Black Hole needed in KSP2

[DerkyJerkyWreaksHavoc]

Yep, you heard that right. We need a black hole in KSP2. I would imagine that it functions just like how jool did in KSP1, maybe destroying the craft completely after reaching a certain "altitude". a quasar would be beautiful. Plus, having a black hole would allow for some game breaking slingshots, being able to perform gravity assists that accelerate you multiple times your orbital speed. I would love for it to be a supermassive black hole, but at the same time, maybe a stellar black hole, or a black hole orbiting another star would also be great. I noticed in the game's introduction trailer there was a quasar, so maybe the KSP2 devs are hinting at something.  

https://youtu.be/VUiY2WqCet8?t=19

Edited April 4, 2023 by DAFATRONALDO2007 IN SPACE

[skylifeplays]

Mabye a star could orbit the black hole, which the star would have its own planets. it would take some work for the time dilatation however, because as you get closer to a black hole, time slows down for everyone else.

[Bej Kerman]

23 hours ago, DAFATRONALDO2007 IN SPACE said:

Yep, you heard that right. We need a black hole in KSP2. I would imagine that it functions just like how jool did in KSP1, maybe destroying the craft completely after reaching a certain "altitude". a quasar would be beautiful. Plus, having a black hole would allow for some game breaking slingshots, being able to perform gravity assists that accelerate you multiple times your orbital speed. I would love for it to be a supermassive black hole, but at the same time, maybe a stellar black hole, or a black hole orbiting another star would also be great. I noticed in the game's introduction trailer there was a quasar, so maybe the KSP2 devs are hinting at something.  

A stellar black hole wouldn't do any of that, though. Assuming there's no accretion disk which would destroy you early, you'd barely notice any fun effects. You'll be falling in at tens of thousands of kilometers a second, and the black hole is only going to be a few dozens of km wide at most. Tidal forces would rip you apart before you got close enough to appreciate much, and even then anything that happens will last a fraction of a second only. Your best bet is a supermassive black hole, but even then there will be an accretion disk that melts you by radiation from many light months out.

[Lyneira]

A stellar mass black hole slowly accreting matter from a companion star could provide interesting visuals, but the rate of accretion might have to be pretty finely tuned so it is plausibly safe-ish to have planets you can explore orbiting them. And it still leaves the question of how those planets were not vaporized when the supernova that created the black hole went off.

[dr.phees]

And the gravity assists would only work on a black hole that was orbiting something else.

[Bej Kerman]

4 hours ago, dr.phees said:

And the gravity assists would only work on a black hole that was orbiting something else.

From my understanding of GR, a spinning black hole would also do, even if it's not orbiting anything else. Pretty sure that is the idea behind the Penrose Process.

[DerkyJerkyWreaksHavoc]

6 hours ago, dr.phees said:

And the gravity assists would only work on a black hole that was orbiting something else.

yeah that's the point. Also, you won't get sucked in if you are above the event horizon, or the point where escape velocity is the speed of light.

On 4/6/2023 at 4:18 AM, Lyneira said:

A stellar mass black hole slowly accreting matter from a companion star could provide interesting visuals, but the rate of accretion might have to be pretty finely tuned so it is plausibly safe-ish to have planets you can explore orbiting them. And it still leaves the question of how those planets were not vaporized when the supernova that created the black hole went off.

Maybe just a star with a small (mass) black hole and a stripped planet. The black hole itself would be interesting enough to make a new system

Plus, i would actually keep the accretion disk if we had say a supermassive black hole in the center of the galaxy. It would add an extra challenge to avoid it and would provide amazing visuals, like Lyneira said. Maybe it would also be a rich source for science

[axtpg2i]

7 hours ago, dr.phees said:

And the gravity assists would only work on a black hole that was orbiting something else.

Generally speaking, it is believed that gravitational assist only applies to objects orbiting other objects. However, this limitation is actually due to the choice of reference frame. For example, in the solar system, we do not use the Sun for gravitational assist because if we consider two points on the same orbit around the Sun at the same distance from the Sun's center of mass, their relative velocity to the Sun does not increase, and thus there is no change in energy. But when we use a planet for gravitational assist, we change the direction of the spacecraft's velocity relative to that planet, without changing its magnitude relative to that planet. Meanwhile, because the planet is in motion relative to the Sun, we change the magnitude of the spacecraft's velocity relative to the Sun, resulting in a change in energy. Of course, the above energy changes are all relative.The content above may seem a bit confusing and strange, but what I want to convey is that rather than saying that gravitational assist only applies to black holes orbiting other objects, it is more accurate to say that whether gravitational assist works depends on the mass of the black hole relative to the mass of other stars in the game and whether there are other predetermined massive sources of gravity. (Since the game involves multiple star systems, a predetermined massive source of gravity is possible. Otherwise, there would be a black hole in the middle of the galaxy or the complex multi-body motion of multiple star systems, but this would require the introduction of interstellar multi-body gravity, which the developers probably do not intend to do.)Finally, it's possible to introduce a supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy (a rotating Kerr black hole or a rotating charged Kerr-Newman black hole), and we might be able to obtain energy through the Penrose process (although the game probably won't allow us to do so). We could also introduce a black hole orbiting the center of the galaxy (a stellar mass black hole), or a black hole in a binary star system (which would involve multi-body gravity and orbiting the center of the galaxy). There may also be a small black hole within a star system (with a mass several to tens of times that of the Earth, and no one knows how it formed, which is a mystery).

2 hours ago, Bej Kerman said:

From my understanding of GR, a spinning black hole would also do, even if it's not orbiting anything else. Pretty sure that is the idea behind the Penrose Process.

I'm not entirely sure, but I believe the Penrose process is unrelated to gravitational assist. Gravitational assist is somewhat like a perfectly elastic collision process (although obviously not entirely), where energy can be transferred without any energy loss.

Edited April 11, 2023 by axtpg2i

[Bej Kerman]

45 minutes ago, axtpg2i said:

3 hours ago, Bej Kerman said:

From my understanding of GR, a spinning black hole would also do, even if it's not orbiting anything else. Pretty sure that is the idea behind the Penrose Process.

I'm not entirely sure, but I believe the Penrose process is unrelated to gravitational assist. Gravitational assist is somewhat like a perfectly elastic collision process (although obviously not entirely), where energy can be transferred without any energy loss.

If we want a pedantic type of discussion, sure. But it literally does not matter in the least to me if it's not technically the same thing. The vessel leaves faster than it came in.