Brotoro

Thank you. It's a long thread…I don't expect people to be able to quickly and easily find everything in it. Today in my Laythe Save… I'm testing rockets built with the new 3.whatever meter parts.

Lots of categories! Examples: Short Range Ballistic Missile - Redstone Medium Range Ballistic Missile - Jupiter Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile - Thor Intercontinental Ballistic Missile - Atlas All used later as parts of space launch vehicles.

As I recall, Von Braun's wheel shaped space station design incorporated a pipe partially filled with water that was supposed to automatically shift to balance the station's rotation.

There must be a hell of a lot of Russians with dashboard-mounted video cameras.

That meteor is traveling a lot faster relative to the planet than the asteroids we have captured into Kerbin orbit and then slowed for landing. But it you just let one of the asteroids that are on an impact trajectory with Kerbin come flying in, it should make a hot flaming entry like that.

I like to see what I can accomplish with the cards Squad deals me. Engineering is all about what you can do within the limitations given (be they technological, economic, time-constrained, etc.).

How long can he keep up this level of power output? Continuously? One millisecond?

I... want to see this.

Because ever since I was a wee lad I dreamed of making my own space program. KSP gives me that opportunity with a sufficiently accurate implementation of Physics (which satisfies the science-geek in me), a lack of nitty gritty grindy detail (by not trying to be TOO realistic), the flexibility to allow creativity (all those wonderful parts and places to explore), and an amount of playfulness that makes me smile. KSP is the perfect entertainment for me.

New version downloaded. Asteroids are now spawning in the old save. Thankie, RocketPilot573! Have some kerbal snacks.

What's this? The pre-release information said there would be no asteroids in old saves. The version I downloaded (admittedly, right after release) does not show asteroids in my old save games. I didn't see where Squad said anything about a newer version released a few hours later that allowed asteroids in old saves…but I'll go download the game again and see what happens.

Problem: In version 0.1 in KSP version 0.23.5, the O key no longer reopens the maneuver node control.

Cydonian Monk: Please let us know if your experiments for turning on asteroids in old saves works. Also, you say you turned on research in a sandbox save -- very cool: Do you have a link to where you posted exactly what you did? No, I did not try docking with a pre-rotated claw. This 'armature' you refer to is a mod part?

Cool Ship, Bro. As for your question about why this wasn't chosen, the article explains: "Any project at NASA needed a broad constituency, and the SERV failed to make it off the drawing board because its peculiarities turned every possible supporter against it. NASA’s management had come to the conclusion that a large spaceplane was the way to go, and had only allowed other arrangements as a sop to due diligence. NASA’s astronauts didn’t like that the SERV (as ultimately envisioned in the Phase B proposal) could fly unmanned, cargo-only missions. And NASA engineers were concerned about the SSTO/Aerospike engine approach, which is very sensitive to weight and thrust. Marginal failures to meet the proposed engine characteristics or rocket weight can radically reduce the payload that can be carried to LEO, or even keep the craft from reaching orbit at all."

A little decoration for the courtyard of the Astronaut Complex.

Longterm Laythe, Part 30.5 Like any update, it affects this mission firstly because I have to make sure my old save file will open and everything in it will update properly. My ongoing universe has been in effect since its original save game in version 0.18. Sometimes this transition involves a lot of tweaking, as with the landing leg changes a couple versions back, but I expect the update to 0.23.5 to be relatively painless. Because asteroids do not spawn in an old save file that gets updated to 0.23.5, there will be no asteroids involved...at least until we determine what needs to be tweaked in the save game file code to get around this limitation. Then maybe there will be fun with asteroids in the future. And, as always after an update, there is a delay until all my favorite mods are tested and updated and either reinstalled or (if there are changes to the game that make them no longer needed) removed. I haven't fully checked yet to see what all works and what doesn't. The clouds and city lights seem to work fine. Kerbal Flight Engineer is displaying, but I haven't checked to see if it working correctly. MechJeb is broken. I see just now that Kerbal Alarm Clock is blinking at me to indicate that there is an update available for it. It appears that the hot key in Precise Node for opening collapsed maneuver nodes isn't working. Docking Camera seems to be operating, but it doesn't work for the Claw yet. Etc, etc. And, even when mods APPEAR to be working correctly after an update, there is still the possibility that they could be doing some game-corrupting activity behind the scenes…so it's best to wait a while for the mod authors to get stuff sorted out (a week or two usually) before proceeding with the mission. In the meantime, there is the traditional post-update playing around mod-less with all the new features of the new update, which is fun! Like most people, I've been chasing around asteroids. I'm quite pleased with the new joint strength in 0.23.5… my standard Reusable Rocket holds together just fine with 50 or 60 previously-used struts removed. That's a wonderful savings in lag. Unfortunately, of course, old ships will still continue to have more struts than needed on them. I love the fact that when you focus on a target planet, your ship's trajectory is shown relative to that planet…essentially it automatically switches over to conic draw mode zero in that case (and shows trajectories in conic draw mode 3 otherwise). It's also great that maneuver nodes are persistent now, and that you can right-click on them to get the controls to move forward/backward by one orbit. There are a lot of very useful, if not readily apparent, improvements in version 0.23.5. Good job, Squad! One of the things I've been using MechJeb for for a long time now has been keeping the ship pointed at the maneuver node indicator on the navball during those annoying 20-minute-long burns to head off to the Jool system. But while pushing around an asteroid MechJeb-less, I learned that the stock SAS system now keeps the ship accurately pointed during long burns. Nice to know. I've been having fun dropping an asteroid at various places on Kerbin, seeing if they float (they don't…they sink) or if they look great as decorations around the KSC (they look marvelous, darling!): But the real effect that 0.23.5 will have on the Laythe mission will be the use of the Claw for surface docking/refueling. The method I came up with for refueling my BirdDogs from the GasStations allowed me to explore all over Laythe, but the docking procedure does get rather tedious after a while, and it is limited to specially prepared craft…so I had no way to refuel my ShoreLab or NAMOR rescue ships or whatever. It always seemed silly that my kerbals were incapable of doing what the lowliest attendant at a small airport can do (simply run a hose over to a plane and refuel it). The Claw from the ARM update now gives me a workaround for that limitation because it can dock to any ship and allow fuel transfer between the vehicles. Now I know that some people object to this ability of the Claw as being unrealistic. "How does that even work?", they ask. But I'm not bothered by this. Our ships obviously already have lots of pipes and wires running from all the docking ports to all the various fuel tanks, oxidizer tanks, monopropellant tanks, Xenon tanks, batteries, etc., that are not shown. So I visualize that the Claw has an assortment of built-in hoses that an EVAing kerbal can run between ships docked with the Claw…so I will happily use the Claw for surface refueling. (What I'd like, of course, is for Squad to allow EVAing kerbals to connect any two ships within a certain maximum distance for refueling. A cool animation of this would be nice, but I assume very difficult…so it would be fine if this was just a right-click option that a Kerbal had while on EVA, like fixing parts, and then the ships could transfer fuel as long as they remained within the limit of the refueling distance.) So, in addition to playing with asteroids, I have been experimenting with surface docking using the Claw. Just as JPL has their "Mars yard" setup to test Mars rovers, I have set up a "Laythe Land" to test Claw docking (below). Every sort of ship or vehicle that I have on Laythe that might benefit from refueling, I have set up in an area north of the launch pad. I've been testing a few things, such as a new refueling station that uses Claw ports that a BirdDog or Ladyhawk or Raptor could nuzzle up to for refueling. And also I'm testing a refueling rover that can carry fuel from a refueling station off to other stationary ships that need refueling, such as the ShoreLab or NAMOR. What I have found is that surface docking with the Claw is pickier than I had hoped for. I was hoping that getting any part of a vehicle within the confines of the Claw's grabbers would result in a docking. It does not. The rather small center region of the Claw has to make contact with the surface of a part in order to dock with it. Trying to dock the Claw to the leading edge of a wing on a plane can be problematic because the wing may not be close enough to the right height to make the connection. What you need is a surface on the plane that has enough vertical extent that the center of the Claw can easily make contact. If you were purpose-building ships for this, it would be easy to include such pieces in handy-to-reach locations (such as vertical rudders out on the wingtips), but I'm working with pre-existing ships here. So it takes some careful tweaking to make sure the center of the Claw is at the right height for a wing docking. It turns out that by far the easiest place to dock to a BirdDog, Ladyhawk, or similar plane is the rear of the jet engine (since the rear of the engine part has a vertical face there, even if it doesn't look like it) . But it does look somewhat rude to have the the refueling station clawing the rear end of the plane. It works, however. Oh…and it doesn't matter which ship is the active ship in the docking… the Claw will grab even if it is on the passive ship (I was worried about that). So I have made a refueling station that can supply mobile craft. I can send it with mostly liquid fuel in its tanks for refueling jet planes, or I can send it with oxidizer as well so that my SSTO planes could be refueled (but in most cases the oxidizer will be tweaked out of the tanks to save mass because most of the ships I refuel on Laythe use jet engines). I have also made a rover that can be used to refuel stationary ships, and for which I have another fun mission in mind. I just need to stack these toys onto rockets and send them off to the Jool system in the next transfer window… once I get done playing with asteroids and SLS parts

If you ask me, the little backup battery is darn clever.

There are scenarios?

Change your flag so it's not the NASA logo. Problem solved. Execute mayhem under the colors of any organization, nation, or company of your choice.

Last night (well, very early this morning) I captured an asteroid and brought it to Kerbin, then crash landed it by the Astronaut Building (the rock survived…the ship did not). This afternoon I've been playing from the quick save I had of the Tug and Asteroid in low Kerbin orbit. I decided to see what I could do about soft-landing the asteroid using the four parachutes on the nuke nacelles for landing the asteroid. Those parachutes are only meant to safely land the nuke nacelles that can be separated in case of an emergency (such as a launch failure), so I didn't really expect them to return the whole ship and rock. I used the engines to slow the ship/rock down (there's still more fuel left in the Tug than the engines can use up, even if firing all the way down from orbit), and at 5000 meters I cut the engines and deployed the chutes. The full-deployment altitudes of the chutes were tweaked in opposing pairs to fully open at 600 and 500 meters. The main deployment was somewhat violent, but everything held together. Below, the ship and rock descended into the ocean at about 16 meters per second. Strangely, the green illuminators I have on the Tug (one high intensity, one low intensity) appeared to be able to shine right through the asteroid to light up the water below. When the rock hit the water, it slowed the Tug enough that by the time the Tug dipped into the water, none of its parts broke. The rock did indeed sink…but the strangely buoyant metal of the ship acted as a floatation device to keep the rock from falling to the bottom of the sea. Cool! Now send out the Navy to tow it over to the KSC. Landing the asteroid on land with this makeshift system was less successful. Below, I set it down a little west of KSC on four good chutes. Again, the lights were able to shine through the rock and illuminate the ground. (I wonder if they would illuminate a ship on the other side of the asteroid, or if it's just the surface of Kerbin that does this?) The jarring impact rattled the Tug, but it stayed together… at least until the asteroid slowly and inexorably rolled over and smashed the Tug onto the ground (exploding one of the nuke engines). But surely the environmental impact from such a destruction of the nuke would have contained all the fuel elements. So a proper asteroid lander ship would appear to be in order. Perhaps the part that docks to the asteroid can have multiple chutes that stay with the asteroid, and the rest of the ship can separate earlier (after all chutes are deployed, and when the ship is low enough that they will stay within 2 km during the rest of the descent) and land by itself (using its RCS to move a little off to the side before landing).

So I've been playing from the quick save I had of the Tug and Asteroid in low Kerbin orbit. I decided to see what I could do using the four parachutes on the nuke nacelles for landing the asteroid. Those parachutes are only meant to safely land the nuke nacelles that can be separated in case of an emergency (such as a launch failure), so I didn't really expect them to return the whole ship and rock. I used the engines to slow the ship/rock down (there's still more fuel left in the Tug than the engines can use up, even if firing all the way down from orbit), and at 5000 meters I cut the engines and deployed the chutes. The full-deployment altitudes of the chutes were tweaked in opposing pairs to fully open at 600 and 500 meters. The main deployment was somewhat violent, but everything held together. Below, the ship and rock descended into the ocean at about 16 meters per second. Strangely, the green illuminators I have on the Tug (one high intensity, one low intensity) appeared to be able to shine right through the asteroid to light up the water below. When the rock hit the water, it slowed the Tug enough that by the time the Tug dipped into the water, none of its parts broke. The rock did indeed sink…but the strangely buoyant metal of the ship acted as a floatation device to keep the rock from falling to the bottom of the sea. Cool! Now send out the Navy to tow it over to the KSC. Landing the asteroid on land with this makeshift system was less successful. Below, I set it down a little west of KSC on four good chutes. Again, the lights were able to shine through the rock and illuminate the ground. (I wonder if they would illuminate a ship on the other side of the asteroid, or if it's just the surface of Kerbin that does this?) The jarring impact rattled the Tug, but it stayed together… at least until the asteroid slowly and inexorably rolled over and smashed the Tug onto the ground (exploding one of the nuke engines). But surely the environmental impact from such a destruction of the nuke would have contained all the fuel elements. So a proper asteroid lander ship would appear to be in order. Perhaps the part that docks to the asteroid can have multiple chutes that stay with the asteroid, and the rest of the ship can separate earlier (after all chutes are deployed, and when the ship is low enough that they will stay within 2 km during the rest of the descent) and land by itself (using its RCS to move a little off to the side before landing).

All RAM chips deserve a nice California vacation.

This puts a smile on my face.

If there is a virtual pair, then there is energy that needs to be 'paid back' for the creation of the pair (and paid back quickly. Quantum mechanical loan sharks are fierce). If your particle annihilated with a virtual particle, that energy would go back to paying for the creation of the pair in the first place...and all you'd have left is the other particle from the pair (exactly like the one you started with)... and no radiation.

I have been practicing surface docking with the claw. I was hoping that getting any part within the confines of the claw would make it happy, but it demands more precision than that (the center of the claw must contact the face of the part to be docked to). So, for some pre-existing airplanes I have, for example, using the claw to dock to the edge of the wing can be problematical (since the height of the wing and the height of the claw have to be pretty close), but grabbing the rear of the jet engine nozzle is much easier... ...although it does look a bit rude. If you are going to purpose-design surface hardware for this kind of docking, you can include easily accessed vertical plates or beam or truss pieces on the ships to make the docking easier.