Ultimate Steve

Chapter Eighteen - No Right Answer

The suit showed the overheat bar, but only just. It might have been the atmosphere-fixing update.

Chapter 20 - Interplanetary Ballooning

First unmanned Starship to reach Mars is falling through the Martian Atmosphere after a successful entry. Elon orders it not to start its landing burn in favor of a redesign.

*Starship is on the pad ready for first test flight *At T-10 Elon cancels liftoff and announces extensive changes to the architecture

They'd need a way to differentiate between someone going annoyingly slow, and a valid reason to be going slow on highways (traffic backup, in an accident and stopped, you're the only one on the road and it's snowing a lot, etc.)

Yup, that's the one!

Sometimes simpler is better. I agree that to go farther into space better rockets will be needed, but near space is something we've been doing for decades, and something that is rapidly becoming a competitive market. And when buying a product you generally want reliability and cost competitiveness, among other things. Simpler, cheaper rockets are a valid option, and will continue to be until we have a breakthrough that will make more complicated rockets cheaper than the simple, dumb rockets. Like possibly reusability, but that might not trickle down to smaller rockets very well. A valid comparison: You want a machine to do simple math, nothing more. Various companies have been competing to build abacuses. Some of them are bigger than others, some of them can do more than others, but you only need something that can do basic math, so you usually go with the cheapest one that won't fall apart immediately, say around $7. Calculators exist, but they usually do way more than you need them to, and cost way more then your abacus. However, decades later, someone figures out how to mass produce 4 function calculators so that they only cost $3. People abandon their abacuses for these calculators. The abacus was still useful, though, it had its place before the calculator took over. Some time later, the Iphone comes into play, which functions as a calculator but can also do much more. Unfortunately it costs about $1000. If you needed to calculate thousands of things at once while simultaneously browsing the internet, playing a game, recording yourself, and lighting up a dark cave, the Iphone is for you. But you only need to do simple math. Abacuses = various rockets designed for small satellite launches Calculator = breakthrough rocket using advanced technology that does the abacus' job cheaper and better (does not exist yet IRL) Iphone = Saturn V, SLS, N-1, Energia, shuttle, New Glenn, Falcon Heavy, etc. More complex stuff is not always the right answer.

The only one that comes to mind is Minecraft for console (not PC), which has split screen for up to 4 players. I don't play many games in general, so I'm afraid I can't help you very much with this one.

If you wanted to, could you change everyone's name and profile picture to the same thing and then change them back, like as an April Fools joke or something? Without manually doing it to every single user, of course...

Today, after many delays, we have launched 3 more rockets with the goal of using trigonometry to find their altitudes. Things that went wrong: I can't find an SD card for the third camera, which also contains video of past launches on it. Grr. It's hopefully somewhere. I broke the giant tape measure. I broke the camera tripod. I broke a makeshift launch lug and split a rocket in half (along a poorly manufactured joint line, but still). But some things went right! Launch 1 - Tiny A-103T engine on my sister's Spaceloft model rocket, about a foot tall, really small. We lost it. Nobody saw it after it shot off the pad. And because it was a cornfield it was really hard to distinguish the rocket from the corn, so RIP Spaceloft. Launch 2 - Neutron on an A8-3. Success! Mostly. Parachute did not deploy because it had been packed for a week or two. Rose 23.5 degrees above my position, which was 2 degrees below the launch site, 200 feet away. Calculated altitude is around 80 feet, which is way lower than expected. It also almost hit my sister on the way down. This is the first time I have trusted my sister with the launch controller ever since she almost blew my head off about 2 years ago. Can't blow my head off if I'm 200 feet away! Launch 3 - Paradox on a B6-4. I'm 80% sure it was a B6-4 but I loaded these rockets a week ago but the weather, daylight, and schedules of friends did not comply until now. Rose 52.5 degrees above my position, so about 253 feet if it went straight up, which it didn't. It came sort of towards me and to the right. I'm estimating a 20 degree launch angle, but it wasn't directly towards me, so ~15, that would put it closer to, perhaps below 200 feet. Also way lower than expected. The parachute on this one didn't deploy either. But, man, watching the launches from 200 feet away instead of 30 was definitely a cool experience. It's much easier to see the rocket fly its full trajectory and is really eye opening. I highly recommend it if you have a friend/family member to conduct the launch.

Size comparison from NSF:

Oh, also, forgot to mention, hooligan labs airship parts is a good mod for this mod. Maybe also anything that adds electric propellers. Not to spoil much, but this pack has several planets with very thick atmospheres, where ascent without balloon would be extremely impractical. ...In fact, I've worked on my Whirligig save in the first time in a long time, and I designed a ballooned ascent vehicle today.

If you custom made a nozzle so it could be landable, in theory it could work, but besides that or landing on a low gravity body like an asteroid I don't see it happening. But there is one real world example I can think of. Apollo 15 landed a bit hard and on some terrain sloped in just the right way that the descent nozzle actually contacted the surface and got bent up before the landing legs took the rest of the weight. The damage isn't super prominent but it is surely noticeable.

I'd either wait until ResearchBodies is updated, or use 1.5.1, as its fairly soon after release and most mods aren't updated yet. I don't know of an alternative to RB. It's shuffled around enough that it makes more sense, but not extremely shuffled. It makes way more sense for this pack than the stock one. And yes, I do think you get a probe core to start, but it's a very heavy one. The tree changes are listed in the OP. Some recommended mods are in the OP. I hope you enjoy it, and I hope you will consider posting updates on the forum! I will certainly read them if you do!

Is that the Proton factory? Also: Stitch from NSF of what the hopper may look like when complete.

First nose section is connected. The initial structure appears to be in 3 pieces now.

Ah, sorry. Looking back on that post, it is worded a bit confusingly, so I didn't exactly say that, but I meant it.

Going just from the shield to the craft, not the other way around. IIRC once they are attached, the nubs on the craft end will disappear after a save/load, but I may be wrong.

Or just use tons of struts. Noodle rockets have long been a problem in stock, although it's much better than it used to be. There's a mod that fixes this (KJR) but for your purposes struts or a simple redesign will suffice.

When I translate something I get an image caption that is a bit funny - "Rocket in the technical area"

Keep tweeting, Elon!

Good lord!

They said they'd do starship then the booster, but this wouldn't be the first time they've done something unexpected.