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Basically, whenever I try to upload a new PFP, the forum says “Error -200” and "Sorry, and unknown server error occurred when uploading this file.

The current crisis in Hollywood is going to get worse before it gets better. Its initial cause is Hollywood's own success. Going global adds little to the fixed costs of production, and although the marketing costs (that are usually hidden) would be more proportional to geography, the earnings still skyrocketed. This has caused the initial wave of costs bloat. No, the Rock is probably not worth $50 mln/movie. The leads now seem to walk away with half of a $200 mln production budget, or even more for smaller but star-studded films. Then, there were flops. Someone more into the topic than me could probably identify when this became an industry trend, I only have more local observations (e.g. it's clear alarm bells sounded after the backlash to The Last Jedi, and also affected the two A Star Wars Story spinoffs). This caused increased management meddling to mitigate risks. However, this had two direct consequences for costs. One, on-set oversight in the form of various seconds and thirds and assistants also collects a paycheck*. Two, reshoots, reshoots, reshoots - for some reason these are all the rage, these cost a fortune, and they're much of the reason for shoddy, slapdash CGI all over the place, which really was made at the last minute. * the seconds and thirds are also often needed to babysit the directors that were picked based on their trendiness and are completely out of their depth on a major production So here's the problem: we're probably headed into leaner times (streaming + multiple box office bombs + general economic instability), and Hollywood doesn't have a good mechnism for cutting costs. In fact, as times get leaner, the meddling will increase, and so will risk mitigation through reliance on star power, and those guys and gals definitely aren't downshifting. There's no real way for Hollywood as it currently is to avoid crashing and burning. Expect another few years of bombs. Worse yet, the streaming services are already largely entangled into the same production culture, so I don't see indies having a good platform to make bank.

A continuation of the old State Funding mod by @iamchairs, original thread here:http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/118313-105-statefunding-034/ The new version for KSP 1.4.1 has new dependencies New Dependencies Click Through Blocker ToolbarController CKAN has been updated to install the dependencies, if needed. Note: The mod now REQUIRES ModuleManager as a dependency StateFunding StateFunding is a Mod that tries to reward you for doing things you want to do. You can choose between several governments that have different play styles. Each quarter (106 Days) you will receive a review for that quarter and be paid out (or fined) depending on your performance. For those contracts which either don't require a probe to be returned, or requires it to be destroyed, there is a new option in the PAW menu (Part ActionWindow) in the Editor. This is only available on parts which have command modules or SAS, and is called Disposable. When a part is marked as disposable, it won't be counted as destroyed when keeping track of destroyed vessels. State Confidence (SC) / Public Opinion (PO) Your space program is tracked by both State Confidence (SC) and Public Opinion (PO). A combination of State Confidence and Public Opinion determines your funding for each quarter. Unlike Contracts, you can increase your SC and PO with permanent modifiers- or at least permanent while a condition is met. While SC and PO are equal when it comes to deciding your funding, depending on the government you choose, you will either receive more PO or SC for meeting a PO or SC condition. Public Opinion Modifiers Having Kerbals on Flights. Having Kerbals on a Space Station or Base. Having more Vessels docked with a Space Station or Base Having a Base with a Science Lab and/or Drill Having a Space Station with a Science Lab Having a Space Station landed on an astroid- additionally having a drill on that space station Having Rovers on other bodies Public Opinion Penalties Kerbals Die Kerbals are Stranded. Note that a Kerbal on a rover which runs out of power is not considered to be stranded, since the Kerbal can still walk Kerbals are Left for Dead State Confidence Modifiers Having more Satellite coverage of a body Having Science Labs in orbit of bodies other than the Sun or landed on bodies other than the Home Planet Having Drills in orbit of bodies (landed on an astroid) or landed on bodies other than the Home Planet Having more Fuel on a Space Station / Base Having more Ore on a Space Station / Base Having higher Crew Capacity on a Space Station / Base Having more Docking Ports on a Space Station / Base Having a Science Lab on a Space Station / Base Having a Drill on a Base Having a Drill on a Space Station that is landed on an astroid State Confidence Penalties Destroying Vessels Customization / Mod Support To add/modify governments, update the contents of `GameData/StateFunding/data/governments.settings`. The following are the different fields needed: name = Short name of government/agency longName = Long name poModifier = Public Opinion Reward poPenaltyModifier = Public Opinion Penalty scModifier = State Confidence Reward scPenaltyModifier = State Confidence Penalty startingPO = Starting Public Opinion startingSC = Starting State Confidence budget = Yearly budget gdp = GDP budgetPeriodsPerYear = 4 description = long description of the goverment, it's aims, etc. Many checks involve checking if a vessel has a module. For example, to see if a vessel has autonomous command, it checks for a ModuleSAS module on the Vessel. Since Mods have their own module names for similar types (i.e. RT's "ModuleSPU"), there is an aliases file mapping an alias to a set of similar Modules. You can update the aliases by changing the `GameData/StateFunding/data/modulealiases.settings` file. Source: https://github.com/linuxgurugamer/StateFundingContinued Download: https://spacedock.info/mod/1231/State Funding Continued License: MIT https://www.patreon.com/linuxgurugamer Thanks to @PhilM for the following explanation: The naming for bases and stations vs science stations is a little confusing. Basically, if your vessel is set to the type Base or Station, you're immediately excluded from being a science station. I think the category is geared more towards roving science ships or ground science stations that aren't actually marked as bases/stations. In addition to the vessel type, the only significant difference between requirements for the base vs the landed science station is that the science station is actually harder to accomplish as it has to have a crewed science lab. The good news is that you get significant credit for your science lab in your base scoring. Score for science lab on a base or station = 10 * State Confidence Modifier + 10 * Public Opinion Modifier Score for an orbital science vessel = 2 * State Confidence Modifier Score for a landed science vessel = 5 * State Confidence Modifier So while a bit odd, it's actually better for your overall score to be counted as a base/station with a science lab vs an actual science station. And if you're playing with a government that's heavy on public opinion instead of state confidence, roving science vessels are even less valuable. Maybe a better name would help differentiate the category or perhaps a blurb in the description that specifies the difference? Note that the 10xSC+10xPO only counts once per base/station. You can't spam science labs for points. If you want to build with score in mind, you can add more crew/capacity or docking ports/docked vessels. Or if you're with a government focused on state confidence, then storing ore and fuel are decent options because you get points per 200 resources (only ore and liquid fuel count currently).

update, I find the IR config but is only for canadarm 1 . . /////Canadarm 1 elbow joint servo @PART[ht_C1_elbow]:NEEDS[MagicSmokeIndustries] { @description,0 = Powered by Infernal Robotics - Next. This elbow joint can rotate 180 degrees back on itself. @MODEL { @model = htRobotics/Parts/ht_C1_elbowIR } -NODE[TopJoint] {} -NODE[BottomJoint] {} -MODULE[ModuleRoboticServoHinge] {} node_stack_top = -0.0934, 0.1909, 0, 0, 1, 0, 1 node_stack_bottom = -0.0934, -0.1909, 0, 0, -1, 0, 1 MODULE { name = ModuleIRServo_v3 servoName = KerboArm1 Elbow axis = 0, 0, 1 pointer = 1, 0, 0 fixedMesh = armElbow_base movingMesh = armElbow_top isRotational = True hasMinMaxPosition = True minPosition = -180 maxPosition = 0 isFreeMoving = False electricChargeRequired = 2.5 isInverted = False isLocked = False canHaveLimits = True hasPositionLimit = False minPositionLimit = -180 maxPositionLimit = 0 factorAcceleration = 2 maxAcceleration = 2 accelerationLimit = 1 factorSpeed = 2 maxSpeed = 2 speedLimit = 1 factorForce = 35 maxForce = 30 forceLimit = 30 zeroNormal = 0 zeroInvert = 0 presetsS = -180.0|-90.0|0.0 availableModeS = Servo|Control //invertSymmetry = False soundFilePath = MagicSmokeIndustries/Sounds/infernalRoboticMotor // Motor loop sound path } } /////Canadarm 1 pitch joint servo @PART[ht_C1_pitch]:NEEDS[MagicSmokeIndustries] { @description,0 = Powered by Infernal Robotics - Next. This servo joint provides low torque rotation along the pitch axis up to 90 degrees in either direction. @MODEL { @model = htRobotics/Parts/ht_C1_pitchJointIR } -NODE[TopJoint] {} -NODE[BottomJoint] {} -MODULE[ModuleRoboticServoHinge] {} node_stack_top = 0, 0.1751, 0, 0, 1, 0, 1 node_stack_bottom = 0, -0.1871, 0, 0, -1, 0, 1 MODULE { name = ModuleIRServo_v3 servoName = KerboArm1 Pitch Joint axis = 0, 0, 1 pointer = 1, 0, 0 fixedMesh = armPitchJoint_base movingMesh = armPitchJoint_top isRotational = True hasMinMaxPosition = True minPosition = -90 maxPosition = 90 isFreeMoving = False electricChargeRequired = 2.5 isInverted = False isLocked = False canHaveLimits = True hasPositionLimit = False minPositionLimit = -90 maxPositionLimit = 90 factorAcceleration = 2 maxAcceleration = 2 accelerationLimit = 1 factorSpeed = 2 maxSpeed = 2 speedLimit = 1 factorForce = 35 maxForce = 30 forceLimit = 30 zeroNormal = 0 zeroInvert = 0 presetsS = -90.0|0.0|90.0 availableModeS = Servo|Control //invertSymmetry = False soundFilePath = MagicSmokeIndustries/Sounds/infernalRoboticMotor // Motor loop sound path } } /////Canadarm 1 rotational servo @PART[ht_C1_rotator]:NEEDS[MagicSmokeIndustries] { @description,0 = Powered by Infernal Robotics - Next. This servo allows a full 360 degrees of rotation axially. @MODEL { @model = htRobotics/Parts/ht_C1_rotatorIR } -NODE[TopJoint] {} -NODE[BottomJoint] {} -MODULE[ModuleRoboticRotationServo] {} node_stack_top = 0, 0.0209, 0, 0, 1, 0, 1 node_stack_bottom = 0, -0.0209, 0, 0, -1, 0, 1 MODULE { name = ModuleIRServo_v3 servoName = KerboArm1 Rotator axis = 0, 1, 0 pointer = 1, 0, 0 fixedMesh = armRotator_base movingMesh = armRotator_top isRotational = True hasMinMaxPosition = False minPosition = -360 maxPosition = 360 isFreeMoving = False electricChargeRequired = 2.5 isInverted = False isLocked = False canHaveLimits = True hasPositionLimit = False minPositionLimit = -360 maxPositionLimit = 360 factorAcceleration = 2 maxAcceleration = 2 accelerationLimit = 1 factorSpeed = 2 maxSpeed = 2 speedLimit = 1 factorForce = 35 maxForce = 30 forceLimit = 30 zeroNormal = 0 zeroInvert = 0 presetsS = -180.0|0.0|180.0 availableModeS = Servo|Control //invertSymmetry = False soundFilePath = MagicSmokeIndustries/Sounds/infernalRoboticMotor // Motor loop sound path } } this is the config, now the question is is there a way to add the config for only that piece of the kerboarm 2??? this is the CFG of the kerboarm 2 . . PART { name = ht_canadarm2_servo module = Part author = Benjee10 rescaleFactor = 1 TechRequired = advConstruction entryCost = 1200 cost = 100 category = Robotics subcategory = 0 title = KerboArm2 Servo Joint manufacturer = HabTech Consortium description = This servo allows a full 360 degrees of rotation. // attachment rules: stack, srfAttach, allowStack, allowSrfAttach, allowCollision attachRules = 1,0,1,1,0 mass = 0.06 dragModelType = default maximum_drag = 0.2 minimum_drag = 0.2 angularDrag = 1 crashTolerance = 12 breakingForce = 200 breakingTorque = 200 maxTemp = 2000 // = 5000 bulkheadProfiles = size1 tags = habtech, robot, arm, canadarm2, kerboarm, rotate, hinge, servo, motor, move, MODEL { model = htRobotics/Parts/ht_canadarm2_servo } NODE { name = TopJoint transform = actuatorTopNode size = 1 } NODE { name = BottomJoint transform = actuatorSideNode size = 1 } MODULE { name = ModuleRoboticRotationServo servoTransformName = actuatorMesh baseTransformName = actuatorBody servoAttachNodes = TopJoint traverseVelocityLimits = 0, 10 hardMinMaxLimits = -180, 180 softMinMaxAngles = -180, 180 targetAngle = 0 mainAxis = Y maxMotorOutput = 200 driveSpringMutliplier = 100 driveDampingMutliplier = 20 motorizedMassPerKN = 0.0001 motorizedCostPerDriveUnit = 1 connectedMassScale = 1 efficiency = 0.75 baseResourceConsumptionRate = 0.01 RESOURCE { name = ElectricCharge rate = 1 } } MODULE { name = ModuleCargoPart packedVolume = 20 } } I really hope that someone can help me

I realize this is a late request, but is there any chance of getting UR-100 and/or UR-200?

Hello kerbonauts. It's been a while since I've posted any craft lately, so, I decided to just go ahead and break the silence INTRODUCING: The Dart (a.k.a the big paper plane) Specs: Mass: 18t | Cost: 23k funds | Height: 3.9 m (Including landing gear and tail fin) | Length: 15m | Wingspan: 14.5m Range: Around 2000km Takeoff speed: 100 m/s Max speed @ 10km cruising altitude: 200 - 400 m/s (varies with fuel level) Max speed during a power bomb (more info on that later): 550 - 870 m/s (again, varies with fuel level) Flight instructions: Accelerate up to 100 m/s and then pitch up until takeoff Retract langing gear and get to a 10° inclination Climb until you're 10km ASL Fly horizontally How to power bomb (optional): After you get to cruising altitude, pitch down Point SAS to prograde after you've picked up some speed Allow the flight computer to do the bomb (unless you get too below 3km above ground level, in case that happens, pitch up inmediatly) After the power bomb, turn SAS to stability assist and ascend back up to 10km like described before Landing instructions: Switch panther to dry mode and go to minimum throttle (press X and then Shift once) Enable airbrakes (B) Pitch slightly down until your altitude is of about 150 meters Cut throttle (X) Keep pitching up, firing the engine at minimum throttle to make adjustments if necessary If all goes to plan, you should be landed by this point Very important notes: Don't remove the oxidizer in the nosecone. It's there for stability purposes, to serve as a counterweight for the heavy engine on the back Don't shutdown the radiators. They serve to cool the engine and allow long operations of it (They should last for about an hour, although I've only tested this thing for 40 mins) Should you be away from the KSC, use Kerbnet to look for a flat spot to land on DON'T ATTEMPT WATER LANDINGS OR LANDINGS ON ROUGH SURFACES This is a good plane for career survey contracts (as long as it doesn't require a kerbonaut) or to get to the [SPOILER WARNING] It also provides some insane lift thanks to the FAT-455 wings (which I'm not sure are meant to be placed like this but oh well It also has remarkable Kerbnet capabilities thanks to the Mk2 frone core, which can be used to look for biomes or [SPOILERS AHEAD] KerbalX link (moar images there): KerbalX - Dart I

The concept Artemis is cheaper than Apollo was in response to this video: NO WAY we’re landing on the moon in 2026. https://youtu.be/pQufaHiAark?si=gYJKXgzQf-hjkuiv About at the 5:25 point is mentioned a NASA lunar lander might normally be developed for $10 to $20 billion. And in this link about the cost of Apollo, the total costs of the Apollo lunar lander over the entire Apollo program adjusted to 2020 dollars did indeed cost ca. $20 billion: https://www.planetary.org/space-policy/cost-of-apollo For the seven Apollo lander missions that’s in effect ca. $3 billion per mission. The contract NASA gave SpaceX for the Starship HLS totals about $4 billion for two lander missions, or $2 billion per mission. That’s not a terribly great saving over what we did during Apollo. Even worse, that’s the same as the cost for the entire SLS rocket, with the two SRB’s, the core stage with the four over-priced reincarnations of the SSME’s, and interim upper stage. But the key point I’m making is considering how much the space program in general has developed world-wide now, with a wide variety of launchers, in-space stages, and spacecraft, we can use essentially off-the-shelf components to construct a lunar lander. And as SpaceX has shown costs are cut drastically if the spacecraft is privately funded. So don’t construct the lander from scratch, which as experienced space observers we know makes costs balloon greatly, and don’t use the typical government financed approach, which we also know make costs balloon greatly, instead use already existing and operationally in use components and use private funding to construct it. In this, way the lander might only cost in the tens of millions range, instead of billions. Dave Masten gave another interview where he discussed his Centaur-derived lunar lander: Spacevidcast Live - What if Apollo never happened? https://youtu.be/oQ4lLTblx5M About 30 minutes in, he suggests its costs would be ca. $50 million to purchase the Centaur, and only a few more million to add on Masten’s side thrusters for horizontal landing. Plus, some millions more for testing. The host suggests under $200 million total, and Masten responds, “Oh, easily.” Bob Clark

The next attempt at a Duna probe landing takes off Capture burn of the Commo/bus and lander From a 200 KM orbit the lander separates and enters Duna's atmosphere without a heat shield The parachute deploys at 4500 meters altitude A rocket assisted landing is conducted And now the science is collected.

Most of their plans were having anything common neither with technological/economical reality, like the original lunokhod on tracks (hi, lunar dust, 40 km ever) and with nuclear reactor or the rover train, following the lunar terminator in a travel around the Moon (hi again, lunar dust, 40 km ever), nor with engineer's common sense, like these ones So, while it's theoretically feasible to make a spaceship shaped as a statue of Icarus, more dull designs are usually preferred. I didn't know that, that's interesting to know. You are welcome. http://kbhmisaeva.ru/ The N1 was cancelled because it was too handcraftish, unreliable, and limited in payload due to its spherical tanks, enormous cross-section and countless engines. A cylindric rocket can be made (and it was done many times) longer, shorter, narrower, double-diameter bottle or cylindriconical, have lateral boosters to vary the payload. A cylindric shell of UR-200 first stage can be made a launch container for UR-100, the UR-100 made narrower to have a narrower container, of same cylindrical sections like R-9 stages, and when the engines and the gap obturator have gotten better, UR-100 can be replaced with wider UR-100N in original UR-200-wide containers. And all of that on the existing equipment, from standard section, just having them repurposed. And having every rocket matching the railroad car standards until the very late Energy central body. That's what an industrial way is. This spherical-conical snowman was able only to incompletely fill the tanks to launch less than the 95 t max. It wasn't able to carry more than that. So, Glushko just had burnt the heresy with fire, and started making a proper thing. The Space Race was a purely American shadow boxing. The Soviet people were aware of Soviet achievements when they happened, but knew nothing about failures. So, Sputnik, Lunnik, human spaceflights, and orbital stations were actively forced by the official propaganda, but I remember the very late 1980s, when the articles "Do you know that the USSR had its own lunar flight program?", "Look! We had a project of N1 superrocket" began to appear and were looking conspirologically. The official version was: "Meh! While they have sent the people to the Moon, we have done the same even without sending people, so what? Better look at our orbital stations, which they don't have." Also, every second believe that the Apollos were filmed in a studio, because of no stars on lunar sky and radiation belts killing everyone. The space doesn't occupy most part of human mind. Can't understand, sorry. They were afraid of success of what? It doesn't matter. The very way of the Saturn family engineering is typically industrial, like Henry Ford blesses. The Titan and Delta as well. Like UR and Energy, too. All of them are unified and standardized, all of them use existing parts of predecessors, all of them are made of lego. How do the engineers do? They take an alumagnesium alloy standard slab from the metallurgical plant, polish it with a milling machine, cut into standard panels, bend them to a standard curvature, weld fixed amount of them into a cylindrical ring, make its inner surface waffled with another milling machine, send it to the storehouse. They do the same for vessel heads of standard sizes, and for power set elements. They use standard industrial equipment for that, the more common - the better. The less experienced staff is required - the better. The less staff is needed - the better, ideally only automated machines. And this in turn means, the simpler are shapes - the better. Only cylinders, short wide cones, small hemispheres. No long cones like R-7 lateral boosters or the ... anticone? like the R-7 central body, or N-1 stage hulls, large spheres of different diameters like N-1 tanks (six diameters for 3 stages, almost all wider than a railroad car, and one or two wider than a regular river barge). Very excellent, when you can take ready-to-use parts from several different part manufacturers. They take as many cylindric rings of assigned diameter from the storehouse, vessel heads welded into shorter rings of the same diameter, stack them and weld together, making a cylindric tank of required diameter. When they need to make it shorter, instead of two rings with opposing vessel heads they take one with a double hemisphere inside, and make the tank ends nested. When they need longer, they add a standard section, when they need shorter, they take a section less. To reinforce it from inside, they use power sets elements of standard curvature and length, not bend thm ogively. When they need an ogive fairing, they don't bend it out in Tin-Tin rocket style. They stack a set of short cones. Looks worse, made easier. When they need the lower stage wider than they have or the transport allows, they make a bunch of existing narrower cylinders like in Proton or Saturn IB, instead of growing a 16 m wide something like for N-1. They always remember that the local (especially military) specialists are monkeys with grenades, and the farther from the rocket they keep their hands, the better for everyone. Ideally the rocket should be hidden in a faceless cylindric container, delivered by train, put onto the launchpad, and forgotten. Its self-control (leaks and so on) is also better to self-control by the rocket, lighting a red lamp if the pressure between the rocket and the container is changed, or some electric resistance or capacity is changed. Originally the plan was to deliver the rockets already fueled, but after realising that the experienced military hands will more probably crash a fueled rocket than splash the fuel while fuelling, the idea was rejected. So, they deliver it empty, put in, and fuel. To make a container for a smaller rocket, they take sections from the bigger rockets (UR-100x / UR-200), because they are. To make a command post, they take a container from the big rocket, put the post inside instead of a rocket, and hang it in similar silo (R-36M family). To make an orbital telescope, they take a spysat and overturn it (Hubble/KH-11). They follow same dimensional requirements forced by the railroad, so the Shuttle cargo bay ideally matches Almaz station, even when they don't relate to each other. They don't hesitate taking each other's designs to let the things be easy, thus ISS and Shuttle international docking port standard is a Soviet docking port for Buran with changed electric cable positions (while originally the Shuttle was going to dock to Skylab using Apollo-like port), while OKB-1 and OKB-52 designs sometimes have treacherously unusual diameters or perimeters in integer feet. (Actually, they have integer or semi-integer number of aluminium panels per cylindric sections, but somehow the panel sets match integer feet, lol). The way used in N-1 design is a typical barn rocketry. "Let's take all those water tanks, stack them like a snowman, fill with petrol and liquid air, and attach thirty rockets from dragsters. If we need more, let's just buy more metal sheets, cut and weld them manually, like we made the water tower." It's ideal for the barn rocketry, but absolutely bad for mass production. It would be normal for mass production if they were using mass manufactured tanks of standard size, attaching NK-33 developed from NK-15 after testing that in a dragster rally and mass produced. But all those part were not mass manufactured, they were dedicated. So, to make the N-1 kind of rational, they should be producing the set of its tanks as normal industrial vessels for liquids. To do that, in 1920s they should think: "We are going to standardize fuel tanks for farms and fuel stations. What if in the future we will want to stack them and make a rocket. Let's now calculate which diameters we need." It would be possible, as the N-1 tanks have integer capacities in cubic meters, but it didn't happen. The R-7 tricky shape is caused by the RD-107/108 engine. It's weak (80..<100 tf) and bulky (~2.5 m together with attitude thrusters). So, it requires a 2.7 m wide rocket, but can't lift a cylindric one, only the carrot, 2.7 meters at the wide end. It happened because after making RD-103M for R-5M, Glushko bureau failed for various reasons (high-frequency pulsations, too thick chamber wals, etc.) RD-105,106,110 of ~100 tf thrust, and he decided to make the kerolox engine of the lowest adopted thrust, 25 t (like V-2, but more robust and on kerolox). Combining a quad, and adding the 100 tf turbopump from the failed projects, he made the original RD-107 without attitude controls, ~100 tf. But as the attitude controls from 3rd party would crash the harmony, he developed the known RD-107 with 2 and RD-108 with four attitude thrusters, thus the engine became 75..80 tf, so too weak even for IRBM. So, the way they chose was to take a central booster as inverted carrot with RD-108, attach four boosters with RD-107, and thus R-7 appeared, It was three times overpowered (4 t warhead instead of the required 1.5 t), but it was even better because originally the warhead had 10x30 km error. Though, as the warhead department was failing the warhead re-entry, and there was declared an International Geophysical Year (the USSR, the USA, and the PRC had loudly declared their intention to launch the first satellite in that year, and immediately screwed it), Korolyov suggested Khrushchev to spend one headless R-7 from the storehouse to troll the 'Muricans with sat. Khrushchev was glad and agreed. Thus the first satellite flew into space. After putting five R-7 on military service and realizing that they are a total failure as ICBM, (they ordered to Korolyov / Korolyov asked them for) make a R-9A rocket. Korolyov was not punished for R-7 because the governmental order on R-7 creation was signed by the best people of the Soviet state, so whom should they accuse in that case. Kuznetsov bureau was making the NK-9 engine for it, and Glushko was making RD-111 as post-RD-107 with 4x40 tf chambers (like in the most powerful alcoholic RD-103M, but based on RD-107 design). Glushko was first, and R-9A was equipped with RD-111, raw and untested, so unstable. NK-9 appeared later and were used in the experimental global GR-1, based on the R-9A, and in the upper stages of N-1. Based on NK-9, the Kuznetsov bureau developed NK-15, and then NK-33 and its further family. Glushko suggested Korolyov to make R-7 bigger, give it six lateral booster, and replace RD-107 with RD-111, to make it 20 t capable, but to that time the UR-500 was more perspective and sane than another bunch of carrots on a huge rotating "Tulip", while the RD-111 was not properly finished, so the further R-7 and RD-107 upgrades were done by other bureaus. *** Now let's imagine that in mid-1950s the Soviet Governmental Commission had listened to the Korolyov description of R-7 and tulip launchpad, made a cuckoo sign, deciding that no ICBM and saved money is better than no ICBM and spent money, and totally dismissed him from rocketry and space, sending him to the rocket factory as a manager (the post where he was good). Obviously, no sat or Vostok is flying somewhere, Zenith spysat (closer to Corona or Sputnik-3) keeps being developed (irl replaced with Zenith-2 aka Vostok). Maybe the 'Muricans are the first in space, let them be happy, but more probably that in absence of Russkies in Space they keep screwing that space and finally lose the race again, lol. There is already 1.65 m Yangel's middle-range R-12 on pseudokerosene and nitric acid, replacing R-5M, and short-range SLBM R-13/R-21, all of them derived from R-11, derived from Wasserfall, derived from A-4. Next step is R-9B on UDMH and nitric acid, cancelled (due to then-weak engines and Korolyov's opposing to Yangel, who was formally his deputy) and turned into a family of IRBM and ICBM, i.e. R-14 and R-16. The size is the same as in real history. Thanks, railroad, for your 325 cm wide cars, causing R-16 1st stage 290 cm. Thanks, Thor, for your 8 ft (aka 244 cm) as the R-14 only stage. Thanks, R-14, for your 244 or 246 cm as the R-16 2nd stage. IRL also thanks R-9A for your 268 cm as R-14 shirt, compatible with the R-9A launchpad. Btw by taking a metal sheet 174x70 cm (or in case of Proton 200x80 cm), we can easily get some perimeters and diameters. From the railroad dimensions, we have 290 cm of max diameter inside a car, and 448 cm oversized. Thus, the widest part of Proton is 435 cm, but by splitting a shroud in quarters, we can have 570 cm wide shroud. Also, that's why the Shuttle cargo bay is 4.5+ m wide, exactly matching Salyut. Yes, thanks to the Roman horses. The A-4 is 165 cm in diameter, but twice as wide ~325 cm in wing span, so transportable straight by a railroad, or diagonally by a trailer which is transportable by the railroad. For wider stages only barges are appropriate. Barges can contain integer number of the Intermodal Containers of fixed size https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intermodal_container#Specifications. Basically, they are 2.438 m wide. Taking intercontainer gap as 5 cm, we have standard barge payload zone widths: 2 containers = 2x2.438 + 3x0.05 = 5 m 3 containers = 3x2.438 + 4x0.05 = 7.5 m 4 containers = 4x2.438 + 5x0.05 = 10 m (most common) 5 containers = 5x2.438 + 6x0.05 = 12.5 m 6 containers = 6x2.438 + 7x0.05 = 15 m (river-sea class barge, avoid it for its renting price) 24 containers = 24x2.438 + 25x0.05 = 60 m MSC Gülsün (Notice the perfect match of the sizes and the Metric units. It's probably done by French or Germans to troll the Anglosaxons). The same dimension limits are also clearly visible in the automobile trailer sizes, and bridge standards. The railroad car is 22..25 m long, thus all rockets or rocket stages are shorter than 22 m. If they are longer, they consist of two parts, assembled after the railroading. The central UR-700 (9-block) booster and the additional boosters of UR-700 (15- and 18-block) consist of two main 4.1 m wide parts: fuel tank and engines, and oxidizer tank. Each is delivered by its own car. The lateral UR-700 (9-block) boosters has a third part on top, transfusion tank, consisting of 12 m high tilted cone and ~10 m cylinder. The central and lateral booster tanks of UR-700 (15- and 18-block) are longer by one 2-m high section, 7 and 5 instead of 6 and 4 rings. All of them are shorter than a railroad car. That's the engineers' way of doing things. Science is for nerds, who live in their Mathematrix. True engineers measure in train cars and barges by hands. That's the Way. *** So, in absence of R-7 and R-9 the R-14 and R-16 pair appears by several years earlier, and has same dimensions. The they are taken and used by OKB-52 in their development of UR family. UR-200 is a standard launch vehicle for 2.5 t orbital payloads (IS/US sats), and in this reality becomes the first rocket to put in LEO all three first sats, and something like Mercury (1.7 t), if they decide. Actually, it would be a 0.8 sized single-seat cabin of further LK-1 with some lifesupport aggregate attached below, like they prefer, with 2..6 orbits lifespan. Non-maneuverable, pure Mercury. By implementing the intermediate concept which led from 3 m wide UR-200 to 4 m wide UR-500, they would attach four lateral booster of then-coming-UR-500 with engines from UR-200 (nailed, not jettisonnable, like in UR-500, but with their own fuel tanks in every), enlarge the second stage to 2.9 m, and get a rocket with 5 t payload, ideal for Vostok (4.8 t) or simplified LK-1 (standard 2.511 capsule, but no maneuvering). Vostok is basically a stratospheric balloon cabin, used in many ways since Piccard created it first for FNRS-1, so its usage in a spaceship looks obvious, either as a cabin, or as a habitat. Basically, this gives Vostok/Voskhod and Soyuz. So, even if the very first ship was based on LK-1 design, it's very possible that Vostok would be repeated in this reality as the first day-to-week flight ship for basic experiments. The Mercury-like cone would anyway be airbreaking ballistically, at the same 10 g. Once RD-253 come into scene, a UR-500-compatible, 4.1 m wide, 250 t heavy rocket with twin RD-253, third stage of UR-500 as 2nd stage, with payload capacity of 6+ t, i.e. a total alternative for R-7 appears. It would be launching Soyuzes and LK-1. Btw, LK-1 has a triple purpose. Its rear booster (delta-V ~ 3 km/s) can put it in LEO, or send it from LEO to the lunar flyby, or return it from the lunar surface to the Moon (they called it LK-3). Actually, a rather multifunctional ship with that booster as integral part. It was replaced with LK-700 to increase it volume, to add two lunar EVA suits. Otherwise they should be getting out in undies rescue suits, and have just several minutes to plant a flag, listen the anthem, make a selfie, grab several nearest stones and jump back to the cabin. This would happen in early 1960s. In absence of N-1 distraction, the RD-270 is developed, the UR-700 appears first 9-block, then 15- and 18-block, up to 270 t payload. The UR-500 adopts NK-33 family as UR-500MK, then grows up twice, becoming a 70 t capable kerolox rocket. The next step is 8.8 m central booster with four expanded parablocks from UR-700 (15-block), followed by UR-700M of 12 m central body and seven lateral 8.8 m boosters, 700+ t of payload. As RD-170 was designed from the RD-270 turbopump and, they say, NK-33 ancestry, a RD-170 or quad NK-33+ still appears to make the rocket kerolox. Probably, the further progress would be possible only as a combination of Sea Dragon and Nexus, so they would wait for wiki article with its DIY pdf on it.

-=MISSION EXECUTION=- The transfer stage bleeding off energy before deploying near the polar cap of Duna. <<<<<<<<<<FOREWORD>>>>>>>>>> I have decided that, even in the event that this is the end of KSP2(we dont know yet). I'll still continue to grind the content I can out of this game. I am at least aware of the most prolific bugs now, and know how to design around them... and I have only just left Kerbin.. There is so much more to get out of this sandbox still... The KSP2 engagement seem to be on the low end though.. and while I do enjoy making these long detailed blog posts about my progress. Not knowing if any one reads them, is killing my motivation to write them. I will be finishing the Duna Mastery Challenge though! But I had planned to do the same rundown on Eve next.. But we'll see if that will be something I'll write about. I think that depends on what level the engagement with the game is like, at that point. Any way.. This challenge went alright.. I must admit though that I was surprised with how thin Duna's atmosphere actually is (even though I knew it was). More on that bellow: <<<<<<<<<<MISSION_TASKS>>>>>>>>>> A. Launch probe into LKO and return 1st stage and SDG to KSC - Success B. Perform Transfer Maneuver to Duna - Success C. Land the Lander near the Polar Regions - Success. <<<<<<<<<<Lessons Learned; Lessons Identified>>>>>>>>>> Goal Post A: The SDG launching the Probe into LKO. This leg was pretty much business as usual - Although I did learn that the SF-125 will be burned up by the exhaust from the 3x Lv-909 "terrier's" - That did not bother me too much. It looks a lot better to see the exhaust plumes to "clip" through an part that is open, rather than clip through a closed cylinder. where as it feel redundant to wish for something to be added to the game in these times... I still wish we could hot stage rings in the game. The launch went without incident and the probe was successfully deployed (being a lot shorter made it very easy, it flew out of the cargo bay on its own RCS power. For detailed walkthrough of the launch See spoler section bellow: Goal Post B: Duna Lander Probe - making transfer burn to Duna. Because I had the CommNet around Duna now, I decided to just put on a small antenna on the vehicle - with a range of 200 Mm. I figured the vehicle would only need trajectory when leaving Kerbin and approaching Duna... How ever I was surprised of how "short" 200Mm was in reality - not extending that far away from the Kerbin SOI. It meant I had to do a little quick load.. you see I had decided to do the approach of burning out of the Kerbin SOI, then make the maneuver for Duna at a optimal point. However - The optimal point was way outside CommNet range. So I decided to do a more expensive burn and then just make sure that the Duna PE would be a few KM above the surface. I would not have Δv enough to circularize around Duna.. but I didn't need to since I could just be Aerobraking. the maneuver that got the Lander Probe to Duna. The most important thing for me would be to bring the probe over the North Pole - Final adjustment would be made once in the Duna SOI. - The probe was allowed to coast all the way to the Duna SOI without any signal - a bit harrowing... For a sec I thought that the CommNet wasn't able to relay signal.. but it was just because the signal was only reaquired after the timewarp stopped. The probe had successfully arrived at Duna SOI Goal Post C: Lander safely on the ground, taking its first sample. Once inside the Duna SOI it showed that my my path would take me directly through Ike's SOI - which made aiming quite difficult actually - since Ike naturally gave me a high ark to Duna. The probe zipping past Ike on its way to Duna. Fortunately there were plenty Δv left to push the PE down once I was through Ike's SOI. For RPG reasons I was interested in testing the soil near the poles of Duna - Seeing the canyons between the poles I figured that would be a cool landing site - so I aimed for this place: After finding a point to aim at I, then raised the PE to 4km above surface - to make sure that the vehicle didn't pancake into the ground, if the atmosphere wouldn't break me as much as I hoped it would... The last Δv was spend aiming the trajectory for the canyon - or general area. The transfer stage being ditched - and the landing stage burning through the atmosphere. once the atmosphere started to heat up, the transfer stage was dropped and the lander stage just flew through the atmosphere like a bullet. It bled of the energy.. albeit much slower than I anticipated - the lander would drift quite far before the speeds were dropped to a level were I felt comfortable the lander would not have been torn apart (at least in our world - In the world of Kerbals they have the alloy Kerbalium . And that is most sturdy) the fairing was dropped, and the scute deployed soon after. lander drops fairing - creating a lot more drag. After that it was just a question of dropping the heat shield - I dont know if its a bug? or if Duna's atmosphere is just so light it does not need heatshields... At least it had not spend any of its ablative propperties . The scute was deployed and the 4 engines put it gentle down to the ground. The lander breaking for a gentle touch down. The lander would touch down a generally flat place, on the other side of the ice sheet I was aiming fore.. but at least in one piece. We are still taking a sample of the Duna Polar Soil, which can lay the foundation to find the ideal place for future manned Duna Missions. The probes final resting place. The battery power is a bit light - the lander goes all the way down to EC 70U before sunrise. If all unnecessary power usage has been eliminated. Of course the lander could go into hibernation mode in the night.. but I dont know if that is considered "cheating" in relation to the goal post stating that the vehicle should "have means to generate electricity" - I guess it has the means in the daylight.. but If we go by the Martian Landers and Rovers of our world.. power is spend in the cold nights, making sure mission critical hardware is not killed by the cold. I guess that is of OJT to judge.. where ever he is now days. For picture slide show - see bellow: <<<<<<<<<< MOVING FORWARD >>>>>>>>>> with that being a - Challenge Success! - it is time to move forward. Since the parameters of the next challenge is pretty much the same - at least if I just put wheels on the lander. I have decided to compile the R&D post for Challenge 5 and 6. Otherwise the R&D post for challenge 5 will be very short. Since I will mostly be able to use the same vehicles. See you in the next one!

I think there's a "frog in boiling water" phenomenon playing out here. Remember, the game was announced in 2019, slated for a full release in 2020. Throughout its development, devs portrayed each successive delay as simply a "delay" because "excuse." This lead many to believe that at in 2019, the game was in a state that one could reasonably say was a year away from release. Even if it was seemingly two years, or even three, there is simply no explanation for how the game could be in its current state, given this information! This is why many feel "mislead." It is also probably a contributing factor in the project's cancellation- does this often happen to competent dev teams, in your experience? Only three years ago, when the game was delayed, the community unanimously agreed, "take your time, do it right." Our collective headspace was one in which the game would be released in the coming years. Fast forward to now, and we were popping champagne at the devs adding a tech tree and reentry physics into a buggy mess! That's quite the fall, and I'm sure it doesn't play well internally, either. Take Two know that the difference between KSP 2 and modded KSP 1 (KSP 2 was pitched to them) is, ideally, quality of life, stability, and performance. Implementing a modded KSP 1 experience with these three aspects required a ground-up redesign of the game, which is why they decided to go through the rigamarole of starting from scratch. Therefore, the features which actually matter, both to the community, and to whoever is assessing the progress of development inside, ought to be the core internal engineering challenges which the devs face. There is no hard evidence that they have solved any of these problems to a satisfactory extent, four years in. One can easily imagine a bloated, tangled mess of a source code which is probably easier to trash and redo than to fix, and that is simply a bridge too far for corporate. In fact, given the inexplicable events I described above, it is likely that this is the second time they've ended up in the same place, with few or no core problems solved more than 50%, and an indecipherable mess standing in their way. In short, their problems with feature rollout are FAR, FAR worse than, "we said it would take four months, it took eight." We're already at, "we said it would take a year, it's already taken 5, it'll probably take at least 3 more." And the specifics of what is taking so long may well be horrifying. The question is not whether or not they are planned. The question is, will they ever not be missing, without another restart in many areas? And if so, at what cost? Again, this is good, but none of these features require any of the substantial innovations which prompted the game to be made in the first place. When you take what we have, and you subtract what they could have done much more quickly and cheaply but updating KSP 1 and charging those millions of players DLC, you are left with probably less than nothing. By no metric does this qualify as a "success", especially from a business standpoint. If you already have a bowl of pasta, and there is free cheese on the table, and I give you a new pasta with cheese and charge you $50, I would expect you to leave a negative review. Otherwise, maybe I need to start an Italian restaurant! In all likelyhood, the behind-the-curtain of the game is in a poor state, which would explain the lack of communication. After the phiasco that was KSP 2's development thus far, any semi-competent publisher would want to fight the fire. I doubt that there is any honest communication they could give us which would alleviate our concerns. Allow me to introduce you to my friends "Madden" and "Call of Duty". That's directly from Steam, and it's on every Early Access title's store page. We knew what we were buying. And if you didn't... somehow... after all of that... well, I don't know what to tell you. It's pretty clear to most of us. But I digress. <...> So, if the game itself isn't the problem, why did it fail? In my opinion, the community. Us. I actually think its the opposite. Consider the review bombers. At least they bought the game! According to https://steamdb.info/app/954850/charts/ anywhere between 240-564k people bought the game, compared to 5+ million sold of KSP 1. Considering that the KSP fanbase is disproportionately filled with passionate fans who have a tolerance for bugs, many of whom have programming experience themselves, this is probably a dissapointing figure. Moreover, this number hasn't moved much since release. Nobody's buying the game. And I'm glad you're enjoying it and playing it, but you are a part of a vast minority. As of the writing of this post, there are only 199 people in the game on Steam, with the 24-hour peak being 378. If the KSP community, as a whole, was full of people who bought the game and left negative Steam reviews, KSP 2 would have much better figures (units sold, namely) to justify its continued development. Apparently there were about 70 people working on the game in some capacity (including out of office). At any given moment, there was probably one dev for every 20 active players. KSP 2 has received millions in funding from a major publisher with a bottom line. Want to play in the big leagues? You need more than 300 concurrent players. Even by Early Access standards, these are pathetic numbers for a cult-favorite IP with millions of fans. "Early Access" is not a blank cheque for having tons of bugs and sparse features. Consider Manor Lords, developed by a single dude. Or any successful EA title. If I sell you "print("hello world")" for $10 because all the missing features are planned, I'm ripping you off. And, to that point, when a consumer is wondering, "Is this game worth buying" they mostly (rightly) care about the following things: What is in the game Price How long will it take before the game is finished Will it ever get finished? Very little is in the game compared to KSP 1 with free mods. Even less was in the game when it received most of its reviews. The game has taken at least 5 years, and will probably take many more. These facts, combined with several other red flags which I've outlined elsewhere ad nauseum, signal that the odds of the game ever being completed have always been less than 100%. I think a dispassionate look would probably yield a figure closer to 50%, at any given moment. And finally, there is absolutely no excuse for an alpha build (make no mistake, that's what it is and has been) to be $50. Many people understandably expected more from a $50 experience- the price sends a message in itself. Especially to loyal fans who want to trust their beloved franchise. Finally, with regards to expectations set- The devs have repeatedly made misleading, even demonstrably false statements about the nature of the game. I've thought about making a grand compilation of these, and I tried to do so in conjunction with the community here: https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/topic/217291-actual-quotes-for-substantiated-arguments-thread/ however the thread was shut down. You can read the thread, and the reasoning for shutting it down, and decide for yourself. Although, if I had to guess, if I compiled every demonstrably false statement (let alone misleading ones), I would probably end up with 10x what's in that thread. There are several interviews on Youtube from 2019-2023 in which Nate Simpson and others make claims about internal builds of the game and other things which are flat out impossible, and it was certainly very dishonest to continuously delay under the pretenses of "COVID" and "we're taking our time to do it right" which was the line for a while. Remember, there was never going to even be an early access, until some time in 2023. I contend that even taking into account material which was released immediately before the EA launch and post-launch, there has been dishonesty at multiple levels. I'm not going to say malicious dishonesty, because I don't know enough. Even supposing, though, that they never truly told a lie, and the state of the EA was clear at the time when people were buying it, it is NOT a fair or "honest" business practice to claim a product will be ready for YEARS, and then announce with little warning that only a prototype will be ready, and days before it goes on-market, reveal that it is barely functional. The EA seller - EA tester relationship is built on trust. Trust that the concerns of the community are being heeded, and trust that the game will eventually be completed. These issues are magnified when the EA is $50, and the company behind the game is a huge one who isn't going to actually run out of money like a small studio might. No rational person would trust that the development of KSP 2 will continue successfully and to the end, while delivering on all of what was promised. Even if you like the devs, and think they care about the game, which I do, their track record is simply not there. And when the communication is as described? You can forget it. \ That's what killed KSP 2. A long, expensive, fraught, unpredictable, dysfunctional development period for a product with a niche market. A total, justified, breakdown of trust between the Dev team and the once enthusiastic, engaged community. Low hundreds of active players. No end in sight. A lack of the technical progress which constituted the impetus for the game's creation in the first place. Not the community, capitalism, greedy executives, or 1,200 bad reviews on a game whose predecessor sold millions of copies, a full 15 months after the products release, and AFTER the announcement that the studio was already shut down.

I think this is a flawed way of thinking about the future. It's naive to think the same trends we see now and in the recent past will continue forever. People thought there would be flying battleships based on the development of airships in the early 1900s as a "natural" continuation of the technology, and it never happened. People thought there would be no more capital ships after torpedo boats made them "obsolete," also during the early 1900s. And people thought the adoption of nuclear power in the US in the late 1950s meant that by 1990 there would be a small nuclear reactor in the basement of every home in America. When thinking about this stuff, its important to think about the economy of it. Based on the size of airline fleets and number of total employees, I have seen estimates that it takes about 50-100 employees to maintain a single aircraft. How many employees does it take to maintain a single rocket? How much extremely specialized labor when compared with maintaining aircraft? Where is SpaceX going to get this army of ground staff to support their launch of 1000 Starships during each transfer window? In my state it costs about $300,000 to build a new home right now, minus permits and land costs etc. This is very close to the average US cost of 298,000 in 2023. For lack of alternative ideas, I'm going to assume SpaceX uses the "normal buildings in domes" design they have in the artwork on their website. Musk wants to house 1 million people on Mars. Let's say there are 4 people to a home. So $75 billion to build the habitats. This doesn't include the expensive domes, complete with life support on a scale never seen before. The domes will need to be even bigger because there will need to be room for the other aspects of the city. It won't just need more buildings, but a sewage system, schools, farms, the power source, and so on. So the dome will be enormous. The ISS has about 1000m cubed of pressurized volume and cost $100 billion or so in total. I'm going to be very generous and cut that in half, assuming use of robots will help cut costs, but then I'm going to add $5 billion for those robots. So let's say 1000m cubed of volume on the Mars base will cost $55 billion to build. The city of Portland, which is probably smaller than what the Mars city will be due to lack of farmland, is 233km squared area. I'm going to treat the volume of the dome as if it were a cube, and the extra volume that wouldn't be there on account of shape will go to the farmland. So let's just say to have good circulation and allow birds to live in it, it will need to be a generous 1 km tall (the artwork shows it higher). So, the volume is just 233km cubed. So, it would cost $233 billion dollars to build a pressurized dome for the city. From r/theydidthemath Let's be generous and use the lower estimate. About 250 sq km for 1 million people. Cost of dome + homes (minus maintenance, services, sewage, transporting dirt for farming, etc.): ~$488 billion. The article from Payload Space that estimated SpaceX's revenue I found put operating costs in 2022 at $3 billion. They launched 61 rockets in 2022, rounding that down to 60, we get $50 million to launch one rocket. How many Starships will it take to build the city? Way more than Musk theorizes. An interesting Seattle Times article did the calculations and the weight of a home came in at about 300 tons. So 300 million tons of material need to be moved to Mars for the housing alone. Starship 3 can bring 200 tons to LEO, and with 4-5 refueling flights could bring that to Mars. So 1,500,000 Cargo Starship launches would be required to send the materials, ignoring things like volume restrictions and what have you. Add 4 tanker flights per launch, and that would be 7,500,000 Starship launches. Thus SpaceX's operating costs including the launch of these rockets, in total, would amount to $375 trillion. This doesn't include the 10,000 Starships needed to launch the million colonists, nor the cost of launching the dome, dirt for farmland, robot laborers, and so on. And of course the associated tankers. Nor the actual cost of the materials themselves. These would be internal launches and thus generate no revenue. In contrast, the Earth's GDP in 2022 was about $100 trillion. Starlink had 2.3 million subscribers in 2023, and generated $4.2 billion in revenue. If Starlink somehow rose to 32 million subscribers and beat out Comcast to become the biggest ISP in the US, they'd have, very roughly, $63 billion in revenue each year. This doesn't take into account inflation. SpaceX alone could not pull this off. $375.5 trillion for the Mars city, and that estimate is low balled. And it won't even turn a profit when it is complete. It will just be a regular old city, but costing $50 million to send stuff to and fro on a good day. Contrast with how sending a 20 ft shipping container to Japan costs about $1,200 dollars. A Mars city will, in all likelihood, never turn a profit. And remember those failed predictions about technology in the early 20th century? Let me introduce you to some more bad projections. In the 1920s, people predicted the end of poverty, infinite growth, and even declines in culture because people were becoming so wealthy they wouldn't want to do anything. Then after the crash of '29, people were predicting permanent damage, endless poverty and unemployment, and no hope of recovery ever. So even though Goldman Sachs predicts the global GDP being $227 trillion in 2050, which maybe could put it at $1 quadrillion by year 2300- at which point the US GDP might be about $300-400 trillion (all at a rate of growth of $100 trillion every 25 years), that would still require a company with the ability to invest an amount equivalent to the US GDP in something they will get no return on investment in. All that assumes there is no Second Great Depression, no nuclear war, no AI disruption to the economy, and no disastrous damage from climate change. I really dislike the idea of things being inevitable. If we want something to happen in the future, we have to work for it, we can't assume it will just come to us. No one is really working towards anything right now, and I feel like that's just going to allow another bad cascade of events that will lead to great damage and set humanity back 50 years. Every generation has talked about something being inevitable, then had things turned on their head and started saying the other way around was inevitable. There is great collateral in the process. I wish for once we would recognize the future is unknown and try to shape it by our own will, instead of letting it take the trajectory set by people who are either in retirement homes or dead. Because it isn't a trajectory at all, just feeling our way through the dark with no interest in our existence beyond the present. ------ Okay, now for fun let's see when a company might have the wherewithal to fund its own Mars colony, based on these unchanging linear projections that I simplified. SpaceX's total revenue was about $8 billion according to that same Payload Space estimate. So 3/8 of that was operating costs. Assuming SpaceX's revenue can grow with the economy: maybe SpaceX and Tesla merge into one mega corporation, along with Twitter, maybe it produces the world's best mac and cheese, who knows. I'm going to use that trend as the GDP. So SpaceX's total revenue will be $16 billion in 2050, and $32 billion in 2100. I'm gonna round it up to $10 billion in 2023 so this is easier. So $40 billion in 2100. $64 billion in 2200, $128 billion in 2300. By the year 3000, it will be $400 billion. $800 billion in 4000, but let's bump that to a trillion. So it will be $3 trillion dollars by the year 8000. After that, it would take about 200,000 years for SpaceX's operating costs to reach $300 trillion dollars. The extra 75, also rounded up, to 100, would take another 667 years or so to gain. So SpaceX will have enough money to build a city on Mars starting in 208,667 A.D. By this time, two moons of Uranus will have collided, the Arecibo message will have reached its target, and Pioneer 10 will have passed within about 3 light years of Ross 248, a red dwarf, which circa 60,000 A.D. will have become the closest star to Earth for a brief period of time (10,000 years). Disclaimer: This is half serious attempt to calculate the cost of a Mars colony, half tongue in cheek criticism of statements that say things like "All we need to do is send some software engineers to Mars and the colony will be profitable." I did not check my math. The only really serious thing is my critique of making predictions about the future by assuming current trends will last forever.

The Comprehensive Colony Communications Archive (CCCA) Hello everyone! I've been seeing a lot of people confused about how colonies will actually work lately. We have received a lot of info on this over the years, but it's pretty spread out. That's why i took it upon myself to go through every Feature Video, Show and Tell, AMA, Dev Update/Blog/Chat and Interview and compile every bit of information we have about the KSP2 Colonies Milestone update, along with where and when it was mentioned. Do keep in mind that some of this info is years old at this point and may not be entirely up-to-date with the developers plans and goals anymore. Props to the KSP2 Knowledge Repository post, which served as a great independant resource to make sure i didnt miss anything. Thanks also goes out to @Spicatfor helping me go through the youtube interviews. If i did miss anything, feel free to let me know! I've highlighted the sections about (planned) core colony functionality and the features that are expected to ship with the Colonies Milestone. Do keep in mind that some of the core functionality (such as Resources) wont be in the initial release yet and will come with later Milestones. This post is also available as a PDF at the bottom of this page for easier reading, for those who prefer that. Enjoy! 1. Feature Videos · Colonies will have exotic fuel factories, such as metallic hydrogen ( + concept art) Kerbal Space Program 2: Episode 1 - Next Gen Tech [Feb 20, 2020] · Pre-alpha captures of various colonies and stations Kerbal Space Program 2: Episode 1.5 - Work From Home Developer Update [Jun 24, 2020] · More pre-alpha captures Kerbal Space Program 2 - Feature Videos Teaser [Oct 23, 2020] Kerbal Space Program 2: Episode 2 – The Kerbals [Dec 21, 2020] 2. Dev Diaries · Colonies as one of the KSP2 Design Pillars (exploring next-gen space program concepts): - new features based on inspiration from expectations and the real world - but not on the level of complexity that dedicated colony builders have - minimizing micromanagement - colonies in function of serving ‘rocket gameplay’ How Colonies will work gameplay-wise: - Establishing a colony by launching inflatable modules on a standard rocket - Fuel is synthesized in-situ by this colony to refuel rocket> - Players bring in more resources to make colony self-sufficient - Colony grows to allow player to build and fly rockets from this new location - Orbital Drydocks and Mining Colonies are mentioned - Rearranging modules of a colony is mentioned - commitment to keep Colonies open to the modding community is made Developer Insights #3 – KSP2 Design Pillars [Apr 26, 2020] · Mention of being able to dock at each others colonies in multiplayer Developer Insights #4 – KSP2 Engineering [Jun 12, 2020] · Confirmation that Vehicle Assembly and Colony Assembly Build Interface (also known as BAE; Building Assembly Editor) will use same camera interactions Developer Insights #7 – KSP 2 UX Architects [Nov 27, 2020] · Deep technical dive into how Resource Flow will function, but no specific mention of their relation to Colonies Developer Insights #13 – KSP2 Resource System [Feb 25, 2022] · Inspiration for Colony parts is drawn from concept studies, physics treatises and hypothetical engineering trades. (No examples of such studies is listed) Also reveals new ion plasma engine which should be added along with radiators (as per Nertea), thus with Colonies (see Dev Insights #21). Developer Insights #14 - Part Creation [Jun 27, 2022] Nertea Talking About New Ion Engine [Aug 17, 2023] · Pre-Alpha Sneak Peak of a Large-size Pulsed Fission Drive (based on Project Orion). Likely to ship with the Colonies update (see Nate's AMA) Developer Insights #15 - Writing for Kerbal Space Program [Aug 30, 2022] · Connection between the Heating system and Colonies - core areas of heat management for colonies: heat-producing/removing parts & environmental heat sources/sinks (e.g. An ocean) - Environment will directly impact efficiency of Mining Colonies; being on a cold planet or being in the shadow of a mountain will result in ‘a bonus’, being on a lava planet will ‘pose a challenge’ - not getting rid of heat may result in nuclear meltdown - engines, drills, factories, and power generators listed as possible heat-generating parts for both Colonies and Vessels - atmospheres, oceans, sunlight and proximity/contact to surface features listed as possible environmental heat sources/sinks - pointing a torch drive at a colony will result in consequences - some parts/modules will be more prone to heating than others - mentions there will be ‘tools’ to understand and manage heating on Colonies and Vessels - heating model for parts and colonies will be based on average heat flux (incoming/generated heat on a part – outgoing heat = resultant heating on that part) - Radiators and heat sinks will pull heat from all parts - Thermal Flux and Extraction/Production (using Delivery Routes) calculations will always run in the background even when the colony is not being observed - the Colonies Milestone will introduce basic part heat management, basic radiators and thermal planning - More part heat managment, more radiators, exotic environments and more planning tools are planned to arrive later with the Insterstellar Milestone Developer Insights #21 - Rockets' Red Glare [Jul 23, 2023] 3. Show and Tells · Power generation modules for colonies - will progress from compact fission reactors to giant fusion tokamaks to next-generation Z-pinch fusion reactors Show and Tell - New power generation modules for colonies! [Feb 5, 2021] · Station and Colony Part Models: - Orbital Launch Clamp - Geothermal Power Generator - Colony Roads/Runways - Deep Resource Scanner - Wind turbine Show and Tell - Creating New Parts [Jun 11, 2021] · Colony Fuel Factories: From smallest to largest: Methalox Fuel Factory, Monopropellant Fuel Factory, Xenon Fuel Factory, Helium-3 Fuel Factory, and Metallic Hydrogen Fuel Factory Show and Tell - Colony fuel factories [Feb 19, 2021] · M-sized Bi-modal, extendable nozzle afterburning nuclear engine: NERV-US Will possibly ship with Colonies, as this engine has been functional but hidden (in its non-afterburning mode only) in the game since release. Appeared in an earlier Show and Tell as the ‘LANTR’. May be waiting on Part Heat Generation. Show and Tell - NERV-US [Oct 1, 2021] Show and Tell - New LANTR engine [Jun 25, 2021] · Procedural Radiators – Unconfirmed Show and Tell - Procedural Radiators [Mar 25, 2022] 4. AMAs · AMA Nate Simpson [Mar 24, 2023] 3/24 Discord AMA Answers Ask Me A Few More Things Q: Can you give any more detail about how the automated "trade routes" are going to work? Will we see ships automatically landing on / taking off from the launchpad or will it be more of a in-the-background kind of thing? How will the game handle changing delta-v requirements due to different planetary alignments? A: For delivery routes, we have clear steps. First implementation, crediting/debiting resources to vehicles and colonies based on duration. Second implementation might take into account launch windows and such. Someday, would be very cool to see vehicles coming and going. Not a promise, but a long-term aspiration. Q: Will certain resources needed for colony construction be planet/biome specific? A: The diversity of resources is what's going to make exploration mode so fun. Compared to KSP1 which was very self-directed (take temperatures, etc.), when there is a unique resource somewhere that gates your access to some category of parts/features - wow it totally changes the game. It gives you something material literally material, yeah the interplanetary/interstellar progression will really POP once you're able to dig up a specific thing that gives you a specific ability. Q: For the far off colonization update. How will buildings work? Will we assemble them ourselves by landing modules (or making them on site) and moving them into position, or will it be more of a prefabricated type of building system? A: We have a inflatable module that you put on a vehicle and once you deploy it - it's basically like setting up a camping site. It sets up a VAB-like interface. Using that and other modules, you can use resources to add even more modules to the colonies. There will be attach nodes and it'll be very similar to creating a vehicle. Also the same thing applies to orbital colonies. Q: Orbital colonies have been mentioned. Will they have a set orbit once the first part has been built, or will they be able to move with engines like other spacecraft? A: They can be moved and crashed, yes. Q: How useful will orbital construction be and how awesome are the colonies? A: Completely critical to the interstellar progression. You can't make a interstellar vehicle in a gravity well. Someone will definitely prove me wrong about that one day. Q: … Will players be able to share colony buildings (Once that comes out) and create? A: …So there will be the asynchronous progression - people dropping in and out of the server over time but slowly building up resources and sharing delivery routes between colonies. … Q: Will there more colony parts than what shown in the trailers? A: yes. Q: What kind of size range can we expect with colonies? Will all colonies be roughly the same size, or will we be able to have small 1-2 launch research colonies along with our gigantic industrial ones? Will there be any upper size limit? A: There's no plan for an enforced upper-size limit. It'll be similar to vehicles, it's made of parts - we want people to make it as large as they want. Obviously not all computers can handle massive builds, so there will probably be a player-dependent fps-based size limit. Q: "When we'll see other exotic fuel types like metallic hydrogen? Will they be added alongside some big update like colonies or will they be added before?" A: We will be bringing in new engine and fuel types across multiple updates, generally as they become instrumental to the progression. I suspect nuclear pulse will be next up, as it opens up the interplanetary progression quite nicely and is a good supplement to colony building. … Q: Will be possible to alter the surface on the planets? Like dig a pit or flatten an area for a colony? A: There are no current plans to do this - … - So yeah, we’ll keep talking about this. · AMA Shana Markham [Apr 20, 2023] Discord AMA 2 - Design Director Shana Markham Answers Q: Most players don't know how do reentry and land precisely. How will you teach players to land precisely near colony to deliver resources there, or will we get instruments to predict landing site for delivery paths? A: …Certainly when colonies comes out, advanced landings will be extremely useful. One of our writers (Jim Peck) did a knowledge-share internally about precision landings, and that taught us a lot about how in-depth that topic can be - and we have to figure out how to distill that down to make it approachable for new players. Q: How will the resources be distributed across so many planets in order to give the player a reason to explore every world? If resources aren't the catalyst for exploration, how else do plan on motivating exploration? A: … we want to look at the various resources on a planet and how it plays into your space program. Especially with colonies and exploration, you may want to build a mining colony - but perhaps it's really far away and it's annoying to get to. So instead you go somewhere else and build an additional orbital colony to help build resource pathways. Q: In the previous AMA it got said that colonies will be built using resources, but the resource gathering update comes after the colonies one, how will that work? A: Remember that question about the roadmap? This is one of the outcomes when everything is building on top of each other.. We wanted to make sure exploration is about exploration. Q: Will colonies feature automation gameplay (with-in the colony, so not the delivery route system)? It can look something like: 1) Resource extractor building mines a raw resource, 2) Resource refinery building makes a useable material out of it, 3) Assembly A: …We want to make sure automation is implemented to make sure the part of the game that is really important to us, rockets, continues to stay the main gameplay loop. Q: Will adding to orbital colonies be similar to how we already make space stations etc. or how will that work differently? A: Orbital colonies would follow a similar flow to terrestrial colonies and have the same toolset. · AMA Kristina Ness [Jun 30, 2023] AMA 3 - Art Director Kristina Ness Answers Q: Have the assets for the game been done? What does the art team do after the assets are made? A: Yes. The art team is actually, as is with most games, the art team is ahead…. our 3D artists right now are working on colony parts. All the science parts are already done and ready to go and they're all lined up. And so, they're onward to colony parts. (as of June 30th, 2023) Q: Will Kerbals be different colors based on what planets they originate from when colonies are introduced? A: That's a very fun idea. I have my own head canon about Kerbal colors. And we'll see. We'll see if that becomes canon. Q: When can we expect to see crew modules which require animations such as gravity rings, especially ones with cool deployment methods? A: Colonies!! I actually just saw a gif of a module very similar to what you are describing that I hope we can share soon. · AMA Chris Adderley (aka Nertea) [Aug 18, 2023] KSP2 AMA Series - Chris "Nertea" Adderley - Answers/Transcript Q: When colonies are implemented, will heat be required for habitation modules in colder environments? A: Not in the current design. We're mostly focusing on having players understand overheating as a concern rather than under-heating. Q: How will the "rotational" artificial gravity ring part showcased in the teasers and trailers work? Will we have multiple iterations of varying sizes? A: We're not really looking at specifically simulating different gravity levels in the game right now. It's not really part of our plans, but we do want to have, at least for colonies, different sizes of gravity ring, and not only different sizes, but different roles. A lot of different things you can put into gravity ring and a lot of different interesting gameplay you can build out of that. And that's a lot of different things you can put into gravity ring and a lot of other things you can build out of that. And that's all I'll say about that. Q: How is the colonies stuff going, there's been some recent concern on whether launching rockets will be free in science. If so, will that be an issue for progression? A: We are effectively designing our progression system in such a way that that's not an issue. I should clarify that as we're going through our milestones, the science milestone is going to be more similar to the science mode from KSP1. So you didn't really have cash in that mode in KSP1. So we're working within the same constraints in terms of that. In the far future when we have resources and things, we're often taking the approach that like, we want players to feel like they want to, they're able to do a lot of stuff from the KSC and from colonies. So I'm not gonna say launching rockets will be free. There's always going to be a cost associated with a rocket, but the amount of various resources that you might have access to at the KSC at different places is going to control what you can launch when. Q: I got the impression that there was going to be the potential for vessels/stations with truly massive part counts… is this still going to be a thing eventually, at least by 1.0? A: This is a core goal that we have in our game. It's like we need to scale things….We're gonna have a specific [performance] target for colonies, a specific target for interstellar, and then a specific target as we go towards 1.0. So the goal is to deliver more parts per ship, more parts per save, more ships per save, to make it so that you can truly have a curvil interstellar civilization. Q: What are your thoughts on greenhouses and simple life support with snacks for example? How do you see conveying that colonies are both real places where kerbals live and 'working machines' much the way vessels are? A: …We have some things in the works around Colonies that ape some of the ‘results’ of life support, which I hope will get at the idea of colonies being a little more kerbal-involved than just plunking Kerbals in a command part. Q: As a side question, stations and bases. Are these going to have something of a real use this time around, given that stations were limited to more or less just fuel depots in KSP1. I'm thinking more along the lines of long term research projects, with big pay-off for significant durations of time. Is there some sort of requirement to resupply the stations, perhaps required crew rotation, stuff like that? A: The progression we want to deliver for bases and stations mirrors IRL conceptions about how these things should work. You will start out with outposts that have limited utility – let’s call that KSP1-like. Fuel depots, maybe comms relays, etc. As you progress through the tech tree, you’ll get access to stuff that provides them with greater utility. That’s shipyards and docks, fuel factories, launch pads, etc. Eventually you’ll get the biggest parts, which are mostly focused on giving you the full capabilities of the KSC at a colony. A core piece of the utility in my mind comes with resource gathering (which is a ways off in the roadmap,) when the specific positioning and configuration of a colony becomes really important. Placing a colony with good access to progression-related resources and having easy access to heat management/power sources will allow you to build specific functions and cool vibes into each colony. Crew rotations and resupply are not currently something we would want to enforce. I hope that when we get resources and delivery routes fully operational though, that this is something modders will hit really hard because the framework of stuff like delivery routes will be there. 5. Interviews and Dev Chats · Colony parts will start appearing in Tier 4 of the tech tree and continue into Tier 5 Science and Tech Tree - KSP 2 Dev Chats [Nov 30, 2023] · ShadowZone Interviews Nate Simpson (2019) KSP 2 Developer on Multiplayer: "I Never Heard People Laugh So Hard" [Sep 6, 2019] - Base Assembly Editor to build Colonies similar to the VAB for craft - Colonies will use the same physics system as craft, so it will fall if you build too tall · Scott Manley Interviews Nate Simpson (2019) Kerbal Space Program 2 Developer Answers Important Questions [Sep 2, 2019] - Early Stage: Bring modular component that you build on site, inflatable module - When population grows you unlock some ISRU capabilities to unlock more permanent modules · PC Gamer Article with Developer Interview (2020) Space Odyssey: Our first big look at Kerbal Space Program 2 [Jul 1, 2020] - 'Boom Events' are mentioned as a player-initiated event that will increase colony population "through a method we will not describe" - Boom events will happen by making discoveries and unlocking new technologies, and have a variety of effects - Colony Nursery module is mentioned as an example, where a Boom Event will result in the creation of new colonists - Colonies will underperform when they run out of Power or Food - First time Food is mentioned! · PC Gamer Interview (2022) Kerbal Space Program 2 full interview PC Gaming Show 2023 Preview [Nov 23, 2022] - Use local resources to build colonies - Use local resources to build craft at those colonies - Orbital Construction will happen in a ‘sort of open space’ - Delivery routes to automatize a task -> build a resource extracting rover that brings resource to the colony. after doing it once, you can make a repetitive delivery so you continue to receive that resources · Shacknews Interviews Interview (2021) Kerbal Space Program 2 - Interview With Creative Director Nate Simpson [Jun 24, 2021] - As a colony grows, it will eventually become self-sufficient and not need external resource deliveries to expand anymore · Shacknews Interviews Interview (2023) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=easPDj-o06o&t=358s [May 2, 2023] - There will be between 200 to 300 colony parts · GrunfWorks Interviews Nate Simpson (2024) KSP 2's Creative Director talks Colonies - Interview with Nate Simpson [Mar 1, 2024] - Colonies will come with new kinds of science collection - Colonies will be placeable anywhere - ‘dozens’ of new colony parts - The Colonies Experience will be ‘whole’ at its initial release despite resources coming later, but will evolve as resources and delivery routes come online later 6. Sneak Peaks · An Orbital Colony Around Duna & Jool (video of rotating rings/arms in link) Colonies Sneakpeeks [Mar 15, 2024] · Visual improvements to clouds, engine exhaust overhaul (unconfirmed – may come before or after Colonies) KSP2 Dev Update: Some Improvements On The Way [April 25, 2024] This Document as a PDF: CCCA.pdf

NASA is now opening up the Mars Sample Return mission to the commercial space approach. The usual NASA government financed approach is estimated to cost ~$10 Billion. But following the commercial space approach it probably could be done at literally 1/100th that at ~$100 million including launch cost. I had estimated it as less than ~$200 million using the Falcon Heavy as launcher: Low cost commercial Mars Sample Return.
 http://exoscientist.blogspot.com/2023/07/low-cost-commercial-mars-sample-return.html This could get ~750 kg back from Mars with the Falcon Heavy as the launcher. However, it probably could in fact be launched on the Falcon 9. The Falcon 9 can launch about a quarter of the mass of the Falcon Heavy to Mars, for all the in-space stages, so estimate the sample size returned from Mars of ca. 180kg. At a $40 million launch cost of the reused F9, then all together with all the in-space stages, the mission cost probably could be less than than ~$100 million. Such a low mission cost probably could be paid for by advertising alone. But to encourage participants to take up the task of such a fully privately financed mission, NASA could offer a prize of say $200 to $500 million to whoever could accomplish it, with some smaller incentive prizes to those who accomplish some key required steps. Bob Clark

So, I'm currently working on a planet pack for KSP but on both terrestrial bodies I've added so far the ground is transparent when I'm within below ScaledSpace and PQS "fadeStart". The problem has been for two months now and I've tried multiple things that haven't worked. So if possible, I'd like your help regarding this situation. Here's some screenshots of the ground: And here are the config files: @Kopernicus:FOR[OPKNS] { Body { name = Verlod Debug { exportMesh = true update = true } cacheFile = OPKNS/Cache/Verlod.bin Template { name = Kerbin removeAllPQSMods = true removeOcean = true } Properties { displayName = #LOC_OPKNS_dspn_0002 description = #LOC_OPKNS_celDesc_0002 radius = 4137531 geeASL = 0.71 mass = 1.792E+24 rotates = True rotationPeriod = 66420 tidallyLocked = False isHomeWorld = True } Orbit { referenceBody = Sun color = 0.25, 0.4, 0.5, 1 inclination = 3.789227183 eccentricity = 0.022409 semiMajorAxis = 189989295803 longitudeOfAscendingNode = 47.3 argumentOfPeriapsis = 0.87 meanAnomalyAtEpoch = 0 epoch = 0 } Atmosphere { enabled = True oxygen = True altitude = 72000 adiabaticIndex = 1.40 atmosphereMolarMass = 0.02897 temperatureSeaLevel = 281 staticPressureASL = 1.10444E+02 temperatureCurve { key = 0 273 0.00000E+00 -5.35664E-03 key = 3547 254 -5.35664E-03 -7.41457E-03 key = 6649 231 -7.41457E-03 -6.03693E-03 key = 9465 214 -6.03693E-03 -2.26244E-03 key = 12117 208 -2.26244E-03 3.82409E-04 key = 14732 209 3.82409E-04 1.87829E-03 key = 17394 214 1.87829E-03 2.18579E-03 key = 20139 220 2.18579E-03 2.46566E-03 key = 22978 227 2.46566E-03 2.71370E-03 key = 25926 235 2.71370E-03 3.25415E-03 key = 28999 245 3.25415E-03 3.73367E-03 key = 32213 257 3.73367E-03 2.98418E-03 key = 35564 267 2.98418E-03 0.00000E+00 key = 38967 267 0.00000E+00 -3.61882E-03 key = 42283 255 -3.61882E-03 -3.47771E-03 key = 45446 244 -3.47771E-03 -3.31345E-03 key = 48464 234 -3.31345E-03 -3.46380E-03 key = 51351 224 -3.46380E-03 -3.24558E-03 key = 54124 215 -3.24558E-03 -2.61292E-03 key = 56803 208 -2.61292E-03 -2.30858E-03 key = 59402 202 -2.30858E-03 -2.37436E-03 key = 61929 196 -2.37436E-03 -2.02429E-03 key = 64399 191 -2.02429E-03 -1.23609E-03 key = 66826 188 -1.23609E-03 -4.15800E-04 key = 69231 187 -4.15800E-04 0.00000E+00 key = 72000 187 0.00000E+00 0.00000E+00 } temperatureSunMultCurve { key = 0 1.000 0.00000E+00 -9.27544E-05 key = 3547 0.671 -9.27544E-05 -1.33785E-04 key = 6649 0.256 -1.33785E-04 -1.30327E-04 key = 9465 -0.111 -1.30327E-04 -6.97587E-05 key = 12117 -0.296 -6.97587E-05 1.30019E-05 key = 14732 -0.262 1.30019E-05 4.54545E-05 key = 17394 -0.141 4.54545E-05 6.01093E-05 key = 20139 0.024 6.01093E-05 6.02325E-05 key = 22978 0.195 6.02325E-05 4.68114E-05 key = 25926 0.333 4.68114E-05 2.14774E-05 key = 28999 0.399 2.14774E-05 -9.95644E-06 key = 32213 0.367 -9.95644E-06 -3.07371E-05 key = 35564 0.264 -3.07371E-05 -4.17279E-05 key = 38967 0.122 -4.17279E-05 -4.40290E-05 key = 42283 -0.024 -4.40290E-05 -3.73064E-05 key = 45446 -0.142 -3.73064E-05 -1.88867E-05 key = 48464 -0.199 -1.88867E-05 3.11742E-06 key = 51351 -0.190 3.11742E-06 1.26217E-05 key = 54124 -0.155 1.26217E-05 1.97835E-05 key = 56803 -0.102 1.97835E-05 2.42401E-05 key = 59402 -0.039 2.42401E-05 2.69094E-05 key = 61929 0.029 2.69094E-05 2.59109E-05 key = 64399 0.093 2.59109E-05 2.26617E-05 key = 66826 0.148 2.26617E-05 1.58004E-05 key = 69231 0.186 1.58004E-05 5.05598E-06 key = 72000 0.200 5.05598E-06 0.00000E+00 } temperatureLatitudeBiasCurve { key = 0 8.48 0 0 key = 38 0 -0.4298 -0.4298 key = 90 -31.52 -0.6981 0 } temperatureLatitudeSunMultCurve { key = 0 17 0 0 key = 38 14.46 -0.1289 -0.1289 key = 90 5 -0.2094 0 } temperatureAxialSunBiasCurve { key = 0 8.47 0 -0.2035 key = 36 0 -0.2515 -0.2515 key = 126 -14.41 0 0 key = 216 0 0.2515 0.2515 key = 306 14.41 0 0 key = 360 8.47 -0.2035 0 } temperatureAxialSunMultCurve { key = 0 0 0 0 key = 38 0.5 0.02 0.02 key = 90 1 0 0 } temperatureEccentricityBiasCurve { key = 0 0 0 0 } pressureCurve { key = 0 1.10444E+02 0.00000E+00 -1.79290E-02 key = 3547 6.21074E+01 -1.09323E-02 -1.09323E-02 key = 6649 3.49255E+01 -6.84346E-03 -6.84346E-03 key = 9465 1.96401E+01 -4.19919E-03 -4.19919E-03 key = 12117 1.10444E+01 -2.44019E-03 -2.44019E-03 key = 14732 6.21074E+00 -1.36545E-03 -1.36545E-03 key = 17394 3.49255E+00 -7.45607E-04 -7.45607E-04 key = 20139 1.96401E+00 -4.06181E-04 -4.06181E-04 key = 22978 1.10444E+00 -2.20493E-04 -2.20493E-04 key = 25926 6.21074E-01 -1.19244E-04 -1.19244E-04 key = 28999 3.49255E-01 -6.42447E-05 -6.42447E-05 key = 32213 1.96401E-01 -3.44630E-05 -3.44630E-05 key = 35564 1.10444E-01 -1.87155E-05 -1.87155E-05 key = 38967 6.21074E-02 -1.05693E-05 -1.05693E-05 key = 42283 3.49255E-02 -6.23607E-06 -6.23607E-06 key = 45446 1.96401E-02 -3.67891E-06 -3.67891E-06 key = 48464 1.10444E-02 -2.16678E-06 -2.16678E-06 key = 51351 6.21074E-03 -1.27203E-06 -1.27203E-06 key = 54124 3.49255E-03 -7.42697E-07 -7.42697E-07 key = 56803 1.96401E-03 -4.31357E-07 -4.31357E-07 key = 59402 1.10444E-03 -2.49896E-07 -2.49896E-07 key = 61929 6.21074E-04 -1.44222E-07 -1.44222E-07 key = 64399 3.49255E-04 -8.28002E-08 -8.28002E-08 key = 66826 1.96401E-04 -4.72197E-08 -4.72197E-08 key = 69231 1.10444E-04 -2.67112E-08 -2.67112E-08 key = 72000 0.00000E+00 0.00000E+00 0.00000E+00 } AtmosphereFromGround { DEBUG_alwaysUpdateAll = False doScale = False waveLength = 1,0.584615588,0.396153271,1 samples = 2 innerRadiusMult = 0.9563388 outerRadiusMult = 1.045001 transformScale = 1.095,1.095,1.095 } } ScaledVersion { type = Atmospheric fadeStart = 35000 fadeEnd = 80000 Material { texture = OPKNS/Textures/PluginData/Verlod00.dds normals = OPKNS/Textures/PluginData/VerlodNormal.dds color = 1,1,1,1 specColor = 0.75,0.75,0.75,1 shininess = 0.17 rimPower = 1.5 rimBlend = 0.75 Gradient { 0.0 = 0.25, 0.5, 1, 1 0.2 = 0.25, 0.125, 0.0625, 1 0.6 = 0,0,0,0 0.4 = 0,0,0,0 } } } PQS { minLevel = 2 maxLevel = 8 minDetailDistance = 6 maxQuadLengthsPerFrame = 0.03 fadeStart = 80000 fadeEnd = 250000 deactivateAltitude = 265000 materialType = AtmosphericTriplanarZoomRotation allowFootprints = True Material { saturation = 1 contrast = 1.35 tintColor = 1,1,1,0 groundTexStart = 0 groundTexEnd = 20000 steepTexStart = 0 steepTexEnd = 20000 steepTex = BUILTIN/terrain_rock00 steepBumpMap = BUILTIN/Cliff (Layered Rock)_NRM steepNearTiling = 25000 steepTiling = 25 deepTex = BUILTIN/eveLowSand_diffuse deepBumpMap = BUILTIN/eveSand_nrm deepNearTiling = 50000 deepMultiFactor = 50 deepBumpNearTiling = 50000 deepBumpFarTiling = 50 lowTex = BUILTIN/eveLowSand_diffuse lowBumpMap = BUILTIN/eveSand_nrm lowNearTiling = 50000 lowMultiFactor = 50 lowBumpNearTiling = 50000 lowBumpFarTiling = 50 midTex = BUILTIN/gillyHighTerrain midBumpMap = BUILTIN/eveSand_nrm midNearTiling = 50000 midMultiFactor = 50 midBumpNearTiling = 50000 midBumpFarTiling = 50 highTex = BUILTIN/gillyHighTerrain highBumpMap = BUILTIN/eveSand_nrm highNearTiling = 50000 highMultiFactor = 50 highBumpNearTiling = 50000 highBumpFarTiling = 50 lowStart = -1 lowEnd = -1 highStart = 1 highEnd = 1 globalDensity = 1 planetOpacity = 255 } Mods { VertexHeightMap { map = OPKNS/Textures/PluginData/VerlodHeight.dds offset = 0 deformity = 7281 scaleDeformityByRadius = False order = 10 enabled = True } VertexSimplexHeightAbsolute { seed = 132562 deformity = 75 octaves = 8 persistence = 0.5 frequency = 24 enabled = true order = 20 } VertexSimplexHeight { seed = 342988 deformity = 128 octaves = 8 persistence = 0.5 frequency = 4 enabled = true order = 30 } VertexHeightNoiseVertHeightCurve2 { deformity = 315 ridgedAddFrequency = 32 ridgedAddLacunarity = 2 ridgedAddOctaves = 8 ridgedAddSeed = 438274 ridgedMode = Low ridgedSubFrequency = 32 ridgedSubLacunarity = 2 ridgedSubOctaves = 8 ridgedSubSeed = 749998 simplexFrequency = 24 simplexHeightEnd = 10000 simplexHeightStart = 0 simplexOctaves = 8 simplexPersistence = 0.5 simplexSeed = 80070 order = 40 enabled = True simplexCurve { key = 0 0 0 0 key = 0.6311918 0.4490898 1.432598 1.432598 key = 1 1 0 0 } } VertexColorMap { map = OPKNS/Textures/PluginData/VerlodColor.dds order = 50 enabled = True } City { debugOrientated = False frameDelta = 1 randomizeOnSphere = False reorientToSphere = True reorientFinalAngle = -15 reorientInitialUp = 0,1,0 Position { latitude = -7 longitude = 23.1082296 } repositionRadiusOffset = 42.7000007629395 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After my new friends and I checked out the Memphis Belle II at the Air Force Museum two weekends ago, I suggested that we stop by the WWII Gallery to admire the original namesake. The museum was only a few minutes away from closing, so we had to move fast; if we could, we would have ran the whole way. And now, ladies and gentlemen, here comes a war hero straight out of Memphis. The most iconic heavy bomber of WWII, get your tailguns ready for the B-17 Flying Fortress. Historic photograph from the later years of the Second Imperial Wars. Here we see one of many B-17s on its way to destroy a Heinkelian industrial complex. Before we continue with the demonstration flight, here are some more details on what the B-17 was used for. Man, that was long. Anyway, on to the test cruise. The B-17 Flying Fortress on display in the SPH. I began with modifying the 2.5-m Cockpit to have a longer, wider nose. To mimic the gunner/bombardier window, I added another small fairing and made them orange since they were the closest to in-game window colors. Although the main control module is a Mk1-3 Command Pod encased inside the cockpit piece (along with a RC-001S Remote Guidance Unit, which was added later), I added a Mk2 Lander Can in rover mode on the top for decoration. During the test cruise, after I tried getting a cockpit shot (even with MJ autopilot on), the plane lost control and started nosediving. To correct this, I set the control point to Forward. The plane shouldn’t take the lander can as the master control module, but it shouldn’t be a big deal if it does. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a 2.5-m cargo bay long enough to serve as a bomb bay. The stock service bay wouldn’t suffice since both ends opened up. So, I took the elevator bay from my C-54 Skymaster replica, removed the elevator itself, copied the bay itself, and put it in the middle of the fuselage. On @swjr-swis‘s advice, I raised the wings’ angle of incidence by 5 degrees. This helped me out a lot when it came to the plane’s range. For this large plane’s engines, I kept the motor size and output at 100% BUT I set the main throttle torque limit to 1%. The cargo bay has a lot of parachutes, repair kits, and lights. More than enough to evacuate the plane’s crew in a worst-case scenario and, if possible, get the plane fixed while setting up camp. Not that such an event happened often. This plane has (mock) turrets set up at: the nose the top, right behind the Mk2 Lander Can hatch the belly, right behind the wings both sides of the fuselage, near the back the tip of the tail Picture of the B-17F known as the Memphis Belle on display at the National Museum of the United States Air Force in Dayton, OH. This particular plane, which was on loan from the Air Force to the city of Memphis, TN, was relocated to the Museum in 2005. Years of restoration later, it was put on public display in May 2018. Photograph taken by me 4/9/2022. Below are the operating instructions for the B-17 replica. I jotted them down after I tried a consistent procedure on how to get to a good cruising altitude since my last few tests were all over the place. If you want the best cruise experience, PAY ATTENTION. Cockpit shot from the lander can during the test cruise. At first, just one second viewing out the window and the MJ aircraft autopilot would mess up and cause the plane to point downward and lose altitude. It took a while to get it back to cruise, which cost quite a bit of fuel - and, by extension, kilometers of range. I then turned off the autopilot for a few seconds to get this shot. I still lost a bit of altitude, albeit not nearly as much as I would have if it was on. After that cruise, I set the control point of the lander can to Forward. Photo of the Baikerbanur Bombshell, which had recently been restored to airworthiness, flying over some mountains. Another beautiful color shot of the B-17 flying. The skies over Kerbin yesterday were peaceful and quiet during this test cruise, but it would not last. At least in my mind, I was over Germany in 1945 with enemies from all directions shooting at me. It had been over half a year since Joe, our squadron's in-flight mechanic, died over the beaches of Normandy. Tom, Frank, and I had to be extra careful as we pushed further into Europe since we didn't have him to repair our planes anymore. We had already liberated Paris and foiled the German counteroffensive at the Ardennes, but we knew better than to get overconfident. With him around, we could be on fire and one stray bullet away from going down and he'd fix us up good as new in seconds. That's how good he was. This particular mission was a surprise for us. We were used to escorting bombers in our own fighters, and now all three of us were crammed in one bomber. Along with dozens of other B-17s, our task was to bomb German factories and supply lines along the Ruhr Valley. I don't know why our squadron wasn't assigned to the fighter escort since we had already proven ourselves more than capable of that many times, but I'm guessing that the higher-ups needed as many available airmen as possible to man the bombers and we got selected to fill that quota. Another surprise was the inconsistency on who was piloting our bomber. More specifically, Tom took the stick while between factories while I was in charge when we were bombing them. At least Frank was consistent and stayed at (one of) the turrets the entire time. While Tom was flying, German fighters were surrounding us from all sides. I had to switch turrets depending on who was chewing up our plane that second. I remember getting more kills from the belly and tail turrets than I did the top one, and I barely got anyone at the nose. Occasionally, Frank would complain that I stole his kill. I didn't really care at all, since our job was to keep the bomber safe long enough to blow up Germany's factories; tracking which gunner got how many kills did not matter. While I was flying, the B-17 had lousy maneuverability and such a low speed - and it didn't help that we were getting shot at by AA guns and artillery. Fortunately: their aim was so bad they make Imperial stormtroopers from Star Wars look like crack shots. each of the three industrial complexes we destroyed had their buildings arranged in such a way that we didn't have to do any tight turns to bomb our important targets. the B-17 was designed to take a lot of punishment. Of course, that was only if Frank and I did our jobs when the German fighters attacked. Over and over again, Tom told me, "Stay the course - it's the only chance we have of making it back." I understood he meant that we need to focus on the red targets or else we would have to turn around and go again - hence draining fuel (which was probably leaking thanks to enemy rounds in our fuel tank) and reducing our chances of returning to base. However, with the dozens of so other bombers with us, I'm sure anything we missed would have been leveled anyway. When we eventually reached Berlin, our bombers were dropping like flies and it was up to Tom, Frank, and I to save their tails - as usual. I swear, where did the Allies get their gunners? If we were manning one of those B-17s like we did in our last mission, we could have shot down most, if not all of, the German props sent after us. I wouldn't get my hopes up on fighting off the jets, though. Now that the childhood Blazing Angels story is over, back to the flak-free test cruise. The B-17 had barely made it over Kerbin’s north pole when had 30 fuel units left. That was when the pilot shut off the engines and began its slow final descent. It managed to glide almost 40 kilometers before touching down smoothly. This is quite a beautiful picture, actually. If I were more artistically inclined, I might actually make a painting out of this. The KSP replica's cruise performance stats, provided the ascent procedure was followed beforehand, were as follows: Altitude: 7.5 km (~24.6k ft; Class Alpha airspace) Velocity: 140 m/s (~313 mph) Will increase gradually over time, but then start to drop near the end. For now, this is a good start - and eventual finish. Blade Deployment Angle: 40 degrees Recommended Throttle: Ascent to altitude: 2/3 (66%) Cruise: 30% Expected Range: 1,000 km This plane glided for almost 40 km afterwards before touchdown in the latest test flight. A historic photograph of a B-17 stuck in the snow. This one was damaged in combat from a Heinkelian fighter’s bullets puncturing the fuel tanks. While that fighter was soon forced to break off the attack, the bomber however was unable to return to base after its bombing run. So, the pilot performed a smooth landing over Marxan territory and the crew set up camp during a snowstorm. They were eventually found by Marxan soldiers and, after a longer than usual waiting period, repatriated to Allied forces. Kerbal lore stories and Blazing Angels flashbacks in one post. This sure took forever to write. Anyway, thank you all for taking the time to read those. I'm sure they were quite interesting. If you have any such stories involving B-17s, either in videogames or IRL, I'd be glad to read about them. Replicas Remaining: 200 REST IN PEACE, JOE

Imho we will see the V3 reach 160 meters of total stack: 90 for superheavy and 70 for Starship, with 5000 gross tons for superheavy and 2500-3000 tons for starship ( in normal and tanker configuration respectively), at 10k tons of thrust that's still a respectable 1.3 of TWR at liftoff. Utter insanity, and we are all here for this. In the end SH will have something like 20x350 tons raptor boost and 13x 300 raptor SL that gimble, and the starship will have 6x350 tons raptor vacuum fixed and 3x300 tons SL gimballing raptors, for a total of 11k tons for SH and 3k tons of thrust for starship. This will give a 1.5 TWR for normal starship stack and 1.2 for Starship in particular, and 1.4 and 1 for the tanker version. Let's do some math: So, assumptions: - Isp avg of raptor 2 sea level during ascent: 350 ( it's 330-360 at sea level and vacuum respectively) - Isp of starship during ascent: 370 ( sea level is at 360, raptor vacuum at 380). - starship empty weight 150 tons - superheavy empty weight: 300 tons - remaining props and deltaV for starship to deorbit and land: 950 m/s aka 50 tons prop at 350 Isp, and I'm being very conservative. (100 meters/seconds for deorbit like Shuttle and 800 m/s for landing) - remaning props and deltaV for superheavy for boost back and landing: 400 tons, good for 2900 Ms/s of DV - payload: 200 tons - so total mass that has to reach orbit: 400 tons (150+50+200) - DV needed to reach orbit : 9.2-9.4 km/s of DV ( probably even lower for starship because it has a lot of thrust so way less gravity losses, but it is a good ballpark). - total mass of 2nd stage: 2700 tons (2350 tons of prop, 150 starship, 200 tons payload) - total mass at stage separation: 3400 tons (2700+ 300 SH +400 SH prop for boost back and landing) Total weight of the stack: 7500 tons, 4500 tons are props for the 1st stage, of witch 4100 will be burnt before staging. So: 1st stage gives the 2nd stage 2700 Ms/s of DV ( if you want to calculate with a DV calculator: full mass 7500 tons, dry mass 3400 tons, Isp 350) 2nd stage DV with 400 tons of stuff ( 200+50+150) with 2300 tons of props burnt , 2700 tons full mass and 370 of ISP: 6900 Ms/s of DV Total DV: 9.6 km/s of DV total, way more than needed. I would say that that if they can make the raptor really to 350 tons for the fixed/vacuum ones and 300 tons of thrust of the gimballing ones, we are golden, and 200 tons of payload might be conservative.

My workplace has a habit of auctioning off old computers once every 3 years for dirt cheap, and my manager is willing to give me a system with an Intel i3 (6th gen), 1 TB HDD, 16GB Ram along with associated peripherals for like 2 dollars A new 1050 Ti will prolly set me back by 200 - 250 dollars.. I have a laptop with an Intel i5 (6th gen) and 8 GB ram. For the purpose of playing KSP, will my new acquisition be an upgrade or not?

Yep. The 5% reduction in workforce is costing them between 160 and 200 million. Part of that is 25 to 35 million in employee severance and related emplee costs. Nothing is free. Two sides to every story.

We're three folks away from getting 200 supporters

MKS refining and manufacturing will work in the background but there are conditions. "Stuff" is updated when the facility comes back into physics range. If you've been away for a few minutes you'll get one update of that few minutes worth of extraction/refinement/manufacture/fabrication. If you've been away for one or more days of game time (1 Kerbal day = 6 hours), "stuff" will be updated for the days you were missing, one day at a time, then for the remaining time after that hour (the daily update is the important part, I'm not sure if the remainder comes first or last). Thus if you want to have an autonomous system you need enough storage to hold one day's worth of every output. If you want to extract metallic ore and refine it to metals you need enough electricity generation and storage, enough heat dissipation, and enough metallic ore storage to keep the extractor running for a day (six hours), then you need enough electricity and metallic ore production/storage and metals storage to last for a day. And then you need to take into account the presence of any engineers, mechanics, technicians, miners, geologists, etc as applies to your equipment. Your base might have enough storage and energy to sustain production with no crew, but then you add an engineer and suddenly production increases by 500% and now you run out of energy, overheat your radiators, blow up your reactor, etc. So for every extractor, make sure you have energy in batteries, a power supply that can deliver the sustained energy that the extractor needs, enough product storage, and make sure that this budget allows for ~200% of capacity. There are autonomous options for each extractor which are not affected by crew, they are excellent for small mining drones. I typically put a couple of the autonomous extractors and a few thousand units of storage on a "Duna" Logistics Hub (with a small nuclear reactor, radiators, Terrier engines, propellant tanks, probe core, etc) and drop those where they're useful and ignore them for the rest of the game. Make sure to turn on "Planetary Warehouse" on the storage and production from that autonomous mining drone will go into planetary inventory. Here's an example autonomous facility, you can swap out the MEU-100-A Pulse Drills for regular MEU-100 Pulse Drills and this facility with crank out more stuff than you'll know what to do with. Essential parts here are MKS "Duna" Power Distribution Unit, MKS "Ranger" Thermal Control System, MKS "Duna" Logistics Center, 4 x MEU-100-A Pulse Drill, plenty of supplementary battery, 2 x 2.5m Kontainer Tank - Flat (2.5m), with a few other parts to make it visually appealing and useful for Kerbals. You can use a much smaller reactor and only 1 extractor, but I figure if something's worth doing it's worth overdoing. Then here's a version of that with larger extractors set up as a lander with copious part clipping:

but it was done before with KSP1 so.... I think here, the problem was: Underestimating the game Overestimating your capabilities as a PM Not delivering in time because of the latter two Mismanegement Literally the bigger the dev team is, less good games they create overall. Similar to Bethesda's Starfield, the team there was over 500 people, while on Fallout 4 over 200, Skyrim a bit over 100. Also with bigger games, finnacial risk is way higher. And as for KSP2, i said a long time ago it is done, because no one want's to buy it because of overhyped and underwhelming launch of EA. So financial calculation is logical for a game studio. Why to invest even more money and sallaries if: No one will buy your game Player base is 10% of KSP1 Bad reviews on Steam They did it to themselves.

we can assume when they came back from break (around late feburary) they started working hard on colonies. Yes there is foundational work for colonies but we are still 2 months + from even getting close to next update as what we understand from leeks/news of next milestone.. Different people have different jobs blackrack working on clouds is a good thing cause i doubt he has much to do as of right now, and he already has extensive knowledge about making "better clouds", weather, storms etc (i just hope he can cook more make them better than the mod) if we just realistically say that they started in March for colonys they have only worked on it 2~ months so we still have (sadly) 8 months more to go before we hit colony length of work.. but I'm glad to see stuff that the community talked about like clouds not really hitting like what "alpha" showed, and having an experienced person on clouds working on clouds.. i doubt that he wont code it so weather is easier to implement either. then PQS stuff can as a possibility give us more performance depending on how it actually works, its all slow work to next major update.. Remember, Rumor of 200-300 parts is in colonys this isn't a small update compared to Science, we are getting a lot more parts compared to science (9 parts), we have to be getting more missions due to freya, more tech tree lines, a lot more work than just science. I'm hoping that they are trying find ways to make colonies run more performant due to the amount of colony parts that we can use, and even a modest 100~+ part build starts to slow the game into the 30~fps .

Albert and the Martians “Breaking news from the CNN Election Headquarters. It is currently 10:14 PM and we can finally call it: Al Gore has WON the Presidency; he has reached 270 electoral votes with a victory in Illinois at 100% of the vote in. He is now the first Democratic candidate to be elected to the Presidency since Jimmy Carter in 1976, ending the Reagan-Bush streak of Republican control of the White House.” On Tuesday, November 5th, 1996, Al Gore won the Presidency over Republican candidate Bob Dole. He won the country's vote by campaigning on a staunch platform of addressing social and economic issues, alongside pushing forward science and technology. Gore’s victory though, despite it being the first blue victory since 1976, was not the talk of the country for very long. As four astronauts were preparing to go further than any human had ever gone. They were going to Mars. Robert Cabana, Eileen Collins, Greg Harbaugh, and Linda Godwin are awoken at 5:00 AM on December 2nd to prepare for their launch at 10:00 AM. Space Shuttle Atlantis sits at LC-39A, having been undergoing fueling for the past 3 hours in preparation for launch. Atlantis will launch the crew alongside the two pilots of the Shuttle (John Casper and Llyod Hammond) into orbit, and then perform a rendezvous and docking with the MMETV that sits in orbit now. But this was just one part of a 7-launch marathon to get everything for the first human mission to Mars into space and on its way to the red planet. It began on November 23rd, with the launch of the first half of the MMETV aboard a Jupiter 524-A at 4:26 AM. Following that, the second half was launched on November 28th at 1:17 PM. The two halves then met in orbit and docked together, forming the complete, fully fueled MMETV. Then, on December 1st, the day before the crew's launch, the “MSVs” (Mars Surface Vehicles, the Ascent and Descent Vehicles respectively) were launched together on a Jupiter 544-A, the heaviest variant of the SDLS rockets. The two are launched docked together, with Jupiter’s second stage propelling them to Mars, and then with the Descent Vehicle performing orbital insertion, as it only has to descend to the surface and has greater propellant margins. They will deploy their solar panels and radiators and operate on low power mode until they reach Mars in August of next year, just before the MMETV. That brings us to the morning of December 2nd. At 7:30 AM, the crew reach the launchpad and head up the elevator to board the Shuttle. This will be the last 2 and a half hours they are on Earth until they return in three years. The crew are strapped in by 8:00 AM and ready for launch. Final preparations occur over the next two hours until the crew access arm retracts and the last few minutes of the countdown begin. Upon reaching orbit, Atlantis makes a first OMS maneuver to set up a rendezvous with the MMETV. The catch-up takes about 8 hours, with Atlantis then moving in to dock with the forward port of the MMETV. These docking ports are the first functional flight variants of the IHDS docking port that will be used on Space Station Harmony, and there is no better mission to test them than on Magellan 2. After a successful docking, the crew all work together to move supplies from Spacelab II into the MMETV hab. About half of the supplies and equipment are being brought up on the Shuttle, while the rest will be in the dedicated supply module that is to be launched aboard a Titan IV in a couple of days. Skylab played an essential role in determining the mass and volume of food and water needed for an entire 3-year round trip to Mars; the 200-day missions total supply amount based on crew diets was extrapolated out and adjusted for the additional exercise and work that the Magellan astronauts will be undertaking. With all of the supplies offloaded from the Shuttle, a video conference is held with NASA Administrator Ken Mattingly and outgoing President George H.W. Bush. Although Reagan initiated the Magellan program, HW has seen it through its development and first two missions and has fought hard every fiscal year for the program to get the funding it requires. He has only a few words at this press conference, but he uses them to express his gratitude towards NASA, his appreciation of the Magellan program, and his hope that it will be part of his lasting legacy as President. Pleasantries out of the way, the Shuttle crew return to Atlantis and begin undocking and departure from the MMETV. Atlantis lands the next morning at the KSC and is shuffled back into the OPF for maintenance over Christmas and the New Year. The MMETV crew wait 2 more days in orbit, getting accustomed to their home for the next 9 months. Then, on December 4th, Titan IV rips off the launchpad at SLC-41 carrying the Supply Module. 12 hours after launch, the Supply Module reaches the MMETV and docks on the forward IDHS port. 24 hours pass as the crew continues to get comfortable inside the Habitat, and then, the next night, preparations begin for the most important operation to this point. Trans-Martian Injection. This maneuver has been calculated by computers the size of a room multiple times over the past couple of years. It is the most efficient trajectory to Mars available in the 1996 transfer window and will give the MMETV the most fuel for orbital insertion and return to Earth. At 8:49 PM on December 5th, the seven nuclear thermal rocket motors of the MMETV start up and begin the 16-minute burn to send 4 astronauts on a mission to Mars. 16 tense minutes pass, controllers sit idle in their chairs, watching in utter silence as the velocity graph steadily follows the pre-determined outline on the main screen of the Mission Control room. ABC, CBS, and CNN have cameras in the room as the event is broadcast live on television to millions of Americans. The astronauts sit with their suits on in the forward flight chairs as the slow 960 seconds pass. But eventually, the motors shut off, and Houston erupts in cheers and applause. A nominal trajectory is confirmed, and Bob Cabana, Eileen Collins, Linda Godwin, and Greg Harbaugh are on their way to Mars. Three days later, they become the first humans to leave Earth's sphere of influence and the first humans to enter interplanetary space. Over these three days, the final two chapters of Magellan 2’s departure from Earth are completed. On December 6th, the Magellan Habitat is launched aboard a Jupiter rocket on a faster but less efficient trajectory. Following this, on December 8th, as the MMETV leaves the Earth-Moon system, the EERM rover, adapted for operations on Mars, is launched aboard another Jupiter rocket on a similar fast but less efficient trajectory to Mars. The habitat and rover will be the first spacecrafts to perform aerobraking at Mars to minimize the propellant needed for orbit insertion. With Magellan 2 now on its way to Mars, 1997 begins with the ball drop in Times Square. A few weeks into the year, on January 20th, Al Gore takes the Oath of Office to become the 42nd President of the United States. As humans make their way to another planet for the first time, and a new face in government takes leadership of the country, America looks towards the new century with optimism. A New Era Has Begun.

Supplementary Electric Engines Download *Also on CKAN Dependencies: Module Manager, B9 Part Switch. The mod will not work without these mods installed. Recommendations: Waterfall This is a small mod that adds a few new types of electric engines that aren't already covered by Near Future Propulsion. The current lineup includes: Pulsed Plasma Thrusters - These square-shaped engines have fairly mediocre stats and can only run on the limited amount of solid fuel stored within them, however they are quite compact and fairly cheap. Resistojets - These tiny engines are not much more than a cold gas thruster with an electric heating element before the nozzle. Their performance is closer to chemical engines than other electric engines, however they take very little power to run and are incredibly cheap in terms of funds. Field-Emissision Electric Propulsion - This unique engine uses liquid Indium as propellant, which is a bit cheaper compared to Xenon gas. It has a very high Isp of 10,200 seconds, but a somewhat low thrust of only 0.8 kN. Future planned engines include: Arcjets This mod was originally inspired by Near Future Propulsion and its Pulsed Plasma RCS, which I thought would work well as a proper engine. After going through the process of learning how to make a part mod for KSP I managed to finish them, and since then I've gotten a few new ideas for things to add onto this... hopefully you enjoy these little parts, thank you. Liscense: CC-BY-SA