magnemoe

One of the project on IIS is an module to test out robotic repairs, more than just changing modules. Sound workable but not sure how well it will work outside the moon as its remote controlled arms like an smaller version of the one on the space station. How about an probe who refill coolant? yes you will need an miniature docking port like connection but refueling sounds like an nice way to extend the service life. Docking is mostly automated anyway, however the satellite might only be designed to last 3 year so you would get more and more problem using it longer

RNA is single chain not dual like DNA so it should mutate more. Does not matter for most as if you have DNA the RNA is mostly used as an working copy and are replaced regulary.

Another reason for airlocks, the dual doors reduce leaks and add safety. However 80cc/min is a lot, however it might simply be that they did not bother as it was inside requirements for the missions.

Note the falcon 9 fail was an single engine out, primary mission was completed, an secondary payload ended up in an too low orbit.

On the ice moons we assume they use the same biochemistry as on earth. the water below the ice will be pretty similar to the deep ocean on earth. Tidal forces keep the water from freezing and might generate volcanic activity on the rocky core similar to the black smokers on earth. The other ideas is life based on other building blocks. Downside of many of them is that they are far more energy restricted, you have carbon based life without oxygen, its also contains far less energy so its hard to get large or fast animals, I guess it will be hard to get intelligent life without being warm blooded as brains use lots of energy all the time. Back to ice moons, the ice moons will be far more common than earth like conditions, where you have limits to who orbits will work and size requirements. For an ice moon with water you only need multiple large enough moons to get tidal stress. Now another interesting possibility, some of the bacteria will be inert in the ice as they froze in. Lots of asteroid impacts in an gas giant system, some will hit the moon who has low gravity and it will shatter ice with bacteria protected inside in orbit, some will reach solar orbit or even go interstellar.

Also if the fire hit something on the ship you will not get any effect. The distance is pretty long as in 10 meter or more. However here I wonder if the problem might be towing with KAS, have you tried to release the winch, drive away then put on brakes and winch in? However why did you not put rover wheels on your lander, then you can move it by it self, four of the medium wheels are not that heavy.

My tips is to first add one decopler, then add the tank you want to connect like an orange tank, now add more stuff, typical medium gray tank below and medium or large gray on top and engine. perhaps two struts between bottom tank and orange. Now select 2,4 or 6 way symetry, remove booster and add it where you want it. Now you have the booster setup, add struts, fuel lines and seperatrons. One other way is to add all of this first, then add boosters with two way symmetry multiple times, benefit is that its easier to get an asparagus setup, downside it that its a harder to place correct.

You need something to block them from gliding off on top and bottom, why not make an box of the 0.19 plates and put ladders inside for them to hold on, you should be able to fit 3 kerbals and more. for safety use an small landing leg as an door. torrid or oscar tank, two small orange radial boosters and a parachute. Tell me how it worked.

Any chance of reducing that polling interval at launchpad? trying to empty an 200 ton advanced ship for fuel give an framerate of less than 1.

Did an fast test of this as I might return to Moho, my first mission was an massive 8000m/s mothership and an huge kertane miner, was on an grand tour so I went from Gilly to Moho then directly to Duna, yes I had very little fuel left, would had returned to Gilly had I not found an set of nodes who took me to Duna. Using the 3 man pod an ship with 5 720 liter tanks had over 8000m/s, nuclear engines on 4 90 liter tanks between and the 4 external ones who was a bit below the center tank. This let me use standard landing legs. fuel lines from the four side tanks to the center and the side tanks could be dropped two and two after takeoff. In addition I added an 720 drop tank below the central tank. with fuel lines to the outer tanks. Used 1+4 asparagus orange+large gray in center, added an medium gray tank on top of boosters. Now one feature I used here was to add fuel line from center orange tank to the upper drop tank, I did also put an seperator between the orange and large gray tank with mainsail on the center stage. Fired the nuclear engines at 1500m where their twr is better than mainsails. the boosters was between the nuclear engines so no problems here. At the end of the gravity turn I turned off the last mainsail, moved the rest fuel to the orange tank and decoupled this. I was left with 12000 m/s. who is a bit of an overkill. Return from Moho is far cheaper as you can aerobrake.

True, this leaves science, however it has just been a few probes since Apollo. One major game changer is water at the moons poles. Should be possible to extract it and bring it to LEO, far cheaper than lifting it from earth. Same is true for other minerals but water is easy to extract and can be used as it it or cracked into oxygen and hydrogen later.

The limit is to avoid damage to ships, say you accelerate with 4g, this will cause the strain on the ship to be four times that on the launchpad. if your ship is not well strutted and solid its an danger for the tanks to collapse. pushing the engine through the upper stage. You can adjust or remove this if you want.

Nice, now add an docking port, and you can drive in, dock and fly somewhere else.

Yes I do not understand the exclusion zone, during the accident it was an good idea as things could go wrong, but afterwards? On the other hand areas around Chernobyl are still radioactive, this is because of all the reactor fragments around.

Yes more struts, you want to connect parts in long stages together. you also want some up to the lander on top. Do you have an engine in center or is it just an drop tank? One tips to make the lander easier to handle is to put small tanks in the gaps between the four large, then put the engines on them, pipe from center tank to small tank, and from side tanks to center. This should not only let you connect landing legs on tanks but even let you drop the side tanks after takeoff, at least two of them.

When you say it yes, I wonder that the cargo was, looked like a lots of struts on top of an probe.

Why should we, we would know it was an machine or at least something alien. Some stone age people would not know, anything who moves around would be an animal as only animals move. Add the issue that if we had alien civilizations going interstellar they should have run into us long ago, one option is that they already did but somebody ate the rover so they moved on. Or perhaps this: http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff1400/fv01349.htm

On the other hand, nature copy itself, fish, dolphins and sea living dinosaurs looked pretty similar, yes water put down some restrictions, however the Tasmanian wolf was an marsupial and looked like an wolf. Many of the wild alien ideas does not work well, they would lose out against animals with more conversational designs. Yes you could get land living octopus, but they would not be dominating if you had animals with skeleton. Yes its lots of things we don't know, why has we four limbs and not six, fish with six fins would work just as well, this would have the benefit that the front legs could easy have other use like gathering food or fighting. However I guess its an decent chance an intelligent alien would look humanoid. Walk on two legs, two arms, two eyes. One other body plan who could work would be the dinosaur ones, think an raptor with better arms. huge tail who counterbalance the forward body, same body plan but not like the human one. Follow the symmetry and no unneeded parts however not humanoid. How I guess first contact will work out, we used 100 billion$ and 50 years going where and they try to eat our probe.

I think a bit over an a year is standard for the cheapest burn to Jool. You do an orbit between Kerbin and Jool where Jool is the highest point. Guess you went outside Jool orbit and meet it on the return.

Jool, 12.000 m/s dV after balloon launch, atmosphere up to 200km, 5800m/s to orbital speed, big planet so you spend a lot of time in atmosphere after gravity turn at 60km. Think I dropped 8 unnmanned ones from the Laythe shipyards. Know now that the accent profile was wrong, I should aimed for an 300km orbit to spend less time in the atmosphere.

Old joke about the guy who sold his car to buy a garage. Problem is that an SSTO does not work with today's technology, Skylon or scramjet might change this. Venture Star had this problem to, yes the small suborbital worked but to get the huge one to work they had to use bleeding edge technology and push it to 110%. Things like oxygen tanks of carbon fiber, as carbon fiber will ignite at contact with oxygen you cover it with an nanometer thick layer of metal. Not something who is reliable and have an fast turnabout. An two stage spaceplane would work. downside is that you need an mach 5-6 passenger jet sized first stage for an decent payload, yes it can be build with existing tech but cost serious money to make. This also give the option to use an upper stage reusable shuttle for passengers or light cargo or an rocket for heavier load. In KSP I have an two stages who lift 150 ton to LKO. Yes it use four boosters but the boosters can also land themselves. (switch to booster after separation, activate mechjeb landing autopilot, turn on rcs to rotate and move fuel from landing tank to main tank (this to not use fuel for landing))

I see, had an similar scifi idea, in atmosphere you can heat air, and you can inject water to generate steam, useful to get high trust for an vertical landing and high up in the atmosphere before you open the reaction chamber, after flare-out in KSP.

Have you looked at KAS and the airship mod, it mostly for this sort of things. Kerbal atatchement system let you lower an magnet or claw and pick up things with an winch.

You can "land" on jool using the airship mod and the old airship ancor from KAS. This will let you save and return to spaceport. You can also drop an probe or pod from low attitude and it will often survive, however selecting and go to it will case it to blow up after short time. Return this chalenge with another, bring one kerbal to 0 attitude on Jool or below and return him. No rules of engagement except debugger, hypedit or obvious cheat mods.

An point, however as the empty fuel tanks for xenon is less than half the weight of the smallest decopler I don't think this is so practical. Using larger ion systems from mods and it start making more sense.