cubinator

This looks cool! I like the idea of having beeping noises that are actually useful instead of the pointless ones in Chatterer (which I promptly replaced with the tracks from Interstellar from AVP.) All in all, this mod looks promising. I'll play with it tomorrow. Edit: +1 on the 1202 idea. Also, if this was integrated with DangIt that would be awesome, like all the lights turn on when something decides to explode. Edit #2: I see the CKAN icon on kerbalstuff, but I don't see it on CKAN. It's ok for me though, this is a really simple mod to install. Edit #3: Can we have the "Imperfect contact" from Interstellar when not docking very well? You know what, just put in as many references as possible.

Actually, that is a really good idea. Thanks! Also, gifs for avatars is cheating. Cheater!

Taken directly from the official EM drive website: "The second generation engines will be capable of producing a specific thrust of 30kN/kW. Thus for 1 kilowatt (typical of the power in a microwave oven) a static thrust of 3 tonnes can be obtained, which is enough to support a large car. This is clearly adequate for terrestrial transport applications. " That sounds like flying cars to me. Again, I cannot stress enough that I am by no means assuming this thrust really exists. It's just an interesting and intriguing possibility. And I think an orbiter around pluto or a flying Mimas car is pretty darn cool too. And if it can fly on Mimas, I think it's just a simple case of "moar booster" to lift something on Earth. And the TWR would be constant as it doesn't have anything to do with atmosphere. If you lift something with 1 drive on Mimas, well you just need 150 drives to lift the same thing on Earth.

On the sixth day of Kristmas, my kerbal gave to me: Six Science Jr.'s, five parachutes, four solar panels, three hitchhiker pods, two SRBs, and a copy of KSP! (there should be a kristmas hat kerbal emoji)

Poke-Cat.

I believe you meant 14-21, as you just added seven instead of subtracting one. Reverting to asdii1970's -6, and bringing it down by one myself to a grand total of -7.

Great! Now I'll be needing to a) find out what shape I need for the chamber, b ) make it out of yttrium beryllium copper oxide with chemical powders and a very hot furnace, c) make a sealed chamber for liquid nitrogen to flow through around the cavity, d) have some way to keep the liquid nitrogen cold while it's getting microwaved, e) a magnetron to shoot microwaves into the cavity, f) liquid nitrogen to cool it... I think that's about it. Then we turn it on and hope that electromagnetic propulsion is actually a thing, as the results so far are rather controversial. I made a thread on this btw

Theoretically I would use a very insulating material on the outer shell so that outside heat is not a problem. It would likely be vacuum-sealed and pressurized too if I can do it safely. If it works the way it's "supposed to" the thrust produced by the drive itself would be much more significant than the flow of nitrogen/helium which would work better but be way harder to deal with. This has not been proven nor disproven. The reason for this experiment would be to see if a superconducting cavity produces enough thrust for "terrestrial applications" as stated by the official site to avoid calling it "flying cars" like it would mean ***IF IT WORKS*** The thrusts that have been measured have been within experimental error, whereas the thrust from a superconducting drive ***should*** produce much more definite thrust, ***if*** we are seeing actual fuel-less thrust and not some other artifact of zapping materials with microwaves. Notice that there are a lot of "ifs." We really don't know what's going on with these things, but whatever it is, it's intriguing. That's why I'm interested in this. It's quite natural for humans to be interested in something that we don't understand, that's why we have learned so much. Because we choose to find out things anywhere from "what is on the other side of that hill" to "why do the planets move" to "is this machine producing thrust without consuming fuel?" It's questions like these that drive us, and in my opinion, it's ok if the EM drive is proven not to produce fuel-less thrust, because then we will have the new question of "what was causing those miniscule forces we observed?" And so there will always be another mystery to solve, and that is the beauty of science.

Yes, I realize that there's a lot of stuff that could get me hurt or killed working with radiation, chemical powders, furnaces, and super cold liquids. I would make sure I know what I'm doing before I actually do it.

Banned for posting 13 minutes ago. Illuminati confirmed

Same.

Banned for accusing me of stealing something that I've never heard of.

So I did some research, and basically an EM drive works by bouncing microwaves around in a resonating cavity and it magically produces thrust. From a physics perspective, this is mind-blowing. But from an engineering perspective, it's quite a simple machine. The ones that have been made are basically just a hollow truncated cone made of a conductive material like copper or silver, with a hole in the side with a magnetron from a microwave oven. Turn on the magnetron and the Kraken pushes it a little harder on one end than the other, producing thrust. The thrust measured has been minuscule, but there is a mention on the official website (scroll to the very bottom) that if the cavity is superconducting, it would produce a lot of thrust. So basically, in order to do this, you need the cavity in the right truncated cone shape, made of a superconductive material, cooled to superconducting temperatures while it's being blasted with microwaves originally intended specifically for heating things up. That takes a bit of effort. My idea would be to have the cavity made of a high-temperature superconductor like yttrium beryllium copper oxide, with another cavity surrounding it which is filled with liquid nitrogen which is continuously pumped through and refrigerated, as what is in there will quickly heat up from the magnetron's heat. In order to do this, I would basically have to make the cavity myself. I would do so using this method, but I'm not sure how i would manage to get a truncated cone out of that. Then I would have to make the outer shell out of something that retains heat and is airtight so that the nitrogen stays in and doesn't get heated up from outside. Then I would need a refrigeration system that would keep the nitrogen cold and thus keep the cavity cold. Also, I would need some liquid nitrogen. So all in all that's kind of a lot, but it would be doable if I had a few thousand dollars to spare. I don't expect to be doing it anytime soon, but I'd just like to know how feasible it is. The non-superconducting version would be easy, just get some sheet metal and gut an old microwave. But the superconducting version would be much harder to do, but possible if I had the materials readily available, and it would produce really definite thrust that can actually be used for something if it works. What do you think?

-5 (-)

Banned for making the same mistake twice. NO PUNCTUATION!!!!!!!!!!

banned for too much capitalization.

The repulsve effects of positive energy levels propels the total away by subtracting one resulting in negative two.

Banned for no punctuation.

Language would be awfully complicated to explain without any kind of reference, it's not like they have similar grammar or even talk in the same sound range, or even talk at all. Hell, they might communicate by warming up different parts of their bodies. As for technology, I would leave it at what they can understand, which, with 11th century technology, probably amounts to telescopes and Rubik's Cube. But the one thing that I would give them is math. It would be as simple as writing a list of numbers from 1 to 100. Then we could ask them to tell us the same. They most likely have a writing system, so it wouldn't be too hard. After we've exchanged numbering systems, we could tell them about pi and zero. The Pythagorean Theorem. Graphing. We could show them how their planet goes around the sun and it's moons go around it, but knowing how well that turned out on this planet, even when it was our own species, I would leave that bit out for the moment. We could probably tell them that we come from a star in the sky without too much trouble. That's all I would give until they ask for more, because too much information about how the universe works could shatter their ideologies and create turmoil, like the heliocentric model did for us. Imagine if we showed them that not only were they not the center of the universe, and that they shared it with others, but that we had devices that could communicate across a planet and even across solar systems, or worse, that we had devices that can destroy them at the push of a button.

The hills in Nilokeras Scopulus are significantly worse than what Curiosity has had to deal with. They are often more than a kilometer long and get close to 30 degrees in places. I trust that we will have rovers big enough to drive the 20 kilometers or so up and down the hills, but still, it's a significant aspect of that region.

Granted. KSP updates at the same time and b9 is broken again. I wish for my computer to work when I switch the graphics card later today.

Well, it was just an idea The only downside to that area is the hills, it could be hard for a rover to go up, it looks pretty sandy.

Banned for comic sans.

I know. We won't be finding anyplace that can specifically support us until we manage to go there, and even then it's unlikely we'll be able to survive there unprotected, but we may find someplace that can support other lifeforms. Hoping for another Earth is futile, but a world with its own life may be closer than we think. It may just take a probe to the oceans of Enceladus or Europa.

Banned for not knowing where you are!