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catloaf

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    Unpopular Opinions Thread

    in The Lounge

    Posted

    7 hours ago, qzgy said:

    Wouldn't a) any civilian/scientist in space be also by definition an astronaut once they get into space and b) I personally would like the people who are in a tin can to at least somewhat competent in space (read: trained for spaceflight). not really randos.

    I dont think trained astronauts will lose their purpose for a while. And if you actually fund the manned side of things, pushing for longer term habitation on say the moon, your science benefit would also increase I think. (humans given a proper lab, can probably do more than some instruments ona probe, depending ofc on what the end goal is. I'm thinking more on the chemical analysis side of things, and doing stuff further with the material.)

    The people would need training of course! But the point still stands, at least for mars, there shouldn't be a quick excursion mission. Human presence in another planet should be permanent. And that isn't what Artemis seems to be doing, it's looking like a rehash of the Apollo program, but with a fraction of the budget, and ordered to go to the moon in 2024 by a controversial president who also cuts nasa's budget at the. I wouldn't be surprised at all if Artemis is delayed twice and cancelled. So if nasa can't even repeat what they've done in the 60's, then how will they get an expensive lab in the moon? Ever since 1972 humans beyond leo has been a dream, nothing more. Maybe nasa should stop spending money on it until is possible, which I don't see happening until serious political and economic reform. Also, the whole colonization thing is happening when robots are much more advanced, 2050 at the earliest, when robots are much more advanced. Also, the no astronaut thing was a misstep, your right :). But once again, there is no point of risking lives and wasting money just to "do it".

    Colonization of Ceres instead of the moon or Mars

    in Science & Spaceflight

    Posted · Edited by catloaf

    For some reason colonization of Ceres is just not as widely discussed as the moon or Mars, despite the planet's1  unique advantages in comparison to the moon or mars. These include being closer to the outer planets and low surface gravity makes Ceres ideal for outer solar system exploration. In addition ice on its surface means plenty of fuel and oxygen from isru. The other arguably more important reason is that it's close proximity to mostly metallic asteroids means that there is a monetary reward that will occur within the investors lifetime. Although distance and micro gravity are worse than the moon and Mars, artificial gravity or rigorous exercise are not are probably still necessary for those destinations anyway, and the distance is just a harder version of Mars. Because this is colonization not exploration this isn't a big problem since the low gravity of Ceres will reduce costs and the residents are permanent. Ceres also makes sense from the stepping stone to the outer solar system due to lower transfer times, although the rarity of good transfer windows could reduce this by a lot, and Mars's moons may be preferable for that. (I don't know how to end new topics but please discuss it...)

    1 I consider dwarf planets to be a subset of planets, as red dwarfs are to stars. Versus asteroids which are to planets, how brown dwarfs are to stars

    Unpopular Opinions Thread

    in The Lounge

    Posted · Edited by catloaf

    We shouldn't go back to the moon, or Mars, and all crewed spaceflight should be cancelled beyond leo. Robots are becoming so advanced that within 30 years humans will be a liability in a mission, not an asset. Because of this humans are not an asset to science, which is the only objective of current spaceflight beyond Earth's soi. The increased usefulness of robot's in space is being demonstrated in real time. What was the biggest scientific achievement of the Apollo program? Bringing moon rocks home. What is the purpose of Percy? Oh yeah, doing it without humans, but on a destination many times more challenging, for a fraction of the cost. Similarly, what is the most beautiful image you think of when you think of space, probably Cassini or Hubble, both robots. So unless your thinking about colonization and the larger goal of becoming a multiplanet species, humans in space are useless! However, this is why human spaceflight should be put on the backburner, not cancelled. Cancel Artemis, retire iss in the near future. Replace it with a scaled down iss or a starship in orbit long term. Use crew dragon or equivalent to send up crew. Also, when humans do go beyond leo again, it should be civilians and scientists, not astronauts, and they should stay in space for good. When humans to to space they should be settlers, not visitors. And the astronauts should be replace by computers and the people in Earth in charge of them. And these robots will pave the way for a human colony.

    How does everybody feel about the current set of stock experiments?

    in Prelaunch KSP2 Discussion

    Posted

    Here's my opinion:

    Tech progression should not be based on science. New tech should cost money and time. If it is improving existing tech rather than adding new tech it should cost less money and time. In addition the tech tree should be split into various smaller tech tress rather than one large web. Also, tech that iterates on other tech would require the previous tech. So for example, let's say that the hammer engine requires the flea and requires little time and money to unlock because it's just a big flea, but the reliant engine, the first liquid engine is in a new branch so it requires more money and time. Also, the tech tree should have few large nodes and many smaller, cheaper nodes. So the reliant, swivel, and terrier engines would all have their own nodes in the liquid engines part of the tech tree. The way science fits into this scheme is by unhiding certain nodes. Basically, certain nodes are hidden at the beginning of the game, and must be unhidden to be unlocked. So for example, at the beginning of the game you launch a probes with a Geiger counter into a high orbit of Kerbin, and it discovers the Van-Allen belts and deep space radiation. This knowledge then unhides the nose with radiation shielding, which then must be unlocked with money and time.

    Science progression outside of tech progression should be discovering about other planets like others have discussed. I also like the idea that some science can't be transmitted, and transmitted science/knowledge is worth it's full value. A possible improvement would be that transmitted science is worth full value, but some experiments must be analyzed before becoming science. So let's say you wanted to learn about the rocks on Duna. You would have to send a drill and a lab. The smallest and cheapest lab would be uncrewed and could tell you how much of certain abundant materials there are, but nothing more, and resources that make up <1% of the total ore content are not detected. So with that lab you may learn that the ore is 80% silicate, 5% metallic, 6% ice, and not very radioactive. All other resources are not abundant enough to be detected. The next tier would be recovering the rocks and analyzing them at Kerbin. Analyzing at Kerbin shows you resources that make up 0.5% or more of the rocks and shows you more about each category, like what metals are in the rock and what percentages of those metals are in the rock. The final tier would be a crewed lab and would tell you everything about the rock. This system would remove another arbitrary feature of science in ksp and give labs an actual use besides being an exploit added by the devs on purpose.

     

    KSP 1.10 Venture Collaborative Station Grand Discussion thread

    in KSP1 Challenges & Mission ideas

    Posted

    21 hours ago, minerbat said:

    Nuke SHOP? Are we buying nukes lol? I think you mean nuke SHIP? If I am allowed to I could do it but I already have 3 modules so only if I get permission for adding a fourth one I can add a transporter ship.

    Sorry, nuke ship. It's probably unnecessary though, since I could build the functionality into my own massive ship, provided that the com is lined up with the docking port on the observatory.

    KSP 1.10 Venture Collaborative Station Grand Discussion thread

    in KSP1 Challenges & Mission ideas

    Posted

    9 hours ago, s_gamer101 said:

    o5pdv9c.png

    What do you think, does this look like an orbital greenhouse/hydroponics? It seems like those reaction wheels are the only stock parts that are actually green (at least at the top and at the bottom of the part). However, I'm not the first player who built "hydroponics" using these reaction wheels. 

    Maybe it would look better if I'd replace the fuel tanks in the service bay with science containers.

     

    You could use mystery goo. Or, if it's okay to exceed 20 parts use mystery goo and other science equipment. If it's suppose to look like water tanks you could try clipping mite srb's into the service bay or use oscar-b tanks  (Don't worry about the kerbals in the hitchhiker, kerbals like snacking on srb propellants. They even have a candy called gem-63xl!)

    KSP Old-school memories

    in KSP1 Discussion

    Posted

    16 hours ago, Lewie said:

    My first flight in ksp....

    Well, it was on enhanced edition of February 2020.  So it was roughly ksp 1.6 (EE was a bit funky!)

    I actually got to orbit on my first try! I've been watching Matt Lowne for years, so I had a basic idea of ksp. Turned out, orbit was easy. The mun....dang, trying to get there was like getting kicked in the hoo-haws over and over!

    I spent an embarrassingly long time trying to reach the mun (10 hours!) But I finally made it. To this day, I have never felt such joy or a sense of accomplishment in playing ksp as I felt in that first Mun landing!

     

    I had a similar experience with my first orbital rendezvous. Basically I hadn't played ksp since about 2016, but then ksp2 was announced an rekindled my hype for the first game, I then discovered Matt Lowne and must have watched 30 hours of his videos by now. After about a few months of getting back into the game I managed to dock two mk1-3 pods in orbit which was exhilarating. (Don't tell anyone that I started playing in late 2014 and didn't manage to dock until early 2020.)

    KSP 1.10 Venture Collaborative Station Grand Discussion thread

    in KSP1 Challenges & Mission ideas

    Posted · Edited by catloaf

    I'm probably going to do a complete redesign though, because my currant design is quite inneficient. I will probably switch to a 1 vector 2 terrier design that is more similar to my original design, because the weight of using multiple nervs and needing extra lf only tanks outweighs the extra isp, especially since its Jool system only. And I will build a separate larger nervs craft for refueling the station via pol, or making excursions to Dres and Eeloo. Since I will probably use a klaw instead of landing legs I may even pick up a dresteriod and bring it back by mining for fuel on it in between burns maybe we could even take the observatory to Dres and use the sentinel to find a good asteriod.

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