Contemporary space sim Thread

I'm mostly a coder but I have had this idea since the Curiosity mission started. I know there would be a lot of math involved.

I'd like to see a game that exposes you to the complexities of planning and executing a contemporary space mission. It would be something fairly realistic and would involve planning, designing, launching, and ultimately managing the flight and any planned landings. Most of the game would probably not be in real-time but you could choose to play in real-time if you wanted to.

I think it would be pretty interesting to be able to simulate the kind of situation that JPL has to deal with, looking at photos of your surroundings and planning rover drives precisely before execution. Also trying to plan a landing sequence like that and watching it hit the ground and blow up when you screw up a decimal point.

Love the idea.

Love the idea, make sure there's something in the mechanics that feels rewarding for the player, or it will end up feeling like a job : (

I'd probably play something like that, sounds great. I wouldn't be surprised if NASA might like the idea as it would introduce some of the complexities of mission execution to any youths that might consider a future in the space travel biz. That is, it could do for NASA what Americas Army was supposed to do for the army.

Edited by: ATryder

For added realism and to create a rewarding experience, we should have the players add their real bank accounts into the game, so that if they blow up an expensive orbiter, it can automatically withdraw a million dollars from their account and donate it to charity.

According to CNN the cost of the current Curiosity mission is around 2.6 billion (US). I suppose you could add funding elements to your game, for instance each time you crash the public becomes less willing to support the effort and slash your funding for future missions. Don't know how that would fit into the game though, might make it more like a job than a game

We may have to preface the menu screen with a notice informing players that the game is not fun

There already is, to a point:
Orbit.medphys.ucl.ac.uk

If it was realistic you wouldn't do all of that though, you'd do one thing. There's no such thing as simulating paperwork, that's just work.

This is exactly what i'm talking about, great stuff! How did I not know about this before, why is not everybody flying shuttles on this thing??

Partly because it's very, very hard. Kerbal Space Program's a simpler one to go for in terms of space exploration - though I still haven't managed to get to the new planets they added a few days ago!