MaxwellsDemon

(Amazing Carnac pose) The next step is for him to post in this thread again. (checks watch)

I'm all for Russia getting serious about getting back into the space exploration business. The more, the merrier. (That said, I agree that Putin's statements are worth about the same as the paper they're written on, so I expect the ultimate result of this declaration to be about the same as President Bush's "Space Exploration Initiative" back in 1991 or 1992.) I'm reminded of a passage in Robert A. Heinlein's Expanded Universe (1980) where he makes the point that, if one country doesn't take the lead in space, another one will... the line was something like, "You will be able to vacation on Mars someday. But don't be surprised if the Japanese government charges you a hefty fee for the visa. Because there is intelligent life in Tokyo."

Could be worse. I went to college with a guy who was born a week late to be grandfathered in when they raised the drinking age from 19 to 21. I could buy beer legally my freshman year, and he had to wait till his senior year. He was a bit annoyed.

Whenever I see Dramatic Exits, I wish for a bag of popcorn while I'm watching.

I've been restraining myself from asking, but I'm very happy to hear it! Still one of my fave mods.

Huh! And here I thought it was a "feature" rather than a "bug." (I guess one player's bug is another player's feature?)

I've noticed that, shortly after launch, I see a little poof of cloud (sometimes more than one) come down past my view... it's roughly at the altitude I'd expect the tropopause to be. (I don't have any mods installed to add clouds.) Is that indeed a marker of the tropopause, or is it something else?

Mostly assembly-- once 1.4.1 and MH were installed, then altering the settings to my preferences, starting a sandbox to check it out, then gradually introducing mods. There are still some important mods I'm waiting on before I begin a real campaign (for instance, Kerbal Alarm Clock), but I can begin designing stuff. I did put together a Gemini/Titan analogue. It was too slow off the pad with the engine I selected, but made orbit okay. Work to do... but it's pleasant work.

Another thing to be aware of is the instruments used to make the images. Pioneer's camera system was different and less capable than Voyager's, and even Voyager's was something less than ideal. And most of the images we are accustomed to seeing from Voyager, et. al., have been post-processed to increase contrast, bring out specific features, and the like; it's probably not what the human eye would see if the eye were at the same location. Somewhere, I've seen a comparison of Jupiter's coloration from probe imagery and the Hubble, which can be shown in true color; Jupiter looks several degrees more washed-out in the Hubble images.

Me too (delayed and now working). They might not have been ready for the volume of orders or something... I can relate, our company went through something similar in December.

Appearing for me, too, now. No worries!

Allow me to sing the praises of KRASH NASA Countdown Clock SXTContinued VaporVent but I can wait. Heck, I'm still trying to get a download link for Making History...

Me too. Have sent an email to Support, but they're doubtless busy today.

Huzzah!

I can tell you one important thing rovers do (for me, anyway): when I'm trying to reach a specific point on a surface, and my landing accuracy is somewhat less than "pinpoint," a Kerballed rover is a massive time-saver. Otherwise it's "wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww............." (Also, if you include a pod in the design, you get apparently unlimited flags for marking locations.)

Actually, it'll be in Kerbal Latin, which is pronounced backwards.

I've seen two posts on the KSP Weekly thread 'The Alexandrian Astronomer' which claim that it has political content. I don't want to derail that thread any further than it already has been, but I would like to state my vehement disagreement. There was nothing remotely 'political' in that KSP Weekly post. I believe those comments were angling to try to take the thread into politics and thereby shut it down, to which I object strenuously.

Eh, I'm not really complaining about the location of "Woomera"-- it just struck me as amusing. I'm not even sure that's the name or location that it'll be in the final release; i guess we'll find out in roughly 24 hours...

Not really. As I understand it, the 1.4 update was intended to support Making History, though without making the latter required. It would have bothered me if they hadn't included some of those goodies in 1.4. What was a bit surprising to me was that they released 1.4 a week earlier than Making History, but I guess they had their reasons.

Just watched the Scott Manley preview... some very interesting stuff! But Woomera is apparently in the northern hemisphere? Kerbin is obviously upside down with respect to Earth...

Do they look enough like a PLSS or other life-support backpack that they can be rationalized that way, or do they just look purely like a chute? I'm not sure I've seen a clear image of them yet.

Hm. Can you trigger them in vacuum? If so, what do they look like?

Okay, why isn't it March 13 yet? It should be March 13 by now... I'm really looking forward to fiddling with the Kerbalized historical-inspired parts, especially the Soviet/Russian ones. The shapes of stock KSP are a bit tilted toward the American (and, to some extent, the European) programs; the prevalence of spheres and hemispheres in Soviet and Russian designs have been a challenge to reproduce or simulate. One could argue, I suppose, that it will only matter as to the appearance of the machine, rather than its performance or capability-- but, as I like to say, I do like to see a good-looking rocket. Part of the fun of this for me is building something and then admiring it as it (finally) flies...

That's the one I'm thinking of. To be honest, it's more because of the authors than the subject matter; I liked Hendrickx's articles on Kamanin's diaries and Vis did a nice job in concert with Rex Hall and David Shayler on the one on cosmonaut training. OK, I'm convinced. Going on the ol' Amazon wish list. (When I was little, I wanted to live in a library. Now I look around and realize that I do. Great feeling!)

Okay... my collection is nearly complete. I'm debating whether to add a book on Buran. It's arguably not part of the mainstream Soviet/Russian space effort, all things considered, and yet so much effort was expended on it. hm....