Newpossum

So this guy is like Mike Tyson's smarter brother, right?

umm, sorry

I was too stunned and dismayed to take a photo, but it went like this - I started a new Career campaign, and was doing the early first-day stuff. I made a plane with a passenger cabin, had Komrade Valentina up front at the controls, with Bobby and Billy in the cabin. Was SW of KSC heading for the desert biome and I wanted to have a look inside the passenger cabin, since that was a part I hadn't seen before. Pressing C got me the Cockpit, so I had to use the buttons. But I misclicked on ol' Bobby-boy and hit EVA rather than IVA, and Komrade Bob took an air walk at 4000 metres with no 'chute. I can still see the look on his little green face as he slid off the tailplane, and hung there in the air while the plane drove away from him. "Ah, Houston, we have a problem..."

Tomorrow, the 12th of April, will be the 55th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin's historic flight into orbit. On that day in 1961, he "slipped the surly bonds of earth" in the truest sense possible, and joined the pantheon of immortal heroes of mankind. Like Achilles, he will be remembered as long as men and women walk this earth, and perhaps beyond. And, in the true style of heroes, when his life came to an end seven years later, he died the death of Icarus, in the cockpit with the stick in his hand. Which certainly beats dying in an old folks home with a tube up your nose, wrinkled, forgotten and smelling of urine.

Pardons if this is a dumb suggestion, but could it be torque?

Thanks very much to all of you for your patience and helpful replies! May your co-pilot always be sober when you are not

Thanks for the answers, Starhawk! But what's an ISRU? From what you said, I'm guessing it's to do with all that drilling and refining business, but I never figured out how that works. I always play In Career Mode, so maybe it's just never getting far enough to unlock it all, but I never saw anything that looked like enough parts for a complete process. AND the tech tree has changed a lot while I was gone... And what's a Nerva? Is that the atomic rocket engine, the super heavy one with low thrust but great ISP in vacuum? I took a break of a few months from KSP, and it's like the game has changed hugely while I was gone...

Hi. I'm running a stock game plus Mechjeb, no other mods. Can someone please explain to me, in practical terms, how are radiators properly used? Do they have application in dispersing re-entry heat, or are they only for, I dunno, other stuff?

Plusck, this was hugely educational for me. Thank you very much for taking the time to do all these tests, and document your results so meticulously.