Games that teach how to fly in space

Kane Dane April 12, 2020 Game Platforms, Gameplay Videos, Games TOP, Gaming Hardware, New Game Release

Computer games are considered entertainment, and not something educational. But among them there are those who broaden their horizons and teach useful skills. In honor of Cosmonautics Day, Cybersport.ru talks about two of the most important space missions in the history of mankind – and computer games will help us in this.

The first manned space flight

April 12, 1961 is one of the most breakthrough days in history: for the first time a man flew up so high that he was able to see entire continents and oceans. This mission was entrusted to Yuri Alekseevich Gagarin, then still a 27-year-old fighter pilot. As a launch vehicle used a modification of the military R-7 called “East”. The first space ship bore the same name.

To analyze Gagarin’s mission, we will use the Orbiter 2010 simulator. It is a set of tools for simulating space flights, including interplanetary ones. In the original version there are several real and fictional ships, and the functionality allows you to add custom modifications. This is exactly what we found for our material.

The mission starts at the still unfinished Baikonur Cosmodrome at 6 a.m. The rocket undergoes the last preflight preparations – it is refueled and the barbell is lifted to it with an elevator, on which Gagarin rises to the very top, where the ship’s entrance is located.

“Minute readiness!” – announced the Mission Control Center. “I understand you, a minute readiness,” Gagarin answered. “I am in the starting position.” Soon all the engines of the first stage started, and the rocket rushed up. Very soon, she began to lean toward Earth – and this is an absolutely regular situation. Contrary to the opinion of people far from space, going into orbit is not only a set of the right height. In essence, orbital flight is an endless fall. In simple terms, we need to disperse an object at such a speed that it has time to fly over the horizon until it touches the ground. It is this speed that is called the first cosmic and is needed to enter orbit. It is equal to 28 thousand km / h. And just to develop this speed horizontally, the rocket starts to deviate during takeoff.

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After 100 seconds, there was no fuel left in the first stage, and the accelerators were disconnected. After another 180 seconds, the second stage worked, and after another 280, the third also disconnected. It was at this stage that weightlessness began, and Gagarin’s logbook began to soar in the cockpit. At that moment, by the way, the first contingency situation occurred – the command from the Earth to disconnect the third stage did not work. The automatic timer was set for a later shutdown, due to which the orbit was about 100 km higher than the calculated one. Because of this, Gagarin risked staying in space for 20 days if the brake engine had not worked. This meant that he would die, because the supply of air and food was not designed for such a period.

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Once the ship has entered orbit, it’s time to look at the controls. In the picture below, we signed what the tumblers, switches and indicators of the “East” are responsible for:

Despite some shortcomings, Soviet engineers well prepared the first spacecraft for flight, so Gagarin practically did not have to do something manually. Because of an error in launching into orbit, he only needed to adjust the parameters of the Globe (in the game from the Earth, the parameters come in that we enter using the Correction pen). Everything else worked automatically.

Separately, you can tell about the panel with the manual unlock code. She was only on the first ship “Vostok”, since humanity then did not quite understand what psychological impact the flight into space would have. Scientists suggested that Gagarin could lose self-control and decide to take control, thereby endangering the entire operation. Therefore, manual control was blocked by a code – if necessary, it could either be reported from the ground, or the astronaut had to open a special envelope. It was sealed so that only a fully sane person could get the contents. But just in case, Gagarin was informed of the code immediately before boarding the ship.

While the Vostok was moving in orbit, the first astronaut only watched that all the systems turned on in time and performed the simplest experiments — eating, drinking, taking notes in pencil and voice, and periodically reporting to the flight control center about his condition. As soon as the Descent I indicator lights up, Vostok began preparing systems for descent from orbit. Next, the “Descent II” indicator was activated — the ship began automatic orientation to activate the brake system. The game allows us to perform orientation manually. But since Gagarin did not do this, we will also trust in automation.

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As soon as the ship reached the right direction, the “Descent III” indicator lit up. After a few seconds, it went out, the “TDU Operation” indicator lit up, and with it the braking propulsion system started working. After that, the control center breathed a sigh of relief: “Vostok” descended from orbit and began to lose altitude. The hardware compartment had to separate from the descent capsule as soon as the engine stopped, but the automation blocked this action due to a lack of momentum. Because of this, the ship began an uncontrolled rotation. In theory, we can activate manual control and correct the situation, but, again, Gagarin did not, and we will not.

When the “East” entered the dense atmosphere, the connecting cables burned out and the compartments were divided. The rotation ceased, and the descent capsule was in a plasma cloud with a temperature of 3-5 thousand degrees Celsius. This stopped when the speed dropped to the required values. At an altitude of 7 km the catapult went off, and Gagarin began to parachute. Due to problems in issuing a braking impulse and untimely separation of the compartments, the first astronaut landed far from the designated area, but the Soviet air defense systems detected a capsule a long time ago, and the search and rescue team was already heading to the village of Smelovka, Saratov Region.

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The last contingency occurred almost before landing. A kilometer before landing, a reserve parachute was also to open, for some reason, after exiting the chest pack, it simply fell down when folded. But soon everything was corrected, and Gagarin safely touched the earth’s surface with two parachutes, as planned.

The first shuttle flight

April 12 is a significant day not only for the Soviet cosmonautics, but also for its main competitors in this field. Exactly 12 years after Gagarin’s flight, the Americans made a new leap in space exploration – they tested the world’s first reusable space system Space Shuttle. The ship was supposed to start on April 10, but due to technical problems, the launch was postponed for two days. Fate herself made the historical event happen on Cosmonautics Day.

For an overview of the first launch of the shuttle, we will take the Space Shuttle Mission 2007 simulator. Unlike Orbiter, where many features are either not implemented accurately enough or are not available at all, SSM 2007 is a well-developed procedural simulator. And instead of reading and studying the 1161-page NASA manual, you can in practice study all the controls and capabilities of the ship using specific missions implemented in Space Shuttle Mission 2007. There are several dozen of them, but in our material we will consider the very first under the code the name STS-1 on the ship Columbia.

The shuttle starts at the John F. Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral in Florida. After starting the mission in the simulator, we see the entire system, consisting of two solid fuel boosters, a fuel tank and an Orbiter rocket plan on the launch pad. Almost two hours before the launch, but just at this stage, NASA astronauts – commander John Young and pilot Robert Crippen – arrived at the launch site and took the elevator to the top of the launch pad, where they were to take their places in the cockpit. Orbiter accommodates up to eight crew members, but in the first mission there was no sense in such a team – two astronauts could well cope with the tasks, and there was no need to risk a large number of lives.

An hour and 40 minutes before the start, the crew began pre-flight preparation of the ship. We find ourselves in the cab and see a huge number of toggle switches, buttons, switches. It is not surprising – a complex space system cannot be controlled like a regular car or even an airplane.

But casual players should not be immediately scared – the developers of Space Shuttle Mission 2007 help find the right button by signing the panel on which it is located and marking it with a yellow arrow. And they accompanied each action with instructions that are displayed at the bottom of the screen. If the user is a NASA astronaut or spent thousands of hours in the game, having studied all the operations, he can disable this function, increasing the level of complexity.

So, the astronauts took their places. They immediately activate the communication system of the commander and pilot (many controls are duplicated). Then the mission cancellation system is tested, the side hatch is closed, through which astronauts enter the cockpit, and its isolated ventilation is turned on. Then other crew life support systems are activated … Okay, we won’t load you and we’ll immediately move to the start. And the whole process of the crew’s work before the start can be seen in the video.