Kulebron

If I see a tech person, it's worth discussing, apart from that I don't. They're not interested in more than a general discussion, or in unexpected revelations (like that our ships and engines are superior ), but I just name that fact. Rarely someone tries to show their importance by making an argument with pure common sense. Then I drop a bunch of numbers and do a killer line telling to read the prime material. But all this is just a turf war. A couple of times some people got interested in aviation details and wanted to know more, but as I started explaining, they kept asking, and the circle of facts I had to explain was growing exponentially, so I think they just got startled by the vast geeky knowledge. Most of the people usually are interested in things they can imagine themselves doing or can relate to, so technical stories without drama, or pure technical drama, is not worth discussing. I think the best use for anyone's passion is to be a teacher. High schools programs are to stiff for that, but extracurricular groups are great. There are many kids who like technology and want to learn things, but school and college programs are just too disengaging, you just learn for the sake of learning and reproducing data without understanding. This drains you and kills interest. If you instead offer them doing something meaningful, then learning becomes effortless, and achievements will boost the passions.

I wonder how many guys here are defending Space Shuttle at any cost. If you read Richard Feynman's comments on the program and his memoirs, and the picture becomes clear: NASA had to prove it's own worthness by launching Shuttles at any cost. Nobody in the organization can or could criticize in public the organization, nor the Shuttle project. I wonder why Americans have trouble with ISS missions flying Soyuz, and having soviet engines on Atlas and Antares rockets. Your space industry has many independent companies, and there are enough competitors to keep the industry sane and avoid becoming a self-referencing group. Many claim it's unfair to compare ships, but if we considr a particular mission profile, they have to be compared, to choose the best one. If we compare safety, the record is about the same, although for Soyuz the crew loss were in its early stage, while Shuttle had same problems through all its service life. Someone mentioned the pyrobolts issue that led to ballistic reentries and separation of service module in the atmosphere. For the sake of intellectual honesty I have to say this may lead to fatal accident, and has to be addressed. Shuttles were safer in this sense because they did not need any mechanical operations before landing. As far as other stages of flight are concerned, Soyuz is safer than Shuttle was. 1. Shuttle with its fragile side-by-side configuration is very sensitive to weather, and has very narrow launch windows. Before launch, a number of balloon probes and sound rockets are launched. Soyuz rocket and spacecraft are much sturdier and can launch in snowfall and turbulence. 2. Soyuz has escape system for pad or ascent incidents. Incidents similar to Challenger disaster, when the rocket was destabilized and disintegrated by dynamic pressure, are not fatal for Soyuz crew. 3. Upon landing, malfunctioning Soyuz spacecraft can still do a bumpy ballistic reentry and land safely. Shuttle could not land in case of damage or losing attitude control, and its heatshield, being exposed at all stages, is more vulnerable. The Soyuz parachutes work automatically and independently and are duplicated. As for the economy of launches, the cost per kilogram shows a lot. Although, being state-financed, the industry makes me concerned, if really can sustain itself in current form, but that has little to do with the spacecraft design.

Really very much speculative figure, and it's not been tested in full operational mode yet. Rocket engines are usually built only to work several minutes. Even if Merlins are heavier and more reliable, they'll probably need full re-check and re-assembly.

Yes, I checked my screenshots, the velocity was close to this. Oh, I see, so you take -G(m1*m2/r) + 0.5*m1*v^2, and equate this for two states, that looks very smart. μ/r1 + v12/2 = μ/r2 + v22/2 That's cool! Thanks a lot! A used stage falling vertically.

Good material. But I'm interested in the calculation itself.

I try to calculate the velocity at Jool periapsis from velocity when I enter SOI, and periapsis height. Here are the equaitons I use: v2 = μ(2/r - 1/a) from which I get a = μr/(2μ - rv2) put the numbers in: μ=2,83E+014, r=2,46E+009, v=1600. Then, periapsis, q=6140000 (6Mm radius + 140km). eccentricity, e=1-a/q=20,749 vq = sqrt[(-μ/a)(1+e)/(e-1)]= ... I get 1602 m/s. (current velocity is 1600.) What am I doing wrong? Source of formulae.

I tried making this kind of escape sequence on action groups. The only problem is that the shrouds are attached only to the decoupler in the bottom, not to the ship itself. Either you have to lift the whole ship with the payload platform, or lift only the tower, orbital module & descent module. Be careful while doing escape sequence: if you deploy parachutes early, below 500 m, the crew dies instantly. Also, in KSP the gear deploys on two key presses, not one, and the side panels do not deploy with action group.

Never noticed that, thanks!

In Surface section, KER shows terminal speed, exceeding which is costy. Notice that when you dropped the boosters, velocity dropped by 20 m/s.

That's what I thought when listening to this program. The debate was around the negative side of gaming, exaggerated into a huge and the only concern. I understand that it's a natural and healthy concern of any parent, that his kids are safe, but speculating and exploiting it is cheap and does not help the matters. Abundant anecdotes they told do not prove anything, nor speak of reasons and consequences. And what anecdotes did not speak of were the kids themselves. All I noticed was the concern, exaggerated to unhealthy scale, and taken forward to restriction. Just block gaming. No questioning why a kid does this, how's his relationships, is he ok at school, etc. Just restrictive protection. Which is inefficient (you can go to a friend and play there), does not solve the problem. The problem is not gaming, but how fulfilling one's life is. In 1950s, when our country was urbanizing, many parents and grandparents were concerned with kids reading books rather than playing outside. My parents, in 1990-s insisted on the opposite. Restrictive protection, which is stronger these days with more survelliance and stronger governments, protects from short term issues, but leaves growing children unprepared for challenges. Kids at the age of 1-3 years need to run and fall, to learn to balance. They need to burn and cut their fingers to learn that ovens and knifes are dangerous, and to learn to use them safely too. Children at the age of 10-13 need to go for walks and have a private place to learn to socialize and cooperate. They need to try out all sorts of materials, sights and motion activity out there in the wild, -- that's why kids at 7 and above go not to playgrounds, but to construction and industrial sites. Despite games teaching something, I think real life is usually much more stimulating. So playing videogames too much means there's a problem, means life is not fulfilling. But you can't fix it by just blocking games, and what is to be discussed is how parents can fill it, how to add, not merely substract. And I think OP's statement wasn't brushed off, it was just not heard. All they thought of was restriction and control, and that's why they took your example as a form of control, i.e. playing together. Thanks for posting thing, was though provoking.

I think money can add some challenge, and if it were possible to try doing hard missions with limited parts & their limited amount would be great. By the way, it was much more challenging and addictive for me when I did not know about loading quicksaves.

I did use Deadly Reentry too, because otherwise it's too easy. IIRC, I did kill someone this way

Out of boredom, I tried career mode yesterday. It was really interesting in the very-very beginning. But in 1 flight I got into suborbital flight, then in orbit, and after I got stack decouplers, I sent a Kerbal to Mün and home. Then I had to fly to other biomes on Kerbin, and so I got the science canister. After opening the 4th level of science I have almost all I need, except a docking port. But the gameplay starts being really boring, all the same: probe here, probe there. Doesn't matter if you do smart things and bring stuff back: if you don't return the science pod back, you just transmit the data from several science tanks. I'd change the system a little: science tanks give too much of data right away, while small instruments are still unavailable. I think this should be the opposite: the goo can & science canister should be later, while the simple instruments shoud be available right away or on levels in column 1 or 2.

Hi, who's maintaining this pack science tree? I tried playing career and had to not use these parts, because it becomes just too easy. You have everything right away and can go to Mun. I think that removing the orbital module, docking port and the third stage could make it reasonable harder.

Another chapter, and thanks to Kerolyov for contributing many corrections.

LifeSupport is a folder inside GameData. Search it with file manager.

Can someone explain what the tweakable values mean? Or at least can cooling (or heating up to ambient temp.) speed be tweaked?

By the way, from what I read somewhere, reentry is balancing between quick deceleration and flying in thin atmosphere, but burning up because the air particles heat up (air molecules hitting at 8km/s is equal to gas being as hot as 4500K-4900K). Is this true?

Then when you're close, choice is 1. switch to each of the ships, set the other's docking port as target, approach and dock 2. if you can't turn target (it's a huge space station), switch camera to chase mode, align and dock. Docking in KSP is tolerant to up to 30 degrees of axis misalignment and maybe more. Looking from behind to align with the station's port. It's learnable when you know some key things, like cancelling out the velocity in navball, using translation controls (and having RCS on the ship ), and using this chase camera. Until learning this camera trick docking was very painful (I know there's a plugin, but was lazy to use it.)

Do you mean the stages get mixed up when adding subassemblies? This merits a bug report, because it's a bad implementation.

I had about 60 objects, and ECLSS reduced the normal speed twice, so it became totally unplayable, I had to remove it.

What are those new planets, Skelton, etc.? Are they accessible in vanilla KSP? Maybe in career mode?

As I said, IRL, the smaller temperature difference the slower it changes, which is not the case, and I ask if objects cool down too quickly.

I tried firing engines on the ground, and the temperature falls quickly even when it's close to the ambient temperature. When ambient is 15-20 deg, and module is 30 degrees, it should cool down some minutes. (If the author didn't mean heat dissipation through structures, although still some 5..7 degrees of difference should stay longer.)

See my website in the signature. You're welcome to quote it. I gathered such a collection (on the front page) once in this thread: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/51961-Post-some-of-your-huge-rockets-for-distant-missions