DerekL1963

I can't be wrong about something I never addressed despite you being so hung up about it. Heck, it's not even mentioned in what you quoted. Real world engineering is all about compromises. Eight engines increase the complexity of all associated systems and structures. So I suspect they compromised. (And gained two spare engines already paid for out of the deal.) Seriously, all the evidence points in a direction that answers your question - they don't have swept wings because they're not going to go fast.

Or that the top speed is considerably slower than you've presumed it to be. Speed is no particular advantage for Stratolaunch... They're not trying to maximize the number of passenger miles per day, and it's extraordinarily unlikely they'll have a launch off of Virginia on Tuesday and one off of Hawaii on Wednesday. Nor does a few extra tenths of Mach make much difference in launch performance. So, since Stratolaunch doesn't have swept swings, that suggests to me that they don't intend to fly in the speed range where they'd be useful. Sometimes the easiest answer is the simplest - they're using 747 nacelles because they came with the 747's they bought with the overt intention of stripping for parts, not because they intend to fly in the upper range of the 747's performance envelope.

IMO It's expensive and structurally and aerodynamically complicated enough already - swept wings just bump that up a notch without adding significant benefit.

No, no, no... Add wings *and* Moar Boosters and turn it into a spaceplane for maximum kerbalization! Personally, I think of Ike as that nosy neighbor... who always has to greet you and make sure you're on the up and up before letting you go about your business. And of course when you're set to leave, he has to check up on you again.

A mining system designed using NF Construction parts... A full description of the system can be found here.

I've been fiddling about in the sandbox designing a mining setup... I really should start a campaign one of these days, but I'm having so much fun in the 'box! Because I know people will ask - the structural parts and non-stock tanks all come from Nertea's Near Future Construction pack. The first part of the system is the Mobile Miner. It can land on Minmus, refuel itself and stuff it's tanks with ore, and then boost into orbit to hand off the ore to a tanker. It then returns to the surface to repeat the cycle. It's designed to work in the background, so low extraction/processing rates aren't a problem. (And I can/will send multiple Mobile Miners, so I'll have a stockpile.) Fully fueled with no ore aboard, it can self ferry from LKO to Minmus. The tanker is fairly straightforward - an OTV with a detachable ore tank module. The tanker then delivers the ore to the Orbital Refinery. The refinery can self-ferry from LKO to Minmus, but I didn't need the full capacity of the S3-14400, so I used Modular Fuel Tanks to rejigger the tankage - reducing Oxidiser storage (what's there is just margin left over from the ferry flight), increasing Liquid Fuel storage (I carried some extra LF to refuel the OTV after it self ferries from LKO, this helps bootstrap the sequence), and adding a bit of Monopropellant tankage. There are four Sr. docking ports available for immediate use, and four low profile octagonal ports (from NF Construction) for future expansion. Both the refinery and power modules can be repositioned if so desired. Once the fuel has been refined - the OTV docks to a fuel transfer module to deliver the fuel to other vehicles (orbiting around Minmus or in Kerbin orbit). There's still quite a bit of refinement and optimization to go yet, but the basic system works quite well.

You can soft deprecate the old parts (they won't appear in the SPH/VAB but are still ingame) rather than replacing them outright... but that puts the inconvenience on your side.

At least in previous versions, TAC-LS supplies crossfed as well. I've docked many a "Progress" to one of my stations and used their contents via crossfeed.

Makes sense. Everyone has their tolerance for that.

That's the real trick - once you unlock relay antennas, stop using non-relay antennas. Then you leave previous spacecraft in place to serve as relays for later arrivals.

Just out of curiosity, what issues do you have with flotillas? And if you're going to Moho, xfer windows happen often enough that you can pre-position too.

Because the Merlin was developed for Falcon 1. When Falcon 1 failed to gain headway in the marketplace, there wasn't money or time to develop a new engine *and* a new booster before they were bankrupt. Even so, it was a close run thing - the CRS contract arrived at the 11th hour.

A change in the density of the water? Refraction caused the light to be less?

OV-95 was the SAIL (Shuttle Avionics Integration Laboratory), used for software and avionics development and testing, not crew training. (It received an OV number because it was managed under the same configuration control system and standards as the flight vehicles.) Independence is a non flight replica and has no official NASA number. A full list of the official designations can be found here.

In some quarters it's called the Von Braun Vision (roadmap in modern parlance): (reuseable) Shuttle -> Station -> Mars. (von Braun was mostly interested in Mars, but later accepted that most people were interested in the Moon and swapped it into the Vision in place of Mars.) He, like most people, assumed that when we got around to going that it would be part of a larger strategy and ongoing process of exploration, colonization, and exploitation. (Much as the model had been in the 17th-19th centuries.)

A rifle bullet is probably akin to the shells of big naval guns (something I am modestly knowledgeable about), while they're long and skinny - they're also both exceedingly dense. That inertial mass makes them resistant (but not impervious) to swapping axes. But both will, and do, tumble (in gunnery lexicon, a flat spin in aerodynamics and the problem the OP is having) in the 'right' circumstances. As you say, it's complicated, and largely counter-intuitive.

I'm not suggesting it - I'm stating it as what it is, a fact. (Also see this.) The ratio of axes matters, as does the distribution of mass (almost all of a football's mass in it's "rim"), the nature of the structure, and the time-of-flight (that is, it takes time for the the processes to happen).

You'll find, if you scroll back up, I posed the question in the form it's usually posed in - dollars. I specifically did so in order to prevent the mode switching dodge that allows people to talk in dollars when it's convenient and swap to handwaving about intangible benefits when dollars aren't convenient. You admit they lie, yet you also want us to take their statements as unalloyed truth and thus as proof of your claims. You can't have it both ways.

A football isn't long and thin - and a spear isn't spin stabilized. No wonder they're not examples of that.

Which is pretty realistic actually... IRL it's hard to spin stabilize thing that are longer on the spin axis than across the spin axis, especially if they're low density. Almost always they swap from spinning around the axis with the least inertial momentum (the long axis) to the axis with the most (the short axis).

Nice change from apples to oranges - from discussing the finances to handwaving about the 'truly remarkable achievements'. Then you link to articles that don't actually support your claim of economic benefits, they discuss "studies" (all of the ones I've seen have emanated from NASA) and give people's opinions (that are echoes of those sponsored 'studies'). And your link includes such laughable 'gains' as "NASA generated x billion dollars worth of activity in Florida" - I.E. they paid government employees and contractors in Florida. And yes, NASA is dishonest. Why wouldn't they be? It's in their best interest to keep people convinced that what they're doing is absolutely wunnerful - because that keeps the bucks flowing. Witness NASA's ongoing praise of the SLS (Senate Launch System) - which only has a mission (other than test flights) because Congress specified that it be used for Europa by fiat. (In the same way they specified the design of the SLS by fiat - keeping the money flowing to key Congressional districts and campaign contributors.)

No, you wouldn't, the NASA PAO (Propaganda Affairs Office) spends a great deal to ensure you wouldn't. But they never actually tell you how much NASA spent, or how much economic activity was generated - only gollygeegoshwow! Lookit what NASA has done!. So when you have an actual link showing the existence of hundreds of billions of dollars worth of industries that exist because of NASA money spent since 1980 - get back to me. Because that's the level of return required just to break even... to attain 'excellent' returns, we're talking a trillion dollars or more.

In the financial sense, not really. Investments in space back in the 60's paid of hugely in the form of vastly improved IC's, the satellite industry, etc... etc... Subsequent investments in the main haven't paid off significantly at all.

When I was in the Navy, we referred to ships as much by their numbers as by their names. The last two digits of the 41 boats were all unique, so we usually just used those two digits. ('55 for 655, USS Henry L. Stimson for example.)

With the new fairings, you can put a relay sat on top of your rover/lander on top of your carrier stage and launch two birds with one lifter.