Ultimate Steve

Docking very large things in complicated situations. One specific incident comes to mind, that's when I was taking a very long mothership (several Mk3 segments, part of Project Intrepid if you want to read, not to advertize or anything) to Gilly. I landed. Due to... reasons... the giant ship was now not rolling, but bouncing down a hill and I had to dock this mini transfer ship with it. The port was on the bottom of the mothership, and it was rotating around that axis, as well as bouncing up and down slowly. The min transfer ship had two docking ports, one on each side, left and right, with no RCS. IIRC I had accidentally blown up the reaction wheel. Oh, that was "fun." I eventually got it, though. EDIT: It was also night at the time.

When I'm able to get to my KSP computer I just realized I need to make a change to my cubesats. The problem is that there aren't any relay antennas that are small enough yet powerful enough. A check of the wiki reveals that when calculating the whole "relay" thing, if you're bouncing through a relay the direct antennas on that relay are not being calculated, apparently, which means at minimum I'd need an RA-2 per relay, which are larger than they look... And I'd probably need two per relay to have a better shot at getting coverage. So my cubesats are going to end up at around the volume of the lander...

I am about to start a Rank 2 attempt. I have the craft done unless I decide to build a launch tower, but I won't be able to start for at least another three hours because I have stuff to go to... Actually, I have some homework that I should have worked on so it will probably have to wait until tomorrow.

Looks like they're streaming the announcement on NASA TV, which is usually unblocked for me. Unfortunately I'll be in PE, failing at basketball while it happens. If I could get a summary that would be great!

I'd imagine that there are at least a few people working in the aerospace industry on the forums. I know there's at least one, @IonStorm, and if he'd be polite enough to comment on this, that would be greatly appreciated. Some background, I'm currently in my junior year of high school, in the middle of nowhere in Iowa, which means I still have time to rethink my life if I want to. For quite some time I have been obsessed with space, and when I was younger I wanted to be an astronaut (as we all probably did) and I still do, but given the insane skill, dedication, and luck that requires I decided to aim for a more realistic goal. "If I can't be on the rockets, I want to build them!" I said, and I stuck with that philosophy for a while, with the idea that I'd try to become an Aerospace Engineer (or in cooler terms, Rocket Scientist). Maybe, if the whole "rapid reduction of cost" thing happens (not to say "BFR!" but "BFR!") then spaceflight may still be an option, but I'm getting off topic, this isn't the point of the thread. The time has come for me to start looking for colleges and planning out my future a bit more. But, I'm second guessing myself. I'm starting to question what exactly this future might entail, and whether I'd enjoy it as much as I think I would, and if the job is as cool as I think it will be. Yes, I'm aware that the field of jobs I could end up in with a degree in Aerospace Engineering is extremely diverse, so answers may vary. So I guess my questions are... Do you enjoy what you do? What do you do on a day to day basis, and how diverse is your job? What would you recommend doing to get in to such a line of work? What do you wish you had done differently? Is the work fulfilling? And anything else you think is relevant, please. Thank you very much for taking the time to respond to this.

This isn't going to be fascinating for you all, and a lot of it goes over my head, but... https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19740008105.pdf This was authored by my Grandfather when he worked for NASA Lewis. It's about a very hot heat transfer loop, which is most likely related to the SP-100 nuclear reactor project he worked on, which was a stirling type design, requiring very hot heat transfer loops. And, yes, you'll know my last name, but really nobody will care as you can already find that if you look hard enough.

My school chromebook won't even let me watch livestreams or check my home email, I doubt they'd let me run KSP!

That depends way more than my motivation rather than the work I have to do, but soon-ish. I have already done something related to the next chapter, but I don't want to say what it is yet. Unless I get distracted by something (I got back into Minecraft last month) should be less than a few weeks. *Ultimate Steve uses Intentional vagueness*

This would finally give a reason for Voyager-like probes, of which I've sent several.

Alright, then!

On the bright side, if that date sticks, I'll be able to watch it!

I have some behind the scenes images but I won't be able to access them for at least another 4 hours. Before I post them and answer your question, could you first answer a question of mine - how convincing was it?

I don't have a smartphone. Or a phone at all.

You mean a bad rap.

YEEHAW! I guess the peanut butter worked! Now, can we get a picture before the relays fly away?

Currently eating peanut better and peanut butter pretzel bites, hopefully it's a good enough substitute for peanuts!

AAAAGH I don't have peanuts. Would it be better to have mixed nuts (no peanuts) or peanut butter as a substitute?

Thank you, @5thHorseman!

How would one, exactly, christmasify a Saturn V? Alternatively I could use my alternate avatar, Dipper Pines, and stick a Santa hat on him, but I want to remain familiar. The rocket point seems too small to put a hat on and have it recognizable.

Actually now that I think about it, and based on discussions on Reddit, they may be going back to Aluminum-Lithium alloy. They know more about it, they are set up for it, and it would allow for BFR/Starship to be on the table earlier, with fewer unproven technologies. But that would make the mass ratio pretty bad, and that plus the lack of vacuum Raptors could push the payload down even further, maybe to 70 tons. That's just beyond the theoretical FH range, not good. Also, isn't that interview on HBO supposed to be on right now? Is anyone watching? Sorry for the triple post, if this one doesn't merge...

Maybe they've discovered a new way to wrap or treat carbon fiber that is beneficial for their needs? Or maybe they're moving away from Carbon Fiber... I highly doubt it, as they have already set up a lot of CF infrastructure, and didn't we get those tank dome pictures after the tweet? Hmm... He says something about the heat shield as well. Maybe they found a way to make CF extremely heat resistant? Wait Weren't the shuttle tiles carbon as well? A different type of carbon... What if they found a way to use that type of carbon, along with a heat shield strength resin, to make a giant monolithic heat shield/hull combo? Probably not, but just taking wild guesses.

Hopefully not too much time! Last chapter was late for two reasons. One, the massive amount of ships I had to build and the fact that KSP doesn't like structures more than a few hundred meters long, and two, the awkward bit. I actually had the screenshots sitting around for at least a month before I found an alright way to solve the Ethan-Evelina conflict... The next chapter is not very much building, a medium amount of gameplay, a new thing which I'm not going to spoil, if I do it at all (the hardest part) and a bit of storytelling. This one shouldn't take two months. Yes, a surprisingly long time! Breaking news, the name of SpaceX's fourth drone ship has been announced! Also, I have this outline for the entire story from about a year ago (has it really been that long?), from before the Vall landing. Today I was referencing it to see what should happen next... And so much has changed, both the stuff that I've already done and the stuff I've decided to do! That outline may as well be for an entirely different story! Time to make another one...

Congratulations, you are the first person, to my knowledge, at least, to demonstrate ion powered flight on Duna! And I think you might be on to something with those batteries... I did the math, and if I did it right, if you only need to power the ion engines for five minutes or less, then batteries are actually lighter than the solar panels, while most likely being lower drag. Plus, you can jettison those batteries as they get empty. I'll mess around with this in my newer designs.

Number 1 I called the River Styx. A few years ago I took a plane down that way and landed near most of the features on the river and named them all with flags.