KSK

Time to bust out that accordion.... Ohhhh - he's been a mad rover on Bop's rugged shores. Spent all his sanity, gobbling down ore. Now nickel ain't bad but blutonium's best. Blowing up Kerbin t'was only in jest. And it's no, naaaaay, never. No, nay, never no more, Will he be the mad rover On old Bop's rugged shore.

Strannik - bah. I reckon Jerrigh's Ussari accent has just improved substantially.

A totally excellent day. Hanging out with Jake - big thanks for making the trip down my friend - that's one afternoon that finished way too soon! Geeking out about spacesuits and Soyuz with one of the museum staff and generally getting to wander around a fantastic space exhibition. Some particular highlights from that: A very early rocket engine from the days when the Soviet space program was the domain of enthusiastic amateurs and big dreamers. Made from a blowtorch and melted down cutlery and no, I'm not making this up! Sputnik 3. If you'll forgive the blatant self-reference, I could totally see the KIS knocking something like that together. For that matter, the 'opened up' model of Sputnik 1 bore more than a passing resemblance (completely coincidentally) to the Kerbin 2 satellite. Lunokhod! I had no idea that this was also intended to be a rescue vehicle for stranded Soviet moon walkers. Problem with the lander? No worries - we'll remote land a backup and send a Lunokhod over to pick up the stranded pilot. Possibly the most kerbal scheme I've ever heard of!

Thanks! One last quick comment. If you haven't already found it, this thread might be worth checking out: As you'd expect it's mainly focused on KSP fiction but there are some properly good writers on it and I'm sure they'd be happy to help out if you ever wanted some more feedback on The Void. Sorry about the long winded link - the forum editor isn't playing nicely with my tablet.

OK, if we didn't know it before we do now. This guy is definitely a couple of cans short of a six-pack. And he's lost the plastic thingy that holds them all together...

Hi Spaceception, I just found this story - hope you don't mind me dropping by with a couple of comments. Firstly - interesting start with a lot of potential for a really gripping story. A double race against time to build the evacuation ship before the black hole hits or, perhaps more importantly, before the world descends into anarchy - great premise. A couple of thoughts going forward. I appreciate that you're just setting the scene for the main story but it does feel a bit quick. In particular, the characters seem to have accepted their fate - and then found a solution to it - awfully fast. "OK guys. We're gonna declare global martial law. Then we're gonna build ourselves a giant experimental starship. Everyone cool with that? Everyone? Right - let's get on with it." I'm all for pragmatism over excess melodrama but a bit more surprise from some of your characters would have been good. That security guard might have been a bit more skeptical for example. Also - and you've probably heard this umpteen times before, but try to show not tell. Take this part for example: "You heard me," said Jack, "In 7 years, the Earth will go into an ice age, and in 29, the Earth will be pulled into an orbit closer than Venus, and more elliptical than Mercury, raising its temperature past the boiling point." Rather than just having Jack reel off the bad news, I might have had him demonstrate the problem to Robert on one of the simulation room computers and described Robert watching the unfolding simulation and his reactions to it. That would also allow for a bit more description of how the black hole is going to cause all those effects - I know that I'm not quite getting it, even after reading that chapter a couple of times. Next - your story, your rules. Feel free to ignore any of the above comments if they don't work for you or the way you want to write your story. Finally - and most importantly - good luck and have fun with your writing! Stick with it and don't be too worried about getting everything right first time. I know I've re-read parts of my own writing and what I thought was really cool at the time is... less cool in hindsight. That's OK - I'm still learning, my writing is getting better (I hope!) and I can always go back and fix the flaky bits later.

Oops. Sounds like that didn't really go to plan. Nice writing - I like the email and letters format. Look forward to the next instalment when you have time to post it!

Can't get this to appear inline but Little Joe was kind of what I had in mind for the early parts, or Mercury-Atlas, maybe a bit less refined. They're definitely not at the stacked oildrum level but I wouldn't call em sleek either. Little Joe is something I could imagine being out together in Jeb's junkyard - no offense intended to its designers or builders!

Well, I hope the early parts aren't sleek. They don't need to be rusty but rivets, join lines, a bit of scuffing - that's all fine. Something that looks like a rocket you might build whilst you're still learning how to build rockets. Look at the early Atlas boosters used for Project Mercury, or any of the old Soviet stuff for example. Sleek isn't the word I would use to describe them. Functional or rugged might be. With that said, I would like to see a sense of progression. The current aesthetic for 1.25m vs 2.5m parts is back to front in my opinion. What I would also like to have is some way for the graphical style of a given fuel tank stack to reflect the style of the largest single tank in the stack. Say I have a tank built from two FLT-400s. It should look like two FLT-400s. But if I build a tank from an FLT-800 plus a 400, the whole tank should look like a stretched 800 tank. I don't know how feasible that would be but it would stop your rockets looking quite as patchwork. I'd also like some of the engine parts to look a bit more sensible. I've never seen a rocket engine that even resembles a Poodle, a Terrier or a Spark.

In great detail I expect, given that they build the capsules and have already have relevant experience from testing Dragon 1.

Probably not but I'm sure going to enjoy watching them try.

I'd probably snore in zero-G. Chances of me making it to Mars without being murdered by irate sleepless crewmates, mulched, and recycled into fertilizer are about zero.

This. A mole is just a number of atoms. So if you have 12.04 moles of propylene, then those 12.04 moles contain 36.12 moles of carbon atoms.

I like that too. I was trying to think of a good way of implementing my earlier suggestion but couldn't really think of one. That would do the trick though.

Hmm, not sure. The orbital maneuvering engines (SOMA) also use LOX/LH2 (page 5), so presumably there are tanks other than the main tanks making it possible that any active cooling would be done with fuel left in the SOMA tanks. The user manual is pretty quiet about any thermal protection system though - maybe active cooling was discarded somewhere along the way. Edit. Sorry - managed to miss the last part of your post. Agreed.

Well there's this thread. Or this one. Perhaps this one would suit you better?

I see this question come around every so often... And this pretty much sums up my answer. It's not like we don't squander money on a vast number of pointless things here on Earth, that could be used to... do all sorts of good stuff that I'll refrain from listing in case this thread gets locked for mentioning the P word. Yet somehow spaceflight is the poster child for frivolous spending.

Star Citizen has raised over $50M. Hmm, given the absurd amounts* that some people have apparently spent on virtual spaceships, maybe crowd-funding a Mars mission isn't so daft an idea after all. * In my opinion. However, if that's what people want to spend their disposable income on, that's completely up to them.

Exploding for a reason, I can live with because (in theory) I can track down that reason and fix it. Exploding for no reason, because lolkerbal, is counterproductive and ultimately tedious. Random failure is not a fun gameplay experience - which I believe Squad have acknowledged. It's one reason why KSP spacecraft (provided they stay in one piece) never have any malfunctions. I don't have a problem with some joints breaking. If I hang a ridiculously overweight lateral booster off an undersized decoupler, it should snap right off, with any amusing pinwheeling, exploding rocket effects that you care to add. If I stick two fuel tanks or fuselage sections together, I want them to stay stuck. That joint is just an artefact of the way you build things in KSP and I shouldn't be penalised for having it.

It's getting a bit off-topic but I'd really have to dispute that, at least in the UK. Driving in cities isn't a great deal of fun and there tend to be sufficient mass-transit options to provide feasible and convenient alternatives to travelling by car. Outside of cities, travel by car is far more versatile, especially if you're going somewhere that requires multiple journey stages by mass-transit, or are going somewhere small and poorly served by bus or train routes

It's an old source but judging by the authors, is pretty authoritative. See second page, right hand column, where active cooling is briefly mentioned. It's mentioned in a little more detail here as well.

Some figures for reference. This is for the LM ascent engine. Note the last figure in particular. Country of origin United States Date 1964-1972 Manufacturer Bell Aircraft / Rocketdyne Application Lunar Ascent Stage/Spacecraft propulsion Predecessor Bell 8247 Successor RS-18 Status Retired Liquid-fuel engine Propellant N2O4 / Aerozine 50 Cycle Pressure-fed Configuration Chamber 1 Performance Thrust (vac.) 3,500 pounds-force (16 kN) Thrust-to-weight ratio 19.44 Isp (vac.) 311 seconds (3.05 km/s) Dimensions Length 47 inches (120 cm) Diameter 34 inches (86 cm) Dry weight 180 pounds (82 kg) Now I don't know for certain that your design would need over 82kg of extra dry mass to support all the bits and pieces needed for your drop tanks but I'm thinking any difference is going to be pretty negligible. This isn't KSP. Engine weight really isn't much of a consideration.

Don't know what yeh talkin' about to be honest. Jake - we can make this happen. Sling me a PM with a contact number if you want something a bit more guaranteed to get that coffee than 'looking out for a brown leather jacket.'

Wednesday I believe but I'd need to check.

I'm voting vessel size but I really mean 'landing a vessel of any size'. I can build a nice Mk3 spaceplane without any problems. Lifts off nice, gets to orbit without any problems, re-enters safely, even has enough fuel left to overshoot the KSC, turn around and line up on the runway. I just can't land them. Doesnt matter how slow I'm going or what my rate of descent is, I touch the ground and explode. Totally kills any fun in using spaceplanes.