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The great space program crash


steuben

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I was looking at the list of contracts, and the number of companies that have a space program is a little bit long. That in and of itself is not a problem. The real world is similar. Now those of us who are old enough, frelling 'eck like me, or know their computer history will remember The Great Video Game Crash of 1983.  TV Tropes and Wiki for those who don't

While the crash had several causes, one of the contributing factors was this one, "Non-video game companies (like Quaker Oats) produced [games]." In game we have Vac-Co Advanced Suction Systems, Maxo Construction Toys‎, Sean's Cannery, and O.M.B. Demolition Enterprises for example. Those are just the companies that the KSC has direct contact with. Each of those have active space programs of their own, given the R&R contracts that are issued.

Now using the Fermi approximation there are roughly 10 active frequently launching space programs.  For each program there are 1000 suppliers, abstracted away in terms of game mechanics. We can assume that only a quarter of those are exclusive for reasons of size, product, and space program specialization. Of the remaining we can assume that half have space contracting as a non-primary non-core roll. My slide ruler calculates that there are 37.50^H^H^H^H^H 3750, slide rulers don't do decimals very well, suppliers in that position.

This position and numbers appears to be similar to the situation of the video game industry before the crash. All it would take would be one E.T. the videogame level disaster and the whole of Kerbin's space industry would implode.

On the other hand assuming two or three generalist space programs and several slightly specialized to niche space programs the whole industry would be fairly disaster tolerant.

On the gripping hand however I am applying real world economics to a realm in which physics while analogous is different. There is little reason to expect it to apply.

 

 

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Dude. It's a video game about little green aliens launching physically-impossible spacecraft from a physically-impossible world that has one cluster of about twenty buildings on its entire surface. You might be over-thinking things. 

Oh, and Nano FTW! 

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20 minutes ago, J.Random said:

Seriously? I kinda doubt that you're reading this forum in emacs or vi.

Well, if he was reading it in Lynx, it's highly likely one of those is the editor configured for entering text in boxes.

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3 minutes ago, stratvox said:

Well, if he was reading it in Lynx, it's highly likely one of those is the editor configured for entering text in boxes.

I now need to try browsing the forums in Lynx...  Also Facebook...

Edited by regex
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38 minutes ago, steuben said:

All it would take would be one E.T. the videogame level disaster and the whole of Kerbin's space industry would implode.

Isn't that what happens when your rep hits negative 100 percent? It should be :D

EDIT: And Emacs is a pretty neat operating system, it's just a shame it doesn't have a good text editor. *ducks*

Edited by cantab
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15 minutes ago, cantab said:

Isn't that what happens when your rep hits negative 100 percent? It should be :D

EDIT: And Emacs is a pretty neat operating system, it's just a shame it doesn't have a good text editor. *ducks*

I'm quite that there is a vi clone in elisp.

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54 minutes ago, steuben said:

(...)

Now using the Fermi approximation there are roughly 10 active frequently launching space programs.  For each program there are 1000 suppliers, abstracted away in terms of game mechanics. We can assume that only a quarter of those are exclusive for reasons of size, product, and space program specialization. Of the remaining we can assume that half have space contracting as a non-primary non-core roll. My slide ruler calculates that there are 37.50^H^H^H^H^H 3750, slide rulers don't do decimals very well, suppliers in that position.

 

 

Well, assumption is the mother of all screwups, and that might be one example here. Observation of both Earth and Kerbin data indicates that there are actually very few suppliers. In KSP, most if not all contracts are actually from the suppliers themselves (such as the four examples you gave, OMB, Vac-co, Maxo and Sean's cannery, which all build parts).

So looks like it's a big free-for-all among the 20-so business entities in Kerbin!

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4 minutes ago, Curveball Anders said:

I'm quite that there is a vi clone in elisp.

Yes, it's Viper mode. It's a pretty good vim.

Also, there are addons for both Firefox and Chrome to add in either EMACS or vi keybindings. But then ^H, ^W, etc, actually work.

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What if all the companies were technically different but are really under the same programme, that way if one sub company fails the rest are protected. SpaceX is one example; https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/4ifvir/spacex_subsidiary_corporations/

Also lets not forget the way of the butterfly...

Spoiler

real_programmers.pngTitle text: Real programmers set the universal constants at the start such that the universe evolves to contain the disk with the data they want.

 

Edited by iLikeRovers
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You might be onto something...

...but E.T-sized disasters happen every day from my space program alone. I think the industry's solid. :D

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17 hours ago, alacrity said:

Forgive him father, he knows not what he says...

Amen

Hey, I got my first VCS in 1980! Right now I have a Light Sixer, two 4-Switch Woodies, a Vader and a 7800, plus about 95 cartridges and a Harmony SD cart. I also have 11 Atari 8-bit computers.

I know very well what I say. :wink: 

Oh, and I used text editors on VMS back in college in the 80's. They all sucked then. They still stuck now.

Edited by LameLefty
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