wumpus

KSP as a space simulation with little green men may well be complete. There are always new parts to be designed, but note that things have been steadily leaning to spaceplanes lately (although there are the obvious lack of liquid fuel "rocket shaped" tanks above 1.75m). I suspect that this was one of the reasons that HarvesteR left (moving on to Unity 5 was the last big push it needed, although I still whine about the VAB GUI). KSP as a game (namely career mode) is pretty broken. It really needs a game designer who understands that he is pretty much stuck with the existing structure, and has to somehow build a game where nothing was really planned. This is really a nasty situation which pretty much isn't going to attract the experience it needs: look to mod designers of other games. I guess my first options would be for mod designers who did things like fix the Oblivion leveling system (although that example is far too ancient for the applicants you are looking for). Even then career mode would probably make some really hard decisions. KSP as is (particularly "as HarvesteR insisted on leaving it") makes the current career mode make sense: launching things to even moons is hard unless you have the delta-v of your rocket (manually or through KE). Similarly, launching to other planets requires outrageous delta-v (which of course you don't know anyway...) unless you can roughly compute a launch window (note that simply knowing the right angles between planets works well enough, but this either requires tedious experiments in sandbox or somebody telling you the "correct" angle). These issues almost certainly lead to a "career mode" that involves grinding (and grinding, and grinding) around Kerbol until you finally decide to head out to Duna and beyond (see the entire thread about "do most KSP players ever leave the Kerbol system). It doesn't require a sell off to Microsoft. It does take a careful decision to hire someone in overall charge of the game. Presumably someone capable of game design and at least enough knowledge of software to avoid damaging what HarvesteR wrought softwarewise. Finally, the whole idea that Squad still needs to drive the game forward seems wrong. Squad *did* do one critical thing that no modder could do: port to Unity 5 (and allow more physics threads in use). From here on out I suspect that there will be more [simulation] improvement to the game via mods than from Squad. I suspect this has been true since something like 0.25, but that is simply the mark of a great game that fires the imagination of the community, and not any lack on Squad's part. I'd say the console ports are what KSP really wants to drive up interest: they are at least at the "playable demo stage" well before 1.1 dropped.

That's a very specific example that might apply to a handful of components. Maybe the technology for medium voltage motorstarters hasn't changed much since the seventies. But it certainly doesn't work for most of the mechanical engineering. Hand building rocket engines with thousands of parts and tankage structures like they did in the 60's would be totally uneconomical. Except that NASA *has* rebuilt the F-1 engine. Some parts were likely replaced with modern off-the-shelf-parts. Parts that could be reasonably made were likely made from drawings (not sure). Certainly there existed a nightmare of custom hand-made and welded parts that were simply scanned in 3d and then 3d printed out (there was simply no way to build the thing on a non-SLS NASA budget* the old fashioned way). * I think it was under the SLS umbrella. Just that it wasn't already penciled in as the "decided engine" it remained an R&D project that wasn't about maintaining the pork and had to contain costs. To be honest, NASA PR hasn't been good since Walt Disney was personally handling it. The media just gave them a ton of cover during the 1960s, and success certainly helped for a few years after that. I'm not even sure that SpaceX actually works hard on the PR: If Elon Musk's various project keep hitting their goals (typically late, but they get there) his legend grows no matter what the PR flacks do. And I doubt they could save a big failure, either. But considering that NASA didn't plan on bringing a TV camera on Apollo 11 until the last minute (please convince me this is a myth, googling just hits hoaxes), I really don't expect much in the way of PR savy from them.

Minmus for your first science and ISRU base. The next one is probably Poll (Laythe if you are really into spaceplanes). After that you can pretty much choose your planet by ice cream deposits.

I'm assuming this refueling happens in space? I've tended to assume that any orbit-assembled refueling would contain an entire stage, unless this absolutely would not fit on a single launch vehicle (and even then multiple stages would likely make more sense). While it sounds good, I suspect that any ability to refuel in space would be equally applicable to cross-stage fueling (for situations with separate fuel tanks in detachable stages and refueling the main tank from one detachable fuel tank). That and all non-human cargo leaving orbit is likely going to use electrical propulsion. And ideally some of that refueling (for chemical-powered human flights) after significant levels of delta-v (like in a LTI-sized orbit ready to leave for Mars).

Since they've already replaced one barge (it wasn't all that expensive), I suspect that four landings mean four barges. And "more chances for failure" also means "more chances for success" or really "more statistically significant results". Although it *does* mean that they will have to train up three more teams to safely land the rockets, likely with some extremely expensive failures. The problem is not with Musk himself, but those (guilty!) who try to speculate on any information he may be keeping to himself. Don't even ask about those who insist about recovery reducing costs by >60%.

On rebuilding a Saturn V. First, NASA *has* built an F-1 engine (the main "lost tech" of the SaturnV), pretty much as a minor project (I'm guessing about the backing): http://arstechnica.com/science/2013/04/how-nasa-brought-the-monstrous-f-1-moon-rocket-back-to-life Second, I remember reading in the 1980s (possibly printed in the 1970s) that although NASA still had a Saturn V in the rocket garden, even if it was ready to launch (it wasn't). The idea was that you couldn't learn the entire countdown sequence from what was in the NASA documentation, and too many people were dead, retired, and time had robbed them of the complete memories needed to do the complete procedure. My guess is that a modern Saturn V manufacturer would not be interested in any control systems or much other than the F-1 engine (and possibly the hydrogen engine above it. I'm not much of a fan of the F-1 due to its lousy TWR and how much fuel it burns just to keep itself going). From the linked article, it isn't just that we lost the plans [see below], but that it would be unlikely that a government contractor would be willing to hire and pay for the needed welding skill. Fortunately [the absolute top of the line] 3d printing was able to rescue them and build the "impossible" welds. Way back before google and much of the world wide web (thus making it next to impossible to google), NASA decided to get rid of complete duplicated documentation (in microfiche) during an era that (I think, it was a while ago) included Apollo (maybe just Skylab or Gemini, but it should have included Apollo). One of the copies wound up at the University of Maryland technical library. I'd go look there for as much documentation as you can. The real problem with building a Saturn V is the same as the SLS. Great rocket, but nobody willing to pay to go anywhere with it. Presumably the moment you could come up with a sufficient reason to build a new Saturn V, Congress would finally have a reason to build the SLS.

How did you come to the idea of anything other than three stages for falcon9? Falcon heavy has more (or at least jettisons parts of a "first stage" at different times). I was trying to answer a hypothetical question of spacex using more than two stages (presumably for raptor/MCT) and finding it unlikely (although if they have significantly less engines than falcon9 it might force a hard decision about upper stages). PS. Be a little more specific about a "falcon" having a specific number of stages as there are so two rockets launched with that name and a third scheduled. There is the falcon [1] with two (one merlin, and something else), falcon 9 (9 merlin, one merlin), and falcon heavy (3x9 merlin,[9 merlin (which fired in the first stage)], one merlin).

I have to strongly question the idea that a Spacex craft could benefit from [conventional] three stage flight. Consider falcon9 and falcon heavy. Falcon 9 acts as two stages, and recovers the first with 90% of the engines and disposes of the remaining 10% (which provides something like 2/3 of Falcon 9's delta-v). Falcon Heavy should act like 2 1/2 stages: the center stage sparing itself as much as it can to give the final stage as much delta-v as possible (since roughly the same stage might get twice as much mass to lift, it is going to have to be going faster when separating). Expect a few more holes in ICISLY while they learn to land all over again. The main reason why I question a third stage is that merlin engines are particularly *light*. Fuel tanks are light. Fuel is heavy. If you were using hyrdrogen I would understand a third stage, but with either RP1 or methane that doesn't make as much sense. The second reason is that as far as staging is concerned, there are two classes of stages: recoverable and non-recoverable. Adding engines to recoverable engines does not seem to be an issue (note that for all the pining for a falcon5 on these forums, spacex isn't the slightest bit interested in it). And looking at falcon9's peculiar delta-v budget (1/3 for the lower stage, 2/3 for the upper) I would assume that a third stage would split the upper stages into two unrecoverable stages. I'm guessing the engine that delivered the final 1/3 of the delta-v (or so) would not be the same as in the other two stages. At that point there is either the issue of coming up with the cost for a third engine (merlin, raptor,???) or using the merlin (upper) engine in this last stage. Unfortunately, using a RP1 engine in an upper stage nearly negates all your benefit from the higher ISP of the raptor engine. I just don't see it happening (I wouldn't rule it out, especially if they move to a 4-5 engine group). Note that if I designed the falcon heavy (KSP-style, anyway), I would like to stick a pair of COTS (commercial off the shelf) SRBs to the upper stage (yes, shlepping SRBs up with liquid rockets because I can reuse the liquid rockets). This lets me keep the velocities of the big, expensive rockets low and lets me push the final stage out with rockets I don't have to land. I'm pretty sure somebody ran the numbers, but I really doubt anyone took the idea very seriously. No idea how much basic "we don't do that" had to do with why they didn't or if the numbers just didn't work.

While I'd certainly recommend Scott Manley, beware that his rendezvous/docking explanation is generally not recommended. Personally, I like his method for getting an encounter (it is highly fuel efficient, although some players might just force an encounter in a single orbit), but don't think new players should bother with his glacial suggestion for docking: once you learn to land you should understand chasing the target marker and putting it on the prograde/retrograde makers and keeping them aligned. It makes things much easier that way (but at least start with Scott's slow encounter method. You don't want to do a proper "align the target" docking with a high speed encounter).

To be honest, I suspect that the surviving [what would become birds] population could very easily be called dinochickens and had eggs that mammals could eat. Well at least the surviving mammals. It would be shocking if there wasn't a huge loss in mammalian species in such a dramatic event as the loss of the dinosaurs.

I was under the impression that an automatic pilot was available for some shuttles (it was a kludge that would take up most of the seating space. All it presumably did was use a servo on one side to flick some switches on the other), but not the doomed Columbia (had they been able to launch a rescue, which they really couldn't). One thing to remember was that NASA simply wouldn't launch things into space any other way. Military and commercial launches were possible, but NASA missions (such as to other planets and other scientific missions) would put 7 lives in danger just to fire up the space truck. I understand that lead scientists lost a lot of sleep worrying about this (not to mention anybody connected with the two lost shuttles). And while shuttle downmass might sound useful for mining, I'd hate to think what the end price/pound of shuttle-delivered downmass would be. Adding a heatshield, fairing, and some balancing weights could make asteroid mining possible (assuming an ion-drive hauled the thing into Earth capture), I can't see a shuttle covering the costs. Obviously a well packed (with the inevitable chance of killing 30 or so at once) shuttle to a space station would make sense, but building the ISS was still a large project for the shuttle and a ~6 person ISS was about all it could build (perhaps a Saturn-launched space station with Skylab-sized parts would be different. But a lot would have been different with Saturn, much like Energia).

To other countries? Or simply adjust technologies and perhaps migrate to San Jose and build websites? Or possibly even work for spacex/ULA/Orbital-ATK? (Of course I'm just talking about the contractors. The GS-nn "NASA Employees" would simply migrate to NIST/NIH/DOE (if Goddard: JPL, Houston, and others would migrate to different government agencies). [responding to a different post] As far as government agencies and companies, it has more to do with the size of the typical government agency vs. the size of the company. Not that far from NASA Goddard is Montgomery County Maryland, which (unlike other MD counties) has "county liquor stores". Unlike most ABC stores, these are clean, well stocked, and reasonably priced (don't expect decorations, but don't expect to get a better price in many nearby locations, especially anywhere in VA). I don't think FedEx has a prayer in taking the USPS's <$.50/letter business (USPS is an odd organisation. It does what it does reasonably well, but it can't handle changes *at all*. Don't even think of try building a system that moves that much mail without a bureaucratic nightmare, and don't ask how badly Congress is tying their hands. The real issue with NASA vs. a non-government organisation is derived from Nibb31's point. NASA really can't stop doing *anything*. Once a project is started, it shambles on in zombie form forever (I think voyager no longer sends messages and *might* be shut down, but they tracked that lost soul forever). NASA's shuttle lives on in the SLS project (employing as many of the same people as it can). Selling programs might rely on claims of cost saving, but once they are sold it goes into infinite cost-prolonging. Mission creep happens, and it becomes zombie creep. PS. Put my vote in for blueberries. Because we are asked to choose between apples and oranges.

Just out of curiosity, did HarvesteR stay (I'm not sure he was with Squad when he even came up with KSP) with Squad (looks like danRosas isn't)? One advantage KSP might have over other Squad projects is the visibility and reach of the game, as opposed to simple marketing gimmicks they seem to do for other companies. As far as "development will continue", that might be true, but I suspect that Harvester and others are looking at a decreasing TODO list and an increasing length of time each tick will take and deciding that "built KSP from up from the barn" has all the shine on the old resume that it ever will have. While HarvesterR's permanent veto of N-body gravity might no longer apply, I really doubt that whoever took over really wants to redesign the entire physics system (and re-slay the kraken) to do that. Multiplayer has always been a dream to many, but doesn't play well with the critical game feature of time-warping. One thing that really could use a good overhaul is career mode. It really needs a game designer (HarvesteR is obviously a great programmer. Many of the physics cheats/simplifications are brilliant, and the general GUI is brilliant [although I really wished he re-did the VAB GUI instead of the rocket GUI], but designing a good program/simulation and a good game are completely different) and a better idea of what bits of KSP a career player should experience (right now it seems grind away on Kerbin, then grind almost as long on Mun, then at the very end of the game go visit some planets*). * this might be completely reasonable without KE or launch window calculators. I sometimes forget how difficult "stock" KSP is.

I was building a test design for an interstellar thread (basically just piling drop tanks on drop tanks to see how much delta-v I could get) and came up with the following notes. Getting a mark 1 capsule to ~30km/s isn't that hard, but it will take nukes and several mk2 liquid fuel tanks (your mileage may vary). Make sure you add nukes to various upper stages (where the mass of the engine is nearly insignificant) or you wind up with an hour-long burn to leave Kerbin. Ions are obviously even more efficient, but with worse burn time issues. One thing I ran into was that I couldn't get KE to work with staged ion engines (this might be long since corrected, I really don't play on this partition's copy of KSP). I'd also make sure your kerbals do some harsh negotiation on what "refueling" means. I'm pretty sure you don't want to land the main ~20km/s craft, and it is nearly as unlikely that you want to bring one lander/body. I'd expect plenty of refueling from the main craft. Once that is done, I'd expect other means of leaving fuel depots in places you are likely to backtrack over.

I'd guess that the ISP/vacuum nerfing pretty much killed this. The only advantage using lift would give you is in using low thrust/weight engines (with hopefully higher ISPs). Since most of these engines simply won't work in the "problem altitudes" of Eve, lift doesn't help. Using lifting/gliding airplanes to move fuel from an ISRU location to a high altitude land/launch area might be another story.

Rumor has it that it exists for Shuttle clones. The extreme gimbal range is needed to counteract being attached to the side of the CoM. The shuttle had more gimbal range than any previous KSP engine, don't know if it was as much as the vector.

The 2018 first flight is not planed to be crewed, thus making it far easier to keep the program going without worrying about losing a crew. My personal guess is that the program will grind to a halt before a crewed launch, but that launching a uncrewed Orion will let the program lumber on for years.

I'm not sure you can make it to Mun and Minmus without electrics (probes [but not mk1 capsules] die on a Huhann transfer to Mun, but you *could* go a lot faster). Electrics make things easier, and let you bring Bob (for science resets) and still have SAS. After that, unlock all the science instruments. Not so sure the gravioli is within reach (I think the gravity detector is something else. If not, I have a lot more experiments to do). Grab everything else (you should have mystery goo, themometer, materials bay, baromater, gravity detector). Nuclear rockets are the thing to get you to Duna. Mobile Processing Lab is the thing to get you all the rest of the science (some say that nukes are the thing to get the MPL to Minmus). WARNING: having a MPL in orbit around Minmus may make you want to do an unhealthy grind of science around Minmus, you have been warned. I'm a big fan of the "rocketry" options, the heavier the better. Mostly this depends on liking bigger rockets and SRBs (although mainsail is well into that chain, which eventually is a "must get"). But plenty of people like getting into space in other ways.

That is profoundly irritating. I loved how overpowered airbrakes were (at least up through 1.0.4) and especially liked to use them for reentry. One great trick that they could do was to "invert" the aerodynamics of a booster. Put them down near the engines, and put a heat shield up at the top, and once you opened the brakes, you could convince the thing to come heat shield down (instead of engine down). Any guesses if engines can survive re-entry, or will we need to create new tricks (presumably involving heat shields in odd places) to bring back boosters?

I had made a reply pointing out how KE changes a the game to an "engineering game" from "iterate until it stops exploding". The two games are wildly different, and I can see plenty of people wanting one but not the other. I also recall a thread that was looking for parts nobody uses (presumably parts hit extra hard with the nerf bat would be cheating). I wouldn't be so sure. I checked your mod list and now have to try "Better Crew Assignments". After watching Jeb repeatedly stowing away on rescue missions, I am hoping that one mod is one that "everybody wants" (at least, once they've heard of it).

I started a new career playthrough in 1.1 and noticed a "structural fuselage*" (.1ton empty mk1 cylinder) on the list. It has been critical in adding additional aerodynamic "length" to a craft so the center of mass can be lower. Other than that I'd just say put the drogue chutes higher (they unlock earlier, so are hard to pass up) and hope the bugs don't bite too hard. * comes in "general construction". You probably want struts, mk1 passenger cabin, and launch clamps. The structural fuselage is thrown in as a package deal.

I recently had this bug. It reloaded without ignition, followed by full ignition and losing a part of the spacecraft (no idea if a strut disappeared as well, it happened to fast to tell). Best guess is that it is a bug due to Unity (which handles the physics), but that is impossible to tell outside of Squad.

How long it takes to do interstellar travel in KSP: Max delta-v of a kerbal vessel ~100km/s (I had a 50km/s thrown together for a test, but Kerbal engineer wouldn't include more than one ion stage (20km/s of drop tanks for my nuke). Max speed of such a vessel (assumes three times the delta-v) .001C Time to get to Alpha Centauri: 4000years. Real time at maximum time warp: 2 weeks. Or less than two days if the distance to Alpha Cent is scaled down to 1/10th the size like everything else. Note that 600km/s (assuming you want to slow down) with ion propulsion is *slow* and can only be warped to 4x physical time warp. My guess is that you might take a few weeks of travel to cut down the delta-v requirements. The first 30km/s or so was nukes and "only" took 3 hours of burn. A second try with three stages of ion engines came up to 50km/s during a 2 day burn (this was accelerating a mark 1 capsule, but changing to a command chair (with the needed NTGs) didn't make enough difference). the ~600km/s (in real time) would be ghastly: no idea how many weeks the break-even time in real time would be, but I suspect it would take at least a month.

One problem with software as a whole is that those higher cost bits tend to have lower volume and thus fewer "user testers" to find bugs. They tend to not work. Another issue is that they rely more on salesmanship than on building better software. One thing that Squad should really think long and hard about are "required mods". If things like kerbal alarm clock and kerbal engineer (possibly kerbal attachment system as well) are absolutely required by at least a majority of KSP players (at least the ones who play enough to hit the bugs), then KSP had better not have buggy interactions with them. As long as Squad claims absolutely no support for any of them (with the exceptions of those brought into stock KSP) there will be these problems (I suspect that they unofficially fix some bugs, but can't be sure). I'd really like to know why KSP can't save the state during a quicksave, but I suspect that Squad has a huge list of emails going back to Unity about this very thing (since unity handles the physics...).

If the description was accurate, it would be 0.0.12 as it describes 12 launches of kerbals.