Accelerando

Kosmos is awful if you have a slow PC, and it has a lot of redundant parts. NovaSilisko's BACE pack and the Deep Space Mission pack have some handy parts for building space stations and long range missions, if you're interested, and Damned Robotics is a pretty good all-around pack, especially if you want to build really weird contraptions to do stuff like pogo-sticking on the Mun.

Salvager is right, to my knowledge - no modification is necessary.

"If this was a race, my opinions and everybody who agrees with them would be at the top!" I would like a better mod repository, but frankly I'd prefer if it was integrated with the official KSP site a la Simtropolis's SimCity mod database.

Those decouplers for the missiles are pretty bad for stability if I don't put struts on them. I noted that your aircraft became more stable after the missiles were released, so I imagine a fair amount of the wobble was due to the improperly secured payload. I might also suggest adding a strut or two between each wing and the fuselage, as any sort of payload on the wings can lend to a similar sort of effect to that of the decouplers in my experience.

Disrupting RCS or SAS with each sweep would mean disrupting them anywhere from once every two seconds to once every few milliseconds. This would be extremely annoying, not to mention that there's really not much reason to go to a pulsar or a neutron star since the regular X-rays alone and potentially the terrifyingly powerful magnetic field, at a trillion times more powerful than Jupiter's, would quickly fry any spaceborne systems that could be disabled by the star's pulses. Considering that nobody has gone to other solar systems yet, and that our "local bubble" of near-space IRL is fairly calm and peaceful, it may make sense to have familiar-ish systems near to Kerbol and exotic stuff beginning a bit further out. Binary and trinary systems are quite common IRL, though, so I might expect a fair number of them if other star systems are ever implemented.

You can turn off auto-throttle and power your rocket up to maximum. Depending on your rocket design, though, MechJeb may not throttle down enough, on default settings, to make a difference (although I'm not entirely certain how the bugs work, so correct me if I'm wrong).

The Mun Arch is a little too close to Kerbin and, more importantly, too out in the open, in my opinion, to make for an interesting challenge to get to and operate barring some shenanigans in the Kerbal canon that make the Stargate difficult or impossible to operate without having done considerable exploration and habitat-construction in the rest of the solar system. I'm not opposed to the general idea, but I think it would be nice if the stargates and other remnants of past civilizations were somewhat difficult to reach and operate for a fairly experienced player. If I recall correctly, the warp drive to be implemented by HarvesteR may be a similar case, only becoming usable in the late game. Correct me if I'm wrong, though.

It's a joke, that's what it is. Or a reference to 2001: A Space Odyssey. Or both. All we need now is a picture of the Squad monkey throwing a gun in the air.

"Generally assumed" to be does not mean "officially defined as." So yes, it really does not indicate the ability to land, even though some people may presume it to carry such a connotation.

SSTO does not indicate the ability to land, only to make orbit with a single stage.

I'm planning to create a Planetes-style solution to this problem, using small space tugs and one-Kerbal or uncrewed vehicles to deorbit debris. Then again, I don't really have a terribly large amount of stuff to get rid of for the time being...

Swell, I'll just use the liquid engine stage then. May be a sharply reduced payload, but it may improve the sluggishness of my game. Also, solid boosters are pretty powerful (the stock ones at least). Perhaps there should be a bonus for using as few as possible/none?

Can I use drop tanks? I have a landing-capable rocket that can deliver 45T (KMU) to orbit, using 4 drop tanks totaling 40% of its liftoff fuel on the sides.

It's nice to have a variety of things to like. Moons are but a part of that. I dunno, I mean it's not like you can choose more than one option in this poll.

Mostly interested in gas giants and icy moons, lava planet takes second place behind all those.

You think that the options you've laid out are going to be as good for others as they are to you. I'd guess your real problem is that you don't want to accept that this isn't necessarily the case. I'm not going to go any further for the time being as I don't feel very pleasant about replying to this post.

Banned for >not video games

Apparently there's hubbub on the Internet about Thorium reactors and how they can provide plentiful power to human civilization for some time to come. While I don't know too much about that, I was curious about their potential for powering human infrastructure in space. Bases, villages, spaceships, deep space exploration, propulsion systems, what have you. Why? Yesterday I set out to turn Gabyalufix's nuclear reactors into functioning Electrical Energy Generators, but quickly realized i have not the faintest idea of how spacecraft reactors would be constructed  especially thorium ones about which I am very curious  despite hearing not a few times of how they would be extremely helpful if not vital to long-term space missions. I could have posted this in General Add-on Affairs, but I figured you off-topic braniacs would have more to say about such things. Finding clear information about reactor design on the Internet seems difficult. The only tried and tested space reactor I know of is TOPAZ, a 300kg vessel that could produce 5-10kW of power. A forum post on this site suggests that a 1MW reactor could be constructed using a few hundred kilos of plutonium and a few hundred more to build the reactor itself, but that's not quite the data I'm after (although I'd love to hear more on the subject if you know about it). How much better could modern or near-future molten salt reactor technology make this, realistically speaking? How well do TOPAZ, or other existing systems, measure up to the requirements for a crewed journey to Jupiter, Saturn, or Mars? I have heard that the VASIMR engine will require a reactor capable of 1kg/kW power generation in order to get flying faster than chemical rockets in an appreciable amount of time. Correct me if I'm wrong on any of this. Be civil, and stuff!

Stop having fun, guys!

In during troll bait. Considering the low "ceiling" of Kerbin's atmosphere, I should think that realistically one could see the stars with a degree of clarity during the daytime. I'm uncertain that it would be quite like it is now, but it certainly will be an interesting thing to ponder  and especially when clouds are implemented, to see.

Well, let's say we have three people named Prima, Secunda, and Tertiara. Prima and Secunda initiate the conversation as follows: "Hello, Secunda." "Ho there, Prima." "How farest thee on this merry morn?" "Jubilantly." At this point Tertiara enters the area. "What's up?" asks Tertiara. Secunda replies, "Nothing in particular." "Hmm hmm," murmurs Prima. Secunda decides to initiate a multi-paragraph/line-break conversation. "So the Dodgers did well against the A's today. I can't help but wonder, though... "It's just so queer." "What is?" Tertiara raises an eyebrow. "Well, everyone knows that the Dodgers are better than the A's." "I don't know. Who really knows what team is better than the other, in the end? "Either way, it is a fruitless question." "Perhaps." As Secunda's speech journeys into another paragraph, or line, the previous paragraph/line ends without a suffixed quotation mark. The same applies to Tertiara's later reply. Ending quotation marks are not used when the dialogue in question is followed immediately by another block of dialogue from the same character. You're welcome! I look forward to it.

The characters aren't too fleshed out, but this is the most well-written piece of work I've read on the forums so far. Bravo, although if this continues I should hope to see some character development, or something I can't quite put my finger on  as it stands, it feels as though this story might fall short if it were continued for another 3 chapters. Also, why the hyphens before each line of dialogue?

Parachutes are a big source of lag. My enormous first stages (in "physical" size, anyway; actual part count was lowered by using large tanks where they could be subbed for smaller ones) in reusable rocket designs suddenly become a fair bit less responsive once I start adding chutes to the top. 6 chutes causes a small drop, 12 a more noticeable one. Cut down parts rendering by replacing small units with bigger equivalent ones wherever you can. This includes engines. Build your ship out of the biggest parts wherever possible. Keep the vehicle's height roughly even with its breadth, or a little less, so you're both compact/structurally stable and center of gravity is lower to the ground so you don't wobble as much.

Possibly. I'm quoting figures from .12 or .13, I believe, a long while ago. Sal_Valger said something about altitude above the Mun being counted from mean height, so maybe it's changed? Not sure.

My Munar spacedock will probably be placed into an orbit less than 40km above the surface to reduce propellant requirements on mining shipments from surface bases. Something like 700m is the safe limit across the Mun, while a well-directed orbit can be circular at as low as 400m without danger to the crew (for at least one revolution), if I recall correctly. My lowest orbit was around 1.5km, back when I understood little of orbital mechanics. I haven't tried for a record since.