KerikBalm

So my 0.24 Duna mission is underway, and I'm using a good old fashioned orbital rendevous plan -> LV-N tug + fuel depot stay in orbit, a lander goes down for Science! I plan on installing custom biomes, which gives me more reason to visit the poles. However.. My lander is just a modified Mun lander... and my Mun lander was a bit tight on dV going from an equatorial mun orbit, to the poles, and then back to equatorial. My duna lander does have some more dV built into it... but... I'm not sure it can do it. As I figure it, obviously my lander saves a lot of dV coming down due to the atmosphere, a round trip from Mun orbit and back is 640*2 = 1280 m/s A round trip on duna consists of ~50 m/s deorbit and cushion burn, and then 1380 m/s ascent... call it 1430 m/s vs 1280... So for a plane change, I really only need to stick my apoapsis out a bit, then burn a bit to change it to polar, and aerobrake for a landing, then to launch into a polar orbit, stick my apoapsis out, change it to equatorial, and then aerobrake to circularize. (what I did for the Mun polar landing, except without the aerobraking). Then, additionally, I can interact with Ike, and try to use its gravity for the plane change maneuver. So basically, I'm asking how much dV I need to go from duna equatorial orbit, land on the poles of duna, and then rendevous again with a ship in equatorial orbit, assuming use of aerobraking and ike gravity assists. Is it greater than the dV for doing the same at the mun? I need to decide if I insert everything into a polar orbit, or equatorial. I don't like polar orbits so much because the rendevous get a bit complicated if your lander spends too much time on the surface (ie, as the body rotates, for example, a surface stay of half of a duna day-month) Or maybe I'll just visit the poles with an airplane (using modded ducted electric fans, or maybe just gliding there - using the NEAR mod fyi)

Aerodynamics -Pros After using FAR, and then NEAR, I can say... much more fun, much more intuitive.... none of this slowly creeping up at an absurdly low terminal velocity. I can actually pull some Gs and change my heading with planes when not going ridiculously slow... its just so much more fun, loops, splt S's, etc. -Cons Proper fairings would need to be added. The cargo bay of the SP+ pack is a start.. but we would need fairings for much much larger contraptions. Universe Scale -Pros It would feel more "majestic" I guess... sometimes when landed on a small body, even duna, I can really tell that the scale is off and the body is a sphere with a very close horizon, and it does feel more like a fake ball than an alien world -Cons Probably computer performance issues related to the increased detail required to not make worlds 10x bigger seem "grainy" or very bland up close. Isp -Pros More realistic, the aerospike would have a gameplay purpose -Cons None that I can really think of. Either way your ISP is worse in thick atmospheres, the only difference is if its thrust or fuel consumption... the way it is now won't be more "intuitive" to new players... so why not do it the right way? Life Support -Pros More realistic, more challenging, missions require much more planning and optimization. -Cons More challenging, missions require much more planning and optimization. Re-entry Danger -Pros An actual reason to fear those flames. Intuitive - we've all come to expect re-entry is dangerous (films and TV at least get that mostly right, even if they get almost everything else space related wrong) More challenging, more planning required on the return. -Cons

http://www.purdue.edu/impactearth/ I used their pulldown list, and selected dense rock (1.5 metric tons per cubic meter). You said 70,000 tons, so assuming a perfect sphere, that means about 45 meter diameter to get to 70 tons with that density. I assumed more than a glancing blow.... 45 degree angle. The lowest velocity allowed was 11 km/s, although if the asteroid was going 10km/sec, I don't know how much faster it would be going relative ot earth if it actually hit us. Anyway: The projectile begins to breakup at an altitude of 65500 meters = 215000 ft The projectile bursts into a cloud of fragments at an altitude of 14900 meters = 48900 ft. The residual velocity of the projectile fragments after the burst is 4.26 km/s = 2.65 miles/s. The energy of the airburst is 3.68 x 10^15 Joules = 0.88 x 10^0 MegaTons. No crater is formed, although large fragments may strike the surface. Energy before atmospheric entry: 4.33 x 10^15 Joules = 1.03 MegaTons TNT The average interval between impacts of this size somewhere on Earth is 342.4 years The air blast will arrive approximately 25.3 minutes after impact. Peak Overpressure: 6.13 Pa = 6.13E-05 bars = 0.000871 psi Max wind velocity: 0.0145 m/s = 0.0323 mph Sound Intensity: 16 dB (Barely Audible) I said it had an impact in 500m deep water 1000 km from shore: Tsunami wave amplitude is less than 10 cm at your location. Doesn't sound like we'd have cared much if it hit - we might have gotten some fragments that yielded good science points. Darn!

Meh... you have plenty of funds that you don't need recoverable SSTOs and such... I use them, yes, but I have plenty of money, and rockets are much faster and save real-life time. I say go easter egg hunting, and see the science flavor text from other worlds

I'd say it would be pretty hard, but its more of a problem of waiting for the planets to have the right alignment. Voyager probes basically did what you want for the outer solar system. Getting the perapsis down to Mercury is going to be hard, even with gravity assists

Isp is listed for each engine, you dont calculate it. What you want is the most delta-V (to go the farthest...) \Delta v = v_\text{e} \ln \frac {m_0} {m_1} http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsiolkovsky_rocket_equation Add up the weight of the parts with and without fuel, divide the weight with fuel by the weight without fuel. Take the natural logarithm of this, and multiply it by the ISP. The one with the highest value is most efficient for most purposes (note that launching from kerbin requires a thrust to weight ratio greater than 1, if you don't have that, you won't take off, and you don't get anywhere, a TWR just barely above 1 will waste too much fuel fighting Kerbin's gravity.)

Huh, why would it be ruined in a month, dried DNA pellets last much much longer than a month. Ethanol preciptations are just about always followed by removing the ethanol and drying the pellet.

You could extract and ethanol percipitate the DNA. I thought this would be a thread about hiding written messages in DNA code...

Yes, my "NAO" comment was a bit sarcastic/ intentionally over the top. We should send a probe, and pick the best place to look. I'll point out that many samples of Earth taken from the Atacama desert appeared to be sterile, they weren't able to culture anything from them... A planet with life may not have life everywhere. Earth has life *nearly* everywhere, and even the atacama desert has some viable spores, the density is just so low that some samples did appear to be sterile. I still harbor a bit of hope for even mars.. underground, near those geysers, at the deepest point (hellas basin). The lakes would be risky, they might not have life even if the ocean does.

Let me get this straight... to you... life going from one world to another is less likely than life going from one star system to another? If we went to Europe, the probe would most definitely be designed to look for life. Life is much more than things that swim away... We'd likely at least send a mass spec, which could tell us a whole lot about the alien biochemistry, and answer very rapidly the question "do we have a common origin?" Lets send an RTG powered probe there, NAO... melt through that ice with hot plutonium, and start doing mass spec on the ocean. And, of course, do one for enceledus too

Its widely anticipated that other celestial bodies will be getting biomes... Yet we already have more than enough biomes to max out the tree (even before contracts) right at home with Mun and Minmus. Kerbin doesn't have "Eastern Mountains" and "western Mountains" and "Farside sea", just 1 unified "mountains" biome, and 1 unified "water" biome. So I suggest combining: East Crater East Farside Crater Farside Crater Northwest Crater Southwest Crater Polar Crater Twin Craters (maybe? it is a bit unique) into a single "large Munar Crater" (or call it what you like) biome. Combine the high and midlands craters into just "lesser Craters" biome Do similar things with the flats of minmus.. just greater and lesser flats.. or just flats. I think it would make it feel a lot less grindy I think. It would also provide incentives to go to those other biomes on other celestial bodies (once added)... And... while we're at it... I think there should be biome specific contracts... like "take surface sample of Duna's great canyon" or "analyse atmosphere of Eve's shores"

Huh? You'd have a massive cold sink... your liquid H2 that you'll be pumping through the reactor very soon. I'm pretty sure the Sabre is not a conventional turbine, and is meant to operate past mach 5....

Nope. Its bigger than it needs to be for aesthetic purposes. I don't have the fuel tanks all full. This is the craft: https://www.dropbox.com/s/kt0954r1ix00nlr/Saturn%20V.craft?dl=0 Allows for a mission profile fairly close to the real Apollo missions. 2 stages during ascent, 3rd stage circularizes and then sends it off on a free return trajectory to Mun, command module flips around and re-docks with the LM (note there is a fairing glitch, the fairing stays stuck to the docking port even after decouple, a simple quicksave followed by quickload makes the fairing disappear). LM is all mono-prop, with a descent stage and ascent stage. Its bigger than it needs to be, but meh. The descent stage could be used for a lot of the ascent (especially if the descent fuel tank is full, and you land efficiently), so I've got it action grouped to allow you to shut down the descent engines, so you can go full throttle for the decouple and ascent stage (the ascent stage is just the lander can, the 2 cylindrical monoprop tanks, and 2 radial monoprop engines). I said there isn't much of a point, I didn't say there was no point. I was mainly talking about kerbin orbit stations. Why bother lifting fuel up to a station, when you can lift it up with the main craft, and not have to deal with the rendevous. Also, in LKO, there isn't much point to a science lab. Stations to refuel landers around other bodies, are useful however - but my stations are all actually just orbiting ships with their own propulsion system - although if you make use of LV-N tugs, I can see a station being useful. The science lab station is also questionable.. but thats a science lab thing.... you may just want to have an orbiting stockpile of science Jrs and Goo cans with docking ports - intended to be disposable. It only breaks even if you visit more than 11 biomes.

Try it using this craft: https://www.dropbox.com/s/kt0954r1ix00nlr/Saturn%20V.craft?dl=0 Yes, many of the tanks are not full on purpose - its made efficiency compromises for aesthetics. That said, it has a good margin for error, but does still require a fairly efficient flight. If you cant do a complete mission with it now, I suggest practicing until you can.

"'Decent chance that earth has received life from Europa multiple times during the last 3.5 billion years," That is first assuming there is life "bacteria freezes in ice and move close to surface, " Where it is killed by radiation? Bacteria must be metabolically active to repair the damge caused by radiation "impact throw ice into Jupiter orbit," Given that most large impactors will hit jupiter... and once in orbit, it still has to deal with the radiation "gravity assist to inner solar system" Gravity assist from what? "core of ice block survives trough earth atmosphere" Unlikely... it would have to be a pretty big chunk, but I don't think you'd get that many, especially as it would be sublimating like a comet, except it will be much shorter lived because its still much smaller... and it could be drifting for a long time. I think transfer from Mars happens a lot more than from Europa... its a much smaller grav well to escape from, yet a bigger one to pull impactors on to it. And of course, its closer and easier to get from mars orbit to Earth orbit than to go jupiter -> mars I'm still betting on Europa being sterile, so when combined with all the other factors, I think its a pretty bad chance. Now lets go send a probe and settle this

assuming they are all the same model.... Backup your save In the VAB, add a comm device to the sat. Put that sat on the launchpad, quick save.... Find the com device on that sat, copy and paste it to all your other sats of the same configuration Then quickload see if it works

Well... thats one way to deal with it... another would be to presume that Earth and Theia formed as one, farther than separately followed by a collision. or... double planet! that would be so cool. #1) If Theia was roughly 10% the mass of Earth (assuming mars mass), and the moon is just 1%, it seems Earth would have 90% of its mass, and thus 96% its radius... #2) Earth already would have had a hot core, Theia would add some KE to it to warm it up, but that whole liquifaction and disrupting of the crust and hot debris into space probably made earth lose more heat than it gained from the KE impact. As its mass was only 10% of Earths, its core adding to ours was not needed, but sure, it helps (the core is mainly kept warm by radioactive decay, mainly) #3) Unless a crust fracturing event is needed, plate techtonics would likely have already happened (noting that Mars has none, and Venus apparently had cataclysmic surface turnovers, maybe this would be needed)* I don't see how that would affect the rate of evolution. If anything, its mainly changes in selection pressure that drive evolution(not counting genetic drift). Of course, a change in one species can put a selection pressure on another. That said, tides would start selecting for a creature that may transition to land, but the overall rate of evolution wouldn't be affected much I think (especially since out of nearly 4 billion years of life, tetrapods only evolved 400 million years ago). I think arthropods still would have colonized land about as fast... the fish may have taken longer, if the arthropods had more time... maybe they would have evolved apatations that would prevent the new tetrapods from outcompeting them... Maybe without tides, we'd be a "bug planet" Also the quote above... where do you get these extreme winds from? The lack of a moon would result in more axial wandering, so climate changes would be less stable... but as a whole, the globe should be more or less the same, with the variation being more regional. I see no reason the core wouldn't still be hot. Techtonics also plays a role in CO2 capture. Venus had plenty of greenhouse gas outgassing without a large moon. The LHB may have blown away the initial water anyway, and maybe this wouldn't have made a difference. The water we have now likely came after the LHB. Yea, atmospheric escape of most volatiles, only the heavy stuff (like CO2) would remain... and even then, not much. Earth likely would still have a magnetic field, it would have plenty of gravity. Venus is .8 Earth masses, without Theia's .1 Earth masses, Earth/Terra would be 0.9 Earth masses. Earth would still be bigger. I think Earth would still have life, it would not be "small", but bigger than your "large boiled one" (Venus). What is this "still get life" for Europa and Enceladus... that implies they have life now, which is of course, an open question (I'm betting on No, but I would love to be wrong). *

Yea, dV information, even vessel mass would be nice... oddly, you can see vessel mass one its on the launch pad, and you are in map view (click the i) I spreadsheet calculate dV sometimes.... As this is in development, I advise the use of some mods - after all, some of the mods (Space plane Plus now) get added to the game after all. I really should install kerbal engineer (I'm not doing mechjeb!). When SP+ gets in .25, you'll have a small cargo bay for launching small probes... I hope this is expanded upon for other cargo bays. There are mods to add fairings, I think I may want to download thos I modded my nosecones to hold fuel, ie, they are half a spherical fuel tank to cap my flat fuel tanks with. But after downloading NEAR and FAR, they have an additional purpose I highly recommend NEAR - FAR has some annoying features... I don't like the mach effects, its the "aerodynamic failures" (I won't get into it here) - although I do like the detailed flight info of FAR. So: mods, hopefully they become stock: NEAR Fairings Kerbal Engineer Try the Mk1 spaceplane cockpit, and the new Space plane + cockpit. The Space plane + cockpit is freaking awesome... showing the potential of the game when its finished: FWIW, I don't think the Mk1-2 capsule IVA is too shabby either... the view is pretty restricted... but... I guess it would be nice if you could lean forward and really put the kerbal's head to the window. The lander cans are decent for landing in too. They have the navball, and a window, which is all you really need, they also have a radar altimeter, which you don't get in external view. It was pretty hard for NASA too Yea... its a bit... odd, but it seems functional to me. Some argue its really more of a tutorial, so that new players are introduced to a few parts at a time, and start out with simple rockets rather than being overwhelmed by lists of parts when they don't know what to do with the parts. Well... I agree... the contracts are a bit.... meh... 0.24 was delayed because they had less than positive feedback about contracts and they wanted to fix the issue... I wonder what it was like before. I hope they continue to refine contracts. One thing I'd like is for the contracts to auto complete when all conditions are met, without having to click "run test" or activate the staging of the part. Also a bit more refinement about what the test conditions are would be nice... I don't know why they want me to test a jet engine on the moon. And if they want me to experiment with a jet/ion engine, let me also have intakes/xenon tanks... etc. IRL, there isn't much point to them either... One thing I do have are "science stations" about the Mun/Minmus, to refuel and reset the experiments on a reusable lander I do plenty of apollo-style landers... But you're asking for a fairing, and in fact you're getting basically what you are asking for in 0.25, it least in the space plane cargobay, it doesn't hold much, but its enough for a 1 kerbal mun lander. Lander+command module, while still attached to the trans-munar injection stage, a fairing would be nice, but its not that bad looking (IMO) How its configured when I do the munar orbit insertion burn (appropriately putting me into a retrograde orbit, as I was on a free-return trajectory) ...skipping the science topic... there are whole threads on it Yea... Kethane mod perhaps? Or you want long term pretige/science data from doing this? If you can't mine, there isn't much point in going anywhere if you don't want the science Mods... Yes, I know, mods mods mods... hopefully that won't be the case when the game is at release 1.00, but we're at 0.24, so give it some slack.

#1) If you are using stock aero you were ascending too fast in the lower atmosphere, ascend at terminal velocity http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Kerbin#Atmosphere #2) You are setting your orbit higher than neccessary, aim for about 75 km, not 100+, its just more efficient that way. #3) You really should learn to do a Gravity turn properly... putting you Apoapsis out into space, and then burning at the top is pretty inefficient (oberth and gravity drag) As soon as I figure out how to upload a craft file (I know I did it once), try doing the mission with the provied craft

Ok, after looking at image 16, I see the problem... The simplest answer would be a ring(4?) of SRBs around your lower stage, or flying it better. I see you are trying to do an apollo style rocket, you even use a monoprop Munar ascent stage, you probably do not want to strap SRBs to the sides and call it an SLS. however... lets look at this: http://imgur.com/a/YocF4/embed#16 I've done an apollo style landing with SLS parts, 3 stages, it was much smaller than yours, I can't load it up now... but... I'll look later. I kept having to make my upper stage smaller because I was always left with way too much dV. Looking at image 16... your lander descent stage: you use 2* Rockomax200-8 tanks -> you should only need 1 (in fact, to make it worthwhile doing a 2 stage on mine, I had to not even do a full fuel load). If you want to do mono-prop like Apollo did, switch this for the large RCS tank - you'll save weight on tanks (3.4 vs 4.5 tons of tank), and engines (I recommend 3x monoprop engines) Then for your lander ascent stage-> that RCS tank is way more than you need. I haven't used those low ISP RCS engines.... but I suspect just 2x cylindrical fuel tanks should be enough for orbital rendevous. Then we get to your top stage... using 2* Rockomax X200-16 Fuel Tanks.... reduce this to 1. My design had a x200-8, not a 16, but it looks a bit short like that... And since you don't fly very efficient (based upon your launch), I won't tell you to go down to a -8 instead of -16, although, consider filling it only 2/3 full Next: Your SAS module - entirely unneeded for the upper stage (at least once you size it down) Now, back to your launcher... again, assuming a desire to be like apollo... where is your 3rd stage? I recommend: Stage 1 - S3 KS-25x4 Engine Cluster + Kerbodyne S3-14400 Tank for stage 1 Stage 2 - Kerbodyne KR-2L Advanced Engine + Kerbodyne S3-7200 Tank, and *maybe* a Kerbodyne S3-3600 Tank Stage 3 - Rockomax "Skipper" Liquid Engine + Rockomax X200-32 Fuel Tank Relative to the previous launcher design: Your first stage is not lifting: 1x 14400 tank from the 1st stage (82 tons), 1x 14400 tank from the 2nd stage (82 tons): -164 tons It is lifting (optionally) 1x S3-3600 tank in the 2nd stage (20.5 tons), 1x x200-32 tank in the 3rd stage (18 tons), 1x Skipper engine (3 tons), 1x decoupler (0.4 tons) In total it is lighter by 164 - 18 - 3- .4 - 20.5 = 122.1 tons lighter. It is also now 3 stages like the Saturn V, and the 3rd stage should be getting you most of the way to the moon (again, like the Saturn V) if you build your upper stages light enough. You are simply asking your single engine to lift too much fuel. You don't need more engines, you just don't need to lift as much fuel. Note that the weight reduction in the command and lunar module comes down to: -1x 200-8 tank : 4.5 tons saved - switching to RCS, is another 0.5 for the engine + 1.1 for the fuel tank = 6.6 tons saved - FL-R1 RCS Fuel Tank + 2x cylinders: 1.9 tons saved (you may want to do 3x though, if you don't dock without wasting a lot of fuel, would still save 1.15 tons) - Rockomax X200-16 Fuel Tank = 9 tons saved Total saved 6.6 +1.15 + 9 = 16.75 tons Add this to the reduced launcher weight, 16.75 +122.1 = 138.85 tons lighter, and it should still have plenty of dV to get the job done, and it will be closer in design to the Saturn V

Well, 1) I agree, over hyped, its just technobabble BS. 2) I think Photo torpedoes were supposed to be anti-matter torpedoes. Matter and Antimatter anhiliation yields: High energy Photons, and neutrinos (which for our purposes, can be ignored)

Topless "friendly" french women EVERYWHERE and no guys in sight...? if you know what I'm saying....

No, he explicitely stated he didn't have enough fuel to rendevous... then he stated he had supplies on board (apparently intended to resupply the base, perhaps this added mass was the problem? they have to unload the lander before taking off again?) that might last until a rescue ship could come, but then he said he wasn't sure it was a good idea for them to send a rescue mission, given the high chance of infection. Then the movie ends before the response comes (speed of light delay and all that)

Another thing... that lunar lander was super flimsy... it would not survive martian reentry (fine, encase it in a fairing+ heat shield, adding a lot of weight), and I'm not sure about ascent when its going that fast (sure, mars' atmosphere is thin though...). But you'd also have to increase its engine size, since it was meant for lunar grav, not martian gravity. I think we first need to establish the weight of the hab modules(+supplies) you'd need for the journey to mars. Getting something to mars isn't the hard part... its getting something that can sustain humans for 2 years without resupply that is the hard part. The ISS doesn't go that long without resupply... Compare the lunar lander with what you would need for mars... you can't have them sit in that thing for 6 months, or just do a 2 day stint, and then go back to orbit and wait months for the return transfer window. If what you need to land is 100x as heavy, then a single launch is going to end up being many, many many times as expensive as the apollo program

People on an extraterrestrial base won't be going outside, breathing the radioactive exhaust. They will always be in airtight, shielded units. They won't care if you've spread fallout across half the cellestial body, because nothing lives there. And again, it shouldn't be shedding radioactive debris. When the reactor has been running for a while, it will be quite "hot", but you can fly over the cellestial body without irradiating anyone, because noone is there.land near the base, orient the craft such that the "shadow shield" is between the reactor and the direction of the base... and everything would be fine. I am assuming EVAs between the base (likely mostly underground) and the transport, as opposed to the transport going inside the base. As far as the oxygen burning jet..... no.... A nuclear thermal jet could run for years with no "fuel" Your O2 will run out very quickly, and you'd still need to collect the methane from the lakes (which aren't that widespread, the atmosphere is mostly N2) It would be, at best, an air augmented rocket.