mdatspace

He did what was best, even if doing what was best was a gruesome choice.

All of this is a good guide. My tip? Do not over-do it. You should be precise and cautious, or you might destroy a solar panel or whiz past your ship.

I concur with Ralathon and K^2. A habitable earth-like moon seems to be the result of certain circumstances that are probably not very common.

http://www.space.com/24366-dwarf-planet-ceres-water-ice-volcanoes.html I doubt that Ceres could still be geologically active today. Unlike Enceladus or Europa, it does not have tidal heating, and it is too small to keep in much heat. I think these plumes have more in common with a comet than a cryovolcano, as was said in the article.

Re-use everything. The shuttle was complicated, and I don't see how a rocket could be more costly.Continue development of commercial space. If there was a market for high launch rates, cost would go down. Economies of scale drive the costs of payloads into the sky. That happened with the shuttle. Only 6 were built. The SLS shares the same low launch rates. http://www.dunnspace.com/leo-4-6.pdf

Earth to orbit cost will go down once we succeed in mastering re-usability.But the issue with Orion is fission. Fusion would mean much less fallout, but still. What would somebody do if Orion has a launch failure?

You can refuel chemical rockets and re-use them. I am not so sure about Orion.Orbital construction gives you the ability to assemble large ships with current technology. NASAFanboy has a point. Also, here is the original project Orion paper. http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/supplement/GA-5009vIII.pdf

I think nuclear propulsion is a viable choice for interplanetary travel. However, I think it is best to stick with what is politically viable and technologically viable today. That does not mean nuclear propulsion should not be developed, but I think I am sticking to fuel and oxidizer. I think I will make a thread on this subject. Maybe to explain my viewpoint.

I think we should stop talking about Orion on this thread.

NASA would benefit from having more money, but that will not solve its problems. Luckily, NASA did not get cut this year. http://appropriations.house.gov/uploadedfiles/01.13.14_fy_2014_omnibus_-_commerce_justice_science_-_summary.pdf From the bill: "NASA is funded at $17.6 billion in the bill, an increase of $120 million above the fiscal year 2013 enacted level." It needs better leadership. NASA's current state is due to both a lack of money and political meddling. The politicians fund projects that reap benefits for them and their constituents, not sensible and efficient projects that take the best route. Thus, the space program goes nowhere, and the project may be cancelled sooner or later with nothing left to show for it(Hint: Constellation). Then, the cycle repeats(SLS).

Moho: Has a secret sunglasses room.

The terrain north of your base is rough. I have had 2 rover accidents there (Nobody hit the ground too hard). All those craters, combined with steep mountains. You are not too far off, however.

The SLS is meant to launch Orion. That can be done on a Delta IV heavy. As has been said before, the launch rates are very low. That means high costs. However, it looks like a very capable launcher.

I have a Mun Base located only 10-20 km from your site. It is near the basin rim. Look out for anomalous features.

You hit the nail on the head. You cannot just look at thrust and Isp and say this rocket works, especially when that rocket is being propelled by nukes.

They are. Slow speeds are good for ground attack. How do you hit a target accurately when you are going over the speed of sound? The answer is simple: You don't.

Yellowstone will not erupt in at least 10,000 more years. It may not erupt again. Natural disasters do not have a schedule. They are erratic.We do have to start somewhere in space. But we cannot take huge steps.

Why even go to Saturn? Long travel times, Gravity well, and simply put Saturns moons have no resources that main-belt asteroids, the Moon and NEOs do not.Like NASAFanboy said, Callisto is plausible(Maybe even Ganymede).

Great story.

It definitely is. Why shoot for destinations further out of reach and less promising before we even start a permanent presence on our moon? The moon is a test-bed for long-term stays on NEOs, Mars and asteroids. We need baby steps before we take big ones.

deleted because of double-post.

The moons of giant planets are stuck in deep gravity wells. The same cannot be said for NEOs or main-belt asteroids.

Global warming is a problem. But it is slow. It is not immediate. It causes a varied amount of problems. However, it is not dire enough now to provoke action. It is not such a threat to developed countries that they should spend large sums of money on combating GW and finding a way to solve it. Poverty is a big problem. Poverty is one of the most focused on issues there is. However, poverty is still there. We need better education. We can all agree on that. War? War is mostly confined in undeveloped countries. Once those countries modernize, war will die out as a possibility. Religion is an issue. It blinds people to what the world really is. It makes people predetermine the world and what it encompasses, and when reality shows otherwise, they dismiss and ignore it. I think overpopulation.

Laythe is sandy. It has no sharp, un-eroded features. It needs some recent geologic activity, or at least some signs of it.

Supervolcanoes are just large calderas, and volcanoes erupt ash, not smoke. "Supervolcanoes" usually erupt explosively, and thus and magma on the surface is either surfacing as ash or pyroclastic flows due to the gas content and viscosity of the magma. I would have cinder cones and shields on Laythe. It probably does not have tectonics, so it does not easily generate silicic, gas rich magma.