We have nearly the same orbit as Jeb. This is, shall we say,
suboptimal for a rendezvous.
To brush up, I rewatch Scott Manley's tutorial on rendezvous and docking (regretting that I hadn't done so before the launch). I then make a maneuver node to shift the 6+b to a slightly lower orbit and wait...before realizing that my new orbit would be completely in atmosphere. Dammit. So, I make another maneuver node at apoapsis to fix this, before trying to lower my apoapsis again.
I decide that today is not a good day for my attention span, for whatever reason. I blame this morning's xkcd binge. Also, are KSP seconds longer or do I just have a slow computer?
Now, then, let's look at that orbit map.
They say the worst part of war is the waiting. If KSP is anything like war...
...I will be amazed if whoever is making the comparison isn't describing wait times.Two simultaneous intersects, neat. Makes it tough to say for sure if I'm actually approaching. On the bright side, their locations makes it likely that the intercept will be in sunlight, which is both prettier and easier.
755.7* km, 673.3 km, 587.4...what does it say that I've been wanting to make a mathematical function to approximate encounter distance as a function of orbit number? 498.5, which is about when I note that Jeb and his old rocket are starting to drift apart noticeably from mapview. From the right angle, of course. 407.1 km, 313.5, 218.1 (that's almost 100 kilometers in one orbit! We're getting close...), 121.6, 24.5 (yes, next one should be it! Unless we overshoot!)...
Twice the depth of the ocean, half the length of a marathon[1, and for space that's practically in high-five distance. Douglas Adams wasn't kidding......73.2 kilometers? Alright, time to drop into maneuvering mode. Let's get Jeb.
*For some reason these sometimes dropped
during the orbit. I took the one right after they changed.
Keep in mind that these orbits were about 30 in-game minutes each. Even with 50x warp (usually true) and no distractions or text-writing breaks (HAH!), that's more than half a minute per orbit. And yet, somehow, this is less...off-putting than waiting for maneuver nodes. I guess that being able to watch my progress like that helps? Hell if I know, my brain is
weird.
I could set up a maneuver node to bring the two closer, but...well, as I noted elsewhere, more than half the LP up to this point has been trying to get Jeb back. I've spent an hour on this step. My attention span is not maneuver-node-compatible at this point. Let's do this thing.
Damn. Sunset. We may be working in the dark. I hate when that happens. HEY JEB! COULD YOU TRY AND LIGHT YOURSELF UP SOMEHOW? ...Thank Kod fire doesn't work in space. Where the hell did he get kerosene?Next, I need to kill my relative momentum to Jeb, by burning retrograde until this:
This is a lot faster than Scott's rendezvous. I suspect it may be slightly more difficult.reaches ~0 m/s.
Fact of KSP: Those markers are hard to find. My condolences to real astronauts, who don't even have brightly-colored icons marking which way to point the rocket. (Unless you count "the sky" at the start of launch.)
Anyways, I burn, keeping up with the retrograde marker with difficulty. I really hope that's something I was supposed to be doing, because it complicated and extended the kill-relative-velocity step.
Eventually, I get it "close enough"...
AAAH WHY ARE YOU GOING UP HOW DID SCOTT MAKE IT LOOK SO EASY?!...I spin around, during which time the relative velocity shoots up to over 6 m/s, spin the target to face Jeb, and hope I haven't screwed things up yet. Let's see, Jeb's ~24,100 meters away, so if I float towards him at about 28 m/s, which is about where the burn was when I started worrying about that, it should take about a thousand seconds, or plenty of minutes, before I get close, so I can check the orbit. Sadly, it doesn't have a close intersection right by us, so I'll have to eyeball it by when the distance starts increasing...or I could accelerate and wait till I get a couple klicks out.
"Archibald, you're hurtling a kilometer above the life-giving air of Kerbin, hurtling towards a stranded kerbonaut as fast as a time machine[2], in a tin can full of explosive hydrocarbons. How do you feel?"
"Damn nea' ready fo' tea toim, guv'na!"I do notice something disturbing, though...
Just what I need. Air resistance.As I try to fix this, the spacecraft becomes unresponsive. It takes but a moment to determine why.
"Not to be a spoilspoht, guv'na, but didn't this happen last bloody toim?!?"
Yes. Yes it did. We are researching fucking electricity.
"Director, this is Ground Control. That sounds dangerous."
Not literally, Ground Control.
It's a night that may never see day.
Fuck this space-sicle stand. Let's see what old Jeb can do. Maybe...jet along towards that little ship trying to save me?
It's closer than the ship I left, for the first time in...forever, I think.
It's nineteen klicks away. The fancy database in my suit cheerfully informs me that that's a bit over five times the average depth of the ocean[3]. Why they put that in here but not any kind of navigation system, or even a safety harness, is beyond me.
Eighteen point eight. Another hundred meters shaved off. They're worrying about being in atmo, so they must be something like 69k in altitude, while I'm a bit under 84k. Most of our separation is in altitude. That's good, right?
Point eight. Will I see the comforting inside of a tin can again, soon? Last I heard, they were coming for me at forty meters per second, so that's what, nine or ten minutes off? Something like that? Oh look, my suit's telling me the answer is seven point eight three minutes, about as long as it takes light to go between a planet and a star I've never heard of[4,5]. My altitude is rising.
Point seven. Seven hundred meters, eighteen kilometers. That's how close the nearest kerbal is.
Point six. The kerosene is itchy.
Point five. I'm accelerating towards the ship some. Down, not that I've know it if it wasn't for the big circle where I can't even see stars.
Point four. I can see the beacon Archie set up drifting slowly across the invisible globe.
Point three. How close will it get?
You know, "Staring at a nearly-black computer screen, watching a yellow number slowly decrease" sounds a lot like what hippies might do right after their marijuana stash gets set on fire.
Point two. Could I get rescued? Eighteen kilometers and change is a long ways away still.
Point one. Could this really be the day, the spacecraft? I've still got 93% propellant, I'm going for it. 92 now.
Maybe I should stop trying to take screenshots of things I feel are time-sensitive.
Eighteen kilometers. How fast are we going now, relatively? I've burned towards them, but they've been falling, and more importantly slowing from air.
Seventeen point nine. What if I shoot for them, almost hit, but miss? Could I hit the atmosphere, burn up? Checking the orbit thing...no, my periapsis is still almost 78 kilometers. Wait, why does my spacesuit have an orbital-calculating thing? Burning more. 88% now.
Eighteen kilometers again. Salvation is falling. Should I try to accelerate towards it? No...not really a point, is there?
I'm going to be stuck here forever.
Normally, when I'm not rushing on a screenshot, I try to make them nice round numbers of pixels. This one randomly came out to be a perfect square, though, so I just couldn't resize it.We're falling again. Apoapsis over 120 kilometers still. Not wanting to get trapped in a waiting-to-deorbit orbit, I burn when we're pointed slightly down. I stop when I notice that it's increasing our apoapsis; damn.
No way I'm waiting for that tonight, though. It's too late. Sorry for the fairly short and very fail-ridden update.
