justidutch

I'm thinking that by 2272, a ship will be completely autonomous. At the very most, maybe you want a human, or panel of them to make executive decisions, but the execution of menial tasks such as navigation, targeting, scrubbing toilets, etc, would be handled by the ship's computer. But I guess that wouldn't make for a very interesting story!

especially those ones that go orbital speeds!

Anybody want to take a crack at figuring out the ISP and/or thrust of a vacuum cleaner? http://www.bbc.com/news/av/science-environment-42774229/iss-cosmonaut-does-test-flight-on-a-vacuum-cleaner Perhaps a new mod?

Would there be any benefits to creating your space factory at one of the Lagrange points? Otherwise, there must be an optimal/best compromise altitude that balances the cost of getting to the factory, and then from the factory to your ultimate destination using Oberth effect?

I'll bet there's a number of people out there who believe that if we keep tinkering with particle accelerators, we'll do the job easily enough

I wonder how many letters will have been spelt by the time you spell "one thousand"

One sounds more positive while the other more professional. Darn, now I'm flummoxed...

There are two missions that we completed over the last couple weeks to report on. There was also a large number of hours spent by our engineers testing and simulating different designs in an effort to complete the first mission, but in the end a simplistic and standard approach proved to be best. The first mission was to capture a very large asteroid and bring it into a stable orbit around Kerbin. Our Foreign Object Oberservation Department had alerted us to the perfect candidate that was going to pass by our planet only 880km above with a minimal inclination of 15 degrees, so the engineers got busy designing and testing. They had first wanted to create a ship that could pull large rocks, and three different attempts were made. In the end though, these designs were proving much too wobbly, and also too costly to be of much use. So we sent up a nuclear powered ship with a whole bunch of fuel to do the job. It captured the rock and slowed it down enough to stabilize into a rather oblong orbit. It is currently still there, though in the near future we will straighten out the inclination and reduce the period of the orbit quite a lot, perhaps even to LKO so we can study it and harness its resources. The second mission was the reason we haven't finished with the asteroid yet; this was the completion of a contract to expand our derelict Duna-1 station which was floating out in space without a communication signal. Over two years ago we took on this contract, and the time was nigh to rendezvous and fix the situation. This was performed spectacularily, and we are proud to report that the lone engineer aboard the expansion craft has now revived the derelict craft and raided its horde of snacks. We have yet to decide what to do with the ships in the future, but for now it shall continue its path in an orbit that oscillates between Duna and Kerbin and function as a relay station.

We have arrived at Duna! Over the past three weeks, our fleet of four ships successfully entered orbits around Duna and began their assigned operations. There have been two glitches, one bad one and one very minor one, but all in all this has been a very exciting and propserous period for our space program. There are a large number of pictures included in this mission report, but we thought the world would want to know! The first to arrive was our unkerballed NucTaxi ship that is towing two small satellites designed to land on the surface of the planet. The ship captured and stabilized orbit about 200km above the surface where it then rested, serenely awaiting its companions. Second to make orbit around our red neighbour was Project Duna, an experimental ship that had no crew or mission to begin with but was designed with future functions in mind, as will be described below. This ship also made orbit about 200km high though with a lot less fuel left than was anticipated. Our Duna Stayshun ship with 4 crew members was next to make orbit, but before it did that it deployed two satellites destined for exact coordinates. The first satellite was unfortunately unsuccessful in its attempt to make a polar orbit, it ran out of fuel before it could be captured and is now drifting out of control somewhere out in the deep black yonder. The second satellite did manage to (barely) complete its mission and is now functioning as a relay satellite in a reverse equatorial orbit. Duna Stayshun then proceeded to the increasingly familiar 200km high orbit. Lastly was Ike Stayshun, home to 5 of our intrepid explorers. This ship also had a satellite to deploy into a polar orbit which it did without incident. The station then found a home orbiting the small moon about 100km high. The station is also home to a lander craft, the crew eager to try it out and touch down on a new world (if one could call a moon such a thing). Some preliminary reports and science data were sent back to us here at KSC, and with the various contracts having been completed, we have now just begun to expand our research and development division. But the fun was only beginning, as more contracts rolled in from third parties interested in getting their hands on data from around and on the two new targets! We received a call from a company wanting data from the surface of Duna. This was the perfect opportunity to activiate the dual-stage NucTaxi probes. The first one, however, promptly after disengaging from the ship, fired its second stage which detached the engines from the core, rendering it propulsionless. Although it is in a stable orbit and can send us back temperature data, it is mostly useless. The second probe, though, worked perfectly. It first reduced its orbit to 60km above the surface, then dipped its periapsis to 25km on the sunny side and let the forces of nature do the rest of the work. Parachutes deployed nominally and only at the very end did its thrusters fire to soften the landing. Data was sent back, money earned, and much back-slapping ensued. The Ike crew wanted to get into the act, and a couple contracts were to be fulfilled. One of the engineers won the stone-leaf-knife tournament and had the honour to be the first to attempt a landing on the moon. The lander first disembarked from its transport location, then the engineer hopped aboard and flew away. A nice flat spot was found on the surface, and a fine soft landing later found the engineer happily planting a flag and gathering scientific data. The lander was then piloted back to the station, parked on top, and the engineer brough the data back to the lab where the scientists are now working diligently to find new and exciting stuff. Now it was time for Project Duna to do its thing, but this required some slightly complicated manoevres. This ship was actually two ships - a big tanker and a lander/return-to-orbit vehicle. The first thing that needed to happen was to dock with Duna Stayshun so that a crew member could be transfered over. This whole operation could have gone unkerballed, but where's the fun in that? Plus, there was a contract to plant a flag and we wanted to return as much science as possible from the ground back to the lab, and we have yet to develop a robot that could accomplish this. The two ships docked together and this time it was decided by all involved that the one pilot would be the best choice as the first to step on soil of a foreign planet. She transferred over and Project Duna pushed away, eventually lowering orbit to about 80km. Here was a tricky bit of the operation. The lander vehicle, initially, was unpowered. It did have an engine but it wouldn't be able to fire until the heat shield dropped. So, Project Duna first dipped its periapsis into the atmosphere, 35km above the surface. Then it split apart and the tanker immediately re-circularized, and the lander drifted away, deploying the inflatable heat shield in preparation for aerocapture. It entered the atmosphere, deployed its airbrakes and took some scientific readings. Eventually it lost enough velocity so that the many parachutes could deploy safely. By the time the ship was a kilometer above the surface, its velocity was greatly reduced and the heatshield was dropped, exposing the engine. More science was performed as the ship floated towards the landing spot. The engine was barely necessary in fact, the ship could have landed safely without it, but it fired anyway to touch down as softly as possible. The pilot, after the rather momentous occasion of dancing on the red surface, plated a flag and gathered up the science from all the experiments gathered along the way and on the ground. The ship was designed to drop the science bits and pieces, the landing legs and extraneous tanks, brakes and parachutes. Since this was the first visit, we didn't really know how much fuel or thrust to bring, so as it turns out we kinda drastically over-engineered the ship! We had thought that a lot of fuel would be taken up by the landing, hence the detachable tanks and legs and such. But as it turned out, only a tiny amount of fuel was used to land, and there was enough thrust to launch with the entire ship intact! Once the ship was back into space the parachutes and extraneous upper pieces were jettisoned. Orbit was accomplished, and the ship plotted a course for Duna Stayshun. Only near the end of the transfer burn to the station did the secondary fuel tanks run out, and they were dropped at that point. The ship then get within 100 meters of the station, matched orbits, and there it rests to this day - it doesn't have a docking port!

Our fleet of four ships are finding themselves ever closer to Duna, arrival of the first ship is now only 27 days away! While we all wait for this momentous event, two small missions were accomplished over the past couple weeks. First was a contract we accepted to expand our primary station orbiting Minmus. The requirements were to add an additional science lab and crew capacity of five. The contractor didn't care what happened after that, they just wanted us to demonstrate this could be done. So, what we did was create a nuclear powered ship that we sent out and docked to Minmus Stayshun, and our customer was happy with that. Then, we refuelled the ship there and recalled it into a 300km high orbit back over our home planet. This ship will now be used as a science station for future missions around unexplored destinations like Eve or Dres. The second mission was just completed this morning, rescueing a pilot who was shamelessly abandoned by a rival space company, orbiting Kerbin in a derelict lab module. We sent up a rocket topped with a rescue pod - basically a command module with Ant engines and parachutes, caught up with the poor soul, and dropped her back to ground just east of KSC. She is now resting comfortably in our cafeteria with snacks and cherry soda, eager to join our program and perform great heroic piloting feats arond distant moons and planets!

Not much is currently happening at KSC the past while, at least in terms of missions needing attention. There are actually plenty of missions underway but they are all on holding patterns. For instance, we have 4 ships transitting to Duna and are now about 100 days away from arrival. Two other ships are also in flight towards their destinations but won't arrive for even longer. We recently just accepted a contract to haul a class A asteroid into Kerbin orbit, which fits nicely along with two other contracts for class D rocks. But our F.O.O.D. department has yet to spot suitably sized candidates so yet again we wait. Therefore, almost out of boredom, the department heads accepted a trivial mission to rescue a rival company's engineer who they left hopelessly stranded in LKO. This opportunity was taken to design a ship around a new concept, which we are calling SIOP - Stay In One Piece. We wanted to try to build a ship that is all one stage, won't shed any parts or drop engines or some such nonsense. The only exception to this concept is fairing covers but those come cheap and manage to evaporate into thin space, so we don't care about those. And we succeeded! Before launching this new ship we first picked up our new recruit in Flubber, our LKO picker-upper ship designed for exactly this purpose that has been loitering for over 300 days now, occasionally picking up and transferring astronauts from one place to another. Then we launched our newest creation. It features 4 Reliant engines surrounding a large fuel core, a command module seating 2 even though it can also be remote controlled, a junior docking port, 8 parachutes and a big ole inflattable heat shield for re-entry. The pictures below describe its ascent, gaining orbit, docking with Flubber, and coming back dow to splash down to the west of our complex here. It's not yet perfect, there are some refinements we will do on future versions to maximise fuel usage and perhaps have enough left over to do a powered landing on solid ground, but we pulled this mission of successfully, proving the SIOP concept and saving some funds in the process!

O dang, I didn't notice the other thread until just now, and it's closed! Although I have no expectations of having a competitive or even decent entry (4 posts above), I hope it is still considered!

Press Release: First Duna missions Our scientists began thinking (which can lead to interesting results) and theorized that three contracts for the Duna system could be fulfilled in one fell swoop. There was no requirement that the crew return right away, though it would be nice (mostly for them). The entire KSC staff spent the few days watching the mission leave Kerbin's orbit, the first time this has happened on purpose. Plus, it was a weekend. The admin types returned to work the following Monday, accepting a contract to put a station into solar orbit. In the planning meeting, the repairman who was fixing the snack vending machine at the time muttered that the only sensible thing to do was to also send this ship to Duna; a solar orbit, after all, could be just meters away from a Duna capture. The repairman was promptly fired, and the second Duna mission was born. The poor repairman left the grounds, grabbed a rock and slung it through a window, landing in the lead scientist's soda. The ship designers became extra creative since somebody had spiked the soda due to a malfunctioning vending machine. The fancy new ship made it to solar orbit, then the course was adjusted to a Duna capture. With the excitement over, it was back to more mundane missions closer to home. The lead scientist got some idea from somewhere that perhaps grabbing some rocks off the ground of our moons and subjecting them to experiments might be worthwhile. He lobbied the admin types, but it wasn't until a contract from a third party to gather science from the surface of Minmus was brought forth that the mission plan was accepted. When pressed, the head of the third party admitted he got the idea from their new snack vending machine repairman.

Because I am not addicted to drugs, and I need my fix, man. As has been mentioned by others, games gives you control over a situation (or at least leads you to believe you do). Some games let you be creative, some games give you degrees of control of the storyline, some games let you develop characters. I would put theatre performances outside of books and movies, as there is or could be some limited interaction between audience and story.

Our Duna fleet is away! The flotilla of four ships left LKO several hours apart and will arrive at our red neighbour within two weeks of each other. This staggered approach is mostly on purpose so that mission control can give each ship the singular attention they deserve during their capture burns. As it happened, all departures occurred while the ships were on the night side of the planet so pictures were not taken. But we will provide plenty of those in the weeks and months to come as those missions progress. Now on to matters closer to home. KSC will not lie dormant during the not-quite-two hundred days wait for the Duna group arrival. In fact, two missions have been undertaken recently, one a success and the other, well, let's call it a learning experience - fortunately we have some funds built up! The first mission was to place a terrain scanning satellite in a very specific equatorial orbit around Minmus. We over engineered it so that after fulfilling the contract it could move into a polar orbit where the scanner works better. Liftoff went smoothly, as did circularization around Kerbin and transit to Minmus. Getting into the exact synchronous orbit above the exact specified spot of our mint moon took a couple days of careful station keeping manoeuvres, but in the end the job got done. Once that was completed the satellite was positioned into a polar orbit 222km above the surface, and its scanning abilities were tested out. It looks like there are some spots of interest to be explored at a future date! The second recent mission was a bit of a disappointment, and at this moment in time must be considered a failure. Fear not though, as we have a number of years to complete the contract we accepted to grab onto and haul a class D asteroid into orbit of our other moon, Mün. Our intrepid Foreign Object Observing Department (F.O.O.D.) had been tracking a suitable hunk of rock over the past couple weeks, and the time came to send up a ship we had designed to perform the job. This ship is a pulling-orientated nuclear powered craft with a Poodle-powered transfer stage that has the range to get quite far out, catch up to a target and haul it back. The problem, as we only found out when we successfully stuck to the space-stone, was that the thrust of the nuclear engines was cancelled out by colliding with the rock! In other words, engine go boom but ship no go. After several minutes of good old fashioned face-palming, mission control settled down and figured out the next steps. The current ship was pulled back into orbit around Kerbin and could be retasked into a tug or small fuel tanker. And the core of the ship design is good, either we'll turn it from a pull orientation to into a pusher, or keep it a puller and move its engines way further out from the hull. To answer your assumed question: we prefer a pull design over a pusher because in simulations we have found out that the pullers are more stable when attached to and hauling around massive rocks like the one we caught here. Ironically, along with this current contract we have just accepted a similar one to bring another class D asteroid into orbit around Kerbin - perhaps demonstrating that we have successfully clamped onto the thing with the capacity to do the job was enough to attract attention!

It's exciting times at KSC. The long-awaited transfer window to the Duna system is finally upon us, and a flurry of activity kept us busy over the previous few days. We have created a fleet of four ships to travel to our red neighbour which shall be detailed below. But first, we had to get all hands back on the ground and feed them snacks… Over the past two years we have placed stations in orbit of our planet and moons, and our scientists have been performing lab experiments on data and physical samples from different points of the moons' surfaces. We have also picked up a number of astronauts who were abandoned in space by other companies. Two of these new recruits along with all the station staff had all made their way to Kerbin Stayshun 250 and were awaiting a ship to take them back here to KSC. So our first mission of the weekend did just that, in a rather stylish manner too, I might add. We could have just sent up a single large 16 seater crew cabin and parachuted it back down to the ground, but we wanted to get funky so we built the following ship as an experiment, and it performed so well that we may use this design often going forward. It's four of the four-seater crew cabins surrounding a gas tank core; the nose is a docking port and the tail is an inflatable heat shield, all balanced in such a way that it is easy to de-orbit through the atmosphere, not much piloting is required. The following pictures describe liftoff, reaching orbit, docking with the station and the ballistic return flight ending with a splash down about 60 km east of this very press office. The reason we are sending four ships at the same time is because we have been contracted to complete numerous missions. For instance, the following ship that will eventually orbit Ike is tasked to four duties: deliver a satellite, send data back, plant a flag on the surface, and to be a permanent station. The following pictures don't really show the details close up and aren't too exciting, but this science station ship includes the necessary satellite and a small lander that can hop around the surface to gather surface samples and data, then return to the station. There should be enough fuel for numerous such trips. This ship, along with the other three, is currently loitering in LKO as the four crew members do final checks on all systems; they're awaiting the optimal moment for the transfer burn which should happen in a few mere hours. The second ship we sent up will complete another set of contracts, this time focussed around Duna. Two satellites this time, one destined for a polar orbit and the other a more standard equatorial orbit. The transfer stage uses standard engines, but the station's main and permanent engines are nuclear. There should be enough fuel after the burn capturing orbit around Duna to either act as a fuel dump, or to even travel to another planet. The third ship we sent up is actually not so much a ship in itself, but a delivery of two small probes and a big transfer stage engine that docked with our nuclear taxi. This taxi has been in service for a few months now, used to shuttle crew to our moons and back, so now it will fly out as part the armada, deliver the two small probes, and wait at the station until the need arises for some crew to come back home. The two probes are basically dumb little things that will attempt to land on Duna's surface and hopefully radio back some basic data about the planet's gravity and atmosphere. The final ship in the flotilla, much like the third, is completely outside the scope of any current contracts. Because we have a slight surplus in our budget we have taken this opportunity to experiment; we've created a ship that will reach orbit around Duna, and when the time is right, land a brave explorer on the surface, take a number of scientific readings and surface samples, and then return to the station in orbit. We have not, of course, tested this at Duna nor been able to do accurate simulations, but we have tested and performed these manoeuvres here at home with this exact setup. We are confident that it will work as planned! The central core is the return-to-orbit vehicle, it is surrounded be three stacks of fuel, parachutes and scientific modules which will detach and stay on the ground when the ascent back to orbit begins. There should be enough parachutes, along with the inflatable heat shield and some air brakes, to bring the craft to a gentle un-powered landing, but we can only know that for sure when we get there!

Hmmm, I wonder how they calculate ESI accurately. Do they go there and count the number of lawyers and telephone-box repairmen?

I am wondering if one or some of you can quickly outline what those parameters mean when they are describing the physical properties, as found here? I know some of them are obvious, but most I don't really know what they mean, like a couple posts up @Shpaget is getting excited about ESI and I would like to know why! Also the units of some of the units of the measurements, I'm not familiar with them (high school physics and math was >25 years ago…). Thanks in advance! Right ascension Declination Constellation Apparent magnitudes Parallax Distance Mass Radius Density Effective temperature Luminosity Metallicity Age

We are getting ready; ready to launch a number of ships to Duna and its moon, Ike. Before this happens though, we need to recall all hands that are currently assigned here at home and at the stations orbiting our moons. We received one last contract for Minmus operations, to collect five gravity readings on the surface. A few days ago we had put the ship that will complete this mission into LKO, and now we had to populate it with our newest recruit so he could gain a little experience. The newly rescued astronaut had been picked up earlier, and docked with the mission ship. Then off to our mint moon he went, docking to the station there where he picked up another previously rescued new recruit in need of experience. After refueling they promptly touched down on the surface at the appropriate places and did took the readings. They then docked back to Minmus Stayshun, boarded our nuc shuttle bus that was docked at our second Minmus station along with the scientists who were stationed there, and headed back to the home planet. As you know we also had a crew of four loitering around Mun. They also returned to Kerbin Stayshun, and the remaining crew (3 pilots) at Minmus Stayshun returned in the first mission ship. So now all our astronauts in the local system are 250 km above ground, waiting to return and put their feet on Kerbin's solid ground. We'll take this opportunity to experiment with a large drop ship using the new big habitat module, perhaps the big inflatable heat shield too.

We have had a ship in orbit for over 100 days now, just waiting for the right moment to burn its way out into deep space. And today the moment finally arrived, to set a course and fling itself into a path where, in close to a year's time, it will rendezvous with an old derelict ship. You may recall that our first attempts to explore Duna went awry when it was discovered our communications network wasn't yet up to snuff. Because of this three ships were lost: two satellites and one ship that was supposed to function as a station there. Several months ago we were approached by a party interested in resurecting this dead ship and expanding it, and we readily agreed to this proposal. And now this mission is underway. Exactly what will happen when the two ships rendezvous has yet to be determined; we could just leave the station where it is and it can function as a communications relay; we could set a new course for it, or something else could be decided also. Plenty of time until that happens though, there's no rush. We also just accepted three new contracts that will all be accomplished together. Somehow an astronaut has been left stranded in LKO and is in need of rescueing. Another company would like a new yet simple station in orbit, and yet another company would like some gravity readings done on the surface of Minmus. Our department heads put their thoughts together and devised a ship that should accomplish all three missions. We came up with the following that will pick up the stranded soul, ship out to Minmus, refuel at our station there, take the various science readings, and return to Minmus Stayshun. After that point all crew new and old at the station will return back home here by taking the shuttle bus that is currently docked at our second Minmus station. We'll need to rendexvous in LKO with a drop ship that will bring them and the Mun crew home as well - all hands are coming home before the new transfer window to Duna opens in 70 days.

I wonder if the planets on the other side of the equator spin the other way around...

The days are slowly counting down to the transfer window to the Duna system where numerous missions shall take place. Another 80 days or so to go; in the meantime though a few other missions are taking place. This report covers two, the first being the completion of a contract to put a satellite in a specific solar orbit. The satellite has been in space for about 250 days; after launch and the initial transfer burn which put the periapsis of the destination orbit at the desired altitude, a burn to match a 11 degree inclination took place halfway into the mission. Today, upon reaching periapsis which is about hallway between Dres and Jool, was the final burn to raise apoapsis which is as far out as Eeloo's orbit at its furthest. The burn was performed nicely, and the over-engineeredness of the project means that the satellite could be re-tasked to another mission in the future. In fact, after ensuing that the contractor paid their dues (close to 200k funds), mission control took a look and determined that the satellite will cross paths with Eeloo's orbit in about 300 days, so a manoeuvre for that date has been tentatively set up. The real mission of the day, however, was to save our planet from colliding with an asteroid, albeit a small one. A few weeks ago a member of the FOOD (Foreign Object Observing Department) called to say that impending doom was a possibility. A certainty was the fact that a small asteroid would, if not directly strike, then pass close by our planet. And just a few days ago as the rock came into Kerbin's SOI, we could determine that indeed it would collide with our home, so we sent up a ship to deal with it. And, thanks to a third party, we gots paid! We sent up a copy of a design that had previously proven it could do the job, dubbed the Assteroider. The path of the rock was in a very southerly inclination, about 170 degrees from the equator as you can see in the diagram below. Our ship, once it made orbit and matched inclinations, waited until the ruthless rock was inside the moon's orbit, then rushed out to meet it, grabbed it, and pushed it enough so that it missed us by a mere 100km! The ship then slowed the bugger down into a stable orbit, and used the remainder of its fuel to bring the inclination down to about 20 degrees. In the future we will probably send another ship to bring the rock to a place where we can study it and perhaps use its resources, but that is for another day.

English (Canuck style) by birth. French (the France kind, the Quebeqois just look at me funny). My parents are Dutch so I have picked some of that up, after a few days of immersion I can hold minimal conversations. I can order meals, ask girls to dance get help comfortably in Spanish and Portuguese. I used to be able to do the same with Malay, but haven't used it in 15 years so that's all forgotten. Most of you probably know this, but for those who haven't yet travelled much, and it sounds goofy, but learn how to swear in whatever local dialect you'll be in. Not because of the obvious reasons, but honestly it is a great way to make people laugh and an easy road to friendships with the locals.

Fairings with their multiple attachment nodes can make for some interesting designs on all ships including probes.

Yet another station expansion contract. Now, this is just between you and me, so don't tell the contractor but we used this opportunity to build a ship that will fulfill the contract but also be used in the future for other purposes. We were to simply add 4 berths to Minmus Stayshun and to include a cupola. What we didn't tell the contractor was that we built an actual ship that will be used as a shuttle between Kerbin and the neighbouring planets - it should be able to reach Duna or Eve and make the return trip too. We lost about 20k funds on this deal, but gained an interplanetary shuttle bus that will definitely be used in the future. In fact, the transfer window to Duna opens in about 100 days and this ship will be part of the armada that makes the journey. She's not pretty, but functional - could also be used as a relay station what with the big ole antennae.