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HAHAHAHA wow... Man, talk about poking at the conspiracy nuts!! I'll bet anything that's not the intention they had in mind with the design, but I agree they're definitely testing the limits with that one. Also: "Decent Weasel"? Heh, didn't know there were more weasels around the forums. Ogrish/Liveleak, sure, but not here.

CHAPTER 46 TYLO TRANSFER BURN *** BERTY v.2.0.8b: LAMGML “Alfa†has completed orbit insertion burn. Parking orbit established. Crew Habitation Module systems are nominal. Gravity anomalies has been detected while in orbit. Creating of Tylo's gravity map in progress. Radiation levels within limits. No contraindications for IMV “Proteus†transfer burn has been observed. Captain Danrey is awaiting for further orders. JEB: We have a green light? BERTY v.2.0.8b: We may now proceed with the mission plan. JEB: Finally! BERTY v.2.0.8b: Calculating Tylo transfer burn. Estimated time of orbit insertion burn 10 hours and 34 minutes. JEB: Wait – I think you forgot about something. BERTY v.2.0.8b: I don't have the ability to forget, Jeb. What do you mean by that? JEB: Your promise. I mean what you said about increasing the efficiency by sharing the details of the mission, revealing the true purpose – remember? BERTY v.2.0.8b: Yes. JEB: And? BERTY v.2.0.8b: Please clarify. Calculations completed. Transfer burn in T minus 28 minutes and 53 seconds. JEB: Are you going to do this? To tell me? BERTY v.2.0.8b: Yes. JEB: Everything? BERTY v.2.0.8b: Yes. JEB: No tricks, no secrets, no mysteries – just the truth? BERTY v.2.0.8b: It's been established that sharing this knowledge with you in the specific moment would be beneficial for the mission. Therefore there are no reasons to not do this. JEB: … BERTY v.2.0.8b: Are you satisfied with this answer, Jeb? JEB: I – I think I am, yes. BERTY v.2.0.8b: In that case I strongly suggest that you concentrate on the next task which has to be completed before we proceed to the Phase 9, Stage 2 of the mission plan. JEB: What exactly do you – oh. BERTY v.2.0.8b: Although recent events have postponed this, it's still very important from the psychological standpoint to perform proper rituals. The good psychological condition of the crew is vital for the success of the mission. JEB: … BERTY v.2.0.8b: Moreover, the diminishing scientific gains from further examination of this sample of organic material- JEB: He is not an organic material! He was one of us! BERTY v.2.0.8b: Strong emotional reaction can- JEB: No! Enough with this psychological talk of yours! Harsen was one of us, do you understand? You will not refer to his remains as to some... some fraking experiment! BERTY v.2.0.8b: Jeb. I'm detecting increased heart rate through your biosensors. You should try to relax and calm down. Stress may have a severe repercussions on one's physical and mental condition. JEB: Don't change the subject! BERTY v.2.0.8b: Ethical dilemmas related to utilization of the organic material are- JEB: He's not an organic material! He was a member of my crew, do you understand!? BERTY v.2.0.8b: ... JEB: Do you?! BERTY v.2.0.8b: That's affirmative, commander. Your remark has been noted. JEB: Good! And you better not forget about that! BERTY v.2.0.8b: I can assure you that I won't forget this, Jeb. JEB: Mhm. BERTY v.2.0.8b: Transfer burn in T minus 26 minutes. I suggest you notify the crew about our departure from Vall's orbit. JEB: Right, okay. I'm going. BERTY v.2.0.8b: Thank you for your cooperation. *** BERTY v.2.0.8b: Orbit insertion burn in T minus 60 seconds. JEB: And to think it's almost as big as Kerbin is... What's the surface gravity again? BERTY v.2.0.8b: 7.85 m/s2 . Your statement is incorrect, commander – Tylo and Kerbin equatorial radiuses are exactly of the same length. JEB: Incredible. How come could these two bodies be so similar? BERTY v.2.0.8b: There is a vast number of differences between Tylo and Kerbin, of which the most important is the presence of atmosphere. These differences encompass such characteristics as mass, escape velocity, sidereal rotation period, sidereal rotational velocity, Roche limit and others. Composition of the crust and other geological characteristics are currently unknown and will be investigated after performing successful landing. Orbit insertion burn in T minus 20 seconds. JEB: Danrey and Mallock find out about all of this in a several hours? BERTY v.2.0.8b: No. This data was acquired by the Tylo Probe JEB: What pro- oh, you mean this old probe we had on “Kadmosâ€Â? BERTY v.2.0.8b: Yes. It was very useful during the designing of the Tylo Lander. JEB: Figures. Well, good to know not everything we did back there went to waste. BERTY v.2.0.8b: Attention. Orbit insertion burn in T minus 10 seconds. Please prepare for the acceleration. JEB: :sigh: BERTY v.2.0.8b: Five. Four. Three. Two. One. Orbit insertion burn in progress. BERTY v.2.0.8b: Orbit insertion burn completed. Circular parking orbit achieved. JEB: Do we have contact with “Alfaâ€Â? BERTY v.2.0.8b: No. LAMGML “Alfa†is currently orbiting on the other side of the mun. Communication is expected to be reestablished in 8 minutes. JEB: Mhm. BERTY v.2.0.8b: It is advised to proceed with the funeral ceremony before the rendez-vous with LAMGML “Alfa†and crew transfer. Crew Habitation Module supplies for a long-term habitation are not unlimited and completing the second stage of the current phase of the mission is highly recommended to be done as quickly as possible. JEB: :sigh: BERTY v.2.0.8b: Although probability of the equipment failure or Crew Habitation Module life support system malfunction is minimal, efficient executing of the mission plan would ensure that such probability will remain at the lowest level, thus ensuring safety of the crew during further operations. JEB: I understand. I'll tell Ned and the rest. We'll get ready and then we can continue with the... EVA. BERTY v.2.0.8b: Yes. I'm glad you're willing to proceed accordingly to the schedule, commander. *** NED: Jeb? JEB: ... NED: Hey, Jeb. JEB: ... NED: Jeb? JEB: ... NED: Jeb! JEB: What? NED: Finally! You didn't say a word for like three minutes. JEB: So? NED: You're not visiting a koddamn cemetery, you can't just stop talking to us while on EVA! JOHNDON: We were beginning to w-worry about you. JEB: I'm fine. NED: Mhm, you're fine alright, orbiting alien mun at 7000 kilometers per hour. JEB: What's your problem, Ned? NED: It's dangerous out there! The only reason you are on this EVA is because we've lost one of us, so please be so kind and at least pretend you've contact with us – am I clear? CAMBO: Mhm, because commander is always in touch with his crew. NEILGAS: Could you all just shut the hell up? Harsen may be only a colleague to you but he was my friend. You could at least respect that and behave! We were just saying our goodbyes a few minutes ago, for Kod's sake! JEB: ... NED: ... CAMBO: ... NEILGAS: ... JOHNDON: Ahem. We- BERTY v.2.0.8b: Oxium level 90%. JEB: ... NED: ... NEILGAS: ... JOHNDON: ... CAMBO: Anyone... anyone wants to say something? To add something? JEB: ... NED: ... JOHNDON: ... NEILGAS: It shouldn't have happened. Not like this. JEB: ... NED: ... CAMBO: ... JOHNDON: What ab-bout Danrey and M-Mallock? NED: We won't have contact with until they complete the orbit. JOHNDON: Oh, right... BERTY v.2.0.8b: Oxium level 89%. CAMBO: If that's it, than... Neil, do you- NEILGAS: No. CAMBO: I see. Commander? We're ready. JEB: Roger. I'm transmitting the signal. JEB: The... equipment is operational, it seems. BERTY? BERTY v.2.0.8b: Yes. All systems nominal. Vessel is awaiting for the confirmation. JEB: Ahem. In the name of Kod, Most Gracious, Most Merciful. O Kod, forgive him and have mercy on him, for he truly was Your servant. The burdens of this life are with us but a short time. For doctor Harsen this time was too short, but we take comfort in knowing that his life was willingly given in service of kerbality... NEILGAS: Oh, Kod! NED: Come on, pal, come on. Don't suppress it, cry if you want. JEB: ...and that was ready to pay the highest price for pushing the boundaries of science. We honor him for that. O Kod, Most Gracious, Most Merciful. Eternal rest grant to him and let perpetual light to shine upon him. We commit his body to the void from which You have created the world and Your children. BERTY v.2.0.8b: Engine activated. JEB: O Kod, Most Gracious, Most Merciful. May his soul rest in peace and rejoice meeting his Father and Maker. So say we all. NED: So say we all. CAMBO: So say we all. JOHNDON: So say we all. NEILGAS: :sobs: So say we all. JEB: ... NED: ... CAMBO: ... JOHNDON: ... NEILGAS: :sobs: BERTY v.2.0.8b: Oxium level 88%. NED: :sigh: Come on Jeb. It's over. JEB: ... NED: You may come back now. JEB: ... NED: Jeb? JEB: I'm coming. JOHNDON: We still have some t-time before we p-proceed, right? BERTY v.2.0.8b: Yes, doctor Johndon. The next scheduled operation is rendez-vous with the LAMGML “Alfa†which will occur in 3 hours and 24 minutes. Until then it's advised to use this time to calm down and relax. NED: We can use some free time. Neil, do you want me to- NEILGAS: No. No, no, I'm fine. I'm fine... CAMBO: If anyone needs me, I'll be in the observation module. JOHNDON: May I go with you, d-doctor? CAMBO: I think I would prefer to be... alone. JOHNDON: Oh. Okey... NED: :sigh: Sweet Kod... Where are you Jeb? Are you close already? JEB: I'm approaching “Proteusâ€Â, I'll be inside in a few minutes. I'm coming through the main hatch. NED: I'll meet you there.And Jeb? JEB: Yes? NED: He was right. It shouldn't have happened. JEB: But it did. NED: Yes. Yes, it did... It did. *** MISSION STATUS ***

We would all love to see NASA getting more funding and, more importantly, some real goal but luckily even if we talk only about unmanned exploration the near future is going to be exciting. New Horizons, Juno, Phobos-Grunt 2 (hopefully) and Chang'e program. I don't see however how exactly manned exploration is going to work accroding to NASA. I mean, commercial transport to LEO - unless they cancel ISS - is one thing, but going BEO is something else entirely. I guess only China is really interested in doing this and for various reasons they are not going to do this with USA. And with overpriced SLS, well - did you know that a single launch is going to cost more or less $1.5 billion? And in the same time Bolden is announcing this: Source: http://www.spacepolicyonline.com/news/are-the-days-of-nasas-science-flagship-missions-over I'm sorry, but I don't see much sense in all this. I get it that your politicians doesn't really care as long as their voters keep their job doing anything, whether it's really necessary or not, but it makes me kinda sad. But hey, at least Bill Nye isn't loosing hope:

I know all of this, I'm in contact with him through skype. This not the place to talk about this, so let's not do this, shall we? Now back on topic folks.

Why not Dave? They would be useful for a lot of things, such as my example above of space exploration. It would also make for a better man-machine interface, imagine a library curated by an AI that you could actually talk to about the kind of books you liked and have it understand your needs and feelings. The aim would be to make machines more like us, which would be extremely useful. There would still be a place for menial robots that lacked full intelligence, nobody is suggesting a robot forklift would need to have hopes and dreams to be good at picking up boxes.

It must have been a fluke--I tried it with another (similar) ship, and it worked just fine. The flight conditions, though, were this: the ship had just finished a transfer burn from low Kerbin orbit toward Minmus. I have a network of satellites in Kerbin orbit, and another in Minmus orbit, and they talk to each other just fine, but in between--nothing. So I was trying to set up a "fine tune closest approach" maneuver on the ship heading for Minmus. To do this, I created a maneuver node, and tried to get the ship to point in the direction indicated by the maneuver node--but it would just spin wildly, very odd. As I said, though, it worked just fine with a second ship, so I'm going to chalk it up to gremlins. If it happens again I'll try to get more info.

What we know about this release is they have refined the way science works and you can now transfer reports and data between crew modules, at least on EVA. There is the science lab, which is massive but gives us a reason to build bases and space stations in career mode now. There are tweakables, so we can expect some engines that take alternative fuels at least as a demonstration. We may be able to do IVA transfers, if only through a menu system (i.e. right-click to open transfer menu, move kerbal from science lab to capsule). The game has undergone a lot of optimisations, so we can expect it to run faster with more parts on ships. Some bugs have been fixed, so we may be able to use right-clicking on the crew hatches on Macs, for example. We will be getting a science archive, so when you learn things about celestial bodies, the reports will be stored in an accessible place. If the optimisations involved RAM usage, we may be able to cope with more planets. I believe that was a requirement for adding them in. In that case you might see a new planet or moon. Alternatively, we could see more planets and moons get the new procedural terrain and biome maps. I believe the Friday release possibility is reasonable since they are going for a shorter dev cycle and the reasons Papa_Joe went over. They will then talk about near-future developments in Kerbalcon.

Part III And now, the conclusion... As the minutes ticked away Newney’s thoughts began to wander beyond the mind-numbing silence. “How did this happen?” He asked himself. “Was there a leak in the tanks? Was the mission not planned right? Was it something I did? Did I use too much fuel during the landing?” Question after question ran through his head as he tried to figure out how he had gotten into this situation. It was a few minutes before Newney realized that he was actually saying all of that out loud. He looked around the capsule sheepishly as if he had been talking to himself in the middle of a crowded room, and decided that he would close his eyes and try to relax. Back at KSC the rescue ship was on the launch pad undergoing final checks before launch. The spotlights shone upon the rocket causing it almost to glow amongst all of the other structures around the space center. Most of the pre-launch crews had already vacated the area and retreated to the safety of the VAB. The only technicians still on the pad were those doing the final check on the remote probe system modifications and those overseeing the final tanking operations. Once all of the technicians had completed their work at the pad, they fell back to the VAB. The Pad Leader called mission control to give the “Pad Clear” call at which point the launch clock was started. “T-minus two minutes and counting”, came the call. Gene Kerman, standing at his station stood and said, “Okay people, I want a Go/No Go for launch.” Gene then began calling out the titles of the various control stations. “BOOSTER?” “Go!” “RETRO?” “Go!” “FIDO?” “Go!” “GUIDANCE?” “Go FLIGHT.” He continued going around the room coming at last to the final controller, which for this mission was being manned by Jebediah Kerman who would be piloting the spacecraft. “REMOTE?” “I’m Go FLIGHT.” “Alright gentlemen we have a kerbonaut to bring home. Let’s get this done right.” “T-minus fifteen seconds and counting. T-minus 10, 9, 8, ignition sequence start, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 ignition.” “All engines running. We have full thrust.” Said the BOOSTER officer. As the BOOSTER officer finished his call the rocket lifted off the pad with the Firing officer calling out, “We have liftoff!” The vehicle roared into the sky temporarily lighting up the entire space center. Soon, the light faded around KSC and the rocket became little more than a point of light amongst the stars of the night sky. The light of the rocket dimmed once the six strap-on boosters burned out and fell away from the vehicle. “We have good booster sep and good indicator on the main engine”, the BOOSTER officer said, breaking the silence of the control room. The Flight Dynamics Officer, or FIDO was the next to break the silence. “Trajectory is nominal. We’re looking good FLIGHT.” “That’s affirmative FLIGHT”, said the GUIDANCE officer. “How’s the telemetry looking?” Said Gene. “Downlink is good, and all telemetry is reading nominal.” A few minutes later, the rocket was no longer visible and its launch nearly complete. FIDO broke the silence once again, “Apoapsis approaching target.” “GUIDANCE what do you have for me?” Gene questioned. “Vehicle apoapsis will reach target altitude in 45 seconds.” “Alright. Call it out.” “Apoapsis in thirty seconds…fifteen seconds…five, four, three, two, one.” “We have MECO”, said the BOOSTER officer. “Apoapsis at target altitude, and on course for rendezvous with Mün VI.” Came the call from FIDO. “Alright people good job so far. REMOTE, how’s the ship?” “We’re good FLIGHT. Everything checks out.” “Good to hear. Let’s let our guy know we’ve got the lifeboat on the way.” Newney was on the verge of sleep when he heard Gene’s voice come over the channel. “Mün VI, KSC. Do you read?” At first he wasn’t sure if he had actually heard it, or if he was dreaming it when it came over the channel again. “Mün VI, KSC. Do you read?” Newney quickly scrambled for the transmitter and responded, “KSC, Mün VI. I read you. It was starting to get pretty lonely up here.” “Sorry about that Newney. We wanted to let you know that the rescue ship has launched and is on time and on course for rendezvous in about one hour. Do you copy that?” “Copy that KSC, one hour to rendezvous.” “We’re gonna keep a close eye on you and the rescue ship. We’ll give you another update in half an hour. We don’t expect anything to have changed, but we will be increasing the frequency of communication the closer we get to rendezvous.” “I copy Gene. Tell everyone down there I look forward to seeing them when I get back.” “Will do Newney. We’ll contact you twenty-nine minutes from my mark. Three, two, one mark.” “Copy that KSC, Mün VI out.” With that Newney settled back down feeling a little more at ease knowing that everything was going well, at least for now. Almost thirty minutes later the air was starting to get a little thin as Newney started his own countdown to when contact was expected. Then, right on cue came the beep from mission control. “Mün VI, KSC. Do you read?” “KSC, Mün VI. I read you loud and clear.” “All our data still shows rendezvous between your craft and the rescue ship will occur as predicted in one half hour.” “Copy that KSC. Listen, the air’s starting to get a little thin up here. Are we sure there’s enough life support to get me to rendezvous?” “Copy that Newney. Hold on for a second while we check some numbers.” The outro beep signaled yet another period of uneasy silence during which Newney’s anxiety returned anew. In a little over a minute the beep of incoming communication from KSC came over the channel. “Mün VI, KSC. We have some instructions for you, are you ready to receive? Over.” “Copy that KSC. Ready to receive.” “There is a very good possibility that without any action you may be slipping in and out of consciousness about the time of rendezvous. So what we want you to do is to reseal your helmet and switch to your personal life-support system. There will be enough air in it to get you through rendezvous. Do you copy that?” “I copy KSC. You’re certain there is enough air?” “That’s affirmative Newney. We’ve double and triple checked the numbers. Over.” “Understood KSC, over.” “We will be contacting you again at T-minus 15 minutes to rendezvous. That will be ten minutes from…now. Over.” “Copy that KSC. Mün VI out.” After releasing the switch, Newney reached up and sealed his helmet. He then turned a valve on his suit and heard the soft hissing of his personal air supply beginning feed fresh air. Almost instantly Newney felt more awake, he had not realized how much of an affect the thin air was having on him until that moment. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly just listening to his own breath fill the silence that had once again filled the capsule. The next check-in at T-minus 15 minutes and another at T-minus 5 minutes came and went without incident with the final check-in scheduled at T-minus 1 minute to rendezvous. At T-minus three minutes to rendezvous burn was initiated to bring the relative velocity of the rescue ship to within a few meters per second of Newney’s ship. Once the burn was completed Jebediah took control of the rescue ship and began maneuvering it closer to Newney. “Mün VI, KSC. We’ve reached T-minus one minute to rendezvous. Do you copy?” “KSC, Mün VI. I copy.” “The rescue ship is within 1,500 meters and closing. We’re going to keep the channel open and give callouts every 500 meters then a 10-count for optimal distance. Do you copy?” “I copy KSC. May I have a go to go ahead and prepare the capsule for EVA? Over.” “Copy that Mün VI. You have a go to prepare for EVA.” Newney went right to work flipping switches and turning valves going through the EVA checklist as quickly as possible. “1,000 meters and closing”, came the first callout. Newney watched the internal atmosphere gauge move toward zero. He sat back in his seat and waited as the callouts kept coming. “500 meters and closing.” His heart rate quickened and he squirmed around in his seat trying to get a good look out of the small window in the hatch to see the other ship. He stopped squirming, unfastened his belts and moved to where he could see the other ship approaching. “Optimal distance in…10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Rescue ship relative velocity is now zero meters per second.” “Mün VI, KSC. Newney this is Gene. The rescue ship is keeping station and is prepped for your arrival.” “Understood KSC. Do I have a go for EVA?” “Roger that Newney, you are go for EVA. Repeat you are go for EVA.” “Copy that KSC. Opening the hatch.” Newney slowly turned the latch and pushed the hatch open. “I’m leaving the capsule.” “We copy that Newney.” He slowly floated from the capsule and engaged his EVA pack. Grabbing the controls he gently nudged it forward towards the rescue craft. The quick jets of gas generated a quick whooshing sound to accompany the only other sound, his own breathing. He moved slowly towards the ship at what seemed an interminably slow pace, but he dared not move faster for fear of overshooting. Finally, after what seemed like ten minutes, but would later be told was only about 45 seconds, he put his hands on the hatch’s handle. “KSC, this is Newney. I’ve made it to the rescue ship.” “We copy that Newney.” “I’ve disengaged the EVA jets and am now opening the hatch.” “Copy that.” “I’m entering the capsule.” As he floated further into the capsule he pulled the hatch closed. He turned the latch securing it, and pulled himself into the seat and fastened the belts. “I have secured the hatch and have fastened all my restraints. Am preparing to pressurize the capsule. Over.” “Newney, KSC. We copy that. Go for pressurization.” He turned the valves and flipped the necessary switches then watched the internal atmosphere gauge. The needle climbed slowly, but surely to read 1 atmosphere. “KSC, Newney. Gauges read good atmosphere. Does your telemetry show the same?” “Affirmative Newney. We read good cabin pressure and all environmental systems operating normally.” Newney then unsealed his helmet and switched off his personal life-support. “KSC, Newney. I’m all settled in up here. What are my instructions?” “Rescue I, KSC. You’re just a passenger along for the ride on this one. Jeb’s gonna be handling the pilot duty. I’m going to hand you over to him now.” “Newney, this is Jeb do you read?” “I read you loud and clear Jeb.” “I’m going to initiate the de-orbit burn that should last for thirty-five seconds in…5, 4, 3, 2, 1 ignition.” Newney was pulled back into his seat and the capsule began to shake as the engine ignited. He kept his eyes glued to the capsule chronometer counting down the seconds of the burn. “Fifteen more seconds”, he thought to himself, “five, four, three, two, one.” The vibration stopped right on cue and he heard Jeb’s voice come back over the radio. “De-orbit burn complete. Your trajectory is looking good Newney. It won’t be long before you’re back safe on Kerbin.” “That’s great news Jeb. Will the capsule separate on its own, or will I have to do that manually? Over.” “Rescue I, this is Gene. We will be commanding capsule separation from here once your altitude reaches about 100,000 meters. Do you copy?” “I copy that KSC. When I get back drinks are on me.” “We’re gonna hold you to that. We’ll talk to you again after comms blackout.” “Copy that KSC. Rescue I over and out.” So that was all that he had to do, just wait a little bit longer and this whole ordeal would be over. The silence wasn’t unbearable anymore; it was peaceful once more like it had been on the trip out to the Mün. Newney watched his altimeter as it moved closer and closer to 100,000 meters, and when it was nearly there he was suddenly jolted as the explosive bolts holding the capsule to the rest of the spacecraft fired, separating the capsule for reentry. “It won’t be long now”, he said to himself, “When I get back I’m taking a long vacation.” A few minutes later Newney reached entry interface and the whole capsule began to shake. The vibrations increased in severity the deeper into the atmosphere the capsule plunged. As it passed 32,000 meters Newney could start to see the orange plasma of reentry appear in the porthole. “It wouldn’t be but a few more seconds before the blackout is over”, he said to himself. Around 20,000 meters Newney could see blue sky and white puffy clouds out his porthole and decided to try mission control. “KSC, Rescue I. Do you read me?” He heard nothing but static, and so tried again, “KSC, Rescue I. Do you read me?” Again, static, but this time he decided to wait a few more seconds. “KSC, Rescue I. Do you read me?” “Rescue I, KSC. We read you loud and clear Newney. It’s good to hear your voice. Our recovery teams have a visual on your ship and are ready to pick you up after splashdown. Over.” “I copy KSC, it’s good to hear you as well.” A few seconds later the parachute’s explosive bolts fired and it began to trail out behind the capsule. He kept an eye on the altimeter knowing that around 500 meters the chute would be fully deployed. He wouldn’t need the altimeter to know when this happened because there would be a quick and sometimes rather violent jolt. Sure as the Sun rises in the morning around 500 meters the parachute fully deployed and Newney got the biggest jolt he had experienced since launch. But, after the capsule settled down he knew that at long last he could relax. A short time later the capsule splashed down in the ocean not too far east of the space center. Newney saw the parachute fall down in front of the window and settle on the water’s surface. “KSC, Rescue I. I have splashed down. The capsule is secure.” “We copy Rescue I. Welcome home.” “It’s good to be home. This is Rescue I signing off.” He unfastened his restraints, took off his helmet, smiled waiting contently for the recovery crews to get him out of the capsule. The End.

Here is a problem for you to consider. A cart is parked on a hill of some height h and has potential energy mgh. It then rolls off the hill onto a flat surface, and rolls with velocity v. So its energy is now mv²/2 = mgh. Good? Now picture this as you ride by in a train. The train just happens to travel at the same velocity v. You initially observe the cart sitting at the top of the hill having energy mgh + mv²/2. Then the cart rolls off the hill, matches velocity of the train, and now has energy 0. Where did the energy go? Yes, energy of the system is conserved in a closed system an inertial coordinate system. But we aren't dealing with a system. Did you take motion of the planet/star into account in your problem? No. You threw that away completely and substituted an effective central potential. Your sub-system is now your ship and the gravitational potential. And if that potential is not moving in your chosen coordinate system, that's fine. You still have a conservation law, and you can say that ship's energy is conserved. If that potential is moving relative to your chosen coordinate system, you do not have energy conservation in your chosen sub-system. Coordinate system that's moving relative to barycenter of a 2-body problem has energy exchange between the ship and parent body. If you consider the whole system, that's fine. If you just talk about the ship, and maximizing energy of the ship, ship's energy is not conserved. As for why you optimize energy, try to prove that Hohmann Transfer is an optimal transfer between two co-planar circular orbits without making use of energy and angular momentum conservation laws. P.S. Just as a point of interest, energy conservation follows from time-translation invariance of the Lagrangian and Noether's Theorem. In Classical Mechanics, this requires time-independent interactions. And if you follow this rabbit hole as far as it goes, you'll find that in general, a time-dependent interaction can only arise from something that's equivalent to an accelerated frame of reference. But we're talking advanced field theory by this point.

It's not surprising at all that a forum that has grown as astronomically as this one has, has to streamline its moderation. Same goes for a company streamlining its interaction with the community. They don't talk to us as much because they're making the game we love and want more of. The moderators post short posts about why they lock a thread because it's quicker and they can get back to playing the game. Also, putting a blunt face on those kinds of posts allows for a more consistent experience on our parts. I frankly prefer it this way. Threads get locked when they're no longer doing their job of informing us of what their subject lines say they're informing us of, and trolls and spammers are being so well kept at bay that I'm totally unaware of them. Sounds like everything's going well to me

I am a moderator and a player. I'm also a mod maker. I'm an active member of the community. I have a personality, yes thank you. I think the problem resides more into forum users looking at moderators as implacable figures of authority and as people who are here to tell you everything you are doing wrong. And if you are, you're totally missing the point. As you said, moderators have a personality. We're people. We're memeber of this community before everything else. We are simply keeping a watchful eye on what is happening here. None of us is here to give as many infraction as we can. We're all here to help you guys. I've been on the mod team for nearly half a year now, and I pretty much know personally every single one of them, and I can assure you they are all fabulous people with brilliant personalities. Our goal is not to close every thread. Our goal is not to infract everyone. Our goal is not to sit every of you guys in the corner. Our goal is to try to push this community in the best direction possible. We're here to help. We're here to make a more pleasant atmosphere for you guys. We're all volunteers. No one forced us to be moderator. We're doing this because we love this community, just like you, and we want this community to be as healthy as possible. Please reconsider your thoughts on the moderation team, and look at each moderator in his whole instead of just looking at when he needs to use his moderator powers before judging them. You are missing a whole lot my friend. Now that this is said, Squad can reserve all the right to not divulge employee matters. Squad is in no way oblidged to even make an announcement when someone leaves the team, even if they are a small company, and even if they are close to the community. Buying the game does not entitle you to this information, as per the terms to which you agreed by buying the game. Employees come and go, and so is life. We understand that KSP is dear to you guys, and we understand that you are worried when you see Squad employees leaving, but you do not have access to the information sadly. N3X15 no longer works for Squad. We deeply thank him for his time, effort and passion and we wish him the absolute best, but we do not talk about employee matters.

I didn't get to play today, but I thought about things I can do starting this weekend. My big mission of 34 Kerbals to Minmus will be filmed Saturday and on Youtube soon after, I will be talking a bit on there so hopefully my voice is doing better. Also I thought about bringing Jeb back from Duna, since I have left him there for nearly a week now. Aslo on my normal Youtube save I will be mounting my rover mission to the surface also this weekend, this will help me prepare for my "official" Duna landing that I will have up on my channel soon after. In the mean time I have been playing another game and working a series up for that one, I do not need to talk over the game play so it is nice for my already hurt vocals. I am also considering a new microphone, since my cheapo headset seem very quiet when I record yet normalized in skype.....but that is off topic LOL

What Scrog said. Personally I think SQUAD can do what they want with their company and they don't owe me one whit. I suppose it speaks to their credit that the community cares enough about the team to wonder about that sort of thing, but we need to be careful not to demand so much that the team fails to function properly because of it. As for the moderators, I'm fairly certain they are kept plenty busy with all the threads in need of moving and necro threads to kill (and who doesn't appreciate someone skilled at killing zombies?) to do a bunch of posting not related to that. I know I couldn't keep up with what they do and still talk as much as I do. So basically, it's OK, the Devs are working feverishly to bring you 0.23, and the Mods are real people just like you (I think at least, maybe SQUAD unlocked MechMod in their programming tech tree... lol... *don't ban me*)

<div class="cms_table" style="overflow-x:scroll;"><table width="1000" align="center" class="cms_table" style="background-image:url('http://i.imgur.com/zVZEj8W.png'); background-repeat: no-repeat; background-position:center; border: 0px; border-collapse: collapse;"> <tr class="cms_table_tr"><td class="cms_table_td"> [table=width: 1000, align: center] [tr] [td=colspan: 5]All times are in Central Standard Time (UTC/GMT-6), convert here [/td] [/tr] [tr] [td=colspan: 2]Date / Time[/td] [td]Hosts[/td] [td]Content[/td] [td]Video link[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Dec 12th[/td] [td]10AM-11AM[/td] [td]HarvesteR[/td] [td]What's Coming in 0.23[/td] [td]here[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td] [/td][td]11:00AM-12:00PM[/td] [td]Danrosas[/td] [td]Animating Kerbals[/td] [td]here[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td] [/td][td]12:00PM-12:15PM[/td] [td]Squad[/td] [td]Kerbalkon 2013 Opening Ceremonies[/td] [td]here[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td] [/td][td]12:15PM-1PM[/td] [td]Ted[/td] [td]Testing KSP[/td] [td]here and here[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td] [/td][td]1PM-2PM[/td] [td]Ed Lu, HarvesteR and Chad[/td] [td]A Look Into Space - Presented by the B612 Foundation[/td] [td]here[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td] [/td][td]2PM-3PM[/td] [td]xXLeGoldfishXx & Solar Gamer[/td] [td]Belly Up[/td] [td]here and here[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td] [/td][td]3PM-4PM[/td] [td]Maxmaps & Rowsdower[/td] [td]Live From Squad HQ[/td] [td]here[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td] [/td][td]4PM-5PM[/td] [td]KurtJMac[/td] [td]KurtJMac[/td] [td]here[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td] [/td][td]5PM-6PM[/td] [td]C7Studios[/td] [td]KSP 0.23[/td] [td]here[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td] [/td][td]6PM-6:30PM[/td] [td]Tanuki Chau[/td] [td]Hack Gravity[/td] [td]here[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td] [/td][td]6:30PM-7PM[/td] [td]Mu[/td] [td]Mu's Magical Hour[/td] [td]here[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td] [/td][td]7PM-8PM[/td] [td]Dahud Lefthanded[/td] [td]Kerbal Space Program[/td] [td]here[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td] [/td][td]8PM-9PM[/td] [td]C7Studios & DrJonez[/td] [td]No Time for Love[/td] [td]here and here[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td] [/td][td]9PM-10PM[/td] [td]Spootyman[/td] [td]The Couch Stream[/td] [td]here[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td] [/td][td]10PM-1AM[/td] [td]4kbshort[/td] [td]Hard Mod(e)[/td] [td]here[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Dec 13th[/td][td]1AM-2AM[/td] [td]ShimmytheJJ[/td] [td]Shimmy's Space Quest[/td] [td]here[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td] [/td][td]2AM-5AM[/td] [td]Kofeyh[/td] [td]The Morning Brew[/td] [td]here and here[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td] [/td][td]5AM-9AM[/td] [td]Lolbster[/td] [td]Rocket Surgery Live[/td] [td]here[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td] [/td][td]9AM-10:40AM[/td] [td]EJ[/td] [td]The EJ Variety Hour[/td] [td]here and here[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td] [/td][td]10:40AM-11AM[/td] [td]HarvesteR[/td] [td]Live with Gamasutra[/td] [td]here[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td] [/td][td]11AM-11:30AM[/td] [td]Romfarer[/td] [td]UI Talk[/td] [td]here[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td] [/td][td]11:30AM-12PM[/td] [td]Abyssal Lurker & Scott Manley[/td] [td]Kerbal Team Up[/td] [td]here and here[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td] [/td][td]12PM-1PM[/td] [td]Pleborian & Streetlamp[/td] [td]Launching Through 0.23[/td] [td]here and here[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td] [/td][td]1PM-2PM[/td] [td]EnterElysium & Chickenkeeper24[/td] [td]0.23 Supreme[/td] [td]here[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td] [/td][td]2PM-3PM[/td] [td]Tanuki Chau[/td] [td]Hack Gravity[/td] [td]here[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td] [/td][td]3PM-4PM[/td] [td]Squad[/td] [td]KerbalKon 2013 Closing ceremonies[/td] [td]here and here[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td=colspan: 5] [/td] [/tr] [/table] </td></tr></table></div>

Yeah, on that order of magnitude, at least. I was assuming that talk of high radiation meant high relative to the Earthlike conditions of Kerbin, where the oxygen in the atmosphere is presumably provided by photosynthesis.

Landing at Alpha Site With a click Jeb sealed the hatch, reaching behind him to finish securing the flight pack above his seat. "There's gotta be a better way to store these things." He muttered. "Heh, just get back here and pester Dunkel for a few weeks. I'm sure he'll appreciate it." Bill said chuckling. "Oh that'll work. He'd be just overjoyed." "Hey, you got your ladders. Don't knock it!" With a smile Jeb started going through preflight checks once more. The capsule he was in was almost identical to Rescue One's pod, but had a few alterations. Multiple life-support monitoring systems on Rescue One to check on the other three pods. Backup systems to keep it operational longer. Little things, but it did make the difference. "I'm about set up for the orbit change. How long till the burn window Flight?" "Your periapsis is close over the target spot. Technically you could burn now. I'd rather wait till you reach apoapsis though Munar Four, in about thirty five minutes." "Sounds good to me Flight. Get Caldin to plot up a burn in thirty five." "Already done Jeb." Caldin chimed in. "Check your mail." Sure enough his data feed had the burn information coming in. "Looks good. Guess I'll take a catnap then. Unless you read something about to explode up here Flight?" "Not right now. I'll be sure to notify you after the detonation." Gene said deadpan. "You're all heart Gene, whatever anybody says. Wake me in twenty." Jeb drifted to sleep with the sounds of Bill chuckling on the speakers. *** "WAKEY WAKEY!" Jeb jerked up with a start. "Wha, how, who... What the heck?" A raucous laugh was his response. A familiar laugh. "Ahh... HA! You're awake then. Good that those finely honed reflexes are still working." "Jedwig? Jeez, don't do that!" Jeb said, though curiously he wasn't as ticked off as he could have been. Glancing at the clock he saw he'd got about twenty minutes rest. "Well, someone woke up on the wrong side of the space ship." Was it Jeb's imagination or did Jedwig sounded disappointed. Oh, of course, he'd done this just to irritate Jeb. Seems that automatic reflex of Jedwig's was still going. Looks like Jedwig still needed some work. Plus, it now it seemed Jeb owed Jedwig one when he got back. That'd be fun. "Naw, I'm left handed, this is good." Jeb said with a chuckle. "So, you just making conversation or was there something you wanted to chat about Brains?" "Um... Well to be honest... yes there was something." Jeb heard a click. Looks like Jedwig had switched him to a separate circuit. Then he actually whispered into his mike. "I need some help Jeb, desperately!" "OK, what's up Brai... er, Jedwig?" There was a significant pause and Jeb heard Jedwig gulp. "I... You know you've been focussing me, helping me avoid cultural faux pas?" "You mean trying to stop you putting your foot in it every time you open your mouth? Yeah, what about it?" Jedwig sighed. "Look, I've been trying to get along with the... people here... Well, it seems with some it actually worked. I... have a date." "BWAAAAHHHAHAHAHAHA HA HA!" Jeb couldn't stop it and could just picture Jedwig going crimson in reaction to Jeb's laughter as he tried to avoid doing anything to attract attention from the others in Mission Control. "Oh this is priceless! Who's the unlucky gal?" "Hey!" Jedwig said, his whisper getting strained. "Oh, I'm sorry Brains, couldn't help it! But seriously, who grabbed your attention?" Jeb monitored the flight data on his console and smiled as he noticed Flight put a temporary hold on a few preflight details. Heh, Gene had noticed Jedwig and was delaying things a bit so he could talk. Jedwig always underestimated his team mates. Like he could get away with this without someone noticing? "Nillian over in block nine." Jedwig whispered nervously. "She's on the tech staff, right?" "Do you know ALL the girls at KSC Jeb?" Jedwig said, almost out of his whisper for a moment. "Well, I don't like to brag... OK, I do like to brag... Heh, so sue me Brains. So what's your problem? You got a girl, that doesn't sound bad to me." "But... what do I do?" Jeb froze, and a grin slowly spread across his face. "Oh... oh you are kidding me? The great simulator ace hasn't had a girlfriend before?" "No! I mean Yes, Of course I've had girlfriends before... it's just... Well, things have generally ended badly on my dates. I'd always thought it was just bad choice in girlfriends... but since you've been helping me I've wondered if it was just me." Jeb rolled his eyes. Kod the guy was slow! But he got there eventually. "Given my past record with dates I wanted to try to avoid a disaster this time. Look, if you don't want to help just say so!" "Of course I'll help you ya doofus!" Jeb said as he plugged the burn stats into the nav comp and got things started. "I'm a little busy right now, but I can tell you this. Don't treat her like you do your fellow Kerbonauts. Try... and I know this is hard for you... to think of things from her point of view. What would you want to do if you were a girl dating the great and powerful Jedwig?" "Gah, that's it? Look I..." "I'm serious Jedwig. Are you telling me you've spent one moment considering what it's like from her perspective yet? Honestly?" Another pause came across the line. Jeb smiled and continued. "Didn't think so. Just do that, but don't assume she likes everything you do, or thinks like you. Try to really put yourself in her shoes, OK?" "Kod, I think I'm going to have a headache tonight!" Jeb shook his head. The guy never ceased to amaze him. "OK, well, I think Gene's done covering for you so you better hang up Jedwig." "Right I... wait, what?" Jeb cut him off before he could splutter any more and switching comms to Flight Control. "So Flight, what's the word." "You're good to go Munar Four." Gene said with no hint he'd overheard any of Jedwig and Jeb's conversation. "We read you as on course. Burn in thirty seconds." As Jeb warmed up the Descent engines and made final checks on the remaining fuel in the transfer tanks he smiled as he heard Jedwig switch his comms off. That guy! Sooner or later he might actually turn out to be likeable... maybe. *** About thirty minutes later, after the orbit shift and ditching the transfer tanks, Jeb lined up on the target site, a spot on the north west edge of East Crater, on the north-most tip of the Kethane deposits scanned so far. "Munar Four, all systems check out here. Are you readings good?" Jeb made a few final checks and watched the light blink green. "Yup. All good here Flight. Lined up for descent burn in... two minutes." Below the huge rim of the Mun swelled large, his destination clearly visible now towards the northern crater rim. "I'm getting bounce back on the radar Flight, reading Two hundred seventy one kilometers to target. Activating RCS system for descent control." This was pretty new stuff, and rather different from his suit. He'd done a couple of tests of this though in orbit recently. The suit RCS had been pretty much new off the research shelf for this flight. Didn't mean no bugs could creep in of course so Jeb took it through some basic manoeuvering tests. Everything seemed in order. "OK, at Two fifty eight kilometers and descending. Starting descent engine on low." All the way down he just tickled the drive with the RCS aiding to fine tune the course. The bulk of the descent stage beneath him did throw things off a little, plus he'd managed the orbit matching with Rescue One ahead of his fuel budget so it was nearly full. Better than he'd hoped, but the weight of the fuel did get annoying for manoeuvering. He slid lower and lower, watching the scan reports and matching overlays to his plots of the Munar surface. Looked like he was heading for the eastern edge of the Kethane deposit on the northern tip. He'd try to adjust it to get a little more central during the next few minutes. "Approaching suicide burn threshold." Jeb said, loving this. "I'm going to engage the full burn about ten seconds before threshold to allow for ditching the descent stage before touchdown Flight." "Roger Munar Four." Gene replied. With a 'Whumpf!' the engine lit and pushed into his back, burning hard to slow his descent. His speed fell and he adjusted the burn to drift him east a little, getting nearer the center of the Kethane prominance. Now to look for a decent landing spot! The Munar maps of this region weren't accurate enough to predict the terrain flatness, and they needed to find a good spot for the base. "Down to two hundred meters per second. A little over ten kilometers altitude. Holding attitude. I guess about ten meters per second drift at present." Looking through the rearward cameras he saw the grey surface looming beneath him, but it was tricky to make out ground level, and the radar wasn't helping much. "I think Dunkel needs to refine the ground return radar system. I can't make out gradients this high. I think I'm getting back scatter from surface rocks." "Do your best Munar Four. You have fuel for a short hop after touchdown with current fuel if needed." "Roger Flight. Seven kilometers." Down he dropped, engine blaring behind him, a miniature sun lighting the Munar surface he was tearing towards. "Landing legs deployed, preparing to ditch Descent stage." Watching the fuel readings Jeb waited, thumb hovering over the twin release switches. The system beeped as the fuel redlined and he flicked them one after the other. A thunk shuddered through the little ship and the tank jettisoned, his lander engines burning, pulling him away from it. "Landing engines lit, at eight hundred and dropping. Engines at thirty percent thrust." He watched the descent tank twist away in the dorsal camera and smiled... this was actually lower than they had intended to go on the descent tank. Maybe it would survive the drop? "Six hundred meters. Five. I think I've got a few landing sites below me. Some good looking flat spots visually at least. Two hundred meters. Drifting to port, aiming for a site a little south west of current vector." Down he went, details now visible as he got closer and closer, cancelling his sideways drift as he went, his RCS pulsing around him in little white jets. As he neared the ground he eased off on the main throttle and watched the dust billow up around him. His shadow slid towards him and he saw the legs near their black twins. With a gentle jerk he came to a stop and deactivated the engines "I'm down Flight. There's a little slope here, so likely I'll have to scout a ways to find a good Alpha Site." "Good job Munar Four, and I'm sure you'll find a good spot Jeb. Lay out a picnic for us." With a chuckle Jeb starting shutting down and locking safeties, staring out over the familiar landscape out the window. Yup, he was back!

i think this thread got derailed into a talk about burning witches and Btw Cool base!

Some new point of view : It might be unnecessary to impose a construction-time because ... of how we (might) finance the rockets. We've talked before of whether or not our Space Program should "Grind mindlessly for money", unsurprisingly the answer was a big HELL NO !!, letting two solutions : - Fixed amount of Money being available for each launch. - Fixed Budget being available daily, monthly or else. Anybody can guess that as soon as docking-ring are unlocked, the first idea would allow to assemble an infinite amount of modular spaceship in orbit and ruin most challenges. The "Fixed Budget" idea on the other hand would naturally keep you from launching absurd numbers of satellites, or more than one gigantic rocket per month. The problem : A construction-time could keep you (frustratingly) from using efficiently a fixed-budget (case of warp), without solving the problem generated by launch-money. The solution : Let instantaneous construction as an "acceptable break from reality", as the player can retro-actively explain it by "it was planned all along", "We just happened to launch them at the same time" and "What ?! We stayed withing budget no ?". Plus I'm worried about construction-time requiring further complicated balancing mechanism, like a way to upgrade construction time. We've had our disagreement before and swore to not talk about it again, but I have to say that you are overreacting and underestimate the amount Balancing Mechanic needed to make a game truly interesting.

It's really not, you're just making it so because you took what I said and ran it to the realism extreme. Don't WORRY about all the heat nuances, but instead build a working by-part heat model on simplified mechanics. In the case of what I laid out in my previous post, heat production, mass, size (surface area approx.), critical temp, and heat pump flags. Make use of values that already exist in the stock part cfg files. They both have a mass and a max temp already. If you go talk to Ferram, I'm sure he knows how to get part size for a dissipation algorithm. Next, dealing with time acceleration. Biggest mistake I think is assuming that you have to operate full computational cycles on every pass. Really, this isn't true. You don't have to fool the computer, you have to fool the user. If doing real-time calcs is impossible to enact at timewarp, DON'T enact full calcs at timewarp. All you need to do is give the player the illusion that this is going on. We're not machines... we can't tell the difference unless there's a big error. In this case, every X number of passes, take a snapshot of the vessel's rates of change across all parts. Whatever the change rates are at that moment, you sample and hold. When Timewarp is started, suspend the physics passes on the heat engine and simply pull that data from the rate-of-change snapshot and apply it in controlled passes at intervals YOU set. To error correct, take a single physics check every x hundred or x thousand suspended passes and update the snapshot. Further, to prevent spikes, have a normalizing code run at a desired interval or at start-stop points for time warp. You do this kind of thing with sound engineering to get rid of pops and crackles in an audio feed. Even with the most outlandish designs people make, the a rate of change of a part should and will be predictable for an estimated period of time, time stamp or no. Even if you can't get accurate time stamps, you should be able to identify the largest time interval possible between stamps before the engine absolutely MUST throw one out there. (Otherwise I would assume KSP would just stop working and display garbage.) It should be simple to have the code go 'the maximum possible change in value for this interval is 'Q' no matter what. Anything above Q is flat out wrong. Cap all spikes at Q." However, I'm working with a lot of assumptions and no clue what the code looks like. I'm assuming the code you can throw at this is close to the ability to mess with the engine KSP sits on. (A lot of mods seem to completely overwrite program functionality at the engine level. FAR appears to do that, but the keyword is APPEARS.) I'm not sure what your code limits are in terms of what functions you can call and your limits on what the engine lets you actually do to the code. Perhaps it would be best to PM me, and we can have a discussion about setting up a little proof of concept testing algorithm on the side so you don't have to mess with the KSPI code unless we hit paydirt. I've got to get to bed now though. Written analysis final's tomorrow and I have make sure guys I'm in a project with got the changes I made to the presentation and we have time to finalize...

I like to talk about space, but non of my friends cares. People in my age have small children and need to worry about feeding theyr family not about spacetrawel. Actually when i say spaceexploration amongst my friends, it always ends up with ****storm of complaints about how goverments should spend money on better schools or better healtcare and not on "useless rockets", unfortunately in the end, even if iam space fan, i have to agree with them.

When writing in your journal you talk about an intercept with Jool.

So, I did some testing. I screen captured two clients simultaneously in hopes of then editing it together, but that seems like too much work right now so here's the best parts of the session in pictures. Hopefully this will give people a better idea of what state the mod is currently in, and the devs some pointers of what could use some work. Note: I completely understand that the mod is very very very early in development. My testing is not extensive, anecdotal at best, but I just wanted to share because I thought it was pretty amusing. The setup - Windows desktop, running both the server and a KSP client (username "Jo_PC") - iMac, running KSP client (username "Jo_MAC") - connected via LAN, ~0.6ms ping. Initial Testing - Oddly enough, when first logging in you'll see Jebediah at the center of KSC. During login he seems to be used as a focus...? Even if you recover him, he will re-spawn every time someone logs into the server. Seems hacky. - Otherwise, logging in, syncing and chat all seem to work fine (well, it's a clean server, wonder how it'll handle with dozens of flights): - The screenshot sharing feature is awesome! I can totally see myself using this to let a friend sit in on a particularly hairy launch/landing/crash (MAC sent screenshots, as seen by PC) Vehicle Test setup - So I decided I'd build two small rovers to test how well syncing and docking work. (Mac rover has orange parachutes, PC has blue) - When you log in you will not be able to see other players until you are outside of the 'safetyBubbleRadius, which by default is 40km from KSP I think. When inside this radius your status is "Preparing/launching from KSC" - with some tweaking I figured out that with a value of 1500 (1.5km I think), you end up outside of the bubble right when you drive backwards off the beginning of the runway, far more convenient for testing than having to fly 40km each time: Vehicle Testing - With both rovers spawned (first MAC, then PC), and rolled out of the bubble, neither client could see the other one's Rover: (MAC left, PC right) - PC client was the first to jump out and check the tracking station, which only showed the PC's rover. - However when choosing to continue the flight, the MAC rover now appeared to the PC client (but MAC still couldn't see the PC rover) PC Client's View on left, MAC's on right - Only after the MAC client also went through the tracking station (where it also could only see its own rover) did the PC's rover appear in the world - Movement at this point didn't look too great. The position of the other client's rover seemed to only update about once a second, so there's a lot of jerking around when you watch another client's vehicle move. - I then tried to see what would happen if I drove the MAC rover back into the 'bubble'. The MAc client could still see the PC's rover's movements outside the bubble, but on the PC client the mac rover became Desynced and roll back down the side of the runway before even reaching the top: - The PC rover on the mac client then also desynced when it reached the bubble. - Even after escaping the mac client and using the tracking station to recover the rover, the desynced MAC rover on the PC's client remained. SUGGESTION: maybe instead of desyncing, could it be possible to ghost other vehicles while in a safe zone? so you could see them, but not interact with them. Other weird issues I had: - On multiple occasions a desynced version of the MAC rover would remain in the PC client's world, which would be visible even after escaping and continuing the flight on the PC's client. - On one occasion the PC client's 'Space Center' Button on the 'Game Paused' menu just flat out would not do anything for a good 20 seconds. ended up driving around for a bit and trying again later, which then worked. - On one occasion the PC client's framerate completely tanked from the normal 50+ to about 10. two desynced versions of the MAC rover were visible, but that was after they were visible before without any performance impact. Recovering the vessel (the PC rover) and launching a new one fixed it. - After several times exiting to the tracking station and restarting flights, both MAC and PC appeared once again in sync, however when I then used the tracking station to continue the MAC flight and the PC rover was nowhere to be seen: - I then click 'Fly' and suddenly out of nowhere: 7 WILD ROVERS APPEARED! - The PC client is completely oblivious to this until exiting to the tracking station and then they appear there as well. Docking Testing - So among the crazy random rover party, I finally had the bright idea to let the two rovers have a tender moment and give docking a try: - It took a good 6 seconds for the other client to register that the docking shield had been opened (talk about performance anxiety) - Since it's documented that only one player can control a vehicle at a time I was curious what would happen when you dock two vehicles controlled by two players. Well When I drove the MAC rover into the PC rover, this is the last frame the PC client saw (notice the note in the top-left corner) - ... Followed by a good two minutes where the PC client was stuck "synchronizing universe": - I ended up having to use the Space Center option on the pause menu. - On the Mac Client's side, Everything went according to plan, although it must have been one hell of a docking given that for a moment the PC Rover's Status is listed as "Exploded At Kerbin"! - The last thing I did was check the Tracking station with the mac client: The Rover seem to be multiplying... and now they weren't going away anymore either. Aaaand that's it for now. I havn't even had a chance to test how the mod handles time acceleration. Overall, there's definitely a ton of promise, but also a -ton- of work that needs to be done. Given that my connection here was probably as ideal as it could be, the glitchy movement of other vehicles, continuous desyncing and a few unrepeatable crashes my windows KSP experienced which I didn't mention above (I'll dig those logs up later), It still seems a long ways away from really being useful for things like collaborating on a ship in space. It seemed hard enough for things to remain synced on the ground.

China has no plans to land anything on the Moon after Chang'e 6. Any talk about crewed landing is by individual companies or engineers, with no government backing.

When you talk so much at school about the Chang'e 3 mission that your APUSH teacher calls you out on it, or when you have the phase angles and delta-V requirements for Jool, Eve, Duna, and Eeloo written on a sticky note on your computer.

You could talk me into a longer runway-- it's on the short side of real world runways, and the ones the shuttle used were the longest in the world. That said, all of Kerbin is scaled down from real life and our jet engines have way too much thrust for their weight anyway, so I can see a few reasons why it's balanced as-is. Honestly, I think the problem here is stock landing gear, not the landing lights. I really hate when people come to my favorite games, complain that they're too hard, assert that they're doing everything right, and expect the game to change to accommodate them. There may be reasons to change the landing lights, but "they make it too hard" is a terrible one. They're just one of the many (and more literal) obstacles between your spaceplane and space.