Nikolai

Is that the only way? Nuts.

In watching the KSPTV stream, I noticed that some users were able to switch which conic patch they were looking at in the Map View -- e.g., they could set up a Jool intercept from the vicinity of Kerbin's orbit, then zoom in and focus on the conic patch near Jool to tweak how close they'd get to Laythe. So my question is simple: How do you change the focus in Map View so that you're not centered on your vessel? Is there a way to step through being centered on different conic patches; or to center on different bodies; or to center on a selected target? Knowing this would really simplify my exploration; I've kind of gotten in the habit of packing along insane amounts of fuel to permit course corrections whenever I enter various SOIs. Thanks for any help you can offer.

Only if you think that the superficial similarity of returning a few sample grains means that these probes owe their existence to Luna. (I challenge you to show how Genesis' sample collection was similar to Luna's, for example, or was in any way derived from Luna's.) Ultimately, Apollo returned a lot more science than Luna did. Any attempt to create a sustained presence on the Moon will owe a lot more to Apollo than to Luna. I'll grant you that Apollo was not the most economical or sustainable way to get to or study the Moon, but if you want to rate science-return-per-dollar (or ruble) spent, Apollo comes out the clear winner by almost any metric -- information returned, papers generated, jobs created/sustained, or any of many others.

No, it had an engine. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ascent_Propulsion_System

You're right that from Earth's perspective, you appear to leave as fast as you arrived -- no gain in momentum. However, if you come up on Earth from "behind", from the Sun's perspective, you gained momentum and the Earth lost an equal amount. (That's because the Earth was moving away from you, and pulled you as you approached for more time than it pulled you as you sped away.) If you come up on Earth from "ahead", from the Sun's perspective, Earth gains momentum and you lose an equal amount.

I missed that! Yes, it will be cool. I asked some time ago for a way to add notes about the use of a particular craft that might be a little finicky (e.g., "WARNING: Launch at or below 2/3rds throttle!") to aid in .craft file exchanges. If I understand you right, this sounds like it would fit the bill nicely!

Beauty! A million thanks!

My guess: In the current build, nothing. In the future, in campaign mode, I expect that it will allow you to go get hardware that landed somewhere on Kerbin's surface for less money than it would cost to buy a new one in the VAB or SPH.

Could you provide Youtube or forum links to these? I can't seem to catch the KSPTV channel, and I've seen three of them (Scott Manley's, Solar Gamer's, and Pleb's) and can't find the fourth.

Partly because the regolith samples returned by the Luna probes ranged from 55 to 170 grams, whereas the rock samples returned by the Apollo missions ranged from 22 to 111 kilograms. (One can also get at better unadulterated material in rocks than in regolith.) Also, there were three Luna regolith returns and six Apollo rock returns.

Oh, I don't know. I think the new SPH and VAB look more in keeping with the parts than the old ones did. But obviously, opinions differ.

Two words: Desert. Bus. Sometimes, reality is appropriate to sacrifice for gameplay.

The mark of a great computer game, it seems to me, has always been whether or not you're prompted to think about it when you're not in front of the computer. KSP has buckets of that. But it also has a bunch of things that I want in the universe of my game's development. No DRM. A community of thoughtful, intelligent, humorous, helpful, considerate people. Developers who talk to -- and listen to! -- their customers. Regular postings of plans and how they're coming along. Periodic surprises that leave me amazed and stunned. It helps me communicate to other people why I find spaceflight so fascinating -- even people who've never thought twice about spaceflight -- and that's invaluable. (Anything that helps people communicate their passions deserves an enormous amount of credit.) There's probably lots more, but it's amazing to find all this in one place as it is.

No, for much the same reason that birds don't die from perching on high-tension power lines. What's relevant is not the amount of volts at a particular point, but the difference in voltage across a bridge that can conduct electricity. If that difference is small across that bridge, there will be negligible current flow.

Excellent point. And I agree with you that the social issues are still present in Verne; if you read between the lines, you can even see that From the Earth to the Moon, for example, is about military manufacturers trying to come to grips with the end of the American Civil War, and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea is about overcoming nature versus reconciling with nature. Verne may have cared a lot more about making sure the technical details were correct, but if he had made them solely about technical education and didn't relate them at all to the human condition, I'd argue that a lot fewer science fiction fans would know his name today.

Science fiction is always about the present, even if the setting is the future or the past. The best stories tell us about what it means to be human, here and now. And some of that will involve themes like you mention. Think of the science fiction that has endured since it became a distinct genre. War of the Worlds isn't about alien invasion; it's about imperialism. The Time Machine isn't about time travel; it's about Victorian class structure. There are themes (and ways to express them) that have been beaten to death, but something utterly removed from the human experience as we perceive it will fail to connect with consumers of your art.

That's very true. Part of the problem is circular. Windows maintains its market share because it is proprietary. Therefore, it cannot allow people to tinker with it beyond levels it defines. Therefore, there will likely be some part that a user neither needs nor wants and that takes up useful processing resources. It would be nice if we could expect the average user to install the OS herself, and to be able to tick off various components that she might want during installation and leave the rest. That's another rather large layer of complexity, though -- more a matter of when it comes to QA and such than in the actual software design. It's important to have the option of a pre-installed OS for certain edge cases, though, and once you allow that, more people will want that. (Few people, it seems to me, are actually interested in maximizing the utility of their tools; they just want to finish a job and be done with it.) And we're back to the bloat.

I never meant to imply that it's unnecessary for all end users. Windows routinely offers a series of "setup options" for people when they first boot their computers. Something like the option to turn off "sticky keys" should be presented as the first option there (perhaps even as part of an entire suite of accessibility options to disable if you don't want them), not simply left as an unpleasant discovery for someone who's been using the operating system for some time and happens to press the wrong key combination.

Indeed. The words "school" and "scholar" come from a Greek word meaning "leisure". The mind should be a playground. We often forget that. And the better the toys you have to play with, the more rewarding the recreation. In a very real sense, people who treat learning as if it's not meant to be fun are depriving themselves.

Except that we all do. I don't like paying for wars or corporate subsidies. But I do like having sidewalks, interstates, public libraries, a space program, a postal service, 911 service, police, firefighters, national parks, food for the poor, subsidies for basic research, public television, public schools, a publicly-accessible judicial system, and so on. We all pay for things that either decrease the suck in the country, increase the awesome in the country, or both. And we all pay for some things we'd rather not. Hopefully, a responsible public can steer a representative democracy into some kind of sane direction where we all get something good. "I don't want that public program, so I shouldn't have to pay for it, even if I live in a pluralistic society" seems a trifle parochial.

Sun's the brightest star as seen from Earth, too. Yes, there will be less light from the Sun at Pluto than at Earth -- but the Sun is still nearly 500 times brighter at Pluto than the full Moon as seen from Earth. It's not "just" the brightest star in Pluto's sky.

Right, but having the default behavior be the annoying behavior is evidence of poor design decisions. I feel the same way about the Windows key. I use it accidentally (when it's bad, and I mean to be hitting Ctrl or Alt in a game where timing is critical) much more often than I use it on purpose (when it saves me a little time). The fact that I can pop the Windows key off my keyboard doesn't change that putting it where it is seems like a bad idea to me.

Oh, yeah. There's no question that it's mendacious. I just can't help but admire the brilliance with which it's pulled off, and how they get people to fall for it over and over. Of course, I also have a local library that puts Zecharia Sitchin-inspired books in their non-fiction science section. I've gotten so cynical about it that almost all I can do to keep myself sane sometimes is point and giggle.

I dunno... I think Hunt for Bigfoot might actually be brilliant in an animal-cunning sort of way. Consider this: You have a show all about chasing something that doesn't exist. You can potentially keep making that show forever! (At least, until the ratings run out. But the point is that you won't find yourself in the awkward position of having no more material to continue, since the hunt for something nonexistent never has to end.)

"That's All There Is" is the one I tend to show other people (who probably have little familiarity with the Moon race), since I think it's the most approachable and humorous. "Spider" is my personal favorite, though.