Nibb31

Do you have any pointers for SSTO proposals that used nuclear power? All of the half-serious SSTO proposals that I've seen have used chemical propulsion. I don't think there is future for nuclear propulsion in atmospheric flight, due to all sorts of reasons, including safety, proliferation, and politics. I wouldn't rule them out for upper-stages, space-tugs or interplanetary applications though. That's what past NTR studies were going to use them for. So any future reusable SSTO would most definitely use chemical propulsion. Chemical SSTO is actually pretty easy. The original Atlas-Mercury was effectively an SSTO. The Titan I first stage could also have reached orbit without any payload, but what use is that? The problem with SSTO is that: a - You want a payload. b - You need a specific amount of energy to accelerate that payload from 0 to 27000 km/h. c - You need a specific volume of chemical propellant to provide that energy. d - You need a structure to safely carry that propellant and engines to convert the chemicals into usable thrust. e (optional) - You need additional hardware to re-enter and land safely. The hard part is to combine a+b+c+d+e into a workable vehicle. b and c are pretty much fixed by the laws of physics and volumetric efficiency, and there is only limited improvement available in energetic efficiency. Therefore, the only way to achieve SSTO is to either reduce either a or d or to go without e. However, a is your payload, and e is the only reason you are going with SSTO, because if your vehicle was disposable, you wouldn't care about the number of stages in the first place. Therefore, your main work should concentrate on making d as light as possible. Unfortunately, lightweight structures and engines don't usually go together with the sort of operational reliability and serviceability that you would want out of a fast-turnaround reusable vehicle. For example, a reusable vehicle needs hatches, attachment points, connectors and structural interfaces to easily replace and service parts, which add weight and complexity. It also needs a more rigid structure to deal with both launch loads, re-entry loads and landing loads, which are all different forces that act on different parts of the structure. These additions can rapidly negate any gains that you might have made from using lighter materials. That's why reusable SSTO is such a tough nut to crack.

The thing is, it's much easier and cheaper to distribute contraceptives and condoms to Third World countries than it is to launch a deploy giant mirrors. We're also going to need to stop burning stuff. Oil companies should be switching to renewable and nuclear power. In the long term, those sectors offer more growth than relying on finite resources. The problem is that both politicians and corporations are incapable of planning further than 5 years ahead, and none of these investments will be profitable before 10 or 20 years.

Yes, but staging in KSP doesn't allow you to turn off the APS motor after the 1st ullage burn, which you need to do if you want to restart it later. The only way around that is to set up the staging sequencing with group event keys, but then you are probably going to run out of keys (I already have group keys for launch tower jettison, SLA jettison/CSM sep, science, LM descent stage jettison, chutes, and so on...)

The trunk is nothing more than a cylindrical fairing panel with solar panels attached.

Regarding the request for an APS: The way I would do it is to set up the APS with a cfg containing both RCS module and an SRB for the ullage function (even if in reality the APS was a liquid motor, it's easier to add handle it in KSP as if it was a separatron). The staging sequence would look like this: - S-II burn - Separation + APS burn - S-IVB burn The APS was used later to crash the S-IVB into the Moon, but in KSP we can do that with the main engine because there is more than enough left-over propellant after the TLI burn. Also, are you planning to do an ejectable cover for the SIM bay ? The new SM looks unfinished without it...

Asking if there is science left to be done on the Moon is like asking if there is science left to be done in the ocean or in the South Pole, yet McMurdo has been operating for decades and we are still building oceanographic survey ships. There is a lot of science that needs to be done before we can go to Mars. A lot of the tech for going to Mars is at TRL 3 or 4 at best. It needs to be at 8 or 9 for humans to rely on it for multi-year missions to other planets. For example, we don't know anything about long duration survival on the surface of another planet, construction techniques, radiation mitigation, dust mitigation, closed loop life support, partial gravity, ISRU, and so on. Apollo could never have worked without Gemini, and a mission to Mars is really too big of a leap with current technology. We could test some of these techniques in a BEO station, but building a second ISS at EML-1 with a large-centrifuge and greenhouses id going to cost more than building it on the Moon with ISRU techniques that we are going to have to learn anyway.

Yeah, Star Trek prophetized teleportation and needleless syringes too. Dr Who's Tardis is bigger inside than outside. And anyone over the age of 40 remembers promises of flying cars, personal helicopter back packs and bases on Venus by the year 2000. Everyday, there are wackos who come up with perpetual motion machines or reactionless drives, all of which are bogus. Some day, maybe someone will crack it, but you've got to admit that the odds are increasingly against it. Some wacky predictions can come true, but 99.9% of the time, they remain wacky predictions. I have no doubt that some fundamental physics problems will be solved or worked around, but most of them will remain. We are just as likely to implement FTL travel as we are to invert gravity or to create perpetual motion.

Yes, same here. I was wondering if it was a problem with this pack or a conflict with something else.

Nitpicking post here. Please do not be offended, this is supposed to be constructive criticism to make a really really good mod pack even better. The most important part this pack is missing now are the two Saturn IVB Auxiliary Propulsion System pods. The current S-IVB ullage motor setup, angled at 45° is wrong. The two APS pods were used as both separation/ullage motors and RCS for roll and rotation control of the S-IVB stack. Although these were small liquid engines with their own propellant tanks, in KSP, the best way to simulate the APS would be to combine a small SRB pointed down (for ullage) with an RCS (for roll, yaw and pitch only) in the same pod. Nothing was angled at 45° because that wouldn't have made sense when the S-IVB was on top of a Saturn 1B instead of a Saturn V, and right now the S-IVB is severely lacking its own RCS. On another note, I'm absolutely loving the Saturn IC double-stage separation with the interstage carrying its own 8 separation rockets. It's absolutely gorgeous to watch!

The term "warp drive" comes from Star Trek. It's based on fictional magic, not science. There are some vague hypothetical concepts about something called an Albucierre drive. Some clever scientists related this to the fictional Star Trek term "warp" in order to catch the imagination of the ignorant public, which is always better when you are looking for funding. However, it's still just a hypothetical idea that may or may not be feasible. At any rate, it requires materials and energy levels that probably won't be available before decades or centuries, if ever. At any rate, debating its practical capabilities makes no sense, because we have no idea if it is feasible or what its properties would be. It's still just fictional.

The CM docking probe and cone have the following line in the ModuleDockingNode section: referenceAttachNode = dockingNode //top But neither of them have a node defined as dockingNode in the cfg. I think this is causing the docking problems.

The new Service Module is nice and shiny, and it has a SIM bay. But is there a SIM bay cover? I couldn't find it, and it looks weird launching without it. Also, do you plan to put any experiments in the SIM bay?

The LM is duplicate with FASA, so this might be causing problems. I tend to use the LM from FASA with Denny's CM and because it has some tweaks that make it work better. FASA's docking ports are easier to catch with a right-click, the LM EVA works without messing with IVA, and the collision mesh is a bit of a better fit.

Soyuz never flew in white, or green, or purple. You only see these "naked" models in mockups or museum pieces. Soyuz has always been covered with thermal blankets in flight.

It sinks into the ground too.

"Outer space" is only really used by the media. It has no scientific meaning. The ISS is officially located in Low Earth Orbit.

Telling the truth isn't trolling. Making sweeping generalizations about a country or a continent is, especially when you've never even been there yourself. Arianespace is a launch operator that is distinct from ESA, but it's mostly a commercial storefront. It's the equivalent of ULA for NASA. ULA sells launches to governments (including NASA and ESA) and corporations, and procures hardware from Boeing and LM. Arianespace sells launches to governments (including NASA and ESA) and corporations, and procures hardware from Airbus and Thales-Alenia. Same thing really. ESA is a multinational organisation, formed by national space agencies. The French space agency is CNES, which participates in ESA. It has its own 2 billion euro budget, 750 million of which goes the ESA. The rest is spent domestically. The UKSA, German DLR, Italian ASI, and other national agencies also participate in ESA and it's set up so that the money floats back mostly proportionally. Countries that contribute more get allocated more. Countries that contribute less get allocated less. It's quite simple and quite fair. You seem to be the only person complaining about it. There really isn't much American technology on the Charles de Gaulle (the catapult technology I guess) and the British had nothing to do with it. But what's exactly your complaint here? Isn't the point of NATO to make military hardware interoperable, which it is. It means that F-18s and Rafales can all operate on either the CdG and US carriers. Isn't that a good thing? And who rates a country based on their military exportations anyway? I'd rather rate a country on its quality of life, access to education, healthcare and social security. We might have only one aircraft carrier, but nobody here has to sell their house if they get cancer and you won't find 90 year-olds being forced to work part-time jobs either. And your complaint is what exactly? The idea of European cooperation arised in the post-WWII world as way to promote peace by creating cultural and economical ties between countries. It's a great idea and has been quite successful. FYI, most of the high-level design work is shared by Toulouse and Hamburg. Components are designed where they are made by joint studies between local Airbus offices and subcontractors. The materials come from wherever each component is made, so that's just another silly remark. This is SOP throughout the industry, and you'd be hard pressed to find a large US company that doesn't work the same way. But really, who cares about the nationality of each component? Airbus is a european company with suppliers and facilities in many countries, just like every multinational company in the world. When you look at a 787, is it a problem that some of it comes from Texas and other bits are imported from Louisiana or Ohio? Some parts even come from Italy or China, so what's the big deal? Ignorant rubbish. Educate yourself already. French airframe and british engines mostly, but it's way more complex than that. Again, what's the problem with sharing work in a cooperation project? You really do seem to have a problem with France. You seem to be using France or French as if it was some sort derogatory word. Seriously, when was the last time you came over to taste the wine and cheese yourself instead of ranting about what you saw on Fox News? I'll be the first to admit that there are things that suck about my country or about Europe, but sweeping stereotypes like yours ARE trolling and only show your ignorance.

No, but mass producing them to use as a means of propulsion opens up a lot of security issues.

You are seriously counting a guy who quit BAe to start his own company whose business model is based on luring venture capital to keep afloat as "the greatest visionary in mankind" ? I have no doubt he's a good engineer, rather creative and a bit of a dreamer, but it's a bit ignorant to put him on par with folks like Tesla, Newton, Einstein or Da Vinci until he actually builds something that flies.

Why don't you go stuff yourself with hamburgers, coke, and freedom fries like a Real American instead of boring people here with your jingoistic criticism of everything that isn't "Rah Rah Americah". Alternatively, you could actually educate yourself and try travelling abroad to get a real sense of what the world is like beyond US borders instead of relying whatever Sarah Palin sees from her front door or whatever misinformed sources you're using to forge an opinion. The major contributors of ESA are Germany, France, Italy, and the UK. It also happens that the major contractors that benefit from ESA money are those same 4 countries. How is that any worse than the situation in the US, where Florida, Texas, and California get the biggest shares of NASA's budget, which is paid by federal taxpayers from all states?

There simply is no push for a manned European space program. Our space program is geared towards subsidizing EADS, Thales-Alenia, and the rest of the space industry. ESA is strongly oriented toward a lean technological-return/budget ratio, and human spaceflight takes a back seat when unmanned science/technology programs have the best bang for the buck. A manned space program wouldn't necessarily create more jobs for the industry. On one hand it would shift areas of expertise, but on the other hand, it would be expensive and probably generate less launch and hardware contracts.

Is it ? Never heard of it.

My point exactly. A revolutionary massive interplanetary propulsion system is only usefull if we have massive interplanetary payloads. We don't, and we won't any time soon. It's not about me personally. It's about the dozens of posters who spent time participating actively in posting pro and con arguments about the exact same subject. There has been no magical breakthrough, no sudden change in the laws of physics, so the discussions we had a couple of months ago are still valid. We can start all over again for the dozenth time, or we can simply point the OP to the existing threads on the subject, such as this one: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/60566-To-space-on-nuclear-bombs I agree, launching it from the ground would be silly, and the environmental impact of atmospheric nuclear blasts would be terrible. However, building a kilometer wide pusher plate in orbit is equally impractical. How many billion dollar SLS launches would it take ? How many decades of work to assemble a monolithic part that huge. How many ferry runs to carry the thousands of nukes to orbit, as well as building the hab, bringing up the supplies, etc... "Wildly impractical" is a euphemism.

Since this is an international forum, the reference to an advertisement that runs in a single country is lost to the majority of its users that don't live in that country. Context, folks. The entire world doesn't revolve around you.

Sorry, but detonating nuclear bombs in the atmosphere IS bad. It won't happen in this century or the next, because it's a stupid idea. It would be massively expensive, massively polluting, massively dangerous, and we don't even have the technology or budget to build a useful payload for it. Again, we've gone over this dozens of times already. Can't you guys just search the forum for the old threads on the subject?