http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/42561/Screenshots/i60w-q0t2ybn.png
I've learned more about orbital mechanics in six hours with this game than in my entire physics undergrad, haha. Lost an astronaut during an EVA last night, and didn't know how to use his little RCS jetpack, so he orbited the earth independently. Sent a rescue mission to pick him up, but it ran out of fuel. Sent another rescue mission, finally picked up the guy, but didn't have enough fuel to deorbit so now I've got seven astronauts in orbit. And no parachutes.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BQeyq5dCUAAlP1f.jpg:large
Decided to dock with one of them to form a small space station. Here's my three-stage launch vehicle almost snapping in half due to an uncontrolled SAS control-plane feedback loop:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BQfs3wxCQAMkb0g.jpg:large
Definitely not structurally sound, but managed to recover from the spin and get the whole structure into orbit with a full third-stage tank. Orbital sync with one of the rescue missions only took half a tank, and docking... oy. Hit the orbiter and sent it into slow precession, made docking nearly impossible. Oh yeah, and the orbiter ran out of power (no solar panels on board and no rocket fuel left) so I had no way to run its gyros.
Here's the space station core--two docking rings in the center. Booms to either side support a pair of hubble-style solar panels. There's a small crew module in the foreground, and an ISS-style cupola module at the front of that. To the rear are the gyros, battery packs, and a ton of monopropellant fuel for the RCS thrusters. Guess who only put thrusters on the front half of their space station, making linear translation impossible? Yaaa, this guy. ;-)
The orange tank and motor at the back is detachable, but it still had half a tank left so I planned to circularize the orbit with it.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BQfpoB0CIAAOp2w.jpg:large
Finally docked, but tragedy struck: I accidentally triggered the main engines to full throttle just after hard seal. The orbiter ripped off the docking ring and slammed into the third-stage tank, rupturing it. I blew the explosive bolts to sever the tank, but it exploded, ripping off a solar panel and, I think, much of the monopropellant/battery assembly. Tank and station are now rapidly separating in uncontrolled precession. No sign of the orbiter I meant to "rescue". Designing a fourth rescue orbiter now, and a tug to recapture and deorbit the tank before it hits something else.
Stumbled across your gist while looking at other random stuff - which game/simulator is this??