NovaSilisko

Yes, for future reference, cryptic videos usually just confuse people. So I dunno if I'll be trying that again

Yes, I'm sure you'll enjoy the current state of the game, what with the dirt-textured sphere and a light rotating around it... I wouldn't anticipate anything being in a testable state until (and this is assuming everything goes totally smoothly) at least the middle of this year. That being said... there's still the original Unity prototype. It's hideous, and awkward to control, and likes to break, but it gets the idea across. Maybe I'll tidy it up and release it sometime, dunno. Lots and lots of things would need tidying.

Obama announced the "asteroid by 2025" goal back in 2010 when he cancelled Constellation and instated the current program. This is old news. Also, to me, the current asteroid retrieval mission is a little bit of a cheat if you will, since the original plan referred to visiting a full-fledged giant NEA in deep space, not a little boulder captured and returned to lunar orbit. You still can say "well, we DID go to an asteroid", but it's a far cry from actually being able to explore an object of several kilometers in size with all its varied terrain and interesting geography. But, the ARM is what the budget allows (even then, by the skin of their teeth... and that's without the inevitable cost inflations) The asteroid mission is only intended as a stepping stone to Mars, but as has been said quite plainly by the NASA administration, Mars isn't happening on the current budget.

PSA: This first post is currently hideously out of date, and the thread will eventually be rebooted. For now, check the last few pages of it for the most recent stuff! Also, the forum switch totally blew the formatting here and I don't feel like fixing it anyway. Things are slow at the moment, see this post Visit the dev blog Official twitter account Very early playable prototype available here. As a small number of you may know, myself and r4m0n have been working on a game on and off (mostly off...) for a few months now. It's gone through 2.5 prototypes, and has now been refined enough to enter a proper development phase. To begin, refer to the first four items of concept art: Here are a few screenshots of the game's current state: What is this game about you ask? The massive wall of text past-me already wrote up for the game info page on the site can explain better than present-me ever could: (Note: this section is very out of date, and will be rewritten in the future) General Science of the Spheres is a game in development about the exploration, documentation, and exploitation of a newly discovered universe with its own set of unique and unusual physical properties. The player takes the role of Dr. Tony Pistachio: former physics professor from the University of Queensland, now main operator of the United States’ top secret and severely underfunded Multiversal Exploration Agency. Established in early 1956, immediately closed down after nearly causing an outbreak of plague, and finally reactivated in 1974, the MEA is the executor of two broad goals: explore this new universe with a fleet[1] of unmanned spacecraft, in the hope of finding out if anything about these strange and surprisingly small new worlds can benefit life on Earth[2], and, most importantly, find a way to make money from what it does. Despite being situated in a flimsy warehouse just outside St. Louis, the MEA has some impressive technology at its disposal. Or at least one item of impressive technology – the Universal Transference Catapult. A large, ungainly device constructed of vacuum tubes, rough steel, and an aircraft carrier-style launch catapult, the UTC is how all the MEA’s spacecraft enter the “Microverseâ€Â, as it’s come to be known. From there, the interesting part begins. The game is currently in the prototype and concept phase. As time goes on, this page will be altered and refined as the ideas behind it have the same done to them, but it’s generally a safe assumption that most things mentioned on this page will inevitably end up in the game in some way, shape, or form… [1]Not really a fleet, more a haphazard collection of spacecraft assembled from surplus NASA parts, metal tubing, and (on a good day) in-house, specially-made equipment [2]Just don’t bring back a disease or something because that really wouldn’t help Exploration The Microverse is populated with a wide variety of things to explore: Galaxies, stars, planets, comets, asteroids, algae, ferns, ruins, gold, diamonds, pulsars, three-legged brachiosaurs, living assemblies of spacefaring crystal and god knows what else. All of these things can be studied and interacted with by means of the unmanned spacecraft mentioned earlier, controlled remotely from the safety of the MEA headquarters via a radio transmitter poking through the UTC portal. It’s important to note that “planets†and “stars†in this context are only holdover terms from our universe – the biggest planet that can be found might stretch to an astounding two hundred meters in radius. At the center of all planets lie the poorly-understood[3] objects known as “Static Gravitational Cores†– immobile and solid black spheres, fixed like thumbtacks on the fabric of spacetime, each one generating enough of a gravitational field to accumulate matter onto its surface to form a small planet. Stars are simply large SGCs that emit heat and light[4]. Other than these quirks, though, things in the Microverse are quite similar to things here. Both are made of the same stuff, and gravity works very similarly (the main difference being that the Microverse has all the added weirdness of immobile gravity sources as well as the intense gravity gradients brought on by the small size of planets). The immobility of all gravity sources brings about interesting possibilities – one can imagine a sampling mission being undertaken by fastening a rope to a small rocky planet, and then simply winching a vehicle down into the depths of a nearby gas giant to study its murky atmosphere. A long enough tether, and you can dangle a communications satellite in an area of open space, allowing wider control accessibility. Two planets can be found close enough to touch – each one with its own gravity field, and a permanant bridge of rock and dirt connecting the two. This is only a small portion of all that’s planned/imagined for the future… time will tell how many wild fantasies become set in stone! [3]As in, just roll with it :v [4]Enough heat and light to prevent significant amounts of material from accumulating on its surface – smaller, dimmer “stars†may become lava planets instead as the material on their surfaces melts Documentation Beyond simple observation of the Microverse comes directly studying it. A notebook system allows the player to document anything and everything that they find, be it via data, photos, or simple written anecdotes. Results from instruments, as well as returned samples, can be sold to the highest bidder for a hefty profit. Many scientific and government institutions would pay a fortune for a sample of an alien world. Native creatures, too, can yield a plethora of scientific results, ranging from studies of wild behavior to observation of captured and returned individuals. If you’ve ever had questions about how a chicken might react to a predatory orange cube, you’re in luck… Exploitation It’s commonly-accepted fact that the two best methods to get at a given deposit of sweet sweet mineral wealth are tunneling and blasting. Given the fullly destructible terrain on all planets, both are possible. Although lacking in things practical for spaceflight, the Microverse has been found to contain a conveniently unusual amount of one thing in particular – gold. Seeing as gold is generally considered to be valuable, strip-mining entire planets can prove to be an extremely lucrative venture, assuming you can set up the necessary infrastructure for a large-scale operation. Beyond gold, many other elements common in our universe can be found, with varying levels of profitability[5], as well as native ores unique to the Microverse. Exploitation doesn’t necessarily have to be a destructive thing, however. Material, plants, and animals can be transported from one planet to another, either for purposes of terraforming, or simply seeing how they react[6] in this new environment… [5]From borderline-worthless things like iron ore to amazing things like platinum ore [6]Depending on your choice of new destination this probably invalidates the earlier statement that exploitation doesn’t have to be destructive Current team: NovaSilisko r4m0n Current special thanks box: Everyone who's made fanart ferram4 C7 N3X15

Well, if you like that... http://www.manconquersspace.com/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wr7GtaU3v5I

Alright, since I'm proud of this one I can't keep just keep it stashed away until more are done... combination of some space engine screenshots, photos of comets, mars observer, and some handpainted stuff... What can you tell about the area of space the image was taken in, based on what's presented in it? Sadly some weird color artefacting in it ruins the subtleties in certain areas... doesn't look like that in photoshop, but does in a web browser...

Eerhm, Nass was talking about posting art you've made yourself Funny this thread comes up now, because I was just working on some art of my own...

Tthe two biggest problems with the space shuttle were, in my opinion, using the same platform for both crew and cargo, as well as having literally no abort scenario before the SRBs jettisoned. There are advantages to having crew on a cargo launch platform - astronauts in space are a lot better at fixing problems on the fly than any sort of robotic deployment system, but... given the inherent safety problems with the vehicle, I'm not sure the risk vs reward there really pays off. Ironically, the one big mishap that could have been prevented by having crew present - Galileo's main antenna failing to deploy - didn't occur until well after Galileo had left the reach of the shuttle. Hubble was an additional case that the shuttle did well at - although, it must be said that Hubble itself was designed specifically to be launched and maintained by the shuttle, so I would say it's not unreasonable to think that if a different manned vehicle were operating at the time (a capsule with cargo pod, for instance), the design of HST and plans for servicing would be different accordingly.

Unity cannot be "overhauled and re-written" - it is not an open source engine. It can be added on top of, and limitations can be worked around, but it's not an engine you can get into and meld to your liking.

I can see the headlines already... "Local man dies while testing homemade liquid fuel rocket - 'We tried to warn him' forumgoers say"

I wish SC4 would run on my computer... it hates Win7 for some reason. I still have SC3K though, which is pretty much tied with SC4 for my favorite game in the series... it also has ~jazz~

Working with a few assumptions... 1. The mass of a full bottle of coke is 2.05 kg 2. The mass of an empty bottle of coke is 0.05 kg 3. There is a properly shaped de laval nozzle fastened over the neck of the bottle 4. The exhaust velocity of a diet coke and mentos reaction is a generous 15 m/s (probably doable with a proper nozzle) This gives a delta-v of: ~55.7 m/s Enough to give somebody a large whack on the head, maybe even deorbit itself. Roughly five times the delta-v needed to reach escape velocity from the surface of Phobos, so there's that too.

I'd say check out NASA's Eyes On The Solar System thing... it doesn't have -all- satellites, of course, but it has quite a few.

Yeah, there's a point where it becomes best to do a tradeoff - the point where the efficiency gained by having a big nozzle offsets the weight of having that bigger nozzle in the first place. Probably just should have said that in the first place instead of the meandering disaster of a post before, but whatever.

All rocket engines gain in efficiency as air pressure decreases, so I'm gonna guess that the expansion, if it does detract from efficiency, has a very minimal effect overall. Plus, if it was really a big problem, wouldn't at least something have been done about it by now? Every rocket in vacuum has this same sort of expansion(varying with the layout of the engines... the octopus pattern of the F9v1.1 is unique to that vehicle, Soyuz has its own expansion pattern, but the principle is the same) , so just going by simple observation I'd say it's reasonable to conclude that it doesn't present enough of a hindrance to be worth attempting to change. edit: Mostly right, see below... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Laval_nozzle Rocket engines, ideally, use this shape - to "shape the exhaust flow so that the heat energy propelling the flow is maximally converted into directed kinetic energy." And for more reading: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket_engine_nozzles It helps (and is interesting in its own right!) to read about how rocket engines work, too... they're wonderful products of science, mathematics and engineering all working together. Probably the most relevant bit: "There is also a theoretical optimum nozzle shape for maximum exhaust speed, however, a shorter bell shape is typically used which gives better overall performance due to its much lower weight, shorter length, lower drag losses, and only very marginally lower exhaust speed.[9]" So, there's some loss of efficiency but making a massive nozzle in order to counteract the effects of gas expansion would end up being less efficient than simply disregarding it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_of_gravity Lots of discourse on the subject on this wiki article. Interesting read. It does please me to see stuff in science that we're not quite sure of... keeps things exciting.

There isn't really a name for them because we don't know of any in existence. The most likely case I'd say would be a boulder of ice in orbit around a moon of saturn, plucked from the rings... but can you -really- call a meter-wide lump of ice in an orbit that only lasts for two months, a moon?

Disregarding all previous posts to answer the OP's question directly: Humans are big, heavy, fragile things, and most of the things launched with skylon are going to be satellites. As others have stated, maybe for crewed flights you'd want... well, crew on board, to mitigate any mishap but that can be integrated into the capabilities of the passenger cargo pod if it even is necessary at all. Pretty much everything on skylon that's not the cargo bay, an engine, or a wing, contains propellant. If you wanted to redesign it so it had windows at the front for crew in the cockpit or something, you'd have to totally redesign the interior of the vehicle (and in the process you'd probably screw over the center of mass). Even then, crewed flight is entirely theoretical for skylon... as is skylon itself, but I digress. Now, no longer disregarding previous posts (except some I probably missed): I'm not sure about the whole "we need humans to monitor it" thing. Unmanned aircraft have come a long, long way since the shuttle was first conceived... the Global Hawk UAV, for instance, is capable of wholly autonomous flight. As in, the operator (you really can't call him a pilot) just has to press the take off button, and then the aircraft follows a series of GPS waypoints to the target, then comes home.

Nvidia GTX 260. Ancient card, but it's served me well. I'll keep your suggestions in mind! I'm going around consulting different sources, can't hurt to have a sort of consensus before committing to a big thing like this.

I'm hoping to reuse my keyboard, mouse, monitor, headphones/speakers, and GFX card. I'd prefer not to carry over things like the HD (I was thinking of sticking the current HDs into enclosures then snagging files off of them as needed). Most of the hardware here is from 2009 I believe, so I don't exactly trust much of it to last terrifically long at 5 years of age. I'd say it's best to get a new motherboard, but maybe I'd be able to recycle the CPU. Dunno what sort of problems there might be with it, but it doesn't seem to catch on fire or anything so that's probably good.

Well, I was hoping of soliciting help from people somewhat more familiar with me by going to this thread instead of going through a standardized form ;p I answered a couple of the questions in that form in my post already though, but I'll give some more, in no particular order... - Budget is currently an unknown - if I wanted to do it immediately it would have to be 3-400ish dollars, max. But, I do want to wait a bit so I can maybe accrue more wealth through some means, to enable making a build without it being terrible. - I don't need a monitor, mouse, keyboard, speakers, etc. I already have those and they work fine (and can always be acquired at a later time). - I have no plans of overclocking and no plans for SLI/CFX. - Ideally it's left open for upgrading (for instance, the recycling of my existing GPU for the new build would just be temporary til a new card is bought). - SSD would be nice, but I think what might be best is to have a tiny one used only as the boot drive, so the system starts up lightning fast, without the expense (or, as I have heard, reliability issues) of a large-scale file storage SSD.

It's nice to see the whole "Slow TV" thing catching on - you don't NEED constant dramatic things happening to make a program interesting. Shame I'm in the states and can't watch it...

It would be a better idea (and easier, and cheaper) to simulate martian conditions here on earth in a terrarium sort of thing. You can also reuse the same environment and redo the experiment with various conditions tweaked.

So, I need to start building a new PC sometime, preferably soon... of course, two problems: 1. I am poor 2. I am dumb My main requirements are that it functions decently as a gaming PC (same specs as my current PC would be fine), can be relocated without requiring a forklift, it actually be quick to do things (10-15 min startup time as I have now is not acceptable), and, importantly, it is quiet. My current PC is a jet aircraft, practically... I've got my sights set on a case, which seems in my mind to be the greatest case ever imagined by mankind: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811139014 No screws required to detach the side panel, just big clamps, carrying handles for mobility (this satisfies point 2), and lots of room inside... bit pricey (I think? not much experience in this), but otherwise seems to be fantastic. Problem is of course I don't really have nearly enough money to do this (budget of something like $300?), so I dunno when this would be able to happen... but it can't hurt to plan for any unexpected windfall. I also don't know much about hardware, and fully expect to break everything if I look at it funny. So that's where you lot come in, I guess. Maybe I could recycle my existing GPU? I don't think there's anything horribly wrong with it, and that would take a good bit of the cost off. Unless of course the GPU is what makes it so loud.

Exactly. There are already people claiming China's mere orbital flights were faked, so a lunar landing by them might go over poorly.