In my experience, if it runs well, no damage apart from couple of scratches and little dints and insurance is cheap its worth a look. Any paint missing or rust can be fixed with a little extra cash .
I think your best option in the current version is to use mods, but If you are too heavy but want to use the vanilla parts why don't you try the Orbital Construction mod.
I had always been searching for space simulators since I was about 12 and it just so happened that one day after watching a video on Moonbase alpha I found this in a related video, can't remember the channel name but I owe a lot to him for showing me a game I have wanted most of my life