Realistic Spacecraft Maneuvering

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Spacedock delves into realistic depictions of spacecraft maneuvering.

THE SOJOURN - AN ORIGINAL SCI-FI AUDIO DRAMA:

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Spacedock does not hold ownership of the copyrighted materiel (Footage, Stills etc) taken from the various works of fiction covered in this series, and uses them within the boundaries of Fair Use for the purpose of Analysis, Discussion and Review.

[Spacedock]

Get "Designing the Perfect Space Fighter - A Spacedock Reference Book" here!

[awesomehpt]

“Why is the ship turning around we’re only halfway there?”

-Commander Shepard

[TetanusSnowfall]

It's wild that NASA had to actually try and fail first to figure out orbital rendezvous mechanics. KSP and all the accessible information about orbits nowadays make it seem much more intrinsic than it actually was for people at the bleeding edge of the field.

Also, I always appreciate the "have fun with it" disclaimer at the end of videos like these. It's encouraging to see real-world principles being broken down and offered as tools for a creator rather than hard rules and must-haves to create the perfect setting or story.

[swordmonkey]

I experienced a big wave of respect for the creators of the BSG reboot when I saw small attitude thrust jets firing on the Vipers to help them maneuver in space when I first watched the series. Although it was done before in scifi, watching Starbuck fly laterally as she pointed her Viper and fired a strafing run on the Resurrection Ship was solid gold.

[CLAIR.L]

I love any time gundam gets mentioned for its attempt to be realistic even with giant robots

[SapientPearwood]

I'm a spacecraft propulsion engineer and fluid dynamicist with NASA, and this is an excellent explainer. The propulsion stuff was great, the attitude control stuff was great, the orbits stuff was understandably minimal, but really an all around awesome video. Accessible to lay viewers, gets the details right, and isn't patronizing to expert viewers. Well done!

If you're continuing this as a series, I think an important core topic is the tyrrany of the rocket equation, or more generally the idea that it takes propellant to bring propellant, leading to an exponential problem. This tyranny and the resulting all-importance of deltaV budgets absolutely dominates all aspects of rocket and spacecraft design, mission planning, and CONOPS. Not as flashy of a topic as fun flavors of far future fission and fusion propulsion, but definitely introduces and motivates why it is so important to chase the high efficiencies those future propulsion concepts promise (and why it is important to keep pushing for nearer future improvements like Nuclear Thermal Propulsion and Ion Propulsion).

[AnonymousFreakYT]

One of the amazing things about the NASA fact is that later-moon-lander Buzz Aldrin wrote his PhD thesis on "Line-of-Sight Guidance Techniques for Manned Orbital Rendezvous" - and was dedicated to "the crew members of this country's present and future manned space programs. If only I could join them in their exciting endeavors." - Six months after finishing his Doctorate, he was selected as an astronaut. At that point, Gemini 4 was already in the late stages of planning/training, so by the time Aldrin was "fully up to speed", it was too late to assist on Gemini 4. He absolutely was involved in all future rendezvous planning.

[Indyofthedead]

The first time you turn off flight assist in Elite Dangerous really catches you by surprise just how different an atmosphere makes.

[ytgray]

About that part with using a gun as propulsion... never forget:
"A reaction drive's efficiency as a weapon is in direct proportion to its efficiency as a drive." — The Kzinti Lesson, Larry Niven.

[RichardBetel]

The *BEST* explanation for orbital mechanics I've ever read was from Chuck Yeager's autobiography. In it, he describes going out into a desert in a jeep, turning the steering wheel to the left, and then, using a lot of rope, lashing it down so that it could not move at all. When you start up the jeep, it will go in a big circle; the faster you go, the bigger the circle. He and another pilot each had a jeep and their only control was the throttle, and they practised doing rendezvous.

[SynchronizorVideos]

For basic 6-degree flight control in zero-G, I've been impressed with how Elite: Dangerous handles the physics. If you choose to fly 100% manually, the game gives you complete freedom in every axis and your spaceship behaves as it should based on its mass and the strength of its various thrusters (for example a given ship may be more responsive in roll than it is in yaw). The game does limit you to a maximum total velocity to limit player exploits, but otherwise it's just as you'd expect from Newtonian physics. If you go to an external view, you can also see the various thrusters firing based on your control inputs.

On top of that, there are various assists that you can engage, such as a general flight assist package where a computer juggles all 6 degrees to create a "fly-where-you-point" behavior that's more intuitive and simplifies control inputs, and another assist that auto-syncs your ship to the various rotating space stations you can dock with. If we get to the point where spacecraft are buzzing around like aircraft are today, I think computer assists like that are definitely going to be a thing.

[MadamLava]

Its amazing how even NASA experienced the "first kerbal orbiter docking" issue, you think you can just point at the other vessel and go but it simply doesnt work that way

[Thontor]

Even back in the 90s shows like Babylon 5 and Space: Above and Beyond used RCS thrusters to maneuver their fighters in space and conserved momentum with the ship able to point in a different direction than it was moving. I really appreciated that attention to detail

[blackc]

"Falling sideways and missing the ground. "
The spirit of Douglas Adams smiles down.

[Wild_Lee_Coyote]

The thing I always find interesting about orbital mechanics is how counter intuitive it is. If you try and deorbit something by pushing it down towards earth. It will speed up, pass in front of you, slow down and then hit you on the head. To actually deorbit you have to slow down by thrusting forwards. In Gemini, by thrusting right at the target he ended way above it, without ever inputting any vertical thrust.

[Yora]

When I started working on a Space Opera setting for an RPG, I pretty early on decided to base space combat on early 20th century cruisers.
They don't do any dodging or fancy maneuvering and simply keep slugging cannon shells at each other from a long distance, more or less just hoping that they will land critical hits first. This makes things so easy for me.

[Supr]

I love when 3d space sandbox games (like avorion or space engineers) do exactly this, where it's realistic space movement and you need to account for basically everything. Getting a hands on experience placing your own directional thrusters really makes you appreciate the art.

[novahawk]

I love this kinda take that blends-in some realism, but doesn't require 100% accurate physics nonsense. Its good to see it gaining popularity and acceptance in the writing and reviewing spaces.

[jamesonbetts]

BSG does this excellently- I wish there were more series like this

[flubbablubba]

"falling sideways so fast, you miss the ground.." I love it.. LOVE it!!!!