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Re: Flightgear space program

Postby erik » Tue Mar 24, 2015 9:34 am

HerbyW wrote in Mon Mar 23, 2015 8:06 pm:10. but I guess eventually the orbiter needs to be replaced by Jons

Here are the answer to the main points from the main developer of the space program:
10. Ok, replace it and have fun with it. We take ours and have fun too.


Jon has been working on the real shuttle program for more than 10 years.
He knew what he was doing when he created the FDM and flight computer.

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Re: Flightgear space program

Postby Thorsten » Tue Mar 24, 2015 10:09 am

Well, that's how a proper vertical launch looks like:

Image

Image
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Re: Flightgear space program

Postby Sebulba » Tue Mar 24, 2015 12:37 pm

ON/OFF topic:

It looks like the upcoming version of Orbiter will feature heavily re-worked scenery and lighting and smoke effects. http://orbit.medphys.ucl.ac.uk/gallery_preview.html

This looks soooooo good. I hope we see such shorelines in FG some day too. Once again, we are far behind. Also, why won't this m%^$%^er open source Orbiter after all these years? What is his problem?
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Re: Flightgear space program

Postby onox » Tue Mar 24, 2015 1:11 pm

Sebulba wrote in Tue Mar 24, 2015 12:37 pm:This looks soooooo good. I hope we see such shorelines in FG some day too. Once again, we are far behind. Also, why won't this m%^$%^er open source Orbiter after all these years? What is his problem?


Ask poweroftwo to integrate the osgearth stuff in flightgear git.

@Thorsten: talk is cheap, show me the code :)
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Re: Flightgear space program

Postby Sebulba » Tue Mar 24, 2015 1:27 pm

Who is poweroftwo and why would he accept to do that? Also, why don't FG developers choose osgearth?
Last edited by Johan G on Tue Mar 24, 2015 10:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: No useless quoting please
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Re: Flightgear space program

Postby erik » Tue Mar 24, 2015 1:56 pm

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Re: Flightgear space program

Postby Thorsten » Tue Mar 24, 2015 2:40 pm

]@Thorsten: talk is cheap, show me the code


No. Why would I? Do you think I rigged the screenshot? Or do you think I need to prove anything to you?

You'll get to see the code when I think it's ready.

Also, why don't FG developers choose osgearth?


Because many of us believe that for what we want to do, vector data and procedural texturing is better than imagery. That isn't true from space, but for visuals close to the ground (by spaceship standards), FG will beat Orbiter for any but very selected locations.
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Re: Flightgear space program

Postby Hooray » Tue Mar 24, 2015 3:28 pm

Thorsten wrote in Tue Mar 24, 2015 2:40 pm:
Also, why don't FG developers choose osgearth?

Because many of us believe that for what we want to do, vector data and procedural texturing is better than imagery. That isn't true from space, but for visuals close to the ground (by spaceship standards), FG will beat Orbiter for any but very selected locations.


The answer to that is two-fold (at least) - obviously, different people believe in different approaches and technology stacks - then again, there's nothing wrong about providing options, like Torsten recently stated:

Subject: FlightGear GUI hell: PUI, Canvas GUI, Mongoose, Qt5 ??
Torsten wrote:Because There is more than one way to do it..
How many FDM do we have in FlightGear?
How many weather systems do we have?
How many web browsers, e-mail clients, operating systems are on the market?
How many different types of chocolate can you coose from in an average supermarket?
And why is this so? Because sometimes it's a matter of taste, sometimes it's because people learn and products evolve over time.

For me, the freedom of choice is heaven, not hell. Not only when looking for chocolate in a supermarket.

Torsten



However, in all fairness, the osgearth patch had been put up for review several release cycles ago, and there has been no tangible action in response to all this work - so it is not being provided/accepted as an option for the time being, which is unlike the situation with Rembrandt and/or ALS. So this has nothing to do with some people believing in different options - nobody is asking Rembrandt or ALS contributors to jump on the osgEarth bandwagon - the real issue here is that osgEarth is not even provided as an option for those wanting to make up their own minds, without necessarily having to build from source.
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Thanks & all the best,
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Re: Flightgear space program

Postby Thorsten » Tue Mar 24, 2015 4:21 pm

So this has nothing to do with some people believing in different options - nobody is asking Rembrandt or ALS contributors to jump on the osgEarth bandwagon - the real issue here is that osgEarth is not even provided as an option for those wanting to make up their own minds, without necessarily having to build from source.


In all due fairness, the last statement I've heard from poweroftwo on the mailing list was 'The ball is in my court.' after the patch had been reviewed a few release cycles ago. Where it still remains.

In all due fairness, I have offered to poweroftwo whatever I can do to help his cause. I've not received any response to that offer.

I think that paints a rather clear picture of what is happening. My knowledge is that there's an in-principle agreement that osgEarth would be nice to provide as an option, there were technical concerns with the patch, poweroftwo didn't adress them. That's where the mailing list conversation left off.
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Re: Flightgear space program

Postby Sebulba » Tue Mar 24, 2015 5:02 pm

(completely off topic alert)
This is again a case of interest. FG is open source and no one is obliged to work towards the creation of anything. People work on whatever sparks their interest and from what I understand there's only one person (poweroftwo) who cares about integrating osgearth to FG. If more people get involved, we'l see this happen. No one can make the current developers do it since no one is paying them to do it.
That said, why isn't FG trying to generate financial resources through crowdfunding or platforms like parteon to speed up the development by hiring full-time developers or paying the kind people that currently work on the project?
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Re: Flightgear space program

Postby Müller » Tue Mar 24, 2015 7:26 pm

Hi HerbyW,
Thank you very much for your work and also the other people who cooperated with the program and they removed of the ' drawer ' this project, continue to work on it and make it better than it already is.
:D
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Re: Flightgear space program

Postby onox » Tue Mar 24, 2015 7:40 pm

Thorsten wrote in Tue Mar 24, 2015 2:40 pm:No. Why would I?


Because I want to fly it :mrgreen:

Thorsten wrote in Tue Mar 24, 2015 2:40 pm:Do you think I rigged the screenshot? Or do you think I need to prove anything to you?


No and no. I thought the smiley was sufficient, but apparently it was not.

"Talk is cheap. Show me the code." is a quote from Linus Torvalds.
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Re: Flightgear space program

Postby Thorsten » Tue Mar 24, 2015 7:51 pm

Well, it's not really smiley day... bad timing on your side. Sorry - you couldn't know.

I think (with due disclaimers that things like the mass distribution of the launch stack are currently guesstimates) that in a few days I'll have the control logics ironed out, and then there'll be something to fly the launch.
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Re: Flightgear space program

Postby Thorsten » Wed Mar 25, 2015 11:00 am

Improvements to the thrust vector control logic - every engine is now automatically put to a neutral position pointing at the CoG before thrust vectoring is applied - prevents instability in case of engine failure. I was able to manually attain orbit - need to work on some orbital parameter computations next - at least apogee and perigee display would be helpful.

The Atlantis on the (invisible...) launch pad:

Image

Blasting off:

Image

I've been looking into some of my Space Shuttle books to get the dimensions of the smoke column right...but I think it paid off:

Image

Thrust bucket - throttle down main engines to 65 percent to reduce dynamical pressure on the vehicle (the SRBs just burn once they're on, they can't be throttled):

Image

There she goes - nice and stable ascent path:

Image

Passing 30.000 ft:

Image

Nevada from 70.000 ft:

Image

SRB separation and switch to EarthView as rendering engine - we're at about 650.000 ft, on the long race towards orbital velocity. The vessel is still completely maneuverable by thrust vectoring.

This shot illustrates nicely the balance act the shuttle performs - the external tank is really top-heavy (because the oxygen tank sits at the top) and so from the perspective of the orbiter, the engines need to fire way upward to push the whole stack through its center of gravity:

Image

Houston, the Atlantis has made orbit!

Image
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Re: Flightgear space program

Postby Johan G » Wed Mar 25, 2015 11:14 am

Nice! 8)

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