What's the most Kerbal thing you've done in real life?

[mikegarrison]

Kerbal medicine:

http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?id=3772

I actually have used duct tape for first aid.

Edited June 20, 2015 by mikegarrison

[Kagame]

Got an A in a forensics project by shooting ice bullets out of what is probably, to this day, the world's worst compressed air gun.

[_Augustus_]

I launched a small rocket (A-class motor) and it exploded mid-flight. I was just like, "Oh well, better luck next time! No design improvements needed!"]

The entire fuselage was charred, with a portion completely gone. The motor fell to the ground semi-intact, and the remains including the still-intact nosecone and parachute survived. I have them in a wooden chest to remind me.

Edited June 20, 2015 by _Augustus_

[Yakuzi]

My entire PhD thesis has secretely been my impression of what a Kerbal would do if he decided to be a biologist instead of an engineer.

I had a similar experience during my PhD in microbiology, however, I applied the Kerbal method more in daily lab behaviour than actual PhD oriented experiments (didn't quite have that freedom officially).

- Strategically placed eppendorf tubes filled with liquid nitrogen at room temperature turned out be a reliable way to keep fellow scientists on their toes.

- Genetically engineered bacteria producing recombinant green and red fluorescent proteins painted on an agar plate proved to be a great and festive alternative birthday card.

- I may or may not have drunk approx. 200 ml autoclaved liquid LB medium during a midnight lab experiment cause I ran out of snacks.

Edited June 20, 2015 by Yakuzi

[Mic_n]

Tried to fly by holding giant foam wings tucked under my armpits and running down a hill (I was probably... 7ish? at the time?). Got some longish jumps in there. Nothing quite orbital, though.

Oh, and I did kinda build a model rocket once in a brief foray into the "Cavorite club" at school. From memory it got crushed in my school bag long before it ever had the chance to get a motor installed and sent heavanwards... Which realistically translates to "I glued some cardboard tubes together, stuck some balsa fins on one end and a plastic nose-cone on the other."

Edited June 21, 2015 by Mic_n

[luizopiloto]

Got an A in a forensics project by shooting ice bullets out of what is probably, to this day, the world's worst compressed air gun.

I have a homemade airgun that can shoot AA bateries at 360 Km/h... and it's very compact...

[magnemoe]

How many federal laws were broken in this post lol

Everything is past the closing date, including blowing up post box.

Now doing stuff like this draws more attention today because of the terrorist threat but we learned how to be discreet.

Playing with fireworks was anyway an common thing during the time, remember we made rocket guns, simple wood stock, plastic pipe as barrel, this was long as the stick of the rocket had to fit to.

Hole in pipe and a cigarette lighter as trigger/ firring device flame light fuse through hole in pipe, rocket tries to fly in correct direction.

Far safer than lighting the rocket, then drop into pipe and aim.

- - - Updated - - -

Way back when I was younger and stupider... Hehe.

I was in the armed forces. Army engineers. Heavy construction equipment operations.

we were given the task to dig a hole. X meters long, Y meters wide, Z meters deep. No problem, we have bigass bulldozers and excavators.

2feet down. Nothing but solid rock.

broke a bulldozer before we gave up.

sitting around said hole, we pondered, plotted, thought and ultimately we had an odd idea.

why not do it like a mining company? Drill a bunch of holes and drop a bit of C4 in, and boom! Broken up rock.

female butter bar Lt, blond, book smart as all get out, dumb as a post. Orders our explosives up. No biggie, we are alloted a certain amount for training purposes anyways. Order gets rubber stamp and we get our goodies.

we wanted about 10 kilos of C4.

someone moved the decimal.

during the month of Back and forth, some high poobah did something to the forms.

we got a hundred kilos of C4.

okay. Instead of 100 holes with a. Tenth of a kilo, we made a hundred with a. Full. Kilo. Of. C4. Apiece.

it rained gravel for a solid minute. At our spot a safe distance away.

our hole was a little deeper than expected.

Make me wonder if Jeb and Val is military? The entire miltiary mindset was pretty kerbal.

Remember we was an day blowing stuff up, the NCO and officers was most exited, they had is as carrier anyway so make sense.

Blew up rocks concrete and metal parts, pretty fun my favorite was the one cubic meter rock exposed to an sharped charge. Most was not so impressed, probably as they did not noticed that the rock was suddenly gone, no trace of it along the other rubble.

Anyway plan was to end the day with an bang. They had some huge charges, got us to dig an two meter deep hole in a bog, stuff 60-100 kg of explosives down in it, fill back up, we went perhaps 400 meters away and they blew it up, huge explosion, mushroom cloud an log burried in the bog was thrown at the cabin where they set up the explosion from.

We went down to explore the crater then an very angry and wet guy came walking. He had been posted as guard so nobody came into the area, the NCO has forgotten to change the guards so he had stand there for almost 6 hours. worse all the bog water had been sucked up and came down as fallout over his position

[Cebi]

One sunny day i decided to repair leaky propan-butan stove. I dissesambled and assambled whole thing replacing some seals in the process but the damned thing still leaked gas when pressured. I turned to my grandad and said: "Get me something to test where the leak is."

He returned with matches. My head still close to the stove listening for the hiss of leaking gas, he lighted the match.

Ensuing fireball engulfed us both. I fell on my back right beside PB-canister and promtly disconected it.

When i looked up my grandad had surprised look on his face and he was still holding the match. His eyebrows was gone and his hair and beard was smoking. None of us were seriously hurt (beside minor burns on face) and i laughed so hard that i wept.

Edited June 22, 2015 by Cebi

[viktor19]

There are a few things, not really spectacular, but worth writing.

Few months ago, I came to the idea of making a gas cannon out of a ice tea bottle. First, I made a hole on the side of the bottle for the lighter, then I turned on the (gas) stove, and put the bottle against the burner to fill the bottle with gas. I put the cap on the top of the bottle and...WHOOM! I'll just say that the cap missed the new flatscreen by 10-15 centimeters and left the small orange mark on the wall.

[Brainlord Mesomorph]

When I was a kid playing with model rockets, I launched one once andt its parachute failed, it came straight down and stuck in the ground like a lawn dart (remember them?).

Put a big dent in the balsa wood nose cone.

So I tried to “fix it†by sanding it down, until it looked right.

On the next launch. As soon as it cleared the gantry, it made an immediate left and flew horizontally like a cruise missile. (lucky it didn't come at me!) I found it a block and ½ away in pieces.

EDIT: In retrospect, the dent probably didn't change the mass of the nose cone or the center of gravity of the rocket, but me sanding it sure did!

Edited June 22, 2015 by Brainlord Mesomorph

[tutike2000]

I used my shoes as brake pads when my bicycle brakes didn't work. (aka: squeezing the rear tire between my feet)

I drove down a (very long and steep) hill to get to my mechanic after I found out my car's brakes didn't work.

I drove about 2km with a seized up rear drum brake, stopping every 500m to throw water on it.

I drove about 1km without a cam belt, stopping every few hundred meters to let the engine cool off for 20 minutes while I pushed.

I drove a whole day in 2nd gear because my gear shift lever broke off.

I put tap water in my radiator to drive my car to the scrap yard.

I taped firecrackers to paper airplanes and threw them as far as I could. The police showed up and took my firecrackers.

I heard about eggs exploding in microwaves, and I wanted to find out if a bowl of water would shield the egg enough for it to survive. It sort of had the opposite effect, the egg exploded spectacularly after a few minutes in there, and sprayed hot water everywhere, broke the microwave. I still have the bowl.

Edited June 22, 2015 by tutike2000

[CanOmer]

What are the most "Kerbal" movies you watch? It doesn't have to be space related movie.

(I'm looking for a movie to watch and I like KSP a lot.)

[PhilippeV8]

I named my kids Jeb and Valentina ... they haven't got a clue why yet

[purpleivan]

6 hours ago, PhilippeV8 said:

I named my kids Jeb and Valentina ... they haven't got a clue why yet

I named a young goat (one of two we had) Valentina... after the real life Val (Tereshkova).

This was back when I was a kid... although I guess she was too

[Mjarf]

I have to admit that sometimes when I watch a Sci-fi movie I imagine what it would be like if a spacecraft piloted by Kerbals appeared into the movie and started poking around or intervened. For example, when watching "Apollo 13" I imagine how funny it would be when they're at the dark side of the Moon, a Kerbal space craft suddenly appears and in their funny language ask if they need assistance and one of them EVA's over and knock on the window. the Apollo 13 crew is of course very confused, but grateful to get help from their new green friends.

Edited January 16, 2018 by Mjarf

[GKSP]

Don't have too much to contribute to this thread.  Let's see... I have a rather short model rocket flight log book.  I've also assisted in making a low-thrust sugar-stump remover engine.  The nerd me also memorized a few numbers of KSP part stats so I could busy myself for ~1.5 hours doing rocket science on a planning sheet for a statewide test.  A few proctors glanced back at me after collecting my rough Delta-V calculations done without a calculator during a reading test...

[memes in space]

and my life is boring