Shpaget

Does it matter to you? Do you want that connection? Whether he really is your half brother or not, he's a stranger to you, so you should proceed as you would with any stranger. He may turn out not to be your half brother, yet you two still end up being best buddies. On the other hand, he may truly be you half brother, or even "real" brother, and he might still screw you over. Even bad people have siblings. If I were you, I'd most likely disregard the message.

How advanced? One could argue that a simple bar code reader is intelligent since it senses a bar code it's reading and produces a variable response. Sure, it's not a pinnacle of intelligence, but neither are humans. A sufficiently advanced alien species might see us humans and disregard / overlook / ignore us just as we ignore an ant that is trying to cross a highway we are speeding along on our way to buy groceries. So, to answer your question, an AI could be a perfectly social entity, a blast at parties, while at the same time hard working and very helpful to old ladies trying to cross a street. It could also be a firmware for a doorknob.

Not 40 years in advance. We can land on them only using real time data, not guesses made decades ago. And even if we could predict with such accuracy, what do we do after we land on one such asteroid that is about to hit us?

I checked and there apparently is/was somebody called Markus O’Neil at MIT, or at least M. Greg O'Neill. http://seari.mit.edu/alumni.php#oneill So I wanted to send him an email, but then I realized the article was posted a year ago. I checked what other science news they have and I found this: http://nationalreport.net/sarah-palin-rescued-coast-guard-climate-change-denial-video-shoot/ http://nationalreport.net/nestle-send-rover-steal-water-mars/ http://nationalreport.net/donald-trump-wants-stick-flag-uranus/ So, it's just like Onion News, only not funny. EDIT: Nope. It's Michael Gregory O’Neill

"Puckering"? A 160km pebble causing a significant increase in gravitational pull of a gas giant? The very first sentence of the article should be enough to realize this is nonsense. "Astrophysicists at MIT have made a startling prediction this weekend, claiming that if their math proves accurate, Halley’s Comet is on a collision course with the Earth, an event they say would be classified as a “global killer” that could theoretically wipe out all life on our planet."

It just magic. There is nothing scientific about SW.

My marker was among the ones that were reset. Was that you @GoSlash27?

If your goal is a circular orbit than your final vertical speed needs to be zero. Expending any energy to accelerate upwards is a loss. We do it only to get out of the atmosphere as soon as practical/efficient. There is a sweet spot between getting out of atmosphere as soon as possible and starting the sideways acceleration as soon as possible. Exact ascend profile greatly depends on TWR, where low TWR requires steeper climb and rockets with higher TWR benefit from earlier gravity turn. Then there is the ISP that drops with atmospheric pressure. Some engines operate very poorly in thick atmo, while some take only a moderate hit to their performance. Depending on what type you have, you might want to adjust the profile. Going straight up, then turning is usually not the most efficient way. Not an exact analogue, but you don't go the long way around a park and turn a sharp corner if you can take a diagonal path.

While keeping an eye for nearby mountains. You may want to avoid those by thrusting at least a bit upwards.

You start turning almost immediately after launch (as soon as your rocket is stably flying up and accelerating). You turn very slowly and keep your heading inside prograde marker to maintain stability. Sharp turns are inefficient.

When facing such problems, I usually ask myself "Why haven't they done that?". So, why don't seaplanes have such hydrofoils? If it was a significant improvement over a regular flying boat body it would be present. Since it is not present on modern seaplanes, you'll have to find the answer to the question "What's wrong with it?":

If you are landing on a non compact surface, the surface will ablate, carrying away the hot stuff.

http://ardupilot.com A free, open source autopilot that can drive cars, fly planes, helicopters and multirotors. It can take off throw assisted and land autonomously, fly a route via 3D checkpoints and quite a bit more. It is designed to fly models, but there is no reason it couldn't fly a plane of any size. Commercial airliners have autopilots that fly along the route, steer and change throttle as needed. Waypoints are added and removed as needed during the flight, but the majority of route is loaded before the plane takes off. When the pilot dials in the change in altitude (as cleared by ATC), which is given as target altitude and rate of climb/descend, the computer does its best to make the plane fly accordingly. During cruise, pilots rarely fly the plane. Autopilot is turned on almost all the time, since it is much better at holding altitude than humans.

Keep in mind that the distance measuring tool will give you the distance as calculated is Kerbin was Earth sized, since you are only overlying the image of Kerbin on the Earth size ball.

Wikipedia? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_Similarity_Index#Formulation

I'm not entering the contest, I just wanted to comment on the awesomeness of SQUAD and community.

Yes, as long as the manufacturing costs dwarf everything else combined. Also, once more knowledge is gathered on what breaks and what lasts, there will likely be no need for complete disassembly after each flight.

What's the rationale behind switching launch sites? Moving the payload seems a lot more practical than hauling around a whole launch vehicle. Once the launch provider sets up his launch infrastructure in one place, why move around? Most payloads are a few tons max, easily transportable by regular trucks across the country, while moving rockets requires a lot more logistics.

It still uses three engines for boostback burn. Unrelated to that, but at around T+ 3:00, just after second stage startup, the acceleration seems rather horrible, as indicated by the graphics in the upper right corner. Does anybody know what's the second stage TWR at the beginning of the burn?

That's a very interesting muck pattern.

You'll have to work on this a bit more. I believe that currently most accepted model states that there was no before the beginning. Since time was created with the big bang, this "before" concept has no meaning, and since space was created at that instant as well, there was no place for dark matter and energy to exist in.

That would not be unusual. Most satellites have some form of own propulsion.

Good eye! Let's all blame @Hayoo for it.

Kerbin is a lot smaller than Earth.

You can go to a dark sky location and see for yourself. You don't need an FTL capable ship. A proper dark sky will give you a fantastic naked eye view of the Milky Way.