KerikBalm

For sure, most of those hydrocarbons involved biological processes. Hence the key word "all". The question is if you can get relatively long chain hydrocarbons abiotically, and if any such abiotic hydrocarbons are still present on Earth. For example: http://www.osti.gov/scitech/biblio/7052010 There are abiotic hydrocarbons on Earth - in the specific case above, that abiotic methane is only 0.02%... but it is there. I will agree the consensus is that a biological origin is the predominant origin. But on a lifeless world, where the much faster biotic process is absent, could an abiotic process still produce significant amounts of high MW hydrocarbons? As I said, Titan may be a nice test case to see what sort of complexity you can get in hydrocarbons without biological processes. Of course, #1) It will be very hard to see anything that is not on the surface or just a short distance below it #2) Due to its lower mass, the pressures will not be as great #3) Its much lower temperatures will also affect this. #4) There's a chance that biological processes are at work on Titan, and that would be so cool that nobody should mind that our test case is inapplicable Yea, I was being too imprecise, I'm mainly just talking about generic "hydrocarbons" Well, I'm not sure why you mention this. #1, I didn't mean to imply that the microbes would be synthesizing compounds at the same place that the petrol is being formed. I shouldn't have specified deep underground at all - however, in the case of a "lush world" bs a world where the surface is sterile (as is likely the case on mars), you could have a deep biosphere responsible for the presence of the petrol, but the world would be far from "lush" #2, cyanobacteria, and not forrests may concentrate and synthesize the hydrocarbons - so accepting a biological origin, hydrocarbon deposits do not mean a world once covered in forrests, it could be "slime" covered. (again, a not so "lush" world) #3, the abiotic origin hypothesese have the petroleum form, then migrate upward, where bacteria then feed on it and alter it. Its then a question if the hydrocarbon originated from within the earth, or from buried biomass. No bacteria would be involved at the origin. Additionally: http://www.pnas.org/content/99/17/10976.full Clearly a) Abiotic hydrocarbons exist (Methane, Ethane, as on titan) At sufficient pressure, abiotic hydrocarbons can form alkanes up to at least decane, and also forms alkenes and various other variations. Evidence for a biological origin does not exclude a parallel abiotic process. The biological process may be much faster and dominate, and it may also "reprocess" the abiotically produced hydrocarbons, obscuring the origin. The biomarkers are clear, but abiotic origins are still plausible, and thus for the purposes of this discussion, if Eve had hydrocarbon lakes, we could not conclude a history of life (particularly given that Eve's gravity would result in even higher subsurface pressures)

Light isn't needed, but it is a very abundant energy source. Its also worth noting that we cannot resolve extra-solar moons. So we can't see anything that may be warmed by tidal flexing. We can't deterine core composition, so we don't know if a planet has a hot core, kept warm over long periods by radioactive decay. The only energy source we can be sure of at the distances involved, is light. We can see the "parent" star. We can't see the rest of it. So naturally, that is where we look. I would very much like for more focused missions to be sent to mars, and missions to be sent to Europa/Enceladus. I have a suspicion that we will find both to be quite sterile (or at least lacking alien life*)- yet potentially habitable. The conditions neccessary for life to start, are not the same as the conditions that life can survive in. I can't help but look at mars, and think... where is all the evidence of life? Its hard to look at this map, and not think that Mars had an ocean: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/1d/Mars_Map.JPG Or you can look at pictures like this: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/94/Eberswalde_delta_plain25.jpg Curiosity came across a streambed that was flowing long enough to have pebbles rounded by erosion Numerous sedimentary rock formations have been found Water was flowing, there were large amounts of it, no question. Rather old craters in the martian highlands still appear crisp http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hesperian - from the time period when wars was drying up, but still seems to have had standing water Even old riverbeds are still there... so it seems likely that erosion isn't so much that fossiles wouldn't still be around. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geology_of_Mars#Inverted_relief Some of those riverbeds, do however seem to have been affected significantly by erosion - in that apparentyl everything around them eroded, but they remained resistant to erosion, due to the clays and such being cemented together by exposure to water. Our rovers have encountered numerous places where water was obviously present in the past. Now... I'm not expectng us to find some fossil fish like thing, even if they were there, 3 rovers could easily miss signs as rare as those. If one looks at old seabeds and such on earth, the signs of life are easy to see. Before the cambrian explosion, microbial mats and stromatolites were everywhere. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microbial_mat http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/92/Runzelmarken.jpg Now stromatolites and microbial mats are only in a few places: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1b/Stromatolites_in_Sharkbay.jpg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microbially_induced_sedimentary_structure - because more complex organisms eat them And then there are the old banded iron formations http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banded_iron_formation If photosynthesis ever evolved on mars, given that no higher organisms would be around to disturb them (ie direct consumption burrowing action, covering them and blocking access to resources, etc), then basically everywhere that had standing water should have been covered with a microbial mat or stromatolites.... and conditions on mars are such that there isn't much appreciable erosion... Where are the banded iron formations? Where are the stromatolites, where are the fossilized microbial matts? If our rovers are looking at ancient lakebeds, assuming no higher organisms evolved that ate mats of cyanobacteria like organisms, and the lakebeds were habitable all the way up to the point that they started drying out, if photosynthesizing bacteria were there, it should be obvious. Photosynthesis evolved very quickly on earth, and it would be strongly selected for.... so I'd guess the same would be true on mars if it had life. Yet I still have an idea... what if those "inverted relief" features aren't simply clays cemented together... what if the feature that makes them resistant to erosion... is that the riverbeds and deltas were covered in a massive microbial mats, which are now fossilized and at the top of these inverted relief formations? These same microbial mats are what seem to have preserved almost all the fossils of pre-cambrian multicellular life. One explanation for the disappearance of fossils of almost all the precambrian multicellular life in the cabrian and higher, is that the microbial mats were gone, and thus the main method by which these fossils were preserved is also gone. If it were up to me, we'd send a rover to go investigate an inverted relief formation... say in an old delta. If we don't find fossilized microbial mats there, we'd stop looking for life, and conclude that the requirements for conditions to support life are much less stringient than the requirements for conditions to start life.

I am unconvinced(and there is scientific dissent) that the oil on Earth is actually all a result of "fossil fuel", especially if we are talking multicellular life. Titan shows us strong evidence that small hydrocarbons can exist abiotically. We already know the heat and pressure of Earth's core can form carbon into very large covalently linked molecules (indeed, a diamond is a single molecule). I see no reason to think that primordial hydrocarbons could not be turned into larger hydrocarbons abiotically. Sure, rapid forrestation, and then burying of forrests, as in the carboniferous, would lead to large concentrations of buried carbon, and could result in more being formed. Also, microbes deep underground could synthesize larger compounds to accelerate the process. - But I doubt lush forrests, or even life at all, is required to make various heavy hydrocarbons - ie "oil" A "curiosity" type mission to Titan would be very interesting, as would a submersible on Titan.

Am I the only one whom is reminded of arguing with creationists? One side brings many facts and sound logic, the other side blatently misrepresents the facts and uses bad logic. He's still talking about a video where you can clearly see the tower revolving about a point between it and the gyroscope, as expected. The only thing that changing the relative masses of the tower and gyroscope will do, is move the point that the tower revolves about - either closer to the tower, or closer to the gryoscope. Thus light vs heavy tower would only change the radius of the revolutions of the tower. The video used masses such that the radius is easy to discern - it doesn't much matter if the radius is 1cm, or 10 cm, both can be clearly seen (but if it was 10mm, it would be too hard to see). Many labs weren't even interested in debunking the "arsenic life" paper, because the conclusion was on such a shoddy foundation. I'm surprised a lab at cambridge (note that its not as if the entire university oversaw this) would even bother to put any effort to debunk this. Why... they might as well be trying to debunk some quack claim of alchemy. Its Russel's teapot all over again. The burden of proof is on you Momentus. Showing us a video of a tower of unknown mass revolving around a point that is quite plausibly the CG does not support your claim. Referring to an experiment of a tower with legs quite capable of digging into the ice it is sitting on, does not support your claim. We have no reason to believe your claims, and no burden to disprove them.

Well, we can speculate, as in the wikipedia link, on other solvents, other types of chemistries, etc. You made a specific claim about life forms we had already identified, and that is what I have an issue with. I have no problem with speculating about life that uses ammonium or methane as the solvent, for example

"Temperature, light, pressure, moisture, etc" You still have not provided any examples beyond the commonly accepted limits

Actually, our understanding of how life got started is much better than it was even 10 years ago. The RNA world hypothesis has come together nicely with recent findings of RNA ribozymes, which have been getting (or rather, the forms we have evolved recently) more and more advanced. We now have RNA ribozymes that can copy other RNA sequences longer than themselves. As to your link, all of those cannot "survive without one or more of the commonly-accepted 'prerequisites' for sustaining life." They all require H20, and C, H, O, N, and P. I challenge you to point out something that they can survive without, that you would consider a "commonly-accepted pre-requisite for sustaining life" For anything you point out, I gaurantee I can find papers showing it was well known to the scientific community that it was not a pre-requisite. Also: http://scienceblogs.com/webeasties/2010/12/05/guest-post-arsenate-based-dna/

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2011/05/30/further-panning-of-the-arsenic/ http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110527/full/news.2011.333.html I am so so so so soooooo tired of hearing this claim repeated by laypeople. The publishers were criminally negligent IMO. There is no good evidence that the bacteria incorporated arsenic into its DNA, and ample evidence that it did not. All they did was find a bacteria that can tolerate higher levels of arsenic without dying. They grew bacteria in high arsenic conditions with low-but-still-there levels of phosphorus. They then detected arsenic in their bacteria, and concluded arsenic had replaced phosphorus. - A huge unsupported logical leap Sure, they claim to have purified the DNA, but they did it so half-assed, omitting very cruicial steps, that there would still be many contaminants. IIRC, they didn't even have a proper negative control. Stop repeating these asinine claims, and if you're in a conversation with someone else who repeats the claim, correct them. Stop the spread of a poorly informed public. The ironic thing is that these people repeating this arsenic life claim actually think they are well informed. “He who knows not and knows not he knows not: he is a fool - shun him. He who knows not and knows he knows not: he is innocent - teach him. He who knows and knows not he knows: he is asleep - wake him. He who knows and knows he knows: he is wise - follow him.†I'd modify that saying to not go straight to shunning people, but first try to expose their ignorance, and then see how they react.

Nah, we don't need clarification, its very clear you don't understand what you are talking about.

even the use of "class A" and "order B" that is stupid IMO. Its much simpler to just refere to clade A and clade B. A proper cladogram doesn't make any note of rank in the old linnaean taxonomy (although it may still use the same names for clades, it may be clade reptillia, but it will not say order reptillia). I would challenge you to find a cladogram that does not show that birds are reptiles. Any textbook which says otherwise is either (a) old or ( written by negligent people whom should not be producing textbooks. You seem to be making (mostly valid) criticisms of the old linnaean taxonomy, but attributing those criticisms to modern cladistics (aka phylogenetic systematics - the name may make it more clear how important it is that clades be monophyletic, you can't construct a reptile clade without including birds). I encourage you to visit this website for a (mostly) up to date set of cladograms. http://tolweb.org/tree/ http://tolweb.org/Terrestrial_Vertebrates/14952 http://tolweb.org/Amniota/14990 Note how birds are grouped with the diapsids, within clade reptilia http://tolweb.org/Diapsida/14866

By modern phylogenetic standards, a bird is a reptile. Your argument is a strawman. The whole point of cladistics is to do away with that sort of crud that you bring up (which was a problem with the old Linnaean taxonomy).

No, that is not the general consensus. That is not the consensus either. There is only good evidence of structures homologous to feathers in tetanura. It is true that there are bristles on ornithiscians (such as Heterodontosaurus), and the presence of pycnofibers in closely related pterosaurs implies that there may be a "dinofuzz" like covering basal to ornithodira, that is far from settled. Plausible yes, but probable based on the evidence? no. There's no evidence that the bristles on non theropod ornithodirans is any more homologous to feathers than the dorsal "bristles" on iguanas... There is a feathered siberian neoornithischian awaiting description, and ceratopsians posessed brittle-like structures on their skin. Yes, quite unlikely. And it was at least semi aquatic. Can we start looking at carnivorus pinnipeds now? You're begining to sound like a "BANDit" subscriber to that nutjob Martin. Crocodiles are reptiles. Birds are reptiles (according to cladistics, and common sense + sufficient information). Crocodiles are not Birds. Crocodiles are archosaurs. Birds are Archosaurs. Dinosaurs are archosaurs. Birds are dinosaurs. Dinosaurs are reptiles. Crocodiles are not Dinosaurs. Anything else I need to clarify for you?

You are aware that there are cases of fossilized dino mummies, preserving internal organs, right? We also have some amino acid sequences. We know about their breathing+ air sac aparatus, rather bird like. No. Seeing as how birds are dinosaurs, that is just asinine to say that birds metabolism is less than birds metabolism. Fuzy dinos were cold blooded eh? Also, given ample evidence that the ancestral archosaur was warm blooded, and that crocodiles are secondarily cold blooded, this cold blooded vs warm blooded debate is long over. The same can be said of mammals, where is the problem? Umm, so you subscribe to bigger= better? btw, those mass estimates have come down quite a bit. More modern T rex estimates are between 6-7 tons. In comparison, a polar bear may reach 2 tons. What is your problem with cladistics? Its a whole lot better than the old taxonomy, your statement is somewhat like saying as long as astonomy (do oyu consider that a subset of physics? I'd say it certainly is, its advanced physics with studies of high energy processes, singularities, CBR, etc) has a stellar and planetary classification system you just cannot view physics as a whole as accurate. They can't even make up their minds about what a planet is! Why is ceres not a planet? oh, it hasn't cleared its orbit? but what's this? earth crossing asteroids? (not that I disagree with this classification, classifications are human made constructs, and as long as it is useful and works, go with it, just don't pretend its some innate quality) You seem to be confusing philisophical debates that deal with biology, with biology. One can study adenovirus, modifying its promoter sequences, characterizing how microRNAs transcribed from viral DNA affect host cell gene expression, etc - You could describe exactly what it is, and what it does. Yet, that would not answer the philisophical question "is it alive?" I'll leave the questions of what is life and what is not life to the philosophers. Is a self replicating RNA molecule alive? I don't know, but I know it has biological activity, that there is hereditary descent with modification, that it evolves, etc. Likewise, I'm not overly concerned with what is a species, genus, subspecies, race, etc... If I want to study mRNA expression in mitochondria, its not even enough that two samples are from the same species... I want them to come from the same clonal cell line, wouldn't want results complicated by interspecies variation. After you get that down, then you stat useing these classifications as simply tools to direct your search... If you look at classification as anything more than a tool, you are doing it wrong.

The gut bacteria would likely be similar enough that it would work. FYI, humans are born basically with a sterile gut, which is then quickly colonized by bacteria. The bacteria living on your skin are not the same as those on someone else's skin. The bacteria on your outer elbow are not the same as the bacteria on your inner elbow. If you look at how fast and how much bacteria can evolve in the lab when subjected to different conditions, its likely bacteria acquired from the environment would become adapted to a dino digestive system very rapidly. The pH, temperature, food intake, would all be relatively similar to animals still living today. The biggest problem is simply that DNA doesn't last that long... And I would not say its the least accurate of the natural sciences. Molecular biology, a subset of microbiology, is very rigorous. Just because there is a debate over useless terminology, does not make it pseudoscience. Nobody in the lab I work in concerns themselves with the definition of a species or life. Its quite irrelevant to the studies we're doing. Of course, to the laypeople, these irrelevant definitions are pretty much all they understand.

No we don't. But you are right about the definition thing being a mess. For as useful as the interbreeding definitions are, they are completely inadequate for asexual species, or where "***" is not linked to reproduction (as in bacterial conjugation, which may be interspecies anyway). "Reproductive isolation" is often used instead, which would still allow for two animals to be classified into two separate species, even if it is possible for them to produce fertile offspring (the isolation could be behavioral, or geographical, for instance) Ring Species make that not so useful either. In the end, we must accept that classification systems are somewhat arbitrary human constructs. As such, many people will just stop arguing one way or another, and consider the whole argument irrelevant. Likewise the levels of the old Linnaean taxonomy system are arbitrary. What constitutes a genus is arbitrary (there is much uproar among d. melanogaster scientists, over the proposal to split the genus into two separates genuses - a drosophilia and a sophophora genus, with melanogaster going into sophophora). Cladistics is nice, but ultimately we just use an arbitary resolution cut off. Really, you'd be following each individual in a population, each individual would be a branch on the cladogram, and you'd have a lot of intertwined/repeatedly merging and separating branches as individuals reproduce sexualy. In which case clustering and network analysis is more appropriate to at least make objective definitions for species (even if its still arbitrary, its better than arbitrary *and* subjective)

I can't believe people are actually debating this on KSP forums. Gyroscopes aren't magical, and can't magically produce thrust with no reaction mass

"And we've discovered other organisms in recent years that can survive without one or more of the commonly-accepted 'prerequisites' for sustaining life. " Such as? I sincerely hope you are not referring to that terrible and soundly refuted "arsenic life" paper. Whether or not viruses are life is a matter of definition or semantics. It is clear that they are biological entities - no biologist will dispute that. If we just rephrase the question to alien biological entities, then we bypass this issue as well. "Well Laythe obviously has life, no other way to get an oxygen atmosphere, microbes and even some primitive swamps and corrals, something keep the ocean liquid." Not strictly true, but very suggestive of life. Duna != Mars, but it we assume that is true, it may still be lifeless. Duna is in many ways better than mars now (maybe not mars in the past), given that its atmospheric pressure is ~20x greater than that of Mars. Actually, given its atmospheric pressure, and temperatures, it certainly *should* have liquid water. Maybe the Devs just didn't want to make landing there too hard. Imagine landing on Duna, with 1/20th its atmosphere (even landing at the highest points would be easy) - oh, and increase its gravity by 25% Also, those mars lichen experiments still don't show that it can survive long term. It survives ~30 days, and unlike tardigrades, does show some metabolic activity in those 30 days, but they are likely still dying, and certainly not reproducing, given the lack of water. Eve- actually, at those atmopheric pressures, it *could* be water - but if it were, Eve should be a lot hotter, and then the water wouldn't last very long (lost to space, as with venus - maybe Eve is like an early venus?) Minmus- doesn't make sense for it to be ice, given that its at the same distance from the sun as kerbin, the day side near the equator would sublime off into space... and it should have a big coma like a comet

I think he meant that the "land" on titan is mostly water ice ie, in response to: "the 'land' are just frozen water?" Titan has ethane/methane/'hydrocarbon' lakes, and a lare part of its "land" is frozen water ice

There's pretty much no counter to an X ray laser. The range of just a 10 meter focusing array and a 1 gigajoule pulse will extend several to dozens of AU (depending on the specific wavelength), at those wavelengths, only grazing incidence mirrors will work, if your mirror is at less than about 1 degree from parallel with the incoming photons, it won't reflect, and you're screwed. Pulse lasers will vaporize the surface, and literally cause an explosion - and its much more effective than slowly melting through your target. The only thing better than an X ray laser, would be a gamma ray lazer... but good luck focusing that thing....

Given data indicating interbreeding between neandertals and other humans (and also Denisovans), their lineage continues. It would help to define species... but thats another topic. A species can split with no extinctions A species can evolve without any branching, still with no extinctions - the only lineages going extinct are at the individual or small group level. The interbreeding population does not go extinct. Even in the case of native americans and Europeans - native lineages continued on in many areas, although most often heavily diluted by European interbreeding (ex: sacajawea, or however it is spelled). Lobe finned fish did not go extinct, they branched - one branch was the tetrapods, they did not go extinct, they branched - one branch was the amniotes, they did not go extinct - one branch was the synapsids, they did not go extinct (although they nearly did at the end permian and mid triassic).... and so on. When amniotes split into diapsids and synapsids, both lineages continued. Of course some species cause others to go extinct, but this concept of making the "ancestral species" going extinct is flawed IMO. The "ancestral form" may go extinct, but the population continued - and of course there are plenty of examples of the ancestral form continuing with little change while a new branch takes a very different form. But still no answer to my previous statement (I know, I added it in during an edit, I started the edit before there was any reply): If you think we'd survive the events of the End-Permian extinction, you're very likely wrong. So if we wouldn't survive random event X, and species A didn't survive random event X, why do we have more right to exist than species A?

because what you described is not speciation all you described is an allele becoming more widespread Moreover, when there is adaptive radiation, the "old species" doesn't go extinct. When early lungfish like tetrapods started venturing on land, they didn't cause the aquatic Sarcopterygians to go extinct, did they?

Yes, you do have a poor understanding of evolution "They had their chance at competing for survival and lost out. " Often due to random events. If you think we'd survive the events of the End-Permian extinction, you're very likely wrong. So if we wouldn't survive random event X, and species A didn't survive random event X, why do we have more right to exist than species A?

Does anyone know if there is a way to quickly reconnect to a docking port after undocking? It seems if I want to undock, rotate something a little with 1m distance, and redock, I can't do it. It seems I have to move some distance away, and then re-approach. Can anyone explain what the rules are on docking ports after undocking, and if there is a way to do what I want?

So I've got a modded LV-N that has two modes wit two different specific impulses (one of which consumes only liquid fuel), based upon the Rapier concept. The problem is, there are no effects associated with the engine running. All I see are the overheat effects. Can someone tell me how to get the engine effects working? Here's the relevant part of the cfg file: mass = 2.75 dragModelType = default maximum_drag = 0.2 minimum_drag = 0.2 angularDrag = 2 crashTolerance = 12 maxTemp = 4000 fx_exhaustFlame_blue = 0.0, -1.6, 0.0, 0.0, 1.0, 0.0, running fx_exhaustLight_blue = 0.0, -1.6, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 1.0, running fx_smokeTrail_light = 0.0, -1.6, 0.0, 0.0, 1.0, 0.0, running EFFECTS { running_closed { AUDIO { channel = Ship clip = sound_vent_medium volume = 0.0 0.0 volume = 1.0 1.0 pitch = 0.0 0.2 pitch = 1.0 1.0 loop = true } PREFAB_PARTICLE { prefabName = fx_smokeTrail_light transformName = smokePoint emission = 0.0 0.0 emission = 0.05 0.0 emission = 0.075 0.25 emission = 1.0 1.25 speed = 0.0 0.25 speed = 1.0 1.0 localOffset = 0, 0, 1 } MODEL_MULTI_PARTICLE { modelName = fx_exhaustLight_blue transformName = thrustTransform emission = 0.0 0.0 emission = 0.05 0.0 emission = 0.075 0.25 emission = 1.0 1.25 speed = 0.0 0.5 speed = 1.0 1.2 } } power_open { AUDIO { channel = Ship clip = sound_vent_medium volume = 0.0 0.0 volume = 1.0 1.0 pitch = 0.0 0.2 pitch = 1.0 1.0 loop = true } MODEL_MULTI_PARTICLE { modelName = fx_exhaustLight_blue transformName = thrustTransform emission = 0.0 0.0 emission = 0.05 0.0 emission = 0.075 0.25 emission = 1.0 1.25 speed = 0.0 0.5 speed = 1.0 1.2 } } running_open { AUDIO { channel = Ship clip = sound_rocket_hard volume = 0.0 0.0 volume = 1.0 1.0 pitch = 0.0 0.2 pitch = 1.0 1.0 loop = true } PREFAB_PARTICLE { prefabName = fx_smokeTrail_light transformName = smokePoint emission = 0.0 0.0 emission = 0.05 0.0 emission = 0.075 0.25 emission = 1.0 1.25 speed = 0.0 0.25 speed = 1.0 1.0 localOffset = 0, 0, 1 } } engage { AUDIO { channel = Ship clip = sound_vent_soft volume = 1.0 pitch = 2.0 loop = false } } flameout { PREFAB_PARTICLE { prefabName = fx_exhaustSparks_flameout_2 transformName = smokePoint oneShot = true } AUDIO { channel = Ship clip = sound_explosion_low volume = 1.0 pitch = 2.0 loop = false } } } MODULE { name = MultiModeEngine primaryEngineID = 1 secondaryEngineID = 2 } MODULE { name = ModuleEnginesFX engineID = 1 directThrottleEffectName = power_open runningEffectName = running_open thrustVectorTransformName = thrustTransform exhaustDamage = True ignitionThreshold = 0.1 minThrust = 0 maxThrust = 60 heatProduction = 600 fxOffset = 0, 0, 1.6 PROPELLANT { name = LiquidFuel ratio = 1.0 DrawGauge = True } atmosphereCurve { key = 0 800 key = 1 220 } } MODULE { name = ModuleEnginesFX engineID = 2 runningEffectName = running_closed thrustVectorTransformName = thrustTransform exhaustDamage = True ignitionThreshold = 0.1 minThrust = 0 maxThrust = 180 heatProduction = 600 fxOffset = 0, 0, 1.6 PROPELLANT { name = LiquidFuel ratio = 0.9 DrawGauge = True } PROPELLANT { name = Oxidizer ratio = 1.1 } atmosphereCurve { key = 0 600 key = 1 280 } } MODULE { name = ModuleJettison jettisonName = fairingL bottomNodeName = bottom isFairing = False jettisonedObjectMass = 0.1 jettisonForce = 1 jettisonDirection = 1 0 0 } MODULE { name = ModuleJettison jettisonName = fairingR bottomNodeName = bottom isFairing = False jettisonedObjectMass = 0.1 jettisonForce = 1 jettisonDirection = -1 0 0 } MODULE { name = ModuleGimbal gimbalTransformName = thrustTransform gimbalRange = 1 } MODULE { name = ModuleAnimateHeat ThermalAnim = overheat }

Yes, he should have stupilated: *for a given engine type* or *engines of a given ISP* "Increasing your TWR lowers your Delta-V because you have to add rocket motors (which contributes to dry mass)." ie, increasing TWR by adding more engines of the same ISP lowers your delta-V