Moon/Mun atmosphere?

[wulf899]

Hey Guys,

I've been following NASA closely (For obvious reasons) and the LADEE probe that was launched to the moon, as you know, is going to pick up readings of the Moon's thin atmosphere.

I was just wondering, considering that the Kerbolar/Kerbal system is a sized-down version of our own, is there a possibility that the Mun may have a very thin atmosphere implemented? I know it may be a long shot, but it'd be fun to do something more productive with probes than to just have them flying around with no real purpose except for the Gravitron readings (in the Vanilla version at least, for addons that'd be a whole other story).

Hope this post spurs some thoughts and ideas, both for devs and addon developers!

[Zaryulenko]

In part it would be good (In my point of view) so i could have a nice view of the tiny atmosphere on sunspots, But LADEE is still on its way to Moon and we still have no evidence of atmosphere ATM, Maybe when if it does part of its mission this could be considered if the thin atmosphere is discovered Also KSP its not always the same to the real life (I still want my Kerbalized Saturn now! ) . Im giving my opinion.

Edited September 9, 2013 by Zaryulenko

[leax256]

well it does take from our solar system however it's not finished in that there is still more to come. be pacient about saturn, current planet engine cant handle saturn

[Zaryulenko]

Youre going a little out of the point of the thread but anyway, Im still thinking that the thin atmosphere suggested for Mun should wait until LADEE results so it can be more accuarate (If devs decide to take that and implement it on a release)

[Horn Brain]

There is an atmosphere on the moon... They're just sending the probe to get a better idea of what it's like in detail. The fact that it has an extremely thin atmosphere is well known and confirmed already.

The atmosphere is so low that it wouldn't be noticeable in the game.

[Outlander4]

I understand all the excitement, but even in real life Moon's atmosphere is so thin it's more or less equivalent to Earth's atmosphere at the height where ISS orbits. Most people define that as 'space' anyway; such atmosphere would surely have some effect on spacecraft (some drag), but you'll only notice it after many thousands of orbits. Well, actually, in KSP you'll notice it immediately because you won't be able to use time warp in very low münar orbit.

What I want to say - such an atmosphere in KSP is mostly useless, very inconvenient, and hard to implement (engine dislikes thin atmospheres).

I'd rather have a very thin atmosphere above the lakes of Minmus that is only several hundred meters high (so it does not reach mountaintops), produced by geysers or something

[jwenting]

some dust kicked up an atmosphere does not make. One of the things LADEE is set to investigate is whether the visual observations 40 years ago are just that or signs of a permanent (and indeed vanishingly thin) atmosphere around the moon.

Saying a few motes of dust kicked up are an atmosphere is like saying a handful of sand thrown up is a sandstorm.

[Katve]

This game is simplified version of universe. We don't got orbital decay on LKO so we will not get atmosphere on Mun. I don't want this.

[MarkusA380]

Even in outer space you find 3 atoms per cubic meter... is this athmosphere? No.

[Kimberly]

It might be interesting to fidget with the way atmospheric readings work, and allow us to measure an atmosphere on the Mun (and in space?) without there actually being a physical atmosphere.

[lajoswinkler]

Moon's "atmosphere" is equivalent to the conditions above ISS. KSP doesn't model such phenomena. For instance, Kerbin's atmosphere ends in the equivalent of Earth's ~150 km or so.

[Kerbart]

In addition to what's been said... "A better vacuum than the average high school lab can produce"

[Rage097]

I don't belive that an atmosphere should be added to the mun at all. Our moon's atmosphere is mostly rocket exhaust (don't quote me, I may be wrong) and to model that in KSP wouldn't actually change much in terms of gameplay. As far as I'm concerned it's pointless to add. But that's just me.

[Beeman]

It wouldn't be pointless. It wouldn't add anything mechanically to mun, but it would certainly give you something to do research on...which will be half the point of career mode. You could even have a mission to build a very low-orbiting atmospheric probe that scoops up what little atmosphere there is after a couple orbits and beams the data back to KSC.

If a suggestion adds some depth...or just something more to do in KSP then it's always a welcome suggestion in my book.

[Astronut25]

IIRC, Squad tried to add a tenuous atmosphere to Eeloo, but it glitched out because it was too thin (and small) for Unity to handle.

[wulf899]

Okay, I understand that many people wouldn't call it an atmosphere per se, however, consider this: Wouldn't it be interesting if we could pick up information around the Mun in KSP in a similar fashion to LADEE? (This was what I was really getting to) admittedly the 'atmosphere' wouldn't slow down the plane or have any physical effect, but if we could pick up readings and information, now THAT would be really exciting. What's more, It would make use of the Science parts tab - which I for one, have largely left unused.

[Hoagster35]

I don't think this will really work. The Moon may or may not have an atmosphere, but it would be so thin that it wouldn't really do anything, it wouldn't effect anything. It would be pretty much useless, no atmospheric drag, heat effects, and it will look the same. No point.

[Pulstar]

Yes, adding very very thin atmospheres seems to be impossible as this was tried with Eeloo.

[iDan122]

The thinnest atmosphere in the game is around Moho. Adding layers of the atmosphere like in real life would make all our LKO craft after a huge time warp fall down to Kerbin.

[leax256]

This game is simplified version of universe. We don't got orbital decay on LKO so we will not get atmosphere on Mun. I don't want this.

wait, squad is taking requests to not add stuff people don't want? there goes the whole future of ksp, this is now the final version. deal with it.

[BFGfreak]

I wouldn't mind if sensors would say that there is an atmosphere even if it didn't effect my 10 meter orbits around the mun. Actually I'd kind of prefer if it didn't and it will only be there for the science part of it, not to perform munar aerobreaks.

[SunJumper]

Don't forget that any atmosphere around Eeloo (with the expected thickness), can avoid bugs with colour, by not having colour. There may still be issues with rendering the Sun/screen tearing/other things, but a Triton-thickness atmosphere ought to be somewhat feasible for Eeloo/Tylo (the only bodies I can see that would benefit from tenuous atmospheres for, well, atmosphere). To specify, such atmospheres could not be used for aerocapture or parachute landing (but could be used for long, tedious, aerobraking), but would restrict the orbit height limit . Also, the force from drag would be on average 5N per m^2 of cross-sectional area.

[KatzOhki]

Okay, I understand that many people wouldn't call it an atmosphere per se, however, consider this: Wouldn't it be interesting if we could pick up information around the Mun in KSP in a similar fashion to LADEE? (This was what I was really getting to) admittedly the 'atmosphere' wouldn't slow down the plane or have any physical effect, but if we could pick up readings and information, now THAT would be really exciting. What's more, It would make use of the Science parts tab - which I for one, have largely left unused.

This I agree with

[lazarus1024]

I understand all the excitement, but even in real life Moon's atmosphere is so thin it's more or less equivalent to Earth's atmosphere at the height where ISS orbits. Most people define that as 'space' anyway; such atmosphere would surely have some effect on spacecraft (some drag), but you'll only notice it after many thousands of orbits. Well, actually, in KSP you'll notice it immediately because you won't be able to use time warp in very low münar orbit.

What I want to say - such an atmosphere in KSP is mostly useless, very inconvenient, and hard to implement (engine dislikes thin atmospheres).

I'd rather have a very thin atmosphere above the lakes of Minmus that is only several hundred meters high (so it does not reach mountaintops), produced by geysers or something

Actually I think it is somewhat less. From what we know if it, the atmosphere is pretty much just sublimated dust and rock from impacts on the moon, plus solar wind detrius.

It is there, but it is on the order of a couple of thousand to a couple of million times typical vaccum in space. That is to say possibly a couple of thousand to several million atoms/molecules per cubic meter (1x10^3-1x10^8). This is compared to sea level Earth which has around 3x10^24 atoms/molecules per cubic meter (standard temperature and pressure). On the order of trillions and trillions of times less atmosphere than Earth.

From the little we understand of it, Pluto, we think, has a thicker atmosphere than the Moon. Mars has an atmosphere that is millions of times more dense than the Moons (if not billions or trillions).

For all intents and purposes, except academic interest, the Moon has no atmosphere. Just like Mercury, Pluto and most of the gas giant moons. We have, however, detected the presences of "an atmosphere" around most things roughly lunar sized, give or take half an order of magnitude...they are just often billions of times less dense than Earth's atmosphere (if not even less dense than that).

[softweir]

Gentle-people, can we see more civility towards each other. Some of the criticism in this thread was a bit too strong!

Also, arguing about Real_world science doesn't belong here. You can take that to the Science Labs!