The Mün and back - a Kerbal tale

A session about Kerbal Space Program from OSCON 2015. Presented by Jon Manning, Paris Buttfield-Addison, Alasdair Allan, Paul Fenwick, and Tim Nugent.

http://www.oscon.com/open-source-2015/public/schedule/detail/41535

Transcript

1. The Mün and Back:
   A Kerbal Tale
   

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2. The Mün and Back:
   A Kerbal Tale
   Enterprise Kerbal Space Program (Foundation) in Containers, as a
   service, for microservices, at scale, in the cloud, using Arduino.
   

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3. The Mün and Back:
   A Kerbal Tale
   5 completely separate talks
   

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4. HI THERE HELLO
   

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5. Who We Are
   - Paris Buttfield-Addison – Srs Troublemaker, @parisba
   - Jon Manning – Troublemaker, @desplesda
   - Paul Fenwick – CKAN author, @pjf
   - Alasdair Allan – Did PhD with Scott Manley, @aallan
   - Tim Nugent – has more boardgames than you,
   @the_mcjones
   We’re the authors of The Kerbal Book, coming soon!
   Also isn’t it great co-authors can edit slides?
   Yes, it’s fantastic!
   

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6. We’re from Australia.
   And Scotland.
   

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10. What can you do?
    

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11. An Unlimited Supply of Free Rockets
    We can use KSP to test some space hypotheses, such as...
    

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12. “I Thought Space Was Up”
    

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14. Let’s Go To Space, Which Is Up
    We’ll launch a rocket and go straight upwards, and see what happens
    

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16. Observations
    It falls back down to the ground!
    ● BUT WHAT HAPPENED TO ZERO GRAVITY?
    ● THERE’S NO GRAVITY IN SPACE?
    ● WHY DID IT FALL DOWN, HUH, ROCKET SCIENTIST?
    ● THIS PROVES SPACE IS FAKE
    

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22. Creative Ways to Launch Your Rocket
    ● Spaceflight is dangerous and expensive
    ● NASA, ESA and the rest of the gang can’t afford to take unnecessary
    risks
    

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24. Experiment 1
    “Can we use a catapult to get to space?”
    

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26. Result:
    I… guess?
    

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27. Experiment 2
    “Why don’t we try launching rockets sideways? Give ‘em wings, they’ll probably
    go up”
    

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29. Result:
    More experimentation required.
    

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30. Experiment 3
    “Can we build a rocket designed to usefully explode?”
    

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32. Result:
    Yes, and it’s awesome.
    

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33. PART TWO
    WE HAVE TO GET OFF THIS ROCK
    

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34. Problem:
    We only have one planet
    

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35. Solution:
    Get more planets
    

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36. Problem:
    Humans need stuff like air, water, and food
    

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37. Solution:
    DIFFICULT TO SOLVE.
    

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38. But we have to try!
    

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39. Let’s Model a Colonization Project
    We’re going to COLONISE!
    

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40. Options:
    - The Mün
    - Duna
    - Minmus
    - Eve
    - More distant planets?
    Where?
    

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41. Option #1: Mars Duna
    + Really pretty
    + Atmosphere for aerobraking
    - Far away
    - Transit windows are annoying
    

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42. Option #2: Mün
    + Close by
    + Easiest to get to
    - Ugly
    - Bumpy
    

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43. Option #3: Minmus
    + Pretty close by
    + Lots of flat surfaces, good for stable landings
    + Pretty
    + Mint ice cream flavoured
    - Slightly trickier to get to than Mün
    

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44. Decision: Minmus!
    - What do you need in space?
    - Supplies
    - Power
    - Consumable resources
    - Eventually, the ability to build more rockets
    

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45. Missions
    - Send some initial people
    - Establish some infrastructure
    - Locate resource deposits
    - Send the rest
    

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46. Equipment
    - Pioneer Pod
    - Nuclear reactor
    - Greenhouse
    - Habitat
    - Expando-Tubes for connecting
    - Skycranes to lower into place
    - Wheels to position everything
    

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47. Life Support Mod
    - USI Life Support
    - Nutritional Optimised Meal Supplement (“N.O.M.S.”)
    - Kerbals eat it and it turns into Mulch
    - Greenhouses can convert Mulch back to Supplies
    - But not all of it
    

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48. Modular Kolony System Mod
    - Adds a bunch of features:
    - Habitation
    - Hydroponics
    - Resource extraction
    - Parts manufacturing
    - Designed for both in-space and on-planet colonisation
    

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50. Lessons Learned
    Space colonisation is REALLY HARD
    

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52. The Comprehensive Kerbal
    Archive Network (CKAN)
    PART THREE
    

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53. KSP is a great game
    

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54. KSP with mods is an
    AWESOME game
    

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55. Installing mods
    by hand?
    

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56. Realistic Progression
    “Lite”
    

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60. “I’ll hack something together..”
    

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61. “Like apt-get for KSP”
    

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62. 300 hours later...
    

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65. Cross-platform
    minimal dependencies
    

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66. MIT/CC-0 license
    

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67. Citizen Code of Conduct
    

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68. Implements the
    Debian spec
    

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69. RealismOverhaul.netkan
    {
    "spec_version" : "v1.2",
    "$kref" : "#/ckan/github/KSP-RO/RealismOverhaul",
    "$vref" : "#/ckan/ksp-avc",
    "name" : "Realism Overhaul",
    "identifier" : "RealismOverhaul",
    "abstract" : "Multipatch to KSP to give spacecraft components realistic stats
    and sizes, and performance based on real-world spacecraft.",
    "license" : "CC-BY-SA",
    "release_status" : "stable",
    "depends" : [
    { "name" : "AdvancedJetEngine" },
    { "name" : "CrossFeedEnabler" },
    { "name" : "FerramAerospaceResearch" },
    { "name" : "KerbalJointReinforcement" },
    …],
    "resources" : {
    "homepage" : "http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/99966"
    },
    "install" : [ ...
    

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70. 15,000+ active users
    (Downloads in the last week)
    

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71. Almost 900 mods
    (Includes many pre-1.0 only mods)
    

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72. ~ 3,500 releases
    

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73. 200+ contributors
    (Yes, really!)
    

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74. Infrastructure Sponsorship
    (AWS)
    

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75. Software Development Grant (OSDC)
    

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76. Patreon Campaign
    patreon.com/pjf0
    

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78. I miss playing KSP
    

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79. Mods are really easy
    Seconds instead of hours
    

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80. Decades of human
    joy delivered
    

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81. “Seriously. I mod dozens of games,
    everything from Age of Empires to Sins of a
    Solar Empire to Bethesda stuff, and not one
    game out there has anything quite like
    CKAN. It's worlds ahead of any other mod
    manager program for any other game I've
    ever played”
    — /u/Pyrhhus
    

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82. github.com/
    KSP-CKAN/CKAN/
    patreon.com/pjf0
    

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83. Part Four
    Hardware!!
    Now with added…
    

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85. Best to start out here!
    

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86. But then add cardboard ...
    

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87. … and hard cases!
    

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91. ● KSPSerialIO
    o https://github.com/unixunion/KSPSerialIO
    ● Telemachus
    o https://github.com/richardbunt/Telemachus
    The ways and means…
    

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92. Telemachus
    

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93. WebSocket API
    Data can be collected from KSP using the Telemachus web
    socket API, which sits on top of the rfc6455 web socket
    protocol. To connect to the Telemachus web socket server
    use a URL of the following form.
    ws://:/datalink
    

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94. SerialIO
    https://github.com/zitron-git/KSPSerialIO
    https://github.com/unixunion/KSPSerialIO
    

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95. DEMO TIME!
    

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96. Part Five
    What people are doing with KSP
    

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97. aka Tim has opinions about KSP
    

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98. The Squad way of playing KSP
    1. Start a new game
    2. Pick an easy mission
    3. Finish it
    4. Pick a harder mission
    5. Finish it
    6. Repeat Step 4
    

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99. How I think people play
    1. Get confused
    2. Manage to not blow up a rocket
    3. Manage to orbit Kerbin
    4. Manage to do something “cool”
    5. Repeat step 4
    6. Watch other people play KSP
    

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100. Let’s Play
     

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101. www.youtube.com/user/szyzyg/
     

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102. Challenges
     1. People self-issue or accept 3rd party challenges from the to community
     2. Try and complete the challenge
     3. Generally then show it off
     

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103. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OD1_LXvcaIM
     

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104. Crazy stuff
     

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105. http://www.reddit.com/user/Dr_Martin_V_Nostrand
     

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106. http://www.reddit.com/user/Dr_Martin_V_Nostrand
     

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107. http://www.reddit.com/user/Dr_Martin_V_Nostrand
     

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108. http://www.reddit.com/user/Dr_Martin_V_Nostrand
     

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109. http://imgur.com/a/eEVmi
     

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110. http://imgur.com/a/eEVmi
     

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111. http://imgur.com/a/eEVmi
     

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112. http://imgur.com/a/eEVmi
     

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113. http://imgur.com/a/eEVmi
     

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114. http://imgur.com/a/eEVmi
     

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115. KSP & Art!
     http://a.fresh.horse/1fq1gbp
     

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116. http://i.imgur.com/8rH7soh.jpg
     

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117. http://i.imgur.com/K0fR5MB.png
     

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118. http://a.fresh.horse/1HVTuO6
     

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119. http://a.fresh.horse/1HVTuO6
     

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120. http://a.fresh.horse/1HVTuO6
     

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121. http://a.fresh.horse/1RYgZ3l
     

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122. http://i.imgur.com/XBryUCr.jpg
     

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124. ‘‘Right now the Kerbal’s vibrant green skin was
     flushing dark in arousal.’’
     https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10607988/1/Structural-Failure
     

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125. Education
     aka learning about rockets
     

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133. Thanks!
     pjf’s CKAN patreon campaign at http://patreon.com/pjf0
     Image Credits:
     ● Screenshots from “Kerbal Space Program” © Squad
     ● “Kerbal Space Oddysey” by Mk01 http://mk01.deviantart.com/art/Kerbal-Space-
     Odyssey-243246016 (CC-BY-NC-SA)
     ● “Six Words” by Randall Munroe https://xkcd.com/1244/ (CC-BY-NC)
     ● “Orbital Mechanics” by Randall Munroe https://xkcd.com/1356/ (CC-BY-NC)
     ● “CRS-4” by SpaceX https://www.flickr.com/photos/spacexphotos/16661753958 (public
     domain)
     ● “Planetoid plows into the primordial Earth” by Don Davis (public domain) https://
     commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Planetoid_crashing_into_primordial_Earth.jpg
     ● “Space Colony” by Rick Guidice (public domain) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/
     File:Spacecolony3edit.jpeg
     ● Terrible illustrations by Jon, all rights reserved no stealing my top quality art ever
     ● JK they’re under CC-BY
     Tweet us: @parisba, @desplesda, @pjf, @aallan, @the_mcjones
     

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