Pipcard

Kerbal Engineer won't tell you the lifting capacity of your rocket, but it can tell you how much delta-v you have. Delta-v is a measure of change in velocity, but as the KSP streamer DasValdez puts it, it's a measure of the ability to "change your situation in space" (like from going from ground to low Kerbin orbit, or from low Kerbin orbit to an orbit around the Mun, etc) Here is a "delta-v map."

I was wondering about this, too, but then I remembered that the Ariane rocket is named after a French spelling for the mythological Ariadne. I looked at the page for Ariadne, and it said "She is mostly associated with mazes and labyrinths, due to her involvement in the myths of the Minotaur and Theseus. Her father put her in charge of the labyrinth where sacrifices were made as part of reparations (either to Poseidon or to Athena, depending on the version of the myth); however, she would later help Theseus in overcoming the Minotaur and saving the would-be sacrificial victims" (emphasis added) edit: But only the payload is from US Space Team. The rocket is European/French, but that's not in the 1000 words list. In fact, I don't think "us" being in the list means that it's referring to the "U.S." edit 2: "help" is in the list but not "helpful." edit 3: then again, so isn't "goer" in "Up Goer Five"

I like the "meatball" logo because I feel that it's timeless: it can fit in the 1960s, today, or the future. The worm is also cool, but I think it mostly belongs in the 70s/80s. Maybe that's because it was only used in those time periods, but there's something about the aesthetic. I also like the "wormball/meatworm."

Not unless you have a lot of satellites in low Earth orbit, which is what this is planned to be.

Actually, I got a better understanding of KSP because I played Orbiter first. I learned how to use TransX to get to Mars (and even landed on it) before I even bought KSP, and even made .

Writing dates as yyyy.mm.dd is better because it's easier to sort in chronological order, and it avoids the confusion of wondering if the month or day is first. But when spoken, I prefer "[month] [dd], [yyyy]." Sounds less unwieldy to me. Like "August 31, 2007" instead of "the 31st of August, 2007"

It wasn't an official plan by NASA: "DIRECT was advocated by a group of space enthusiasts." A suggestion (not mine) would be Nova.

Venturestar was cancelled because it suffered from various technical problems in trying to make the dry mass fraction (especially the hydrogen tank) efficient enough.

Except its name is always turned into some tired joke.

(oops, I had just deleted that post. But it's okay.) But anyways, our lives are only temporary, and I want to experience great things happening in my lifetime.

We will never progress. We will never improve.

Orbiter (the simulator) helped me to get used to metric measurements of distance.

But as you should notice, SpaceX, Airbus, and ULA aren't planning to have a giant winged orbiter that has to experience re-entry from orbital velocities.

"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers."

Haters gonna hate because they can't understand the idea of a show originally intended for "little girls" being enjoyed by adult men. for the record, I like MLP:FiM.

Yes, expendables are still capable of being more economical for the very low flight rates of today, but should we keep on going until the seafloor is (metaphorically, not literally) covered in spent rocket stages (except for Russia)? Is that sustainable? Disposable cups can get recycled. Rocket engines at the bottom of the ocean are much harder to retrieve. To everybody else in the thread: if you didn't know, the reason why people say "flight rate" is so important is because the development costs and maintenance overhead of a reusable launcher have to be amortized. But SpaceX, ULA, and Airbus probably know about the lessons learned from the Space Shuttle, and don't plan on having giant heat shields with many tiles in their partially reusable systems, so refurbishment costs might be less. What will the cost of repair be compared to building an entirely new vehicle?

I've read those "flight rate" and "not enough demand" arguments about RLVs so many times already. Do you think we will always be stuck with launch vehicles that end up at the bottom of the ocean (except for Russia), and that no one should even bother with making a reusable vehicle because it just isn't worth it?

Barring the fact that the Shuttle is only designed for LEO, the wings of the Shuttle would be impractical to take on interplanetary distances. Yes, Mars has an atmosphere (a thin one), but concepts for Mars atmospheric entry (aerocapture/aerobraking/landing) usually involve large circular deceleration shields or wingless lifting bodies (with a biconic shape) for the large surface area. Also, it's not exactly "live" due to the signal delay. Still, I am and will be excited to see the first humans land on Mars.

I enjoy both hard/realistic spacecraft designs (with solar panels, radiators, realistic/plausible propulsion methods, etc.) and Star Trek's softer/unrealistic starships. When I want a soft sci-fi spaceship, I prefer mine with saucers and warp nacelles, not looking like boxy bricks. Although that trope analysis page bothers me somewhat, because the ISS aesthetic (which I love) is different from the blocky ships (which I find ugly) that the trope page is describing. Also, space battles make great entertainment, but we should not try to make them "truth in television." Keep space peaceful. Will space-based construction become easier, though? I love the realism and practicality of cylindrical pre-fabricated modules that use the volume inside a rocket fairing, but will it ever be practical to construct a spacecraft that is a different shape and/or not constrained by fairing size? Otherwise, I can't accept anything other than cylinders for hard sci-fi spacecraft (that don't enter an atmosphere). ________________ They weren't obscured, though?

Actually, the plan (which again, is just a design study by a relatively small team) was to have robots on Europa that would be tele-operated by humans on Callisto.

As a serious answer, I was thinking of Jupiter, like in the independent DIRECT proposal. I wonder, how would the Japanese name a rocket that wasn't a Latin or Greek letter?

That's exactly what I've been talking about. With the kind of attitude I'm seeing here, we'll never get anywhere. Instead it's all this defeatist talk about how "no one else will ever care about space. Let's just give up."

Dragon's heatshield is designed for re-entry from the Moon or Mars.

This is just a mission design study done in 2003, it's not part of NASA's official roadmap for the future (yet).

What's wrong with space.com? About VASIMR: I don't know if there will be a power source with enough power-to-mass ratio. Robert Zubrin (main advocate of the Mars Direct plan) even believes it's a "hoax". But if it worked, it would be great to travel to Mars in 39 days.