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Mainsails are stronger than i expected...

SoldierHair

By SoldierHair
in KSP1 Discussion

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kiwi1960

kiwi1960

Posted
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STOP!!! I have a headache now....

All these big numbers, going back in time but really, seconds pass... and ..... I cannot stand it... [click click] {BOOM} (thud!)

:)

or, with time travel, should that be (THUD) (click click) (BOOM!)

:(

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Jim DiGriz

Jim DiGriz

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And that is where I get confused... Because it didn't really take 130 kerbin years for it to travel that far, only it will take 130 years for kerbin to observe that it had traveled that far. If somehow it could travel back to kerbin at the same speed it will have only been gone for 34 seconds but it will have returned 130 years before kerbin could observe it coming about and thats where my head explodes.

From Kerbin's reference frame (again not assuming game physics, but assuming special relativity), it really does take 130 Kerbin years for it to get there. It is *also* going to take another 130 years for any signal to get back to Kerbin, so the round trip would be 260 years for anyone who waiting on Kerbin. Assuming the decoupler instantly turns around and comes back, though, then it will have only taken the decoupler another 17 seconds to travel back to Kerbin.

In special relativity, the shortest distance between two points isn't a straight line, the *longest* distance between two points is an unaccelerated reference frame (straight line). Here, though, "longest" is the time spent getting between those two points in seconds, not distance in meters.

If you graph the two trajectories out:


time
|   B
|   |\
|   | \
|   |  \
|   |  /
|   | /
|   |/
|   A
+--------------- space

We look at that and it looks like the crooked path is clearly longer. But in SR, rulers are wonky and there's only 17 ticks on the two legs out and back, while there are 260 * 86400 * 365, roughly, ticks on the straight line between A and B. The "ruler" here, though, is a clock making those two trips. And the difference is that one of the clocks goes out and back and the path is not straight. If the decoupler never decelerated then you've got two straight lines and the situation is symmetric and Kerbal observes clocks on the decoupler as running slow as it goes away at nearly light speed, while the decoupler observes clocks on Kerbin as running slow as Kerbin retreats at nearly light speed.

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kahlzun

kahlzun

Posted
Posted
From Kerbin's reference frame (again not assuming game physics, but assuming special relativity), it really does take 130 Kerbin years for it to get there. It is *also* going to take another 130 years for any signal to get back to Kerbin,

The thing that really trips you out, if you think about it is that if it did turn around and head back to Kerbin, they'd be seeing the light from it leaving and returning at the same time...

Also, the light doesn't have to bounce from Kerbin for them to see it, it'd only take 130 years total for the photons to catch up.

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SoldierHair

SoldierHair

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I'm going to try to fire it from orbit later today, but i don't think it will work.What i didn't managed to take a picture of (since the game froze) was the vehicle itself getting reentry effects upon launching the projectile (which i was focusing on).

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SoldierHair

SoldierHair

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Sorry for double posting, but I also made a video.I also up-armored the front of the vehicle, added extra plates, spaced armor.

The results were less violent this time, ...but i still thing i destroyed the universe.

Recorded it in 720p, but apparently YouTube sees it as 1080p.

It seems like it hit something this time...

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Hodo

Hodo

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Looks like he's travelling at roughly 1.57*10^16 m/s. Since light travels at 3*10^8 m/s, that means he's exceeding the speed of light by a factor of 52 320 000. In other words, he's traveling at (5.23*10^7)c.

Time dilation works only as you're approaching the speed of light, and doesn't say anything about what happens beyond it (in fact, I believe the equations then involve complex numbers). Theoretically, you'd move backwards in time when traveling above the speed of light like that, but I'm no expert in the field.

The only force that is capable of such a dramatic acceleration like that would be the dreaded Space Kraken, which the OP appears to have woken from its slumber.

So in short he created the "Warp 5 Gun".

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Arsonik

Arsonik

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Posted

I experimented a bit with shooting Kerbals (no rocket parts) into the air at various angles after reading this post. The highest straight shot upward I managed was 6km with some KW engines. Im curious if anyone has a craft that can do better? I think I'm going to reinstall nova puch for the 10,000kN engine and try kerbal launching with that. I'd like to construct a Kerbal Kannon that can send a kerbal(s) from KSC to the island runway in one blast. :cool:

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