Kulebron

Good tutorial, got some insights, thanks! I did find aggressive low ascent more efficient back in versions 0.2x, with that aero model. Now it's a standard procedure, you only have to care of efficient aerodynamics. But I did have troubles controlling the rockets, when CoG gradually moved down towards the engine. This will probably eliminate the problem at all.

Also pay attention to atmospheric vs vacuum TWR, it is different. MechJeb's Delta-V window is more informative in this aspect.

Reported, still no reaction there Had to play with Shift+F12 cheats.

I'm still affected by this bug. I did read the existing forum threads on this before testing and posting here. They claim this has been fixed 1.2.2, but I had my drills explode every time. In the screenshot, the ship reentered from a low orbit at 3200m/s, and the drill did survive. But when I reenter at 5000m/s, it certainly does not. As you can see in the screenshots, the drill is beyond the heatshield, but still it's the only part of the ship that is shining red, apart from the heatshield itself, and a brief look with the debug tool confirms it. The landing strut near it is cool, just as any fuel tank. The debug info also mentions "exposed skin" for the drill, while the other parts have no exposed skin. Does this mean that the drill is considered sticking through the heatshield? If it's still not fixed, then we're probably still in need of tricks to land a ship with this drill.

@Green Baron the irony is, according to some researches, we are among the most secular societies in the world. Only Scandinavians are aheead of us. But I suppose many need a sense of identity and community, which is impeded by our modernist urbanism across all the country, so people very rationally take religion and conspiracy theories as a tool. claim their own religiosity or stick to conspiracy theory and use those beliefs quite rationally, when convenient.

Just a correction, this is not a university policy, it's rather individuals' culture. My university, Novosibirsk State Uni. It ranks in top ten in the country. They're definitely not nuts, except the religious girl, other statements I chose were just very picturesque. So I wouldn't judge if they merit their titles, most of them are decent specialists in their field, but they share one problem: not knowing or not applying the scientific approach to other beliefs. Some historians I know even claim that part of communist policy after the revolution 1 century ago was to drastically reduce humanities in schools and universities, in order to have more controllable population. Whether this was intentional or not, the fact is that communists removed rhethorics and logics from school curricula. I'm sure, without a training to reason on the information one gets, he's vulnerable to propaganda manipulations and can hold on to myths. In science, this means that researchers fail to understand how the science was synthesized and separated from myth, how to pose a problem and how to reject a nice hypothesis. This way, a graduated programmer is good at his craft, but cherishes a belief in intelligent design and does not put it under scientific logic and scrunity. On the one hand he has the nice feeling of opposing to the mainstream, on the other he has no instruments to pose a correct question. Another example is that chemist who insists we should stick to 19th century language. I actually gave him a book by a linguist, so hopefully he changes his mind. But what if I give it to a phylologist? He may feel it a challenge to his authority in languages and offer whatever explanations feel to be in his favor. But if we sticked to scientific approach, we'd discuss what we know about how language works.

Not a fan of pokemons, but what's the problem, let people have fun. Can someone describe the process how you got into playing it? Especially if you weren't a fan of the cartoons. What's the most interesting? As for the fun and the game labelled stupid, I heard some guys in 20+ met a middle-aged amateur fisherman. He looked at the screen and then asked them why they wouldn't go do serious things... like fishing. Which means sitting with a fishing rod for some hours and dudes coming up offering you to have a hard drink together. And then showing your wife a fish with a price tag you forgot to remove. Yeah that's very serious and worthy for a real man. I've not played pokemons nor going to, but have been on the other side: a girl I dated a few times, and I'd tell her ~3 times of a board game club, where we gather and play weekly. She'd always ask: "What does it all serve?" "It's a funny brain excercise." - I'd reply. But she would always insist: "But what's it useful for?" (Well, certainly she never questioned her bar meetups with hookah and cocktails.) So, let people have fun if they want and the way they want.

Hey guys, I was off the forum for quite some years, and just wandered by. This thread seemed too interesting to stay away. I live in a scientific town, a modernist purpose-built town of ~80K people, many of whom have been scientists all their adult life. Well, the shape of our Academy and this local branch seems not so good considered that I hear these people making claims like: - "Evolution has not been prooved, since there are no intermediate forms" (a historican) - "All the history has been faked, and what we call ancient Rome did exist but 300 years ago not 2000" (a Mathematician. He wrote a book on that and has lots of believers!) - "You must speak the good language, the examples of which are in 19th century literature", "these claims of so called new language are just an excuse to spoil the good normal language" (a catalysis chemist) - "I'd write a managerial accounting system to ease the management process, but not basing on [double-entry] bookkeeping" (a programmer) - "The fault of the Soviet economy does not at any bit refute the concept of state-run economy." (a plasma physicist) - "In 1930s our economy was the strongest since we produced the most steel in the world" (a historican) - "I think a lot of if I'm sincere with the god, and I find myself often guilty." (an elementary particle physicist PHd student) I just can't understand how you can merge science with this. These are not old people gone crazy, most of then are/were either PHd students or actual scientists above middle age, and only one of them is religious. They all graduated from the same university, quite good one. My problem with all this is that they so easily negate all the work done by the other department. Then they either hold on to an old myth, or switch the debate to slogans. Another, more subtle way how people act in un-professional or un-scientific way is through local community. Everybody has an opinion on wild nature preservation, on traffic systems and congestions, on transit, on what and how should be built. Just on anything, and when you quote them some advices from experienced professionals, they go on like if nothing new has been said. What's wrong here are 2 things: the very base of science is to doubt every clain and try to debunk it before accepting. Second thing, if you argue what should be done, you need an adequate _theory_, right for the scale. (One green untrimmed lawn is nice, walking a mile at night in a city with overgrown bushes around is just dangerous, etc.) The third thing is humility: you must admit you don't know everything, nor can make correct advices. So if scientists go wrong with the basics and act like ordinary people (emotionally and irrationally), no wonder other people do. The video in the beginning has really surprized me though.

There's an article about the work of Galina Balashova, who's works are currently exhibited in Germany. The article mentions German press to write about her, but I did not research on this. She's 84 and she pioneered space interiour design. An article (try using Google translate in Chrome) http://defence.ru/article/5554/ Some images from there: testing the Soyuz mockup. Minimal volume interiors for 2 and 3 people. Mir space station project, 1980. Ceiling, floor and walls are intentionally colored differently. Console in the orbital module of Soyuz.

I watched Flightradar24 carefully and noticed that long-haul flights usually fly 10% faster than those on short flights. In a short flight, cruise is just about 50-70% of time, so 10% faster means 5..7% faster flight. On long flights, cruise is about 90% of time.

As a frequent flyer I've calculated time spent on medium range flights, and concluded that faster vehicle won't improve the experience much. You spend 5 hours on a) riding to the airport staying there (you usually come beforehand with a safety margin) c) riding taxiways d) unloading and waiting for the luggage e) riding aeroexpress f) getting home on public transport. Transatlantic flights takes 7 hrs of flight + 5 = 12 hours. Reducing them to 8 at a huge cost is not a great improvement. I think better procedures and ground infrastructure can cut 5 hours to 3 or less (look at how things work well in Kopenhagen, Munchen or Amsterdam). Also, I think aviation now looks too much like private minibuses that worked or work in many cities, like in Britain in 1980s, when bus transport was privatized. Airlines play a bit against the passenger with all those non-refundable tickets, alliances that force you to only their connections. Also, isn't it absurd that if you miss your flight, the next one, you can't get on a plane that goes 1h later to the same city, and has empty seats? I think future of aviation is in making it more transparent and interchangeable like buses in Curitiba or Bogotá (sure flexibilities on planes are more expensive, but one can just introduce additional payments). For a passenger it does not matter a big deal whether you fly up to 3 hours in one company or another, so I think a contract system could be quite viable, with an agency selling tickets and paying to companies for flynig their planes on a route. (I know that planes are expensive to stay on the ground, so several routes are preferrable, but this is doable with good logistics.)

Missed it just an hour ago, clear night sky. Dangit! :facepalm:

Unfortunately, if you insist there is actual antropogenic global warming, these plants would also generate more heat.

Exactly. I just saw a similar story where a guy was staying around the girl all the time and her being cold and just passively accept everything out of boredom. This doesn't make even a good friendship. As a general rule, girls need to do something proactively in relationships too, otherwise they at least get bored. It depends a lot on a person which way she does it, but I've never seen or been into a relationship where just one person did everything. And just spending time together, or inviting to invest more don't count.

My favorite supercar is 1970s Lamborgini Countach. I tried its mod in the Live for Speed sim, it's quite wild. And of course this little beast: Caterham 7 For practical things, I'd buy Toyota Probox or Toyota Fielder. Fielder is more like a conventional sedan with conveniencies, while Probox/Succeed are spartan and simple.

Ya adiviné I met a guy from Mexico, he showed photos from a place where the nature was similar to that of Siberia or Scandinavia, and explained that it's an altoplano.

Looks impressive!

Last Saturday we tried to burn a wooden winter strawman. It did not burn (the wood was wet throughout). Today we did the same, again in vane. March is considered the first month of spring, but it's still 0 degrees and snowing. (I guess, around Moscow it's spring, but I'm 3000 km from there, and here spring comes 2-3 weeks later.)

@Laie, mr_yogurt: Nowhere I suggested changing the rules post factum, I wonder why you attribute this to me. You're arguing with something imaginary. All I meant was what if I were designing the rules for a new challenge. (And, yes, one is free to say "do or shut up" in response.)

@Laie, good idea, but it changes the task completely. First, if we factor in the hardware amortization, then we need to settle how many cycles it can sustain. How many times can a ship reenter, an engine fire, etc. But then, it still won't really matter how fast you fly: just send another ship, and although slower, it will pay off at the same rate. I think, what should be added to the equasion is time and interest rate. If one space bus travels 250 days, and another one does so in 125 days, you need twice less of funds mortified in this bus hardware. Means less loans, etc. Here's an example of a 125-days transfer. I guess, nuclear engine uses about 4 tonnes more fuel, or $92 * 4 = $368. In my case it adds 368/16 = $23 to the ticket price. Now we need to calculate the interest rates and the cost of hardware. But from this point we need more arbitrary assumptions: if it's free market, then we need utility and demand functions. Or it may be a contract system (like Curitiba Integrated Transport Network) where you are a commercial bus line, but you don't touch the passengers' money, instead you're paid per bus trip and are free to optimize your costs, if you follow the service rules. This is a bit simpler to play as a challenge. I had an idea of such challenge, but have no time to play KSP or maintain it right now. If you're interested, I can send you some details. One thing we'd need in such a case is a good web-based calculator for such a challenge.

Photos from December: it's either cloudy and snowing (warm humid air comes from oceans) and warm (0..-10. Given low humidity you can easily stay outdoors an hour or more), or very sunny and very cold, down to -30. Sun does not heat more than by 2..3 degrees during the day. February: it stopped snowing, and is always shiny, and sun heats again. Nevertheless, ice cream kiosks continue working all the winter. Look at the amount of snow.

Well, in cold countries this heat can be used as a free heating. Vapor turbines are exactly what's needed: water in the turbine cycle goes to heat exchangers as vapor or hot water and heats up the water in pipes. All the heat that you'd throw out of the window you use to heat houses and to get hot drinkable water for the water tap. This is the advantage of living in a cold climate: you get heating for free and rarely need cooling. In warm climate, you loose the free heat benefit and also need to use the expensive electricity to cool houses and to heat tap water.

Thanks a lot! I had got really lost in this.

Ok. And what about the recent Dragon spacecraft landing? Was it another mission?

I don't understand, where did they go? LOE or L1? Is there a page with mission profile described in dry language?