Early space program Tethers

[Rocketfeline]

I thought of this while mucking around with FASA. Mercury had a tethered EVA and voshkod 2 too. Not a modified MMU.

[Hcube]

You mean instead of a jetpack/MMU ?

And maybe the jetpack could be obtained from an astronaut complex upgrade ! (you would start with EVA possible but tethered, proably, right now having no EVA at first sucks)

Amazing idea, take some rep

[Whirligig Girl]

Honestly, I think tethers should alway be an option given how many times people fail at their first EVAs.

[Fel]

Honestly, I think tethers should alway be an option given how many times people fail at their first EVAs.

Yes, orbital mechanics still apply even in EVA ;p

Honestly though, doesn't NASA require all astronauts to tether themselves when leaving the space craft? I have a faint recollection of a story where someone was working on some aspect of the ISSP, removed his tether for a second and almost drifted off into space... or it might have been the tether that saved him.

[Hcube]

Doesn't NASA require all astronauts to tether themselves when leaving the space craft?

Nope, MMU's were used for a few years :

Nowadays they use the "SAFER" wich is way smaller, but only for emergency use

[Rocketfeline]

But I don't know if you could make a tether in KAS. I doubt there's a mod that can tether innocent kerbals behind a spacecraft.

[Kibble]

Only four untethered EVAs were ever performed (three MMU flights and one SAFER flight test), aside from the Apollo Lunar surface EVAs.

[AbacusWizard]

But I don't know if you could make a tether in KAS. I doubt there's a mod that can tether innocent kerbals behind a spacecraft.

Kerbal Attachment System does it reasonably well. Have the kerbalnaut climb out of the command module and, still clinging for dear life to the ladder, right-click and grab the end of the winch cable.

[Mr. Scruffy]

Uh - and here i was thinking the devs had said (like years ago) it was impossible to do.... maybe i remember wrong though...

[Rocketfeline]

I thought of the MMU would be in the tech tree for the kerbals. Or better yet there is a tech tree for the kerbal complex. So it can start off with tethered spacewalks and then MMUs. It would be way better instead of leveling up the facility.

[GusTurbo]

Uh - and here i was thinking the devs had said (like years ago) it was impossible to do.... maybe i remember wrong though...

It may have been impossible based on their understanding at the time, which could have changed.

I like the idea of tethers.

[pincushionman]

The issue with tethers is making it look good. The picture of KAS above shows something, but it's a straight line. Tethers are a rope problem; tension only and wrapping around the other collision meshes.

[Mr. Scruffy]

Well, straight line tethers is fine. We can just assume an automatic hinge (wringe? uh you know what i mean right?) keeps the tether´s length the same as the distance the kerbal has to the ship and prevents getting tangled up. I know, that is not 100% realistic, but better than nothing, in my book, still.

[Wjolcz]

Me support. A tether to go out before EVA packs are available would be a nice addition. I'm no expert but it doesn't seem like something hard to implement.

[Red Iron Crown]

Kerbals don't have the same sensitivity to danger that humans have. A kerbal that floats away during EVA is just an opportunity to launch another rocket for a rescue mission.

[Rocketfeline]

Still when you want to do a realistic-sorta career mode with fasa and you wanna recreate every event that happened type of thing. Plus tethers would be great if the kerbals MMU's ate the mono propellant. More cost effective without sending up a kerbal rescue mission. Plus it would look great if your major tom!