Why real world rocket science is so hard...

[Phil0rd]

Because you cannot press "M" and look at your AP and PE value!!!

I suddenly figure this out today after a long confusion... why I have never bothered with math yet in KSP?!

[spudcosmic]

I'm pretty sure we've programmed computers to predict that information for us now. Kind of like MechJeb.

[jwenting]

yup, and we've had those for decades.

[regex]

Not to mention you've got mission control with tracking radars and all kinds of other cool things that help track that sort of thing.

[mr.millian]

I think real world rocket science is so hard because there is no room for error. I sometimes screw up 10 times on REALLY difficult stuff in KSP.

In REAL world rocket science, everything has to be right the very first try, or else you just wasted millions of dollars.

[DerekL1963]

Because you cannot press "M" and look at your AP and PE value!!!

Umm.... no. they've had guidance computers than can give you the instantaneous values of Ap and Pe since the 60's... They had cruder versions by the late 1950's.

[Sma]

I think real world rocket science is so hard because there is no room for error. I sometimes screw up 10 times on REALLY difficult stuff in KSP.

In REAL world rocket science, everything has to be right the very first try, or else you just wasted millions of dollars.

Wait until career mode is put into place. Of course it's still not the same being as that it's not real money, but still.

[leforian]

There are a lot of other factors that happen in real life that aren't simulated (yet) in KSP.

[Sirrobert]

Wait until career mode is put into place. Of course it's still not the same being as that it's not real money, but still.

Revert to launchpad will probably take the place of simulations. Or atleast I hope. They can't expect us to calculate everything like NASA does

[XenonSpark]

Also because in-game you have the n-body problem, and decaying orbits, and thousands of times more space debris to worry about.

+50,000 respect for the people working at the world's various space agencies.

[maltesh]

Heck, until v0.10, we couldn't hit "M" and look at our apoapsis and periapsis values either, but the navball,speedometer, altimeter, and mission clock (assuming you know the mass and radius of Kerbin) provide enough information for you to calculate them.

[painking]

Kinda interesting when you realize that if you let Mechjeb exclusively fly your rocket, then you're more like the guys sitting at the mission control desk then people who fly it manually. Manual control of the rocket, be it remotely from MC or by the astronauts piloting it is really only if the automated systems fail, right?

[regex]

Kinda interesting when you realize that if you let Mechjeb exclusively fly your rocket, then you're more like the guys sitting at the mission control desk then people who fly it manually. Manual control of the rocket, be it remotely from MC or by the astronauts piloting it is really only if the automated systems fail, right?

I, too, find this insinuation that others should play the game your way interesting.

[Ralathon]

Real life rocket science is hard because:

They need about twice the dV to get into orbit as we do.

They have to worry about aerodynamics.

They don't have quicksaves.

They can't pack too much spare fuel since that's really expensive.

In general they can't pull a lot of the stuff we do due to costs.

They have to worry about the attraction of the moon and the sun disrupting orbits.

Reentry actually hurts.

Space debris won't just glitch through if it goes fast enough.

And some other minor stuff. Budget is by far the biggest limiting factor though.

[painking]

I, too, find this insinuation that others should play the game your way interesting.

I'm not insinuating anything, I'm just stating that while flying a real world rocket would obviously be much more difficult than a KSP rocket, that they too also use computers for flight control. You don't -have- to use Mechjeb if you want to fly a rocket more traditionally, or even if you're trying to replicate real world flights. You fly it how you want to fly it, ain't no one gonna tell you otherwise.

[wronkiew]

It was fascinating to me to watch Orbital's Antares first flight because the video feed had several windows of information that were very similar to what you would see in KSP. Sort of a combined staging view and map view.

[Kerbol Prime]

KSP parts are much stronger than real life. In KSP you can sit a rocket on its engines and be fine. And your rocket can wobble like a fish and stay together. Also you can dock at

0.2m/s and not have issues.

[regex]

I'm not insinuating anything, I'm just stating that while flying a real world rocket would obviously be much more difficult than a KSP rocket, that they too also use computers for flight control. You don't -have- to use Mechjeb if you want to fly a rocket more traditionally, or even if you're trying to replicate real world flights. You fly it how you want to fly it, ain't no one gonna tell you otherwise.

Well, traditionally you'd be using computers for flight, so MechJeb would be required. In stock KSP you can assume that all automated systems have failed.

[TouhouTorpedo]

Uhh... Theres just way too many reasons why real world rocket science is hard. The easiest way to sum it up is "KSP is a game for fun" and real life is, well, real life. They just aren't even comparable. Heck, real "rocket science" doesn't really happen much anymore. Its more rocket engineers and established theories.

[El wonso]

Real life rocket science is hard because: (...)

Do not forget that not every orbit is stable like in KSP.

[magnemoe]

Revert to launchpad will probably take the place of simulations. Or atleast I hope. They can't expect us to calculate everything like NASA does

Simply try out the ship in sandbox and copy it to the career users ships after testing.

[NovaSilisko]

Well, traditionally you'd be using computers for flight, so MechJeb would be required. In stock KSP you can assume that all automated systems have failed.

Speaking of, the Saturn V had a manual override IIRC. Some of the astronauts have said they probably wouldn't have aborted if a guidance failure had occurred, they'd much rather have flown that beast to orbit themselves.

[Dweeb of Kerbin]

my understanding is that the stuff that makes this so difficult in real life is stuff that either we don't deal with at all or in very simplified form. (structural stability, zero room for error in the structure or most of the components, fuel has to flow perfectly, etc.) If the main difficulty was just the basic physics we might have been on the moon in the late 1800s

[Lazro]

Struts have mass, drag, don't automatically snap upon decoupling, and can't really just sit there out in the open.

Also, most rocket fuels are acutely poisonous, so that might also be a problem.

[Bunsen]

When you buy your parts from Jebediah Kerman's Junkyard and Spaceship Parts Co., they usually don't work until you spend a while fixing them up.