DerekL1963

Biosphere 2 failed for a wide variety of reasons - the underlying one being that it was originally designed by ecological shamans with very little input from actual engineers. The shamans then spent a great deal of money on frippery (such as importing "authentic" beach sand at great expense), and the engineers spent a great deal of money trying to fix or at least ameliorate the errors in the design. When they were about to run out of money and schedule, the sponsor basically forced the facility into service (without proper commissioning procedures or trial runs) to justify his investment. The result was inevitable. As a result, I regard the Biosphere 2 results as inconclusive (to put it politely). And guys, when it comes to food, none of the problems are insoluble - assuming you're able to manufacture and maintain the required hardware. The ability to be self sufficient in manufacturing underlies the solution to all problems. (Or, to put it another way, please stop going in circles over food - four pages now and you're still talking past each other.)

I'm designing a GPS constellation for KerbalGPS Revived - thanks to USN I understand the geometry of CPA, and that leads me to realize there's a problem: If the transmitter has a range of 2,500km and I put it in a 2,500km orbit - it's only in range of a given receiver when it's exactly overhead. The maximum orbit height (yielding horizon-to-horizon coverage) is actually defined by a tangent 2500km long, originating at the receiver. So my question would be, what is the orbital altitude defined by the endpoint of the tangent?

Quoted for emphasis. Arguing (mostly in a circle and past each other) over providing food is missing the point - true, complete, self sufficiency is hard. And there's a lot more to it than food.

It's also insanely energy intensive. Anyhow, the idea of "Mars as a refuge from a dino-killer" is laughable nonsense. It's going to be practically impossible to build a colony that can long survive the absence of supplies and support from Earth. Even here on Earth, it's so difficult that nobody with a tech level past the bronze age has even seriously tried in at least a millenia.

Rope memory isn't repairable - once it's woven, it's done.

The program was stored read-only (not re-writeable) rope memory - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Core_rope_memory.

That's true only if you suffer from the delusion that if Congress didn't spend their Magical Space Money (which can only be spent on space stuff) on the SLS, then it would be available for other space stuff. The (US) Federal budget doesn't work that way, and there's zero certainty that money not spent on the SLS would automagically be spent on other space stuff.

Sadly, no. Got busy on other things and tired of waiting for Squad to patch some bugs and never got back to this.

My preferred method is to depart from a parking orbit where the departure burn <=1/4 (or preferably 1/8) of the orbital period. One and done without the chance for errors to pile up.

I also used a two lander design, though I used a refueling tanker/crew transfer vehicle which also served as the return vehicle. The first lander had a crasher stage and drop tanks for Tylo, then the core refueled and landed on Vall, Bop, and Pol. The dedicated Laythe lander was left in Laythe orbit rather than hauling it up out of the gravity well.

That is... impressive!

You don't really need to... The trick to departing Kerbin with a low t/w ratio is to start at an orbital altitude where your burn time < 1/8 your orbital period. At Jool... well, much depends on your mission architecture.

If your NERVs are available, you can fire them once you're above 10-15k or so and that will help a great deal. What's your t/w ratio at Kerbin departure?

You can land in rough terrain... It just takes practice, a ton of RCS, and compressors to keep the RCS tanks topped off.

Which must be balanced against the increased risks of multiple launches, rendezvouses, and assembly operations. TANSTAAFL no matter how hard you keep trying to handwave one into existence.

Yeah, let's "save" money by making our payload development and construction much more complicated, by increased mission risks in the form of orbital assembly and/or refueling, etc... etc... Or, to put it another way. No. You cannot "just" use multiple flights. It doesn't work that way. Rule of thumb: Everything gains in mass as it moves from paper to bending metal.

If you're sending a heavy payload to any destination via NTR... it kind of defeats the purpose to have to deploy infrastructure via conventional means that costs 10x as much. No, the hardest part to find are solutions that are actually practical rather than just hand waving without having actually been thought through.

0.o Yes, mass matters once you are in space.

ISP doesn't deliver payloads - total vehicle performance does. And in that respect nuclear powered spacecraft suffer heavily from the weight of the reactor and the dry mass of the LH2 tanks.

Soviet submariners were not volunteers, and had little choice in the matter. I don't know about Russian practice. But also keep in mind that the birds are confined to and isolated in their launch tubes.

I miss those.

0.o What color is the sky in your world where changes in automobile engineering haven't reduced deaths in accidents? Did you even read the report I linked and the paragraph I specifically pointed out?

Nobody cares what your definition is. The math shows it to be wrong.

Hint: I didn't ask if it had anything to do with cars - I asked why the numbers have steadily fallen over time if they aren't controllable. These are two entirely different questions. Not to mention, did you not note the difference between the period covered in the graph and the period covered in the report? This is probably the report you meant to link to to, and note the first paragraph of the conclusions https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/556406/rrcgb2015-02.pdf

The area of a circle is 2(pi)r2. Area of a circle of size 1 = 1. Area of a circle of size 2 = 12. So, no. Two half size screws are not equivalent to a single full size screw - because of that exponent.