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CatastrophicFailure

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    The Saga of Emiko Station - Complete

    in KSP1 Mission Reports

    Posted

    3 hours ago, Zhetaan said:

    Given that the Laytheans stole food, the second possibility is most likely, but given also that we don't know how long the Laytheans have been living on Kerbin, it's possible that they began in one of the other two camps but though extreme selection or deliberate modification (their own or a benevolent boulder's, perhaps), they adapted to be able to survive on Emiko's tacos.

    You’re missing the fourth (fifth?) possibility: Emiko’s tacos are just that good. :D

    What did you do in KSP1 today?

    in KSP1 Discussion

    Posted

    2 hours ago, qzgy said:

    As a sign of my youthfulness.... whats MTV? :P (I'm aware of it.. but never really seen it.)

    But seriously, I'm really not that old. At all. The 1990s were ancient times to me.

    That would be Music Television. Legend tells that in the Before Time, in the Long Long Ago, MTV once broadcast... music videos.... :o

    What did you do in KSP1 today?

    in KSP1 Discussion

    Posted

    19 minutes ago, InterplanetJanet said:

    You may ask yourself, "What is that beautiful house?"
    You may ask yourself, "Where does that highway go to?"
    And you may ask yourself, "Am I right? Am I wrong?"
    And you may say to yourself, "My God, what have I done?"

    Aaaaaaand now that’s stuck in my head, thanx. :sticktongue:

    SpaceX Discussion Thread

    in Science & Spaceflight

    Posted

    48 minutes ago, Ultimate Steve said:

    Where are you getting the information on steepness of the trajectory? Going by memory (which is wrong a lot) I don't think we've seen a BFS Earth re-entry animation.

    I think the shuttle did about 3G and the Soyuz does about 5 during re-entry, so surface area makes a difference. The Apollos went just above 7G sometimes. The larger surface area on BFS plus the higher velocity should mean that the G's might be about the same... I think... I mean, it's not rocket science or anything, right? :) Fighter jets have also been known to do 12G for short periods of time.

    EDIT: According to a random number found on the internet for F91.1 (should be close enough to 1.2) the first stage has a dry mass of about 15 tons. If we say each merlin can do 600kn at minimum throttle and a three engine landing burn is used, that's 1800kn, 20 tons (for residual fuel), gives us about 9G, so Falcon has withstood these forces before, although not laterally.

    The shuttle could manage only 3g because it’s a lifting body, just like BFS will be. That allows for a much gentler re-entry, since the vehicle can use aerodynamic lift to decelerate more in the thin upper atmosphere. The BFS will likely do a similar earth entry to what we see in the video, using lift vectored down to “pull” itself down into the atmosphere where it would otherwise skip off. That lets it fly right in a sweet spot for both G loading and heating. 

    ALIEN SKIES: A 6.4-scale playthrough of GPP/Rald

    in KSP1 Mission Reports

    Posted · Edited by CatastrophicFailure

    Year 8, Day 147...More housekeeping and minutia in this update. ION-1, our plucky little foray into electric propulsion, has spent the last few months in an eccentric holding orbit high over Gael after thoroughly SAR mapping the surface. And at Ceti. And Iota. And Rald.  This thing just keeps on going and going like some bizarre pink rabbit. To that end, it needs a refuel.

    Spoiler


    f3IqIDZ.png

     

    Unfortunately, it was never designed for refueling. But more on that later. First off, another reliable Mallard-D heads into a rare polar orbit.

    a0px5uR.png

     

    It drops of this beautifully over-engineered little nightmare before leaving the area at high speed.

    SP6ETsx.png

     

    The refueling tug then heads off, using an uninsulated hydrolox kick stage.

    EJrZ69Z.png

     

    Did I mention it was over-engineered? The engineering team was worried that the kick stage would maintain enough fuel to make the initial burn at all before it all boiled off. Instead, there's plenty left for the velocity-matching burn, too.

    SXwzzKQ.png

     

    The kick stage is then, well, kicked... still with fuel left in the ever-warmer tanks.

    FzFJbed.png

     

    And now comes the unpleasant business. The tug is equipped with a micronozed Klaw, to grab onto one of ION-1's engines, and, well... you get the idea.

    PS75nuJ.png

    Note to self: Remove any and all movies relating to aliens from the engineer's lounge room. Replace them with something harmless, like... ponies...

     

    So, anyways, nature being what it is, the deed is done. Despite neither thing here being natural. But over 12,000 unites of fresh xenon is successfully force-fed into ION-1.

     xQI2Hen.png

    Unfortunately, we have no way to remotely check it for implanted eggs...

     

    Further mimicking nature, once the transfer is complete, there's.... well, there's just no use for the tug, anymore. It carries no instruments or even long-range antennas, so it's no good even as a remote relay elsewhere. The engineering team all imagines a sad face as the tug goes to pick up its own kick stage drifting nearby.

    KcBavoG.png

    Ponies. The engineering team definitely needs ponies. No, Vlad, they cannot be telepathic  taco-stealing ponies. Where do you even come up with this stuff?

     

    So, after finishing its task, the tug fires up its ion engines for the first time and... whoah!

    VKnQdZR.png

    It seems in all the hubbub, no one disabled the engine on the kick stage, so it fires right back up again and spins the whole mass up to an incredible speed!

     

    Unfortunately for the tug, it still has a ridiculous amount of fuel on board for its own engines, more than enough to stop its rotation and begin its sad end.

    wlDxBUx.png

     

    It gets a nice view of the polar aurora as it descends...

    C1Xk7ir.png

     

    But soon disappears in a puff of logic highly compressed xenon.

    7N6mKlk.png

     

    ION-1, meanwhile, while feeling rather ill and complaining of indigestion, now has a full 18 kilometers per second available in the tanks.

    oRjbdCA.png

     

    So it's quickly sent off to be the harbinger of bad news to another useless object.

    Nz4yvy2.png

    Transfer window? We don't need no steenking transfer window!

     

    Iota station has been derelict ever since the first and last crew left it, possessing a probe core but no long-range antennae, and the solar panels failed some time ago.

    So, after a lot of flitting around and several unprintable pages of fresh swear words later, it's finally pushed out of orbit.

    2bY7owr.png

     

    ...smacking harmlessly into the Iotan surface.

    n2nVqDc.png

     

    Well, harmless to everything except the station, of course.

    ONTPcOV.png

     

     

    ION-1, of course, remains in good health in a high orbit over the small moon. The fuel in its tanks barely touched, we have a new mission for it. A window to Thalia is once more approaching, and after the disappointment and then failure of Thalia EXPRESS, this time we're sending... an armada.

    SpaceX Discussion Thread

    in Science & Spaceflight

    Posted

    10 minutes ago, sevenperforce said:

    They need five consecutive Block 5 F9 flights for man-rating.

    So speaking of this... the concept of "man-rating" gets thrown around a lot, here. Obviously NASA has some very specific standards SpaceX has to live up to due to the contract, but if SX did want to man-rate the FH, independently of NASA, what would that involve? As far as I know, there's no FAA or other "legal" standard for man-rating a rocket for entirely private use.

    SpaceX Discussion Thread

    in Science & Spaceflight

    Posted

    19 minutes ago, YNM said:

    Then upgrade.

    That’s the point you keep missing, bruh. :wink:

    Thats not. Always. An option. 

    If the telco/cable company doesn’t see economic value in upgrading its equipment, its not going to. To have that economic value there needs to be a certain density of customers in a given area. Many of us live where we do specifically because there isn’t that kind of density, we don’t want it. Satellite internet is already a successful thing in such places, but existing systems have a lot of drawbacks: low bandwidth, per-MB charges, one way High-speed, etc. Also, they’re freaking expensive. 

    Starlink has the potential to offer the same kind of coverage, but at prices and performance that will even allow it to compete with telco/cable, perfect for those of us who would be happy with “good enough.” 

    SpaceX Discussion Thread

    in Science & Spaceflight

    Posted

    25 minutes ago, YNM said:

    If we're talking about reach, it is outreached. If we're talking about speed, it is outrun.

    And yet you’ve had two or three people just right here on this one thread tell you, “hey, this sounds like a good idea, it might just work for me.” :wink:

    Starlink doesn’t need to be the end-all be-all to be competitive, in many places simply offering an alternative to the local telco monopoly will get them a few customers, and if it really is “super high speed” even with some latency, that’ll draw a few more. A niche market here, a niche market there... the nice thing about satellites is that they can reach ALL the niche markets at once.

    SpaceX Discussion Thread

    in Science & Spaceflight

    Posted

    31 minutes ago, YNM said:

    Then you've just made 12,000 cubesats obsolete in short time because now they'll want cables.

    Seriously Elon, if you want people to get internet, get a fixed link, not a bodge.

    Like the other guys said, laying a cable isn't always an option. Or maybe there's ONE option for a cable, and nobody wants it, cuz the provider sucks, and can continue to suck as long as they have their little monopoly. Not everyone lives in a city, bruh. :)

     

    7 minutes ago, Elthy said:

    Also dont forget ships and planes. Both will pay a lot for good internet...

    That too. Bet there's a lot of demand on those cruise ships with thousands of people on board...

    8 minutes ago, Elthy said:

    If they realy want to build 12000 satellites they need a dedicated factory and lots of automatition. It will be exciting to see economics of scale at work.

    As I understand, they're looking to build it out here in Kent, WA near their lab facility. My wife keeps checking the job postings there, and I keep reminding her what the commute would be like. :rolleyes:

    Landline-speed internet in the vanpool, now there's a good use of it...

    SpaceX Discussion Thread

    in Science & Spaceflight

    Posted

    3 minutes ago, YNM said:

    What bandwith are they looking ? 1 Tbit ? I bet not.

    In which case, b0llocks. Undersea cables can easily go beyond that.

    Musk has only said "ultra-high-speed," whatever that means remains to be seen. But I think you're missing the point, this isn't meant for everyone, it's meant for users in areas not well served by traditional services, and to give some competition where it is (and where there is often none). Might not be the best thing for gamers if the lag is what's been discussed, but for the average user who just facebooks and streams movies? Yeah, it's possibly an option. And any competition would be in improvement at this point.

    Shuttle Refurbish And Reuse - Program Development In Progress

    in KSP Fan Works

    Posted

    Awesome. :D

    Throwing this out there in case its helpful, been mulling it over the last couple days. It might be a slightly more, er, elegant solution if IR is giving you conniptions, all do-able with stock bits.

    Start with a rig like this that you can drive over your shuttle. This one's from SSTU massing around 40 tonnes, not sure how your much-better-looking one compares.

    cZgB60t.png

    Not pictured: the 6 large landing gear on the rig. Which are unpowered here, but you get the idea. Park the shuttle, drive this over it, then retract the gear so it settles onto the shuttle's docking port.

    Then retract the shuttle gear, extend the FRONT most rig gear, and start transferring ore from the front tanks to the ones up high.

    FrQcPho.png

     

    This will transfer the center of mass rearward...

    bDfuLbe.png

    That didn't work.

     

    Made some tweaks, tried again.

    LEStG5O.png

    MOAR boosters ore! Mordor?

     

    Flipped the middle gear out, still not quite enough, so I popped the rear gear...

    a0V5X5M.png

    This gave it an uncontrolled jolt, but... it's working! It's working!

     

    TIIIIIMBEEEEEEEEEEER!

    PDTDe7K.png

     

    uM... well I guess the landing gear on the counterweight ore tanks weren't quite enough to catch things.

    CqrLDFE.png

     

    Kinda blew up the runway...

    ZaY8ynh.png

     

    But, as a proof-of-concept, it worked pretty well, thrown together in about an hour, and without any IR shenanigans. But WITH KJR and copious autostrutting.

    cPiWWFO.png

    YMMV. :D

     

    SpaceX Discussion Thread

    in Science & Spaceflight

    Posted

    2 hours ago, YNM said:

    12,000 satellites !!?!?! What, one for every 200 km sided patch of land ? How in the bloody hell are we going to launch anything else ?

    Seriously, just put some good olde BTS towers if that's the order !!! Go get 5G or something !

    Because they're not much more than cubesats and they can launch dozens at once. Also, the initial bunch is "only" around 4000. And with "24 hours" turn-around time on Block 5, all they have to do is crank out upper stages...

    I may be an early adopter. I'm lucky to even get one bar of 1G where I am, and the only internet choices are the local phone company, which sucks, and the big nationwide cable company, which sucks but has decent speed. IF I can get equal/better speed, at a competitive price, AND give money to SpaceX (via its subsidiary), sign me up!

    Oh, also, StarLink isn't the only player in the game. There's one or two others also looking to loft internet satellite constellations numbering in the thousands. :o

    Revelations of the Kraken (Chapter 44: Falling Down)

    in KSP Fan Works

    Posted

    7 hours ago, qzgy said:

    And I'm all caught up now. Darn. I have to find another thing to read.....

    But it's very good. Moar? Soon ish? Or Eventually(patent pending)

    I think you may have just set a new record. :D

    Moar is coming... eventually. :P It’s just crossed the 4100-word mark and still going, and is definitely going to need the patience skill of my editor(s). :confused:

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