TiktaalikDreaming

The like button is just off while they figure out some technical issues with the forum. At first I thought it was another daft mobile css interaction.

Probably a bit warm for meatloaf, more a meat patty thing. 0.00001sec on high sort of cooking. If you like if crispy. Although, at a distance, from say a hover test, it could probably do some snags... where did that idea come from? The shield is placed to protect all the bits. The only downside is that the fissionable fuel storage needs to be kept on the safe side to prevent neutrons getting to it, but then is a source of neutrons on the safe side of the shield. Much milder than the active core or the active neutron emitters, but when doing the shield modelling, they still count. The alternative to just having those green things sitting there would be to include a shielding cover or something. In reality, I don't think they'd be an issue with a suitable propellant tank of huge truck loads of hydrogen in between them and the crew.

In lieu of the like button, I'm just going to reply to show appreciation of this reply. And go off and sacrifice a meat loaf just to be sure. With hot English mustard and gravy.

I figured I should start a thread for this. This engine was originally part of my Nexus mod, but a few people thought it should be split out into it's own. That also gives me the excuse to finally model a solid core nuke engine. As of now, there's a basically functional Gas Core NTR, with two modes, actively cooled, and regeneratively cooled. Some details may change before I consider it "release", but at the moment it's enough to enable me to build a nexus in my revamp process. Blue cards (I just can't call them blue prints, but image thingies in a slightly blue-print style) for the two engines so far. LH2 then LF While it's pre-1.0 it will live only on github; https://github.com/TiktaalikDreaming/TDAPS/releases It shall get a spacedock entry once at least the first engine is done. Kerbal for scale

The alcubiere drive is a combination of known physics (space time bubble) and unknown physics (negative gravity mass) and some crazy level engineering issues like the energy levels required. Is not that we just don't know how to create negative mass yet, we don't even know if such a thing can exist outside the mathematics we invented to understand space time. So far, it's the most plausible way to travel faster than light and at least creates a framework for similar systems, but it doesn't really tick the "known physics" box. And unlike worm holes, only involves killing everyone if things go wrong. But I'm ok with it not being stock. It's not like it won't be a mod within the time frame I'd want one in.

(not disagreeing with the idea) Just checking, but you are aware that cobaltwolf has like his own forum threads?

I'm currently tidying up the TDAPS companion mod for release. The intention there is to have it contain the second stage engines and other non-chemical-rocket propulsion systems for large craft. So (like every other modder) I'll add a NERVA inspired solid core rocket and some other things eventually. If KSP ever sorts out heat and I make sense of it, I intend to add radiators as well. I'll be starting at least focusing on engines suitable for a Nexus second stage, and that wer at least conceptualized back in Convair days. I'm kind of interested if people are after something that needs a resource to be managed. I'm not thinking of making it something horrible, but a built in tank for uranium type of thing. And then you can drop the mass of the engine by choosing less of it, but possibly running out, etc. For the open cycle gas core, it'd be great to have it use extra for startup and shutdown, but without RO there's no mechanism for that.

That's a z pinch fusion drive using deuterium, it's not a star trek impulse drive. The concept is basically the same as other pulsed fusion systems, except the z pinch system may allow smaller devices. It has all the same limits, plus the "we don't know if it works" features common to all fusion drives. The expectation, if it works, is about twice the delta v as compared to a nerva based system. But with a lowish twr (not as low as ion, but lower than nerva).

I added a second "colour" to the shell piece. I'm probably going to add a half black/white one so you can black n white stripe things up as needed. Not going to go nuts adding lots of bonus 4k textures to bloat out peoples' ram use.

Well, you need the low temperatures as well, so you only need the base 3.9 million atmospheres. But cryo alone will only get you regular liquid, and eventually solid, hydrogen. There needs to be some trick to keeping it metallic unless you aim for nano scale tankage. The good news is you can definitely count the tanks as pressure feed and not requiring ullage. But any copv issues would be earth shattering.

While I'm skeptical that metallic hydrogen is generally going to keep being metallic once the pressure drops, I wouldn't be surprised if there was some sort of electromagnetic field arrangement that could keep it without applying pressure physically. Whether you end up with more or less tank mass is another question, but for super conducting magnetic confinement there's a chance that it all makes sense. Throw in a macguffin or two, and I'm sold.

While you're correct in your description of the proton and electron soup that is metallic hydrogen, I think the star theory person meant the nozzle was magnetically confined, not the tankage.

Considering the absolute limits of materials we can theorise (but haven't made yet) are required for an earth elevator that does nothing except support itself, it's a non starter on planets that are larger. Especially when they are as much larger as saturn and jupiter. Even if we assume a super material bound with something stronger than carbon-carbon chemical bonds, it would need to be orders of magnitude greater. And then it would need to contend with the atmosphere all the way down to the core. Including temperatures in the many thousands of kelvin ranges. There's just so many ways for it to be torn apart, all working in scales that are hard to even imagine. Remember jupiter has a storm larger than the earth, with wind speeds above Mach 1(on earth, I'm not calculating the speed of sound in a hot, high pressure hydrogen and helium mix). And then, presumably wrapping the metallic core would be many km of liquid hydrogen, at almost enough pressure to be metallic. Gas giants just aren't messing around. They're very inhospitable. Mainly because all the numbers are massively bigger. A good example is orbital reentry speeds. Even though the upper atmosphere is thin and just hydrogen, hitting that at speeds like 30km/s is very destructive. Anyway, to end this ted talk, if it's metastable, you manufacture it and store it. Naturally occurring stuff isn't accessible.

What would be good is more detail on propellants, with negative consequences of sorts. Like start with diesel oil and rfna, and so on. That would complicate things. Even if they're abstracted, there's a huge difference in the craft for hydrogen vs kerosene fuels. And so on

I haven't done the actual maths, but it seems very unlikely metallic hydrogen engines provide enough delta v to mine metallic hydrogen from gas giants. Once you're down at metallic hydrogen depths, you need something better than that to get out again. Ignoring the issues with developing pressure vessels to withstand the environment. Ifff it's metastable that's fine eventually, but the gas giant cores aren't relying on that. So, you need a propulsion system more capable than mythical metallic hydrogen drives to get out again, simply because your energy source is the compression that caused it, and you'd be experiencing it. The distances and gravity make a pipe or line unworkable for the same reasons space elevators are hard to build, but this would be much much worse. Trips for even sensor dones to gas giant cores are one way without some super science or magic.

Technically the latest results don't say it's not metastable so much as "oops, we lost it". But a metallic hydrogen rocket also ignores the issue that your rocket will melt unless made of unobtainium. And it's likely you're going to need a serious amount of fuel tank insulation even if it is meta stable, not too mention the fuel cost. And you would want to know exactly what can cause it to stop being meta stable. It would be all the issues of hydrogen peroxide but ramped up to stupid levels.

I think it's worth noting that the new devs seem like they're going through the projectrho list of stuff as source material. It's rapidly looking like kerbals do atomic rockets space program.

It IS a kind of reverse Kzinti lesson, a rocketized weapon. That said, there were crazier things thought of than the Orion battleship. There was the doomsday orion idea, a single 86 foot diameter Hydrogen bomb on a robotically controlled Orion. Park it in orbit as a hemisphere clearing deterrent. That's one to give you nightmares.

The trailers make me think they're just advertising the atomic rockets website. I hope they credit their research sources

I didn't post to this topic, how did.... O. In answer, yes, I do intend to port the Orion over to ksp2. Details will need to wait. But I will be aiming at the 10m(kerbalized to 6+m) and the 86 foot thing. Maybe the momentum limited interstellar dyson fusion Orion as well for giggles.

Agreed. It's more productive to speculate on what Star Theory are adding in to the game, and to be honest, if a stack load of KSP1 players start hyping for some feature or other, ST might add it to the base game at this stage. Mods will come later.

Mylar? I've got a laminated tantalum and borated hydrocarbon foam. Um, for the solar radiation. Yep. That's why

To be honest, I know nothing about kspi even though I know a lot of people use it. The gold standard way of dealing with this stuff is to ask for your module manager cache, but I've lost track of where it lives these days. It takes me twenty minutes to find the output log each time since they moved it. Knowing they moved it. What's wrong with /var/log/ I say?! Also, and this is just general, I discovered the breaking ground dlc is in special on steam at the moment. I'm usually one of those people who say the game has provided thousands of hours and the dlc is a drop in the ocean, but buying a house and then trying to sell one after, with a bridging loan, changes your idea of sensible purchasing somewhat. Anyway, this mod shouldn't change with that. I might revisit some things with the Mars lander. Later. And... One fairing partly done and uploaded. Mostly so I can check things work before digging myself deeper into a hole.

Although I've already forgotten what was mentioned, there was no Kollusion. You hear me? NO KOLLUSION! (oh, my avatar is even orangey)

The fairing needs to be lifted above the curve of the heatshield in some way. Not only is this a re-use of that part, but considering I'm aiming at 200pixels/m, more importantly, it means re-use of the texture for the part. As it is, adding the two fairing bases is currently using an extra 4k texture (they share the space), but there's a lot of 4k textures already in the mod, as it often ends up being the smallest I can possibly fit things on to. I'm a bit conscious that having all these massive textures is going to drive away anyone with limited ram. All that said, part re-use makes sens from a rocketry and kerbal perspective as well. The part is (ostensibly) already designed and tested. And, although it's a fair bit taller than necessary, it does achieve that purpose of holding stuff above the heatshield. PS: I spend a fair bit of time on some of these decisions, as I only get to my PC every now and then, and things peculate in my brain in the meantime. I welcome any and all questions so I don't feel I wasted that thinking time. Forgot to say... The fairing for the top of the interstage is inspired by the restock 3.75m fairing, and will get a similar look when I get around to the normal maps etc. I'm going to aim at similar design elements on the top of the 2nd stage fairing, but clearly I'm also aiming at a central and 6 non-central stack nodes. I'm not 100% sold on that yet, I need to add support structure and see how it looks then.