Category Archives: Simulators

Mars, Simulators, Space participation

Fire destroys GreenHab facility at Mars Desert Research Station

An announcement from the Mars Society:

MDRS GreenHab Destroyed by Fire

The Mars Society regrets to announce the loss of the Mars Desert Research Station’s Fisher GreenHab to an accidental fire yesterday afternoon (Dec. 29th). There were no injuries to Crew 146, the four-person team currently using the MDRS facility outside Hanksville, Utah.

According to a Mars Society spokesperson, the Habitat, which includes crew work stations and living quarters, did not sustain any damage, with the fire being limited to the GreenHab. Following MDRS emergency guidelines, crew members were able to safely put out the fire.

The Fisher GreenHab was the second GreenHab built at the Utah station. An earlier prototype structure was lost during the first MDRS field season due to heavy winds. It served as a model for the second generation GreenHab, a larger and more permanent unit built by Gary Fisher in 2003.

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Interior of MDRS GreenHab prior to fire

For five seasons, the facility functioned as an experimental closed loop water recycling system, but testing ceased when it was concluded that the system was too small to maintain the Habitat with six full-time crew members.

In 2009 the GreenHab was refitted for use as a greenhouse. Under the direction of GreenHab Coordinator Nick Orenstein, it was successfully utilized for three seasons to grow crops for the MDRS crews. A variety of important experiments were scheduled to be carried out in the GreenHab during the current 2014-15 field season.

“We will work to erect a new GreenHab as soon as possible in order to conduct these critical research projects. With the help of our friends and supporters, I’m confident the Mars Society will be able to raise the necessary funds to replace the GreenHab in the very near future,” said MDRS Director Shannon Rupert.

To contribute to the Mars Society’s “Rebuild the GreenHab” Fund, please click here.

 

Contests and Games, Simulators, Software

Buzz Aldrin’s Space Program Manager – “the ultimate game of space exploration”

The UK company Slitherine Ltd  created the space-themed game Buzz Aldrin’s Space Program Manager.

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Buzz Aldrin’s Space Program Manager (SPM) Road to the Moon is the ultimate game of space exploration.

It is the mid 1950s and the race for dominance between the US and the Soviet Union is about to move into a new dimension: space. Take charge of the US or Soviet space agencies – your duty is be the first to the moon. Carefully manage your budget by opening programs, spending R&D funds on improving the hardware, recruiting personnel and launching space missions in this realistic turn based strategy game.

Road to the Moon features the race to the Moon, the historical event that started in the early 1960s and that ended in July 1969, after the successful completion of the Apollo 11 mission.

The game features both a campaign and a sandbox mode. In campaign mode, you will be able to play as the Director of either NASA or the Soviet Space Agency in order to beat the other side to be the first on the Moon. You can also lead the  Global Space Agency (GSA), an fictional space agency that combines programs from all the major space agencies in the world . In the GSA campaign, you will need to address the requests and short-term goals issued by government, and is geared towards those players who prefer a game experience focused on exploration instead of competition.  Alternatively, all three space agencies feature a Sandbox mode, which provides a more open-ended experience and allows you to try out different approaches without any political pressure.

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You will be able to develop dozens of programs. Some examples include the X-15 and the PKA space planes, the Sputnik satellite, the Mercury, Voskhod, Apollo and Soyuz manned spacecraft and the Mars Viking probe. You are not limited to missions that did launch, as as the game also allows you to try out many concepts that were planned but that never left the drawing board. For example, instead of sending men to the Moon using the Lunar Orbit Rendezvous (LOR) approach used by Project Apollo in the late 1960s and early 1970s, you will be able to rewrite history and use either the alternative Gemini Earth Orbit Rendezvous (EOR) or Gemini Direct Ascent (DA) schemes. The number of options available ensure every game will be different and there is huge replay value.

To verify its accuracy and authenticity, the game, is being developed in consultation with Dr. Buzz Aldrin, former U.S. Air Force combat pilot (66 missions in Korea) and NASA astronaut, who took part in the first Moon landing mission and became the second human being to walk on the Moon.

If you have any interest in space exploration and the events that transpired during the ‘Race to the Moon’, this is a game you just do not want to miss!

Continue…

Some background about the game: Second man to walk on moon helps create space game (From This Is Local London)

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Here are a couple of reviews:

Contests and Games, Simulators, Space Settlement

Kickstarter for “High Frontier” space colony sim nears goal

The crowd-funding campaign in support of development of the High Frontier space settlement simulator (see earlier post here), is just $1.5k short of reaching its $10K goal by Nov.26th : High Frontier by Joe Strout — Kickstarter.

The Space Frontier Foundation has endorsed the campaign: Space Frontier Foundation Endorses “High Frontier” Video Game Kickstarter — Space Frontier Foundation.

The goals of the High Frontier project are such a perfect fit with Space Frontier Foundation’s objectives, that SFF is offering a free membership to everyone who pledges $25 or more to the project.  Existing members are also strongly encouraged to help, as the success of High Frontier will directly support SFF’s mission of opening the space frontier for all.

And here is an article about the sim: Blasting Off From Colorado, High Frontier Aims to Be the Most Realistic Space Game Ever – Denver Westword –

Players in High Frontier begin by designing their colonies piece by piece, adding living spaces, solar generators, communications arrays and other components together into a single station. Then they sit back and watch as new residents arrive and populate the colony, gauging their reactions to their new home via messages on a Twitter-like network called Squawker.

The game gives players almost-total control over the parameters of their colony — its shape, the soil depth, the thickness of the radiation shielding — and every detail makes a difference. Make it rotate too slowly, and residents will become weak from the low gravity; neglect to put in enough radiators, and they’ll complain about the stifling heat. Botch the geometry of the colony, and it will spin wildly, throwing everything inside out of whack.

Here is the Kickstarter video again:

Asteroids & Comets, Simulators, Space Science

Simulating the bouncing of the Philae lander

I recently posted about SpaceTraveller, ”a solar system simulator and space mission visualizer program”  under development by BINARY SPACE (see Simulating Rosetta and Philae with ‘SpaceTraveller’). Here is an animation created with SpaceTraveller showing the Philae lander as it bounces twice on Comet 67P/C-G. The parameters for the first bounce were derived from the Rosetta images released yesterday (see previous posting). The second bounce uses a guess for the recoil velocity. Eventually ESA will find the lander and it will be interesting to see how close this simulation came to predicting where Philae settled on the comet.

For further info on SpaceTraveller, contact  info@binary-space.com.