JoeSchmuckatelli

Hate to say it... but that looks like one of those dealership "Yes, maam... we gotta take out the dash to be able to access the back of the engine manifold before we work on your exhaust springs and Johnson rods... you'd better leave it with us for a few days..." kinda problems.

But just how fast can an object move and still be tracked by Webb? This was an important question for scientists who study asteroids and comets. During commissioning, Webb used an asteroid called 6481 Tenzing, located in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, to start the moving-target tracking “speed limit” tests. Webb was designed with the requirement to track objects that move as fast as Mars, which has a maximum speed of 30 milliarcseconds per second. During commissioning, the Webb team conducted observations of various asteroids, which all appeared as a dot because they were all small. The team proved that Webb will still get valuable data with all of the science instruments for objects moving up to 67 milliarcseconds per second, which is more than twice the expected baseline – similar to photographing a turtle crawling when you’re standing a mile away. “Everything worked brilliantly,” From the blog (Above) Also: JWST Commissioning Data Highlights - MAST Data Holdings - MAST (stsci.edu)

Having looked into this for a brief second*, I guess what I was looking for was some kind of mediated supercriticality that would allow us to use the fissile materials directly like a rocket vs something crude like the Orion Project pusher-plate idea. Yet - I'm gathering that that won't exactly work. Although, perhaps using a powdered fissile and combining it in a bell in a way that causes the mediating/moderating material to change rapidly from a liquid or solid to a gas might provide the expansion necessary for thrust? (Thanks guys - I'll keep playing with the idea... lots more reading). *6985126 (osti.gov)

Ah cool - did not know these distinctions. So - I'm guessing that the plutonium 'batteries' used on some spacecraft are sub-critical? Native waste-heat of the decay being harnessed for power? Using my new vocabulary: my understanding of the critical reaction engines in rocketry are very high ISP, but not a lot of TWR. With the hammering away at Orion Project stuff over these last few months, I was hoping there was something between Critical and Super Critical that could be harnessed for space travel. (Now that I know the words, I can start googling) Thanks!

Two paragraphs and suddenly so much more makes sense!

I've posited this question before, but never gotten an answer (probably because it's not known)... but here goes. With conventional explosives and powders, I've had the reactions described to me as less than an actual explosion, but rather they're described as burns with differing rates of propagation. Example: the difference between black powder and modern smokeless powders (Cordite through WC844, etc): the advantage of the modern is far faster flame propagation, resulting in increased chamber pressure and a dramatically faster, flatter trajectory projectile. Compare that to the much faster propagation of Det Cord or Composition B which, if used in a small arm would probably be lethal to the user. The point of all of this is that we have the ability, through chemistry, to adjust the burn rate of 'explosives' to attain desired results... and use that knowledge in traditional, chemical rocketry. ... With the talk of Orion on this forum and everyone searching for high energy density rocket propellants, and the difficulty in creating metastable metallic hydrogen... what is the likelihood of there being some kind of future 'sub-atomic-explosion' burn rocket? Is there anything in the literature that makes it possible to 'slow down' or mediate a nuclear reaction such that it is not explosive per se - but rather has a controllable burn rate that might be useable in future interstellar rockets? Edit - this thought arises because our current use of nuclear power is either crude (weapons; we explosively slam stuff together until it explodes) or slow (we bring stuff close, let it heat up something else to do work). There's gotta be something between, one would think.

please see edit above

It's this kind of thing that us new/dense players often miss. At Kerbin, I set up my encounter by tweaking maneuver nodes, then do the burn - and as long as I still have an encounter, warp to just before entering the SOI of target moon. Never dawned on me to do anything mid-flight! Well - except see if I could get points for a spacewalk, crew report or science... EDIT - to STAY OT... I just remembered something from my first attempt (oh so long ago) at getting a probe around another planet (don't remember which one). There was someone who recommended I try to correct my insertion from half-way there. I recall doing that, and was kind of amazed at how 'tweaky' it was. Little movements sent me all over the system (I'm pretty sure it had multiple moons). At the time, I did not know how to do anything without 'pulling' the nodes - so trying for fine corrections required a bunch of times of me deleting the planned node and starting over. Eventually I got a good encounter. This was back when I refused to look at the planets or any videos about them - because I wanted the surprise of discovery. Totally worth it, btw. I was super excited to see another planet up close. The question is; when KSP2 comes out, if there are not only inclined planetary orbits - but the planets have an inclination themselves - meaning that their moonar systems have an inclination that differs from their orbital planes... do you get an equatorial orbit between planets - or only after you capture?

From what I'm gathering, the only large SSTO that would work isn't going to have stages; it's going to be a craft fitted out with anti-grav repulsors and Star-Trek engines. Is that the state of current understanding?

One of the reasons I've been agitating for a good, in-game Kerbilopedia (which - I acknowledge - is unlikely to be a feature), is that I make 'stupid' mistakes quite frequently. This is mainly because I play until I get frustrated - take months (or years) off - pick it back up again... then repeat. Case in point: In my most recent playthrough, I completely forgot that orbital inclination changes are best done at high altitude. I was attempting to set up a complicated Science and ISRU site - with a rover that could transport fuel between the miner and landers, plus a bunch of other things like placeable science array, a science hab (can't remember name), etc. This took several landings - and I repeatedly went this route: 1. Design complicated thing to do/bring what I want at/to the surface 2. Overbuild massive ship to get up to orbit with enough fuel to get 1. to its destination. 3. Burn hard and rough and accept whatever encounter I could tweak an orbit to 4. Get an orbit, dump PE down to the altitude I wanted to start trying to land from 5. SAVE 6. Drop AP down... and 6a. aw heck maybe just go for landing (presumes I think I can hit my spot) - or - 6b. circularize then try to move inclination to where I think I can line up a landing. 7. Keep trying until I get a fairly close landing Notice: I totally failed to try to correct my 500km initial orbit inclination when I had the chance. Literally never occurred to me - I had forgotten what I'd learned waaaay back when. Ultimately, however, what drove me to quit was that once I had all my things landed and in place... every time I'd load in to the area - something would be floating or have no gravity so that just my Kerbal bumping it could send it skittering away. The game had glitched and all that work was for naught.

Excellent question - and VERY. I have (after a LOT of failure) been able to land ships and probes within a very painful 'driving distance' of one another. There was a time I remember, early on, when you could warp with a wheeled vehicle (which wasn't that bad), and then IIRC they took that away. So I had to try really hard to get my crafts closer. My biggest threat to this is fuel, because I rarely get 'good' inserts. Sometimes I'm smart / intuitive enough to figure out how to wait out a warp so that a highly inclined orbit will allow me to time a landing with a previous mission (thus conserving fuel), and others I change inclination so that I can suicide burn with a lot more margin. But if its the first - I either hit it or it's a complete waste of effort. The idea that I could build a platform on Mun and land on it? Woah, Nelly - that's gonna take some helaciously good video tutorials to accomplish!

Back before I took the wind out of this thread with some late night (early morning) whiskey fueled and maudlin ramblings... I brought up the power of editing, which is something I'm struggling to gain skill in. I found this - and while it's about film - is really about story telling and pacing. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did!

Your post took me on a search - and I found this, which is quite interesting:

No its not. (Abyss reference)

Whether that is part of previously scheduled work by a separate team than B-7's or not, I'm taking this as a good sign.

Wow! https://www.newscientist.com/article/2328348-james-webb-space-telescope-team-quietly-releases-a-picture-of-jupiter/ "Taking pictures of Jupiter was part of a test to make sure that the observatory could track objects moving at high speeds through the solar system. Jupiter was the slowest – but largest and most spectacular – of nine moving targets used for these tests, and it showed that objects can be tracked even with a bright planet bouncing light into the cameras. The tests demonstrated that JWST is even better than expected at tracking fast-moving objects, which will be particularly useful for studying comets, near-Earth asteroids and even interstellar objects." ... WAIT - What are the other 8 targets, and where are the images?!?

My plan is to wait anxiously for the release and hope it is a worthy successor for KSP (meaning still hard, with new awesome sauce) ... And if so, see if I can get my daughter hooked on it.

I think it's easy to forget how hard the game is for the average person. I'm a space enthusiast, so was highly motivated to learn the game, but I never had anything close to the maths experience throughout college or beyond to just 'get' a lot of the stuff people who are good at KSP seemingly take for granted. I remember my first Mun landing attempts. The stress is on the pluralization of 'attempts' because thanks to the save feature I tried and failed repeatedly with my first ship, then built a different one - which again I tried and failed to land repeatedly... Before going to the internet and finding a suggestion that new players should almost skip the Mun and go straight to Minmus to learn how to land b/c it is easier. This turned out to be true. Several landings at Minmus later and I finally figured out the Mun landing... And felt an enormous sense of accomplishment. I think this is the often overlooked power of KSP - and what I hope is most retained by KSP2 - that sense of Jesus Christ this is hard, but Holy$ I DID IT! That is something few games ever offer a person. So I do appreciate everyone who says 'please don't dumb KSP2 down so much that it's not fun!'. You guys are absolutely right - the game should be hard... And if it isn't, they'll have failed the core audience. But on point - Kerbin and moons should be virtually identical in 2 as KSP. Players like me and the new need a relatively simple playground to figure stuff out (and 'cannon' - big changes would be too noticeable). Later Kerbol system planets? I think that statistically so few players ever got out there that cannon isn't really an issue. Some subtle changes to give veterans a bit more challenge or that comport more with reality would be fine.

Quenching is a situation in which superconductor cease to be in superconducting state. It is abrupt phase transition and quenched part get immediately significant resistance. Superconducting coils have very large inductance and also large currents. It means very large energy of magnetic field and that energy is released as heat in quenched part. It may damage the wire straight or boil so much liquid helium that pressure bursts vessels or tubes. It may also be dangerous for user if safety measures are omitted. It may happen due to some disturbance. For example change in magnetic field around experiment. It is not the only danger that iron tool is attracted at high speed. Crash may be followed by a shower of liquid helium. That was one of the most powerful summations one could ask for! Thank you! I had never heard of quenching in relation to superconductors (the articles of which I usually just skim to see if any major advancement has been made) - but when I do hear about something new I enjoy delving a bit. Alas, I haven't the maths background to understand the details - but youve given me enough to find publications and perhaps glean the gist. ... I had to laugh out loud when I read, ...my kids' middle school science books'sections on magnetism had the familiar drawings of field lines and pictures of iron filings and my thoughts at the time was that I hadn't learned much more than that in college. So reading your explanation struck my funny bone... Because it's true. Ferromagnetism and electromagnetism are often presented to the liberal arts students as 'here's the basics, and trust us, this is how it works - let's quickly move on to something else you will barely understand'. (<Subtle hand wave> 'These are not the maths you are looking for')

The 'Human to Scale' in the image above is either quite short or has been eating too many Wheaties.

You could begin, here: Home - National Space Organization (narl.org.tw)

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/tardigrades-space-travel-survival-humans ... And now you know!

Spaghetti anyone? https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/07/polarized-light-reveals-final-fate-of-a-star-spaghettified-by-a-black-hole/

NBC has some side by side slider comparison between the Hubble and Webb images https://www.nbcnews.com/data-graphics/compare-photos-nasas-james-webb-space-telescope-hubble-space-telescope-rcna37875

I thought the host chatter and 'while we wait' video segments were well done. Certainly better than BO or ESA. That said, I do like being able to skip around with an 'after the event' video. New things like SS I want to watch live - so I can either witness history or see something go boom. ;D But even the 'routine' launches are interesting. Seeing stage separation and the second stage engine black body emissions are fun.