Terwin

We currently have: Cargo bays that protect their contents (in 1.0) Improved aerodynamics that will hopefully only cause drag-heat on parts with leading edges (in 1.0) Most of the stock parts tolerate temps of 3000 K+ (Including all stock wings at ~3400 K, structural panels at 3200 K and some parts up to 5000 K such as modular girders) While I can see that this may not be adequate if you want an impactor to hit Kerbal a multiple KM/sec, I do not see why this should not be sufficient for most other cases. From this page:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_thermal_protection_system "The Space Shuttle thermal protection system (TPS) is the barrier that protected the Space Shuttle Orbiter during the searing 1,650 °C (3,000 °F) heat of atmospheric reentry. A secondary goal was to protect from the heat and cold of space while on orbit.[1]" So, that 3400 degrees for stock wings and 3000 degrees for stock MK2-3 parts seems like it already includes at least as much of a heat shield as is used by the space shuttle. So, if you find that your reentry vector is such that it could not be survived by the space shuttle, then I would agree that you probably need a dedicated heat-shield, but I also suspect that there is not really anything realistic that could help your craft survive in that situation. Add in that LKO is much slower than LEO(LEO is close to 8km/sec, while LKO seems to be a little above 2km/sec) and additional heat-shielding starts to seem pretty silly. Correction: I failed to notice that Kerbal part temps are in Kelvin, 3000 degrees kelvin is 2726.85c or 4940.33F As such the only stock parts I have found that do not make the space shuttle thermal protection system look like easily flammable kindling are the probe cores that can only withstand a measly 1200K (1700F or 926C)

I hope so, I'm trying to use a claw as a means to dock my rover with my lander(trouble getting docking ports to line up, expected to be worse in different gravities due to shock-absorbers), and if I drive my rover into an activated claw, the planet Kerbin disappears.

* I have never calculated my own Delta-v, I always use the KER readout or something similar. * I can never let my Kerbals die or be stranded(that is what revert, F5 and mod-F5 are for) * I have re-loaded some games more than a dozen times trying to get the same landing right(on Minmus even) * I landed on the dark side of the Mun without illumination before ever getting a ship to Minmus(but it took many game-loads to get down safely) * Half my trips to the Mun or Minmas haul along the second stage because it is not yet out of fuel(first 2 stages get me into orbit using fuel cross-feed) I have even brought it back because my nuclear engines never finished burning the last of the 'get into orbit' fuel(with 5Km/s in the lander stage never even touched) * I can't seem to land on Mun or Minmas unless I zero my orbital velocity and fall from at least 1 km up * My jets all have parachutes and only one of the designs has ever landed intact without dangling from a parachute(it has 9 small wheel pods: 1 on each of 4 wing-tips, 1 in the front, 2 in the back, and 2 more on a modular girder sticking out of the back past the engines, and I still need to parachute it half the time) * in my first science career(I started in March with 0.90), I visited almost all of the KSC biomes for science before I ever went to the Mun or Minmas * I uninstalled FAR because it messed up my rockets(uncontrollable spinning mostly) * I have only once visited a body outside of the Kerbin SOI(Dres, in a sandbox game started for that exact purpose, and he ran out of fuel before being captured by Kerbin) (I have sent ships, but I don't like to time warp more than a day or so at a time)

Sorry it took me so long to share them, but here are A few pics of my own platform Shared from my google drive as there are about 30 of them and I don't want to slow the thread loading for others.

Cool idea, but you are not using it to it's full potential. Why not add some horizontal speed as well? Above 14000m it should not be too difficult to get a horizontal velocity of around 1000m/s and that would put you at nearly half of orbital velocity... With more air intakes you could probably also get higher and faster. I'll need to look at building one of these as a first stage money saver...

Was this ever done? I am using contract pack v0.5.0, Contract configurator v0.7.9, and SCANsat v10.0 (all up to date according to CKAN) and every time I go back to my scan probe it says I have 1 day 29 minutes and 59 seconds to go, even if it was lower the last time I left.

What exactly is the distinction between a vehicle with full self-repair functionality and one that is 'organic' or 'alive'? What if it can fully develop from a small pod, and such pods can be produced from a fully developed vehicle? Could we even tell if an advanced alien ship was alive vs having really good self-repair without a detailed examination? What if the ship started as a lithovore that exudes a metallic shell? I think the distinction is not so clear as we might think, and as our technology gets better the distinction will get to be less and less. (which is more 'alive'? The self-repairing vehicle that can bud off new ships like itself with no organic heritage or the heavily modified, but still technically 'alive' giant crustation that has an exoskeleton currently in use as the outer hull of a ship with no ability to reproduce or even repair the outer hull?)