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The point here with the nuclear thermal shuttle is that we should get away from the typical "launch vehicle, expendable everything, and then a splashdown" setup. Even the space shuttle uses this - It really is an orbit-only sattelite once it drops the LH2 water balloon. Then it lands. The...

I don't think anything is worth it until we develop better space lift, except an asteroid defense. My current favorite idea is the Nuclear Thermal Shuttle, which is to be launched from ramjet or scramjet flyback booster/supersonic transport. Anything to get away from our current liquid...

I kept imagining this idea, though with futuristic torchship engines. It would be able to get from the ground to orbit and do at least some manuevering wiht nuclear lightbulb engines. It would be completely reusable. It might be a Lox augmented nuclear lightbulb engine. A long, skinny...

I've done that a lot. What I want though, is a turbopack that will last much longer than the original one.

Is there a way to change the UMMU turbopacks so that they have a higher ISP/longer flight time? Has anyone made a super turbopack mod or is there a way to edit it?

Most of those are hypervelocity impacts. I think they can see the larger objects and they they are not THAT common. Also: Cockpit fire? WTF it's not that likely. Not sure how the nose would break off. Best, spookiest one is the shuttle crashland. Spooky because it looks survivable. That's...

Also, an RTG cannot be turned off. If you don't use the power, it is wasted as heat. For that reason, really high power RTGs are impractical. The shuttle is a pretty short duration ship. They can overfuel the fuel cells with a cargo bay module.

From Project Rho: High Thrust or Futuristic engines with ISP in 20,00 to 40,000 range The bell nozzles are just ridiculous though. The maximum ISP for a bell nozzle engine is around 3,500. Which is pretty damned good. That's for a gas core nuclear thermal rocket. (very small amount of...

I Can't wait to have a working Virtual Cockpit!

That sounds incredibly difficult for several reasons. I wonder if you can fry with radiant heat. Seems like zero G might make it possible to avoid a lot of dish washingl.

Yes, but not a full cabin. It was medium experiment centrifuges, probably horrible nausea problems. It occurs to me that the main utensils might consist of several gigantic syringe-like mixing and measuring devices.

Not meaning to start a war about artificial G. Torchships are VERY difficult even for fractional G. Exercise, or anti-atrophy drugs, or electrical stimulation seem MUCH more realistic, biotech a bit questionable but it should be possible. Meanwhile, in-pressure centrifuges are heavy, any...

I was kind of assuming zero g. Antiatrophy drugs might be better than overcomplicated despun engines and stuff the way biotech is coming, but people will still want actual food out of the hydroponics deck.

Assuming we get to the point where, when in zero G, we have raw food and means and a need to cook it (Belters maybe, or very slow liners/explorers), what might Zero G cooking be like? I remember a Freefall comic where the childish robot made "spherecakes" in the oven because pancakes are...

Hmm. Clearly I need to learn more about both Orbiter and the rules of the XR vessels. May the :probe: smile on you, Doug.

I guess that the result is that you cannot make an add-on VC for an XR vessel without infringing the copyright? Or that it just would not be possible? The XR series is awesome. I like them a bit better than the DGIV, which I feel has things on it's panel a bit too distributed. I don't have the...

wow i know nothing about orbiter modding apparently.

Perhaps someone else might take up the challenge? It already has a static VC. It would not be over-hard to incrementally add functions to the elements, it seems.

Yeah, today it's almost all math and computers. And component testing. And possibly models launched on booster for suborbital re-entry tests? Air drop tests? Then subsonic, then supersonic, then hypersonic and finally suborbital flight tests.

Yeah. Ouch. Unless you somehow are able to inject below the Van Allen belts, which could not be done with a normal space elevator but I seem to remember one that has a huge ring around the earth.