Silavite

The An-225 could carry it internally (just looking at dimensions and masses), but, uh, good luck on obtaining the thing... It might be possible to mount it on top of an aircraft and release it in a negative G push down, but that seems a bit risky, since the Dragon 2 has a much worse L/D than, say, the Space Shuttle Enterprise.

What you're describing sounds very similar to the landing bags used in the Mercury program. Didn't the Manned Orbiting Laboratory plan to feature a hatch within the heat shield? I wonder how NASA/USAF planned to handle that.

Perhaps they should ask the Russians to launch some Protons first?

I understand that the Navier-Stokes equations are a set of equations that define the behavior of fluids and that a millennium prize is up for grabs for a complete solution to these equations. What I don't understand is what effects such a solution and understanding of these equations would have. How could it affect practical things like aircraft design, building design, and combustion dynamics? Could such a solution be vital to understanding these things, or is it simply (albeit impressive) academic? I know it's a bit presumptuous to ask for the effects a solution could have when we don't even know the nature of the solution, but this is something that I am quite curious about.

I proposed something like this a while back. In the meantime, using a Kickback with the thrust limited works pretty well as a first stage.

@Red Iron Crown hinted at this earlier, but as you increase engine size, volume of the chamber is scale factor cubed, but surface area is scale factor squared. This means that you have less area on the engine for regenerative cooling (relative to its volume). This is the reason that one can only make expander cycle engines such as the RL10 so big.

I saw an opportunity for a debate about a subject that I am really passionate about, so I jumped at the chance. I ended up with some new knowledge and respect for an airplane that I previously thought had almost no redeeming qualities, so I'd say that it was well worth it.

I think there is not much disagreement that the aircraft type flown is a small piece of the mosaic picture that is an air force's effectiveness. @tater Acknowledged these other factors. As did I. @tater I still feel like you are saying that durability is survivability. Superior rate of climb or top speed allowed pilots to engage when they had the advantage and disengage when they did not. Durability is certainly helpful within a furball, but why would one be in a furball, which is hardly an advantageous situation, when you can simply disengage and fight later on your own terms? Between the F4F and the A6M, the Zero could dictate the terms of engagement much more readily (much better rate of climb across the map, slightly faster except on the deck) than the Wildcat (needed to have altitude and dive away, which itself threw away energy and could open oneself up to further bounces). Durability does indeed help in the process of disengagement, but durability does not enable the pilot to disengage. That is why I would still favor the Zero.

I will fully agree that, in context and reality, the Wildcat won over the Zero. I simply feel that, removed from context, the Zero is the better aircraft. The Wildcat won much more due to tactics and pilot training than due to its own qualities. In other words, I think that if you swapped the Zero and Wildcat between factions, the outcome would not change, and the Japanese would not gain any sort of advantage. The same could be said about the Defense of the Reich. If you swapped the P-38, P-51, and P-47 for the Fw 190 and Bf 109 (ignoring range, of course), the outcome would not have really changed. Also, about armament, I forgot about the velocity, yeah. The original Type 99-1 was a copy of the MG FF and thus suffered from meh rate of fire, junk muzzle velocity, and a limited drum fed magazine (seriously, why did no one other than the Soviets [and even then it was just a happy coincidence because the ShVAK was originally a machine gun] decide to develop belt feed mechanisms BEFORE the war? This happened with ALL the Oerlikon FF variants...). The Type 99-2 had a fine muzzle velocity but still suffered from all the other problems. It wasn't until the Ho-5 (which was basically a scaled up Browning) that Japan had a decent 20mm cannon.

I'll disagree about the Zero being worse than the F4F because the Wildcat was lacking in terms of flight performance (relatively speaking). http://www.avialogs.com/viewer/avialogs-documentviewer.php?id=3407 Admittedly the earliest model of Zero displayed here is the A6M3, not the A6M2. The A6M2 would have a lower critical altitude (and thus a lower top speed), but possessed better range and agility. That is the F4F-3 with four rather than six machine guns, and it is a land version without arresting gear at that. Despite that, the only areas in which it can claim superiority are durability and speed at low altitude. Another factor in favor of the Zero is that the Japanese standard for test data was military rather than war emergency power, which further favors the Zero. All that technical stuff being said, I will admit that what you say about numbers and the initial Japanese design philosophy is right. Overwhelming local superiority allowed Japan to steamroll over scattered and badly organized resistance at the start of the war regardless of equipment. The same thing happened in the Soviet Union during Barbarossa. However, Japan put all their eggs in the basket hoping for a quick war (and in the beginning, it looked like it would go that way), and didn't invest in things like pilot training programs or anti-submarine warfare. Then again, considering the overwhelming economic superiority of the United States, it have been even more foolish to try and fight a long war, but I digress. I still think that, although durability matters, it pales in comparison to other factors like doctrine, pilot training, numbers, and even flight performance. The Spitfire was, relative to a P-47 or Fw 190, a very fragile aircraft, yet, it proved to be a potent interceptor. Another problem was simply the culture of the Japanese military which did almost nothing to support teamwork, while the USAAF and USN made teamwork the centerpiece of fighter aircraft tactics. Dumping radios was a symptom of this.

In defense of the A6M, it was by far the best carrier-based fighter until the introduction of the F6F Hellcat. It had the best range of any single engine fighter of the war (the A6M2 did, at least), it had a respectable top speed (for the time) of 330 mph, an excellent rate of climb, outstanding agility, a bubble canopy (admittedly with framing), and good armament of two 20mm cannons and two 7.7mm machine guns. You could argue that the Seafire was better, and in terms of absolute flight performance in combat it was, but the poor range of the Seafire is almost crippling. My personal favorite (right now) is either the F2G or the Fw 190 D. They both look stunning.

Egads! You make an excellent point about the Kickback. I very rarely use SRBs as core stages so the concept never crossed my mind when writing this. I suppose that the hypothetical engine could be an alternative for the Kickback as a core stage in 1.25m rockets, and as liquid fueled boosters when a little bit more ΔV is desired without adding an extra stage. That, and the fact that being throttleable adds an extra degree of flexibility.

Hmm... fair enough. My first space game was Orbiter 2010, and I had been watching Scott Manley's videos for a few months before I got KSP, so I was fairly adept at spaceflight and its various terms even as a new player. Perhaps putting it in Advanced Rocketry (the same tech node that unlocks the Terrier) to contrast it with the Terrier would help? The description could even be something along the line of; I think the description, combined with it being unlocked with the Terrier, should help players understand its function.

Inspired by this post: One of the things that irks me about the 1.25m parts is that lack of an engine reasonable in capability but not excessively expensive for launches. The Reliant is an early game engine and it shows, with a TWR of 16.7 at sea level and 19.6 in a vacuum. The high-end 1.25m, the Vector, produces a very impressive TWR of 23.9 at sea level and 25.5 in a vacuum. For the purposes of comparison, the venerable Mainsail manages a TWR of 23.45 at sea level and 25.5 in a vacuum. The following is what I would propose for the characteristics of an engine that fills the gap outlined above. Others may differ, but my opinion for the stats of such an engine are roughly as follows: 1.8 tons 360 kN in Vacuum (TWR 20.41) 325.16 kN at Sea Level (TWR 18.43) 310 ISP in Vaccum 280 ISP at Sea Level 2° of vectoring 2,650 funds cost The stats of this hypothetical engine also reflect consideration of its other competitor: the Aerospike. It is superior to the Aerospike for low altitude flight (better TWR, gimbaling, cheaper) but remains inferior at higher altitude (heavier, worse vacuum ISP). What do you guys think about it? Do you think such an engine gap exists, and if so, would you agree at least roughly with my hypothetical stats?

The Mk 3 shock cone only has a temperature of 2000K, while most other Mk 3 parts have a temperature tolerance of 2600 or 2700 K.

I really love this mod (and the Mk 3 expansion), but I feel like the Sledgehammer (Air-Augmented Rocket) may be a bit too good. Its performance is quite comparable to the ESTOC, and it comes quite early in the tech tree at a fraction of the cost of the ESTOC.

Video of the said missile. You can see the atmospheric heating starting at 0:24.

I learned about this book recently and saw that there's a PDF of it online (since it hasn't been printed for a long time) here. Unfortunately, the PDF looks like gibberish for some reason. Is there any way I can make it legible?

I remember reading about the so-named "Four Inch Flight" in Gene Kranz's memoir. A very Kerbal way for NASA to take one of its first steps.

John Adam's Harmonium definitely has the Space-y ambiance feeling.

And by corollary, the exhaust travels a short distance (within the rocket's frame of reference), doing little work. However, if the rocket was moving at such a great speed that exhaust velocity was insignificant in comparison, then the exhaust and rocket would be doing a similar amount of work, as the exhaust and rocket would be moving at roughly the same speed and thus cover a similar distance. Force would always be equal because of Newton's 3rd Law. I think I may just be getting factor of increase mixed up with amount of increase (multiplication vs addition). If I had a rocket traveling at 5 m/s and increased its velocity by 5 m/s, its kinetic energy would increase by a factor of 4. If I had a rocket traveling at 100 m/s and increased its velocity by 5 m/s, its kinetic energy would increase by a factor of 1.1025. The ΔEk in the second case is greater, even if the factor by which it increases is smaller (ΔEk of 75 for the first case, and ΔEk of 1,025 in the second case).

I was reading about the propulsive efficiency of jet engines earlier, when I thought about the Oberth Effect. A jet (or any type of reaction engine) is most efficient when operating at the velocity equal to that of its exhaust; this is because if the exhaust is traveling at zero velocity in the vehicle's frame of reference, then the vehicle gains all the kinetic energy from the propellant and the exhaust is left with no kinetic energy. If a rocket were to be traveling faster than its exhaust velocity, however, then the exhaust would still have some of the kinetic energy that the rocket's propellant originally had, which would result in lower propulsive efficiency. Why then does the Oberth Effect still increase the available kinetic energy when rocket velocity exceeds exhaust velocity?

I think it's supposed to be from the James Bond theme. As for my favorite? It would have to be the 'Monocopter' (Credit to profossi from the KSP Subreddit).

Which is (considering the circumstances) the right way to go. The F-1B on the Pyrios booster is the result of the development and simplification of the original F-1 design, which was much heavier on the number of parts/welds. I think that Pratt & Whitney's RL60 would be to the RL10 as the F-1B is to the original F-1, but it seems like the RL60 project has ground to a halt. I digress, but I can't help but be amazed that not a single installed F-1 failed in spite of the fact that they were basically handmade. I remember seeing the F-1 in person at the Johnson Space Center (both installed in the S-IC and the engine by itself) and although the first thing that struck me was the size, the amount of parts and craftsmanship made an impression on me as well. (I need to go back to JSC sometime this summer. I haven't been in over two years.)

Prime example being the RL10. Performance wise, it is a perfectly suitable engine; however, the cost is something like $38M due to the fact that the engine is an anachronism from the 1960s. For comparison, the cost per launch of a Falcon 9 Full Thrust is $62M (a la Wikipedia).