Colliding Things At Orbital Speeds in Kerbal Space Program

Colliding two objects in orbit at over ten thousand kilometers per hour is hard to pull off in Kerbal Space Program, in part the instrumentation sucks, but more importantly the physics system uses discrete updates and at high speeds it's common for objects to skip through each other. Mods come to the rescue!
This is partly a response to NerCubed's Insurance Scam
• Nerd³ Challenges... KS...
The fantastic ISS model I used was built by this guy:
• Video

[@Riael]

"Being in the right place is more important than being really big" -Scott Manley 2015

[@DamianReloaded]

+Riael EagleEye I think the consensus is that being hard enough is the most important part of the thing.

[@MrTekkitLPS]

+Damian Reloaded *sighs*

[@CharTheDude]

Don't worry if your rocket is on the small side. It's all about skill.

[@bojantodorovic6841]

+CharTheDude No skill will save you if you ain't got a big enough rocket to get the job done...

[@lilHamster9t7]

+Bojan Todorovic I'll bet that's a problem you're experienced with isn't it pal?

[@dabigboom8140]

He says "fly safe" right after giving us a tutorial on how to crash things together in orbit

[@Suedocode]

Yeah but no one died.

[@Zurtron]

R/hmmmm

[@cavalcadeofbobs3559]

@@Zurtron No. Not what that subreddit is.

[@richardsleep2045]

He just likes smashing things up lol.

[@josephdavison4189]

I feel like this is blursedcomments

[@zerumks]

Me and the boys committing insurance fraud in space

[@pandapops5428]

*Valentina and the boys

[@sensibleb]

Today in orbit, the *Large Kerbal Hadron Collider* successfully detected the Higgs boson.

[@serbianspaceforce6873]

Sensi Bleb what an amazing discovery

[@patata9502]

more like "*Large Kerbron Colider*"

[@Eclipse-mk3hm]

More like large Val, jeb, and bob collider

[@DavidELD]

Want to destroy a space station? Get Sandra Bullock.

[@lowestcommonDenomanator]

lol

[@vantave9946]

XD

[@DamianReloaded]

+DavidELD: 2 space stations and a shuttle.

[@chrisgaming9567]

+Damian Reloaded And Hubble

[@ovsgaming6063]

Get danny

[@wraithbannon]

lmao...a typical docking for me ...

[@rainick]

+wraithbannon Whoa impressive.

[@321haiqal]

professional rendevous-er, horrible docker.

[@eeee69]

repetitive misses, ending in collision?

[@hypochondriac3194]

+wraithbannon Same

[@kerbodynamicx472]

It’s hard if you have that kind of precision

[@alexgshirreff]

I had my volume turned all the way up. HULLO IT'S SCOTT MANLEY HERE.

[@scottmanley]

+shirreff gamer Sorry, new computer, mic settings are reset.

[@emperorSbraz]

+Scott Manley heh, to a degree it's a test for your compression/filtering on the voice channel. XD

[@thelegend2o7]

Me too😅

[@bryanseare2704]

Yesss that how it be.

[@raffaeleethandraketatel4506]

i had mine accidently connect to a speaker. the whole house heard lmao

[@oobanoobaisterrible]

“It’s not a small distance” Says while travelling at 2km/s

[@luisitocomunista546]

Space is huge. Just because you are going 2km/s doesn’t mean it’s not gonna take time. In terms of space travel, that’s a relatively slow speed

[@oobanoobaisterrible]

Yeah. I was talking about him saying that a few metres was a big distance. But yes 2km/s is fairly slow

[@Argomundo]

Finishes colliding things: "Fly save" .............................................................................. yeeeeeaaaaaaaahhhhh

[@dude_geode_miner]

+firefalljumper are we the only ones who find that funny XD

[@Argomundo]

+dude.geode.miner The likes will show with time

[@dude_geode_miner]

+firefalljumper indeed :-)

[@menethyr]

+dude.geode.miner I love them too, i'm just late cause scott slowed down my time D:

[@dude_geode_miner]

+Ghost Stinger LOL he has The Power! :-P

[@macsmith2013]

Scott Manly: maniacally laughing while blowing up the ISS. Also Scott Manly: "Fly safe" Oh Scott, never chance.

[@CherriPicking]

*spends 20 minutes crashing ships into other ships, and at the end* "... and fly safe!" NO, Scott, YOU fly safe :)

[@andrewduguid1103]

GOD DAM IT SCOTT DO A COLAB WITH NERD CUBED ALREADY

[@sbryans123]

+Andrew DUGUID Dont like the swearing but YES this needs to happen!

[@ppiness1940]

+InformalMrTom lol

[@andrewduguid1103]

+InformalMrTom wait what....?

[@AGoldSoldier]

*damn, a dam blocks water A damn is the act of damnation

[@AGoldSoldier]

Essentially, you told God to stop/block the collab

[@StainedShuriken333]

15:30 One of the greatest examples of the Kessler Effect ever virtualized.

[@LN37275]

15:35 That was a pretty magnificent explosion.

[@AnimeSummit]

I'd love for you to do a bit of ISS exploding to fill the orbit area with debris and do a launch through it. Either as a demonstration of how unlikely it is to hit debris, or as a demonstration of catastrophic failure

[@insylem]

I always love how Scott says "Fly Safe" right after he blows something up.

[@gauravghosh3421]

Scott , do a video on orbiting satilites inside the atmosphere.

[@Jojodude8]

+Scteam2000 please do

[@multimapping8303]

Yes please :D

[@gauravghosh3421]

+Scteam2000 thanks everyone is saying Secret fact : reallife satilites orbit inside the atmosphere but at the thinnest part exoshpere or thermosphere.

[@cbg5049]

+Gaurav Ghosh and ISS is falling right at ur house sherlock

[@gauravghosh3421]

mat liki kasim Yes All satilites up tp 1000,0 km are falling.

[@Outpost38C]

Isn't this the plot of Gravity

[@chrisgaming9567]

+Kaemer() this time its intentional

[@macsmith2013]

Gravity has a plot?

[@Outpost38C]

@@macsmith2013 _Gravity (2013)_ did.

[@Daveigus]

here is a fun challenge for you, now that you've almost completely destroyed the ISS, rebuild it using as much as possible from the original debris orbiting kerbin using KAS or something

[@aka_pcfx]

This could result in the most boneshattering high five ever.

[@NikopolAU]

17:40 Jeb is confused. "What have I done ???"

[@andramoie]

If you look at the behaviour of the remains of the rockets you might be able to proove the existence of short-lived intermediate spaceships. As your final state seems to have missing transverse energy I postulate the existence of mass-less, weak interacting rockets, that are created in the scattering event.

[@bryanseare2704]

"Everything just spinning around like some insane spinny roundy thingy." -Scott Manley 15:53 😅 You kill me Scott.

[@looksintolasers]

Scott this was genuinely terrifying. Just imagine something the size of a spaceship leaping out from the darkness of space at 10,000 m/s... *shudder*

[@importedsausage5593]

15:55 Have you considered a career in poetry? lol

[@Novasky2007]

Sean Bean: Spin carefully you're spinning around on my spinny roundy thingy.

[@AlicevanGallifrey]

You tell us to fly safe and just did THIS?! I like you^^

[@joeracer302]

Scott, could you recreate the maneuvers from The Martian and discuss the feasibility of what they did in the movie, and if it is non-realistic what would need to be done to accomplish something similar?

[@JohnSF93]

+joeracer302 from what I've been reading of the making of the Martian, Andy Weir (book author) ran all the orbital math beforehand to make sure his dates, events and manuevers lined up perfectly; so that checks out.

[@joeracer302]

JohnSF93 Actually, after posting this I watched a bunch of other videos and did some reading. I came across the same info as you did, and although I don't know how to check the math myself, it seems that Andy Weir did do the math and it checked out for him at least :) Still, they would have all died from radiation poisoning :)

[@hamstsorkxxor]

Nah, living on mars surface, whilst in a spacesuit, gives you a highly increased risk of cancer, not radiation sickness.

[@Sander_Datema]

Don't think it would be possible in KSP. The Hermes uses continuously burning ion engines. Good luck getting to mars (RSS) in phisics warp.

[@Nunya111]

@@JohnSF93checks out more-so in the book, they changed a lot for dramatization

[@ruiningwang1644]

Oh that slowmo mod is brillant! Time to do the rod of the gods again! :D

[@89nekkoinu]

yep, exactly my thought. nerdcubed insurance challenge

[@Ezis9]

I had JUST watched Gravity last night...

[@driftman2724]

*crashes spaceship into space station* "Im Scott Manley, fly safe." -Scott Manley 2015.

[@kronasoosanork]

Will you actually team up with Nerd³ or will I keep being given nerd blueballs by you two?

[@timothymclean]

+ben dover Dan lives in England. Scott lives in California. Even if the latter didn't have kids, scheduling any team-ups between them would be tricky.

[@skinnywah]

+Timothy McLean no Dan lives in candida. He moved a year ago.

[@dandude720]

+Callum Smith you mean ashens

[@Axelthemage]

+Timothy McLean There is this thing called the internet. It makes that fact less relevent.

[@timothymclean]

***** Not really. Time zones are a bitch.

[@liranpiade4499]

"Explosions don't look like that in space" Sure, but the ISS is manned, wouldn't the fact that it's manned and filled with oxygen allow for a huge ball of fire?

[@denyraw]

It would most likely look like the exhaust of a vacuum rocket engine for a very short moment, and the like nothing because the gas is way to spread out to react. Also an explosion needs oxygen and FUEL in order to happen.

[@Perseagatuna]

@@denyraw the fuel are the people

[@TheRealPlato]

Thanks Scott! Could you please use Kerbal Joint Reinforcement and deorbit this station? Your other station deorbit video is one of my favorites!

[@scottmanley]

+The Real Plato Great idea!

[@BabaSmithVideos]

420 views 42 likes and 0 dislikes Dank

[@VladArakelov]

1600 views 160 likes 0 dislikes

[@dvoraj20]

3280 views 328 likes 0 dislikes wow

[@matthewprice8362]

+BabaSmith 4730 views 473 likes 0 dislikes

[@petrino]

+Jan Dvořák fine. have a dislike :P

[@CharTheDude]

+Matthew Price not as dank

[@maggnus87]

"Collisions in space. they are fun! i am scott manley fly safe" cant say that sounds very safe to me

[@sir_wheat_thins]

I don't know if "Fly safe" is appropriate for this video

[@pjt1974]

Made my day seeing this pop up in my subscriptions. I know I was probably only one of thousands to suggest showing Dan how to do it but still a buzz when you see it. Another excellent video Scott

[@randalftheblack2572]

"Fly safe" he says.. After telling us how to smash two spaceships together at orbital speeds...

[@michaelhice7636]

such beautiful destruction. *wipes tear from eye*

[@pikamario99]

"Collisions in space are fun!" "Fly safe." Hmmm...

[@wyyyve]

I have a challenge for you, I want you to do an equatorial atmospheric survey of Eve with a spaceplane with the goal of circumnavigating Eve at the lowest possible altitude with a manned vehicle and being able to return to orbit.

[@yehoke8748]

wow imagine thousands of little space debris going 10kms IRL going the opposite direction of the iss then encountering it then hitting it...

[@mathieumarlaire]

Scott, you have just entered the domain of the Nerdcubed.

[@bacon.cheesecake]

+mmarlaire that's no longe his theme song, which sucks.

[@mathieumarlaire]

+Bacon CheeseCake Ok then...

[@SuperSMT]

The Nerd who?

[@MrUnknownzz1]

+Bacon CheeseCake It'll always be in our hearts.

[@danielliu4346]

+SuperSMT THE NERD CUBED! Why? Just cause...3

[@Videoswithsoarin]

>tells you to fly safe >flies unsafely

[@hookiebookie1]

+Scott Manley Y'know, this video was published on my birthday while I was working on my MEng aero thesis in Glasgow University (I'm working on passive satellite stabilisation). Made for a great video to watch, and still topical! (so I counted it as study, haha!) Great upload, thanks very much!

[@TasDAmour]

That was THE MOST fun that I've had totally nerding out since Street Countdown!

[@oneheartonemind2681]

I love that the serious business thumbnail preview is just a rocket plane tumbling end over end.

[@stupidgenius42]

This is the definition of docking with an engine and not RCS

[@DropBlairCares54]

Saying fly safe after causing mulitple collisions. well done!

[@danzel2]

"Collisions in space, They are fun. I'm Scot Manley, fly safe"

[@lifehacker123]

Awesome, I've been waiting for this video ever since Nerdcubed's attempt!

[@jekanyika]

Are you sure you didn't feel a "woosh" as it went by?

[@brodlemcfatass6916]

+Ashton Riker (EnderBomber) AIR WOOSH.... IN SPACE!!!!!

[@NordboDK]

Scott felt the wind in his hair.

[@farenhite4329]

But this is space

[@ZaccoOfficial]

Heh

[@vanguardian1368]

r/wooosh

[@cp3peters]

you should start a minmus or duna base series, maybe use some space planes in it too. I think it would be a really cool challenge for you to take on! great video BTW.

[@timothyrex8734]

Fly safe. LOL! Yeah, good advice after that. :)

[@AlohaMilton]

Some of the deviation is the game calculating for the mechjeb units location versus the ship center of mass, as you rotate that changes the closest approach number as the MechJeb rotates around the COM. Long ships, one can see the relative speed to target really jump and drop as one rotates the craft to align a port etc. Kinda scary sometimes if one is being a little lazy watching the instruments and glances at the closing rate while the command unit rotates around the COM 'holy crap 8ms! oh, yeah... rotation'.

[@________stephens8251]

everything just flying around spinning around like some insane spiny roundy thingy

[@skepticmoderate5790]

"Collisions are fun! Fly safe!" Wait a second...

[@Kaiimei]

I was so sure that this was because of NerdCubed, and when you said it, I just laughed so hard at knowing xD

[@bolivardigriz8847]

:-D! Love the Evil Scott laugh @ ~15.40. "Collisions in space: They are fun. Fly safe." ROFLing at this time! Almost LCOBing but I already went. :-D!

[@PolesAreEverywhere]

Its amazing to think of that its possible that two large vessels can pass eachother centimeters apart at speeds that are hard to imagine (over 14 km/h!) and you wont feel anything passing by, just a flash of a light, you would blink and you would miss it comepletely

[@PolesAreEverywhere]

+PolesAreEverywhere just checked it out, that 4x faster than rifle bullet

[@Bebeu4300]

Literally smashes two space things together at very high speeds. "I'm Scott Manley, fly safe". Made a very good example there, Scott!

[@faisal2401]

hi scott... if u remember the docking training. it says that we should turn off the RCS when changing orientation bcos it's sensitive for intersection as it would change ur orbit

[@natenjohnson]

15:37 is the part you all clicked on this video for. You're welcome.

[@Kurayamiblack]

Kitten Dispenser is a hero

[@sensualarmpit3512]

thank you. This idiot keeps talking about how physics are more accurate if they are slower, without realizing that physics fps is independent of graphical fps. Love it when idiots talk shit out of their asses.

[@boomdini9744]

Sensual Armpit then why did you say you hate it

[@gramptbeele1966]

@@sensualarmpit3512 How dare you talk shit about our God Scott manley

[@sensualarmpit3512]

@@gramptbeele1966 duno man, its natural

[@diegofloor]

Always wanted to collide two opposing orbits but never bothered. Thanks for doing it!

[@GamesCooky]

Just goes to show how difficult it actually is for something to collide in space. Space is so vast. Chances of anything colliding is so low. Especially when you don't have gravity to pull the object towards you.

[@JACK-ze8rp]

"like a giant space bird. A bird that of course , has been hit by a spacecraft travelling at hundreds of meters per second" -only in KSP

[@leerman22]

With mechjeb you could just use "Fine tune closest approach to target" set to 0m and set a ridiculously low tolerance.

[@austinsennott]

Scott, for New Year's you should make a slo-mo montage of high-speed collisions set to some awesome music.

[@Ahlnie]

I learned the hard way that you don't want the intersect to be too close. The orbits were only 30 degrees off, rather than 180, but it still completely destroyed my space station.

[@Remaggib]

16:00 that is beautiful. now launch a shuttle into the debris field and it will start looking like that movie.

[@miniops12]

"Some insane spinny-roundy thing."

[@1967sluggy]

Damnit, Danny keeps invading your channel!

[@scottmcdonald3867]

In most insurance contracts there is a clause that would nullify the policy for intentional acts.

[@MartinFinnerup]

You should do an ISS post-collision rescue mission to rescue multiple kerbals.

[@yodu45]

Now, orbital High-five!! please scott. also mickeal bay level explosions!

[@jacobpesenson3080]

Dan is probably going to have a fangasm once he watches this 0_0

[@MagisterMalleus]

That debris cloud was magnificent. Kesslerific.

[@Zorro9129]

This is the best way to dock with a station.

[@Swagtoph]

Well done Scott! You not only looked after insurance scams but also made a abridged and way better version of the Movie "Gravity" ;)

[@syitiger9072]

That explosion was insane

[@razor589]

Just got inspiration how to get enough debris around kerbin to make the launches more realistic in matter getting into space without being hit by that stuff :D

[@DowzerWTP72]

When I saw your comment on his video, I began praying that you'd do your spin on it!!

[@UriMegaConnor]

hey scott, apparently if you do this with a minmus satelite i discovered the relative velocity of flying toward minmus was under the speed of sound and my apoapsis with an orbit was 10.2 meters per second! thats basicly driving a bike off a ramp

[@danielowefitzpatrick2291]

I'd love to see you do the ISS collision with a bunch of unnecessary parts strapped onto your impactor, which you could stage pre-impact and get a nice shotgun effect.

[@nathanchilders7331]

No one can hear you commit insurance fraud in space

[@jefferyssparks]

Hey Scott, Have you considered doing a "Gravity" scenario? I'm sure it would be a royal pain to put everything in line where it would work out, but this seems like a logical progression from what you're doing in this video.

[@matthewunger6029]

No astronaut ever: Literally Nobody ever: Scott Manley: [Talking about ISS "rendezvous"] "We'll fly around the planet, and hopefully encounter each other head-on...this is looking catastrophically good."

[@verloren844]

It took hours for Scott to make this happen. Week ago it took me 30 minutes and incredible luck and skills in docking in space. What the hell.

[@Henrik.Yngvesson]

Feels so weird watching a launch the other way.

[@r0cketplumber]

In Orbiter, the Encounter MFD lets you tweak the miss distance with great precision.

[@dlucas0129]

The people who disliked were the kerbals that were rammed into each other

[@mvl666_darkrio]

scott:looking at it i'm pretty sure i felt something.me:yeah, it was disappointment.

[@charlie3660]

" so yeah colliding stuff in space is really fun, I'm Scott Manley, FLY SAFE" I couldn't be the only one to notice the irony there

[@Viewbob_True]

"Being in the correct place is more important than being really big" Is that Scott's way of saying it's not the size that matters?

[@incognitoburrito6020]

"Collisions in space, they're fun! I'm Scott Manely, fly safe!" -Scott Manley, 2015

[@aidanc3982]

I still like how the MechJeb window has 'Smart A.S.S'

[@paistinlasta1805]

Oh I LOVE how you say zero, instead of "Zero" you say "Ziroo"

[@petermarsh4578]

I saw you on nerdcubed's channel and hoped that you would expand your comment into a video.

[@pulesjet]

You must had felt the Micro Gravity Wave as it passed by.