S1E4 - Stellar Horizons (Space Exploration)

#SpaceExploration #StellarHorizons #Space #CompassGames  Find our socials at GamingWithScience.net  This month we head to the final frontier, with Stellar Horizons from Compass Games. We also have our very first guest host, Christoph Wagner from Kennedy Space Center. We talk about near-future space exploration, colonization, asteroids, launch failures, space pirates, and more. Timestamps 00:44 - Meet Christoph Wagner03:19 - Science facts - Rusty Mars and poisonous oxygen05:26 - Stellar Horizons game overview & mechanics15:25 - Science overview17:01 - Reusable rockets18:47 - Space politics and game factions23:50 - Astronomy in the game26:00 - Space combat and space pirates!29:25 - Getting to Mars & the Lagrange points32:26 - Game tweaks wish list39:41 - Final grades Game Results  - Game 1: Earth destroyed by asteroid - Game 2: China and Russia save Earth from asteroid! Links Stellar Horizons official website (Note: Rules PDF *is* downloadable from here) Kennedy Space Center The Great Oxygenation Event Gaming with Science™ is produced with the help of the University of Georgia and is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license. Full Transcript Brian  0:06  Hello and welcome to the gaming with science podcast where we talked about the science behind some of your favorite games. Jason  0:11  Today, we'll be talking about Stellar Horizons by compass games. All right, welcome back to gaming with science. This is Jason. Brian  0:22  This is Brian. Christoph  0:23  This is Christoph Jason  0:24  So yes, we have our very first special guest host here. Christopher Wagner. Wagner or Wagner? Christoph  0:29  Wagner is the German way to say it and Wagner here in the States, that's fine.  Jason  0:33  For those of you who know the game, this is a game about near Earth space exploration. Brian and I are plant biologists we have no expertise here. So we wanted to get someone on who actually knew what they were talking about. So Christoph, tell us about yourself. Christoph  0:44  Sure. So I am I have a degree in physics and master's degree in mechanical engineering and aerospace engineering. I'm originally come from Germany and did my mechanical engineering in physics in Germany, and then studied aerospace engineering at Purdue University with a major in astrodynamics control and guidance, navigation and control theory. Unfortunately, after I got done with that degree, I could not get a job in that field here in the US because of my German citizenship. And most of those jobs do require a higher levels of security clearances. And so I ended up working Caterpillar for 10 years, Jason  1:19  not involved in space exploration Christoph  1:21  not involved in space at all, unfortunately, but then through some, I got let go from Caterpillar in 2016 ended up in a company, a hydraulics company up in Minnesota, but that got way cold for me. So I only lasted two years. And I took a job at Walt Disney Imagineering down here in Orlando. So I designed or I was part of the ride team that designed the Guardians of the Galaxy cosmic rewind roller coaster at Epcot Center.  Brian  1:49  I just rode that. That's so much fun.  Christoph  1:51  Yes, yes, it is a lot of fun. And it was a lot of fun designing it too. But I was only a contractor. So when COVID hit, they let me go. And I was unemployed for a few months, and obviously started looking and I found this job that was essentially almost tailored for me at Kennedy Space Center, which is fluid design engineer. So I applied it took a while but in October 2020, I started my position as a fluid design engineer at Kennedy Space Center, I worked for a contractor for NASA contractor called Jacobs. And my main responsibility these days is that I'm the lead contract engineer for the hydraulic systems on the mobile launch tower ordinance.  Brian  2:33  That's very cool.  Christoph  2:34   It's very cool to say that I am actually part of the Artemis team.