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KerikBalm

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Everything posted by KerikBalm

  1. https://firefly.fandom.com/wiki/G-23_Paxilon_Hydrochlorate Its bad stuff... I hope KSP2 doesn't give people exposed to the Pax a way to travel not only from world to world, but from star to star... that would be very very bad... Oh wait, that's a different Pax...
  2. But for gameplay purposes, what you see above is not identical for L4 and L5, unless you match SMAs exactly down to every digit of precision. That limited dynamic stability does make a difference. Also, the need to get close to the points makes them distinct, in the current situation, you don't have L3, L4, and L5 points, you have an "L-Ring". I don't think that's the same as far as gameplay, even if it is the same at the precise points, the lack of differentiation of those points from the rest of the ring is something different, and that difference means there is no longer any gameplay significance to those 3 points. How will this work exactly? putting in attractors will result in naked singularities inviting all sorts of crazy oberth maneuvers, even if you make them "weak", because they are still singularities, with infinite gravity as one gets close to the source. One thing I do in KSP for L4 and L5, is to put actual bodies there, preventing naked singularities, even if the body is smaller than Gilly. But this doesn't even work for L1 and L2, as the bodies (and associated gravity wells) are on rails according to patched conics, and the patched conics system won't have them stay in the same position relative to their body. I can put a Trojan asteroid at Jools L3, L4 or L5 points, I can't put a similar asteroid at Jool's L1 or L2 points, because that asteroid won't stay at the L1 or L2 point. And of course, having a small asteroid at every lagrange point is going to look silly (even if you manage to fix the system so that the asteroids can orbit to stay in quasi L1/L2, by having them each on a different gravity "layer"/ having them pulled stronger/weaker by the primary body), which brings you to the naked singularity... which I suppose you could maybe try to have an SOI of zero gravity inside an SOI of some gravity, so instead of hitting a body's surface or continuing to a singularity, you change SOIs to a zero grav zone... but this would require changing the SOI system specially in these cases so that yu transition to an SOI whose gravity should not be dominant... These solutions are all very messy, and not so simple to implement. However, I think that the choice is not just full N-body physics, or patched conics. Surely we can ignore the mass of the spacecraft. In this case, for a system like Rask and Rusk, its just a standard 2 body problem for the massive bodies: patched conics works fine. For something like the Kerbolar system, I fully expect everything to remain on rails, treated as a series of 2 body problems. This doesn't mean that our spacecraft, whose gravitational effects can be safely ignored, has to use patched conics of N-body all the time: https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/physics-and-astronomy/three-body-problem I haven't read up on this subject in detail recently, but its my understanding that with this simplication, a general solution can be found. Its not N-body physics, but its not going ot be just conic sections either.
  3. Well, if they put Rask and rusk on rails orbiting the barycenter, it's not true n-body physics. I don't know if a precise solution for craft orbits is possible in this case, where the 2 other bodies are unaffected by the changing positions, and have perfectly predictable orbits. At least if not, it will simplify the calculations
  4. The dV margins are indeed higher, that's a good thing, did you mean the dV requirements? The distance is insignificant compared to interplanetary and interstellar travel. Use reaction whhels, and why would I be driving much at the colony, particularly with automated supply runs? I think the grav is too low in either case you matter - duna grav is my threshold. Plus it's not that hard to make centrifuges in KSP2 My main reason: because I will move Minus to have an orbit similar to that of Dres, and I will put Mun where Minmus was. My first colony won't be farther away than Duna, for sure
  5. I was all prepared to be very negative about this post, but those proposals are fine by me, but they all look like they are from the lapatian analogie of the tetrapod clade... You still have a lot of niches to flesh out.... Including their aquatic precursors. I would look to the seals, mudskippers, and icythostega for inspiration for an alternative transition mode. Two for limbs for pulling the body, and then moving up the rear of the body, kind of like an inchworm.
  6. Faulty reasoning above, for example, Phobos only has about 50 million years left. ^this Given how close they seem to be (perspective can be deceptive), they would need to rotate quite fast. I suspect that they may be mutually tidally locked (as with Duna-Ike), in which case, there should be no tendency to recede or get closer. If only one is tidally locked(as in the Earth-moon system, but I suspect that they would get closer, not farther) Isuspect that they are doomed.
  7. Relevant to the topic I think: https://www.yahoo.com/news/student-accidentally-became-millionaire-cult-151446719.html
  8. This really points out the absurdity of crypto currency.... I get the point, currency that is secure and can't be counterfeit... But it has no intrinsic value... it's absurd like paper money is relative to gold... but paper money has government backing, crypto has... nothing except reputation and fads... Dogecoin... Gimme a break
  9. Oh yes, I support this. He said accelerating toward, not moving toward. An object in orbit is always accelerating toward the body it orbits. It's better to discuss convexity/concavity. All other moons have concavities in their orbit with respect to the sun, our moon doesn't. However, if you put earth-moon where Pluto is, you would observe a concavity, so I am not sure this is so relevant
  10. There is a specific parameter that can be computed, the Stern-Levinson parameter. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clearing_the_neighbourhood Its actually a measure of how much it gravitationally dominates the orbit/"clearing" power. Trojans at L4 and L5 don't matter (Jupiter). Having another body in an orbital resonance doesn't matter (Neptune, Pluto is in an orbital resonance with it).
  11. Just pointing it out: technically speaking, monopropellant, TNT, nitroglycerin, etc do no combust, they just very energetically decompose.
  12. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanical_counterpressure_suit You'd need more than a face mask, human flesh swelling to 2x volume doesn't sound great... (bodybuilder rather than overfilled balloon though...) Evaporation would be much higher, doesn't seem like going out for a stroll on Mars wearing just one of these would be a good idea... but short excursions when neccessary, fine.
  13. I think the inventory system in KSP 1 is enough, allowing kerbals to equip parachutes, extra tanks for RCS, etc
  14. #1) We don't know what their "existing collection of germs" is because they took their database down shortly before the recognized start of the outbreak, and have kept it down since. Infecting the hACE2 receptor could be from splicing, if you have one such receptor to splice in. They were explicitly testing S protein modifications for their ability to infect mice expressing hACE2... so this could come from those deliberate modifications, or serial passage (ie evolution in a lab). Absolutely correct, that idea was nonsense Wuhan is a city, it hosts several research facilities doing research on coronaviruses. It has the largest collection of specimens, and is (was?) the world leader on CoV research This is absolutely false, it is located far away from any zoonotic reservoir of SARSr coronaviruses. If you aren't restricting your statement to SARSr-CoVs, then its absolutely false that its the "only" facility, because CoVs are everywhere, in the rodents of every city. Its hard to say what is the simplest explanation. Here's a few simple explanations: 1) The WIV was engaged in studies specifically meant to experimentally see if newly discovered/modified SARSr-CoVs could spillover into humans, using live virus... one of them could, and infected them too. 2) WIV researchers went looking for new potential pandemic pathogens to bring back to the WIV. They succeeded, and infected themself in the process. 3) The only known Sarbecovirus with a furin cleavage site, which broke out far from any natural reservoir in the same city as a lab which had earlier proposed systematically collecting Sarbeoviruses and adding furin cleavage sites to them, in fact came from that lab and not a distant reservoir. There are many flaws with this line of reasoning. It equally applies to the natural origin hypothesis. You can provide evidence for a mutually exclusive hypothesis. To date, there is no data specifically supporting a natural origin. You also have a flawed idea of what traces one would or would not be able to find if it was made in a lab. One cannot distinguish between natural recombination, and unnatural "splicing". One cannot distinguish between a natural virus, and a synthetic virus produced from the consensus sequence of multiple natural viruses (as the WIV proposed doing in a rejected 2018 grant - note rejected by one funding source does not mean that they didn't do it) There's also many intermediates between "engineered in a lab" and "completely natural". At one end of the scale, you have the scenario 2) above - where WIV researchers go looking for a natural virus, and get infected with it. The lab activity resulted in the spillover (bringing a novel virus to a dense population), but did not create the virus. Then you have possibilities like studies that we know were funded, where they were taking new SARSr-CoVs, and testing their hypothesis that S-gene divergence predicts spillover potential... by modifying S genes and seeing if they spilled over into cell culture or animal models. In this case, its a natural virus with just a few changes meant to anticipate what might naturally happen. If the goal of the research was to assess possible natural scenarios in the lab, then naturally the lab scenario looks like a natural scenario. Early on, thanks to leaked e-mails, we do know that multiple " of the many, many smart people examining it" found the furin cleavage site to be suspicious (but would not state so publicly). It is not found in any sarbecovirus (thus unlikely to arise by recombination, and requires insertion of 12 nucleotides, thus very unlikely to evolve in a single step). We know the WIV proposed systematically adding furin cleavage sites (same 2018 rejected grant application), and they have a publication history of adding furin cleavage sites to coronavirus spike proteins. But the SARS-CoV-2 site is sub-optimal you say? well so are the ones added in their previous publications, because they were aimed at assessing the minimal changes required for the natural virus to acquire the cleavage site. The facts we have: 1) The WIV has an extensive collection of un-discolosed SARSr-CoVs. 2) They have disclosed the 2nd closest virus to SARS-CoV-2 (96.14 % collected by the WIV in 2013 vs 96.85% collected elsewhere in 2021), in 2013, took an interest in that clade, and began repeatedly sampling that location over the following years 3) In 2018 they reported at least 2 novel bat SARSr-CoVs capable of infecting mice expressing hACE2, sequences undisclosed 4) In 2016, according to a grant report, they had 15 Bat SARSr-CoV isolates fully sequenced, with an undisclosed number not fully sequenced. 5) In 2018, they proposed systematically adding furin cleavage sites to SARSr-CoVs, and have a publication history of adding furin cleavage sites to CoV spike proteins 6) SARS-CoV-2 is the only known SARSr-CoV with a furin cleavage site, despite extensive study of SARSr-CoVs dating back to 2002 7) The closest known viruses in nature come from 1,500 km away from wuhan or more 8) No known natural virus is closer than 96.85% to SARS-CoV-2, so no animal reservoir has been identified 9) The WIV planned to synthesize consensus viruses from viral sequences with 95% or greater sequence similarity 10) The WIV had sequences with 95% or greater sequence similarity to SARS-CoV-2 11) The wet-market was not the site of the initial outbreak (hundreds of animal samples tested negative, all sequences were from the B lineage, which split from the A lineage, so the A lineage or A-B precursor was spreading in wuhan before reaching the wetmarket)
  15. Aside from opening/closing bay, you can just have your craft use rotors from BG, and RTGs for power. Anyway, recently I reformatted my computer and reinstalled windows, after a partial backup... lost some of my later KSP saves, particularly craft files. So I'm now redesigning recoverable 2 stage cargo spaceplanes for 3x kerbin (1.25x atmosphere). I'm trying to fix various flaws in my old design concept (I had invested a lot of tweaking into it to make it work well, but changing certain features would require a complete rebuild. It no longer has an underslung 2nd stage, as that required anhedral in the inner wing section, making it roll stable difficult. The upper stage is above, but that makes it difficult to have thrust balance while still having wide enough landing gear track. Getting thrust to balance as fuel is burned, and centered with the 2nd stage which is below the root of the craft (previously above), is a bit of a challenge. Another flaw was that I used the big airliner wings to keep part count down, but it limited the speed I could hit with the 1st stage, and that's suboptimal, so I'm using the "shuttle" wings as a leading edge to take the heat (while the rear wings are still the airliner). I use 12, which allows for removal of 6 airliner wings... net increase of 6 parts... allowable. And I made an even larger first stage carrier... boasting 61 rapiers instead of 41... and carrying a lot more fuel - part count still under 180 though... Looking to get 150 tons to orbit in 3x... previous designs had a 100 ton goal (but exceeded the goal, test payload was 102 tons of ore tanks, and had good margins)
  16. Laythe has no real explanation. Laythe and Tylo are too big relative to Jool to start with. It's there for gameplay purposes. It gets "grandfathered" in for me in KSP2, but I hope not to see any more bodies this unrealistic. It's size means tidal heating could give it oceans at the surface, as opposed to Europa which must be icy so that the water isn't exposed to a vacuum, as the body couldn't hold on to enough atmosphere, and it would sublimate away if it was heated enough at the surface. The atmosphere acceptable due to it's size also allows for greenhouse effects So the unrealistic size helps... haven't done the calculation to see if tidal heating could do enough, but Jupiter's Io has lava lakes in some places, so maybe. The islands shapes often resemble cauldera, and BG gave it geysers, so it clearly has significant internal heat But it also has polar ice caps... implying solar heating is a major determinant of liquid/ solid states... doesn't make sense... The oxygen is similarly inexplicable... life around volcanic vents shouldn't cause that... That must be from a high rate of photosynthesis, and the photosynthesis rate at Jool must be low.
  17. Ok, well then, looks like I will do what I was doing, just not as much ... editing of the save file to reset the part positions/ undo drift. So, for a robotic craft, I will save before unlocking anything, then go copy the save file text corresponding to that shift to a new text file. When the craft is noticably affected by robotic drift, I will again copy the relevant ship text from the save file, us MS words compare function to compare the drifted state to the original, and "revert" those changes, while keeping the other changes such as bodies visited, science stored, fuel, orbit, etc
  18. So then, as long as one locks parts when there is no acceleration (ie, not thrusting, not rotating, not in an atmosphere nor on a surface), then there won't be any robotic drift?
  19. So if I am correct, this patch means that no additional drift occurs when parts are locked. As it was, no relevant drift occurs in orbit when not thrusting and not rotating... ie no forces on the robotic parts. Perhaps tiny drift occurs due to floating point errors? It seems to me that the issue is just using robotics on the surface of a body... but low gravity and/or low mass loading should be fine. I never noticed significant drift with rotors that only had some props on them. Still, I think I will try to have everything get back to 0 G before saving
  20. You are correct in that it is a joking way to speak of the bug. The joke became popular enough that there is an Easter egg to find, However, that Easter egg is not a bug, and generally not what people are talking about when speaking of the Kraken in KSP
  21. If the engines can lift the stack, their thrust vectoring can control the stack... I don't see how scaling up the stack results in a problem, are you sure you aren't just building them in an unstable way?
  22. Unless they have some blood samples, no. If they have blood samples after the symptoms, then yes. Similarly, there is speculation about spread during the 2019 world military games in Wuhan, which occurred in October 2019. I had heard proposals of testing samples that were taken for drug testing purposes, or testing athletes afterwards for signs of exposure. I have never heard of those tests being carried out or any results... which is strange in itself if the entities concerned really did want to pin down when and where it started
  23. Anyone read Andy Weir's newest book, Project Hail Mary? (Same author as the Martian). Getting past the plot contrivance of "astrophage" microbes that can colonize the sun and essentially produce and store antimatter... The physics in it are fine, but the biology in it is atrocious... not just what is needed for the alien microbes, but he gets terrestrial stuff like mitochondria quite wrong...
  24. Let's say you have cystic fibrosis, a genetic disorder, and you modify you descendants to not have it? You think that should be a crime? I don't buy that premise. Also, if genetic modification of people is a thing, it's not irrevocably modifying all descendants, just the next generation, which could then choose to undo it for the next. Then there's possible technology such as extracting cells, inducing pluripotency and modifying them genetically, and reinjecting them (though this won't reverse things determined during development... It won't reverse a hunched back for instance). Type 1 diabetes? I have a family friend undergoing heart failure at a relatively early age due to a genetic condition, his son is quite worried about his future health now too. If you could choose to stop this,and you don't, isn't that hostis humani? OTOH, making some furry child that would always stand out, because you think that you are a wolfkin.... Yea, no
  25. I reject the whole premise of the question about ensuring that original humanity must be kept around... But going with the question's premise: Any engineered offshoot species that is smarter, and has a biological need to keep us around, only needs to keep us around long enough to engineer our replacement. Plus, even if they need us, that doesn't mean that they can't enslave us, and breed us like cattle to make us more compliant... Like many works of fiction involving some vampire plot to take over the world and just keep humans as cattle.
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