KerikBalm

Tylo is basically just Laythe without an atmosphere, as far as dV needed to acheive orbit is concerned. They have the same surface gravity, although Tylo does have a larger diameter... but then again, you have no atmosphere. Orbital velocity for Low laythe orbit is about 1875 m/s. For Tylo, I guess it would be similar... lets say a=v^2/r ... assume a is the same (it will vary a little due to the different radius of the planets) (v_1)^2/r_1 = (v_2)^2/r_2 r_1= 6/5 *r_2 -> v_2 = (6/5)^0.5* v_1 If v_1 = 1875, then v_2 should be about 2055 m/s So, the chart says 2270, that sounds about right if you take off with a very high TWR, and pitch over right away (its got no atmosphere). That also means you could land like that with a suicide burn... but again, this requires a very high TWR. While I have yet to do much exploring of the Jool system (still setting up my base at laythe, it includes quite a few OTEs worth of fuel in orbit), but from what I'm thinking, the hard part of Tylo will be the gravity drag. Every 10 seconds you spend thrusting downward is ~80 m/s of lost delta V. If you burn retrograde (from very low orbit, for ideal efficiency) and then drop straight down, but spend 1 minute in powered descent controlling your speed, thats 480 m/s of lost delta V. Add that to the 2270 m/s "ideal", and you've got 2750m/s. On ascent, assuming a TWR of 2:1, you can pitch over 30 degrees without falling down... and you still get 86.6% of the horizontal component... so 2,500 m/s for ascent should be plenty if you have a 2:1 TWR I plan to go there budgeting 3,000 m/s for the landing, and 2,500 m/s for the ascent.

You can do far better than that on turbojets. Like... 1000 m/s better, easily.... And make it a single stage to orbit so its reusable. But... as I said, if you got to orbit around kerbin with it, you'll get to orbit around laythe with it with a few hundred m/s to spare

Well, there's some good news: If your lander can make orbit on Kerbin, it can easily make orbit on Laythe. The orbital speed in low orbit is about 1875 m/s - compared to ~2300 m/s for Kerbin. This means in stock, you can exceed orbital velocity on jets alone, and you need very little to circularize. The gravity is 4/5th that of kerbin The radius is 5/6ths of kerbin The proportion of required dV that can be supplied by air breathing engines is much higher. I'm sure you looked at this, but look again... Kerbin orbit 4550 m/s - Laythe 2880. Your lander should have dV to spare. In NEAR/FARyou can alter your trajectory much better with wings... but with stock you can exploit air breathing engines even more. Light up your air breathing engines on descent if you find your trajectory is off too much. Is your lander a space plane? or just something that lands on parachutes and ascends vertically using thrust alone?

Rocket Farmer: My previous missions on old KSP versions took this into account.. they weren't space planes, they were basically like my duna landers, except with a pair of turbojets. Land under parachutes, do a vertical takeoff and pitch over like a standard rocket ascent, but pitch over a bit more (relying not on lift, but thrust angled slightly down + being near orbital velocity). I've been having good results with carefully placed parachutes to allow my smaller SSTOs to just pop chutes and land anywhere. I'm still having trouble deciding if I'll do a conventional VTOL lander (as you'd use on the mun, except with parachutes and turbojets), or a spaceplane Kryxal: Yea, I suppose I should just use those formulas, KSP doesn't mess up gravity the way it does light... solar panels produce too much energy, relatively speaking, at Jool, for instance Stricktly speaking ,you don't need to go faster than orbital velocity to get out of the atmosphere, its easy enough to get a suborbital trajectory out of the atmosphere... but I get your point, but I don't need to go much faster in horizontal flight to pop out of the atmosphere (while having a PE that is above the ground, but still in the atmosphere) Claw: Does it speciically nerf those specific parts (also, rapier) - or if I make any engine that uses intake air (ie, text editing of part files), will it be affected? Or is it just an adjustment to parts that use the velocity curve? I'm not complaining, even a scramjet IRL won't get a craft to even half of orbital velocity... whereas even with NEAR/FAR, we can still get over 70% of the way there (and still with ridiculous ISPs) I just want to know precisely what it does "under the hood" :/ I don't know if I should try to make a craft that can accelerate with ions through the last part, or to just stick a LV-N on it

So, basically, I'm planning my long term laythe mission, and wondering what sort of landers I should build, and what sort of orbital fuel depot I should deploy. I'm wondering if I can get away with just liquid fuel and xenon gas.... One question thats been bugging me for a long time: What exactly does FAR/NEAR do to airbreathing engines? I can't seem to get them much above 1700 m/s (still, its plenty for SSTO purposes). I'd like to know how it adjust the thrust and velocity curves. But that's sort of an aside from the main question: The orbital velocity of low Laythe orbit.... Gravity: 4/5ths that of Kerbin Radius: 5/6ths that of Kerbin Its obviously going to be less than that of Kerbin, but not that far off... a = v^2/r? 0.8 = v^2/ (5/6) -> 2/3 = v^2... v = 81.65% Assuming Kerbin's orbit velocity is 2,300 m/s for low orbit (70 km), then Laythe's would be: 1877? Did I do that right? I guess it will be a little lower because the gravity will be a little weaker in laythe orbit vs Kerbin orbit (since as a ratio of height of atmosphere to the radius of the planet is a bit higher for Laythe) So.. In stock, where you can easily exceed 2,000 m/s on jets alone, a laythe lander could have just jets, and either an ion engine for circularization, or even just some scoops that are shut and full of air? 80% atmosphere and 80% gravity should mean that landing speeds are the same, no? but given the lower orbital velocity, the AoA needed to climb will be lower. For stock, this is even more important due to linear vs squared lift/drag equations *80% lower speed needed to supply the needed lift for a given air density *Less needed lift as you get even closer to orbital velocity So, if I wanted a reusable(SSTO) lander for laythe, I should be able to get away with no oxidizer at all, right? Jets-> above orbital velocity. Effective ISPs in the range of 1200*16 to 2500*16 = 19,200 to 40,000 Stored air or ions for circularization.... seems pretty sweet. For NEAR.. I don't know if I can get away with no rockets... Maybe with the reduced lift requirement, I can get to 1750? Ions were buffed... maybe with the reduced thrust requirement, I can accelerate that last 150 m/s needed to get to orbit?

I've had some weird status' displayed in the tracking station... things in low but stable orbits that are said to be sub orbital... in another case I had a lander returning from minmus... the game told me it was on an escape trajectory, despite displaying a trajectory that had its perapsis well within Kerbin's atmosphere (and its apopasis no farther out than minmus). I don't quite understand what causes it... it seems to be at extremes.. ie, very low orbits, or very high orbits... but... still, it should be able to tell those things precisely

Sooooo, we are to believe that your statements about "live arises" and "steps into existence", which were in reply to a comment about only having evidence for life starting once... were not actually referring to life starting, but rather life adapting once its already started. Also, please provide an example of life in places we "thought life could definately not exist some years ago." I think this statement is misrepresenting the facts. Life may be resiliant, but if its not there to begin with... you seem to be missing the entire point... back to page 2 "Conditions that life can adapt to and conditions that life can arise in can't just arbitrarily decided to be the same." From your perspective I am being crazy? Perhaps we should take a vote? Please elaborate how I have been insulting these last 3-4 pages. Quote specific examples please. So... we have no right to offer our opinion on your opinion? Yet you are right now offering your opinion of my opinion? Shall I claim you have no right to do this? Oh, you claim we can have a constructive discussion? We tried that back on page 2, and you got offended. Trying to have a rational discussion about a point of view is the same as burning people at the stake for not holding the same view? And yet, without a thermal and chemical gradient, they'd still be pretty close to zero. We've had a very hard time replicating the conditions needed to sythnesize all the RNA bases and amino acids needed... its seems it can't be done under the same set of circumstances. You need 1 set of conditions in one place, another set of conditions in a different place, different forms of eneryg sources, a medium that allows products from the two sets of conditions to diffuse and mix... That glass ball won't have a tidal pool where things can dry out and be altered by UV, and then added back to the mixture... etc This is the sort of thing that I'm talking about when I say what you need for life to start isn't the same as what you need for life to continue existing. Occam's razor doesn't help this at all. Both conditions require 1 additional supposition: 1) Life happens fast or 2) We are lucky. Case (1) has a whole host of other subsequent things we have to suppose, its far from simple to explain a fast origin to life, particularly when you change conditions from Earthlike to... Titan or Europa. Life starting fast here doesn't mean it would on Europa. Case (2): what are the odds that we got lucky? 100% The ability to ask the question is predicated on getting lucky in the first place. Just as Probability of A is not the same as Probability of A given B.... the chances that a world got lucky, are not the same as the chances of our world getting lucky, given that we are asking the question.

Methinks laythe is the place to go. Turbojets get you to orbit, aerobraking gets you the capture and to the surface. You only need significant fuel for the transfers. Although, duna works out in a similar way.... you can get more aerobrakings per m/s dV needed for transfers... but you can't turbojet to orbit

IMO, given how hard it is to attract funding, I'm a bit annoyed some of these "PNA" studies and such get funding while other things don't. Sure, they can add other bases to DNA... but... what is the point? the organism still lacks the tRNA to decode it, and the enzymes to synthesize these bases. We already have 64 codons for only 20 amino acids, so its not like we need to add another if we want to expand the amino acid repertoire. As far as studies for hypothetical life precursors... PNAs and such look pretty unlikely. There is nothing to suggest that they played a role... its just mental Master*****n. RNA on the other hand... I highly support those studies trying to make ever more complex (and also ever simpler) replicating RNAs. The first self replicating molecule, in addition to being able to "store information" had to be able to carry out enzymatic activity at the same time - which we have clear evidence for in RNA, but not PNAs. Btw, have you seen these: http://www.eco-sphere.com/care.html Its a completely self contain ecosystem (just needs light and an environment within certain temperature ranges). However, if you were to take the same ingredients, leaving out the life, and leave it sitting at the same temperature and lighting conditions, there is no plausible way life would ever start inside it - even though the conditions are obviously ideal for life.

You can't adjust the eccentricity or inclination of your orbits, closer orbits aren't faster, no oberth effect... I played it for a while, didn't pay a dime, got tired of farming incursions, spent more time on RL and KSP... my account in currently inactive, but has nearly a years worth of plex sitting in the hangar. (I did wormhole stuff, and some low sec roams, but to keep buying monthly plexes, and replacing losses... and buying shiny toys, lots of incursion running) I may reactivate my account, or do a giveaway... haven't decided yet.... I've got a pretty pimped out Nightmare for running with ISN. I also had 1 of every sub capital ship (aside from the special issue tournament prize ships), but then they added navy issue BCs, and another pirate faction... I also have a carrier sitting around doing nothing, I don't quite have the skill points needed to fly it yet.

Perhaps you missed the part I was paraphrasing. Kryten replied: Nuclearping doesn't seem to want to acknowledge that he did just that, and wants to deflect criticism by handwaving about "speculation and theory". To reiterate, we have ZERO evidence that life "steps into existence whereever it can" We have evidence of life coming into existence exactly once, when conditions were quite favorable. I'm not saying there isn't other life out there. If you go back to page 2, its really a debate over whether there is a significant difference between where life can exist, vs where life can start. We can propose any number of plausible scenarios where life would never start, but it is really easy for life to exist, if you wish I could make up such scenarios. "Life finds a way." - Yes, once established, life is highly adaptable, but there must be viable intermediates along the whole way - often these come in unexpected forms, but also life often doesn't make the leap for a long long long time until the right conditions result in a viable intermediate. There is nothing foolish about doubting that life will start where ever life could possibly exist. We have no evidence for that. You might as well believe in Unicorns and orbiting teasets.

Well, you asked for a "workable" definition http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life#Biology Personally, I'd be less stringent, and eliminate the homeostasis part, and put in "or" conditions for 4 and 7 / 5 and 6 Its really sort of a philisophical question (on another thread, I was making arguments about how one might consider viruses alive*). Likewise There's no precise definintion of what is moral or not, but we have many "workable" definitions. When it comes to "Earth Life"/"Our form of life", we can be much much more precise. If we found life on Mars or Europa, we could easily tell if it was of the same origin as life on Earth, or if it was an independant genesis. We have really really good criteria for "our form of life". Biology really = Terrestrial biology. You can't do science on what you can't make observations and take data from. We know a lot about life on Earth. Enough to synthesisze entire genomes. Work on entirely synthetic cells proceeds. We can modify the genetic encoding of organisms (re-encode their D/RNA), we can propose plausible scenarios how it started (self catalytic RNA is looking very likely), and try to recreate it (we have made RNA directed RNA polymerase ribozymes, aka, RNA that copies other RNA sequences, we've made other self replicating RNA systems, they just need to be supplied with the building blocks, but we've alreayd shown those can be synthesized abiotically similar in concept to the famous Miller-Urey experiment) *Personally, I am quite unconcerned with the question... when you get down to the molecular level, it makes not one whit of difference to me if you want to call a virus alive or not. They also quite clearly have a common origin with organisms that satisfy the more common working definition for life.

IMO (yes, I acknowledge its an opinion), the only true Sci-Fi is Hard-Sci Fi. Things like star wars have no science in then, They are just Space-Fi. Basically, fantasy in space. I'll say it again, and expand upon it: I do not consider Star Wars to be Sci Fi, and I don't consider most of Star Trek to be Sci-Fi (there are some redeeming episodes and elements). Maybe I should explain Russel's Teapot in a way suited to this context: Ok, then lets say we have evidence that complete tea sets are in orbit around our star, even in locations we could not have put them there. Hence the simplest conclusion is that advanced aliens did it a long time ago, the chances are very high this has happened on other Planets (and / or Moons) aswell, and aliens leaving orbiting teasets are widespread throughout the universe. Because speculation is allowed... No one should criticize the above reasoning, correct?

#1) Complete speculation != theory They are worlds apart #2) Its not complete speculation that there was 1 origin to all life on Earth #3) Considering I nearly have my PhD in molecular biology, yes, I probably do know more on this subject than you. #1) We've got some pretty good ideas, the exact details are still being worked out #2) What numerous mass extinctions are you talking about that were also within a short period of time? #3) Mass extinctions and evolutionary radiations are irrelevant for discussion how easy it is for life to start Again, No mass extinction ever came close to snuffing out life on this planet. Sure, the impact zone at the end of the mesozoic was probably sterilized temporarily, but the oceans weren't, the rest of the land wasn't. Based on the evidence, life evolved from a non-living precursor exactly once. Basic components are all over the place. PAHs are likely out in space, but Benzene is not life, far from it. There is no evidence of comple life being brought in the form of amoebas or bacteria. There is speculation that it might have been, but its pure speculation. Please note the difference between speculation and a theory. Yes, within the solar system, but less common in the universe. It would also mean that life doesn't start so fast, and a life bearing rock blasted from... say Venus, arrived on Earth before any indigenous life arose that would out compete it (since it would be pre-adapted to Earth's conditions). He, I believe was Kryten. And it was on the subject of what you said, which is not pure speculation and theory. You made up a premise, and then drew conclusions from you made up premise. Its what he said you did. You claimed you didn't. He was clearly right. Its about the burden of proof, and that we shouldn't just accept a proposition because it can't be proven wrong. I'm just offering my thoughts and applying rational thought. I only mention you, because you tried to claim you didn't say something that you clearly said. Please please please understand that theory is not speculation.

I direct you to this post: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/84217-Explaining-burnout-asymetry?p=1234436&viewfull=1#post1234436 Which I found to be very helpful, and as a result, I've rebuilding my SSTOs... no more asymetrical flameouts for me.... I used to find it so much easier to milk a single turbo or rapier for all it was worth, but couldn't do the same for pairs, not any more

This was an easter egg that only shows up on modded games, I think it was some toolbar plugin. I am so tired of hearing about this.... there are at least a dozen threads about this

Not true. Misleading, the structure of life on Earth, is very well understood (of course, it could be understood even better, but so could atoms...). Yes, and what about all the other compounds. It was a long way from the structure of water to getting buckyballs, and we still don't fully understand stability of elements (still searching for islands of stability, superheavy stable elements). Water is a particular kind of polar liquid solvent. Its not the only kind. If there is life of the same origin as that on Earth, on Europa, or Mars, or Titan, we know what to look for. Looking for other life, would be like looking for other compounds that are not water, but have similar properties to water, except a whole lot more complicated. We can even try to predict what sort of life would be on titan if it lived in the hydrocarbon lakes, rather than the subsurface ocean. We can define possible energy sources and metabolic proceses, and predict what you'd need if the solvent was non polar. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypothetical_types_of_biochemistry#Methane_and_other_hydrocarbons

Of course it evolved It started once, and from all indications, when it was relatively easy to do so. And from all indications, there continued to be easy places for continued existence, even during mass extinctions. We've never had something that even came close to making Earth uninhabitable all over. Titan, yes, Europa, yes. Venus: no Your layman's magazine articles not withstanding. Yes, the conditions in the upper atmosphere are such that if you were to place an aerosol of bacteria in it, they may not immediately die, but they would need to reproduce and disperse pretty darn fast to beat the death rate from mixing with the rest of the atmosphere... all the while doing this in air lacking any signifcant water vapor or hydrogen containing compounds. Its nothing but wishful thinking Discovery is not a reliable source, the sooner you realize that, the sooner we can have an intelligent conversation. You did make up what he claimed: That is a premise you just made up "lets say" because we don't actually have any evidence for it (in fact, we have quite the opposite, 1 origin of life for the entire planet, not multiple origins over and over again all over the planet). Then you attempted to draw conclusions from it. He was 100% accurate. He didn't draw conclusions, he criticized your logic. Also, you should google Russel's teapot.

Well it appears in the geological record fast, but we don't have much of anything before the late-heavy bombardment. Traditionally, its thought that the LHB would have sterilized any life that was on earth... but then again, it would have ejected a lot of material into space, which could have reseeded the Earth once it was over. Taking a limited form of litho-panspermia into consideration: Venus's oceans would have both appeared, and dissappeared, before ours, and of course Mars also seems to have had an ocean. If we consider the possibility that life started before the LHB... it could have happened a lot "slower" We won't know about mars until we start going into the subsurface, but I suspect it is dead. Same with Europa - if it is there, its genetic code will tell us if it shares a common origin with Earth, which will inform our guesses about how easy it is for life to start. The place where life can survive, and the places where life can start, are not neccessarily the same thing. I suspect Europa will have no indigenous life. And venus? you've got to be kiddin me. Its upper atmosphere may be cooler, but its also chemially pretty homogenous. Its severely depleted in hydrogen containing compounds (like water). Its mostly CO2, but you an't get very interesting carbon structures if you can't have hydrocarbons, and there's almost no hydro- to go with the carbon. Not to mention the turnover rate it would have due to mixing with other layers of the atmosphere, the intense radiation, and sparse nutrients. There's no way life could replicate fast enough there to beat the turnover rate, even if you could have life in a carbon rich, hydrogen poor environment.

I'm going to go with no, but then its a matter of "how remote", particularly that with sufficient "remotness", you can say many zerg resemble arthropods on Earth. Some much better, some much worse. Life has been here for 4 billion years on Earth, another species may be billions of years ahead of us, or billions behind us. Most technological species will not be remotely close to us simply because of the vastness of time. I'm sure they have prodigies, if they evolve, they'll have variability, which will lead to those at the far end of the bell curve from time to time. Who says they have names? Are we a peaceful race? they will certainly have known war. Competition for resources will be universal. Or metals, or food, they will fight for resources, or they did in their past, I'm sure.

Asteroids are completely different from celestial bodies. They are ship a "ship" or "part" that looks like a big rock. You could easily use a text editor to make them contain any resource you want. You could make them a giant xenon gas container if you wish. FWIW, its not a comet, it orbits too close to Kerbin to have stable water ice. Although the same should be true of Minmus.

So anything that changes your velocity is forbidden There is no such thing as an escape orbit. There are orbits, and there are escape trajectories, but not both. Changing your orbit changes your velocity, and violates the prohibition against velocity changes So the alcubiere drive of Interstellar mod is allowed, that "warp drive" does not change velocity, it just translates through space. Solved? Aww, warp drives break "classical" physics. We're back in impossible challenge again. Warp drive is a wave propulsion? why would it be allowed, it breaks classical physics (and is still highly speculative, and just becuase its not proven impossible doesn't mean.... well, I direct you to russel's teapot). If you are in LKO, you cannot leave LKO without changing your velocity or position. To change your position without a change in velocity is essentially a warp drive, which you have forbidden, and violates classical physics, which you have also forbidden. Unsupported and clearly false assertion is unsupported and clearly false.

Indeed, and KSP is realistic enough that this is my conclusion in game as well. I see a lot of SSTO monstrosities meant to get to far off places and back in a single stage: No thanks. My SSTOs are never for anything beyond LKO, they could go to Mun... but why? The only SSTO that I ever send beyond LKO, is for Laythe (and it gets refueled before departing LKO). Otherwise, its SSTOs lifting mission payloads.

If you mean the original "paper" that the CGI guy read, fine... But the guy in charge of making the video is still alive as far as I know. He also doesn't believe in evolution by natural selection. He's some new age pseudoscientist lunatic.

Poorly explained challenge is poorly explained.