YumonStudios

Good luck with that. The Solar panels are one of the primary reasons the ISS gets too old, they gather up insane amounts of debris. Also, the ISS is not intended for disassembly, and the ISS as a whole will begetting too old by 2028. Just let it die. We're not even going to have a moon base up by 2028 anyways.

How long has this project been in the pipeline?

We've reached the uncanny valley. I think non-humanlike robots will become more popular (or at least resemble humans, but a lot less than this) simply due to that. She is creepy. It also raises the question of robot ethics and control of the technology.

I don't know if airbreathing would help Venturestar much. It was already way too complex and advanced, anyways. The Shuttle was hated because it was basically a horrible design of a spacecraft, and had insanely high costs per kg. And making more iterations of the SHuttle pretty much ended when the economics of the original Shuttle became apparent, and the launch rate crashed after Challenger. It could have been revived during the better-faster-cheaper era, but ultimately, SSTOs were preferred. UNfortunately, it is a Big Dumb Booster. Launch a Mars Mission on it, and you might just lose it all in a launch explosion. I remember one of the primary problems was a lack of use for that thing. Sounds familiar... We have no clue why the USAF has the X-37B running. We do know, however, the USAF probably has no need for a manned program. Also, X-20 was cancelled and replaced by MOL-Gemini, coming to the conclusion the effort of making Dyna-Soar was too great. It might have survived if it was a NASA program, but the USAF didn't ever need lifting bodies back then. It also soon realized it had no need for a manned program, so if one didn't happen, the other one would eventually. It was just a matter of time, the X-20 program was doomed from the start. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_X-20_Dyna-Soar#Problems

Even a short surface mission is improbable, you basically need to create a extraterrestrial submarine, and for what?. And forget about doing an EVA.

It already has

Only thing it that an abandoned ISS would quickly depressurize and become unusable at all, and that it's impossible to send large pieces of it to a museum nowadays.

Probably easily. It seems the only changes on FH boosters to the F9 cores is the nozecone vs the 2nd stage engine fairing. It probably isn't ideal to interchange the two, but it should be possible.

It's not going commercial any time soon, it relies on Carbon Nanotubes, which have proven to be a royal pain to create in large quantities (along with graphene sheets in general). We're likely to see 60-70% efficiency multi-junction cells, and UV and Infrared cells become widespread before this thing, if Graphene mass-reproducibility improves at the rate we're seeing.

Good luck getting people to agree on that. Noone likes a crashed rocket in their backyard. Not to mention rocket bodies land in oceans in places like Cape Canaveral anyways. http://www.businessinsider.com/what-its-like-to-work-for-elon-musk-2014-6 https://www.quora.com/What-is-it-like-to-work-with-Elon-Musk http://www.ibtimes.com/spacex-lawsuit-alleges-elon-musks-rocket-company-forced-hourly-employees-work-clock-2151993

I know that, but the guy wanted it in the sea, so And you need a lot more ice to cover a Europa Base than soil on a Mars Base. The latter is good to have. The former is essential. No, but considering that we build hydroelectric dams on relatively small rivers like Stave River in BC, building a dam on Titan isn't wholly a bad idea. Europa has more gravity, so the less impressive geysers on Europa could carry a lot more energy. The glass in a suit is usually pretty thick. I doubt you will hear a person from very far in one, even on Earth. 3 minutes is plenty to get in the pressurized rover or base- and we are building satellites that are now going absurdly close to the Sun, like Solar Probe Plus, and ESA's Solar Orbiter. http://sci.esa.int/solar-orbiter/

The question is coming up with a turbine that can stand those temperatures. Also, the lower amount of photosynthesis makes it easier to recover from a snowball. You can get lots of O2 from breakdown of water, which is why Scientists are careful about judging habitability based only off O2. And swarms still need an enormous amount of matter. http://www.popularmechanics.com/space/deep-space/a11098/could-we-build-a-dyson-sphere-17110415/ A "dyson Bubble" made of statites are lowest in mass, but need an absurdly low density of less than 0.7 g/m2, compared to paper's 80 g/m2. It's questionable whether it would work.

Even an RCS and parafoil is likely more expensive than just expending them. And you need to maintain and operate a helicopter or two too. Also, I would be surprised if you didn't need at least some shielding, those things separate pretty darn high, and if you want to get them without being burnt to a crisp on the outside...

Moar?

Hmm, you definitely want to supercool if you're using Ch4. I don't like Methane, since it offers very little advantages from an ISP point of view, and since you can make a overall more efficient rocket and smaller rocket by using H2/Lox + Rp-1 on the 1st stage. (and possibly a solid or hypergolic 3rd stage) but I digress. Common propellants aren't all that great, it only really saves on pad costs. Ever thought of using the H-II diameter for the rocket, then using the "heavy" configuration (with booster reuse) to get the same payload with less R+D costs? Just a thought. Is this a modular rocket, or is it just a singular rocket? The IRL H-III is modular, so I was just asking. BTW, 21T to LEO is actually too small if you want a HLV. Boosters are a good idea here. 4 RP-1 or Ch4 boosters could land on a barge, along with the core (allowing for a smaller rocket, saving costs on the larger tanks and larger engines). It would be: 28T to LEO (4 boosters, expendable), 24T to LEO (4 boosters, Barge landing), 20T to LEO (3 Boosters, Barge landing), 17 T to LEO (2 Boosters, Barge Landing, 13 T to LEO (1 Booster, Barge landing), and 9T to LEO (core only, Barge landing). Thus, it would cover a large line of rocket types. A manned moon launcher would be made by attaching 4 cores to the core, and attaching an upgraded 2-engine 2nd stage. A possible Delta II-class launcher could be made with a solid upper stage on a H-III core. I don't know what LV capacity is needed for the RCV, so . Also, I'm a fan of modular rockets, if you couldn't tell BTW, I noticed you don't have any insulation on your liquid rockets. Or is it just painted over? Insulation is pretty rough, so the intricate designs on the rocket are going to be a royal pain in the butt on a CH4 rocket.

What's with you and Hatsune? Either way, you probably want to make an Epsilion rocket too now that that's a thing And sounding rockets http://global.jaxa.jp/projects/rockets/s_rockets/ Also, do you have a thread on this on the Orbiter Forums? Yeah, is the core H2/Lox? If so, you will likely use boosters of sorts on each version, simply due to the fact the TWR of H2 lox engines genreally suck due to large engines being very expensive. Other fuels wouldn't be reminiscent of the H- line of rockets. But either way, the top looks very unstable. You probably want a thicker adapter covering the entire bottom of the RCV to the rocket, like done on dream Chaser, as that offers more stability. Also, is there a cargo version of the rocket/RCV? It *should* be easy to make this in KSP RSS + Procedural parts. I might do that eventually. I would argue not. The Delta II and Atlas V are very sleek and unique-looking rockets. Where's the windows? I know that increases complexity, but darn, it, I want to see outside!! (It's also good incase the auto-landing system fails) What's up with the diagonal panels? No station construction Arm? What is this madness? Also, that docking port on the front isn't too safe to dock on due to being too close to the other modules. I would add a node area on the nadir if you needed more places to dock (and a copula can't hurt) Why tho? That just increases complexity of the panels It seems weird to put panels on the truss, especially since you aren't going to get much more power out of it. Just saying

Seriously, though, is the fairing reuse worth it? I mean, those things are generally very cheap (a few million). The RCS, shielding and helicopter maintenance would probably be more expensive.

Cool. Why didn't he just press the recover button tho? Elon says 30% cost reduction. I would say 10%-20%, Elon is usually very optimistic.

Also, likely the 1st one is need to test out stuff in case another rocket goes boom, like Enterprise after Columbia. I think that was the F9R dev2 rocket they were using...

Probably this one, eventually. Only time will tell whether this end up being cheaper than making a smaller rocket expendable with the same performance overall. Why wouldn't they? It's more publicity

Next up: Kerbal landing rockets phase 2: HIGH SPEED BARGE LANDINGS Phase 3: Fairing reuse. Phase 4: 2nd stage engine reuse. Phase 5?: 2nd stage reuse. Go SpaceX! Oh, please. Who cares? Red Dragon was already killed on arrival, no one wanted it, not even SpaceX.

Skylon is a bad idea, it's an SSTO, and thus efficiency is very low. Also, it depends on reuse to reduce costs, which has not even been shown to work. So no, not until F9 finishes it reuse program on both stages. They'd still use the same rocket diameter, and Merlin engines (falcon 5). Also, Smallsats are bad on Falcon 9, it's not designed for dual launch, not to mention its OP, even with RTLS reuse, where it has 10T to LEO that way. If they end up using Barge landings as a baseline for F9, it'll have ~13T to LEO, and allow for F5 to launch Dragons and smallsats in a cheaper way overall. It will increase costs due to less commonality, but F9 has a blind spot on small payloads, and can't effectively launch them. It's also far to big for Dragon, so it could end up reducing costs overall due to a smaller rocket. It's not truely wiFi, it's just mobile internet from LEO sats.