Bacterius

I find it slightly disturbing how this thread went from "how much gravity would a minecraft world [no reference to the game itself besides the world size and features] have" to "let's find out-of-universe explanations to explain why Minecraft's [the actual game] gravity is implemented as a constant 9.8m/s downwards (or whatever it is) force in a fixed reference frame".

I like how the bell is on fire at the end... and, yes, definitely a good choice for a barbecue.

So has anyone tried to mod a planet into a similar orbit in KSP using hyperedit or whatever and intercept it? Could be fun, and maybe provide some perspective. Well, mostly fun. And time-consuming, with stock warp at least.

Nah, it can be done way more efficiently. I did it with around 6.5 km/s delta-v by using a retrograde Jool assist (consisting of the transfer from Kerbin solar orbit, a main 4.3 km/s inversion burn, and minor correction burns) and I wasn't even trying. Someone mentioned an Eve assist, which I am not sure about because it is so deep inside Kerbol's gravity well (maybe a gravity assist ninja can try it out and see what kind of gains we're looking at) but I have no doubt it can be done very much more efficiently than just burning twice your orbital velocity backwards. A bi-elliptic transfer is also a possibility. I got a record speed of 21.5 km/s on my retrograde Jool to Kerbin intercept. It just decelerated through the atmosphere like it was nothing, I tried it several times and got like 70 g's of deceleration at one point. I think once the drag system is improved the atmosphere should feel much less soupy and it won't be so easy to survive a head-on collision as opposed to a long aerobrake cutting through the upper atmosphere.

You would be vaporized by the blast.

I am.. for once that space stuff doesn't happen at 4 in the morning.

Can't say I've had cash issues with the new career mode. Worst setback so far was forgetting batteries and stranding an eve ship worth about $250k in solar orbit. I had over 4 million already at the time. I guess the revert button is responsible for saving some of my more.. costly failures, but it would be hard to go bankrupt if you're even remotely paying attention to your launch costs. And even if you're new to the game and not too good yet, there are plenty of easy (or even trivial) contracts that pay pretty well.

Why can't they just strap the device to a cubesat or other small satellite and see if it still produces thrust once in space? It doesn't cost that much to any company or agency, and it seems to me it would be an economical way to cast aside all doubts rather than testing with uncertainty on the ground. Or would it need to be tested in a higher orbit than LEO due to the atmospheric drag screwing up the observations, making the operation more expensive?

This poll might work, except for the "view poll results" button, which will invariably cause a portion of the population to either vote towards making the result closer to or farther from 50/50, thus biasing your experiment. Yep, goes to show, if you want something done right, you really can't trust others to do it for you. You're welcome.

If they do then they will need a live feed during the flyby. Or at least an HD recording

*Takes off the vest, upper torso covered in rashes, blisters and burns - a well deserved break after a tough gaming session*

"Okay guys, time for the burn." "Oh, man, finally!" *unzips*

I've been trying for a while, but I can't quite get the two planes close enough to dock or whatever. My piloting skills just aren't good enough to prevent my plane being flung away from (or, occasionally, into) the other plane, even with caps lock. I think it may be the back thrust of the other plane throwing me off. Maybe using RCS for closing the distance and moving the plane where it needs to be might work, I haven't tried. Might give it a shot tomorrow, doesn't seem like it would be too useful in the thicker atmosphere though, and RCS is heavy.

Is it alright to use FAR with this? I have it installed currently - what are the rules for mods?

Silver, because Ag and it's shiny and.. stuff. Plus its atomic number is 47, which is the largest prime below 49, which is 7^2 and 7 is my favorite number, so that settles it.

I don't think "center of mass" means what you think it does. It's not the center of the "light tower". The center of mass of the support/gyroscope system is somewhere near the support, maybe a tenth of the way towards the gyro (as said above, we don't have the mass of both parts, so can't really calculate it, but it appears to be around there) and the system is clearly rotating around it. It's the same thing with the Earth/Moon system - both the Moon and the Earth actually orbit the center of the mass of the Earth/Moon system, which is about three quarters of the way from the Earth's center (due to the mass of the Moon). I would like to refer you to some physics: (not that I expect it will convince you, being a part of the "physics conspiracy to hide the truth" and everything)

(the tenth astronaut missed his assist and burned up in the atmosphere)

Don't just say you will, do it then we'll still be here - probably - when you're done and ready to report your findings in a repeatable way, so that other people can verify your claims and start looking at applications for this new theory. To be blunt: I can also make a theory of my own. It states that people which come up with inventions defying all laws of physics first arrive on a forum, make a lot of noise, and invariably disappear a few weeks or months later when they fail to make their device work (or rather, fail to convince other people it does), failing to revolutionize physics. Unlike yours, my theory is 100% repeatable, has a large body of evidence to support it, and has not been disproved so far. Do the same with your theory - get some real evidence and show us (scientifically, i.e. not on a faith-based "trust me it works" foundation) that you were right all along and that known physics are completely wrong. Then, and only then, people will pay attention to your theory. Open-mindedness isn't the problem here - it's just that looking at all the evidence, it's far easier to agree with my theory than with yours (as they are mutually exclusive).

+1, Newton's law of gravitational attraction (and the curvature of space time) didn't really click "intuitively" for me (it was just numbers) until it was demonstrated like this. Don't forget to mention that in real life, space is frictionless so the planets don't instantly fall into their sun, and that it is just a 2D simulation so that we can understand it better, but the same principle applies to 3D. It can be done in under 20 minutes as an interactive workshop, and if the kids are old enough you can get them to do math to do some derivations as well. It's up there with Feynman's informal explanation of quantum electrodynamics as the most educational physics experiments ever, IMHO.

Needs more SAS

Ah, is it perpetual motion month already?

Yeah, I watched that a few months ago. It was worth watching, I suppose, but I could not get over the sheer implausibility of the research center on earth not being instantly nuked by people opposed to the project/selection method/religious convinction/whatever. I mean, there was a single event where a dude got blown up trying to sabotage the project, but in reality, with the media coverage depicted by the clip, it looks like they'd be faced with a full-on civil war, unending riots, constant terrorism, and would likely to have to work underground in near total secrecy to get anything done (and, incidentally, stay alive).

It was my understanding the nukes didn't start until leaving the Earth's orbit, so there would be no irradiation going on. It's not like it would've been used straight from the launchpad.

How about we make it, you know, optional. So people who don't like it, can turn that feature off, and those who like it, can turn it on. There, how difficult was that?

I, uh.. I trust they will bring the crew down before deorbiting the station.. in any case I'm pretty sure they will arrange evacuation of the relevant crew members if they stop supporting the ISS, surely they won't strand them up there?