Am I understanding this correctly? Mission to capture an asteroid?

[FITorion]

If Squad had an infinate number of these things generating, or provides the ability to mod more in, I could see tomorrow's threads already:

"Youtubers constructing ring around Kerbin"

"3000 rocks being herded to form a new Mun"

"Look, I built a bridge from KSC to the island runway!"

"Impatient for a ringed gas giant? Look what we did to Jool!"

"Developing a new continent on Laythe..."

"Portrait of Jeb using constellation of asteroids"

"Playing Asteroid soccer with MechJeb"

"Getting bored of all these asteroids...how soon until comets?"

Space elevator with a asteroid as the counterweight/station.

I don't know how we'd get around the render limit... but we'd find a way.

[numerobis]

Mid last year, Nova set up a challenge about capturing a minor moon of Eve and bringing it back to Kerbin.

[quasarquantum]

Players will first have to launch a spacecraft to fly alongside the asteroid, the equivalent of parallel parking one missile next to another. Then they will have to push the giant rock into a stable orbit around the Kerbal's home planet without creating an extinction-level impact below. Finally, they'll need to safely land on it.

So i am pretty sure its larger than 1-3 meters. The pushing into orbit is interesting... will it have some sort of docking mechanism so we can attach our rockets against it? Sounds like the Rosetta probe lander of ESA.

[Whackjob]

I'm planning on making that rock a monument. Put it down next to the KSC. Maybe even do practice landings on it.

...but something tells me, if I have it physically resting on the ground, that it would instantly become Krakenbait. Instead, I will keep it elevated via tower or platform.

[The Wrong Stuff]

Well its not April 1st....

[Aragosnat]

Well its not April 1st....

Not yet. =^.^=

But, yeah. From the sounds of it. The roid for KSP will be bigger then 3 meters as they mentioned it was an extinction level roid. Usually 3 meters is not that bad. My guess is it might be 20-100 meters around. Could be bigger. One can hope and dream. =^.^=

[Levelord]

Not yet. =^.^=

But, yeah. From the sounds of it. The roid for KSP will be bigger then 3 meters as they mentioned it was an extinction level roid. Usually 3 meters is not that bad. My guess is it might be 20-100 meters around. Could be bigger. One can hope and dream. =^.^=

In terms of gameplay issues, having a rock that big means that you literally can't do anything about it smashing into Kerbin. You can't build a ship big enough to move it given the limits of the Unity engine and the CPU. That is unless, you are comfortable playing a mission that runs like a Powerpoint slideshow.

[FITorion]

In terms of gameplay issues, having a rock that big means that you literally can't do anything about it smashing into Kerbin. You can't build a ship big enough to move it given the limits of the Unity engine and the CPU. That is unless, you are comfortable playing a mission that runs like a Powerpoint slideshow.

um... my system handles things of that size and mass just fine what kind of ultra low end system are you using? Now if you were talking things above 1Km in size then I'd agree... but 100m would be easy and not turn KSP into a slideshow at all. And that's only because the craft we'd build to deal with it would be a lot of parts... simply having an object of any particular size or mass has no effect on the games performance. A single object of any particular size or mass isn't going to effect KSP performance at all. The number of parts in the ship you send up to deal with it though will.

But as for speculating on the size... remember KSP is around a 10th of the size of real life. so in real life a 1Km would be pretty bad and my be extinction level... with that in mind a 100m asteroid in KSP would be the same sort of thing.

Edited January 30, 2014 by FITorion

[Aragosnat]

In terms of gameplay issues, having a rock that big means that you literally can't do anything about it smashing into Kerbin. You can't build a ship big enough to move it given the limits of the Unity engine and the CPU. That is unless, you are comfortable playing a mission that runs like a Powerpoint slideshow.

Big is not the problem. It is the mass of it that is. The other is. We can land on the Mun and other places without it being a slide show. But, On the topic of the roids mass. My guess would be it could easily be over 20 tons as most of my craft tend to get over 100+ and there are a few that have what is it? A 1000+ ton craft? Whachjob I'm looking at you. So a good guess would be 20 tons to maybe 500 or 1000 tons top.

The other intresting thing about it is. Is it stuck in Kerbin's SOI or can it enter and then leave? Obviously we can intentionally push it out. Which I'm planning on doing. As having a roid star ship sounds like fun as well as somewhat realistic as there have been ideas where we can use roids to travel and live upon.

[Levelord]

um... my system handles things of that size and mass just fine what kind of ultra low end system are you using?

I'm referring to the size of the ship required to move a 100m rock. If you have a system that can handle a 1000+ part ship, please let me know what it is so that I can buy one for my KSP.

[TNM]

So i am pretty sure its larger than 1-3 meters. The pushing into orbit is interesting... will it have some sort of docking mechanism so we can attach our rockets against it? Sounds like the Rosetta probe lander of ESA.

Well, in RL you do it with "gravity pull". You put another body (spacecraft) near the object (not touching), thus creating a new center of mass. Now you can steer the spacecraft and the asteroid will follow (slowly).

This is necessary as these objects are mostly not solids, its more like a pile of rubble or, like comets, dirty snowballs. You cant just land and then push, it would probably tear the object appart or just sink the spacecraft into the rubble.

Rosetta btw tries to land on a comet and "hook" into it, one of their main concerns is really to "sink" into the object (yep, no joke).

[Whackjob]

I'm referring to the size of the ship required to move a 100m rock. If you have a system that can handle a 1000+ part ship, please let me know what it is so that I can buy one for my KSP.

Here's how big the AEIA Mk8 got before the save file committed seppuku on me:

Apparently the processor you seek is a 2.53 Ghz quad core two duo something.

[Whackjob]

I'm seriously excited about this. I've lifted huge bloody machinations into orbit. Even where slideshow takeoffs (I'm talking in the 4 hour long range) got a bit boring.

But this? Grab big giant thing. Land big giant thing. Don't kill the world. It's like I was born for this challenge.

[MalfunctionM1Ke]

We fear this idea, Whackjob... Allthough... we might love it

[radonek]

Only 1-3 meters? I was hoping for 100-500.

If it were somebody else, Id say he is whacky crazy. But since its you… I just googled a bit to get an idea what are we talking about. Bear with me:

1999 RQ36 is about 500m across. It weighs, and you'd better sit down on this, sixty million tons. Funny thing is, its actually kinda light for asteroid, about a density of water. Solid stone is several times that. I'd rather not event think about iron ones. Our favourite 99942 Apophis is 325m and about forty million tons. You'd need quite a few mainsails…

Sources:

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/asteroids/news/asteroid20120524.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/99942_Apophis

[Scotius]

Can we crack it into pieces with a high-velocity impactor? Then size stops being the problem. Afterwards orbit would be a Kessler Syndrome hell - but for SCIENCE!

[JimmyAgent007]

When I posted my asteroid idea that i link to in my sig, i mentioned the possibility of landing legs that would clamp/drill into an object. Something like that would make it easier to land on. or in case of wackjob engulf. I also mention a way to avoid it from being on a collision course so we can have the asteroid scenario within our core game without it being a mandatory distraction. I hadnt planned on being able to move it but that seems like a crazy amount of fun too.

[Giggleplex777]

The nasa mission is to capture an small one of 1-3 meters.

I'm pretty sure it's supposed to be about 8 meters and weighs 500 tons.

[FITorion]

I'm referring to the size of the ship required to move a 100m rock. If you have a system that can handle a 1000+ part ship, please let me know what it is so that I can buy one for my KSP.

my system does though it does start to get a little lagy at 900. 1000 is a little close to slide show but not yet. But I reject the notion that anything more than 300 parts would be needed to move an asteroid 100m in size. Moving it quickly sure... but the slow deliberate motion that you would actually use to do such a thing does not need that many parts.

[Giggleplex777]

my system does though it does start to get a little lagy at 900. 1000 is a little close to slide show but not yet. But I reject the notion that anything more than 300 parts would be needed to move an asteroid 100m in size. Moving it quickly sure... but the slow deliberate motion that you would actually use to do such a thing does not need that many parts.

A 100m asteroid would weigh about ONE MILLION tons!

Have fun pushing that.

[stallion x1]

If the astoriod that is movable it would be (presumably) classed as some sort of debris in the games code. now would that mean that we could potentially move some files around / edit the text files and use it as a part on a ship?

[CaptainArchmage]

That's right, the mission is to deflect the impact and bring the asteroid into orbit around Kerbin.

I hope this goes in .24 and I also hope we get asteroids in the game as of then, preferably with some way to mine them for resources.

[Whackjob]

A 100m asteroid would weigh about ONE MILLION tons!

Have fun pushing that.

I could be wrong, and I'd have to build another four-thousand-part-er, but I think I've put stuff in orbit with that weight. May be off by a factor of ten or ten times ten. My memory isn't so good any more.

Still gonna try it.

[Anglave]

A 100m asteroid would weigh about ONE MILLION tons!

Have fun pushing that.

Mount a field array of engines on it. Probably nervas.

Run fuel missions to it, one launch every twenty minutes, for months. A whole train of fuel tugs stretching from LKO to the asteroid.

It's pretty easy to mount enough engines on a 100t ship to shove it at 10m/s.

That much thrust should get you 0.0001 m/s against the mass of the asteroid. Sure, it's not much. But over a long enough period you should be able to change its orbit significantly. The real problem would be delivering the fuel.

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Or cover half the surface with ion engines, make giant solar panel "wings", and push the rock for years at a tiny acceleration.

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Or instead of bothering to land all those engines and a huge train of fuel, just throw probe rockets at it. No neat landings, no concern about fuel consumption or insanely long burns. Just launch a thousand tugs, and have each one burn itself empty, aiming for impact. Literally slam it out of the way with a series of kinetic "adjustments".

[Giggleplex777]

Or instead of bothering to land all those engines and a huge train of fuel, just throw probe rockets at it. No neat landings, no concern about fuel consumption or insanely long burns. Just launch a thousand tugs, and have each one burn itself empty, aiming for impact. Literally slam it out of the way with a series of kinetic "adjustments".

The asteroid would just disintegrate.