Natsarugiy

Very impressive! You've done a magnificent job once again. Many thanks for sharing this craft and putting so much effort into its production; your work is greatly appreciated. The realistic, yet stock, shroud separation is genius.

Good point. Infact...Google has actually offered $30 million to the first private funded teams that successfully land a robot on the moon. The grand prize is $20 million, with the $10 million left being given to other participants. That being said, the odds of Google asking for 1/3 that for a kickstarter of their own seems highly illogical.

Unfortunately, we won't be able to repeat any of the experiments without first returning to the moon. The closest we'll get without visiting the moon is creating accurate models based on the science, just like how K^2 did in it post earlier. In fact, if we don't perform any other experiments, all we'll be able to do is just review and analyze the data from the previous experiments, which brings us to the pictures. This is the data we need to analyze to find the answer. If you want an answer, you must look at the data and figure out why it happened the way it did, not think of reasons to explain how it may have never happened in the first place. The photos aren't supposed to be a solution, they are the data; they should raise questions for any scientist. This is actually incorrect. Due to Newton's first law, an object in motion will remain in motion until acted upon by an external, unbalanced force. After the particles leave the engine, they will only be acted upon by the moon's gravity until they collide with the surface. The moon's gravity will act upon the particles in a direction parallel to the particles downward motion, so the particle will actually accelerate to the surface. It will not slow down, it will indeed gain velocity (only for a few fractions of a second before they hit the surface, but still, physics). "I expect" is exactly the bias that is ruining your analysis of these photos. You're expecting something similar to what would happen on Earth. You need to try to completely ignore this bias. The moon is a far different environment than that of Earth's surface. If I had the rocket engine underwater near the ocean floor when I turned it on, would you expect to see the same results you see on the surface? No, that would be a ridiculous assumption, you would expect to see something different. That is exactly the same with the rocket engine on the Moon. Do not try to predict the results, and then compare the results to your prediction. Instead, view the results with an open mind if you really want to find the answer. This is actually a more accurate description of what is happening, believe it or not. Do not think of the thrust as a wall of pressure. It is made up of individual molecules (K^2 pointed out exactly which ones in his stoichiometric equation a few posts ago) that will individually bombard the surface of the moon much like rain drops will. On Earth, these individual molecules will in turn push the air along with them towards the surface, which will greatly increase the amount of particles that collide with dust. On the Moon, far fewer particles will be involved with the surface collision, resulting in far fewer interactions with the dust. Do not believe that we would be so confident with our LM to allow it to perform such a risky maneuver so close to the surface. The LM would be required to terminate it's horizontal velocity well before the probes touched the surface. And once the probes touched the surface, that would signal the shutoff for the engine, so no more flight operations could be performed after they touched the ground. This can be seen in the videos of the landings: at about 2 minutes in, you can visually see the horizontal velocity change, and then the vehicle pitch downward once the horizontal velocity has completely terminated. Shortly after this an altitude of 120 feet is called, which is well out of reach of the probes. The change will, and did, happen. You obviously have enough of a grasp of physics to know this. But to assume that it should be something extremely noticeable is just straight bias. I know that when I jump upward into the air while standing on a boat, the boat MUST also move downward as the counterpart to Newton's third law of motion (obviously a simplified example). If I were to jump again upwards while standing on Earth's surface, I also know the Earth must move downward as well, in accordance to the third law. Just because I don't see the Earth move doesn't mean it didn't. Again, some dust DID move, we know it had to. But it just isn't a enough to be visually apparent from such poor photographs. If you want to see the different, you'll need better cameras, and ideally a High res image of the location prior to the landing. This is an accurate description of the event. With zero background information, if you were to show me those images and make that claim, I would have no reason to refute your statement. But with the knowledge that it was a Lunar landing, it becomes an inaccurate description. And I should refute your claim, especially since physics does actually support the photos. I have been intentionally ignoring all conversation regarding a hoax until this comment. I do not intend to participate in a conversation about if the events did or did not happen. I will however do my best to help answer any questions I feel I have the answers to. I may not be able to answer all of them, and I may not be able to answer them 100% accurately, but I encourage you to ask your questions regardless. If I can't answer them, someone else may be able to. Perhaps your questions would be best suited for a different thread though, as this conversation borderline off topic with regards to this thread. Finally, in an effort to bring this back on topic. As apparent with the questions LunaTrick has, and the questions of many others (some of which may not have been alive to see the moon landings), another mission to the moon can produce answers to these many questions. These are reasons to return, even if they may not be strong enough reasons to justify the cost of the trip to the moon. Hopefully, with SpaceX's plans for reusable rockets, we may have a solution to the high costs. I see this as an opportunity for a potentially immediate robotic return to the moon's surface (not including LADEE's planned crash landing). Another man landing though might be many many years away.

Wow, thank you very much for that. I found it extremely interesting and helpful. I was not trying to imply before that they would fly out in every direction, but that they would just spread out during their trip to the surface. But I had no idea how to calculate it. 33° is actually more than I thought it would spread, but since H20 is the lightest it is probably going to the the molecule that spreads the most.

Really? In almost every rocket launch video I've seen, the exhaust will very notably expand as the engine raises in altitude. I've assumed that, to some degree, the thrust would mirror this in a vacuum regardless of bell shape. Once the propellant leaves the bell, there will be internal pressure in the thrust stream, and no external pressure to stop the stream from expanding. Is the expansion really a negligible amount?

I don't see how I misunderstood the operation of the engine. I was describing the behavior of the propellant after it leaves the bell, not how behaves as it passes through the bell. After it leaves the bell, there will be particle collisions inside the thrust stream (the collisions also happen inside the bell, but the spread will be limited by the bell). On Earth there would also be collision between the air around thrust stream as well, which will act to limit the spread of the particles. These extra collisions will not happen on the surface of the moon, therefore after the particles leave the bell, the collisions will send the particles in an outward direction (still traveling in the direction of the thrust), expanding freely where the expansion would have be limited on Earth. I was just comparing how different the particles would behave in a vacuum. I do not know the degree to which this will occur, however. The particles are traveling very fast so they will quickly collide with the surface before they have time to greatly expand. I just know that the thrust will expand more in a vacuum than it will on Earth. The force of the thrust will still be the same on the engine, but it will be spread out over a wider area than we are used to by the time it hits the ground. It difference may not be that noticeable, but it could be like the difference between a quick burst from a spray paint can inches from a surface, and the difference between a quick burst a foot from a surface. The propellant will spread more.

First of all, I managed to find a resources today from NASA itself responding to questions similar to yours: ftp://ftp.hq.nasa.gov/pub/pao/media/2001/lunar_landing.pdf Next, I already tried to explain this but I'll try again: dust will not "blow away" on the moon. Only dust that directly interacts with the thrust from the engine will will be affected, and all neighboring dust will be left alone. This is far different than what happens on Earth. Now, as I can't find any studies regarding this event, I can't give you a 100% accurate answer, but I can give you my best answer. On Earth, we'd expect the thrust from the engine to generate wind, and the wind in turn would simply blow all neighboring dust away. In a vacuum, the dust will not be affected by any wind. Thrust from the engine will immediately spread out when it leaves the bell, because particles leaving the engine, the propellent, will only experience collisions with themselves. On Earth, the propellent will collide with itself, and the air around the engine, which will in turn greatly limit how much it expands. Without the air, we can be sure the propellent will exit the engine in a generally downward, but random, direction and expand in a mostly uniform circle at a rapid rate. We don't know how rapid it will expand, but we do know it will expand. And as the propellent expands in its also travels towards the surface where it will soon after collide with the dust on the surface. Here the propellent will collide with dust on the surface over a larger range than expected. Any dust that interacts with the propellent will then bounce off the surface and leave the area, not forming a "ring of rust" which is what would later be described as a crater. And since the propellent won't generate a wind effect as it travels through the surface, far fewer interactions will occur. This is the point I must stress, wind on Earth is the main cause of the dust being blown here on Earth, and that will just not happen on the moon. With far fewer interactions occurring, far fewer dust particles will be affected by the engine thrust, leaving much of the nearby dust unaffected by the event. Further explanation of the bouncing I mentioned earlier. Because on Earth there is 1 atm of air pressure at sea level, a "bounce" effect would be greatly diminished. But on the moon, with no overhead air pressure, collisions with the surface would bounce off much like how light is reflected off a mirror. Example: On Earth if you blow air at a dusty surface, the air will expand the further away from the source it is, then collide with the surface. After it hits the surface, it will mostly hug the surface as it continues to expand. Had there been any dust on the surface, the dust would then be carried by the air you blew across the ground, gradually dropping out of the weakening air flow and settling on the ground in a visually noticeable pattern. On the moon, we'll see something very different. If you were to blow air at the moon's surface at an significantly high speed, then we can assume the majority of the air would make it to the surface. However, once it collides with the surface, it would bounce upwards instead of hugging the surface like it did on Earth. Without the overhead pressure to stop it from bouncing, any dust picked up by the wind would rise into the air and travel very far away (as there is no air pressure to slow it's travel). The dust would travel through the air like a rock does on Earth. So in conclusion, we can determine: that there will be no cloud of dust, as without air resistance, the dust will continue in it's direction of travel unhindered, rather than float around as it would on Earth, that the dust will not settle next to the vehicle either, but will travel much further than it would on Earth, so there will be no ring-like crater forming around the vehicle, and finally, that without the generation of wind, far fewer dust particles will be affected by the thrust, resulting in far fewer visual clues that the thrust had even occurred. LunaTrick, this is all just a basic attempt at explaining what happened on the moon. I didn't make any models to run simulations with, I don't have access to a vacuum chamber for experiments, and I don't have a degree in physics. I'm just applying basic Newtonian mechanics to particle collisions in a vacuum as a sort of thought experiment. I tried to remain general, and by no means is this the correct solution to your question. This is just my best attempt at explaining why I feel the pictures are accurate representations of the event. Also, I truthfully have no intention of insulting you in any way. At first glance, it did appear as if you were just repeating the same arguments every conspiracy theorist has ever thought of, but as I read through you post I realized you were just interested in the points presented by the hoaxers, and wanted answers to your questions. I very much respect you for that. But again, as I have stated in a previous post, unless someone on this forum as directly working on a Lunar landing mission, much of our answers will be nothing more than speculation. If you really want solid answers, I suggest you email NASA once they are back to work. They would be the best source for answers to your questions.

Not exactly, as there is no air pressure on the surface of the moon. We'd expect something similar to what you suggested on Earth because any engine firing would create air currents that would push outward from the craft. The 1 atm of air pressure here on Earth plays a big role in air currents. It severely limits vertical movement without impeding horizontal movement, which is why on earth we usually see a ring of dust pushing outward instead of an expanding bubble. Furthermore, the air currents will pick up a lot of nearby dust that isn't directly affected by the engine thrust. Another major factor to the air currents is the difference in air temperature. Thrust from an engine is usually significantly warmer than the air around it, and after the air heats up, it will begin to create upward currents which will then carry dust upwards after the primary force pushes the dust outwards. After the air cools off, the dust will settle back down. Overall, this will form the ring which will be carried a short distance from the nozzle, then drift upwards a meter or so because of the warm air, then settle back down in a visible ring-shaped pile. On the moon however, with no air, there will be no air currents. So only the dust directly getting affected by the nozzle thrust (which again, is much less than thrust levels we experience on Earth) will drift, and there will be no air pressure to hinder it's vertical speed, so the moon dust will travel much higher and much further than what we experience on Earth. And finally, because of the lack of air currents, the dust won't clump up in a nice ring, but it will spread out over a much wider area.

Unless anyone here has worked for NASA on any lunar landing mission, you probably won't get any great answers for your questions, LunaTrick. The radiation concerns seem to have been dealt with adequately, but you still seem to have questions about how the dust reacted to the thrust of the engines. We can give you our best answers as to why we think it happened the way it did, but without another moon landing, we just won't get the data necessary to find the exact answer. Some things we do know: the moon's gravity is about 1/6ths the Earth's. This can lead us to believe that any force applied to the extremely light dust will impart a significant dv on the dust, which means the dust will be carried far away from the landing site, which may explain why there is not a obvious dust ring around the nozzle. there is no air on the moon's surface. Here on Earth, we have a very dense atmosphere, especially near the surface. This produces air resistance which has an extreme effect on objects traveling through the atmosphere at any speed. Things like paper, or dust, or anything that is light weight will appear to gently float to the ground. We can imaging that because there is no air resistance on the moon, and dust that is dropped from a height will seem to fall unnaturally fast, as we are so used to it floating around. Both of these situations can occur. In the instance of the lunar rover, no significant dv was given to the dust, so it would rise, then very quickly accelerate back to the surface thanks to the lack of air resistance to slow it's acceleration. In the instance of the force of the thrust from the lander, the dust may have been given a significant dv to carry it far from the landing site. But we didn't have any cameras on the surface to document these landings as they happened, so we don't have good data to study to accurately tell you why or why not the dust behaved the way it did, regardless of how smart we may be. The best answer I can give you is to wait for the scientists at NASA to return to their jobs, then send them an email including any questions you may have. As they have direct access to the data from all their landing missions, they'll be able to most accurately answer your questions. And if not enough data currently exists to find these answers, we can always return to the surface to study more. Infact, google will even reward private companies to do so! The Google Lunar X Prize was announced in 2007 and they're offering the reward to any privately-funded mission to the Lunar surface. But to bring this back on topic, I do think it would be profitable for man to return to the moon. Just like how the ISS is giving us valuable knowledge on life support systems, the moon could help us expand that knowledge if we ever intend to colonize another planet, like Mars. We could first send rovers to dig/build us a shelter (like a cave for shielding from radiation) and then practice installing life support systems on the surface to support a long-term visit. The moon is the perfect place to practice colonizing because of it's proximity and low gravity. So I do feel we will be returning to the moon eventually, but it's definitely not the highest priority right now. Oh, and final note: That is precisely what makes NASA's job so difficult. The engineers who design these vehicles and missions don't really have room for mistakes. They must spend years working on the designs, testing every detail possible. Their designs are held to a much higher standard than most other machines in the aviation business. Regardless of their complexity, a lot of time was spent in designing, testing, and redesigning, and on top of that, the missions were designed to include many many redundancies. The vehicles were designed so that pieces could fail and the mission could still be completed.

854 debris in ~100km LKO, still no close encounters. I guess if I put all my stations in retrograde orbit now I'll basically guarantee a few close encounters. Too bad it lags so much.

It's cheating in the sense that it's giving you more volume per space than is physically possible. And for a game pretty heavily based on physics, heavily abused clipping will have a pretty significant impact on the reality of the craft. That being said, I fully support what you're doing with these crafts. The previous versions of your Munbug in no way felt like they were clipped to the point of cheating. I especially liked the way you cleverly hid away your rover and scientific packages in the lander. I will be patiently and eagerly awaiting the release of your smaller version. The ability to pack so much use into such a small lander is an art, keep up the fantastic work!

I definitely agree with the proposed changes to tank diameters. The game doesn't include fantastic support for unique and creative designs, with the exception of parts clipping. Designs are forced to get too big too fast, due to the currently used exponential stepping pointed out by PDCWolf. Sure, some support exists, but it's extremely limited and I feel in drastic need for an update. I guess technically everything after this is somewhat off-topic, though still related. Let me know if you would like me to move this to it's own thread. Of course if you feel it is taking the thread towards a positive and appropriate discussion, then there is no problem with it staying here. I think the tank changes shouldn't be limited to the diameters only, especially due to the ease of rescaling parts via the config file. And a larger change will allow for an opportunity for a UI change as well. I don't mean a complete redesign of the UI, perhaps it can be accomplished with just an extra window that pops out after you select your part. This slight UI change will allow for a complete redesign of the ship building process to accommodate for a more modular in-game approach to rocket designs. For fuel tanks, it should be extremely simple: you select the design of tank you want from the current in-game UI (design explained later in more detail), a window will then appear instead of the part where the player will: select the diameters of the tank (0.625m, 1.25m, 1.875m, 2.5m, 3.125m, 3.75m), then volume of the tank (small, medium, or large), then the part will appear. So if you want a small, stock, 1.25m tank for whatever your design calls for, you just select the stock image, then a window can pop up prompting for the diameter (easily done via drop-down menu), and the volume (also easily done via drop-down, or potentially a write-in via an advanced menu). When the window disappears and the part is placed in the workspace, to be attached to your ship as how it is currently done in-game. Perhaps if this method is used, an "advanced" option can be available so the player can select the diameter of the tank from the list, then type in exactly how much volume they want. The game can then calculate the height of the tank and the weight (which will just be numbers in the config file anyway), then the model will be scaled to fit (again via config) and then placed in the game. Should be technically easy. Would be really convenient stock as it will be innately applied to all parts, be they stock or mods, and will allow for an even more modular approach to ship designs for players interested in using just as much fuel they calculate they'll need for their design. Example: if a player wants to send a probe to Jool, they can guess via small, medium, or large options like how the game currently has it. Or a more advanced player can calculate exactly how much fuel they need to design a rocket that will just get their probe to it's target without any unnecessary fuel or weight. Both options will be available with this design. This may also support the eventual career mode, as more sizes may be made available via node discovery. Simple menu example: only medium volume is available at first, and after research is completed other volumes are made available. Advanced menu example: A small, medium range of values will be accepted until more research is done where the range will be expanded to a new cap. The same research-limited approach can be applied to other diameters. Perhaps only the current diameters will be allowed at first until more research is completed to allow for the larger variety of sizes to be made available late-game. Explaining design in more detail: As for having a variety of tank designs, this is mostly targeted at modders. If someone designs a "Saturn V First Stage" tank, it's mostly just a re-texture of a cylinder. But what if you want a square tank or any other shape of tank? Well I don't think these parts will ever be created as stock, but modders might create them. If there is a custom option in the new UI, you can select different shaped tanks that have their own creator-defined formula for determining scale so that the advanced option of the UI can still be used for these more unique, non-stock parts. To select a different design, you'll just select the image of the tank from the currently used in-game UI. Just like if you install a mod part today, it will appear in the catalog. Once it is selected, it will have the "custom option" in the window where the modder can define their own diameters or other dimensions, and volumes. For complex models, or parts, with no easily definable formula for volume (or if they are parts like wings and don't have a volume), 3 simple sizes can be predetermined by the part creator and accessed via the simple menu's "small, medium, and large" options. These will be default options in the event where the part doesn't have the advanced part flag (just as an example to suggest how the advanced option will work alongside the basic option). If there is any interest in this, I can draw up some rough sketches to outline the idea more clearly.

Unfortunately, there is no such thing as infinite energy. Best case scenario would just be an extremely efficient energy device. Quick analysis of the idea proposed: Going to throw some math around now. From your wiki link: "The least stable is [Helium 5], with a half-life of [.00000000000000000000076] seconds." So if I had two Helium 5 atoms, I'd have to hit one, the other, or both with a neutron about 1,315,789,473,368,421,035,318.5 per second if I didn't want to waste time with any idle Helium 4 atoms. That seems reasonable. Just for reference, the LHC can do about 600,000,000 collisions per second. So an interesting idea, but with current technology it seems we won't be able to keep up with the rate of decay. This is where my math stops because I don't want to spend the time crunching the energy requirements or to estimate the amount of energy produced. But even if the proposed energy source could produce just as much energy as it requires to run, it wouldn't be able to power even it self because we'd lose energy when we transport the electricity through a power cable. We can't even move electricity around efficiently because there is electrical resistance in the wire. Sure, in a perfect world or in a simplified model, infinite energy exists. But in the real world, it is impossible. We will always lose significant levels of energy. Unfortunately this isn't infinite energy either..how do you feed the cat? Infinite energy can't exist because of Conservation of Energy. It is impossible to create energy from nothing, we start with limited stuff, and we end with just as much limited stuff (in one form of energy or another). Even if we could make closed systems that were 100% energy efficient, it is theorized that since the universe is always expanding and because of the Laws of Thermodynamics, especially the second law, that the universe will eventually die of a heat death. Infinite energy and perpetual motion machines will never be anything more than a dream for creative minds not bound by the laws of nature.

Thanks to the International Space Station and the curious astronauts on board, we have an example of magnetic orbits that you can watch by . Now this is not a sphere, so unfortunately it doesn't completely answer your question, but it is an orbit that exists thanks to electromagnetic forces acting on the satellite by the parent body. The system is even experiencing zero g-forces thanks to it being in orbit. Orbits like this can exist (although they seem to be highly unstable) in a controlled environment. However, such an event would be nearly impossible to find in nature as gravity would quickly destroy the balance between momentum and the electromagnetic forces in the system and it would either end as a satellite guided by gravity, or a solid object bound together by electromagnetic forces.

I've experienced beeping similar to as you described it in .20 as well. Except in my case, I was performing a burn around Duna (in high orbit). I only experienced it twice, both occurred in Duna orbit and lasted for about a minute each. Both occurrences were 2-5 minutes apart. At the time I assumed it may be a bug associated to the Easter egg on Duna's surface, but now that seems highly unlikely as you've reported it on Kerbin's surface. The beeping sound was more steady than that of the Duna beeping hill Easter egg, if I recall correctly. But it does sound quite similar. I was unable to record it. I am on a clean .20 install of the game. No mods and no adjusting of any files (besides changing audio via the settings panel). I have been unable to reproduce this event. I have no idea as to what could be causing the bug.

Never. Mostly because those teaching all of the concepts use notation they are familiar with already, which is the old and traditional notation. Sure, when a new language is adopted by the majority of the population, then mathematical notation will sure make some changes to adapt to the new language, but older concepts will probably maintain the older notation (which is why so many Greek characters are still used in modern math). Low level math will probably always be taught in a form that closely resembles the popular language being used, since the children being taught this math will also have just been taught the language, and it is easier to just reuse notation they are already familiar with than to overwhelm them with new notation. But higher levels of math will continue to use older notation because there is no reason to change it. Sure, it's difficult for people who aren't very interested in familiarizing themselves with math (that high school mindset that I'll never use this stuff outside of class) and the varying levels of notation will obviously cause these people many problems when they attempt to quickly learn the higher level math. That being said, the concept of math being "universal" is a completely separate idea that has nothing to do with notation. It's the basics that allow us to form scientific "laws." If I were to show you a variety of right triangles, you'd begin to notice patterns between the triangles. That even though the sides may be different lengths, there are still relationships that exist, otherwise the shape wouldn't look like a right triangle anymore. Concepts like these are what make math "universal." No matter what language you speak. The image of the right triangle stays the same. And given enough time, two completely different languages will be able to convey the same idea to each other. As a simpler example: any civilization in the history of our planet has been able to recognize 10 fingers. It doesn't matter what language you speak, or what language you use. 10 fingers is 10 fingers. So how is this universal? Well these mathematical concepts can be used as a base for higher ideas. I can describe the electromagnetic force with a mathematical model. Then I can use that model to describe other physics. Therefore, physics is just applied math. I can then make physical models that describe how particles interact. So chemistry is just applied physics. And chemical models can then be made to describe how organisms act. So biology is just applied chemistry. And so on. All science can exist because of these most basic and universal mathematical models. This is why math is considered to be universal. Interesting bonus thought: Some claim that math is just applied philosophy.

It will be impossible to escape the Universe in a 3 dimensional context. Think of it like a normal curve, sure you can get past 99.9% of matter in the universe (far left or far right on the normal curve) but you'll still within the domain of the normal curve. No matter how far you travel in the x, y, or z direction, you won't escape. There is no physical edge of the universe. But if we stretch our definition of "escape" then it may, theoretically, be possible. The universe may indeed have no edge, but it did have a beginning. Now, if you'll bear with me for a moment, if we were to travel back in time to any moment before the universe began (keep in mind or definition of time and mass and just about everything ever breaks down at this point), then we may be able to "escape" the universe. Some theories suggest that traveling faster than light maybe allow time travel, but stuff about requiring all energy in the universe and intersecting yourself and other theoretical complications make it pretty pointless to talk about. So simple, real answer: Escaping the Universe is impossible. Non-real, creative answer: Sure, if don't care about semantics.