CatastrophicFailure

AFAIK, they've never actually folded them and kept them folded before, they always removed 'em. This would be an encouraging first if they do.

We have folding!

Because SpaceX is a US-based company, same reason Rocket Lab needs FAA approval to launch from New Zealand.

In that case, that’s what you get for putting your space center on a neutron star. Er, is it a specific part or any vessel at all?

Well that’s what you get using neutron star matter as fuel...

You have to use the direct image link from Imgur, the one ending in .png, etc. Right click>copy image link, then paste and hit enter. Albums won’t work but images in an album will.

It is too late for you, now. Abandon all hope, ye who enter here. And also, click.

Wait a minute, I saw that! How’d you do that? Did it involve... clicks??

Old soldiers never die... This seems to simply be The Way of interwebz forums.

More like 9 meter parts.

Curse you for making me do math right before bed. Again. But anyways, had to run some of my own numbers, here. So yes, the current population of my Kerbin is was around 6 billion. Now, this is in a 6.4-scale system, so that gives a surface area of around 185,300km2. Like you said, figuring a rough 50% landmass, that’s 92 million-ish Square klicks, giving a population density around 65 people per square kilometer. Given that Kerbals are half the size of humans, this probably feels more like 32/km2. Now figure into that the fact that some places are much more densely populated than others (I based Bangkong’s density largely on Kowloon Walled City), and you get some huge tracts of land with nary a soul about. Which would probably be a good place to run for about now, as the Black Horse is preparing to ride out.

It’s good! and the crowd goes wild!

Yesterday, actually, but anyways... Harvest day! More of an incidental harvest, really. 12 4oz jars of comb honey. We only got half a pickle jar from the actual honey super, but weren't expecting much since it's the colony's first year. That, we fed right back to the bees. But to make room for the feeder (which will be kept full of sugar syrup till next spring) we had to remove two frames, so that's what we actually collected from. EVERYTHING! IS! SO! STICKY! Even after scrubbing, we're still finding sticky everything the day after. There's sticky on the ceiling. Now how the flarp did we get sticky on the ceiling?!? Also, rendered the wax down and got it pretty clean. Will have to turn this into a little candle.

Liftoff!

Numerous tweets, launch pushed back a half hour to midnight EDT, 930 PDT due to lightning alerts.

Water... collection?

Erm, yes... seems when I upgraded the engine I forgot to tweak the heat tolerance up a touch... But, in a spot of good news, the potentially game-killing bug that’s been haunting me has finally worked its way out, and Kerbalism background transmissions (and presumably everything else) is working again!

Wow... if the launch and landing goes off without a hitch, that’s gonna be quite the steeple chase to get it back ahead of the hurricane.

StratoLaunch Mission 1An AbsurdlyLong™ Post Part 2 Brought to you today by Sleep Deprivation So, in the aim of finally putting this thing to bed, and hopefully myself thereafter, here's the rest. Just a simple Mün mission. When we last left Bartfrid and Hadrie, they were on their way to the Mün. Almost. GAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!

And I see... that I’ve managed to not only unintentionally recycle my intro passages different translations, yeah that’s it! but once again autocorrect has betrayed me. That’s supposed to read dRead portents. Sigh. Yes, sleep sounds like a good idea, now. I should try that.

Once again you’ve been blatantly ripped off an inspiration. Quite so. And it seems like, as usual, I’ve forgotten to properly thank you, @KSK, @Patupi, @0111narwhalz and anyone else who assisted with keeping my brain in my head. Wormwood, depending on the variety, contains chemicals that can act as an antiseptic, or drive you temporarily mad and potentially even kill, but traditionally is known for its... bitterness. Speaking of which, next chapter is already underway, but I’m expecting another crazy long one here.

It’s Sunday night, now. Also, I swear I saw that Iridum slip to November somewhere.

Interlude: Bodies in Motion There is another world, drifting in the indifferent abyss of space. It is a world... of contradiction. By any understood law of nature, it should not exist, even more so than the dozen or so other rocks locked in their eternal dance around a star that also defies reason. And yet, those same laws of nature have been harnessed to prove, beyond any shadow of doubt, that it does exist. It is a world that, at any sort of distance, appears green, due to a peculiar quirk of chemistry as photons bounce off the vaporized volatiles in its wispy exosphere. Yet within that tenuous veil, the surface is a mottled mass of black and white. There is no grey; hard rocks on the surface butt against pure white ices. They tower in near vertical cliffs, split again and again by cryovolcanic eruptions from below, churned into a hellish mass of razor sharp crags and ejected boulders. Yet between these cliffs are vast stretches of glassy, perfectly smooth ice, as if great seas from another age simply froze solid as they were. Yet even thee frozen seas are layered in contradiction. They, too, should not exist at all, for it is far too warm here, this near to the sun. While the rest of this world seems bent on tearing itself apart in geologic death throes, these seas live on in tranquil stillness. There is liquid water here, trapped below the ice. The sacred elixir of life, rich in amino acids, granted energy by the spewing hydrothermal vents on the sea floor far, far, far below, and constantly churned by the planetoid raging around it, it should teem with life like the azure and jade jewel ever in the green-tinted sky. Yet, like nearly everywhere else, this sea is sterile. For the water instead teems with ammonia and arsenic, toxic salts and cyanide, and a dozen other awful things. It is a world of poison and violence, utterly abhorrent to life. And yet, there is life here, after a fact. Stretching out across the featureless ice seas are hectare upon hectare of solar panels, for here is the great frozen forge of a new empire. Power from this forge flows into sprawling industrial complexes, where the tainted water from below is distilled and purified... and then ripped apart. At the outskirts of the fields of silicon and glass are more curious structures yet, enormous, spindly wheels stretching a hundred meters across or more, set parallel to the surface and slowly rotating, giving the denizens within some semblance of useful gravity. It is these stubborn, adaptable beings who have brought life even to this lethal place. For them, none of this is unusual, it is simply a job. The salary is mediocre, but the benefits are good, and one might say the hazard pay is, well, out of this world. From their slowly spinning refuges, the strange little inhabitants of this strange little place set off down long corridors, ant-like, towards equipment rooms and operations centers. Here, they maintain and oversee the largely autonomous machines that do the actual work, or perhaps slink over to one of the many domed pools clustered at the center of their wheeled outposts, to partake in the favored pastime of this unusual place: enjoying the peculiar sensation of swimming in only 5% gravity. Elsewhere, reduced to its bare atomic essences, the once lethal water now powers through the long night the very machinery that harvests it, or separated further and liquified, fuels enormous, bulbous tankers ever arcing skyward. Yet even these massive vessels, little more than tiny engines mounted to huge golden fuel spheres, are dwarfed by the craft they tend. If this world is the forge of the new empire, then these greater ships are its arms, reaching out across the cosmos to ensnare its sustenance. They drift serenely across the black, easily visible by those below, as if lifeless, or perhaps only sleeping. Long strings of gleaming white spheres, each one sprouting radiators that conjure a vision of bleached, skeletal serpents. At one end is a small collection of modules and trusses, and at the other, is yet another skeleton. A yawning, airy arrangement of metal and carbon fiber that looks something like a rocket engine bell, if it were somehow stripped of its metallic flesh. Here, the cadaverous celestial leviathans wait with all the patience of the grave as servants bear their food from the frozen, boiling world below. But even among these titans, there is one still greater. It drifts a little apart from the rest, as if in deference to its sublime majesty. This one is no mere backbone but a complete skeleton, if of a most curious-looking beast. It sprouts not one engine but two, separated a fair distance from the collection of modules in the center by a web of graphene struts and weaved nanotube cables, giving the impression of a manta ray... or perhaps a flower. She is the second of her class, and yet the more powerful. Her hydrogen-spiked fission-fragment engines represent the very pinnacle of engineering, the apex of a once-revolutionary design now relegated to a museum. With them, thrust and Isp have been raised to dizzying numbers, tuned and refined even over her sister’s. These, it is said, are engines that could venture to another star. But she, like her sister, has been built for a more mundane task. And, also like her sister Belladonna, she bears the name of a flower than can expand the mind, heal the body... or extinguish the soul. Presently, a small, winged shuttlecraft clings precariously to one of that cluster of modules, as the inner hatch swings open... *** “Heeeeeeeeeeeeyyyyyyy, Jack-KAY!” cries Sheb Kerman, the crew chief, a wide grin on his face, “How was shore leave, mi broski? You paint Bangkong red?” “Don’t. Ask.” Jack Kerman turns aside as he comes through the hatchway, spitting out an enormous wad of gum that sails through the air and into the bin marked SPACE TRASH. He pulls his duffle along with him, then scowls as he scrapes his tongue across his teeth. “Huh.” Sheb stares at him a moment, his own tongue fiddling with his shiny gold tooth. He seems to rouse himself, plucks a tablet from the wall and tosses it across the module to Jack, “here, this’ll cheer you up.” Jack catches it without looking, “eh? What’s this?” “We got a contract,” Sheb smirks, “Dres Trojan, special express delivery to LKO.” Jacks eyes scan down the text, “whoah, Class H?” “Someone wants to see what this babe can do,” Sheb gives the wall a loving pat, “but keep reading.” Jack does, “five percent heavy metals... 17% silicates.... 78% percent methane hydrate?” he raises a confused eye, “what do they want with that much methane in low orbit?” “Dunno,” Sheb shrugs, “don’t care. But keep reading,” his grin stretches wider than ever. “Holey—!” Jack spits a curse, “are you flarping kidding me?! You shopped this, added some zeroes!” Sheb raises a pledging hand, “not me, bro. That’s the contract. And guaranteed full shares.” Jack’s already freakishly large eyes bulge even wider, “I could retire on this!” He looks down again, “I could retire ten times on this!” He looks down again, “I could buy my own ship and pay them to retire for me!” “Gettin’ paid, bro!” “Gettin’ PAAAAIIID!” The two bump chests... which sends them careening about the cabin, laughing and hollering until Jack breaks into a fit of gaping coughs. He spits another wad toward the trash, raising his hand for a high-five, when a speaker crackles. “Uhhh... Shuttle Tydirium here... you guys wanna close the hatch please? We’d like to go home now and we’d rather not depressurize your ship in the process. We’d actually enjoy it, but you’re not worth the paperwork.” Sheb rolls his eyes and shakes his head. He floats over to the hatch, swings it closed, then hits a few buttons. A gentle hiss of air follows. He taps his ear, “hatchway closed and vented, you’re cleared to depart, Shuttle. “Wormwood out.”