The biggest disaster you have caused in Orbiter

This is more embarasing than it is a disaster:

This was the first time that I was close to docking with the ISS in a DGIV. I launched from KSC, yadda yadda yadda (you all know this part). Anyway, I was approaching the station, aligning myself up as perfectly as I could. All this time, I kept thinking I was forgetting something, but I couldn't put my finger on it. About 3 meters out, "Nose cone! $%/*!!" I couldn't stop in time and I broke my nose cone.


Then I tried re-entering.
 
Apparently Orbiter doesn't take too well with trying to change the orbits of space stations via the DGIV. The spinning wreckage from the DGIV and Mir re-entering the atmosphere was so intense it crashed Orbiter, so I guess that's the equivalent of destroying the universe. :P
 
agentgonzo said:
Some back-of-envelope calculations:

The Tunguska event was estimated at about 10 MegaTons.

99942 Apophis is going to pass close to Earth in 2029. It's diameter is ~270m and it's mass is ~2.1x10^10kg. Normal asteroid impact speed is about 10-20km/s. Estimates of impact energy are about 880 Megatons.

So call this 10^10kg asteroid, impacting at 10km/s generating 880 Megatons.

Your SSD is travelling at 200,000 km/s, which is 20x faster, resulting in 400x the energy. I can't find any 'facts' for the mass of an SSD, but wookiepedia gives its length as 3.8km - 19km, so say 10km. Assuming it's a similar overall density to an aircraft carrier (USS Nimitz - 333m length, 88,000 tons(=8.8x10^7kg)) gives a mass of ~2.383x10^12kg.

So your SSD is 230x as heavy as Apophis, and travelling 20x faster. 20x faster equates to 400x as much energy, so this and the increased mass give a total of 92,000x more energy than Apophis, = 92,000 x 800Megatons = 73,600,000 Megatons. Or about 7 million times as powerful as Tunguska.
At almost 10^8 Megatons, this is the top level of the Torino Scale Chart, and given that you crashed it, the probability of impact is 1. So this is a level 10 event. Moreover, it's at the top range of the level 10 event, so a lot more powerful. Level 10 is described as:
As it's much more powerful than the bottom of the level 10 power (10^5 MT) we can assume it's going to do a lot more than the text above. I think it's fair to say that the only things that would survive would be bacteria.
Click to expand...

My own BOTE calculations:

Various lengths reported, but comparing the relative sizes of SSD's and regular SD's in the movies, and the fact that the regular SD is always quoted as being 1.6 km, the 19 km figure seems to be correct. Taking a side view, it seems to be about as tall as a regular SD is long, so about 1.6 km. Estimating the width is harder, since it's hard to find a good top-down view, but the closest pictures to top-down that I can find seem to show its width as being about 1/3 of its length, or about 6.3 km. Assuming it to be a perfect pyramid (it isn't, but close enough), V~= 1/3 x * y *z, or 65-ish km^3. Assuming a density of 500 kg/m^3 (A rough estimate of the density of a surface ship), the whole thing weighs about 3.25 * 10^13 kg. At 200,000 km/s, it's doing about .66 c, with a gamma factor of 1.34, so the relativistic mass is 1.34 times the rest mass. This means that we have .34 * (3.25 *10^13) kg worth of kinetic energy, so multiply mass by the conversion factor of c^2 and we get 1*10^30 joules, or 239 million teratons, approximately equal to the amount of energy the sun puts out in 45 minutes. This is also about 1/200th of the Earth's binding energy, which is the amount of energy needed to break every bit of Earth away from Earth's gravity, which means that you won't really come too close to blowing the planet to smithereens, but you'll still knock up a *big* debris cloud. I'd be surprised if the impact shock alone weren't fatal to everything on the planet, let alone the heat from a debris cloud that would probably be blue-hot...
 
Entered earths atmosphere at faster than light speed...
 
I did all the usual crashes numerous times (too high descent rates, re-entry problems, docking crashes, forgot the key for the parachutes etc.), usually resulting in the virtual death of me and my crew.

Once I did a quite innocent-sounding and well-intended action that would have done a lot more damage. I launched a satellite into its correct orbit, and I wanted to get rid of the upper stage (you know, I don't want to pollute space). So I decided to let it do a de-orbit burn and let it burn in the atmosphere. Then the impossible happened: because of Orbiter magic, it somehow survived the re-entry, and reached the surface in one piece, still going several kilometers per second (very steep descend).

I expected it to dive into one of the oceans, but I didn't really plan the location. It turned out to hit the center of Paris!


When going interplanetary, I'm sometimes a bit afraid of hitting the moon, While I usually don't take the possibility into account, it never happened to me. However, I did come quite close some times.
 
The Moon could slingshot you if you go too close right?
 
I deleated a UMMU which caused the 10 deminsional bubel that we call the universe, to pop.

Appaerently something was pointing at at something that wasent there.


Another thing that is hazardous to the universe: parachutes and time accelleration, especialy parachutes from orbiter 2005. I diden't know it was possable to spin that fast...
 
cr1 said:
The Moon could slingshot you if you go too close right?
Click to expand...

Correct, but if you aim for e.g. Saturn, you usually go quite fast, so your direction isn't changed too much unless you get very close to the moon. In my case, a slightly larger course correction was sufficient to compensate.
 
Oh, and if you want to go to Mars, could a lunar slingshot save you some dV (if performed correctly, of course)? If it does, about how much (in percent) does it save?
Sorry for getting off topic :)
 
Last edited:
my turn,

after landing 1000km of target with the CTV Pegase capsule, i tried the scenario a second time. did the de-orbit burn a little earlier, at about 20km altitude and still pretty fast i saw wideawake international directly below me, my though was: "hmm the drogue chute should decrease my speed." and it did! i changed the view back to the cockpit just to see that my crew sustained 23G. none of the brave esa astronauts was conscious, well none of them was alive to deploy the main chute. not my finest moment, at least i "landed" 45km north west of wideawake ;)
 
A failed launch with the Nova rocket and the 20 meters Orion nuke ship.

It was insuficient fuel for the nova with such heavy payload and finaly crash landed in europe, probably exploding in a huge ball of fire ..:lol:
 
Hartmann said:
A failed launch with the Nova rocket and the 20 meters Orion nuke ship.

It was insuficient fuel for the nova with such heavy payload and finaly crash landed in europe, probably exploding in a huge ball of fire ..:lol:
Click to expand...

Wait, with the Orion still on board?

You do know that the 20m Orion is capable of reaching orbit on it's own, right? The only reason to launch it on a Nova is to avoid (more) trouble with Greenpeace. Once the Nova burns out you can light up the Orion and obliterate the Nova with your first nuke... The Nova is just a lower stage...
 
My biggest disaster:
Created a artificial planet ( size a bit smaller than the moon/mesh was not so good) with thrusters.
I entered too hight values for the thrusters.
Collided with earth...:P
This is no joke.
 
This thread makes me happy the government won't let any of us near the real spacecraft.

I once left Earth atmosphere in a Firefly, engaged the drive, and left it running all the way up until I went headfirst into Saturn.

And continued out the other side.
 
Linguofreak said:
My own BOTE calculations:

Various lengths reported, but comparing the relative sizes of SSD's and regular SD's in the movies, and the fact that the regular SD is always quoted as being 1.6 km, the 19 km figure seems to be correct. Taking a side view, it seems to be about as tall as a regular SD is long, so about 1.6 km. Estimating the width is harder, since it's hard to find a good top-down view, but the closest pictures to top-down that I can find seem to show its width as being about 1/3 of its length, or about 6.3 km. Assuming it to be a perfect pyramid (it isn't, but close enough), V~= 1/3 x * y *z, or 65-ish km^3. Assuming a density of 500 kg/m^3 (A rough estimate of the density of a surface ship), the whole thing weighs about 3.25 * 10^13 kg. At 200,000 km/s, it's doing about .66 c, with a gamma factor of 1.34, so the relativistic mass is 1.34 times the rest mass. This means that we have .34 * (3.25 *10^13) kg worth of kinetic energy, so multiply mass by the conversion factor of c^2 and we get 1*10^30 joules, or 239 million teratons, approximately equal to the amount of energy the sun puts out in 45 minutes. This is also about 1/200th of the Earth's binding energy, which is the amount of energy needed to break every bit of Earth away from Earth's gravity, which means that you won't really come too close to blowing the planet to smithereens, but you'll still knock up a *big* debris cloud. I'd be surprised if the impact shock alone weren't fatal to everything on the planet, let alone the heat from a debris cloud that would probably be blue-hot...
Click to expand...

Wow that`s an impressive blast... on the plus side when the molten surface solidifies and evaporated oceans rain back down to the surface my Orbiverse Earth will have new circular ocean bordered by highest mountain range on Earth where Mediterranean sea, Europe and North Africa used to be.
 
Wow that`s an impressive blast... on the plus side when the molten surface solidifies and evaporated oceans rain back down to the surface my Orbiverse Earth will have new circular ocean bordered by highest mountain range on Earth where Mediterranean sea, Europe and North Africa used to be.
Click to expand...

I imagine that the oceans and atmosphere would be mostly blown into space. Perhaps the molten rock would give off steam and gas, but there would still be no-one on Earth left to see such an ocean.
 
Urwumpe said:
Worst and most embarrassing moment in my Orbiter career:

Planning a high speed ejection burn towards Saturn, all going well. 15 hours later, I collided with a dark object called moon.

You can be sure, humanity laughed itself dead after such a navigation error.
Click to expand...
That must be embarrasing... :rofl:
 
My biggest disaster: I forgot to do a planet approach burn when travelling to Jupiter. So here I am, planning out my orbital insertion, when I look out the window, and wonder to myself why I'm heading directly for the Great Red Spot.

The most embarrassing moment was actually only a few months ago. I had my cockpit open in a DGIV getting ready to takeoff (to save O2 in the tanks). I programmed my trip with IMFD, waited until my launch window, and hit 'e' to start the ascent autopilot... and forgot to close the cockpit.
 
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