sgt_flyer

Kerbals finally discovered that the paint they used on their rocket parts created very high drag - even when the air was simply rushing along the side of those parts ! They decided to try out a more smooth part - with astounishing results !

You should recheck the post... They never said 'in a week and a half'... They said 'a week from wednesday'... And 7 days after a wednesday will still be a wednesday...

i like the mail address in the announcement post too

besides, look at the mail address in the post [email protected] and seriously ? how people could believe that ?

maybe if people read carefully the post we'll see what it is about in - guess what day it'll be

guess what day it will be

you should still be able to use the LV-1R if you don't set it's thrust to 0 although, you'll need to either surface attach the LV-1R to a fuel tank, or to use a fuel line between the tank and the LV-1R but both operations at the same time would be possible

Here's what those thrusters looks like http://cs.astrium.eads.net/sp/spacecraft-propulsion/bipropellant-thrusters/10n-thruster.html @Himynameisjake If you need a more special way to have single RCS nozzles, you can surface attach a place-7 anywhere linear RCS port onto a LV-1R engine (with it's thrust set to 0) , then move the rcs port with the offset tool - and tada a single rcs port with a nozzle edit : here's an example of what i meant maybe it can be of use to you

Huh ? Rosetta only uses hypergolic fuel + oxydizer - through it's 24 10N pressure fed RCS nozzles. Stationkeeping and propulsion is provided only by those

And what about the state of the mechanical counterpressure suits ? There are at least functionnal glove prototypes for this technology. (Basically, in those suits, only the helmet would be kept pressurised. The rest of the suit would prevent body part vacuum swelling by simply 'constricting' them. - which allows for joints / gloves much less stiff than their pressurized counterparts for a much better range of movement. (they would still have thermal regulation systems though) Last time i checked on those, the gloves prototypes worked in a vacuum box, and they were researching some smart materials able to stretch or contract through electric impulses (so the astronauts could don the spacesuits easily while they are stretched, before making them shrink to provide the counterpressure.) All in all, there's still some time before we land another astronaut on a celestial body - so everything can still evolve until then

yup, there was a conical protective fairing around the command module during the launches. it was used to protect it during ascent against various things (airflow, could be of help against potential bird strikes, heat from air compression, and the LES engine's exhaust (as it was still fired during normal ascent to eject the fairing and the LES from the rocket) for the different kind of aborts : for soyuz, the LES is supposed to pull roughly 2/3rd of the fairing (just under the retracted grid fins) and both the orbital module and the descent module. the last 1/3rd of the fairing and the soyuz service module were left with the rocket. just after separation, the grid fins on soyuz would deploy, providing a lot of drag at the tail end of the whole - providing a very good stability. near the end of the LES burn, the descent module simply detaches from the orbital module, and fall from the bottom of the fairings. for Apollo, the LES pulls both the protective fairing and the command module. near the end of the capsule burn, canard surfaces are deployed from the LES, forcing the capsule to make a 180° turn, so the command module's heatshield is facing prograde. the apollo capsule then separate from the LES and the conical fairing (due to the shape and the density of the empty thing, drag would be enough to slow them while the apollo capsule drifts away for it's own landing.)

If one engine only stops maybe they can simply continue the mission (like they did on apollo 13 when the S-II center engine shut down early - they simply made the others burn longer) If one of the engine explodes, they will abort regardless of how the other engines currently works - it would be taking too much risks with lives to 'guess' if the engine explosion did damage something else or not.

ESA shown interests in Dreamchaser once i think ? but they asked for reduced wings to fit inside Ariane's fairing ? guess that's SNC's answer for fitting DC inside a fairing. nevertheless, this could be interesting for softlanding some of the stuff they bring back from ISS - some of those are quite delicate, and needs considerable care for their packaging to survive current Dragon parachute landings. (that, or they bring it back in the Soyuz capsule - which can't bring a lot down) as for the service module, it can be a good compromise for storing most of the toxic RCS fuels as well as giving a berth for vacuum capable large payloads. after all, if they drop all their remaining toxic RCS fuel before reentry, they won't need to passivate them after landing - which could considerably lower post landing maintenance and reduce turnaround times.

nevertheless, ISS is currently capable of housing 6/7 persons - but with boeing CST-100 and dragon-V2, that number might change so they might need a bit more space (even if they just use the inflatable section as only a 'storage' room for common supplies (until they are confident enough with it) it'll still free some space elsewhere in the station for more crew quarters / other experiments.

Well, SLS using the STS components as a basis, it's quite easy to 'shrink' it to KSP's. - the shuttle's ET is 8.4m in real life - our kerbodynes are 3.75m - so that gives us 8.4 / 3.75 = a 2.24 scale ratio. Now the SRB's are 3.71m in diameter in real life, which gives us a 3.71 / 2.24 = 1.65m for a ksp equivalent So yes, it'll be quite hard to pinpoint the good diameters with stock KSP parts

YE-8 lander + Lunokhod - 204 parts WIP - 4.865 tons. i managed to get two double folding (the ramps were articulated in the middle) but it proved too unreliable and added too much parts to be of real use (when it worked only 25% of the time, i decided not to follow double folding ramps like on the real one, and gone with only simple 1 hinge articulated ramp on each side ) gave me a hard time finetuning though (thanks hyperedit to give kerbin mun like characteristics to test out the lander deployement ) almost ready...

For single use deployable ramps, i think i might have something lightweight and low part count which might help, if you need (and that can dock after deployment) - currentky experimenting those with my current project - those extremely small hinges are perfect for those jobs (basically, a single use non redocking ramp will use around 5 or 7 parts besides the ramp itself. (For the hinges weight, you'll have a decoupler, and two LV1-Rs - the rest is massless )

yes i've seen your RTG based hinge Revan corana - but i thought it used quite a lot of parts and of space for use as 'decorative' hinges such as those grid fins granted, mine is not adapted for for high speed rotations like your hinge is, but it can help for small animations else, the 'struts' are only decorative the vernors should held on their own even without the struts between them (maybe one single strut to connect the two halves at the opposing point from the start) or lastly, as the one on this one http://imgur.com/DsRziQC - the microhinge's small size helps a lot

@Deutherius mmmh - there's the new structural intakes which might be able to help you (maybe combined with the DTS-M1 antennas )

@Darnok i first built those microhinges while trying to create those stock grid fins here : http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/112710-Deployable-grid-fins-tests-%28now-with-Micro-Hinge-Technology-%21%29 It's basically built around two LV1-R engine nozzles locked between 3 parts in a triangle shape - here, 2 ox-stats solar panels and the docking port jr - all moved around thanks to the rotation and translation tools The top cover is linked with the body with a small decoupler, and has the docking port + oxstats assembly. The two lv1-Rs are part of the rover's body. Once the top cover is decoupled, physics kicks in and the nozzles stay inside the triangle created by the cover's assembly The 'cover' is moved with the use of a separatron (set at minimal thrust&fuel) hidden inside the rover's body. Once fully deployed, the cover docks back onto the rover

note from KSC's central kitchen : the guy who stole our Pressure cooker to make a rover is asked to give it back... - we need it to make today's meals ! (now with more of my microhinges - those allow me to create a much wider range of payloads for my upcoming soviet rockets than previously ^^) and as always, full stock

@Azimech - if you're a bit patient, we'll have small landing gear wheels and fairings for this kind of job in 1.0

Damn, those microhinges can support quite a bit of weight given which parts i use ! here, a 9 ton ! test, dangling around a microhinge made of only 4 parts ! (2 oxstats in a V-shape, and 2 LV1-Rs attached to the FLT-800 tank, turned so their nozzles end inside the oxstat's V shape) (the two FLT-800 tanks are connected to the decoupler prior to the test, with the hinge being offcentered)

Falcon 9 grid fins deploys the other way (from a down position upwards) (because the rocket is ballistic engine first when they deploy ) it'll need a counterweight system + docking to try to reverse the current drag / gravity based motion

Added my new Micro Hinge technology test (with a grid fin) on the first page it's crazy how working on something can lead to great discoverys, applicable in other domains