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Hey, everyone! As others have said, TWR is most important from takeoff from surface. Once you're in orbit, don't divide by the surface gravity. What you're left with is your maximum acceleration capability if you perform the calculation of Thrust / Mass. For example, for a transfer stage with a mass of 10 using one LV-N engine, you're getting 60 thrust / 10 tons = 6 m/s2 of acceleration (every second your velocity goes up by 6 m/s when you're at full throttle). This can give you a good idea of how long it will take you to do a burn. For example, escaping Low Kerbin Orbit takes 950 delta-V, so it's going to take a little less than 950/6 = 158 seconds = about two and a half minutes to do the burn. Of course, as you burn fuel, your rocket gets lighter and your Thrust/Mass gets higher, making the burn shorter. To answer the tangent about gravity, centrifugal force, and orbiting, the confusing thing about gravity is that it's not a real force. Warning: wall of text incoming Einstein has shown that gravity is space-time curvature. This means gravity is not a force, but a virtual force. This is not a trivial thing to explain as it is counter-intuitive to most people, but let me try here real quick. Let's start with an intuitive example about force. If a playground bully were to push you from behind, it's clear which direction the force is coming from and which way you accelerate (forward). The force comes from behind you and pushes you forward, and you end up falling forward. Okay, next example: If you get in your car and accelerate hard, you feel force pushing on your back. To be clear, there is no force pushing you backwards into your seat, rather there is a forces pushing you forward from your back. The car seat pushes you forward just like the bully was pushing you forward. If you left a pair of sunglasses on the dashboard while you floored the gas pedal, you'd see your sunglasses fly towards the back of the car, but did anything push the sunglasses back? Nope. The car moved forward while the glasses stayed still. Once hitting the car seat, it too gets pushed forward and appears to come to a rest (relative to you) but it is now feeling the same forward acceleration you are. STOP! If you don't quite get the above, then you won't get the next paragraph! Now to tackle gravity. You get out of your car, find a nice grassy meadow to lie down in, and lie on your back. Hm, you feel the exact same force on your back that you felt when you were accelerating in your car. Gravity is not actually pushing you DOWN into the ground (if it were, you would feel pressure on your front, like if the playground bully pushed you downward into the ground). What's actually happening is space itself is flowing towards the center of the Earth. You don't actually feel space flowing (it's like floating in a river) but the ground is pushing you UP through that flowing space. Just like the car was pushing you forward, the ground is pushing you up, and that is the actual force you feel. If you throw your sunglasses into the air, it would appear that gravity is pulling it back down to the ground, but just as in the car example where it slid off the dash, it's not actually experiencing any forces! When it hits the ground, however, it starts accelerating upwards along with you and appears to come to a rest (relative to you) but it is now feeling the same upwards acceleration you are. Being on the ground on Earth is like being in a car that is perpetually accelerating UP! In fact... in a microgravity environment, for example when you're in orbit, being in a rocket that is accelerating at 9.8 m/s2 gives you the same behavior as standing on the ground on Earth. If the rocket were wide enough, you could play tennis-- the players on the court, the ball, the net, everything would behave the same as on Earth as long as the rocket continues accelerating. Oookay, next lesson. Centrifugal force. It is not a real force. Centripetal force, however, is a real force. Back to the car example: You are going 60mph and you make a right turn around a bend in the highway. The sunglasses on the dash "get flung to the left" side of the car, and your body gets pressed against the left door. In which direction is the force accelerating everything? Hint: It's actually NOT to the left. It's to the right! The car moved to the right while the stuff inside of it wanted to go straight ahead. The left side of the car catches up to the inside contents and exerts a force to the RIGHT to keep everything inside the vehicle. Centripetal force is that force of the driver side door (assuming not in the UK) pushing everything to the right. It is a true force and always points towards the center point of the rotation. Even though it looks like stuff is getting thrown to the left, there is no actual force pushing it to the left -- instead the car is going to the right and the stuff is initially going straight! Now let's talk about orbit. When you're in orbit, you do not feel any acceleration (a fancy way of saying you are "weightless"). What's truly happening is you are traveling through space-time curvature. You are traveling in a "straight line" as far as forces are concerned, but that line just happens to be warped around the planet because of the space curvature. There is no centripetal force, either, because you aren't technically turning. Hope that helps

Fund it. Maybe if we all pitch in and talk to NASA and/or SpaceX we can get one on the next Dragon flight up to the ISS.

-55? ... why I need to reduce the temperature -55 degres? Or maybe that is not the question, what is the ambient temperature that you want inside the city? Also, what is the chart temperature that you are looking at? First, we can not talk until we clear the first question, becouse it seems that you have very different parameters than mine. In your 60km case, yes, we would need insultation to not feel cold inside the city according to some charts. But lets imagine that we want to have a low altitude. So we have to deal with extra heat. First, there is not need to get insultation, the venus atmosphere has no much water, so the calorific power of co2 molecules is not so high, you just need to have an IR reflective layer (that is very thin), the common layer made to day for windows reflect the 90% of the IR, (graphene composites promise a lot more and it can be variable and tune it). Also the heat of the city can escape, becouse the emitted IR has a long wave which differs from the one that you reflect. You can find a contraty behavior with a normal windows and sun, sun IR can pass, but the IR emited by the materials inside the room can not go out. Besides, even that the surface envelope it would be big, the volume of air inside the envelope is much bigger. Adding the fact that air is a good insulator and you have 48hr of night to release the heat. But this is not all you can do. You can encourage a stratification of the air inside the habitat. Hot air rise, cold air down, of course this is not simple, the low part of the envelope (city) needs to be insulated from external temperatures, and all city process which produce the bigger levels of heat needs to be channeled at the top of the envelope with middle points exist depending the temperature. Like you dont have air flows or winds inside the envelope, it would remains pretty layered. So there is not need to withstand high temperatures from the first sun day, also moments before the night, the heat would rise your altitude helping you to cool it at night. Then the process starts again. If still is the temperature level is not liked by some, they can cool their rooms, there is not need to cool all the city air. Yeah, I hear that the CO can be more usefull than the CO2. About your previous calcs, yes, if you try to keep cool all the envelope your lifting power decrease and you would be wasting a lot of energy. So for that reason, all methods needs to be as passive like it can be. Yeah, that is Landon Carisiam city if I remember well. The first time that I see that in the movie, I thought that was an unrealistic idea If you dont wanna buy and read all the book that Rubisco suggest you, You can check this post where you can find the graph that you are looking for. http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/69572-Venus-terraforming-fact-checking-Chemistry-edition?p=970361&viewfull=1#post970361 Yes, you always need to be so drastic, but you know that if that happens it would take a long time with micro doplets. ------------------------------------------------------------- So? anyone? how you do imagine the different habitats and floating outpost that a colony would need at venus? How you would manage it to launch a rocket from that height and recover it?

So the official thread hasn't appeared so I will bring this up. Maxmaps mentioned that he was talking with a person about "productive talk with a possible mod platform provider." What could this mean? Does anyone have experience with these types of things? My mind is going wild!

"productive talk with a possible mod platform provider" It's obviously about a replacement for the Spaceport.

well, all I can say is, make 4 more posts and you're free as a bird. Nobody except those who only do destructive negative talk is unwelcome, you are free to enjoy

There is no argument about which codebase we will use, all of the performance gains of the new parser with all of the features of v0.11.1 is a no brainer It just comes down to who will be charged as "maintainer" and which name the project will use. I would release these bits as kOS v0.12 today and deal with whatever bugs we find but i would like to talk to marianoapp first to be sure that is ok. there is a ton of good work in here and i want to be respectful.

The thing is, in my personal opinion, the Add-On and Releases subforum is fine as it is because it is the place to talk about mods that have been released. Now, I may be putting words in the OP's mouth, but the only real downside (to me) is that there is no way to tell apart mods whose forum threads have a post because they have been updated and mods that have on-going discussion. So, what about just making a "Releases and Updates" sticky thread that only mod authors post in when they release a mod or new version so that a person can find new mods? That would allow a person to every couple days (or week or whatever) to go to that thread and see what has been released. I know I've missed seeing new mods when they are released because they get bumped off the front page so fast so something like this would take care of my only real problem with the Releases sub-forum as it exists (IMO anyway). D.

You might look at KSPI or talk to the developer Fractal_UK about heat production and dissipation. His mod does a lot of that.

Neilbury radioed from the station early one morning and began to muse. "We know more about the Mun than we do about Kerbin. Why don't we launch a mapsat and map Kerbin!" he exclaimed. Shortly thereafter Wherney and Dunwig were sitting on the runway with engines running, ready to launch a mapsat into a polar orbit. Off they shot, screaming down the runway. Once they had reached takeoff speed Wherney pulled back on the stick and the nose leapt into the air and soon enough they were airborn, with Dunwig retracting the landing gear. Because they were heading for a polar orbit it was decided to perform the plane change low in the atmosphere to save oxidizer for the orbital insertion. Once they were on the appropriate heading Wherney pitched the nose up and proceded to a crusing altitude of about 10km. From here the flight profile was pretty standard, with Wherney leveling out at 10km to build up horizontal speed. Once the Atlantis had reached Mach 4 the jet engines were shut down and the rocket engine fired up for the push to orbit. Once in orbit it was time to deploy the satellite. The bay doors were opened and the satellite launched, opening its solar panels once it was clear of the bay. The satellite would adjust it's orbit and increase altitude to 300km, the upper limit of the mapping instruments. With their mission complete Wherney and dunwig prepared to go home. Then the radio crackled with an incoming communication. "Mission Control to Atlantis, Mapsats picked something up near the north pole. We want you to check it out." Dunwig gave Wehrney a worried look before thumbing the talk button. "Roger that Control, proceeding to coordinates." he said before inputting the target coordinates into the nav-computer. After the deorbit burn the ship pitched up to 40 degrees for reentry. There weren't any reentry flames (now I know why the Shuttle pitches to such an extreme angle) and the ship was began it's course correction to fly close to the target. The Jet engines were fired up to provide cross range capability and carry them to their target. Soon the duo neared the target coordinates. Wherney pitched the nose down to begin landing procedures while Dunwig lowered the landing gear. "Misson control this is Atlantis, no sign of it yet, but we're getting close. Beginning landing procedures." "What is that?!" Dunwig exclaimed as an unusual shape passed below the aircraft. Wherney nodded and put the plane into a steep bank to attempt to land as close to the target as possible. A loud bang reverberated through the air-frame as the drag chute deployed. Despite Wherneys' best efforts the plan continued to yaw right as it slowed after touchdown. "We've lost something, go and check it out Dunwig, and go ahead and mark that thing for future recovery." he said as he began to take a systems check. Dunwig clambered out of the cockpit and droped to the frozen earth below. "Seems like you've clipped the right wing on landing. The landing gear is shot too. There's no way you're getting airborne again." He radioed before making his way towards the strange object. The walk took about 5 minutes but soon Dunwig was standing next to what appeared to be a crashed flying saucer. "Hey Wherney, we didn't launch this. I've never seen tech like this before. I'm going to climb ontop and see what I can see." Dunwig then planted a flag on the object for later recovery before the rescue crews picked the two of them (And their damaged aircraft) up to return them to the Kerbal Space Center

I missed this thread last night. When you say "go big," how heavy are you talking about? If you're looking for space planes the size of what is in your pictures, they look reasonable from a design standpoint. It leads me to think your flight profile might need some help. Can you talk us through how you're flying it up to 38km? I'll try and recreate some of your ships later (or if you want to provide a .craft for us) and try to get a sense of what you're flying. They look like they have plenty of thrust (maybe too much) and enough wing area though.

I don't think that their DevNote was about that. Squad hasn't approached Majiir about it (at least not that Majiir has indicated), even though he has offered to talk with them about it on a few occasions. I think them working with someone like Curse or Nexus would be more likely. That said, I just read all 10 pages of that thread since I hadn't heard of it before, and I am feeling motivated... only problem is finding the time... it would be quite an undertaking.

You should talk to BahamutoD about this. He recently started a thread in the dev section about a custom plugin for animation modules, and while it doesn't seem to include exactly what you are looking for, he does have a module for engines that have a stowed and a deployed state (which your request brought to mind, as they seem similar) He also mentioned that he is taking requests for specific animation modules for him to try making, so...

Yeah its my attempt at balancing and so dosnt have much of a place in real life. The mass of the small AHS is based on the Advanced Stabilizer (0.5T with a 9MS crash tolerance). As the Small AHS has a 30MS tolerance it seams fair to be 1.5T ? Im not claiming that the computer system is heavy just the container. Following this though the Large AHS should probably only be around 1.4T as the larger default control system is only 0.2T but this seams a bit unfair as it has a 60/MS tolerance with 6 node attachments and crossfead ability. Yeah true i was just trying to link systems to provide a reason for adding sensors to your craft. I think in real life i would want at least 3 or more gravity and accelerometer sensors but yeah to make things easier to use i should include them in the AHS. Thanks it also has the advantage of not loading any extra models or textures so shouldn't waste any memory (Theres often talk of a memory limit when using lots and lots of plugins) To reduce heat you must place parts onto the Part producing heat and these connected parts absorb heat and convert it into light dissipating it. Iv been using it to build my space stations without using RCS thrusters/tanks and iv been building a small 70T kethane mine on minmus. The plugin has become stupidly complex and should probably be broken into 2 different systems. After linking vertical speed control into the RCS forward/backward keys i just had to add a full RCS style control and they are most defiantly 2 different systems/plugins and should be split. So what im thinking is ill try to integrate engines into the default RCS systems and remove the complicated direction setup for the engines. Then i will add a simple on/off tweak for setting if an engine should be used to Hover. My biggest concern now though is not breaking my test colony but then i could just hack my save file and fix any compatibility problems. So far the colony consist of 7 parts. One of them is my low grav constructor better seen on the 2nd image attached to the stations core. It has been painful to get this far but the more it hurts me the faster ill get around to fixing it.

According to my scrawled notes (well, ok, it's a spreadsheet) there was a lack of electric charge storage and while the launch was good and the flight characteristics alright I wasn't able to get it to orbit. Attempting to land, the plane went into an impressive flat spin (I looked at it and thought, more or less verbatim, "wow, that's a real flat spin like they talk about!") but I was able to recover it and bring it to a good landing in moderately hilly terrain. I think there's RCS stored, but no thrusters, or something like that. You could either add thrusters or tweak the stored monoprop out. I noted the good safety features, but a trial of the eject button during a test launch didn't work out too well as while the cockpit separated the chutes on it didn't work properly for some reason. I marked it "some clipping" but it's only aesthetic, not functional-cheaty, so cool with me. I marked it in bright highlighted orange meaning "try this one again and make orbit this time."

There is a lot of talk and pros & cons regarding MP (I don't want such feature myself) and thinking of collaborative space-station building seen here or there, I think a such MP feature can be added mroe or less easily, even with help of a plug-in. The core is to share persistent.sfs file between users. In this MP style game, there will be some kind of server which manage the sharing of the file + group of players involved + an UI to deal with others like asking of help ("someone want to help me getting this into orbit ?") or mercenary style contract ("do this job, reward: a kerbeer"), so a lot of people can share the KSP world without any usual MP issues (cheaters/annoying people who destroy your space-station) and all kind of players can work together just like ants for example: builders, carriers, suppliers, ... it can also help some players by giving them some direction on what to do today ("avail job: put x tanks of LF/Oxy to this station, deadline: x days"). To be clear, there will be no direct players interactions, we won't see other people flying around, we don't meet people in space or on other body ("gggrrrhhh I want to land on this post, but it has already been occupied... war !"), just a meeting place somewhere available on demand for adding/accepting/fulfil "contracts". The rewards remains to define.

"SETI should litsen, not talk." What are the chances another society is currently ease dropping on us? What if thats why everyone is so quiet... Because were so loud.

If the lifting gas is a tad on the heavy side, perhaps replacing the nitrogen with helium, like in scuba tanks? Everyone would talk funny, but it would increase the lifting capability of the bubble. Helium is rare right now, but once fusion reactors start being more common, helium becomes a manufactured good.

Unfortunately, these projectiles can't be seen, they can't be traced, and most of all, the light of their destruction will not reach another intelligent species for decades, and by then, it would be too late. Also, planet's go "BOOM" all of the time, that's almost normal, since anything can do that (Nuclear war, asteroid, collision with other planet) - except, only the surface of the planet is scorched and sterilized, the planet itself does not literally shatter to pieces. This is why SETI should listen, not talk, until we have advanced enough in space travel to go interstellar.

Not sure, but wasn't there talk a while ago about integrating Spaceport with the launcher?

Okay so I admit I'm necroing the thread, but I figured it's better than making another one to talk about the same thing. Anyway, I've been on 0.23 since it came out, and I haven't seen this thing one single time. Ever. Not even in the older versions from before 0.23. I remember reading somewhere that it has a 1 in 500 chance of appearing any one time the menu opens, but I know I've seen the menu and specifically the Mun scene a lot more than 500 times. Anyone else in a similar boat? Was it removed?

The laptop could be used to talk to Gene Kerman at Mission Control through some kind of Kerbal analog for Google Hangouts, FaceTime, or Skype or send pretend SSTV feed.

I hear talk of a real life earth and possibly matching PQS stuff. Is this right and where would I find this?

I'm just wondering, I haven't got my computer yet so I can't check, but I'm assuming you can just go into the persistence files and edit Kerbal's current names and stats, right? When I start a new game I'm going to want to match stats and names as much as I can. Luckily I did keep a few notes on characters. I know the Crew manifest mod used to be able to add and alter Kerbal's stats, so I'm assuming it's all in the files and easy to edit. I'm not sure if the current version of that mod does that, or the new resource manifest mod. Haven't checked that functionality in that newer mod, though I have tried it. Science Rover One Gene looked down on the runway as the Science Rover underwent final checkups. It'd been a hard slog, but Dunkel had pulled it off, getting the systems functional and tested (at least to some level) well before their official deadline. Good thing too, as he'd started to run out of errands to keep Rodsy busy. "I'm getting them set up now sir." Thomcan said quietly, Gene nodding absently. "Why the rush, if you don't mind me asking?" Gene sighed. Thomcan was about the best bet to take over with Jedwig off the team. But he had no real management skills or leadership training. A bunch of scientists led by scientists. From his experience that usually didn't end well. "It's complicated Thomcan, but basically this is going to be our flagship for a while. We're not able to mount a high profile expedition to another planet for a while, and currently ecology is featuring high on the talk shows and general media focus. I want to be sure KSC gets as positive swing as we can." "I understand sir." He said, saluting... badly. "Just do the best you can, and try not to let Rodsy be too zealous. You have other scientists on the team and they have needs as well, OK?" "Yes sir." He said, and turned around and strode off. Thomcan should at least hold them together as a group, but whether they'd be effective was another matter. *** "Hey, how's it going Sigfry?" Neilzer said cheerily. "Ready for the big day?" Sigfry looked at the 'pilot' scornfully. "No... not really. To have to rush here on such short notice, merely to interface with the space programs research is ludicrous! I was in the middle of field work in Lechistan! Do you know how long I had to wait to get entry visas and archeological permits for that? Then 'VOOSH!' KSC steps in and orders me home after only two months work! It is a crime I tell you, a crime!" Neilzer's joyous expression froze, then slowly fell through out the fuming scientist's diatribe. "Uh, yeah. Well we're glad to have you." He added lamely. "OK, come on, everyone get in. Thomcan." He saluted sharply, surprising Thomcan. "I hear you've been listed head of the project. Congratulations." "Yeah... was a surprise to me certainly." Thomcan said with a faint smile. The guy seemed rather nervous. Then came Rodsy, even more nervous seeming, constantly glancing over his shoulder. He'd heard some odd rumors over that guy, but he seemed to be good at his job, at least according to the reports he'd seen. "Has the reactor been checked?" Was the first thing the guy said. "Yes, and I'll go through a preflight before we engage the generators. Don't worry, everything's fine." Neilzer said, forcing a fairly good grin. It was a good job he was just the driver on this mission! Lastly Redtop came up, smiling and wondering what the bother was about. "Um, something up?" "Naw, everything's fine. Your desk is set up Redtop, you can just get settled in while we plan the course. First stop is a reference check on the sensors in Fendweir woods." Neilzer first expected Thomcan to organize things, but realized the guy was a little side tracked, eyes miles away by the look of it. "OK, so if everyone can climb aboard we can get underway!" He said cheerily. Grumpily, anxiously, and with at least a tiny bit of enthusiasm, the team boarded the vehicle and Neilzer shook his head, striding up to the ladder himself. "This is not going to be a fun tour of duty, I can just feel it!" He mumbled to himself. *** Rodsy sat back in his seat and fumed. He'd been run ragged this last couple of days, and it was obvious why. They were trying to shut him down! The way he got posted to the Science Rover project so quickly, the speed with which it got ready to 'launch', and the complete lack of press coverage of it all lead to one conclusion. KSC knew about aliens! This was some giant cover-up. Out there there was probably some sort of base or hanger where they kept the aliens locked up, or ships, or something. It just had to be! Why else would they persecute him this way? "So, ready for the first big day?" Redtop said from beside him. "Hmm? What? Oh.... yeah... big day." Rodsy said, not paying the intern much attention. Redtop was a thoroughly forgettable Kerbal. No special merits from his university course. No specialty even. He just did 'Science'. How did you do that? Take biochemiphysics? From what he'd heard no-one really called themselves his 'friend' at all and he didn't involve himself in any of the KSC sports activities either. Maybe he was just a geek and kept to himself? Didn't look it though. Square jawed, though... well, almost a forgettable face. Pretty 'normal' looking overall. "Hey, buck up! We're doing SCIENCE!" Redtop said with a grin, then turned back to his own console. Rodsy could practically hear the guy pronounce the capital letters in that word. Oh great, a newbie with an overenthusiastic attitude! Just what he needed right now! Rodsy tried the various comms systems but kept getting 'Sorry, this service is inaccessible during high profile missions' messages. Yeah, pretty much as he suspected. He was cut off. He looked around and slowly a smile came across his face. Cut off maybe, but he had a whole load of research equipment at his disposal. They couldn't keep him in here indefinitely could they? He'd just find out as much as he could from here, maybe checking on Seanbur's magnetic stuff to see if that had anything to do with it, and then when he did get out he'd have real ammunition to show the press! Yeah, put me on a science mission to shut me up? Wrong move! *** Neilzer watched the levels rise as Sigfry watched over his shoulder. "Incredible. Do you know how dangerous these reactors are?" Sigfry said conversationally. Neilzer suppressed a shudder. "No, feel free to tell me all about it." He said sarcastically. It seems Sigfry wasn't equipped to detect sarcasm though. "Of course. I mean after the whole TMS One debacle you should know what you're dealing with." He began. Neilzer attempted to close his ears to the guy, somewhat unsuccessfully, while he monitored the systems, the battery systems maintaining things until the pile came fully on line and the reactor could charge them back up. "The reactor pile itself is well designed. I've seen the specs. Isolated core system. Double redundancies in the heat transfer mechanism. safety interlocks with a hard-set, manual control system. Even if it completely looses power you can still manually scram the pile with the boron dampers released via springs. Heh, makes resetting them after a pain if there's no electricity! Hope you have a strong arm Neilzer." Yeah, maybe he should get some of those almost invisible earbud things that acted as both earplugs and headphones? For times like this it would be invaluable. "Apart from that though the systems is less than perfect. I understand they've improved the generator systems since the early days. Still, the thing has quite a few instabilities in the turbines. I heard of one in testing where a resonance built up in the system. Before they could spin it down there was a catastrophic failure and the thing just detonated, throwing turbine blades around like knives. And then of course there is the dodgy external heat transfer and cooling system!" 'Oh dear Kod! Kill me now!' Neilzer cringed as Sigfry went into excruciating details about what could go wrong. *** "Hey Rodsy!" Rodsy looked up to see Thomcan popping his head in the hatch. "Hey yourself. How are you settling in?" Tomcan leaned on the door jam and grinned. "Pretty good, though I'm not sure about Sigfry. I think he went up to the cap to... I mean up to the pilot to irritate him some. He got bored of me not responding to his doom and gloom stuff. I think he really needs an audience." Rodsy shook his head. "Heh, yeah sounds like it." He said with a smile. "There you are!" Thomcan said. "I was wondering where the old Rodsy had gone." Thomcan then cocked his head, listening for a moment. "Hmm, sounds like the generators are picking up speed. Must have a good head of steam... Um,thermal power... Whatever." Just at that moment a message came over the intercom. "This is Neilzer, your pilot. We are nearly ready to set out. External couplings disengaged. data transfer to KSC initialized. All lab systems have reported operational. Reactor is stable... Turbines to speed.... Charging... Atomic batteries to power." Jeez, that guy sounded cheesy. "OK, we're set up for our trip guys." Neilzer said. "Um, Commander Thomcan? Can you report to the cockpit? I'd like to go over the course." Thomcan rolled his eyes. "Burdens of command huh? See you later Rodsy." "Sure. Take care Thomcan." Thomcan mock-saluted then shut the door. "Heh, you two close then?" Redtop said. "Hmm? Sort of. We knew each other at flight training. Oh, private training. Way before I joined KSC." "Oh, you were in the airforce?" Redtop asked. "Um, no. Private as in 'I paid to get trained.' I was going to be a commercial pilot back then. Got side tracked into university, then KSC." A smile crossed Rody's face, which promptly faded as he remembered that last horrible mission and the current conspiracy. "Well, turned out well for you then? Glad to hear it." Redtop said. Redtop didn't have very good timing it seemed. *** Thomcan passed a disgruntled Sigfry in the corridor (was there a time when Sigfry wasn't disgruntled?) as he headed to the cockpit. "Neilzer, Commander reporting for duty." Thomcan said with a grin. "Uh huh." Neilzer said slowly "Look, Thomcan. I know you haven't done this before, but you really need to take charge here. I know, it's just a scientific mission, but we do need to be organized at least." Neilzer finished and just stared at Thomcan who smiled nervously. "Well, we're ready to set out sir." A pause lengthened as Thomcan just nodded idly. "Um... orders sir?" Neilzer prodded. "Hmm? Oh OH. Sorry.. Yeah Um, engage.... wheels? Just head out." Neilzer rolled his eyes again. "Yeah, any particular direction? You have planned a route haven't you?" Thomcan blinked. "Well, I thought that had all been set by KSC?" "Preliminary sites of investigation, no defined route." Thomcan looked out the window ahead, realizing that the outcome of this project might depend on where he took them. Oh this was fun! He never wanted this! "I guess... head west.... maybe north west for now. I'll mark up a course for us." "You do that boss." Neilzer said and turned back to the controls. *** With a roaring sound the exhaust vents thrummed, coolant cycling smoothly. Slowly, the wheels turned on the second largest land vehicle the Kerbals had ever constructed. (The first was a single use vehicle about twenty years ago that shipped the first rocket, complete, from the fabricators back when KSC only launched rockets, not assembled them) The white and grey paint shone in the sun as it rolled off the runway and onto the grass, suspension surprisingly firm given the hefty weight it was carrying. Careful, gentle turning, eased the craft onto a northwest heading and it slowly picked up speed, sliding into the dim early morning. The wheels barely even tugged at the power the generator put out. Most of that power was set aside for use in the various high-energy physics experiments to be done later. After about five minutes the words "Why didn't anyone put any darned headlights on this thing?" wafted from the cockpit's open window, and the vehicle reluctantly slowed down as it left the glow of KSC's surrounds. Soon enough though the sun rose and it picked back up to a hefty fifteen meters a second (fast for such a large craft at least). Rolling carefully up a slight slope it crested the ridge and settled down a little rise before cruising into Fendweir Woods beyond. Well, OK, to call them 'woods' was a bit of an overstatement. The odd tree here and there does not constitute a wood. "Ooooh! Look at that one!" Came the cry from one of the windows in the vehicle. Shortly afterwards the vehicle slowed, turned, and bore down one tree. One rather large tree... OK, a friggin enormous one! Yeah, they could do wonderful science with this! The heat radiators unfurled and the reactor sped up to 100% as various burbles and beeps came from the science labs as they got stuck into their research.

I just glanced at the site and didn't notice it wasn't KSP-only but a KSP section of a larger site. That seems fine. But I'm not trying to down-talk the Nexus. I was honestly ignorant about its existence. My fear is that ANY non-Spaceport mod site will suffer a similar fate. 5% of modders will embrace it, the other 95% will ask, "ANOTHER mod site? No thanks. One's bad enough."