Thread by @BigSquishyDM

#KerbalSpaceProgram has taught me to appreciate what a huge achievement @NASA getting to the moon was. You think you know. You go "Yeah, it's the moon, we went a bunch of times. We played golf on the moon. So what?"

But you don't.

So in this game I have sandbox mode on, which means I don't have to worry about any extras. I can just play with all the toys because that is what I really want to do. Don't have to worry about funding or research. Just space.

Also, the game allows me to let my kerbals take the wheel and fly while I focus on the mission at hand. It gives me a map with a little blue line to follow. It calculates the movement and vector that I need to follow to do the things that I need.

Because contrary to popular belief you can't just shoot a rocket at the moon. You have to get into orbit around earth. You have to use the earth to help you jettison into the moons orbital path to meet up with it, a moving object, and then get in the moons orbit.

Then you have to slow down enough that you aren't going to just smack into the surface, and gently land so nothing breaks.

And then you have to do that all in reverse, with less fuel. And it's hard. I'm still trying to get there. I can now get to orbit the moon.

But here is the thing... I have computer course correction. I don't have to worry about being able to afford enough fuel. I don't have to worry about food, or bodily waste, or politics, space junk, or anything else. I have a map that lays everything out.

I have a little blue line to follow.

No one had that on the first mission. The phone I'm typing this out on had more processing power than the computer we took to the moon. The computer I am playing this on has way more processing power to get someone to the moon.

The Apollo 11 astronauts had math, and a prayer. And if one thing went wrong that was it, they were dead. They either floated out into space escaping the moons orbit with no way to reach them. Or they died in a fiery crash on the moon.

Or everything was fine until they landed and realized they ate too much fuel, or they broke something that couldn't be fixed and were left to die there.

And then there was the return trip. It was math and eyeballing it. And that had to be terrifying. The. They had to go back.

I suck at math. One number wrong somewhere and I've killed everyone in some way and we won't know until it is too late to do anything about it.

And that's without Congress to threaten to slash our budget, or pundits asking why we need to send things into space.

Or worrying that somewhere, out there, is a kid who is about to watch their parent die on national TV. Or that I'm about to send a friend to their death.

Just math and a calculator and a prayer. It's humbling. That took guts. So yeah, I have no complaints about space.

I've got no more questions about why a human hasn't been to Mars yet. It's a lot. Even with the advances in tech, it's a lot.

And those folks going to Mars? There is no guarantee of reaching there, or coming back.

It's just wild, y'all