RocketSquid

At those speeds, wings aren't really necessary, and are actually something of a detriment. Instead, you'd use a waverider configuration, with lift generated by the shockwave. This concept is far from the most ambitious aircraft design, though. In the late eighties to early nineties the united states government (through NASA and the DoD) funded the development of a plane that was intended to fly at speeds up to mach 20. By virtue of its absurdly high max speed, it would also have been an SSTO. They never got to the prototype-of-a-test-vehicle phase: The X-30 was intended as a two-man test vehicle for the National Air and Space Plane, which would be a passenger plane. However, even the X-30 never got built, only some structural mockups that were never flown. Is a plane such as Hermeus is proposing possible? Certainly. Is it gonna be built by a startup? No.

Hours, days, maybe even weeks of null-gee is fine. It's when you get to months and years that problems really start. Spin gravity is a lot easier if instead of thinking of it as centrifuges, we think of it as a cylindrical hab and a counterweight, connected by a tether. Plus, an emergency de-spin isn't actually that hard; simply have yo-yo weights around the craft's axis of rotation. Plant fiber or bacterial mats are the best strategy for clothes. If the only reason for washing is to get the odors out, you could potentially accomplish that by exposing the clothes to vacuum, which would cause any volatile compounds to rapidly outgas. Once an outfit became threadbare or too stained for use, it gets destroyed and fed to the CELSS. Plants may not actually be the most practical, either in terms of energy use or nutritional output. In the long term you'd want some proper macroscopic plants, but in the short term there are a variety of microorganisms that would be more efficient, if rather gross. Microalgae are an obvious choice, but have some serious difficulties (spirulina will give you gout and doesn't have vitamin B12, chlorella needs processing to even be digestible, neither tastes very good). Yeast is another choice, but needs something else to provide it with energy, probably an algae. Nutritional yeast tastes vaguely like cheese, and has a good deal of protein. In my opinion, however, the top choice for the base of the life support ecosystem is Knallgas bacteria. Rather than gaining energy from photosynthesis, they gain it by turning hydrogen and oxygen into water. With the addition of power from solar panels or a reactor, that water gets turned right back into oxygen and hydrogen.

Okay, two questions/comments related to the castillo. One, the castillo's description mentions a greenhouse, but the TACLS patch still only affects the hogan. Two, is there a way to add a module to the list of modules the packing box disables?

Sorry, I worded the first post pretty poorly. I was wondering if there’s a way to have kerbals spawn somewhere besides kerbin, other than rescue contracts.

Are there any mods that allow you to get new kerbonauts somewhere besides the astronaut complex on kerbin and do not dramatically change the game in some other way?

Company towns are a real thing, and only increased regulation put an end to them. They’re not limited to dystopian fiction. And a space colony is an ideal site for a company town—people can’t even leave without paying. And neither can their children, or grandchildren. These people aren’t making a choice that hurts them, they’re making a choice that hurts all of their descendants. And the degree in “whatever-studies” only creates debt because the colleges have become bloated and increased pay for administrators while reducing pay for teachers. These systems aren’t natural law, they’re created by humans. A rising tide may lift all boats, but a lot of people don’t have boats. The portion of the world’s wealth and resources owned by the wealthiest people continues to increase. We grow enough food to feed everyone on the planet, and have to pay farmers to produce less, and people still starve. Why? Because the distribution of food is flawed. The “commercial system” cannot produce a post-scarcity society because it relies on scarcity and creates more when scarcity begins to disappear. Look at all the fear over technological unemployment—the reduction or abolition of scarcity through technology is instead recast as a creation of scarcity because the benefits of this reduction in scarcity will be concentrated in the already powerful. As a post-scarcity society draws near the commercial system will destroy itself because the now-unemployed people will not be able to afford goods, even if production costs are zero, because they cannot pay for the company’s cut of the take. Either a violent uprising or government-enforced regulation results, and both of those are bad results. Change needs to be made before then, or the power of the state will be entrenched and oppression will follow. And for the last time, NASA DOES NOT BUILD ITS OWN SPACECRAFT. IT CURRENTLY CONTRACTS OUT TO VARIOUS COMPANIES, INCLUDING SPACEX. EVERY CRAFT SINCE GEMINI HAS BEEN CONSTRUCTED BY PRIVATE ENTITIES AT THE BEHEST OF NASA. Plus, you toss around $20 Billion as if it’s a lot, as opposed to being less than a fifth of Bezos’s net worth, or less than half of one percent of the federal budget.

Airships don’t take off, and instead flip in such a way that they smash into the launch pad. This may just be a problem with my design, but it persisted through so many edits that I begin to think there’s either something fundamentally wrong with my concept, something wrong with my piloting, or something wrong with my install.

Computers weren’t created for rich people. They were created for governments. A privately owned and operated space colony would be a company town to a greater extent than anywhere on earth could manage. They could easily pay their workers in scrip and charge them for air, and it would not be without precedent—such a thing was very common before the rise of organized labor. And once people get to such a place, they can’t leave. Sure, a government is equally capable of such oppression, but I’m not advocating for a dictatorship. Wealth isn’t zero sum, but under extant hierarchical structures someone is always going to get the worse end of the deal. There is no business case for the colonization of space, but space tourism will very likely lead to space colonization because the infrastructure is similar. Propellant depots are a necessity, and so are long-term space habitats, and so’s more efficient life support. And since it’s a passion project for many of the CEOs, colonization efforts are a next step for them. It’s only the first step, getting the people there, that’s difficult and unprofitable. The colony can sustain itself. But space colonies as company towns is not a future I want. On the other hand, who knows? Maybe a revolution or a labor movement will actually be easier in a space colony. One way or another, eventually all our current systems will fall away, whether that’s capitalism, socialism, governments, or money itself. No hierarchy can persist forever, even if it seems to have all the advantages in its favor. The bigger concern I have with the shift is the scientific value. The corporations will be focused on the purely practical aspect. There would be no Apollo, no new horizons. There’s a very real chance that corporate spaceflight will be the nail in the coffin for space exploration. Already people complain about the cost (which is a tiny portion of the budget) and ask why we don’t just leave it to corporations. When corporations actually can do routine launches for cheaper consistently, I have to wonder how long the existing space agencies will last, how long before any team that wants to send a probe out into our solar system is trying to find corporate sponsors, before the Pepsi logo is painted on the side of every rover.

Okay, I’m having some problems with airships and I’m wondering if the VTOL controller also manages envelope lift.

Space tourism will never be a big enough industry to prompt easier access, especially considering the novelty is a major portion of the appeal. And that doesn’t change the fact that a large portion of the population will never be able to pay for space travel. If I had the opportunity in real life, I would focus on increasing access for everyone, not just people who can pay. If not rich people, who do you think will live in space? It’s unrealistically expensive to ship workers into space, and if you legitimately believe workers can choose to work wherever, why would they choose to work in a place where their oxygen privileges can be revoked? Human population levels out over time, naturally. This is observed in most developed nations—give people a choice, and access to contraception, and population growth will level out or even become negative. And in order to significantly reduce population by spaceflight you would need to send hundreds of thousands of people into space every day. Also, workers aren’t as mobile as you seem to think. If workers could choose not to work at Amazon, they overwhelmingly would, but that’s neither here nor there. Suffice to say, one does not get as obscenely rich as Bezos without stepping on a few people to do so. Without people living and working in space, humanity has no real presence in space. There are tourist flights that end the second liability insurance costs surpass profits, and that’s it. And Bezos and musk both express interest in having people living in space. Musk wants to colonize Mars. Bezos wants people living in orbital colonies. So your argument seems to be that we don’t need to worry about them having a lasting negative impact because they’re doomed to fail, to have no impact past a tourism business. I don’t think the driver should be government either. Hell, I think the idea of nations and governments is antithetical to any wide push into space. I’d just rather have a slow, unproductive government-led space effort than a soulless and exploitative private one.

Black holes are one of the major proposed explanations for dark matter, falling under the category of Massive Astronomical Compact Halo Objects (MACHOs). Studies have ruled out any objects between 0.3 lunar masses and 100 solar masses as candidates, but black holes are still a theoretical possibility. As for the statement that dark matter and dark energy are distinct, that isn't necessarily the case; the dark fluid theory accounts for both with the existence of a negative-mass fluid spread throughout the universe and interacting gravitationally with objects.

Yeah, but the engine they're talking about is the ascent engine. The descent engine is one-way, and then the ascent stage relays samples from the rover to orbit.

There is no logical economic reason to put humans in space. Period. The only real way to make a profit off of it is to sell the experience, the novelty, to someone with a lot of money. Government involvement got us to the moon, got us samples and science from the moon. Corporate spaceflight would've gotten us, at best, lunar vacations for the very rich, a few moonrocks that would be turned into jewelry and some pictures they could sell for postcards. So, why are Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos trying to expand into space? Because they've looked on their domains and seen that there's nothing left to conquer but the sky. They want to go to space as vanity projects. And yeah, Jeff Bezos does indeed want magic space homes, he's proposed soulless, O'Neill-cylinder based replicas of terrestrial locations. Who do you think would be able to afford to live in those? Certainly not his own workers, who make only a bit over minimum wage and can be fired for taking bathroom breaks. And even that's not as ludicrous as his claim that the earth is going to run out of sunlight because energy consumption will grow too high, which, in addition to relying on incorrect assumptions about power usage (the trend is actually pretty steady over the last few years, since efficiency is being prioritized) could be solved without sending enormous numbers of people into space. I'd much rather wait for governments and the public to act than have space travel and space colonization burned to the ground forever when these private endeavors die with their creators.

If we assume these engines have exactly the needed TWR, you'd need about six of them to get two astronauts to the lunar surface, probably more. This seems like it'll get out of hand. EDIT: this is the ascent engine, it has nothing to do with the 90 kg payload. The more relevant number is the 15 kg of samples, meaning you'd need more than six times as many as my earlier back of the envelope numbers suggested. We'd be looking at the N-1's little brother.

The choice of engine and power also vastly influence the design. Anything nuclear will tend to have long booms, or long cables, between the hab and the reactor. More importantly than a sphere's ability to hold air is its surface area to volume ratio. When it comes to spaceships, surface area is bad (pressure hulls are heavy, comparatively speaking) and volume is good (holds more stuff). The reason to pick a cylinder is that cylinders are easier to build and launch than spheres. A torus would be equivalent to a cylinder in terms of surface area to volume, but more expensive to build, so it would really only be useful if you're going for spin gravity. Of course, you could also make something that's only mostly spherical, and actually is a lot of flat panels, or make the sphere part out of kevlar or the like with an easier to construct internal frame. The choice of whether to spin the whole ship or just part of it also depends on the purpose. If it needs to dock frequently or perform observations, spinning the whole ship is a no-go. But spinning just part of the ship is bad for other reasons, mostly that it's hard to make an airtight joint that permits rotation, so it would be avoided unless necessary.

What do you think they normally do, as opposed to "just let someone like Blue Origin build it"? Every NASA spacecraft is subcontracted out to one or more companies, and it's been that way for as long as NASA has existed. And the fact that Blue Origin is building Blue Moon either way isn't a benefit, really. Without government involvement, spaceflight will be the domain of the very rich, and the rise of private spaceflight will only cement that.

It's pretty much all down to politics at this point. I have no doubt that NASA can design and build an operational lander within that time; but they will not be able to do so on their current budget. If congress is willing to get NASA the money, the chances are quite good, but the last few years have taught me not to get my hopes up in that regard.

The way I usually do it is to carry an extra coach with some lead or water in it. Lead is less effective than dedicated radiation shielding, but a coach can hold far more lead than a pod can hold radiation shielding. I have a station in munar orbit that only has proper radiation shielding in a few, non-WBI parts and thanks to a container of lead and some huge tanks of water the crew has negligible (i.e. shows up as zero) radiation exposure.

I was wondering how much thermal protection a duna mission needs. Does an aerobraking need a heat shield? Does a standard reentry profile (with a lander, not a space plane) need a heat shield?

We don’t know how much effort a wet workshop would take because we’ve never tried it. And “downcycling” an upper stage into micrometeorite shielding or the like would really only require cutting the stage apart and bolting it to the hull. Plus, recovering a second stage is not that difficult as rockets go. Adding more thrust than strictly necessary, or a set of small, solid-fueled soft landing thrusters, is sufficient for the landing. A shield or the like will be necessary, but the engine can be used as a shield if it’s designed with a plug nozzle instead of a de laval nozzle, and a ballute or inflatable shield could also be used. Retaining a bit of extra fuel would allow use of active cooling.

And a more advanced civilization could produce a shkadov thruster, using a gargantuan mirror to make the star’s light output asymmetrical and turning the whole thing into a slow and steady photon drive, then use the CME thrusters for fast (from the perspective of a multiple million year project) maneuvering.

It’s bimodal but not tripropellant. It needs liquid hydrogen, which is hard to store. In general, SSTO is a trap. It’s more viable to recover the first stage and reuse the upper stage in orbit, either for raw material or as a wetworks.

Welp, I'm back with another chapter, and I've finally remembered how to write. Hooray! Also, there's been a bit of a time skip, because frankly I didn't want to edit all the Muniy mission images, and I'm not sure anyone else wants to see what was essentially the same mission three times. Chapter 3: Citizen Kane (pronounced 'khan-ay'): The mood in the Muniy VII was tense. Neilwig looked at the other two kerbals in the Kane capsule. Shepbree, the pilot, and Lagerbrett, the engineer. They both had a look of mild concern on their faces. Unlike its predecessors, this mission didn't carry a lander or any substantial station components, and could thus afford a smaller launch vehicle, if such a term could even be applied to the K-1A. Shepbree breathed a sigh of relief as the Sverdstav second stage cut out. Even if everything else failed, they wouldn't plunge into the ocean. The next step was moving into orbital configuration. After splitting from the launch vehicle and ejecting the LES, they had to turn the ship about and dock with the crew module. In addition to giving them more living space, this helped test the new Docking Port Alignment Indicator software in a safe environment. Once the docking procedures were complete, Neilwig slid over into the OM. The sunrise reminded Shepbree to deploy the service module's solar panels. He gleefully plotted the transfer burn while the other kerbals admired the brilliant blue-green planet below them. After completing the rather uncomfortable eyeballs-out burn, Lagerbrett slid into the OM as well, since the seats were rather more comfortable. Shepbree had to stay in the pod to keep the craft under control. Before long, the Mun loomed large on the screens As they approached their munar periapsis, it was time for one last eyeballs-out burn. Despite the discomfort, the crew was excited to finally enter a munar orbit. "This is your Kaptin speaking" said Shepbree. "We have reached our cruising altitude, and you are now free to move about the cabin" "Sure thing, Kaptin" giggled Lagerbrett, who was currently trying to determine whether hydrazine was classed as "Food" or "Not food" "You'll feel a slight motion in the capsule as I separate us from the upper stage" "Why leave it behind if it still has fuel left?" asked Neilwig "So it doesn't hic hit the station, dummy" replied Lagerbrett, who had conclusively determined that hydrazine was considered "Not Food" And speaking of hydrazine, Shepbree was just discovering that the RCS ports on the Kane capsule were decorative. Nonetheless, he managed to get them away from the upper stage. Once they began burning to a rendezvous, a silence fell over the craft. There were a lot of rumors circulating about the Muniy Program, and everyone was eager to investigate them. Shepbree's curiosity was mostly focused on the MEM-X. Had Valentina really ripped out the autopilot with her bare hands before it could even be used, or was that just a myth? Neilwig was wondering about the Mun itself. Was it true that it was haunted? Was there still a golf club in the MEM-X that he could defend himself with? Should he have brought his own? Lagerbrett was looking forwards to her stay on the MERRS. All the rumors said it was the coziest place not on kerbin, with real plants, artificial gravity, and possibly a hot tub. She was pretty sure there wasn't actually a hot tub, which was just as well, because she despised hot tubs. Why would anyone voluntarily put themselves into a soup, even if it was just for a bit? The ship drifted serenely, until... "I SEE IT" shouted Shepbree. "I'll get us closer" "It's... beautiful" said Lagerbrett Unfortunately, the unfavorable RCS configuration made docking difficult. With the help of DPAI, however, they managed to dock. "Howdy!" Came the shout from the station. Floating in the MOH to greet them was a kerbal who looked uncannily like an older Neilwig. "I'm Harwin, the commander in these parts. Now, I'm told you three already know some folks on our station, but if y'all will just head down to the centrifuge we can all shake hands in half a gee" First, he led them to a kerbal with his dirty-blond hair in the "Jeb Sr." style. "Now, Shepbree, I'm told you already know Tomcott, but for the rest of you he's our pilot. Top of his class at remote piloting, but wanted to go to space. In theory, he's in charge of remote piloting on any probe in the area. In practice, the damn command system is too complicated for less'n three kerbs to run, so for now he's helping with the hydroponics" Next, he brought them to an irritated-looking kerbal with her black hair swept to her left. "This is Barlock, head scientist aboard this station. She's still got data to analyze from Muniy V, so I imagine if we keep her any longer she's liable to take full advantage of the half-gee in beating the snacks out of us." Barlock nodded, then scampered off. Then came a older-looking kerbal, his skin a darker green and his blond hair cropped regulation-short. "Not sure any of ya know Gersted, but he's the assistant head scientist, and well, he's done things none of us can rightly explain." After that, two kerbals. The one on the left kept her hair in an exceptionally tight ponytail, and the other had her red hair in the same "kerbfleet classic" style as Lagerbrett's. "On your left is Wenbin, and on your right is Virlas. They're our resident engineers, so they're not assigned to any place in particular, just wherever something might be broken." "Anyhow, It's time for you two to get to the MEM-X" The MEM-X fell between the cramped Kane and the spacious MERRS. With its height limited by the need for stability, its mass inflated by the load of scientific equipment, and its engine limited by the age of the craft, it was an anemic, one-lung vehicle. Originally, it was incapable of landing anywhere not right near the equator, but the MEMORIE (Munar Excursion Module Orbital Retrieval Independent Expansion) vehicle brought in with the previous mission could drag it to the desired orbit before landing, then retrieve it from a parking orbit afterwards. Unfortunately, the mission checklist hadn't yet been updated to include an inspection of the MEMORIE. Its 48-7S engines had degraded far faster than anticipated, and it was all Shepbree could do to keep them from falling apart. The reaction wheel was also quite damaged, and he wasn't sure it would last until they made it back to the station, even if he kept a careful eye on it. Shepbree let out a sigh of relief when it was time to detach and land. The pockmarked surface loomed large below the lander. This was the first time a crewed vessel had even attempted to land on the Mun's far side. "Touchdown" "Alright, time to collect some science, and plant a flag." "This place really isn't that exciting." "Really makes you appreciate just how special Kerbin is" "I'm gonna head back to the lander" "Ready to leave?" "Yeah, sure" "And now we wait" "Yep, and hope the tug's brain isn't half as damaged as its engines" Kilometers away, the MEMORIE recieved its signals from kerbin and began orienting itself. By the time it reached the MEM, both vessels had passed to the night side of the Mun. "Neilwig, can you add a note to the logs that I'm manually deactivating the MEMORIE's engines until they can undergo maintenance" About halfway through the scheduled burn, the craft abruptly shook. Shepbree half expected to hear a crunch. The panels were blaring with alerts, but he didn't need to look at them to know the reaction wheels on the MEMORIE had finally broken. All he could hope now is that they wouldn't need the wheels to get back. When they pulled into the station, he breathed another, longer sigh of relief as he climbed back into the station and the engineers used the arm to examine the engines for defects, and made some quick repairs. "Okay, let's go. We have the science, and I'm scared this station will explode." "Why did we leave the OM behind?" "It won't be long before we're home. They need it more than we do." "Okay, we've gotten the periapsis inside of the atmosphere. Time to buckle up. We'll be losing solar and supplementary life support when we disconnect, so get your snacking in now" Shepbree actually ditched the service module slightly earlier than necessary so as to avoid a scenario like the Muniy VI had experienced. They were just lucky they had hit the solar panel and not something sturdier. "Preparing to deploy parachutes" "I really hope this capsule floats" "Oh, good" This is probably going to be the last Muniy mission. There are still biomes left to explore, but the missions are just tedious at this point, and I have some plans for further development of the MERRS, exploration of minmus, and colonization of the Mun. The next chapter, though, will be closer to home.

No, it can't. Even with the SABRE in air-breathing mode it uses liquid hydrogen propellant. And "augmenting existing airports" for the skylon would be extraordinarily difficult. There are not currently any paved runways long enough to handle it, and it needs an exceptionally durable runway as well. It needs a total of 7.4 kilometers of runway, all of which must be able to accommodate 275 metric tons concentrated on three fairly small landing gear units. The longest paved runway is only 5.5 kilometers long. There are plenty of unpaved runways that are long enough, but they're unlikely to accommodate the forces involved. So no, it would not be easier. The advantage of the skylon is that it could theoretically be carried by a fairly reasonable airplane.

Skylon uses liquid hydrogen fuel, which means it cannot just launch from ordinary runways. It will still need to be mated to a similar umbilical system, will still need to be launched from set launchsites, and will still need uniquely trained personnel. The advantage of skylon is lower total fuel mass and thus, theoretically, lower launch cost.