SaturnianBlue

I suppose that name is a Doctor Who reference? Maybe you could use an Orion drive for an initial boost, before activating the fusion engine. The WIP Far Future Technologies mod has a Gasdynamic Mirror drive, which is a type of tandem mirror, so maybe you could use that for KSP.

Looking at the GOES imagery, it looks like Katia just collapsed—the eye isn't visible anymore. Irma's getting close to Cuba, which may be of help for weakening the storm.

True—you'd want consistent tracking of storms, since there may be storms that aren't detected, though i'd imagine that most strong storms would be recorded. For example, the 1950 hurricane season has one of the highest ACE's, and this was before satellite imagery.

True—floating in the gas giants doesn't require vacuum balloons, but hot air balloons don't produce much lift. Lofstrom loops are supposed to be decently cheap—in the several billions of dollars, which would be even less on a Kerbal scale. Building a floating gigawatt power station might be a bigger concern, especially without fusion. I'm a bit curious as to what you mean by space fountains being smaller—I haven't found too much on the topic, but a lot of sites imply having it going all the way to geostationary, though having ships ride mass streams is a rather simple idea that wouldn't require that tall a structure, admittedly. I'm excited to see the steam-rider post—I might even add it to this chapter. With the tokamak I was imagining that the products would be heated directly by the fusion products, since I was imagining an afterburner fusion engine specifically. Also, what fusion should I use, considering I have D-D, D-T, T-T, He3 Catalyzed D-D, D-He3, D-Li6 available. @Kosmonaut I don't think ion engines would work for that task—using a low thrust antimatter drive or just fusion would be more effective, and the fact that it doesn't have to use antimatter for the whole trip is helpful. If you've got a massive laser installation on the other end, you could use it to slow the vessel down.

@ProtoJeb21 I wouldn't say Irma is annular—though its eye is quite large, it is nothing close to that of Isabel, for example. There's also a lot of outflow, and Wilma was kind of the opposite of annular—it had the smallest eye for a hurricane ever. I don't think it'll reach it's previous strength, but a category 5 is quite possible. Jose could prove to be a second hit for the Leewards, and it doesn't help that Irma damaged a lot of structures still standing Surprising that Katia hasn't become a major—it intensified much slower than I would've expected, and it's got 6 hours to go till landfall. Even without Jose becoming a Cat 5, or Katia becoming a major, the Atlantic has produced more ACE today than any other day on record. We're already at the average ACE for a season, and we've had three category 4+ storms in a row (1st time), and three category 2+ storms at once (2nd time). Lastly, we've had two storms at 150 mph winds at once, which has never been recorded. The 2017 hurricane season is doing things that even the 2005 season never did.

@MatterBeam For the next chapter, I've been working on a interplanetary passenger vessel. The propulsion is a tokamak drive (the same one from the fusion propulsion chapter). What would be the ideal electrical generator for that variety of rocket?

Non-Rocket Spacelaunch—Part Two For now, I conclude this chapter on non-rocket space launches, which covers launch loops and orbital rings. Launch Loop How It Works The loop in the name comes from how the structure runs in the upper atmosphere, before looping around and moving along that same path in reverse, before looping back. When the structure is deactivated, it lies on the ocean, which means that it can be assembled there, too. This loop is mere centimeters in diameter, with an iron tube known as a rotor, which moves at over orbital velocity, surrounded by the sheath, and separated by a vacuum. The rotor moves at a speed higher than the normal orbital velocity, so it begins to rise as it is sped up, supporting the structure’s weight. At a certain height, the stream is deflected by anchors to travel parallel to the surface. There are two stations on both ends of the elevated section, and payloads are brought up on a cable to the one on the west side. The payload is then accelerated by taking momentum from the rotor to orbital velocity, where it is then released or it runs to an even higher speed. Each loop can launch dozens of vehicles each hour. The launch loop can also be used to land vessels, and the kinetic energy can be used to power a launch. Disadvantages At full power, the loop would be carrying a tremendous amount of energy. However, a catastrophic failure would likely only damage part of the loop, due to its sheer size. Since the structure is built over an ocean, falling portions of the launch loop would be unlikely to cause serious damage, and parachutes could lessen the effects. Uses The launch loop is best used for atmospheric worlds, where one must get over the atmosphere to reach orbit. This makes it useful on Kerbin, and especially Eve, since its high gravity makes tensile structures like space elevators more difficult to build, and launch loops in the gas giants will only need to elevate the endpoints, while the active support the rotor produces elevates the upper portion. Another benefit is the small diameter of the loop, making the structure light, which is very important for the gas giants, where one must resort to vacuum balloons. A variant of the launch loop, the power loop, can be used to store energy. How Can It Be Achieved In KSP? The launch loop would probably be best depicted by drawing or just describing it, but perhaps you could create segments of the track, and show only those in the screenshots taken. That said, the launch loop would probably be impossible to see, except for possibly the station. It is easy to portray what happens after taking off the launch loop—just use hyperedit to boost the ship to the ideal velocity. Many vessels may use a rocket motor at the apoapsis to raise the ship’s altitude, so at least that can be portrayed well. Orbital Rings How It Works A metal ring is built around the planet, which can be built at any inclination. If a current runs through the material, it is possible to build around it, and that structure will remain stationary relative to the ground. However, this means more mass is added, with no change in momentum. To compensate, the ring is spun faster than orbital velocity. To allow a connection to the surface and to keep the ring stable, we can build cables out of Kevlar or Zylon, which can be used to bring cargo and people up. These cables can also connect directly to cities, and allow for quick commutes between distant cities, using maglevs on the ring to get to the other side of the world in minutes. The circular nature of the ring allows speed to be built up slowly and steadily, as a ship makes its way around the ring. Even though the ring is not straight, its large turning radius makes certain forces acting on an accelerating vehicle quite low. Orbital rings can be elliptical as well. Disadvantages Built like a skyscraper block. Though such a ring could probably be built around Kerbin with “modern” technology, there simply isn’t the demand to build such a thing. Additionally, gathering the resources for the construction of the ring will be difficult, and a robust mining industry on the Mun will have to exist, since bringing up resources from Kerbin or any major planet would be difficult, even with the construction of launch loops and other systems—the sheer volume of resources that will be sent from the Mun will outweigh that. In the case of a failure, the orbital ring would fall, but parachutes would be used to slow it down. As for the spinning sections, they would likely shoot outwards, due to its speed. Uses The orbital ring doesn’t just make space travel cheap like an airplane ticket—it would probably like a rather short train ride in cost. Not only would it open up day long trips to space possible for just about anyone, it allows them to get to anywhere near the path of the ring in little time, and especially large versions allow for massive amounts of freight to move around as well. Perhaps they would usher in a final stage in globalization, with millions commuting on them to work, everyday. When applied to other worlds, we can see that it allows workers to live in spinning orbital habitats, and they will only have to experience low gravity during work, greatly reducing the effects of prolonged exposure to microgravity. Multiple rings can be built outwards from Kerbin, connected by tethers, allowing a direct connection to Kerbostationary orbit, and even the Mun. An extreme use of the orbital ring would be to create a huge strip above the planet, and use it as living space in a concept known as a supramundane planet, which could allow mass settlement above a gas giant. How Can It Be Achieved In KSP? 3,800 kilometers of this?! Again, it is very difficult to actually portray the entire thing in-game. The fact is, it is much simpler to create sections of the ring—besides, by the time you can look at the entire ring, it would likely be barely visible, or drawing a few lines may be all that is necessary. Unfortunately, the section of the orbital ring portrayed would have to be stationary relative to the surface, which is clearly unsustainable, and even if you could build a ring around Kerbin or even GIlly, who knows how it may react, especially since the physics behind a real orbital ring aren’t simulated in KSP. End of Chapter XXII Thanks for Reading! Next: Ship Design

Katie does have a chance to rapidly intensify though - it might hit Mexico as a major hurricane, and I wouldn't be surprised if Jose already is one. I think it's likely we could see three major hurricanes at once, something even 2005 didn't achieve. Already, all three hurricanes have watches assigned to various areas. I feel like 2016 was sort of like 2003 in the sense that both had an intense category 5 that caused most of the damage for that season, and were active seasons that seem to lead into even more active seasons... 2004 and 2017.

Yikes, I wouldn't want to be on that flight!

The Barbudan Prime Minister said that 90% of the buildings on Barbuda have been destroyed. Irma's central pressure has fallen to 911.3 MB. In other news, Jose is now a hurricane, and is expected to become a major in a few days, and Katia, which was a low end tropical storm this morning, is already a hurricane.

There's usually one en-route, in the storm, or one returning. Here's the site I track them with. Now down to 917mb...

We're already quite on par for storms with seasons like 2008, though they already had 3 major at this point. Not quite like 2011, which already would've had Maria form, as well as an unnamed tropical storm, or the even more active 1995, which would've had Luis on this date. Edit: Pressures of 920 millibars detected in the storm...

Jose from 1999 was a Category 2, but it seems quite likely that this will be stronger—already predicted by the NHC to reach just short of major status. I don't expect much from TD 13, but it's still worth tracking.

For such a strong storm, it's a little shocking to see that Irma's pressure is at 926 mb—all other hurricanes in the North Atlantic that ever got this strong were sub-900 mb storms. After the immediate danger affecting the Leewards, the big question will be when Irma turns. There are now three storms in the Atlantic—quite the strong indicator of an active September. Edit: Irma has now produced more ACE than all of the other storms before it combined.

Irma is officially the strongest storm of the season with 938 mb and 150 MPH winds... Category 5 looks almost certain, and I think the storm might even be annular now.

I tried to draw a world map from memory—here's the result. North America was pretty decent, as Europe is probably the best, Where I screwed up on was the African and South American west coast, and Australia was pretty meh.

For me the sunlight was a little reddish today, I think it's being caused by the wildfires in Canada. I'm no meteorologist, but as far as I can tell, the GFS has gained quite the reputation recently for having a rather inconsistent record, developing a storm and then choosing not to in the next run. As for other models, if I recall correctly, the UKMET has a pretty good reputation, and while the HWRF is pretty bad for forecasting storms before they form, its apparently a good model for storm intensity once it develops. State of Emergency has been declared for Florida. This is merely my opinion, but Irma is looking like a bit like Matthew for track, but it might actually strike Florida this time... Jose better not pull a Jeanne...

Aircraft reconnaissance is showing category 4 level winds, so Irma is going to be upgraded, probably. The pressure is around 944 millibars, which isn't far from that of Harvey's minimum. A hit on Cuba or Hispaniola's becoming increasingly likely, and a turn towards Florida. Irma's ACE is already at 17.3—taking the season, which was mostly below average in terms of ACE, several days ahead of average in the most active phase of the season. Edit: The tropical wave behind Irma is becoming consistently more likely to form (40 % in the next 2 days, 70% in the next 5), and the system in the Bay of Campeche is being given 40/50% chances for formation in the next 2 or 5 days. Edit 2: Irma is officially a Category 4 hurricane, and in the next few days it is expected to reach 150 MPH winds... Florida is officially in the 5 day cone of error.

Good idea, I've been thinking about a space warfare series, and I could probably write a whole chapter for that. Before I start on that though, I've been thinking about a dedicated chapter for designing a ship.

A question for readers: what topics would you like to see be covered in this story? Keep in mind that I generally want to cover topics as applied to the KSP setting, since certain topics are made somewhat redundant by other (and admittedly better) sites.

Yep, the GFS is still suggesting an 880 millibar storm, and even the ECMWF is going with something like 920 millibars. The ECMWF is probably the more realistic option (the GFS apparently has a reputation for over estimating storms in that area), and that's still a category 5. That's still over a week away, so things can change. Edit: Luckily for the GFS, there's a model that's a bit more... Extreme in its prediction...

Hurricane watches have been issued for the Leewards. The first recon flight pass gives a pressure reading of 958.6, which is something like a whole ten millibars lower than expected, and winds of 98 knots. The NHC's map for the wind field shows that Irma's has expanded, along with a huge burst of convection. Since Irma's getting ever closer to warmer waters, I think it's going to be mostly strengthening from here, and while I don't really believe that Irma will end up like the current GFS runs (a sub-900 mb Cat 5 off the east coast), it'll very likely surpass Harvey in intensity.

I do use the hanger extender mod, but eventually the nodes for moving parts around just disappears at a certain distance.

Didn't think of hyper edit—I don't use that function often, but it should work, and I should try it out. As for space elevators, wouldn't it take more like 9 hours at 300km/h? That's about a day and a half in Kerbin days, which isn't too bad. I don't think I've heard of the staged rotating tether, but it should work for Kerbin, and would be even more effective since orbital velocity there is so much lower than for Earth. There are mods that extend the interaction range a lot, but the limitations of the VAB's editor is hard enough.

Non-Rocket Spacelaunch—Part One In this chapter, I discuss the various methods and benefits of non-rocket space launch systems, and how they could be achieved in KSP. I’ve mentioned them quite a lot in the colonization series, but here’s a more in-depth look. The reason for building a non-rocket launcher is that rockets tend to be very expensive to launch, even with reuse, while these methods are almost always reusable and consume few resources. Mass Drivers A fairly simple idea—a payload is loaded into what is effectively a huge coilgun and accelerated to high speed. This approach works best on airless worlds, where there is no need to pump air from the barrel, or elevate the track to avoid most of the atmosphere. Mass drivers can even be used as an onboard propulsion system by firing pretty much anything out the back of the spacecraft, though this could create a lot of dangerous debris. A mass driver ship like this could be quite effective if it's pushing an asteroid, which can provide the reaction mass. Disadvantages The track would have to be kilometers long to accelerate payloads with kerbals onboard, to ensure their comfort or at least safety. As with many of the upcoming methods, these are unlikely to be built anywhere until significant activity and colonization begin, as it uses a tremendous amount of energy. Additionally, they can be repurposed as a massive bombardment weapon, accelerating massive multi-ton projectiles to orbital velocity. They probably couldn’t be turned, but they would still have massive destructive potential, and are very difficult to intercept. Uses These would be very useful on the Mun (and other moons), where they could ship massive amounts of material down to Kerbin, or to Kerbostationary for the construction of massive space stations, without the need to attach any onboard equipment. The amount of mass the regolith that would be used in some designs for radiation protection would be a significant portion of the station’s, and it would be extremely expensive to launch that from Kerbin using rockets. How Can It Be Achieved In KSP? In the case of a story, one can simply describe it, or potentially draw it (like I do, often times). However, portraying it with KSP would be more visually entertaining than writing and allows for multiple shots to be taken of the same thing, compared to drawing it. Over 100 metric tons of cargo right into orbit. Thankfully, my work is mostly cut out, thanks to the Netherdyne mass driver mod. For a lot of electric charge, the parts in the mod accelerate parts at high G. This is very good for unkerballed vessels, but for tracks best suited for kerbals, one would have to stack a rather ridiculous amount of parts, and I don’t think anyone wants 1 frame a second. For long tracks, it may just be easier to draw them, or if you’ve got significant modding experience, to maybe make installations for Kerbinside. Another solution would be to mod a very, very big mass driver part. @MatterBeam suggests using the hyperedit mod to boost the speed of the ship to simulate the acceleration during the launch, and to use a small amount of welded parts to create the structure. Conclusion Mass drivers are a great method for shooting massive amounts of resources into space, especially in vacuum, though they do have their military uses. As soon as such a thing is built on a moon or planet, the colonies there can become far more profitable. Space Elevator A rather simplified diagram. Perhaps the best known launch system that doesn’t involve rockets, the space elevator uses a huge tether that extends into space, usually where a stationary orbit is. Actually, that’s a bit of an oversimplification—a counterweight is necessary to account for the tension of the tether, requiring more centrifugal force. This is also where the gravitational and centrifugal forces cancel out—if you step off the station, you’ll be in a circular orbit. Interestingly enough, this means that if the cable goes out enough, you could put yourself on a trajectory to other planets. The climber section is the one involved in the transportation of cargo and people. As long as there is a tether for each hemisphere, it is unnecessary to build the base at the equator. Challenges and Disadvantages The tether must be constructed of materials with extremely high tensile strength. Luckily, Kerbostationary orbit is only 2868 kilometers from sea level—well within the breaking length of carbon nanotubes or graphene, and that’s assuming one G of gravity the whole way (which is incorrect). However, those materials are currently very expensive to create, and even a thin thread amasses many tons. Even though such materials may be much easier to synthesize, the space elevator might only need zylon or even kevlar for it's tether. A serious issue facing the climber portion is how it will get the power to climb the elevator—solar power would not provide enough, but using beamed power may be a viable solution, especially with nuclear fusion. While there are many fears relating to the destruction of space elevators, the actual threat is fairly mild. If a tether is cut, it will most likely burn up—though this is not true for airless worlds. However, the mass and the thinness of the tether ensure that damage on the ground would be limited. If the break occurs near the counterpoint, the assembly below will begin to fall. To limit the destruction, the cables can be cut from the space station to prevent its reentry. A major issue is what would happen to the climbers in the case of a cable break. Below a certain point, they will be headed into the atmosphere—requiring parachutes and heat shields. Above that, they will remain in orbit, where they can await rescue. Lastly, space elevators will not be particularly useful for locations where a stationary orbit is impossible, which is true of many moons. Uses They would be a very popular way of reaching space, especially for Kerbin, since they allow for traffic to travel both ways. Compared to the mass driver, it would be more comfortable, though reaching orbit would take significantly more time. However, it would result in the creation of Kerbostationary space stations built around the elevators, acting as hubs for kerbals and cargo headed both to and from Kerbin. Out here, the delta-V requirements for reaching other planets is low, and the day-long orbit will not require multiple burns for lower acceleration ships. These would be useful for other planets, since they will be able to launch payloads back to Kerbin simply by releasing them at the right time. How Can It Be Achieved In KSP? To my knowledge, there are no mods that add a space elevator to KSP. I imagine that a space elevator could be made using the Kerbinside mod, which adds static structures, though you might have to make your own space elevator model. Very tall heights can be achieved in game by editing craft files with launch clamps, but plenty can go wrong with that. Another method is to use the welding mod, but I believe you cannot weld other welded parts, and even with hanger extender, one cannot scroll too far, so it is very difficult to stack the somewhat short welded sections (limited by how many parts you can weld before crashing the game to part count). You could probably do away with the tether section and pretend it’s there, but you’ll need some depiction of the tether for scenes featuring climbers, though drawing a few lines may be enough to fix that. The default version of the welded part was 6 kilometers long. At the surface, you could probably have the base building (made with parts or Kerbinside), and a long beam going up for a fairly convincing portrayal. Admittedly I drew that line in... Without an actual tether, ships that are not at the Kerbostationary level will have to make sure they maintain a horizontal surface speed of zero if they want to act like they are on one, as opposed to just hooking up with the tether part, where there is no need to correct speed, just stay on the tether. Depicting the elevator at Kerbostationary would be rather simple, since anything there already has no surface speed, so there is no need to correct. Skyhooks and Space Tethers The basic skyhook involves a tether in orbit, which stretches down to the upper atmosphere. Since the orbital period of the skyhook is where its center of gravity is, anything below it would orbit slower than normal, meaning that ship can reach orbit while burning far less fuel. Above the center, the opposite is true, allowing ships or cargo to be flung away to higher orbits. Captured ships can be lowered or raised to reach the speed and orbit of choice. The skyhook can be combined with a mass driver to further reduce launch costs. A variant of the skyhook is the rotovator, which is a spinning version of the skyhook. If the tip is spun in the direction opposite to the direction of the orbit, the speed of the tip relative to the ground can be reduced to zero. The tip will have to stay above much of the atmosphere on Kerbin, but it may be possible on Duna for payloads to be scooped right off the ground, and into space to the other side, where the rotation of the rotovator is an additional speed boost that can be used to reach a destination. A major advantage of the skyhook is that it is cheap—the tether can be much shorter than that of a space elevator, resulting in a much lower mass, meaning that it can be lifted very easily into space, perhaps in a single launch. This makes it an ideal near future alternative for reaching space. It will pay for itself very quickly, since even supersonic aircraft can reach it, which should be much cheaper to operate than rockets. You'll probably need more money to build this plane than to manufacture the tether. Disadvantages One of the issues involved with the skyhook is that though it is cheap initially, it is likely to be surpassed by other methods, which could launch more payload for less cost per kilogram. Additionally, though skyhooks can be used to transport cargo down, the payload must approach at a specific speed. When a tether captures and releases a payload, some of the energy and momentum is transferred to it. This means that the tether’s orbit will drop, until it reenters the atmosphere and burns up. One way to solve this is by using engines, but another can be used if a magnetic field is present. If the tether is made of a conductive substance, a current can be run through it, and the Lorentz force can be utilized. Uses They would likely be one of, if not the first launch systems employed on most worlds, when it isn’t yet viable to build other, more expensive options. They would be heavily employed on Eve and Jool—the former is home to very high gravity, making construction of space elevators difficult, while the latter just doesn’t have the demand for larger systems, and both have powerful magnetic fields for stationkeeping. How Can It Be Achieved In KSP? In theory, a highly modified Kerbal Attachment System may work for a tether, and it works for the bit responsible for grabbing the ship. Even if this can be achieved, intercepting the skyhook tip will be incredibly difficult, and a rotovator may have to be spun up every time it loads. Using the welding mod to create huge structures is an alternative, and the structure wouldn’t face the issue of having to support itself on the ground like a space elevator, but it would face similar problems like KAS. I attempted to do create a skyhook, and while it worked in the VAB, the game would crash for a whatever reason during the loading scene. This is unfortunate, since the skyhook would fit in with even near future settings. We may have to stick to just our imagination with skyhooks. End of Chapter XXI Thanks for Reading! Next: Non-Rocket Spacelaunch—Part Two