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I meant that I felt less like competition because 'we're gonna buy both, anyway,' in that they funded both the low-risk *and* high-risk options, rather than having a traditional design competition where both options are developed and tested, then the one that better met the requirements were purchased. An artifact of the times, and directly related to the poor intel that indicates a 'missile gap,' yes, but still, it's like Atlas and Titan were *both* guaranteed big orders, instead of it being 'winner take all.' Assisted, of course, by the fact that there were exactly two markets for boosters at the time, DoD and NASA. (Remember, NASA had a legal monopoly on American civilian space launches--including commercial comsats--until after Challenger.) Boeing or Chrysler *might* have been willing to take on developing a Saturn-class booster on their own--note how Chrysler spent billions of dollars over thirty years trying to make the gas turbine-powered car work, and how betting more than the company's worth (B-17, B-29, 707, 747, 777) is almost a rite of passage at Boeing--if they'd been able to market it to a wide array of customers, but with only the two government agencies as potential customers, and the resultant requirement to go through design competitions to sell the boosters, there was no way they could guarantee recouping the investment. I'd always heard that in the Russian aviation industry, secrecy ran rampant enough that often, MiG wouldn't know what Sukhoi was doing, for example. Not necessarily as a matter of official security protocol, but rather just because people didn't talk, lest they accidentally let something slip around a KGB guy who'd inform on them. Might be wrong, but I somehow suspect there was a lot of duplicated effort due to secrecy. (Witness how NASA duplicated much of the design effort for an upper stage for Atlas and Titan boosters until the Air Force finally declassified the Vega program, just before renaming it Agena--which had exactly the same performance as NASA was going for, and would be ready two years sooner. If that happened in the 'open' world of the US, I'm sure similar SNAFUs happened in the more secretive Soviet system.) Don't forget an inflatable airlock where you need to partially depressurize the EVA suit to reach the repressurization controls! That's the most likely scenario for the earth-orbit Apollo Applications missions, complete the Titan III development and use those to fly Apollo CSMs in low orbit to 'dry workshop' space stations launched on INT-21. NASA was leaning towards Saturns, of course, because von Braun was still around and trying to urge their use because they avoided putting people boosters that used solid rockets, which he did not trust at ALL. (Can't blame him... ever since Challenger, I held my breath all the way from SRB ignition to SRB sep, every shuttle launch.) I'm not sure, just due to the need to lug deadweight equal to roughly three times the payload up to orbit, every single time, plus the need to fly it crewed for simple satellite launches where the crew's entire input was 'Point orbiter in correct direction, open sun shade, spin up PAM-D, release clamps.' Did that really require sending up a four-man crew? No, but every time the Shuttle was used as a comsat launcher, that's what they did. I certainly agree there. This is why most of the Saturn-derivative schemes attempted to reduce the number of stages to simplify some of these issues, with the ultimate example being the Saturn V-B (described in detail here: http://astronautix.com/lvs/saturnvb.htm) that MSFC proposed in 1968, a 'stage-and-a-half' version of the Saturn V's first stage that could put a payload comparable to Shuttle into the same orbit. You'd end up with a single-manufacturer, horizontally-assembled rocket somewhat akin to if someone took Atlas and injected it with a mixture of horse steroids and Miracle-Gro. ;P If you needed a higher orbit for a somewhat smaller payload, an upper stage engine could be mounted on top of it, of course, and the development time and cost would have been *very* attractive by comparison to Shuttle! The versions I've seen were relatively simple modifications of the S-IC, removing the fins (which were of almost no value) and part of the thrust structure fairing for weight reduction to add 45m wings with vertical stabilizers at the tips, jet engines, and a one-man cockpit just forward of the left wing(!), with plans to replace the F-1s after each flight; MSFC and Boeing estimated about a 20% payload reduction as a result. (See http://astronautix.com/lvs/winturnv.htm) INT-20, along with INT-18 and INT-19, was proposed as the replacement for the IB; INT-21 was always seen as a heavy-lifter. (Quick summary: INT-18 was an S-II/S-IVB stack with either two or four Titan strap-on SRBs; INT-19 was the same stack, but with between 4 and 12 Minuteman I first stages as strap-on SRBs; INT-20 was a stack with an S-IVB atop a three-engine S-IC, largely considered due to von Braun's distaste for SRBs.) Realistically, though, the Titan III would have been a better choice for an Apollo earth-orbital booster in the long-term, and probably would have won the contract. What really annoys me about Skylab/Apollo Applications is that we could have, at minimal cost, kept flying almost right up until the Shuttle was ready. After all, in 1972, after the last lunar flight, NASA's inventory included six complete and one partially complete Apollo spacecraft (if you count 102, the Pad 34 checkout vehicle, and 105, used in acoustic tests; 115 was never fully completed after the original Apollo 15 mission was cancelled in 1969), six complete and three partially complete Saturn IBs (S-IVB-212 had been converted to the Skylab orbital workshop while S-IVB-213 and -214 were cancelled in 1968), and two complete and one partially complete Saturn Vs (S-IVB-515 had been converted to the backup Skylab orbital workshop). The Skylab program, as flown, expended one of the Saturn Vs (SA-513, with S-IVB-513 being replaced with the prime Skylab workshop), three of the Saturn IBs (SA-206, -207, -208), and three of the Apollo spacecraft (116, 117, 118). By finishing the work on spacecraft 115, mating S-IVB-514 or -515 with S-IB-212, and then using SA-514 or -515 to launch the converted S-IVB-515 as a second Skylab workshop, we could have flown three more Skylab missions in the late 70s while retaining spacecraft 111 and SA-209 as the rescue mission, at virtually no cost to the taxpayers. We'd already bought all the hardware, it was all flight-rated, and the only costs would have been training, manpower, and consumables. What's more, this would have given the Space Shuttle someplace to *go* on its early missions, instead of it being a shuttle bus that didn't have a destination. Instead, this expensive flight-rated hardware ended up either rotting in rocket gardens, or, in the case of S-IB-212, -213, and 214, simply scrapped. :-\ Very frustrating, but it's so typical of the US government to not at least try to use up what it's bought and paid for, y'know?

I also want to echo Reflectors statments about this stuff being common knowledge. (At least it SHOULD be.) That the OP has a tertiary education (that he's proud of, no less) and still has so many wrong ideas is a sad indicator of the larger state of affairs. Orbiter is more realistic than anyone could ever hope to make KSP with mods. I call again for this crazy talk to stop. Stop I say!

True, each winglet produces a moment, but they SHOULD cancel out, regardless of their longitudinal offset. I'm starting to think that there may be a slight error in the radial position of the winglet when not using the symmetry tool, which would cause a small moment like the one Foamy's illustrating. Maybe. Yes... WHA- Go learn the difference between resultants and components; between coplanar, colinear and parallel; between lift and drag. Then MAYBE we can talk. Flipping through a glossary of physics terms and picking them at random does not constitute a cogent argument. Well, aren't you a gem....

Delirant isti Kerbali! (Roughly: Those Kerbals talk rubbish / are insane)

Talk about memories! I remember a styrofoam shuttle kit I had, with C-type motors. I think we did one single full launch, and it ended up in a tree. Then we got to playing with just the C-types, and strapped cardboard fins and toothpick struts to them. And of course, little tin foil men, which were named 'Kerbals' Thank you for making that reskin. It's significant on many levels here. Hmm, now, we need an Estes-like tripod launchpad Cheers EDIT: Oh and yeah, I've done a small change to the parts loading scheme, and underscores will no longer be a taboo character on part names

Awesome! That cockpit looks like it's been revised so many times. There's Apollo-like gauges next to glass displays. Anyone notice there's a guy standing near the access hatch on the lower flight deck? Talk about photobomb Cheers

Well I'm a big fan of Anime (The good stuff anyway) and my friend and I use Baka as a general name for everyone (luckly also anime fans) so one day I just skipped the small talk and called myself a stupid person in Japanese I have the same problem, but the thing is with me.. I'M HUGE! Call me porkins... well don't actually call me that , but I can just walk up to people and it can take them 10 minutes to realize I'm there. Add that ability to my sharpshooting skills and you have a special forces elite in the making. Able to sneek up on enemies or take them down with a shot from a distance. Just don't expect me to crawl through vents...

It's saving the path to the config correctly, it just doesn't seem to like reading the value. I wonder if it has to do with slashes, maybe they need to be escaped or something. I've never used Java so I gots no ideas there. I'm on the IRC channel if you need to talk shop. Arrr! Capt'n Skunky

first game? bloody good job. spiffing, if I say so myself! good job old bean! [/end posh talk]

Hey guys, www.talk-reason.com has a space travel forum. I need people enthusiastic about space travel to make it interesting.

150K downloads in 18 days... That's an average of 8333 per day over the current lifespan Lets talk some cash here. Lets take the conservative estimate that 50% of the people are just downloading a free demo and that 50% are paying. Now imagine when the game gets a price tag, lets say $10 for arguments sake. That would equate to almost $42,000 per day... or around 3/4 of a Million in 18 days had the game been carrying a price tag (using conservative estimates). Heck at $5 a pop that would still be $375K right there. However, being the smart person that HarvesteR is, he's getting us all hooked first with the free aplha then when the time comes - Early Retirement And I for one do not mind helping him retire young in exchange for this awesome game. Keep it up bro, you deserve every penny coming your way soon.

You should totally talk to the folks who make this awesome game and get em to change it so decouplers don't fire before anything else. Frankly your retro's being able to fire at the same time as the decoupler would be an amazing thing...as is, firing them then the decoupler causes you to lose a bit of your velocity due to simple human reaction times. Still, keep up the good work. This mod is an amazing thing ;D

Oh, by the way; if anyone here does have TeamSpeak3 I run a few servers; so if you want to get together and talk...

[0.1] Firstly, I'd like to announce that I completely suck at drawing. Make it in real life or on the computer, pixelart or full-size. So dont expect too much. Also, this is a retexture of the original textures, so not really much new. Except for that cool blue-ish sheen, which is what I'm trying to make. At first I tried using hue to change the color of the stuff to a little more blue, but then I remembered that hue only works on colors, not grey stuff. So I had to change that. Then I tried saturation, and that worked a little better. However it didnt work on all of the textures, so I had to trash that idea too. After that I simply added a new 50-transparency blue layer on top of the image. THAT worked fine. I was a little worried that the previously transparent areas had to stay transparent, but after a test (below) I was happy that it worked fine. Here is my first retexturing of the fuel tank, as you can (hopefully) see, it's slightly blue (compare with the other things next to it). More textures and images coming soon! [0.2] Firstly, the MK1-pod failed completely, looking all black and ugly-ish. But I successfully managed to convert the decoupler and liquid engine to the blue team. Edit: was planning on making a 0.2.1 to fix the überblackness on the pod, but I have no idea whats causing it so I'm reverting to the original textures. Updating more parts soon. [0.3] Finished the winglets, solid booster and SAS module, next I'm going to make the Ionengine, Sphaera, and the Radial decoupler. I'm also intending on releasing the vanilla pack and a separate pack with all the custom mods textures on 0.4. [0.4] Woooouuuu! Not really much to say... I'll let these pictures talk for themselves And crapples, uploading failed, will come soon... [0.4.1] Attatchment with the vanilla retextures. HOW TO INSTALL: Download the attatchment, unzip it somewhere in any easy-accessed empty folder, like a new folder in your images folder. Then open up the texture folder in the fuelTank folder in the Parts folder in your KSP folder in a separate explorer window. Now pull the fuelTank_texBlue from the folder with the blue-ish images in to the texture folder. You should now have two images, one normal and one slightly bluer. Now change the name of the fuelTank_tex.png file to maybe fuelTank_tex1.png. This will disable the original texture. Now change the name of the fuelTank_texBlue.png to fuelTank_tex.png. This will make the new image the texture image. And you're done! At least with this part. Now go and make the rest the same way. See, not too hard, rite? As long as you got some patience... Eh... still some uploading problems... will try with dropbox [0.5] Just adding the custom parts textures Including: Vintage Nosecone (Retropack) AV-R1 Winglet (Retropack) XT-2 Solid Fuel Booster (Retropack) Ion Thruster MK 1 (Ion engine) Sphaera Fuel Obtinatus (FutureTech (This only holds the custom textures for these parts, not the actual parts) And no pictures this time cuz I dont know if you would need pictures.

Since most people (Myself not included) seem to find regular orbits fairly easy, I was wondering if anyone had done something a bit more fun, like a Molniya orbit? I'm not sure if they are out of our realm without more advanced tools for calculating trajectory and orbit, but I'm sure somebody knows how to get into one. Feel free to talk about anything interesting you have done/noticed/want to do with orbits.