[Spoiler Alert] Interstellar-based "Movie style" - rapid spinning docking stunt

[Omniverse]

So I saw Interstellar recently. Great movie, I'm sure there are some parts that made some of you guys cringe... but nonetheless fantastic movie.

The scene to replicate from the movie:

There is a scene in the movie where Mann tries to dock imperfectly and blows the Endurance (big centrifuge style craft) into a rapid spin on a suborbital trajectory.

Cooper then approaches the rapidly spinning, damaged Endurance and manages to dock with it by spinning his own craft and lining up with it perfectly enough

Cooper then proceed to pull the Endurance out of the suborbital trajectory with just the Lander's thrusters.

The Challenge looks something like this:

Stage 1:

-create a large centrifuge-style orbital ship _{(note 1)}

-create a Lander ship

-bring them into Low-orbit of any planet with a reasonably thick atmosphere (Kerbin, Jool, Eve, Laythe)

Stage 2:

-land the lander (or just move it away and come back)

-bring the lander back up, spin the centrifuge-style ship to 20+^{(citation needed)} rpm_{(note 2)} and put into suborbital trajectory_{(note 3)}

Stage 3:

-dock with the spinning ship without slowing it down until you have docked.

-bring it out of the sub orbital trajectory with only the lander's thrusters

-take video to prove this

Notes and specifics:

-note 1: it is understood that the mass and size (and naturally, the moment of inertia)of the Endurance is much larger than that of the lander. you get points for replicating this.

-note 2: it is understood that because a segment of the Endurance's ring was blown off, it would be nearly impossible to maintain rotational movement along the same axis (aka there would be too much wobble in the dock because te center of mass changed) but for the purposes of this challenge, just dock with a symmetrical craft.

-note 3: in the movie the ship and the lander docked after they had entered the stratosphere. you get many points for completing the docking in atmosphere.

-note 4: the centrifuge style craft cannot have thrusting or SAS capability once it is docked (because it's supposed to be damaged). I recommend changing the spin and trajectory by means of small solid rocket boosters.

-note 5: replicating scenes involving the Ranger docking and being blown off are not required

-note 6: I am unsure how fast the Endurance was spinning in the movie, someone please help me define this for the challenge. Also I do not believe even mechjeb can tell you exactly how fast you are spinning, so good luck

The community will somehow judge the best Interstellar style docking (I'm just putting the idea out there). Generally I believe credit should be awarded on the following criteria:

-reasonable scale and design of the Endurance and Lander crafts

-successful initial state (near atmosphere, low orbit, lander separates and returns)

-centrifuge craft is spun fast (the faster the better)

-centrifuge craft is put into suborbital trajectory (a significant one, landing eventually, not aerobraking)

-lander craft aligns with centrifuge craft and spins at the same rate

-crafts dock (bonus points if in atmosphere)

-lander uses its own SAS/RCS to stop spinning

-lander uses it's own thrusters to pull the two crafts back into stable orbit.

-video evidence

please comment to let me know how I can tweak this challenge and make it better, can't wait to see this one

Omniverse

Edited November 9, 2014 by Omniverse
movie spoils

[Cmdr. Arn1e]

Wow, spoiler alert! - please edit the title (go edit, then advanced edit) to warn people >.<

EDIT: Thanks

Edited November 10, 2014 by Cmdr. Arn1e

[Pecan]

please comment to let me know how I can tweak this challenge and make it better, can't wait to see this one

Challenge submission guide

Be aware that the 'video evidence' requirement precludes a lot of people and will result in very high-bandwidth submissions.

ETA: listening to a review of Interstellar yesterday - it got completely panned by the whole panel for, well, everything. "Possibly of interest to xenophobic TV-addicts in Kansas" was the nice comment.

Edited November 9, 2014 by Pecan

[Omniverse]

Challenge submission guide

Be aware that the 'video evidence' requirement precludes a lot of people and will result in very high-bandwidth submissions.

ETA: listening to a review of Interstellar yesterday - it got completely panned by the whole panel for, well, everything. "Possibly of interest to xenophobic TV-addicts in Kansas" was the nice comment.

Thats a good point. If there was a mod that displayed information on rotational speed than I would consider screenshots. What do you believe would be a reasonable alternative?

[Bedi]

they mentioned rotation rate in the film,from what I remember it was 67-68 RPM.

[chuangatronic]

they mentioned rotation rate in the film,from what I remember it was 67-68 RPM.

I can confirm it is in the 60rpm range

[Omniverse]

I can confirm it is in the 60rpm range

Well good... But that's kinda fast...

Do we know of anyway of measuring rotational motion in KSP?

[builder396]

Well, 60 rpm would be one complete revolution per second. 360° each second. This was it would definitely be easy enough to eyeball it.

[sKen]

Notes and specifics:

-note 1: it is understood that the mass and size (and naturally, the moment of inertia)of the Endurance is much larger than that of the lander. you get points for replicating this.

I would like to question this. In my opinion, the physics only works out if the Endurance is actually rather light, particularly compared to the Rangers. I'm not saying it's lighter, but it has to be fairly low in mass. (upcoming minor spoilers)

Just think- remember how short a time it takes for them to spin it up? Or more importantly, to arrest the spinning using only the thrusters on the lander. Then there's the issue of when they fire the main engines; whether or not the engines on the Endurance were firing, the lander's were, meaning the centre of thrust would have been totally out of line with the centre of mass if the Endurance had any decent mass to it. If it were lighter, the lander's engines could probably compensate for the angle, as they must have done because there was no rotation induced when they boosted out of the atmosphere.

And then if you think about how quickly the Endurance accelerated away after detaching from the makeshift booster rockets flying out of the black hole, it makes sense. Don't forget Romilly's comment about "millimetres of Aluminum".

Those are just my thoughts on it

[Hadza]

Whew, I very imperfectly tried it out! It was impossbile, but necessary . I used infinite fuel and rcs (those doesn't matter much anyway) and small rockomaxes to initiate and throttle to maintain the spin of the station (I've found out that even though I put all the control stuff for group 1 to toggle, they managed to desynchronise). Also, 60 rpm is definitely much more than it was in the film, IIRC. Maybe I'll do a proper one later, but at the moment I am very nauseated And also, the point of no return for this is no less than 50km (FAR and DRE).

I recommend this challenge to everyone and advise you to have Hans Zimmer - Day One Dark playing in the background . I can share those save files of mine if you are too lazy to do those yourself (although the crafts could have much more eye-candy to it. And size. And mass)

[Omniverse]

Whew, I very imperfectly tried it out! It was impossbile, but necessary . I used infinite fuel and rcs (those doesn't matter much anyway) and small rockomaxes to initiate and throttle to maintain the spin of the station (I've found out that even though I put all the control stuff for group 1 to toggle, they managed to desynchronise). Also, 60 rpm is definitely much more than it was in the film, IIRC. Maybe I'll do a proper one later, but at the moment I am very nauseated And also, the point of no return for this is no less than 50km (FAR and DRE).

I recommend this challenge to everyone and advise you to have Hans Zimmer - Day One Dark playing in the background . I can share those save files of mine if you are too lazy to do those yourself (although the crafts could have much more eye-candy to it. And size. And mass)

I'm impressed someone tried it, I would love to see footage

[Sli 41]

I really need to try doing this some day, when I saw the movie that scene was particularly special to me because one time when I had just started playing the game, I was trying to dock to a little station I had in orbit, but I bumped into it and it started rotating very wildly in all directions, it might have not been spinning as fast as in the movie, but it was rotating in more than one axis. It was pretty damn challenging to try to align to this, and just when I kind of had it I realized my docking ports were messed up as they were installed the other way around. lol

[Ramix09]

Working on my endurance!

A quick question: can I use save edit to put the endurance in orbit? Or it doesn't matter?

[Rolanvorxariat]

I wish i could make a video. I will have a mission report with my INTEGRITY (Endurance-style mission, surveying Laythe(Edmunds), vall(mann), and tylo(miller))mission in maybe a month or so, with a docking scene.

EDIT: Just realized Vall doesn't have an atmosphere, might have to rewrite the script for this challenge to make it a Jool scene or laythe...:(

Edited December 15, 2014 by Rolanvorxariat
ack, vall doesn't have a atmosphere!

[Fleskhjerta14577]

I wish i could make a video. I will have a mission report with my INTEGRITY (Endurance-style mission, surveying Laythe(Edmunds), vall(mann), and tylo(miller))mission in maybe a month or so, with a docking scene.

EDIT: Just realized Vall doesn't have an atmosphere, might have to rewrite the script for this challenge to make it a Jool scene or laythe...:(

Why not leave it that way, and let Mann suffocate to death? If he's just going to compromise your mission, why waste your ship and crew? Just let him die.. wow, I just realized how much of a psychopath I sound like.. hm.

[Rolanvorxariat]

I changed the script. Since killing kerbals isn't my thing, I will have a AI rebel while in orbit around laythe and deorbit the INTEGRITY mothership, and rams part of it into the Lander, causing the spin. Oh, and read the description for the HEKS probe core. TARS+CASE is replaced with QBE+HEKS+OKTO

hehehehe... I am still GO for this challenge...

EDIT: oh, and Flesh...flesgh...Fleskjer...Fleskhjerka,yeah Fleskhjerka, In my version, the Mann analog doesn''t die and is rescued. HEKS rebels and rams INTEGRITY into the lander.

Oh, and everyone who wants to make a video of your docking, you should get no time for caution. It's the actual docking music, and it sounds awesome.

Edited December 23, 2014 by Rolanvorxariat

[Rolanvorxariat]

I outlined the scene. It will be in Laythe orbit. expect a bunch of screenshots and Jeb/AI robots (QBE, SKOT, MCYDN, DANN) talking. Coming soon, in a few months.

[Right]

Bonus points for doing it in camera lock?

EDIT: Actually since both craft are spinning, camera lock would probably make it easier and less nauseating.

Edited December 31, 2014 by Right

[Captain Sierra]

In case anyone needs the link, actual music for added epicness:

[ihtoit]

nice. I'm doing mine on G+.

[thereaverofdarkness]

I can confirm it is in the 60rpm range

It's clearly about 20rpm, despite anything they claim it to be in the film.

[Swithmario]

:kiss:

So I saw Interstellar recently. Great movie, I'm sure there are some parts that made some of you guys cringe... but nonetheless fantastic movie.

The scene to replicate from the movie:

There is a scene in the movie where Mann tries to dock imperfectly and blows the Endurance (big centrifuge style craft) into a rapid spin on a suborbital trajectory.

Cooper then approaches the rapidly spinning, damaged Endurance and manages to dock with it by spinning his own craft and lining up with it perfectly enough

Cooper then proceed to pull the Endurance out of the suborbital trajectory with just the Lander's thrusters.

The Challenge looks something like this:

Stage 1:

-create a large centrifuge-style orbital ship _{(note 1)}

-create a Lander ship

-bring them into Low-orbit of any planet with a reasonably thick atmosphere (Kerbin, Jool, Eve, Laythe)

Stage 2:

-land the lander (or just move it away and come back)

-bring the lander back up, spin the centrifuge-style ship to 20+^{(citation needed)} rpm_{(note 2)} and put into suborbital trajectory_{(note 3)}

Stage 3:

-dock with the spinning ship without slowing it down until you have docked.

-bring it out of the sub orbital trajectory with only the lander's thrusters

-take video to prove this

Notes and specifics:

-note 1: it is understood that the mass and size (and naturally, the moment of inertia)of the Endurance is much larger than that of the lander. you get points for replicating this.

-note 2: it is understood that because a segment of the Endurance's ring was blown off, it would be nearly impossible to maintain rotational movement along the same axis (aka there would be too much wobble in the dock because te center of mass changed) but for the purposes of this challenge, just dock with a symmetrical craft.

-note 3: in the movie the ship and the lander docked after they had entered the stratosphere. you get many points for completing the docking in atmosphere.

-note 4: the centrifuge style craft cannot have thrusting or SAS capability once it is docked (because it's supposed to be damaged). I recommend changing the spin and trajectory by means of small solid rocket boosters.

-note 5: replicating scenes involving the Ranger docking and being blown off are not required

-note 6: I am unsure how fast the Endurance was spinning in the movie, someone please help me define this for the challenge. Also I do not believe even mechjeb can tell you exactly how fast you are spinning, so good luck

The community will somehow judge the best Interstellar style docking (I'm just putting the idea out there). Generally I believe credit should be awarded on the following criteria:

-reasonable scale and design of the Endurance and Lander crafts

-successful initial state (near atmosphere, low orbit, lander separates and returns)

-centrifuge craft is spun fast (the faster the better)

-centrifuge craft is put into suborbital trajectory (a significant one, landing eventually, not aerobraking)

-lander craft aligns with centrifuge craft and spins at the same rate

-crafts dock (bonus points if in atmosphere)

-lander uses its own SAS/RCS to stop spinning

-lander uses it's own thrusters to pull the two crafts back into stable orbit.

-video evidence

please comment to let me know how I can tweak this challenge and make it better, can't wait to see this one

Omniverse

CHALLENGE ACCEPTED

[Rolanvorxariat]

I hope this thread is still alive in a few months...

[Ramix09]

I hope this thread is still alive in a few months...

same here xD

[Yozozo]

Not quite stock, but somebody has done it. (Not me! Somebody else's work!)

To me, I feel like this *every* time I attempt a docking maneuver :/

Edited April 9, 2015 by Yozozo