SunlitZelkova

Because it is a test of Orion too, and Orion in LEO doesn’t make sense since Commercial Crew became a thing. I somehow did not expect venting of the problems of SLS to arise as a result of the delays Sea Dragon was never realistic because nobody needed it. NASA did not lose funding because of Vietnam, but because no one in the US government really cared about space beyond maintaining a token presence there after Apollo. War or no war NASA was doomed once Apollo landed a man on the Moon. SLS is directly related to politics. Even the Space Shuttle itself was largely approved because of the jobs it would create in California, and while after the Columbia disaster a completely “clean sheet” call for proposals was issued for a post-Shuttle vehicle, in all likelihood a desire to keep those Shuttle jobs alive is what has driven all Shuttle derived launch vehicles which replaced that concept a mere year after it was revealed. I think the real travesty was not utilizing the Saturn IB and CSMs + smaller modular space stations to do a space station program along the lines of what happened with Soyuz in the USSR. It would have cost just as much as the Shuttle and actually done stuff, while being “incapable” enough to give a clean slate when people got around to wanting to go further again, instead of chaining the government and industry to the hugely expensive and messy Shuttle industrial complex. But the ultimate tragedy was that the delay in Artemis 1 as a result of all of those problems means I will never get to eat a Krispy Kreme Artemis doughnut!!! (I bet they would put in on sale again for the next attempt and it is gone)

I had a dream last night where I was standing underneath the tower at LC-39B, and SLS exploded not because of a problem with engine 3, but instead because the boosters did not light simultaneously. I still got away with just some deep lacerations on my right knee, which were later treated in a painful manner. If it were to fail, I somehow have the strong feeling public opposition to the rocket could be enough to get it cancelled. The problem is is that unlike during Apollo 1, where NASA was being problematic unbeknownst to Congress and then as the purse-holder they then cracked down on the contractor issues, Congress is creating the contractor issues. Reading what I just wrote I can’t see how SLS is ever going to end.

It could be similar to how ships don’t ram each other in real life despite that being a valid tactic. The lack of a use of hyperdrive weapons could arguably always have been a problem with the series.

There would be no need to launch it from Antarctica because the most serious studies had it either being lofted into the upper atmosphere by boosters or assembling it in space first. These are Saturn Vs. Orion after NERVA makes sense to me. Even without the test treaties, the government and science community saw no use for such a massive payload capability. Assuming KSP is something of a loose fantasy world along the lines of going forward to Mars after the Moon and so on IRL, the tech tree should be based on the premise that NERVA would pop up first for Mars and then later as the goal shifts to the outer planets, Orion development begins.

The most detailed proposals were for Mars or Saturn but some were made for other stars. I don’t think the lack of battleship experienced shipbuilders is a problem. We have been building cargo ships the size of battleships (some bigger than battleships) for decades.

I will be on the beach at that time but on the wrong coast

It’s all relative. Placed into the right circumstances, the average person can probably make the most gruesome predators pale in comparison. Only with immense moral discipline can one successfully fight against this and this is lacking IMO. In addition it has only been through immense violence that the current very “cushy” world we live in today has come about. If a billion* died in the process of making the world peaceful, is the world really peaceful? If X tribe conquered every land on Earth and exterminated the other tribes, but upon completion of that endeavor brought “peace” to society, I would certainly not suddenly classify X tribe as “peaceful”. It is, of course, important to note that this is more of a philosophical question and one that has nothing to do with anthropology or anything. Reading his above spiel kerbiloid make an interesting argument but the lack of sources makes it impossible to take seriously. *Arbitrary hypothetical example number, not a real figure

NASA is not a company. It is a government agency. SLS is built for them by other companies- Boeing does the core stage, Northrop Grumman/Thiokol do the boosters, ULA does the upper stage. Even in a nightmare scenario if Artemis I was pushed into 2023, I don’t think we would see SLS die for awhile. Even if Starship works this year, it is only as a cargo launch vehicle. While just launching the crew aboard Dragon and then having Starship HLS take them all the way might be a feasible option, that would be too much of an embarrassing admission for Congress to make (that SLS was never necessary). Perhaps one day if Crew Starship is flying regularly and has been proven to be safe, SLS could be retired without a loss of face, but right now I don’t think it can so it will remain part of the Artemis architecture. ULA could support Artemis, I think they were technically part of the Blue Origin HLS bid by launching a component of their lander on Vulcan. The payload capability SLS has is really only necessary for Orion. Orion itself isn’t really necessary, in fact I dare say (and would be interested to see an assessment if anyone has the time) that a completely standard F9 based lunar architecture utilizing modified Dragons, a series of space tugs and a big propellant depot altogether would be cheaper than the entire SLS program alone. In any case though, because Orion isn’t necessary, SLS-level payloads aren’t necessary, so many rocket companies still have a chance to support Artemis with smaller rockets.

I wonder what will happen to the Krispy Kreme Artemis doughnut. Go on sale again on the next attempt, continue selling all week, or call the enterprise off?

I disagree. They killed three astronauts because of a lack of contractor oversight. Artemis is better than Apollo. So far 0 people have died. Apollo can not say the same.

“The Sky People came and taught them farming and irrigation”- Dr. Henry Jones Jr., 1957 /s just to be clear It is possible this has nothing to do with either a hunter gatherer or agricultural life style, but rather the tendency to rebel or wish for “freedom” in humans. What you describe sounds ridiculously similar to how, for example, someone raised in X country sees nothing special about it and finds Y country comparatively attractive, while the person in Y country, despite having everything they need to live a decent life, feels Y country is lacking and wants to drop everything to leave for X country, despite the immense challenge of doing so compared to the simplicity of remaining in Y country. An example that mainly comes to mind is many foreigners wanting to come to Japan despite the much more complex* and strict culture than America, and vice versa with Japanese going to America. But I’m sure there are examples for every type of “boo”, if you are aware of that Internet slang. So it might not be that the hunter gatherer life style is actually less difficult, but that the Europeans simply wanted something different no matter what it was. *I do not mean complex as to imply that America is “simple” and thus “backwards”, while Japan is “advanced”. Furthermore, it is a relative thing. There are certain things in Japan that make America look like a prison and there certain things vice versa. But to be a normal person respected in society there is a lot more one needs to pay attention to than compared to the US, IMO.

OMOTENASHI and Equuleus are ready to go on SLS. https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20220826_24/ OMOTENASHI will be Japan’s first lunar lander, utilizing a retrorocket and air bags to achieve a semi-hard landing at 20-30 m/s. Equuleus features a unique propulsion system utilizing water as propellant. It will test flight maneuvers throughout the Earth-Moon system (apparently in support of future Gateway ops) and study the plasmasphere.

So out of curiosity, what is the logic behind the geography of starting up your own space company? Southern California makes sense, as do Texas and Florida, due to their climate. Having lived three years of my life in Washington and now living just some tens of miles south of the border with it, this doesn’t seem like the place to start a rocket company, unless you are already here for other reasons (Boeing because Boeing and BO because Amazon, that is, Bezos. I can’t think of any other active space companies here).

I would think this is confirmation bias. Just because we don’t see the terrible things we do 99%, for many 100%, of the time, doesn’t mean they don’t happen. In addition, large scale violent confrontation between humans (war) is still prevalent. I would say humans are just as violent as any other animal, we have just traded violent squabbles between individuals for group slaughter (for the most part…). I agree that the ability to form large groups would be an important factor in developing a human-like society though.

It isn’t the choice of radio that I see as unlikely, it is the notion that extraterrestrials somehow are completely physiologically different from us yet still building radios/radio devices. I am unaware of any other means of building one without human-like hands, nor any other means of generating a radio transmission without a human-like radio. Just to be clear, I am not trying to be a “haha, gotcha, mainstream science!” troll. I generally do not understand the logic used in SETI.

Expecting every single intelligent species to build radios is just as bad as expecting every single intelligent species to be humanoid in form (little green men).

Thanks, this was a good read! It has very interesting info but it does feel like the average “all we need to do is use green energy and we can stop climate change” articles. That’s a lot harder to do than it sounds like. I wish them good luck convincing ranchers to aid in “cutting back on emissions”- in other words, giving up their livelihoods- when a large percentage of them don’t even believe climate change exists. Source- my mother’s side of the family all either are ranchers, were ranchers, or live in ranching regions. They have quite interesting things to say (and post on Facebook ) about climate change… among other things. I tried to find a proper outside source too but the data mainly pertains to farmers. Interestingly, many farmers accept the existence of climate change, but do not believe humans are necessarily causing it. While the acceptance and response to it is growing among farmers, I wasn’t able to find anything about ranchers. This makes sense as farmers stand to lose the most from climate change (crop losses) and gain from a response (more resilient farming practices et al), while ranchers would simply lose all around.

If you have the time, I would be interested in a clarification of this sentence. "Human level intelligence" =/= evolution, as sharks are older than us they are more evolved, without needing spaceships or smart phones to be considered so. I haven't seen people really saying anything akin to that "animals good smart animals bad" remark. It has to do with who is disregarding the environment and who isn't. If it was the rabbits somehow pumping CO2 into the atmosphere and dumping garbage into the oceans, humans would be off the hook and the rabbits would be under fire, despite humanity having the spaceships and rabbits being rabbits. I would also regard this as instinct rather than an opinionated choice, or a "moral" question. Thing presents threat so one kills it. This is widely seen across terrestrial species, at the very least. The alien's behavior is akin to a cat playing with its food before actually eating it or the sadistic traits found in some humans. As they are aliens it is likely they don't possess human "malice". Can a chimpanzee really be said to have "malice" if it attacks its owner without proceeding to eat them? EDIT- To be clear, I mean “if a chimpanzee attacks its owner without eating them can it really be said to have malice (with the limitations of what we know about animal emotions)” What difference would it make? Going by the logic that life on Earth is pointless if it ends in five billion years, human life is pointless if it ends in X amount of time until the universe ends, because if it can't be elongated, it is worthless. I am asking from a logical point of view. As an opinion it is certainly fine, just as I might enjoy my ice cream while chowing it down in a matter of minutes while you can enjoy it while taking an hour to eat it (for example).

Thanks for clearing your opinions up! What you have shared regarding Minecraft difficulty options has led me to retract my stance on the necessity of a “stock sandbox”. Just thinking very simply of what possible options there might be and the opinions shared in the thread, I don’t see why complex, custom sandbox saves would not be possible. What about explanations in a PDF manual? Must they be in the game itself?

This argument feels flawed. If saving non-human life is pointless because they go extinct when Earth becomes uninhabitable, does that not make saving human life pointless because they go extinct when the universe ends (in the best case scenario you describe where they spread through space)? Or do you consider interuniversal travel to be a potential thing? I’m gonna share some notes I took via casual googling about this while conducting research for a story in which I considered having rodents evolve to have human level intelligence after humanity went extinct. Note- if anyone sees something wrong please correct me! ” 1. An environmental stressor is required for it to develop. Primates had environmental issues [challenges] that “required” the development of management techniques and parrots had an environment that was being changed by climate change forcing them to develop skills 2. Technology use [intelligence] reflects natural behavior 3. Parrots and crows are a good candidate according to a researcher 4. Intelligence requires a large brain, and a large brain requires high levels of oxygen “ Rodents walking on two legs and wearing suits, driving cars to work and typing on keyboards is completely out of the question. In fact, that’s not even what intelligence means. A very interesting response I found regarding the question of whether “human level intelligence could evolve again” is that human level intelligence isn’t really a thing. Intelligence is merely a reflection of a species’ natural behavior. What suits humans does not necessarily suit another species. So expecting rodents to have to evolve to build fires to “have human level intelligence” is dumb, because that doesn’t correspond to how rodents behave- many burrow underground and thus don’t need fire to keep warm. The concept of fire denoting intelligence is forcing human behavior on species that don’t do what we do. Further more, “intelligence” is relative. From the point of view of a shark, which has had tens of millions of more years to evolve than us, humans are rather unintelligent- look at how many people drown each year! And they do this while deliberately entering the water while sharks only beach by accident. So a species can be intelligent without appearing similar to humanity. So then we come to the concept of space travel. What’s up with that? There is no tangible need to fly to space. Perhaps humanity would be more intelligent investing what it has into space in its problems on Earth over the decades since the 1920s. It could be argued that space travel is an expansion of our habitat, but for what? Fish don’t dream of putting on “Terrestrial Vehicular Activity Suits” and expanding on land, after all, they thrive in their limited environments. The concept of expanding into a habitat where can not even survive is… interesting, but does not seem to be well thought out*. It’s basically building a habitat on a lifeless rock or in the sky… but with no air. Remember, “intelligence” is a reflection of a species’ natural behavior. Land species are known to expand their range whenever possible, but expanding into somewhere they can’t actually survive seems like a rather inefficient use of time and resources**. But anyhow, my point in this paragraph is that space travel does not need to be the hallmark of an “intelligent” species. It reflects human behavior in that we try to expand our range wherever possible (perhaps most famously over the Bering Strait land bridge into the Americas), but considering other species it may not make sense to them to expand their range into the sky. Now to that one might say “but the Earth will be destroyed eventually”, to that I say… so? The universe will be destroyed eventually but that doesn’t make the existence of humanity tragic, and neither would the destruction of the Earth make the existence of any other species tragic, even if it was “intelligent”***. The gist of all of this is that a species can be “intelligent”, even by human standards, but not necessarily behave as we do, so expecting space travel to occur- or having it as a requirement for “intelligence”- is wrong. But assuming space travel is worthwhile for every “intelligent” species for some reason… I have to wonder, can any species actually be fit for something like space travel? Primates happen to be built for the complex physical requirements (like… opposable thumbs) needed for construction of things like space ships. And operating their controls. If humans had the physiology of rodents or crows (or whatever your favorite for post-humanity intelligence), I invite you to ponder- could we still manufacture spacecraft and then operate them? Remember, “intelligence” is a reflection of a species’ natural behavior. Our opposable thumbs first appeared because we actually needed them to survive, and then got to the point where we can send text messages with them by chance. But will a crow or rodent need their own “opposable thumb” equivalent after humanity is gone? Second, Earth’s oxygen content will need to get high again to start any species down the road to human level intelligence, in order for their brain to get bigger and more complex. Most climate modeling is focused on the next 100-maybe 500ish years, but what about millions? I genuinely do not know if this may happen again, but for the purposes of my story I decided the stars would likely not align again for humans, just as they have not (at least yet) for insects****. On an offhand note, I would say this means the possibilities of extraterrestrial intelligence are high- they just don’t do space travel or nasty things like pumping greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere. The problem is, the SETI people, who may not have much experience with things like evolutionary biology, are expecting humanity: alien edition every single time. It’s often recognized that aliens would likely look nothing like us, in response to questions about the possibilities of little green men, and thus I find it odd we (humanity/pop culture/SETI) simultaneously expect them to act like us. *Space colonization is the product of philosophers and otherwise non-scientifically-influenced scientists, during a time when imperialism was regarded as a proper thing, among other terrible backwards things. I can’t help but think that these weren’t serious proposals for space habitation, but instead were basically taking ideas about colonization on Earth and pasting them onto space. The idea has been built upon since then by people picking it up as a product of their heroes and inspirations, but without examining the context in which it was created. If one explores somewhere, they tend to then colonize it, but I assume this was looking at the Moon, Mars, and so on and going “solid planetary body = we can survive there” rather than actually thinking the feasibility through. After all, we explore the sea all the time and I have yet to see widespread proposals for undersea colonization. The immense faith some place in the inevitably of space colonization also feels a bit like the irresponsible use of “but people thought *X innovator* couldn’t do it in their time” at times. **It could be argued that the transition from aquatic to terrestrial life is an instance where “going to live somewhere you can’t live” has happened, but this was not on a scale comprehensible to humans. That was a “I dip my toe in the water unconsciously sometimes and ten million years later I have webbed feet” type deal, not “self sustaining Mars colony in 100 years!!11!!! LETS GO BRO1” thing. ***There are some who cast humanity potentially remaining on Earth as dumb: a societal level mental regression. But if we don’t consider people who accept death as “mentally regressive” (requiring people to kick and scream in agony at the end of their life to be “normal”) I don’t see why accepting extinction is “mentally regressive”. This seems more like a cultural trait passed down from manifest destiny rather than a sensible consideration of what scientifically constitutes “intelligence”. ****By insects I mean things like meganisoptera, not the tiny, rather lowly (in the food chain) things of today.

I thought everyone was writing about speculative evolution in jest lol. Indeed, this has been gone over in detail elsewhere and human level intelligence itself required a variety of factors we will likely never see again, thus human level intelligence re-occurring is extremely unlikely. As another said, not actually in a spaceship in Earth orbit being told to press one of two buttons or everything dies in 10 minutes. I would argue they would be just as bad. If I set rats loose in a fenced orchard, they aren't going to stop consuming until the orchard is completely dead, and then they all die, just as humans are doing to themselves now. The choice is certainly opinionated, I am wondering on what grounds one choice or the other can be called out as "wrong" or "immoral". Interesting (yet obvious I suppose), I didn't take such sentiments into account. I would classify this as instinct then rather than "opinionated choice". Most certainly (the effect would be miniscule). Going by the logic pop culture applies to what qualifies as a "world, life ending disaster", the world ended at least by the time of the K-Pg extinction event, and we are the freak post-apocalyptic mutants.

The vibe I am getting from "anti-sandbox" posts is that this difficulty of trying to create something configurable that pleases everyone is why sandbox isn't feasible for KSP2. I bring this to you and Pthigrivi because you are him have stated that sandbox isn't feasible because of the differing opinions. My point with that isn't to necessarily claim mine as the only solution per se, but instead to argue that sandbox is feasible by just settling on one thing and ignoring other opinions. If a mode isn't feasible for implementation in the game because people disagree on how it should look, by that logic we can't have progression modes either, because there are certainly disagreements on what should be added. "Anti-sandbox" is not literal. It refers to posts that describe sandbox as not being feasible because of the differing views on it. At least you and likely others have said that the progression modes may end up being good enough that sandbox is not needed, not only because progression modes are good but because sandbox's implementation would be problematic. I may be taking your statement out of context, please correct me if I am wrong. You may have merely been describing the sentiment of why "sandbox may not be needed" rather than actually advocating for it.

At least in my case, this has nothing to do with propaganda. As I said here To put it simply, choosing between the destruction of all human life or all non-human life is no different than choosing between Coke or Pepsi. I could make an argument like this (in favor of saving humanity) Or like this (in favor of saving the rest of Earth/Solar System life) But both are equally valid. In the case of tater's, what is interesting is subjective, so the rest of life may be what is truly interesting while the super predator humans that threaten biodiversity are the "threats to interestingness" whose elimination is acceptable. In the case of choosing to exterminate humanity, I could go on a tirade about how humans are evil for slaughtering cows and utilizing mental asylum prisoners to beat stray dogs to death, but in reality this is no different from a cat playing with a mouse it has caught before killing it, or a bird of prey massacring the nest of a smaller species for lunch. There is no "humans oppressing nature" because humans are part of nature too. The so called destruction of the environment is no different than termites burrowing in a tree to build a home and reproduce. But we don't call bears reproducing "destroying the environment", so we don't call termites reproducing "destroying the environment", so therefore humans decimating forests to build apartment complexes which babies will later be raised in can not be described as "destroying the environment". So at the end of the day it comes down to a purely subjective personal choice. There is no right or wrong, in the same way no one can truly say Coke is better than Pepsi. Or in your opinion are Pepsi fans "brainwashed" by "Pepsi propaganda"? or vice versa. This isn't really the same. Murder takes place away from you (hopefully 100% of the time), so you can't be considered responsible as you aren't there. What this choice is really like is if a runaway trolly was headed towards a switch track, and you were standing next to it and could flip the tracks. One route goes off an incomplete bridge and kills the passengers, the other runs over people tied to the tracks while the trolly continues unharmed. You can't run over to free the people tied down in time to save them. The tracks are already switched one way, so if you do nothing that still counts as a choice. Except in this case both parties are annihilated by choosing inaction. There are thriving feral guinea pig populations in South America, who have been successful for so long they have become their own species. Also... (quoting myself from a geoengineering thread in the Science & Spaceflight section) My favorite for any post-human intelligence is in rodents and crows. If my proposal already has rodents and crows (rivals IRL) collaborating, I guess we can throw in cats too

I fail to see your point. It doesn't need to be that hard. Sandbox in KSP2 should not be "select every particular possible physics tweak and then pick a selection out of 1000 different mods to build your experience". For the purposes of this discussion, sandbox in KSP2 basically just needs to be as close to KSP1 as possible. Anything else is just wishlisting. If people want to download a mod that bypasses colony creation, so they can plop stuff down whenever they want, or download a mod for X random thing, they can do that. By downloading a mod. That may make people upset but that's what happens sometimes. Again, mods can be downloaded to bypass it, just as I'm sure there are mods to eliminate whatever grievance one has with KSP1 stock sandbox too. Such an occurrence will also occur with the progression modes. I am sure there is some mechanic that some group of players are hoping for in Adventure, but will find missing. But that's okay, they can download a mod to rectify the problem. It just isn't feasible to make an option for every single player's personal preference. If that is not that case, then the entire game is doomed, because by taking into account "people have different experiences with how they play sandbox" instead of sticking with a stock sandbox, we must also take into account "people have different experiences with how they play progression modes" when improving the progression modes to be enjoyable... Going by the logic of the "anti-sandbox" posts, if sandbox can not be added to KSP2 without addressing every single player's pet peeve, we can't have progression modes either without addressing every single player's pet peeve. So Adventure Mode, too, must be a ridiculous amount of options and settings, ranging from actually utilizing RSS/RO in the game out of the box to Alcubierre drives being added. But if sandbox is problematic because of so many differing opinions, does that make progression modes problematic because of differing opinions? In which case KSP2 itself can't exist? No and no. To clarify the first sentence in this response, I fail to see your point because your question was "is sandbox needed in KSP2". I don't see how anything in your "phase 3" really has to do with that, unless you are elaborating on how the diversity of opinions on sandbox makes its implementation problematic in KSP2. Finally, I will say this. You may be asking the question for the purposes of a fun "brainstorming" debate/discussion, but the average person responding is (will be) just playing KSP2 and will take this to mean a literal suggestion for how the game should be, and so they give these defensive, perhaps even combative, responses. They have a thing they want to do- play sandbox or not play sandbox- and that's it, they are literally talking about what they want to do in the game, not engaging in some thought experiment. That is why you may fail to achieve with this discussion. People are partaking because they want KSP2 to be a certain way, not to enhance their cognitive experience. Speaking of which... I myself am partaking in the discussion at this point for the purposes of "cognitive experience", because this thread will obviously have no impact on the game (if release is in early 2023 sandbox is certainly finalized by now) and thus I otherwise wouldn't care Although, I do indeed want KSP2 to have sandbox and think implementation of sandbox in KSP2 is not problematic as stated before.

This is what my point was. Aircraft were in-house experimental vehicles for a long time, so it makes sense potential customers don't really think that much about Starship as a potential launch vehicle right now. This can backfire though. If your focus is just a mundane goal, the only objective becomes meeting that goal, regardless of anything else. The USSR set "goals" for its various state enterprises, cooperatives, etc., and they were met- quotas were fulfilled- but at a cost of poor quality control and much corruption. That's not to say that SpaceX will have those issues, but lofty goals =/= progress all the time. Also somewhat related, "lofty timelines" does also not equate to progress. The Communist Party declared that Korolev's OKB-1 was to land a man on the Moon in September 1968... after being given the go ahead in 1964. Rather Musk-like with his Starship test flight in July 2021 if you ask me. But the Soviets obviously failed with such a tactic, and it would be unwise for Musk to rely solely on such methods too (which I am sure he doesn't, but just wanted to point out).