Gargamel

If we use a single strand woven through a block and tackle system, the single strand would be able to handle as much as we want, in theory. In this example, we'll just use 4x system for simplicity. Something like this: In our setup, instead of anchoring to the bottom pulley, we could have each end of the strand on a motorized spool. This would serve two major functions. One, redundancy, with two motorized spools, failure of one would not mean system lock up, as the remaining spool would be able to reel in the entire length. And, secondly, each spool, when both are functioning, would only have 1/4 of the total mass/force applied to them. But the biggest advantage of this system in the built in redundancy for the material strength of the strand. Given our system would be perfectly balanced, as it should with proper design, each length of strand would only carry 1/4 of the total load. Each of the fittings would be designed to handle the appropriate load. If the strand would happen to fail, it would be contained by some automatic "prussik" devices, as a prussik minding pulley locks down on the rope as it travels if needed. These would have to be some automated device that locks down when a break is detected, and one on each end of each pulley. In case of a break, each spool would then have to wind up at individual rates to keep the load balanced. One major downside to this system is that you need to carry 4x the length of strand than a single strand. But since it's fairly obvious that a single strand is not a smart design, we're going to have redundant strands anyways, so we might as well reduce the number of spools needed (but not size), and make it automatically load balancing. A minor downside is that, using two spools, the unwinding and winding would take twice as long as single strand spools. My comments here and in other threads might have come across as such, but that's not my intent. More of Devil's advocate. Poke holes in the idea so that Scifi can find the appropriate fix. But I do think a tethered system is only feasible in a few specific mission scenarios. A larger craft would be better served by a fixed torus.

I stick by my previous Everybody you meet knows something you don't. You often won't be the smartest person in the room, but even if you are, you can learn something from everybody there..

The best years of your life are age 20 +/- 5. The rest sucks. Time passes exponentially faster every year after those good years. Then you die.

I’m going to start my own ISP. GargaNet.

I know most Dendrology (Study of Trees) texts will cover this subject. Some trees like water, some prefer hills. Location from water was one of the tools we used to help identify a species.

And that's just the current release. Out of curiosity, I wonder what the total number of downloads would be.

This is why we usually try to leave the original language text in any post we add a translation too. I don't trust computer translations any more than anybody else, and if the automatic translation is faulty, somebody who does speak the language will usually speak up and correct us. But for KSP, most of our discussions in languages other than English outside the 'international' subforums, center around technical issues. Nuance is not a concern really. A bolt is a bolt, even if you call it the wrong thing. We'll figure out that you mean the Rhino engine even if the translator calls it a Hippopotamus. One weird effect of technical conversations I've discovered is that some terms start to transcend native languages. I work as a machinist for a Croatian family, in the US. A good number of the guys work there are from Croatia originally. Listening to these guys babble on in Croatian, I can always tell when they start talking about work related things, as the English terms for the technical things slip into their conversation. After hearing them discuss the exact angle that a particular chamfer needs to be cut at, I asked them what the Croatian term for Chamfer was, and none of them knew. They just used the English word for it. So yeah, while nuance can get lost in translations, we are lucky to be discussing topics that usually don't deal with it. The exact phrasing might be off, but we'll figure it out, even if we have to resort to pointing and waving. In KSP, if it's in space, then we understand that 'boat' means 'ship'.

@wulfee03, CKAN is not responsible for the contents of the mods, it just puts them where they need to go. If a file is corrupted or missing, that is usually the mod makers fault, you should check in the mod release threads for each mod to see if they have addressed some of the issues. CKAN is produced by a number of our community members, and has done pretty well for hundreds of thousands ( @HebaruSan, do you have a user count?) of users over the last 8 to 10 years. Of course there might some issues with it from time to time, and the guys do a helluva job fixing bugs when pointed out. They have a whole github page just for this. Any bugs I've reported over the years usually get tackled fairly quickly. The fact that it has worked well for all these users, and you are having a slew of issues should be an indication of where some of the issues lie. Welcome to the Forums!

Welcome @Chompsky! That picture is from a very, very old version of KSP. I'm pretty sure that design would still probably work in the game, but you won't find the same parts available to you anymore. Especially now that I look at it, those are old school KW Rocketry (modded) parts. You should be able to build something close in stock. Even if somebody did have a craft file for it that exact craft, it'd be easier to build it from scratch that trying to get that old modset to load. And if you have any questions about how to use the forum, check out the New Members Guide, which is stickied at the top of this forum.

That's if each end of the cable has equal masses. We just want 1km from the barycenter of the system. So if we leave all the fuel that we won't be using, engines, and all the other heavy stuff on one end, and the light weight crew hab section on the other, we could get away with a cable that is just over 1km.

Castaway is getting a sequel! This time Wilson will be a robot! https://www.space.com/finch-sci-fi-film-trailer-apple-tv-plus This looks fun.

But to be fair @mikegarrison, our hypothetical spaceship probably has the same mass as one little section of that bridge, and doesn't need to be weather proofed. Although that pic does put it into perspective some. We're not saying a tethered ship won't work, it's just that it will only work for a couple very specific scenarios. Most likely that scenario will be a single ship with a tether system built in, and only a lightweight crew section. The ultralight backpacking version of interplanetary missions. Anything heavier than that will require tether materials of insane strength. And if we had such materials, then the fabled space elevator is not out of the question. And if we have a space elevator, we have 'easy' orbital construction. And with that, we can build heavier ships with rotating tori. Another scenario that a tether system would be useful would be like the one seen in SevenEves. Crew habitation pods with life support and tiny manuevering thrusters, and not much else. Tether two of them together to provide long term living quarters. But these are houses in space, not spaceships.

But.... that's docking..... 99% of docking is intercept and rendezvous. Once you get velocities zeroed, the mating of the ships is 'trivial'. No, you'd need to rigidly brace each ship off each other, start the rotation of the whole system, and then unspool the tether. If you don't brace, then tether system will either get shock loaded or end up wrapping around something it shouldn't. If you don't start spinning when they are close, it'll require a lot more fuel and coordination to do it when they are at full extension. And the chances for shock loading are higher again. It's dynamic loads that break cables, not usually static. It's much easier to design a system that handles a static load, rather than a variable dynamic one.

But.... if you want a tether... you have to dock....

Wait.... no.... First off, this would imply that you would have 2 identical vessels on either ends of the tether, which requires a tether of roughly twice the length to get the same g force than a single ship that has the majority of it's mass on one end of the tether, with the section that requires gravity on the other. The twin ship scenario is not what you are describing, but rather the single ship. If the tether does break, this lighter section is 'doomed', as the angular momentum budget is now converted to linear motion. This means one section will fly off in one direction, and the other section, in a perfect world, has to go get it, burning a lot of fuel. Then it has to either speed up or slow down to get back on course. These manuevers burn a lot of fuel. Most missions that would utilize a tethered centrifuge rather than a fixed arm are budget missions. They've had to make sacrifices to figure out the best way to get a small vessel to their target, and part of that is a limited fuel budget. Having the tether fail is not a "teehee! We'll just go get them!" moment. That's a mission critical failure and cannot just be written off as minor.

Moved to Add-on Discussion.

Something I really believe, Stargate is better than Star Trek,

\o/ Thanks! Haven’t had a chance to play with the new eggs yet, and I want to feel that new discovery smell.

Spoilers go in spoiler tags spoiler!

Very nice! I can see you doing many iterations of this model as you keep finding real life details you want to add to it. Once you're happy with it enough to release it to the public, consider getting a thingiverse.com account and share it there.

Not sure why the release date is news, there's a pinned thread at the top of this sub forum, which has been there for almost a year, that says exactly that.

There already is one. Adding a subforum is just a couple clicks by an admin. But yes, "International" is a misnomer. English is the 'official' language of the forums, so anything that is posted in another language either requires a translation, or should be in the 'International' subs.

Most threads don’t have any entries. Some threads have a couple entries. Don’t click this...... well that list has a loading time similar to a super modded 1.3.1 on a potato.

Moved to Tech Support. It's actually quite simple. I'd recommend trying.