<story><title>Kerbal Space Program free on Epic</title><url>https://store.epicgames.com/en-US/p/kerbal-space-program</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>mabbo</author><text>The key lesson you need to remember about orbit (in KSP or real life) is that orbit is &lt;i&gt;sideways&lt;/i&gt; speed, not &lt;i&gt;up&lt;/i&gt; distance or &lt;i&gt;up&lt;/i&gt; speed. Going up, you will come back down. Go sideways fast enough, you&amp;#x27;ll come down but keep missing the planet below you, so you stay in space.&lt;p&gt;The most efficient way to do this would be to just go sideways really fast from the ground. Problem: there&amp;#x27;s a lot of air in the way. So the right thing to do (again, both in Kerbal and in real life) is to initially go just up, but as the air reduces, gradually switch to moving sideways instead.&lt;p&gt;Then once you&amp;#x27;re up there, you need to know the basics of manipulating orbits. Lesson number 1: you can increase the height of your orbit &lt;i&gt;on the opposite side of the planet&lt;/i&gt; by increasing your speed in the direction you&amp;#x27;re currently going. So once you get your apoapsis (highest point) above 100km or so, you can turn off your engines, wait until you get there, then burn hard in the direction you&amp;#x27;re going and your periapsis (the lowest point of the orbit) will raise up like magic.&lt;p&gt;You&amp;#x27;ll be orbiting in no time.</text></item><item><author>Loughla</author><text>I like this game, but I still can&amp;#x27;t even get shit into orbit. Pardon my language.&lt;p&gt;It makes me feel like I&amp;#x27;m just an idiot. I don&amp;#x27;t think I am. But maybe I am. Who knows. All I know is that I feel bad for killing all of those little guys. They didn&amp;#x27;t even die in the pursuit of knowledge. They just died for my own hubris and naivety.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>dmd</author><text>&amp;quot;East takes you Out, Out takes you West, West takes you In, In takes you East.&amp;quot; 
- &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;The_Smoke_Ring_(novel)#:~:text=Humans%20moving%20in%20the%20Smoke,South%20bring%20you%20back%22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;The_Smoke_Ring_(novel)#:~:text...&lt;/a&gt;).</text></comment>
<story><title>Kerbal Space Program free on Epic</title><url>https://store.epicgames.com/en-US/p/kerbal-space-program</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>mabbo</author><text>The key lesson you need to remember about orbit (in KSP or real life) is that orbit is &lt;i&gt;sideways&lt;/i&gt; speed, not &lt;i&gt;up&lt;/i&gt; distance or &lt;i&gt;up&lt;/i&gt; speed. Going up, you will come back down. Go sideways fast enough, you&amp;#x27;ll come down but keep missing the planet below you, so you stay in space.&lt;p&gt;The most efficient way to do this would be to just go sideways really fast from the ground. Problem: there&amp;#x27;s a lot of air in the way. So the right thing to do (again, both in Kerbal and in real life) is to initially go just up, but as the air reduces, gradually switch to moving sideways instead.&lt;p&gt;Then once you&amp;#x27;re up there, you need to know the basics of manipulating orbits. Lesson number 1: you can increase the height of your orbit &lt;i&gt;on the opposite side of the planet&lt;/i&gt; by increasing your speed in the direction you&amp;#x27;re currently going. So once you get your apoapsis (highest point) above 100km or so, you can turn off your engines, wait until you get there, then burn hard in the direction you&amp;#x27;re going and your periapsis (the lowest point of the orbit) will raise up like magic.&lt;p&gt;You&amp;#x27;ll be orbiting in no time.</text></item><item><author>Loughla</author><text>I like this game, but I still can&amp;#x27;t even get shit into orbit. Pardon my language.&lt;p&gt;It makes me feel like I&amp;#x27;m just an idiot. I don&amp;#x27;t think I am. But maybe I am. Who knows. All I know is that I feel bad for killing all of those little guys. They didn&amp;#x27;t even die in the pursuit of knowledge. They just died for my own hubris and naivety.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>eunoia</author><text>What a fantastic comment. Really highlights what a good job KSP does teaching orbital dynamics through practice and RUDs (imo).</text></comment>