Walking on anything while on EVA

[sashan]

After looking at all those rotating habitat mods I've got one idea. What about making a plugin to allow Kerbals to walk anywhere, if some kind of force is pushing them towards the object? Thus we would be able to walk on rotating stations, on ships under acceleration etc. Same for ladders.

Not sure if it's possible tho.

[hab136]

People have been asking for that for a long time, here's 2013: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/58454-Magnetic-shoes-for-kerbals

There are sticky landing gear, like SQUID landing legs: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/53961-0-23-5-HL-Mods-on-Curse or Critter Crawler: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/82341

[Kerbas_ad_astra]

There's also the possibility of stock walking updates. 1.0 will allow Kerbals to climb on ledges, so there are definitely changes to the movement system in the pipeline.

[sumghai]

After looking at all those rotating habitat mods I've got one idea. What about making a plugin to allow Kerbals to walk anywhere, if some kind of force is pushing them towards the object? Thus we would be able to walk on rotating stations, on ships under acceleration etc. Same for ladders.

Not sure if it's possible tho.

The ability to walk on any surface while in EVA is dependent on the circumstances:

- In rotating wheel space stations, the "downward" force experienced by station occupants is due to the reactive centrifugal force resulting from the action-reaction pair with the centripetal acceleration from the spinning walls of the station itself. This is already possible in stock KSP, as a number of YouTubers have discovered.

- As for walking on the hull plating of a spacecraft in orbit, magnetic boots have been proposed in real life, but never used due to the potential for magnetic interference with navigation and communication equipment.

- Velcro is another possibility, but then one would have to coat the spacecraft with one-half of the velcro material, and repeated sticking/unsticking of velcro certainly can't be good for dust/microdebris mitigation.

- Gravity generators are the realm of science fiction.

[RainDreamer]

Has some sticky putty clay-like material ever been considered?

[tg626]

I know! SUCTION CUPS!!

...oh wait...

[sumghai]

Has some sticky putty clay-like material ever been considered?

The problem with sticky putty is that such materials are unlikely to survive the rigours of launch, may degrade over time use to solar radiation, and will produce large amounts of microdebris each time a Kerbal unsticks his/her boots from the goop.

I know! SUCTION CUPS!!

...oh wait...

No doubt you'd have realized that suction cups require significant differences in air pressure between the outside and inside to work, something that isn't possible in space.

[Sampa]

The problem with sticky putty is that such materials are unlikely to survive the rigours of launch, may degrade over time use to solar radiation, and will produce large amounts of microdebris each time a Kerbal unsticks his/her boots from the goop.

Something I'm sure Bill Kerman won't be too terribly pleased with, I'm sure! (sorry, Felbourn's Project Gateway reference)

[daniel l.]

The ability to walk on any surface while in EVA is dependent on the circumstances:

- In rotating wheel space stations, the "downward" force experienced by station occupants is due to the reactive centrifugal force resulting from the action-reaction pair with the centripetal acceleration from the spinning walls of the station itself. This is already possible in stock KSP, as a number of YouTubers have discovered.

- As for walking on the hull plating of a spacecraft in orbit, magnetic boots have been proposed in real life, but never used due to the potential for magnetic interference with navigation and communication equipment.

- Velcro is another possibility, but then one would have to coat the spacecraft with one-half of the velcro material, and repeated sticking/unsticking of velcro certainly can't be good for dust/microdebris mitigation.

- Gravity generators are the realm of science fiction.

Actually gravity generators are currently under development but they only can make one millionth of a G

[sumghai]

Actually gravity generators are currently under development but they only can make one millionth of a G

Citation required.

Please provide proof to back up your statement.

[Moss]

Please provide proof to back up your statement.

Isn't any object with mass a technically a gravity generator?

[sumghai]

Isn't any object with mass a technically a gravity generator?

In theory, yes.

In practice, it takes a non-trivial amount of mass to generate even a noticeable fraction of 1g - for instance, the moon has a mass of 7.34767309 × 10²² kilograms, yet it can barely generate 1/6g. As such, unless one has a spacecraft with the mass of the moon, you're not going to get noticeable gravity effects.

[daniel l.]

Citation required.

Please provide proof to back up your statement.

Dont believe me? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_gravity#Gravity_generator.2Fgravitomagnetism

[sumghai]

Dont believe me? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_gravity#Gravity_generator.2Fgravitomagnetism

Wikipedia is not a proper citation. These are the proper and relevant citations:

http://lanl.arxiv.org/ftp/gr-qc/papers/0603/0603033.pdf

http://lanl.arxiv.org/ftp/gr-qc/papers/0603/0603032.pdf

https://web.archive.org/web/20060615095739/http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/GSP/SEM0L6OVGJE_0.html (archived version of ESA press release; the original live version has been removed)

That being said, the papers were not describing the development of a magical new gravity generator device - it is, in fact, describing the measurement of the gravitational equivalent of a magnetic field in a laboratory setting, which was found to be slightly higher than theory.

Also, the gravitational force measured was actually 100 millionth of a g, far less than the one-millionth you're claiming. Neither values are enough to have any effect on a astronaut/Kerbalnaut in the microgravity environment of space.

Finally, the equipment required to generate measure this effect involves the use of superconductors, and is so large, cumbersome and fragile that there is no way this could be built into a manned spacecraft for the purposes of artificial gravity generation.

Conclusion: daniel l., you quoted a citation without actually understanding it. It is not an artificial gravity generator.

[Voyager55]

Back to the problem at hand, will anyone ever make a mod allow this? This is also something i've wanted for years.

[sashan]

Well, I am perfectly aware of all scientific and engineering problems. I'm an aerospace engineer in my last year of masters degree after all.

Ok, I'll try the centrifuge. I need to build it first, as i play with NEAR and DRE...

Another thing is thrust. Kerbals slide off the ladders if the ship is under thrust.