About torque

[Akinesis]

Pretty sure NASA just time warps to stop spins. Saves fuel and energy.

Haha! I found this out when I thought I was being clever and 'spin-stabilised' my ship

If reaction wheels are used to spin the ship, they will continue to do so until power is removed. Once power is removed, the wheels will begin to slow. In response, the spin of the craft will reduce in relative sympathy. The moment the wheels stop, the vehicles rotation will stop.

The speed at which this happens is down to an infinite number of internal and external forces, the main of which have been mentioned. RCS or ejecting the gyro's would counter this, however.

I actually work with gyro's, and had a tremendous amount of fun playing with working models

[karolus10]

Reaction wheels torque can be bit OP-ish, but this is still first iteration of the system .

[TeeGee]

Have any manned spacecraft ever used reaction wheels for rotations and attitude control? I've never heard of any that have...

[DMagic]

Have any manned spacecraft ever used reaction wheels for rotations and attitude control? I've never heard of any that have...

This one does: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Space_Station#Orbit_and_mission_control. Ok, it's not exactly a reaction wheel, but it's the same general idea.

Edited November 8, 2013 by DMagic

[Levelord]

Provided with a constant source of electricity a satellite can torque all it wants. What I am talking about doesn't involve reaction wheels, but a device called a Magnetorquer. It's basically a device that rotates the craft using the planet's magnetic field. This makes it possible to freely pivot the craft around in a known local gradient of the magnetic field by only using electrical energy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetorquer

Also, on a slightly related note, reaction wheels!

[vexx32]

Would that not require significantly more energy than a reaction wheel, though?

[0x7be]

IMO reaction wheels in KSP are overpowered a lot.

I always reduce torque and increase power consumption in my copy of KSP to incearse realism.

[Levelord]

Would that not require significantly more energy than a reaction wheel, though?

Does it matter? As long as you have solar panels gathering the limitless (in terms of the craft's lifespan) source of energy the sun provides, you can be as energy inefficient as you want.

[0x7be]

Does it matter? As long as you have solar panels gathering the limitless (in terms of the craft's lifespan) source of energy the sun provides, you can be as energy inefficient as you want.

Thre is lack of balance in power management in game.

Slap loads of batteries and few solar panels or RTGS and you never have problems.

Because of electrical equipment unrealisticly low wheights the only "power management challenge" is not to forget to add power source to your craft at all.

[Deadweasel]

I could extrapolate all the way out to the heat death of the universe, if there were time for it. Or as long as a quantum metastability event which almost certainly has already happened got to us and obliterated all matter and redefined the fundamental forces of the universe.

Don't mistake me for an actual scientist, however. I am not. I'm more of an arm-chair enthusiast who reads more than he understands.

Also, I'm betting you stayed at a Holiday Inn Express at some point in the last few months.