Lordherrmann

Well I'm just beginning to get into photography. My buddy knows I'm into space, so he gave me this lens. I just put on my camera using an adapter, because it did not have a bayonet, but had to be screwed on. I could probably give you a better description, but it's 2am here, so my Englsh skills aren't exactly smashing at the moment. However I know it's zoom lens ranging from 650mm to 1300mm. I've made a few pictures of it and will try to upload them sometime tomorrow, so you can try and solve this problem and probably teach me some good technical information about photography. Also if it is of any help: I'm using a Canon EOS 600D.

Words cannot express how cool this mod is, so I made these:

Always glad to help. And thanks for the quick reply. Wow, those parts, those reflections. Can't wait to try out how my rig handles them.

Great stuff, Universe. The hair could still use some work, but I tried out applying hair myself and I know it's pretty hard, so I guess it's good for now. It really looks like a kerbal enjoying a good football game to me. Keep up the good work!

Yes, you're right. Seems like I got confused. However will you fix the upside down navball or is it supposed to be this way?

So I tried out the LEM and while trying to land on the Mun from IVA-view I found a problem. The navball is rotated upside down, which really confused me and almost made me crash into the surface. And a second thing, which was just a minor annoyance. Your LEM uses a fuel cell, while the real LEM had a RTG onboard AFAIK. Other than that it's a really nice flying machine.

As a German I naturally watched Apollo 13 in German (about 200 times? I first watched it when I was 3 or 4). I wouldn't have known him being such an important person from Germany, if my Cousin hadn't told me back then. They also couldn't use the signature quote feautured in the above post for obvious reasons. In the german version Lovell said: "Ah, Günter Wendt, wer Berlin nicht kennt, hat die Welt verpennt." (Hey, Günter Wendt, one who doesn't know berlin has missed the world by oversleeping.) I watched 'From the Earth to the Moon' in English and there was one part, where it became quite obvious to me, that the actor portraying Günter Wendt was not German. In the scene where he closes up the hatch for Apollo 7(?) he bids the crew farewell by saying:"Auf wiedersehen." with a really thick american accent. I also find this line very fitting because by saying auf wiedersehen one expresses the wish to see somebody again.

You could probably add a starlike texture to the emissive shader, so it looks even more like one. Though stars are really bright, so you normally wouldn't see any of that. It depends on the style you are aiming for. Also: PS: How do I embed an album?

Universe: All I know is, that the hair is part of the texture. Are you just using different materials to colour your kerbal's clothes or is that a texture? If it is a texture you're already better at textureing than I am, so I probably won't be able to help you any further, but there should be tons of tutorials out there, covering the basic and the more advanced parts of texturing. (I really should watch them too ;D)

Nutt007: I don't mind, but it's really nothing special. I remember watching a tutorial about being able to move vertex groups around from a set starting point to a set endpoint using a slider to control the movement via keyframes, but I have forgotten how to do it. ATM, I'm using a really simple armature trick to move the model's equivalent of a mandible. Here: Also: (using the pimp my kerbal texture pack) and Mission accomplished

@astropapi1: That's a good start. Once you know the basics, Blender suddenly becomes a lot cooler. If you raise the sample count you will have less artifacts in your render. @Nutt007: Damn, thats cool. I think I will start working with my ripped kerbal again. Here's a little tip: If you use mix shader to mix just a little bit of the glossy shader into your glas shader you will get stunning reflections, which look a more realistic. Example:

Some tiome ago a friend of mine lended me his 1300mm zoom lens for my DSLR. Those are two of the best shots, I managed to take.

I've always thought the best modders and craft builders deserved a special award, just for their awesomness, so let me show you: the K-PRICE for extraordinary kerbalness: It's modelled after the mighty F1 engine ,though there are details missing. I went for the crude cartoony look of the letters because it felt like something kerbals would do. Also: Nice dragon, Starwhip.

2 - 2.5 years to Jupiter is too long IMO. Mars is pretty much reachable with current chemical propulsion technology as was already stated multiple times in this thread. I'd go for NTR or chemical to reach Mars by 2025. For the outer solar system I'd use fusion propulsion. I recently did some research about it for a paper I wrote and this stuff is mighty. It may not be available today, but the guys and gals at ITER are working hard to make it happen but 2023. During my research I found a reference mission proposed in 2005 by the Glenn Research Center. With the proposed mission architecture it would be possible to send 127 metric tons of payload to Jupiter in 118 days, using about 800 metric tons of LH2 as a propellant and about 11 tons of a mixture of helium 3 and deuterium.

That's what I said two posts earlier.

How was it discovered then? The photo that is visible all over the web shows a very clear picture as if it was travelling at similar velocities to the craft that took it (the space shuttle?) so it is likely that it is part of the same vehicle. As far as I know the shuttle wasn't able to reach polar orbit, but the photographed object wasn't in polar orbit either, as it probably just was some thermal blanket or other kind of protective covering, which had floated out of the shuttles bay. As I stated earlier the object in polar orbit was discovered and 1960 and I'm pretty sure it doesn't orbit earth anymore.

There wasn't actually a real sighting of this in the 60s. A questionable retired Marine Corps Major made claims about one or two satellites orbiting the earth in 1954. Six years later there was some confusion about a mysterious sattelite in a polar orbit, which probably was part of the Discoverer V a corona satellite launched a few months earlier. And there was the sighting of this black object from STS-088 in 1998. Those are the three events conspiration theroists talk about if they asked about the back knight sattelite. I personally see no connection between any of those events. I can understand how people are fascinated by the thought of an ancient alien satellite in earth orbit, but to be honest it's highly unlikely and all the "evidence" can be linked to simple non-linked events of human spaceflight.

I think this is the best photo of the "black knight satellite". It all almost looks like a flattened cardboard box. To me its origin is pretty obvious. It is just a rotating piece of space junk, which probably floated out of the space shuttle's cargo bay. As far as I know it was discovered on STS-088. Back in '98 they just started to build the ISS and Endeavour was sent up with the Unity module and two docking adapters (PMA 1 and 2). I believe it's safe to assume its just some kind of a protecting foil or smething similiar of one of the modules.

I don't know if they have got an MMU or SAFER-type jetpack, but if they have it the thrusters could in theory be programmed to counter the change in velocity caused by the gunfire.

I believe DennyTx stated his interest in creating Skylab once he finishes CSM and LEM. EDIT: Found it:

Unfortunately many European countries and especially Germany have brought laws into existence, which are in my opinion far to strict. I just have to think of the Eurohawk. One of the reasons for its cancellation was an EU-law prohibiting unmanned aircraft in European airspace. It's hard to assess von Braun's position in national socialistic germany. On one hand he was an SS-Sturmbannführer which is quite a high position, he personally met Adolf Hitler who declared him a professor, on the other hand he did all this for science. He was almost executed for stating anti-**** statements and preparing his flight to England. He also only joined the SS to get funding for his rocket-tests and he later built the rocket that would carry man to the moon.

Well if you put it that way: We used to be able to go pretty big in Germany, but then some guy hit London. This and another series of events having something to do with armored german vehicles driving around in Poland, Russia, France, etc. made us stop. AFAIK the guy hitting London later shot people to the moon or something.

The Titan (used as a booster for Gemini or as an ICBM) is part of frizzank's FASA mod.

Apart from the quality, which obviously isn't your fault, it's a pretty cool picture, KvickFlygarn87. Considering that it's only a 2 MP camera the quality is actually pretty good.