Mitchz95

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Cost/value, maybe? How much would I get for the vessel if I recovered it on the launchpad right now? Is it worth sending a mission to bring it home?

For Minmus I just do my departure burn at one of the Ascending/Descending nodes so I can correct my inclination with a quick puff of monopropellant at apogee. But yeah, I'll stack multiple payloads on a rocket if there's a bunch that need to go up around the same time.

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You could always just, y'know, quicksave again a minute or so before you reach the station. I would love to see a graphical overhaul in 1.2. The visuals in stock KSP are seriously lacking right now, and I'd love to see Distant Object Enhancement, EVE, and Scatterer become stock. More detailed planet textures, and a better skybox, would be awesome too.

Your optimism is inspiring. But seriously, who gets hurt if we spread life to a dead rock? It might be different if there's present-day life there already, but I'm fairly sure that's not the case. And even if it is, the solar system only has a couple billion years of life left anyway. Any native life forms wouldn't have a chance to evolve into sentient beings before the Sun turns into a red giant. Terraforming Mars would benefit mankind and harm no one. But that's a topic for another thread, of which I'm sure there are several already.

Yeah, Elon's a big proponent of Earthifying Mars once we have the tech and economy to support it. I certainly hope it becomes possible one day; I like the idea of mankind spreading life through the universe. Even if I won't be here to see it.

Why not? It seems like a pretty reasonable mission to me.

The webcast events are listed on YouTube. Like the Jason-3 launch, there's a hosted version and a technical version. I have a good feeling about this one. Looking forward to it.

I like it. We get to test SEP for a Mars mission, and get a brand new communication satellite that can be used for future missions as well as current ones.

It sounds awesome. I'm glad we're finally taking a close look at the nearest stars, since they will be the most relevant to humanity's future once we start to spread beyond Earth.

Okay, but you still should've given some context in the OP. And yes, I believe mass exists.

Even when JWST come online, it won't be able to dedicate all of its time to studying exoplanets. And we haven't even discovered all of the exoplanets close enough to detect. I think it'll be after 2025, personally. Not long after, but after. (Maybe add such an option to your poll?)

Since when? Who says it might not exist? What's the evidence? You can't just leave a question like that and say "discuss" without giving us something to actually discuss.

I have absolutely no idea what this thread is supposed to be about.

Why ... why wouldn't it?

Of course. I never meant to criticize them, just making an observation. I'm confident they'll iron out the flaws and make the design safe and reliable.

Let's hope this one fares better than its predecessor.

Do we know what time on Saturday?

Anybody else try to retrace Mark Watney's voyage to Schiaparelli?

Currently, parachutes always clip together when deployed. Is there a mod that fixes this, ideally without affecting functionality?

Gotta go with Titan as well. Just because you could, y'know, fly like a bird there.

Can't believe I forgot this one... My ship (the U.K.S. Stargazer, pictured above) entered Eeloo orbit, going retrograde to take advantage of the Oberth effect. Once I had circularized at 110km, I deployed my lander (the Solstice) and its three-Kerbal crew to make a landing. The touchdown was a success, a flag was planted, and the team collected enough science to keep the scientists busy for months. Then I looked at the fuel readout. Solstice had less than 20% of its fuel left. Enough to lift off, but nowhere near enough to circularize even if I tapped into the monopropellant supply (most of which I'd still need to return to the Stargazer). Fortunately, thanks to the magic of quicksaving and quickloading, I was able to determine that if I launched straight up, I'd be able to get the lander to an apoapsis of 40km before burning out, followed by an eight-minute fall back to Eeloo. I then had the (unmanned) Stargazer lower its orbit to 40km, and waited until a fly-over was four minutes away. Then I quicksaved. And then I launched. Solstice blasted into space with all the power its Poodle engine could provide. It burned out at 40km, exactly as planned, and then I switched to Stargazer and fine-tuned the encounter (by now about three minutes left) to get within 100m. I managed to do it, killed relative velocity, and immediately quicksaved. In hindsight that was a terrible mistake: there was no going back, one way or another. So now both ships are tumbling toward Eeloo with less than four minutes to rendezvous, dock, and burn back into orbit. The Stargazer has no command pod, and therefore no way to store science if two Kerbals decided to make heroic sacrifices while the third escaped. And on top of all that, Solstice has a very limited supply of monopropellant remaining. So using tons of it to close those 100m nice and fast is not an option. It actually turned out to be easier than I thought; I pulled it off on my second try. But the fact that I got within ten kilometers of the surface (again, falling straight down) combined with the fact that this is what happened to play on my iPod throughout made it way more epic than I could have imagined. After that, things went more or less as planned. I departed Eeloo's SOI (the landing had happened to coincide with my target's transfer window) and made a quick stop at Space Station Odyssey (orbiting Dres) to refuel before coming home. Finally, a good five years after the initial launch, my weary crew made landfall at the South pole. By far my most dramatic mission in the game so far.