KSP lecture

[Serpens Solidus]

So I had a lecture on two body problems this morning, and then this happened:

Edited December 2, 2016 by Serpens Solidus
Embedded picture

[Chiron0224]

Very nice.  It reminds me of this comic https://xkcd.com/1356/

[Gianni1122]

That is awesome... College, high school, junior High and even grade school teachers and professors could utilize KSP to demonstrate physics (as well as several other science topics) in the classroom. Hell, I dropped out of high school to join the army and now I can say I know the fundamentals of rocket science thanks to KSP and the things I researched because of playing KSP. I think Scott Manley even did a presentation about its potential as a tool for learning

[Johnny Wishbone]

The sad thing is that at one point in my life 20 or so years ago, I would have understood all that gobbledy-gook on the chalkboard. I pretty much forgot all that calculus, physics, and calculus based physics nonsense as soon as the final exam was over and I never needed to take another one of those classes again.

[Just Jim]

Outstanding!!!  

[adsii1970]

19 hours ago, Johnny Wishbone said:

The sad thing is that at one point in my life 20 or so years ago, I would have understood all that gobbledy-gook on the chalkboard. I pretty much forgot all that calculus, physics, and calculus based physics nonsense as soon as the final exam was over and I never needed to take another one of those classes again.

Ah, same here. Last month I found my old college algebra textbook and began working a chapter a week. Once I've done the entire book, I'm going to do the same with Trigonometry. I want to get back to where my mind was - able to figure out the simpler problems in my head. And since I have heard that by exercising the brain you can increase your capacity, I might decide to become the next Thompberry of Emiko Station!

Wow, what a neat shout-out to KSP and Squad. If I were a part of @SQUAD's marketing team, I would gather as many images like that as I could and create an advertisement! Way, too cool! Shout out to @Serpens Solidus for sharing the image.

[Sharpy]

On 28.11.2016 at 8:38 PM, Johnny Wishbone said:

The sad thing is that at one point in my life 20 or so years ago, I would have understood all that gobbledy-gook on the chalkboard. I pretty much forgot all that calculus, physics, and calculus based physics nonsense as soon as the final exam was over and I never needed to take another one of those classes again.

Meanwhile, when I had physics lessons about that stuff, I didn't pay attention, barely passed the year, hardly understood a thing.

Nowadays, I regret I didn't pay better attention, but still active and doing posts like these:

Quote

 

 

 

[paul23]

So studying first year aerospace engineering?

[Serpens Solidus]

2 hours ago, paul23 said:

So studying first year aerospace engineering?

2nd year applied physics.

[HoloYolo]

We're learning Physics in science right now, shame it's about work and power instead of N-body

[Snark]

On 11/28/2016 at 8:54 AM, Chiron0224 said:

Very nice.  It reminds me of this comic https://xkcd.com/1356/

...a strip that's near and dear to my heart, since that particular strip is what finally tipped me over the edge into KSP.  Bought the game that evening, never looked back. 

[Sharpy]

12 hours ago, HoloYolo said:

We're learning Physics in science right now, shame it's about work and power instead of N-body

Don't skim that. All the rest comes from that, and you'll be totally surprised how often this pops up later. Screw thermodynamics, screw optics, skim nuclear, but goddammit, work, energy and power are the daily bread in rocketry!

Not only the whole Lagrangian and Hamiltonian Mechanics comes from this (which is the foundation of N-body problem), the energy equations - especially E_k pop up all the time.

Example: What is the theoretical absolute maximum ISp you can squeeze out of an LFO rocket? Take a unit of fuel mass, make your rocket dry mass the same. Obtain delta-V as function of ISp from the Rocket equation. Substitute the delta-V as V to Kinetic Energy equation, solve for ISp(E_k). Take specific energy of a unit of LFO from a table, substitute. There, you have the ISp for 100% efficient LFO engine.

Another: From a graph of speed on reentry, read velocity loss of a Soyuz during the plasma blackout. Take mass of Soyuz capsule. You have the amount of kinetic energy that is dissipated as heat. From the same graph take time it spends in plasma blackout. Divide energy by time, you get power expenditure. Compare to your common power plants, heater devices and such, to get a good picture of the inferno at the heatshield.

And work, being integral over route (as opposed to 'intuitively' time), goes totally against our hunch how this might work, leading to things like Oberth Effect, Ram Factor, or delta-V needed to escape a gravity well.

 

Seriously, this is the ABC of rocketry. All the rest comes from this!

[Guest]

nvm

Edited December 2, 2016 by Guest

[hms_warrior]

On 30.11.2016 at 2:53 PM, Sharpy said:

Meanwhile, when I had physics lessons about that stuff, I didn't pay attention, barely passed the year, hardly understood a thing.

Nowadays, I regret I didn't pay better attention, but still active and doing posts like these:

 

 

 

omg i wrote a comment to one of the answers to this questions over at stackoverflow XD the internet is a small world...

[Sharpy]

2 minutes ago, hms_warrior said:

omg i wrote a comment to one of the answers to this questions over at stackoverflow XD the internet is a small world...

Hey, most of people at Space.SE play KSP. Of course a lot of them will frequent this forum.

[HoloYolo]

10 hours ago, Sharpy said:

Don't skim that. All the rest comes from that, and you'll be totally surprised how often this pops up later. Screw thermodynamics, screw optics, skim nuclear, but goddammit, work, energy and power are the daily bread in rocketry!

Not only the whole Lagrangian and Hamiltonian Mechanics comes from this (which is the foundation of N-body problem), the energy equations - especially E_k pop up all the time.

Example: What is the theoretical absolute maximum ISp you can squeeze out of an LFO rocket? Take a unit of fuel mass, make your rocket dry mass the same. Obtain delta-V as function of ISp from the Rocket equation. Substitute the delta-V as V to Kinetic Energy equation, solve for ISp(E_k). Take specific energy of a unit of LFO from a table, substitute. There, you have the ISp for 100% efficient LFO engine.

Another: From a graph of speed on reentry, read velocity loss of a Soyuz during the plasma blackout. Take mass of Soyuz capsule. You have the amount of kinetic energy that is dissipated as heat. From the same graph take time it spends in plasma blackout. Divide energy by time, you get power expenditure. Compare to your common power plants, heater devices and such, to get a good picture of the inferno at the heatshield.

And work, being integral over route (as opposed to 'intuitively' time), goes totally against our hunch how this might work, leading to things like Oberth Effect, Ram Factor, or delta-V needed to escape a gravity well.

 

Seriously, this is the ABC of rocketry. All the rest comes from this!

Didn't realize that. I'm pretty new to the whole rocket thing itself, thanks alot!

[NSEP]

Haha nice. I love to see how KSP is slowly creeping in to the world of education and science!

[Serpens Solidus]

The demonstration used during the lecture has just been uploaded to youtube. It's in Dutch though.