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#orbitalmechanics

8 posts6 participants2 posts today

So, finally played around with the Alcubierre drive in Kerbal Space Program. I've tried jumpdrives and "warpdrives" before, but this is the one that shows promise as a "real" warpdrive.

Rather than just slapping a billion DeltaV/Sec on a rocket part, this one actually moves you through space, yeah it's an engine part, but it has 0 trust, the engine moves your X, Y, Z coordinates without changing your initial directional energy.

This has also made me rethink how Warpdrives would work, basically they don't affect your initial speeds in a 3D space, they move YOU, not your directional energy in any way. I remember StarTrek Enterprise where they dropped the cargo to escape from some pirates and i thought "so what, inertial will keep it going". Not true - it HAS to be towed from A to B. Warpdrives are more efficient than pushing mass around.

So now i know better - Basically without someone to move the object through fabric of space, the object will stand still and keep it's directional energy.

This also means that when you drop out of warp, you have to attain the same directional energy your target is traveling, i.e. a planet or an asteroid, to do an orbit insertion - and that will still cost a crapload of DeltaV.

So - Science fiction isn't as cool as i thought and also less magical than i thought. The real magic happens when Picard says "Standard orbit" - not "Engage!". #kerbalspaceprogram #ksp #Alcubierre #warp #orbitalmechanics