[Is Normal career mode too hard?]

I play on custom difficulty because I've found that Hard mode is too easy for my tastes. I've never tried playing on Normal.

[MK16 Chute overheating in 1.0.2]

I'm staging my parachute at the same time I separate the capsule from my final stage to expose the heatshield. The parachute is set to deploy at 0.5 atmospheric pressure. This gives the craft enough time to slow down after entry heating has ended.

I've been using the heating overlay to monitor part temperatures. The heatshield is the only part that shows noticeable heating.

[Mk1 Capsule Re-entry Experiment]

In a follow-up test, I flew the same capsule arrangement down from orbit. It doesn't fly completely straight, but it's stable enough to survive re-entry.

The re-entry graphical effects made me start to worry about the parachute.

The heatshield seems to have adequately occluded the rest of the spacecraft.

I've been setting the parachute to deploy at 0.5 pressure, as this gives the spacecraft a chance to slow down to a reasonably sane speed!

[Mk1 Capsule Re-entry Experiment]

I've been starting from scratch, trying to re-learn how to play KSP. I was curious about how to make the mk1 capsule re-enter correctly and whether it is indeed bugged.

I'm using the parts I have to hand in the early game, so I did what I could to shift the centre of mass of the capsule upwards to keep it stable. I sent the capsule on a sub-orbital flight to complete the escape from atmosphere contract. I turned off SAS after final stage burnout, and allowed the capsule to enter a slow tumble.

The tumble corrected itself after the capsule started to encounter significant drag.

It remained stable thereafter.

It looks like I need something to ballast the capsule to keep it stable. I'm going to experiment with other parts as I unlock them.

[Balancing Resource Mining]

My view is that it's actually unrealistic not to depict ISRU for crewed missions. ISRU is used in planning of IRL crewed missions to the Moon and Mars, because it offers the only way to these missions affordably.

There have been proposals to do interplanetary missions the way we see them in KSP. These haul all of the supplies and consumables required for the entire mission from Earth. This requires the construction of a massive interplanetary spaceship that has to be assembled on orbit in the same manner as the ISS. The projected cost of doing such a mission IRL is so huge as to make it a complete budgetary non-starter!

However, it gets worse. Doing a mission without ISRU means that the crew will have limited consumables and mobility. They won't have much time to explore and they won't be able to explore very far from the landing site. If the crew discover that they have a problem with the lander and can't ride it back to orbit, they have no option to await rescue on the surface. The landing allows for a basic "flags and footprints" exercise, but doesn't get much real exploration done and doesn't offer any prospect of a permanent human presence. This leads many to question whether sending automated probes and rovers would be better.

The aim of sending humans to other worlds is to allow them to do useful work when they get there. Experiments conducted at Moon and Mars analogues on Earth have shown that human explorers have a huge advantage over robots. IRSU provides life support consumables as well as fuels to run surface vehicles. Once a mature base is established, more and more of the explorers' needs can be met locally without resupply from Earth. ISRU also lowers the total launch mass of the mission to the point that it can be done on existing space agency budgets with existing technology, meaning that these missions are something that could actually be done in the near term.

As far as KSP is concerned, the difficulty aspect of ISRU should be about getting interplanetary missions done within the budgetary limits set by the contracts system. If ISRU makes it easier to do interplanetary missions, then part costs and contract rewards should be balanced accordingly.

In the longer term, KSP will need features that more accurately depict crewed missions. We don't currently have to worry about providing proper living accommodations for our crew on long duration missions. We also don't have to provide life support consumables and food.

When our kerbals arrive at their destination, they need to be given more to do that simply plant a flag, collect a sample, and go home! Ideally, they would need vehicles to get around, and a base to operate from and resupply them with snacks! Hopefully, we will see such features in future updates.

[No shielding for spaceplanes?]

We have been told that cargo bays and equipment bays will protect vulnerable parts from re-entry heat. Therefore spaceplane parts will be fairly tolerant to re-entry heat, but a lot of the things we used to stick to the outsides of our ships will now need to be placed inside bays.

My expectation is that there will be a clear distinction between re-useable spaceplane parts and expendable rockets. The spaceplane parts will be intended for re-useable vehicles, and will therefore have thermal protection, which will increase their mass. Rocket parts, such as liquid fuel tanks, will be more flimsy, and will need heat shields to survive re-entry.

I also expect that the heat shields (and perhaps also the fairings) will be used for aerobraking and atmospheric entry at other planetary bodies. Spaceplane parts might be desirable for re-useable landers.

[Disable output/station missions]

I dealt with these by undertaking a "re-useable space station" program. I simply added docking ports and extra crew capacity to my regular ships. I would then send them to a place that I was going to do a crewed mission to anyway. Once the mission was completed, I sent the "outpost" back to Kerbin for recovery.

[V 1.0 Stock fairing seperation.]

The fairing in the picture might have been deliberately built to separate in this way to demonstrate how flexible the fairing system is. In other words, the fairing could be being separated in a deliberately overly complicated way to show off the fact that you can build and separate the fairing that way if you want to!

If this is the case, then making a picture of a "potato chips" separation would be a cool way to show off the new fairing parts!

It seems improbable to me that Squad haven't taken the time to do some basic research into how IRL fairings look and how they separate. Therefore, if Squad have implemented unrealistic fairings, it would most likely be because there's a technical (and probably Unity related and therefore difficult to fix) reason why they can't make fairings work the way they'd prefer. If this was the case, then we would have heard from Squad about this by now. Technical problems of this kind are mentioned at length in the weekly devnotes, and fairings have been in the works for a while now.

It also seems improbable that the numerous testers that Squad are relying on to get 1.0 through experimentals would make such a basic mistake. Someone should have said "Hey! Fairings on real rockets don't separate that way!"

There are still a lot of things we don't know about 1.0. I'm optimistic that once the wider KSP community have a chance to finally get our hands on 1.0, that Squad will listen to our feedback, as the recent case of the endangered toroidal tank has aptly demonstrated!

[Do you think Squad should leave the Round8 Toroidal Tank alone?]

My standard "Klutznik" probe uses the 48-7S fed from an FL-T400 tank. I don't regularly fly anything smaller than that.

I always considered the Round8 to be too small for liquid fuel. I experimented with clipping them into 1.25 parts to add extra fuel capacity, but I decided I don't like clipping fuel tanks, so I stopped including it.

[Bigger sized rockets with new aero?]

If the new stock aerodynamics breaks lots of pancake lifter designs, will it be called aerobreaking?

[Commercial flights faster than sound]

Instead of building a supersonic passenger jet, I would recommend making a SABRE powered sub-orbital rocket plane. Instead of offering a "space tourist" flight, why not take the next logical step and make a spaceplane that provides useful transportation?!

Cutting long-haul flight times down to an hour or less, coupled with fast track check-in to the air/space port, would be a service that many wealthy people would be prepared to pay for. Time is money!

If such services became popular, then technological maturity and mass production would gradually lower costs. There was a time when air travel was only affordable to the wealthy "jet set". The 747 changed that. If someone could devise a spaceplane equivalent, then sub-orbital travel would eventually become commonplace.

[Simplicity vs Complexity]

I would like ISRU to be a bit more complex than Karbonite is now, but I don't want to have to drill 18 separate things to make rocket fuel.

This is the main area where I'd like a little more complexity for the sake of realism. Karbonite seems to me to be an oversimplification IMO.

IRL plans for missions to the Moon and Mars include utilisation of local resources such as oxygen, water, and carbon dioxide. These would be used to manufacture fuel and other consumables, which saves the cost of having to haul them from Earth. For example, on the Moon, oxygen can be obtained from Lunar rocks, while water is known to exist in shadowed craters at the poles. On Mars, hydrogen feedstock, either imported from Earth or electrolyzed from local water, can be combined with carbon dioxide from the Martian atmosphere in a Sabatier reactor to produce Methane/Oxygen rocket fuel.

Use of local resources is an interesting aspect of IRL mission planning and would be interesting to depict in KSP. I don't think that it would have to be terribly complex or cumbersome, as long as you're only interested in making propellants.

If life support were added to the game in a future update, then obtaining oxygen and water would be of importance for this purpose too.

[Electric or hydrogen cars?]

Hydrogen has to be made either by electrolyzing water, or through the chemical breakdown of fossil fuels. Using either method is very energy intensive; it takes a lot more energy to make the hydrogen than you get back from burning it as a fuel.

Producing hydrogen via electrolysis is prohibitively expensive. Whereas, the disadvantages of making hydrogen by reforming hydrocarbons from fossil fuels should be all too obvious!

Once the hydrogen has been made, it needs to be stored. It can be liquefied at -253 degrees Celsius, but this requires a great deal of electricity for refrigeration. The liquid hydrogen would also gradually boil away during transport and storage.

The alternative would be to compress the gas with high pressure pumps, which use a lesser amount of electricity than the refrigeration method. This could then be stored in enormously heavy steel compressed gas tanks, weighing many times more than the gas they contain.

Instead of hydrogen, it might be more feasible to switch to clean burning carbon neutral biofuels such as ethanol and methanol. Ethanol can be made from agricultural products, while methanol can be made from any kind of biomass. Methanol can also be used to produce dimethyl ether, which is a clean burning diesel fuel.

Robert Zubrin wrote an excellent book on this subject called Energy Victory.

[What is the impending event/disaster coming to Kerbin...]

Kerbin's atmosphere was sucked away by a giant maid with a vacuum cleaner. As a result of this catastrophe, the president of Kerbin has vowed to change the combination on his luggage!

[Devnote Tuesday: Experimenting and Researching]

The release animations are a waste of time! please redirect that art and animation talent to producing and refining IN-GAME CONTENT.

The release animations aren't made for us, they're there to showcase the game to those who may be interested in buying it. They help showcase the fact that KSP is making progress out of Early Access into a full game.

Look at the KSP Store page on Steam. Games on Steam typically have a few videos that show off the game. I've often bought indie and Early Access games based on a combination of the video and the feedback given by other players. The videos on the Store page currently consist of two release animations (First Contract and Economic Boom) and a video where MaxMaps explains the Asteroid Redirect Mission pack. There's nothing for 0.90.

When I've been trying to get other people I know interested in KSP, I've often linked the release animations to my friends via social media to encourage them to give KSP a try. We need a video for 1.0 that can sit on the Store page, and YouTube, and on social media, that explains what KSP is and why both Joe Average and hardcore space enthusiasts alike should want to get their hands on this game.

[Devnote Tuesday: Experimenting and Researching]

It seems to me that a deadline makes a lot of sense when they are making deals with other companies for merchandise, possibly advertising (and maybe redistribution?) etc.

Squad often make vague references to business deal negotiations in the devnotes. This seems to be the most plausible explanation for the sudden rush to 1.0. There seems to be some reason why they need to leave Early Access in a hurry.

If this is the case, then arguing about whether there should be further beta releases is probably moot.

If the decision has been taken out of Squad's hands, then this would also mean that the rush to 1.0 has nothing to do with Squad wanting to walk away from development, or do anything else that might mess things up for KSP.

I appreciate that Squad might not want to comment on their business dealings, especially if such deals are yet to be closed. I'm sure they'll let us know what's going on in due course.

[Devnote Tuesday: Experimenting and Researching]

It will be very interesting to hear about the changes that are ultimately made to the tech tree, and the QA feedback that ultimately informs those decisions. I'm sure we'll all want to know why particular parts ended up where they did.

It will certainly be interesting to see how planes and probes evolve in the early game. Doubtless, there will be some lively debates!

[Feedback Requested: 1.0]

We don't plan on stopping work at 1.0 at all, so we're maybe better off leaving some stuff for 1.1 and getting to work on the specifics of what can make the existing stuff in the game truly shine.

my question to you is whether you'd prefer we try and add more features, or focus more on things like the aero overhaul, bugfixing and balance?

If I understand this question correctly, we're being asked if we will support some of the previously announced 1.0 features being put back to 1.1 to give Squad more time to work on them.

This sounds like a good idea to me. I'm very enthusiastic about the new features. I want these features to be given the attention they deserve. I don't want to see them rushed!

Aero is obviously turning out to be a major feature. It seems appropriate to give aero it's own patch. It's clear that Squad want to give bug fixing and balance the attention they deserve too. I'm expecting aero to make a big impact on balance, especially where spaceplanes are concerned, so I'm keen for them to take the time to get this right.

I would be surprised if we don't see Valentina in 1.0, since she has already been officially revealed to the community.

There are a number of features that we haven't seen or heard much about in the devnotes yet. Re-entry heating and ISRU are likely to be major game changers, as these will both greatly affect the way players design their craft. It's important that these aren't rushed. I also think it's important that the players get at least some input into how these features will work, we currently know very little about them. I would suggest releasing a specific patch that deals with these two features and the game balance changes that they will cause!

I wouldn't be surprised if the infamous "barn" buildings are causing more trouble. This is another feature that I'm happy to see put off to ensure that it gets done properly.

[The usefullness of deep-space re-fueling]

I'm expecting to use ISRU as a means of producing fuel for return trips. I would arrive at my destination with nearly empty tanks, and then fill them for the return trip. This would mean that I not only don't have to haul the return fuel from Kerbin, but I also don't have to expend fuel pushing the fuel to my destination. This, in turn, should greatly reduce the size, and therefore cost of my interplanetary missions.

[[PLEASE ANSWER] Is there aliens in Ksp Or A Mod that adds them?]

I've heard that the Kerbal universe contains a race of beings so unbelievably primitive that they still think that "smart phones" are a really neat idea.

[Add Moar Boosters!]

It's time to add moar boosters!

Main coverage starts at 12:24

[If KSP 1.0 has resources will that lower your costs in career mode?]

I'm going to experiment with the new resources system to see what the practicalities are in terms of cost and time to set up the required infrastructure.

I expect I will mostly use ISRU to make the fuel needed for the return trip from interplanetary destinations, thus saving me the mass penalty of hauling it all from Kerbin.

[Mars Direct: How To Get To Mars With Existing Technology On A Budget We Can Afford!]

This is the video of the first public presentation of Mars Direct. This is significant, because this was filmed during the era of VHS tapes! The idea that crewed missions to Mars need to be delayed until far future sci-fi technologies are available, or require prohibitive spending on space infrastructure, is nonsense! This isn't just some daft idea from a deluded dreamer, this mission plan has been adopted by NASA as their Design Reference Mission as their plan to get to Mars. Robert Zubrin can explain this far better than I can!

Does NASA take this kind of thinking seriously?

Apologists for forty years of technological stagnation in Low Earth Orbit are being called into question!

[Would China be capable of building moon bases ?]

The biggest "problem" that supposedly haunts Mars missions is the need to haul all of the propellants and consumables needed for the surface stay and return trip from Earth (or possibly the Moon). This problem can be eliminated by using indigenous resources. This allows the payload mass that must be sent to Mars to be reduced in scale to the point that it can be thrown directly from Earth by Saturn V class (or modern equivalent) heavy lifters.

The key is to find a way to manufacture propellants for the return trip in a way that minimises the risk of stranding the crew. An automated propellant manufacturing plant could be established in advance, but this would require the crew to either land within a hose length of the plant, or conduct convoluted tanking operations whereby the propellants are hauled to the return ship via a rover. The solution is to build the refuelling hardware directly into the return ship and send it out ahead on the preceding transfer window. Provided the crew can land within rover distance of the return ship, they can use it to get home. Apollo 12 managed to land within 200 metres of their Surveyor spacecraft target, so similar or better accuracy should be achievable with modern avionics. Further backup comes in the form of a second return ship, which is on course to arrive a number of days after the first crew, and is intended for use by a later crew. This second return ship can be diverted to land near the first crew if needed. Failing that, the crew have enough supplies to tough it out on Mars until further help can arrive.

The Martian atmosphere can be used to manufacture low grade rocket fuel in the form of carbon monoxide and oxygen. The performance they offer is marginal for Earth return. However, hydrogen feedstock can be brought from Earth in insulated tanks designed to minimise boil-off. The mass of the hydrogen is quite small compared to the total volume of propellants it can be used to produce. A Sabatier reactor is used to produce methane and oxygen, while additional oxygen is made from carbon dioxide, with the resulting carbon monoxide vented as waste. Methane and oxygen offer much better performance and (unlike hydrogen) are suitable for long term storage on the surface. Sufficient propellants are manufactured to allow some of them to be used to run combustion engines for use in ground rovers and auxiliary generators. Once an indigenous source of water is found, later missions no-longer need to import hydrogen as feedstock.

The primary power source for the propellant plant is a small nuclear reactor, producing a power output of around 80kWe. This is deployed by a light truck, which is telerobotically driven away from the return ship, paying out a power cable from a windlass as it does so. The reactor is placed either in a depression, in a crater, or behind a hill, ensuring that there is plenty of dirt between it and the return ship.

The crew remain on the surface for a year and a half, searching for past and present signs of life and looking for resources that would be of use to a future base. A key task would be to locate and drill into a source of geothermally heated water. This would not only provide a haven for any life that might have survived on Mars, but would also provide a source of water and geothermal power for a permanent base. Each crew would land their hab within rover driving distance of previous habs, which would be left behind on the surface. This would gradually establish a network of small outposts, gradually opening up more of the surface to exploration. Once a suitable location was found for a permanent base, all subsequent habs would be landed there and linked together. The emphasis would then change to developing Martian resources and supporting long range expeditions to explore Mars on a global scale.

- - - Updated - - -

Using indigenous propellants to get back to Earth does away with the "Battlestar Galactica" spaceship and the prohibitive logistical requirements it imposes. It also does away with the need to permanently strand the astronauts on Mars, as has been suggested for the Mars One mission.

Instead, each mission can be achieved with two launches of a heavy lift rocket equivalent to the Saturn 5. SpaceX and ULA have both offered to design and build such a rocket for a tiny fraction of the cost of SLS. NASA managed to operate the Space Shuttle, which had almost as much thrust at liftoff as the Saturn 5, for thirty years, with an average launch rate of six per year. A sustained launch campaign for Mars exploration requires only two launches every two years.

The launch requirements are in fact so low that the personnel involved in preparing such rockets for launch would be left with little to do in between launch windows, and they still have to get paid. Therefore, a Moon base would probably be established to help fill the launch manifests. Hardware designed for Mars could be adapted easily for the establishment of a Moon base. The rockets would probably also be used to throw large nuclear powered probes on missions to the outer solar system. This would allow them to support high data transmission rates and active sensors, greatly increasing data return.

A nuclear thermal rocket could be introduced to power the upper stage of the launch vehicle. This would double the payload mass that could be thrown to whichever destination is required. While not essential, it could be used to save money in the long run by reducing the number of launches required.

[Would China be capable of building moon bases ?]

Going to Mars requires a plan. The first problem is how to get there. Conventional propulsion can be used to get there in eight months for a minimum energy transfer. This can be reduced to six months for a modest additional propellant expenditure. Supposedly, this is too long, even though an average tour of duty on the Space Station is also six months, and much longer space station stays have been completed successfully in the past.

The primary obstacles are claimed to be zero gravity and radiation. A big part of the medical research conducted on Skylab and the ISS has been to study the effects of zero gravity de-conditioning. These effects are well understood at this point. Astronauts can in any case be protected from the effects of zero gravity through the use of tethered artificial gravity. This approach has been objected to, not for technical reasons, but because it would de-justify future zero gravity research spending.

The effects of radiation on humans and other living things are well understood at this point. The key is to avoid prompt doses of radiation, which could lead to life-threatening radiation sickness. Solar flare radiation would produce such prompt doses, but can be mitigated by the provision of a storm shelter. Much of the shielding for the shelter can be provided by the hardware and consumables already present aboard the spacecraft, so the mass penalty of providing such a shelter is not crippling to the mission. The crew will be exposed to cosmic radiation during the flight, this cannot be stopped by shielding, but it comes as a chronic, rather than prompt dose. This slightly increases the crew's risk of cancer in later life (a small risk compared to the other dangers they face). Space station crew members are also exposed to this radiation at lesser dosages. Some of the longer duration space station stays have exposed astronauts to equivalent chronic dosage to a round trip Mars mission with no radiological casualties. Mars offers a good deal of protection from both kinds of radiation, especially if the crew observe to throw sandbags onto the roof of their hab to provide additional protection.

It's also been claimed that the crew, confined as they are to a small spacecraft cabin during transit, will either go mad, or suffer dangerous breakdowns on morale and group cohesion. This is despite the fact that 19th century polar explorers endured far harsher conditions without encountering any such problems. There are many examples innhistory where human beings, often without specialised training, have endured incredible hardships far in excess of anything the astronauts would be expected to go through. Needless to say, the supposed solution to this apparent problem is spending vast amounts of money of "human factors" research.