todofwar

So, you've decided one of the other planets in the system could really use a GPS system for reasons. Challenge is to get one in place with a single launch, and must target a planet that is not Kerbin. You must place enough satellites in orbits such that from any place on the planet you could communicate with at least four. Each one needs to be able to generate power and communicate. Points awarded for number of satellites that are visible on average from any point on the planet, which I have not figured out how to determine yet but very much open to other's ideas. Probably the best way will be to show a screenshot with a tangent line drawn to the surface, every satellite above the line counts. But I don't know how to figure out your average over time. While I have not tried this myself I think this should be possible, the biggest challenge will of course be getting your mothership to the target planet either with enough fuel to deploy all your probes, or with each individual probe having enough fuel to get into their own orbits. If you use mods please list them.

At least Odin knows to update flash, very common way to get viruses! Of course, the idea that even a super advanced race of near immortals requires adobe updates is horrifying.

Hmmmm, maybe it's a frame of reference thing? Since the elevator is really just a moving room, you can move the elevator but can't lift Mjolnir from the elevator floor?

Oh I know, and I really don't mind that much. It's just a minor pet peeve of mine. Anyway, what are the transmission capabilities of these things? Would they be able to transmit to the surface or would they require a relay network?

That's what I meant, atomic bonds are on the scale of Angstroms, or 0.1 nm. So technically, shooting H2 out of your rocket may count as a "femtosat" but even really sophisticated molecular sattelites count as "nanosats". A femtosat would involve some kind of subatomic assembly that's probably impossible.

Everyone knows the helicarrier pilot was worthy. Come on, the guy gives to charity, he flew back into a warzone to save a K9 unit (what are these called in the army?), and he has absolute loyalty to his spouse. Plus, he drinks mead and regularly fights to defend his honor. Kidding aside, maybe if a machine's controls are "diluted" it' fine? So it would crash a single pilot jet but something like the helicarrier with an entire crew of over a thousand men (probably) can get it done because it's less the actions of an individual. So, the less "human" the controller the easier it is to lift. Advanced AI's would also probably be disqualified. But Thor did make special mention of that being a reason they could trust him.

There actually have been floating cities in the past, I think Russia had one at some point (might still be around). The main issue with these kinds of things is environmental impact vs building a similar scale city on land. Cruise ships can be rather nasty in terms of their waste that gets dumped into the ocean. Any plastics would have to be carefully disposed of/recycled, and you would want some wastewater treatment to avoid algal blooms surrounding you.

I really like this idea. I usually rename vessels once they reach orbit but this would be even better.

Minor pet peave: using prefixes that make no damn sense. Unless they are planning on building them out of quarks they won't be femtosats. Anyway, I do worry about the problem of loading too many of these things into orbit. Would hate for one to accidentally hit the ISS or something. I trust the powers that be to try and have safeguards, but I also trust the powers that be to screw up.

Agreed. Orbital might be able to get a temporary edge, but if they turn that into more RnD it's overall beneficial.

I thought the biggest problem wasn't fetal development, but childhood development. You would grow up never developing strong bones, and probably end up with twisted limbs that have little function. There was a great YouTube video going over the potential problems of this (including the whole getting pregnant in the first place part, which has its own set of problems). Strangely, all the comments in the video were arguing over evolution even though I don't think the narrator said the word evolution once....

Well I don't know much about how weaved fibers compare to the strength of individual fibers so maybe. The other issue with these kinds of materials is you need them perfectly ordered from the nanoscale on up. That 10 cm long thread will tangle itself up into a ball smaller than a virus.

Oh I'm sure it will have plenty of uses, but none of those have anything to do with its strength. Materials chemists/engineers love to throw out these strength properties even though they're not what these things are actually useful for.

Well, carbyne has basically all double bonds along its chain while any polyethylene will be single bonds along the length. So you get an increase in strength there, but it's only as strong as its weakest link. That's the real problem with these materials, you need to have a perfect unbroken chain to keep those strength properties at the macro scale. I think a space elevator could easily be the longest molecule ever if it was built (maybe DNA is longer?).

Went back to the original paper in nature materials, apparently it's not stable outside of its carbon nanotube sheath. So, our ability to mass produce this is limited by our ability to produce nanotubes. The strength of this material appears to be overhyped, just like all carbon materials. It does have some interesting properties, but more for nanoscaled electronics than structural materials.

You'd be surprised. Copper diffusion into silicon is a problem in circuits below a certain size. Not saying it can't be done, but it is something to keep in mind. And again, you need to get these things hot and keep them hot until they leave your rocket. I'm not terribly familiar with NTR designs, how much does you fuel cool down before it gets expelled? And solids have the issue of not being mobile. So you need to liquefy them, and that means heating your whole tank. Not saying it's impossible, but there is ease of storage, ease of use, and efficiency. Probably nothing will max out all three, hence were having this debate

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/04/russian-billionaire-unveils-big-plan-build-tiny-interstellar-spacecraft Not sure if that link will work since I read it on a network with a science subscription, but apparently this billionaire wants to send a space craft to a nearby star, and he plans on making it weigh a gram. Apparently it will work by getting pushed by lasers based on the earth.

So I often see procedural systems recommended, and I thought of a way to implement it as a mod. Full disclosure: my coding skills hover around the ability to code tick tack toe so I'm not exactly an expert. Anyway, what if you wrote a second program that outputed configuration files for new solar systems. Place the file in a specified folder in gamedata with the other necessary components, along with a folder to store systems you're not using (that way you can have multiple, just need to remember to swap them out for the correct save game). So, would this be possible? Alternative idea: a system editor. You type in things like orbits, sizes, and moons and it does the rest. Make solar system creation as easy as possible and have people upload their works to a server where others can download them. Over time you would build such a massive library that true procedural generation wouldn't be necessary. The editor would ideally make biomes and textures for your planets procedurally to streamline the process.

Ive seen other versions of this suggested and it is definitely one of my favorite suggestions. Only problem is it really only works for your first playthrough unless you bring in procedural systems which is a whole other can of worms. Still, even if it is just the kerbal system I think it would be awesome to implement.

I believe these lighter metallic elements have issues of diffusing into other metals (I know this is a big problem in some battery designs) so Be and Li will probably give almost as many issues as hydrogen as far as storage is concerned. And anything that produces chemicals that will be liquid are probably a no go. If you take BH3 for example, it has a mass of 13.8 with 10.8 of that coming from B. So, if the B is a liquid it's not contributing to your thrust, and though hydrogen has a great ISP only 21% of your fuel is actually getting used. So all you've done is found a very heavy way to store hydrogen. Chemically storing hydrogen is actually an active area of research for fuel cells, but no matter what you do your mass ratio will always be terrible. That's forgivable in ground based applications but less so in rockets. Edit: Even as a solid you get some diffusion, but the real problem will be liquid metals forming amalgams and weakening components, so not so much a storage issue as an operational one.

Ok, new scenario. We settle all the galilean moons. War breaks out between them (maybe I'm a pessimist but I don't think people ever need much of an excuse to kick off a war). Easy to orbit, not a long transit time between them. So, what does that battle look like? Let's assume they already solved the issues of colonizing the moons.

But would it be long enough for Mars to build up its own defence systems? Unless an alien comes in with high technology, I'm pretty sure the Earth is actually well defended. We wouldn't launch nukes at targets but those ICBMs could probably be packed with some conventional explosives and take out ships in orbit. Once any lander comes in we can treat it like an ICBM and take it out with missile defense systems. So Earth has the advantage over Mars, but Mars probably wouldn't have any such defense systems leaving them vulnerable to orbital bombardment. So, could Kessler buy them a few years to get a set of defense missiles capable of reaching orbit? And a missile defense system to take out landers forcing invaders to land far away from the main settlement? Depends on the state of the colony. Self sufficiency isn't that hard really, though a colony that can continue to grow and develop completely independently of Earth would be a bit tougher. But there's already a long thread on colonization and the challenges there.

Well, if instead of "stopping time" you go with a more quicksilver/flash approach then XKCD did a fantastic case of what happens when a baseball accelerates to the speed of light. Yes everything goes boom. I remember from my modern physics class a while ago we went through relativity and discussed how from the frame of reference of something traveling at the speed of light, all things happen at the same time in the same place. In that sense, has time "stopped" for massless particles?

Of course, I guess the parts that resonated with me were the times he highlighted our own ridiculous ways, so I always remember it more as a commentary on our own society than science fiction. Doesn't mean he didn't also include plenty of jabs at the genre.

I judge movies by how hard they try. For example, HHGG gets all the passes because Douglas Adams is hilarious and clearly is more interested in satirizing modern life than speculating on technology. But I was extremely critical of the way the Martian handled some things (what do you mean you added liquid oxygen to a beaker? Once it boils it's going to blow that thing apart without any fuel needed! Why do you even have an accessible LO2 dewar in a ship's chemistry lab at all? That is not standard in chem labs, I am a chemist and I don't know of anyone with a LO2 dewar lying around because you don't want to deal with its need to occasionally vent O2 to maintain cryotemps) because it was trying to present itself as very accurate.