Ozymandias_the_Goat

It sounds like you want to undertake a challenge presented by another player. This is very good, and we have a whole section of the forum dedicated to such endeavors. If you are interested in SSTO design, consider accepting this classic challenge:

Tag! Now you are indeed “it” Is the head of a zebra a metaphorical manifestation of the infinite improbability drive?

Retrofuturism, yay! It all depends on what you judge, obviously, as exceptional payloads have a habit of launching on unexceptional boosters, the sole exception to this being falcon heavy. With that topping all lists, I’ll say that the most interesting payload was TESS, with BepiColumbo following and then insight, I guess.

Though, to be fair, I don’t know why they are called a trilogy, as they do not appear to be at all related. I suspect that this post will be relegated to the “Book club and literature” section of the forum, though.

Quick question, can anybody provide a relatively comprehensive guide to editing the flavor text of planets? What I really need to know is where I can find the appropriate files in the KSP folder. Bear in mind that my knowledge of computer science is "very" limited. Thanks

If it makes you feel better, I watched the launch. Hopefully the falcon 9 can put my hurtful comments behind.

Clearly, you have never orbited the magic boulder. Anyway, I assume that we are in the part of the mission in which we search for potential landing sites? Here’s the orbital trajectories:

Exactly. The whole idea of moving the car along with the people adds an unnecessary level of complexity. As for saying that Elon musk can spend his way any way he wants, at this point, I would say that Elon musk is such a great benefactor to humanity that I cannot stand seeing him waste his resources. I mean, if NASA was to waste that funding on a “cool” project which fails to hasten the coming of human permanence in space, I would just go ballistic...

Yeah, the launch itself is generally unexceptional (I suppose that’s a good thing). It’s only the landings that make it worthwhile.

I suppose that 4th is the first poster who holds the unique honor of being “exceptionally unexceptional” Ach, got ninja’d by @klesh

8/10, I waste so much time with tabletop games that I see d20s in my sleep

Do not “come in for a chat and some tea” with the magic boulder.

10/10 Still really accurate

¡ʍou uǝʇɟo ǝɹoɯ ʇoן ɐ ʇxǝʇ uʍop ǝpısdn ƃuısn ǝq ןןıʍ ı

Number one rule of economics: There are no miracles.

Exactly! The risks of using an NTR are really the same as with any rocket engine. Space travel is simply dangerous, there is no way around that...yet. The entire fear of NTRs is simply the irrational fear of nuclear technology. But to respond to your question, isn’t the amount of radiation produced by an NTR failure rather small? If it disiopated over a large area, namely an unpopulated one, the fallout would be rather minimal? And anyway, second stage failures are relatively rare, and the vehicle is at greatest risk during the first stage burn. And as @tater said, failure of the first stage would still allow reactor recovery.

At the same time, we have a long way to go before we even produce a functional terrestrial fusion reactor, so it’s not as if a fusion reactor is a near future technology. I’m not sure if a failure at high altitude would be catastrophic, at least not in the manner that you describe. An NTR stage, as you said, would be solely an upper stage, which probably would not even be fired until the ship is in orbit. I suppose that you might be thinking of something like a second-stage failure, in which case the payload would crash before reaching orbit. However, consider that all space agencies intentionally plot launch paths over unpopulated areas. Indeed, if an NTR launched from the KSC was to have a catastrophic second stage failure, it would either crash into the Atlantic Ocean, or be traveling so fast the reentru forces would destroy it before it could deal any damage. Plus most of the world has very low population density, so the odds of an NTR hitting a population center is essentially zero. The only people who would be at risk are the crew of the vehicle but this is why cargo and crew should launch separately.

True, I suppose I should have been more specific about what I meant by “rocket” and in that I meant a regular capsule and booster system. So, to continue, yes, the dream chaser launches aboard an atlas v or Vulcan, that is still an expendable vehicle, so I’m not too keen on its routine use. And as for the space plane itself, I suppose that it could reduce the rentery force somewhat, but as for refurbishing it, how is it cheaper than a capsule? I don’t know, perhaps the bad experiences with the shuttle program tend to make one biased towards the space plane concept, but until they can actually beat out traditional launch vehicles in practice, I remain unconvinced of their worth.

That’s why I can’t say I’m particularly excited about this. Spaceplanes simply do not work as well as rockets, and there is simply no point to waste mental resources trying to make this superficially interesting, but fundamentally flawed concept “aloft”.

https://carnegiescience.edu/news/discovered-most-distant-solar-system-object-ever-observed I bid thee discuss!

Whirligig World is a mod which puts an interesting “spin” on the game. It does make mit quite a bit harder, as you need to develop completely new means of reaching orbit and, most importantly, getting home safely. I have been having a great deal of fun with this mod of late, and you can get it here, if you don’t know of it already: Of course, the key issue that some may have with this is that it is quite unrealistic, in which case rss is the indispensable mod, but I suppose that there is something to suit everyone’s tastes.

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I had similar problems with air brakes (I do all my launches with a two stage fully reusable rocket). What I have found to be essential in shaving off the bit of speed that separates exploding from not exploding is air brakes with a 30-35% authority limiter (you can toggle this by right clicking on the breaks). The air brakes should not explode with this much exposure. Yes, sometimes it is necessary to fire engines during descent, this should only be an emergency method for when the overheat bar is nearing 90% full. For landing, you should not need more that 1-2% of your original fuel. With all this is mind, you should design a rocket that can get to orbit with 5% or more of its fuel. Otherwise, consider adding a small second stage. All of these things come from my own personal experience with reusable rockets, and as you fly your rocket more and more. You can develop a landing routine that will deliver results consistently on your own.

Doesn't look like it could move... A quick squirt of WD-40 will easily amend that. Seriously, if its moving and it's not supposed to move, use duct tape. If it's not moving and it's supposed to move, used WD-40.