DerekL1963

Looking at his vehicle, the other thing that might be happening is that he simply doesn't have enough control authority (gimbaling engines, RCS, fins) to keep the vehicle stable. (You can see this by looking at the command needles - Mechjeb *is* trying to stabilize the craft.) That the second ring of solids is very close to the CG probably isn't helping things either. Long skinny boosters are hard to control, triply so with a long heavy payload on their nose.

That's one the reasons one has never been tried in real life... In the end, the work required to convert a tank into a bare bones useable volume takes a long time and is fairly expensive.

We appreciate the work that is going into this!

Hit the wrong button, didn't proofread. Happens to all of us. Sorry.

> . < Fuel is cheap, in terms of (current) launch costs it's barely out of the noise and rounding errors. The ISS is where it is so that a) it's high enough doesn't need all that frequent reboosts, and low enough that the Shuttle could reach it without impacting payload capacity too badly. (Said capacity already having been halved by the decision to place ISS at a higher orbital angle so the Soyuz could reach without dropping spent stages on China rather than modest angle planned when it was still Freedom.)

So long as you are above 69km, you're golden. While Kerbin's atmosphere does thin out with altitude, it stop abruptly at 69k. (Edited to correct atmosphere height information.)

Love the new docking ports... Now we need a new truss!

Nice... I'm totally 'borrowing' that station design.

Nice write up!

=P Is not a substitute for phrasing it politely in the first place. "Way cool, for an extra challenge you can try it without mods if you want" for example, as opposed to phrasing it as something akin to a command.

If it were just that, it wouldn't be a problem - but, as you should know, these things vary depending on the specifications of the user's machine, the number of mods loaded, which scene(s) are being changed from/to... For me, it's sometimes as much as twnty seconds and *then* I have to wait longer for the physics to be loaded. Despite not changing machines and having fewer mods loaded, scene changes are now between five and ten times longer than in .20 for me, and the increased length has been an issue for many ever since .21 came out. It's not enough to make me stop playing, but that doesn't mean it's not annoying as heck.

Yes, it works very well - for than *one specific purpose*. For pretty much everything else, like actually being able to examine the planet in detail, the hex grid system is an enormous step backwards. (You can't zoom in to anything even remotely approaching the same level of detail from the orbit window as you can in the Mapsat window.) It sucks for being able to examine fine scale details. (Because the huge size of the hexes reduce resolution.*) It sucks for trying to examine the dark side of the planet. etc... etc... Graphical overlays are not maps. *See this article on Wikipedia for information on this effect.

I use Hyperedit extensively for testing craft without mucking about with launching them and/or flying them to the target destination. (That way when I fly the real one for the ribbon, I have confidence it will work.) The only real suggestion I have is an easier/clearer way to set inclination. (I am testing my Duna lander and tanker system, and want to use an inclined orbit to reach more of the surface w/o tons of fuel eating plane changes. It was very tedious to slide the slider trying to hit the right inclination.)

Nice work! (Still eats fuel lines though.)

No, it's busted and gone... you need to get Subassembly Manager, which munches fuel lines but works well otherwise.

Coolness! Even cooler with ten characters.

You have to be kidding me. You simply cannot be serious. You think an aircraft with the success rate of the Falcon 9 wouldn't be grounded? You think an aircraft with the ongoing problems that Dragon has had wouldn't be grounded? You're living in a dreamworld if you think they wouldn't be. You haven't noticed the Dreamliner grounded for non fatal battery fires? Or, to put it in perspective, you're putting yourself in the same box with the guys who insisted that o-ring erosion wasn't a serious problem. After all, it didn't kill a crew.... until it did.

This has been so very useful for testing my rover skycrane, thanks!

Just what the doctor ordered...

Not particularly I suspect. It depends on what you're used to. But as I've said before, my opinions on such thing are suspect... I found it no problem to be (mumble) feet under the surface of the ocean accompanied by sixteen solid fuel rockets and a nuclear reactor - though I can neither confirm nor deny their were nuclear weapons present as well.

The data was provided to you, so no further elaboration is needed. You handwaved the data away, so simply repeating what you've already been told would serve little purpose.

All those questions are neatly summed up in one term: ballistic coefficient.

Yeah, the power requirements have always been the killer for VASIMR.

He designed the first commercial space cargo vessel, yes. How successful it will be remains to be seen, especially considering it's record to date is... less than stellar. (If it were a commercial airliner, it would likely be grounded and under investigation.) So, 'cult of personality' indeed.

That's pretty much it in a nutshell.