Nikolai

I'll warn you ahead of time -- the learning curve is kind of steep. Research the heck out of things before you try to launch. And don't try to fund every single program the game offers in one playthrough; there's just not enough time. I managed to land on the Moon in late 1967 as the Soviet Union once, but that's the best I've ever done.

It's like administrating a national space program. More or less. Here, have the open-source release: http://www.raceintospace.org/

It might be interesting to know what people who think space exploration is good think that space exploration agencies should be doing, and at what level they should be funded. No idea how to collect data on that in an efficient and meaningful way, though, that actually gives rise to a roadmap.

Or Project Pluto, a design to have a nuclear-powered bomber just roam around on the enormous powerplant it would pack until the need arose to drop things on people. The thing would have generated enough fallout to kill our enemies just by flying around over them. Or Davy Crockett, a nuclear weapon designed to be issued to foot soldiers that amounted to a rocket launcher capable of wiping out everything in a roughly one-mile radius. And no, it wasn't clean. (This was actually deployed in Vietnam, but -- thank the gods -- never used.) Or the MK-54, a backpack nuke with a timer ("Hey, Jeb -- put this on your back, run behind enemy lines, drop it off, and come back to watch the fireworks. Quick like a bunny, now"). Or the British "Blue Peacock", a nuclear land mine. It was supposed to be a last-ditch way to wipe out an invading force, so the idea was to set them off on home soil. And they were supposed to be powered by the body heat of chickens. No, really. Or "Atomic Annie", a nuclear bomb cannon with a decent reload rate. (Reload? Why on God's green Earth would you want to reload?) Of course, "Annie" was just the largest model of nuclear bomb cannon; there were several. Growing up, I was absolutely convinced that there would be a few mushroom clouds in my future. Kids today have no sense of omnipresent existential dread. (shakes old man fist while yelling at the little punks to get off my lawn)

Absolutely. The series opens with a would-be astronaut freaking out and fleeing the space agency as they try to figure out a way to cut their payload margins and launch him... by putting him on a very strict diet until launch day. (He ends up showing up later as a taxi driver who's still kind of high-strung.) But I don't want to spoil everything. Some parts of the show are a bit of a stretch, but if you take it as comedy, it's generally fun... and it sneaks some good rocketry engineering ideas in there (e.g., "The better is the enemy of the good"). Plus, I like seeing the main character (Yukari) grow up from a little bit of a flake to someone seriously concerned with the success of the program.

I've recommended Planetes (yes, there are supposed to be two e's in there) and Rocket Girls in the past. Let me also add Moonlight Mile, even though the characters are a bit larger-than-life (and thus somewhat unrealistic) and it has explicit sexual content (so don't watch it if that bothers you).

I agree with this. In an ideal world, IMHO, NASA would be allowed to follow its charter and do research into cutting-edge stuff, and they'd contract private enterprise to do stuff that's more routine (the way that they contract trucks and planes that they need). Without a substantial safety net, businesses are disinclined to commit themselves to the untried.

Quick rule of thumb: On the Internet, any question that begins with "Am I the only one who...?" can be truthfully answered "No."

I generally go with categories for broad categories of design, and which category I go with depends on my mood. Incremental changes might see a Roman numeral and maybe even a letter after that (e.g., Morticia II-. The first series saw a bunch of spacecraft named for writing utensils (Crayola, Sharpie, Bic, Prismacolor). Then I moved on to mythological beasts (Chimera, Phoenix, Gryphon, Sphinx). Stars were in there somewhere (Rigel, Altair, Polaris, Procyon), as were constellations (Aquarius, Orion, Aries, Carina) and sidekicks (Garfunkel, Gromit, Willow, Smithers, Sancho, Hermione, Norton, Watson, Chewie... that scheme lasted me a while). There have been a bunch of them. I don't remember all the categories, sadly. Right now, they're sitcom characters (Vera, Barney, Ethel, Ralph, Cosmo, Louie, Edith, Ignatowski, Phoebe, Alex, Max, Darryl#1, Darryl#2, Beavis, Urkel, Squiggy, Felix, Gomer, Mork, Schultz, Morticia) because I have an almighty number of tests to run to make the constellation of Jool-orbiting craft that I want to design.

Yes. In fact, that's also how stuff gets "blown away" by a nuke in vacuum -- it's not moved by a shockwave, it's vaporized by radiation from the blast. Note that in the case of one of my favorite applications (impactor diversion), that's what moves the impactor. Not the shockwave -- bits of impactor material get vaporized and fly away from their original location, forming a sort of jet that shoves the impactor away from the blast.

No, it wouldn't create a mushroom cloud; that's created by air being evacuated from a space and then surrounding air rushing back in to fill the vacuum once the pressure allows it. There'd be a lot of light and heat. Could you be more specific about the kind of things you'd like to know?

I think we need to reach a tipping point -- where the cost required to launch everything you need for whatever you're doing (space hotels and their staff come to mind) all at one go every time you need it exceeds the cost of just leaving some stuff there and supporting them in situ. Once you've reached that point, you have a toehold in space, especially if some people need to work and live there continuously to make it work. The market has to support both the thing you're leaving in space and getting to it periodically. ISS is partly that; I'm not convinced that the market would have supported its creation on its own, though.

The entire reason the West went nuts when Sputnik was launched was that it appeared Soviet missile technology was better than anyone had guessed. The resultant space race was primarily technological muscle-flexing (even though science got to ride on the coattails). That's why Americans lost interest. Once we had proven that which we had set out to prove, in the minds of many, there was simply no point in continuing. One has to dig a bit past the surface and learn some stuff to find out why landing on the Moon, even for the third or fifth time, is interesting and remarkable. Sadly, many Americans are not inclined (for whatever reason) to acquire this knowledge.

Don't try to land skinny craft on hills. Don't set try to set trim prior to launch. Don't play with a cat anywhere near your computer.

I never saw the show, but based on your synopsis, it sounds like I'd enjoy it. (I'm even a little grateful that something like Scooby Doo can teach kids that when you see something you can't explain, keep investigating; it might not be what it appears to be.) To bring this (tangentially) back to Cosmos, have you ever read The Demon-Haunted World (also by Sagan)? I found it compelling, especially his description of the role of healthy skepticism as a means to winnow deep truth from deep nonsense. If someone claims that X can do Y, even if an explanatory mechanism is not forthcoming, it should be considered fair to be able to test whether or not the claim is true.

I appreciate that. It's just that, generally, I think that learning things as a pleasurable activity is something much of our society seems to have forgotten how to do. I don't think too many people are motivated to visit a museum or language class or anything like that to simply enjoy it -- and that's something of a loss, IMHO. It's not "FOX to the masses" that has me conflicted. Cosmos was always directed to the masses. It's that FOX has not generally been kind to shows that attempt to broaden their viewership's imagination or understanding -- and some of the humor it celebrates is decidedly lowbrow and even mocks those who derive pleasure from learning. That's what I'm conflicted about. (I'd give several sensitive parts of my anatomy if I could live in a society that was well-educated and critically engaged in pushing our scientific understanding. Not everyone needs a degree or the equivalent level of training, of course, but we often celebrate stupidity or gut instinct over careful and methodical understanding. Many have no technical understanding, or reason or desire to acquire any. I want the masses to be educated. I just have a little concern over what FOX might do to attempts to engage people with learning, based on their history, especially when some of the subjects involved are difficult.)

A robust space program gives us more chances to get it right. That doesn't have to be as mercenary as it sounds. A common complaint from the environmentalist camp is that mankind is the only species that soils its own nest (with pollution and such). As long as we remain Earth-bound, we don't have a choice. If we have the robust means to get into space and set up there, we can move all the pollution-creating industries and disease-research facilities and chemical plants and whatever other hazardous things we do off-planet. We may never avail ourselves of that opportunity, but at least we could give ourselves the opportunity. It's also foolhardy to put all our eggs in one basket. If we wait until the place we are is perfect before moving elsewhere, we may never gain the insight needed to learn from our mistakes (we've learned a lot about how planets work through comparison and contrast); and since perfection is a subjective measure, that sort of thinking dooms us to starvation from within. Not compared to a lot of things societies do. It's enlightening to compare how much Americans spend on, say, ice cream every year and compare it to the annual spending on their space program. Or movies, for that matter. Why does no one raise a fuss over how much we spend on entertainment, but get squeamish around space program budgets -- especially considering the return to the society for each? How about the amount of meals that could be funded with the amount we spend on luxuries like cosmetics? There is a future return on expanding our horizons that is not easily measured in terms of dollars and cents; our technical people gain new insight into things when they solve tough problems, and our collective know-how increases. Plus, it's not as if the money we spend on the space program just leaves the society. It's spent here on Earth (where else are we going to spend it?), paying the salaries of engineers and technicians and scientists and custodians and everyone else involved in the effort. I think treating this like an either/or question is overly simplistic. Great societies can do more than one thing at a time. Why shouldn't we try to fix our problems and have a robust space program? (Here's a secret: We're human and will always make mistakes and will never fix all of the problems we create. Why should we have to kowtow to some arbitrary standard before we strive to do better things?) And there's where we differ. There is no good reason to delay. Explore in a measured and sane way -- there's obviously a balance here -- but it's a profoundly deep mistake to stop completely. The idea that we need to solve our problems before trying to do great things is somewhat arbitrary and downright detrimental, as history shows us over and over. For example: China decided to stop exploring in the late fifteenth century, preferring to burn their ships in the harbor (literally!) and attempt to fix their own problems. When they stopped growing, they ended up stagnating and declining, and lost occupation of the New World to people who decided to set up camp. Why is it responsible to restrict the options available to our great-great-grandchildren as we ignore lessons like these?

A robust space program gives us more chances to get it right. That doesn't have to be as mercenary as it sounds. A common complaint from the environmentalist camp is that mankind is the only species that soils its own nest (with pollution and such). As long as we remain Earth-bound, we don't have a choice. If we have the robust means to get into space and set up there, we can move all the pollution-creating industries and disease-research facilities and chemical plants and whatever other hazardous things we do off-planet. We may never avail ourselves of that opportunity, but at least we could give ourselves the opportunity. It's also foolhardy to put all our eggs in one basket. If we wait until the place we are is perfect before moving elsewhere, we may never gain the insight needed to learn from our mistakes (we've learned a lot about how planets work through comparison and contrast); and since perfection is a subjective measure, that sort of thinking dooms us to starvation from within. Not compared to a lot of things societies do. It's enlightening to compare how much Americans spend on, say, ice cream every year and compare it to the annual spending on their space program. Or movies, for that matter. Why does no one raise a fuss over how much we spend on entertainment, but get squeamish around space program budgets -- especially considering the return to the society for each? How about the amount of meals that could be funded with the amount we spend on luxuries like cosmetics? There is a future return on expanding our horizons that is not easily measured in terms of dollars and cents; our technical people gain new insight into things when they solve tough problems, and our collective know-how increases. Plus, it's not as if the money we spend on the space program just leaves the society. It's spent here on Earth (where else are we going to spend it?), paying the salaries of engineers and technicians and scientists and custodians and everyone else involved in the effort. I think treating this like an either/or question is overly simplistic. Great societies can do more than one thing at a time. Why shouldn't we try to fix our problems and have a robust space program? (Here's a secret: We're human and will always make mistakes and will never fix all of the problems we create. Why should we have to kowtow to some arbitrary standard before we strive to do better things?) And there's where we differ. There is no good reason to delay. Explore in a measured and sane way -- there's obviously a balance here -- but it's a profoundly deep mistake to stop completely. The idea that we need to solve our problems before trying to do great things is somewhat arbitrary and downright detrimental, as history shows us over and over. For example: China decided to stop exploring in the late fifteenth century, preferring to burn their ships in the harbor (literally!) and attempt to fix their own problems. When they stopped growing, they ended up stagnating and declining, and lost occupation of the New World to people who decided to set up camp. Why is it responsible to restrict the options available to our great-great-grandchildren as we ignore lessons like these?

It's already in production and due to come out in 2013. It's FOX, strangely enough, with Seth MacFarlane producing it... which makes me a little conflicted.

Sagan is still astounding. I re-watched Cosmos recently, and it's remarkable how much of it still holds up. Some ideas have shifted slightly as our knowledge has grown, but the sheer joy he expresses in trying to understand the universe around him is impossible to miss.

My wife has opined that the term "hero" is used too frequently, and the word has lost much of its impact as a result. I tend to agree. Not every unfortunate death means that the people who died were heroes. But, IMNSHO, people who died because they were engaged in pushing the frontiers of man's knowledge, training themselves to a level of excellence few attain and reaching out into a place only ever visited by a very small percentage of our number... yeah, they deserve the title. They're heroes. No question.

Thank you both for your advice (and the links to more info). It's clear that I have some work to do. Looking forward to it.

Oh, yes. A lot. It's not bad, really. I still enjoy its open-source release (raceintospace.org) from time to time. But if I had to pick on it, my primary gripe is that it's limited in scope. If you want to launch a one-man orbital mission, for example, your options are limited. Your options only really broaden as you approach Moon-landing technology. It also offers very limited options to the player once a mission has lost -- the only ones available usually boil down to "Scrub Mission? (Y/N)"-type questions. And there's limited ability to learn from one's mistakes; even one-off random failures require abandoning or restarting a program. But I'm focusing far too much on the faults; it's the best space program management simulator I've ever run across. In the meantime, KSP really scratches my let's-design-a-rocket-and-try-to-fly-it itch.

After looking at some designs that look pretty small and still make it to Mun/Minmus on a different thread, I'm wondering if I'm not losing lots of potential delta-v to atmoshperic and/or gravitational drag. Any advice from the fuel-sippers out there on how to ensure that you're effectively minimizing these losses?

(dope slaps self) Really? It never even occurred to me that those lines might be directional. I'll try that out when I get to play again (which, based on my weekend, won't be until Sunday night). Thanks for the pointer!