KSP Mentioned in NASA Press Conference

[Glaran K'erman]

The US took delivery of a test version of the Orion service module which will provide systems for thrust, power, and translation capabilites. All very important and was discussed at length (nearly an hour) in a video posted to NASA's YouTube channel, until a reporter asks the only question that's left...

Spoiler

Seems to catch the guy off-guard a bit, but I think the fact someone on that panel has at least heard of it indicates cool things!

 

[KasperVld]

Haha, that's cool! Thanks for sharing the link

[RocketPropelledGiraffe]

Well, at least the NASA guy in the image looks like he's having a blast after he understands the question... He's propably playing

[JedTech]

You'll notice that just about all of the faces in view have a smirk on their faces. I'm sure that they all play.

[Motokid600]

Oi someone throw a pie or something.

[Guest]

Nice!

[Xavven]

47 minutes ago, Motokid600 said:

Oi someone throw a pie or something.

LOL! Yeah, the answer was pretty stiff. I'm in my 30's and I swear I could never get that stuffy!

[SpacedCowboy]

"Do I understand it,,, not a clue"   That's kind of scary if you think about it.

[War Eagle 1]

They are not allowed to talk about KSP at Nasa lol

[Alshain]

Awkward.  And yes, NASA should know of KSP, they helped them develop the SLS parts in the game as I understand it.

[Robotengineer]

Even the bureaucrats should understand KSP! It would be nice if NASA would have a panel of actual engineers every once in a while. 

[Bill Phil]

Heh.

Here's a relevant xkcd:

 

Although I'm a bit disappointed that they dodged the question. It's not like it's hard to answer.

 

I'm having loads of fun with the Inspect Element function to extract images. Quite useful.

Edited December 1, 2015 by Bill Phil

[Rakaydos]

4 minutes ago, Bill Phil said:

Although I'm a bit disappointed that they dodged the question. It's not like it's hard to answer.

 

To be fair, it's not like he's surveyed nasa to find out how many engineers play KSP. His answer is perfectly acceptable as a "I wasnt ready to answer that question, so here's my weighted guess"

[Kerbart]

He was a bit awkward... As the question was obviously lighthearted, a laugh and how do you think we plan these missions? would not have gone bad, I'd think.

[razark]

1 hour ago, SpacedCowboy said:

"Do I understand it,,, not a clue"   That's kind of scary if you think about it.

I prefer to think of it as: "I don't understand why someone would play this as a game.  To me, it's a job!"
 

[RocketPropelledGiraffe]

Pay close attention, the guy with the stiff answer is actually from Lockheed-Martin. The NASA people are all chuckling.

[Venusgate]

Also to be fair, Space program funding in America is no guaranteed ticket, and is often a soft target for budget cuts and the whims of congressmen. Some of which might not like the idea of leads at nasa tooling around with a 25$ videogame, instead of the 40 mil$ simulators that's on the budget

[MrOsterman]

23 minutes ago, Venusgate said:

Also to be fair, Space program funding in America is no guaranteed ticket, and is often a soft target for budget cuts and the whims of congressmen. Some of which might not like the idea of leads at nasa tooling around with a 25$ videogame, instead of the 40 mil$ simulators that's on the budget

Well... and I'd like to think those $40 mil simulators have a ~little~ more meat to them too.  I'd hate to see someone in a NASA briefing say "Well we're almost ready to start talking budgets on the Mars mission, but our simulations are still being disrupted by some odd forces we simply call "The Kracken".

 

[Venusgate]

4 minutes ago, MrOsterman said:

Well... and I'd like to think those $40 mil simulators have a ~little~ more meat to them too.  I'd hate to see someone in a NASA briefing say "Well we're almost ready to start talking budgets on the Mars mission, but our simulations are still being disrupted by some odd forces we simply call "The Kracken".

 

By no means am I supporting this hypothetical congressman and his vapor-constituents, just suggesting that NASA doesn't have a lot of room to have fun.

[RocketPropelledGiraffe]

5 minutes ago, Venusgate said:

...just suggesting that NASA doesn't have a lot of room to have fun.

I am not so sure, when you have little margin for error you want to be as relaxed as possible while working. Blowing a rocket or three for fun during leisure time certainly helps with that. And being relaxed ensures that you can work full power when a situation is really critical.

If you are stressed all the time you might make unnecessary and costly mistakes - like, I don't know, missing a conversion from yards to meters and crashing a probe into Mars...

[klgraham1013]

3 hours ago, Venusgate said:

...just suggesting that NASA doesn't have a lot of room to have fun.

I might be crazy here, but I'd guess that even NASA employees get a day off now and again.

[monophonic]

3 hours ago, klgraham1013 said:

I might be crazy here, but I'd guess that even NASA employees get a day off now and again.

They do. But it is one thing to spend your day off sitting on the couch playing a video game and whole another thing to start discussing said video game with a reporter in a high profile press conference about a many many million dollar part of a multi billion dollar project.

[razark]

How many people work at NASA?  How many of them play video games?  How many of those have run across KSP?  How many of that group like that kind of game?

(And how many people at NASA actually care about space that much versus the ones working there for a paycheck?)

 

Short version:
There's probably not a lot of people at NASA playing KSP, but there are some.

[Venusgate]

6 hours ago, RocketPropelledGiraffe said:

I am not so sure, when you have little margin for error you want to be as relaxed as possible while working. Blowing a rocket or three for fun during leisure time certainly helps with that. And being relaxed ensures that you can work full power when a situation is really critical.

If you are stressed all the time you might make unnecessary and costly mistakes - like, I don't know, missing a conversion from yards to meters and crashing a probe into Mars...

To rephrase, they don't have a lot of room to be SEEN having fun.

[WinkAllKerb'']

:3 :3 :3