Drunkrobot

A lot of stuff can be done if NASA was given four years of solid funding for all projects being worked on at the time. Not having to suffer the risk of budget cuts every single year means the smart people can do their jobs. When that forth year is up, they would either have finished their goals, or are so far into the project that it would be completely insane to pull the plug.

Reducing the cost-per-kilogram of our launch capabilities is very inportant, but equally useful is the ability to leave that kilogram behind. Inside normal Lunar regolith is elements like Oxygen, Iron, Titanium, silicon: things you can create a lot of interesting things out of. In-Situ Resource Utillization (ISRU) is the method of taking "stuff" from the local environment, and turning it into consumables and equipment. Put a robotic rover with a scoop and a 3-D printer on the Moon, and a manned presence on the Moon makes a lot more economic sense.

I've recently passed my GCSEs (What 14-16 year old's do in school here in the UK), and I'm going into my A-levels (the last step towards university) when the summer ends. I'll be doing three topics-Maths, Physics and Chemistry. One videogame I own has had at least SOME influence on what I'll do with those three A-levels-guess which one! The world needs more games like KSP. Videogames aren't just art, they're science too!

Currently in the game, there is one space suit to rule them all: Oxium supply activated.-CO2 scrubber activated.-Rectal brick receiving unit activated. No matter where your kerbanaut goes-floating in the void of space, standing on the crushing pressures of Eve, a walk round the backside of Eeloo, or a stroll on the surface of the Sun-as long as the ground doesn't hit you too quickly, they WILL survive. That's good news for the kerbanauts, obviously, but isn't that much fun for us. MUAHAHAHAH! Who else would side with me to support the replacement of the "jack of all trades" suit we have now with a range of different suits with different abilities? I know that even if the developers are stupid enough to listen to my worthless opinion, this feature would be a long way off. But come on, a dude can dream, can't he? This is a list of suits I can of. If you beautiful people are nice enough to leave further suggestions, I'll add them to the list (giving you credit, of course.). Default/jumpsuit. Five mortal men, and Chris Hadfield. The default, restricting karbanauts to IVA and the surface of Kerbin. Dirt-cheap, though. Escape suit. Someone doing the impossible-Looking like a bad as a while wasting orange. This is a suit dedicated to "bailing out" of a space craft if something goes wrong during launch, or re-entry. No RCS, but has a parachute. This might be "early game" if space suits get implemented into research and development. Manned Maneuvering Unit "YAHOOOOOOOOOOOO!"-Captain Bruce McCandless II, mission specialist, STS-41-B An RCS "back-pack" that a kerbanaut wears during a spacewalk. Doesn't work on the surface of any body, but is the "go-to" for zero-g duties. Has a lot of RCS, and maybe a compartment for tools. Basic surface suit I could add a snarky comment, but that is a gosh-darned hero at work, and I would feel bad afterwards. Something with the protection and mobility for most other planets and moons. Less RCS than the current suit (say 10%), so learn to rely on rovers and other vehicles for transport. Extreme hazardous environment suit That's Yvan Grigorev, flight engineer on the BBC mockumentary Space Odyessy: Voyage to the planets. Here he is becoming the first man on Venus, and the first person to go to hell, and come back again. 1000 man-points to you, comrade. Very expensive, high-tech and bulky, but is the only suit capable of withstanding extreme pressures and temperatures, like on Eve. These suits would be put into a ships inventory in the VAB. (Not all of them. Each suit would take up space in a limited inventory, so take only the type and amount of suits you will need.) In-flight, when you wish to change a kerbanauts suit, you go into the ships knowledge base, go under crew, you select the kerbanaut and click "change suit". You'll be given a list of all the suits on board, you select the wanted one, and the kerbal changes. Easy as pie! Your feedback is much coveted. Thank you!

To clarify, I'm not talking about a "payload bay" like on the Space Shuttle (though that would be equally cool): The modules I'm ranting about would be more like the compartments in the Lunar Module descent stage: Instead of being an empty space you can put normal parts into, and then deploy by opening doors, the cargo module is something that looks a bit like a fuel tank, but has an inventory that can be accessed by a kerbanaut on EVA, like an Apollo astronaut taking out an ALSEP experiment or a Lunar rover.

I don't think he was considering putting it into a spacecraft. Maybe he wanted something like it in his car? I wouldn't blame him in any case, but the glass cockpit would be more to my tastes.

This is my favourite method of reaching orbit: Remember kids-it's the most important meal of the day! In all seriousness, I would swap out the brutal efficiency of asparagus for the simplicity and low part count of serial any day.

Yes. I really cannot stress it enough that Mars One is a PowerPoint presentation. They talk about what they're going to do on Mars, but not how they plan to get there. When any one piece of equipment in this picture exists, Mars One is worth talking about.

I suppose it is our nature to set limits, only to break through them, and then fry them with an enormous rocket engine. I'd love to see a thread focused on the new launcher. Maybe a super-sized Apollo mission is in order?

Hello there! You might've seen my post on the Apollo Applications Program. No? Then here it is! http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/45928-Beyond-Apollo-AAP-challenge Welcome back! Back to the idea thing I had! Do you remember this picture? It was a sketch of a "Block III" CSM, that unfortunately, never "took off". Never will I find, someone like you... This "cargo" CSM had space for stuff to be put into. It's basically a cardboard box glued to a spaceship. You don't really need a visual aid. Now, wouldn't it be the shizzle if this happened in KSP? Literally as he was typing about the obscure piece of space history above, he remembered something that actually happened, and explained the point much better. Remember the "toolbox" that was shown ages ago? You do remember me, right? Guys? The idea is that you have a container full of tools. When something breaks, a kerbal gets out a tool, fixes it, and puts the tool back in. You pretty much have the description of a toolbox down to a T, Drunk. Now, imagine something like the toolbox, but it can hold more than just tools. I call it a "box". In the VAB, you have a range of different "cargo modules", with different sizes, shapes and capacities. You put them onto your ships like any other part. Then you click on the "cargo" tab. You select a module to open it's inventory. Then you decide what goes in. You could put in experiments, equipment like antennae and floodlights, micro-satellites, even small crafts, like that manned rover you can't balance on your tiny-ass lander for the life of you. Their are limits on what you can put in. Every item has a set volume and mass. Once you reach the limit on either, that's it. You get your craft to where you want to go, like the Mun, for example. You've landed quite a distance from that cosy habitat you landed ahead of your manned mission. Luckily, you packed a rover. Select a kerbal on EVA, and click on the cargo module. Select the rover, and press "unpack". The rover then materialises next to the lander. Worried you may lose sight of your lander on the trip back? No worries, unpack one of the lights, and the kerbal you have selected grabs the light, to deploy like a flag. Why should this be a thing in the game? Well, if your like me, someone with a lower-end machine, part count is a thing you have to constantly worry about. That rover could be tens of parts that makes your mission more laggy and less fun. This turns it all into one part, only something for your computer to simulate when you're actually using it. Also, no more issues with balancing stuff. The way I see it, kerbals really like having holidays, so they're very good at packing their suitcases. This translates into the cargo module having a COM right in the middle. Yay for not getting killed in out-of-control landers! Feedback and constructive criticism is much appreciated as always. Thanks!

It would be nice to see a few aesthetic changes as your tech improves. Say you start off the game, and your tech would be equivalent to what humanity had in the 60s. The three-kerbal capsule IVA would look like this: Everything looking "manual", and requiring the computational power of an abacus. Then, as you go through the tech tree (or focus on "electronics" or something.", the IVA evolves into the modern "glass cockpit", full of computer monitors and keyboards, rather than nobs and needles: Of course, it would not be in 0.22, but as HarvesteR said, everything in the game has to go through several iterations between "addition to the game" to "final form".

He might be talking about how the space programs of the world seem (in the eyes of the public) to be doing nothing to address the problems we have on Earth, when the majority of missions launched into space are for the best interests of us and our planet. Earth orbiting satellites are useful for telecommunications and navigation, but are crucial in a deeper sense. Meteorology and climatology has benefitted immensely from having a view of the weather, natural disasters like hurricanes, and the effects of climate change from orbit. Calling these "space missions" implies that they only do things "up there", which is completely false. Someone could hear about a rocket launch and think it's a waste of money, not knowing that it is carrying the satellite that will one day give advance warning of the storm that would otherwise kill them.

Started on my new Kerbin orbit space station, planning on getting one in Mun orbit, and setting up a shuttle between the two, and a lander on the Mun station.

Gentlemen, you are going off-topic. If you wish to continue your discussion, then one of you begin a new thread, and move it there. I hardly think your opinions are totally worthless, I just want people who are interested in this thread to get what they expect.

The R-7 began it's career as an ICBM. It had to be able to climb into near-orbit with a five ton warhead, go half-way around the Earth, slam into some American city. Reentry meant going really fast into really thick air, so not burning up was a problem. Bringing heat shielding for the entire core stage + warhead would make the missile very heavy. The answer was making the warhead detachable from the missile, so only it needed shielding, making a lighter and longer range rocket. This had the notable benefit of being able to swap out the bomb with something else, like a satellite. After getting the R-7 built, all that was needed was to put a radio transmitter on the top and light the fuse.

I can't wait to see the finished product! That method of landing the rover was genius, I'll have to do something similar for my Munbase.

I downloaded it, extracted the files, copied the RBR folder over to gamedata, but the sounds won't work in-game. The plugin itself seems to work as it should, but no sounds are available. The sounds are in the RBR/sounds folder and everything. Help!

You, good sir, have acquired fun.

Well, since I had the idea of posting the thread, I should give mine, the imaginatively-named Orbital Command and Service Vehicle. 101 parts total, 93 excluding the launch clamps, and weighing in (or "massing in") at 123.14 tonnes, this is doing it my way. I faced it all, and I stood tall, and did it my way. It is supposed to be a KSP version of the Saturn-1B, which was capable to taking the Apollo CSM to LEO. To help make it at least function similarly, I opted for a cluster of 8 LV-T30s for the first stage, arranged in the same way the Saturn had for it's 8 H-1s. Yeah, 1 mainsail would've done it, but come on, style! Since it's difficult enough for Kerbanauts to get life insurance as it is, OCSV has an escape tower, tested in the two stages of flight most prone to RUD-Rapid Unplanned Disassembly-on the pad, and during the first stage. In his endless professionalism, Drunkrobot did the escape tower tests during the night. Those puffs of smoke are RCS thruster blocks hitting the ground, by the way. They're attached to the separator, and get launched when the capsule detaches from the Service module. Not to worry you or anything. You won't find that black magic they call "asparagus staging" here, this is serial. Seriously serial. Everything works itself out by smashing the space bar, the escape tower detachment is handled by the staging. Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! However, if there is a RUD, and you survive outrunning the massive fireball behind you, the 0 key detaches the tower, and releases the parachutes. No panic to stage the chutes before the ground hits you! After many (3) tests, the launcher has been proven to get the payload into a 100 by 20 orbit, perfect for getting rid of that infuriating space junk. This doesn't leave much room for error, so first timers wouldn't like this rocket. But the launch profile is simple enough, turn a little at 5km, a little more at 10, and gradually turning until your nearly horizontal by 30km. Now, onto the thing that does the space thing... 14.49 tonnes and 26 parts, this can do pretty much anything in the Kerbin SOI. 1,236 m/s dv is a pretty wide safety margin for a Kerbin orbiter, although the OCSV was designed to push small payloads, like a Mun lander. Here it is with a lander we totally did not steal from Wayfare Aerospace, Engineering + Kitchen Appliances. With it's docking light and monopropellant reserves bordering infinite, OCSV is really, like, really good at docking. He would prove it to you, but we don't have access to anything above screenshots yet. Space stations can be got to in a jiffy! This is off-topic, but that really is the one time we used a Cupola. The one time. Well, that's all I have to say about it. Do tell me what I should call it, because anything would be an improvement. Goodbye, friends!

There are so many things you can build in Kerbal Space Program- Mun rockets, interplanetary mother ships, landers, rovers, cannons-that it is very easy to forget the one you need to build first-a vehicle to get your guys from the pad orbit. Manned orbiters are the Microsoft Office of spacecraft-it's something everyone uses, but we never acknowledge it. However, although they never do anything or go anywhere interesting, they have to be used again and again and again. They need to be perfect-simple, fast, easy to use, and now we have these fascist demands-ermm, I mean, important safety regulations, they need to have a way of keeping the Kerbanauts alive. If your computer is low-end, like mine, they also need to be light on the parts. So, come on, give that trusty workhorse a moment in the spotlight!

Ok, I wasn't going for 100% realism. I wanted to leave no junk in space. Besides, the SPS was designed for multiple firings, just turn a few valves, and you have it lit.

You can determine quite a lot about an asteroid from astronomy, including the most important aspect of it i.e. whether it's going to intercept the Earth and kill us all. However, we only get hypothesis's from long-range observation, facts can only be got from either robots or human explorers. There are technical challenges to asteroid mining, like how do you control the asteroids attitude? How do you put it into Earth orbit? How do you get the mined material down to Earth (remember, "dumping all the material on the Earth at once" is the one situation we want to avoid.)? Those problems will be solved, technology always get's better. The problems I'm worried about are economic. When you dump trillions of pounds (£) worth of material into the international market, you've turned supply and demand on it's head. We've finally found a situation where the human race isn't demanding enough.

Yeah, we need things like the Lunar X prize, $20 million for the group that gets a rover on the Moon. I'm not sure if that money will even cover the costs of building it and getting it to the Moon, though.

It takes an Isaac Newton to create calculus, and a 15-year-old student to learn it.

So I was testing my Saturn-1B/CSM analogue for my Apollo Applications Program missions: <Placeholder screenshot> My plan for the launch procedure is to get to a 100km apoapsis (My most used orbit being the 100 by 100) and a periapsis of 20-23km before dropping the second stage (any higher, and the "debris" won't burn up, any lower, and I'm using more CSM fuel then I need to, to get a stable orbit.). It is ideal to bring with you only the fuel you need, any more just leads to a bulkier, more difficult to fly rocket. If the second stage does it's job with half it's fuel left, get a smaller tank. So, how much fuel did I have left in my second stage after my burn at apoapsis, after getting a 100 by 20 orbit? 0 litres. It was a perfect launch! My first thought as it happened was, "Wait, I'm good at this game know!?". It was the first test flight. I was fully expecting something catastrophic to happen (That's why it was an unmanned test.). It was an anti-fail, something going completely right by pure chance. I know this probably doesn't sound impressive, but for a perfectionist, I always mess something up before launch, like getting the stages wrong, or not putting space tape on a key structural weakness. Surely you have had a moment when the universe worked in your favour? If you remember it, tell it! It's nice when the game isn't trolling you. EDIT: In case your wondering "Maybe he just built some monstrosity and flew it poorly.", here it is: EDIT: Have a more in-depth of the craft here: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/46148-Manned-orbiter-megathread?p=594673#post594673