-Velocity-

Also keep in mind that sources like the KSP wiki arbitrarily assumed that the gravitational constant in the KSP universe is the same as ours, and that objects like Mun or Kerbin are made of some ridiculously dense substance that does not exist in our universe and is not at all similar to the substance that rockets in KSP are made out of. A simpler explanation is that the gravitational constant in the KSP universe is higher and that rockets are made out of the same form of matter that makes up planets (as in real life). This second set of assumptions is simpler, but under it, we don't know what the masses of the objects in KSP are, as the estimated masses presented in the Wiki are from the objects' gravitational effects. Since the planets are on rails, it is impossible to determine what the actual gravitational constant is (as we can't apply a force to a gravitating body and determine how much it accelerates to determine its inertial mass), and as such, we cannot answer how much it would take to de-orbit the Mun. There is another explanation though- if we take the "planets are on rails" part of the engine as an actual physical trait of the KSP universe. Since no force we apply to the planets appears to change their courses, one could conclude that the masses of gravitating bodies in KSP is extremely high, so high that any delta-V we impart on them is below the measurement floor. This would mean that gravitating bodies (even Gilly) are nearly infinitely massive and gravity is nearly infinitely weak to compensate. So the amount of impulse it would take to de-orbit the Mun is nearly infinite.

Being right in the middle of Jupiter's radiation belts is irrelevant. Only the surface of Europa is bombarded by that radiation. The ocean is protected by something probably like 50 km of ice and probably has much less radiation that even the surface of the Earth does, as we're "only" protected by a magnetic field and a comparatively thin atmosphere, not 50 km of solid ice. Additionally, I haven't seen it verified or not, but I do remember a paper suggesting that Europa's oceans could be oxygenated by Jupiter's radiation. If I remember correctly, the way it would work is that radiation would break down water ice into hydrogen and oxygen in the surface ice. Some millions of years later, the surface ice might get subducted into the ocean and melt, releasing the oxygen. So Jupiter's radiation could even be benefitual for Europan sea life. However, for all we know, oxygen impedes the genesis of life by oxidizing biological molecules before they can self-organize into something more complicated. So it's also possible that oxygen in Europa's oceans could keep Europa sterile! (Oxygen in Earth's atmosphere didn't exist until life produced it, so it was not present during the genesis of life on Earth.) Also, you have no way of saying that life on Europa wouldn't resemble life on Earth. Life tends to seek optimal solutions, and as such, it seems highly possible that life on other planets could closely resemble life on Earth, especially at the cellular level, with the most major differences being different DNA bases or a different chirality of proteins.

You are speaking of what are known as "qualia"- the actual "substance" of sensory perception. Like the sensation of the color blue or the sensation of a high pitched noise. I believe that viewing the brain as a chemical-electrical computer (there is overwhelming scientific evidence after all that the brain is "nothing but" this) can inform us of the nature of qualia. A quale (quale- singular form of qualia) you experience is thus the firing of certain synapses that exist only in your brain. Thus, by definition, qualia other sentient beings experience are different than yours, since it's a different brain. The sensation of "blueness" doesn't have any physical meaning outside of this process that creates it. So a qualia is a process unique to each being that experiences it. This is enough to make the comparison of qualia invalid IMO, but if you want to go even further, you could point out that the brains of all sentient beings are all wired very differently from each other, so not only is a different instance of a sensory process going on when each sentient being views a certain color, but a different configuration of neurons is involved as well. Heck, we even know for a fact that sensory perception can involve vastly different processes for different people. There are people who "suffer" from synthesia, which is a sensory phenomenon where an individual experiences cross-overs between the sensory systems, like being able to "taste" colors or "feel" sounds. (Studies of mice have even suggested that they have evolved synthesia and make deliberate use of it, experiencing a sensation dubbed "smound" that is a mix of olfaction and auditory perception.) Anyway, I think that, just in the inherent way that qualia are produced and defined, as being a specific process in a specific sentient being, it is invalid to compare them. Apples and oranges. And then add on that sentient beings all have differently-wired brains, it just makes trying to compare them even more invalid.

Odd. I built an "interstellar probe" that I launched away from Kerbol at something like 100 km/s. I had staged ion engines on that one. They worked just fine. Edit- maybe just try a single set of tanks per ion engine, not staged tanks for each engine set. Less efficient, yes, but by a whole lot? Not really. Also, did you actually test this configuration in game? Those delta-V stats by Mechjeb could easily be incorrect, especially for something more "arcane" like staged ion engines, which is a relatively new feature. I've seen the delta-V stats bug out before or otherwise have incorrect information. Alternatively, those stats could in FACT be correct, because you simply have the craft staged incorrectly- like the decouplers are out of order or something.

In stock, the xenon tanks need to be separated by decouplers. I created a "refuelable", massive xenon-propelled ship that had paired, xenon fuel assemblages attached to the ship via docking ports, and with each fuel assemblage pair separated by a decoupler. (A "fuel assemblage" was a subassembly I created that had like 100 xenon tanks tightly packed together with Clampatron Sr. docking ports at each end. Effectively, it is just a very large xenon tank.) When a fuel assemblage goes empty, xenon fuel begins to get drawn from the next set of fuel assemblages down the line, and the empty fuel assemblage is discarded. (It is possible to refuel the fuel assemblage, but it would be HIGHLY tedious.) The ship is "refuelable" in that once it's returned to Kerbin orbit, I can launch a rocket containing new fuel assemblages and dock them onto the ship with a "construction drone". So basically, xenon tanks and xenon tank groups just need to be separated by decouplers to get them to feed your engines in a staged manner. If I remember correctly, crossfeed enable/disable had no effect on xenon fuel, which is why I had to use decouplers. Just be careful, and save a lot, because if you press the spacebar accidentally, you can split your xenon ship in half... the decouplers are only there to force the xenon fuel to flow correctly, in a staged manner, and are NEVER intended to actually be activated, because doing so splits the ship apart. Obviously, it would be best if Squad made xenon fuel follow the same rules as regular fuels, but it is what it is Oh, and all those people saying to "just disable the tanks"- umm, that doesn't work so well when your ship weighs like 300 metric tons and has like 750 xenon tanks or whatever ridiculous number my ship ended up having. I don't remember. OH and I never actually launched this ship into orbit because some new patch came out, but I proved the concept was viable on the ground.

Well, again, I'm not a big fan of Maks. Can you link the Celestron? Personally though, if I were really going for a cheap, small Mak that can crossover for terrestrial use, I'd probably get something like this- http://www.telescope.com/Telescopes/Cassegrain-Telescopes/Orion-Apex-102mm-Maksutov-Cassegrain-Telescope/pc/-1/c/1/sc/14/p/9823.uts Or the otherwise similar and slightly cheaper 90 mm version. 70 mm is quite small, and the quality of it might be a little suspect, even if it is Celestron. Personally, I think a small apochromatic refractor might be a much better choice, such as maybe this- http://www.telescope.com/Telescopes/Refractor-Telescopes/Refractor-Optical-Tube-Assemblies/Orion-ED80-80mm-f75-Apochromatic-Refractor-Telescope/pc/1/c/10/sc/346/p/9895.uts?refineByCategoryId=346 I have a 100mm achromatic refractor, and the chromatic aberration on the planets is annoying enough that I'd definitely recommend an apochromatic refractor if you can afford one. If I remember correctly, those Orion 80 mm apos got decent reviews when they first came out a few years back. Anyway, remember than you get what you pay for. IMO, it's better to send a couple hundred dollars (or the Polish equivalent ) and get a quality telescope you can use for the rest of your life than something cheap and flimsy that breaks and doesn't really do well what you want it to do.

This is very true, and I'm the owner of a 25" scope. The best telescope is the one you'll use. I don't use my 25" scope much because the weather is so awful, and because I'm only willing to use it from dark skies, which require a 3.5 - 4 hour one-way drive to get to because there are almost zero public lands in dark areas of the state I currently reside in (it also takes about an hour each to both set the telescope up and tear it down, largely due to all the stupid dew heating crap I have to attach to it to keep it free of dew in this stupidly humid state). We do get some clear weekdays, but rarely do we get clear weekends during new moon. And a lot of the weekends that we get that are fairly clear are not clear enough for me to risk a 4 hour (again, one-way) drive. So there is also something like dark-sky envy- you can get spoiled by dark skies so badly that you are unwilling to even observe under suburban or mildly-polluted country skies. To me, if the site is not dark enough to see the Gegenschein, I'm not happy with observing under it. And truly, the difference between mildly light-polluted country skies and near pristine dark skies is no small difference, and I also tend to look at the kinds of low surface brightness objects that even small amounts of light pollution can ruin. Even higher surface brightness objects have low surface brightness regions that are ruined by even tiny amounts of light pollution. I always feel like I have to go after something new or I'm wasting my time, so I've "advanced" in the hobby so much that I have a hard time even doing the hobby anymore. I wish I could cure that and return to the "newbie magic" I had as a kid... but of course, it was easy to always look at new, radically different objects when you're just starting out. Oh and yes, there are hundreds of thousands of galaxies within reach of a 25" telescope- maybe millions of galaxies- but after a certain faintness they all look the same. Regardless, these days, that's what I typically look at to get my allotment of "new objects" in to make the observing session feel like a success. (Of course, I still look at all the bright "eye-candy" objects, but again, if I just look at "eye-candy" the whole session, I feel like the session was a "failure".) Anyway, though, for a beginner, your sentiment is very true. A beginner does not need a big telescope. A beginner should not seek a big telescope. I started with 10X25 binoculars when I was 9 years old, and moved on to a 60 mm spotting scope. A few years later, I moved on to my first real telescope, a 4.5" reflector. I had a GREAT time, and found lots of galaxies and nebulae (just some I can remember spotting with my 4.5" scope were M81/M82, M65/M66, M51/NGC 5195, M31, M33, M57, M42, M78, and of course numerous star clusters). So small telescopes can do quite a lot! For someone interested in deep sky observing, I've always recommended a 6" or 8" Dobsonian, but it really depends. You can have fun with nothing but a 60 mm spotting scope, as I did, though you'll quickly run out of objects to look at if your sky is not very dark. The most important thing is that the telescope is usable and that it is used.

How much are you willing to spend, Scotius? How much room do you have to store the telescope? Not all cheap telescopes are small, depending on how you define "cheap". What do you want to use the telescope to look at? Do you want it to cross-over as a terrestrial spotting scope? Personally, I've never particularly thought well of Maks (especially very small ones), but I'm a deep sky observer. They are good scopes but... refractors are simpler and offer similar image quality, and Newtonians are also simpler and offer much more aperture. Maks are compact though. - - - Updated - - - It's probably both 1 and 2. Sometimes though, you can supposedly transform a cheap telescope from an unusable piece of junk into a usable piece of junk just by getting better eyepieces. What size is the eyepiece barrel? There are generally two sizes that cheap telescopes come in for eyepieces- 0.965" (24.5 mm) or 1.25" (32 mm). If the scope uses 0.965" eyepieces, it's really junky, and the eyepieces that the telescope came with are likely to be plastic pieces of garbage. However, if you upgrade them to 0.965" eyepieces with actual glass lenses with antireflection coatings, it supposedly can help out a lot. If the telescope uses 1.25" eyepieces, you're in better luck, because the telescope itself is more likely to be of usable quality, and there is a vast array of quality 1.25" eyepieces to chose from. (2"and 1.25" eyepieces are used in quality telescope- generally, a quality telescope will accept 2" eyepieces and come with an adapter that allows it use 1.25" eyepieces too.) Also, look at the front objective of your telescope. Do reflections in the objective lens look colored (like blue or green) or are they just normal-color? If there is no coloration, it means the lens is not coated with any kind of anti-reflection coatings, and it's of an extremely low quality- it could even be a plastic lens!

Those are electrostatic orbits, which work fine, because electrostatic attraction has the same form as gravitational attraction (at least in the Newtonian limit where almost all phenomenon occur). Those are not "magnetic orbits". As I said the last time this came up, I doubt "magnetic orbits" will work. Magnets are dipoles. To make a gravitational equivalent of a magnet, you need to concentrate negative gravitational charges (which do not exist) at one end of an object and positive gravitational charges (which do exist, as mass) at the other end of an object. In order for an object to be attracted as it moves around a magnet, it needs to be a dipole itself and orient the correct end towards the magnet. There will be zones in the field where there is no attraction at all (along the "equator" of the magnet). It might be interesting to create a simulation in MATLAB to predict what an "orbit" could look like, assuming that the object that "orbits" the magnet maintains a constant magnetic dipole moment and faces the correct face towards the fixed magnet all the time. In the far field, the attraction to a magnet by another magnetic object decreases by 1/r^3, the extra 1/r coming from the two poles cancelling each other out, which is also unlike gravity. Additionally, the field is not spherically symmetrical. Electrostatic orbits, on the other hand, again, work just fine, again, as Coulombic attraction has the same form as gravitational attraction.

Never put any stock into what you see on TV "science" shows. Much of what they spew is baloney or trumped-up and sensationalist. TV shows are made for entertainment, so they will overplay any possible danger, since people are attracted to knowing about dangers (it's a survival trait). What you should do is, if you see something on TV, independently investigate it on the internet. Wikipedia is not exactly the most reliable source, but for science articles, they usually have to cite peer-reviewed journal papers, so that makes them fairly reliable, and vastly better than any TV show, for sure. If you have access to them, actual scientific papers themselves are your best source, but it can take a while sifting through them. If you're not an expert in a field, you can have a tough time understanding what they say too, but you can still get the gist of the paper's conclusion. It can be hard to get access to journal papers though, there needs to be a better way than exists right now to access them. What's wrong about it is so much of the research is funded by tax dollars, but then the research gets published in a journal that you need like a $200 a year subscription fee to get access to (and buying access to individual papers can cost like $20+). The only way to read these papers- that I know of, at least- is if you're affiliated with an institution (like a university or large company) that pays all the relevant fees. Does anyone know if there's some kind of library subscription you can buy to get access to most science and engineering journals?

Alternative medicine can have side effects too. You're better off with faith-based healing, which only has the side effect of wasted time.

The eruption is not "long-overdue". There is a vague pattern based on a statistically insufficient number of samples (of a process that is known not to be very regular) that suggests that an eruption may happen in the next few hundred thousand years. There is no reason to believe an eruption is imminent or even overdue. I donno about your idea, I'm not a volcanologist. I think that volcanic blasts can be caused actually by the release of pressure- this causes gases in the magma to come out of solution, which actually causes a run-away blast when this process builds up some momentum. You could possibly cause an eruption doing this. Perhaps if you drilled into the magma chamber when the pressure was low, you'd get a relatively "gentle" release of magma, like during fissure eruptions? But the pressure in the Yellowstone hotspot's magma chamber may already be too high. However, I think the other reason this wouldn't work is because you'd have a hard time drilling a hole deep enough and keeping it open, but that's just practicalities

Not ethical, because you could just have the people receive the placebo effect from actual medical treatments that could also be truly helping them.

Here's some examples of some landers, not sure what this has to do with the text of your post though.

That's because the word "unnatural" actually does have a negative connotation in my experience when used in speech. Whether or not it's deserved or not is the wrong question to ask, because word choice is frequently based on both denotation (literal meaning) and connotation (emotional meaning). A word is both its literal meaning and its emotional baggage. And then of course, not all people use words the same way. So it could be considered correct to define that things that are "unnatural" are bad. The right question to ask is whether "unnatural" has a bad connotation or not, and whether that is really part of the definition of "unnatural". And in my experience, it is. However, I agree on your wider point that many people are senselessly paranoid and fearful of technology (in particular to this conversation, genetic engineering). People have this "Frankenstein" complex that "we shouldn't play God". To some extent we do need to be careful with new technologies, but some people take it way too far, and are fearful instead. Usually, they are very ignorant too. Personally, I am very afraid that these ignorant, fearful people will win out in the case of human genetic engineering, and that we will never take the step to improve our own biology. It is very critically important that we do so, there are many aspects where humans need improvements, or the planet and civilization will be in grave danger. In particular, we need bigger brains with a higher level of both intelligence and empathy. Because the brain is such an energy-hungry organ, every animal has the minimal amount of brain power it needs to fulfill its niche. We're apes adapted to throw sticks and stones, not ICBMs and RPGs, and maneuver in tribal social structures, not global social structures. We now have such an abundance of food that some people are horribly obese, so we have more than enough food energy now to supply the bigger brains that we need.

Monsanto can go screw themselves. Literally.... they could probably find a way to make it work.

Wrong. The people who claim that "humans are part of nature!!" fail to even grasp what the word nature means. Nature has multiple meanings, and the most common of which is the natural world with the exception of humans. So "unnatural" things are things that are caused or created by humans, in this context. And you don't have to believe me, just query dictionary.com- It's only when you get to definition #5 that "nature" includes humans. The most common definitions of the word make a big point about excluding them. Wanna know what word is truly used incorrectly all the time by people that should know better? "Sentient", which just means the ability to feel or be conscious or aware. Your dog is sentient. Hell, a lizard is sentient. A tapeworm is even sentient to a small degree. (You could even argue that plants, bacteria, and even our present computers are sentient to a tiny degree.) And yet, in science fiction, you keep seeing people refer to "sentient computers" or "sentient races" when they actually should be saying "sapient computers" or "sapient races" (the word "sapient" means "intelligent").

Well, we keep loosing honey bees to colony collapse disorder, and every year, the threat to them and all flowering plants keeps increasing. Isn't there ever-accumulating evidence that is at least partially linking colony collapse disorder to GMO, "round-up ready" crops? We're drowning massive amounts of acreage in various pesticides and herbicides... how would it be surprising that this would be bad for bees? Whatever is going on with them sure does seem unnatural. I'm noticing that I'm even seeing fewer and fewer of them myself. Used to be you couldn't walk across a patch of clover without hearing the buzzing of busy little bees at work. Now those same patches seem pretty silent, at least around here. So really, just like ANY technology, genetically modifying organisms is not good or bad. It's how we use them that is good or bad.

Where do I find the parts settings for "stock" RO engines? The gimbal ranges are huge, and sure, maybe that's realistic to real life, but KSP's control system is very crude by keyboard (and I had negative experiences controlling by joystick); it's basically bang-bang. "Precision" controls are just bang-bang with a delay. So my rockets are sometimes getting ripped apart (aerodynamically) by the massive gimbal ranges when I try to manually control them (and subsequently OVER control them and put too much yaw on them), and I need to reduce the gimbal ranges. I can LOCK gimbals on some/most of my engines, which works kinda ok for stages with a lot of engines, but not all stages have a lot of engines. I assume engine gimbal ranges are in the part config files, somewhere...

I got into an argument with my 6th grade "science" teacher when she claimed that compasses flip around and point south if you cross the equator.

Actually, I didn't realize there was a support forum for modded installs, or that there was some kind of log file. And I did, in fact, provide significantly more information than just "it doesn't work". See my earlier post. Additionally, it wastes a lot of my time to go through some extensive bug reporting process if the bug is already known. Which I why I asked first. Thanks! I'll try it out. Oh, I didn't realize it was already so organized. That's great news!

At a public star party in Montgomery, AL, a woman asked a guy with a telescope set up next to mine if he could see "the flag left by Apollo on the Moon". He told her, "No, sorry, they take it down at night." "Oh", she replied.

OK, this is beginning to get game breaking. I can't undock my lunar module again after returning it to the command module. Now, no matter how I edit the save file, my craft just explodes a few seconds after loading Does docking work OK in RO for anyone? Sorry, but I cannot believe that this is not related to RO. I had NO undocking bugs for the whole last six months of playing stock KSP, and now, my only two dockings/undockings in RO have both resulted in major bugs. I guess I will have to delete the entire lunar module from the save file in order to proceed Edit- yea, deleting the lunar module saved the mission. Good thing I was able to edit the save file and undock without deleting the lunar module on the way down. It's really gonna suck if all my undockings in RO have to be done via Notepad++.

I would think that, in general, the chemical toxicity of depleted uranium might be a bigger danger than the radiation. I could be wrong though.

Maybe the mods as you know them are endangered, but that's not a bad thing. Take FAR for example. Sure, its current incarnation could be scrapped, but either it, or something like it, would likely be reborn as a modification/enhancement of the stock aerodynamic model. Perhaps the new aerodynamics model will allow realism enhancements that are currently not even possible. It's just natural evolution into something different and (usually) better.