We choose to go to the Moon
Whenever I play Kerbal Space Program at lunchtime, I can't help but think of the John F Kennedy speech in the early 1960sexcept I change the words somewhat.“We choose to go to the Moon, and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because it is lunchtime”If you ever want to get anything done, ever again, avoid Kerbal Space Programme like the plague. I may have mentioned a few days ago that I had been up until 2am the night before. It was all this game's fault. While watching TV late that night an idea popped into my head for a new rocket design, and before too long I found myself sitting in the study at the kids computer, building the mother of all pretend rockets.
There was a great cartoon on XKCD some time ago about the amount the author had learned about orbital mechanics during a university education, a career at NASA, and then a few days spent with Kerbal Space Programme. It's kind of a trial-and-error crash course in killing little cartoon dudes, while also learning about free transfer orbits, building landers (that don't crash), and building rockets that get out of the atmosphere (more difficult than it sounds).
I have a feeling next year I may get dragged down to the local middle school to spend a session during their “space” topic with a laptop wired up to a projector, building rockets with the children.
So yes this lunchtime I went to the Moon. Unfortunately I didn't have enough time to bring my little charges home again, so they are staying put with a payload full of peanut butter sandwiches until tomorrow lunchtime. Wish them luck.