KSK

Well I would think they'd also have to cope with a pretty big dynamic load at engine start, so I wouldn't think it's a case of simply scaling up by 1.5. But yeah, as @PakledHostage pointed out, FH is hardly the most powerful launch vehicle ever built, so its not like sufficiently strong hold-downs are a new thing. They're still not something you want to take any chances with though.

Ahhh, that would explain it. My previous jests notwithstanding, they don't want any problems trying to hold down 5 million pounds of thrust. I rather liked the comment on BFR by 2018 being a 'truly Muskian deadline' too.

I think the last paragraph of that article is important to bear in mind - and props to them for adding it: "Full disclosure: As Shotwell did not specify which vehicle or vehicles could be expected to begin testing in 2018/2019, it is possible that Falcon 9, not BFR, was the statement’s target. This article should be taken with a grain of salt, as it is educated speculation based upon public information from SpaceX executives and Texas contractors. Teslarati reached out to SpaceX for additional information, but the company was unable to comment further on Shotwell’s presentation at the moment." Good to see that SpaceX has accumulated enough Funds to upgrade the Tracking Station though. And, despite the slightly speculative article, it is exciting to see development of the Boca Chica site ramping up! I wouldn't expect 'vehicle tests' to be orbital flights though, whether or not they happen at the end of 2018 (*checks magic 8-ball. Hmmm magic 8-ball says 'check Elon time') - more likely to be Grasshopper style tests in my opinion, although that's pure navel gazing. And with all due respect to Arca, I'll take them a bit more seriously if and when they release some progress updates beyond their 'it's coming soon - honest' articles. Some pictures of actual vehicle components would be nice, maybe even footage of an engine test? I'm thinking Blue Origin levels of news rather than SpaceX but something would be nice. Besides SSTO is easy - plenty of booster stages have been able to make orbit, at least in principle. SSTO with any sort of payload fraction is the hard part.

Ahhh - so that's what all the snap-frozen cool kids are drinking this season. Gotcha.

"I am Bill S. Kerman esquire! This is Jeb, Jebediah, Kerman. And we are..."

Ahhh - I'll be the exception that proves the rule then. In my story, Val has definitely heard of Jeb - anything else would be rather like somebody in the 1960s US piloting community (or general population for that matter) not being aware of John Glenn. But she doesn't know him personally and has never met him. In fact, until very recently, my Val hasn't been a part of the space program at all and even now she's only peripherally involved. How well my Val and Jeb would actually get on is an interesting question which I don't honestly know the answer to.

Oh the launch prep was exacting. Media attention distracting Will it launch - we do not know Let it blow, let it blow, let it blow We'll send it off to Mars Pushing Elon's fancy cars We think "all systems go!" Let it blow, let it blow, let it blow Thank you, thank you! I'll be here all evening - I recommend the salmon and don't forget to tip your server.

Whaguggle?

What we need here is some reverse psychology: CatastrophicFailure: "You know what - I'm going to bed. *yawn*. I'll catch the test on YouTube in a week or so." FH: "ROOOOAAAAAAARRRR!"

Actually I disagree. Zuma is an intriguing enough payload that I think we'd still be speculating about it whichever rocket it was launched on. I'll concede that the fact it was launched on a SpaceX rocket certainly fuels the speculation though, since there are plenty of folks here who want to see SpaceX succeed. Which is hardly surprising. SpaceX was founded to reduce the costs of spaceflight, with the ultimate goal of making humanity a multi planetary species. So far they've made some pretty exciting steps along the way to that goal, even if the biggest (and possibly insurmountable) ones are still to come. KSP is a game about spaceflight that attracts spaceflight enthusiasts. It shouldn't be a great shock that there's a decent amount of overlap between the populations of KSP fans and SpaceX fans. Nor do I think it's anything to sneer at.

I think I missed that one... And on a completely unrelated note, I recently strayed onto another creative writing thread, in another corner of the internet, which turned into a bit of a 'my first character was less clichéd than yours' competition. I refrained from adding my 2p worth but it occurred to me that I could have perfectly honestly posted that one of my first characters is a 3000 year old copse of trees (possibly - actual age unknown) with mind control powers and a history of anger management issues. That, right there, is why I love speculative fiction.

@CatastrophicFailure - I'll see that Beetle and raise you a Sinclair C5 and a Robin Reliant.

Could well be. Sillier things have happened before to very expensive bits of machinery. https://www.theguardian.com/science/2009/nov/06/cern-big-bang-goes-phut

And even some of that is pretty malleable, depending on whether you regard stuff like no offspring and no settlements on Kerbin as canon or just stuff that isn't particularly germane to the game and so has been skipped over (quite understandably) by Squad.

You reckon NASA will accept one booster flown five times?

That's what they thought a year ago...

I hear that. Sometimes I'm re-reading a chapter to check for continuity issues with the chapter-in-progress and it's the little things that stand out. Not necessarily because they're any good but more from a 'where the flarp did that come from' perspective. And sometimes the little details are great because they can spark off a whole slew of one-off lines, points to refer back to later, or bits of banter between characters. As an example, spiced coffee is a thing on my version of Kerbin. Jeb is rather fond of anise in his coffee. Gene is something of a coffee snob and prefers his caffeine black, straight up and ideally ground fresh from quality beans and served in fine china. This leads to some differences of opinion. Its not any sort of plot point but it does add some detail to a couple of scenes. It also prompted a bunch of notes on a particular range of famous (and fragile) coffee cups made in one part of Kerbin and revered amongst coffee aficionados for their beneficial effects on the brew. And yeah, the notes include the technical reasons for those effects. It's maybe for the best that all the extraneous detail remains confined to my notes file for now. This. Find two someones if you can. I've been lucky enough to have @JakeGrey's writing to riff off early on and, more recently to have @Ten Key and @CatastrophicFailure for idea bouncing and feedback. There's nothing quite so useful as being told that an idea doesn't quite ring true and needs a bit more baking, or that such-and-such a character probably wouldn't react like this in the scene you've just written given the events of three chapters previously.

Not going to tell a lie - that 'ignition sequence starts' call from the commentator always gives me goosebumps.

Sadly, all my experiments involving small bits of paper stuck to the side of the sock before drying and checking them for ink marks after drying, have so far proven fruitless. And soggy.

Ahhh - they've made it to Monako I see. And a small but random thing that jumped out at me - 'tiger orange'. Lovely bit of description right there.

Okay. Strunk & White recommend not spelling out numbers unless a character is using them in speech. So Jeb could be a reservist in the 305th Air Squadron but presumably might refer to it in conversation as the three-oh-fifth. Not completely sure I like that but the source is impeccable.

@steuben - I like the index card idea. I'll have to give that a try for the rest of First Flight, where I'm currently trying to rein in and tie up a number of story threads. It seems that story threads are rather like greased eels in that regard. @DarkOwl57 To some extent I think this is a problem with episodic writing - unless you want to fix any timeline errors by retconning earlier chapters, then you're kind of stuck with what you've already posted, which means that you need to do more planning than if you were just writing a first draft and then editing it. I can also sympathise with your particular comment about knowing the ending but not knowing how to get there! More generally, I've seen it said that writing is an art form where you can knock out an epic battle scene in a couple of hours and then get stuck for days on the best way to describe two characters crossing a room. Sometimes writing the filler is the hardest part of all. I would give @steuben's index cards a go (or something similar) but with one caveat - don't get too hung up on following the timeline right to the end. If you think of a better direction for the story mid way through - go for it! And if that means that everything else (including the ending) needs to be rethought, then so be it. As mentioned, I think planning is important for episodic writing but, speaking personally, too much of it can leave you feeling like you're writing on rails, which gets a bit soul crushing. Especially if you get part way through and realize that your plan isn't as good as you thought it was! Sooo - planning is important but too much planning is bad? Not the most helpful of answers, but as @Kuzzter said - it's one of those things that makes this craft an art. Finally, this might not be exactly the right thread for this but if anyone hasn't read Life at the Top - it's definitely worth a look! I was a bit skeptical about a Kerbal style Formula 1 story but I'm very glad I decided to give it a go.

Umm, I figure you all realised this anyway but in the interest of complete transparency, I should probably point out that the first sentence is fiction... I agree that the second sentence is a lovely quote though!

Inconsistent with this I am. Trust my feelings I do. "T minus twelve...eleven....ten...nine...." reads better to me than "T minus 12...11...10...9", possibly for the reason that @SiriusRocketry mentioned - it's a big moment, so spelling out the numbers is more impressive. On the other hand: "Pioneer copies - go at 36." (again, to me) reads better than "Pioneer copies - go at thirty six." The first seems more clipped and to the point, which seems more appropriate for a quick status report. For your example, if you absolutely need an exact number, I think I'd go with writing it out in digits. Otherwise, I'd fudge the exact value a bit and spell it out: i.e. over eight thousand people did the hokey-pokey. Dig out my copy of Strunk & White this evening I shall and see what wisdom it may impart.

"And if the hold-downs aren't up to the job, we'll be moving right on through to a launch situation. Either way it's guaranteed to be exciting." -- Elon Musk.