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Just a fun little post here thanking the game and community for the added enjoyment of last night’s space x launch. I got a phone call from my fiancé asking if I saw the weird plane in the sky. I turned to look and was struck with awe and fear as I saw a massive light with an even bigger tail. My brain quickly raced through the possibilities of what it could be. Was it a returning space shuttle? No, NASA hasn’t launched a shuttle in years. A meteor? No, we would have heard of it’s approach. Oh god could it be a missile? My fears grew as I saw something detach from the craft. “Oh no, it’s a warhead” I thought. Then after that 10 seconds of confusion and fear, my 500+ hours of KSP experience kicked in. It was a rocket!!! I quickly ran through what I was seeing: The contrail due to it reaching the colder upper atmosphere, the gap in the contrail due to throttle down, the throttle up once it had gained enough altitude to not have atmospheric resistance, the separation of the main stage, the ignition of the secondary engine, and the spinning of the main stage in space and it’s eventual reentry into earths atmosphere. I called my friends and family, most of whom were scared it was a UFO or missile themselves, and explained to them exactly what was going on, all thanks to an indie video game. Since then I have been obsessed with watching footage on social media, the space X stream of the launch (link below) and KSP videos. It was truly an awesome thing to see but even more awesome to scientifically understand what I was seeing. To be able to break down each step in the process but also to understand why it was happening. Thanks to this game a cool experience turned into an amazing one. Thank you Kerbal Space Program for being such a great game that I was able to take experience from a game and turn it into understanding of an actual rocket launch. This is my favorite game I have ever played and now, thanks to Space x, I love it even more. See you in the skies!