Old Debris

[Javster]

Maybe old, faraway debris from previous rockets could be classified as "unknown" after a certain time.

This is mainly due to an asteroid in between the Moon and the Earth suspected of being a spent Saturn V stage.

[Javster]

Right, I'm bumping this instead of making a new thread.

Better one thread than two, and this is still relevant, as there haven't been any game updates since I made the OP, and I'm still interested in an answer.

Slight expansion on the idea, maybe only massive rocket stages would be classified as unknown.

[r4pt0r]

i think big parts would be more easily tracked.

[TheCanadianVendingMachine]

I agree greatly with this suggestion. But only if it's outside of Kerbin's SOI.

[makinyashikino]

Bump. I really like this idea. Maybe debris that's left alone around Kerbin or Solar SOI would "Disappear" and in the future, when you find an asteroid, it has bits of that stage embedded in it!

[Javster]

Bump. I really like this idea. Maybe debris that's left alone around Kerbin or Solar SOI would "Disappear" and in the future, when you find an asteroid, it has bits of that stage embedded in it!

I was thinking more of finding an "asteroid" which is actually a stage.

[makinyashikino]

I was thinking more of finding an "asteroid" which is actually a stage.

I feel like that would be a bit disappointing, or fun maybe, like archaeology, in SPACE!

depends on it's execution. Maybe it would give you a science bonus or something? But then I think some people would be pretty pissed to send a mission all the way to an asteroid only to find a part...

Unless it was a new part... Maybe you could "Discover" parts left in space, if .24 has stranded kerbals launched by other companies, why not assume that they launched a "prototype" rocket, that's how the kerbals got caught in LKO anyway. You could get a part slightly down the tech tree? or even something completely new

[dryer_lint]

This seems pretty cool, and it looks like the "object tracking feature" (where you see an antenna icon and size class) is going to get used more often. We've seen from the 0.24 videos that the lost Kerbals are tracked like asteroids.