So KSP has gotten to the point where I think it can support offloading object and physics tracking to a separate process / application. This would allow multiclient (note: not multiplayer) support. This is an old scholo LAN party server trick. Basically one client would act as a server, and other clients would connect to the "brain" instance. Eventually, developers got smart and started making headless/minimal clients tailored towards hosting.
One of the largest limiting factors that I can see is the limit to physics range. But if I could boot up a client per ship, that limitation changes drastically. So why not have the option to boot up a host, have say... 3 clients connect to it, and then the host controls time acceleration and saves. The clients are there for piloting and simulating.