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Orbiter Space Flight Simulator is now open source

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Re: Orbiter Space Flight Simulator is now open source

#61

Post by austinl »

zamadatix wrote: post #59
austinl wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a similar experience when playing Kerbal for the first time in high school. I thought that NASA got to the moon by simply thrusting in a straight line from Earth in a way that would intersect with the moon's orbit and boy was I wrong! But now I've found that most people I talk to about this — that also weren't alive during the space race where this was regularly explained on television — have the same naive ide…

That's actually the easiest way to get to the Mun in my opinion. No need to plan anything anything just shoot straight up. If you don't get an orbital encounter initially just keep shooting up until you do, it'll happen many times before you reach Kerbin Escape velocity. No need to time anything or plan certain maneuvers. Basically shoot upwards until you get an encounter, speed up until it auto slows you down near t…

Yeah! This was another great realization from KSP — figuring out that the naive way is possible, but the delta V required to do it is absurd.

Here's a video of a KSP speed-run to the Mun and back in 2 hours using this method (with 10K m/s total delta V — I think Jeb takes 34Gs at some point, which is about 5-10x what normal astronauts feel): https://youtu.be/0dx7ScJSAwo

Re: Orbiter Space Flight Simulator is now open source

#63

Post by wedesoft »

Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #48
wedesoft wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you meant to say "pointing the nose to the space station in 50 km and applying thrust towards it turns out to be a sure way to NOT get to that station" Edited: made mistake as well ;)

Yeah, my bad english. Used word 'thrust' to describe a burn in the opposite direction, totally forgetting that thrust is a reactionary force. :-/

Ah, I see. Not so sure myself now.

Re: Orbiter Space Flight Simulator is now open source

#64

Post by BitwiseFool »

austinl wrote: post #49
Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #36

Oh, fond memories of it. It was the first time when I understood that when you fly to the Moon, not only you have to cross the Moon's orbit, but you have to do it when Moon itself is nearby. If you are 1/4 orbital period ahead of it, you are screwed. It also ruined space movies like "Gravity" for me, because pointing the nose to the space station in 50 km and applying thrust towards it turns out to be a sure way to N…

I had a similar experience when playing Kerbal for the first time in high school. I thought that NASA got to the moon by simply thrusting in a straight line from Earth in a way that would intersect with the moon's orbit and boy was I wrong! But now I've found that most people I talk to about this — that also weren't alive during the space race where this was regularly explained on television — have the same naive ide…

I love KSP. No other videogame has given me such a sense of Pride and Accomplishment™.

I was once asked to describe KSP and the best answer I could come up with is: "It's a game about speeding up and slowing down".

Re: Orbiter Space Flight Simulator is now open source

#65

Post by stackedinserter »

jylam wrote: post #37
larodi wrote: post #34

another open source project is born only after it is basically dead or is about to die in its closed-source form. out of curiosity - which other open source projects do you know, that have not started as open source?

Blender, Firefox and OpenOffice have, from the top of my head.

Blender didn't start as opensource project.

Re: Orbiter Space Flight Simulator is now open source

#67

Post by zamadatix »

Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #60
zamadatix wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's actually the easiest way to get to the Mun in my opinion. No need to plan anything anything just shoot straight up. If you don't get an orbital encounter initially just keep shooting up until you do, it'll happen many times before you reach Kerbin Escape velocity. No need to time anything or plan certain maneuvers. Basically shoot upwards until you get an encounter, speed up until it auto slows you down near t…

That is only possible if you have engines and fuel capable of sustaining a powered flight. We puny humans so far don't have it.

You don't need to sustain thrust the entire time you just need to reach a significant portion of escape velocity energy early in your launch (which is what most launches need anyways just this time you need slightly more energy than the efficient way). This is not something we have trouble doing, for reference we launched New Horizons directly into above escape velocity speed with an Atlas V rocket. The only reason we haven't done that kind of launch to the moon in real life is it's far cheaper and more efficient to do that "normally" not because we couldn't.

Re: Orbiter Space Flight Simulator is now open source

#68

Post by coptun »

zamadatix wrote: post #59
austinl wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a similar experience when playing Kerbal for the first time in high school. I thought that NASA got to the moon by simply thrusting in a straight line from Earth in a way that would intersect with the moon's orbit and boy was I wrong! But now I've found that most people I talk to about this — that also weren't alive during the space race where this was regularly explained on television — have the same naive ide…

That's actually the easiest way to get to the Mun in my opinion. No need to plan anything anything just shoot straight up. If you don't get an orbital encounter initially just keep shooting up until you do, it'll happen many times before you reach Kerbin Escape velocity. No need to time anything or plan certain maneuvers. Basically shoot upwards until you get an encounter, speed up until it auto slows you down near t…

Nah the easiest way is just to get in low kerbin orbit, timewarp until you see the mun come over the horizon, then burn prograde. No manouver nodes necessary.

Re: Orbiter Space Flight Simulator is now open source

#69

Post by coptun »

afterburner wrote: post #57
Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #36

Oh, fond memories of it. It was the first time when I understood that when you fly to the Moon, not only you have to cross the Moon's orbit, but you have to do it when Moon itself is nearby. If you are 1/4 orbital period ahead of it, you are screwed. It also ruined space movies like "Gravity" for me, because pointing the nose to the space station in 50 km and applying thrust towards it turns out to be a sure way to N…

Even just knowing basic physics ruined Gravity for me, let alone orbital dynamics.

The most unrealistic part of Gravity isn't the orbital mechanics, it's the part where she gets out of a spacesuit without assistance from others in 10 seconds flat.

Re: Orbiter Space Flight Simulator is now open source

#70

Post by coptun »

shakow wrote: post #2

The Orbiter Space Simulator ( http://orbit.medphys.ucl.ac.uk/ ) has been one of the major realistic-ish space simulators of the decade. Development has slowed down in the last years due to the obligations of its sole author, so seeing it be open-sourced with a free license (MIT) is a great opportunity to rekindle its development! It seems that the first priorities would be to upgrade the code to 64-bits and transitio…

Should be vulkan or opengl to make it more cross platform.
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