Godot

Ye gods, I remember this game ... had it on Cassette for the C-64 ... also never finished it

Ever tried Silent Hunter 3, with the Grey Wolves Mod? (the latter adding a whole layer of realism to SH3 ... among others turning destroyers into the deadly Sub-Hunters they were and adding a huge number of real ship types of WW2)

That´s something I wouldn´t deny for a moment (and I assume also noone else in this thread). It was great to see a movie that tried to be at least close to reality and it surely sets a standard for future movies in these regards (although I doubt that we´ll see a movie like this again, in the next couple of years).

Well, manned travel to nearby star system (I assume with "ships" you mean manned ships and not probes) is future and you will most probably not experience it in your lifetime ... sorry. Even if we solve the problem of fuel (i.e. making the ship big enough to store enough fuel to decelerate at the target star system) it will still travel decades or even centuries ... depending on the distance and the maximum speed it can reach (and of course the TWR -> the time it needs to reach this speed and in the 2nd half of the journey decelerate) It will also require the necessary systems that will run flawlessly for these decades or centuries (maybe even double the time if the ship should afterwards travel back home) or at least run with so few flaws that they can be repaired with things on board and the necessary life support that supplies the crew with the necesary O2 and food and takes away CO2 and other harmful waste products (the experiments with Biosphere 2 that were made 1 or 2 decades ago with the target to get a self stustaining enclosed mini ecosystem [which could solve this task] failed) It would also require Billions of dollar (a multiple of the money spent for the moon race) in spending for something that won´t benefit the majority of mankind and won´t produce results for decades ... and may also fail miserably (i.e. due to fatal accidents during the journey, before reaching the target system) ... and also would be something that can accomplished cheaper via unmanned probes. (In these regards you also have to take into acount that we still have Millions of people on earth starving, our planet divided into several countries (that all have their own agenda and own problems that are more important to spend their money on than spaceflight) and rising debts of countries) Of course (at least if it isn´t a suicide mission) it would also require the target system to have planets where the crew could build a base or at least scoop fuel for the return trip, which lets Alpha Centauri seem an improbable candidate for the journey (being a Triple star system) and therefore would require an even longer journey. Therefore manned missions to planets inside our solar system or even an attempt at terraforming Mars is IMHO much more probable for the next few centuries than interstellar spaceflight

Saying that we´ll send our first colony ship to Alpha Centauri in 3000 sounds pretty optimistic to me ... after all it means that he thinks that mankind in 3000 still is around and with a tech level that hasn´t declined to that of medieval or stone ages

I assume those are questions every KSP playr asked himself Another thing: Sandra ignited the landing thrusters of the Soyuz to speed towards the chinese station and finally, near the station, she thrusted sidewards from the soyuz capsule in direction of the chinese station. IIRC she left the Soyuz when the landing thrusters already had burned out ... and she used the fire extinguisher to simply accelerate her in a vector sideways of the Soyuz (lets call it y-direction, whereas the direction the Soyuz went is x-direction). Well, normally one would assume that Sandras speed in x-direction would stay the same as before ... with other words she would fly away parallel to the Soyuz. In the movie however Sandra (after disconnecting from the Soyuz) suddenly flew much much slower than the capsule (i.e. with a much slower speed in x-direction) I don´t think the gravitation difference (because Soyuz being a short distance nearrer to earth) would be an explanation for this

Well, the solution would be, to lower the power costs per ransmision ... but then, for game balancing purposes, they also would have to significantly lower the scientific gain per [Crew/EVA]-Report and transmittewd scientific experiment. After all, already now, it is widely considered to be too easy, to traverse the science tree till its end. So, all in all, you would end up with having to make multiple transmissions per flight to gain the same science that you now gain with only a few ones (with other words, more micromanagement)

Yes, the ship with the TWR of 2.0 will lose less dV due to drag than the one with 1.01, as it spends les time in lower altitudes, where drag is higher. But with a TWR of 2.0 it is also easy to get over the terminal velocity of the altitude you are in, therefore you should always look at the Terminal velocity (which can be shown in the Kerbal engineer flight panel) and lower your thrust accordingly if you get over it (as a speed higher than TV means rapidly rising drag). Also, you have the option, when building a ship with Kerbal Engineer integration, to get shown the dV that is modified by the atmosphere (at sea level) of your chosen body of reference (by clicking on "Atmosphere") ... that gives you a few indicators of the loss (although, as the full drag only applies in the lower altitudes, you sould only take this value inbto acount for the first few stages (or even just the first one) of your rocket. Also, as soon as yur are in orbit, TWR doesn´t ply such an important role anymore, as you usually have enough time for maneuvers in space (and therefore a lower TWR -> longer burn times doesn´t affect you this negatrively anymore)

Yep ... I assume the fact that I don´t have the original warthog HOTAS might make things a little bit more difficult (X52 HOTAS ... a large number of buttons and hats ... but still I have to spread the original Warthog-HOTAS-Buttons/Switches over 2 modes of my own HOTAS) ... but also the fact that there is a really huge number of buttons you have to keep in memory ... something that surely is easier when you are constantly drilled for their use

I agree with Dwarf Fortress. There is a reason why even game designers love it Aside from this I might mention DCS: A10 , which simulates the A-10 Warthog, with detail given to each system (meaning that you take 10+ minutes just to startup the plane, if you do all steps necessary to start up the plane in a cold and dark cockpit, and that you have to have some skill/experience to program a Maverick with a HOTAS in order to attack a a target only visible in one of your 2 MFCDs but then be rewarded to see it fly to the target while you ae already headed elsewhere) Also honorable mention to Aurora 4X Which is an Indie-Access-VB Space strategy game that is aimed a little bit more at realism than you find elsewhere (although, for the future spaceships, with Non Newtonian physics due to new elements being discovered with these capbilities) ... with especial love given the design of spaceships and missiles

310t ... for my spaceship that allows me manned operations + science/sample returns almost anywhere in the Kerbol-System (with around 11-15+ km/s dV for interplanetary travel ... depending on the fuel used to get to the target location [as the payload of the interplanetary part gets a lot lighter for the return trip] and 3.9 km/s dV for the lander)

Not really something complicated ... we´re talking about Mun, after all That´s my current Mun lander (+ return module) for career mode that returns samples from 3 Science jr. + 3 Goo canisters (and 3 of all other instruments) to Kerbin (I´m playing with the house rule, that only a single transmission (per Biome) and a single result return per manned mission per science station is allowed ... so yes, in my game it makes sense to have multiple science stations)

Kerbin ... the next one after that was Eve

This ... transmitting science makes sense in later stages of the game (when you make landing missions to Mun/Minmus or other planets) ... unless you use your own house rules with ragards to transmissons of course ... but at this stage you usually have earned (or at least, have the ability to earn) enough science with flights, (sub-)orbital missions and visits to nthe diferent Biomes around Kerbin, that you should be able to unlock Batteries and maybe also the first solar panels ... and for missions in Kerbins SOI it makes more sense to just return the mission results instead of transmitting them (which also gives the Bonus science for "Recovery of spaceship that has acomplished flight/suborbital/orbital)

Even for KSP it makes more sense to design rockets/spaceships with stages instead of having a reusable mothership that has to be supplied by tank ships (thereby imposing an additional fuel cost to the transpoted fuel due to the fuel the tanker ship has to use to get to the mother ship [and maybe back to Earth/Kerbin]). And this even without KSP simulating wear and tear, like mentioned by Krevsin

I think this is the same problem as we (in germany) have with GEMA. GEMA wanted to get money from YouTube for the music of any artist that is represented by them, Youtube denied to pay the price that was demanded and an agreement couldn´t be reached (despite the fact that Youtube had reached agreements with national music syndicators from other countries ... GEMA was just more greedy than them) As a result Youtube blocks the transmission of any Video that contains GEMA music for german users. Even if it is the official Youtube channel of the artist. As the artist transfer all rights of their music to GEMA, as soon as they become a member of them, the artists themselves don´t have any say in it ... the wouldn´t even be allowed to give their music for free on their own homepages (unless they would pay GEMA for every download [and would get back only a fraction of the money in roxalties, unless they are one of the "Stars" or play Classic or German Schlager [music styles that are treated preferentially because there are many artists of this music style in the managing board of GEMA]]). It is rather ridiculous to see artists that are not well known outside of germany be blocked to german users while the rest of the world can watch their music videos

ANother good example would be the collision of 2 aircraft that happened at the swiss german border almost a decade ago ... 2 planes (a russian one with school children on board and a german package transporter from DHL) collided because of an overworked air traffic controller misjudged the situation, several safeguards were switched off due to renovation operations and the pilot of the russian plane decided that it would be better to trust the air traffic controller than the on board TCAS system. The collision would have ben avoided if the human factor hadn´t been involved (and all had depended on the automatic (TCAS) systems) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%9Cberlingen_mid-air_collision

You´re an optimist ... I assume that shortage of resources (especially oil) and strengthening of religious fundamentalism within the next few hundred years will result in multiple world wide wars and finally the survivors will revert to tribe like societies with strong religious beliefs and technologies that don´t go above a medieval level (aside from usage/knowledge of the "magical relics" and the "huge forests of stone and glass" that their ancestors left behind ). Uranium/Plutonium/nuclear waste will only be known as the sick making stuff by those people ... not as a valuable resource

It depends ... if you just want to get into the orbit of one of Kerbals moons (and afterwards return (which I would recommend as a first step before even trying to land)) then Mun is easier. Minmus however is easier to land on ... but (in contrast to Mun) Minmus is farther away and you have to first match your orbital inclination to that of Minmus before trying to get there ... whereas for hitting Mun you just have to extent your Apoapsis (at the right place) to the orbit of Mun

Maybe you should try something tiny ... like first get a single small spaceship into orbit (and back to Kerbin, without killing the Kerbonaut), before you try a whole space station This Tutorial gives good directions ... including the setup of a first spaceship that can make it into orbit: http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Tutorial:_How_to_Get_into_Orbit

Don´t worry ... they won´t be in danger anymore for a long time (unless the danger is "boredom") ... after leaving Kerbins gravity well they will (most probably) no more get in the vicinity of anything they could hit (unless you, by chance, got their trajectory right that they hit another planet ... but considering the vastness of space, this is rather improbable )

Well, the 64186 m/s is your speed (with other words, every second you cover a distance of 64 km ... for an Orbit 100km above Kerbin you would need a little bit more than 2 km/s in horizontal speed above kerbins surface)) Your altitude above Kerbin is 34334 km.

The fix for that may be the economic model and/or life support. With running costs for your space agency (and maybe your spacecraft) and maybe a limited supply of air and/or snacks for your Kerbals, the time that an experiment runs may make a difference, no matter whether time warp is used or not. Even with the current system experiments may be designed in a way that the time they take makes a difference .. just let them consume power

That means, finally you won´t orbit Kerbin, but instead Kerbol (the sun)

Yep, you will leave the Kerbin SOI and enter Kerbols SOI ... the interesting task will be, to get back