To The Mun and Back: A Tale of KSP, NASA and Asteroids

[SQUAD]

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<div class="_wk mbm"><span class="userContent"><strong>Polygon</strong> writer, <strong>Charlie Hall</strong> spent a week with us seeing the sights, experiencing <strong>KerbalKon</strong> as it happened and getting to know the story of <em><strong>Kerbal Space Program</strong></em>. <br/><br/> You may find out some things you never knew about about the game’s history, where we are today and the seemingly bright future, which includes <strong>NASA</strong>-partnered content.<br/><br/> LINK: <strong><a href="http://bit.ly/1bsSYai" rel="nofollow nofollow" target="_blank"><a href="http://bit.ly/1bsSYai">http://bit.ly/1bsSYai</a></a></strong></span></div>

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[montyben101]

Hmm if the asteroid mission promotion is true then we might be seeing asteroids sooner than we think... I hope!!

[The Destroyer]

Wow, that was amazing story!

[One-Way Films]

Wow! I learnt quite a bit from that! Thanks for the link, and good job, Squad!

[Woopert]

Heard about this from Scott Manley on Twitter. Amazing that NASA is taking interest in KSP and what it is capable of doing (in terms of educating your brain)

[NovaSilisko]

Ah... a bittersweet read for me but nice to see asteroids, and even nicer to see the game getting attention from actual NASA!

(The mission concept cleaaarrllyy took inspiration from Rendezvous With Roche though! )

If this asteroid is in solar orbit, I wonder how the rendezvous and return will work? Attempting to rendezvous with stuff in solar orbit tlday usually leads to stuff jumping around by tens of kilometers when you get close, so I wonder if there are some orbit precision increases on the way, or if the asteroid will be a special type of celestial body that can be pushed...

Edited January 27, 2014 by NovaSilisko

[metaphor]

Ah... a bittersweet read for me but nice to see asteroids, and even nicer to see the game getting attention from actual NASA!

(The mission concept cleaaarrllyy took inspiration from Rendezvous With Roche though! )

If this asteroid is in solar orbit, I wonder how the rendezvous and return will work? Attempting to rendezvous with stuff in solar orbit tlday usually leads to stuff jumping around by tens of kilometers when you get close, so I wonder if there are some orbit precision increases on the way, or if the asteroid will be a special type of celestial body that can be pushed...

At first I though that's exactly what the article was talking about, Rendezvous with Roche. But then I realized it's not actually that old and this asteroid would be something in the future. Good read.

[frizzank]

Awesome can't wait for real working asteroids!!

[Rowsdower]

Hmm if the asteroid mission promotion is true then we might be seeing asteroids sooner than we think... I hope!!

Oh, it's true. It's darn true! We'll have further details about this way on down the road, but we're glad we can finally talk about it with everyone.

[czokletmuss]

A downloadable mission pack, made in partnership with NASA, is in the works that will allow players to put Kerbals on an asteroid. It will be one of the most complex and dangerous missions in an already difficult game.

Players will first have to launch a spacecraft to fly alongside the asteroid, the equivalent of parallel parking one missile next to another. Then they will have to push the giant rock into a stable orbit around the Kerbal's home planet without creating an extinction-level impact below. Finally, they'll need to safely land on it.

Holy moly! NASA and Squad working together? DLC with asteroid mission? This is fantastic!

Besides that, this was a very interesting article to read, which let one to see Squad and their work at KSP in a different light. I hope Squad will earn tons of money thanks to KerbalEdu and get more prestige thanks to cooperation with NASA. Best of luck, guys - you are awesome!

It was the best spent $18 ever.

[Paul Kingtiger]

The NASA mission sounds amazing! Really looking forward to that, and if that's the sort of thing you're going to do with DLC then I'm very exciting about that future as well!

[Caelib]

Yes, this sounds great!

[regex]

I look forward to many extinction-level events.

"I accidentally Kerbin"

[MajorThomas]

It was the best spent $18 ever.

Heck, to me even the $27 was an incredible bargain. Squad has captured something powerful enough to put some wind back into NASA's sails!!

[acrain116]

It's crazy to see how quickly the game is spreading. I don't even want to call it a game anymore, it's a straight-up simulator. NASA should include little 3D prints of Jeb into their payloads whenever they launch their next project.

[plainawesome]

Oh man, I can't wait for the asteroid mission to come out.

[Seshins]

me too! looking fordward to getting more info about this. mainly, when!

[Xacktar]

That was a really nice article. I had not heard any of the background about Squad and how the game came about. Pretty awesome stuff.

[ArmchairGravy]

Great article! Very interesting read on Squad's past and future. Their risk-taking and passion is very inspirational.

[LiveHereNow]

I'm stoked about asteroids. More celestial variety and the concept of "pushing" an orbiting body is intriguing. Very cool news... can't wait!

[TheSuperintendnt]

It's a great idea but I hope significant optimizations and/or multicore support will be added along side so that I can actually do it!

[fireflower]

It's a great idea but I hope significant optimizations and/or multicore support will be added along side so that I can actually do it!

Have you looked at a graphics reduction mod or texture compression mod?