Skript88

Blocking radiation is something that typically done with very dense and heavy materials. So when you using a nuclear thermal rocket, while it would be safest to encapsulate the engine or even construct the engine out of dense radiation blocking materials It isn't practical as it adds a ridiculous amount of mass. The low mass option is to place a disk (or bowl) of said material between said radiation source (NTR) and the rest of your ship. This disk would cast a cone shaped shadow of safety. Img source : http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/radiation.php "From NUCLEAR SPACE PROPULSION by Holmes F. Crouch." This is not something modeled in KSP or even in most KSP mods that add NTR's, and so what, after all it wouldn't be very fun to throw a ship together with a Nerv engine only to throttle up and find you gave your kerbals suden death syndrome. However because of this cone shaped safe region It could give NTR propelled spacecraft a signature look with propellant tanks or radiators tapering off toward the engines. examples: Both images grabbed from same link as above. Left is artwork by TauCeti Deichmann shows propellant tanks a little better. Right is part of atomic rockets realistic fusion designs. http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/realdesignsfusion.php#asteroidcrewtransport <= some cool stuff here too. Interested In how I could accurately make a realistically shaped nuclear rocket myself in blender I followed the steps here : http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/advdesign.php under Radiation Backscatter. However rather than given in steps its more of a narrative of how one guy figured out how to do it so I decided to make a little tutorial. (vid is very brief like 4:30) I've come to like this more pointy look to nuclear rockets and if anyone else is interested in hard scienceifying their models this should come in handy.

Funny that. A "cosmic train schedule" is kinda relevant to what I'm creating. The Dv and the travel times in this document are going to be very useful for this project as well. Thanks! Why does this look so much more simple than what I was googling lol. I assume aEarth just means planet you start from and this does not only apply to earth, Correct? It checks out. The xml that Seabo14 provided gives an angle between Earth and Mars of 44.34, not bad!

Does anybody have a table or something with a list of hohmann transfer angles for our actual solar system? If not could I have a more user friendly explanation of the math? I didn't know where else to ask about something like this but I thought you guys may be of some help.

I have been exploring the technologies implemented in cubeSats since as you may know or guess I'm obsessed with space. While researching attitude control technology I came across a forum page discussing magnetorquers which lead me to this http://forums.mossat.org/index.php a project which was at one point thriving with discussion and promise. The goal of this project scientifically seems rather interesting, To study the growth of moss in different gravitational environments. The documentation on the experiment was very intriguing. However I was disappointed to find that relevant posts have seemed to have ceased late 2015. (anything more recent appears to be spam bots.) On their forum (not this one) they had also discussed joining forces with these guys https://sites.google.com/site/kommunitycubesat/home Another presumably cancelled cube sat project inspired by KSP, with a slightly more ambitious goal of imaging the moon. This personally saddens me here we had a whole bunch of people that came together and wanted to do space stuff, they were serious about it too! The MosSat people were doing ground experiments and getting in touch with biologists, KSI LIS-1 had actually gotten a piggy back launch ride with a moon lander aboard a falcon 9 rocket. Real science was going to be done here and perhaps finally a non-government space program could have shut all those moon landing conspiracy theorists up for once (though unlikely as people assume the falcon 9 booster landing is a fake as well.) It's just sad to see both projects presumably gated by funding. Though the projects may still have some fight in them I still find it interesting that since so much discussion of the projects are documented with some digging someone could easily recreate all the plans that were made for each of these projects. I personally would love to start my own cubeSat mission, although I would not want to lead a community if I was unsure if the project would get off the ground (literally) as In the case of failure I would want to bring as little people down with me as possible. What Intimidates me mainly however is funding as that seems to be the metaphorical death trap of most projects. Crowed funding is what many people turn to often finding out that it's really hard to get people to fund something that doesn't offer them a product. Quite sadly space exploration and research falls right into that niche. What are your views on cubeSat related projects in general? Should projects like this as KSP community projects be continued? Many projects like these fall below the successful funding threshold and are left to fade on some distant server somewhere. Space isn't easy.

I got bored and made this. Something for the enthusiastic star merchant. How does one decide to make spreadsheets when bored as opposed to playing video games? I don't actually know I just felt like organizing some data I guess. Its not entirely obvious how the colors are used so allow me to explain. The colors on the planetary bodies are only used to signify that they are in a group i.e planet and moons. The actual color means nothing in terms of actual profit. The resources (only the legal ones because you can do your own math for slaves if need be I'm not having that questionable stuff on my hdd) Unit price is shown for both Buy and Sell Green is be best buy or sell, Yellow is the next best since most of the fuel ones sell highest on Eeloo and thats not that easy to reach. Orange is the best in its own group for buying or selling. and Red shows there is really no point in even going there. Please note that the Eve system is entirely red. This is because nothing can be sold within the Eve system for profit and it is pretty bad in the solar market as well. So there is really no point in investing in Eve. When it comes to the max profit red doesn't mean worthless it just means lowest and green is obviously highest. I was intrigued to find that the resource that sold for the least out of all, Ore, produced the highest profit margin specifically when trading between Ike and Moho and only Ike and Moho and the most expensive resource, Diamond, was the only resource to produce less than 100% max. Anyway I hope that this helps any players that don't feel like reading through prices.txt Maybe this will also help with balancing this mod, also when the author implements dynamic economy this chart will become useless but for now it is useful and has helped me make some business decisions.

Yup that fixed it, Ive been ale to mess around some and I've got to say this feels like a new game almost.

When I go to buy a vessel the vessel I just designed does not show up in the ship shop I have hit design a vessel ive made mine it costs under 20k I go back out to the kerbin station but when I go to purchase it the ship isn't an option so I can't purchase the ship I designed in order to get started on Jeb's bizarre adventure. This mod looks freekin awesome and I would love to get into it, Either i'm doing something wrong or something is bugged, Probably doing something wrong honestly. EDIT: I was able to get my ship to be purchasable by overwriting one of the 4 starting ships. However upon purchase it still spawned the original not the one i made

This is indeed theoretical If that wasn't obvious, I do not plan to fly a real rocket and slap a mechJeb unit on the side. Assuming that It was provided with all the inputs it required and it was given enough control over the rocket, then I would assume that something like mechJeb would be able to fly a rocket in a real Enviroment. But perhaps there are some values that MechJeb Is able to get in game that would be impractical to measure on a real rocket, or the fact that kerbal aerodynamics are much different than real aerodynamics and something MJ does would just not agree with our atmosphere. I don't know enough about the mechJeb plugin to know for sure, But what I would imagine would be difficult would be getting the height from sea level as I am not sure if this is or how it would be measured for a real rocket. What do you guys think would this work?

Thats some X-files stuff right there............. Dandun never existed *x-files theme plays in a kerbal pitch*

THIS XD

Onion is currently the WIP project name, I may change it down the road, open to suggestions

Looking To show where I plan to go with this mod. I don't want this mod to just be an Orion remake because then it's just an orbiter. orbiters are useful for career mode and science don't get me wrong but I'm looking at some of the NASA concepts for different things that would be used alongside the Orion mpcv. I have a few things I'm looking at that I plan to add. (As the modeling for the Onion mpcv is pretty much finished) Orbital Habitation Modules: This would act sort of the same way the hitch hiker storage module would In function when only Stock is being used. But the point of adding this is for USI-LS (or TAC but I don't use TAC personally so it would take a lot of convincing to get me to code for TAC) like designed this habitation module would store supplies and mulch to support 4kerbals for 60 days. (Even if I change the onion to carry 6 kerbals I will still keep this module at 4 since the Orion is only designed for 4 crew long distance) This larger module derived from the ISS is designed to support 4 crew for 500days, just about enough for 4 kerbals round trip to duna, might need a little more but 500 is a good round number. I would implement IVA's for these of corse. Still on the topic of USI-LS I found this Clearly showing 4 crew this promotional image claims the Orion can support the crew (oxygen) for 6 days. This is the number I plan to use for USI-LS intergration But that depends. I don't know the amount of time it takes for a round trip to the moon in ksp off the top of my head (I'm typing this on my phone during a lazy period at school :p) but for balance purposes I would like to keep this number around that time so that the Onion is viable for long-ish missions but still needs add ons in the form of habitation modules to function for interplanetary missions. I'm open to suggestions on this but whatever I decide you can always play without usi-le or change the resource config Landers: I'm going to have to do more research into Mars concept landers. Two pictured above highly contrast eachother in style but both of them are pretty cool looking. If anyone has a suggestion for some landers they would like to see parts made for I would love to hear it, though know that landers are currently last on my priority list after the habitation modules.

GOOD TO KNOW I'M BOTH RIGHT AND WRONG. -Proves I must do more research- USI-LS as a mod I use personally would be something I aim to suport once I figure this out As soon as I figure out how IVA's work i'm going make one. For now the pod will only be 4 but if It's really that big of a deal to people ill up it. The 6 person config looks super crowded and I wouldn't imagine it being used for things like going to Mars *ahem I mean Duna* BUT the Orion is a Multi purpose crew module So It makes since to maximize the crew capacity of the vessel for situations like going to ISS.

I swear I was about to call you a potato but you are right.......... Sorry. I swear though in the original concept I saw it was 4 person command pod.... But eh six sounds better especially with this guys reasoning:

No I made these textures. They were originally white until I realized I did the shading backward and then switched the colors to make it not only more true to the actual orion and not the concept but to fix the shading. You are not wrong.. But the actual Orion holds a crew of 4, but is also meant for long term stays in space. So I think its okay to only hold 4, As stated above this will probably move past just a Orion recreation and I can make some other pods and stuff. Here's the first 3.75 engine. I've got it in game but even though it consumes fuel, and says its producing thrust, the ship won't accelerate. :/

Well this is slightly embarrassing. Here I am thinking I know how to blender good and I said the exact wrong thing.. Subdivision surface was what I was using not edge split. Thanks for the tip you've saved me from looking like more of an idiot than I already do. Something strange is happening now let me see if i can fix it. Yeah seems to be that holes in the mesh cast shadows on smooth surfaces cause that makes so much since I could just hug a unicorn till it farts out puppies. CRISIS AVERTED EVERYONE CALM DOWN

Adding the edge split is what caused that main command pod to be upwards of 3000 tri's I'm not sure If there's actually a noticeable performance hit however. Eh, Ill see how it goes and make adjustments if the problem arises. I haven't seen any Orion mods myself, I'll have some progress made soon

Noticing the Huge lack of 4 kerbal pods and 3.75m command pods in the game I decided to start work on a mod. Its called the onion mpcv because it was 1am when I started this and that was the best thing i could think of that sounded kinda like Orion don't judge me. This is Orion: Ultimate goal is to make all the parts for the orion mpcv, possibly the SLS and eventually more 3.75m command pods and cool stuff. So far I've been able to get the command module into the game. Here's the OnionCM next to the 1.25 and 2.5 pods for comparison. Going for stock-alike when it comes to textures though those windows are really pretty bad i'll have to work on my texturing. Holds 4 kerbs so you can bring Val along Top is made to fit your standard docking port and stock heat shield fits pretty snug. I'm considering integrating parachutes into the pod similarly to the way the actual Orion pod functions. I've also managed to create a LES shroud for the command pod which manages to fit the docking port on top and I have confirmed that the stock LES can lift the onion far from disaster if needed. I'm currently lost as to how to make my models appear smooth other than increasing tri count which is obviously not the way to do things, If anyone can point me in the right direction It would be very much appreciated. (the command pod looks smooth because its somewhere in the range of 3000 tris and has a dark texture. I hope to bring that number down to the 2000 range if possible so I have more wiggle room to actually recess the windows like on the real pod.) Last thing that's worth showing off at the moment is this un-textured model for a 3.75m nuclear engine. (I've seen many mods that include 2.5m variants but not 3.75m) I have many other models that I've whipped up but ill show those off once they have textures and are a bit more interesting to look at. Any advice is welcome, since this is my first attempt at developing a mod.

I had this classic ksp moment today.