KSK

It’s a good start and the ‘shipwrecked on an alien world’ setting has a lot of potential to become a really interesting and fun story. Plus your ship and vehicle designs are very cool. The first few chapters felt rather quick.(discover alien artifact - wham. Build giant interstellar spacecraft - bam. Fly to new star system - kablam.) That’s not necessarily a bad thing if you’re just setting the scene for the main story and getting your characters to that alien world as quickly as possible. For future chapters though, you might want to slow it down a bit. For example - imagine what would happen if we found supposed alien artifacts on Earth? You could probably make a whole book out of your first couple of chapters, starting with that initial discovery, dealing with all the different reactions to it, proving that the artifacts are real and not some conspiracy, showing how the world (eventually) opts for peaceful exploration and finally researching, building and launching a starship. Last thing. I don’t normally comment on spelling and stuff. I know all too well how easy it is to miss the odd typo or grammar fail, and I can only imagine how hard it must be to write a story that isn’t in your first language. But if you could run your chapters through a spellchecker before posting them, it would make them a lot easier to read. Spellcheckers aren’t perfect of course but they do help.

Okay - so I went there. Looks like you’re spot on about ozone and Teflon. List of ozone resistant materials here. From a separate source, nickel also has an excellent rating - stainless steel resistance to ozone improves with higher nickel content. And unsurprisingly after reading Ignition, fluorine has been studied as an oxidiser. NASA list of fluorine resistant materials here. Nickel based superalloy for your turbine? Doesn’t look like an insurmountable problem at any rate.

Okay, this is pure spitballing because I haven't looked up the relevant numbers and my chemistry graduate days are far behind me, but I think fluorine is the stronger oxidising agent. I'm basing this on the fact that something like chlorine trifluoride will happily oxidise silicates (for example common sand) and fluorine itself will happily etch - well pretty much anything. Using it as an etchant in semiconductor fabrication is one of it's major industrial uses after all. Fluorine will also form an inert metal fluoride layer on certain metals, so I'm thinking that with a suitable choice of alloy for your turbine, it ought to possible to passivate it by treating it with fluorine gas, at which point, further fluorine erosion should be prevented. The white elephant in the room here is obviously that ozone. I don't think it would oxidise a metal fluoride layer but I'm not sure. I did also think that if you're really only looking at the lower end of a few hundred degrees for your operating temperature, then Teflon melts at 326 degrees Celsius. On reflection though, I expect ozone would chew up Teflon in short order - all those lovely, lovely carbon-carbon bonds to chow down on.

Sprinkle zamphor. Add an olive. Drink - but very carefully.

@sevenperforce Again, from reading Ignition, I think that was the big attraction of using ozone. An oxidiser that exothermically decomposes (yay, more energy) into a second, and rather good in its own right, oxidiser - what’s not to like?

*deleted* Potential thread derailer and not as funny as I thought it was anyway. Sorry.

Yeah, horribly unstable and about as toxic as fluorine. Taking a quick flick through Ignition, there was also a phase separation problem apparently, at least for an ozone/oxygen mix. Oxygen boils off from residual oxidizer in your propellant lines, ozone gets more concentrated, mixture splits into two phases, one with 30% ozone, the other with 75%. The latter almost invariably goes kaboom for no reason whatsoever. Probably not a good idea to plan on restarting an ozone powered rocket stage at any point. It's okay though - the phase separation problem can be overcome by adding a small amount of fluorine to your oxygen and ozone mix. Which clearly makes everything better.

I liked the way that the lyrics worked either way around (or I read them as such anyway). Whatever Kenlie fires at, his aim can be true (he hits his target) but he can still miss the mark in that whatever he hits is the wrong target in some sense. Does he hit one of the Kerbulans and save the day - but resorted to violence to do it? Or does he miss both Kerbulans, end up in a more perilous situation but refused to use violence? Or (and I’m favouring this option personally ) - am I arguing for a false dichotomy when our Good Author has something more subtle up his sleeve...

I thought he'd already sold it for rock and roll? Good chapter though - grandfather paradox neatly averted. Possibly...

So I was listening to a bit of Myles Kennedy on the way to work this morning and the opening verse to one particular track goes like this: Took a shot. In the dark. Though the aim was true, still it missed the mark. As we wait for a hero we can't find... Perhaps it's just me but those lyrics really put me in mind of that last strip.

Something, something, gun to a knife fight, something something... Good to see this up and running again!

This morning's mildly comic moment. I tend to shuffle chapters in progress between my tablet and my computer via email. Eventually I may join the 21st Century and get one of these new-fangled cloudy storage things but not right now. So I was clearing out some mail this morning and was faced with: Irony - that's kind of like coppery only with iron, right?

f/9 ?

Well that was a great way to end the week! G'night folks - have a good weekend when it comes!

Seems they staged the GTO transfer burn over Eve. Which was nice.

I'm liking the Bangaldesh promo piece. Makes you realise quite what a big deal this was for them.

Liking the tanned look.

And down!

Kraken got the stage 1 camera

Fairing gone!

Liftoff!

T minus 1 minute

Man, those interstage optical illusions are playing with my head again. Is it just me or does that rocket look slightly bent?

Commencing pre-flight checklist. Nibbles? Go. Cold one? Brrrrappp. Go! Router? Magic internet gnomes reporting in. Keyboard? I've got this. Livestream? GO. Science and Spaceflight forum - KSK is reporting Go for launch!

And we're live!