KSK

By throwing a lot of money at the problem. I would argue that we have 'good enough' technology right now for colonising the Moon and Mars, although the Jovian moons might be a stretch. What we don't have is bottomless pockets, or any sort of motivation to do so. As for mining Venus. First: terraform Venus. Then send in the miners. Alternatively, I'm with @kerbiloid - find a way of blowing chunks of rock into the upper atmosphere or low orbit and scoop them up from there. Not sure if that's even physically possible but it does have the merit of reducing the problem to 'building a bigger bomb' which, historically, humanity has never had a problem with. Or figure out how to synthesize unobtanium in the lab back on Earth. This stuff is made of stable elements I presume, as opposed to some exotic transuranic that lasts a microsecond or two if you're lucky? According to Wikipedia, Venus has a mean surface temperature of 462 degrees Celsius and a surface atmospheric pressure of 92 Earth atmospheres. Both of which are easily within the reach of off-the-shelf lab equipment. So if unobtanium formation is a byproduct of Venusian planetary conditions, we should be able to replicate those conditions in the lab. Which would be trivially easy compared to mining Venus.

Eve: Order Zero would make a cracking film. Heck, you wouldn't even need to change the title.

The Library now includes all stories posted in the Fan Works forum in 2016. Next task - update to include material from the Mission Reports sub-forum. This may take a while...

Cool - and added.

@purpleivan - congratulations on the sticky! Very much deserved.

I don't see the conflict between loyalty and critical / free thinking I'm afraid. Using a Space Race example, loyalty and party membership clearly weren't an obstacle to Soviet advancement in space technology. And presumably the vast majority of people working on the US space program (and all the technologies required for it) were loyal US citizens?

Not as far as I know. Which is a pity because all the advantages you pointed out should apply (again - as far as I know), so gravity wave communication would be cool if we could do it.

I don't think it's a frequency problem so much as an amplitude problem. The gravity waves that we can only just detect arise from some seriously violent cosmological events involving enormous masses. Black holes merging, that sort of thing. I'm sure our gravity wave detection technology will improve further but even so I really can't envisage a technological means for generating a detectable gravity wave.

My eyes.... My eyes!

I'd explain that in the same way that I'd explain real life Mars landers crashing because of confusions over units, real life rockets failing to work because of components installed upside down, real life interplanetary probes with stuck lens caps and deeply regrettable real life accidents occuring because the consequences of pure oxygen atmospheres weren't properly appreciated ahead of time. You can be as serious as you like and still make mistakes. And I'm willing to bet that many if not most of the experienced players on this forum still make 'unusual' design choices or forget their parachutes on occasion. Besides, this isn't a binary choice between 'dumb' and 'serious'. It's perfectly possible to be somewhere on a very long spectrum between those two endpoints.

And I do, thanks. Mainly because of the abysmal lack of choice in stock ascent pods. If I want to get more than three kerbals at a time into orbit, I'm forced to use spaceplanes, to hunt through mod packs or to get creative. The Hitchhiker fits neatly under a Mk1-2 pod. With a heatshield glued to the bottom it can survive reentry. With sufficient parachutes it can survive landing. I don't much care what it's meant to be used for - it lets me do a crew change on my space station in two flights rather than five. That's good enough for me.

@cy4n, @Andem and @The solid fuel chemist - your stories have all been duly indexed and a space found on a shelf for them all.

This comic (drawn by one Capt'n Skunky) might have something to do with it too. Also back in the early days (as in back before I bought the full game), the lack of parts did give everything that cobbled together look - because they were. Tottering stacks of barely held together boosters were the order of the day because that's what you needed to get to orbit, let alone anywhere else. I don't mind the 'parts found by the side of the road' meme in moderation - it has a certain British Interplanetary Society or Copenhagen Suborbitals charm to it. But, like you, I strongly dislike its 'kerbals are dumb - lol' popular connotations.

Nice Felipe shout-out. And no - never, ever forget your towel. Poor Reggie there - now he forgot his towel. And also a much larger handkerchief. And remember - never trust... the chicken.

Noted - thanks @JakeGrey. On a slightly different note, have an update about the real KIS! And yes - comparisons to KSP have not gone unnoticed in the comments.

The joy of KSP - sometimes serious physics and gameplay overlap. This thread could go in either forum in my opinion. One thing to add to @cubinator's excellent post, 'ln' means 'take the natural logarithm of the stuff in the brackets' Any scientific calculator (or scientific calculator program on your computer), will have an ln button, so don't worry about that part.

Hey - 'grats Jim! A thoroughly deserved Thread of the Year!

Well damn. You win the internet today. I can think of assorted tech forums where that first paragraph should be permanently emplaced as a banner ad, preferably with <blink> tags around it. It would save so many pointless arguments and outbursts of nerd rage. I would also add that patents are territorial so the question is moot unless Apple have managed to obtain patent rights on Kerbin. Which seems unlikely. But anyway, I get enough of this in my day job - please can we return to our regular scheduled tales of derring-do and villainy?

Not aiming this at you @magnemoe because you're right - this is an infamous case but it's also a terrible example of a bad patent. The 'rounded rectangle' patent (if I remember rightly) was a design patent and not a utility patent. Understandably, that distinction doesn't usually come across very well (or at all) in general conversation, hence the confusion. Utility patents are the kind of things we're discussing in this thread when we're talking about gene patents. Design patents are much more limited and only cover the three-dimensional shape and (I think) surface decoration of an article. The 'rounded rectangle' patent wasn't a general patent covering 'all phones with non-pointy corners', it was a patent for 'all phones with non-pointy corners that also look like a particular model of iPhone.' I'm not well versed in design patents but the European equivalent is a registered design right and (amongst other things) those need to be distinctive when compared to the so-called 'design corpus' that is, existing designs for other similar articles. You also need to consider the overall effect of the design - its not enough to do a point by point comparison of two designs and base your arguments on that. I don't want to get too definitive here because a) I'm not a patent attorney and b) I have no idea of your background and for all I know you might be one! With that said, I do work in IP for a living and I'm struggling to think how your example would work. Assuming for the sake of argument that any of these are also novel and inventive then I could imagine claims to: A process for extracting flower DNA. A method of engineering flower DNA into a potato (not as flippant as it might sound - transfecting plant cells is still relatively difficult compared to other kinds of cell) A modified flower gene such that it's adapted for expression in a potato cell A potato plant having a flower transgene (leaving the door open for anybody to use that flower gene in other plants) But I'm honestly not sure if you could obtain a patent for the gene itself rather than specific uses of that gene or ancillary processes for manipulating it.

Damn... That is all.

I see what you did there. I'll just leave that there 'k?

I take your point but consider why that company made a profit. Without descending into cliché, farmers are not known for throwing money at things for no reason. The reason Roundup Ready crops got so popular is purely because they work and they save the farmer enough money to compensate for needing to buy seed each year.

This. I thought that was the whole point of flagging up a craft as 'stock'. Not out of any sense of elitism but just to let people know that they can download/use/take inspiration from this craft regardless of what mods they have installed. As for posting stock challenges - what @Sharpy said. No elitism necessary or implied. Sheesh.

Alrighty then - I'll give this a try, using the last update to First Flight as an example. It probably goes without saying but - 'here be spoilers'. I'm hoping they won't be too much of a big deal since anyone who cares to read First Flight will probably be up to date anyway (and anyone who doesn't care to read it won't care about spoilers either) but nevertheless - this is a spoiler warning. OK, by way of a synopsis for those who haven't read it, there's been a steadily building global crisis on Kerbin that's finally come to a head. There have been occasional border skirmishes but this chapter marks the point at which the cold war finally goes hot. Now, for the most part, kerbal military technology started from a pretty scrappy place. Most, if not all of their vehicles are repurposed civilian vehicles and with a couple of exceptions their weaponry is more suitable to the odd police action than major conflicts. Even then, you can imagine most of it being poorly maintained and not really fit for purpose. Think of a fat, happy old sheriff out in the middle of Nowhere. Sure he's got his old sidearm under the desk but he hasn't needed to use it in decades and if he did fire it in anger it would most likely blow up in his face. Somewhat ironically, the one striking counter to this is a recent use of rocket artillery using technology copied from the space program. So with that in mind, here are my early chapter notes: "Val on patrol dropping propaganda leaflets, inviting refugees back to Kolus. Frustration that nobody is listening to Obrick and Donman. Engagement in the mountains. Guerilla tactics, IEDs, hit and run raids on logistics convoys. Intimations of heavier defences being called up from Wakiran centre. Firesvar forces fanning out into border regions. One brigade rolls through a Wakiran Grove - but does not stop to capture it. Likewise, Kolan Groves near the border are spared. Strategy meeting. Wakiran generals in the War Room, reviewing maps. Realisation that Firesvar troops are heading for unclaimed Kerm planting territory - at least to start with. Opportunity for counterattack - but any counter cannot be allowed to stagnate into a war of attrition and tie up planting land for too long." Anyhow, the first section was fairly easy. I'll stick it in spoilers because it's also fairly long. Note the use of mountaineers as tough, outdoor types who would make decent guerilla soldiers at a pinch. The second part was fairly straightforward too. This is the propaganda drop. Cloudrunners are repurposed racing planes - they don't have the space to fit any sort of radar gear. Kerbals do have radar of course, for navigation and air traffic control. Both sections were written more-or-less as you see them, although there was some cleaning and polishing along the way. Unfortunately, I don't tend to keep any rough drafts. The next bit was difficult and I got held up on it for quite a while. Eventually, I came up with these notes. "Chase scene – Firesvar convoy breaks through or around a hastily constructed Wakiran blockade pursued by the Wakiran forces. Initial assumption is that they’re heading for a cluster of Groves near the border. Wakiran forces break off once it becomes clear that they can’t catch up without being pulled badly out of position. Commander sends a scout force ahead to the Groves only to discover that the Firesvarn drove straight through, taking care to avoid the woodland and cultivated areas. Scouts guess that Firesvar is mainly interested in capturing Kerm-free territory and radios the main force to inform their commander. Firesvarn forces approach a new Grove zone (similar tactics to seen previously – annexation of territory to stake it out for a new seed) and overrun it. Main chokepoint smashed, defender’s weaponry inadequate against better prepared and armoured Firesvarn vehicles. Heavy loss of life. Defenders withraw, regroup and launch counter-attack at multiple points. POV changes to one named kerbal sneaking through the forest, taking out a Firesvarn picket by stealth (cutting a throat from behind, notes that ‘it helps when you can’t see their faces’. Segue to a bloody battle in which Wakiran forces prevail despite losses. Named kerbal sees his squadmate shot through the head shortly before he, himself is killed. End scene – some few Wakiran forces hold the chokepoint leaving motionless corpses and dark stained ground behind." I also figured out the chapter title. "A Grove for a Grove might make a good chapter title." Even with the notes, there were a couple of problems here, mainly because I know pretty much jack-squat about firearms but I did want to depict them as plausibly as I could. Cue, much internet research. No idea how well I did there, although I did try to avoid the obvious tropes. I also had to decide on an appropriate level of firearm technology. Eventually I decided on semi-automatic hunting rifles. As had been seen at other points in the story, my Kerbin is not short of various large, toothy critters (or small toothy critters for that matter) and my kerbals are nothing if not pragmatic. I figured a semi-automatic rifle would let them take down anything nasty at a safe range - and if that failed, to get another half-dozen shots in before said nasty closed to unsafe range. Fully automatic weaponry also seemed like overkill in an (until now) non-militaristic society. I ended up with this: Mostly, I stuck to the notes, although the final story wasn't quite as complicated and used fewer scenes. I also cut out the throat-cutting scene - even for a deliberately dark chapter that was a step too far and also far too cold-blooded for my kerbals as previously depicted.

Agreed, I'd go a step further and say that having the Kerbals expands the game by allowing players to feel that they can experiment with different play styles. A Human Space Program analogue of KSP would be a bit too close to reality, a little more po-faced because of it and I think would encourage that 'serious space sim' mindset. Which might not be a bad thing depending on your personal opinion but playing KSP as a serious space sim is clearly only one of the many ways that people do play it. Heck, I like to think that I play KSP reasonably seriously and I'm right with @Wallace and @GluttonyReaper. The sheer enthusiasm of the kerbals, that wide-eyed sense of wonder at what's going on around them, is a big part of the charm of the game and (in my opinion) as much a part of any real life space program as orbital mechanics or rocket engineering. Heck, read one of the Apollo mission transcripts some time - it's mostly all business but there are plenty of 'how did we ever get out here' moments too. And as for the kerbals as comic relief, I give you a couple of quotes from one Walter Schirra Jr. "A little levity is appropriate in a dangerous trade." "Levity is the lubricant of a crisis. We resort to jokes, pranks and good natured kidding to relieve tension, stress and boredom." Or you might like this section of the Apollo 12 transcript: 087:31:05 Bean (onboard): Take a bath, shave, get all cleaned up, good night's sleep... 087:31:09 Conrad (onboard): [Singing]. 087:31:14 Bean (onboard): You got anything else to do tomorrow? All right, that's what we'll do then. We'll go for a little lunar landing, how's that? Unless you got something better in mind - a little surfing at the beach, or something. 087:31:25 Conrad (onboard): Hell, yes. 087:31:26 Gordon (onboard): How about the backside Sand? Go play in the sand on the back side. 087:31:29 Conrad (onboard): [Laughter] Yes. Let's take the LM down and land on the back side. Wouldn't that shake them up? [Laughter]. 087:31:36 Bean (onboard): We could do our old DOI burn an hour later. We saw something on the back side that was a little more interesting than the front side. If a little levity in a space program is good enough for Schirra and Conrad, it's good enough for me!