Great essay by Howard Bloom, one of the governors of the National Space Society:

How to Get Back to the Moon in 4 Years--This Time to Stay

I think he's spot-on here.  If NASA's purpose really is to advance the settlement of space, rather than to provide jobs in key congressional districts, then we really should scrap SLS and Orion, and leverage these innovative space companies.  SpaceX and Blue Origin for transportation, and Bigelow Aerospace for habitation — that frees NASA to focus on infrastructure and innovative techs like lunar mining, power, agriculture, etc.

But that's just me... what do you all think about it?

    I was given this software as a Christmas present and haven't had much time to try it out yet, but I do have a (hopefully) simple suggestion that I think will help users navigate and manage their settlements.  In Design mode, after loading a design, the screen nicely displays in a small horizontal blue-bordered box the name of the design that you are working on.  I have attached a modified screen shot from Manage mode in which I suggest adding something similar -- in two parts:

1) When Files is clicked and the center dialog box comes up for picking the colony to work on it would be nice if the names included in parentheses the design name from which the colony was elaborated and then the location. 

2) And once a colony is selected to work on then, like the program does in Design mode, display this information at top center of the screen.

As I try this thing out - and it looks like fun - I'll probably have some other suggestions.  If it's not too late.

== Bob

Version 0.26 of the High Frontier video game is now available!



This is a “spit & polish” release that includes a long list of enhancements:

• Reduced the frequency of disasters (crime, fire). [#211]
• Reworked part attachment and detachment in Design mode. It should be much easier now to edit your designs. [#213]
• Improved the default locations chosen for parts when you click a part button in Design mode. [#214]
• Analysis/Support tab now shows the net power and temperature for the whole colony, even when you have a part selected. [#215]
• Fixed a cosmetic problem in the credits. [#209]
• Removed the Unity configuration dialog that sometimes appeared on launch. [#210]
• Fixed and updated the application icon. [#212]
• Advisor now refrains from advising you to demolish a building that’s still under construction. [#216]
• Advisor gives more useful advice on how to complete a path (by double-clicking or pressing Return). [#221]
• Switching to another mode while laying a path now correctly cancels that path. [#221]
• Advisor panel now closes automatically (once you demonstrate the advised feature) if it opened by itself. [#222]
• Residents now complain more strenuously about temperatures below -50°C; also, plants turn brown below freezing. [#223]
• Fixed a problem with code signing of the Mac builds that caused “This application is from an unknown developer” warnings. [#225]
  

Here's what we're currently working through...



This is all to equip us to fix this issue, though I can imagine some other great stuff that may come out of it.


So far, it seems like a really great book — well written, exceptionally clear, and with lots of pseudocode and examples.  It presents a very different approach to modeling physics than I've ever seen before; instead of dealing with linear and rotational motion separately, you mix them together, representing the state of an object with a single (six-dimensional) vector.

It looks like this approach simplifies the math (and the computer code!) quite a bit.  Pretty neat stuff!  If anybody has any interest in physics or simulation, I highly recommend it.

You know, in college I thought quantum mechanics was hard.  Pfft!  That's nothing compared to simulating rotating bodies. 

High Frontier correctly simulates colonies where most of the mass is contained in one big rotating part.  However, systems with multiple big rotating parts — like two cylinders side-by-side — are not correctly simulated.



This is something we've wanted to handle correctly for a long time, and it has finally made it to the top of our to-do list.

We've just posted in a physics forum about it, but if there's anyone here who feels comfortable with kinetic energy and moments of inertia, please jump in wherever is convenient for you.  We really want to get this right!

The UI for attaching and detaching parts in design mode has been a bit of a thorn in our side from the very beginning.  In particular, detaching parts has always been harder than it should be.

We knew what we wanted: to disconnect two parts, you grab one and drag it "away" from the other.  To move them as a unit, you drag in any other direction.  The goal is to let you grab, say, half of a stack of parts, separate it from the other half, and put it somewhere else.  Sounds simple, right?

Unfortunately, defining what "away" means precisely enough to code has proved troublesome.  Even we got confused about it sometimes, and resorted to just deleting and re-creating a sticky part.

I think we have finally fixed this!

Today we sat down and really worked through it carefully.  The problem was really one of asymmetrical situations, like this:

A nice review of High Frontier has just been posted by a person named Aniruddh Rao.

Quote:So overall, according to me High Frontier is a very, very satisfying experience and becomes something that will be staple to your plans for quite a bit of time. As it is, it is fabulous and with the added bonus of it getting updates and mods in the future, it simply is heavenly, especially to the already space enthusiasts! To those who aren’t, well not a worry. I can very well guarantee that, space lover or not, by the end of playing the game, anyone will become one. So all you gotta do now,is join the High Frontier crew to start your journey!

A new article of mine about Space Based Solar Power:

http://blog.the-brights.net/2016/12/05/space-based-solar-power-the-key-to-a-bright-future/#sthash.GdbIzHcQ.dpbs

Thanks,
Adam

IEEE has gathered together a whole bunch of hard data on solar cell efficiency over the last decade into one cool, interactive chart.



Click here for the full interactive chart, and links to deeper analysis.

For space colonization, the rapid increases in solar cell efficiency are good news. Sure, a nuclear plant would be great, but politically, solar panels are a much easier sell.

On the other hand, as terrestrial solar gets better and cheaper, it chips away at the economic advantage of space-based solar power. So we may need to find other anchor industries to support the initial space-based economy. My bet's on tourism and video production. But what do you think?

We've just posted version 0.25 of High Frontier!  Finally, you can settle the outer solar system!



Dozens of new orbits, projects, and opportunities now await you beyond Mars, from the main asteroid belt all the way to Neptune.



In terms of sheer geography, this is our biggest release yet.  While it will take a while to bootstrap civilization out that far, the view is definitely worth it.



Check out the full release notes, or go download the free demo.  And please post here let us know what you think — we’d love to hear from you!