Kerbal: Project B.E.A.S.T: Part 05

aaaaaaaaw :) R.I.P David

Some super quick back of the envelope calculations: Even if they could make them meet up at the same point they have nearly perpendicular orbits... each craft traveling at roughly 2 kilometers per second (or well above 4000 mph) means they meet up at relative speed of almost 3 kilometers per second (the hypotenuse)... have you ever tried to hold on to something wizzing past at over 6000 mph? =P

Probably a good idea to look at the orbit of what you are trying to intercept BEFORE you launch so that you can tilt your launch appropriately =)

@bburch87 said:

There's always one...

@cale: I'll happily be that "one". They are obviously taking tips and suggestions from Twitter... so... why wouldn't they just watch a guide?

They already mentioned in the Beastcast they've banked episodes. This was the last the of those banked ones and they'll go back in after so more reading. This rescue attempt was kind of out-of-left field since they went straight for Mun in the four episodes before that. They went in as raw as you'd expect, I reckon.

@threeoct: Haha, except if you follow the thread where I made that comment, it was due to some vitriol against Dan or something... anyway, off topic. I'll stop talking now. Just saying guys... a guide would do wonders for speeding things up.

I don't think the rocket was inherently at fault here, with the right launch it could easily have done the job I think. :)

If it included monopropellant thrusters (I skipped a little in the video so don't know if they fixed that later).

@bburch87: Papa Vinny actually asked for tips on this particular thing though, otherwise I've gotta agree with the prevailing notion that having the guys just read guides and walkthroughs leads to pretty boring content. That moment when they realized the magnitudes of speed and distance they're dealing with in space wouldn't have been as satisfying otherwise.

But yeah Hohmann transfers aren't inherently intuitive, Vinny knows the basics of circularizing an orbit, so he's actually just a step or two away from being able to save those lost kerbals (in fact I say it's better to get those intermediate orbital maneuvers down before heading back out to the Mun).

@eggheaded: Yeah, frankly I agree with you. I actually just passed the point where they attempted the rendezvous and it was great. It's really only the rocket building part that gets me, I don't know why!

The rocket they made this episode is probably the best thing they've built. I was laughing when they were freaking out about launching too slow, when they were probably running at a higher acceleration than needed or advised.

Tips on orbital rendezvous that aren't an outright guide are tough, because its just so alien to put into words. You can get to orbit and then the moon on colloquial advice like circularize toward the horizon, and then burn toward moonrise. But you can't really describe rendezvous without getting into literal rocket science.

@cikame: The simplest way to explain it is to get your orbit circle on the same plane as the target's orbit circle or make them parallel. Then you speed up or slow down your orbit until both circles touch in one place. Once your ship is at the place where the orbits touch, you speed up or slow down your ship to make your circle orbit grow or shrink to match the target orbit. If you can get it so both circles are touching at the same time both ships are at the touching point, then transferring between ships is easy.

That's a simple explanation, but tutorials talk about inclination, intercepts, and maneuvers pointing at pro- or retro-grade, normal or anti-normal, and radial or anti-radial. It can be hard, but is so satisfying when you get a good rendezvous.

@threeoct said:

@bburch87 said:

For the love of god, watch a video or read a guide on basic rocket design. I'm not an expert but I'm actually having a hard time watching this series. These guys will be making KSP videos until the end of time if they're trying to do an orbital rendezvous before successfully returning from the Mun or even achieving an eccentric orbit around Kerbin.

They already mentioned in the Beastcast they've banked episodes. This was the last the of those banked ones and they'll go back in after so more reading. This rescue attempt was kind of out-of-left field since they went straight for Mun in the four episodes before that. They went in as raw as you'd expect, I reckon.

I haven't finished the most recent Beastcast so maybe they go into it in more detail, but Austin said "it's 2015" in this episode and they were on vacation to end the year, so that gives you an idea of how far back this was recorded.

(Unless that was just your typical "I forgot it's a new year" slip of the tongue.)

I fucking love this series. Keep it going forever.

There's no better argument for the length of Giant Bomb's stuff than the slow build to the punchline of this episode. I haven't laughed that hard in a while.

Great fake moon landing at the end, Vinny, you're a real Stanley Kerbrick.

Alex is so negative. Crashing and burning is the name of the game.

@customotto: Also a very good point! Like I said, I just want better rocket design. I'm sure we'll get there! Looking forward to watching Vinny grow as a Kerbalnaut.

"So are we trying to like land this thing gently on Kerbin?"

"No, we can land in the water"

Can't stop laughing already :'D

Vinny will be the end of all kerbaldom, one kerbal and rocket at a time.

Vinny - "Maaaaybe two of those?"

Austin - "sure"

[Selects two of the biggest fueltanks in the game with enough fuel to fly to the sun and back several times]

Vinny - "becouse this is just in space."

I love this series.

When you set a target there are Ascending and Descending nodes created, use these to match orbital planes, burns at these nodes are the most efficient to match planes. More info here, in fact, there are a lot of tips you guys could take from this wiki page. http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Basic_maneuvers#Match_orbital_inclination

It's a good idea to give up on the rescue mission for now because it is very difficult even for more experienced players because the target you are trying to hit is really tiny and going really fast. Minmus may be easiest place to visit because even if it's slightly further than Mun, fuel use is about the same because it's gravity is much lower and large flat areas make landings less risky compared to crater-filled Mun.

Alex sounds like the tired engineer who just has to go along with the upper-management's (Vinny) crazy ideas.

"-There it is!

There it is! HOOOOLY SHIT! GET.. OH MY GOD!

GET OUT! GET OUT!

Vinny!! Oh my god!"

"I feel like it needs more shit on it" - Wernher von Braun upon seeing the Saturn V SA-500F

I'm 10 minutes in and oh god are they actually going to try and rescue those kerbals when they have a poor grasp of how to do it (don't mean that in a mean way)?

Also, the rocket they have 10:26 in has 4740 delta V. They could get into orbit with just that stage. They accidentally build a single stage to orbit rocket.

edit: and their second rocket design could get to Mars.

@vinny is the reason I got Kerbal to start with after the old quick look way back in the day. I have had fun with the game since and have started thinking getting into it a again after starting this kerbal project of the guys.

you mean BEAST phone?

The Kerbal Space Program is too big to fail.

its just crazy how mutch i love this series!!

keep it up guys i hope it goes for as long as posible!!

Best part: the high-speed fly-by at 53:23.

Second-best part: watching debris from the explosion slowly arc past at 31:25.

Project B.E.A.S.T. has gone on long enough with so many launches that I've had to start taking notes!

Incredible series

@vinny@austin_walker@alex rescue mission tips:

-All your rescues are going eastward I believe, so you just generally need to fly east when you take off. You can fine tune the orbital inclination in space.

-Once you set a target, it shows the two points on your orbit where the target's orbital plane intersects yours. Those points are labeled by the angle between the planes. This is where you want to set your maneuver to make that angle 0. You do this with the purple triangle directions.

-Once your orbital planes are the same, Austin's proposal of making the two orbits close but not the same so that they ships can align is correct. You might just want to try to do the rest yourself on video without further tips though.

Is hard to pick a best moment between the two ships passing each other perpendicularly at 8,000 km/h, or when Austin said "is the budget counted in Kerbin lies?"

This was amazing. The entire episode I was thinking "even assuming they will be close, the relative velocity between the two ships is going to be insane." The encounter between the two did not disappoint. I think they were several orders of magnitude too fast to attempt any reasonable transfer between the two.

I don't think I've cried with laughter in years, but jesus christ that "encounter"

Thank you, GBeast, you're the best.

@vinny@alex@austin_walker Don't listen to all this complicated nonsense. Don't change a thing. There's one simple place you went wrong:

Every single launch before this one you tilted to the right. Notice how every other stranded ship is on basically the same orbital plane? That's because the most efficient way to get up there is the way you usually do, by tilting to the right.

This time, you tilted Downward. this caused the orbit to go downward, and also, eventually, in the opposite direction. The fact that you were able to line up the orbits so well anyway says to me that you can actually accomplish an orbital rendezvous way easier than most people would. A fantastic first try! But it was doomed from the second the ship started tilting and you went with it. I'm glad you did, the moment that thing flew by was the best laugh I've had in a while.

Also, if you tilt any way but to the right you are WASTING FUEL.

haha T-bone the kerbal at 2000 m/s this is the perfect rescue plan. Don't give up, trial and error will teach you everything you need to know.

@kryptickiller said:

@mike said:

In all the years I have been watching and listening to GB stuff, I have NEVER laughed so hard as when the Ark blew past their stranded spacecraft at over 8,000 km/h.

So close yet so far. I liked their enthusiasm for the entire BEAST program. I think this might be a bit over their head for the 5th episode lol.

To fix your tilt, or inclination relative to your target's (which was your main problem here) you want to make an maneuver at a point where you and your target share a rough intersection point (which you did kind of make happen) with your orbit-normal or orbit-anti-normal maneuver nodes. This will tilt your inclination from that exact point and fix that issue.

From there you just want to roughly match orbit shape and size by burning at apoapsis and periapsis if you need to, but leaving a small gap so that you're either travelling faster or slower in relation to the target. After that you can wait until there's an intersection window, warp to that then slowly burn into the target's orbit, thus matching relative speed. Then, provided you are indeed close enough to see your target, get out your ship and start flying!

oh my god this crossing orbits part is amazing. guys. you're going at almost 2000 meters per second in a direction your spaceman without ship is standing still at, a spaceship intersecting with a spaceman at that speed is one dead fly on the windscreen

this feature is amazing. I love you guys.

I wanted to see the jump attempt, even though I knew it was going far too fast to be reasonable. That would have been another beautiful lesson and one less kerbal they have to worry about

Here is a video about doing a rendezvous:

And here is a text tutorial if you prefer:

http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Tutorial:Orbital_Rendezvous

Since you're not docking, you can ignore the docking bits. You can cover a kilometer in EVA with a kerbal if you want, assuming your ships aren't drifting away from each other.

Guys, the RDZV button on Kerbal Engineer should help you out with rendezvous.

I'm amazed by their total reluctance to read item descriptions. Watching Vinny compare the regular parachute to the drogue, ignoring the clear explanation given, and settling on "Well, this one is a higher make" was astounding.

Anyone else have the quote from Anathem by Neal Stephenson stuck in their head while watching this?

"Plane change maneuvers are expensive."

Here's the cheat sheet I use for meeting up with other ships in orbit. Replace step 9 with "EVA the rescue target and have them fly over with their jetpack".

I think I never got so nervous/anxious watching a Giant Bomb video as I did from when the two dots got closer until the Ark quickly flew away past them. Which made the latter part even funnier.

@mike: Oh, the moment when you inevitably realize the flaw in their logic and it's obvious that they will only ever find out the hard way.

It's just the best. It's like suspense on reverse.

I, for one, enjoy watching them screw up.