Search the Community

the hill resets and moves it back to real space and collapses this pocket of space time you talk about with the warp. still your hill but its in normal space time now enjoy.

Yes the omni can and the dishes can to some what depends on how u have the target like target to planet anything around mun with the small stock dish target kerbin and kerbin target mun will all talk. EDIT If you made a 60 gm omni and had like 3 or more around kerbin and put 1 around duna all around kerbin would talk to duna giving it has line of sight.

Void mod is like Engineer mod but it keeps some of the info on screen nice mod. here is a link if u want to look at it http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/54533 modder also as AntennaRange-Enforce talk to him or her about putting max antennarange and range to target in they said they would try in get in the next update on void

I've heard a lot of people talk about transferring fuel between tanks, or even between docked spacecraft. How do I set that up?

Day 278: Canopus T-18 launch KSC announcer: "...and we have liftoff!! Onboard the capsule, we say again, are the crew of the DUMAS-I mission to Duna, Jebediah, Gusdan, Dudsky and Geroly, and the pilots of the capsule, Commander Bill and Flight Engineer Corger. The four brave kerbals will set foot again on the red planet, to explore and..." ----- Bill: "... roll program terminated, all systems a-ok, standing by for staging. So Jeb, how is returning up there after all that training on the ground?" Jeb: "Oh, you know, it would be far better without all this G-force trying to squeeze the ribs out of your eyeballs. Still, you end up missing the good ol' SRBs, pushing you to the stars..." Geroly: "Ehy... dude... how... do you... can talk?... It's like... having a... bloody elephant... sitted... on my lungs..." Jeb: "Well, with the time you develop your breath, and all those nice kerbonaut tricks. But don't worry, when we'll have dropped the first stage, it would be far more bearable. Am I right, mon capitain?" Bill: "Shush. Ok Corger, ready on my mark. 3... 2... 1... Mark!" Corger: "BECO, staging confirmed, ullage go. Ready for ignition..." Geroly: "Ohy, I can breath again! Oh, sweet sweet oxigen, how I longed for thee, my deaHOLYCOWWHATTHEHELL..." Corger: "... and ignition. All systems a-ok, LES tower separation confirmed." Gusdan: "LES tower separation? We could have brought it up with us a little, right? I mean, just to stay safe, right? I mean, not that we needed more safety, this is the safest rocket in the world, the safest rocket in the world, the safest rocket in the world..." :heavy breathing: Dudsky: "Sir, I suspect that Engineer Gusdan may have a respiratory deficit caused by the takeoff acceleration. I ask permission to leave my seat to give medical aid, sir." Bill: "So, first choice, handpicked kerbals as usual, right?" Dudsky: "Sir?" Jeb: :grin: "Like myself. Only the best for the KSP!" Dudsky : "Sir, have you heard the precedent request?" ----- Corger: "Within docking range, sir. Do I have to engage the radar auto-docker?" Bill: "No, you know I don't trust those things. I'm sure you can handle this manually, Corger, so go on and don't scratch the paint from our passenger's ride." Corger: "Hard docking achieved, all contact lights green, hatches correctly lined up." Bill: "Good work." Corger: "Well, thank you, sir!" Jeb: "Ok guys, all aboard your new home!!" Dudsky : "Still I don't get why we are up there 5 days before departure, Sir..." Jeb: "Simple, my inquiring mate. We'll check out every single thing on this flying marvel, and when we're done, we'll check everything again." Dudsky: "Still, it looks all very inefficient to me. We're expending precious supplies, everything has been tested on Kerbin and no malfunction had been signaled by the on board computer." Jeb: "Well, experience teaches you that a computer can be very, very faulty, and I don't want to float endlessly in space to save some liters of oxigen..." Gusdan: "Floating WHAT?" Jeb: "Nothing, nothing, don't worry. Here take this manuals in the main cabin... NO GUS, the other hatch!!" ----- Day 283: Kerbin-Duna transfer window KSC announcer: "...Yes, mission control confirms the start of the last burn for the DTH Interplanetary Delivery Complex. Lasting 4 minutes, will propel the craft to a Duna encounter in 65 days. DIDC is the last unmanned craft to leave orbit, and next is the Tindalos-I, were the kerbonauts are preparing themselves to..." ----- Dudsky: "Geroly, what on earth are you doing? Shouldn't you be checking the engine bells alignment?" Geroly: "Drinking a cup of tea, dude! Do you want some? There's plenty of time before we depart!!" Dudsky: "Geroly, we're leaving in 20 minutes." Geroly: "See? Plenty of time!" Dudsky: "..." ----- Bill: "Have you checked the hidraulic systems?" Jeb: "Yes." Bill: "Primary and backup?" Jeb: "Natural." Bill: "Comms?" Jeb: "10/10." Bill: "Centrifuge motors?" Jeb: "All efficient and ready." Bill: "The heathshield?" Jeb: "We EVA'd two hours ago." Bill: "Just checking if you were paying attention." Jeb: "So... I think the moment arrived." Bill: "Yeah, I think so. Take care of you and of the boys, and bring back a red rock for the kids." Jeb: "Nah, you'll take one yourself when you'll visit. Besides, I don't guarantee for the total safety of Gusdan..." Bill: "I'm not asking for miracles, Jeb!!!" :laughs: ----- Bill: "We cleared the hatch, Jeb, you're free to maneuver. Godspeed!!" Jeb: "Thanks pal!! Ok, aligning for the burn. Last check guys, have you peed? Because this time I won't return at home just after departure..." Dudsky: "No need for: we have lavatory facilities on board..." Jeb: "Dudsky, it was just... I didn't mean it for... You... Oh, the maneuver node. Ok, all ready for ignition in 3, 2, 1... Jeb: "Ignition succesful!! NEXT STOP, DUNA!!!" ----- Corger: "Sir, are you all right?" Bill: "Mhm? What... Oh, yes Corger, yes. Why are you asking?" Corger: "You stared out of the window in silence for the best part of 10 minutes..." Bill: "Ah... I'm a little... absent." Corger: "Worried for the guys?" Bill: "No, not so much. Jeb is a skilled pilot, and apart from their evident deficiencies, his crew is really the best KSP can offer... No, I was just thinking... We three, me, Jeb and Bob, we have always sticked together, since the start of the space program. Yes, we are best pals, but let's face it, they're the good ones... They were the first on the Mun, while I went with up with the second mission; they landed on Duna, while i stayed in orbit to just wait for them... Now, Bob directs the Munar outpost, Jeb is going again to Duna, and I still fly things around Kerbin. It's just, you know, sometimes you feel useless..." Corger: "If I can say my opinion, sir, you're not being really objective. You're the most skilled capsule pilot we have, and half of KSP pilots were trained by you. Also, since I'm flying, I never seen someone to dock so efficiently and precisely, even Commander Jeb is lousy at it compared to you, KSC doesn't validate a new design if it's not tested by you... I don't think that you have to plant a flag on something to be good at something..." Bill: "... Maybe you're right Corger... Who knows... Now, too much talking, and too little action. Plot me a Homann transfer to Spacelab 1, we have science to do!!" Corger: "Aye aye, sir captain!!" Bill: :smile: "One day, Jeb, one day..."

I was thinking about it a bit more. There is an interesting possibility. To first order, gravity works like electromagnetism. So one can build an electrogravitomagnetic artificial gravity generator. First, you build two giant mass current loops. In practice, they'd probably have to be particle accelerators. The two loops are in the same plane, side by side, almost touching, and mas rotation is in opposite directions. The region of artificial gravity is going to be located between the two loops. The way you generate gravity is by giving the whole thing a bit of a spin around the axis that connects the two loops. That will generate enormous stress on the structure, as the two gyroscopic effects will fight each other, but no net torque, so this will not require any energy to maintain, other than what you need to run particle accelerators. Why will this generate gravity? Faraday's Law of Induction. Mass current generates gravitomagnetic field. Because that field rotates, the total flux is time-variable, and that's going to induce a gravitational field around the rim of the current loop. Unfortunately, effect isn't strong. Given some surface density àof the current traveling at some proper-velocity u, the total mass current is J = ÃÂu. That gives us the field strength B = (4ÀG/c²)J. The total flux is going to depend on the area of the loop, Φ = ÀBR². Time derivative for a rotating loop (axis of rotation perpendicular to axis of the loop) is dΦ/dt = ÉΦ. And that induced potential is divided along the perimeter of the loop. So we get g = ÉΦ/(2ÀR). Putting it all together, and taking into account the fact that we have two loops, we get the following overall formula. g = ÉR (4ÀG/c²) ÃÂu The biggest problem is the G/c² term. It is equal to 7.425x10-28 m/kg. Units work out because àis in kg/m². In fact, lets talk about ÃÂ. This is density of the particle stream in accelerator times the thickness of the stream. Later is limited by what we can do with the magnets. Former is very difficult to get to a high value. Let me push it to the limits of imagination and say that we can get the stream almost as dense as air, and we have a 10m gap between magnets. That gives us à= 10kg/m². Next, lets talk about É. The limiting factor is the same as in centrifuge. Humans don't like going spinning at high rates for very long. For a comfortable experience, the limit is about 2RPM. If we are prepared to venture a bit beyond comfortable, we can do, maybe, 5RPM. That gives us É = 0.52/second. Finally, the one place where we can make decent impact is u. That's proper velocity and we have a particle accelerator. Woot. LHC launches protons at well over 400GeV. Lets say we can achieve 1TeV per nucleon in our matter beam. Mass of a nucleon is just 1GeV. So we've achieved u = 1,000c. So if we wish to walk away with an Earth-like acceleration of g = 9.8m/s², using all of the above parameter, we get the loop radius of (drum roll, please) R = 6.69x1014m = 4,470 AU = 0.07ly. In other words, a structure with above parameters is not only implausible, but impossible (an internet cookie to whoever figures out why) But if you don't care how much gravity you are generating, so long as you are generating some, and it's not due to the object accelerating with centrifuge, or whatever, you can just get to flywheels spinning in opposite directions next to each other and then start rotating the assembly. Gravity you can generate this way is going to be less than detectable, but it'd be completely artificial. Can this be improved on? Maybe. You can try increasing both density and the proper velocity. You need about 6 orders of magnitude between the two to make the structure plausible. It would still be a megastructure, though, and centrifuge is much, much easier to build.

Skylon is designed as an unmanned cargo carrier. Any talk of passenger modules is a long way down the road, it's not an important design goal at the moment (they need to get the thing to actually work first!). There will be humans in the loop but they won't be physically sitting on board the aircraft. This is pretty normal in spaceflight, but a bit alien to people's expectations of aircraft, because unmanned aircraft are still quite rare. That'll change over the next few decades, you're going to see unmanned aircraft becoming a lot more common. The technology is ready, all it needs to really get going is for the regulatory framework to catch up.

Tall rockets have few points of cross-connection, leaving them liable to flex. The "asparagus" stating you hear people talk about makes ships more fuel-efficient, but also provides points for cross connection. By building additional stages around the previous ones instead of under them, your rocket will be more stable, more fuel-efficient, and easier to steer. An example: The side tanks are arranged in opposing pairs, so that there are 3 stages on the lowermost level of that rocket. Also, you can see I've used struts from those side stages to help stabilize the connection to the upper stage. This is where to find aircraft wheels: This is one way to place ailerons, and this is another. Landing planes without landing gear is quite a trick, but this guy pulled it off. Of course, he's crazy. Flying a tanker to the island would be quite a trick. It might be easier (though much slower) to send it as a boat. But there's actually not a lot of advantage to doing it, because the tanker will run out before long and itself need to be re-fuelled. Rockets can't rely on acquiring oxygen from air, and therefore must carry both fuel and oxidizer in heavy tanks. Jets carry the fuel, but skip the weight of oxidizer by drawing it from the air. Thus, the same weight of carried substances will propel a jet much farther. But also, KSP jet engines are simply over-powered when compared to their real-world counterparts. The game is still in development, so there are some odd aspects to it like that.

OK, I've done my homework... I won't bother with screenshots, but I will describe what I've done. First, I determined the intended size of the base toroidal tank model (as used for the large tank, as it turns out): major radius 3m, minor radius 0.5m. This gives a torus volume of Vreal=14.804m3 (this will be used later on. I then edited the model by deleting all non-visible parts, moving the "arms" (and hoops) and the tank section itself apart (for ease of working). I cleaned up the tank part (tire plus rim if thought of as a bicycle wheel), made sure it was all manifold (ie, no openings) and used blender's volume tools to get Vouter=14.409m3. I added a solidify modifier with a thickness of 0.009 (9mm) and got a volume of Vshell=0.509m3. Subtracting gives Vinner=13.900m3. It was then that I realized this was too far out from a real tank of such design (it would be smooth curves rather than faceted), so I cleaned up the tank to be just a torus shape (ie, deleted anything outside the 0.5m minor radus and filled in the holes). For this I got Vfake=13.976m3 (no solidify modifier). I figured that "close enough is good enough" and just used the ratio of the real and fake volumes to scale everything. Thus... V[sub]tank[/sub] =V[sub]shell[/sub]*(V[sub]real[/sub]/V[sub]fake[/sub]) = 0.509*14.804/13.976 = 0.5392m[sup]3[/sup] V[sub]contents[/sub]=V[sub]inner[/sub]*(V[sub]real[/sub]/V[sub]fake[/sub]) = 13.900*14.804/13.976 = 14.7235m[sup]3[/sup] I did similar shenanigans with the arms (and hoops), but didn't bother with any correction factors. I capped the ends to get the total volume (0.183m3), remove the caps and added a 9mm solidify modifier to get the pipe shell volume (Vpipe=0.069m3) and subtracted to get Varm=0.114m3. Thus: V[sub]t[/sub]=V[sub]tank[/sub]+V[sub]pipe[/sub]=0.5392+0.069=0.6082 V[sub]c[/sub]=V[sub]contents[/sub]+V[sub]arm[/sub]=14.7235+0.114=14.8375 The scales (as best I can tell) are, from small to extra-large: 0.25, 0.625, 1, 1.5. Thus, using a density of 7.8t/m3 for the shell... Name Capcity Shell Dry Mass TO-S-1 0.2318 0.0095 0.0741 TO-M-1 3.6224 0.1485 1.1582 TO-L-1 14.8375 0.6082 4.7440 TO-XL-1 50.0766 2.0527 16.0109 Capacity and Shell are in m3, Dry Mass is in tons. Shell is given only for independent verification . All tanks have an LFO wet/dry mass ratio of 4.128 (lousy, but that's geometry for you). If you want a better mass ratio, talk to NathanKell (he'll give you titanium alloy tanks:cool:). [edit]D'oh: forgot to add the tank mass to the fuel mass for the ratio (3.128->4.128)

Sounds like issue 200: https://github.com/Cilph/RemoteTech2/issues/200 Targeting a body will only talk to satellites in line of site and orbiting that body. So something can be in the cone, but if it is outside the SOI of the target body it will not be communicated with. You might add your usage scenario to the issue and see if that might encourage a change in the code proposed by maxdreamland. I personally think dishes should only use cone mode no matter what they target, but maybe that creates a performance issue.

Error in "Github / RemoteTech 2" , "Launch First Satellite" documentation? at the bottom of the doc. It states:"The 'Comms DTS-M1' has the largest cone angle at 45°, as such, if you have three satellites, all targeting 'Kerbin', one over the Kerbin, the other two can sit on the other side of kerbin, still within the primary 'KSC geostationary' satallite's cone. These two will not talk directly to each each other, but they do not need to." unless I'm missing something, there is NO way each satellite in (my) geostationary orbit can communicate with each other with a DTS-M1. Using 3 satellites, each with a DTS-M1 set to "Kirbin", I can see the (potential) angle of ambiguity (LOL) and they do NOT intersect with each other. They do not even come close. The only way to use this setting would be to use 4 satellites and your satellites had better be perfectly aligned with each other. 5 satellites are a better "fit". If the DTS-M1 had a 90 degree sweep, it would work with 3. Am I missing something? also, i don't understand why it states "These two will not talk directly to each each other, but they do not need to." and yes, I understand what a geostationary orbit is and have a true geostationary orbit update, perhaps i do understand. The "back side" satellites do not have to be equally placed (say each satellite @ 120 degrees). That makes sense

I dint want to extend in that, but the inventor claims that he was found how the brain makes possible to locate songs using a sound of reference generated by the ears (that some times is audible)that use it to create interference with the outcomming sound, so its device generate this sound reference with some integrated circuit to help the 2 mipcrophones located in a binaural artificial head to record the sound in the same way that we listen. If you hear some holophonic recorders with headphones you will find that the sound is amazing, he work with all biggest musicians, NASA and even the military department was interested in make some kind of helmet for troops. After all those big oportunities he never get nothing concrete. He said that everyone want to steal their discovers, some conspiracies of Sony to protect their dolby stereo patent, etc. He never want to show others how his device real works. But in his patent it does not mention nothing about an interference circuit. It was just a binaural head more realistic that the average. Here is some old interview to him. Hey, we are discussing, not fighting, so if you had some important thing to add or you can answer my questions be my guess, you are welcome into the discussion. But nobody needs a bodyguard here.I am just being skeptic. If we wanna talk about science we need a bit of that. Is the only way to discriminate information. If you dont, you are just another medium repeater. And I dint make ANY CLAIM! that is my posture. I am not make a claim until I am 99,999% sure about the things that I am saying. When I talk about things that I think, I use the word OPINION. So stop misrepresenting my comments. In this case, the guy of "claims" it will be K2. Why I need to explain that? My postute always was "there is no consensus yet", nobody prove it, there are just theories. And I never said that reducing to formulas is not enoght.. PLEASE STOP SAID THINGS THAT I NEVER SAID.But the formules that we have only make predictions about some stuff, not about what we really need to know if is possible or not. YET. ??? Yeah, it doesn´t. Like I said, if you want you can add some usefull words or explanations to this discussion, in other case, just let us to keep this discussion in peace. PD: Edit: I will answer you later K2.

1. Is on the WNTS. Please read that. It's kind of important. 2. Is, at least to some extent, already kind of in the game, I think. Problem is, the ocean is a sphere -- you can't divide it into square grids. Doesn't work. But yeah, something of this kind already exists, AFAIK. You'd have to talk to a dev to be sure. 3. Smoke trails like that... well, how does it react to the camera being rotated? Is it animated? How will it possibly cope when you have a hundred engines running? Will there be issues with how a whole lot of them overlay on each other if they're translucent? How does it react to sudden engine shutoff -- would the entire trail simultaneously disappear? The present implementation is not the best, no, but I think it works a lot better than a static or even animated image.

Skylab? Sounds like a good idea. Talk with Danny_TX and Frizzank to coordinate docking collars, and then we're talking. ;D

But you dint answer my question, when you have such amount of energy confined in a smal space, you end with matter due to pair production effect. So this will be negative matter? Call it like you want, the same happens with harold white´s work, some places is mentioned q-thruster, others warp drive. Really? you need to mention the basics principles of Alcubierre Drive? This is mock? I guess I was clear enoght. It does not matter what effect produce.. You change your state many times, to make those changes you need to put some energy into the system. How it brakes? You said that is free falling, but you need to stop the free falling. How you do that? Then you need to point to another direction and move again.. Another change of state. How do you move the "matter and negative energy" to produce one effect or the other? Is not that a change of state? It does not need energy imput?? If that is not a PM machine.. Then I could not find any other example of a PMM. In that case, I am the "less wrong", becourse you believe that you understand more. Is not outdated. So you can talk for hours? Explain quamtum entaglement effect, not just the formule that preddicts that. Explain why it happens. Why to know the state of an entaglement particle said something about the other? Becouse is the same particle? becouse they are connected? I look in internet for those problems for years, nobody knows the answer. They just know that happens and it needs to be accepted. (is a propertie of the quamtum world. But all scientist said that they dont know why! To answer this, we need to really know how the universe really is. Its topology, all of it. We need a theory of everything, String Theory, if some day is prove it. In a lower frame we have Quamtum Gravity. So dont tell me that we understand QM. The same happen with gravity. What is their cause? what is their basic particle? The graviton? how it is? You know.. Quamtum effects start to be notorious for a group of molecules. "The equations of Yang–Mills remain unsolved at energy scales relevant for describing atomic nuclei." That is a lot bigger than plank lenght. First, not me, or you, or nobody can said nothing about the universe topology, Because we dont know! There are just theories, hundreds of them. My theory, is that the limit of the universe is the light speed. If you press attention, all round about that. Is the key of all answers. Quamtum gravity already made some calculations about how it will look a black hole from that theory points of view. There is not singularity. if you start to think, all the things close to the event horizon are freeze in time from an external observer. After that point, in a way.. you can said that the time is reversed. Or not reversed, forwards in other plane. From the things inside the black hole, The begining may look like the singularity (big bang) making the whole time and space. And what can produce all that? The speed of light with its cosmic censorship mechanic. Is this the true or just another farie story? The answer is, "we still dont know." I have all that perfecty in mind. the amount of money that NASA gave to White was very small. White is a very weird scietist becouse he never show his data or reasearch to other people. He said that is "classified", he make some talks once in a whilea, last one was in the starship symposium 2013. Like always, he explain the same thing that every knows about warp drives, and then explain that he is trying to test that. And that is it! When they asked specific questions about his experiment, or his theory.. He said that he cant not give more details becouse is classified. You know how weird is that behevior inside a scientific comunity? What is Nasa winning with all this? Publicity. The Nasa name is mentioned in plenty of notes with this topic, so when they ask money to goverment, they had a little more support from the scyfi comunity who represent some voters. Some years ago, I was very interested in new kind of 3d sounds. I did a really big reaseach (I read almost 600 pages of that), also I meet her niece. Some time after I exchange some emails with him. Then I found their patent in europe of his invention, and it was very different from what he claims. In fact he just improve an old method. I found many like him over the years, the same behavior arise, hide some things and talk about the same thing. Etc. That is the conference when I read that many made some particular question about its method, and he dint want to said. If you are trying to test something, or werever, you want that as many people like you can repeat that process to see if their reach the same results. Nobody will remove your credits like inventor. But this is not happening here. The other paper that you send about geodesics, explain the warp drive from the time reference, also calculates some other things, but it does nothing to do with quamtum mechanics or other stuff. I also read a note in century dreams, that describe how a Warp Drive ship will look from one external observer on the docks. First you will see the ship just appear from nothing, then you would see the ship arrive and going in reverse. Then again it disappears, an you see the ship go, also in reverse. I dont know if the universe will be ok with all that.

Banned for computer talk in a nonsense thread.

PURPOSE: This tutorial is aimed at those who want to build a basic airplane/space plane, but find themselves overwhelmed when looking at some of the pretty amazing space planes other people have built. I don’t want to show you how to assemble a specific airplane or space plane that I thought up (though we will use an example). I want to show you how to design your own plane that flies how you want, so you can experiment and learn. (Don’t feel overwhelmed now, but the airplane we build/experiment on in this tutorial can be modified to fly in a 200km orbit and return to Kerbal Space Center.) BACKGROUND (basics of aeronautics): I was going to write an information topic about basic aeronautics because the ones I read were very simplistic. What I mean by that was there was little depth beyond “put your center of gravity in front of your center of lift.†This IS an incredibly important tip. However, I kept seeing comments from people unable to design or fly their own aircraft for various reasons. Fortunately, before I started writing I found this article "Basic Aircraft Design", written by Keptin, and I think it is a very good starter. I tip my hat to the author for spending time making the illustrations and breaking the terms down. Do not feel like you have to fully grasp the concepts, as the point of this tutorial is to actually SEE how the different factors affect flying in stock Kerbal. Keptin’s article covers these topics, in this order: Center of Mass (Is mentioned, but not described as he assumes you already know what this is.) Center of Lift (and its relationship to Center of Mass) Center of Thrust (and its relationship to Center of Mass) Control Surfaces (Ailerons, Rudders, Canards/Elevators, Elevons) Wing Shape (High, Moderate, Low Aspect Ratios) and Wing Sweep Wing Placement (High, Mid, Low Wing, Dihedral, Anhedral) Angle of Attack Landing Gear (and effects on takeoff/landing angle of attack), landing gear width, overweight I recommend you read Keptin’s article and have a very basic understanding of the above terms. You can either read his whole article and come back here, or read his article and mine at the same time. I decided to try and mirror my tutorial with his (with a few exceptions since we have to design). Also, I will not cover all of Keptin’s topics in this first tutorial. Some of the topics are pretty big, but if people want more, I will write another. Plus I found this tutorial became pretty long as it is (about 10 Microsoft Word pages without pictures). So if you want to shorten your reading in Keptin’s article, see my topics below. TOPICS: For easy reference, here’s what you’ll find below: Section 1: Creating a Test Aircraft Section 2: Landing Gear Placement Basics Section 3: Horizontal Center of Lift Design Section 4: Horizontal Center of Mass Design During Flight Section 5: Vertical Center of Lift Design – aka Wing Placement (High, Dihedral, Low, Anhedral) Again, I believe this information will all be fairly basic and meant to be hands on. So if you’re looking for advanced tips this may not be the tutorial for you. LET’S GET STARTED: Section 1: Creating a test aircraft. So you read in Keptin’s article (or already know) about the center of gravity, lift, and thrust. So now it is time to put these three together into an aircraft that is reasonably stable so we can test out different designs. I’m going to assume you know the basics of the Kerbal interface and how to find the parts, although if you haven’t rotated and flipped parts in the Space Plane Hangar, I have included those keys. Let’s build our airplane: (see the picture below for help) 1) Go to the Space Plane Hangar and start a new ship. (Select “New†if you have any parts or previous ships up in the hangar to clear it out. You might also want to start a new save game if you are squeamish about killing your kerbals, as you will probably crash a few times.) 2) Select the Mk1 cockpit, add two Mk1 fuselage sections and one TurboJet engine. 3) Turn on angle snap. 4) Place one tail fin on the top of the rear fuselage, as far back as you can get it. 5) Landing gear: Place one “small gear bay†on the underside of the nose so that the back edge of the gear lines up with the seam between the Mk-1 and the forward fuselage section. 6) Place the rear gear (with symmetry on) on the underside of the rear fuselage section. Line it up so that the back edge of the gear bay lines up with the seam between the rear fuselage and the turbojet engine. Place the rear gear slightly up the sides of the fuselage. Make sure angle snap is on and you will have to rotate the gear 45 degrees [shift-Q, nine times]. Ensure the gear points straight down. 7) Turn on the Center of Gravity (yellow & black bubble) and the Center of Lift (blue & black bubble) indicators. 8) Select the Delta wing, turn on symmetry, and mount the wings in the middle of the fuselage side. Align the center of lift (blue & black) bubble just behind the center of gravity (yellow & black) bubble. You can use the little “spikes†that stick out of the side of the blue lift bubble to help with alignment. 9) Attach a “Standard Control Surface†to the back edge of the wing, with symmetry on. 10) Add “XM-G50 Radial Air Intakesâ€Â, with symmetry on, and align the intake’s connecting point with the flame symbol near the back end of the airplane fuselage (left side). 11) Give it a name and save if you want to. Overall it should look like this… Go Fly – But wait! Before you actually go fly I want to describe what we will do. We will use the same basic profile for takeoff and flying the plane. That way the changes we make during the tutorial will be a bit more obvious, and the results repeatable. Read through this next part before you do your first takeoff. Here’s our procedure… 1) Rotate the camera around to a comfortable viewing angle. Personally, I like a view that allows me to see the control surfaces and landing gear. 2) Ignite the engines [space Bar], run the throttle up [shift] to full power, then activate the SAS [T]. 3) At 120 m/s, pull the nose into the air (or pull back on your joystick) to get the nose a few degrees up. Holding 5 to 10 degrees nose high is fine. 4) After the aircraft climbs away from the runway, retract the landing gear [G]. 5) Continue to accelerate till you reach around 160 m/s. Pull the nose into the air again [s, or Joystick] and try to get it straight up. Work hard to get the dot in the ‘V’ right on the straight vertical dot. 6) When you reach around 2000 m, push forward [W] till you get the nose back to the horizon. 7) Turn off the SAS [T] and see what happens. This is where our generic procedure will end. Feel free to play with and fly the airplane around more after this point. However, this flight profile will serve as a baseline for my comments on aircraft reactions you’re looking for (listed as “Test Reportâ€Â) in each tutorial section. It’s up to you if you want to fly before reading the Test Report, or read the Test Report and then go experience it. Now, actually GO FLY! – Test Report: What you’ll notice during the flight is the aircraft won’t actually lift off the ground at 120 m/s and will run off the end of the runway if you let it. We will discuss why that is in the next section (if you haven’t figured it out already). Go ahead and run off the end of the runway and make sure you’re still pulling back. The aircraft will fly away easily and is controllable all the way up. The nose sort of bounces a little during the pull, but it’s not too hard to pull the nose up and push it back down. SAS off, it flies about the same except it doesn’t snap to a stop during rolls and pulls. Depending on your exact placement, it might want to pitch slowly forward. This will be our starter aircraft for Section 2. Section 2: Landing Gear Placement Basics Landing gear placement is one of the basic considerations for your takeoff roll. I’m not going to delve into all the types of landing gear or problems in this tutorial (maybe on another tutorial) because I want to focus on small aircraft aero basics. However, this basic tricycle gear can cause problems leading to wasted aerodynamic tweaks that can mess up airborne performance. For example, one way to fix the takeoff of our basic airplane is to put on canards, or we could tip the wings up. However, we can adjust the landing gear first without increasing part count (and weight and drag) and without changing the airborne aircraft characteristics… Let’s rotate the landing gear around. 1) Select the rear landing gear (make sure symmetry is on) and reset the rotations you did earlier (Press [space]). 2) Rotate the gear so the wheels are on the front of the gear bay instead of in back (Press [D, 2 times]). 3) Now, rotate the gear 45 degrees down like earlier [shift + Q, 9 times] and attach to the rear fuselage with the back end of the landing gear again lined up with the seam between the TurboJet engine and the rear fuselage. This leaves the center of gravity unchanged, but moves the wheels very far forward. Go Fly! Test Report: Oh no! What happened? The aircraft tips back on its tail because the wheels are so far forward. That's okay, go ahead and activate the engine and take off anyway to watch what happens. Wait to activate the SAS until after the nose wheel is back on the ground. At 120 m/s, rotate the nose off the ground. You'll find it takes very little to get the nose up, and the aircraft is very stable after that. The rest of the profile looks like it did before. So we fixed the rotation problem (sort of) without changing flight performance or part count. Obviously starting out with an airplane tipped up and the engine on the ground isn't ideal. So let’s refine this a little. 1) Go back to the hangar and select the gear, undo rotations, and rotate it back down 45 degrees (remember: symmetry on, [space] to reset, [shift + Q] to rotate). Except this time when you align the gear on the rear fuselage, place it so that about 1/3 of the gear bay is in front of the Center of Gravity. 2) Adjust the wings so the center of the Center of Lift bubble is aligned with the back end of the Center of Gravity bubble. (The bubble will move some, it's okay.) Go Fly! Test Report: The aircraft takes a little more to pull it off the ground than when the wheels were flipped around, but it also doesn't sit on the engine. The rest of the flight profile is unaffected. Go ahead and play with gear placement more if you want. Also note that even though the landing gear moves the Center of Mass bubble in the SPH, it doesn't actually change the flight characteristics. Despite having weight and drag in the SPH, the landing gear currently have no effect on in flight mechanics (KSP v0.23). This isn't too big of a deal with most aircraft, but if you're working on touchy stability with strange airplanes, it might be important. Because of this, you may want to consider adding the landing gear last during construction so that it doesn't throw off the Center of Mass bubble when placing the Center of Lift. I will possibly cover more landing gear in another tutorial if people want it. Personally I'm a fan of having the gear all swing forward when they retract, but you can place them in either direction. We'll use this most recent configuration as our baseline airplane for the next sections. You might want to save a copy to save you time later after making modifications. (By the way, this configuration is capable of flying up to about 64km if you let it keep going straight up.) Section 3: Horizontal Center of Lift Design Okay, so when talking about Center of Lift, what's actually important in basic design is the relationship between the location of the Center of Lift, and the location of the Center of Mass (at least for now...). So what we're going to do move the Center of Lift around a bit in relation to the Center of Mass (horizontally) and see how the airplane flies. We will discuss vertical changes in Center of Lift in a later section. 3.1 Center of Lift Aft of Center of Mass (Positive Stability, or Stable) This is how we've been flying the plane around up to this point, with the blue lift bubble behind the yellow mass bubble. Now we're going to move it much further back and see how it handles. Modifications: 1) Grab the wings and slide them aft just so there is a slight gap between the blue lift bubble and the yellow mass bubble. (Blue bubble closer to the engine than the yellow.) Now go fly! Test Report: The airplane is a little harder to takeoff than it was before and the nose is slower to get up and down. It still flies pretty smooth though, and I find it a little easier to fine tune the straight up part. If you paid attention to the altitudes during pull up and pull down, you’ll see it takes more room to turn. This is kind of important to note: SAS off, the airplane wants to pitch down slowly. If you design your airplane with the Center of Lift too far back, the SAS might not be able to compensate and the aircraft will slowly pitch over. 3.2 Center of Lift with the Center of Mass (Neutral Stability) Modifications: 1) Grab the wings and slide them forward so the blue lift line is coming out of the top center of the yellow mass bubble. Go Fly! Test Report: The airplane lifts off the ground really easily. The nose is quick to get toward straight up and is still a little "bouncy." If you manage to get really aggressive with the pull up (or your Center of Lift is a little too far forward), the airplane might go out of control a bit. SAS off, the plane might want to pitch up or down a bit depending on your exact Center of Lift placement. Advantages here are that the plane is a lot more responsive. However, it sits on the edge of being out of control. Bear in mind that the Center of Mass will shift during flight (aft for this airplane), so if you start out neutrally stable on takeoff, you may end up unstable during flight. 3.3 Center of Lift forward of the Center of Mass (Negative Stability, or Unstable) Unstable during flight you say?! Let’s try that out too. Modifications: 1) Grab your wings and slide that lift bubble forward so that there is a slight gap between the blue lift bubble and the yellow mass bubble. (With the blue ball closer to the cockpit!) Go Fly! (Or try to anyway.) Test Report: How was that liftoff? This thing is flyable if you know how, but you can see how much work it is and how easy it goes out of control. Usually you don't want an airplane like this for (hopefully) obvious reasons. It's actually kind of fun to watch it fly around. The SAS actually does a lot of work here trying to make the airplane stable. If you manage to not crash for a while, turn the SAS off and see how it goes. If you want to play around with a negatively stable airplane, adjust the Center of Lift so that it is only slightly forward of the Center of Mass (blue bubble inside the yellow bubble, but forward of center). You can slide that around a bit and see that an airplane with a forward Center of Lift is flyable but takes some work. It's sometimes easier to get the airplane under control without the SAS, then turn it back on when you're nearly flying right again. This might give you some confidence if you find yourself in a bad situation and you can rely on some piloting skill to save it without abandoning or reverting right away. 3.4 Revert the airplane to the baseline from the start of this section. This means putting the center of the Center of Lift bubble at the back edge of the Center of Mass bubble. Section 4: Center of Mass Design During Flight Okay, so now that we know a bit about the relationship between the Center of Lift and Center of Mass, how can we affect this during flight? Well, for our basic airplane, the Center of Lift isn't going to move around but the Center of Mass will because of fuel burn (and maybe because you leave or pickup a payload in orbit). For now, we'll just talk about planning a Center of Mass change due to burning fuel. 4.1 Center of Mass due to Fuel Burn for our basic airplane (horizontal Center of Mass) As we saw in Section 3, the airplane is most unstable when the Center of Mass is at the most aft position. So in this section we will adjust fuels to simulate the change in Center of Mass during flight. In this way we can find out if our aircraft will end up neutrally stable (Section 3.2) or unstable (Section 3.3). Then we can design the airplane to have the desired stability and maneuverability at all times in flight. In our basic airplane, normal Kerbal fuel feeding will use fuel from front to back. Let's see if we can figure out when the Center of Mass will be furthest aft. Modifications: 1) Right click on the front fuselage tank and run it completely empty by clicking and dragging the green bar down to zero. Watch how the Center of Mass yellow bubble moves aft, toward the engine. It will also move slightly down, but let’s not worry about that for now. 2) Now right click on the rear fuselage tank and run it completely empty. Watch the yellow bubble. It should move forward (and slightly down). So the Center of Mass is furthest aft when the forward fuselage tank is empty, and the rear one is full. 3) Refill the rear fuselage tank and make sure the forward fuselage tank is empty. Notice how the center of the blue bubble is still behind the center of the yellow bubble (although it is now inside the yellow bubble). Go Fly! Note: If your plane tips back on the tail, see if you can think how to fix it. (Hint: Think about Section 2: Landing Gear. This is part of the iterative process of designing.) Test Report: The plane is fairly maneuverable but still controllable at the most aft fuel condition. Not much else to say here other than, if your plane tips back on the engine and you didn’t figure it out, you’ll need to move the landing gear slightly back. (With the fuel cut in half, this configuration is capable of flying up to about 85km if you let it keep going straight up. Recall when fully loaded it was about 64km, a 33% increase.) NOTE: Make sure you refill the forward fuselage tank when you’re done!! Section 5: Vertical Center of Lift Design – aka Wing Placement (High, Dihedral, Low, Anhedral) Vertically moving the Center of Lift can be caused by two basic design choices. If you recall Keptin’s discussion of vertical wing placement (high, mid, or low) and wing up/down angle (also known as dihedral and anhedral), these affect an aircraft’s stability similar to having a forward/aft Center of Lift. In the case of our basic airplane, we have been flying with the delta wing mounted mid fuselage, so the Center of Lift has been (nearly) at the same vertical height as the Center of Mass. Moving the Center of Lift above Center of Mass (High Wing and Dihedral) tends to stabilize an aircraft. Moving the Center of Lift below Center of Mass (Low Wing and Anhedral) tends to destabilize an aircraft. Realize the concepts of wing placement and dihedral/anhedral are two different concepts, and we will explore both. 5.1 High Wing – Center of Lift Above the Center of Mass (Positive Stability) High wings tend to stabilize an airplane. Modifications: 1) Grab the wings (symmetry and angle snap on) and place the wing root 30 degrees above the fuselage center line and angle the wings so they are back to level [shift-Q, 6 times]. (30 degrees above fuselage center is two steps up with angle snap on. Hopefully you know what I mean. The wings should be level after you rotated with [shift-Q] six times.) 2) Place the Center of Lift blue bubble above the Center of Mass yellow bubble. No doubt, it’s definitely above! Go fly this one. Test Report: Very maneuverable in the pull up to vertical, and still fairly maneuverable and bounces a little. Great but what’s the downside? When you push forward, the airplane will likely go out of control if you push too hard/far. However, with a high Center of Lift (over the Center of Mass), the aircraft tends to “right†itself sort of like a curved leaf falling through the air. SAS off, it wants to pitch up (due to Center of Thrust issues.) 5.2 Dihedral Wing – Center of Lift Above the Center of Mass (Positive Stability) Just like high wings, dihedral tends to stabilize an aircraft. Modifications: 1) Grab the wings (symmetry and angle snap on) and reset rotations [space]. 2) Tip the wings up 10 degrees [shift + E, 2 times]. 3) Attach the wings mid fuselage so the blue lift vector goes up through the center of the Center of Mass yellow bubble. The blue lift bubble won’t be as high as last time. Go Fly! Test Report: You’ll see that it flies a lot like the high wing airplane. Fairly maneuverable to straight up with a little bit of bouncing. It suffers from the same instability as a high wing if you drive up to about 2000m and push forward hard [W]. And just like high wing, it pitches up with SAS off. 5.3 Low Wing – Center of Lift Below the Center of Mass (Negative Stability) Low wings tend to destabilize an airplane. Modifications: 1) Grab the wings (symmetry and angle snap on) and reset rotations [space]. 2) Place the wing root 30 degrees below the fuselage center line and angle the wings so they are back to level [shift + E, 6 times]. (Hopefully you know what this means now that you’ve suffered through high wing. Again, the wings should be level after you rotated with [shift + E] six times.) 3) Place the Center of Lift blue lift bubble below the center of the Center of Mass yellow bubble. Go fly it. It’s not too uncontrollable… Really! Test Report: Pulls up nice and quick to straight up, then suddenly spins around and goes crazy for a second. You can do some pretty crazy maneuvers with this and it sort of stabilizes with a little bit of pilot input. SAS off, it wants to pitch up. Although this time it’s due to instability, not Center of Thrust. 5.4 Anhedral Wing – Center of Lift Below the Center of Mass (Negative Stability) Just like low wings, dihedral tends to destabilize an aircraft. Modifications: 1) Grab the wings (symmetry and angle snap on) and reset rotations [space]. 2) Tip the wings down 10 degrees [shift + Q, 2 times]. 3) Attach the wings mid fuselage. Again, make the lift vector go up through the center of the Center of Mass yellow bubble. Notice how the center of the blue bubble is nearly centered in the yellow bubble. So it’s not actually below the Center of Mass (unstable), but it’s about as neutral as you can make it. ([shift+Q] 1 more time and you can make it neutral if you want.) Go fly. I bet you can guess how it will react, based on our dihedral experiment. Test Report: Flies a lot like the low wing aircraft, but maybe not quite as quick to go out of control and a little easier to recover. SAS off, it will want to pitch away from your prograde marker. Like the low wing, this is due to instability. 5.5 Vertical Lift Placement Summary Personally, to me anhedral looks awesome on an airplane. Strangely, I don’t really like it on a space plane (maybe because it isn’t the classic shape). If you place the wing slightly high, you can give them anhedral and it will still be reasonably stable (looks like a Harrier). If you place the wings low and give them dihedral, it looks more like a space plane (to me anyway). Try this and see how it flies: Move the wings down from the midpoint one angle snap (15 degrees) and give them dihedral [shift + E, 4 times]. Align the back edge of the blue lift bubble at the back edge of the yellow mass bubble. SUMMARY: I hope you have fun with this basic plane. It isn’t much, but I think it’s effective for playing and learning. Placement of the Center of Lift with respect to the Center of Mass is a big design crux of your airplane. Generally speaking, you DO want the Center of Lift behind your Center of Mass. However, you need not be afraid of having it neutral if you know what you want. Hopefully I’ve given you a bit of hands on knowledge and courage to try out different designs. Don’t forget to consider fuel burn in your design. The design choice of high/low/mid wing and dihedral/anhedral/neutral wings is really up to you. Just like the Center of Lift/Mass, it depends on how you want your airplane to fly and what you want it to do. You can also combine these in various options to get the look you want, but with stability. If you have a hard time flying a plane, you’ll probably want it more stable. If you find flying airplanes easy, then you can opt for a more maneuverable design. Realize the aircraft reacts differently as you get fast and higher up in altitude. And for space planes, you’ll need good controllability and stability as you leave/reenter the atmosphere. If you guys want, I can continue the tutorial to explain how design and test this thing to get into orbit with only two more parts.

Licking Wounds Loddon eased his jets and lifted free of the Base. Here it looked good. No damage visible, no burns or anything showing. But above... He looked up and saw a bulge on the side of the tri-coupler mount and frowned. This was not going to be good. "I'm ascending up to check the coupler." He said into his mike. "Roger EVA One." Bob answered. "Be careful, we're still getting sporadic spikes on the power line. Something must still be wrong out there." "I will." Up he went and looked down on the connector. It wasn't pretty. Two of the docking ports had been jammed down, their magnetic grapples visibly distorted around the rim as the whole port's edge was crumpled. "Looks like when they decoupled only one worked. The others were effectively immediately crushed by not only the full weight of the Skycrane but also probably the actuation systems on the crane. Must have been a heck of a jolt! They've been driven into the assembly mount!" "So... no way to salvage the tri-coupler?" "No, sorry Bob, I think they're going to have to redesign the transport to land beside us. I was never keen about something that heavy docking on top of the base anyway. We do have one docking port left up here that looks intact, but I wouldn't want to trust it." The original aim was to have several small ships here, each able to land on top of the base. With three docking ports in a triangle on both base and lander the engineers thought that docking would be easy to align. The simulators showed it worked, though it took some skill to land right. Then the designers ran across the council and the lander designs got bigger and bigger as the needs went up. The current transport design was over five times the size of the original one and the base's docking port wasn't really rated for that load. Even before this incident there had been talk about just landing beside the base and hooking hoses up instead. Now that seemed the only option. "I really don't think there is any way to fix this Bob. At least not to get all three working again. And the one left is off center. We can't land anything heavy up here, it'd cause lateral stresses. Sorry." "That's OK EVA One. Right now we need to figure out what happened. I want to know how the power spikes got past the surge protectors. We should have been safe." "Yeah, I'd like to know that too. Look, I'm going to check out the skycrane. What's the situation with that?" "Well, saving the whole thing? Probably not an option as it was never designed for long term use, but you should check out the escape ship. The skycrane's systems were incompatible with the base, but the escape ship's computer might be useful as a backup here. Be tricky as the thing doesn't have a docking port. We'd have to rip it out of the ship and cart it over by hand, then re-install it. Not a simple task in a space suit." "True. I'll check it out." Loddan adjusted his RCS and flitted out across the grey plains towards the landed Skycrane. *** The Command pod was rather packed. Only Loddon wasn't present as he was still outside. "I know Gene," Bob said into the mike, "The crew just got back from the check of the ship. Gernand and Caldin offered to carry on the check up in a few minutes. We want to be sure." "And you have no idea what caused the problem?" Gene's voice came over the speakers. "Well, the computer has some kind of issue, and the power fluctuations were what killed it, probably by exacerbating an existing problem. It seems that whatever it was spiked the system so bad it got the backups. I'm not sure how that happened. As to the power spike itself? It's a bit of a guess but we're pretty sure it was some kind of feedback from the actuators on the docking mechanism. From Loddan's suit-cam pics it looks like the hydraulics went nuts when we tried to undock, and when they let loose it caused the actuators to behave like generators. It was so sharp a jolt it overloaded the surge protectors in the docking assembly." "The entire assembly's fried?" Gene asked. "Two out of three ports, and some of the auxiliary systems too. Those we think we can fix, so the remaining port should be functional, but it's off center so won't take much weight without straining the system." "Hmm..." Gene pondered. "How about we send up a replacement computer on a probe core, then land it on the remaining docking port? That should give you operational status again at least. It would be a bit of a jury rig, and be rather exposed to radiation damage and micro-meteorite impacts, but it would work." Bob glanced at the display and raised an eyebrow. "Wait a minute Gene, Loddan's calling. This might be news about the skycrane." He flicked the switch and let Loddan in on the conversation. "Loddan, what'ya have for us?" "Not good news I'm afraid. The skycrane is OK, pretty much untouched, but I'm afraid the nav comp in the escape ship is toast. Must have been fried by the same power spike as our computer. Manual systems work, but trying to use this, even just as an escape ship, would not be easy. I'd suggest we get rid of it just to be sure. If the system is badly fried it's faintly possible something could go nuts if we leave it sitting out here." "OK, but if the computers gone how do we get rid of it?" "Heh, that's easy. I launch it then bail. On low thrust I should be able to RCS out of there and let it just cruise on out, run out of fuel and lithobraking will dispose of the debris for us." A raucous laugh from Dansey caught Bob's attention and he glared at him. For once Dansey's face fell and he looked sheepish. Miracles never cease! "And if it goes nuts on you while you're inside trying to launch it?" "Bob, I'm already inside it to check it out. I'd like to dump it now, just to be sure. I don't like the idea of a damaged vessel sitting here so close to the base. Let me dump it, please?" "Well, we were intending to get rid of it, but I think the plan was to launch it into orbit to be used as a personnel shuttle or something. *sigh* OK, OK Loddan, go for it. Just be real careful, please?" "Oh, only 'cos you asked nicely Bob." A light chuckle from Caldin bought a smile to Bob's lips. "So, you'll need the probe then?" Gene added, once Loddan was finished. "Yes, looks that way Flight. Thanks. Let me know when it's ready." "Will do Alpha One." Everyone relaxed visibly once A solution was found, even if it was a ways off happening yet. "Um, Sir?" Caldin said quietly. "Maybe me and Gernand had better get on the safety sweep? The earlier the better, right?" "Yeah, sure Caldin. Let me know what you find." Caldin grinned and bounced out of the room, Gernand following on behind a little more slowly, shaking his head. His grin said he seemed to like Caldin's attitude at least.

Changing subject, As i know see the original poster who posted my arguments we're invalid has edited his post to change his "subject". Overall DLC's Are a bad idea. We've been flaming over this little post, How about we just stop flaming and try to talk about why DLC's are bad or good for KSP. We don't want to have communities insulted for little things, Such as spelling or grammar.

Let me dig up a (very) old photo... Dang it, can't find it. Must be from 0.18 or thereabouts. Anyhow, my most what? moment in KSP: here I was, just launched my first probe into solar escape trajectory. Either probes were kinda new, or ion engines, and I wanted to see how fast I could get one going. Got the most out of Oberth effect on chemical engines and all that. It gets into kerbol's SoI and... BAM! tuns out the game decides it's going retrograde instead of prograde. A mess of an orbit with high eccentricity at that. Thanks, Kraken! Thankfully Jool was close by, and I managed to squeeze an intercept out of ions. It put the probe on kerbol polar escape trajectory just with the gravity assist. Talk about inefficient trajectories... retrograde encounter with a gas giant and a polar trajectory just to get escape from the solar system! It's got to be in one of my old save files still flying towards that rendezvous, but I don't wanna fire up the old versions, so I guess you will have to take my word for it, but it was one of those moments in KSP that stuck with me. Rune. It was a hilarious bug, that's for sure.

Chapter 11.5: Reunion of foes Over a month later... See/Sig: Wow.... B9k: I know. It looks so beautiful... B9k: Guys- I need to activate the comm array to contact mission control. We may be having a situation here... See: I don't- B9k: Check the gravioli scanner. Sig: ... That is a blinking dot. B9k: Yes, yes it is. MC: Hey guys! How is Duna? See: It's gorgeous! B9k: MC, I am sending you gravioli scanner data now. We have a bogey, decelerating relative to us, directly aft. MC: Get eyes on target DuneDancer. Sig: I can barely see it! See: It's really dark. B9k: It has next-to-no heat signature, and active scanning on bands other than gravioli shows nothing. It seems to have near-perfect insulation... MC: Well then, approach and- Jeb: NO! DO NOT APPROACH! DO NOTHING! Shutdown exterior lights, and deactivate all non-essential systems. See: Jeb? B9k: Why? Jeb: You know why B9k. Just... Observe it. B9k: Complying.... MC: Jeb, we need to talk. You are behaving more and more irrationally. Jeb: Myself, Bill, and Bob have reason to belive this object may be- See: It's moving! Jeb: -hostile... Sig: It's glowing.... See: This can't be good. *THWUMP* B9k: Spacial ripple! SBBBBBBWBAiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiqqqqqqqqqqqqqqq...... Ok, I'm fine. See: Sig, check all systems- Sig: B9k, could you run a system diagnostic? B9k: Primary computing systems offline. All exterior sensors other than the gravioli scanner is offline. Gravioli communication systems are working- 3/4 of the detectors are damaged and non-functional. See: Can it get any worse? B9k: Yes. RTG's are venting gas. Nuclear engine containment is damaged- I doubt the engine will work properly anymore. RCS control systems are malfunctioning, and there is worse news. See: HOW CAN THIS *BLAM* Sig: Oww.... Good thing he has a glass jaw. Right, B9k, life-support is fine, right? Centrifuge is still spun up? B9k: Yes. Sig: Alright. What's the worse news? B9k: The object is on a re-entry path down to near where the rover is. Sig: That's great! Can we set up an uplink with the rover? B9k: Already Patching it through. Give me a minute. MC: ***** Is **ery on** allr**t? B9k: We are still here. No injuries, but we are dead in the water until the damage to the nuclear engine has been checked. See: WhAt happened?... Sig: You were beginning to panic and jinx us all. See: Ah. B9k: Pictures are coming in now. Sig: Isn't there supposed to be something? B9k: Overlaying infrared visuals now. Sig: Turn us toward the estimated landing location. B9k: I am in communication with the AI in the probe. AR: Hey up there! Something came down hard here- I want to go look at it. Can I? Sig: ... See: ... MC: Go ahead AR. AR: YAY! AR: I will send you the gravioli sensor readings- it is very pretty. B9k: The gravioli readings are so high that this vehicle is probably powered by a gravioli acceleration engine. See: Why don't we have one of these? Jeb: I have been working on it for a month- the distortions the engines causes are hard to control. Every engine needs to be tuned to ship, and that is a very touchy job. AR: I am getting closer! I am tuning out weaker gravioli signals. AR: I see it! AR: Is that it? AR: That's it! What is that? See: It's a flying saucer. Sig: I don't think this is a good thing... AR: IT BURNS!!!! SWARM: WE KNOW THIS TECHNOLOGY. WE RECOGNIZE THIS GRAVIOLI TRANSMISSION TECHNOLOGY. CAN YOU HEAR US? MC: Yes, we can hear you. We hope to- SWARM: QUIET. MC: Excuse me? SWARM: BE QUIET. WE ARE SEARCHING FOR AN AUTONOMOUS VESSEL, CAPABLE OF 1/3RD LIGHTSPEED, KNOWN AS NOSTALGIA FOR INFINITY. MC: We know of no such vessel. However, we wish to open channels of communication and trade with you and your people, as well as - SWARM: WE NEED FOR NOTHING OF YOURS. WE WILL TAKE WHAT WE WANT, AND CONTINUE OUR SEARCH. STAY GROUNDED FLESHLINGS, OTHERWISE YOU WILL BE TARGETED. MC: We will not cave to your demands! SWARM: IT DOES NOT MATTER. GOODBYE. AR: HELp me...... B9k: Signal is degrading... See: Can you get the signal back? B9k: No. Sig: Guys? See: I am going to get suited up for an EVA- we need to get out of here ASAP. Sig: GUYS?!?! See: What? Sig: Our sats are going dark. See: That is a horrifying thing to say. Sig: Look- here is the map of out orbits 20 minutes ago. See: Close orbit and much farther orbit. Yes, and? Sig: Here is a map when the probe was taken out. ALL the sats went dark at the same time. See: Oh *****. *************** I hope everyone is enjoying the story! NfI is coming back, and so is the SWARM. I love reading your speculations! Next post will be on the weekend.

Hey sarge playing the BootStrap missions now to test, things seem pretty good on this end. You having issues because you don't have launch stabilizers yet? I made my own for now. Anyway I never new how well written the BootStrap missions were. Nice. Going to play through them to check them out. I might have to talk to the Author and see if he minds me packaging the missions with MCE.

The drag should be way, way lower, n'est-ce pas? Assuming all other things being equal it should get to escape velocity sooner. Guess I should test both. Gonna try out this vegetable theory, see how it goes. What's all this talk about need to throttle down? Why would I throttle down? If the asparagus is dropping engines, technically it is the one throttling down, hehe. I keep my 8 engines till the end. Well, almost. In the second to last stage I drop three Rockomax 48-7S helper engines. I just got a 24.33t ship going 2994 m/s. Now I haven't tried the accepted asparagus way yet, but this seems like a pretty good result.

Not really. The idealised tables and empirical equations that define wind chill temperature make assumptions about the surface temperature of the body that is being cooled. This is why they talk about the effect of wind chill on exposed skin. The convective heat loss of someone standing naked is obviously different than that of someone wearing a heavy parka because the difference in temperature between the air and the surface of the person is smaller when wearing a parka than it is for someone standing naked. The heat transfer rate isn't a linear relationship either because the convective heat transfer coefficient is also dependent on the air temperature in the boundary layer. You can get away with having an exposed face at -40°C if there's no wind, but it will be darn uncomfortable or even dangerous to have an exposed face at -30°C and exposed to 20 kph winds (roughly -40°C wind chill temperature). This is why it makes more sense to use a wind chill index than a wind chill temperature. It is less likely to be misinterpreted as having any physical meaning or to be used as an excuse to exaggerate. You're in Portland, but I wonder if that is also true in places like North Dakota or Minnesota? It would be important to know how severe the conditions are before venturing out, so I am surprised that the National Weather Service doesn't include any sort of wind chill factor in its weather reports in places where it matters?

Wow. Talk about neat. I love the new pad hardware. RoboRay: He wouldn't have trouble too if he was diving straight down. I'd rather say, his entry angles are too shallow.