Why are probe cores so heavy?

[Martian Emigrant]

15 hours ago, Espatie said:

According to Wikipedia the power source was 51kg of Silver-Zinc batteries.

 

Also don't be down on the Science output; tracking Sputnik was easy and gave all sides information on the upper atmosphere, especially drag and ionosphere EM signal effects. That's the kind of basic Science that you do with simple "bleeps".

Thank you.

I admit to not having done research on it,

Sputnik was the first of many things tracked, studied and used in space.

I was responding to the OP (Trying anyway) about probe core weights.

 

I am afraid this will go into the eternal argument about "KSP is a game" VS "KSP is a simulator".

 

I vote for educational game and I learned something today. Thanks.

 

 

ME

[Gapone]

On 1/12/2019 at 7:20 PM, TheKorbinjer said:

why don't they have an option to "look" like they have ablative shielding on them?

For me, they already look like they have thermal tiling, as on the space shuttle, but white. These black lines separate large white thermal tiles, and black edges certainlly look like space shuttle's wing edges.