Iskierka

Neat, hopefully this thing works well. It\'ll be fun to have a proper target to practice on.

It\'s not made out of mercury, it\'s that the parts we have are very low density compared to even water. Make the fuselage parts heavier and you won\'t need to much ballast.

It\'s quantum computing because it utilises newer aspects of quantum physics to perform very precise operations on pretty much singular particles, instead of huge CPU maps. No, the computer scientists don\'t have any clue what they\'re on about, but they are correct that quantum physics is related, if only because someone told one of them, and this time it was lucky that the perpetuated terminology is correct. Also, while I haven\'t read the articles yet, to my knowledge, Kryten is only half-right; at least, it\'s already been demonstrated that entanglement is near-instant, (at least 10,000x c), and suspected to actually be instant. The fibres are used to split the entangled particles apart, but after that, the communication being superluminal is true. The problem is controlling, manipulating, and reading those states being transmitted, preferably without breaking the entanglement; that\'s what will be necessary for the things they\'re hyping over, such as quantum computing, and direct control of Martian rovers. And so far the best we seem to have on that is some technobabble over on the EVE Online website.

Not similar; the same. Kerbin was scaled to maintain the same g, but allow for faster (time-wise) orbits. Also to reduce mathematical precision errors.

You know, the gain in efficiency using C7\'s engines, even his newer ones, is relatively negligible. Most of the efficiency gain is with his fuel tanks. Knowing this, I got to the mun and returned with a single stage, within 6 hours of the moon update being posted. Parts used were stock pod, C7 Mk1 fuselages, a KW challenger piece to split into five stacks, stock gimballed engines, I forget which lander legs, and slightly modified challenger RCS: I had to remove the fore-aft thrust from it, because it was firing pointlessly and wasting fuel when the main engines were more than capable. So ... yeah. Challenge is currently broken, unless you meant for the only difficulty to be in setting down carefully, which isn\'t that hard if you have any practice.

If you\'re thinking of X-plane, last I looked the one who made this in there found it was quite flyable. Granted I don\'t know how much artificial stability was used, but if nothing else: putting the CG forward always increases stability. So to stabilise any design, all you have to do is justify a really awkward centre of gravity.

Precisely, zoom out more and you will see all of it.

I\'m wondering if he\'s just not zooming out far enough to see the orbit around the sun. Though depending on how you launch it\'s plenty possible to get the green instead. (This is also a fairly easy challenge, if you have the patience for your craft to return naturally.)

In theory, yes. But what would be the point of alienating that much of the audience, who don\'t have blu-ray drives? 8 DVDs is quite possibly cheaper than two BRs anyway.

They\'re unguided once ejected. They\'re just ejected in a very gentle and controlled manner, which minimises stress from doing so and, usefully, means they stay together, due to minimal difference in their velocities.

Define 'the edge of Kerbal space'.

If anything I would expect small and numerous engines to be more expensive refurb - each needs less time, but that is not going to be proportional with the number of extra engines required. And the tanks almost definitely won\'t need just new paint - they\'ve said their plan for reusing stages is to bring it down and see what\'s broken. Which implies they expect things to be. Shuttle landed right back where they wanted it to be. Didn\'t seem to make a difference. The whole reason they\'re promoting it now is because it\'s perfectly feasible with today\'s tech - it wasn\'t 30 years ago. All the key technologies have or are being demonstrated to work as needed or better, and they have funding promised to combine those into a full engine. If the engine works, nothing else should stand in the way. About the window size - you say they\'re not much bigger than the standard windows, but the problem is, there\'s much more of them. Try something around the order of 4 windows on that being the size of the standard pod window.

Reassembling stages and refurbishing engines is not cheap. Refurbishing entire stages won\'t be either. Pretty much all the re-using aspects of the shuttle worked out more expensive than throwing them away, and it\'s not because of re-packing the parachutes.

Each individual landing, yes, but the launching is another question.

That\'s for a single Kerbin landing. The challenge is for several. (Note the estimate of a required 13 km/s dv)

Have some more. And on a slightly different note:

Decent optimisation, but I think JellyCube\'s probably has the best chance. Good luck to anyone who tries to fly it, and to anyone who goes for four; you crazy.

m as in mass, yes. And while the standard drag equation for IRL involves surface area, [tt]maximum_drag[/tt] is intended to represent Cd*A, taking both those parameters out of the equation. I say intended to, as it\'s actually Cd*A/m, which is where the stray mass term comes from.

True enough, I agree that my estimate was a quick one done without using dv tables or such to try find optimals, but it\'s difficult regardless to achieve what would be necessary for this challenge; that was to demonstrate just how quickly the scaling happens. That set-up would be slightly more efficient and easier to fly, but still near-impossible to manage with a third stage.

Fair enough, it was mostly a personal experiment into how taildragger configuration affected ground movement/landing/takeoff, which seems to be 'quite well'. I added that point after I asked and no-one knew of an example; so it\'s at least one of the earliest in the class, at least. Interesting design you have there, too.

Simple maths: The smallest known launch vehicle to be able to launch and return vertically achieves ~4.5 km/s of dv. Therefore, three launches requires 13.5 km/s dv. Achieving more than 12 km/s, even with three stock stages, is difficult when you completely ignore the craft\'s ability to takeoff, and focus purely on optimising dv. The designs able to perform are also incredibly ungainly even in these minimalist instances. The only stock craft made which are capable of such dv and takeoff are the ones entered for highest speed contests in a completely vertical ascent - because the majority can\'t fly any other trajectory, and will be particularly unable to land. To look at it another way, that minimum-requirement-for-orbit craft is pod, 3 tanks, engine. 3 tanks + engine can lift 1 ton payload and return it then. Alright, scale it up: That craft has a mass of 1 + 3x2.5 + 2 = 10.5, plus decoupler, 11.3 So, next stage: 33 tanks, 11 engines. 11.3 + 33x2.5 + 11x2 = 115.8. Assume it\'s possible to add the next stage with a -single- decoupler, and no struts, and that\'s a mass for the first two stages of 116.6. Now you have to lift that. With at least 345 tanks, and 115 engines. Your part total is now 511. Add struts. Enjoy the lag, and good luck flying!

Put it into a direct descent into the moon. Unfortunately, fuel was very much insufficient. However moon deployment was successful.

It would be possible to predict it, but calculating ideals for aircraft is rendered effectively impossible for the current game. However, while it won\'t work for winglets, which have variable drag, I can give an equation which works with the [tt]maximum_drag[/tt] cfg setting, which is the following: D = ? * v^2 * m * [tt]maximum_drag[/tt] Yes, m is a parameter in the drag equation, which I suspect is a bug.

That, unfortunately, can\'t be provided. Optimal airspeed relies on how much lift is being produced, and we don\'t have knowledge of how lift affects drag. Added to that, lift is fundamentally broken. (it\'s proportional to v, which I\'ve pointed out in the development topic about aerodynamics.) I -think-, with this factor, even ignoring the control surface bugs, the most efficient speed is 'as slow as possible.' Yeah, not a great answer, unfortunately. If aerodynamics had something that could be considered more than a passing resemblance to what the real world sees, I\'d be happy to help with the theory of cruising flight. (For that matter, I\'d be happy to help Harv sort out how to make it so things match the basic theory, but I don\'t think he\'s currently interested in looking at the aerodynamics.)

No fuel for anything else once closer, but I assume this has to be worth something, right? Notes: Single-stage, stock unedited, direct ascent w/o correction burns.