NeverEnoughFuel!!

Well in this job a top level is a guy/girl who knows Calculus and linear algebra inside-out, and can write a custom node in C++ for Maya... let's say a famous and eternally fleeting single (bone/joint) chain IK/FK switch for an arm or leg... just a random example... maybe I was looking at the wrong places, but I couldn't find something like this nowhere on the internet... mainly because all of these things are built in-house and are considered as a pure gold value... but even if could find some example of this code all I can do is stare at it like an idiot... because I don't know calculus and linear algebra and I don't understand what this or that line of code is doing... so I'm in a closed loop...

Well, let me be a Devils advocate... I tried to learn programming many times, same as quitting smoking... the easiest thing to do... I've done it a thousand times as Mark Twain used to say... I always I mean always hit the same wall writing functions ... everything else is pretty reasonable... variables, operators, lists, reserved words, objects, classes, inheritance etc. etc. I'm talking from the perspective of someone who's for a long time in the world of 3D animation but also is an anti-talent for math in general... so I began to dug and the first thing was "you need to learn linear algebra, vectors etc."... ok what's that? It turns out it's a small part of monstrosity called Calculus... ok let's dig deeper... pre-Calculus... what's that? Well it's comprised of advanced levels of three math branches, trigonometry, algebra and geometry. At this point I turned green... ok, let's assume I learn all this... there are thousands of classes and libraries... how do I know what's what, and where is what? Do programmers have photographic memory? How do you "move around" (figuratively speaking) and choose what you need at the moment? Do you learn classes by hearth? These were and still are the questions which are bothering me... so IMHO without math there is no programming...

Watch for the waste heat! 99% chance it's overheating... I found out that a "general rule" is to double amount of radiators according to total heat of a reactor... so if a reactor has let's say 1 Gw of total heat put a number of radiators that covers 2 Gw of heat... I had a working plant in 1.1.3 ... I don't have those files anymore... give me some time I'll make something in 1.2 ... transmitters are very sensitive to waste heat... Edit: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8Zziy2NEFQPZ2xNWTREX0VqaUE/view?usp=sharing Here they are... well it turns out those foldable transceivers are unable to transmit... If I messed up upload (there should be three plants) the parts who can transmit are spherical inline 4 tonnes, spherical 0,4 tonnes and rectenna 6 tonnes... in fact they are the only parts in microwave network who have "Activate transmitter" button... all of the others can function only as relays... this was in sandbox so open them in separate save file if you are in career mod... they changed a lot of things in 1.2 ... Edit 2: Oh... I messed up upload... there should be a separate link for each file... I've never used google drive before... well I'm a caveman... but never mind you'll manage...

He he he... one small tip, if you don't have stronger reactor than molten salt, slap two electric generators on both sides, that way you can squeeze out more electricity... this used to work in previous versions... maybe that trick isn't working anymore...

Well this is basically what is driving me nuts! WHY THEY ARE NOT SCALING IT UP? As far as I know from some previous reading and interviews with inventor he stumbled upon Em drive while working on aiming devices/radars for ICBM's... is that technology so expensive? To re - purpose some old air force radar? Some old MRI medical aperture? Lol... this reminds me of the documentary about how did Soviet union developed closed cycle rocket engines... make it/launch it/BOOM, make it/launch it/BOOM ... and so on for ten times until the first one didn't go BOOM ... A-haaaa ... it's time for a kickstarter people!

So if we look at this in layman terms (as I am), and compare it to a submarine moving trough water... some invisible field (higs-bosson maybe or something similar) is water, and Em drive is a propeller, and frequency is rpm? And kinetic energy is water's drag/resistance? It seems to me that infinite acceleration is naturally impossible... just a layman... don't jump on me please!

So for 1kilonewton you would need gigawatts? Seems KSPI is right after all... lol

Ooookaaaay (Will Smith in MiB)...and how much is that? Too little?

Well I stumbled on this today... http://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/nasa-paper-emdrive/ and this https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7kgKijo-p0ibm94VUY0TVktQlU/view Can someone of math whiz guys calculate how much thrust you would get from let's say 1 megawatt? There are submarines with up to 12 MW reactors...

Well they claim it's for balance purpose... you can say that... I mean if you are transmitting 1 GW across solar system all of the NF engines are getting more than enough even at Eloo distance so you don't need to carry NF reactors around... why they didn't patch KSPI engines... maybe it's too much work I don't know...

Yup... that's the case believe it or not... since 1.0.4... maybe even earlier... I fell in the same trap first time... back in 1.0.4... it's basically a situation when KSPI engines (thermal or plasma) demand gigawatts to function properly, but the KSPI reactors are too weak to give them that power... so you need MORE of them ... lol...

By the look of those radiators I would say you have Near Future modules installed as well? Near future and Interstellar don't go well together, i.e. in that case Interstellar reactors are really bogged down... like ten times down... so 243 kw will not launch you into space. You need Gigawatts. Looking at these pictures I would say that you need to activate transmitters i.e. press "Activate Receiver"... also those radiators look too small, maybe your reactor is shutting down due to overheating? In KSP 1.1.3 I had a orbital power network of about 3,9 gigawatts... it could get you to Duna and back (warp drive way) with some careful planning of orbital capture and landing sites... since I didn't have relays in Duna orbit... but that was in 1.1.3... 1.2 is much different regarding transmitting distances and mechanics of it...

I agree... this flyby finder should be part of let's say Protractor or KER or TWP or separate mod in-game ... this way... I won't say it's useless because it isn't... but let's say I'm not THAT fanatical... regarding eyeballing... lol... I can barely hit a planet with combination of KER, KAC and TWP at the same time since they all give different predictions and calculations and I'm always either too late or too early and planned delta V is never accurate so my only weapon against this is redundancy in form of extra fuel/mass... oh well...

Well as the title says, how to use/create proper "slingshot" maneuver? Is it possible? Let's say I want to go to Eloo by Jool to save some delta V... how would I get all the data needed for such a maneuver, i.e. phased angles, proper date when those two planets are aligned for such maneuver... as far as I can see all of the mods/plugins are limited to one destination at a time... please don't say MechJeb... what's the point of flying if the computer does it for you...

Hello, I have 1.1.3 version of KSP and the version of KAC who goes with it... something is wrong in transfer alarms i.e. I'm getting wrong phased angle... according to the web based charts and calculators of delta V and phased angles for example Dres phased angle should be 82.06 but KAC gives me 60-something in model mode? In combination with TWP set to same date as KAC suggested again I'm getting discrepancy in few days to a launch... I did launch a probe using this method to Eve and I did have successful encounter (now I'm waiting, for another transfer window to get back)... but who's right, and who's wrong...? Edit: Forget it... my mistake, I haven't collapsed the menu... only then you can see "target phased angle"... the difference is small... according to web ideal Eve to Kerbin is 31-something in my case KAC calculates 35 - something ... maybe a suggestion for a better menu... an one where you can see "target phased angle" immediately?

Well, as the title says after a few hours in game keyboard starts blocking... usually the first key who stops responding is "Backspace" (reset to craft), usual "warp here" bug is random as always, then time warp keys (< >), then W,A,S,D randomly, and finally throttle... how do I know that the keyboard is not an issue, well it works perfectly right now while I'm typing this, secondly if I delete the settings.cfg , everything returns to normal... for a while, then it's all over again... this really drives me crazy... if someone knows that some mod can cause troubles like this please respond... please don't tell me to uninstall - reinstall mods because I have 50 of them, everything is properly versioned for 1.1.3 except maybe, "Take Command", and "Toolbar" although I did downloaded and installed 1.1.3 version of it but AVC for some reason sees it as an outdated version...

Well, I red Musk's AMA on Reddit , several people asked him the same thing we are arguing here, and he didn't reply... why? Maybe because he has no answer? If he had an answer, I'm sure he wouldn't/couldn't hold it up if for nothing else than vanity as a reason, to blabber about how he find a solution and NASA didn't... As I said before, we need much more than one Musk to get off this rock... anybody who wants to trust him with their lives/health and fly there in a cardboard box... go ahead it's your choice... I'm not going to argue anymore, I will let Neil deGrasse Tyson do it for me http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2016/03/27/neil-degrasse-tyson-to-elon-musk-spacex-delusional.aspx this one too...

Ok, let's try like this: we sent 100 passengers there and back, after a few years nothing happens, everybody are alive and well - GREAT, they were lucky... or their DNA was pretty resilient...(they landed in some quiet french village D day reference). We sent another tour: few years after the return 10% or ten of them gets ill, two went crazy, two went blind, six of them gets cancer, of those six we manage to cure 2 because those forms of cancer are really aggressive - total 10% causalities... (they landed in a village with a German company who is resting there after the rough time at the eastern front - D day reference)... well it's a bad luck... what can you do right? We send another tour: this time they are caught in a solar flare 50% are dead in a few hours and the rest of them (other 50%) are incapacitated for life... after the return 25-30% more dies despite all of our efforts to cure them (they landed on German panzer brigade, who was also resting from rough time in eastern front - D day reference) ... ups... bad sun forecast... So we had sent 300 people in the course of few years, and total losses are about 90 crew members short/mid/long term... let's see... wow it is almost 30% loses... is this acceptable? Point of this is, IMHO, that when NASA says 3% is unacceptable it means in fact that NASA counts that 3 out of 100 passengers will get cancer, (or some other radiation disease) for sure. Lets apply this 30% rate of failure to current air traffic... every third Airbus or 747 would crash... who would fly? Currently plane accidents hower about 1% per year (correct me if I'm wrong) but each time one of them falls it's a massive tragedy and a world news headline. Those space ships should be radiation proof, solar flare proof, everything proof (except human error/stupidity, that's impossible to defeat).

Well 10% doesn't seems much on paper... but 10% were also approximately Allied loses on D day in Normandy including dead and wounded (in our case dead and cured)... out of roughly 156 000 troops in total, 10%, or 15 600 payed the price in life or a limb (latest research counts about 4500 dead and rest of it wounded), and it was a bloodbath (very acceptable from military point of view, but let's not forget, military tolerates loses up to 25%, and at the time predictions for famous paratroopers were 70% dead) ... Forgive me but I don't like those odds... the idea of a slow bullet who will catch me 2-3 years after the (highly hypothetical, probably not in my lifetime) return from Mars with odds of survival like a guy on Omaha beach? Forget it... you would be very good general, but i wouldn't like to be in your colonization program...

So it's basically your expertise, (and many others who share your opinion), against Nasa's expertise? Sorry, but I choose NASA... my personal experience with Chernobyl was here just to illustrate danger of radiation...man, when I see that chart it's double of the amount of radiation we get here behind magnetic field shield. I don't doubt you are an scientist in real life, somebody without proper education couldn't write such thread, but you are biased to Musk's vision... I'm not, that's all. Should he coat ships in RFX1? Sure, if he can pay for it! In my humble opinion as a fan of science, KSP, and space travel in general he should coat them in a tank sandwich type armor made of gold/led/RFX1/water and whatever it takes, if he can launch it in orbit. Should he dig in habitats inside the mountain? Sure, if he can land robotic drillers there first, together with network of satellites to remotely control them! Again I think he bit more he can chew... we first need an infrastructure in orbit... a space dock for the beginning... his reusable rockets could help a lot there... space elevator would be even better. Also in my humble opinion he should hire those two guys from Skunkworks... Dr Harold “Sonny” White and the other one (I don't remember his name) and give them REAL proper lab and money... not a mediocre lab and a shoe lace budget... Again, in my humble opinion speed is the key here. And btw why does "scientific community" (whatever that means/is) delays publication of Emdrive peer reviewed paper for almost a year? Could it be because it's highly disruptive technology which renders all of the airplane's fleet's and airport's infrastructure's obsolete/useless in a very short time span? Like the famous comedian Russel Peters had said "somebody is going to be hurt really bad!" Sadly, all comes down to state, politics, and protection of "elite's" (bunch of crooks and thieves) interests and money... and we need much more than one Musk to get off this rock... On the other side of a coin, however noble his ideas and visions are, I'm going to be poisonously toxic here, and ask why he really want's to do this, boy's dream of being an astronaut? Maybe he want's Mars for himself, or at least good chunk of it's resources, whatever they are if there are any, and however ridiculously this sounded... call me whatever you like "conspiracy theorist/loon" etc. etc. ... This is a slight edit... for the sake of sarcastic sci-fi fun and stepping on romantic dreams of space travel... with taking into account a current state of world's economy and depletion of resources, maybe first massive crews on mars will not be rich tourists (we will find a much nicer place for them), but convicts sentenced to hard work in mines of rare metals and jewels... who cares about radiation protection... they are dead anyway... scary isn't it? True face of capitalism/modern bank/corporate slavery.

Wow, real fan work... since I'm too lazy to type here are some pages, I couldn't find that Msn video but these pages should be enough: http://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/real-martians-how-to-protect-astronauts-from-space-radiation-on-mars http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/radiation-remains-problem-any-mission-mars-180959092/?no-ist https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/files/1_NAC_HEO_SMD_Committee_Mars_Radiation_Intro_2015April7_Final_TAGGED.pdf Maybe it's just me, but thank you... no, thank you... I live in the Balkans, more precisely Bosnia, and I'm old enough to remember Chernobyl, who is btw about 1700 km far from here... I also remember a guy who was caught in the rain that day... tomorrow he didn't have a single hair on his head... freshly hatched chickens in the country died instantly in the moment the plant went boom...in the course of next six month my late mother (among thousands of others, but it was kept a secret) also had terrible health problems... all of that at 1700 km distance... I don't even want to know how bad Fukushima was... in this case "ignorance is bliss"... Disclaimer: I'm NOT trolling anybody or anything... I'm just trying to give some skepticism, and objectivity... I personally think Musk had bit more he can chew... same as that other guy... Mars One thing...

I know I'm at huge risk of being spat on in gallon amounts... but even if the rockets are perfect, what about radiation, low gravity, amount of supplies, little rocks who hit you at multiple speed of a bullet, psychological impact of empty black space for months... all that I'm trying to say is that WE are not built for space... the other day I saw an interview with some guy from NASA on Msn right after the famous video... at the reporter's question how realistic Musk is... guy laughed and the first thing out of his mouth was radiation... like "try to stand next to the broken reactor in Chernobyl for three months, and see what happens"... It would be nice to get there... but alive...

SPLAT! I almost fell of the chair... LOL LOL ...I can bet its fuel froze or half of it's engines didn't start... btw how many engines it had... I think I counted nine exhausts... maybe I'm playing too much of KSP but why didn't they go with some glider sized drone with self deploying wings... almost any advanced military has such designes...

Hey thank you very much man! I was wondering how people fly these cans... of course it's a mod!

UUUPS my mistake i.e. stupidity... I'm really sorry... it is this "new" one squad stock J-33 "Wheely" 120 kn thrust... I'm just not use to this new models and engines (since I recently switched from 1.0.4) and I just installed Engineering Tech Tree so I'm a bit lost with timeline of engines appearance... I'm really sorry... btw does anyone knows how to fly with this "fan" engines, I think they are part of USI... I tried to fly one craft (nothing serious) but it keeps tumbling and flipping...