RealKerbal3x

The thing with KSP is that while a lot of things are abstracted or unrealistic (e.g, Mystery Goo) the idea is that it teaches a bunch of basic rocket science concepts in a fairly friendly manner - hence cute green Kerbals, and Mystery Goo. Some things are dumbed down for a more general audience but that doesn't mean it's not educational. In a universe where the Earth is flat and Heaven (should there be a heaven), sure. But that's not what we observe in real life, and it's certainly not within the scope of a space flight simulator game like KSP. Anyway, this is getting dangerously close to discussing religion and conspiracy theories, which is against the forum rules. We should probably steer clear of that

Hullo, The Poodling Aquanaut!

It's a fictional game about little green men that teaches the basics of a lot of real advanced science. Giving KSP a flat earth mode would really go against the point of KSP, not to mention that it might be misconstrued as a fundamentally educational game promoting a crackpot conspiracy theory. No one here would want to see that. Aside that, I'm not really sure the game engine actually supports anything other than spherical planets. I'm not sure a space program would even be possible in a universe with flat planets.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: despite not being designed in a stockalike style, this mod still fits pretty well with stock parts! Great job again Angel-125, I can't wait to see this mod fully released

Usually I wait until the target is passing over the ocean just west of KSC's peninsula (as long as it's in an equatorial orbit) then do a normal launch trajectory. Most of the time this gets me a fairly close intercept within an orbit, and if I time it right and fly the gravity turn accurately then I can get one in half an orbit. Sometimes, if I'm lucky, I can even intercept the target while still suborbital.

Whether a piece of debris is salvage-worthy could also depend on its trajectory though. If a discarded stage half full of fuel is in LKO, then that would be worth it to rendezvous with it and suck the fuel out. But if the same stage is on a solar escape trajectory, then it really wouldn't be worth the dV to rendezvous with.

It's still a valid point, though. Reusable rockets are the future, as shown by the European, Russian and Chinese space agencies attempting to catch up to Falcon 9/Heavy even as SpaceX develops their next-generation launch vehicle. Of course, Vulcan has SMART reuse, but the fact that it'll only recover the first stage engines makes it a less cost-effective form of reusability (AFAIK) But yeah, Falcon being more than just a paper rocket is the big thing here. ULA is undoubtedly an extremely reliable contractor, but awarding their completely unproven rocket the majority of a defence contract over a proven existing rocket seems like a step too far in their direction.

@darthgently Nice idea, but one problem I can see with this is the game's automatic assignation of vessel types, e.g: if it has a relay antenna then it's a relay, if it has no control then it's debris etc. The game wouldn't be able to automatically mark a vessel as 'salvage-worthy debris' because it has no idea what the player considers salvage-worthy. Interesting concept though.

Looks more like payload/cargo to me.

You're wrong! @Lewie

Nice video @Clockwork13! Very informative A little niggle though: only the vehicle at 3:17 was named Starhopper, with no serial number. SN4 and SN5 were full Starship prototypes. Other than that, everything looks great.

SN6 is going to be lifted onto the test stand:

Presumably SN6 will get a mass simulator after cryo proofing, like SN5 did. This is only tangentially related to SpaceX so I put it in a spoiler:

Noooo! It's the aliens! They don't want us to find them!

Hah, now I'm imagining the ghosts of Mk1, SN1, SN3 and SN4 haunting the launch site...

I'm a little bit late but here's the videos of the Starship hotswap: Both SN5 and Starhopper are cheering SN6 on! You can do it buddy! I don't know why but I really enjoy anthropomorphising (that word is hard to spell) Starship prototypes

With an Elon Musk minifigure...

If we're talking potential Starship products, I have to say a LEGO Starship to match the Saturn V would be awesome.

How about an SN5 thermos with the mass simulator as the bottle cap?

I don't know. Perhaps they're dead set on doing it with a single launch, and SLS is the only vehicle capable of that. But that graphic says they want to use SLS Block 2, which is basically just a concept too. That's a long way down the line - the only commonality that Block 2 has with Block 1 is the core stage. Currently they don't have the SRBs, or the EUS, or the payload fairing. It really depends if Block 2 is ready in the near future. On a realistic timescale, by the time it's ready other launch vehicles will probably be able to launch the same mission at a lower cost.

Indeed! Also note that this is the first Starship prototype to return to the build site after a flight. Historic stuff! In other news, the thrust simulator was installed at the launch mount. I guess this means we'll see SN6's debut pretty soon.

Full video of SN5's triumphant return: I imagine it giving SN6 a pep talk: "Go on! It'll be fine! You might even get higher than me!"

I feel like the fancy TPS X might show up at Elon's presentation...

Now that I think of it, my designs for those probes also have giant dishes on them. Since I now have a long-range relay network, they probably won't need those. I'm going to have to do some testing with smaller antennae connecting to the big relays at various distances.