What's next for KSP and NASA

[Anton P. Nym]

I'd like to see the Lander airbags for probes. Doing a Spirit/Opportunity bouncy-bounce on Duna would be fun!

-- Steve

[Greenfire32]

Yeah...I'd be kinda wary of that. Anyway, some kind of ISRU would be nice to see, if only for the fact that Squad would need to backpedal on the resources statement

Nope, not going to happen in 4 years.

It is not a 'scam', but whoever made up their time table has been using some reality altering stuff.

I freely offer myself to be made fun of in 4 years when it turns out I'm wrong

I agree. Whatever is going to happen with Mars One, we are not going to see any humans on Mars before 2020.

unless someone finds oil, I mean kethane over there

I would not be surprised if virgin galactic is making their first passenger flight in four years (announced for 2014) but I'd be *very* surprised if a human being walked on mars, or orbited mars, within less than 10 years.

Woah woah woah, don't misunderstand me now. I said the Mars One Mission begins in 4 years. Not that there would be people on Mars in 4 years.

Here's the official timetable:

http://www.mars-one.com/mission/roadmap

The first Mars One crew launches in 2024.

[CaptRobau]

I agree that the Space Shuttle is NASA's past and if they would want to cooperate with Squad again, it'd be to highlight the things they'd be doing now.

Personally I'd be most interested in something that enhances something that even mods can't do well. One thing that comes to mind is robotic arms. ESA is launching the European Robotic Arm in 2015. Canada has the Canadarm 2 which it might want to brag about once more. The robotic arms in KSP look the part, but are way too wobbly and can't for example seamlessly attach to another point and 'walk' across a station. Just like mods added asteroids and grappling hooks and the ARM patch improved on that, the ARM 2 patch (see what I did there?) would also improve a very important system that mods simply can't get completely right.

[JedTech]

I advise that KSP should no longer keep relations with NASA. The more government bureaucracy is attached to our releases, the slower they will come.

[cantab]

Well, it's not a NASA rocket but the Falcon Heavy is going to use asparagus staging. Albeit with just one pair of boosters feeding the core, but every journey starts with a single step.

[AbhChallenger]

I advise that KSP should no longer keep relations with NASA. The more government bureaucracy is attached to our releases, the slower they will come.

I HIGHLY doubt NASA bureaucracy affected KSP in any way shape or form.

[vger]

If they're going to do anything next... and granted, NASA's approval isn't even needed for this:

Rosetta probe analogue mission.

It's coming this year, and it would be pretty easy to adapt the asteroid system to work for comets. DO IT!