James Kerman

Yeah, Mate, it used to be.

Welcome back, Monstah. Although I'm fairly new to the forum, there was some overlap while you were a mod and I believe that any person who owns a motorhead shirt is an automatic kindred spirit.

Sorry, Mate, I misunderstood.

I agree but in the case of Europa the atmosphere is primarily oxygen caused by charged particles hitting the ice so if you are looking for cyanobacteria or other organisms deep under the surface you would be dealing with a lot of signal noise. Even evidence of past life on these bodies would answer many questions and raise many more.

Welcome to the forum @Sm1234.

I'm not sure that NASA has ever proposed a colony on Mars, besides some early, optimistic ideas that never got past the paper stage (I might be wrong about this but someone will correct me if it is so). I personally think that an outpost (as opposed to a colony) on the Moon could be useful to explore some of the issues involved in colonizing any body in the solar system. We have a cool thread on Mars colonization that explains some of the many problems any colony is likely to encounter if you would like to read more about it.

I found it helps to keep yourself occupied, rather than dwell on the bad news. Maybe you could organize some special activities for Molly (if She's not too poorly) so that even if the worst happens both you and the dog have some really happy time together.

Having lost a beloved companion myself, I empathize with the pain you are feeling, Cat. I've recently lost a family member to cancer so I hate it too.

NASA's Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) is beginning aero-braking operations to support Mars 2020. Image Credit: NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio/Kel Elkins and Dan Gallagher

Ninja'd by @Starman4308 Set a maneuver node a few minutes ahead of your vessels current position and play around with it until you get it to 2.2km or less. Your relative speed is good but you only really need to get within switching distance of your target (A kerbal on EVA has about 500m/s Dv - enough to go more than half way to the mun and in this case you only need to kill 13.6m/s) so that you have control of the kerbal. Don't worry about how much time you have to perform the transfer, this changes as you make adjustments. You are moving towards your target when the prograde indicator (actual direction of your kerbal/vessel) is close to your target marker . If you are moving away from your target you will see the retrograde indicator (opposite direction). Your relative speed should only be zero when you actually get to the rescue vehicle so you don't need to perfectly match orbits - the fine tuning of the orbits is what happens as a natural consequence of keeping your markers lined up with RCS. For docking you want to minimize the amount of monoprop your vessel carries so in that case an orbit that varies by 1-2km is desirable for an easy, slow speed dock. I have rescued kerbals with a vessel that was in an opposite orbit to the stranded wreck around minmus and often perform high speed intercepts to save on fuel up to 200m/s speed difference (but its best not to try this until you have a better understanding of the process).

You're nearly there, you just need to match up your prograde vector to your target marker on the navball and watch your approach speed. Relying on visuals for the approach is very difficult until you get really close. An example (I only use the navball information until I get 20-30m from the vessel): When you thrust to slow down it will change the prograde vector so keep adjusting to keep the two markers lined up and you will make it. Another edit: I only backward thrust to slow down, after that, if your prograde is above the target usle ctrl to lower it, if below use shift. Use a or d for left right adjustments.

As far as I know the closest to an all water body known to science seems to be Gliese 436 b. I believe any large body of water or ice would have to include some other materials deposited as cosmic dust or meteor/asteroid impacts. That said there are gas giants with densities lower than water and surface gravity higher than earth so it should be possible, just not probable.

While I agree that IQ is partly influenced by the complex interaction of over 500 genes (the actual mechanisms are not well understood at this time) external factors also seem to be significant. A lot of the material I am reading on the subject is highly controversial and may be biased by testing that concentrates too much on either; crystalized IQ (defined as the ability to use learned knowledge and experience), fluid IQ (defined as the ability to solve new problems, use logic in new situations, and identify patterns) or spatial IQ (spatial judgement and the ability to visualise information to solve problems) to determine Fullscale IQ (overall IQ). While it is true that the Flynn Effect seems to be reaching a plateau, some researchers argue that this is due to saturation of education, health, 'cultural loading', nutritional values, new technology and global connectivity in the developed world (Flynn only used data from; Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Britain, Canada, China, Denmark, East Germany, France, Israel, Japan, Netherlands, New Zealand, Northern Ireland, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, United States of America, and West Germany Flynn, 1994), the actual global rate is likely continuing on an upward trajectory when these additional factors and the developing world are taken the into account.

Asteroid 2019 CB2 will pass the Earth at 1.04 million kilometers at 1.20am GMT (UTC) on Sunday, February 10. Image captured from the interactive JPL Solar System Dynamics Small Body Database Browser. Asteroid 2019 CB2, classed as on “Earth Close Approach”, will breach speeds of nearly 29,125mph or 13.02km per second as it passes our planet and the flyby comes just five days after NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory first observed the rock on February 2. As of February 5, 2019, NASA has discovered a total of 19,585 Near-Earth Asteroids (NEAs). More than 8,500 of these objects measure more 460ft (140m) in diameter – these are additionally dubbed “Potentially Hazardous Asteroids”. Another 897 of the 19,000 asteroids measure a cataclysmic 3,289ft (one kilometer) or more across. Asteroid 2019 CB2 is a much smaller object estimated to be in the range of 59ft to 127.9ft (18m to 39m) in diameter.

Welcome to the forum, @Sky The Heck. Hopefully we can help you explore the rest of the system.

NASA has released a 360° immersive video of Curiositys last drill site on Vera Rubin Ridge. Video Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

Welcome to the forum, @<Joseph kerman>. I used to be a believer in colonizing Mars until I realized the difficulties involved - even if you could terraform Mars (no small feat) you would still have the problem of solar wind and cosmic radiation bombardment because of the lack of a magnetosphere. I have read of a proposal of placing a solar shade at one of the LaGrange points (it would need to be many kilometers in diameter) to mitigate this problem but you are still left with a colony that requires just about everything to be delivered from Earth, at constant peril of disaster. Other issues are that we just don't know if animal reproduction is viable at low G's and such an endeavor would require huge amounts of cash and resources. The discussions here on the subject have led me to believe orbital outposts are more viable until we discover better propulsion and energy production methods and we know more about long term space habitation.

Personally I think we need to thoroughly search our own system, in particular deep sample drilling on Mars, Europa, Ganymede, the ice giants and Enceladus, before looking further afield. Our tree of life requires liquid water and until there is evidence of it on Tau Ceti e there are far better targets for research in our own backyard. Life on other worlds will remain a mystery until we have a data set greater than 1.

On reflection a role I can envisage for transport P2P is in bulky cargo, if it has the ability to land and be serviced at mostly unprepared locations. The dimensions of the cargo space in an aircraft precludes some goods that are too heavy or can't be broken down into smaller pieces and it is fairly common in the industry for some companies (generally mining or shipping) to pay if the effect of downed machinery or loss of productivity will cost more than the cost of the flight. Bulky/heavy goods are also prone to being bumped from flights because airlines usually prefer to upset 1 customer than 100.

I worked in international airfreight logistics for years and even though the actual flight might be 4 hours for P2P the paperwork and cargo preparation takes a lot longer than that (days). Also the infrastructure to refuel, service and load would need to be established at the major international cargo hubs before SpaceX could be a viable alternative to the current system.

I'm not sure if it's a mistranslation - do Russian missions have a "warranty period"?

Welcome to the forum, @jnbspace. I agree with Starhawk, the full version is fantastic, cheap and with continued development keeps getting better. I don't justify my KSP addiction to my family, I just wake up 3 hours before they do.

In career mode I usually build a mothership/lander with ISRU for Duna. There was a challenge a few years ago to visit Duna and Ike - you might find inspiration there. Some tips: You will need about 6600dv to land on Duna from the surface of kerbin. This assumes you follow standard procedures: 1. Get to low Kerbin orbit. 2. Depart low Kerbin orbit at the correct phase angle - this means leaving at a time when it is most efficient for a Hoffman maneuver to your destination. 3. Once you have an intercepting course, warp time to the half way point between Kerbin and Duna. Perform a course adjustment: Create a maneuver node 10 or 20 minutes ahead of your vessel - just place it without changing anything. Then click on Duna and select focus view - this will change your view to the destination and should show your plotted course in the sphere of influence of your destination. Rotate your view until you can see both the path through the SOI and the node you just created and you can now use that node to plan and execute a burn that will bring you close to your intended orbit or even into an atmosphere for aerobraking. The course adjustment is usually very cheap on Dv and you get savings by doing your capture burn nearer your destination planet/moon (benefiting from the Oberth effect). You will need about 1700dv to return to Kerbin from Duna (900dv to low Duna orbit, 800dv for return flight) follow steps 1,2,3 again) if you aero brake and capture at Kerbin. If you don't need a pinpoint landing then aero braking and aero capture will save you a lot of fuel. The thin atmosphere means parachutes are not as effective so I use a combination of chutes (set to open higher in the VAB) with a little bit of throttle for the last 100m of descent. You don't need a heat shield or ladders to land on Duna.

Welcome to the forum, @Lankspace. I love the game too and it is responsible for my interest in science and spaceflight. The forum is host to some great amateur astronomers, lots of STEM members and If you enjoy coding, the game has a vibrant modding community. I'm sure you'll fit right in.

Both MarCO cubesats (EVE and WALL-E) have ceased communicating with NASA.