Meteo Crater Near KSC?

[Geschosskopf]

Here's a funny story. In all the time I've been playing KSC, I've never noticed that some of the ridges up on the plateau near KSC form a circle, despite having driven rovers over them many times. Hell, I've even had Kerbinside that puts some antennae in this area and never saw it then, either. I don't even recall ever hearing of a crater near KSC. So it was with some surprise that I noticed what appears to be a crater in the background of a screenshot I took at random. I didn't even notice it at that time, but only when looking at the pic just now.

As you can see, this is just SSW of KSC on the plateau. I recall long ago there was a dry lakebed in this general area but it's been gone for many versions.

I'm sure this must be a well-known feature to at least some folks--I can't imagine nobody else has noticed it. But if this is new, I'll gladly take credit for finding it .

This leads me to wonder how many craters there are on Kerbin. This makes 3 I know of.

* This one.

* The very obvious one with the central island W of KSC.

* A huge, ancient, misshapen one on the continent E of KSC.

Any others?

[mikegarrison]

That could be intended to be a volcanic caldera. It looks more like one than it does an impact crater.

[kiwi1960]

This is nothing, i have seem thousands of craters on the Mun....

:) :)

(sorry)

I agree with you, if you look hard enough, you can actually see them everywhere, only, I cannot say where because there isn't actually a place name map of the world, is there?

And getting a screen shot only occurs to me.....now.

[Rithsom]

I don't go into that terrain very often, but I have seen it before. There is a small sand patch in that area as well, which is that dry lake bed if I'm not mistaken. It doesn't contain water like it used to in earlier versions.

Edited July 1, 2015 by Rthsom

[Geschosskopf]

That could be intended to be a volcanic caldera. It looks more like one than it does an impact crater.

That's what they said about the one in Arizona . Too bad we can't drill for shocked quartz or whatever to decide 1 way or another.

I've been to Ubehebe Crater in Death Valley, which is kinda volcanic (more of a steam explosion than a magmatic eruption), as well as numerous other volcanic features all over that region. But I've also been to several heavily eroded meteor craters, such as

this one near Odessa, Texas. And they all look pretty much the same. Only the big, fresh crater in Arizona really looks like something on the Moon, and then only when you're on the rim of it. From a distance at ground level, it just looks like a low mesa.

[MalfunctionM1Ke]

I have spotted one that is even bigger.... i guess

[Geschosskopf]

I have spotted one that is even bigger.... i guess

Yeah, that's what I was calling the big, ancient, distorted one, like Vredefort.

[MalfunctionM1Ke]

Yeah, that's what I was calling the big, ancient, distorted one, like Vredefort.

Ah... so I was not the only one seeing it

[mikegarrison]

That's what they said about the one in Arizona . Too bad we can't drill for shocked quartz or whatever to decide 1 way or another.

I've been to Ubehebe Crater in Death Valley, which is kinda volcanic (more of a steam explosion than a magmatic eruption), as well as numerous other volcanic features all over that region. But I've also been to several heavily eroded meteor craters, such as

this one near Odessa, Texas. And they all look pretty much the same. Only the big, fresh crater in Arizona really looks like something on the Moon, and then only when you're on the rim of it. From a distance at ground level, it just looks like a low mesa.

I have a cool story about that one.

I was conducting a ramp noise test on the 737-800 before it entered into service. Ramp noise is the noise heard by the ramp workers for the ECS (aircon) packs and the APU. Our guarantees were written for 25 degrees C, so we went and did the test in Arizona (in the evening). We parked the airplane on a remote taxiway at a low-traffic bizjet airport and did our test.

The next morning we took off to fly back to Seattle. But the pilot decided he wanted to do some sight-seeing. So he got permission to go VFR and flew over to Winslow. We all went over and looked out the windows as we circled the crater once or twice at maybe 2000 feet agl. Then we flew back to Seattle. This was before 2001, so things were a little more relaxed in terms of airspace.

Anyway, I have always wondered what people on the ground thought when this 737 flew down low over the crater and circled it a couple of times before flying off!

[Sharpy]

By the way, some 800m east of the start of Runway, there's a 50m or so patch of Tundra right between where the biome changes from Shores to Grasslands. The terrain is absolutely visually indistinct.

[Geschosskopf]

Anyway, I have always wondered what people on the ground thought when this 737 flew down low over the crater and circled it a couple of times before flying off!

That is kinda funny. Was the plane in airline livery already or still in factory paint? If airline livery, I wonder how many tickets that sold?

But a lot of non-standard flying happens over deserts (so if something goes wrong, it probably won't crash on anybody and the wreckage will be easy to spot). Thus, folks who live in such areas get used to seeing such things. I used to live in Thousand Oaks, CA back in the 70s, which at that time was pretty much by itself in a vast region of scrub. Northrop had a drone facility in town, NAS Point Magu (a major testing base) was nearby, and Hollywood used the area a lot for filming airplane scenes. So I got to see a lot of strange stuff overhead, which was great for a kid enthusiastic about aviation .

[mikegarrison]

That is kinda funny. Was the plane in airline livery already or still in factory paint? If airline livery, I wonder how many tickets that sold?

But a lot of non-standard flying happens over deserts (so if something goes wrong, it probably won't crash on anybody and the wreckage will be easy to spot). Thus, folks who live in such areas get used to seeing such things. I used to live in Thousand Oaks, CA back in the 70s, which at that time was pretty much by itself in a vast region of scrub. Northrop had a drone facility in town, NAS Point Magu (a major testing base) was nearby, and Hollywood used the area a lot for filming airplane scenes. So I got to see a lot of strange stuff overhead, which was great for a kid enthusiastic about aviation .

It was a green airplane (unpainted, with the green protective coating still on the aluminum).

Edited July 1, 2015 by mikegarrison