Jump to content

So my ship reached 10% of light speed

Fierce Wolf

By Fierce Wolf
in KSP1 Discussion

 Share

Recommended Posts

Fierce Wolf

Fierce Wolf

Posted
Posted

This is the story of the first kerbal to reach 10% of the speed of light last night. This is the story of a TRUE (and tragic) HERO.

His name was forgotten (since I did not take notes or screenshots) but he will be remembered...this heroic kerbal was not even in my rooster, I had just rescued him from orbit of the Mun in a Mk I plane hull with my automated drone. The claw grappled perfectly...or not so much, but still good enough. The drone and the hero flew off the Mun to Kerbin in an elliptical orbit, and after the first desacceleration in the atmosphere, I tried to adjust the claw using the Free Pivot option. It was hard, since it started moving everywhere except where i wanted it. Knocking the reaction wheels off ended unexpectedly, and as i experimented one more time turning them on...it happened. IT. HAPPENED.

The claw started rotating the Mk I faster and faster and faster, and suddenly...the void.

Wait, where is the drone? Only the capsule was there. And where is the capsule? Midway to Eve, reaching speeds of 350000 m/s. The poor hero attempted an EVA to evaluate his new conditions, only to find everything he knew passing by. A minute later he was already out of Kerbol system, on his way to the stars.

 

 

Fly safe, unnamed hero. We have you in our hearts.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Guest

Guest

Posted
Posted

Has it been shown that an ARM K-drive is impossible, or has it just been impossible to create one so far?

I'd expect that same-vessel interactions and robotic parts make for much better K-drives though so perhaps there isn't a point anymore...

Link to comment
Share on other sites
KerikBalm

KerikBalm

Posted
Posted

This thread just fills me with fear for KSP2 and the drives used for interstellar travel...

4 hours ago, Geonovast said:

This would be about 0.1% the speed of light, actually.  Light is really fast.  299,792,458 m / s fast.

Still, an impressive bug.  Too bad that power cannot be harnessed.

Yea... even if the drives start running into the tyranny of the rocket equation at 5% c, that's still a dV of about 15,000,000 m/s - well over 1,000x what one can practically get and use in KSP1

Link to comment
Share on other sites
pmborg

pmborg

Posted
Posted (edited)
7 hours ago, Fierce Wolf said:

This is the story of the first kerbal to reach 10% of the speed of light last night. This is the story of a TRUE (and tragic) HERO.

His name was forgotten (since I did not take notes or screenshots) but he will be remembered...this heroic kerbal was not even in my rooster, I had just rescued him from orbit of the Mun in a Mk I plane hull with my automated drone. The claw grappled perfectly...or not so much, but still good enough. The drone and the hero flew off the Mun to Kerbin in an elliptical orbit, and after the first desacceleration in the atmosphere, I tried to adjust the claw using the Free Pivot option. It was hard, since it started moving everywhere except where i wanted it. Knocking the reaction wheels off ended unexpectedly, and as i experimented one more time turning them on...it happened. IT. HAPPENED.

The claw started rotating the Mk I faster and faster and faster, and suddenly...the void.

Wait, where is the drone? Only the capsule was there. And where is the capsule? Midway to Eve, reaching speeds of 350000 m/s. The poor hero attempted an EVA to evaluate his new conditions, only to find everything he knew passing by. A minute later he was already out of Kerbol system, on his way to the stars.

 

 

Fly safe, unnamed hero. We have you in our hearts.

Hello,

This is a great feat, when one or more Kerbals, get that speed and go to another world in another star :)

Maybe you will find this thread helpful ;)

Currently I am working on a new ship that is a bit ugly but is by far my best InterStelarShip and break all my previous records for a 100% reusable!

This is very important for me, make a ship that can jump, from one star to another... in theory indefinitely.

ne6lCod.png

Without using Warpdrive of course!

Cheers!

 

 

Edited by pmborg
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Mike Mars

Mike Mars

Posted
Posted (edited)
23 hours ago, pmborg said:

Hello @Sky Whale

Please note that the unit refereed is not meters (m).

Speed-of-light = 299,792.458 km/s

 

I thought speed of light was 299,792,458 meters per second

or 299,792.5 kilometers per second

or 182,282 miles per second?

Given ratio of miles to kilometers, the above seems right.

 

Edited by Mike Mars
spelling
Link to comment
Share on other sites
pmborg

pmborg

Posted
Posted (edited)
1 hour ago, KerikBalm said:

I don't understand what you are referring to. Sky whale was not the one that didn't get the units wrong when converting speed in m/s to c

Thanks for the remark, but I think its clear now for all now :)

Edited by pmborg
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Sky Whale

Sky Whale

Posted
Posted
On 9/18/2019 at 3:42 PM, Mike Mars said:

I thought speed of light was 299,792,458 meters per second

or 299,792.5 kilometers per second

or 182,282 miles per second?

Given ratio of miles to kilometers, the above seems right.

 

Its's really just a matter of consistent usage of units in the math. The Photon doesn't care how we define it's movements/existence. :rolleyes:

Luckily for us, the base SI unit for length (m) is defined in terms of the distance light travels in some unit time (1/299,792,458 seconds) :D

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metre

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_of_light

On 9/17/2019 at 12:08 PM, AHHans said:

What?

Are you an astronomer? ;)

HPC Engineer with a strong penchant for physics :D

I've worked with a lot of eccentric professor types... maybe its rubbed off on me..

Link to comment
Share on other sites
AHHans

AHHans

Posted
Posted
3 hours ago, Sky Whale said:
On 9/17/2019 at 9:08 PM, AHHans said:

Are you an astronomer? ;)

HPC Engineer with a strong penchant for physics :D

Well, my question was a joke, but I guess it was pretty much an inside joke. My point is that astronomical measurements are notoriously imprecise compared to other fields of physics. Which is understandable, you cannot easily e.g. prepare a number of main sequence stars in a lab to really measure their properties. And while an error (aka measurement uncertainty!) of several orders of magnitude is unlikely, errors of a factor of "a few" can happen.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
  • 1 month later...
Pds314

Pds314

Posted
Posted (edited)
On 9/16/2019 at 11:53 AM, KerikBalm said:

This thread just fills me with fear for KSP2 and the drives used for interstellar travel...

Yea... even if the drives start running into the tyranny of the rocket equation at 5% c, that's still a dV of about 15,000,000 m/s - well over 1,000x what one can practically get and use in KSP1

We can easily get 15 km/s what do you mean? Ion drives have 40 km/s exhaust velocity. Just bolt an ion drive to some fuel tanks and RTGs, 4x timewarp, and let it burn boatloads of fuel overnight. 100 km/s is well within possibility.

 

And even without ion drives, my high speed mission to Duna used a pretty crazy amount of Delta-V. 3500 for launch. 7500 for NTR transfer, something like 1500 for Duna ascent. And about 6000 to return to Kerbin. That's at least 17000 Delta-V without even considering the possible extra fuel with no lander.

Edited by Pds314
Link to comment
Share on other sites
KerikBalm

KerikBalm

Posted
Posted
9 hours ago, Pds314 said:

We can easily get 15 km/s what do you mean?

...

my high speed mission to Duna used a pretty crazy amount of Delta-V. 3500 for launch. 7500 for NTR transfer, something like 1500 for Duna ascent. And about 6000 to return to Kerbin. That's at least 17000 Delta-V without even considering the possible extra fuel with no lander.

I should have been more specific, and clarified that I was talking about dV from a single stage.

I wasn't talking about 15km/s multi stage designs. Of course an eve mission requires more than that.

You mentioned a multi stage mission getting a paltry 17km/s... But none of those stages get close to 1/1000th of 5% of c.

Sure you can easily get 15km/s from an ion stage, but I would argue that such dV is nit practical to use. You mentioned "4x timewarp, and let it burn boatloads of fuel overnight" and I argue that isnt practical.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
This thread is quite old. Please consider starting a new thread rather than reviving this one.

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
 Share
Go to topic listing
×
×
  • Create New...