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Scientific mistakes in KSP


Mortimer Kerman

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1 hour ago, kerbiloid said:

Has somebody already mentioned the icy Minmus at same distance from the sun as the liquid water Kerbin?

Well, it is too small to have atmosphere. Any liquids turned to gas and were lost long ago, all we are left with is some magical, Little Prince-sque (and dead) satellite.

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14 minutes ago, Fierce Wolf said:

Well, it is too small to have atmosphere. Any liquids turned to gas and were lost long ago, all we are left with is some magical, Little Prince-sque (and dead) satellite.

Just it isn't liquid, while the Kerbin ocean is.
They are at same distance from Sun.
So, either Kerbin has some internal source of heat, or Minmus should melt.

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51 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

Just it isn't liquid, while the Kerbin ocean is.
They are at same distance from Sun.
So, either Kerbin has some internal source of heat, or Minmus should melt.

Liquids cannot exist in a vaccum, therefore, no water on minmus. Even if it had an atmosphere, it would be lost long ago.

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To be fair, I don't think any of us expect KSP to get anything right beyond orbital physics, but the game describing every body in the system as life-containing is a bit bold. All biomes contain life and the R/D center lists biomes on Moho and Eeloo. It's relatively unlikely that bacteria would survive in those places.

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8 minutes ago, DunaManiac said:

Ah, now I understand your complaint. I suppose you are right, but it could be possible that it has a high enough albedo that the ice would not sublimate, but fair point.

It was an argument from the old KSP discussion about Minmus.

Edited by kerbiloid
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5 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

Just it isn't liquid, while the Kerbin ocean is.
They are at same distance from Sun.
So, either Kerbin has some internal source of heat, or Minmus should melt.

Actually greenhouse gasses keep a planet warm, without those earth (and other planets) would be frozen over: so it's perfectly normal, just like the average temperature on the moon is also around -70 degrees.

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 Buoyancy bothers me most.  I'm ok with KSP having it's own reality, but building submarines and underwater bases takes more creativity than it should.  Water resistance on the horizontal is fine, it's the floatation of damn near every part that's rough.

 If I was doing a wish list I'd want tides and waves too.

Edited by klond
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Just now, klond said:

Buoyancy bothers me most.  I'm ok with KSP having it's own reality, but building submarines and underwater bases takes more creativity than it should.  Water resistance on the horizontal is fine, it's the floatation of damn near every part that's rough.

 If I was doing a wish list I'd want tides and waves too.

Imagine programming a game about making rockets to other planets and players want to make undersea bases! :D

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3 minutes ago, Red Iron Crown said:

/me looks at icy poles of Earth

/me looks at liquid water equator of Earth

/me looks at the equator tilt of the Earth (23.5°) and the Kerbin (0°).

Hint: polar night

P.S.
Also the idea of unreal Minmus is not mine, I just quoted the others.

Edited by kerbiloid
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*takes off his moderator jacket for a moment*

I hate to break it to you, but Kerbal Space Program is a computer game designed to be a very basic space simulator. There are a lot of things "not scientific" about the game. There's the tech tree procession - which makes little sense from a developmental standpoint. Then there are the contracts - again, which are designed to be challenging but not accurate (ever wonder how you can have stranded Kermen in space when the KSC is just achieving space flight - and there are no other space programs on the planet?)

I get a good laugh out of these threads and the forums for games such as Cities: Skylines and Banished. No, these are not designed to be realistic. They are designed to be moderately challenging but most of all, fun. When it comes to KSP, most of us just launch contraptions which would never make it with real world physics. Kerbin itself has no clouds, no weather patterns, etc. But yet here we are, still playing the game since 2012 - and loving every moment of it. So, I wonder, instead of complaining about what the game doesn't get right, why not take a few posts to discuss what KSP and Squad have gotten right? :)

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This thread has take an oddly antagonistic turn and we're removed some posts. OP merely wishes to record aspects of the game which do not accord with real-world space science. Whether or not you think that's a good idea is beside the point. Please either contribute or move on to other discussions. 

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If minmus is explicitly stated to be icy, its a scientific mistake, as ice would sublimate and be lost (even out to ceres IRL).

But I don't think it ever actually says that, so minmus' composition remains unknown, and there is no reason to say it is water Ice.

Ksp2 devs called it icy, which concerns me.

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On 1/7/2020 at 10:59 AM, KerikBalm said:

If minmus is explicitly stated to be icy, its a scientific mistake, as ice would sublimate and be lost (even out to ceres IRL).

But I don't think it ever actually says that, so minmus' composition remains unknown, and there is no reason to say it is water Ice.

Ksp2 devs called it icy, which concerns me.

I think Minmus has salt

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On 1/2/2020 at 12:01 PM, kerbiloid said:

Has somebody already mentioned the icy Minmus at same distance from the sun as the liquid water Kerbin?

Minmus hasn't got an atmosphere to capture heat, and it isn't orbited by a relatively large body to provide it with tidal effects to heat it up.

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It would still sublimate under direct sunlight. There is a reason we don't find Ice on the surface of the moon IRL except in areas of permenant shadow at the moons poles (ie deep polar crater basins).

webview?Expires=1578839561&Signature=bY1

At 0 pressure, you can only have water ice at basically absolute 0

But note the log scale:

1214px-Phase_diagram_of_water.svg.png

It doesn't take much to raise the sublimation point. Even Europa for example has an atmosphere that registers on a log scale. Practically speaking -Our solar system has a "snow line", where beyond that distance from the sun, water ice can exist on the surface of a body with practically no atmosphere/in a vacuum. That distance is around the outer edge if the asteroid belt.

Its why the asteroids are rocky and not icy like comets, why comets have a tail when they come in the inner solar system, and why the gas giants can have icy moons with no atmosphere significant by standards of suitability for aerobraking, flight, parachutes, etc

Edited by KerikBalm
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