Ultimate Steve

Not counting the intro and outro, about 44 seconds.

Starship would make a great wet workshop, though. If projections show that a crewed Starship can do TLI and landing with no refueling (DearMoon), then a full on tanker version (fuel tanks in the nose cone) *may* be able to do a one way landing with no payload. In addition, you can strip down the landing legs as they don't need to actuate or be landed upon in more than 1/6g gravity. Then you could wet workshop the whole thing, but you'd still need to get the life support there, so it may not be that good of an idea.

Hypercone, now there's a cool sounding name.

I've got boatloads of ideas that I've started and never finished. In the event that I go on to college without making progress on this story I may post the outline if anyone is still interested, but that's still over a year from now. There's so much I'd do if I just had the time.

So you have to stage something off every time you launch into Kerbin orbit, yes?

Elon says that they are flat packed, that there is no dispenser. It looks like they dispense from each other. Hopefully it's designed so that if one separator fails, the others can still deploy. The analysts over at r/SpaceX have estimated the payload mass at 15-16 tons based on formerly known numbers and the positioning of the drone ship. This is most likely the heaviest Falcon 9 launch yet.

Whoa! There appears to be 30 white lines, so I guess each one is a rectangle and there are two stacks of 30? Either way, that seems like a really weird form factor for a satellite! And IIRC these don't have the sat to sat comms hardware, just sat to ground. I wonder if the final satellites will be larger, and if they will be able to fit the same amount in the fairing.

The in game names are the same as what I have been calling them except for some small unnamed moons. The part mods are basically just Interstellar, Near Future, and some minor ones. The current planet pack is called Other Worlds, and if I have time I plan on going to all of the planet packs compatible with Interstellar Consortium, a community mod designed to support an entire Galaxy of stars with Kopernucus.

I think I'm a lot more optimistic about this than I was a few weeks ago. We've now got: Potentially accelerated (but not too much) SLS schedule Companies showing off mockups of Gateway modules they are currently developing A descent stage revealed that has been in development for some time and can launch on what is projected to be a low-ish cost near future rocket That leaves pretty much just the ascent stage as the last piece that needs to be worked on. Now that's good for just flags and footprints, but as far as staying on the Moon a while... I think that Blue Moon opens up a lot of possibilities. A significant tonnage to the lunar surface while not being as technologically risky as Starship... I could see NASA getting on board with that. It can also be used to get gateway modules to lunar orbit. Maybe not dock them, but with some modifications, maybe. If not, isn't the station supposed to have a robotic arm? IIRC Some late Apollo proposals involved stripped down lunar modules landing science experiments, a MOLAB, or even a habitation module on the lunar surface. BM is slightly less capable than the descent stage (4500kg payload vs 4700kg LMAS) according to currently available figures, but those proposals all look appealing again. Especially now that we don't have to launch multiple expensive SHLVs for one mission, those proposals would have had multiple Saturn V launches, these proposals, until recently, required multiple SLS launches. Now it's one SLS launch and multiple New Glenn launches, which should be much more manageable cost-wise. Not that we should get too excited, Blue Origin has still yet to put something in orbit... But with Blue Moon, they have potentially put themselves in a really good position. If they play their cards right, this could be big, really big.

This is proving to be a fun planet pack! I am currently doing a grand tour of sorts, in which I attempt to visit as many worlds from as many stars from as many modpacks as I can. I'm not doing much more than flags and footprints, but if you want to see my progress, it's in this thread: I have experienced a few issues. Pequar's moon has some invisible terrain that will blow your ship up if you touch it. The view from Troni is a bit, well... I know it's next to a star and all, but I think there may be a balance between realism and not burning your eyes out looking at a nearly solid white computer monitor. Again, your judgement, if it's supposed to be this bright then it's alright. Thank you for all the time and effort you spent putting this together!

I am referring to the theorized massive radiation belt surrounding Jool, a semi-popular fan theory.

In addition, with Blue Moon (BM, haha!) BO also put themselves in a good position to launch the gateway module.

Part 2 - Cercani A-C

They haven't announced that yet, but I'd imagine a new BO developed capsule.

So, they have been working on this for three years if I remember what I read correctly. The New Glenn is also planned to be man rated, so I'd guess that they have a large crew capsule in development as well. Maybe large for tourism, or smaller for beyond LEO applications... If it's the latter, then I could imagine that with some orbital assembly, a New Glenn manned lunar mission could be done...

Does anyone know the expected timeframe for operational use? If it's projected to be flight ready by 2022 or early 2023 then I think we know who may win NASA's crew lander competition... Depending, of course, on capacity.

Interstellar blunderbirds, now that would be interesting!

A lot, not going to lie! I'm really glad for the quickload option!

Yeah, I noticed that too! It wasn't completely intentional, but it was a little bit. Hopefully the Star Sky won't get destroyed however many times the Enterprise did...

The Grandest Tour Kerbin is dying. Years ago, shortly after the third wave of Jool exploration and the first serious interstellar probes were proposed, two major things happened. One. It was determined for sure that Laythe would not be suitable for long term Kerbal habitation due to radiation. Two. The world's leaders had dragged their feet and avoided the warnings for far too long. Too many greenhouse gases had been released into the atmosphere. Once the effects became noticeable, there was a flurry of panic. Trillions were sunk into carbon capture technologies, reforestation, and other, more exotic solutions, but the global temperature continued to rise. Barring a miracle, Kerbin was doomed the fate of Eve. Climate change was now irreversible. Part I - The Launch Well, first off, don't expect everything to be that dramatic. I certainly got carried away with the intro! Expect short-ish updates detailing the worlds I land on. Also, as with my other projects, expect long periods of inactivity as my interests jump around really rapidly. So, my goal with this mission is to land on as many worlds as possible with the ship I designed. I don't know what will give out first, the fuel supply, or my motivation. I expect that the fuel will last for at least 100 landings depending on the average size and type of the body that will be landed on. This is not done completely legitimately. During warp jumps I need to turn on unbreakable joints and ignore crash damage or else the entire ship will rip itself apart. In addition, the tanks that hold the hydrogen that powers the reactor have ridiculously low heat tolerances. When maneuvering near stars, ignore max temperature is on just for these tanks. If anything else overheats then I am definitely too close and will back off. Lastly, convenience over integrity in some cases. If I have to do a boring monotonous task that will decrease my enthusiasm for the project, then I will most likely cheat it. However I will not cheat for the smallest things. This installation doesn't even have HyperEdit installed, something that rarely happens. The game version is 1.6.1. I will be going through the various stars supported by Interstellar Consortium. I am unsure if I will even get past the first planet pack, Other Worlds, as it has I think six star systems with many bodies. If I do, I will be taking votes as to which star to do next. Maybe even within Other Worlds... My computer is not beefy enough to handle all of even just Other Worlds at once. Each star will be installed and uninstalled as I need it. Questions are welcome. This is actually supposed to be more of a technical mission report than a dramatic story, but again, I got carried away writing the intro. In Part 2, a few worlds are landed on, and I may explain what I have learned about warp maneuvering. In addition, some of the landers will be introduced. Mod list and world list maybe coming soon. Not now, I need my sleep. Enjoy!

At least oxygen isn't locked behind a paywall... ...Yet.

http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2019-04/03/c_137946434.htm https://space.skyrocket.de/doc_lau/jielong-1.htm China just announced a new rocket, a small four staged solid fuel rocket, 1.2 meters in diameter, 23t at liftoff, and should be able to put 150kg into a sun synchronous orbit. It is designed for the commercial market and is supposed to be reasonably cost competitive, although I don't believe that the price has been released yet. It is designed to be built in just six months, and readied for launch in just 24 hours. It is called Jielong-1, or Smart Dragon 1. The thing is, they appear to be targeting a maiden flight this month. It's a bit of a surprising announcement, this close to the date of a potential test flight. In addition, China appears to be making headway on the Long March 5B, and want to launch their first station module at the end of this year instead of next year. I wouldn't trust this article too much as it mixes up Long March 5B and Smart Dragon 1, but here it is: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamiecartereurope/2019/03/05/china-hints-at-surprise-space-station-launch-says-its-new-rocket-can-challenge-spacex/#5c4619f23e80

I'd say Pol is even more ignored than Dres sometimes!

You could also hook up the throttle to the speeds of the servos themselves. I wonder how much this will change the "stock" prop game. I guess it depends on how fast those can spin.

Do you think they will let it burn up on re-entry or go on an EVA to retrieve it?