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by dotancohen 726 days ago
Go play a bit of KSP. NASA employees have stated that Kerbal Space Program has given them an intuition of orbital mechanics that a degree didn't.

And working with things that make you go _slower_ when turning on your engine to push you in the direction of travel needs intuition to even begin. Yes, once you get to the other side of the planet you are orbiting, you are going slower than if you didn't use your engine at all.
2 comments
Aachen 726 days ago
The issue with ksp is that you first need to figure out the rocket design before you start on orbital mechanics (that's why I ended up building my own web simulator for that part anyway, and also because ksp doesn't support my OS)
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lagrange77 726 days ago
> I ended up building my own web simulator for that part anyway

Is it public?

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Aachen 725 days ago
Sure, didn't want it to seem like an ad, also because it's not quite ready for prime time, I still intend to make a better UI... https://lgms.nl/p/badgravity/

For something ksp-like, I guess the easiest is to press "play" on the Pluto scenario on the left. Note the hints in the top left. Trying it myself now, it seems the scenario is set quite quickly, so I'd set the simulation "steps per run" to maybe 5, and the thrust should be something on the order of 1 (I thought the scenario data should have set that appropriate to the craft but apparently not)

Edit: oh yeah and it expects arrow keys and a scroll wheel, there is no button overlay implemented for mobile yet

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lagrange77 725 days ago
Thank you, it's really cool! I started something similar, but way less sophisticated. Basically i implemented a n-Body solver in Julia, compiled it to Webassembly and did the drawing with canvas, like you. This motivated me to work on it again.

> The issue with ksp is that you first need to figure out the rocket design before you start on orbital mechanics

Come on, it's not rocket science.

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nico 725 days ago
> a n-Body solver in Julia, compiled it to Webassembly and did the drawing with canvas

Awesome, do you have GitHub repo with the code? or a website with it running? would love to see it

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lagrange77 725 days ago
Unfortunately not, i couldn't solve some (numerical) stability issues and i buried it in my "dev directory". But if i'll get it presentable, i'll be doing a Show HN.
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nkrisc 726 days ago
The design requirements are pretty forgiving and as I recall there are some pre-built rockets you can use.
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mmh0000 725 days ago
Getting to orbit (or anywhere really) is very well documented in the KSP world. There are tutorials, videos, and guides galore.

This tutorial[1] includes details on how to build your rocket, how to fly your rocket and how to do successful reentry.

[1] https://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Tutorial:_How_to_Ge...

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jtwaleson 725 days ago
100%. It’s obvious that text based learning is not the best for many fields. An image, diagram, animation or game mechanic can make concepts “click” much quicker and better. With the ever increasing sophistication of society we need to focus on better ways of learning.

On the other hand, text is the universal interface…

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