RuBisCO

You are comparing propellants that were too difficult to work with, to infrastructure lock: The main challenge for NASA and proponents of the green monopropellant fuel is to convince space mission planners that the alternative fuel and its thrusters, which have never flown in space, won’t fail. Hydrazine is well-understood, as are its effects on components. “It’s very complex getting these new systems accepted on spacecraft, by the spacecraft user community, especially when you’re talking half-billion-dollar geocom assets and can we actually put new technology on them,” McLean says. Almost all of today’s commercial Earth-orbiting spacecraft are propelled by 1960s-era-thruster designs. New fuels have “a lot of inertia to overcome,” he says. One key to acceptance is flight heritage: showing that a green-fuel-powered spacecraft has flown in orbit — starting with a single flight — without failing. “That gives us the ability to point back and say, ‘Hey, we’ve been through everything it takes to get this thing manufactured, integrated, processed, launched and operational,’” McLean says. “Every single one of those [steps] is a huge hurdle to overcome technically.” --- https://aerospaceamerica.aiaa.org/features/green-propellant/ Look name me a inferiority of AF-M315E specifically?

Aaah when you mix miscible liquids, you get a new melting point. Yeah and electric cars have been studied since the 1880's too... so what?

Ok ok if I weigh say 100 kg and I throw 1 kg at 5909 m/s how much velocity will I gain in the opposite direction? Now if I throw 1 kg at 1969 m/s how much velocity will I gain in the opposite direction? It seems to make perfect sense to me.

Handling cost is the problem, not the cost of propellant its self. "A 2012 Ph.D. dissertation by Christyl Johnson, now NASA Goddard’s deputy director for technology and research investments, found that the pre-launch processing and handling costs for the Swedish launch of a spacecraft powered by ammonium dinitramide, a green propellant that is more hazardous than the GPIM propellant, were $437,955 less than the equivalent costs for hydrazine. The U.S. Department of Transportation is reviewing proposed rules for the GPIM green fuel so that spacecraft builders can ship fully fueled, ready-to-launch green-propellant spacecraft across the country. The only step required at the launch site would be pressurizing the fuel tanks." --- https://aerospaceamerica.aiaa.org/features/green-propellant/ Despite the lower ISP then N2O4/MMH, it is a monopropellant and thus requires half the piping and valves, the costs saving and reliability increase (ever valve is a possible failure mode) for low delta-v task like attitude control, station keeping and orbital maneuvers are worthwhile and why hydrazine is often used in place of N2O4/MMH despite the significantly lower ISP.

Chemical and Nuclear rockets operate via the temperature of their propellant. Temperature correlates to velocity via the equation provided in this online caculator: http://calistry.org/calculate/kineticTheoryVelocityCalculator Hydrogen has a (root mean squared) velocity of 5909 m/s at 2800 K, Water though has a velocity of 1969 m/s at 2800 K. This means you can get a lot more impulse out of hydrogen than water per kg at the same temperature. Worse more complex molecules hold more energy in their chemical bonds (cause they have more bonds and more orientational energy states) this heat capacity is basically energy wasted. Ion engines though are limited by the velocity they can accelerate particles via electrostatic or magnetic forces: the bigger the mass and lower the ionization energy of an ion, the better. the velocity at temperature is irrelevant because temperature is not how it is being accelerated.

Well I think it is a little late for that if they are going to fly it soon and try to push it on the open market, they are going to eventually have to release the fuel recipe. What bothers me again is that this research was going on since the 1950's, like I said before the book ignition has a whole chapter dedicated to experiments on making better mono-propellants ending with nitrate ammonium ionic liquid fuel/oxidize blends of excellent performance and stability, so I suspect the US military has been keeping this stuff under wraps for decades as torpedo propellant or such. Another problem is Infrastructure lock/inertia: If you are dropping millions/billions of dollars for a spacecraft you want reliability and flight proven performance over better efficiency. Thus technological improvement is hampered because everyone is buying the old reliable stuff.

I assume the fuel blended in reduces the melting point signifigently. In fact: "AF-M315E also is expected to improve overall vehicle performance. It boasts a higher density than hydrazine, meaning more of it can be stored in containers of the same volume. In addition, it delivers a higher specific impulse, or thrust delivered per given quantity of fuel, and has a lower freezing point, requiring less spacecraft power to maintain its temperature." But I guess like the secret added fuel its melting point is classified as well. But according to this (page 22) the melting point is below 0°C but I guess above -22°C where it begins to freeze into a "glass". Maaayyybeee, I think only they know.

This year (hopefully) the next Falcon Heavy launch will lift a little engineering project among its many customer mini-satilites called "Green Propellant Infusion Mission". This little <181 kg satilite will test a new alternative monopropellant called AF-M315E (hydroxylammonium nitrate (NH3OHNO3) fuel/oxidizer blend, the added fuel is apparently secret). AF-M315E has 12% higher Isp (257 vs. 235 sec) compared to hydrazine, and is 45% more dense (1.47 vs. 1.00 g/ml), is as stable if not more so ("significantly reduced sensitivity to adiabatic compression than hydrazine"). Most importantly of all AF-M315E relatively non-toxic, unlike hydrazine which is a decent nerve gas, and thus does not need a hazmat crew to load/off-load and thus greatly reducing handling costs. What is sad is reading from the book "Ignition!" shows signifgent work on nitrate ammonium ionic liquid fuel/oxidizer blends had been done in the 1950's and it is likely the military has kept this stuff secret for decades. This fuel should become the monopropellant of choice for satilites >100 kg as attitude control and orbital maneuvering propellant. According to the below study if used for a Mars Skycrane setup in place of hydrazine it would increase the landing cargo capacity by 58 kg and if used for WFIRST would save >160 kg of mass. Its greater density and simpiliar-lighter monopropellant nature means it could also take a chunk out of the N2O4-MMH bi-propellant thrusters buisness as well. https://www.rocket.com/files/aerojet/documents/Capabilities/PDFs/GPIM AF-M315E Propulsion System.pdf

Ok ok geez guys, well lets see what fix they come out with in 1.4.1... nnaaahh, here is what I would like to see then (using precious 9:1 wet:dry ratio): R-4 'Dumpling' R-11 'Baguette' R-12 'Doughnut' Oscar-B Wet Mass 0.135 0.405 0.3375 0.1125 Dry Mass 0.015 0.045 0.0375 0.0125 Wet:Dry Ratio 9:1 9:1 9:1 9:1 Fuel 10.8 32.4 27 9 Ox 13.2 39.6 33 11 Fuel:Ox Ratio 9:11 9:11 9:11 9:11 Prop Mass 0.12 0.36 0.3 0.1 Oscar-B needs to be halved to make it all fair by volume. The 'Dumpling' is 133.3333333% the volume of the Oscar-B so I used as prop mass ratio of 120% to make for non-endless decimal numbers. Notice the dry mass are whole numbers in kg divisible by 5 for the R-4 and R-11, nice for number OCD. Underlined is all you need to change in the .cfg file. Other number options: R-4 'Dumpling' R-11 'Baguette' R-12 'Doughnut' Oscar-B Wet Mass 0.144 0.432 0.3375 0.1125 Dry Mass 0.016 0.048 0.0375 0.0125 Wet:Dry Ratio 9:1 9:1 9:1 9:1 Fuel 11.52 34.56 27 9 Ox 14.08 42.24 33 11 Fuel:Ox Ratio 9:11 9:11 9:11 9:11 Prop Mass 0.128 0.384 0.3 0.1 R-4 'Dumpling' R-11 'Baguette' R-12 'Doughnut' Oscar-B Wet Mass 0.1485 0.4455 0.3375 0.1125 Dry Mass 0.0165 0.0495 0.0375 0.0125 Wet:Dry Ratio 9:1 9:1 9:1 9:1 Fuel 11.88 35.64 27 9 Ox 14.52 43.56 33 11 Fuel:Ox Ratio 9:11 9:11 9:11 9:11 Prop Mass 0.132 0.396 0.3 0.1

As I said in the bug fix site you need with switch 'Round' and 'Capsule' around, as the 'Capsule' is thrice the volume of the 'Round'. Well maybe it is time for them to diversify. I mean they already got different skins.

Ok I did it, and added my updated .cfg files.

Yeah I think the mass ratios are really off there. The gold tanks should have better mass ratios in my opinion than any other tanks at the cost of being more expensive and easier to damage. And of course the ratios should be depend on surface area to volume, thus the R-4 should be better then the R-11, which should be better then the R-12, not the other way around as it is now. I have also noticed the fuel:ox ratio is not correct with the R-11, the normal fuel:ox ratio is 9:11, the R-11 those has left over oxidizer and a fuel:ox ratio of 4:5. Looking at the config file here are the fuel and weight ratios: R-4 'Dumpling' R-11 'Baguette' R-12 'Doughnut' 'ROUND-8' (KSP 1.3.1) Wet Mass 0.4475375 0.3038 0.31 0.3375 Dry Mass 0.3375 0.03375 0.01 0.0375 Wet:Dry Ratio 1.32603703703704 9.00148148148148 31:1 9:1 Fuel 10 24 27 27 Ox 12 30 33 33 Fuel:Ox Ratio 5:6 4:5 9:11 9:11 As you can see something is very screwy with the 'R' Series of tanks, despite being nice and shiny. Editing the config files here is what I would change R-4 'Dumpling' R-11 'Baguette' R-12 'Doughnut' Wet Mass 0.1625 0.4875 0.325 Dry Mass 0.0125 0.0375 0.025 Wet:Dry Ratio 13:1 13:1 13:1 Fuel 13.5 40.5 27 Ox 16.5 49.5 33 Fuel:Ox Ratio 9:11 9:11 9:11 What you see underline is what you will have to change.

I will buy an expansion... IF its coming with new parts. Things I would pay money for: 1. Full Atmosphere effects with clouds, rain, wind, dust storms, etc, the mod clouds are good, pay them and improve on it. 2. Life Support, cryogenic module, food production, more advance resources, again their are mods for this but none of the I feel are finished.

Having trouble with mechjeb rover again. It won't engage brakes at certain inclines, I believe it thinks fewer wheels are touching the ground then actually are and it is below the Traction Brake Limit which I can't seem to change below 75%. Update: I was able to fix the problem by editing the .cfg file in \MechJeb2\Plugins\PluginData\MechJeb2, I think the problem was that it had the same name as its orbiter, so I gave the rover another name. I still can't change the setting in the GUI though, only by manually editing the file and only while KSP is off.

... AAAAAAaaaaahhh!

I still can't get waypoints to work in 2.7.0 either.

Amazing, I'm loving the new damage feature, it even takes a lot of 20 mm rounds to bring down a plan, but the 30 mm round only a few are needed. Some questions though: what does the bust of flames mean? It really slows down my computer to. Yeah that flame effect needs some work, or perhaps it is my version of directX/opengl?

I've noticed in the PAC-3 missile is really devastating now, so devastating that it can blow a plane up simply by passing the plane... I think something wrong, the missile does not blow up in its own explosion.

Yeah I have tried those, would be nice if they just came with the BD Armory mod. The more mods the less downloads on KerbalX. I do have a solution of using the 30 mm cannon turrets locked forward and hidden as "pop out" cannons. With the new ballistic parameters those rounds still do a whole lot of damage.

I guess it is realistic though, what I want is nude 20 mm and 30 mm cannons like the 50 cal that can can shove into wings and fuselage.

Well I as playing with the new beta with the realistic weapons damage, yeah now the 50 cal is basically useless, I can pump ~2000 rounds into a small plane before felling it. The 20 mm cannon also takes a couple of hits before a part goes, it is only the 30 mm cannon that can blow a plane apart in a handful of hits. The bullet hole decals are a nice touch, but often float above the surface.

So why are the 50 cal round so ridiculous overpowered?

The rover waypoint driving simply does not work (can't control heading) in the latest build but does work in 2.6.1

So been testing out 1.3.1 on windows things that are buggy with MechJeb 1. Autolanding: it can't land where you tell it to anymore, also keeps trying to warp at low altitude 2. Accent Circularizing Orbits: In accent mode when it comes time to automatically circularize the orbit it often chooses a new inclination instead of staying on the one it is on. So far everything else seem to work properly, rover nav, landing prediction, etc.

Put wings on it and add under-structure, hence the higher structure to fuel ratio I used, which is typically 5%, not 10%-30%.