The Life Aquatic with Steve Kerbal

[Algomeysa]

So, long story short, I've been experimenting with subs, diving on the deepest part of the Kerbin Ocean, trying to be Kerbal James Cameron. More about that in this thread rather than repeat myself.

But I made an interesting discovery --- I'd heard previously about that smiley face on the ocean floor, that was discovered with MapSat (Apparently MapSat doesn't work with 0.23.5, but there's plenty of high-res maps people have created, like this one).

I've seen some claims you can see the smiley face from orbit, but I can't manage that myself, and I don't see any screenshots, so I'm skeptical of that one.

But it turns out the deepest part of the Kerbin ocean is located in one eye of the smiley face:

So I figured it's useless to really look on the seabed when you're down there, it'd be like standing on the Nazca lines in Peru and trying to get the big picture.

So I tried this: From my position at the deepest part of the ocean (yellow circle above), I went east to 280 east longitude. Then I turned south and went from 30 S latitude to 40 S latitude, taking depth measurements every quarter-latitude.

What I found is this: You can clearly see on this graph where I crossed the upper and lower lips of the smiley face, deeper ocean rifts between 1100 and 1300+ meters deep.

Pretty neat.

To be clear, I'm cheating out the wazoo on this, using unlimited fuel. Phase 2 is to manage this without cheating; design a sub that can just be kerplopped in there at the deepest part and make a stable descent. Not quite sure how I'd get it there though --- either by rockets, or maybe somehow making a big barge-transport boat, rolling the sub onto it, and transporting it all the way to 28 south 276 east and rolling it overboard...

[jedensuscg]

I got the SCANsat addon installed and am using for my new career documented in my sig, I wonder if that could pick up the "Kerbal on Kerbin". When I unlock solar power, I will a SCANsat sat up in orbit and make that the focus of one of my missions.

Kerbal Space Program, now with deep sea diving simulator, lol.

[nli2work]

I got a rover built, weighed down by KAS anchors, another alternative for under water explorations... a lot of test launches to find the right amount of ballast. runs at a reasonable 10~20m/s under water; powered by 0.625 Interstellar reactor. lots of light, looks quite nice in IVA mode. Now Squad needs to place some easter eggs under the oceans.

[Algomeysa]

well, how about this underwater wall from this January 2012 post.

I'm not sure where that is though; supposedly "near the KSC", but I haven't spotted a section of coastline that really matches that.