It also bears a striking resemblance to many of my current attempts in Kerbal space program after nearly a year of playing it!

Looks an awful lot like my first attempts at Kerbal Space Program...

The technique to making true Damascus steel was lost in the mid 1800s. The technique and composition to Greek Fire was lost in the 13th century or 19th, depending on whose stories you want to believe.

We were well on our way to losing the schematics and information on our original Apollo and Gemini space programs until they started trying to sort and salvage that data a few years ago. The problem is that when we replace something old with a better technology or limit the knowledge of a technique to a few people, we rapidly lose the methodology of 'how' to do the technique.

In the case of proper war and hunting archery, when guns became more common and easier to use, people gravitated to them because they were MUCH easier to learn than archery. Archery required specific training for war and for survival it was from the time you could hold a bow. Anyone could learn to use a gun quickly, so people just....forgot how to properly use bows. Probably as soon as the remaining archers died out.

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I can do that in Kerbal Space Program.

3rd world space programs has been added as a related post - related requested by eric3579 on that post.

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Please don't generalize. He said ancient dinosaur space program. Don't lump modern dinosaurs in with them.

Dinosaur Space Program!

Please, someone, make this in to a TV show now!

ED is certainly one of the best games of the year. I got a HOTAS for it myself. Would love to have a Rift or even head tracking to support it.

Got to disagree with @shagen454 a bit on Shadow of Mordor which I liked a great deal. Wildstar was okay, but it and ESO both need to be F2P or B2P (ala GW2). AA, I dumped $150 on, and that is disappointing, though it was great at the time, I just burned myself out on it. Not as disappointing as Evil Within, my biggest regret of the video games I got this year. I agree Alien Isolation, was great, and I haven't spent enough time with Divinity to really evaluate it much. Hearthstone I can't even make it past the AI missions... lord I suck at video games.... probably shouldn't have got Lords of the Fallen given that I'm so bad at games as that game is brutal.

For others we have Gauntlet as a fun diversion, Hand of Fate, Nosgoth (been in since early beta), Road Redemption is a decent homage to Road Rash, South Park: Stick of Truth, Starbound, Zombies Monsters Robots is a fairly good F2P shooter... I can't remember if Kerbal Space Program came out this year or last... The Endless series (Dungeon of the Endless and Endless Legend)... The Evolve alphas (well, one alpha down so far, which was great and one coming this weekend, and more a next year game anyhow)... Titanfall was a great deal of fun.

At or at least near the top though is ED (I personally didn't stream it or make as many videos about it as I did others, it's still a great game). I'm glad I went with ED over Star Citizen, at least as they stand now. I seriously looked into head tracking, but it's just too pricey for me at the moment. I got a Thurstmaster X Flight HOTAS though off Craigslist for a decent price and that helped the game. I haven't updated it to Beta 3 yet, I'm sure I'll need to rebind stuff on the HOTAS and in Voice Attack... and this weekend is the Evolve alpha, so I'll probably be busy with that, especially as there is no NDA this time.

"I was trying to figured who their audience was and decided it must be national governments that don't have much a space program yet. Indonesia? Taiwan?"

Maybe Elon Musk?

That's almost exactly what I just said 17-18kg in earth terms. Do you think laid on your back you could easily throw a 17kg object 1.5-2m upwards?

He's not doing a push up he's trying to jump upright. Launching nearly 20kg of weight far enough to get to your feet would take some doing that way I'd say. Just lifting 20kg with the arms alone is an effort never mind throwing it which is effectively what's happening here.

This is part of the reason I defaulted to thinking in terms of rocketry as it's not as simple as just someone trying to lift something, they are trying to propel themselves 1-2m upwards with only a thrust from the arms. Much better to wiggle around/push up to get to your knees so one could bring one's legs muscles to bear (made very difficult by hard to bend suit).

Frankly I think it would be a total pain in the arse getting back upright. If it weren't for the suit you could easily push up to your knees and then straighten your legs but the inflation is going to make that very hard work (but doable after a struggle to one knee as other video footage proves).

The alternative however which sparked this whole argument i.e. lay on your front and push off with your arms. That I think would be considerably harder than you are making out. Throwing a 17kg weight with only your arms over 1m in height is not what I'd call effortless.

My old CRT monitor probably weighs about 20kg, it'd take everything I had to throw that over 1m up into the air. Without the power of your thigh muscles and the rigidity of your spine 20kg is quite a lot really.

How high can you "jump" with only your arms? (like those super push-ups where you clap your hands in between to show off) maybe a foot or two if your really really strong? So with the extra weight of a suit and reduced gravity multiplying the result by 6 under lunar gravity, 6feet is probably just about attainable for someone in peak physical shape. But it's defiantly not what I'd call easy!


Re: conspiracies The only one I really take at all seriously any more is the idea that 2001 (esp the book) was perhaps (very) loosely based on actual events. I have time for it simply because of Arthur C. Clarke himself who was going to give an interview (which he rarely does) on Project Camelot of all things but died about 2 weeks before it happened. If you know anything about project camelot you'll know whatever he had to say was going to be mental but then again he was very old and eccentric and plenty other people involved in the space program have "jumped the shark" so to speak. (Edgar Mitchell talks about aliens on a regualr basis, Buzz Aldrin has spoken about monoliths on Phobos, pilots being followed by "Foofighters" in WW2 etc. etc.)

But it's basically wishful thinking on my part, the story and implications are remarkably plausible for what they are but that is all they are. Combined with the whole Jack Parsons/Alastair Crowley connection to the JPL my creative juices start flowing. However the obvious counter argument i.e. that the world is largely run by genuine lunatics is never far from my mind either (look at the whole "men who stare at goats" thing).

I'll listen to anyone and some I'm even prepared to believe on their own terms but I have to defer to actual evidence where it exists (or does not exist). Consequently while I'll listen to someone like John Leer talking about stuff that would seem outlandish even in a science fiction story, people why claim the moon landing was a hoax tend to get the cold shoulder as it's pretty demonstrably not true/hard to believe.

I realise that's kind of backwards but willing suspension of disbelief is a lot easier when there's really no tangible evidence either way. (why I suspect huge incomprehensible delusions like those espoused by many religions get so much traction. It's easier to believe the big lie than the small one)

Jolly entertaining though regardless

The Irish "Space Program" was in fact a pub crawl that went horribly right...