Karriz

I know that peope are skeptical about mars One, and that's perfectly understandable, considering that there are still some big holes in their plans. However, it seems like today we'll hear something new, they have an announcement coming up regarding their first unmanned mission that's supposed to launch in 2016. According to their roadmap, this would mean a communications satellite at Mars orbit. Anyways, if they have an actual contract with Lockheed Martin and SSTL, that would certainly give them some credibility. The livestream will be there at 10:30am EST: http://www.mars-one.com/en/11-news/516-countdown Well, the way I see it that now they could manage to convince people about the seriousness of their plan, if the hardware is already being designed. If it's just some concept art, they're not getting anywhere.

This one, NASA's next manned spacecraft: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orion_(spacecraft) Currently the first (unmanned) orbital flight test is planned for fall 2014.

Most sci-fi movies seem to take place in an alternate universe, where space is filled with some kind of aether. That explains why huge battleships act like submarines, and fighters work as if they were in atmosphere. It would be interesting to see more realistic space battles in a movie. It wouldn't necessarily be boring.

I used the TouhouTorpedo's rover cockpit and shuttle cargo bay. It's a copy of a similar rover that Scott Manley used in one of his videos, in reusable space program series.

I usually go with a skycrane, or simply attach the rover to the bottom of a lander. Here's one simple design I like: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=184316410 With bigger rovers I've had quite bad luck. This is the only successful "space truck" I ever landed: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=143020091 I simply tipped the lander over.

Circumference of the station would be 2*pi*5/2 = 15.7 miles. 40 * 15.7 = 628.3 So, the speed would be 628.3 miles per hour, that is 280 m/s. Actually, that seems to be surprisingly fast. I wonder if I did something wrong here?

I think they were rotating a bit so there was some centrifugal force. At least that's how I explained it to myself.

I think a manned spacecraft should always be designed with safety in mind, and the ground team should pay extra attention to any anomalies. I read an interesting article about Shuttle Atlantis, which was almost lost in 1988, just like what happened to Columbia: http://www.spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts119/090327sts27/ Frankly, I think Space shuttle was dangerous. It was a fine vehicle, but way more dangerous than a traditional space capsule.

I don't see any spoilers here. Okay, the fact that there's a cave system on Tylo is new to me, but now I at least have something to search for if I ever go to Tylo. Embedding a picture with a location of the cave system, now that would be a spoiler.

Sun heating would certainly make sense, along with re-entry heat damage and stuff like that. Currently, only engines can overheat, but I'm sure that these are things which Squad will improve in the future. Getting destroyed by sun probably isn't triggered by the heat, but instead just a set altitude that makes you go poof.

Doing an Apollo-style mission to Ike, and returning back to Kerbin (okay, I ran out of fuel on the return trip, so I had to send a rescue craft and do a solar orbit rendezvous). Either way, that's my only interplanetary mission with a return back to Kerbin. I have to try a Duna landing+return at some point. In Jool system I've only landed a rover on Laythe. So there's certainly plenty to do. I haven't even managed to create a working SSTO plane yet.

Well, their English is quite rough, but the other guy really sounds like someone who knows this stuff. He just has difficulties explaining it in different language.

Apparently this site will be broadcasting the launch (supposedly, some guy in another forum posted the link): http://english.cntv.cn/live/p2p/index.shtml Edit: they're streaming now!

I don't think that's an delay. The article stated that the launch will happen 04:30 AEDT on Dec 2, which is still 17:30 December 1 in GMT time. That is the same time which was announced a coupe of days ago: http://spaceflightnow.com/tracking/

Vacuum itself doesn't have a temperature, but being in a direct sunlight would obviously heat things up quite a bit in real life. On the other hand, in shadow the temperature would slowly radiate away. Maybe this'll get implemented in the game at some point.

I really hope there will be a video livestream of the landing, and some roving around. That would certainly increase the public interest in space, seeing an actual HD video from the Moon. LADEE didn't take any pictures, did it? It has really been quiet in mainstream media. The thing is, that people like pretty pictures. It makes things more concrete. Of course I understand that the payload weight has to be taken into account when designing a spacecraft.

Good to hear, I was starting to wonder if they were going to lauch it in December or not, and then it's suddenly just a couple of days away. It's kind of odd how they chose to keep the launch schedle secret until now. There was an thread already, though: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/50149-Moon-landing-2013-%28Chang-e-3%29/page8

I think once the mission system gets implemented, going to new planets will give you money. Having a science reward wouldn't really make much difference; you'd get a lot more by doing experiments, anyway.

The funny thing is, that I just learned two days ago that my country (Finland) has some kind of Mars probe mission planned. It's called MetNet, and supposedly it should launch in 2014. Website of the project is dead, but they do have a Twitter account with recent activity. Now, how on Earth is it possible that I haven't heard of this earlier? It's as if they want to keep it a secret. Apart from that, there are some Finnish parts in Russian, ESA and NASA space probes, that's all I know. If I was in charge of my country's space stuff, I'd increase the media outreach quite a bit. I'd also get Finland more involved at ESA. We aren't in the manned spaceflight program, and we didn't pay a dime for the ISS, which is a shame.

-Interplanetary manned missions must have a hitchhiker crew tank -Do not use nuclear engines for manned landers or in-atmosphere -Try to bring Kerbals back home alive -Before launching a mission, make sure it has enough delta-v, TWR and all that stuff (obviously piloting mistakes may still screw things up) That's about it.

I like to use 2m engines on 2m tanks, I don't really pay much attention to what is the most efficient choice. Usually I put poodle on my landers and transfer stages, and sometimes it can work as a second stage for light-weight probes. To be honest, I'm only using Lv30 and Lv40 because I finally had to build 1m launchers in the career mode.

I thought you already could pack parachutes? I'm pretty sure such an feature exist, but I could be wrong. The spaceplane cockpits are basically just placeholders, from the old C7 pack. Squad will do a complete overhaul of the plane parts at some point.

It impossible on the Moon as Moon rotates so slowly (there's no way to have an orbit that matches the rotating speed, and in fact the counterweight would have to be above that orbit). Mars would be easier then Earth, though. The main problem is the lack of strong enough materials. There's a lot of talk about carbon nanotubes, which may one day make space elevators possible, but we'll see.

Build bases on other planets, try different mods. Kethane and the extra planets mod for example.

It's the alcubierre drive, which NASA is supposedly researching as well. The idea is that while objects can't move faster than light, same doesn't apply to space itself. In order to work, such a technology would require entirely new type of energy. So it remains purely hypothetical until we get some big advances in science.