G'th

There's not much thats new that's going to be visually more impressive than KSPRC or Interstellar.

Fact of the matter is, the less you fund something the longer its going to take. You are completely out of touch with reality if you think that NASA could have pushed Orion out any faster when its budget almost always shrinks. You also have to consider that even if you include the money spent during Constellation, it still isn't NASA's fault. It wasn't their decision to cancel the program, and it was only because it was hugely underfunded (and because Altair and Ares-1 were poor design decisions) that it had to be canceled. Again, you completely ignore the reality of the situation. Either that, or you just completely fail to comprehend it. Under both Constellation and SLS, NASA has not wasted a cent. Its doing what its told to do with whats its given to do it. You are disproportionately putting the blame on NASA where its not deserved. The government doesn't know what it wants. Fact of the matter is outside of job creation very few in Congress care about NASA or our space program in general. Going to Mars has been proposed countless times and every time no one bothered to go for it because they didn't want to spend the money it would have taken to do it. Thats why Nixon decided on the Shuttle program, because it was supposed to be cheaper than a mission to Mars. Thats why Freedom turned into the ISS. Its why the Shuttle program was ended and why Constellation never got more than a single test flight. Its why SLS has no payloads. We went the Moon using a budget that was absurdly higher than what it is now, inflation or not. It cost us close to 118 billion dollars (in 2015 dollars) to complete Gemini and Apollo. It doesn't matter that it happened 50 years ago, that doesn't make repeating it any less expensive. (and definitely not to the arbitrary degree you're insisting it should) And you really can't bring up Dragon either, because SpaceX was able to put the full budget they got towards development. NASA can't do that.

I don't believe its fair because Constellation as a whole was bogged down by a poor budget as well as a myriad of flaws in the design and concept of most of the vehicles and equipment. Orion under Constellation never got anywhere significant and at the time was the probably the least developed portion of the entire program. Judging Orion based on what happened with Constellation isn't fair because most of what Constellation developed for Orion has either been completely overwritten or dropped from the design altogether. Really they're almost two completely different spacecraft. And actually its a pretty cheap vehicle given the context. When you adjust for inflation, spending 17 billion today equates to spending about 2 billion back in 1969. And the Apollo CSM actually did take 17 billion (Upwards of 100b in todays money) to develop. And again, 17 billion isn't all that much. At all. As has been said countless times, when you stand back and look at the big picture what we're spending right now is a pittance. As scary and huge as 17 billion might seem, in reality its just not. The biggest misconception anyone in the US or anywhere for that matter has is that the space program is this arbitrarily expensive thing, but it has no basis in reality. Want to know how much of every tax dollar goes to NASA? 1 penny. If you want to criticize how much is being spent on NASA, you can't look at it from the perspective of 17 billion dollars because you can't judge that amount on a personal scale. This is why its commonly argued that space exploration IS cheap, because the actual cost on a personal scale is just that. A whole penny on the dollar. Yes, yes they did forget. There was a lot of buzz about that years ago in fact, and its largely due first to the general problematic administration (Which NASA has always, always, ALWAYS had a problem with) and then to the Shuttle program. You can't compare the two without taking into consideration what their purposes are. Its not a fair comparison. Because NASA never got adequate funding in the first place. Its quite literally the equivalent of expecting 3 men to do the job of 12 with no overtime pay, and not only that expecting results that would be BETTER than if you adequately funded the program. Its no secret that NASA has its administrative issues, but if theres anyone to blame for NASA not being able to get the job done its the external people dictating what they do. And again you're arbitrarily putting this expectation on NASA to use bleeding edge technology, and that is just dumb. For one, its been proven time and time again that the same basic design from over 50 years ago is still just as fine in space as it ever was, and given the track record of the Shuttle program, NASA would be wise to say as far from bleeding edge as they can. Lol at the idea of NASA not wanting to try and go to Mars. The entire end goal of Constellation and SLS is a manned Mars mission. Sure there hasn't been a decided upon plan for doing so, but thats not required right now, because we still have to develop the hardware just to get people around the Earth-Moon system before we can consider going to Mars. A manned Mars mission is still a long ways off for anyone, and its going to require a hell of lot more infrastructure in place and research completed to accomplish it. Why are you making things up? Orion IS being designed for Mars. You know, I hate to deride you here but I really have to question how you feel you can criticize the program when you can't conceive of how Orion would fit into a manned Mars mission. ~~ (next post of yours) Its no secret that SLS has very little planned payloads and the hope is that once it launches funding will be appropiated to develop and/or support the development (Via third party) of payloads for it. Congress isn't going to put NASA on developing SLS and then just let it go to waste. It would be politically suicidal, even in the currently unsupported climate NASA finds itself in. I don't know what kind of fantasy you have about what NASA can and can't do, but they can't magically stretch their budget to make SLS any more than what it is. It doesn't work that way.

For now, I'm going to give Shadowplay a try just cause it seems more straightforward to deal with. Now is just something to edit videos with. So I can try to smooth out transitions (like cutting out the unavoidable third person if I was doing all IVA, for instance) and do things like adding intros and what not.

So, throughout the night I reinstalled KSP and a myriad of mods, and due largely to the Ship Effects mod and the ASET MK1-2 pod, I've been running IVA only missions and the experience has just been incredible. First time I came in for reentry was just mindblowing. And naturally because I'm playing KSP again, I really want to start up my ETS playthrough again. However, because of just how incredibly awesome IVA is for me now, I really want to do it on video this time. Which would not only be a lot more interesting, but would also feed my ever hungry ego by way of more views However, I'm not quite sure what to use for this purpose, especially given the fact that whatever I use would have be free. I'm imagining that'll be a stretch to have a good recorder that can capture sound alongside relatively high quality video (My only experience with screen recorders is with Bandicam and from what I remember, the results were, functional at best) thats not going to require a purchase, though I'd be surprised if there wasn't a decent video editor that was free. So whats recommended here for this situation?

I'm not going to quote, because that just becomes a huge mess, so I'll just respond in order. For one, we haven't spend 17 billion the current Orion program. If you include what was spent during Constellation on this number, as well as what we're going to spend on it by the time EM-2 lifts off, then sure it'll probably cost about that much (though you're still over by a billion provided the numbers stay consistent), but its not particularly fair to do so given the fact that Orion under Constellation was screwed over just badly as every other aspect of Constellation was. What we've spent since then was to redesign and actually get the thing ready, and thus far we've actually spent less and accomplished more in a smaller amount of time compared to Constellation. No, we haven't invented some revolutionary new tech out of doing so, but we have done what Constellation set out to do originally in regards to the Orion, and thats simply to provide a safer, more reliable spacecraft that can be used to ferry crew to and from space. The capsule design fits this bill perfectly and efficiently. And regardless, Orion itself was never something that would have led to a new technology anyway, nor should have ever been expected to. It is a relatively simple spacecraft that has a simple purpose that plays a relatively minor role in the scheme of things. Trying to up the ante, technologically speaking, in the wake of the Shuttle program would have been the wrong the idea. Our technological progress as a whole needs to move forward a considerable way before we can try to make that leap from a spacecraft to spaceship. (IE, the difference between a throwaway pod named Endeavor that often gets forgotten and a spaceplane named Endeavor that's highly regarded and well known by the common man, even though the former technically accomplished something more historically important than the latter did) Sure it sounds like we shouldn't have issues building one, but the problem is is that NASA hasn't built or seriously designed one in over 50 years, and in that time frame, they've spent the vast majority of their time designing, flying, and maintaining a completely different type of space craft. This is the same reason why NASA has very few in-house engines, and why old F1's were being pulled off museum displays and studied. It simply isn't actually that simple. Two, its hardly silly. The US has lacked manned capability for years now and there's no real reason to outsource to Russia for this capability, especially when NASA is focusing more and more on deep space exploration as the private sector begins to enter LEO. Russia won't have manned deep space capability (and likely won't for a long long time, though I don't claim to know much about Russia's plans) and theres only one private company that'll be able to provide deep space capability and even that rocket won't be a perfect solution the problem either, as the Falcon Heavy is optimized primarily for LEO, and won't be able to deliver what the SLS will be able to deliver to any particular BEO location. Even when taking orbital construction into consideration, you're still not matching the SLS. The same number of SLS launches are going to deliver more to a particular location than the FH will. Dragon and Orion have different purposes. Orion was never meant to be anything more than what it is, nor does it need to be. We don't need fancy bells and whistles for a spacecraft whose purpose is largely crew ferrying from Earth to a proper mission module/LEO and back. Reliability and safety is key for this purpose, and Orion will provide this in spades. From the very beginning, Orion's overall purpose was to replace the shuttle as a crew vehicle. NASA has never deviated from exploration, and its only threw this overall purpose that its delved into so many different fields. They all ultimately go back to whats going to benefit space exploration and in turn benefit the planet as a whole. Nothing NASA is involved in of its own accord is something that won't eventually come back into (or come from, for that matter) the space program in one way or another. Now, all that being said, its no secret that Orion and SLS have huge problems in that they were projects that were dictated to NASA rather than something NASA chose to pursue of their own accord, and as such leads to problems of the lack of payloads and active goals. And this really isn't NASA's fault (its administrative issues aside). Much of the manned programs problems since it began have largely stemmed from Congress and/or the White House dictating the how, what, and why of what NASA can design and build. This is why the shuttle program grew to be as convoluted as it was compared to what it would have been, and this is why NASA is building a rocket without a truly active manned program in effect. What we're seeing now is pretty much the equivalent of building and designing the Saturn V without a Kennedy figure saying we need to be on the Moon in 10 years or bust, with the added strain that is keeping alive a vast infrastructure that was developed to support a spacecraft that wasn't ever fully utilized. In response to the post above me: Technically, NASA was already established in all but name when the Soviet space program popped up on the radar. NASA was essentially just NACA, but refocused towards space exploration. But no, to say that NASA has no more use is just woefully ignorant, because it literally ignores everything that NASA has done since 1969. And competition is only ever a good thing, regardless of what we're talking about, because in the end everybody else profits. (Unless we're talking Cold War arms build up type competition, but that's a special situation) Cancelling the manned spaceflight program is just ridiculous. That's basically saying, oh well,we kicked Jimmy and now he's fallen down and can't get up. Lets just tell him its time to give up on using his legs. NASA's biggest problem when it comes to the post-Shuttle program is that it never received the proper funding to get Constellation off the ground (though admittedly that program did have its flaws beyond that) and right now its only receiving just enough to get the US manned spaceflight capability again (and really its still not enough), but not enough to really go anywhere with it as of now. And it will be a VERY long time before any other space agency surpasses NASA's achievements. NASA is still the king of BEO exploration, manned or otherwise.

Welp, I just fired up my new install (along with my myriad of required mods along with some new ones that I thought sounded cool) and I flew my customary Apollo 11 mission that I fly whenever i'm just feeling out a new install. And holy cow, is my adrenaline pumping. You see, I installed the sound mod Ship Effects. And what was already a pretty pleasant all IVA experience just got that more visceral and real. And when I came in for reentry? It was pretty intense. And mind you this is without my surround sound even working properly atm so right now I'm not even getting the full on experience. Suffice it to say I am fully back into this game now xD

^ There is afterall a reason we're returning to the technically old capsule design as a basis. As has been said, its just plain more efficient to use such designs over anything else. That doesn't mean though that Orion won't be top of the line as far as spacecraft go.

The only feasible way I could see this be done is if you designed something that was meant to go to Eve's surface and back (gilly shouldn't be too hard depending on how you design it), then to Moho, and then to Tylo. From there it would jump to each of Jool's moons (and for the sake of saying "we were at jool", either aerobrake or otherwise dip into Jool's atmosphere). After that, landing on Dres and Duna (and their moons) will be relatively easy. Then you take a trip back into Kerbin to land on Mun and Minmus. After that, its a simple transfer to Eeloo and land, and then use Eeloos distance to get yourself launched into the sun. (likely using a gravity assist) Obviously the biggest hurdle is the first three targets, which are the hardest 3 to land on in the stock system. A ship that can hit all three in one launch and refuel in the process shouldn't have an issue reaching the rest of the planets and moons imo.

Yeah its Historian I believe. Its pretty neat.

I really like how far this has come since I last tested it. (also, sorry for dropping off the face of the planet there lol. Ark: Survival Evolved had me hog tied till a week ago) Its making it harder for me to decide if I want do Eyes Turned Skyward again or go for the real timeline. >.<

The one time I actually bothered to attempt a true rescue mission, I pretty much had to break continuity within my little universe to do it. The problem was that I was still using a 2 man lander within the time frame I had set myself in, and my only real 3 man lander that didn't look too KSP-y was something that wasn't supposed to come into the time until way way after the mission in question. So naturally, when my 2 man lander failed and stranded the kerbalnauts on the Mun, I had to say screw all that and sent it in anyway, mostly because I just wanted to rescue them for a change. But they did get home alright!

I havne't done anything in KSP today, though I did dredge up some of my screenies from back when I did still play, and naturally I'm currently reinstalling and getting set up to repeat the experience <3

Ideally, they'd be the best option for keeping engines cool during flight, especially for spaceplanes. Whether or not they actually do anything towards that, as of yet, is up in the air.

Saab, have my babies I can't wait to see true ETS parts. If you need testers, I'm your man

You should look into RVE. Its not quite fully updated, however, there is a working version for 1.04 that makes Earth at least a little better looking with clouds.

.24 eve still works fully fine, as does Astronomers pack and KSPRC. However, for Astronomers and KSPRC, don't install their Distant Object or PlanetShine configs, or their lens flares. They aren't working. Also, Avg's cloud pack is also working fine, though its not quite up to the same "Wow" factor KSPRC or Astronomer's might be. If for whatever reason you don't want to mess with those two, Texture replacer by itself IS working and all of the packs and what not for it are also still working. So even if you don't get clouds or don't want to mess with them, you can still replace that awful skybox and make the planets look a bit better.,

Alex (The creator of ALCOR) is supposedly working on adding his ALCOR props to the stock IVA's. Though, he takes a long time to complete stuff so don't expect much.

Last I knew it was closer to 2-300ms to get to a low Minmus orbit. And as far as when to launch for rendezvous, that depends on your lander. Depending on your TWR, you could either get to your target orbit well before your target is close enough, or you'll take so long your target will have made another orbit by the time you've established yours (Though I think only Ion-engine level landers would be that slow) However, Minmus is fairly easy to get around, so I'd say raise your targets orbit a bit (provided its a return ship and not a station) so you'll have a bit more wiggle room. IN general, rendezvous in very, very low orbits are going to be very tough as you'll likely have to go suborbital in order to do it.

Mukips. Nuff said

Is there some hidden gem somewhere that allows this sort of functionality? I recently discovered the placeable flags mod and I'm wondering if it'd be possible to set it up so I can pick and choose which parts use which flag texture, rather than having it all default to the mission flag. The idea being that I could then do something along these lines: Obviously I could just rework the flag parts to use one of the Texture Switch options and go through that route, but if there's a way that'll cover it without having to go through and rework the mod that'd be great.

Just took a look at the front page, holy hell mike. You've been busy since my harddrive died xD

How difficult would it be to return to the old way the fairings worked? I miss having to design my payloads around what the fairings could hold (rather than the other way around).

You had most of them. I also used Tantares, which was actually the missing link in being able to kitbash that station together. Also allowed me to do a clean AARDV's. Just had to add Tweakscale to some of the parts, and change a couple around to support their various uses (I used the same part for the Challenger station core and for Block III+ Mission Modules) and bam. http://gthaatar.imgur.com/]My Imgur has a lot of pictures of what I was able to kitbash together using all those parts packs and Tweakscale. Pretty much had all of the American spacecraft and stations.

The thing about using an SRB-only type rocket is that you have to precisely set up the dV for each stage (and as such, make a separate stage for each and every burn) and hit the timing right on the nose. Scott Manley did it to get the Mun, though I believe he didn't bother establishing any parking orbits as it was a Quickest landing on the Mun and Back type challenge.