The Blow Stuff Up For Science Maneuver?

[Cryova]

I was watching some old Scott Manley videos a while ago, and he did something strange.

 

He basically crashed an empty stage into a planet, and collected science from this? I am pretty sure some part allows this kind of science or something. Am I just crazy, or is this an actual thing? If this is an actual thing, how do you do this?

[Jetski]

A few mods have this. BTSM has some "Crash stuff into Mun" style contracts, also a few mods (interstellar for one) have impactor type experiments.  Place probes around with them, crash stuff, and profit!

[LordKael]

1 hour ago, Cryova said:

how do you do this?

The specific mod SM used in the video you're referring to was the Interstellar mod. It has a MM patch for the Seismometer which adds a new experiment, the "impactor probe" data collection

[razark]

6 minutes ago, LordKael said:

The specific mod SM used in the video you're referring to was the Interstellar mod. It has a MM patch for the Seismometer which adds a new experiment, the "impactor probe" data collection

Do you attach the seismometer to a probe and crash it into the planet, or do you place a probe with the seismometer on the surface, and then crash something into the body?

[Streetwind]

4 hours ago, razark said:

Do you attach the seismometer to a probe and crash it into the planet, or do you place a probe with the seismometer on the surface, and then crash something into the body?

The latter. You need an intact, landed probe with a seismometer, and IIRC you need to toggle that seismometer to actively listen. Then you need to impact something else into the body the seismometer probe is landed on. After you have done so, you tell the seismometer to stop listening, upon which it presents you with a science result to transmit.

[RizzoTheRat]

Slightly off topic but IRL they only recently found the crash site of the Apollo 16 3rd stage on the moon, meaning they can now make use of the seismic data they logged of the impact nearly 44 years ago. 

http://www.space.com/31503-apollo-16-moon-rocket-crash-site-photo.html

[razark]

4 hours ago, Streetwind said:

The latter. You need an intact, landed probe with a seismometer, and IIRC you need to toggle that seismometer to actively listen. Then you need to impact something else into the body the seismometer probe is landed on. After you have done so, you tell the seismometer to stop listening, upon which it presents you with a science result to transmit.

Impressive.  Thanks for the answer.

[tomf]

The interstellar mod is a fairly large mod. If you are looking for a mod that has impact related experiments and nothing else you should consider my one.