AndrewBCrisp

A-hah! This sounds useful. I don't think I've run into a situation where I've needed this function before, but it's good to know it's there. Thanks to @Tex_NL and @bewing for your answers!

So: I'm adapting well to the new CommNet, but there's something I don't quite understand. The right-click context menu for antennae while in flight reveals two or three buttons depending on the antenna. "Extend Antenna" and "Transmit Data" buttons are pretty self-explanatory, but there's another that has me befuddled: "Require Complete". I've found no explanation in any of the documentation so far on what this button is or what it does. Can anyone satisfy my curiosity about this? What does the "Require Complete" button do?

I haven't seen a list elsewhere (yet), but along the equator, I've detected the following stations: KSC (natch) Harvester Massif, Nye Island, and Crater Rim. For those wanting to visit Harvester Massif, it's in a mountainous region, so bring climbing rope.

Only one way to find out! That said... I'm looking at those two small side boosters, and I'm wondering about their exhaust. If those boosters fire with everything else, could their exhaust overheat the core stage? If so, you could be looking at an explosive ending to your mission.

Technologically speaking, I would say "no." Minmus is essentially an asteroid, size and gravity wise, so there would be no new developments re: landers. Likewise, the greater distance from Earth compared to the Moon would not be any great obstacle with the technology available at the time. I'm figuring things off the top of my head here, so expect inaccuracies, but it strikes me that a "real equivilent" to Minmus might see a similar increase in travel time with respect to travelling to the Moon. In KSP, going to the Mun (one-way) takes less than a day, and going to Minmus takes between 6 and 8 days. In reality, going to the Moon (one way) takes three days, so travel to a "real Minmus" would take around 18 to 24 days, with a round trip on the order of 40-50 days. That's a long time to be cooped up in the same Apollo capsule, even with a lander to serve as a "second room", so the big change I would see would be the need for extra living space. Essentially, imagine Skylab with an engine and a lander module attached, and you have a spacecraft capable of reaching "rMinmus". In reality, Skylab held people comfortably for up to 60 days at a time, so such a voyage would certainly be within its capabilities. Thus, such a voyage would neither need nor spur developments in life-support technology beyond what was already present in the 1970s. The only thing I can imagine such a voyage would do might be to get some extra life out of the Saturn-V launch vehicle, as Skylab is still a fairly hefty spacecraft even if only to put in orbit, and sending it on a voyage to the Moon or "rMinmus" would require more fuel and engine power than the Apollo missions needed. There would be as much of a price tag of sending humans to "rMinmus" as sending them to the moon, so the final question becomes: would we bother? Assuming the political situation in our alternate history is unchanged, then by the time humans land on the Moon, the Russians would already have given up their lunar dreams, and perforce would have given up dreams of landing cosmonauts on "rMinmus" as well. So without the impetus of "Beat the Russians", I suspect that any proposals to send humans to "rMinmus" would have gone the way of later Apollo mission proposals: precisely nowhere. We would probably send probes, but we were already launching interplanetary probes successfully in the 1960s, so again, no great technological breakthroughs. So, no, I don't think an "rMinmus" would have let us be more advanced or more established in space than we are already. We might have learned more about near-Earth asteroids sooner, but I expect that we wouldn't turn our attention to "rMinmus" again until the time comes for us to start sending humans to the planets in earnest.

I spent some time today trying to build a shuttle-like spacecraft out of Mk-2 spaceplane parts. This was my latest and most successful attempt: The new crew shuttle prototype. The craft is able to reach space, and with some effort, reach orbit, but I'm finding some issues with the design. Noteably, the center of mass and center of thrust start to send the spacecraft in cartwheels not long after the shuttle clears the atmosphere. I'm forced to jettison the core booster before it exhausts its fuel and rely on the shuttle's onboard fuel to reach orbit... which so far leaves the shuttle with too little fuel for a safe re-entry and landing. And if I'm not careful when jettisoning the booster, this happens: An early failure... during a "computer simulation". No actual kerbals were harmed. Honest. I'm considering alternate booster designs, and might test those in the coming week. But I hope to resolve this problem soon... I'm at the limit with what I can do with capsules, and really want a better option for delivering more than 3 kerbals to orbit.

When last I checked in, I'd been slowly building my Kerbin Orbital Station as a high-orbit transfer point for missions to Mun and Minmus. The KOS is serving nicely as a science platform, but as a stable docking and refuelling platform... not so much. Far too much wobble to keep things together for long, insufficient places for spacecraft or fuel tanks to dock effectively. Therefore, we need a new station. I'm now partway through constructing KOS 2: The core section is much more stable, even with the solar and radiator arrays attached. No crews aboard station so far, but I've also brought up my first Crew Transfer Vehicle, a 6-kerbal transporter with sufficient delta-V to travel to either the Mun or Minmus and back again without refuelling. A second CTV will be going up shortly, along with fuel modules and habitats. Of course, the CTVs work best if there's a space station at their destinations as well, and I've had a Minmus station contract that needs attention; so... ...I lofted the Minmus Station core and parked it in a 30 km orbit.

Also known as "Making the Case for Seperatrons...":

Of course, that assumes that "being the biggest jerk" as you so aptly put it is an optimal survival strategy. It's tempting, but I suspect that it is not feasible over the long run... or else locusts would have driven everything larger than them to extinction long ago. Earthly biology shows that species that replicate without limit usually either have high attrition rates (ensuring only a few survive long enough to have offspring) or risk destroying themselves by burning through the available food faster than is sustainable. How this might play out on a galactic scale is a tough question to answer, as we know little or nothing about what might serve as "natural" checks on VNP population. But I would also suggest that those civilizations that chose not to be jerks might soon find it in their interest to start culling jerk-minded VNPs (and their parent civilizations); especially if they've been on the receiving end of a jerk-class VNP. I would hope that most civilizations that survive long enough to design and build a VNP will also see the folly of being jerks to the galaxy. Or, to quote Commander Norton from Clarke's Rendezvous with Rama, "The human race has to live with its conscience. [Whatever the Hermians argue,] survival is not everything."

I'd like to "third" the workshop idea. Perhaps Workshops can function with broken parts the same way the MPL functions with experiments, allowing you to repair broken components so long as they are attached to the ship/station/base, without the engineer needing to go on EVA? Another possibility for a Workshop would be for probe/satellite/rover construction and repurposing. Think of a mini-VAB which can be loaded with a limited number of parts. This version of a Workshop would have a "cargo bay" into which a satellite or rover could be placed. The satellite can then be "dismantled" and the parts appear in the editor to be used to build something else. Parts that are not used stay in the Workshop until they are either used in a future project or discarded. This way, you can "recycle" satellites that have outlived their usefulness (without needing to "recover" them), or load the Workshop up with a special parts satellite delivered from Kerbin and then design your next satellite or probe "in the field" as it were.

With respect, Someguy12, to suggest that any alien intelligences capable of building VNPs would choose to release what amounts to a technological plague on the galaxy speaks very poorly of our hypothetical aliens' ethics. Surely they are at least a little wiser than that. But even if aliens have chosen the low road, caring for nothing but themselves, does not mean that we should do likewise.

Safe replication is not my concern, per se. It is important to consider, and you raise a good point that runaway replication can be guarded against, but my argument (and Keith Cooper's) is that the probe must be responsible. I believe that checking for civilizations and establishing contact must be the first thing on a VNP's "to-do" list as soon as it enters a target system, rather than (if I read your response correctly), as a side activity to replication / colonization prep. An argument can be made that the resources of another star system, if the system has a life-bearing planet, belongs to the present or future civilization on said planet. If the first thing our probe did was to make more copies of itself as soon as it arrives, the native civilization may see that as stealing. I cannot imagine they will approve, or be receptive to the probe making contact later on. (As an analogy, imagine I entered your home without knocking or asking permission, and immediately helped myself to the contents of your fridge. You'd be pretty ticked at me, I'd suspect. An alien civilization would behave similarly to a probe mooching off a few asteroids... and may be doubly ticked at the civilization that sent it). As for pre-industrial civilizations, or even planets where sentient life has yet to evolve, again courtesy plays a role here. Suppose a VNP arrived in our solar system a million years ago. No human civilization was around, and by your criteria, the VNP would then decide that it can do whatever it wants with the resources of our system, and digs in. Maybe it's makers are still interested and decide to send some colonists along as well. By the time we reach the present age, when our civilization is slowly getting interested in expanding into space, we'd find that we've been crowded out or that all the good resources have been used up. We might be able to settle the inner planets, but everything else is occupied or consumed. The native peoples of North America can tell you what that's like, to have your future cut off by another civilization. I believe we need to be more responsible than that, which means that if our future probe is to replicate without asking permission, it should limit its numbers - two or three probes to send to other stars at most - and cease replicating altogether once those two or three probes are on their way. So long as the probe can maintain itself, it can afford to be patient, waiting millions of years if need be before someone it can talk to evolves and starts exploring. Either way, the probe would need to wait until it can contact with a native civilization and engage in a cultural exchange. Then, and only then, can it ask for permission from the natives to replicate, and do so only if the natives agree. Incidentally, as probes might continue on in a chain from system to system for millenia, and thus contact with the parent civilization is likely to dry up, the probe will likely need a true AI for its brain - not just to make the judgement call on to replicate or not, but also to interact with the native civilization on its own and to negotiate for permission to replicate so it can expand the network. A possible trade is to offer to carry an AI modeled off the natives, so that the natives' culture can be carried to the next star, as payment for the asteroids needed to build those two or three VNPs.

Yesterday, I sent another mission to Minmus to get some detailed survey data at a place called "Engineer's Trench". Past missions to Minmus and the Mun have used a specialized lander and separate spacecraft, but that approach was pretty costly and the lander designs not very efficient, so I went with a direct ascent, all-in-one spacecraft this time. It worked pretty well... apart from almost landing on a huge rock on final descent. Okay, who put that rock there? The science data gained finally allowed me to unlock the HECS-II probe core, and so today I sent up my first Sentinel telescope: Sentinel 1 lifts off the pad. Sentinel 1 in low Kerbin orbit, just prior to its Kerbin escape burn. The telescope is now on its way to a Kerbolar orbit near Eve, and will be joined by two others over the coming year.

Welcome to the forums, Konii! That message is the same regardless of whatever difficulty level you play at, and as others have noted, is nothing to worry about. Just transmit or recover the results as you would with any other experiment. Only, don't let Werhner see the shorted electronics. I did and he still putters about the lab muttering curses...

I'd like to focus on this item here. As SomeGuy12 mentions, the existence of bacteria proves that Von Neumann machines are possible. But here, we now move from the discussion of "is this possible?" to "is this responsible". Or - referencing the article I linked to earlier - do we want replicators or explorers? Which would we rather come into contact with? A Von Neumann Probe - I'm just going to refer to them as VNP, as it's easier to type - will certainly need resources if it is to replicate, but replication may not be the best action for it once it reaches a target star. After all, the star's planets may be inhabited, and even if we take the precaution of hard-wiring "don't eat the natives" into the original VNP before launch, the natives may see things differently once the VNP starts chomping rocks and spitting out more copies of itself with out so much as a "by your leave?". We can certainly imagine the response our world's leaders might give if, say, tomorrow astronomers report they've detected an alien probe busily replicating in our asteroid belt. So if exploration and contact are the point of sending out VNPs, we need them to be smart enough to not only recognize if a system is inhabited, but also to make contact and to ask permission to replicate. If permission is given, or if there's nobody to get permission from, but there are planets where civilization could develop, the VNP must also be smart enough to limit its numbers. It would not do to spare a civilization but gobble up all of the off-planet resources that civilization may one day need. This will certainly increase the complexity of any VNP sent out, but fortunately we can scale up. As Cooper's article states, we will likely work with VNPs first as miners in our system, and can gradually expand their capabilities to interstellar explorer-grade as we go along. But if there's an alien VNP patiently waiting in our system, our miner VNPs will need to be smart enough to recognize them and hold off, rather than attempt to eat our first alien visitor. Recognizing an artifact as a "do not eat" priority should be a lot easier than recognizing a civilization, and can serve as the ethical foundations our future explorer probes will need if they are to replicate responsibly.

There is also this article that had some good thoughts on Von Neumann probes and the Fermi Paradox. The last paragraph makes a great tl-dr summation:

Annallia: Nice job snatching victory from the jaws of defeat. Have some rep. On my end of things, the construction phase of Kerbin Orbital Station draws to a close, and the operation phase is well underway. I docked Orbiter 21 to the station today, delivering the science team of Milina and Adpont, both experienced researchers who had spent time on one or both of Kerbin's moons. Orbiter 21 making a textbook docking. With the experiment pallets attached and running, both scientists got into the thick of things and started collecting data for their research. Some logging problems were noted with the stations computers (i.e. the game kept telling me I didn't have enough data storage in the lab for all the experiments), but I'm expecting great results from these two over the coming days. A view of the station with all its modules. The last parts to be delivered will be the radiator arrays, and my construction crew will return home, with some experiment data that needs to go back to the KSC. After that, I'll finally be able to start work on my Munar and Minmus stations, and send out more planetary probes. I'm pushing my Eve mission back to the next launch window (in Year 7) to give myself more time to develop the tech and skills needed for interplanetary travel.

I've been bringing up more modules to Kerbin Orbital Station. Yesterday, the solar arrays, lab module, and a high-gain comm unit were delivered and installed. Before sending up anything else, I sent engineer Peggy Kerman on EVA to inspect the station. Above: Peggy pauses to take in the sunrise before inspecting the docked Workerbot (which she's named "Hewey"). After that, it was time to install a second habitat module. While the lab expands the station's crew capacity to 7, habs are more comfortable for my Kerbals. The station can now house 11 Kerbals in an emergency, and 6-8 Kerbals comfortably. The nearly-complete Kerbin Orbital Station, with new habitat module, and a connector/docking station for future Mun and Minmus transfer craft. Bill Kerman takes a picture of the station from inside the new habitat module. Experiment pallets and radiator arrays are the final modules to deliver, and a science crew for the lab. Kerbin Orbital Station will soon be open for business!

Longest is my current save, at just over 4 and a half years (Kerbal time) What have I accomplished? Well, about 3 Mun landings, 3 Minmus landings, 2 space stations, 1 Duna probe flyby and 1 Eve probe landing. While there's still a lot to do in the Kerbin system, I'm looking to the planets for my next exploratory venture, with a planned mission to send 4 Kerbals to Eve orbit and back safely.

Lack of precision was one objection, but the fallout and subsequent contamination of the countryside was probably just as bad, or worse, in the eyes of the public. (Yes, I suppose we can posit cleanup operations to deal with fallout, but still...). The big rationale of such plans (filed under Project Plowshares) was not just to harness the power of nuclear explosions for our benefit but also to improve the public perception of nuclear weapons ("Yes, we've got enough nukes to end civilization, but look what else we can do with them!") It's no surprise to find the biggest proponents of such plans to be those who wanted more bombs. Personally, I'm glad those plans never really caught on.

That's a neat lander design, Percy. I'm still designing my next-generation Mun and Minmus landers and your concept is giving me a few ideas. Meanwhile, construction of Kerbin Orbital Station proceeds apace, with the addition of girders for solar and radiator arrays and a service module for the station's support needs: I also brought up a workerbot (seen below, hugging one of the girders), and a station crew, as the station itself has no probe control and so tends to... drift... while I'm trying to dock stuff to it. Solar arrays, a laboratory module, as well as a second habitat module and second station crew are next on the list. Going to have to work fast, though. I'm planning my first ever Kerballed expedition to another planet - an orbital mission to Eve - and my next launch window is in just under a year's time.

I've been on vacation this past week, so this is more of a "what I did on my vacation" post than "what I did today." So, I've been keeping a more or less permanent save ever since 1.0 came out, and successfully have carried it to the middle of year 4 (Kerbal time) by today. This past week saw the end of one era of Kerbal exploration and the beginnings of another. In Kerbin Orbit, I'd been operating a spacestation called KerbalLab for much of year 3. Here it is near the start of its first crewed mission: I had 3 crewed missions to it before its demise: 1 which lasted 60 days, one which lasted 90, and the last which lasted 200 days. The lab got a lot of data from the science module (on the right), netting close to 400 science total during its lifespan. I hoped for one more 200 day mission before deorbiting the station, but... well... You all probably noted the service bay, and some of you I understand have already experienced Kraken attacks thanks to it. I'd been fortunate to avoid it so far, though every time I'd focus on the station, I'd notice the service bay start to jostle about as if trying to break free. Opening and closing the service bay seemed to fix it each time. But when I prepared to undock Orbiter 17 from the station, the Kraken had its long-deferred revenge, and the station broke apart. Luckily, experienced scientists Milina and Kaca, as well as rookie pilot Sidcas were already in Orbiter 17's capsule when the Kraken hit, so all they had to do was undock from what remained of the station and de-orbit safely. But there were still 88 points of data yet to be converted to science still aboard. A true setback for Kerbal science. The loss of KerbalLab also coincided with the decision to end my current batch of Mun and Minmus landings. I'd put Kerbals on both moons 3 times, but it was increasingly clear that the existing spacecraft were not cost effective. Mun 8 was my last "Phase 1" Mun landing, with Jebidiah finally fulfilling his dream of walking on the Mun's surface: And Minmus 5 was the last to visit the minty moon. Here, we see Bob Kerman jetting about, collecting samples and reports for a Visual Survey contract, and incidentally setting the record for the greatest distance travelled from a landing site (Bob eventually got over 2.5 km from the lander): (For those curious, Chadble Kerman was the first Kerbal to walk on the Mun on Mun 6, while Valentina left footprints and a flag behind on Mun 7). I also sent out my first planetary probes, with Venturer 1 performing a Duna flyby mission, and Eve Probe 1 giving me my first up-close look at the purple planet in 1.04. It was also the first time that the heating effects jeopardized one of my missions: I'd jettisoned the probe's main stage barely a second prior to the explosions. From then on down it was nail-biting terror all the way. I wasn't sure if the heat-shield would last; then I wasn't sure the craft would cool down enough for me to jettison the shroud and shield, and then I wasn't sure if the chute would work. But, in the end... ...Eve Probe 1 survived the descent, quietly transmitting temperature, pressure, and seismic data while it melted (Not pictured is the heat shield, which survived(!) the descent and slowed down enough to soft-land. A possible destination for future Kerbal explorers...) Lastly, I began Phase II of Kerbal exploration, by lofting the core for the new Kerbin Orbital Station: This station will be a transfer point for Kerbals going to the moons and planets, and will also have a laboratory where samples can be studied without risking contamination of Kerbin (some wild-eyed author recently got the population in a panic with his best-selling book The Kraken Strain, but even sober scientists Kerbals recognize the importance of pristine samples...)

Hm. Currently my Munar probes and kerballed orbiter missions would cost in the 25-30 k range, so for a Kerballed lander and return mission to the Mun, 85 k sounds about right. I'm assuming it's just a single Kerbal pod, and not an Apollo-style mission?

Not necessarily: as I understand it, it's tidal forces that can tear apart objects bound together by gravity, and then only when they fall inside a given body's Roche limit. A basic rule of thumb is that Roche's limit is approx. 2.4 x the radius of a given body. For Ceres, this works out to 1,125 km. So, if you get a small asteroid passing close to Ceres, it could conceivably break apart. Once outside of Ceres' influence, the fragments might re-coalesce, or depending on the path, diverge widely. This would probably work best with asteroids that are less dense than Ceres - so water-ice and rock would shatter, but solid iron-nickel might survive intact. That's as I understand the principle, anyway. Any errors are my own.

Thanks for the responses, everyone. The consensus appears to be the open service bay clipped with the panels. I conducted some experiments this afternoon to check this. First up was bringing the Mun 4 spacecraft (sans launch vehicle) onto the launch pad and opening first the solar panels and then the service bay. Nothing broke, but then, the spacecraft was neither in motion nor were the panels actively tracking the sun. Next up was putting the spacecraft in orbit and rerunning the tests there. I renamed the spacecraft Orbiter 13 and put it into a low equatorial orbit. Once there, I opened up the solar panels and performed slow, careful, maneuvers along the roll, pitch, and yaw axes. The panels remained intact and tracked the sun. I performed each maneuver after the panels had locked onto the sun and finished moving. I then opened up the service bay, and repeated my maneuvers, again keeping things careful and no movements until the panels had finished lining up with the sun once more. Once again, no problems, the panels survived the experience. One last test was to put the spacecraft into a 90 degree roll while the panels were still tracking the sun from a previous maneuver. That did it - both panels shattered. So, taking all this into account with what everyone said about clipping, I would venture to conclude that a nearby open service bay, plus actively tracking panels, plus a maneuver, combined to break the panels during my Mun 4 mission. I suspect opening the bay while the panels are actively tracking might also have the same result. Going forward I will have to be more careful with panel placement - shifting the panels further back might do the trick. Failing that, limiting my maneuvers seems to be the safest course. Thanks again for your advice, everyone. This has been a real learning experience.