Something Odd!

Dondorf Kerman is the first Kerbal on Duna and he was busy. Unfortunately he totally misjudged how thick the atmosphere was and broke three landing gear struts and two of his engines! Luckily he was able to repair the landing gear but he wouldn’t be going home.

Meanwhile Huddun Kerman was determined to save his friend Dondorf but was having teething problems with his rescue vehicle. Getting into Kerbin orbit was proving harder than he thought.

With no rescue in sight, brave Dondorf decided to fly to the north pole of Duna and explore the snowy hills. On the way he carried out several science experiments and was then annoyed after a perfect landing that Duna has no distinct biomes for scientific research. Still, he’d have fun tobogganing down the snowy slopes.

Little did Dondorf know but his final in-flight science experiments were enough for Kerbal Space Centre to unlock the final pieces of equipment. Surely, rescue missions could now be launched to the Mun, Eve and Duna where brave but hopelessly naive Kerbals had stranded themselves. First, celebrations. Everyone got a little tipsy and someone fired Jebediah into the ground with an upside down rocket. Ooops.

Go get Kerbal Space Program, it’s on Steam too!

The movie Gravity came out in Ireland about a month after it opened in the US so I desperately avoided any references to it until I saw it in 3D a few weeks ago. Some bits of it were really good, the 3D effect of things blowing up were spectacular but Hollywood really took liberties with some aspects of orbiting the earth.

That bit where Kowalsky races to rescue Stone and tells her to shine her torch seemed so far fetched. The violence she suffered when she was ripped off the shuttle sent her spinning off at great velocity. How could anyone spot a tiny torch glowing in the deep reaches and distance of space?

Then it hit me, Kowalsky was a Kerbal. He had a navball and a map. Must be it.

Minmus is a tiny moon orbiting Kerbin in the game Kerbal Space Program. There’s a closer moon, Mun, that I’ve visited in the past but this was my first time getting to Minmus. This moon is so small it has a tiny gravity. A Kerbonaut can jump 10 metres with a single bound! ‘Course, sometimes that leap can land him in trouble..

On a previous attempt to land I noticed my solar panels weren’t working. I couldn’t believe it when I saw the sun was blocked by the Mun, how was that possible?

Damn, a lunar eclipse, what are the chances? (and if this was Reddit someone would probably tell me!)

Oh yes. If you’re playing KSP and you’re in a Steam chat, please disable your engines before pressing shift-tab. The sudden take off from the surface when you hit shift can be upsetting.