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DDE
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Posts posted by DDE
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21 minutes ago, magnemoe said:
Orion is not very pointy, too me it looks like an flattened Apollo capsule. Dragon looks more like the soyus pod with an flatt top.
What's bizarre about Orion to me is that the LES Boost Protective Cover is rounded and gives it a Soyuz shape!
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3 hours ago, Veeltch said:
I still don't know why doesn't it have a normal tri-cycle undercarriage. Because of weight?
Yep, and because of how little space is in the wings. Its Soviet cousin has less than half the range, but it's not such a crazy ride on the landing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myasishchev_M-55
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Guys, they deorbited Mir in the Pacific. Case on controlled scuttling closed.
As to uncontrolled, see Skylab. NASA owed the Shire of Esperance A$400 for littering until 2009, and just one kid found 24 fragments around his home; air tanks seemed to have proven particularly durable.
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9 hours ago, Just Jim said:
OK... This morning I'm watching old old Irwin Allen movie called "The Lost World". Movie is from 1960, and the story looks to be taking place in the same year. Typical cheesy sci-fi movie: Helicopter crashes on a hidden plateau in Brazil full of dinosaurs, scientific expedition is trapped, etc, etc... Plus some really campy looking giant lizard dinosaurs.
OK, all this I expect. But what really killed me is when a couple scientists are watching giant lizard dinosaur, and one scientist looked at the other and asked, "Shouldn't we get some some evidence?"
And the other scientist answered, "Evidence? What, do you expect to drag that thing down the plateau?"
And then the dino tried to eat them, so they ran away... lol....That's when I realized that not one of these scientists, on a scientific expedition no less, thought to bring along a simple camera!!!
I face palmed so hard I nearly knocked myself out.....
Well, if we go back to the original Conan Doyle novel, Professor Challenger tried to defy that trope and had a camera, back in the day when they were a lot less portable...
Naturally, a boating accident on the way back left him with one severely damaged negative, producing a single conspiracy theorist-quality image. His predecessor escaped with a small pterodactyl bone.
Of course, the canonical ending is the team dragging a pterodactyl all the way to London.
9 hours ago, vger said:I like Star Wars as much as the next guy, but seeing Space Shuttles maneuver like that in Armageddon drove me absolutely crazy. I gave it a bit of a pass because "Alright, maybe they're implying that there's a bit of atmosphere around the asteroid. " But the part where they were docking with the spinning space station was one of the most chalk-board-scratching things I have ever seen.
Armageddon is pretty funny. It's clear that they initially listened to NASA advisors - for instance, the overall mission sequence is quite correct, as it compensates for the asteroid's relative velocity, something I wouldn't expect Hollywood to think about - but then they stopped listening and went full science-fantasy.
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On 23.04.2016 at 0:21 AM, FungusForge said:
No war has been waged without the thought that something would be gained from it. If you know you can take it for yourself, why would you destroy it?
Yes, but going in for close-in combat you expose yourself to a lot more risk even from an inferior force, assuming you can't snipe individual hostiles with killer crowbars from orbit. So if you value your forces, you would probably be willing to risk ordnance rather than close-in attack platforms.
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Except in KSP, this whole thing would have exploded long ago.
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On 27.04.2016 at 4:10 AM, Kryten said:
They got development funds for a commercial product, how is that not a subsidy?
Because it's not a subsidy if you get services in return?
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1 hour ago, KerbalKid said:
That one scene in interstellar when he falls into the blackhole. You're dead you can't survive falling into a black hole
[citation needed]
There's a paper that suggests entire civilizations can settle inside the event horizon.
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6 hours ago, PB666 said:
No need to rebuild, there almost complete one lying on its side about 20 miles from here.
And what makes you think that a museum exhibit is to any degree usable. Sure, it's not covered in as much bird crap as this 95% complete second Buran:
But it's still an unflyable hunk of metal.
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Oh Kraken, where are my backups, how many backups do we have, Gus!?
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19 hours ago, Nibb31 said:
It also had hatches for the ET umbilicals and attachment points that closed after the ET was jettisoned.
Yeah, but I think the Shuttle would have a slightly lower aerodynamic load than a simple capsule, wouldn't it?
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2 hours ago, p1t1o said:
OMG gotta give a special shout out to new blockbuster XMEN Apocalypse.
Spoilers I guess:
Wherein Apocalypse causes all nuclear ICBMs to launch *stright the heck upwards* and on reaching "space" just...sorta...stop. Cos you know, now they are in spaaaaaaaace where everything juuuust floooaaaats.
I faceplamed so hard everyone thought I was applauding. (not really but omg)
I guess both Halo: Reach and CoD: Infinite Warfare both fall into the "orbit is when you go high enough and gravity stops" trap too.
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22 hours ago, kerbiloid said:
Probably, this mockup is as common with reality, as a hydrogen bomb scheme in a schoolbook, though.
Nope. Because of a treason case involving some Chinese, this particular scheme, which also deviates from the textbook design, was actually declassified and widely corroborated.
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20 minutes ago, Nibb31 said:
I believe there have been plenty of occasions where astronauts have puked. About 20% of them experience "space-sickness" on their first orbital flights, so it's a pretty common condition. I think it's even mentioned in the Apollo 13 movie.
Yeah, they surely have dedicated barf bags. But that's in IVA.
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5 minutes ago, Atlas2342 said:
Sure you can!
Its just that you'll die.
Not on all suit types. Say, the Orlan has a non-removable helmet.
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5 hours ago, RainDreamer said:
Well there was an astronaut that survived when the helmet was flooded with water while EVA, so I imagine this too may be possible. And I wonder if the content of someone's stomach can actually fill the helmet.
Yeah, but first the stuff is in one's mouth. I haven't seen any first-person accounts of zero-g puking, but I imagine it can get messy; and I remember how much all first aid guides bang on about preventing an unconscious person from choking on their puke. Combine that with being stuck in a helmet that you can't take off, and I see a potentially lethal situation.
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5 minutes ago, wumpus said:
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.
Precisely, because the program schedule is almost disturbingly slow. I seriously wonder if it's the optimal way to do it, compared to a more rushed schedule.
I remember a very old jocular presentation I saw, about managing projects. The Smart Guy's proposed progress graph was a long flat line with the peak the end.
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On 27.04.2016 at 8:29 PM, wumpus said:
First: are you sure the "pointy end" goes down? Unless they put most of the Plutonium or other mass in the pointy end, I'd expect it to be at the top. Think of a raindrop: if it is remotely of uniform density (unlike a mark1 capsule on top of an empty fueltank...) it will fall pointy end up.
They do, as we know from the W88; it's unconventional but doable.
As to the OP subject, it's a combination of ablative heat shielding, carbon-carbon, and, in some designs, an entire layer of uranium, which is very difficult to melt.
The cavity up front actually forms itself out of a perfectly conical heat shields.
And while it seems that insulation is a very big issue, the g-force tolerance is not. Remember how the steep entries in KSP can easily lead to 12 g or more, while saving ablator? The nuke coming down from the 1800 km apex doesn't care for your g's.
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On 02.05.2016 at 6:50 PM, N_Molson said:
So avoid designing spacecraft were the Kerbals are "eyeballs out", they'll appreciate
This didn't prevent NASA from designing their Apollo-Venus variant just that exact way.
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On 11.02.2016 at 9:38 PM, fredinno said:
There will always be enough oil for rockets due to Unconventional Oil Production- at least for the foreseeable future.
The Soviets used to load Soyuz launchers with Synthene (which is, uh, synthetic) with no change to the systems.
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Uh, OP, could you please start a poll? I'm most peeved by Archidemian physics in space dogfights. A missed opportunity for some spectacular maneuvering, and it wouldn't cost as much, as, say, depicting combined arms land warfare.
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16 minutes ago, RenegadeRad said:
wot
It's called a qualitative breakthrough. NASA has a longer history of those, too.
The concept comes from Purnelle's fiction, and I don't see how they can't create a closed-cycle Project Pluto-LANTR hybrid, which would make winged SSTOs quite advantageous. Because now, they really aren't.
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Chapter 8: Breaking Point
There was one more launch to go, but this one was pretty exotic.
Thor was built on the same chassis as Odin, and was largely identical, but it used a full-size Terrier-Dachshund launcher.
That was because it was pushing the envelope, aiming for an orbit beyond that of the Beacon Array.
It slipped into position, assuming an orbital period of exactly one Kerbin day, and would hence remain permanently stuck in the sky above the KSC, its multispectral cameras and cavity radiometers tracking the weather patterns down the launch path.
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The next launch was even more peculiar. The Dachshund core was fitted with new Sickle boosters also carrying embedded fuel tanks.
The Pathfinder was first delivered into a 250 km parking orbit.
“Flight program compiled and sent,” Gene intoned, “Transmunar injection in 60 seconds.”
“So we ARE coming back to the Mun,” Val noted.
“In an extremely cheapskate and risk-free way, yeah!” Jeb responded.
The Terrier motor reignited. It burnt, and burnt, and burnt, until the stack was headed onto a near-collision course with the Mun.
The probe detached from the booster stage, deploying its primary radio dish and going into sleep mode for the entirety of the transfer.
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Jeb didn’t think he could experience cabin fever on the ground, but between the underway flight and the cadets, he was clearly experiencing it. Which meant he’d explored every broom closet, bar and tree in a twenty-mile radius, scared every slacking-off technician by popping out of nowhere, and was generally making repeated orbits through KSC.
One kerbal caught his eye, though. The guy wasn’t wearing any of the ISP uniforms, he wasn’t a peacock from the press, and he wasn’t even one of Fitz’s suit-and-tie goons – the guy was wearing a light long-coat. At the equator. That made Jeb stop. The weirdo reacted immediately.
“Mr Kerman? Yaroslav Kermanov, Union of Journalists,” he introduced himself with an odd accent.
“Where’s Walt Kerman?” Jeb asked bluntly, ignoring Yaroslav’s offered hand. How did this loon escape his handler and made it to the VAB?
“Corralling the rest of the talking heads, I would assume,” Kermanov responded. Jeb squinted – the journalists he’d seen were pretty full of themselves, but they harboured collective delusional pride in their profession.
“Where did you say you worked again?” Jeb asked after a pause.
“A freelance science journalist,” he responded.
‘There ain’t no such animal,’ Jeb thought, wide-eyed. “What are Duna’s ice caps made of?” he blurted out.
‘He’s gonna say ice, he’s gonna say ice, nobody bothers to learn the difference…’
“Frozen atmospheric carbon dioxide.”
Jeb was about to explode. Since when does the press worry about reality? They still thought Jool had a surface.
“Can one grow food on another planet?”
“Yes, inside an artificial habitat, but the chemical imbalance is likely to render it inedible.”
“What should one do if their deorbit motor dies on them?”
“Might as well get out and push,” Kermanov smiled.
“Well, Mr Kermanov, I’m liking the cut of your jib. If you can keep your brains from getting torn out by the g-force, I think I have a job offer for you.”
Dear readers, meet Flight Journalist Yaroslav Kermanov, or Slava. He’s got these yellow suit marks, so he doesn’t look anything like other Kerbals!
SpoilerAn op-ed rant to follow:
The Internet has, by and large, killed journalism. First came the new media, geared for clickbait and listicles rather than actual dissemination of information; but now the old media aims to erase the boundary, replacing every 10 actual sleuthing and scooping journalists with about 4 twenty-something keyboard jockeys mindlessly telegraphing information for maximum publicity. In the New York Times Magazine’s profile on Ben Rhodes, the author unintentionally describes how political journalism has been replaced by uncritical repetition of White House press releases – who are, in turn, written by the person who is more concerned with image and narrative than actual truth.
Science journalism went down the drain even before that, even though its role is even more important. Considering the rampant anti-intellectualism both on the right and on the left, this only exacerbates the divide between the common taxpayer and the ivory tower of hard sciences. With the ranks of science popularisers similarly depleted, we’re no longer looking for a return of the Golden Space Age. At best, we can hope for a silver one.
In 1965, the Soviets began selection of an on-board flight journalist for late Voshkod-early Soyuz flights; the program died with Sergei Korolev. The first and only journalist sent by the Soviets into space was one Toyohiro Akiyama. Naturally, the mission proved a commercial failure, which is why it shouldn’t have been profit-driven in the first place. The comparable US Teacher in Space Project got killed, rather literally.
So, the closest to a science journalist and populariser in space we got is this joker, Botanist, Mechanical Engineer and PR Specialist:
At least he’s proven rather successful…
“Flight, INCO, receiving traffic from Pathfinder 1.”
The probe was hurtling towards the darkside. As customary, the insertion burn would occur out of radio range. INCO was busy narrowing down the trajectory data in the remaining time before contact loss.
Kermanov was on station, scribbling notes constantly.
“Contact lost.”
“So,” Yaroslav piped up, “Do we have confirmation on the landing site?”
“I’m going to drop it into the eastern highlands, it’s the quick and dirty target,” Jeb mused.
“You do not want to risk dropping into a crater yet?”
“It would take a much steeper descent that I’d like to have the autopilot handle.”
“Contact!” Gene barked.
“Telemetry coming through, good insertion!”
“Take it down,” Jeb ordered.
“Sending landing burn data, commencing in one-twenty!”
The probe’s motors executed the burn that sent it on a suborbital trajectory – that is, a collision course with the basalt plateau.
At this point, the probe stopped receiving, and was in fully autonomous descent mode.
Ten thousand meters.
Five thousand meters. The twin rocket motors sparked to life again, throttling up to neutralize the extreme velocity.
Twenty-five hundred. The probe began to pitch over as it finished neutralizing its downrange velocity.
Finally, it throttled down as it had slowed to a stop a few meters away from the ground, and began to gradually set down on the slight incline.
The entirety of KSC watched as the radar altimeter clocked down to zero. The printer spat out a sizeable sheet of data.
The main screen switched to a grainy camera feed that panned across the desolate grey landscape with the blue crescent of Kerbin hanging in the sky above.
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Pathfinder 2 had been rolled out the next evening. It was bound for Minmus.
“We don’t know much about what’s to expect,” Jeb admitted to Yaroslav, “No atmo, bizarre terrain, no atmosphere beyond minor ice particles. We’ll have to recon once in orbit.”
“Sixty seconds to launch, fuelling is complete,” Gene announced.
There was a bright flash outside the windows of Mission Control. It was a minute early for the blast-off, and the fireball was a bit too big.
“Oh krak…” Gene mouthed.
Gus kicked in the decon sprinklers. There was yet another explosion as the SRBs disintegrated.
“Go to internal air circulation!” Jeb began barking out commands, ”Keep the fire unit back, have them put up a mist screen downwind! And for Kraken’s sake, keep the front gate locked!”
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3 hours ago, lugge said:
=> SpaceX should be the taxi driver and hardware manufacturer. NASA should drop their SLS and rely on 3rd party spacecrafts entirely.
An unwisely idealistic view. SLS at least relies on off-the-shelf kit. SpaceX's Falcon Heavy is below that league, and the MCT is at the very best a decade away from completion. Unlike Falcon 9, there is no other customer for super-heavies except NASA and probably the USAAF if the latter get serious about Rods from God, which makes the project not terribly commercially viable compared to Falcons.
And something tells me Musk won't be allowed to colonize Mars by himself, because the US Congress is already playing with fire as it flirts with the notions of allowing private companies to lay claim to asteroids in order to bypass the Outer Space Treaty; they probably won't let privateer boots hit Martian ground.
So, in your proposed system, the MCT is unlikely to exist and the SLS is completely necessary.
Multi job title kerbals
in KSP1 Suggestions & Development Discussion
Posted
I have to say I'm too against this idea. As we've seen, kerbonauts aren't exactly the brightest bunch, and while there is that pesky matter of Pilot levels 4 and 5 being empty, it makes sense that the eggheads and wrench monkeys are kept away from the controls.