Saturday, July 18, 2009

My next GURPS session and Project Apollo

I will be trying out Twitter again when I play my next session of the GURPS Fantasy campaign. It will be starting on Monday July 20th around 6:30 eastern standard time.

Also don't forget that is also the 40th anniversary of the Apollo Moon Landing. If you have a hankering to try it for yourself, you can download the free Orbiter Space Simulator here. I also develop free add-ons for this which you see here. For wanting to try Apollo itself the most playable add-on is here and the most realistic add-on is here.

The difference between the two is that ASMO sticks with the Orbiter Space Simulator controls. Understand that Orbiter is a simulator not a game, but the author has wisely made a bunch of aids that allow novices to get going with realistic space flight. There still a bit of a learning curve.

In contrast NASSP's Project Apollo for Orbiter is designed so that you can take the original checklists and follow along doing exactly (or your own thing if you want) what the astronauts did. It even runs the original software for the various guidance computer.

Is is hard, in someways, but a ordinary person can learn to do it. The For the astronauts it wasn't technical difficulties of the training but being able to handle emergencies while accurately reporting what went wrong and what went right. To be able to do that under very stressful condition is a remarkable ability and is why 90% of the early astronauts were test pilots.

So come Monday, while follow my (mis)adventures at some point step out and take a look at the moon and remember the day that 40 years ago two men and a team of thousands brought fire to the moon.

Fire in the Sky here.

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