DerekL1963

Nope. I meant "the energy is so much smaller it can't usefully or practically be described". Go be a pedant somewhere else.

Let's put it this way.... The largest nuclear weapon ever built has about 1^10-100000 of the energy required to dissipate a hurricane. The sonic boom of any aircraft of practical size has about 1^10-10000000000000000 of the energy of that weapon.

To some degree, NASA and CCAFS certainly can. F9/X-37 are primarily Space-X's responsibility. Anyhow, they're starting at the lowest level because it takes time to get the machinery rolling and because progressively higher levels impose ever greater restrictions on all activities. It makes no sense to go immediately to full lockdown-and-rideout when the hurricane is still 72+ hours away. Getting out of Florida is fun - because there's essentially only two major highways (only one of which is effectively usable by people living along the First Coast-Space Coast-Gold Coast stretch).

Nonsense. The advanced transfer planner is designed to generate an insertion burn that places you on a trajectory to arrive at the proper location (the red line on your diagram). That doesn't always happen because MJ isn't magical and there is some imprecision in the game. The solution is easy however... You use the "fine tune closest approach to target" option in the Maneuver Planner to create a mid-course correction maneuver, this is rarely more than 1m/s and puts the vehicle back onto your red trajectory. Or you can execute your orbit corrections and plane change maneuvers as soon as you enter Jool's SOI. (Or, if you know in advance you're going to one of the highly inclined moons, both.)

http://www.floridatoday.com/story/tech/science/space/2017/09/06/hurricane-irma-meetings-underway-kennedy-space-center-florida-spacex-launch-x-37-b/637107001/ As of this morning, both KSC and CCAFS have shifted to the lowest (pre-preparatory) levels of their respective hurricane alert levels.

It doesn't make any sense for either application - in both of them it's much cheaper and easier to add performance to the [aircraft's] payload than to the aircraft itself.

You'd need a very large non airbreathing propulsion system AKA a rocket... making the vehicle very large, heavy, and about as maneuverable as a BUFF.

Spherical primary at one end, spherical secondary at the other. The experts I've seen think the left hand side is the primary. The gas hose could connect to the primary, or internally to both. (But most likely to the primary as a nice healthy compact primary makes everything else easier.)

The big question isn't how but why? There's nothing else operating up there, and you don't need to go that high to launch an ASAT or to intercept anything lower down.

In the same way that finding the cost of a soap box derby racer is useful estimating the full cost of an F1 racer. I.E. there are no words in the English language to describe how ludicrous it is to suggest such a thing. Apples and the thing least like apples you can imagine doesn't even begin to describe the gap. Other than the fact that amateur built rockets of that class don't have even a fraction of percent of the performance required. Again, you're extrapolating to a ludicrous degree.

Yes, the Administrator asks for stuff, that doesn't mean that Congress funds what he asks for or at the level he asks for (it may be higher or lower). Also Congress can (and does) fund stuff that nobody asked for. Congress can also pass acts that compel an element of the Executive Branch to do something, which Congress may then fund or not fund. SLS is an example of the latter two.

Doesn't much matter that he doesn't. Plenty of other congress critters do.

Which means it had, what, 1/16th of the energy needed to get a couple of grams to orbit? Impressive but irrelevant.

An interesting read... http://unreasonablerocket.blogspot.com/2017/08/how-to-evaluate-launcher-startup.html

I miss being able to read without sunglasses. I miss being able to see how many pages there were in a thread without hovering my mouse over the title. I miss being able to actually see the "like" button.

And tags, which practically nobody uses, are now Really In Your Face! (And no, encouraging people to use tags is not a good idea. Tag systems are rarely moderated and you always end up with seven tags meaning the same thing when they aren't.)

Indeed - the new scheme is.... eye searing to say the least.

Or the guidance/flight control system commanding an early shutdown. Or an eff-up in the propellant level sensing system. Or... many possible scenarios.

There appears to have been a problem. The announced range is inconsistent with [short of] the range shown in a propaganda picture showing Kim Jong-un observing a map of the planned trajectory. Of course, there's always the question of whether the photo is intended to be truthful in the first place, or whether they were lying to the Great Leader, or whether he was in on the deception. They know full well that outside observers pore over those picture with a fine toothed comb, and misleading them is not without value. The engine compartment of the second stage, the tankage, any instrument/control compartment, the RV... the 'three pieces' could be any combination of these. Since the bird lacks an post-boost vehicle, one would expect only two intentional pieces.

Better as compared to what? If you can't wait until daylight, get the Ambient Light mod or give us a shot in the VAB.

Something that I haven't seen hit the media yet - there's a series of photos that came out last week strongly implying they're making progress on both composite cases and RCC RV tips.

You are correct, we should not underestimate how little it teaches. But that's not the problem here, the problem is the widespread and incorrect notion that playing KSP places you anywhere significantly past the hump of the bell curve.

That's your experience. It is not universal.

Here in this universe, things radiate heat without requiring radiators. (Though radiators certainly help.) That's why the Apollo missions used 'BBQ mode'. Here in this universe, the Apollo CSM's LOX tanks were ground tested for over thirty days.

No offense but look again the lower image, where it says "Transmit: +0.0 Science". You've already transmitted all the science that can be transmitted - the balance must be recovered.