Nibb31

We had a huge discussion on the subject already, but I guess it was eaten by the forum kraken. A launch loop is a 4000km long 5cm wide bicycle cable that runs inside a sheath at 14000km/s, which is equivalent to the fastest man-made object ever made (Voyager 1 is travelling at 17km/s). Due to the mass of the cable, thousands of tons, the energy involved is tremendous. The sheath has to maintain a perfect vacuum, because if any air leaked into the system, the friction would melt the cable and the system would explode. If any of the magnets fails, the cable touches the sheath and cause the whole thing to burn up and explode. If any temperature variations along the 2000km loop cause either the sheath or the cable to dilate or retract, even slightly, there will be slack or breakage, and it will explode. But the biggest issue is that there is no known way to raise or lower the cable or to stop it for maintenance, and the engineering problems involved in building hundreds of platforms on the oceanic seabed and assembling the cable is huge. Basically, it's even less viable than a space elevator.

Yeah, but wishful thinking won't help you negate physics. It can't be too good for your health to lose too many brain cells... Of course, there needs to be more research in the area, but it isn't looking too good.

Orion isn't designed to land on Duna! And it's also designed to land in the ocean, and on land only in a contingency.

This isn't possible yet. The code needs to be rewritten to use part modules, because currently it looks for the part name. I'm sure Insewerrants is planning that for v4.

Inflatable airlocks have been part of major space programs for decades. One was successfully tested on Voskhod for the first EVA in history:

Yes, the radiation levels are probably manageable for short duration stays on Mars surface (1 or 2 years), with appropriate shielding, limited EVA sorties, and increased dosage limits. But it pretty much rules out any dreams of long term colonization, with children and families living off the land. There is no point in living on Mars if you have to stay dig yourself underground and never go outside. We can do that on Earth too.

ASAS or MechJeb or any other autopilot can only work if the other vessel stays within 2.5km. Even then, it doesn't seem to work 100%. The easiest way to deal with this is to press F5, fly back your booster, then press F9 and fly your mission.

Well, there goes your Mars colony I guess...

Did you add the MechJeb part to your spacecraft in the VAB?

What problem are you having with it? 1) Rendez-vous with your target 2) Right-click the target's docking port and Select as Target. 3) Engage the docking autopilot.

NEW mods written for 0.20 go into the GameData/<modname> folder. LEGACY that were not updated for 0.18 go into the same folder where they used to go.

This isn't possible, because internally KSP uses a tree structure where each part is connected to a single parent. What you are trying to do is to attach a child part to 2 parents, which is not possible. You can use struts to kind of hold things together as if they were connected, but they can't really be.

Yes, you need to add a few stages to that rocket, and use the orange tanks and mainsails for the 1st stage.

I think I remember tadeass saying that he had a hard drive crash and lost all his files, which pretty much killed his motivation to start all over again.

You mean 0.20 I suppose, because KSP 0.2 was at least 2 years ago. SSTO is hard, and it's a good thing. IMO, it's still too easy.

The big problem with Civ 5 is the braindead random diplomacy. It really ruins the game for me.

I'm liking the plan. I can't wait to give these a spin. For a planetary airlock, maybe you could consider an inflatable module which could be stowed away as a flat CBM port?

As I said, I don't see why the shape would be any different. It would have to go through all the CCDev 1 and 2 review cycles again if they changed anything fundamental about the design.

You could make your own MIR craft file in half an hour if you wanted to, yet you are asking someone else to spend half an hour of his precious time to do it for you because you're too lazy to do it. If you want it so badly, why don't you do it yourself? Bobcat has better things to do than build craft files for you.

I don't think that's possible without a plugin. You could use ORDA for docking if you want that sort of feature.

That's not a bug. If your TWR is below 1.0, then you're not going anywhere. Therefore, 0 delta-V.

This can be dangerous. I've found that when combining some mods with, say decoupler or parachute parts, as soon as the mod is enabled (or on launch), it triggers the staging event for that part. In some cases, this can cause a decoupler to fire or a parachute to open, which can potentially ruin your mission.

Are you using ASAS? During docking, once you have zeroed out your relative velocity, you really shouldn't be changing your position. Align one ship in one direction (normal/antinormal or north-south is usually suggested) and align the second ship in the opposite position. Then activate ASAS on both ships, and don't touch your WASD keys any more (except if you need to correct your attitude: disable ASAS, rotate, and re-enable ASAS). From there, just place your camera behind your ship and ONLY use IJKLHN keys to translate, not rotate. It will drift around a bit, but you just have to bring it back to from time to time. Aim for zero, not 1 or 2 m/s, then thrust gently towards the ship (the pink marker), and watch your distance. When your prograde marker starts moving too far away from your pink marker, stop to 0 m/s again. Once you are within less than 1km, forget about the navball and just translate like I explained above.

SpaceX has already revealed what the Dragon Rider will look like. Basically, it's a cargo Dragon with side-mounted Super Draco thrusters for launch abort and landing and the SIMAC docking ring. This picture was from only a few months ago, and it is consistent with the mockup that was presented last year: It can't be much different from these pics and the mockup because most of it has been approved by NASA. Any major changes at this stage would make them lose the COTS competition.

No, it's not free-falling or diving that causes the effect. It occurs also when the plane is climbing at the top of the arc. Have you noticed, when you drive over a bump, there is a point where you are lifted from your seat ? Zero-G aircraft work in the same way. They fly up and down, in a parabolic flight path, and the weightlessness is just a transitory effect that happens for a few seconds when they are at the apex of the parabolic arc. It is countered by a higher G rating at the bottom of the arc: