cubinator

Well, Mercury's orbit precesses and is not elliptical, for example, and it's pretty clear that it orbits the sun. I would define an orbit as 'going around something else' and leave it at that. Whether the orbit's barycenter is outside the surface (binary) or whether it's stable is a different story. The black hole Sagittarius A* seems to be what holds the galaxy together, so we say the stars orbit it. Of course the stars exert a force on it too, but that force is fairly negligible, unless you are planning to put a station in orbit a picometer* above the horizon, but then you probably have other problems to worry about. *total guess

Actually, we had the ability to measure time dilation long before that, when we flew two synchronised atomic clocks around the world in opposite directions and they came back showing different times as predicted by relativity. I think you're referring to the gravitational waves measured recently for the first time?

My view on that is the outer objects get pulled along faster by the mass of the stars near them, so the whole galaxy is kind of rigid as opposed to fluid like conventional orbital mechanics might predict it to be...somehow. Of course, we don't know exactly what's happening.

Umm...I guess the analogy works, but still... Space debris is not a huge problem, but we have to be careful to make sure it doesn't become a huge problem in the near future.

Earth orbits the sun, the sun orbits the galactic center. The galactic center doesn't orbit anything in particular in the universe, it's just kind of there. It does move and interact with nearby galaxies though, such as Andromeda which we will collide with in a mere four billion years, and several satellite galaxies such as the Magellanic Clouds. The gravitational pull between galactic superclusters form colossal web patterns eerily similar to the shapes of neurons in the brain. The galaxies themselves, however, don't really orbit anything that we know of. The universe itself may be influenced by the presence of other universes nearby too, but we really don't know.

Because time doesn't pass in the VAB, if you revert flight the launch smoke will still be there when you get back, because technically no time has passed for it to dissipate. I don't think this happens with regular explosions though, but I know what you're talking about. It happens with revert to launch and revert to VAB. It might do it with Space Center too, but you might not be able to do it quick enough sometimes.

So that's why they always do that! Huh. I like the idea, but for me it would just be more of a 'quality of life' thing. Not exactly vital to the game, but it should definitely be considered.

Last night I managed to become lucid-ish for just a few minutes. I realised I was dreaming, and studied my hands like the FILD instructions said to. I remember commanding the dream to 'stabilize!' too. I was outside on my street, and I closed my eyes and imagined a marble road lined with Greek pillars. I opened my eyes and it was there! Not sure why that was what I imagined, I guess it was just the first thing that came to mind. Next I closed my eyes and imagined that I was orbiting Io. It worked, but it was like I was under timewarp. The lucidity drifted away, it was not so much like I was in control of the dream as like I was just more aware of the dream. After imagining Io, the dream started becoming a videogame with futuristic sci-fi spaceships set on Io, but that was quickly vaporized by the dream simulating my parents interrupting my game with something to tell me. That was when the lucidity totally evaporated. I believe the dream ended several seconds later and I woke up. I guess I'll have to try again tonight. I think doing the finger tapping doesn't necessarily need to induce the dream directly. I find that when I do it, it makes me think about dreaming, so I dream more often and more vividly. I've found that I've been remembering my dreams much better since I started doing the finger tapping while going to sleep. The videogame part of last night's dream hinted at the possibility of being able to imagine things much more vividly in dreams than in real life. As I get better, I might be able to imagine things like how to play certain pieces of music, or what preliminary moves to do to rotate those damn 4-color pieces on the 3x3x3x3. Or I could see if that Io game is any good. It looked pretty cool from the few seconds I glimpsed of it.

Some pics from April/May 2014, the earliest screenshots I have:

This looks AWESOME! Exactly what I needed for simple modular base-building! You can just add wheels and drive it wherever you need before deploying the gear! I'll definitely be able to make good use of this!

if only I knew how to use Kopernicus... I'd give Eve several medium and small-sized muns and purple, semi-transparent rings. I'd add several dwarf planets between Duna and Jool, of which Dres would probably be the largest. They would be good sources of ore for mining and would have eccentric, inclined orbits that come fairly close to each other. I'd add either a second gas giant past Jool, or a giant rocky planet with lots of muns.

Dres might make sense if there was a real outer solar system, with several planets and dozens of moons out past Jool, but there isn't such a thing in stock, so I haven't really found any mission that really needs an outpost anywhere other than maybe LKO. Anything past that would take too much effort to build, especially if it involves multiple launches.

science points!

Thanks. Yeah, I tend to be particularly nitpicky in movies (although the first time I was 110% suspended). But if you look at the Endurance when it breaks you can see that when Mann opens the docking port, the Ranger impacts the fuel assembly causing it to explode. I understand that the actual docking port part would have to be attached separately, that's perfect.

In the movie, there are 4 docking ports on the outside of the ring. I don't want them to be explosive any more than other parts are, but yes, I'm asking that you consider adding them for the sake of accuracy. If you've seen the movie, my motives should be clear. I just want to simulate a particular plot event involving an explosion, which can be induced just fine with a simple impact. Picture showing layout of the Endurance, note the airlocks on the ring by the fuel assemblies: http://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/interstellarfilm/images/a/a4/Interstellar-spaceships-ENDURANCE.jpg/revision/latest/thumbnail-down/width/340/height/340?cb=20141108235419 If you don't know what I'm talking about, you need to go watch the movie. It's a really good movie too.

Aww. I still don't know who that is...

For starters, this mod is awesome, thanks for keeping it up. The only complaint I have is that the Endurance ring doesn't have docking ports on the outside. Some of us are crazy enough to try to dock with a spinning, broken Endurance, so that would be great if there was a docking port on the outer edge of the ring to explode.

Did I do it? Oh...well, I don't know songs. Sorry.

Thanks! I have learned that reentry for spaceplanes is very different from reentry for simple command pods. Now I think I understand the basics of flying these ships, so I might start trying to design one that can do something useful, like ferry crew to and from orbit or launch a payload.

AtmosphereScrambler: moves each atmosphere in the game to a random body each time you load the game. It's like a more basic version of Konfusion. You might find Laythe's atmosphere on Dres, Duna's on Jool, Jool's on Eve, Eve's on the Mun, and Kerbin's on Pol! What fun!

This could help a lot! I haven't been able to understand how to do things in Kopernicus, but this might be very helpful! Is there a tutorial somewhere that covers the whole process, step by step, from creating a folder for a planet pack to making the configs for it? That would be the best. Right now all I can really do is look at existing planet packs I have and mimic their format.

I would build a lot more surface bases if there was a robotic arm or similar part that I could use to easily grab and move base parts to dock to each other. The current options are just too difficult to do without having to spend a lot of time on design.

A meteor is a space rock that is entering the atmosphere. a meteorite is a space rock that landed on another body. A meteoroid is a space rock in space that would become a meteor if it entered the atmosphere. It is the as generic as you can get without just saying 'space rock'. It works as well for tiny space rocks you could hold in your hand as with giant space rocks that would take a rocket to get off of. That's why I chose it over 'asteroid'.

My definition of a moon is an object which a) orbits a larger object that isn't a star or former star, and b) has a significant gravitational influence (i.e. you could land on it and stay on the surface using only the gravity of the object. To me, your redirected boulder might be an 'artificially placed natural object'. Which we can shorten to 'redirected meteroroid' because 'asteroid' is ill-defined, so the term 'meteoroid' would work better.

You know you're a nerd when someone is talking about heavy metal and you are confused for several seconds before you realize they are not talking about lead, mercury, gold, etc.