Can the heatshields protect protuberances like Goo-pods? Sounds interesting, but it also sounds like it might conflict with some unrealistic-by-design facets of Kerbin astro-dynamics
Can the heatshields protect protuberances like Goo-pods? Sounds interesting, but it also sounds like it might conflict with some unrealistic-by-design facets of Kerbin astro-dynamics
If you mount the Goo Units (or anything) on a heatshield, and can angle it properly (so, include a remote pod), yes.
And if you're still worried, go in for a super-gentle de-orbit (or cheat using the handy console).
Man I really wish the welding plugin worked better for me. I can never get these welded parts to go back on the same way they came off. Quite frustrating.
Is it yet possible to actually reuse it? Fly it back to the launch pad, tilt it upright, stick new boosters on, and refuel it?
I mean, I know you can just pretend to reuse it and do a new launch, but it'd be nifty to do it legitimately.
Although now that I think about it, there are certainly tools for docking new boosters to it...and you can certainly do a fuel transfer to refuel it. All that's left is standing it upright, which you could of course do with rockets...
I couldn't do it, but I don't use any wielding mods or the like (and really, a KAS crane would be way better than rockets when it came to lifting something up).
The actual point isn't that it's reusable, but that it has a big cargo bay for recovering things.
Synthesis on
+2
Zilla36021st Century. |She/Her|Trans* Woman In Aviators Firing A Bazooka. ⚛️Registered Userregular
Or you could use KAS and build a crane truck...
Also (completely unrelated), since the ISA mapping mod stopped getting updates, I've been trying out this new replacement, it's pretty good.
So I have spent the last few hours "simulating" proper landings with my ridiculous rover deployment. Basically, it is a giant, in-line sandcrawler with the return rocket on top. And even though Mechjeb claims the convoluted launcher has nearly 11 km/s of vacuum delta-v, it's probably closer to 7500 (after landing, my return rocket has about 2200 left).
The basic thing going into space is the return module, the rover module, the lander module and the munar deceleration module.
So the deceleration module is basically a makeshift Apollo service module + extra RCS for gradual slowdown. It's basically responsible for the trans-munar injection and, once in orbit around the mun, killing lateral velocity. Anything left over is for slowing the descent.
Then it's decoupled, leaving a tiny fuel tank and a tiny engine with lander legs. This is designed to land with everything on top. The benefit is the fuel in the return module can be passed to the lander for the extra power to kill the descent. Once Jeb has landed on flat ground and not decided to ski down a mun hill, any spare fuel is returned and the lander module is decoupled, along with the couplers on either side of the rover. That leaves the rover module sitting on the lander module. Which Jeb can then ride around like a very expensive, very dangerous carousel until it comes off. Instead of spending RCS fuel that was included for that specific purpose and forgotten about.
Then there's just the gentle return module lift off and re-landing a few meters away (...works best if you remember to empty the fuel in the lander module, otherwise you get to hear what explosions on the Mun sound like).
And then Jeb can go look for the Space Jockey's ship in his own little colonist's rover.
...or he could invent Mun racing. With speeds exceeding 35 mph.
I've learned that controlling the rover works much better in docking mode so the torque doesn't affect the rover's handling (alternative would be disabling it outright on the lander can). I've found the low, square wheelbase is incredibly difficult to flip. Plus, perfect Jeb seating position.
I've also learned that Kerbal Joint Reinforcement is pretty neat, but really mucks with SRBs and docking clamps. I just could not get my boosters to fire simultaneously with it installed. Or a handful of clamps wouldn't detach at launch.
Also happy to see the different mun Biomes provide plenty of opportunities for SCIENCE! I had landed in the nearside crater, and now I get to get a bunch of EVA science points again for being in the east farside crater. The wiki also says there are midlands and canyons that should be in easy rover range for more bonus science. Plus, rover speed trials.
President Rex on
+9
Zilla36021st Century. |She/Her|Trans* Woman In Aviators Firing A Bazooka. ⚛️Registered Userregular
Trans-Duna injection burn scheduled for December the 1st.
If anyone wants to have a go re-creating the mission the apogee is 23,000 km and the perigee is 238 km with an inclination of 17.864 degrees (might have to scale these for Kerbin).
and my first thought was "My god, 2 months ago this would have been more or less gibberish to me, and now I fully understand every step."
There was a steam sig here. It's gone now.
+13
Zilla36021st Century. |She/Her|Trans* Woman In Aviators Firing A Bazooka. ⚛️Registered Userregular
Yeah, me too, as soon as I saw the orbit I thought "Ah, so they're using the Oberth effect and burning at perigee to maximise delta-v" and realised how much KSP has taught me that's applicable to real space missions. And now with KerbalEDU schoolkids will be learning all this too.
Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
edited November 2013
KerbalEDU fills me with righteous fury, because when I was a kid, the highest level of "simulation" a game ever did for us was a shitty "build a paper airplane and see how far it goes" POS program.
Kids these days get to simulate flying to the freaking mun in a simulated solar system. With adorable fictional pilots. And some pretty great simulations of physics. And it's all hugely informative as well as highly entertaining.
Gah I'm gonna be gone for a few days and my laptop is a toaster.
good news is that 7 tier 1 boosters has exceptional lift. Just gotta par down the second stage of those and switch to liquid fuel, since two stages of it hits about 1500m/s by the time it hits about 20km altitude.
with such a steep climb, I know I am wasting so much liquid fuel burning to flatten out my PE for a stable orbit
ShogunHair long; money long; me and broke wizards we don't get alongRegistered Userregular
What is amazing about the India Mars Orbiter is that the entire mission cost is $74,000,000. And I'm not missing any zeros there. Seventy-four million dollars for India to get to Mars.
What is amazing about the India Mars Orbiter is that the entire mission cost is $74,000,000. And I'm not missing any zeros there. Seventy-four million dollars for India to get to Mars.
...something, something, R&D is really goddamn expensive? And you can bet your ass there's tech from other national space programs (or their contractors) in that thing.
I will tastefully refrain from a Tata motors analogy.
VedicIntent on
+1
ShogunHair long; money long; me and broke wizards we don't get alongRegistered Userregular
Today's launch was PSLV's 25th so it is apparently a pretty solid lifter. Neat looking rocket as well I thought. Launch was enjoyable to watch. Makes me want to launch something!
It's really exciting to see other nations building their aerospace expertise, with a fresh sense of pride and wonder to match. Especially after so much budget cutting and squashed ambition for NASA. They're putting all those engineering degrees to use! Hooray India!*
*Although I have to kind of give the side-eye to a country with India's problems spending so many resources on a space program. You could argue the same for any country, but it's hard to deny in this case.
It's really exciting to see other nations building their aerospace expertise, with a fresh sense of pride and wonder to match. Especially after so much budget cutting and squashed ambition for NASA. They're putting all those engineering degrees to use! Hooray India!*
*Although I have to kind of give the side-eye to a country with India's problems spending so many resources on a space program. You could argue the same for any country, but it's hard to deny in this case.
Well... considering that eventually space colonization might be a great way to solve those problems...
It's really exciting to see other nations building their aerospace expertise, with a fresh sense of pride and wonder to match. Especially after so much budget cutting and squashed ambition for NASA. They're putting all those engineering degrees to use! Hooray India!*
*Although I have to kind of give the side-eye to a country with India's problems spending so many resources on a space program. You could argue the same for any country, but it's hard to deny in this case.
Well... considering that eventually space colonization might be a great way to solve those problems...
Really attempting to avoid getting pulled into an off-topic discussion...
but while there is an overcrowding/population problem, there are better ways to deal with it than the short term solution of plopping out more land; especially given that the country's productivity is severely hampered by poor or non-existent infrastructure.
ShogunHair long; money long; me and broke wizards we don't get alongRegistered Userregular
I think spending so little on sending something to mars is pretty impressive. It cost 2.5 billion for Curiosity. 74 mil for an orbiting probe is a fraction of the cost. I wish everyday people understood that NASA is so much more than space and rockets. These things might not seem like they bring us real-world value and returns but we gain so much more from the pushing and driving towards goals of space travel and exploration. To kill their budgets and programs is for our country to collectively say, "science? pfffft"
I think I've pretty much perfected my Refueling Rocket design. I already had a full fuel tank plugged in, so I didn't bother docking this time, just showing off my design.
VAB shot.
Takeoff. I've found that small solid-boosters are lot better than large ones, when placed correctly.
Close enough to ditch the fuel tanks and RCS in.
The grey tanks fed their fuel to the orange one, so still at full liquid fuel and no need to spend a drop of it, just mono-propellent.
And the beautiful part: The helper rockets each have a Stayputnik on them so they can use their remaining fuel to de-orbit, preventing debris from accumulating in the station's orbital field. The 2x tall orange tanks from the earlier stages are ditched low enough that they will de-orbit naturally.
I think spending so little on sending something to mars is pretty impressive. It cost 2.5 billion for Curiosity. 74 mil for an orbiting probe is a fraction of the cost. I wish everyday people understood that NASA is so much more than space and rockets. These things might not seem like they bring us real-world value and returns but we gain so much more from the pushing and driving towards goals of space travel and exploration. To kill their budgets and programs is for our country to collectively say, "science? pfffft"
So lame.
I also think sending an SUV to mars is pretty impressive too
Given how such a tiny percentage of the budget NASA is, it's probably had the best ROI on anything the United States has ever done. Even a tiny increase in funding vs the whole would pay such huge dividends in the future.
Also please build more Saturn Vs. Every time i see that 6 saturn V per year instead of the shuttle stat i just die inside.
I think spending so little on sending something to mars is pretty impressive. It cost 2.5 billion for Curiosity. 74 mil for an orbiting probe is a fraction of the cost. I wish everyday people understood that NASA is so much more than space and rockets. These things might not seem like they bring us real-world value and returns but we gain so much more from the pushing and driving towards goals of space travel and exploration. To kill their budgets and programs is for our country to collectively say, "science? pfffft"
So lame.
I also think sending an SUV to mars is pretty impressive too
Given how such a tiny percentage of the budget NASA is, it's probably had the best ROI on anything the United States has ever done. Even a tiny increase in funding vs the whole would pay such huge dividends in the future.
Also please build more Saturn Vs. Every time i see that 6 saturn V per year instead of the shuttle stat i just die inside.
The SUV with the Rock Disintegrating Laser is also more likely to get a heck a lot more SCIENCE done than the orbiter ever will. I mean no disrespect for those who worked towards getting something into space and towards another celestial body, but I'm finding it extremely hard to find any information on the purpose of the Indian Mars Orbiter other than it being a phallus waving and nationalistic spirit building exercise.
I think spending so little on sending something to mars is pretty impressive. It cost 2.5 billion for Curiosity. 74 mil for an orbiting probe is a fraction of the cost. I wish everyday people understood that NASA is so much more than space and rockets. These things might not seem like they bring us real-world value and returns but we gain so much more from the pushing and driving towards goals of space travel and exploration. To kill their budgets and programs is for our country to collectively say, "science? pfffft"
So lame.
I also think sending an SUV to mars is pretty impressive too
Given how such a tiny percentage of the budget NASA is, it's probably had the best ROI on anything the United States has ever done. Even a tiny increase in funding vs the whole would pay such huge dividends in the future.
Also please build more Saturn Vs. Every time i see that 6 saturn V per year instead of the shuttle stat i just die inside.
The SUV with the Rock Disintegrating Laser is also more likely to get a heck a lot more SCIENCE done than the orbiter ever will. I mean no disrespect for those who worked towards getting something into space and towards another celestial body, but I'm finding it extremely hard to find any information on the purpose of the Indian Mars Orbiter other than it being a phallus waving and nationalistic spirit building exercise.
It is going to collect data on the atmosphere and the surface. NASA will be helping with the monitoring and the data collection.
I think spending so little on sending something to mars is pretty impressive. It cost 2.5 billion for Curiosity. 74 mil for an orbiting probe is a fraction of the cost. I wish everyday people understood that NASA is so much more than space and rockets. These things might not seem like they bring us real-world value and returns but we gain so much more from the pushing and driving towards goals of space travel and exploration. To kill their budgets and programs is for our country to collectively say, "science? pfffft"
So lame.
I also think sending an SUV to mars is pretty impressive too
Given how such a tiny percentage of the budget NASA is, it's probably had the best ROI on anything the United States has ever done. Even a tiny increase in funding vs the whole would pay such huge dividends in the future.
Also please build more Saturn Vs. Every time i see that 6 saturn V per year instead of the shuttle stat i just die inside.
Other than very concrete, practical benefits of space exploration (particularly NASA, with things like power-based lubricants, integrated circuit development, deicing and a plethora of new plastics and alloys), it also provides direct economic benefits and indirect economic benefits. In addition to en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_of_NASA#Economic_impact_of_NASA_funding, we also got a bunch of people interested in science as well as political capital (not that we really pretend to be any different than China or Russia anymore).
Plus we are nearing the cusp of another spacefaring marvel. By January 25th, we'll have had a piece of human technology operating unassisted in a hostile, dangerous environment for a decade. Not quite the visibility and spectacle of landing on the moon, but a pretty awesome technical achievement.
But a vast majority of people would be more likely to support cutting NASA's budget than cutting the funding for 1 F-22 Raptor. Seriously less that 0.5% of the budget is space.
/preaching to the choir
0
Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
edited November 2013
NASA's problem is that it's become one of those symbols of government bloat, which is directly related to how it's directives have been broadened. Along with the ridiculously overpriced shuttle program and the lack of manned missions any farther than orbit, people just don't care much about what NASA does any more. People would back more F-22s because that's a solid thing with relatable reasons to exist, but when people think of NASA, they think of pointless, expensive experiments in orbit that don't really seem to going much of anywhere.
How much of that is truth or not isn't the point, because it's the perception that matters. The situation with the economy sure doesn't help either, because it's hard to justify something even as solidly goal-oriented as, say, a lunar base when we keep seeing stories of 10 million bucks blown here and 100 million tossed away there.
A real shame, too, because modern tech should let us make some real steps into expanding into space and reduce the costs of getting/operating there as well. Hoping we'll see private enterprise start to make some inroads there, because if a company can make space profitable (beyond just launching satellites), then moving in that direction won't be so completely shackled to something as fickle as public opinion and bureaucratic interests.
It's really exciting to see other nations building their aerospace expertise, with a fresh sense of pride and wonder to match. Especially after so much budget cutting and squashed ambition for NASA. They're putting all those engineering degrees to use! Hooray India!*
*Although I have to kind of give the side-eye to a country with India's problems spending so many resources on a space program. You could argue the same for any country, but it's hard to deny in this case.
Well... considering that eventually space colonization might be a great way to solve those problems...
Their biggest problems are more sociopolitical than overcrowding per se - not that India can buy a solution or anything, but I can imagine that funding could do good work on the ground. I'm ambivalent, because it also feels arrogant to say other countries can't afford to do cool stuff like this. I'm just glad I can concentrate solely on the fun part of a massive engineering endeavor when I play KSP.
I think spending so little on sending something to mars is pretty impressive. It cost 2.5 billion for Curiosity. 74 mil for an orbiting probe is a fraction of the cost. I wish everyday people understood that NASA is so much more than space and rockets. These things might not seem like they bring us real-world value and returns but we gain so much more from the pushing and driving towards goals of space travel and exploration. To kill their budgets and programs is for our country to collectively say, "science? pfffft"
So lame.
I also think sending an SUV to mars is pretty impressive too
Given how such a tiny percentage of the budget NASA is, it's probably had the best ROI on anything the United States has ever done. Even a tiny increase in funding vs the whole would pay such huge dividends in the future.
Also please build more Saturn Vs. Every time i see that 6 saturn V per year instead of the shuttle stat i just die inside.
The SUV with the Rock Disintegrating Laser is also more likely to get a heck a lot more SCIENCE done than the orbiter ever will. I mean no disrespect for those who worked towards getting something into space and towards another celestial body, but I'm finding it extremely hard to find any information on the purpose of the Indian Mars Orbiter other than it being a phallus waving and nationalistic spirit building exercise.
As much as I've been a huge fan of space exploration (real and fictional) for most of my conscious life, I have to say: isn't this basically what the entire original space race was?
And on the subject of solving India's problems through emigration, imagine a rocket blasting off every minute, round the clock, each one carrying 31 people - that's just to balance the birthrate, not even start reducing the population. And how much that would cost, and what the environmental impact would be. (And the real question, to where?)
I like to be optimistic, and think it's just the phallus-waving nationalistic idiots who write the check. The believers in the value of space exploration - the visionaries - smile and nod, and immediately cash that check to go achieve something incredible.
I need to get back into KSP, but I'm at that "what should I do..." phase. RemoteTech 2.0 is released, and KSP Interstellar looks really cool. Post more Interstellar screenshots, @Kashaar!
To echo the sentiment of The Bugle, if we (that is, the United States) really want to send a human being to Mars, someone needs to convince the Chinese to say they're gonna do it, first. That'll rustle our jimmies.
Even our failures in space have provided advancement in fields we had no initial idea they could affect. Example: Hubble and it's faulty mirror.
Sure it was an embarrassment that we sent up what was supposed to be the most sophisticated space telescope with a faulty mirror and it returned all the images blurry, and we had to go and replace it. BUT! Before the replacement mirror was sent up, engineers devised ways to take the blurry images from Hubble and fine tune them into something a bit more readable. This technique was then discovered to be extremely helpful in improving breast cancer detection. http://ipp.nasa.gov/innovation/Innovation41/HubbleFights.html
Even in failure we can learn something.
The biggest shame/disappointment in all of this is that we just aren't trying anymore. The improvements we could see are unfathomable because we just don't know what could come out of it besides the obvious. Sending a person to another planet would spur so many innovations in food storage/growing techniques, fuel/power efficiency, cooling, heating, medicine, etc in just getting to the planet, but what else?
Who knows what else we could possibly learn or advance just by doing.
I need to get back into KSP, but I'm at that "what should I do..." phase. RemoteTech 2.0 is released, and KSP Interstellar looks really cool. Post more Interstellar screenshots, @Kashaar!
I haven't played in a week or so! Still getting a handle on Interstellar. Its various thruster and fuel types add quite a lot of complexity... and I need more science points to unlock them all!
Posts
Can the heatshields protect protuberances like Goo-pods? Sounds interesting, but it also sounds like it might conflict with some unrealistic-by-design facets of Kerbin astro-dynamics
If you mount the Goo Units (or anything) on a heatshield, and can angle it properly (so, include a remote pod), yes.
And if you're still worried, go in for a super-gentle de-orbit (or cheat using the handy console).
PSN: ShogunGunshow
Origin: ShogunGunshow
"We are absolutely not investigating the possibility of a reusable vertically-launched spaceplane! That's madness!" - Robert F. Kerman
I mean, I know you can just pretend to reuse it and do a new launch, but it'd be nifty to do it legitimately.
Although now that I think about it, there are certainly tools for docking new boosters to it...and you can certainly do a fuel transfer to refuel it. All that's left is standing it upright, which you could of course do with rockets...
The actual point isn't that it's reusable, but that it has a big cargo bay for recovering things.
Also (completely unrelated), since the ISA mapping mod stopped getting updates, I've been trying out this new replacement, it's pretty good.
He's pretty excited. Unfortunately, he immediately fell off the ladder and was devoured by the kraken.
Edit: One quickload and like an hour of incompetent docking later, Bill arrives on Duna. Still pumped.
The basic thing going into space is the return module, the rover module, the lander module and the munar deceleration module.
So the deceleration module is basically a makeshift Apollo service module + extra RCS for gradual slowdown. It's basically responsible for the trans-munar injection and, once in orbit around the mun, killing lateral velocity. Anything left over is for slowing the descent.
Then it's decoupled, leaving a tiny fuel tank and a tiny engine with lander legs. This is designed to land with everything on top. The benefit is the fuel in the return module can be passed to the lander for the extra power to kill the descent. Once Jeb has landed on flat ground and not decided to ski down a mun hill, any spare fuel is returned and the lander module is decoupled, along with the couplers on either side of the rover. That leaves the rover module sitting on the lander module. Which Jeb can then ride around like a very expensive, very dangerous carousel until it comes off. Instead of spending RCS fuel that was included for that specific purpose and forgotten about.
Then there's just the gentle return module lift off and re-landing a few meters away (...works best if you remember to empty the fuel in the lander module, otherwise you get to hear what explosions on the Mun sound like).
And then Jeb can go look for the Space Jockey's ship in his own little colonist's rover.
...or he could invent Mun racing. With speeds exceeding 35 mph.
I've learned that controlling the rover works much better in docking mode so the torque doesn't affect the rover's handling (alternative would be disabling it outright on the lander can). I've found the low, square wheelbase is incredibly difficult to flip. Plus, perfect Jeb seating position.
I've also learned that Kerbal Joint Reinforcement is pretty neat, but really mucks with SRBs and docking clamps. I just could not get my boosters to fire simultaneously with it installed. Or a handful of clamps wouldn't detach at launch.
Also happy to see the different mun Biomes provide plenty of opportunities for SCIENCE! I had landed in the nearside crater, and now I get to get a bunch of EVA science points again for being in the east farside crater. The wiki also says there are midlands and canyons that should be in easy rover range for more bonus science. Plus, rover speed trials.
Trans-Duna injection burn scheduled for December the 1st.
If anyone wants to have a go re-creating the mission the apogee is 23,000 km and the perigee is 238 km with an inclination of 17.864 degrees (might have to scale these for Kerbin).
and my first thought was "My god, 2 months ago this would have been more or less gibberish to me, and now I fully understand every step."
It's awesome.
Kids these days get to simulate flying to the freaking mun in a simulated solar system. With adorable fictional pilots. And some pretty great simulations of physics. And it's all hugely informative as well as highly entertaining.
Little punks.
Al_wat: Yes, absolutely. It's often / strongly recommended as a way of getting the most bang delta-v out of your transfer stages.
Steam, Warframe: Megajoule
Yes - even the tutorial teaches you to burn at periapsis to most efficiently manipulate your apoapsis and vice versa.
Unreal Engine 4 Developers Community.
I'm working on a cute little video game! Here's a link for you.
good news is that 7 tier 1 boosters has exceptional lift. Just gotta par down the second stage of those and switch to liquid fuel, since two stages of it hits about 1500m/s by the time it hits about 20km altitude.
with such a steep climb, I know I am wasting so much liquid fuel burning to flatten out my PE for a stable orbit
Steam - NotoriusBEN | Uplay - notoriusben | Xbox,Windows Live - ThatBEN
Shogun Streams Vidya
... something, something, outsourcing?
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
I will tastefully refrain from a Tata motors analogy.
Shogun Streams Vidya
Well... considering that eventually space colonization might be a great way to solve those problems...
Unreal Engine 4 Developers Community.
I'm working on a cute little video game! Here's a link for you.
Really attempting to avoid getting pulled into an off-topic discussion...
So lame.
Shogun Streams Vidya
VAB shot.
Takeoff. I've found that small solid-boosters are lot better than large ones, when placed correctly.
Close enough to ditch the fuel tanks and RCS in.
The grey tanks fed their fuel to the orange one, so still at full liquid fuel and no need to spend a drop of it, just mono-propellent.
And the beautiful part: The helper rockets each have a Stayputnik on them so they can use their remaining fuel to de-orbit, preventing debris from accumulating in the station's orbital field. The 2x tall orange tanks from the earlier stages are ditched low enough that they will de-orbit naturally.
I also think sending an SUV to mars is pretty impressive too
Given how such a tiny percentage of the budget NASA is, it's probably had the best ROI on anything the United States has ever done. Even a tiny increase in funding vs the whole would pay such huge dividends in the future.
Also please build more Saturn Vs. Every time i see that 6 saturn V per year instead of the shuttle stat i just die inside.
The SUV with the Rock Disintegrating Laser is also more likely to get a heck a lot more SCIENCE done than the orbiter ever will. I mean no disrespect for those who worked towards getting something into space and towards another celestial body, but I'm finding it extremely hard to find any information on the purpose of the Indian Mars Orbiter other than it being a phallus waving and nationalistic spirit building exercise.
It is going to collect data on the atmosphere and the surface. NASA will be helping with the monitoring and the data collection.
Shogun Streams Vidya
Other than very concrete, practical benefits of space exploration (particularly NASA, with things like power-based lubricants, integrated circuit development, deicing and a plethora of new plastics and alloys), it also provides direct economic benefits and indirect economic benefits. In addition to en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_of_NASA#Economic_impact_of_NASA_funding, we also got a bunch of people interested in science as well as political capital (not that we really pretend to be any different than China or Russia anymore).
Plus we are nearing the cusp of another spacefaring marvel. By January 25th, we'll have had a piece of human technology operating unassisted in a hostile, dangerous environment for a decade. Not quite the visibility and spectacle of landing on the moon, but a pretty awesome technical achievement.
But a vast majority of people would be more likely to support cutting NASA's budget than cutting the funding for 1 F-22 Raptor. Seriously less that 0.5% of the budget is space.
/preaching to the choir
How much of that is truth or not isn't the point, because it's the perception that matters. The situation with the economy sure doesn't help either, because it's hard to justify something even as solidly goal-oriented as, say, a lunar base when we keep seeing stories of 10 million bucks blown here and 100 million tossed away there.
A real shame, too, because modern tech should let us make some real steps into expanding into space and reduce the costs of getting/operating there as well. Hoping we'll see private enterprise start to make some inroads there, because if a company can make space profitable (beyond just launching satellites), then moving in that direction won't be so completely shackled to something as fickle as public opinion and bureaucratic interests.
Their biggest problems are more sociopolitical than overcrowding per se - not that India can buy a solution or anything, but I can imagine that funding could do good work on the ground. I'm ambivalent, because it also feels arrogant to say other countries can't afford to do cool stuff like this. I'm just glad I can concentrate solely on the fun part of a massive engineering endeavor when I play KSP.
As much as I've been a huge fan of space exploration (real and fictional) for most of my conscious life, I have to say: isn't this basically what the entire original space race was?
And on the subject of solving India's problems through emigration, imagine a rocket blasting off every minute, round the clock, each one carrying 31 people - that's just to balance the birthrate, not even start reducing the population. And how much that would cost, and what the environmental impact would be. (And the real question, to where?)
Steam, Warframe: Megajoule
I need to get back into KSP, but I'm at that "what should I do..." phase. RemoteTech 2.0 is released, and KSP Interstellar looks really cool. Post more Interstellar screenshots, @Kashaar!
PSN: ShogunGunshow
Origin: ShogunGunshow
Sure it was an embarrassment that we sent up what was supposed to be the most sophisticated space telescope with a faulty mirror and it returned all the images blurry, and we had to go and replace it. BUT! Before the replacement mirror was sent up, engineers devised ways to take the blurry images from Hubble and fine tune them into something a bit more readable. This technique was then discovered to be extremely helpful in improving breast cancer detection. http://ipp.nasa.gov/innovation/Innovation41/HubbleFights.html
Even in failure we can learn something.
The biggest shame/disappointment in all of this is that we just aren't trying anymore. The improvements we could see are unfathomable because we just don't know what could come out of it besides the obvious. Sending a person to another planet would spur so many innovations in food storage/growing techniques, fuel/power efficiency, cooling, heating, medicine, etc in just getting to the planet, but what else?
Who knows what else we could possibly learn or advance just by doing.
Isn't that on a plaque above the entrance to the Kerbal Space Center?
s/failure/explosions
I haven't played in a week or so! Still getting a handle on Interstellar. Its various thruster and fuel types add quite a lot of complexity... and I need more science points to unlock them all!
Unreal Engine 4 Developers Community.
I'm working on a cute little video game! Here's a link for you.