Karriz

I would think that noise and light from the computer and router could decrease quality of sleep, but not the signals.

Mars Express stream should begin "soon" there: Edit: It's live.

Low orbit is a single biome when doing crew reports, but if you do an EVA report, it takes into account the biome that's below.

Well, it seems the ESA stream isn't working at all right now. Hopefully we'll get pictures from the probes around Mars soon enough.

There's also an ESA Mars Express livestream event: http://www.livestream.com/eurospaceagency

Finally got crew to my Duna base at Keriner Valley. Landing there is difficult, took a dozen tries to get it right. The base consists of a rover and a hab. The landing/ascent vehicle is a few kilometers away, and transfer mothership is in orbit. Moar: http://steamcommunity.com/id/Karriz/screenshots/?appid=220200

If they can make it work without harmful effects then I think it's fine. Of course it needs to be tested a lot. Half a year isn't that long of a time, it's going to be about half a percent of human lifespan if life expectancy keeps increasing. It's up to the astronauts if they want to go or not.

Turn on the terrain scatter in settings, it's off by default.

Better aerodynamics and payload fairings. MK3 overhaul. Proper IVAs for all cockpits. I think I would be very satisfied with those. The game would feel complete in a certain way, but there's of course plenty of things which could be added.

I think it makes sense for them to try a soft splashdown and get as much data as possible, there can't be any negative outcome of it. It'll fall into ocean anyways, so they might as well ignite the engines and see what happens. Orbcomm 2 next month(?) will be the first barge landing unless I'm mistaken, so they need to do testing whenever they have the opportunity.

The cost also includes the certification process though. I would imagine that that's what makes most of the cost, and later on NASA will only be paying for the launches.

Are my timezones correct if I assume that the stream will begin in 30 minutes?

Well, personally I don't see the point of having horizontally scrolling full-screen menus when working with mouse and keyboard. It's just a massive waste of screen space, and everything else scrolls vertically which is more logical with mouse wheel. I don't hate Windows 8, it's fast and has some improvements on the desktop side. Hopefully 8.2 will have a proper start menu, but maybe it won't be until Windows 9.

Huh, that's interesting. I'm not sure if the "uplifting air currents" could possibly carry plankton all the way up to ISS, though. Maybe there's been an experiment involving plankton? Although they'd probably know it...

In 64-bit Windows "Program Files (x86)" is where 32-bit programs go, while just "Program Files" stores 64-bit programs.

This particular launch may not have done anything new with the reusability development, but there's nothing wrong with opening a thread about it anyways. I doesn't matter if it's SpaceX or ULA or any other launch provider out there.

The comet is probably not "erupting" yet, but it's getting closer to the sun and should start warming up, which should be quite a show to the probe.

Well, it's clear that they should add biomes and update the ground details in all of the existing planets before adding more. I'm optimistic that when they finally get to the scope-complete phase and start focusing on content, they'll add more planets.

Unmanned exploration is certainly way less risky, cheaper and gives great science returns, and I do find probe missions inspirational, for example I'm excited to see what Rosetta will find. But, I think there's more to space exploration than pure science. I realized that increasing the funding alone won't help though, if most of the money goes to stuff like SLS. Private companies should design and build most of the hardware, and have more freedom to make it efficient. Space agencies can then focus on deciding mission goals, training astronauts and such. Maybe that way things could actually get done.

I don't think we should wait for some new technology (warp drive?) to appear before exploring space, because that technology will never get invented that way. We must use what we have now, and go on developing new technology from that basis. Of course there will always be excuses not to spend money on exploration. Poverty, diseases, economic crises, wars... Nobody knows how to solve those problems, but trying to reach our limits certainly won't hurt, either. There's plenty of tax money spent on things which are counter-productive, in any country. I wouldn't count space exploration as one, it's quite the opposite.

I agree that in terms of scientific returns, unmanned missions are more efficient. But, when it comes to inspiration and engineering achievements, manned missions are needed, too. For sustainable manned missions, we need more reusability, which is exactly what some companies are trying to do right now. For example, SpaceX has the ultimate goal of colonizing Mars, and this goal in mind they're already making good progress in creating a reusable launch system. Of course going to Mars will still cost quite a lot at first, but it'll never become cheap unless there's a drive to make it cheap in the first place.

I'm not suggesting anything like the Venus project or stuff like that. I'm suggesting, like many others, that maybe space exploration deserves a bit more money, considering how small amount of money is currently spent on it, and science in general of course.

I think that's the wrong way to look at it. We can't just wait that something will be developed to improve our quality of life sometime in the future, we must actively try to reach our limits in order to get a "reason" to develop these technologies, otherwise our civilization will stagnate. Since you're in the KSP forum, you probably get the sense of awe that space exploration creates. There's no reason to be overly pessimistic about it, it's a source of inspiration that we should use.

Wait, what? I think we need some kind of a "goal" to look forwards to. And of course this all inspires children to become scientists and engineers, who will further help improve our quality of living in the future. The spinoff products of space exploration are used in our daily lives, help us communicate with each other, help us detect cancer, help us purify water on poor areas etc. etc. etc. Edit: Okay, and while it's true that there isn't much in space that could directly help us here on Earth, I think it's vital that we become an interplanetary species to ensure our survival. There's an endless space out there, full of endless possibilities. It's not just a dark void that we should ignore and never look up to the sky, because the new iPhone is more exciting. That's how I see it, anyways.

NASA's Orion will do an unmanned flyby in 2017, it'd make sense to do a manned mission a couple of years after that, to have at least some kind of a destination. No other country is going to have a deep-space craft anytime soon, and while NASA lacks direction at the moment, Lunar flyby would seem like an obvious choice. It's certainly more interesting to public than going nowhere.