I know it’s just a game/simulation, but I find it quite beautiful and perhaps even inspiring.

http://youtu.be/RkDOOsGg-9I

For those that haven’t tried it, it’s available as a demo from https://kerbalspaceprogram.com

Spiny Norman said:

I know it’s just a game/simulation, but I find it quite beautiful and perhaps even inspiring.

http://youtu.be/RkDOOsGg-9I

For those that haven’t tried it, it’s available as a demo from https://kerbalspaceprogram.com

Spalding Jr. loves KSP. It is very well done.

I think you’ve mentioned it has a section dealing with trajectories ie a tutorial for understanding how to plot courses in space?

wookiemeister said:

I think you’ve mentioned it has a section dealing with trajectories ie a tutorial for understanding how to plot courses in space?

Yep they can do that.
It’s quite interesting.

Spiny Norman said:

wookiemeister said:

I think you’ve mentioned it has a section dealing with trajectories ie a tutorial for understanding how to plot courses in space?

Yep they can do that.
It’s quite interesting.

got a link?

I was thinking of picking over the brains of the person in the astronomy club studying astronomy about this as well

wookiemeister said:

Spiny Norman said:

wookiemeister said:

I think you’ve mentioned it has a section dealing with trajectories ie a tutorial for understanding how to plot courses in space?

Yep they can do that.
It’s quite interesting.

got a link?

I was thinking of picking over the brains of the person in the astronomy club studying astronomy about this as well

It’s mainly when you’re using the MechJeb add-on. When it’s working you can see it working the rockets to plot the orbits. It’s amazing the difference it makes getting out of the atmosphere and also how little thrust you need to make large orbital changes when you have a lot of speed up.

Spiny Norman said:

wookiemeister said:

Spiny Norman said:

Yep they can do that.
It’s quite interesting.

got a link?

I was thinking of picking over the brains of the person in the astronomy club studying astronomy about this as well

It’s mainly when you’re using the MechJeb add-on. When it’s working you can see it working the rockets to plot the orbits. It’s amazing the difference it makes getting out of the atmosphere and also how little thrust you need to make large orbital changes when you have a lot of speed up.

yes I’ve thought about this in the past, one small error at high speed could cause problems, you could miss your target by thousands of kilometres and would be without a prayer.

when you do calculations it makes me wonder if calculating machines for spaceflight need to have many decimal places to remove the errors that would come about as you start processing the numbers over and over to get a result.

wookiemeister said:

Spiny Norman said:

wookiemeister said:

got a link?

I was thinking of picking over the brains of the person in the astronomy club studying astronomy about this as well

It’s mainly when you’re using the MechJeb add-on. When it’s working you can see it working the rockets to plot the orbits. It’s amazing the difference it makes getting out of the atmosphere and also how little thrust you need to make large orbital changes when you have a lot of speed up.

yes I’ve thought about this in the past, one small error at high speed could cause problems, you could miss your target by thousands of kilometres and would be without a prayer.

when you do calculations it makes me wonder if calculating machines for spaceflight need to have many decimal places to remove the errors that would come about as you start processing the numbers over and over to get a result.

The bonus ( for me at least) is that it made it very clear to me of the value of ion engines when doing longer missions. They don’t make a lot of thrust but can push for a long time. So that small push can make quite large changes in the trajectory if you are patient.

Spiny Norman said:

wookiemeister said:

Spiny Norman said:

It’s mainly when you’re using the MechJeb add-on. When it’s working you can see it working the rockets to plot the orbits. It’s amazing the difference it makes getting out of the atmosphere and also how little thrust you need to make large orbital changes when you have a lot of speed up.

yes I’ve thought about this in the past, one small error at high speed could cause problems, you could miss your target by thousands of kilometres and would be without a prayer.

when you do calculations it makes me wonder if calculating machines for spaceflight need to have many decimal places to remove the errors that would come about as you start processing the numbers over and over to get a result.

The bonus ( for me at least) is that it made it very clear to me of the value of ion engines when doing longer missions. They don’t make a lot of thrust but can push for a long time. So that small push can make quite large changes in the trajectory if you are patient.

yes they say ion engines are best most efficient, not much push over short time periods.

xkcd #1244
published 29 July 2013


Six Words




Transcript

The six words you never say at NASA:
{A trajectory path involving multiple slingshots around Earth, Jupiter, and the Sun labeled “Oberth Kuiper Maneuver” is being presented by two people for a crowd}
And besides — it works in Kerbal Space Program.

wookiemeister said:

I was thinking of picking over the brains of the person in the astronomy club studying astronomy about this as well

Not everyone into astronomy is interested in orbital mechanics . Wikipedia has quite a few good articles on the topic. As well as the link just given, follow the various links on that page. It might be a good idea to have a look at Kepler’s laws of planetary motion and Hohmann transfer orbit , too.

wookiemeister said:

when you do calculations it makes me wonder if calculating machines for spaceflight need to have many decimal places to remove the errors that would come about as you start processing the numbers over and over to get a result.

I suppose that might be necessary for some calculation techniques applied to some types of trajectories, but generally, standard double precision floating point (~ 16 digits) is more than adequate.

PM 2Ring said:

wookiemeister said:

I was thinking of picking over the brains of the person in the astronomy club studying astronomy about this as well

Not everyone into astronomy is interested in orbital mechanics . Wikipedia has quite a few good articles on the topic. As well as the link just given, follow the various links on that page. It might be a good idea to have a look at Kepler’s laws of planetary motion and Hohmann transfer orbit , too.

wookiemeister said:

when you do calculations it makes me wonder if calculating machines for spaceflight need to have many decimal places to remove the errors that would come about as you start processing the numbers over and over to get a result.

I suppose that might be necessary for some calculation techniques applied to some types of trajectories, but generally, standard double precision floating point (~ 16 digits) is more than adequate.

depends how far you are going and how fast you are going I would say

gone

PM 2Ring said:

wookiemeister said:

I was thinking of picking over the brains of the person in the astronomy club studying astronomy about this as well

Not everyone into astronomy is interested in orbital mechanics . Wikipedia has quite a few good articles on the topic. As well as the link just given, follow the various links on that page. It might be a good idea to have a look at Kepler’s laws of planetary motion and Hohmann transfer orbit , too.

wookiemeister said:

when you do calculations it makes me wonder if calculating machines for spaceflight need to have many decimal places to remove the errors that would come about as you start processing the numbers over and over to get a result.

I suppose that might be necessary for some calculation techniques applied to some types of trajectories, but generally, standard double precision floating point (~ 16 digits) is more than adequate.

depends how far you are going and how fast you are going I would say

gone