RSS Grand Tour (more based off Voyager 2)

[PewPewTrash]

5 days.  I did it.

Here's an analog of it all.

On December 15th, 2018 (obviously), @Xurkitree  told me to try to do a RSS Grand Tour, when I asked what to do for my 1 year anniversary on Kerbal Space Program. 

I then set out to accomplish this goal.

For 2 days, I did painstaking math. I didn't look it up cause it had to be real. In my free time, I was calculating Holmann trajectories, time frames, and calculating the next launch window for a Grand Tour. Yesterday, on the 19th, I finished it all. Then, I started to work on taking pictures, and actually playing Kerbal. 

 

Here's a Post Dedicated to My Work:

 

Leaving Earth

Being the idiot that I am, I forgot to take pictures of my rocket/launch. I also deleted the saves on my Kerbal Space Program due to memory issues (two terabytes run out fast when playing KSP) So I couldn't go back and take some. F in the chat.

The probe, merely 2 metric tons, leaves Earths Sphere of Influence (now known as SOI).

Jupiter

In April, 1979, Voyager 2 started to send images of Jupiter, it's moons, and discovered Jupiter's rings.

                                                

Enhanced by 25x, this image is the first showing Jupiter's massive size,                    This image is the first from Voyager 2 to show its Great Red Spot,                                      Jupiter's Moons, Europa and Io, the closest two to the planet.

                             as viewed from 5.4 million kilometers.                                               Along with a couple of moons if you look hard (bottom right of Jupiter).                                                                                          

 

 

Saturn

In August, 1981, Voyager 2 approached Saturn, and offered insight never seen before.

                                                                                                                                                                                                  Amazing view of Saturn, in all its serenity,  

                                                                                                                                                                                      

                                                                         Saturn, while being approached.                                                                        The moon Mimas, which was caught on a fly-by                                  The moon Titan, with a thick methane aptmoshpere

 

 

         Uranus

                       In January, of 1986, Voyager 2 made it's fly-by of Uranus, to reveal a surprisingly un-photogenic planet.

Uranus is very non-photogenic. In RSS it's no different.

Uranus viewed from up-close

Uranus viewed from approach

please note that Voyager 2 did make a fly-by of the moon Miranda, but I didn't get that to work, yet surprisingly still got my way to Neptune.

 

Neptune

The Final Planet in the solar system, and the last mission for Voyager 2

Neptune was more photogenic then Uranus!

Neptune, as viewed from approach

As this was the last stop in Voyager 2's journey, it didn't matter the departure angle from Neptune, so the team wanted to get a fly-by of it's moon, Triton. To have this, with not enough OMS to get to Triton, they did an aerobrake maneuver, effectively slowing.

Triton, Neptune's single moon.

Ending

This may have been the end of Voyager 2's grand tour, but it was time for a conclusion.

On February 14th, 1990, the other probe, Voyager 1, was turned around to face the solar system. It would take a photo, of all the planets.

The distance the actual photo was taken is crazy, and I couldn't recreate this. So here's the real photo(s) and Carl Sagan's famous quote. Note that this is a bunch of photo's strung together, because taking would need the sun in it and that's too bright for the camera.

"Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there--on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known."

-- Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot, 1994

 

Ending of this post

____________________________________________________________

If you actually read this all, wow, thanks! Feel free to do whatever, like I dunno...make me a signature badge for my effort cause this was stupidly hard oh my god.

Edited December 21, 2018 by PewPewTrash

[Vanamonde]

This report of a mission has been moved to Mission Reports. 

And congratulations.

[SpaceCube2000]

Nicely done! 

[Xurkitree]

I did not expect this ... And I'm amazed you pulled it off. Congrats!

and sorry I made you do this

[PewPewTrash]

9 hours ago, Xurkitree said:

I did not expect this ... And I'm amazed you pulled it off. Congrats!

and sorry I made you do this

My power is greatly underestimated.

[Wallygator]

Congratulations! 

what would make this report even better is a few screenshots of the intercepts and orbital paths. Just sayin...

[PewPewTrash]

On 12/24/2018 at 12:36 PM, Wallygator said:

Congratulations! 

what would make this report even better is a few screenshots of the intercepts and orbital paths. Just sayin...

touche. I see how that would help. I'll try that next time.