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My thougts: You need a decent force to bring these tanks to a "safe" distance. Let's talk about 100m/s^2 for at least 10 seconds. I'll don't know, if "some separatrons" are the right way to handle this issue. And if you do it in the right way, the AM-Reactor should go the same way if something went wrong.But i also would like to see a more "plugable" AM-Tank & Nuclear Reactor.

OK so I'd revisited an old old OLD story concept I'd had after reading an asimov book about space (forget which but it does go into detail about the concept of a generation/colony ship as means to get Out There.) Basics are a third or fourth generation Generation ship ends up parking in orbit around a star to top off on water, minerals, etc etc.... and finds another ship from a similar era though not built at the same time it was. Cue celebrations, dusting off old 'this language will be preserved because we realized societies would drift in hundreds or thousands of years and want ships that spawn from this program to have a way to talk' protocols. Unfortunately I haven't had much luck getting feedback. I know it's been done storywise since basically EVERYTHING has been done. Plus there's lots of room for things ranging from silly (one of the ships is full of genetically modified cat people) to Horror (robot servants took over and are now prepping to expand by cannibalizing the newly discovered craft) to... well anything. The thing is my original notes listed these things as roughly the size of texas in terms of total area with a much smaller habitable/people friendly zone. Thing is that just seems kind of off. I know a lot of area would be needed for things like intakes for scooping hydrogen gas, fuel storage and processing, random machinery needed when you come into resources (oort cloud, orphaned planet, whatever...) but that just can't be right, especially since I don't know the math and was just sort of spitballing a random guess. Also notes list safe cruising speed at 0.2c with a theoretical upper limit at as high as 0.25c, but the fuel/energy requirements would be... Insane even if you had some kind of exotic propulsion system. The concept was more a prop/window dressing for a D20 game that never got off the ground due to no playerbase. Might revive for NaNoWriMo this year. I dunno. Since we're all space geeks. Discuss? Was thinking of calling it 'The Many Faces of Humanity' since well hundreds or possibly thousands of years would lead to interesting developments in the populations even if you ruled out scifi genetic manipulation.

I'm sorry, but it's not our job to do the research for you or for any other people who question the veracity of accepted historical events. Ever since the Moon hoax web sites started cropping up, there have been web sites devoted to debunking those theories. Like this one, which answered the points that you brought up back in 2001: http://www.apolloarchive.com/apollo/moon_hoax_FAQ.html The problem when debating these issues is that each time you debunk a wacky claim, hoaxers come up with another hoax. This is simply because the burden of proof lies on the person making the hypothesis. Extraordinary theories require extraordinary evidence and it's impossible to prove a negative. Now, I'm not claiming you are a hoaxer. You seem to have a more open mind and I think you are genuinely puzzled by some of the things that you have seen and are just curious about the explanations. However, this is a sensitive subject, for reasons that I have already discussed. If you have studied radiation, then you should know that radiation tolerance levels are measured in Sieverts, which is a cumulative value that measures the concentration of ionizing radiation absorbed per unit of a material's mass. In other words, it depends on both the level of radiation that you are exposed to AND the duration of the exposure. It works a bit like a photographic film, where the exposure depends on both aperture and speed, or like a sunburn. As long as you don't bask in the cosmic rays for too long, you should be fine. The Apollo astronauts didn't spend enough time exposed to high cosmic radiation to be negatively affected. Similarly, the vast majority of the "liquidators" at Chernobyl haven't died from cancer from the cleanup work because although the radiation levels were high, they were only exposed for short periods. To sum it up, there is zero evidence that the Apollo astronauts couldn't have survived the trip. Not a single peer-reviewed scientific paper has ever been published with that claim. Yet there is ample evidence that they could, because most of them are still alive today to tell the story, with their medical records, photographs and all the documentation, archives, and published scientific results from the Apollo project. To put it another way, on one side of the scales there is your own personal hunch on a subject where you have no real expertise, and on the other side there is the word of thousands of direct witnesses, many of whom are scientists, engineers, military and intelligence personnel from all over the world, and literally tons of documentation, science publications, and historical evidence. Do you see the disconnect here? Yes, because a lot of the physics involved are unintuitive because our experience as human beings is mostly limited to our specific environment. The same is true for quantum physics or relativity. Most of it is unintuitive and demonstrates unexpected results. It's a bit like KSP. Stuff like orbital rendez-vous is pretty hard to explain to a new player because it is unintuitive that you need to decelerate to catch up with your target and to accelerate to let it catch up with you, yet that's how it works and we have to explain it over and over again, because it's that hard to believe. There is nothing wrong with not knowing what to expect, but phenomenon like how rocket plumes affect dust on the Moon are simply not areas that you or I have any daily experience with, so we are simply not equipped to argue about it. However, when you see something that doesn't fit your expectation, the most logical reaction should be "there must be something going on here that I don't understand" rather than "someone must be playing tricks on me". The former is healthy curiosity. The latter is mild paranoia. Personally, my usual first reaction is to pull up good old Wikipedia and have a quick read about the subject. For example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_threat_from_cosmic_rays If there actually was a swap of personnel, why would they need to fake any pictures of the lunar surface? If you accept the fact that they did send men to the Moon, they did openly talk with them during the missions (the communications were monitored by foreign agencies after all), they did leave stuff on the surface, and they did bring back rocks, then they were also quite capable of taking real EVA pictures and only the pictures from inside the vehicles would have needed to be faked. Even if they did fake these pictures and they did actually put the LM in the middle of a Hollywood sound stage with a crane, do you really think they would have forgotten to dig a crater underneath the LM if that is what they expected? Do you really think they could have got everything perfectly right in those pictures and movies except for that one single detail? Have you ever seen a large budget science fiction movie that didn't have at least dozens of glaring mistakes or impossibilities? Even Kubrik's "2001" has dozens of glaring errors in it, although it was state-of-the-art in the day and folks from NASA contributed to make it as realistic as possible. The Manhattan project was kept secret for all of 4 years, and even though people didn't know what the goal was, they did know that they were working on a secret project and they did know about the compartmentalization and the reasons for it. And it was all fully declassified decades ago, and so have all of the other government secrets from the Cold War era, including the U-2, SR-71, Hexagon... even though these projects contain information that even today, we wouldn't like some people from getting their hands on. The F-117 or B-2 were kept pretty much under wraps for a decade each, but there were still leaks and it was public knowledge that there were secret stealth aircraft projects going on. People who work on classified projects know that they work on classified projects, and so do their families. Usually, when asked decades later, they don't hide the fact that they worked on classified government projects even if the project is still classified. Governments can keep a project secret, but it's hard for them to hide the fact that there is a secret project. If only because the decision to keep a project classified as top secret involves a lot of people at the political level. If there was any secret around Apollo, they couldn't have kept the secret (or even the secret that there was a secret) for 45 years in the current information-driven world. People who were working on the project would have known that there was a secret to keep, they would have been aware of any compartmentalization or areas where they were not allowed to ask questions. The Soviets would have noticed that the communications were not coming from the Moon, that the orbital tracking data did not match up with NASA's claims or that their were anomalies in the published photographs. Yet not a single NASA employee has ever mentioned that there were parts of Apollo that were secret and no foreign government has ever stated that something was fishy about their observations. This is why people get defensive when you bring up stuff like this, because basically you are calling all of these people liars. There are many people who have an interest in space who lurk on these forums, including some who might work at NASA or whose parents might have worked on Apollo. You are portraying these thousands of people as government spooks who are still today actively lying to the general public, when they are mainly motivated by noble dreams of science and exploration. If you even looked, you'd be surprised at how open NASA is about everything, how much documentation is available, much more so than any other space agency. It is far from a covert organization and there is simply no evidence that anyone has ever been covering up anything.

Certainly not. The fact that it was intended as a way to more gradually introduce parts to new players is what makes it a tutorial. And as I have already said, once I learned that this was the intent, I conceded that my original criticisms no longer applied. In case you haven't been following, here's how the thread has evolved: My original position: "The implementation of science in 0.22 doesn't seem to do what people on the forum have been talking about as "career mode", rather it seems like an XP system. Does this lead to an "XP grind"? I think it does, we can look at the long history of MMOs as evidence. This doesn't seem to add end goals or challenges as such" Then AlamoVampire posted a link to this video. The part you want to listen to is the part at 7 minutes 15 seconds. Here you go: http://youtu.be/CupGRIL2h64?t=7m15s When I saw this I said "Ahhh, this is not the career mode you've been looking for". It's a tutorial. And if that is its intended purpose, then the mechanic is probably fine. But while I was saying this, a select few people decided to jump in and say really entertaining and irrelevant things, such as: - RAAAAGH ALPHA" - "You can't talk about upcoming features and suggest ideas in the forum titled features and ideas! You can only discuss features that have already been release and which you've actually played and that, therefore, have already had dozens or hundreds of hours of work poured into them and which are therefore hard to change!" (This one is my absolute favourite, I nearly spilled my drink laughing when I read that) - "RAAAGH ALPHA" - etc. And since then, I have had a wonderful time pointing out the nonsense of such statements.

Dl and signing up. It'll be nice to talk shop with people who know what KSP is.

Further, let's all recall that LKO takes less than half the deltaV required for low earth orbit. If you want to complain about people making it too easy, talk to Squad. (And deltaV is exponential when it comes to fuel mass: double the deltaV, way more than double the fuel/thrust; half the deltaV, way less than half the mass of booster required.)

To refine your Alcubierre explanation slightly it is not that it moves the area of space that contains the ship, it is that it compresses the spacetime in front of the ship and expands the spacetime behind it. Nothing is actually in motion at all... Interesting factoid: In 2012 a NASA laboratory announced that they have constructed an interferometer that they claim will detect the spatial distortions produced by the expanding and contracting spacetime of the Alcubierre metric. If this works as they claim, and they do detect these distortions... Talk about proof of intelligent extraterrestrial life! It would be amazing.

See, this is why I come here. Pure analysis. Bravo. Look, people. Others are going to have questions like mine. For those of you who think this subject was already dead and buried when I brought it up - well it's not, and never will be. New people are going to be running across these arguments all the time. Think Youtube (but that is not where I learned of it). Only a few of them are going to go research for themselves. And another one might end up in here. I don't understand everything NASA writes, and neither will the next new comer. So please chill out. And you are, gradually. So thank you for that. Let's leave a complete record for you guys to point to, when the next curious person comes along. I listed things when I first got here that sent everyone into a tizzie. There were a number of subjects listed. I could go point by point and say no one refuted point x or y, or that I lost on this point and that point. But that is not what I want to get across to you. I have looked into terrestrial radiation sources, including isotopes found in nuclear fallout, how to shield from that, half-lives, where my local nuke plants are located, what the seasonal prevailing winds are for my state. OK? But I don't know jack about space radiation other than high energy radiation like xray and gamma rays are the worst, and of course what I have read about the Van Allen belt, and the cross section pictures of it. Van Allan and NASA disagree on facts. I just know that kind of radiation is never good for humans and there was zero shielding, except for the mass of the ship itself. I want you to consider the pictures. You can say I have misinterpreted this or that. Some have already accused me of "just repeating what others have said". When you cite NASA, you do the same thing. But obviously the pictures are going to have to come from NASA, there is no choice. So as a regular Joe Layman, I download all the moon photos I could get in one evening. All the missions. I looked into this lack of crater thing. That's a label I don't like because I never expected a crater, just evidence of a change. I set aside the fact that as a preteen and teen I was allowed to stay up for all hours of the night watching all the moon footage I could. I witnessed it. I am not like the current generation who learns about it after the fact because of their place in time, I saw it live. That list of specific photos did not come from some conspiracy site. I made that list myself out of the files I downloaded because I thought they were they best shots to look at for this issue. Some missions didn't offer the greatest viewing opportunity under the LM, but you can certainly see what's around it. I have not read the NASA PDF provided above, yet. I will. You want to talk science? Then please repeat the experiment. PLEASE look at the pictures I cited. And not to beat a dead horse, but afterwords review the things I said about them, what I found, and what I expected to find, and then we include the historical story line. SEE for yourself WHY someone could come in here and say things that goes against the grain. Gentlemen, I saw both things with my own eyes. I saw the live B&W footage, and I am looking at the archival photos and it still raises an eyebrow. I know what happens if I shutdown my engine too early, even on low gravity Mimnus. Now I know a good portion of you will say something like, it's been proven therefore I don't need to look at it, you're too lazy to research for yourself, yadda yadda yadda. But I want YOU to understand something, and that is why people can think like this. Look at the photos! I swear the ground below the nozzle looks like there has been no interaction at all, regardless of the actual "blast radius" size arguments, velocities involved, whatever. There was mass. It has to slow down and not gain velocity. And I expect something to happen when my thrust, as minor as it is, hits that long undisturbed, dust layer. I think of those very perfectly defined footprints and I know that tells me that fine particle size is needed to leave those sharp 90 degree angles in the flour fine dust that makes up those beautiful footprints. That same kind of dust had to be under the LMs. If it is moved by pressure, I expect to see some pattern or design, or a clearing away; some evidence of a recent change. You never see any of that. In fact the Apollo 11 pic I cite looks like rain droplets have hit the thick dry dust, not a directed blast of some pressure level. Another picture looks like animal footprints under it (and I didn't say there were any animals involved for those who like to put words in my mouth). But these features are not only immediate to the nozzel but off as far as the edge of the LM. I think someone suggested that the LMs came down with some lateral motion. If so, then those 5' probes should have made some short lines in the ground until the vehicle started dropping straight down. You don't see any indication of lateral movement from that perspective either. If science says there would be no change to the surface, fine. I'd find that hard to believe, but would try. If science says there should be a change, then WOW, I don't see it! That's where I was at when I came in here. So, as a witness to all the live broadcasts, and as one who has looked a long time at those photos I cited, and even AFTER getting the "treatment" here, I am still going to tell you, and you can quote me "It looks like the LM's were set in place by a crane, due to the lack of any visual disturbance to the areas immediate to the nozzle." It just looks damn odd and unexpected to my eye. And I would really like the reader to understand that someone could come to that conclusion, based solely on what is, and what isn't in the photos cited. Please look. PS Please stop trying to tie me to a fake moon landing. My stance was this. The photos of the LM don't add up. That just says the photos are in question - not the landing. And that we probably landed on the moon, but I suggested that maybe it wasn't Neil. Patriotic men will do what their country asks them to do. All that suggestion requires is a swap of personnel and following orders. It's not my burden to defend a hoax theory, because I never said that. I do not require secret Saturn Vs. You do, You're going there. I am not. Secrecy? Compartmentalization? I would reference the Manhattan project. Arguably the second most important thing that America ever did. Keeping big secrets is a piece of cake, when you do it like they did. I question some of the archival photos, and the Van Allan radiation thing. That is as far as I am willing to go. I can be convinced. But I also like independent verification whenever possible. I cannot do that with space radiation, but I can do that with photos. However, the photos raised more questions than they solved. I am curious about a few other things too, but will probably no longer ask about them.

Wow, talk about one of the best mods known to kerbal kind! Seriously kudos all round for anyone who had a hand in this. I'm floored! In any case, I was curious as to how can you go about tweaking the costs of parts? I don't want to reduce anything, I just noticed that my Flight Engineer module has the cost of 1. I find that too cheap and was hoping to have it's cost be more like the mechjeb module which is something like 3,000K. Also, not that it would make a massive difference, I noticed that items placed in bins don't add to the cost calculations. Is there any plans in the future to make this be factored? Again, amazing work I've started a new game to try things out and will be making some missions myself! Woo!

Man Gizmodo sucks. They talk about these high res images and don't link to them. They only link to their own website. And their writing sounds like a middle schooler's Did anyone manage to find the original LRO images?

Nice way to not talk about the subject and pollute the thread. Please enlighten us with your advice on this subject -snip-

Yes, that's my point. I must say, I'm pleased to see you're starting to come around. Or not. But running out of arguments I see. 1) We do know what they are. 2) Why does it matter which parts Squad says are "tier 1"? If you want to limit yourself, just pick which parts you want to exclude. If you mean to say "the tech tree is just a tutorial" - again, yes, this is what I've already stated. No, I really do, because some things are just necessarily true. If you are trying to tell me that adding a tech tree where you have to unlock new nodes somehow introduces a new and interesting gameplay element where you specifically do not try to unlock new nodes - I would tell you that what you were saying is complete lunacy. It is certainly the case that, as a tutorial system for new players, the tech tree implementation as it stands right now needs no modification. I already said this in a previous post. However, this does not change the fact that the tech tree is nothing but a generic XP system, and all XP systems motivate the player to do exactly one thing: gain XP. I've been a programmer for 20 years. I started in games. Go ahead and look me up. Yeeesss.... not sure why you are pointing this out. I am doing neither. I opened a discussion on a topic, gave my thoughts and suggestions. Perhaps you should read the OP again? And, because you seem to have missed it, let me state that last point again: It makes no sense to claim that this forum, titled "suggestion and development discussion", should only be used to discuss things that have been built, tested, signed off and released, because that is the point at which things are hardest to change. Do you go into all the threads about "improved aerodynamics", the upcoming economy, the threads that brought up what was wrong with SAS and how it needed to change, and tell them "no, you can't talk about those things until they're implemented"? Because, once again, that seems pretty insane to me.

When people talk about faster than light, implied is ability to carry information. Shadow moving faster than light is fine, because it inherently cannot carry information. Another illustrative example is phase velocity vs group velocity of light in materials. You probably know that index of refraction in material is related to speed of light in materials. High index of refraction means that light travels through material slower. But there are materials with index of refraction less than one. That means light travels through them faster than light. What? Well, it's the phase velocity that's faster. If you look at the beam, the waves of electromagnetic intensity really do seem to move faster than the speed of light, but if you look at where the pulse begins, that front is still moving slower than light. That is group velocity and it is what determines how fast you can send information. (Because my explanation of phase vs group velocity is probably not very clear, take a look at top animation on the Wikipedia's article on the subject.)

Stream over! Thanks to the people that came! And sorry to the guy who tried to talk to me when I couldn't see the chat. Twitter was open and I didn't see the window. Tomorrow is when the real scary games start. We'll start with Vanish, a randomly generated horror game of hallways in a similar vein as SCP-087-B. Then we'll play either Slender: Haunt or Haunted Memories. Same game, different styles.

There is (I do), but we don't talk about that here. It's like Fight Club!

Camp Mint “Got a mission for you Bob.†Bob completely ignored Gene and continued munching on crunchy snacks. He was easy to find, as he’d been sulking in the KSC cafeteria since he was pulled from the Dunan-X, but increasingly hard to talk to. By now he’d probably put on half a kilo in snack fat, and Gene knew something needed to be done to get his third-best pilot’s spirits up. “The fifth installation of the MALROC landed hard, so we need to send Shelcan up to replace the broken bits. We were planning to put a small rover base on Minmus anyway, so we’re sending that up with you too. You’ll need to pick him up in the Cuairt 4 once he’s done with his work, which is still fully fueled and in Minmus orbit.†[Crunch. Munch. Crunch.] “Look, I know how you feel, ok? But right now I need you to get up, chose the third member for your crew, and get back at it.†“Barrie.†Bob barely stopped his snacking to suggest the name. “He handled the docking with me on Tosach 3. Good pilot.†“Ok. I’ll get him lined up. Expect to start mission training tonight. We need to get the MALROC to 100 before the Dunan-X gets too far from Kerbin.†-- Shelcan couldn’t believe his luck. Just a few weeks ago and he was only fixing the test vehicles of the great Kerbalnauts. Now he was one of them. Just last week they sent him up to finish setting up the Dunan-X, and now he was on his way to Munmus. A true Space Mechanic. This was one of the best months of his life. (Not to mention he was getting to spend a full week with two of the legends of spaceflight: Bob Kerman, fifth Kerbal in space and one of the few to land on the Mun, and Barrier Kerman, first pilot to dock in space.) The flight out was simple and uneventful, using a now-regular Minmus free-return trajectory, and hot on the heels of the Dunan-X. (Ground controllers had warned Barrie and Shelcan to watch Bob and not allow him to plot an intercept for the Dunan-X.) The plan for landing the repair base was somewhat unique. To save fuel in the rover base the trans-Minmus booster was retained through orbital injection and used to deorbit and land. Shelcan, being the inventive Space Mechanic he is, decided to create some modern art (or maybe create his own Monolith?) on Minmus. He named it the Rockolift. He also named the base “Camp Mint,†shortened by KSC from his first choice “Camp Mint IceCream.†It was a short 3km drive from the Rockolift over to the MALROC EquiA. Nightfall was just around the corner, so Shelcan set out once his art project was complete. Driving on Minmus is never an easy feat, and Shelcan let the base build up a bit too much speed before hitting the brakes. Thankfully the engineers had decided to include an RCS system at the last minute. Base upright again, Shelcan set about getting to work on the MALROC EquiA. Meanwhile aboard the Fios 5 in orbit Bob was busy tracking down the Cuairt 4. The previous Minmus crew had left it fully fueled and in a slightly-erratic 18km orbit. The rendezvous and docking occurred on the dark side of Minmus, which is apparently standard operating procedure for the Kerbal Space Agency. (And KSC engineers have made sure to include docking lights on all craft launched since the early days of kerb’d spaceflight.) Bob decided to wait until morning before going down to pick up Shelcan. The landing was far more uneventful than Bob’s landing in the Cuairt 3. Even with the strange layer of ice that covers everything on Minmus. Camp Mint was left behind at the MALROC EquiA, with enough fuel remaining to hop to just about anywhere else on Minmus. The fuel in the roving base, however, is better used as ballast for driving around. Burn too much of it off and the base gets to be so light it can’t get enough traction to drive. Bob and Shelcan didn’t head straight up to the Fios 5, though, and instead took a side-trip to the KS-L2 at Green Dust Lake. Shelcan was less than amused with Bob’s “thrilling†low-altitude flight (less than 100m at 130m/s!), but was used to this type of piloting from the fighterjock-turned-kerbalnauts that made the space program what it was. Along the way Kerbin rose above the horizon. The KS-L2 was only the second FSK craft to land anywhere other than Kerbin, so it had some historical significance. Perhaps someday in the future a small visitor’s center will be built here, with coin-operated telescopes to look back at Kerbin, and probably some cheap recording of a famous Kerbal physicist explaining the composition of Minmus’ lakes and how the impactor stage of the KS-L2 helped to gain new scientific insights. From there it was a short hop back to the Fios 5, including another of Bob’s low altitude near-misses on liftoff. Bob and Shelcan EVA’d back to the capsule, fueled up the Cuairt 4, and burned for home. Yet another successful mission. -- Further out in space, the crew aboard the Dunan-X were watching Kerbin slowly disappear into the skybox. Jeb took a picture, scribbled a message on it, and fired it off to Bob, knowing he’d get it shortly after the burn to leave Minmus. Kerbin would soon be little more than a pale blue dot against the background of the universe. Duna, however, is still many days away. Many, many days away. Space is big, empty, and cold, with very few friends around to help you out when you screw up.

This is incorrect because you CANNOT synchronize the two clocks from BOTH the perspective of the moving observer and the perspective of the stationary observer. When the clock was synchronized from the perspective of the observer sharing the inertial reference frame of the train, the observer on the ground witnesses the clock on the rear of the flatbed car slightly ahead of the clock on the front of the flatbed car, with the time difference being exactly the time of flight difference between the forward travelling light beam and the backward travelling light beam. Don't just take my word for it though, read this- http://galileoandeinstein.physics.virginia.edu/lectures/synchronizing.html Anyway, the idea that I could be wrong about this is a little ridiculous, since it is a VERY BASIC example of perceived simultaneity in two inertial reference frames, and all this stuff was figured out a hundred years ago or more, and has been very rigorously tested, and found to be correct to the best measurements taken so far. Mostly true, BUT it misses the whole point of there being no such thing as simultaneity. A clock in the Andromeda galaxy and a clock in the Milky Way that appear synchronized from a point midway between each galaxy (and at relative rest with each) could be a few million years out of sync with each other from other inertial frames of reference. How so? That this it's nonsensical to talk about "what is happening now?" in the Andromeda galaxy, because what is happening "now" depends on what your frame of reference is, that is a well known fact. There is simply no way to synchronize two spatially separated clocks from all frames of reference. Maybe this is a matter of interpretation, but since the speed of light is the speed of causality, and it is not possible to know about distance events more quickly than the speed of light, to me, the question of "what is happening now?" is best answered by saying that what is happening now is EXACTLY WHAT WE SEE happening now. After all, if you could ask a photon hitting telescope how long the trip from the Andromeda Galaxy to the Milky Way took, it would reply that the trip was instant. Of course, that is not correct either, because other reference frames would disagree. This just underscores why I say that the whole question of "what is happening now?" in some distant location is just nonsensical and nonphysical.

CHAPTER 37 AEROBRAKING: JOOL *** SID: Astonishing. Completely astonishing. BERTY v.2.0.8b: Sid, you have spent the last 13 hours in the LAMGML “Alfa†command module. We will soon be approaching Jool's radiation belt. It is advised that you leave LAMGML “Alfa†and go to the habitation modules which are equipped with better protection against radiation. SID: I appreciate your concern BERTY, but either way I'm going to be soaked in radiation, so frankly I don't care about these few extra milisieverts. BERTY v.2.0.8b: Sid. I may be wrong but it seems you're still upset about the changes in the mission plan. Do you wish to talk about it? SID: Why? You better talk with Jeb. BERTY v.2.0.8b: I'm talking with commander in this very moment – unlike you, I'm not restricted in my capabilities by a physical body. SID: It must be very comfortable. BERTY v.2.0.8b: I can't answer to this question, Sid. I don't have necessary data to make a comparison. However, I'm confident that the way I was created enhances my ability to process several tasks simultaneously. SID: But you do have a body – in a way, “Proteus†is a close substitute. Am I right? BERTY v.2.0.8b: I didn't think about it in this way, Sid. SID: I'm glad I've gave you something to think of. Now could you please leave me? BERTY v.2.0.8b: I'm always here, Sid. SID: I mean, could you be quiet please? We still have some time. BERTY v.2.0.8b: Affirmative. Aerobraking will commence in 5 hours and 56 minutes. SID: Six hours… and then we will meet again, Jool… *** DANREY: Sid? Are you there? SID: Hmm? Yes – come on, I'll show you something. DANREY: Excuse me, but have you lost your mind? We're getting closer to Jool, you can't be here! The radiation level- SID: Nah, it's just a few milisieverts more. Even with the expected dosage above Laythe we should be fine – the risk of getting cancer will increase to three-four percent at most. Trust me Danrey, I know what I'm doing. DANREY: Mhm, sure. It's your fixation on Jool and its moons speaking. SID: Are you surprised? Come on, take a look at this. DANREY: :sigh: Really, we'll have plenty of time to observ- oh my Kod… SID: Now do you understand? DANREY: This… this is incredible. SID: Oh yes. And it brings memories too. DANREY: Wow, just wow. Could you zoom on Laythe? SID: You're welcome. DANREY: Unbelievable. It looks like a small Kerbin! Atmosphere and water so far from the Sun is complet- SID: Liquid, Dan – we don't know the chemical composition of this ocean, so to say it's water is a rather hasty conclusion. Laythe is still a mystery – no probe has ever reached its surface. It will be our job to try to unravel some if its secrets. DANREY: Okay, but do you honestly think it's not water? In such abundance? I'm not a scientist but I know that one of the most common chemical elements are hydrogen and oxium. It has to be water. SID: I told you, let's not jump to conclusion without solid data. Even if it's in fact water, it's not a pure H2O, rather some kind of a primordial soup consisting of cyanides, sulfur, perhaps sulfur dioxide and maybe even some organic compounds. DANREY: So we know something about Laythe. SID: We suspect. The primary source of our data comes from the probe released by “Kadmos†almost thirty years ago. Besides that, well – building gigantic and extremely advanced manned spacecraft like “Kadmos†or “Proteus†had a harsh impact on our unmanned space exploration program. DANREY: Does it matter now? We're here. SID: Yes, indeed we are. BERTY v.2.0.8b: Attention. IMV “Proteus†will approach the inner radiation belt in 30 minutes. Please proceed to the habitation modules and take your radiation pills. DANREY: Pills, huh? SID: Potassium iodide. It will saturate the thyroid with stable iodine, so that- DANREY: I know. Maybe I'm not a scientist but I'm still a kerbonaut, Sid. SID: Sorry. Good thing that we're precisely on an optimal trajectory – if we even touch the inner radiation belt- DANREY: The electronics would fry and we would die. Yeah. It's good that we have BERTY. SID: Mhm. DANREY: We better take the pills though. SID: Go. I'll stay here a little longer. DANREY: Sometimes you are as stubborn as commander used to be, you know that? SID: I know. *** http://youtu.be/fAlNyJ1xqH0 BERTY v.2.0.8b: All systems operational and in prime condition, commander. Aerobraking will commence in 15 minutes. JEB: Why am I here, BERTY? You don't need me to do this. BERTY v.2.0.8b: Yes. However, in the unlikely event of catastrophic malfunction your presence here may save the mission. JEB: So know you trust me to do my job? BERTY v.2.0.8b: Direct control is a preferable and more reliable solution. I have never made a mistake, Jeb – by design, I am foolproof and incapable of error. That's why the ultimate responsibility for the mission was given to me. Trust is a term used to describe relations between people, thus, by definition, it cannot be used to describe the relation between us. However, what I said remains valid – your presence here may reduce the impact of hypothetical malfunction on the mission. Therefore, it would be ill-advised for you to stay elsewhere during the aerobraking. JEB: … ROZER: Always rational in this innocent but cold way – quite unlike you, isn't he? JEB: What are you doing here? ROZER: Do you honestly think I'll leave you unsupervised anywhere near the control panel during such critical moment? You are more naive than I thought if you think I would trust you to do what is necessary in your condition. JEB: You won't touch these controls. ROZER: Obviously, you don't trust me. Good – it means your judgment is not completely clouded. BERTY v.2.0.8b: Aerobraking will commence in 10 minutes. ROZER: Only ten minutes left. Is everyone in their acceleration couches already? BERTY v.2.0.8b: Yes. JEB: I don't want you here. ROZER: I could care less about what you want. JEB: What about him? ROZER: Him? He'll agree – double the fail-safe, half the risk. Isn't it? BERTY v.2.0.8b: Your statement is correct. ROZER: See? Let's not argue about it – Jool won't wait. Speaking of which: may I get a visual from LAMGML? I didn't have time for luxury of observing the planet during our approach, so I would like to see it before we dive into its atmosphere. JEB: :gasp: ROZER: Truly the most impressive view. Let's hope our journey won't end in this emerald ocean of clouds. JEB: … ROZER: You're too grim, Jeb. Relax! Whatever happens, it'll be the end of some of our worries – or even all of them. Why don't we check the manual control systems before the fire, hmm? *** BERTY v.2.0.8b: Aerobraking will commence in 2 minutes. ROZER: You're thinking about “Kadmosâ€Â, don't you? JEB: It's not your damn business. ROZER: You spend too much time thinking about the past, Jeb. BERTY v.2.0.8b: Aerobraking will commence in 1 minute and 30 seconds. ROZER: Even the past as commendable as yours. JEB: … BERTY v.2.0.8b: Aerobraking will commence in 1 minute and 15 seconds. ROZER: It's a shame, really. When we met for the first time you were the role model for me. JEB: … BERTY v.2.0.8b: Aerobraking will commence in 1 minute. ROZER: Well, not only for me. Actually every young kerbonaut wished to be like you. JEB: … BERTY v.2.0.8b: Aerobraking will commence in 45 seconds. ROZER: The first kerbal on the Mun… It's a pity that the real Jebediah doesn't match up to the legend. It was a surprisingly brutal realization. BERTY v.2.0.8b: Aerobraking will commence in 30 seconds. ROZER: Still silent, huh? JEB: … ROZER: You know what, one day I have to tell you why I became a kerbonaut. BERTY v.2.0.8b: Aerobraking will commence in 10 seconds. ROZER: But it is not this day. This day we meet the fire. JEB: The fire? ROZER: Trial by ordeal, Jeb – and Jool is our judge. JEB: What the hell are you talki- BERTY v.2.0.8b: â€ÂProteus†has entered the atmosphere. BERTY v.2.0.8b: 0,5g. Increasing friction and pressure. ROZER: Again in the embrace of gravity, huh? JEB: Shut u- ugh! BERTY v.2.0.8b: 0,9g. Heatshield's temperature 600 degrees. Warning: 76% of the ablative material left. ROZER: And so it begins! BERTY v.2.0.8b: 1,4g. Heatshield's temperature 800 degrees. RCS online. Warning: 73% of the ablative material left. JEB: Argh! BERTY v.2.0.8b: 2,1g. Heatshield's temperature 1300 degrees. Warning: 69% of the ablative material left. ROZER: Yes! Through the fire! JEB: Are you insane?! BERTY v.2.0.8b: 2,9g. Warning. Ship covered by heatshield in 98%. Heatshield's temperature 1500 degrees. JEB: Can you- ugh! BERTY v.2.0.8b: Abnormal hull vibrations detected. Ship covered by heatshield in 97%. Warning: 62% of the ablative material left. BERTY v.2.0.8b: LAMGML “Beta†damaged. Heatshield's temperature 1800 degrees. ROZER: Under thy protection we seek refuge, Jool son of Kaia! BERTY v.2.0.8b: LAMGML “Alfa†damaged. Atmospheric pressure anomaly detected. Heatshield's temperature 2000 degrees. ROZER: Anomaly?! BERTY v.2.0.8b: Temperature spike on the thermal protection insulation of the fusion core B detected. Warning: 54% of the ablative material left. JEB: No! It was damaged during Duna- ROZER: What the- BERTY v.2.0.8b: MASTER ALARM. POGO OSCILLATION DETECTED. MISSION ENDANGERED. JEB: I – can't – ugh! ROZER: Don't – give -up! BERTY v.2.0.8b: MASTER ALARM. POGO OSCILLATION DETECTED. STRUCTURAL INTEGRITY UNKNOWN. BERTY v.2.0.8b: SECONDARY LIFE SUPPORT SYSTEM DAMAGED. HEATSHIELD'S TEMPERATURE 2300 DEGREES. 47% OF ABLATIVE MATERIAL LEFT. JEB: Can't – breath! ROZER: Fight – old man! BERTY v.2.0.8b: ACCELERATION COUCHES FAILURE IN HABITATION MODULE B DETECTED. 43% OF ABLATIVE MATERIAL LEFT. JEB: :gasping: ROZER: COME ON! BERTY v.2.0.8b: HEATSHIELD'S TEMPERATURE 2100 DEGREES. 40% OF ABLATIVE MATERIAL LEFT. ROZER: Pogo stopped! JEB: …! BERTY v.2.0.8b: Switching to normal mode of operation. Heatshield's temperature 1900 degrees. 38% of ablative material left. ROZER: We survived! WE SURVIVED! JEB: :gasping: BERTY v.2.0.8b: Damage assessment in progress. Heatshield's temperature 1700 degrees. 36% of ablative material left. BERTY v.2.0.8b: Warning. Cessation of life functions detected by doctor Harsen's biosensors. JEB: He's – he's gone? ROZER: Is this an equipment failure or- BERTY v.2.0.8b: Negative. I'm afraid doctor Harsen suffered fatal trauma from the sudden exposure to high acceleration. Data indicates heart failure. 34% of ablative material left. JEB: … ROZER: So we didn't pass it unharmed… BERTY v.2.0.8b: Heatshield's temperature 1200 degrees. Leaving the atmosphere in five, four, three, two, one. “Proteus†has left the atmosphere. BERTY v.2.0.8b: Trajectory correction calculations completed. BERTY v.2.0.8b: Executing trajectory change in 2 minutes and 45 seconds. Closest approach to the inner radiation belt in 48 minutes and 34 seconds. ROZER: Very unfortunate moment to lose LAMGML specialist. His talents could've come in handy in the nearest future. JEB: That's all you care about, don't you? ROZER: As a matter of fact, yes. It's about time to start acting again – the mission demands it now that we've survived the fire. To be completely honest, that was quite a … cathartic experience. Like a phoenix from the ashes we shall now rise and do what we need to do – don't you think, Jeb? JEB: You're a cold, twisted bastard. ROZER: :laughs: Thank you. Remember me to tell you how I became a kerbonaut one day. You may be surprised. [ *** MISSION STATUS ***

Hi. I have an idea that could help with the sensation of grinding for science and generic Science points used just as currency to buy parts. The idea is to have nodes that don't allow you to use new parts, but improve the parts you already have. Somthing like this (behold my drawing skills): The difference is that you don't unlock these nodes with generic Sciences. You would have to use the parts that the father node have given you. Per example, if a node gives you a parachute, an engine and a fuel tank you would have to use them to get specific Science points (SSP) Then you could have a couple improvement nodes coming from the one you have unlocked, something like "Fuel storage", "Engine Thrust" and "Soft landing" that could improve the ISP of the engine, the dry mass of the fuel tank and the drag of the parachute. Each one would affect all similar parts so thrust and efficiency would improve in all liquid fuel engines with one node and SRB with other, RCS with other and the same for structural parts weight, solar panels efficiency, batery capacity etc. And there could be diferent tiers like "Engine Thrust I", "Engine Thrust II", "Engine Thrust III" etc. each one improving thrust a small percentage. Now let's talk about those Specific Science Points I would like to have some kind of random variable so you won't know exactly how many more launches you have to do to get an improvement, and when you recover a vessel or transmit the data you get an unexpected message saying "Thanks to the analisis of your previous missions you can now research "Fuel Storage". For this to be more "uncontrollable" the SSP could be hidden so you don't know how or when will it happen just like in real life we can't know when a new tecnology will appear. The way those points can be earned would be related with the use of the specific part they will improve and how it is being used. You will get more info about how to make better parachutes using them in an atmosphere instead of looking at them in the vacuum. And you could learn more about how to make better landing legs landing on a high gravity planet. Also you will get much more information if you can recover the parts you are trying to improve so return missions will be more valuable. The last thing I would like to see are prototypes. They would work just a the normal part, but would give you extra SSP. They would be more expensive (once we have an economy) and you would need to take them back to Kerbin to get the data. The possibilities are as big as the tech tree itself: better air intakes, faster rover wheels, lighter aircraft... the SOI of Kerbol is the only limit for now. Thank you for reading. PS: Please tell me if I have written something wrong, you will help the rest to understand the text better and you will also help me to express myself better in english

Primary school teachers and people who know how to have fun. Sheesh, people. Talk about 1st-world problems...

Making decorative bases is fine. That's just putting style into it. RP is not fine. Don't post in-character, don't invent political reasons for things, and don't talk about events that happen in-character. There's another forum for that kind of play if you want it. You'll have to Google it, since linking to it is against forum rules.

Yes, you seem to be missing the point there. If I take a solid booster and attach it via decoupler to a small ship, or a big ship, or the side of the bloody VAB itself, it makes no difference to the decoupler: The weight of the SRB stays the same, and that weight is all the decoupler is required to hold up no matter what happens to be on the other side. So it doesn't make much sense that on a small ship it has no trouble holding that weight (plus the additional G multiplication that of course happens during ascent), but on a big ship it falls off on the pad. The point about a ship "wiggling" on the launch clamps has already been raised. As I already responded, the big ship doesn't wiggle much on the pad, it has a heck of a lot of support. Even if it did wiggle, we're comparing the amount of stress put on the decoupler by a slight wiggle in an SRB on the pad to the amount of stress when, say, the SRB is actually lit and kicking out thrust while attached to something completely stationary like, say, a launch clamp, where it has no problem. So there's that. In any case, Ferram already raised a point about a symmetry strength bug, which I had forgotten about, and which I expect is the explanation for what I talk about in post 2. But the questions raised in post 1 still remain.

8/10 I wana talk about ME (you get a cookie if you catch the reference)

10/10 *sees rainbow factory talk* Nah, I don't actually mind rainbow factory (IS SOMETHING WRONG WITH ME! ). (also... maybe it is because I prefer pegasi above other ponies)

Well yea.The thread follows a pattern War-Talk-War-Peace-Thread dies