Wjolcz

A new planet won't fix boredom in this game. You will go there once and that's it. If you want to make space more interesting adding more planets isn't the solution. Don't get me wrong. A new planet would be cool but IIRC there are problems with memory or something. If you want the game to become less boring things like career mode and science/exploration need fixing first.

The game is beta now and you can help testing the prerelease. It's on v98 and available on Google store. The creator added more cells which include gametes that make reproduction much more interesting. I recently evolved (by pure chance) a Hydra-like organism that can repair its own mutated cells.

So I'm guessing it will be a while before B5 is resued within 24 hours? They should still have one pre-block 5 F9 right? Is it the one flying on May 31?

IT'S TIME TO STOP

I don't want to be fanboying (I try my best not to) but this is kinda true. That's partly why I respect him. Even though many plans change and Elon time gets in the way A LOT he and his company often delivers. When I saw the first barge landing attempt which went RUD I went from "Whatever" to "Holy sh*t this will eventually happen and be a regular thing" in seconds. Even though it crashed. It was so close to landing that I knew they would try again and succeed. And they did.

What about solar power on Mars. How does that compare? I'm asking mainly because I got into argument on Reddit recently with a guy who, when I said solar power is easier to handle, went "No, no, no. Nuclear and nothing else. There's no better solution and launching solar panels to Mars is just waste mass."

So I guess Hyperloop will be underground not in glass tubes. Also, is it just me or is all that he is doing somehow connected to Mars colony? Tunnels to live in them, bricks to built shelters with, EVs to move around (without the need for fossil fuels), solar panels to have power and obviously rockets to fly around the solar system. He is Peter Weyland.

Honestly, I'm not surprised. Very excited though. Europa is much closer than Enceladus and Europa Clipper is going there so there's even a higher chance of it having a lander because of all this.

That's interesting. I was not aware of that actually. I always thought simply making the blades longer/with more surface area would fix the problem of thin atmosphere.

All these kerbal specializations are really really dumb. There should be one 'Astronaut' class and that's it.

Isn't this exactly how the space shuttle worked? NASA would order components and because there was no other option (when it comes to choosing subcontractors) the prices were sky high because the subcontractors could demand whatever the price they wanted as there was nobody else to go to if NASA wasn't happy with the price. I'm not an expert but to me it seems like controlling all the stages of production is the best way to keep the prices low. If they suddenly did this they would end up charging more and more instead of less.

I thought it's pretty obvious roads are out of the question when it comes to transporting BFR. Not only would it take weeks or moths to transport at sluggish speeds but also all the things that would get in the way. Panama Canal makes the most sense though it would be really cool if they hopped from the Pacific to somewhere near FL. But we've talked about this already and concluded that it won't happen.

As I understand FH was meant to be super heavy but it turned out to be too complicated (regular F9 cores have to be reinforced and stuff) so they decided to go for something simpler: one but bigger rocket.

Isn't that the BFR tent? Maybe it's just easier to remove the cover than install lights.

I own a small quadcopter that fits within the palm of my hand and can fly for 5 minutes. I don't see a reason why NASA would build something that is bigger and also worse in performance. They also tested it in simulated Mars atmosphere. It's on YouTube.

I noticed the wobble too. Hope the new interstage isn't THAT bendy. The fire seemed much more orange too. WHAT

Shouldn't composites be easier to work with? You don't have to heat carbon fiber up. Production of it might be problematic though.

What's COPV again? BTW would it be possible to have the most common acronyms in the OP? @Skylon

Because that's not apples and oranges. I feel like the problem with 'Elon time' comes from Falcon Heavy being delayed a lot. But that happened because FH is much more complicated and presumably reinforced than regular F9. Not only that but F9 wasn't even finished development-wise when they strapped these three cores together. If it's true that they made every F9 stage unique in a way then it's really surprising that they managed to strap three of them together and make them fly. Now BFR doesn't have that problem. A grasshopper is just the beginning but they don't have to Frankenstein it from three previously flown rockets to make it work. And yes, there are other things they have to figure out first but that's what grasshopper is for.

So I don't know if I should be doing an update on how my career is going right now but I will only say that it's OK-ish so far. The problems are, as I predicted, mainly connected to the fact that I have to cheat in a lot of money to fully upgrade the Administration building to have that one strategy able to convert 100% of science into funds. There's also a problem with R&D which too would have to be fully upgraded but I don't mind it that much as I have the MH DLC and the first half of the tree seems to be enough for now. Gameplay with default rewards is okay. It acutally challenged me a couple of times to design my rockets so I fit withing the budget but that's because I was recklessly spending it on tech. World's firsts don't really encourage me to go somewhere I've been already but that's okay as there are many places to visit in this game. Now when it comes to World's Firsts: they don't care if you use a manned or unmanned spacecraft. There's not much point sending kerbals into space apart from gathering crew reports and planting flags (and fulfilling contracts, but since I'm not doing these the kerbals are just extra mass). All in all the settings don't really solve the issue. They aren't super bad but having a fourth and simpler than career mode would still be much nicer than this.

You could probably launch a sounding rocket to serve as a drone just before the big one takes off, though I'm pretty sure you could get the same result by just flying in plane nearby. And it also would be more stable. Probably cheaper too.

It just occured to me that I know near to nothing about shuttle's LES. And its initial flight was manned. The LES there consisted of seats shooting out of the cockpit and astronauts' parachutes, iirc?

I too believe that ITS would make no sense. BFR is a redesigned and improved ITS not the other way around. They probably thought "we should go this [ITS] big!" then decided to be more sensible and do something similar to what had flown already except from composites and fully reusable. By 'flown already' I'm talking here about Saturn V and Space Shuttle. To me BFR is just a stretched shuttle on top of a stretched orange tank with engines.

2020? Ugh................. I just wish BFR was already a thing. They could launch a bigger and cheaper telescope with it.

I thought the heat shield is already able to withstand interplanetary reentries? Or is the shape wrong? IIRC Apollo used its like a wing and Souyz does the same.