Nibb31

The cost of the war in Iraq was over $2 trillion. That amounts to "only" $6000 for every American (not just taxpayers). Yet approval at the time was way above 50%.

I favor establishing a semi permanent scientific outpost on the lunar surface before going to Mars. For several reasons. - We are in no hurry to get to Mars ASAP. Mars will still be there in 10 million years. There is no need to rush. - The Moon is easier to get to. We need to give ourselves achievable goals at this stage. - We need to build confidence in ISRU, closed-loop life support, cosmic ray and partial gravity biology before we engage lives in a multi-year deep space missions. On the other hand, many of the systems will be different. ISRU is heavily dependent on the chemical composition of the place where you land. Lander technology is also very different. However, a lot can be extrapolated, adapted, and improved for use on Mars based on the experience gained on the Moon: hab modules, surface equipment, rovers (to an extent), life support systems. Asteroid mining is a dead end. There is nothing worth mining on asteroids that can't be produced on Earth and sent to space for much cheaper.

Rendez-vous and docking are two different things that require different skills. Rendez-vous requires some knowledge of orbital mechanics and fully understanding how the navball works. Docking as quite similar to thrusting around a Kerbal in EVA mode. If you can spacewalk in EVA and bring a kerbal back to the airlock, then you should be able to dock. I just posted a quick and easy step-by-step guide as an answer to this thread: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/39396-Why-can-t-i-dock-%21

First learn to orbit. Then, learn to reach the Mun. Then, learn to land a probe on the Mun. Then, learn to land a manned ship on the Mun and bring it back. Then, learn to get a rover onto the Mun's surface. Don't try to skip those steps, or it will just end in frustration.

It sounds like you problem is with rendezvous, not with docking. It also sounds like you have a misunderstanding about what the navball is telling you, and maybe a confusion about the pink and yellow markers. When you are trying to rendezvous with a target, you need to have selected the target in map mode, and the navball must be indicating Target. This means that the speed indicator and the yellow prograde and retrograde markers are now indicating your relative speed to the target. Any manoeuvers that you perform with regards to those markers, in Target mode, are relative to the target (and not your orbit). The pink markers indicate the direction of your target. Only the pink positive direction is useful. The pink opposite direction serves no real purpose. Rendezvous is all about getting close to the target by burning towards the target (the pink target marker), and then reducing your relative speed to zero by burning opposite to your velocity vector (the yellow retrograde marker). When your relative speed is zero, you will be on the same orbit as the target, and therefore stationary. From that point, you can gently thrust around the target with RCS, just like you would in EVA, and get yourself in position to dock. To rendezvous, this is how you do it: 1- Select your target in map mode. Click the navball where it says Surface or Orbit to switch it to Target. 2- Place yourself in an orbit that is lower or higher than your target. This is important, because if you are at the same altitude, it will take ages to catch up (or be caught up) with your target. 3- Set up a manoeuver node that intercepts your targets orbit. This is the tricky bit, because there is a lot of trial and error involved with pulling the handles around. Aim for a distance that is below 2km from the target. The closer the better. 4- Execute your manoeuver mode and watch your ship reach the closest approach distance. 5- Make sure your navball is in Target mode. When your ship gets to your closest approach distance, point to your retrograde marker (which now indicates your vector relative to the target), and burn until your speed is 0.0m/s. That's it, you have achieved rendezvous. However, you might be a bit too far away from your target to go for a final docking approach. To manoeuver closer to the target, this is how you do it: 1- With a relative speed of 0.0m/s Make sure the navball is still in Target mode. Point your ship towards the pink marker. This indicates the direction to your target. 2- Burn gently towards the pink marker. Do not exceed 2 or 3m/s. The (relative) prograde marker should come close to that pink marker. 3- If you start going too fast, or as your prograde marker drifts away (this is normal), just point retrograde and cut your speed to 0.0. 4- Repeat steps 2 and 3 until your distance is below 500m. Finally, you want to approach your target and dock with RCS only. This is how you do it. 1- With your two ships stationary to each other, switch to your target ship. 2- Point it in a particular direction (Normal/antinormal or "North/South" is often suggested, but not mandatory). Switch on ASAS. 3- Switch to your docking vehicle, point it so that the docking port is in the opposite direction. Switch on ASAS. 4- Switch on RCS, let the ASAS handle the WASD keys and concentrate on translating with the IJKLHN keys. 5- Watch your navball as you align with the target. When both ships are pointing towards each other, the pink marker should be in the middle of your navball. 6- When everything is lined up, you can thrust towards the target with H. Don't go too fast, and try to keep the yellow prograde marker and the pink marker in the middle of your navball.

Are you orbiting Kerbol retrograde from Moho when you enter its SOI by any chance? You want to be going in the same direction as the target you are intercepting.

MechJeb 2.0.8 has only one part. Folks, you've got to quit running 1.9.8, and remove it just to be sure. The latest version is superior in just about every way.

We're veering off-topic, but it's hard to have a discussion about space policy without talking about politics. Rockets are as much political tools as technological ones. I have no problem with government spending, because every dollar spent by the government finds its way back into the economy, creating jobs in the private and public sector, which creates wealth and brings in taxes. No country's economy has ever benefited from reduced government spending. It actually only makes things worse by cutting jobs, increasing poverty, and cutting tax revenue. And for some reason, those people who are complaining about government spending never want to cut military spending, but diminishing healthcare, science and education is ok. I don't really get what the number of government jobs has to do with the problem of having an anti-science Congress. The US is probably the only democracy in the world that has a number of elected representatives who actually believe that the Earth is 6000 years old and that children should not learn about certain fundamental History or Biology subjects. We all have our wackos, but the US is the only place where they get to actually pass laws. Back to space policy, there is no business model for private space exploration, and there won't be any time soon. So the only incentive is government funding, for both scientific advancement and soft-power diplomacy. I'm not saying it's not possible to cancel an international project. It just adds a stabilizing factor to the deal. When you screw your allies, they lose trust in you, and it gets harder to get them on board future projects. Government officials know that the lack of trust can also affect other fields of negociation further down the line, like trade agreements or foreign policy. Those repercussions can cost more than the few billions saved by cancelling a (rather small) space program.

Thank gods for the metric system.

That is pretty much the deal, to get a European astronaut on board. However, the agreement only currently covers 2 service modules. That's it. There are also only 2 Orion flights that are actually scheduled, including one unmanned, and no funding for any more. After that, who know what happens? On the current budget, nothing much. Maybe NASA takes the design and gets Lockheed Martin to make another couple of SMs. Maybe the whole program is cancelled. It does seem crazy to maintain the infrastructure for a rocket that will only be launched every 2 or 3 years. The main reason NASA passed the deal with ESA was to actually secure funding for those 2 first missions. It's easy for Congress to cancel domestic programs, but it's harder when there are other countries involved. The US has to meet its commitments with its international partners. That's the main reason the ISS hasn't yet been disbanded.

Actually, most of their space program is domestically-designed or licensed from the Russians. I don't think they have actually stolen much. Their aircraft industry on the other hand...

I don't think age enters into the equation. The problem is that NASA is primarily a jobs program and that the way the US political system is set up, politicians put their local constituency above national priorities. That is no way to run a country. If they were defending national interests instead of the people or corporations from their own state, then NASA could have a clear goal. Also, the US is on the brink of entering a new dark age. Congress spends too much time gutting education, science and health budgets and regulating womens' bodies, while at the same time too many people forge their "scientific" knowledge by watching the History Channel and listening to religious wackos. People are getting more stupid and that reflects on who they vote for, and the laws that their corporate-sponsored representatives end up passing. It's Idiocracy come true.

China is not getting anywhere near the Moon during "this administration" or the next. They are focused on their space station until at least 2025. After that, who knows? But it would take 10 to 15 years to land someone on the Moon.

That's basically what the Shuttle-C proposal was about: http://www.thelivingmoon.com/45jack_files/02archives/Shuttle_C_001.htm The main problem was that it used SSME, which were too expensive to be disposable. One of the SDHLV proposals for Constellation was actually derived from the Shuttle-C concept, but with disposable RS-68 engines instead of the SSME. They figured that an inline version would be more efficient, which is basically what Arex V was.

The black and white squares on the SLS renderings are just PR fluff to set it apart from Ares V and to evoke the Saturn V heritage. The tanks will likely be orange, just like the Shuttle ET, because it uses the same propellant and tankage technology.

The Shuttles always landed on their own, except when they were being transported back to KSC on the back of one of the 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft. It certainly didn't need a 747 to land... How would they have done that anyway? The 747 SCAs were used for ferrying flights and for the experimental drop tests with Enterprise in the late 70s. Regarding the 747 SCA, I always loved the little joke that someone stuck onto it:

You know, that wasn't funny the first time. It still isn't when you're the 100th person to pull the same joke.

If I hear another ASAS or strut comment, I think I'm gonna scream. Come on, how many times are people going to say the exact same KSP joke?

I know you can build them and fly them, but they don't respond to proper rules of flight mechanics, therefore there really isn't much point.

It makes sense to start the gravity turn as soon as you launch. Any energy spent on achieving vertical speed is wasted when the goal is to achieve horizontal speed. The whole "go straight up and start your gravity turn at 15000m" nonsense is only because it's hard to gradually control the pitch rotation manually and it's easier to just switch on the ASAS to go straight up. If you control you flight with a proper flight computer as in RL (or MechJeb), then it's better to start rotating as soon as you're off the pad in order to get the most curved ascent profile you can. In addition, real-life launch profiles get to orbit in one (staged) burn. They don't usually coast to apoapsis and circularize during the ascent like we do. This is because they can afford to calculate thrust and weight in order to do so, and also because most real rocket engines can't be stopped and restarted and are very limited in throttle. They also don't care about having perfectly circular orbits like we do, as long as the orbit doesn't decay and the apoapsis ends up where and when they want it. If they need to circularize, they will do so after reaching orbit.

Aerodynamics are borked in KSP. There really is no point in trying to make planes or spaceplanes until a proper aerodynamics model is implemented.

Duplicate post. Duplicate joke.

Nova was originally designed for the Lunar Direct Ascent mission profile. When NASA switched to Lunar Orbital Rendezvous, it was no longer needed and Von Braun went for Saturn V.

Robonaut has a different function. Its main purpose is to be used as a remote control teleoperator. It doesn't move or do anything on its own. Although R2 is not EVA capable, the goal is to reduce the need for EVAs by sticking a robonaut on the end of a manipulator arm to do the work while being controlled from the inside or from the ground. It is anthropomorphic because it is designed to be teleoperated by humans and to use tools that are designed for human hands and human sight. This Japanese thing serves no purpose at all.

Sure, but for the moment wheels are simpler, and in space, simpler is always safer.