One of my friends showed me the National Reconnaissance Office’s kids website. I know some of you know a lot about space, but some might like taking a gander, anyway. I think it’s really meant for children, so unfortunately a lot of the explanations and narration seems very simple. But that can be a good thing.
Take a look at the “Simulations” book on the bookshelf. The second simulation in there does a neat job of showing how adjusting one of an orbit’s two focii will affect it. I kind of wish some of this had been around when I was learning about it…
I do know Kerbal’s around, too. I haven’t played with it, because I’m afraid it might become a time-sink for me (and I have other things to do, like job-hunting). It looks very cool, but might be unrealistic, at least from a pacing point of view for a program. Many government-run space programs take a long time–there’re a lot of people and a lot interests involved (and don’t even get me started on the politically-motivated changes). But Kerbal still looks like it could be entertaining. If the physics are realistic, someone could really learn from it all. I added another link category, showing both Kerbal and NROJr. Maybe more will be added later.
Related articles
- The Kerbal Space Program (Project Dogstar) (josephcheung.co.uk)
- Kerbal Space Program (hedzerj.wordpress.com)
- XKCD goes Kerbal (tobiasbuckell.com)
- PAR Article: Try this at home: how a kid making improvised rockets created NASA’s favorite game (penny-arcade.com)
- Newest Kerbal Space Program build updates terrains, flight controls and astronaut management (pcgamer.com)
The Mad Spaceball 