Real Mars Rover Engineer Builds A Mars Rover In Kerbal Space Program • Professionals Play

so we're already entering the atmosphere here just great and there it is that's the the aerodynamic effects there so we're generating a lot of heat this is it you got one shot I'm Timothy stork I'm a mechatronics engineer at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and I'm working on the sampling system for the next Mars rover so what I do is I'm working on the drill for the rover specifically the parts of the drill that make it spin well this corn jill is going to go to mars and acquire rock samples and prepare them for return to earth on my masters and PhD or in aeronautics and Astronautics which i think they're greek for air sailing and star sailing it's kind of crazy they gave me a degree in star sailing without having into space myself but I'll take it I was thinking a fun mission to do would be to try to replicate a rover that goes to Mars that's kind of what I know best and we'll start by picking our rover body next thing I think everyone would agree on is that Rovers have wheels so we'll go with that mix that looks like a good start when we go to Mars we want to be able to do science that's that's really the purpose and so what this drill here is going to do it's gonna allow us to take soil samples we can learn about the geology of the planet that looks like a pretty capable science machine I'm pretty impressed with the game so far and then it's got a lot of very realistic parts this chunk of parts you see on screen here is probably a couple hundred people four or five years worth of time the next thing to do is to get this down to the surface we have power we have communications we have mobility I think I'm gonna try this out I guess I just need a good name for it yeah usually they have essay contests and they ask school children to write in with a word and why did I think it's a good fit for the rover no wonder they ask kids they seem to be a lot more creative I mean what's an inspiring word triumph triumphs a pretty good name because that's what I expect to see here it starts with T so does my name let's go with triumph triumph one so what we'll do is we'll activate the engines and then we could separate and we can look at how the rover rolls around okay okay okay it's fine it's fine what I'm trying to do is keep straight hey we did it we did it just that's perfect that is a rover right there so we just need to sort of cut and paste this onto Mars and it'll be a great day for Kerbal history so the next thing we got to do is just take this chunk of parts and get it from space down to the surface in a controlled way this is gonna need a pretty big rocket we also need to give this a heat shields because these little wheels here are not gonna stand up well to the heating up on another planet just to get to Mars it takes between six and nine months or so so we need to make sure that we have some good power to get there space we want to have good communications back with home I'll give it some fuel and give it its own set of thrusters for sort of fine-tuning the path you know we talked about having this thing land and make its way through the atmosphere at Mars also gotta leave the atmosphere of Earth and so we want to have this thing be protected and streamlined make ourselves a nice fairing that's what it's called so that will break away once we get into space and there's no more air to travel through this is the second stage of the rocket that I'm gonna be working on this will sort of take over when we're most of the way above the earth and into orbit around the Earth this needs an engine I'm really looking for a good efficiency rating here higher number is better what's going this one and then put some more Rockets on it a few more things here some fins to help steer us the way things are looking now Mars is over here which means when we get to Mars orbit it's gonna be there so I'm gonna take the luxury of speeding up time okay so this is this is starting that's that's good now we have our launch day well I think the alignment of the planets and the orientation of our planet here are all aligned for this to work this is our opportunity let's go for it and this at this point your AP Apple abscess is gonna tell us the highest point that our Rockets going to get to so in order to get to orbit we need to go up to get out of the atmosphere and then we need to go sideways we're actually going really fast through the atmosphere here and there's no need to do that let's get up above the atmosphere where the where the air is less thick there's less drag and then start going faster increasing the altitude out of speed it's looking good so far I'm a little worried I might have used up a little bit too much fuel early on because I was talking instead of rocket engineering so pretty soon our first stage is gonna run out that's fine we have a second stage rocket here we go we just keep on going we have a brand new fuel tank and a much lighter craft now so this is gonna work really well we're in a stable orbit around the planet I want to leave the vicinity of our planet moving to the right that's the direction that the planets already going so our speeds are gonna add together and that's gonna help us get to tomorrow's more easily this game's nice it tells us how many meters per second of speed we need to add and so I just wait till that it gets to the bottom of the bar there and in the meantime you see in BAM I own my orbit is changing here and it's changing to fit this hypothetical trajectory that we set up a few minutes earlier so I'm trying to do is get get these two arrows to line up what those arrows represent are the locations of my craft and Mars at their closest there we go now we're on a path to actually reach the planet I'm trying to find a direction and amount of fuel to use in order to get to the planet more efficiently right now it's asking for me to fire the engine and add 1490 meters per second worth of speed and that's a lot that's probably more than our rocket has left so I'm trying to kind of say well alright if we get there a little later coming from a slightly different angle can you get on a more efficient path I think all right so now we're pointing in the right direction our orbit is shifting a little bit and we're gonna run out of fuel in our outer stage I'm gonna use the thrusters on the crew stage to make up for that extra bit of course correction that didn't have available from the rocket so in the game we've been in space for nine days the way things really work I wouldn't have brought the Rockets so deep into space with me but uh needed the rest of its fuel s propellant rather really the next thing to do is just to accelerate time and watch as the planets follow their motions and as our spacecraft follows its path around the Sun and to meet Mars at this location that we've set up you don't want to work past the planet in real life that's not a concern only when you're playing a game using time acceleration so our course corrections were pretty successful it's actually showing us hitting the planet if we don't do any further course corrections so now it seems like we're on a good trajectory get that pretty cool it's beautiful in the game can't imagine what it would look like in real life we're now getting close enough that we don't really need the crew stage anymore so I'm gonna point the heat shield in the direction that we're going and we can separate now from the career stage and so now it's just the descent and the rover and the heat shield that are left so we're already entering the atmosphere here and there it is that's the the aerodynamic effects there so we're generating a lot of heat but it's redirecting the hot gases away from the craft looks like we're headed for some kind of yeah there this is it you got one shot there they go okay parachutes are open so now we're slowing down a substantial amount more if I release the parachutes too early then there's just a lot greater just as the fall so I'm gonna use them for a little bit longer get our engines ready cut one of the shoots and cut the other point straight up don't want to go back up I want to keep us pointed somewhere between straight up and the direction that we're falling so that we lose some of our horizontal speed at the same time as we continue to descend and slow down I think we're getting pretty close to the ground here we're 5 meters a second that's good there's our shadow slowed down a little more well I ran out of fuel at the last possible second but we're there we're safe look horse so there's a term for what you just witnessed it's called the seven minutes of Terror that's the time from the minute that the craft first strikes the top of the atmosphere until it's ideally down on the ground safely I'm gonna do maybe the most risky thing of all and then it's take the brake off and see if we can drive this thing okay we're driving we're trying out another planet we can go up the hill we can go down the hill let's drill for some samples both learn about what's underground let's see of this way oversized drill for over here is is it any value and since we got two of them we might as well use both of them there's a whole planet worth of exploration to be done now so that's how to land a rover on Mars or on Doudna as the game calls it and do some science along the way [Music]

Channel: BuzzFeed Multiplayer

Views: 4,145,013

Keywords: BAg7, BuzzFeed, BuzzFeed Gaming, BuzzFeed Multiplayer, BuzzFeedBlue, Multiplayer, Rocket scientist, engineer, experts play, experts try, game, gameplay, gaming, jpl, kerbal space program, mars rover engineer, multiplayer, nasa, professional plays kerbal space program, professionals play, professionals play games, professionals play video games, rocket to duna, rocket to mars, science, space, videogames

Id: O66BY2O_1O8

Length: 9min 52sec (592 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 22 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/notbadat_all]

>goes to Duna to get ore samples

>forgets ore tank

[u/InsidiousTroll]

Sweating intensifies

[u/komatius]

Great video, were actually rather pumped when he descended into Duna.