sjbuggs

It's a fun balancing act, many small launches mean the boost is simpler at the cost of more inefficiencies and complexity once in orbit. A few big launches mean more and more of a corner case the booster has to be built around. Somewhere in between should be the balance of doable orbital assembly and not breaking the bank with the launches. Using the 300T metric suggested before, that'd take about 5 falcon heavy launches vs the 15 Atlas's. And the Falcons should cost less than a billion (even with a 100% gov markup). You'd be limited to the 5.2m fairing but that seems reasonable.

Well, that is admittedly a flaw in the Dwarf planet definition as the whole 'clearing out an orbit' bit is admittedly a bit wonky. If Earth was in Pluto's orbit it wouldn't be a "planet" either due to the space involved. Then again, an earth sized object probably wouldn't have formed there in the first place. Hence, the obscenity rule again. I do object to the idea of Titan and the like being called planets, dwarf or otherwise as they clearly do orbit a much more massive object. It's a simple and fundamental definition that works.

Right, too lazy to read too much but a quick google placed Sedna (aphelion 936 / peri 76) right now at 90AU. So it is pretty close comparatively in it's orbit right now. Betting the others being found are biased towards being near perihelion as well. The hypothetical planet 9 would have a peri of 200 au and aphelion of 1200. So even if you take the midpoint, 700 AU out is way further out than Sedna.

The reason the barycenter idea appeals to me is that it goes back to the idea of what a moon is. Charon doesn't orbit Pluto, but these two Dwarf Planets orbit a shared common point between them. Yes it can mean that a super-earth orbiting a gas giant would still be a moon. I'm ok with that, as I'm basing it on what the two objects are doing in relation to each other. At its heart, a moon is an object that orbits another, so whether a massive moon is bigger than the smallest dwarf doesn't change what it does. Doesn't make either more or less interesting either. The Horizons mission was fantastic regardless of whether it flew by the smallest planet, a binary dwarf planet system, or a dwarf planet. However, I definitely don't like arbitrary mass cut off points. What is the significance of 10^23 kg? other than it lies in a sort of dead zone in our solar system? (Forgot that some of the gas giant moons were that much bigger than Luna and Pluto) All this actually reminds me of that famous supreme court comment on obscenity along the lines of "I don't know how to define it, but I know it when I see it..."

Good to know... I actually am partial to the comment someone made (can't recall who but guessing Phil Plait or NDG) that basically was along the lines that Pluto still is a planet. Just a Dwarf one. Still no love for Charon though. I don't really get the definition of a moon if it's still considered one. The barycenter lying between the two objects seems like as good as a cut off point as any. So that should make Pluto-Charon a binary dwarf planet system IMHO.

Eris is bigger and further out than Pluto but has an orbit tilted 44d to Pluto's 17. That would presumably be even harder to explain from a collision. My money though is a close pass from another larger object... the hypothetical companion star (article today about that actually) Sol may have started with, the hypothetical 9th planet way out there or a passing extra-solar object.

Only if they use those strapped onto the SLS tank instead of the SRB's (assuming it can match the launch TWR and dV of the boosters). The problem with SLS isn't just the low volume, it's the lack of re-use. A few more engines used on a re-usable space plane won't make a difference unless DARPA orders a lot of them. Based on the shuttle and X-37b, I'd suspect they'd end up building no more than 6 XS-1's.

It's funny, people keep saying the intent of the SLS was to save money by re-using shuttle components. But in truth, the intent of the SLS is to provide jobs to key congressional districts. Any other objectives are secondary to that. Hence, I'd rather SLS die already, and redirect that money to companies who actually are doing interesting stuff rather than provide congressional pork spending by keeping decades old technology limping along. SLS will put 75-145T to LEO compared to 73 for Falcon Heavy. The former though will cost 1/5 the price (assuming the projected costs / launch is met). Even if you used 2 FHs and docked the payload rather than do a single SLS, your saving 60% of the launch cost. The numbers just don't add up to me for the SLS to be a viable program IMO. imagine all the cool stuff that could be done when launched from a Falcon Heavy or later a New Glenn for all the money being dumped into SLS R&D along with all the extra cost of launching the silly thing.

I don't know if this has been asked before, but as a feature request: Would it be possible to get a version of the MLPS in the a tundra module form factor? I'm personally not a fan of how the stock parts gel with the tundra series so being able to exclude that stock part would be nice. The ranger lab exists, but doesn't work as well in a space station design for me.

A few other mods that may help (and are pretty much on the mandatory list for me): * Precise Maneuver * Better Burn Time * Trajectories I agree with Alshain though, sounds like your doing the gravity turn too late. I use a script I wrote in KOS and have gotten good results when I'm pretty much horizontal by the time I hit about 35km and end up going fast enough that I'm getting heat fx. You don't need to be that aggressive but the general idea is to get as much horizontal velocity as fast as practical. Doing that pushes AP out further, giving you more time to plan your circularization as well as saves delta V. Also, going on a hunch, but IMO early on its best to play in Sandbox mode rather than Career. I believe some of the things you don't get until upgrading the KSC raise the already fairly steep learning curve.

In a career game, is there a recommended route for raising the funds for KSC upgrades? Although there is a role playing aspect to using MB + KCT to bank money, it still feels a bit exploity.

Here here, and NFT is absolutely a must-have mod for me and a whole lot of people.

I have to agree with that, or maybe make LFO vs. Mono a tweakable in the VAB? Also, the bigger engines have a 3400K max temp... typo for 2400K? Otherwise the new engines are pretty cool, looking forward to trying them out once the depreciating bug is fixed so it doesn't eat my own fleet again.

Another option would have been to use cubic struts surface mounted on the bottom of the tank to give attachment points for engines without an adapter. Used this for 6x and 8x vector designs for a ssto rocket Look for tutorials on engine clustering for more.