Clamp-o-Tron

Eleventy-first! (not quite, Mr. Baggins) Hah! Sorry to be pessimistic, but for now (and the foreseeable future), orbital space tourism will be the realm of multi-millionaires, their friends, and maybe a few random people for PR reasons. Suborbital will just be a lesser degree of wealth. Friendly reminder that we have not one, not two, but THREE Falcon Heavy launches scheduled for this year! USSF 44 USSF 52 ViaSat 3 !!!

To fill his shoes, the forums arose, to make some parts, or write some code! But stillborn yet those parts were, an hour after they started. How hard can Blender be? It's just some cubes and faces and lines. "Bevel", "Join", pull the green arrow. The starter cube is all you'll get.

@Sandmann.bkAh, thanks. I got that from an NSF thread, and don’t know any Russian to correct myself.

Also, only 1 will be fueled at a time, so no real risk of total RUD of both.

Flexible missions. I over-plan everything, and really have to way to circumvent anything much more drastic than a Kerbalism CME or component failure. I pack redundancy after redundancy upon my ship to prevent anything unaccounted for from happening, which prevents me from stretching my mission plan, or, say, paying an excursion to Pol when the plan calls for just Bop and Laythe. Sometime I should run an expedition somewhere on stock, with the only planning being a dV map, and just run it by the seat of my pants. I envy those who can do that, while I basically handle every decision like I'm a living, breathing space program full of overly conservative engineers. I even have a flowchart for making decisions that could put the crew at risk, and an actual laminated notebook filled with detailed procedures for contingencies throughout the mission (Only the ascent portions shown here. A lot of the stuff is just written into the notebook, spacecraft-specific.) Yes, that is actually what it looks like. All those other procedures I reference actually exist.

Apollo boilerplates were grey and white, yes. I just want an orange Apollo!

Test Tow Vehicle Used for glide tests of the proposed rogallo wing. If you want a paraglider, Knes has some. Wheels in that arrangement might take some clipping, so skids (from the same mod) work in a pinch. It can also be used for the Arrow Gemini-derivative from the Morning of the Maple Leaf alternate history (from the same makers of Eyes Turned Skyward!) @CobaltWolf since you gave us Mercury and Gemini boilerplates, you are now obligated by the collective force of this thread to give us orange Apollo!

Kerbalism.

Oh, I thought that was pad B. Guess I missed the launch stand, or thought it was too close to SN9 to be reasonable.

But doesn’t that take up SN9’s landing pad?

This has been surprisingly hard to find. If someone has a RussianSpaceWeb subscription they can check this out: http://www.russianspaceweb.com/protected/amur-spg.html There are some other sources I managed to scrape together- So, as I gather, the RD-0177 is essentially the same engine as the RD-0169, just a different designation for the testbed. We know it looks like this: Hopefully that is enough.

I can't see it from the current NSF cam, but the LOX tank frost is still pretty strong. Oh, there it is.

They could maybe do a low-throttle static fire, but that might result in RUD or the vehicle tipping over.

Depress. Damn.

This would be pretty insane if we get a flight less than an hour after the TFR.

Dosmid Kerman screams as she realizes that her improvised escape pod carries no heatshield, 2021.

To fill the 2.5m vacuum slot, there could be a hypothetical RD-0169AV engine. The RD-0169A engine actually exists, and will be used in a cluster of 5 for the Falcon 9 clone that is the Russian Amur. The Amur is 4.1m IRL, which translates to a good-enough KSP scale of 2.6m. We don't really know any information about the upper stage, but judging by the first-stage landing trajectory (somewhere along the Sea of Okhotsk from Vostochny), the upper stage is analogous in size and weight to F9 S2. It probably is using a vacuum-optimized version of the first-stage engine because it hasn't been explicitly stated to use a repurposed RD-0124 or something. There is some precedent for using RD-0169 in vac, as Anatoly Zak says in his article on the Soyuz-5 (Feniks) "By 2015, the second stage was expected to feature the RD-0169 engine.". This engine would leave a lot to the artist's discretion, but the powerhead that we have seen in models already on the RD-0169A would stay the same, and the nozzle would be a relatively simple regeneratively-cooled setup. As for 3.75, I really don't know what to do. Cluster would make sense, but of what? Maybe a few RS-18's on a plate, kind of like those proposals to use it as a Mars ascent engine?

Elon is apparently very mad at the bureaucracy.

I disagree. The game isn't just going to be interstellar tech, it will also be a remastered version of KSP1. Orbital mechanics and knowing how to build a rocket don't change. Of course, orbital mechanics also apply to torchships, although maybe it won't be as "intuitive" as Hohmann transfers for returning players. (In actuality, torchship trajectories are probably easier for new players to grasp- it's just point-and-burn, then turn around and turn around, all with automated assistance on those trajectories. No need to worry about slowing down to move closer to a target, or speeding up to move away.) In addition, it seems like a lot of the current game is going to be revamped and improved, so we'll be going through that before the interstellar parts. The interstellar mechanics were probably showcased in the trailer because they're also probably the biggest draw to people who would see the trailer on Steam and decide to wishlist it. I actually have a lot of thoughts on what the early game should be like, I might distill those into a thread later, as I don't think there is a good discussion of the early game anywhere. I really, really, really agree. The most fun I have with a game is the week after I pick it up, constantly going "whoa! That's cool/hard! I'll play more to find more stuff like that/beat it!". It's also probably the reason I have picked up so many KSP mods and have 40 games in my Steam.

Standing down due to high winds. Probably the reason for no evacuation.

Because "dog sent to their doom" wasn't PG. Why did Lunar Orbit Rendezvous get picked over direct-ascent?

Must... Restrain... Self... Let's either end the fight right here or continue it in the metallic hydrogen thread.

I’m sorry, but that is PENTABORANE! That is not OK! I suggest you be banned from playing KSP for potentially poisoning everything within 20 km.

I think that’s a great idea. I might actually make a separate thread for aggregating the best mods for new players.