sh1pman

KSP2 seems to be heavily inspired by MKS! Bases, resource management, big rovers, inflatable hab modules, domes...

Please, no microtransactions, no lootboxes, no pay-to-skip timers, no predatory monetization schemes...

Realistically, the first actual colonists will have pretty much the entire planet for themselves.

Ok. Let’s discuss one of SpaceX ships. A droneship, to be precise. Where do y’all think it’s heading rn? Florida or Texas?

That’s why I said it *might* translate to IRL Starship - because I’m well aware of this particular xkcd piece. I first learned about KSP from it, actually.

Sure, but in my experience it was the torque that screwed things up. When Starship is standing on the ground, its mass is concentrated in the center, while the three legs are some distance distance away from center. This caused the fins to bend outwards, somtimes even to fall off from the stress. IRL landing gear on aircraft is usually located under the mass that it is supporting, so there shouldn't be any outward force. Provided the wing structure is sturdy enough, of course. I not 100% sure in any of that, though, I'm not an aero engineer. Maybe in KSP hinges are super-weak or something.

I made a Starship (sort of...) replica in KSP when Breaking Ground released. Actuated fins, landing legs on the lower fins, etc. Found two BIG flaws with this design: the first one is landing on actuated fin-legs. They are attached to the main body by hinges. These hinges are the weakest link. There was a LOT of stress put on those two poor hinges from all that Starship weight. Sometimes they just fell off. Other times they bent horribly. This might translate to IRL Starship, those actuated hinges need to survive the landing and then support 100+ tons, possibly twice that with cargo and people, and not break. If one hinge fails, then the entire thing will likely fall and explode hilariously. Happened more than once to my KSP Starship. I think that fin-legs are a major failure mode. Second flaw is that it just doesn't want to make the final flip reliably. I had to add airbrakes to the bow to make it happen.

Did RL-10 fly with people before? Anyway, it's as if Elon launched a Crew Dragon with people on the first FH flight instead of his Roadster. A bit risky

I wonder what the big design changes are.

Do you need Block 1B for landing? I think it can be done with just Block 1, SLS delivers Orion to the Gateway, where the lander delivered by FH/NG is waiting. Crew then lands, plants the flag, ascends back to the Gateway and goes home via their Orion.

But not too deep. Not as deep as Saturn V did.

They why are you even still discussing it in this thread? Nothing is true, everything is fake, everyone involved lied about everything to cover for themselves, right? There’s no solid basis to draw conclusions about anything. Therefore, all of your speculations about the event are worthless and pointless. Reports about ionizing radiation in Severodvinsk are most likely fake news as well, as is everything else here! Probably planted by some KGB agents to spread uncertainty and misdirection!

It dreams of nuclear-electric space sheep.

Floating solar panels with a cable running all the way down to the missile container. Disguised as a shark fin.

Of course it is a speculation, I thought it was obvious. They haven’t released any Mars suit photos yet, probably haven’t even started working on it. The render is still nice, though.

Also, googling “SpaceX Mars suit” found this: Nice.

But it does. There is currently no suit that is more sleek and futuristic than SpaceX one. And it’s not the best camera angle on that photo.

"Small-sized nuclear battery" is a dead giveaway. A reactor is not a battery. RTG kind of is.

Too bad they didn't say what exactly it was supposed to power.

Yea, they do look waaay more advanced and sci-fi than the suits from Shuttle and Soyuz (Sokol). Boeing suit is ok.

They didn’t give a lot of useful information. Looks like the radiation background increased two-fold for 2 hours, then returned back to normal. It also looks like it was an explosion of a radioisotope power source. Test engineers were trying to fight the problem till the very end, but didn’t make it.

It can cool your reactor. Doesn’t do anything else that is useful.

If your rocket’s propellant somehow, in any possible way, gets back into the engine, then it’s not propellant. It’s coolant, at best. Doesn’t matter how many turns or slowdowns it makes during its journey. If a closed system (engine + propellant + magnets/diverters/whatever) doesn’t expel something away, then it won’t move. It should be pretty obvious.

It’s getting more and more disturbing every day.

I’m starting to think that ExoMars missions are cursed. The Curse of Rapid Involuntary Lithobraking.