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Patupi - this one's for you... Beyond Kerbin A single shaft of sunlight peeped through a gap in the shutters, illuminating the chin of a kerbal sprawled out fast asleep on his bed. As Kerbol rose into the clear morning sky, the shaft crept upwards until it brushed silently over one large green eyelid, suffusing it with a soft green glow and revealing a faint tracery of blood vessels beneath the skin. The eyelid twitched and then suddenly it snapped open. Jeb blinked and sat bolt upright, automatically checking the time on his alarm clock. His eyes widened and he jumped out of bed, frantically scrabbling around for his clothes. Half past ten! Everyone would have been waiting in the yard for hours! Then, as he reached for his shirt, it occurred to him that it was oddly quiet outside. No mutter of voices, no banging on the warehouse door. Nothing at all in fact, to suggest that a crowd of impatient kerbals was milling around outside. Then it all came back. The failed Mün flight, the beach party... and Genie's parting words reminding everyone not to come into work until the afternoon. Jeb winced as he also remembered his last mug of beer and conversation with Ornie. Going to have to apologise for that, Jeb, he thought to himself, as he swung the shutters open, letting the crisp autumn sunlight flood into the room. Across the road could see the first dusting of frost on the ground. A brittle skim of ice sparkled on the puddles in the road, dazzling him with reflections. Jeb grinned as he took in a deep lungful of chilly air. Plenty of time for a long shower, a good hot breakfast and then maybe a quick stroll to clear the last of the beer fog from his wits before everyone else turned up for work. ----------- Jeb scraped the mud off his boots and sauntered across the warehouse towards the canteen, whistling the tune from the Ballad of the Kerbal 1 and chuckling as be remembered Bob's lyrics from the night before. There was a clattering of mugs and then the rattling of a stuck drawer, followed by a crash and a muttered oath as the drawer popped open, spilling its contents over the floor. Presently though, there was a cheerful burbling noise and the scent of fresh coffee filled the air. Jeb emerged from the canteen clutching a large steaming mug and made his way over to his office. Swiftly he sorted through the pile of rolled up strip charts covering his desk, setting the recordings from the LV-T20 to one side and unrolling the charts for the four LV905s. A quick look was enough to convince him that the 905s were not responsible for the loss of the Muna 1 but they had been running slightly hot before the explosion, which was a problem all by itself. Jeb sipped his coffee as he pored over the charts, rapidly becoming engrossed in the thin squiggles of ink from the telemetry recorders. The last of his coffee had long since gone cold when Jeb straightened up from the strip charts and pushed his notebook to one side. He dug his fists into the small of his back and stretched, grimacing as his spine popped in protest. He rolled his shoulders, mentally reviewing his analysis of the telemetry data and then nodded in satisfaction. He would need to talk things over with the propulsion team but he was reasonably confident that the overheating could be traced back to a problem with the pressurisation valve calibration. The overheating was obviously down to excess propellant flow into the engines and the excess was sufficiently similar for all four engines that a mechanical error seemed unlikely. Jeb made a note to get one of the spare 905s up onto the test stand after lunch and then glanced up at the clock. Perfect, he thought happily. Time to open up for the day and then grab a quick bite to eat before everyone else arrives. As Jeb walked over to the warehouse doors, he thought he could hear voices outside. He smiled to himself. Not even friendly threats from Genie could deter everyone from turning up to work early, he thought. The bolts on the side door were sticking slightly and squealed in protest as he worked them back and forth. Finally, he forced them back with a sudden metallic clack and swung the door open. Jeb's jaw dropped, as the entire Kerbin Interplanetary Society poured around him into the warehouse. “Thought this place was never going to open," somebody called out cheerfully. “Yeah," came the good-natured reply, “Some of us have got a rocket to build today!" “At least the boss has been up long enough to get the coffee on!" called out a third voice, as everyone hurried over to their benches. Jeb closed the door behind him and then fell into step beside Geneney and Ornie. Geneney sniffed the air appreciatively and then looked at Jeb apologetically. “Looks like you were right about taking some time out," he said. "It's been a while since I've seen the gang this eager to get to work." Ornie nodded. "Something we should do more often," he agreed, “and it wouldn't hurt to do a little more to celebrate our successful launches too." Jeb grinned at him. “The launch was perfectly successful," he said, “It was just the flying into space part that didn't go quite to plan. Speaking of which, I think I've figured out the overheating we saw with the 905s. I'd appreciate a second opinion on the numbers though, if you've got a minute?" “Sure," said Ornie, “Gene - could I have a word later? I need to see what our inventory is like for the 905 gimbals." “Whenever you're ready, Ornie, although I think we've got everything you need in stock for the rest of the 905s. I'll be over with the payload team when you need me." As Jeb walked back to his office with Ornie, he flicked a quick sideways glance at his friend. “I think I owe you an apology too, Ornie," he said quietly. Ornie's forehead crinkled. “What on Kerbin for, Jeb?" he asked. Jeb didn't reply for a moment. “For last night," he said eventually, “I have to confess that the details are a touch hazy but I definitely remember the conversation turning more than a little bitter towards the end." Ornie's face cleared. “Oh that," he said, “Don't worry about it, Jeb. Sounded like you'd needed to get that off your chest for quite a while." Jeb nodded gratefully. “I think I did, Ornie - thanks." He pushed open his office door. “Anyway - about those 905s. I'm thinking that we've got a little problem with our test stand is all..." The two kerbals bent their heads over the strip charts littered over Jeb's desk, Ornie tapping his fingers thoughtfully as Jeb flipped open his notebook and started pointing out various underlined numbers. Later that afternoon, Jeb finally made his way back to the canteen for a long overdue lunch. As he rummaged around in the fridge, he could hear the the propulsion team arguing over the LV-T20 telemetry. The canteen televsion was deliberately placed to be visible from behind the kitchen counter and Jeb was able to keep half an eye on the KBS news bulletin as he chopped up left over potatoes and meatcakes and tossed them into a pan. "Meatcake hash and ketchup!" he announced, taking a seat beside Bob. "The recommended lunch of rocket scientists everywhere." The rest of the table were too caught up in conversation to notice. “There's no way it was the bearings!" said Malmy. “No matter which way you look at the turbopump strips, there's just no sign of any wobble at all. I'm telling you - something fell into the fuel manifold and chewed up the blades." Wernher scowled. “Which doesn't explain why everything was working perfectly right up until the loss of vehicle. Besides - there's nothing to 'fall into the fuel manifold'. I suppose one of the slosh baffles might have fallen off but they're far too big to do any harm." Malmy shrugged, “Maybe it got caught on one of the baffles and didn't come loose until the booster pitched over past a certain point. I don't know. All I know is what I'm seeing from the flight recorders and they're just not consistent with impeller flutter." Ornie raised his hands in a placating gesture. “Easy, guys. Wernher - assume for the sake of argument that it was debris in the fuel line that broke the turbopump. What can we do about that? Can we fit a filter over the manifold inlet or something?" Wernher took a bite of his sandwich. “We already do put a filter there. I could redesign it but it's not as easy as you might think. A coarse filter is next to useless but I don't really want to fit anything too fine in case it causes too much of a pressure drop across the inlet. At best that gives us poorer performance...", he swallowed a mouthful of cheese, “and at worst it gives us turbulence and possibly cavitation." All four kerbals winced. “Good safety tip, Wernher," remarked Hando, “lets try not to do that if possible." Ornie nodded. “I'm not sure we have time to redesign the filters for the next launch anyway," he said reluctantly. "We'll need to take a long hard look at the tank design for the Moho 4 but for the Muna 2, I think we'll have to go with what we've got and just make sure to triple check everything." At that moment, the picture on the television screen changed from that of a group of kerbals sitting around a table to a view over a launch site. A news ticker down the left hand side of the screen announced that this was the maiden launch of the Rockomax BA-CA solid rocket booster. Malmy scrambled to his feet and turned up the volume. “... latest generation of solid rocket booster, augmented by additional laterally mounted B1 boosters. For those just joining us now, the second stage is a single B1 solid rocket and the final stage uses clustered 48-7D liquid fueled engines for a precision insertion into kerbostationary orbit." Hando turned back to his lunch. “Kerbostationary orbit huh? Impressive but there's a long way between Kerbin orbit and the Mün." Ornie wasn't so sure. He casually looked around the canteen and, as he expected, Jeb, Lucan and Edsen were all staring intently at the Rockomax spacecraft. Jeb caught his eye and surreptitiously beckoned him over. “Are you thinking what I'm thinking, Ornie?" “I think I probably am, Jeb. And if I'm not, our flight dynamics team almost certainly are." ----------- Danfen and Hanbal stood behind the flight director's chair, eyes flicking between the status indicators on her control board and the orbital tracking screen on the far wall. Nelton briefly considered exercising flight director's privilege and ejecting them both from Mission Control, or at least putting them somewhere where they couldn't breath down her ear. Then she shrugged. She could hardly blame them for wanting to be here, she thought and besides - they might just be useful. Provided that they kept their mouths shut until asked and kept out from under the feet of the rest of the team. "Approaching max Q. B1 thrust profile nominal." Nelton put the two engineers out of her mind. "Thank you, Booster," she said, "Flight Dynamics - status please." "Airframe stresses acceptable, Flight. Ascent trajectory is good. Launch vehicle has passed max Q." Behind her she could sense Danfen relaxing slightly. Hanbal's head was still restlessly swivelling from side to side as he tried to follow all the readouts for the B1s. Nelton rolled her chair to one side to give him a better view over her shoulder. "Thirty seconds to burnout. Decouplers one through four armed." "Copy that, Booster. All systems Go for staging." The pattern of indicator lights on Nelton's control board abruptly shifted and one panel flickered and went out. She leaned forward in her seat. "Lateral booster detach confirmed. Backer status please, Booster?" "BA-CA thrust on profile, Flight." "Thank you, Booster. Guidance?" "We're go, Flight." "Flight Dynamics?" "Altitude 24 kilometres and climbing, Flight. Vehicle attitude is nominal." Hanbal let his breath out explosively. "It worked," he murmured under his breath, "it actually worked." Danfen nudged his arm. "Keep the analysis out of earshot would you," he whispered. Hanbal ducked his head and then turned his attention back to the tracking screen. The stylised rocket depicting Satellite 4 had barely moved, although the altitude and velocity readouts were clicking upwards on schedule. He watched as the projected altitude climbed past 75 kilometres and continued to rise. "Any moment now," he thought. "Approaching MECO, Flight. Decoupler five armed and ready." "Backer shutdown in three...two...one. Decoupler firing." There was a long pause. "Second stage ignition confirmed!" "Thank you, Flight Dynamics. Payload?" Melvey hands shook as he worked his console. "Fairing jettisoned on schedule, Flight. Instrumentation looks good. Bringing propulsion and guidance systems online." Nelton nodded. "Thank you, Payload." A green light lit up on her console. "Flight Dynamics, I have a projected periapsis - please confirm." "Copy that, Flight. Twenty seconds to shutdown. Projected orbit two-forty by one-sixty by plus twelve. Altitude raising burn in thirty-one minutes." Danfen squeezed Hanbal's shoulder. "Time for us to take a break and pass on the good news," he murmured. The two engineers nodded politely to Nelton and made their way quietly out of the room. As soon as the door to Mission Control closed behind them, Hanbal punched the air in triumph. "It worked - it really worked! Tapered propellant loading on the B1s, lateral decouplers - it all went off without a hitch!" Danfen beamed at him. "It really did! Gotta hand it to you - I never actually thought you could throttle down the B1s that far in flight and bring them back up to stable thrust. That was fine work!" Hanbal grinned "Truthfully?" he asked. "I know, I know," laughed Danfen, "neither did you." "Well it all worked on the test stand so I shouldn't have been surprised." Danfen chuckled at the old joke. "True, true. Anyway, we've got a little over an hour before the big test. Just got time to go thank the troops before we point our baby at the Mün! ---------------- The glowing green trace on the tracking screen showed Satellite 4 in an almost perfectly circular orbit around Kerbin, although Nelton knew that was more due to the scale of the display than anything else. A small red circle blinked slowly against the orbital track with a timer display beside it slowly unwinding down to zero. Nelton rubbed her suddenly sweaty palms on the arms of her chair. She leaned forward and tapped her microphone for attention. "All controllers report in for trans-Munar injection. Payload?" Melvey swallowed the lump in his throat. "Go, Flight." "Guidance?" "We're Go, Flight." "Electrics?" "Looking good, Flight." "Flight Dynamics?" "Go for TMI, Flight." Above their heads, the Satellite 4 marker inched its way round the screen. As it passed over the edge of the blinking circle, the red colour shifted to orange and a flashing '22' symbol appeared on Melvey's console. He scanned the propulsion and guidance readouts on his console one last time, crossed his fingers and punched the 'Proceed' button. "Ullage motors are go. 48-7D ignition confirmed." Melvey watched as the readings on his console settled down. "All engines burning," he reported, "vernier firing pattern looks good." "Thank you, Payload. Status report please, Guidance?" "I'm with Payload, Flight. Verniers looking good, spacecraft attitude holding steady and tracking." Everyone in the control room tilted their heads up to watch the flight tracking screen. A dotted elliptical tongue began to protrude out from the solid green line marking the known Satellite 4 orbit. Slowly at first and then faster and faster, the tongue stretched away from Kerbin towards the white circle depicting the Mün. Melvey watched his readouts, finger hovering over the manual shutdown. It wasn't needed. The dotted line flickered as the flight computer updated its trajectory prediction and then snapped into an extremely lopsided figure-eight configuration with the Mün sitting squarely in the smaller of the two loops. “48-7D shutdown confirmed, Flight," said Melvey quietly. “Deploying cameras and orienting vehicle for Kerbin observation programme." “Understood, Payload," said Nelton. “Flight Dynamics - do we have a trajectory confirmation." “One moment, Flight." Lemgan spoke quickly into his microphone, cocking his head as the answer came back through his headset. “Our tracking team report that they have the vehicle. Jerdo's team are having some problems with their antenna which is slowing things down a little. We estimate 5-6 hours for initial fix, another two to three hours after that for confirmation." Nelton grimaced. “Six hundred miles is not enough of a baseline. If we're going to be doing this on a regular basis, Ademone needs to see about getting us another tracking station. Will nine hours give us enough time to work through the midorbit correction?" “Not a problem, Flight. First correction burn was scheduled for ground elapsed time +eighteen hours but we have a reasonable window with our remaining propellant levels. Suggest we delay the burn to GET +twenty-two to give Tracking and Guidance a little more time." “Noted and accepted, Flight Dynamics. Thank you." ----------------- “OK, thanks, Sigbin. Can you send through the next lot of frequency shifts in thirty minutes or so? Yeah I know - chasing down Rockomax isn't the trial run I was expecting either. Huh - I guess. Might as well get the bugs ironed out before we give it another go ourselves. OK, speak to you in thirty. Thanks, Sigbin." Lucan put the phone down and ground the heels of his hands into his eyes. Beside him, Edsen threw his pen down on the table and turned to face Ornie, Jeb and Geneney “Kerbostationary orbit, my cheeks!" Jeb sighed. “You're sure then?" “Positive." Edsen shook his head. “Tracking data isn't good enough to give us a trajectory yet but that spacecraft is going way beyond a stationary orbit. Look." Edsen reached for a sheet of paper and quickly sketched out a diagram. “We've still got a large error space here but I figure their trajectory is somewhere in between this... and this." Jeb scratched his cheek as he looked at the roughed out orbits. “What's the centreline estimate?" he asked. Edsen drew a third line on the diagram. “Munar flyby, 1000 km periapsis. Give or take." “Would that work? For the Prize I mean." Geneney was picking at a piece of loose insulation poking out of the top of Lucan's console. “I'd want to check with Bill first but my best guess is no. Not reliably. The picture quality would be pretty bad from that altitude - hard to prove anything."He studied Edsen's diagram.“And if this is anywhere near to scale, they'd have problems transmitting the data back too." “Well then," said Jeb, “It sounds like they're planning a midcourse correction of some kind. I think we just wait for the next lot of data from Sigbin and Doodlie, try and sharpen up that tracking and see if we can work out what they're up to from there." Ornie looked at him, “So what do we tell everyone in the meantime, Jeb?" he said. Jeb frowned. “We tell them what we know," he said at last, “Better that they get the bad news from us than KBS." ----------------- Melvey was hunched over his console, paging back and forth through the first images from Satellite 4, when he heard the door open and the rest of the team file back into the control room. Nelton took her seat and checked the flight tracking screen. The dotted figure 8 had gone, replaced by a sinuous line that snaked out from Kerbin and curved gently around the Mün before disappearing off the edge of the screen. She tapped her microphone. “A good try for a first attempt," she said, “but not quite what we need. Lemgan - do we have a burn solution for the midcourse correction?" “We do, Flight. Guidance and trajectory teams concur." Lemgan pressed a button on his console. “An eight metre per second burn here..." he pressed another button,“along this vector, should put us back on the nominal flight plan." On the screen, another red circle appeared, with an arrow pointing away along the burn vector. A dotted line curved away from the circle and into the predicted figure-eight path around the Mün. “Very good. Payload - what is the spacecraft status please?" Melvey twisted his chair round to face her. “All instruments deployed, Flight,"he said, “and I have the first images from the Kerbin observation sequence. I think you'll find them interesting." He flicked a switch and one of the large monitors next to the flight tracking screen lit up. There was a clatter as one of the other flight controllers dropped his pen. Not a single one of the other controllers so much as twitched at the noise. Even Nelton sank back into her chair and gazed at the glowing blue and green sphere neatly filling the screen. “It's round!" she whispered. “The colour filters are working well," said Melvey. “but that's not the most interesting part." He brought up another image. “This one was taken just a couple of hours ago. We're a lot further from Kerbin now of course but as you'll note, the image is also a lot noisier." Lemgan peered at the screen.“Is there a problem with the camera?" he asked, “a loose feed causing static or something?" Melvey shook his head. “The camera systems are fine. It's the environment the camera is flying through that's the problem." "Radiation,"said Nelton. Melvey blinked. “Yes. We expected some background radiation of course, mainly charged particles ejected from Kerbol. We also did our best to shield the cameras but there's a limit to the amount of shielding we could use, given the payload mass requirements. As it turns out, this may have been a happy accident."He tapped a key on his console and the images on the monitor began to cycle past in a crude and rather jerky film clip. It took Lemgan a while to work out what he was seeing. “Hang on," he said slowly, “the noise is fluctuating." He jabbed a finger towards the screen. “There! Stop the film there." He swivelled his chair to face Nelton. “Look. Just as noisy as that last still shot but a lot closer to Kerbin too. Melvey - could you move the film on a few frames?" Melvey smiled faintly and tapped at his console. “There!" said Lemgan. “Further out from Kerbin but the noise has dropped away again!" “Like rings," said Nelton wonderingly, “rings of invisible particles wrapped around Kerbin." Melvey coughed. “I imagined them more like belts, myself," he said, “but obviously we don't have enough data to tell." Nelton smiled. “Then that's what we'll call them in our research paper," she said, “The Melvey Radiation Belts!" << Chapter 20 :: Chapter 22>>

You talk to the staffs How does One make rainbow?

Hi all and dev's, There has been some talk about the anomaly's not giving any science. Well i was thinking about the capability of taking pictures, just like in real life. Not just of the anomaly's, but also of the planet's. This would provide info on good landing site's, with inclination, elevation and stuff like that. I think it has a lot of potential

Success! You know what was the problem with Soyuz? All the bloody time I was running with an overweight 3rd stage! And why's that? I forgot to account for the cargo decoupler when setting stage mass. It turned out that it had mass of 1.5, which made the whole rocket weight one ton too much. Strangely, I didn't forgot about this when setting Soyuz ST decoupler mass (it massed 0.5). With this removed, you actually need to shut 3rd stage down early, because the equatorial orbit is so much more effecient. If you burn it to depletion, you might end up with something silly like 200x800 orbit. Also, Asmi, disregard the PM I sent you. Everything's fine now, though you're still free to play around with the ascent. So, without much further ado: Soyuz-TMA v.1.0, real scale. The configs are a drop-in replacement for BobCat's configs and require the latest Soviet Pack to work. The Soyuz uses MFT, Ioncross Crew Support, Engine Ignitor, Deadly Reentry, MechJeb2 (looking to switch to kOS in the near future), FAR and KJR. http://www./download/5n8zad99915c6d1/SovietPack.zip Also, here are the modified configs for Ioncross. They include basic food and water support. Drop-in replacement, like before. Mind you, this wasn't really tested on a prolonged mission. http://www./download/98titbm0yihj89c/IoncrossForReal.zip To launch the Soyuz, set Ap to about 250km and turn end to the same altitude. Turn start should be at 0.5km, with the grade being 35%. Disable autostaging. Jettison boosters when empty, jettison SAS (press "1") and fairings after passing the edge of second thickest atmosphere layer. Just before 2nd stage burnout (Ap should be 200-220km, you could tweak it), disable autopilot and drop the nose to the horizon. Engage 3rd ("2") stage just before MECO. After jettisoning the 2nd stage, remember to stage again to activate 3rd stage gimbal and jettison it's engine fairing. After you pass the Ap (stage still burning), pitch up slightly (5 or so degrees) so that Ap stops to rise. Cut off the 3rd stage when Pe is at the altitude you want it on. After that, stage and deploy the Soyuz ("3"). Congratulations, you made orbit. Fun, wasn't it? Future plans (in no particular order): kOS implementation. I kind of hope to write multiple ascent programs for various orbits and maybe rendezvous programs to simulate the Kurs docking system. The real Soyuz works that way. Turbopump simulation. This Soyuz is slightly overpowered, because I didn't simulate the H2O2 load that drives the turbopump on the real thing nor the N2 for tank pressurization. I'll try to implement that in a future release. Spacecraft improvements. Currently, Soyuz spacecraft needs a few tweaks, most notably to it's attitude control and electrical systems. I'll get to that eventually, but I need a few additional models for this. Also, it's main engine isn't really throttleable, but instead has 3 modes with different thrusts and Isps. MFT can simulate that, so I'll try to do it. Soyuz-U2. I'll need to talk to Nathan about that, but since the only difference here is propellant (Synthin vs. RP-1), it should be easy to make the Soyuz configurable as either U or U2. We'll see about that. Fregat. I wanted to release this version without further delay, so Fregat is out for the time being. It'll be back. Pre-flight. It takes about 20 seconds to spool up the engines, but I've got mixed feelings about it. It requires a fueling tower anyway, so unless we can simulate that, it's pointless. Far-future plans: Other Soyuz variants. Possible, although I'll need to master kOS first, since Igla is a very complex docking system that requires the target to be cooperative, because early Soyuzes had very unbalanced RCS. Rest of the Soviet pack+MrTheBull's additions. Proton, N1, MIR, Luna... There's a few things I'd like to do. The N1, an overengineered, half-classified beast that it is, will probably take forever, so don't hold your breath dor that. But Proton's possible, along with Luna-17. For Buran and Kliper, I'll probably need Ferram to do anything at all.

<p><span><img src="http://media.tumblr.com/029295276005d87285b9343b52aa5b9c/tumblr_inline_mvtfk2HNj31rr2wit.png"/></span></p> <p id="docs-internal-guid-30a82f91-2ac0-baa5-1f44-29d5d51d7c0b"><strong>Felipe (HarvesteR)</strong><span><strong>:</strong> Many advancements on the R&D improvements. The lab modules are working, and the results dialog has been overhauled to allow you to make all science-related decisions through that one screen. Using the lab through its context menu is of course also possible. Working today on adding support for 3D Mouse devices. A 6DOF input device in a game like KSP can be a very useful thing indeed. I’m also taking the opportunity then to go over the flight camera code and work out some oddities there, stragglers from a time when everything was a placeholder and there was no way load games, so testing the camera code back then required launching and orbiting around. Camera control is just one thing we’re going to allow with a 3D mouse device. In flight, you’ll also have the option to use it to control RCS thrust, linear and rotation at the same time! On other news, I’ve also reworked the logic behind the flow of resources like monopropellant and electricity, to allow containers to properly drain and top off completely, since the current version’s implementation makes it impossible to drain those last dregs of charge on a battery, or pull that last whiff of intake air into your turbines. </span></p> <p><br/><strong>Chad (C7)</strong><span><strong>:</strong> *I’ve been working on upgrading some of the older modules, like the engines and landing gear. The landing gear can now raise and lower on command and do not require waiting for full deployment. The engines have been upgrade to run a bit faster, and have the ability to predict a flameout before it happens. With secondary propellants, the engines will be able to switch to another fuel before a flameout occurs. After that, I’ve been focusing my efforts and testing and implementing tweekables with Mike.</span></p> <p><span></span></p> <p><strong>Daniel (danRosas)</strong><span><strong>:</strong> *Last week I finished the Day of the Dead animation, and the images for that celebration and Halloween. This one, I’ve been optimizing some models.</span><span></span></p> <p><br/><strong>Alex (aLeXmOrA): </strong><span>*Set KSP Edu databases and started the system planification. I’m waiting for the requirements to continue the development.</span></p> <p><br/><strong>Marco (Samsonart): </strong><span>I prettied up the log in for KSP Edu, and participated in the back-end stuff meetings to see how the whole thing is going to play.</span></p> <p><br/><strong>Rob (N3X15)</strong><span><strong>:</strong> *Added an advanced banning system for our moderators, with included built-in appeals management. *Fret not, however, the moderators don’t get all the candy this week: *A reporting system for addons and user profiles has also been added. *I also fixed the front-page slideshow and fixed a bunch of bugs reported by our testers. *Email is still being patchy, though.</span></p> <p><span></span></p> <p><span><strong>Mike (Mu):</strong> </span><span>I’ve been working on the new UI interfaces for tweekables. This also includes an overhaul of how the UI system works which will allow modders to create their own control types for flight and editor scenes.</span></p> <p><br/><span><strong>Ted (Ted):</strong> </span><span>The QA Team and I have got our hands on the excellent R&D Improvements that Felipe has been working on these past couple of weeks. There are some great changes that he’s made that, from a balance perspective, flesh out the Science mechanic a fair bit. As well as the introduction of a new part/module which adds another dynamic to the data transmission system. Overall, it was a pretty great Branch Testing phase, with only a handful of not-so-major issues present that the QA Team quickly found and the Dev Team speedily fixed.</span></p> <p><br/><span><strong>Miguel (Maxmaps):</strong> </span><span>Been working on organizing that little event that you guys will be hearing more from pretty soon. Also have everything set up for an AMA on Reddit on the 13th. Be there!</span></p> <p><span></span></p> <p><span><strong>Bob (Calisker):</strong> </span><span>Just released our news about update 0.23 and look forward to talking about it more in the near future! We’re also working with TeacherGaming to make sure we can share more information about KerbalEDU when it’s ready - it just isn’t, not yet anyway. Oh yeah, Max has been organizing an event with me. As he said, we’ll talk more about that soon enough. </span></p> <p><span></span></p> <p><span><strong>Anthony (Rowsdower):</strong> Getting settled in. It’s important as a new CM to not walk through the door and immediately blow up the Mun. That should be a more gradual process. I’m getting acquainted with all the cool behind the scenes stuff that will help me take the already amazing KSP community to new heights.</span></p>

Plasma engine powered designs are too greatly affected by heat. I can see the very obvious reason for this, with the lack of thermal energy venting. However, I don't think the addition of heat mechanics contributes to good gameplay. When the weight of your heatsinks exceeds the weight of your reactor, then something has gone wrong somewhere. Also, heatsinks of any kind are ugly and contribute to part count. There is also talk of fast atmospheric jets but I am just not seeing them. Nor am I seeing working examples of any kind of ship. That is pretty telling in and of itself but let's go back to the jets. You would think a jet powered by an antimatter reactor would be able to reach at least mach 2 speeds in the lower atmosphere but that seems to be a stretch right now. Before - on .5.something the turbojets would put out a few thousand kn of thrust on one of my designs and it would seem to be a good amount of thrust but I really was not impressed even then. Now it seems like the engines have been nerfed further and they are 100% useless now, putting out only a few hundred kn of thrust. If there is a combination with high thrust now, it is certainly way too large to fit on a fighter craft. The trouble with the thermal rockets is they need this massive stacked assembly to work, necessitating the design of your ship in a certain way. It would be nice to see remote antimatter tanks able to feed the reactors to reduce the overall length. Also, all the other configurations below the heaviest antimatter reactor are useless. To summarize: DT Vista - working great Plasma - too much trouble with heat Thermal rocket - too large and heavy Thermal turbojet - too poor thrust and isp My main point is not to make the game easier, but to open up possibilites that are being restricted right now. For example: a plasma powered SSTO (restricted by heat), thermal rocket VTOL (restricted by size), or a thermal turbojet interceptor (restricted by thrust).

I would just like to add these two videos: Visual representation of what's been discovered And some PR talk from Administrator Bolden about it BTW is this a southern accent?

But then where do we talk about video games and rule 34 and ponies.... cause IRC doesn't work too well...

You're not as likely to notice Lagrange points as you think you are. Lagrange points in reality are more stable orbits precisely because of the issues that N-Body physics bring to having stable orbits. So what's really being said is "We want N-body physics so we can get Lagrange points to solve the problems of N-body physics." Even with the EML4/EML5 "stable" Lagrange points, you're talking orbits that are stable only for millions of years, instead of orbits that are stable forever that you get in KSP. Of the five L-points in any given pair of bodies, three are inherently unstable in one axis, and the other two (and one of the first three) are in a position barely distinguishable from placing something in the same orbit as the smaller of the bodies farther ahead or behind in a patched conics system, unless the two bodies are closer in size than normal (Duna/Ike, for example), at which point the Lagrange points would be even less stable. Even the two stable points aren't as trivially accessible as you'd expect. We've found all of one asteroid caught in the SEL4/SEL5 points to date. Dust in space isn't any more common in EML4/EML5 than elsewhere, so getting captured there isn't trivial either. Of the two L-points that can't be approximated easily in a patched conics system, the main use for them is for solar observations in the case of SEL1, and stellar observations for SEL2. SEL1 makes for a nice place for solar observations because the earth never occludes the sun there and it's far enough from the earth to minimize interference from earth without being so far away to make communication difficult. SEL2 is used for stellar observations because the earth permanently occludes the sun, reducing the interference of said sun when trying to see dim items very far away. On the other hand, because the points are unstable in a full N-body system, most missions that go there are of a duration of a few years at most due to the instability of those L-points meaning that they need to do frequent station keeping. The Halo orbits people talk about using in the unstable Sun/Earth or Sun/Kerbin L-points aren't really a stable orbit, just the orbit that required the fewest course corrections. One other thing we'd get with N-body physics would be the Interplanetary Transport Network. As nice as it would be to have, I think that this wouldn't be remotely accessible to the majority of KSP players. None of this even considers the fact that N-body physics for more than three bodies doesn't work "on rails" (in fact, it only works for three bodies if the orbit of the middle body is circular) but just as physics warp, which would break large amounts of KSP. TLDR: N-body physics, or even simplified 3/4 body physics, would eliminate anything really being "on rails" for a reward that the majority of KSP players would find difficult to take advantage of. Yes, the geek side of me wants Lagrange points, but the realist says that we don't need them, we really are saying "We want N-body physics so we can get Lagrange points to solve the problems of N-body physics."

If you buff up the LV-N to be have NERVA specs, but change nothing else, then the LV-N is basically the best engine for all stages all the time. Current engines have a reasonable balance, where no engine is always better for everything (the mainsail has too much thrust for small craft, and the Isp is low; the T30 has lower TWR; the 48-7S requires a large part count, etc). You'd have to adjust all the engines. There was talk of making the LV-N be politically difficult in KSP also; that was in the distant future where the mythical career mode was implemented. Things have progressed to where there's a career mode, though you still don't have budgets or politicians to placate.

False because my voice is squeaky, i would if my voice wasnt squeaky? is there text so we can all talk? Edit: what IRC site? The user below me wishes yesterday didnt happen.

May I suggest a sort of "wrapper" node where rules inside it have different parsing rules? I'm not advocating this over any other solution in particular, but I thought I'd throw it into the mix. This is absurd. It's an opt-in beta test. Of course it's not guaranteed to be painless. Also absurd. He talked to people (IRC) and then made a thread so people could talk about it more. There's absolutely nothing wrong with his methodology here. Testing isn't about developers doing exactly what you think should be done, and ModuleManager isn't nearly complex enough to warrant a public review of a design spec before releasing a prototype.

What about space engine then, being made by a single guy? What about space engine then, being made by a single guy? the "This isn't a gaming company" argument is as stupid as it gets. Modders can turn the game upside down and create (and update) a part pack in a whim and squad battles to include 5 kspx parts per update? And I'm using parts as example, you can basically just use every feature in the game to talk about this level of incompetence. "If you can't do better then don't criticize" is, again, an invalid argument when there are clearly visible examples that something can be better. Jesus, this part was just too much, not even bothering. Show me a rocket that wobbles in real life. Yeah, lets complement a stupid argument with sarcasm, that'll sure show him. You are wrong, this game is more for me than anyone else because I want it to be the best. I get my balls together and criticize everything because I want it to be the best it can possibly be. I know they are doing stuff wrong and I'm not the only one that can see that. I don't see myself blinded by brand or game fanatism, and that's why I have the balls to criticize as so do a lot of members (that for some reason are on the "DON'T LISTEN TO" list). Once again the people here show their retardation when they can't take an idea behind an insult. Not everything is a hugbox. Go out and live freaking life, nobody is going to compliment you for your work except for fans, and guess what, fans are the last people you want to listen to because they are going to approve everything you do, even if it's wrong. Why do you think artists listen to critiques that pretty much destroy their work? because they want to be better. To reinforce my argument, everybody knows what everybody thinks about the ones that shall not be named, yet somehow max manages to get ideas, he manages to get good criticism and hell, even majiir, ted, artyom and nexis post there.

Right, but to test it, anyone who downloads it has make major changes to their installation to get it to work. That is where the problem comes in. Again, you talk to people first about what you're trying to do on the thread instead of releasing it and then expecting everyone to be okay with it. Your first idea may be the better one, but you didn't let people discuss it in this thread and understand why you were wanting to make the change. As you saw, once the reason behind the change was available to everyone, several people not only were okay with it, but those who disagreed with the implementation suggested alternate ways of getting the same result without breaking compatibility. That's how community modding is supposed to work. That's how AAA game development works (within the company obviously and not on public forums). You talk about changes that affect everyone with everyone before you change it.

Thank you for the great news! I look forward to the next patch. I invested over 7k science into those computer core stations so that after finishing the Eeloo probe mission I had just launched, I would be able to afford the last tech node as well as having a steady source of science for upgrading future computer cores and warp drives. Very happy my "supercomputer" stations will work next patch! Fractal_UK, you've done an AMAZING job with this mod. I tend to talk about KSP a lot around my friends and it was when I started using this mod that a few of them decided they wanted to play as well. Also, zzz, the art in this mod is bloody fantastic!

The rocket was assembled and the Munar Test Rover "Daisy Runner I" was set firmly on its nose. Test engineer (on approval) TE (oa) Neilcan Kerman checked the last technical issues. His colleague Friedrich Wilhelm Kerman, rocket scientist, sat ready for test mission control. "Daisy Runner I" was designed as a 4 wheeled munar vehicle with extensive scientific instrumentation, a broad windowed cockpit and a small habitation module for extended stay in hostile environments. TE (oa) N. Kerman and RS F. W. Kerman did chose a 3-Staged Murania IV rocket for the test flight, with a probe controlled landing stage for the stability test. Primary goal was to figure out flight stability and achieve LKO (low kerbin orbit) with the construction. Lift off was planned for 23:16 local time. I designed a rover for exploration on Mun. To get it off ground I attached a intermediate probe controlled stage and a three staged Saturn V like rocket. To test the design, I intended to do a unmanned flight just to achieve orbit, then discard the vessel. TE(oa): Friedrich, all systems nominal. Mission Control: Copy, Neil, ignition procedure initiated. TE(oa): SAS enabled, vents open, fuel flow nominal. Mission Control: Ignition in, 10..., 9..., 8..., 7..., 6..., 5..., 4..., 3..., 2..., 1..., Ignition The rumble of the 5 mainsails let Neils coffee cup hop around slightly. Mission Control: Lift off, Daisy Runner I on its way. Tipping south by 2, rolling at 0.5 per minute, speed 15..., 29..., 30..., 42..., 71... TE(oa): Vessel stable, heading 92, horizon at 87, height 2275 and increasing. Mission Control: Acceleration nominal, struts nominal, structure nominal, speed 145..., 175..., 190... TE(oa): Remaining stage 1 burn time, 20..., 18..., 16..., 14... Mission Control: Height 12450, heading 91, horizon at 45, speed 245 TE(oa): Stage 1 burnout in 5..., 4..., 3..., 2..., 1... Mainsails off. Mission Control: Separation - check. Ignition Stage 2 -check. Heading 90, height 15561, horizon at 43, speed 282 and increasing. Jebediah: WOOOOOOOHooooooOOOOOOO!!!! On staging to the 2nd, I realized, that I forgot to remove Jeb from the crew list in VAB. Great job, Kia. For a second, I really thought, oh ****, what have I done. The whole design was totally untested, I didn't know, if fuel was enough, dV was OK, staging was correct and so on. It was a TEST in career mode. And now Jeb was on board. TE(oa): Erm. What? Mission Control: Was tht Jeb? Jebediah: YEEEEEHaaaAAAAAA! TE(oa): JEB! YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO BE IN YOUR QUARTERS SLEEPING! Mission Control: Heigth 22k, horizon at 25, speed 440 over surface and increasing. TE(oa): Abort! Abort! Mission Control: Aborting... Jebediah: Sirs, abort sequence aborted. *giggling* Mission Control: Aborting is red. TE(oa): Wait! Wait! WAIT, WAIT WAIT! Jebediah: Oh! I love the stars. Really. Mission Control: Height 40254, speed 651, heading 90, horizon 2, burnout stage 2 in 34 Jebediah: More throttle! TE(oa): Need a snack... Mission Control: Leaving Atmo in 15..., 10..., 5..., 4..., 3..., 2..., 1... TE(oa): Oh no. Jebediah: Can someone stop rolling? I want to have a look on this island. TE(oa): He is just crazy... Mission control: Stage 2 separated, ignition of stage 3... Jebediah: Whaaaam! TE(oa): Mission Control, do we have orbit? Do we? Please orbit somehow? Mission Control: Orbit 102.320 in 7..., 5..., 3..., 2..., 1... Orbit check. Engine shutdown - check. TE(oa): Jeb? Jebediah: I can see the mun! TE(oa) JEB? What are you doing? At this point I decided to go for it. Jeb was on board, in Orbit, I had fuel left, and the Mun was in a quite good position for transfer. So no risk, no fun. Mission control: Daisy Runner is changing heading. TE(oa): I. Can. See. This. Jeb, what are you doing, copy? Jebediah: To the Mun! Mission control: This is going to be troubles with the director. For sure. Jebediah: Engine activated... throttle... YEAH! Cool machine, you made there Neilcan! TE(oa): Please Jeb, no. Mission control: Daisy Runner is doing a maneuver for a free munar return trajectory. TE(oa): The director is going to beat me through the recruiting centre... Mission control: Trajectory in 27 seconds. Jeb: There is something shaking. Where is the duct tape? TE(oa): In the Hitchiker. Jeb: OK TE(oa): YOU will not EVA while in acceleration! Jeb: *bsssssss...chsssssskkksssss...ssssssss* Mission control: This guy is dangerous. OK. It was evening, it was a long day. So I tested the ladder configuration right in the middle of the acceleration phase to the mun. I just didn't think about throttling down. Jeb: Back in again. I think the engine's running hot. It is glowing. TE(oa): *sound of a head hitting a desk* Mission control: Engine is nominal, Jeb. Jeb: Great. I am just going to fix this strut. Mission control: can you give me back vessel control? Maybe you are not able to shutdown trajectory burn on time, because you EVAed. Jeb: No problem. EVA progress nominal. *sounds of joy* TE(oa): *sounds of crying* Mission control: *sic* I ended Jebs EVA just in time to end the transfer burn. I overshot only slightly and set a course to a 63k PE on the mun's far side. Some hours later. Mission control: This is KSC for Daisy Runner I. Copy? Jeb: Jep. Mission control: Jebediah, the director is not amused. Jeb: I am. Mission control: We decided, that you land at the anomaly at the munar equator. You would ignore other orders anyway. Copy? Jeb: WOOOOHOOOO! Yes, Sir, copy, Sir. Mission control: We are now sending the data for deceleration burn, descent burn and staging information. Copy? Jeb: Okidoki. Start sending. Mission control: Start transmission.... now. Jeb: Data is coming in.... more data.... even more.... and more.... more more... transmission done. Mission control: You will be on the far side in 3 minutes. You are on your own until middle of descent. Good luck. Jeb: See you! Director: Jebediah Kerman, we will talk about that, when you are back! Jeb: Thank you for the trust in my skills, Sir! Mission Control: *sic* I started with the deceleration burn using the last fuel of the transfer stage. After that I staged to the descent stage and did fall towards the mun. On 5.000 I ignited the support thrusters on the rover to get rid of the relatively high speed. 15 Meters above ground I separated the descent stage and got the rover down with the support thrusters. I staged away the landing fuel and support thrusters shortly before touchdown. Jeb: *bsssssss...chsssssskkksssss...ssssssss* Mission control: Daisy Runner I for KSC? Jeb: *ssskchkkssssss...chkksssss...bbssbbssssss* Mission control: Daisy Runner, copy? Jeb: Hi there! Mission control: Would Mr. Jebediah Kerman please extend the antenna, for that we puny mission controllers may read the status? Jeb: Erm. OK. Mission control: Thank you.... TE(oa): Are you fine, Jeb? Jeb: Yes, Neil. Activating motors... Mission control: Jeb, Daisy Runner is nominal. Jeb: Of course it is. I landed it. Mission control: The arch crater is at 103 from your current position. Less than 5000. Jeb: I am on my way. Cool rover, Neil... very... cool... and..... fast.... TE(oa): I out. Director: Well constructed, Neilcan. Mission control: Jeb, 24 meters per second are maybe a little to fast.... Jeb: WHOOOOOOHOOOOoooOOOOO! Finally, I managed to get the daisy runner near the arch. And there Jeb did some science. Now he is waiting for a return ship. Totally unintended, but very successful mission.

I have been playing kerbal for a good 8 months now. Love the progress they made in the start of career mode. Even as the game is now, it is incredible. Every patch seems to make it better and better. My thoughts and concerns though are about the rate at which patches come out and the content in them and the overall gameplay ability. I am sure I will get alot of negative feedback from posting this, but I feel I must speek my mind. 1. Yes the Squad team is limited. So I'm not expecting HUUGE patches every month. But look at the last patch, I believe it was around 70 MB in data, which took around 3-4 months. Yes it was an awsome leap and added much more to the game, but other companies add 1-3 GB of data in the same time with the same size team. Look at overkill and payday 2. 2. I dont feel the devs, although they do a great job, deserve a break as many have said in the forums after every big patch. They are living on the money that we have payed as kind of a stock in them making the finished product they promised to deliver. I don't know about you guys but no boss in any job i have ever had has said, "you did that last job great, take the next week off with pay!" 3. I feel too much has gone into honestly what i see as stupid junk. I read for weeks in the weekly about how the astronouat complex was getting redone. All it ended up being was a nice pic in the background that gets blurred out cause of astronaut selection. So why even bother. How about putting purpose to the stats of the pilots rather than a background picture that noone will notice anyways. 4. BIG ONE. OLDER SYSTEMS. I have a system that meets all the requirements for this game, yet like tonight had to reload 20 + times in i would say 3 hours because of crashes while reworking and launching my ship. I would rework, save, try to send to launch pad, game crashes. Reload select launch pad , select ship and crew, and say launch, ship messes up getting into orbit, if i stick around and watch it crash into the ground, or hit revert to anything,, game crashes. ( I am running no mods, have 4 gigs of ram, 2.4 GHZ processor, win 7 32 bit) According to squad that should be no problem. The ship I am trying to get up is my interplanetary shuttle. It has around 580 parts I am guessing, so nothing too insane. many of the parts are struts. Yes my comp is a good at least 7 years old, but if they say a comp with what ever specs as minimum can run it, then it should be able to run without crashing. Lagging is one thing, but to reload ever 5 minutes is another. AS I said at the begining I LOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE this game, I just feel like things are a bit misprioritized at squad, I see more advertising than development for an alpha game (If i am wrong, look at the kerbal weekly and see how much was done for development than someone going here or there to talk about the game). I see more work on background graphics than gameplay. Gameplay is what us gamers want, the pretty graphics in the end to touch up are a nice detail, but overall we (or well at least I) dont care. My final note is that at the rate i see this game progressing, it will be at least 2+ years before 1.0 comes out, please someone tell me im wrong but be able to justify reason i am wrong behind it.

And the result will be nothing like you'd expect from Special Relativity. SR deals specifically with a Minkowski metric. Near the event horizon, the metric is going to look very different. The line element in polar coordinates in SR looks like ds² = dt² - dr² - r²(dθ² + sin²θ dƲ). In the exterior of the BH, it's (1-rs/r)dt² - 1/(1-rs/r)dr² - r²(dθ² + sin²θ dƲ). When you are far from the event horizon, r >> rs, the two are very similar and you can talk about effects of Special Relativity on a ship in orbit. But for r only slightly above rs you have to discard all of your SR notions and deal with General Relativity directly. Kepler's laws break down way before you reach event horizon. In fact, there are no stable orbits bellow 3rs. So you can be a full diameter away from event horizon, and Kepler's Laws are already completely useless.

By the way, concerning a possible RemoteTech/kOS compatibility, I think Cilph and Kevin really need to talk, they don't use each other's mod I guess so they don't understand what to do to make both work. Cilph is waiting for a contact, here is the post : http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/56399-0-22-Remote-Tech-2-Build-those-satellite-networks!?p=756045&viewfull=1#post756045. I suggested him a few work-arounds already but he doesn't seem quite interested in a cheap solution. Maybe Kevin would have better ideas ! I know he already has a lot of work on kOS but if he could try to do it that would be great ! I know he likes to add features in each update, and that is a quite demanded one.

4/10 The thing to do is instead of the same group of people posting over and over, slow down and let other people have a turn. That way it isn't always the same people over and over again. I'll be watching, so no side conversations. Instead talk about where you've seen someone before.

Well, I'm up to 5 now. Jebediah was the first one .... isn't he always? It was a simple mission to orbit the mun and come back .... I forgot to deploy the solar panels, so now he is in a highly elliptical orbit (ok, so I had other problems as well) around Kerbin with half a tank of fuel and no energy. Lesson learned ... put a few OX-SAT panels on each ship. Soon after Bill went to the Mun to land on it, I mean why not, Jeb's mission went so well what could possibly go wrong ... I added a few cheap solar panels in case I forgot to deploy the main one's after all. Well he's sitting on the Mun in an undamaged craft .... and no fuel. The 2 unmanned rescue attempts were able to land within 2k of him ... well, if you include crashing as landing. Lesson learned LTP, oh yeah and more fuel. So I got to Jool in an unmanned probe, we wont talk about not realizing a certain moon has an atmosphere and getting too far into it for my nukes to get out. Although I did get a lot of science before I crashed. So I figured why not send a manned mission there (not to land, just to look around and scan) and have twice the fuel that my probe had. Well I had a lot of trouble getting there and had to burn way to long even for nukes. Anyway, got there saw Jool and left so I'd have enough fuel to get back ...... Bob, Bobsey, and Mattop are now in orbit around the sun with no fuel. Lesson learned don't over estimate my fuel economy. Well, I plan on rescuing them in the next day or so and unmanned mission are so boring ... so I'll probably be up to 10 stranded Kerbals by Wednesday.

Granted, we can't talk anywhere. I wish to have a free conversation thread, just one PLZ PLZ

I tend to do like eliteshadow, mission is named after target, Duna mission 2 is funny as it never was an Duna mission 1 except in WAB, this was during the evolution of the modular science lander and it caused an redesign. Then I rename dropped probes after purpose. Duna north pole rover, it became Duna north pole probe with an probe sign after the wheels broke Tylo is the great killer for me, Eve is pretty gentle even an fail to reach orbit result in an suborbital jump and a kerbal who hibernate for a year while drawing full pay. Any fail on Tylo result in an high speed impact. Now lets talk about accurate landings on Tylo. Even mechjeb tend to miss by 10 km or more, even if dropped from 1000 km orbit with an lander with TWR>2 all the way.

@CAPFlyer : maybe you should spend some time on the #kspmodders irc channel before telling me that I did not get input first, because "that" idea comes from chats I had with other modders. @NathanKell We talked before, I know you want the mods to work and keep it easy. don't worry. Same for Starwaster, you keep helping users on the thread I read so I know you mean well. @regex last version had Final working fine since only one DLL did the work I'll revert the subdirectory thing. I'll name the DLL with version number, that code is too nice to trash it and it Even if it is indeed unlikely there will be a lot more realease. Just let me catch Majiir on IRC to talk with him.