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Its hard to say, because the cost would also have to include the construction of multiple spaceports wherever you needed them. IIRC it cannot use present runways because the takeoff weight-on-wheels is too high. Really the cost is dependant on the expansion of a space industry, that has to come first, THEN something like Skylon might be viable (although still with a very high initial outlay) however, the general consensus is that Skylon is a thought exercise on how airbreathing engines might contribute to space travel, and not necessarily a complete and practical proposal. So we may get airbreathing space travel at some point in the future, it may be special-purpose or it may be widespread and ubiquitous, or it may never pan out. Either way, Reaction Engines have the SABRE, which is real, someone just needs to come up with a way to make money from it.

And thank you very much for making me feel old. Can I complain about the 33 year olds being lumped in with the 40 year olds? It should be: Are you: A child 33 years old An ancient, decaying elder. Much more representative.

This is exactly how a nuclear fireball propagates and is well studied, and still would represent a shock-front...from the explosion that is occurring. It is going to be nowhere near fast enough for your hypothesis, very much slower than c. This is where the supercomputers come in. Or at least very advanced physics. Its safe to say there would be some, but whether or not it will be insignificant in terms of the energies already in play, is a non-trivial question..

Of course it wont decelerate like a solid body, the state of matter stops being a factor many orders of magnitude of speed less than this. But it will decelerate. I think we are operating on two opposing sets of assumptions that, though possibly both relevant in their own context, cannot be used together - or, one of us is completely, totally wrong. For example, the sun is not transparent, even to X-rays. There will be a fireball, similar to a nuke, of expanding "shells" (really a smooth, continuous process of course) of radiatively heated gas. The way you describe it sounds like the sun would just quietly absorb the impact and get slightly brighter. No, Im strongly of the opinion that this event will cause a localised explosion. The effects of that on the sun itself needs supercomputer time.

Yes, very quickly decelerating. Deceleration proportional to the square of the velocity. I think its more of a fffffff-SHEEEEEW!!

I said "resembles". It will resemble a large amount of energy being dumped in a small space. Im not sure if the "average temperature of the sun" is relevant, this event will be highly localised in the initial energy exchange. Also, not for nothing but disrupting the sun even somewhat less than a half-radii is still a massive stellar event and the sun, and possibly the rest of the system, may never be the same.

Its true, it is important to remember. It is easy to forget, not least because of the social factors mentioned. And it is equally devastating. Women are capable of violence, abuse, psychological torture, sexism, racism, you name it. All humans are. However, the vast number - this is certain, even with unreported cases - of incidents are male-on-female and male-on-male, going to the mat to expose female-on-male incidents specifically, is like arguing that there is black-on-white racism whilst at a march against racially aggrivated police brutality. We KNOW there is such a thing as black-on-white racism, but its kill-count pales in comparison. We should be speaking out against ALL assault and harassment, no matter the sexes involved, without specificity. Yes, female aggressors are equally malign and insidious and should be treated equally. But if you specify in your protest, you blame. And if you blame, its as if you are saying "Them, not us!" Which, since all sexes do it to some extent, is a lie. It can feel sometimes, being male, that we are being personally blamed for these things. This is not how it works. That is a selfish position, assuming that you are a victim. Let the absurdity of that statement sink in.

The higher the kinetic energy of an impact is, with respect to the bonding energies of the materials involved, the more "spherical" the energy release is. That is, the more the impact resembles an "explosion" rather than a "penetration". This is an extreme case, so I would expect the impact to generate a large fireball close (within a distance of 1 earth-mass, earth-diameter, column of sun-material) to the surface of the sun, resembling a titanic nuclear explosion. Whether or not the magnitude of this explosion is sufficient to disrupt the sun in any significant manner is up to the folks crunching the numbers above. Given that the total kinetic energy of the Earth in this case is very large compared to the Suns total luminosity in Watts, I'd say disruption was likely. Answering the question of "What form that disruption takes, and the consequences", probably requires some time on a supercomputer.

lol! Another experience with DPD - so I wasnt in when a parcel arrived and they put a slip through the door, you know the one that says its waiting at the depot for collection for me to pick up? Pretty normal right? So I find the address and it is in the middle of this pretty industrial area. You cant walk in, you just have to sidle up the access road to the security barrier, the access road that their trucks use. Then a security guard see us looking curious and lost. "Oh you need to pick up a package, you'll need this high-vis vest...then he took us on a meandering walk through this literal factory, with caghed walkways etc to the "office" which is quite clearly the working office for the depot - think overburdened office drones rushing through mountains of paperwork amongst a collection of half empty coffee mugs. "Oh you need to collect a package -HEY ANGELA CAN YOU TAKE THESE FOLKS TO FIND THEIR PACKAGE?!" Long story short, it does not seem that DPD have a facility for civilians to collect their stuff, and they just wing it. Im surprised I didnt have to wear a hardhat and go through a safety briefing. *** On a positive note, my new phone did arrive, at 16:45 with the my landline in my hand about to raise heck with DPD. SUCH a close shave for them, I would have been devastatingly....polite and british about it (hey at least I picked up the phone!)

ok I have a complaint this time. My google pixel 2 was supposed to arrive to my office between 2pm and 3pm. Of course it didnt arrive. Of course it didnt. Why would it? When has any delivery company ever delivered a package on time? I cant remember ever seeing it happen. If any of you are thinking "Thats harsh, Ive had plenty of parcels arrive on time." - then Im pretty confident it was accidental, statistically that must happen sometimes. The delivery time has been updated from 2pm-3pm to 2pm-10pm. Good thing I had it sent to my office to make sure I'd be there to sign for it! If its not here before 5, when I leave, Im going to cancel the whole thing and stick with my old handset. I wasnt so much bothered about getting a new handset on the day of release, what I really wanted was a hassle free upgrade. I dont want to spend the next few days wondering when it will turn up, changing my schedule and spending hours waiting for it in a timeslot that they can change at a moments notice. If anyone interested, the delivery company is DPD. Dont use them, they suck.

Giving your opinion is always a risk, nobody is obligated to agree with you, or even support you in any way, but hey thats life

And I heard a story once about a man who had his house burned down because his neighbours found out that he was a ped...iatrician. But that doesnt mean the whole world has gone crazy. And neither does this. The whole POINT is that there are people being traumatised by acts and behaviour that "we" have ALWAYS thought is "totally cool, because we're jus' joshin' about!" but in fact were very hurtful. Not wishy-washy "waah my feelings!" hurt, but really, seriously hurt. Its not because suddenly millenials cant take a compliment, this has ALWAYS been happening, its just that with todays interconnected world, people feel more comfortable bringing it up, people feel able to be heard, which is a good thing, because the opposite has been enabling predators for a very long time. There will always be people ready to make a stupid scene for attention, and they have always been around too. Its not going to ruin the world for people to be more aware of their actions, and vigilant for others. People will use their own judgement, no comment or poster or statement is going to MAKE someone suddenly call out everything as a sexual assault or harassment, those types of people are already that way. *** On a lighter note, I would have loved to see the looks on the moderators faces when they saw this thread pop up

Yup, with sufficient power that is exactly what would happen, its less about the refraction, more just about travelling through a medium that is not perfectly transparent - a percentage of the energy is absorbed, to a greater or lesser degree depending on the frequency and properties of the medium. And as with most things, there will be examples at either extreme.

I cant take credit for this, I was put onto this one by someone else on these forums - I tried it and was very impressed, and its free! (for now) https://cosmoteer.net/index.html Then there's "FTL" which is best-in-class and you should definitely take a look. Im guessing you're thinking more "warship" than "fighter", so I'll leave out most of those. Starpoint Gemini Warlords (which I describe above) puts you in a series of ships starting from fighter and ending in battleships, with appropriately "shippy" combat. The "X" games (eg: X3:reunion etc. also described above) also have a selection of ships from fighter to battleship (and you can own+control a whole fleet eventually). I actually think the capital ship combat is pretty well done in the X games. Then there's Battlefleet Gothic: Armada, which is a real-time interpretation of the Warhammer 40K game, I got quite a lot out of that one, its pretty cool. Though to make it "shippy" and not too hectic (given that these are warships) I have it on "slow" the whole time. But satisfying combat. In this one you generally command a fleet of 3-5 ships, from frigates to battleships and carriers. "Void Destroyer" is also a pretty cool real-time stategy/space shooter hybrid which is done pretty well, again a selection from fighters to capital ships. Hmm...what else... I have also been on a search for "starship management" games for a while, they are a fairly rare breed, I think the only other thing I have on my books right now is "Starship Theory" which is a cute indie game still in Early Access, but looks like it has some potential.

Agreed. You are not describing a spacecraft but a complete orbit. A single numerical figure describe the orbits eccentricity in its entirety, it doesnt matter that the longitude of the periapsis could be any value, the value describing eccentricity does not change. Two orbits identical except they are each retrograde to the other, both have the same eccentricity too. You can even have completely different orbits with exactly the same eccentricity, described by the same single figure. Theres no reason it should be a vector, unless you package extra information into the statement, like "eccentricity in the direction of..."

Well said, no discussion required. It IS a weird place to put it...but then where isnt...the whole point is dont keep sweeping it under the rug: "Oh I dont know where to say/post this...." Copy + Paste same statement for racism. Speaking up is not always a simple matter, but a lot of times, it really is. *** Discussion may well spark argument, inevitably, but if the mods lock it, at least its here to be seen. *** #metoo It happened to me. It was not serious but by god it was eye opening. The psychological injury is orders of magnitude worse than the physical assault. And men, if you think you can shrug it off, you cant. Luckily mine was minor, I cannot fathom what happens in the mind of victims of more serious events.

<groooooooaaaaaaaaan> Falcon 9 heavy is....84feet tall? Woops! And that is not the SLS. And...oof...mixing feet and metres....no Or use sharp edged tools unsupervised....or stairs...or doors....y'know, to be safe, just dont let them out of your sight.

I dont think its a vector since it can be expressed with a single figure, eg: "-26.1degs"

Games...dont live forever....dunno why you'd expect them to. Minecraft is over 6 years old, its doing pretty darn well. Complex RPGs....I might have agreed at some point in the past, but there are actually a lot of really good ones if you wade through the crap and look, though I suppose it depends on your personal definition of "complexity". Personally I feel that it is our standards that have risen, rather than complexity falling. Just to be OT: Games dont live forever!

Could the "infinite velocity" mean the velocity at which the orbit becomes open-ended/hyperbolic, ie: no longer an orbit? Doesnt mean much to me without more figures.

Some sandbox style games offer an option to "retire" which essentially just halts the game and gives you a nice ending screen with some relevant statistics of your career on it. I like that. For some reason, for me AP doesnt "count". Something to do with it being an "interim" game or something.

For me its less that there is little to do late-game, more that there is no defining "success" objective. But those are universal problems for all open-ended or sandbox style games, KSP included. And hence, mods, in both cases

Just in case you werent already aware - Theres a coupla big total conversion mods, XRM and X-Tended, they expand the game hugely (ships, stations, missions, economy, graphics [a little], tools, stats, scripts, weapons. Its quite impressive), you might like checking them out. X-Tended for Terran Conflict is essentially a full sequel with a whole new plot and new universe whereas XRM is more a re-vamp of the base game. lol I wouldnt worry too much about steam, theres no protection on the files, you can copy it over to a non-steam install just like KSP.

Recommended, but its not mind blowing after X. Its like a pretty X-lite. Actually its about the same level of pretty. 4X-wise its just not got the scope of the Xgames. Like its got factories, but you can only build a few in set places and they only generate one of the 3 "currency" resources. Its got a selection of ships+classes, but far fewer. Etc. But the combat is different-ish and fun (Best part of the game, slightly more "naval" feel, auto-turret based, not too difficult), there are multiple ways to travel long distance, a variety of missions and the models are pretty. X just has more of everything, but if you are looking for a decent space game that you dont have to think about as much, its a good choice. I give it 6.8/10 - good enough to give a fix of space combat after you've gotten tired of managing an X3 career.

Starpoint Gemini Warlords. Meh, its ok. Better than the previous one, not as good as the "X" games (eg: X3:Terran Conflict).