be a significant increase of mass) would allow an increase of bandwidth by ~70%. While communications over GTO is pretty much "the cheap path" (and not preferred due to high latency), I'd still think that maximizing bandwidth would make sense. * Pretty much all radios are constrained due to power output by regulation. Not so satellites (they only overcome background noise within 1 degree of the bird), so all bets are off on what the real limit is (could be noise introduced by adding more power).

Oddly enough, don't try going at relativistic speed without them. So explaining shields is pretty much as needed (or not) as explaining how you are getting to another star (well first you take some anti-matter...). I'd strongly suspect that creating such a trippy cycling fractal bit in realtime takes roughly the computing power of running KSP*. GPUs are amazing things and most fractal computations fall under "embarrassingly parallel". Look into OpenCL if you want to go deep into fractals. * I've been away from so long it was back when fractint used integer math to compute the things. I'm pretty sure they still have to be "embarrassingly parallel" in which case they are simply no match for even an older GPU (just don't zoom in so far that you need double precision: that will shut down nearly all GPUs).

I don't really think mechjeb does this. And once you are done you will still need mechjeb to follow the gravity turn (personally, I'd just want to optimize for the initial angle (and feed that into mechjeb) and let the thing do a gravity turn, but there's no reason to believe that the moment of inertia of the rocket will give your gravity turn an optimal flight. It also looks like the original assumptions don't employ a "gravity turn" (i.e. allowing the rocket to alter the angle of attack due to the rocket "falling over"). Expect a set of nasty differential equations that have to be approximated numerically and fed into an optimizer.

Launching multiple satellites to GTO sounds good enough, but there are only roughly 180 GTO slots up there, and only a portion of those are particularly valuable. Convincing two of those slot owners to replace GTO birds at the same time is easier said than done. Spacex has the issue that "increasing supply" (by launching cheaply) doesn't seem to increase actual launches, because even LEO satellites are so expensive. GTO birds tend to be even worse (because of the 180 slot limitation), thus making individual launches make more sense (even if you could offer a "double barrel" launch).