Karriz

I suppose that they kind of have a similar look in them, and I probably noticed that when I first time watched the movie because I was/am a huge SW nerd. Actually, after some Googling I found the official name for this fictional technology: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Composite-beam_laser

There are some online simulators of the Apollo Guidance Computer, it's fun to play around with these: http://svtsim.com/moonjs/agc.html http://apollo.spaceborn.dk/dsky-sim.html

Well, I'm not sure how many launches you'd need to build such a massive ship using chemical rockets. Thousands, or even more? Getting anywhere close to the speed of light (0.1c perhaps?) with a reasonably sized ship would require some kind of nuclear propulsion. Or whatever plasma/antimatter stuff scientists might come up with eventually.

Yeah it may not seem like much special is going to happen, but I'm very interested in seeing the Philae comet landing. Also, Orion MPCV should do its first unmanned flight this Fall, unless it's delayed. 2015 is of course much more interesting with both Ceres and Pluto missions, and who knows, maybe the first crewed flight of Dragon?

This is what I used for my first (and so far only) two-way mission to Duna: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=201391915 http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=201794140 Those 3-kerbal capsules on the sides had sepatrons on them so I was able to deorbit them once I got back to Kerbin.

As every kid, I was interested in space and dinosaurs, but I suppose I was way more interested than others. I had several books about dinosaurs and space. But only a couple of years ago (I'm now 19) I got this weird obsession in space, after reading a book about space race. Then I found KSP, and learned orbital mechanics from it. It's a bit weird, I never before figured out how it works. I think schools should certainly teach this stuff better, to avoid misconceptions.

It does need some changes and new features. I definitely agree that some kind of anomalies would be great, and give EVAs a true meaning. You could scan the surface from orbit, and then send a mission to the surface to get some samples. Probes should have more abilities. Maybe a robotic arm that could scoop up samples? And the ability to scan planetary surfaces. Permanent space stations and bases should generate science and money, and you'd need to send supply missions to keep them running, as you mentioned. Having a surface base module (horizontal landing, conveniently placed doors) would be great, as the current science lab is clearly meant for orbital use.

I've never heard of that one. I know that US military planned on detonating a nuclear device on the Moon in late 1950s, as some sort of a response to Sputnik, but thankfully the project never took off. Obviously it wouldn't have done much damage to Moon itself, though; just another small crater.

I had never succeeded in making a SSTO, but with RAPIERs I got a plane into orbit at first try (once I got it to fly in the first place). Next thing to try would probably be a large cargo plane.

That's really awesome footage, cool how the lander came to a complete standstill before doing the final descent. Seems like it touched down quite fast.

More pictures are coming in, I'd suggest following https://www.facebook.com/ChinaSpace Now that's looking good.

Yeah, there was some talk about preserving the landing sites, because they're historical artifacts and stuff, but what really could stop anyone from going that close? Nobody owns the Moon, so US government cannot do anything about it. I think the descent modules and surrounding equipment should stay untouched where they are, but in the future I'd imagine that they'll be popular tourist destinations. Like a space museum.

Actually there aren't supposed to be stars in pictures where the Lunar surface is visible, because of the exposure. He was being sarcastic about the conspiracy theorists. This one is apparently a slightly fixed version of the Chinese picture:

Actually, it depends on which side of the planet (relative to the Sun) you are. Think about it: on the other side, the planet is rotating to the same direction as the planet is orbiting the Sun, but on the opposite side, it's rotating in the other direction. So, launching into the usual 90 degree equatorial orbit is always the most efficient way to do an interplanetary transfer, to both the outer and inner solar system.

I remember seeing a resource chart with tons of stuff in it. Well, that indeed did seem unnecessarily complicated, so I'm not surprised that they chose to revise it. We'll see what they'll come up with now.

Youtube has many videos of the last minute of landing (240p unfortunately), but I couldn't find the whole thing. I hope I'll get to see the rover deployment live, whenever that happens.

That's certainly not the intention, and can be avoided with proper testing and having a decent amount of spare parts available. But, I do think that a Lunar base would be a logical stepping stone towards human settlement of Mars.

It's a shame that the next mission to closely study the moons of Jupiter (JUICE) won't arrive there until 2030. And even that is more focused on Ganymede, for some reason. There's almost twenty-year gap in between, and I certainly think that Europa should get it's own mission during that time.

I suppose that knowing the exact time of clock would reduce the asking threads. But of course, delays can happen and then you would still have those threads. So I don't think there's a way around it.

That's not what people want. Having the ability to replace the oxidizer space with fuel would be cool. Of course you couldn't go above that.

Isn't it usually 3 when they're waiting for the new crew? Usually they bring the old crew home before sending the new one, although in November they did it the other way around, which I thought was an exception. Either way, it's usually just a few days with a 3 crew members.

Triton for example is believed to be a captured Kuiper belt object. I'm not sure if other moons of Neptune have enough gravity to help in the capture, but that's probably the only possible explanation. The way how this works confused me as well, but it indeed works if there are more than two objects involved.

I'm sure it'll be added in the future. Right now they're focusing on the science system, after that it's probably missions and money, to get the basics of the career mode working. Resource system should come later, as they start implementing more large-scale space colonization features and such.

Also, the 2023 manned landing has been delayed to 2025 in their updated plans, which I think is a good thing. Seems like they got a little more realistic, but we'll see. The livestream begins in a few minutes.

Okay, so they just launched an Indiegogo campaign for a 2018 lander+satellite mission. http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/mars-one-first-private-mars-mission-in-2018 Even if their manned objectives have a too tight schelude, do you think this is plausible?