I could tell you about a very cute, very enjoyable little game I’ve recent come across called Kerbal Space Program.

I could tell you how it has a great physics model, and how you design rockets for the KSP in order to, well, do whatever.

I could tell you how they’re planning to include other solar bodies, so you can have space stations and moon bases and stuff.

I could tell you that it’s highly addictive even absent these because just trying to get a stable orbit (Nevermind leaving a satellite there) is quite challenging.

But I shan’t.

No, what I shall tell you about is Jebediah Kerbal.

There are three at the start of the KSP, three brave Kerbals who seek to slip the surly bounds of Kearth and take flight. Bob, Bill, and Jeb.

Bob and Bill are, frankly, absolute cowards. Jeb is another story. Jeb does not give anything that remotely resembles a crap. Here they are halfway into orbit.

And here they are in orbit. With no way to actually descend.

Flung into deep space with no hope of return? Jeb loves it. Trapped in an orbit with no other ships in existence to retrieve you? Jeb loves it. A part of the rocket explodes? Jeb worries for all of five seconds, then goes right back to remembering that he is in freaking space. It’s like someone really took me or Pike and measured how we acted in space, because there is nothing that could damped our spirits. We’d be grinning like maniacs right until we plowed into the moon at 14c.

It’s free to play in it’s alpha-tech-demo-thingy-whatever stage right now, and you can pick it up here! There’s also a wiki (I think my toenail clippings have their own wiki these days) and forums for you to peruse. I recommend you give it a try, it’s a lot of fun to watch your meticulous planning result in something that topples over on the launch pad and fatally explodes!