ChrisSpace

So I have always wondered what a civilization would be like if it lived on a planet the size of Kerbin or the new Mini-Kerbin (from the Toy Solar System mod). What kinds of challenges would the Kerbals face? How could they survive? Would they have enough resources to go into space? So in this post, I am going to start by making a few assumptions: Kerbin and Mini-Kerbin have a very similar geological history to that of Earth, with the exception of having a tiny, extremely dense object in their cores which gives them their gravity. Per Capita, Kerbals use up resources in roughly the same amounts and at roughly the same speed as Humans. The average population density is the same as well. ‘Year One’ in KSP is the equivalent of the year 1950 on Earth. I chose this year as it was the time when the first suborbital flights were taking place and the big ‘space hype’ was beginning. Got all that? Let’s begin! So one of the core elements (no pun intended) of maintaining a civilized society is have natural resources available so growth can continue. Overall there are two types of resources: Surface Resources such as forests and living space are calculated based on the surface area of a planet. Sub-Surface Resources such as minerals and fossil fuels are calculated based on the volume of a planet. So how exactly do we find how much of these resources are located on Kerbin and Mini-Kerbin? Well first we need to find out their volume when compared with Earth. What I found was this: ‘Cool, but why is this important?’ you may be thinking. Well, since the Kerbal population scales with the planets’ surface area while the planet’s Sub-Surface resources scale with its volume, the Volume: Surface Area ratio directly shows how fast the Kerbals will consume their Sub-Surface resources compared to Humans. For example, if there is some mineral that we run out of in 2056 (106 years after our starting point in 1950), then Kerbin will run out of that resource in Year 10 and Mini-Kerbin will run dry around the end of Year 1. Yeah, this is intense. So how long can the Kerbal civilization sustain itself (unless it expands into space)? Well, I have found various sources to show a range of estimates for various Sub-Surface resources. What I found was this: Note: 1 Earth year = 3.427 Kerbal years Note 2: Surface resources aren't included because they scale with the planet's surface area (and hence its population and resource consumption rate), so they'll get depleted at the same time on any of the 3 planets. So what does this mean? It means that the Kerbal civilization is much closer to running out of resources than us. So the only way they can survive is by building up a space program to try to colonise other worlds and mine them for resources. This actually makes a lot of sense within the game itself. Think about it, why is it called the 'Kerbal' space program and not the space program of any single corporation or nation? Because its an international effort to work towards a common goal of 'not going extinct.' Also, why is it that Kerbals seem mostly fine with other Kerbals dying? Because they would consider it an acceptable loss in the race to leave Kerbin before its too late. So in total, how long do the Kerbals have? Well, since most of our rocket fuel is produced from natural gas, we'd probably lose our capability to leave Kerbin by year 67, and Mini-Kerbin by year 7. Civilization could probably survive until coal runs out (the materials to make renewable energy facilities will have disappeared long ago) in 140 / 15, then everything would fall apart. Oh and did I mention climate change? Since it is proportional to the consumption of fossil fuels, then using medium estimates we should see above-preindustrial temperatures of 1C by 21/3, 2C by 27/3, 3C by 31/4 and 4C by 36/4. So, what was the point of this post? To show why I think the Kerbals are so determined to expand into space. Also, feel free to use it for any fan-fiction or storyline-based gameplay. So, what do you all think of this?

Anyone can land on a planet or moon, but colonizing is a bit trickier...

Great job getting this into the main release page! Also, I'm going to be doing a career mode series of this on my YouTube channel, if that's okay. As for suggestions I don't really have any except for adjusted contracts and fixing the atmosphere cutoff thing.

So that is roughly 3.162, okay thanks!

Loving the mod, but can I haz Delta-V map plz?

Hundreds of nuclear-armed missiles. If it happened today at least.

How many observable universes would that weigh?

KSP has the best development system ever!

Oh my god... this looks awesome! I assume it isn't on steam yet though. But seriously, I really look forward to how this game develops!

We'd need to know exactly how fast the stuff comes out the bottom.

Wouldn't hundreds of kilometers of solid rock make a good shield against said radiation?

237???

Wait, so does it keep its position relative to the sun?

KSP with RSS and Realism overhaul. Or just normal KSP. Or planetfall. Or some minecraft mudpack with the Galacticraft mod. Or Civilization: Beyond Earth. Or Fate of the World. Or Space Engineers. Or Star citizen. Really any of these will do. Also, can you provide a link to your channel?

If you want to travel forwards in time, go really really fast and try not to hit anything. To go backwards......... Umm........

21/9001 Nah. The US never adopts an oil-based currency - Iraq is never invaded - The US doesn't start the war in Syria or accuse Iran of developing nukes - Saudi Arabia's human rights violations are addressed properly Pros: Less wars, the middle east is much more balanced and stable, more human rights Cons: ... ... ... ... ... Let me think ... ... ... ... Ummm ... ... ... ... ...

Pretty much all of my favorite Minecraft modpacks go off this concept: Starting in a completely untouched world with no humans on it, and slowly developing better things until you can build rockets, nukes and modern infrastructure. Of course, everything is overly simplified so my heavily modded Minecraft games can't really be accurately used to determine much. Still, I am very familiar with this concept. No. Russia was never anywhere near 'square one'. Relative to western Europe they were, but in total they were extremely more developed than a Russia-sized population of people just being dropped into the wilderness. A more interesting scenario would be if only a small and sterile (perhaps 100-200 people) group of people were dropped onto an uninhabited earth-sized planet but were completely immortal. On one hand, the population couldn't increase and you would only have a tiny population, but on the other hand, all the knowledge and memories stay in the population indefinitely. It would be interesting to see how fast this group could develop. If we go with my 'everyone is immortal but infertile' idea, this would probably become the biggest factor. I think it would be the most interesting to see what a group of 2000 or less people would do, but obviously more people would make things go along faster. I will certainly look into that. Thanks! Oh. Yes. Agriculture. Umm... how would that work in an immortal scenario? Perhaps they can live forever if they just eat food / drink water? Technology has only been developing for a few million years of that. We aren't building a universe here. Yes. In my little scenario I set everything back to how it was around 4000BCE, minus the humans, human artifacts and now-extinct species. My face after reading that second sentence... Okay i'll read that as well.

Minmus would be a perfect 'halfway' point between the Moon and Mars. So this means that if it was real, when Apollo 11 landed on the moon in 1969 the Soviet Union could have raised the bar higher (literally) and the space race could go much further.

I learned what it would be like if MacDonalds advertised like Apple:

Okay, so far I haven't had any luck finding a date when Venus, Earth, Mars and Jupiter are in the positions shown in the image above. I really need help. Bonus rep to the first person to find this.

https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/edit?mid=z6rZo7qf8ScA.k4Rc6o3T9zTw

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Hello Teinheimer!

Almost any gas can be used as propellant in a nuclear thermal rocket, although hydrogen is obviously the most efficient.