HeadHunter67

To me, the minimum definition for a "massive" station, is one that cannot be launched by a single vehicle. My stations are modular and usually launched in several pieces, and assembled in orbit by an RCS-powered probe tug. This lets me launch reasonable payloads (typically 12-18 tons) with reasonable lifters. I avoid truly "massive" stations for two reasons: performance, and lack of necessity. Essential components for my stations are: bridge (I prefer the cupola for this), habitation (2x crew space for each occupant, so a hitchhiker can accommodate two Kerbals long-term), power generation (a little bit from RTG and mostly from solar), attitude control, communications, and a means for all occupants to evacuate to safety (I designed a very tiny 4-man escape pod using lawn chairs). I generally have a modest amount of fuel to refuel visiting ships (I was able to save an otherwise-doomed mission by making a rendezvous with the station to refuel before going on). Even though the game still doesn't make orbital science that worthwhile, I like having full scientific capability - as others have said, the lab looks spiffy.

If that's the case, then it sounds like your issue is with RT2, which is displaying in Earth days. Maybe there's an option to change its display to Kerbin time, if not, you may want to ask in that thread.

Is your game set to display Kerbin days, or Earth days? Sounds like PreciseNode and Alarm Clock are talking about 38 Kerbin days, where RT2 is talking 9 Earth days. Go into settings and check to see - the 23.5 update runs on Kerbin days by default. Changing it to Earth days should fix your issue.

So we're going to talk about the Maersk Alabama, and that sort of thing? Or are we only talking about the glamorous Hollywood pirates instead of the actual murdering kind?

That is correct. The SRB didn't explode, it leaked - and that jet blew up the EFT.

Or you could copy them into the game's top level Ships/VAB folder so they are visible in sandbox - edit them there and save them, move them back to your save's VAB folder and voila! I believe this was already mentioned when 3.0 was released.

I... LAL'd YEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!

I'm hoping they can come up with a system that can exactly duplicate all of the space mining activities we have done in our own real-world space programs... Looks like they've already got it in-game.

I think that's a pretty good idea. I don't have an issue with the narration - it's no different than any other educational video, documentary, or PR film from NASA, honestly. and you have a good speaking voice and clear diction. I don't know how many videos I've skipped over because the presenter had a voice that was simply annoying, or muttered, or had such a heavy accent that even the closed captions made no sense... Keep up the good work!

Bingo. I often hear this kind of suggestion when someone comes asking a question, and I am astonished that you and I seem to be the only ones who've observed the impossibility of such a recommendation. Those who do not know cannot possibly update the wiki! That should be the task of those who do have the answers - it's up to the author and the "expert users" to share what they ought to understand better than any of the rest of us.

Thanks for all the useful advice lately, Dave. I just finished my first Mün landing in BTSM - the rocket was almost identical to your Fleming mission. After a couple design hiccups, I made it there safely (I did have to load about twice as much monopropellant and a small reaction wheel, I'm not that good a pilot!) Coming back was the challenge - a little trial-and-error to get the right Pe upon separation, and then realizing I needed to adjust the default parachute settings or it would burn up! Thank the Maker for Alt-F5. Eventually I splashed down safely for 652 Science. I chose to unlock Advanced Electrics in addition to the three required nodes for a good manned mission. I'm about 30 shy of another T5 node, but you were right about the payout! If it weren't for your mission reports, I'd probably have been overcome with frustration by now. I get a lot of enjoyment out of reading your reports, and more out of knowing that the next step is possible and taking some tips on how to do it!

These parts look really nice - I'll be following your development eagerly.

I have KSP and Lunar Flight (though I've yet to find time to play it when all I do is KSP!) but I agree that those two games go together well. And Universe Sandbox is a good tier 1 for such a bundle.

Am I the only one who says the title of this plugin in a Jim Gaffigan voice?

No one ever said it was - I simply pointed out that a liter of liquid oxygen provides hundreds of liters of breathable gas. The liquid is not compressible - it's already compressed, and that's why it yields so much gaseous oxygen for its volume. As for the raw numbers themselves - Paul took them from medical and welding supply products, and I'd like to think they have a pretty good understanding of what their containers can hold. I'm not sure about the math in the liquid state, but since even the smallest cylinder can hold about 50 times its volume in pressurized gaseous oxygen, 800-ish is not unlikely in liquefied form. Also, I'm not sure what Bernoulli has to do with this - care to explain?

This will surely come in handy some time!

I agree - that's kind of how I was thinking on it , too.

I was always advised that, on the ascent, time to Ap should be between 30-60 seconds - pitch down or up as needed to keep it in that range. When I started, I used to do the "straight up to 10k, 45 degrees until desired Ap, begin circularization burn at T minus 1/2 of the burn time"... that's a good way to start, but it invariably leads to a really elliptical orbit with an apoapsis far above the desired altitude. So now, I tend to ascend at a shallower angle - straight up to get out of the troposphere, and then I slowly chase the prograde marker down to the horizon, keeping an eye on the time to Ap as I go. All you really need to do is get high enough to minimize drag and stay at terminal velocity, and a "flat" ascent will naturally increase your altitude as well as your orbital speed. Now I find I'm going much faster when my Ap marker gets to the desired altitude, and then I can start to dip below the horizon to continue increasing speed as I ascend. When I finally reach the Ap, I only need a short burn to bring up my Pe to the same altitude. This method also gives me a lot more time to work on keeping my orbit nice and round - I'm not frantically trying to set up a node in time to start the burn.

Thanks, that was exactly what I wanted to know. So a one-liter cylinder could store 85 liters of pressurized oxygen in gas form, or 798 liters in liquid form. Obviously, in a spacecraft, it is going to be stored in liquid form most of the time, for space considerations and also for use in the fuel cell, which also provides power and clean water. A quick search shows that a human needs about 550 liters of oxygen each day, but I'd expect that Kerbals would use proportionately less. So a one-liter cylinder of LOX could produce enough breathable air for 2 Kerbals for one day - and the standard 58-liter Universal Storage cylinder would hold enough for 131 Kerbal-days of air (a 3-Kerbal crew for six weeks).

Only if they're standing with their feet "down", on the "floor"... kind of a meaningless concept in space. Turn that 80x50 cylinder sideways and see if it's still an issue. Think of the inner hatch as "down" and the outer hatch as "up" (or vice versa, if you prefer).

About half of humanity is of below-average intelligence. However, in developed countries, considerably more than 50% of citizens have Internet access. The conclusion is inevitable.

That's not unique to that site - you see it here on the forums, too - people who think a Class E asteroid would lead to a world extinction event, people who think "gyroscopic inertial propulsion" could work... examples abound. I agree with Sal - it is futility to attempt to reason with irrational people.

Understandable - but even the standard oxygen bottles used for respiration hold a considerable volume of breathable gas. An O2 cylinder the size of a one-liter soda bottle holds about 50 liters of immediately breathable oxygen. When you consider that these racks will probably hold the gas in a liquefied form, to be warmed by the existing life support equipment in a capsule, then using "liters" to measure it becomes quite confusing. Stored liters and liters breathed are very different things.

I had a thought about that - for those modders using liters for life support - how, exactly, are they reckoning "liters" for oxygen? An oxygen cylinder that's 10cm in diameter and 13cm long has a volume of about a liter... but it holds way more oxygen that one liter. Even the smallest oxygen cylinders hold about 50 times their volume in pressurized oxygen. So I can see why that might be an easy benchmark for water, food, waste and other things that cannot be compressed - but it's not so useful for gases such as oxygen and carbon dioxide. And if we're talking liquid oxygen, then one liter of liquid O2 can provide considerably more liters of breathable oxygen than one mere liter.

One of the other things I've discovered is that sometimes, it's good to tweak the Radial In/Out while plotting your circularization burn. This helps to prevent an eccentric or elliptical orbit. You don't need to adjust it much, just enough to keep the periapsis at the point of the node. Done properly, it results in a very circular orbit!