Where No Kerbal Has Gone Before

January 7, 2015 8:17 PM

KSP History is an ongoing webseries which combines information and photos of historic events in human spaceflight with near-perfect recreations of those missions in Kerbal Space Program. The most recent entry recounts the first operational Space Shuttle launch. Highlights below the fold.

Sputnik I and Sputnik II (Trigger Warning: Laika)
Luna I and Luna II
Sputnik V
Vostok I
Friendship VII
Alouette I
X-15
Voskhod II
Lunar Orbiter I
Apollo VII
Apollo XI
Salyut I
Skylab
Viking I and Viking II
Voyager I and Voyager II
STS-1 (first Space Shuttle Launch)
STS-2 (first test of the Canadarm)

posted by 256 (16 comments total)

Thanks! I have long been a bit of a space nerd, and got completely obsessed with KSP for a while after I first gave it a try.
posted by sindark at 8:41 PM on January 7, 2015

This is great stuff. I adore KSP. (As does Elon Musk!)

And because I can't sing this book's praises enough, if you want to know more about the canine involvement in the Soviet space program, you can do far worse than read Soviet Space Dogs. Well-researched, loads of great pictures.
posted by fifteen schnitzengruben is my limit at 8:48 PM on January 7, 2015 [1 favorite]

Comrade Laika, Rocket Dog, Comrade Laika rolling stone...
posted by BungaDunga at 9:22 PM on January 7, 2015

Those planets with their biomes look like the best jawbreaker candy...
posted by not_on_display at 9:55 PM on January 7, 2015

Consider again that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

- Carl Sagan

From the page on the Voyager missions.
posted by JHarris at 4:59 AM on January 8, 2015 [3 favorites]

Hitler and people who answer their phones in the movie theater have been on that mote of dust too.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 5:31 AM on January 8, 2015 [3 favorites]

most of my missions end like the Philae lander... so epic, so close, but ultimately landing in just the wrong place.
posted by Eideteker at 8:24 AM on January 8, 2015

Godwin'd by post six. Was not expecting that from this thread.
posted by radwolf76 at 8:24 AM on January 8, 2015 [1 favorite]

New one! IRAS
posted by dirigibleman at 8:53 AM on January 8, 2015

I've spent a kind of silly amount of time with KSP this last month. It really fills that space between 10:30pm and midn.... oh, one more try at this launch.... hmmm, 12:36. But just one more engine should do it.... Oh shit, it's 3am.
posted by kaibutsu at 8:58 AM on January 8, 2015 [7 favorites]

...people who answer their phones in the movie theater have been on that mote of dust too.

I suddenly have an idea who we can use instead of modern Laikas for science experiments.
posted by Celsius1414 at 9:30 AM on January 8, 2015 [1 favorite]

Waaaaay ahead of you.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 9:58 AM on January 8, 2015 [1 favorite]

I'm part of the KSP Facebook group. It's a pretty good place for asking questions and figuring out how to do stuff, although the demographics skew kind of young.

I haven't played in about a month. I might just download the new version that came out and start from scratch. If only there were more hours in the day (and I didn't have to go to work, which is where I'll be working through the links).
posted by A Bad Catholic at 10:22 AM on January 8, 2015

I've had two "oh shit, it's 3am" moments from Kerbal Space Program in the last week.
posted by 256 at 10:25 AM on January 8, 2015 [3 favorites]

If anyone wants more historical recreations in KSP, Bob Fitch (aka Felbourn) is doing a historical KSP series named, "Project Alexandria".
posted by nathan_teske at 12:20 PM on January 8, 2015 [1 favorite]

Man, I just have a hard time getting to the Mun! Let alone this kind of stuff. Hats off.
posted by redbeard at 8:56 PM on January 9, 2015