Tribute to Dennis Hare, "LazyD"

I never met the man. I really wish to have had the chance to communicate with Dennis.

But he did have a HUGE impact on my life - my Orbiter life, that is.

The first time I used LandMFD, I thought it was only for Orbiter ver 050216. I struggled to do landings manually with add-ons written for Orbiter ver 060504. Then I discovered in the forums that LandMFD would work for the newer version. Also discovered what a newbie I really was.

Then about a year later, AMSO (Apollo Mission Simulator for Orbiter) comes to my attention. With Dennis' autopilots available, many difficult Apollo maneuvers became effortless. This was the inspirational basis for development of my Apollo 15 scenario pack. It really would have been more difficult, both to me and those who are new to Orbiter, to use ANY scenarios if Dennis had not done such outstanding work on the autopilots.

Not 2 months later came the sad news from Alain Capt (AKA ACSoft): Dennis Hare had passed on. By this time, I had learned enough to publish REAL add-ons for Orbiter. There was mention of a contest for memorials and tributes in the M6 forum. So I gave it a shot.

The first time I encountered his Orbiter "name", cattle brands and cattle ranching popped into my mind. Tschachim shared with me the following link:
http://www.ibiblio.org/mscorbit/mscforum/index.php?topic=136.msg2273#msg2273
which turned out to be a confirmation of his Orbiter "name", and a wonderful insight into the man's personal life. The relevent excerpt follows:

Coussini & Cale,

I sent new modules to Joe, he seems to be able to get them. Maybe he will be kind enough to send them along to you. Sorry I haven't gotten these to you - I'm spending my days catching cattle and hauling them away in a trailer - that's life on the LazyD ranch.

The letter "D" on its side, to me, conveys a sense of rest. I used this idea as the starting point for my tribute. Plus I knew it would be really easy to model. I choose the lunar Hadley-Apennines as the location because I too like the idea of "exploring beautiful places". I placed it near the crater Rhysling because I'm a fan of the sci-fi author Robert A. Heinlein. A song written by Heinlein's character of Rhysling appears in part on the memorial plaque.

And now the pictures. Click on any of them to enlarge: