Mitchz95

We have to start somewhere... And I doubt anyone willing to risk the very tangible dangers of space travel and Mars colonization would have a problem with a slightly increased chance of cancer.

If that's true, that's both hilarious and sad. All that work... At least it won't happen again!* * probably

Scott Manley on Twitter: "It's possible there's now twice as many Schiaparelli Craters on Mars."

Take your time. Real life is way more important.

Awesome! Looking forward to it.

Any ETA on a 1.2 update? I really want to try this in RSS.

Ok, thanks. Can you link me one of those mods? The built-in overlay is nice, but it cuts away some of the exterior and it's kind of ugly.

How does one enable the transparent windows? Assuming it works in 1.2. Thanks for all the hard work!

Er, turns out that wasn't it. JPLRepo's mod is mainly for use by modders and doesn't really support stock parts. The one I'm looking for explicitly did, and included pictures of Kerbals visible inside the vanilla pods and hitchhiker module. EDIT: Yep, it was EVE.

Thank you!

I swear there was a mod about a year ago that could make windows transparent so that we could see the Kerbals inside. I think it was part of a bigger mod, maybe TextureReplacer or EVE, but I can't find any mention of it anywhere. Help?

EDIT: Disregard, I missed the fix on the previous page.

Conspiracy theory: Elon is deliberately making the ITS unnecessarily inefficient to invite competitors to design their own colony architecture, making the colonization of Mars a proper space race.

Is anyone else kind of concerned about the on-orbit refueling? We just got a pretty gnarly reminder of how dangerous that can be, and Amos-6 was just sitting on the pad with nobody nearby. If something like that were to happen to an ITS full of colonists in LEO... well, it wouldn't be pretty. And the debris could threaten any other spacecraft in LEO, including potentially dozens of other ITS ships that wouldn't be able to land or take evasive maneuvers. It might be prudent to launch the ships with nobody on board, and use Dragons to send them up once they've been refueled for the voyage.

It's a good thing there aren't any interplanetary missions due to launch this week. I highly doubt they'd make their departure windows.

New Shepard did an in-flight abort test about an hour ago. Both the capsule and (against all expectations) the rocket made it to the ground safely. A perfect mission.

Wow, what a launch! I honestly can't believe both of them survived. The booster has some impressive battle scars.

Back on track! The delay is annoying, but better safe than sorry.

Apparently they had to recycle software on the rocket to stop the countdown. Now they're assessing whether to continue or scrub for the day.

And no explanation, either. I know Blue Origin is kinda secretive, but still...

Looks like launch is at exactly 11:00. (Half an hour from now.)

Anyone know what time the actual launch is?

I do like the idea of colonizing Antarctica first. That would make a great proving ground for Mars. Perhaps SpaceX will team up with other other organizations to set up some test sites and get more information about what a colony would be like. The Mars Society is already doing something like that in a few spots around the world, albeit on a much smaller "Apollo-style" scale. Regarding the backup issue, it's not just planet-killing asteroids that could ruin things. Here's a Musk quote: The way things have been going lately, a "gradual decline" doesn't seem that unlikely. Even if it doesn't happen, it makes sense to start while we can.

If the colonists are willing to risk a potentially horrifying death on Mars, I doubt the possibility of a fatal launch failure will deter them much. Ditto with the radiation concerns.

If an absolute imperative comes along, I doubt we'd have the time or the resources. The colony wouldn't be self-sustaining for decades if not centuries, anyway, so it's better to get started right now while we have the will and the way. The question isn't when we should colonize Mars, but if. And if the answer to that is yes, we should get started right away to ensure it's as far along as possible when that absolute imperative comes along. Better to have a colony and not need it yet, then to need it and not have it.