#1 - THIS IS MY ROCKET. THERE ARE MANY OTHERS LIKE IT, BUT THIS ONE IS MINE.
You're probably not aware, but there's a very under-developed game which has been prematurely released to the public. Half of the functions in the game - if you can even call it that - don't work, so the sole purpose is to design and build your own rocket, then through a tedious process of trail and error over many hours, attempt to get it into space in conditions so realistic that you actually have to read up on elementary rocket science and memorize orbiting trajectories in order to succeed...
... and when I say 'succeed', there's no real objective. Nothing happens if you get into orbit. Furthermore, there's nothing to see - it's space, of course. It's pretty empty by its definition.
All in all, not only is it a fairly pointless game, but it's barely even a game. And whichever way you look at it, it's frustratingly difficult.
Guys, I'd like to introduce you to the Kerbal Space Program, and it's the best thing I've ever downloaded.
We're going on a little journey.
As mentioned, the Kerbal Space Program game/simulator is still very much in development by an Indy team who are offering it up for free. At the time of writing they've just announced that they're charging modestly as of the next major update, which is more than fair, but if you do bag it while it's free do consider donating if you enjoy it.
Despite being hard to sum up in an exciting way on paper, let me just say that it's got all the charm and addictive qualities as that best-selling game featuring avian creatures of an irate disposition. As far as I'm concerned, if it's this good in early dev, the final version will be a very strong contender to Minecraft's throne.
With such heady praise, you're probably wondering what the deal is. In the game, you start off on planet Kearth (orbited by the Mun) in a warehouse full of rocket parts. You're free to play around as you wish, designing the perfect rocket which has a suitable fuel/weight ratio and is also easy enough to pilot without falling to bits on the way up, bursting into flames or spinning out of control.
The ultimate purpose of this is up to you. Perhaps you just want to get into Kearth's orbit and successfully land again. Maybe you're looking to put a satellite into space. Or you might have your sights set further - cross the empty void and get into the Mun's orbit, for instance. Alternatively, you could attempt to pull off the trickiest move currently in the game (until new planets and features arrive) which is landing on the moon and getting back to Kearth without a hitch with your space travellers in one piece...
... Yep, this is manned space flight. You'll have three brave souls on board.
Let's meet our intrepid heroes - Bill Kerman, Bob Kerman and Jebediah Kerman.
Oh right.
They're utter retards. It's a good job I'll be controlling the rocket.
Though perhaps a little humility is required here. For as much as I'm an understated rocket scientist/astrophysicist first (don't even know if my close friends are aware of that) and a brilliant video game writer second, I'll let you into a little expert secret - getting a heavy and highly explosive object above escape velocity to a height of 70 kilometers and traveling fast enough to fall past the planet in a stable elliptical orbit isn't as easy as it sounds.
Before we get into this session of Iron Man Mode, here's a video of me having gotten it woefully wrong on a previous outing. For the record I was trying to put a satellite into space.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXXVzzSGU2Q
I'll give you a quick summary of what transpired as it may not be immediately apparent what's going on, or you may have chosen not to watch it. Christ, I don't know what medium you kids want your content in these days. Do you prefer written word or video? Want me to 'twitter' it at you? Send you blog posts on the back of postcards from Scarborough? Should I include a suggestive photo of myself? Because if so, your audacity is not welcome here but either way I'll make damned sure you get that photo in the next post.
Anyway, down to the play-by-play account of this early mission before I decided to pick up the game on the blog.
1. You can usually tell if a mission will fail in the first ten seconds if any one of three major problems occur - the rocket topples over on the launch pad, vital bits fall off, or it instantly veers off in terrifying directions despite all attempts to pull it back. Thankfully, none of those three common things happen!
2. The fourth common thing happens instead. The rocket nearly explodes.
3. For some reason it doesn't occur to me that the impractically large first-stage rocket I strapped on the bottom of the main rocket might overheat somewhat, blowing up said rocket. I neglect to keep my eye on the orange rocket gauge on the left, which rockets... er, which increases up to the critical danger level within seconds.
4. I did what probably looked like a comedy double-take at the overheat bar before waving my hands in a panicked Wallace and Grommit fashion. Just before the whole thing explodes like an X-Factor single at Christmas, I manage to kill the main engine's throttle. This slows the problem, but does not stop it - I strapped four 'solid state' boosters onto the main rocket booster which can't be turned off once fired. These will keep going until they run out of fuel, and it's their firestream which is causing the main tank to go all gnarly on me. Yikes! The other problem is that having shut off the main engine, I now don't have enough thrust to carry on going in my chosen direction (which I refer to as 'up') and at present I'm only about, I dunno, six feet in the air.
5. Two options - I can either fall back to the ground and explode, or increase thrust to go chosen-directionwards ('upwards') and also explode. Neither option is promising, but...
6. Hah, screw you, two options! What if I eject those problem boosters? I totally do that.
7. Option Three = Also explode.
Realization very quickly dictates that while it was good in theory, those boosters are still firing on all cylinders and once released, they won't fly with the ship but against it. Literally against it - they spin around and fly into the ship.
8. All I can see is smoke, flame, and engine parts - all the stuff you don't want to see at a rocket launch. Although I guess you do want to see those things because every rocket launch, successful or not, features smoke, flame and engine parts. But you know what I mean. This was in the bad way. My three brave Kerbals die with their... oh, they're still alive? How?
The ship drops out of the smoke cloud in two parts. The explosion seems to have neatly bisected the stack, and my dudes are still happy in the upper capsule (happy may be a strong word judging by their faces).
There's still time to save this. I jettison the useless spare fuel tank below the capsule, as well as the satellite above it. 900m above the ground, I'm grateful to find that the capsule's parachute wasn't damaged in the accident and eject it.
Then sum fyzzics happens, innit.
Follow the fatal logic.
The satellite is about ten meters directly above the capsule, and both are falling at the same rate. Get you exercise books open: if a train leaves Liverpool at ten meters per second, and another train leaves Liverpool at the same speed a second afterwards, will they collide? No, since they'll always be ten meters apart. What don't you want to do? If you answer 'rapidly slow the train in front', please proceed to the front for a gold star.
With the satellite falling above me, I open the capsule's parachute. After a moment or two it opens fully, and when it does, the capsule suddenly stops falling so quickly.
The half-tonne satellite above, however, does not.
And the twain become destined to meet.
Violently.
I'M SO CONFIDENT ABOUT PLAYING THIS IN IRON MAN MODE
As per site rules, if I fail even once at getting my Kerbals to space via a program during the following Kerbal Space Program session, it's curtains for the blog as well as the hopes and dreams of Bill, Bob and Jeb.
In subsequent blog posts, I shall be designing my rocket from the ground up to fulfil a series of missions. In turn, these will be:
1) Sub-orbital flight - essentially trying to develop a rocket that doesn't blow itself to smithereens the second an air molecule looks at it the wrong way, and bringing the team back down safely.
2) Getting into orbit - breaking the confines of Kearth's gravitational prison, giving it a middle finger as we achieve a nice circular orbit. Then returning to the safety of Kearth's gravitational prison, much like a teenager who moves into his own place so he can be himself before quickly realising that the average rent is, like, hundreds of pounds.3) Satellite mission - same as mission two, but involves designing a complicated , multi-stage rocket for delivering the un-aerodynamic and heavy equipment to space.
4) Munar fly-by - like the triumphant Apollo missions before us, we'll be attempting to traverse the void and circle the Mun before landing on her. This mission will be highly risky as it involves precision translation between two orbits, and a lack of fuel for trajectory correction will result in us helplessly flying out into deep space. As such, make sure you go to the toilet before we leave.
Finally...
If all of the above goes well (I can assure you now that it won't), I will attempt a landing on the moon, as well as a safe return...
And if you weren't fortunate enough to be around in 1969, you're now in luck; if I make it to the final mission, I will be webcasting it live from the site with commentary as I go.
