So, my 4-year old son has been watching me play KSP, and...

[Bluegobln]

Please make these planets, their exact likenesses, part of the game. <3

[rodion_herrera]

There's another planet called Arkin. It's black.

Oh my god...is this my Obsidian Planet?? Could it be??

[capi3101]

Been a while since I checked in on this thread. My kid was delighted when I showed him the "screenshots" of Arde and Binbin; they looked right, he said. I told him they were still looking for Arkin. He prompty asked about Ckozee (KA-ZEE) - it's red and blue. "It goes to Fina. Fina is far away. You have to drive to it."

[Kerbface]

The moon makes up for the velocity lost when its on the opposite side, because the earth is the central body,

Two planets orbiting each other don't have a central object so they don't really make up for the lost velocity, unless there's so, somehow another body ahead of them pulling, without messing up their orbits, which is pretty much garrenteed

This doesn't answer anything. Why would only the body BEHIND do the pulling? Does the ahead one just turn it's gravitational pull off? Refer to my earlier pulling with a magnet attatched to itself point. Even the Earth and the moon and more notably Pluto and Charon don't just have ONE thing doing the pulling. It might not be equally noticeable but the gravitational rotational axis is never perfectly at the centre of the larger body. It's called a barycentre and it doesn't degrade an orbit. Pluto and Charon in fact have a barycentre which is not touching either body, they are rotating around each other and it is not continually slowing their orbit of the sun.

[air805ronin]

This doesn't answer anything. Why would only the body BEHIND do the pulling? Does the ahead one just turn it's gravitational pull off? Refer to my earlier pulling with a magnet attatched to itself point. Even the Earth and the moon and more notably Pluto and Charon don't just have ONE thing doing the pulling. It might not be equally noticeable but the gravitational rotational axis is never perfectly at the centre of the larger body. It's called a barycentre and it doesn't degrade an orbit. Pluto and Charon in fact have a barycentre which is not touching either body, they are rotating around each other and it is not continually slowing their orbit of the sun.

If anything I think of its almost like a bolo. Those cool thrown weapons with the balls at the end of lines. Their spin does cancel out the other but doesn't take away momentum, so they aren't slowing down and falling to the ground. Imagine Pluto and Charon as a bolo without lines, mutually drawn together in a dance that isn't slowing them down and throwing them into the sun. Instead they carry on with their current orbital momentum, in a neverending waltz around a star until the universe ends.

[Rhyunix]

I like this. I too live under the thought that imagination can make whatever is thought possible, possible (without the child )

[Deadpangod3]

This doesn't answer anything. Why would only the body BEHIND do the pulling? Does the ahead one just turn it's gravitational pull off? Refer to my earlier pulling with a magnet attatched to itself point. Even the Earth and the moon and more notably Pluto and Charon don't just have ONE thing doing the pulling. It might not be equally noticeable but the gravitational rotational axis is never perfectly at the centre of the larger body. It's called a barycentre and it doesn't degrade an orbit. Pluto and Charon in fact have a barycentre which is not touching either body, they are rotating around each other and it is not continually slowing their orbit of the sun.

The ahead planet does pull but also loses speed from the other one,

Try making two planets orbit each other around a star in ANY simulation game and see how it turns out, if you manage to succeed and can provide video evidence of it in a stable orbit long-term then I'll stand corrected

[Kerbface]

The ahead planet does pull but also loses speed from the other one,

Try making two planets orbit each other around a star in ANY simulation game and see how it turns out, if you manage to succeed and can provide video evidence of it in a stable orbit long-term then I'll stand corrected

I don't know how to do that. Could you show me how it does then, or give answers to my questions about things like conservation of momentum? And how this is different to Pluto and Charon just because they're closer in size? If being closer in size makes them slow down their orbit faster, shouldn't Pluto and Charon be doing this more than, say, the Earth and the Moon, since they are closer to each other in size?

If the behind planet makes the system lose speed, would the ahead one not make it gain speed equally? They're not being pulled back in their orbit as a whole system, they're being pulled closer to each other in the orbit, or closer to the barycentre, and the centripetal force is counteracting that, causing them to orbit each other. It has nothing to do with their orbit of the sun. You've yet to explain how this magically slows their movement. You're saying that there's a deceleration caused without any reaction. It's like saying two spaceship parts connected by a cable and spinning around the cable would make the spaceship's orbit degrade.

Edited May 29, 2013 by Kerbface

[rhoark]

My daughter likes to make rockets and cover them with wheels and cylindrical monopropellant tanks ("for decoration")

[Devo]

I wish my kids were that interested, they just seem intent on blowing kerbals up :/

[khyron42]

Cool imagination from your son, capi3101!

Deadpangod3, the slowing of the "forward" planet by the "behind" planet (and accelerating of the behind one towards the forward one) will be exactly reversed when they switch positions in a half orbit, thus have no net effect on the system. Your argument ignores the fact that, if they're directly in that alignment, the trailing planet has massive velocity in towards the star and the leading planet has massive velocity outwards away from the sun (they're in orbit around each other.) That "slowing" of the forward planet you mention is needed, to curve them around into the next orbit!

The solar tides during the "side-by-side" part of their orbits are more likely to be a factor. The one closer to the sun is moving on a faster orbit, the one further out is on a slower one; it only works if their orbit around each other already requires that. If you factor the solar tides into your orbit around each other it might stand a chance - figure out how much the co-orbit will wobble over the course of one orbit around each other and make sure the distance from the star is far enough to keep the wobble from destabilizing things.

Edited May 29, 2013 by khyron42

[capi3101]

Last night he got his games confused...he later told me that to get to Ckozee, "you have to follow the Dralthis and kill them. Then you can see Ckazee. Dralthis live up in the sky. They can kill Ckazee."

I don't suppose any of you remember Wing Commander...

[AmpsterMan]

Threads like these make me want to have a child, like right now XD.

[Westo454]

You, sir, win an internet for your example of excellent parenting. Lucky for you, KSP is cheaper than Legos! My parents weren't so lucky.

Cheaper, and far more reusable.

[Elven_sword]

OP, what do you call a young male chef on Arde?

Chef Boy Arde!

[FreedomFighterEx]

*read only first page

Did you let your son try to play Kerbal? i'm sure lot of awesome thing will happen : D

[Werwolf]

A black planet would be insanely cool....

[Specialist290]

A black planet would be insanely cool....

Actually, a black planet would probably absorb more heat than a similarly-sized planet of another color.

...I'll be here all night, folks.

But seriously, I agree. It would be a pretty awesome sight.

[Pachi3080]

this post makes me remember my childhood, when i had like... 5 years old... I always were talking about a strange solar system, with a grey planet with a "Giant hole" in one side (A crater) Full of alien skulls because of a war or something... I think i must have an old drawing of that planet somewhere...

I hope my little sister could be interested in ksp in the future... (now she has almost 2 years)

Edited June 8, 2013 by Pachi3080