Selective Genius

I may be late to a party, but a while ago, I had read a NASA study on a SSTO booster named 'Antares' which used chemical propulsion. The engine used was a dual thrust mode engine, in which by changing the fuel-ox ratio and nozzle diameter, the thrust and ISP could be changed. Initially the rocket will operate on a high thrust mode, and then once the acceleration has reached a specified value, it will switch to high ISP mode. http://hdl.handle.net/2060/19920011425 EDIT: It burns the tankage while returning and only lands the engines in one piece. So it may not be a SSTO. It could transfer 10 tons to LKO in this mode. Another SSTO concept, using chemical propulsion would be the StarRaker, which used Jet engines and SSMEs in tandem to transfer 100 tons to orbit each flight.

Apart from the Making History engines, what real life engines could have been the inspiration for KSP engines? Like, if we were to scale the Kerbal world to 10x, and change the mass of fuel tanks accordingly, how would you change the parameters of the engines? Which IRL engines' data would be the basis of your changes to the KSP engines?

A while ago, Xi Jinping was on a state visit to India. One of the reporters of the state-run news channel accidentally called him 'Eleven' Jinping, since he assumed 'Xi' meant 'Eleven' in Roman Numerals. This infuriated the Chinese, and the reporter was fired. I sorta wish he could be hired again, with a promotion from a reporter to a host with a free pass to say 'Eleven' Jinping as many times as he wants to.

Things have gone bad, really bad for India within just a couple of days. Its finally Panic Time. The curve looks bad, and it will get only worse in the next few days. Notice the sudden spike in the tally over the last two days? That's because apparently an evangelical event in New Delhi ignored government's orders against large gathering and in the event lasting 2 days, around 2000 people from India and abroad participated. The place where the event took place, behind closed doors without informing authorities is the new COVID-19 hotspot in India. Frantic efforts to trace and test those who have come in contact with the 400+ COVID-19 infected participants of this event led to this sudden spike. We almost had it under control Gosh Dang it!!! Source: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/india/ https://www.covid19india.org/

I hope, from the bottom of my heart that this is an April Fool's joke... Because if it's only playable in VR, then it has already lost my interest.

My apologies @Geonovast, I was angry. It won't happen again. I could not take her to the vet hospital because of the total lockdown imposed in our country due to COVID-19. I could only offer her the very basic first aid. She passed away yesterday somewhere around 11:30 PM local time. I was sleeping and woke up at 1:00 AM with a dreadful feeling in my chest. When I went to check up on her, she had already been subjected to Rigor Mortis. I offered flowers to her mortal shell and sprinkled the holy water of the River Ganga. I buried her far, far away from our place at the same spot where we first found and rescued her grandma. This was when she was mastering the ancient technique of walking, at about 2 weeks old.. With her mother. Being an only child, she was always lonely and yearned for companionship. She was still a healthy, happy kitten... Looking after her younger siblings. She was like a second mother to them. She looked after them when the Momma Cat would be gone. She would playfight with the lil kittens to make them ready for the cruel but beautiful world outside. Even her siblings loved her a lot. They would answer to her as much as they would answer to their mother's meows. Good bye, you sweet, silly, jolly kitten. And thank you. For the 5 months you were with us, you were an absolute joy to behold. Never before did I see any other cat with a positive attitude that you had. I am not bitter at your passing away, just sad. A pure soul like yourself will have no issues entering the Gates of Heaven. I am bitter that it had to be so unceremonious and your life had to be so unfulfilled. May God save your soul from the infinitely painful cycle of birth,death and rebirth. May He have mercy on the souls of those who enabled your cruel death. For I won't.

Our country was to be under quarantine till March 31. But yesterday our Prime Minister declared that the entire country will be under a complete lockdown for the next 21 days, effective within 3 hours of his notice. This will effectively be a curfew. There are chances of Paramilitary forces being deployed to help regions with less police force. An hour before this announcement, our state's spokesperson was advising us to be sensible and disciplined during this Coronavirus outbreak. He told us that the outbreak would peak by May 15 in our country and that unless drastic steps were taken by the government, we would be in deep trouble. I freaked out, my roomie freaked out, our cats freaked out when they saw us freak out and then I literally ran to the nearest grocery store and secured supplies for the next 2 months, just to be sure. My roomie was planning to go back to her parents' place (10 km away from our shack) but I convinced her to stay and maintain distance from her old parents. We wont want them to be at risk of exposure. So, what happens when a boy and a girl who are a semi-couple stay at the same house for the next 21 days? This is going to be awkward as hell!! Gosh Dang you, coronavirus. Gosh Dang you... And also, none of the oldies here are taking this outbreak seriously!! Their logic is that since they survived epidemics before, when medical facilities were less advanced, they will survive now as well. I was even accused of fear mongering!

How do I land my heavy modules on Laythe within a small radius, so that it wont be a pain to assemble them?

"Dont talk to me or my son ever again!" I have been testing out base building gantries for Mun and Laythe. They work alright in Kerbin Gravity, there should not be an issue at Laythe. The first Gantry Prototype (GP-1) was the bigger one. But turns out it is way too big for any practical purposes. The smaller Gantry Prototype (GP-2) is more suited for my purposes, and is 4 tons lighter to boot! However, I have no clue how to transport it to orbit.... I think I will use KAS to assemble it in orbit???

This idea just propped up in my mind after I finished unlocking all the elements of the Tech Tree. Would someone please care to critique the premise, and point out any issues? I would welcome all sorts of constructive criticism.

The Three Mus-Kitty-ers : A three part Feline Fantasy I went to work and I returned home to this. The mother had a very satisfied, smug look on her face and her eldest daughter was just happy that she got siblings to bully take care of. That, and extra breast milk from her mother! I deemed the elder kitten (4 months old) a bit of a threat to the proper development of the three newborns and I have tried to separate her from this litter as much as possible. There are now 6 cats in our home, if we include the Dad, but Dad's quite the gentleman, he rarely intrudes into our home and prefers to stay outside most of the time. So, 5 cats to look out for.. Good God.. Oh, and my first scientific article was published, 13 months after I submitted it.

Hello, I am developing this mod which for the moment consists of ISRO Small Satellite Launch Vehicle, ESA's Ariane 6 and Vega series of rocket, and several undecided parts. I have no idea what I am doing, but I have jumped head first into the modding game. This will primarily be for expanding my own skills. Good bye sleep, hello Coffee. 1. SS1 Rocket stage of SSLV 2. SS2: Second stage of SSLV: Modder's note: I don't know anything at all about this, apart from the very basics. My textures look like *yuck* and I apologize. I will try to get better.

Okay, so my laptop fan went haywire at the exact moment I played this music on youtube. (The person in the thumbnail is a guy by the way, relax Mods!) Ever since I played the music, the fans would make a loud "SKKRRTT" approximately every 10 seconds.

Like this?

I am making a command pod, it's 2.5m diameter, 2.7m long, houses 4 kerbals. How do I improve it? What else do I need to add. I understand I would need to add windows, on the opposite side.Any advice would be greatly appreciated...

They are not a regular threat. They stay put for most part of the year, except the winter when they move to more populated parts of the city for easier access to food. And yup, Ghoru is one heck of a fighter. If you stroke his back and tummy, you can feel scabs and scars under the soft fur. That guy is always fighting other cats who challenge his territory. I found him as a kitten at the bus stop and took him in. He was very delicate and docile initially but he was ousted by another tomcat named 'Maon'. Pure guy was so humiliated he left us for 4 months. 4 months later, he returned a changed cat and challenged Maon almost immediately. They duked it out for 3 days and ultimately Ghoru won, and has been the king of the hill ever since. There were several other challengers, the most notable being Ghoru's mate's brother. Ghoru messed that cat's leg. The other cat healed, but left our compound humiliated.

A few Langur Monkeys invaded my kitchen garden. They destroyed the eggplants, ate the Rose flowers (8 of them) and messed up all the remaining plants. They broke the pots, rampaged the compost bin and injured my favorite stray tomcat. That tomcat is named 'Ghoru' after the infamous and detested conqueror 'Mohammad Ghori'. And why do I call my tomcat 'Conqueror'? Because he charged at and fought 5 Langur Monkeys on his own in the few minutes I took to intervene, the smallest of which was 3 times his size. <There's a reason why even the stray dogs in my area are nervous and wary around him.> Ghoru weighs 6.5 kilos. And Langur monkeys are notorious for their fierceness. They are so fierce that they are brought in to scare away Macaques. Ghoru fought all of them and got injured badly on the forehead. I saw one of the Langurs fling him 3 feet up in the air but Ghoru righted himself mid-air and bit that langur's fingers off. Ghoru is okay now, I have treated him and dressed him up. I checked him for bite wounds, but thankfully, there were none. It's shameful that I only managed to punch a Langur once in it's side. It was a satisfying punch and I felt a sickeningly sweet "squelch" in it's stomach. I wish I had a firearm license, but they are hard to procure in my country.

CHAPTER 1: CRA~ZY DIAMOND Gene stared at the folder on his desk. He had read it's contents, twice. The higher ups had ordered him to shift focus to reusable vehicles instead of expendable rockets. "What an absolute mess." Gene sighed. "Mortimer would be liquided off. He won't get those gifts from Kerbodyne. I dont think he would stick around anymore. Kraken knows he has been getting offers from corporations all around Kerbin to join them." "Don't worry about him. He may be a greedy leech, but he wont abandon ship." Wernher said. "You should worry more about the type of reusable vehicle you want to develop." The middle-aged, internationally acclaimed rocket scientist was flanked by his apprentice Linus, who looked like he would float out of the room given the first opportunity. "It's not like we have a lot to choose from. It's either the Rocket Conglomerate's Two Stage to Orbit vehicle, or C7 Aerospace's SSTO spaceplane. We choose one, we are bound to anger the other." Gene whipped out two old folders from his desk. "You were at C7,a few years ago. Did you not work on a spaceplane?" He asked Linus "Hmm wha? Oh yes, of course! The pizza bases, they are missing from the cafeteria. We have been eating only the toppings.... er... Umm sorry, I was not paying attention. What was the question again?" "C7 Spaceplane. Can you work it out?" Gene tried his best to keep calm. "Of course, of course! I have a 10 ton to Orbit SSTO designed and it has worked perfectly in computer simulations. But we still need to figure out the practical problems in a R.A.P.I.E.R Engine" "Good. Wernher, we will pursue the SSTO route for smaller payloads, and the TSTO route for the larger ones." *************** Thus, a SSTO was prepared with the objective to send light 10-12 ton of payloads to orbit. With the assistance of C7 Aerospace and the knowledge of Wernher Von Kerman, the dual mode R.A.P.I.E.R engine was perfected and was the main power-plant on the SSTO. It was projected that the savings from the SSTO in that payload market, even if not large, would still be enough to recompense the development and fabrication cost after 20 reflights. After months of fabrication and quality control testing, the completed SSTO was rolled on to the runway for it's first developmental flight. Nicknamed 'Crazy Diamante', it's job today would be to fling a light 12 ton inert payload to orbit. However, a minor embarassment happened on the runway in what seemed to be a minor bug in the computer program controlling the SSTO. Since the program was instructed to deploy drogue chute on 'landing', the program did so as soon as it came online and found itself on the runway. The bug was sorted out, and after the parachutes were repacked, the test was started afresh. The 4 R.A.P.I.E.R engines roared to life and started pushing the craft on the runway The SSTO soon picked up speed and was breaking Mach 2 without any issues whatsoever. In the upper atmosphere the engines switched over to rocket mode and carried the craft to an apoapsis of 110 km. The ascent was very efficient, so the craft needed just 80 m/s to circularize. The craft was safely in orbit, even though it had overshot it's intended apoapsis of 100 km. The Cargo bay doors opened and revealed a fuel tank with RCS and small deorbit engines. "Wait a second! There's no electric charge on that payload! How are we going to get it out of the Cargo hold?" Linus exclaimed. "Isn't it simple, all we need is a little nudge." Bob furrowed his eyebrows his concentration and took manual control of the SSTO. "Nudge? What do you mean...." Linus felt true fear as he realized what was on Bob's mind."No NO NO NO NO Dont DO THAT!!!" "Too late!" Bob pitched the SSTO just a little, nudging the tank out of the cargo bay. Everyone let out a collective sigh of relief when the tank was ejected without any further damage. Someone is going to get fired for this oversight. Now we have a 12 ton heavy addition to LKO space debris. If it causes Kesslerization, that would truly be a sight to behold. Like a trainwreck. Terrifying but you can't take your eyes off it. The craft swooped in flaming hot towards KSC, undershooting it a little, as planned. The lift from the wings of this flying brick did the necessary course corrections. After a few frantic last minutes maneuvers by Bob, who still had not given the control back to the autopilot lined up the SSTO for a decent runway landing. The parachutes were deployed as intended and slowed the craft down to a safe velocity. Come to think of it, this is perhaps the first intentional runway landing of the space program. Most pilots would rather land on the grassy plains surrounding KSC. The first test flight, with 12 tons of inert payload was completed and the SSTO aced the test with flying colors. The engineers figured out that 14 tons to LKO seemed very feasible. With further optimization, they were positive that payload capacity could be stretched to 15 tons. "Sure, just like how they are positive that Fusion will be ready '20 years from today' for the last 40 years." Mortimer scoffed at the After Mission party. He was a staunch rocket supporter, and was only in the party for free snacks. Free snacks always taste better, no matter how rich you are. It's always more fulfilling stealing someone else's food, according to him. "Boss, should I find my diamond pickaxe? It has some nice new enchantments." Linus asked a puzzled Werhner. "I need to mine this salt mine calling itself Mortimer Kerman." "Don't be sassy with me! This was just plain stupid luck. If you did not have Bob at the controls, you would have failed." Mort huffed. "One more test flight, and this one will be completely autonomous! If you lose even a little bit of control of the craft, I am shutting you down!" The rest watch Mort leave the party angry as heck, but not before he pocketed a few handful of snacks. ***************

Every book in existence is just a remix of the contemporary dictionary... Oh My God...

I made a modest 8 tons to LKO SSTO. It's named 'Crazy Diamante' and is to be used to transfer high volume, low density payloads (for ex: Station habitation). It lifts 8 tons to 80 x 80 km LKO. Relatively stable at all flight regimes, it suffers a little 'twitch' in it's maneuverability that I have yet to fix. Fully loaded, it needs to run the entire runway to takeoff. It's a smooth trip thereafter. At a velocity of 1300 m/s at 20 km altitude the Rapiers are toggled to Rocket mode. An apoapsis of 85 km is recommended. You will have about 800 m/s of delta-v once you unload the payload. More than enough for a deorbit burn to the KSC. The flight down is actually quite boring. Sometimes the wings generate enough lift that it overshoots the runway. If you feel that you are going to overshoot, feel free to use the landing drogue chute mid-flight to slow your vehicle down. The landing gear, especially the rear one, generates considerable drag. At high velocities (>100 m/s) it is advisable to land on tail first, allowing the larger landing gear to take in all the stress. Otherwise, the craft may tilt and capsize if you land on the front gears. There's also a crew version of this SSTO, called 'Shining Justice' but I am still working out the tiny details on that. It will carry 16 kerbonauts to LKO.

The Mk1 version of my Duna-Ike Lander was tested on the Mun, and it 'Tilted on it's side'. But hey, it did not crash and scattered it's debris over a 3 mile stretch, atleast! Seriously, landing legs are a wobbly mess, and they are the reason I tilted over! Valentina stayed in the crew cabin, while the scientist and engineer got busy deploying experiments waiting for the rescue ship to arrive. (The Experiment cargo lands at ju~ust the right position. Took 3 tries, but I figured it out.) ("We deployed the experiments, now what?" "Now we wait, we wait for the eventual rescue.") This one is the Mk2 of the same lander, and I hereby swear I will never use landing legs, only these structural components to land. I lost Jeb, Bob and Bill because of those damned landing legs, and almost lost Valentina and 2 rookies in this flight as well.. Mk2 boasts several improvements, like addition of vernier engines to provide engine gimbal. The aerospike used does not have any engine gimbal so RCS has to do all the work. I added a reaction wheel; The absence of a reaction wheel and gimballing ability made an abort attempt impossible for Mk1 when it was tipping over. Morever, the RCS now used LFO instead of monoprop, simplifying operations by a lot. The Karbonite drill does not touch the ground, but still drills karbonite so yay! Oh and by the way, how many experiments can we deploy? One on each celestial body, or one in each biome?

Due to an unprecedented loss of crew and mission during the launch of Jeb, Bob and Bill to orbit, all krewed programs were halted by me. I started indeed focussing on exploration and science based gameplay. There's a contract mod which provides contracts to visit multiple bodies on a single spacecraft, and pays millions. So no problems for the funding. The Standardized Exploration Vehicle is a nuclear-electric spacecraft which forms the backbone of most space exploration missions. In the above pictures, it's carrying 2 small landers for landing on Ike and Duna to fulfill a contract. Also, this probe has to visit Dres and Moho as well, according to a third contract. Hence the xenon overkill is required. This one is in Jool orbit, with Laythe and Tylo in picture too. Loaded up with extra fuel as it needed to extract all possible science from Pol and Bop since TWR of ion engines was good enough to land. All SEVs are equipped with a RTG for emergency electrical supply. This one is an older model of the Standardized Exploration Vehicle. Notice the different radiators. This model had no RTGs, thus suffered a critical mission loss when it once ran out of elctricity and was dead in a very eccentric Dres Orbit.

Of course I know its a cat I thought calling him a 'mouse' would be ironic. And to be honest, we don't really know if its a boy or a girl.. its mom keeps attacking me when ever I get near her child. I risked my life taking that shot!

What's interesting is that even if we remove all the "/images" from the url, the page works just fine....

chaos