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Most Kerbal thing you have ever heard of in real life

Rocket Farmer

By Rocket Farmer
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Rocket Farmer

Rocket Farmer

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So today I was reading up on Elon Musk’s latest heavy rocket.

Basically he is duct-taping 3 rockets together and using them to launch his car (yes his car) into an orbit beyond Mars......  They also say it and I quote “might” work.......

Anybody else ever heard of anything more kerbal like ever?

 

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dangerhamster

dangerhamster

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I made my Vespa faster by the simple expedient of removing big lumps of the chassis (it's monocoque) all the redundant wiring and fitting a lightweight saddle and bicycle mudguard (held on with electrical tape). Oh and a Harley petrol tank.

16838_1367407706575_2398181_n

Imagine 80mph on this...........

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wumpus

wumpus

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Orion (no, not the current NASA project of the same name, the *real* Orion).  Send a battleship-sized spaceship into space by setting off nuclear weapons underneath it.  Theoretical top speed: 10% of lightspeed.  Not just kerbal, but straight out of E.E. doc Smith.

Scott Manley has a small playlist of these (4 videos): https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLYu7z3I8tdEmmUlCpcj-7BUt0X-sdjmtt

 

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ave369

ave369

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The 1970s U.S. Navy Space Cruiser project is pretty kerbal. Non-pressurized cockpit with the pilot's noggin in a space helmet showing outside. Launched on an ICBM. Mk. 1 Eyeball navigation. The craft greatly resembles certain micro-optimized craft made by Turbo Pumped (youtube).

Edited by ave369
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BobTChicken

BobTChicken

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ISRO's Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle. Four stages, alternating solid and liquid. First and third stages are both HTPB, with the first stage filled with more than a hundred tons of boom. Second and fourth stages burn two *different* hypergolic liquids (UDMH/N2O4 and MMH/MON). First stage is augmented by six (count-em!) solid boosters, four of which ignite at launch and are dropped at T+ twenty-five seconds when the other two ignite. Totally amazing.

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wumpus

wumpus

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A favorite story of mine is that of HGS-1 (also called Asiasat-3 and PAS-22, but was called HGS-1 during this story).

A proton launch failure left the satellite in the wrong orbit (highly elliptical, presumably something like geosynch-intercept).  To save the bird, launch control looped it around the moon.  This used up about half the delta-v for stationkeeping and left the inclination about 11 degrees off, but left Hughes with a workable satellite.  After another sale, the it was moved yet again (no inclination change).  There was another plan to fix all the inclination with a much slower route, but since they couldn't track such progress it was never used.

I'm not sure what the design lifetime of the bird was, but it only lasted 4 years before removal to the graveyard orbit.  It also suffered loss of a solar panel, presumably dealing with different heating/cooling cycles than expected (well, according to wiki.  I don't think GSO birds get much shade from the Earth, although it may have suffered from being behind the Moon.  Presumably the "slow route" would have been harder on the bird).

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Tyko

Tyko

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On 1/6/2018 at 7:55 PM, Rocket Farmer said:

So today I was reading up on Elon Musk’s latest heavy rocket.

Basically he is duct-taping 3 rockets together and using them to launch his car (yes his car) into an orbit beyond Mars......  They also say it and I quote “might” work.......

Anybody else ever heard of anything more kerbal like ever?

 

The "launching the car" part is super Kerbal. The "strapping 3 proven rockets together" part seems imminently practical. It works in the game because it works in real life :)  Both for the same reason too...once you've worked out all the bugs on something it's better to not mess with it.

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Urus28

Urus28

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2016-04-26_15-16-16.jpg

The PLUTO missile, a nuclear powered missile large as a train flying at supersonic speed at sea level. Able to kill just by the supersonic blast, cover the land with radioactive waste and design to launch nuclear bombs (just in case)...

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Mikki

Mikki

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I`ve heard about  a red roadster "going somewhere" on top of a huge rocket.
If i were Mush...  errm Musk (which i am not), i`d refrain from such enterprise, for reason.
But anyone has issues, and such issues (in this case the presence of a red roadster) can be solved the kerbal way.
So i resume if i were Musk (which i am not), yes, i`d launch the thing, for no apparent reason (except PR).

Most Kerbal thing i`ve ever heard of, true.

 

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Ty Tan Tu

Ty Tan Tu

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59 minutes ago, Geschosskopf said:

This:  a wearable reentry bag :D 

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/vintagespace/2017/10/12/the-wearable-reentry-spacecraft-of-yesteryear/#.WlQchK6nFhE

 

 

Yuri Gagarin actually was ejected from the space capsule, and parachuted down to Earth separately. 

Quote

As G-forces subsided and the capsule continued descending safely, Gagarin prepared to eject from his craft. At an altitude of seven kilometers, the main hatch of the capsule was jettisoned and seconds later, the pilot ejected. It was 10:42 Moscow Time. Gagarin's ejection seat then came lose gently and he was left falling toward earth. The main parachute of the PS-6415-59 system deployed successfully, however the backup chute came out later as well and, after some delay, deployed. As a result, Gagarin was descending under two parachutes. During the parachute descent, which lasted from six to 10 minutes, Gagarin struggled to open a valve for breathing atmospheric air. The device stuck below his external orange layer and he had to use a mirror to pull the valve.

 

 

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purpleivan

purpleivan

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23 hours ago, Urus28 said:

The PLUTO missile, a nuclear powered missile large as a train flying at supersonic speed at sea level. Able to kill just by the supersonic blast, cover the land with radioactive waste and design to launch nuclear bombs (just in case)...

Well... it's the only way to be sure.

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Fearless Son

Fearless Son

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On 1/7/2018 at 9:29 AM, wumpus said:

Orion (no, not the current NASA project of the same name, the *real* Orion).  Send a battleship-sized spaceship into space by setting off nuclear weapons underneath it.  Theoretical top speed: 10% of lightspeed.  Not just kerbal, but straight out of E.E. doc Smith.

I remember reading George Dyson's (son of Freeman Dyson) book on Project Orion, and some of the anecdotes they had in it.  Going from memory rather than verbatim, but they had a conversation with an Air Force admiral that went something like: 

"I get guys in here every week proposing to use giant rockets to send little tiny payloads up into orbit, and here you are proposing to send up an entire goddamn spaceship?"

"We're talking nuclear detonation engines: we can put something roughly the mass of downtown Chicago into orbit."

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