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where it spent the last few weeks in orbit preparing for touch down on the Von Karman crater.

No relation, I'm assuming.

Well, if they forgot to include a docking port, they can always to up there an attach to it with an Advanced Grabbing Unit and transfer fuel over that way, right?

Disclaimer: I'm not running SteamOS or Steam Machine.

But I AM running Steam on Slackware64 and love, Love, LOVE IT!!

I just auto-got a bunch of new DLC for Kerbal Space Program.

Most fun I've had since Jumpman on the Commodore64.

Thanks Steam!

This is woman that Kerbal Space Program's "Valentina Kerman" is named after.

The hardest part of space travel is probably fuel economy which is why it makes little sense to see the booster rocket land on its own power. Sure, you can do it, but if you rely on your rocket engines entirely to decelerate (as the video clearly shows), you would need roughly double the fuel. Instead, what NASA and every other space agency has done, is to rely on parachutes and air resistance (yep, all the fire on the bottom of the shuttle, or a mercury capsule means that air resistance is actually slowing the spacecraft down). This is much more efficient. Another alternative would be to use the boosters for the final few seconds.

And yes, I learned this playing Kerbal Space Program and Elon should know better since he plays too;)

I thought that was ruled as the space kraken attacking your ship.

http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram...

How about Kerbal Space Program? The physics simulation is spot on. Folks from NASA (including Randall Munroe) to Elon Musk recommend it, yet it's also great for kids.

So after seeing the video, I thought, why not?

While not an astonishing success like SpaceX's (I am after all only one man with a dual core laptop or six, they have hundreds if not thousands of brains and supercomputers pouring out their wazoos), I did manage a water landing AND put a payload into orbit. Photo op here.

They probably just signed a contract with Jebediah Kerman's Junkyard and Spaceship Parts Co.

The unmanned shuttle will fly to a height of approximately 70 kilometers before splashing down in the Bay of Bengal. Oddly, the vehicle itself probably won't be recovered.

How can it be called a Shuttle if it's only going to be used once?

And while we are at it, since the beginning of "space" is generally accepted to be 100KM and this thing is only going up 70KM, the "space" part of its name is inaccurate too.

But I guess "space shuttle" sounds better than "big can we're chucking high up into the air and then letting sink into the ocean".

India does things on the cheap. This is what happens when your engineers have degrees from the school of Kerbal Space Program.

Eggrobin's WIP mod "Principia" implements N-body mechanics. It's pretty interesting, but also underlines why 2-body patched conics are a fine compromise for a game.

Forum thread: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogra...

For the latest build, lurk around #principia on Espernet and ask Egg when he's awake.

So what you're saying is, the world is a simulation centered right around Sol, and we're suffering from IEEE 754 floating-point imprecision ?

I think KSP found a fix for that.

Well if it were a simulation, it wouldn't really have a center, just one or more "cameras" creating observable datasets. I suspect "they" would have a "camera" near anything sentient to keep them from completely freaking out. Maybe once a sentient being can prove they are in a simulation, as a reward for their cleverness their consciousness will be transplanted from the simulation to the "real world" where they will join the ranks of the "gods". No doubt pure bullshit, but it's fun to think of such things.

The ISS was a huge waste of NASA money, costing as much as all of NASA's "space exploration activities" combined (source:). This prevented, killed and neutered many missions that would have produced genuine science. It was simply a mistake. So hooray, let's make a bigger one!

So what you're saying is, the world is a simulation centered right around Sol, and we're suffering from IEEE 754 floating-point imprecision ?

I think KSP found a fix for that.

Musk swears by Kerbal, says it helped him tremendously. I'm going to try that out now. https://kerbalspaceprogram.com...

I hope they tested in the proper program before the big announcement.

I highly recommend starting with the Kerbel Space Program to see if you have the proper vision and the right stuff to deal with aerospace concepts.

Dear BMW,

During cold weather the ignition timing on my car is out and makes is idle rough until I "reboot" it. I've replaced the cam and crank sensors, but it hasn't made a difference. It's not the MAF sensor, and when it's running rough my ODB reader says the ignition is retarded by about 10deg. I'm thinking of replacing the VANOS solenoids next, is this the correct course of action.

ps. I also asked this question on http://forum.kerbalspaceprogra... but didn't get a reply, why not?

Vanguard Technologies' EVA Parachute

Check out Kerbal Space Program. You can build rockets, send them into orbit, land on the moon, and learn about concepts like apoapsis, retrograde burns, orbital transfers, and learn astrophysics -- plus it's simple enough I've seen multiple dads who have a blast playing with their kids. It runs on Linux/Mac/Windows and has a good free demo.
 
...but does it really teach orbital mechanics? Oblig XKCD says yes;)

.. why doesn't the ISS have some sort of light maneuvering craft? A small 2-3 person craft could access satellites, do research away from the ISS, or even (with a slightly larger craft) do mapping and surveying missions of the moon.

Look up Delta V and get back to us with your handy 'little' spacecraft.

Untrue, they could have played Kerbal Space Program.

Of my new games, the ones I play the most at the moment are both in paid working status (with free options)

Kerbal Space Program $27 (Free Demo link) (now teaming up with NASA officially)
        A fantastic rocket sim builder/sandbox, now working on the career mode side of things, if for some reason you haven't herd of this then give it a shot, learn about orbital mechanics and have fun at the same time, or just see how many Kerbals you can crash into the moon in an hour.. This game will remind you just how hard real physics for your tiny CPU to crunch.

Factorio $13 (Free Demo link)
        You have been sent to a new world to establish a colony and start industrializing it for settlement.. unfortunately your ship crashes and you are isolated from any other survivors, using you ''advanced'' technology you will be mining resources, researching technologies, building infrastructure, automating production and fighting enemies so that you can reach the final goal of building a defensive space port. An ever improving 2d world with 3d models for a fantastic effect.

Older games, warning these are older games.. If you cant stand to do retro games, don't bother.

Master of Magic $6 @ GOG
          Fantasy 4X game, that once some of the bugs where sorted became one of the best fantasy 4X's ever.. Others have tried to copy, non have succeeded. All Green magic FTW!!

Master of Orion 2 $6 @ GOG comes with number 1 as well
          Space based 4X, AI is unfortunately lacking a bit, but still quite engaging, Silicods FTW!!!

Populous $6 @ GOG
            How the Sequels for Populous missed the mark so much is anyone's guess.. Damn it, update graphics, tweek sound a bit, keep the game play/spells the same.. pure win for all!! And I shall put this out there for all, the DOS Roland theme music is the best of the old school versions :P

Evil Genius $10 @ GOG
          Build your evil lair, send your minions out into the world to plot, teal money and recover cool artifacts, and finally take over the WORLD!! Why Despicable Me has not cloned this is totally beyond me..

Of my new games, the ones I play the most at the moment are both in paid working status (with free options)

Kerbal Space Program $27 (Free Demo link) (now teaming up with NASA officially)
        A fantastic rocket sim builder/sandbox, now working on the career mode side of things, if for some reason you haven't herd of this then give it a shot, learn about orbital mechanics and have fun at the same time, or just see how many Kerbals you can crash into the moon in an hour.. This game will remind you just how hard real physics for your tiny CPU to crunch.

Factorio $13 (Free Demo link)
        You have been sent to a new world to establish a colony and start industrializing it for settlement.. unfortunately your ship crashes and you are isolated from any other survivors, using you ''advanced'' technology you will be mining resources, researching technologies, building infrastructure, automating production and fighting enemies so that you can reach the final goal of building a defensive space port. An ever improving 2d world with 3d models for a fantastic effect.

Older games, warning these are older games.. If you cant stand to do retro games, don't bother.

Master of Magic $6 @ GOG
          Fantasy 4X game, that once some of the bugs where sorted became one of the best fantasy 4X's ever.. Others have tried to copy, non have succeeded. All Green magic FTW!!

Master of Orion 2 $6 @ GOG comes with number 1 as well
          Space based 4X, AI is unfortunately lacking a bit, but still quite engaging, Silicods FTW!!!

Populous $6 @ GOG
            How the Sequels for Populous missed the mark so much is anyone's guess.. Damn it, update graphics, tweek sound a bit, keep the game play/spells the same.. pure win for all!! And I shall put this out there for all, the DOS Roland theme music is the best of the old school versions :P

Evil Genius $10 @ GOG
          Build your evil lair, send your minions out into the world to plot, teal money and recover cool artifacts, and finally take over the WORLD!! Why Despicable Me has not cloned this is totally beyond me..

http://www.nbcnews.com/science/one-giant-leap-kerbalkind-spaceflight-sim-wins-geek-gift-award-2D11741994
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerbal_Space_Program
https://kerbalspaceprogram.com/contact.php

Yeah. Everyone knows (I thought) that the USSR had a good early lead.

Image that sums it up nicely: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/43907-Here-s-an-infographic-that-shows-the-space-race-in-it-s-historical-context

Assuming you're in a perfectly circular orbit around something with no atmosphere, if you shoot a bullet directly at it (perpendicular to orbit), the bullet will still keep losing altitude - because what other relative force would there be to increase the altitude?

Short answer: https://kerbalspaceprogram.com//. Not completely accurate, but a great way to learn basic orbital mechanics anyway.

Long answer: no, because you're moving sideways and so will the bullet. If you were to shoot a bullet towards the Sun from Earth orbit, the actual velocity vector (direction) of the bullet would be your initial motion (~29.8 km/s) + the velocity given to the bullet by the gun (a lot less, unless you have one hell of a gun). Actually hitting the Sun would require aiming backwards against the sideways (orbital) motion, but since the motion is so huge you can't cancel more than a tiny fraction of it. Not without huge-ass engines or taking advantage of chaos theory, anyway.

Go play Kerbal Space Program. It's fun and (sshh don't tell anyone:) educational. You will learn about escape velocity, Isp, Periapsis, Apoapsis, Orbital intercepts, aerobraking, etc. Oh and don't kill too many Kerbals while you're at it :)

There's an unlimited supply, they don't require oxygen or food, and they love going to the mun!

(For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, https://kerbalspaceprogram.com/, yes, it's on Linux;))

They might get more attention, and make it easier to understand their goals, if they called it Duna One.

Or game development.

Rockets such as this

I'm working on an unreasonable modded part right now, as a matter of fact. Ever hear about Project Orion?

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/28428-Orion-aka-Ol-Boom-boom

2. What I say is true. Go play this game a while and get back to me.

https://kerbalspaceprogram.com/

3. I'm aware of the counterintuitive stuff you can do with orbital slingshots. However, the maximum amount of velocity change you can get from a gravity assist by Mars is around 330 m/s (Niehoff, J. Spacecraft, 1966). To bring the side of the orbit opposite Mars from the Oort cloud down to Earth's orbit, you'll need to dump tens of thousands of m/s of orbital speed.

http://www.gravityassist.com/IAF3-2/Ref.%203-140.pdf

that launching a rocket via the Kerbal Space Program doesn't really count.

One can do 400m in KSP. If you're not snapping off spaceship parts you're too far away.

...will we see this in Kerbal Space Profram?

If you haven't checked out KSP yet, do it now. It is worth it.

Side note: I showed the demo to a middle school administrator at a yard sale I had a few months ago. She was so impressed, she decided to make the game part of the science curriculum.

Like I said, if you haven't checked it out, do it now. You will (probably) not go unimpressed.

As a new user of Open Office on Windows I am left wondering what's wrong with it, So far i've only needed to use Write and Calc but they have random crashes anywhere from 2 minutes into the program to 20 minutes, the Auto recover only saved information once in all that good thing I staged saving every few minutes. The spell checker just stops at times and nothing will happen so you have to restart and the copy past is very hit and miss as in at times you can not past, not from with in or from outside of OO.. For any application where you are paying ppl to do a job, that costs you $.

I can run MW3 with out issues, and Kerbal Space Program (very CPU intensive physics based, that can bring my system down to 3 seconds per frame) with out issues and KSP is in Alpha, sure I can "Get the job done" in Open Office, but I would not use it in any form of Business. Also the chosen Macro langue is painful at best, it may make sense to ppl with a lot of programming experience, but your general office staff or average Joe? no way..

Something simple, for example working out orbit periods, camera f-stops, ie. something you've an interest in. You can pull the basic maths from wikipedia articles. Then you can work on writing the code around them. From there you you can learn how to use GUI elements to make it fluffier - you can use datatables to display the results, GDI+ to draw graphical representations of results, etc.

Personally, I've always found it difficult to learn a new language by just reading about it and trying to follow examples. By having a target, no matter how simple helps me learn a lot faster. For example, I came across Kerbal Space Program a while ago, so I decided I needed some help planning orbits, transfers, etc. So I read up on orbital mechanics and wrote a couple of tools to help me visualise how to do things. In that case I decided to use Javascript because it was quick and dirty. It was also a great opportunity to learn to use the HTML5 Canvas to draw the Hohmann transfer diagram.

Go buy Kerbal Space Program, get a ship in orbit, then launch a second one to go chase after the first ship in orbit. Even if your launches are only a few hours apart, it's difficult to match orbit (speeding up to "catch up" with the ISS causes your orbit to go all egg shaped).
 
I've been playing that damn game for about 3 weeks now and I have yet to successfully complete an orbital rendezvous. Matching orbits is hard. Space is hard. If this shit were free and easy, North Korea would have a manned space station already.
 
NASA makes it look easy, but the fact of the matter is you've got objects zipping through low earth orbit at tens of thousands (17,500 mph generally), and if you're off by "only" 500mph, well, hope you're not on a collision course with the station. Imagine roughly the same result of your car hitting a brick wall at 500mph.
 
TL;DR you've got to launch that shit when you have to, no ifs, ands, or buts. Apollo moon missions don't have a rendezvous element so they had the option of launching during prime time.

Looks like he took some "inspiration" from a real game: http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/

http://www.kerbalspaceprogram.com/

KSP is a game where the player creates and manages his own space program.
Build spacecraft, fly them, and try to help the Kerbals to fulfill their ultimate mission of conquering space.

Version 0.13 is free for now and forever, but subsequent versions will be paid for. Currently they are selling for $9/copy, but this price will increase up to the final sale price as development progresses. Once you've paid, you have access to all future versions.

I highly recommend it -- I've wasted many hours on this, it's just great!

I'm not sure if I'm a good astronaut, but I'm hell of a good guy to design space shuttles. I've been playing Kerbal Space Program lately so I know this stuff. If someone is a good astronaut contact me!

I'll stick with Kerbal Space Program

http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/

I got this game. Learned how to put a rocket into orbit. Pretty cool.

Could the Russians use a little sim training, perhaps? Orbital insertion is really not that hard, once you get the hang of it.