lajoswinkler

Scientist Bob Kerman exits the capsule first. His first scientific report is that everything is green. Bill is mesmerized by the apparently colorful sand. Every mission needs to have a Kerbal pyramid in it. So while Jebediah and Bill are wasting their precious oxygen, Bob went for a walk to the shore. Some mid-air kung-fu is unavoidable on low gravity worlds. Finally, 3.4 km away from the landing site, Bob Kerman reaches the ocean. Sadly, no samples could be picked up. A speedy return was needed because of depleting oxygen. In summary, Tekto is a dead world with unbreathable atmosphere at some 1 °C and somewhat larger pressure than on Kerbin's shores. And it's mostly green.

I was refering to the natural uranium. Even a TV sized lump would not have a nice time. Even depleted uranium will experience massive problems because of the heat.

There certainly is radioactive decay in all planets and all satellites; that's what gives their cores a great deal of heat, probably most of it in some cases, but for any seemingly controlled fission you can't have all the contents mixed and in fluid state. They will spontaneously separate. Those atoms are ancient surviving remnants of some old supernova. Uranium and thorium isotopes. The actual rays coming from such cores are not a threat because the overall power density is very low. It's the sheer huge mass of the material that is responsible for the energy levels. Compare with Sun's fusion - its energy generation is lower than in a gekko, yet it is a scary ball of gas and plasma because it's so huge. Our fission reactors are ungodly powerful compared to stars. Lump of uranium the size of our Sun can't even exist. Hell, lump the size of a TV can't. Also, satellites and planets are so large that the distance from the radioactive parts and shielding combined gives supreme protection. There simply isn't any such danger from any planet/satellite. The only threat comes from their magnetospheres catching and concentrating solar wind. You don't need a radioactive source to get ionizing radiation.

Jupiter has by far the largest and the most powerful magnetosphere. Saturn's is smaller and weaker because the quantity of metallic hydrogen inside is smaller. Uranus and Neptune have much weaker fields. Uranus has, on average, stronger magnetic field than Neptune, but it's is highly asymmetrical. Their fields are produced by degenerated semimetallic mixture of ices (ice = water, ammonia, methane, ...) at enormous pressure and temperature when there's significant electron orbital overlapping. The more powerful the magnetosphere, the more trapped energetic particles are inside. Nevertheless, in proximity of all gas giants ionizing radiation is so intense it would kill a human shortly. That's why manned landing on most of their satellites is out of the question.

Planetary magnetic fields don't do a lot when it comes to cosmic rays. What protects you is mass. The heavier the nuclei and the more of them in your shield, the better. 10 m deep cave is a decent one. Earth's atmosphere is also a good one because it's so thick. Cosmic radiation levels in Martian orbit and Ganymede surface should be very similar. It's neighbourhood compared to the universe around us. What magnetic shields can protect you from is solar wind. Unfortunately Ganymede has a pathetic field which doesn't stop much of the incoming and Jupiter-accelerated particle flux. It's being bombarded by protons, electrons and other stuff. You'd get radiation poisoning on its surface rather fast. Each day more than one yearly dose of ionizing rays which, received in one year, will measurably increase your chance of getting some type of cancer. Imagine that. Every day 80 mSv. You'd probably die in a few weeks from acute radiation poisoning. Unless you're at gas giant's magnetic poles where the flux is enormous, you should be fine. For example right at the equator where the magnetospheric bulge is the thickest. Gas giants themselves aren't radioactive.

That rain never reaches the ground but ground is not colonizable so yeah... clouds. Acid mist. Venus is ok for colonizing the clouds. You float there, experiencing normal gravity and you're cool.

Indeed, it's better to just tap the electrical energy into the chemical energy of the battery. Extending the transformation cycle just lower the total efficiency. You're right about the network. We already have a great electrical network. Why reinventing the wheel? Where do solar panels come from? When you discuss these things you have to take into account the whole cycle. From production to disposal. For solar panels that's very bad news. They've just started to be able to pay themselves off in optimal cases. In common cases like when you live somewhere in the temperate zone and you buy some mid-priced panels, you can be pretty sure that even if they pay themselves off, it will be like a decade in the future. You know where all that money comes from, which makes them not abnormally expensive, but just very expensive? Government subsidies and awfully low production conditions in China where they're made. They're extremely bad for the environment, but the pollution was outsourced to poor Chinese towns where now the watertables are contaminated with cadmium and acid rains corrode everything. All that to make us feel "green" and "eco" and "natural". If they were made here, respecting the environment and without government stepping in, you'd never have the money to buy them. They're that bad. Anyone mentioning them side by side with a basic power source like coal is just proving they don't know nothing about energy management. It's totally wrong in so many ways. They are good for buoys, lighthouses, emergency charging of small stuff, space probes/stations and funny novelty calculators. Solar thermal energy, on the other hand, can be a good relief to the network in places where insolation is plentiful. Wind is also applicable in special regions you mentioned. But all that can't replace stable, dense sources. Sunlight might seem plentiful, but the energy it carries is neither energy dense nor we have the means of effective capture. Combine that with ludicrous energy demands to split a mole of water. 286 kJ*mol-1, minimal theoretical investment! We're talking about enormous quantities of energy here. If you've ever tried to perform water electrolysis at home you know how much effort is needed to fill a test tube with hydrogen. And when you light it, poof, it's gone. All the effort to make few millilitres of gas at 1 bar. Extrapolate that to industrial levels.

Not giving the full story. That is the problem. Water electrolysis is such an energy-intensive process that any connection with wind and especially solar is absolutely hilarious. Even massive coal thermal power plants struggle with it. The media has brainwashed people into thinking that the problem with energy is not scientific or technological, but purely economic, which is a conspiracy theory and that phenomenon has longterm detrimental consequences. If we ignore the unavoidable horrific ozone depletion, hydrogen as an energy storage would have a very weak environmental impact if it was made by water electrolysis in countries like France where more than 80% of total power generation is by fission of uranium. With widespread ignorance and stupidity like in Germany, where fission power plants have been shut down and coal burning has skyrocketed, hydrogen economy would be a global disaster.

With some 3333.3 µSv/h (0.08 Sv/day), which is like 16666x my hourly dose at my home, and the enormous distance from Earth, and lack of atmospheric pressure, Ganymede is a lot worse place to be than Mars. As SargeRho said, Ganymede is orbiting a giant cyclotron. No, thanks. The view would also be a bit scary IMHO. Jupiter would have an angular diameter so large it would appear kind of like a closed fist when you stretch your arm into the sky. Martian atmosphere is virtually useless shield against any ionizing radiation. Thing is Mars doesn't have a giant cyclotron nearby like Ganymede does. Also Mars doesn't have readily available water. There is no evidence of water ice just waiting to be dug out and thawed. No evidence of transient liquid water, either. Those things have been blown out of every proportion by the media. Mars is pretty much a desert drier than Sahara, with barely any atmosphere.

No, it's not cleaner. It's a horrific ozone depletant that readily leaks out of every container we've been able to make. Also, most of hydrogen is so called black hydrogen, meaning it's made from fossil fuels which are obviously rich in hydrogen. One more thing - all hydrogen except black hydrogen is only an energy storage. Not a source. Energetics is a very complex, interdisciplinary study. If you're gonna boil it down to "it gives water when it burns" then you're not doing it correctly...

So this is the plan. Braking at apoapsis, releasing the lander, turning around and accelerating again. "This will work!" said Bill. Bob, on the other hand, wasn't really convinced the instruments were gonna hold on the reentry. About to hit the atmosphere. "If we land in the sea, we're rekt, m8" - Bob. Parachutes deploying while the shield slowly glides away. Less than 10 km above ground, parachutes open completely. "We won't die yet!" - Bill Jettisoning the lower docking port. The overwhelming green color calms down Bob. Touchdown happened at 3 m/s without damage, on a slope inclined 2.4°. Kerbals have landed on Tekto after a long descent. Landing spot is just few kilometres away from the sea, which is perfect for investigation on foot.

Well I did mention that. That's how they work, but it's nowhere near any planned approach, which would be extended true parasitism. Living on the expense of your host and not contributing to its health, but instead poisoning it, although not killing it because you need it to live. Viruses passively attach to the cell membrane, deposit their genome into the cell, cell takes the genome and starts producing the viral components until it's exhausted and breaks apart. It's not like they "take over". Taking things over considers all of the things. If you enter a car factory and you use one of the tracks to produce people with hammers who destroy the factory soon after, you haven't really took over the production.

Viruses are not considered to be living. There are viral species but they are not alive. Outside of the cell they're not doing anything (some can be crystalized) and in the cell their genome merges with cell's DNA and creates copies of viruses which, when abundant enough, indirectly cause cellular breakdown just like when you stuff too many cats in a box it breaks apart. There is no metabolism involved, no directional movement, no reaction to stimuli, no communication, no exchange of hereditary material.

Your program has a very professional look. I like that a lot.

And this is, children, why we always pack launch escape system.

Last night after being I was totally Now you have a fire to put out, Squad. Hopefully not enough people will spread this around so that it gets out of control.

Due to concernes over the total delta v of the ship, Kerbals have decided to ditch the centrifuge arms. After all, you can't aerobrake with them sticking outside, and packing them into axis and later unpacking again is so tedious. Now Slate has a small centrifugal space station with room for 8 Kerbals. During an escape burn from Slate's orbit, two lateral nuclear thermal engines were jettisoned, too. Soon, a positive lock on Tekto was established. I did 2 aerobrakings at 55 km and that brought down the apoapsis to less than 420 km. Maximum heatshield temperature was less than 140 °C and I'm pretty sure it wasn't even needed despite DRE on hard mode. As you can see, the ship has lost quite a bit of weight. Bob was very satisfied with the first results from Tekto's orbit. There are some concernes regarding the nutrients aboard the ship. It might be necessary to place some of the Kerbals back into the cryonic chamber.

Retinal damage does not work like that. It is cumulative. One day you'll find yourself being unable to read. What you see is not exactly what the retina sends to the brain. You see the image brain has patched up for you. I urge you to go to the doctor to perform an emergency retinal examination using a slit lamp. This is not a matter of polite concern. I'm urging you to go because, based on what I've read about your viewing techniques, retinal damage is basically 100% certain. There are certain emergency remedies to alleviate inflamation, but it has to be done urgently. It can not wait for a few days. It's a matter of your vision. You don't want such disability. You're talking about dimming, and I'm telling you it's not about visible light. Shields you were using have pathetic infrared absorption and you can't see that because people don't see heat rays. You were essentially letting unfiltered solar heat to inscribe figures on your retina like a laser writing on and you still aren't aware of it.

Sooner or later, your oxygen supply will be gone.

It has two strong hands.

Electric or hydrogen fuel cell, they have sense only if your dominating energy source is environmentally friendly, energy dense and plentiful (nuclear fission). Having electric cars powered by hippie power sources is a pipedream, engineering nightmare and an environmental disaster (luckily for stupid Westerners, immediate threat is outsourced to China which is the main producer of those power sources). But if I had to choose between them, I'd choose electric storage. Hydrogen is a bad idea from a technological point, but also it's an environmental nightmare because it's a horrific ozone depleting agent. It's not cumulative like freons and halons that it causes problems for decades after emission stop, but it's extremely reactive in contact with ozone. Because hydrogen leaking is impossible to avoid and being the lightest gas, large scale implementation of such technology would cause a severe degradation of the ozone layer.

What you did was an incredibly stupid thing to do. We were repeating over and over again NOT TO USE COMPACT DISCS or floppy discs but some people just won't listen and think they're smarter than anyone else. Although visible light transmittance of such things can be low enough to allow your eyes to see an image that's not shiny, radiation from the Sun consists of other photons, too. Weird, huh? Well there is infrared and ultraviolet. First one gives the sensation of heat, the second one gives you tan and sterilized surfaces. In your case, you used a makeshift filter that blocks almost 0% of infrared radiation, meaning the transmittance was almost 100%. In simple words, you were comfortanly watching the photosphere deprived of visible rays so your eyes didn't feel the need to close their eyelids, while the heat rays were unshielded, entering your eye and giving you a retinal sunburn. Go to your doctor. Do not wait. Not "in a few days". NOW. If possible, go to the emergency immediately and tell them what you did.

With a some 45% of light and heat being gone, he came to the hottest spot in the backyard. BTW congrats on 2000th recorded post.

I always liked how the eclipsed Sun in its full glare looks uneven and weird. Direct look at the photosphere. My pussycat was curious so he came to bath in the weird sunlight next to me. Photo is taken in infrared.

KSP police has been dispatched. Do not leave the country.