Herra Tohtori

This is quite tricky to do with the default challenge aircraft. My current best with default craft is 02:51 02:40 02:37. There may still be some room to improve it, but damn is it hard to control that craft. Very sluggish in the turns. I shall upload a video of my run soon, then move to Open category with something a little less wing loading, and better pitch maneuverability - the biggest challenge I found with the default craft is to get the nose up - which is even more problematic due to the craft\'s use of canards as elevons instead of elevators, so every time you apply roll input you can\'t use full pitch up from them. I nosedived into ground many a time...

He doesn\'t approve of attaching K in front of every word to make it kerbalized. I\'m inclined to agree that such method is a tad unimaginative.

Okay, fair enough. I didn\'t expect the fuselage parts themselves to be so much better than other fuel tanks, but I guess it makes sense if they don\'t need to carry oxidizer with them. Apparently I didn\'t think it through very thoroughly. Feel free to post your vehicles anyway. Might as well just look at different categories of vehicles that can make the trip and return safely. My goal is to make as ridiculously big single stage spacecraft as possible, just because I find it rather kerbalicious behaviour.

Pretty much, yeah. You can use C7 equipment if you wish (I can think a few uses for his rather crash tolerant fuselages and wings as well as RCS thrusters) but I wanted to put a limitation to using the aero engines in atmosphere only. That said my... design, I guess you could call it that, is acting strangely once its out of atmosphere. It starts to rotate by itself and tends to vibrate itself to pieces when I use the main thrusters. And then the pieces rip apart regardless of strutification... > I might need to think about changing my vehicle type, it already caused a serious radioactive contamination when it disintegrated before achieving stable orbit and all the nuclear engines that version was using rained down somewhere in northern Karkraz...

Lack of struts was sort of intentional, I just wanted to establish a baseline to what sort of fuel consumption I get with those engines and fuel tanks during ascent. What surprised me was that the oscillations didn\'t begin until I was well outside the atmosphere and tried to use low thrust setting to maneuver the ship prograde. Later evolutions of the ship have struts all over the place as well as RCS system, but I have encountered new and exciting problems with the design... namely, somehow it goes through some random rotation when left alone and disintegrates itself when left unattended... ???

Ok, let\'s set some baseline for this challenge to kick it off. (unfortunately, image posting derps the forum again). Kerbal Cube Mark 01 test is go! http://img62.imageshack.us/img62/1917/screenshot0lt.png 'Initial ascent went well. Orbit seems likely.' http://img17.imageshack.us/img17/6225/screenshot1spr.png 'Cube 1, Mission Control. Stable orbit has been achieved! First step of the program has been achieved: We have a viable single-stage to orbit vehicle! Congratulations, guys, you make Kerbalkind proud!' http://img526.imageshack.us/img526/8936/screenshot4gg.png '...what\'s that, Bob? You aredetecting oscillations in the stack prongs?' http://img545.imageshack.us/img545/2479/screenshot5ml.png http://img18.imageshack.us/img18/2613/screenshot6da.png 'Mission Control, Cube 1. The oscillations are getting worse. Requesting mission status update, are we go for proceeding with the mission?' '-Cube 1, Control. Stand by.' *clunk* http://img220.imageshack.us/img220/5044/screenshot7c.png http://img406.imageshack.us/img406/159/screenshot8zs.png 'Mission Control, Cube 1. Engine number 2-2 was just detached and is floating away.' '-Cube 1, Control. Understood, abort mission. I say again, abort mission.' 'You heard the man, Jeb, let\'s punch out before this ride gets worse...' 'Bill, you do realize that they didn\'t install any parachutes on this craft, not to mention decouplers are also missing? We\'re riding this thing down...' 'Mission control, Cube 1. Mission abort acknowledged. We\'re turning this boat around. See you back at the bar...' http://img18.imageshack.us/img18/659/screenshot9yc.png http://img7.imageshack.us/img7/6188/screenshot10fh.png 'The oscillations are still quite strong, Jeb. Are you sure you can even turn this thing around...' 'Don\'t worry Bob. I know what I\'m doing.' 'How are you even going to turn it around? We don\'t have any RCS system...' 'Sure we do.' 'Uh, I didn\'t see any in the design drawings.' 'Well, dear brothers of mine, we have 63 - make that 62 since one got away - gimballed thrusters at the back. We just put them on and use them to maneuver the ship!' '...' '...' 'What?' http://img585.imageshack.us/img585/4757/screenshot12yq.png 'Mission Control, Cube 1. We have successfully performed de-orbit burn. Re-entry well in progress. Altitude, 26000, velocity 1700, slowing down fast. Could you give us a trajectory update so that we know where we might land? It\'s dark down there.' 'Cube 1, Control. We lost you on the radar and the ballistics downlink has been damaged during re-entry. Just land where you can and hope they aren\'t mortal enemies of our country...' 'Mission Control, Cube 1. Initiating retro-burn.' http://img685.imageshack.us/img685/8325/screenshot13dr.png http://img201.imageshack.us/img201/2258/screenshot14u.png 'Damn! I can\'t see a thing! How come we never had visibility problems before with the same rockets?' 'Because we were not descending ass backwards through atmosphere, Jeb, that\'s why! Now concentrate on the flying for the love of Kerb...' 'Mission Control, Cube 1. Velocity killed, starting landing sequence. There\'s just a little problem - I don\'t have any way of seeing what kind of terrain we will be landing on...' http://img846.imageshack.us/img846/8797/screenshot15z.png 'TouchdooOOOOOOOWNGHHH AAARRRRRGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHH-' http://img832.imageshack.us/img832/8232/screenshot16ya.png 'Cube 1, Control. Status?' 'Control, Cu...cube 1. Landed on a hillside. Ship folded and rolled downhill. We\'re alive. Going to faint now. Cube 1 out.' http://img338.imageshack.us/img338/9926/screenshot20l.png Summary of attempt 1: Single-stage to orbit: YES Munar insertion: NO Munar landing: NO Munar take-off: NO Return to Kerbin orbit: NO De-orbit and re-entry: YES Soft landing: YES Craft status: STRUCTURE DESTROYED, PARTIALLY RE-USABLE COMPONENTS Crew status: ALIVE AND REASONABLY UNHARMED Attempt 1 has been classified as a successful failure. Although mission parametres were not met, the crew survived and the property damage was minimal. Some parts of the spacecraft such as top structure parts, fuel tanks, and engines have been recovered with the help of <FOREIGN NATION REDACTED> and will be re-used as fit.

KSC BRIEFING ROOM Good morning, males and females. I am the new deputy administrator of our nation\'s space agency. This briefing is intended to orient new astronaut recruits to our facilities and practices, as well as re-orient survivors of the previous administration to our new, streamlined ideology. This will take a bit of background, so please be seated. ... As you know, our space program has been increasingly short of funds ever since it was founded. It doesn\'t help that we keep losing prototypes about as fast as our engineers can build them... no, Jebediah, you\'re not allowed to use SRB\'s to commute, this is the fourth time you\'ve asked this week, and I\'m going to have to deny yout request again, it\'s not going to help our budget issues if you can get faster to work when you\'re undoubtedly going to crash your rocket boosted car to the VAB. Again. ...As I was saying, the leaders of our nation have become increasingly concerned about loose spending within the program, and since there will eventually be elections again, they don\'t want the public to think that we\'re intentionally wasting money. Yes, Jebediah, when parts of rocketry come crashing down into someone\'s potatomoto patch or explodes their barnyard animals to smithereens they tend to notice it and they usually don\'t like it very much. ...Yes, Bob, I know, our rockets are not expensive. The people don\'t know that. The politicians don\'t care about real things, they care about what people think. Now, like the sensible, far-thinking individuals the politicians are, they have decided that the space programme needs to be more cost-conscious. That means: No more dropping expensive-looking equipment away unless it is an absolute necessity. Secondly, there are no absolute necessities. Thirdly, for every piece of KSA property lost or destroyed, a materiel loss form must be filled in three copies, processed by five separate offices in four different administrative facilities in as many cities, and then carefully filed away in the bunker at an undisclosed location. So, do not treat these new guidelines lightly, my dear kerbals. It is not only your careers, but also the future of independent space programme in our proud nation, that is on the line here. Now that this nasty business is out of the way, let me explain the main goal of our newest program. We will go to the moon. ...yes. We intended to go there to begin with, Bill, but let me finish- We will go to the moon. With one single stage. And then we will get you back from there. Without leaving stuff behind. By the stupefied looks on your faces, I can see you\'re thinking the same as I was when I first heard about this. How are you supposed to get to the Mun and back without staging? Well, no one said it would be easy. But, there is light at the end of the tunnel. As an announcement for the engineers in this room, our government has made agreements with the following public sector space and aviation corporations: C7 Aerospace Division TiberDyne Aerospace KW Challenger Many of you might already be aware that TiberDyne Aerospace has taken over the manufacture and distribution of the equipment originally designed by Silisko Industries Doughnut Research & Spacecraft Development, as well as Sunday Punch Wobbly Rockets Selection, and is marketing them under a re-hashed product brand of NovaPunch. We should begin receiving shipments from these companies as soon as we have some designs to put together. You are allowed to use or intermix any parts in these product catalogues, but be advised that the turbine engines provided by C-7 Aerospace Division are aviation engines, not rocket engines. They will not work outside inner atmosphere, so lugging them around will just be waste of delta-v. Use of wings for stabilizing the craft for landing after re-entry would probably be quite sensible. Does anyone have any questions at this point? ... Yes, we do realize that we will probably lose a lot of VERY LARGE prototypes during the course of this program. However our analysts have calculated that due to all those parts being part of a single spacecraft, their distribution around the landscape will be less random, and thus attract less attention. Worst comes to pass, we can always say it was swamp gas or a weather balloon. ... Yes, it will probably be more expensive overall than building a sensible, staged Munrocket design. These orders come from the politicians, what did you expect? ... Yes, I do realize that you will probably end up landing a blockhouse-sized spacecraft on the Mun, and somehow need to get it back and through atmosphere safely, too. No one said this was going to be easy. We have unknown amount of time to do this until the laws of physics are altered to include re-entry heat. After that point, this exercise will probably be futile.

Worry not, it\'s saved. Here\'s the .craft file, should anyone be interested in trying it... The hardest part is getting her to water intact. It requires very precise flying - wings must be level, yaw attitude close to neutral, and pitch should be around 24 degrees. Vertical speed should be less than 1 m/s. Approach and touchdown speed is 87-88 m/s. It is a tricky plane to fly with all those SRB\'s bolted on the fuselage... Many Kerbals died to bring us this information. Also, my findings suggest that the C-7 landing gear part is so durable that crash tolerance is, at this time, not a factor (though, again, I am unsure if that remains so in the latest C-7 - my installation may or may not be outdated). The challenge here is two-fold: 1. To get the vehicle in water intact 2. To have as high a thrust/drag ratio as possible. Weight is less of a concern here because the craft is supported by water. Therefore I went with a fairly long fuselage providing good pitch stability while in the water, tall hydrogear structure with wide prongs to provide roll stability, and as much thrust as I could pack on it while still keeping it capable of landing on the water without losing parts. My next target is breaching Mach 1 (terran standard), or 340.29 m/s.

Very well, here\'s the current benchmark at 313 m/s (1,126.8 km/h, or 700.16 mph). Name of the vehicle: Kingfisher Mk.IV Getting close to Mach 1... assuming, of course, that Kerbin\'s atmosphere is air and has NTP conditions at sea level. : 8)

I have reached temporary 246 m/s with SRB\'s using a design called Kingfisher Mk.I, but sustained speed is only about 180 m/s. Need to find some way to reduce drag (or, more likely, increase thrust). I expect to see some improvements with optimizing the design further. I\'ll post screenshots at some point. EDIT: 278 m/s... However I am unsure if I\'m using the latest version of C-7 flight pack.

I think, technically, my space shuttle should be capable of this. As long as the ship doesn\'t need to be quite intact at the end. Problem would be timing the re-entry so that gliding to KSC would be possible. There\'s not much margin of error, as my shuttle typically uses its remaining fuel for re-entry burn and does the descent with empty tanks. Would just have to do it through repeatedly adjusting the orbit height over KSC and try to find a good glide slope that puts the shuttle in a feasible approach for landing... and maybe I\'ll put on some landing gear, too, so the landing isn\'t so embarrassingly amusingly explosive every time.

Breaking news! Mün is radioactive! Based on the analysis of the samples collected near the landing zone on the recent Mün landing mission - the Mün is highly radioactive! Scientists have found significant quantities of high and medium active isotopes from the samples recently brought back from the first successful Mün landing with enough leg room to fit in some scientific devices and haul back samples. The sensational results need to be confirmed by peer reviewed analysis of the tests, but preliminary inspection of the samples is conclusive with fissile products. -The isotopes we found have very short to medium half lifes, says Kerbal Space Program leading geologist Bobby Bartholomew 'Dread Bore' Kerman. -We do not yet have clear picture of the distribution mechanism of these isotopes, but it does mean that there have been nuclear activity in the Mün during recent years, possibly even months. The most vocal supporters of the 'Mother Kerbin' theory of the Mün\'s origin have already hailed this discovery as a confirmation to the hypothesis that the Mün was separated from Protokerbin in a massive impact hundreds of years ago. In their opinion, these fissile product isotopes suggest that the Mün, like Kerbin, contains a high mass percentage of transuranium elements - to an extent where spontaneous fission is possible. -There must be a reason for all them craters and holes, and fission reactions undergoing under the surface of the Mün would certainly explain them, said the chairman of the Society for Promotion of Mother Kerbin Origin of The Mün, Lawson Carson Anderson 'Son' Kermanson. -I mean, sure, some say that Mün was probably just hit by some Useless Bits of Rock, but come on, seriously, Useless Bits of Rocks are out there and the Mün is here, clearly there\'s a miscommunication here. Meanwhile, the three Kerbonauts, Bill, Bob and Jebediah Kerman, are still in extended quarantine to make sure they have not been exposed to higher than usual levels of radiation from the Munar dust carried into their ship during their Munar excursions. So far, all appear to be in excellent health. In a statement earlier today, the flight crew briefly commented the flight. -It was eerie, almost everything went smoothly, told the flight\'s commander, Jebediah 'Jeb' Kerman. Other crew members - William 'Bill' and Robert 'Bob' Kerman - agree. -Yeah, aside from that little hijink on the way back, everything went better than exepected, William Kerman told us. Robert Kerman shed some more light to the brief period when communications were lost to the crew: -Well we lost communications and then things went a bit weird. I never thought I\'d see a Resonance Cascade, let alone create one, but I guess that\'s what happened, our displays were alternating between different orbits and we seemed to be stuck on the neutral gravity area between Kerbin and Mün, but Jeb - that\'s Jebediah - he just put the engine on for some time and the problem went away. The plans for positioning a satellite on a Lagrange point have been postponed in the light of this unprecedented risk, until the behaviour of neutral gravity areas are understood better. --- On other news, Kerbal Space Center has announced a minor design change in the famed Munlander Mk.II design, in which the lander\'s extremely efficient fission engine will be replaced by a suitable replacement. Technical director of the Munlander programme was not available for comment.

Here are the dependencies: C-7 Flight Pack SundayPunch\'s Wobbly Rockets (alpha fixed textures) Radial Booster Pack Captain Slug\'s Lander Leg I think that\'s all that are required. If the ship is missing parts, gimme a shout and I\'ll see if I\'ve missed something. Here is the .craft: Juturn V + Munlander Mk.II.craft The first stage may benefit from switching from moving canards to stationary fins, and replacing engines with gimballed version of same engine. If you do modifications, though, you need to make sure the staging doesn\'t go haywire, there are certain rather complicated solutions at certain places that can easily cause engine staging to go all pear-shaped. Also remember that this lander is heavy duty lifter in Mun. It has no performance issues and has quite a bit of fuel so if you feel so inclined you could add ASAS module on the CSM, or whatever you wish.

Juturn V with the Munlander Mk.II Spacecraft Juturn V is a three-staged launch vehicle. First stage contains five kerosene and liquid oxygen burning, powerful engines. Aerodynamic control is provided with four moving fins. Future variants are expected to use gimbal engines on all stages. This first stage is used to lift the massive vehicle from the launch pad and through the lower atmosphere. Second stage contains five hydrogen-oxygen burning rockets that have gimbal mounts to provide control during ascent. This stage burn lasts significantly longer than Stage #1 burn. Here, the second stage is just being separated. The third stage is the actual Mun rocket. It is powered by a single, gimballed liquid fuel rocket engine and provides the necessary delta-v for final orbital insertion burn, transmunar injection burn, and munar orbit entry burn. Its power is in relatively long, sustained burns. On top of the third stage is the Munlander Mk.II Spacecraft. The Munlander was originally developed as a Flophopper Mk.I craft used on Kerbin for various types of practice missions and even orbital re-entries, which is why its engine is rather overpowered for Munar landings, but Jebediah likes it the way it is and it was cheaper and easier to just bolt it on top of Juturn V rocket, than design a more suitable lander craft. Munlander Mk.II contains technically two stages. The lower stage contains a powerful (and heavy) fission engine with excellent fuel efficiency, yet sufficient thrust to fly the spacecraft safely even on Kerbin\'s gravity field. In Mun landings, it has very wide safety margins - it has more than enough fuel for powered descent, landing, and even take-off, so it would be amiss to simply call it a descent stage. The lander uses Captain Slug\'s lander legs - three for optimal stability on uneven terrains. Due to heavy fission engine on the bottom, the lander is surprisingly capable at landing on tilted surfaces without toppling over - indeed, pilots have experienced a tendency to slide down slopes instead of toppling over. This gives the pilots additional safety margin in landings - if first landing zone is not suitable, the craft will not be as likely to fall over as its appearance would suggest. The top stage was originally designed as an emergency escape pod for the Flophopper Mk.I design. In that incarnation, it had a habit of detonating the lower stage as the engine ignited. The Munlander Mk.II is, however, equipped with retrothrusters that should (in theory) push the lower stage away from the upper stage before engine ignition - and in case they malfunction, the RCS thrusters can also be used for forward thrust. Upper stage is powered by a small liquid fuel rocket engine and the craft has plenty of fuel to return to Kerbin from Mun mission. The lower stage of Munlander Mk.II contains one RCS fuel tank and a single SAS module, and the upper stage contains a single RCS fuel tank. For extravehicular activity on the Mun, the craft is fitted with rope ladders. It is hoped that in the future, additional cargo (such as Munar Rover, or scientific equipment) can be fitted in the space between fairings and the core of the lower stage. On the very top of the stack is a Command Module that acts as the habitat for the crew during the duration of the mission. Getting to Moon is not a very straightforward process, much less so than simply entering stable orbit. After stabilizing an orbit around Kerbin, a transmunar injection burn needs to be plotted. Transmunar injection puts the spacecraft on a transfer orbit to rendezvous with the Mun. After moving to the gravitational influence of the Mun, you will find your spacecraft most likely on a hyperbolic trajectory around or behind the Mun: Near the periapsis, the third stage of Juturn V performs its last required task: Insertion on Munar orbit by slowing down the spacecraft with its remaining fuel. Orbit successfully stabilized! The third stage had enough fuel in this mission that it actually moved the periapsis to the other side of the orbit, and the entry point became the new apoapsis for the orbit. After orbit was stabilized, it was time to jettison the third stage. Munlander was now on its own, far from home. Next step was planning the de-orbit, descent and landing zone. I decided I would be landing next to the large Mare on the lit side of the Mun, preferably near the rim mountains around it. That meant I would be starting my de-orbit and descent near the periapsis of the orbit. As the ship emerged from the shadow of the Mun, the vista was truly magnificent. The de-orbit burn put the spacecraft on a shallow descent that would take it above the desired landing zone. During this high speed, unpowered descent, some final adjustments could be made for the general landing zone. Powered descent started as the craft passed south of the dark Mare on the Mun. This maneuver put the craft on a steeper descent path but also slowed down the total velocity significantly. The angle of descent would gradially deepen until the craft would descend vertically before touchdown. Final descent began at altitude of about 6000 metres above Munar surface. This first touchdown was in too steep territory, and as the ship tilted dangerously, commander Kerman increased thrust to take the ship back up, then located a more suitable landing area and finally put the ship down for good. The final touchdown occurred at flight time 7 hours, 17 minutes and probably about 10-20 seconds (no one was watching the clock at the exact moment, so it\'ll never be known exactly). Landing area was a few dozen kilometres southeast of the aforementioned Mare, on the foothills of the ridge mountains. After spending some jolly good time on the surface of the Mun, the Kerbalkind\'s brave ambassadors left this foreign world and headed home. Full speed ahead! The remaining fuel on the lower stage of Munlander was sufficient to boost the spacecraft to a ballistic trajectory about ye high: At the top of the arc, it was time to lay the lower stage to rest and separate the command/service module on top of it for the remainder of the mission, and then boost the ship first on stable orbit around the Mun: Setting homebound orbit was trickier than I expected. Initially the trajectory looked all fine and good... with stunning visuals on the way home: ...but, at the gravitational switch point between Mun and Kerbin, something strange happened: Basically, I got stuck between two orbits and the game didn\'t know which one I was supposed to follow. What was even worse, the game thought I was experiencing acceleration, and limited time compression to 2x, so I spent ages in this point. Worse still, as the game was switching between the two trajectories, it also switched the orbit-relative camera angle all the time, making the normal view completely epileptic and unplayable. After a while, I got fed up, did a burn of couple dozen seconds at full power to get out of the conflict area, and eventually the flickering tuned down and eventually stopped. I didn\'t truly hit Lagrange point, but it was close. However, now I had a problem, as the ship initially settled on this kind of trajectory: ...and I had to do some rather fuel consuming trickery to change my trajectory to this: As I got close to perikerb, I did a long ass retrograde burn, trying to align my trajectory with Kerbal Space Center location - but, as it turns out, the trajectory fell a bit short. After deciding I had finalized my trajectory, I jettisoned the service module: Space center in sight... so close, yet so far. Already too deep in atmosphere. Well, nothing to it... will just perform normal parachute landing somewhere in the deepest Kerfrica. This successful mission was a huge surprise to mission control who honestly expected them to run out of fuel or crash at some point during the mission. Reports from Kerbal Space Center indicate heavy casualties of the upper management team, suffering afflictions ranging from mild nervous twitching and epileptic seizures to full on heart attacks and cerebral hemorrhaging. Crisis team has been assembled to help the affected.

I also can report successful landing. I didn\'t document this particular mission from the beginning because frankly I didn\'t expect to be successful. However, at the first successful trans-münar injection, I also managed to stabilize an orbit, de-orbit, descend and land without breaking anything. The mission control has reportedly suffered several casualties of shell-shocked, paralyzed by shock, and foaming in the mouth as they were in no way prepared for this type of mission outcome. KSP director has ordered full crisis management group to be established. This was done with my personally constructed Saturn V-esque launch vehicle (using Wobbly Rockets): Note that the craft used in the Münar mission is not exactly this configuration; I removed escape tower and solid stage separation assistance rockets as un-necessary, but otherwise that is the ship I used. First stage uses five petrol-burning engines, control provided by controllable fins at the rear (I suppose I should modify those engines to be gimballed as well). Second stage uses five liquid hydrogen-oxygen rocket engines with gimbals providing guidance and control. Third stage is the Trans-Münar Injection stage and is powered by one gimballed hydrogen-oxygen rocket engine similar to those in second stage. I managed to get on a stable orbit around the Mün, and used the remaining fuel on third stage to decrease orbital altitude. The rest of the craft consists of a two-staged lander and command module on top of the stack. The descent stage uses one fission engine for maximized fuel efficiency. It can, if fuel remains, also be used in ascent from the Mün surface. Ascent stage uses a small liquid fuel rocket engine, and is primarily meant for the voyage home. It remains to be seen if it has enough juice to get the intrepid Kerbals safely home! I shall post a more detailed mission report with more images in a dedicated thread. This is so awesome.

Like this? EDIT: Final orbital insertion burn occurs at Undocking from third stage occurs at or thereabouts.After that, I establish soft contact between third stage and command service module several times.

They aren\'t obsolete as long as commercial space industry has no interest in doing basic research. Without space agencies with national funding, the quality AND quantity of the scientific results is going to go way, way down. Commercial space industry is not interested in launching a probe to Mars that spends years in transit and then (if it succeeds) sends back data that has, in short term, absolutely no benefit economically. It is, however, extremely important for the purpose of better understanding Mars. Same applies to all other bodies in the Solar system. Currently they are of no commercial interest - therefore commercial space exploration will not have any interest in them. It\'s all a simple question of priorities. Commercial space exploration is interested in making profitable business by definition. Practically, that means commercial satellite launches. Of course, national space agencies could commission them to run a research program and pay them compensation for that, but by all means they could just as well continue their own operations. A space agency that gets a budget can use it as best as they see fit to advance the human knowledge of space, rather than worry about making profit in economical sense. In my opinion, the scientific data from programmes like Hubble Space Telescope, Mars Exploration Rovers, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, Shuttle Program, ISS, Galileo, Cassini-Hyugens, Voyagers, Pioneers, Apollo is priceless in value for humanity as a whole, but economics does not deal in values of scientific data, they deal in money (which, ironically, is just a more or less commonly agreed upon format of trading value). Sadly I doubt any commercial space enterprise will be willing to do independent research unless it offers immediate commercial benefits... which will seriously limit what types of science they\'ll be willing to do. TL;DR - no, I don\'t think governmentally budgeted space agencies are obsolete. They are in fact necessary. And, I really hope it is just a rumour.

THIS IS KERBAL 8)

Tethered satellites have been researched for many purposes, including power generation. Actually, the proposed designs are simpler than here. Electrodynamic tether works by inducing an electron potential differential (also known as voltage) between the two ends of the tether as it travels through the planet\'s magnetic field. Now, this alone would do nothing except make one end of tether positively charged and the other end negatively charged... However, there are charged particles bouncing around in the space, and you can collect and emit them. The positively charged end of tether would attract free electrons, while negatively charged would repel, and actually emit electrons, if I understood the idea right. This way, you can drive current through the system: Electron emitting end (cathode) works as ground, while the electron collecting, positively charged end, works as the +V input. The induced current does create a force on the tether, which affects the momentum of the spacecraft; therefore there are limits to how much power you can generate this way. However, this also allows possibilities for orbital maneuvering, as if you drive a current through the tether, you can induce a force on the spacecraft to create a form of electromagnetic propulsion.

Light speed hasn\'t changed. If it had, it would have been detected. What the OPERA team detected was apparent superluminal neutrinos, and it appears* it was just caused by an overlooked relativistic parametre in the clock synchronization process. *So far the best candidate for an explanation for the anomalous measurements.

0.05c in less than 21 seconds. Nice, but I think you need more boosters. 8)

Except in reality where all spacecraft at low Earth orbit encounter a continuous small drag force from the thin atmosphere that doesn\'t have any clear border, just asymptotically approaches perfect vacuum. All spacecraft in reality experience constant reduction in their peri- and apoapsis altitude.

I\'m surprised you didn\'t crash the program with your physics ideal rocket, and I suspect the program substitutes a non-zero mass to avoid div by zero errors (such as defining acceleration as a = F/m...).

Question is irrelevant because there is no light speed in KSP. All light in practically all 3D rendering is always assumed to be instantaneous, and I heavily doubt we aren\'t going to geta renderer in KSP that uses real time photon ray tracing, taking into account individual photon travel times. Aside from that, the physics engine would cry hail Mary with special relativity, as the photons would have to be moving at constant c in the viewpoint\'s reference frame, rather than in some spatial universal co-ordinate system. And don\'t even ask about time dilatation and lorenz contraction effects caused by high relativistic velocities. ???

Ah, that. Incidentally, that\'s also the reason why you can\'t really define 'power' as a meaningful physical specification for a rocket engine (or jet engine for that matter). I was thinking of the gravity sling phenomenon, which has popped up here a few times before.