Is Kerbal Space Program possible in real life?

[RenegadeRad]

Hey guys I was wondering, using few of the parts which I guess usually exist in reality, we can make so many advanced methods and spacecrafts to reach as far as Eeloo in this game. So this got me thinking, suppose we move factors such as economy, propaganda, sjw, politics, division, aside; can we replicate these practicals in real life? Using today's tech, or a bit more research and improvements later? Reach as far as Pluto (manned) easily?   

First of all, its obvious that I'm only talking about the stock game, not mods.

And it is really idiotic to compare a game and real life, i know all the math, but still, I just wanted to know. Don't be harsh on this  

*Silently waits for badass @Nibb31 and his words*

Edited May 23, 2016 by RenegadeRad
Grammar

[PB666]

I will beat him to it. Nope.

reasons. 

1. Kerbins surface gravity while similar to Earths drops out with distance about 10 times as fast.

2. The orbital velocity of kerbin is about 1/3 of earths at minimum orbit.  This means kerbin has less harsh reentries. 

3. Kerbins atmospheric scale is about half of earths,mthe atmosphere drips ou more quickly. 

4. Kerbins dont eat or excrement. 

5. There moon is 30 times closer than ours. The other moon is eight times closer but barely constitutes as a gravity well compared to our  moon

KSP is real-life Nerfed. 

[RCgothic]

Of course we could, money no object. All it takes is dv and time.

It would be much harder than reaching Eeloo, but the main obstacles are budget and reason to go. Nothing PB666 mentioned makes doing it impossible.

 

Edited May 23, 2016 by RCgothic

[tater]

Pluto is vastly farther away than Eeloo. The entire Kerbol system fits inside the orbit of Venus (or thereabouts).

Pluto would be incredibly difficult from a human factors standpoint.

[PB666]

You would not be doing it out of Jebs backyard junkyard.

 

[Nibb31]

I'm not 100% what the OP means with the question. After all, there are plenty of space programs in real life. 

I think what he meant to ask about was the possibility to build rockets like Lego with interchangeable parts. Well, in some cases, it is possible (for example, rockets can be assembled in various configurations, and some stages can be used on different rockets, and some payloads are launcher-agnostic), but in most cases, components are built for a specific task. In real life, margins are tight, so every single part must be highly optimized for a specific application.

[insert_name]

if cost, and political issues weren't issues we could probably build an orion spacecraft to go to pluto, but the cost would be immense. also ksp fuels are totally unrealistic, with hugely varing isps and no boiloff on the oxidizer

[pincushionman]

KSP does not simulate system failures. Making reliable systems is one of the major costs of spacecraft.

[PB666]

8 minutes ago, pincushionman said:

KSP does not simulate system failures. Making reliable systems is one of the major costs of spacecraft.

In general your systems blow up in KSP before you need to monitor them. -3, -2, -1, 0 [Ka boom] [Big orange tank spiraling out of a flame ball].

Or [launch from VAB] . . . . .[Placing launch on Pad][Ka-boom] . . .wth

Or how about suicide burn on a hilly planet, you have 16, 12, 0, -2, -13 seconds [crash]

 

[Bill Phil]

We produce 1.5 billion tonnes of steel per year as a species, and if money was no object, it's easy. Money is the main issue. The GWP is ~70 trillion USD. Going to the moon took 100 billion USD. With 700 times that budget... Easy.

[wumpus]

4 hours ago, Nibb31 said:

I'm not 100% what the OP means with the question. After all, there are plenty of space programs in real life. 

I think what he meant to ask about was the possibility to build rockets like Lego with interchangeable parts. Well, in some cases, it is possible (for example, rockets can be assembled in various configurations, and some stages can be used on different rockets, and some payloads are launcher-agnostic), but in most cases, components are built for a specific task. In real life, margins are tight, so every single part must be highly optimized for a specific application.

Orbital-ATK makes a business out of this (making rockets that can launch satellites out of different surplus cold-war* ICBMs.  I'm sure there is a lot of work making sure each stage covers absolutely every variable: the mass of the upper stage isn't to high, the speed (and max-Q) generated from the lower stage doesn't crush the upper stage.  The other flight characteristics are compatible (the upper stage isn't expected to act in non-vacuum when it was designed for vacuum only, among many other things that can go wrong).  Rockets really aren't LEGOs.

On the other hand, if you want KSP to be roughly what NASA does, try the "realism overhaul" (I doubt it is completely ready for 1.1 yet, so don't [temporarily] break your system installing it).  It fixes most of the obvious issues, but still lets you use real rockets with the impossible KSP-LEGO building method.

I'm sure if you could ask Elon Musk (or Charles Bolden, NASA administrator.  No idea who runs it for the Russians or ESA) they would tell you that KSP's difficulty slider doesn't quite go out to "real life", no matter how many mods you throw at it.  I takes a lot of players working together to "win" real life KSP.

* I think some of the rockets that are surplus were never deployed during the cold war.  That really makes me feel old.

[RenegadeRad]

7 hours ago, Nibb31 said:

I'm not 100% what the OP means with the question. After all, there are plenty of space programs in real life. 

I think what he meant to ask about was the possibility to build rockets like Lego with interchangeable parts. Well, in some cases, it is possible (for example, rockets can be assembled in various configurations, and some stages can be used on different rockets, and some payloads are launcher-agnostic), but in most cases, components are built for a specific task. In real life, margins are tight, so every single part must be highly optimized for a specific application.

Yes, exactly! Now speaking of which, what about "methods" ? The way we reach outer planets easily, jool breaking , astroid mining, we all can do this in the game using strategies. Is this applicable irl if we ignore politics and economics?

Edited May 24, 2016 by RenegadeRad

[kerbiloid]

4 hours ago, pincushionman said:

KSP does not simulate system failures

Kerbalism and DangIt do.

[Nibb31]

3 hours ago, RenegadeRad said:

Yes, exactly! Now speaking of which, what about "methods" ? The way we reach outer planets easily, jool breaking , astroid mining, we all can do this in the game using strategies. Is this applicable irl if we ignore politics and economics?

No because Kerbal solar system is much smaller, distances are smaller, travel times are shorter, everything is in the same plane, dV amounts are much smaller and dV is cheap. In KSP, most rockets have excess dV.

In real-life, the margins are much thinner. The distances are much greater so aiming is more difficult. It takes 9000m/s of dV to reach orbit and squeezing that much dV out of a rocket requires some serious optimization. You can't just strap more boosters to a rocket like in KSP or make a bigger rocket because there are physical limits.

[Superfluous J]

You (OP) mentioned Eeloo, so let me point out that Pluto (Eeloo's RL analog) is 90 years away in a Hohmann transfer. Assuming you could keep them alive for the whole journey, a crew of teenagers would all be centenarian when they got there.

In short, RL doesn't have time warp.

Edited May 24, 2016 by 5thHorseman
I had a bad number for Hohmann transfer time to Pluto.

[RenegadeRad]

2 minutes ago, 5thHorseman said:

You (OP) mentioned Eeloo, so let me point out that Pluto (Eeloo's RL analog) is 80 years away in a Hohmann transfer. Assuming you could keep them alive for the whole journey, a crew of teenagers would all be in their 90s when they got there.

In short, RL doesn't have time warp.

But it does have cyro sleep  

[Superfluous J]

Just now, RenegadeRad said:

But it does have cyro sleep  

Oh they solved that one, did they? Cool. Wake me up when they can upload my brain into a computer.

[RenegadeRad]

17 minutes ago, 5thHorseman said:

Oh they solved that one, did they? Cool. Wake me up when they can upload my brain into a computer.

Well, I did mean after a few years

[RCgothic]

4 hours ago, 5thHorseman said:

You (OP) mentioned Eeloo, so let me point out that Pluto (Eeloo's RL analog) is 90 years away in a Hohmann transfer. Assuming you could keep them alive for the whole journey, a crew of teenagers would all be centenarian when they got there.

In short, RL doesn't have time warp.

This is mostly because the orbital velocity out there is so slow. In this part of the solar system extra dv pays real dividends. New horizons made it in 1/10th that time.

Of course you also have to have the dv budget for capture and return, but some fuel could be mined once you got there and the rest is just a sufficiently large rocket. For mind-bending quantities of large.

These are just things that require budget, not impossibilities.

[magnemoe]

3 hours ago, RCgothic said:

This is mostly because the orbital velocity out there is so slow. In this part of the solar system extra dv pays real dividends. New horizons made it in 1/10th that time.

Of course you also have to have the dv budget for capture and return, but some fuel could be mined once you got there and the rest is just a sufficiently large rocket. For mind-bending quantities of large.

These are just things that require budget, not impossibilities.

True, you can see this inside the kerbin system, going to Minums with Hohmann takes 10 time as long as to Mun even if just 3 times as far in distance. 
As an upside dV cost is not much higher. If you go to Pluto you will not use Hohmann as travel time is too long. 

[CptRichardson]

21 hours ago, RenegadeRad said:

Hey guys I was wondering, using few of the parts which I guess usually exist in reality, we can make so many advanced methods and spacecrafts to reach as far as Eeloo in this game. So this got me thinking, suppose we move factors such as economy, propaganda, sjw, politics, division, aside; can we replicate these practicals in real life? Using today's tech, or a bit more research and improvements later? Reach as far as Pluto (manned) easily?   

First of all, its obvious that I'm only talking about the stock game, not mods.

And it is really idiotic to compare a game and real life, i know all the math, but still, I just wanted to know. Don't be harsh on this  

*Silently waits for badass @Nibb31 and his words*

 

You're talking about the SpaceX space program's far, far future plans after it basically takes over Mars and becomes a national identity unto itself?

[wumpus]

21 hours ago, RenegadeRad said:

Yes, exactly! Now speaking of which, what about "methods" ? The way we reach outer planets easily, jool breaking , astroid mining, we all can do this in the game using strategies. Is this applicable irl if we ignore politics and economics?

One of the big differences is that going to jool typically has a kerbal sitting in a capsule for years.  This might have been realistic for the Apollo missions, but that is as far as you go (and presumably they could get out and go into the LEM at some point).

Missions for Mars typically want a habitat the size of the ISS.  NASA pencils in a budget of something like 60 tons just for the crew cabin to get to Mars, while KSP can often get away with a .7 ton mark 1 crew capsule (you don't even need budget snacks).  I'd hate to think what you want for a Jool mission, and how long the astronauts would age before they returned home.

Politics and economics are everything if you want to mine asteroids.  Presumably the whole point is to deliver platinum or similarly valuable metals to Earth, so you want to fake up a "return vessel" that is nearly solid ore with barely enough "return vehicle" to hide the fact that you are essentially dropping a meteor on Earth (you also want to control the thing to somewhere you can easily pick it up, so maybe just a little bit more "vessel").  Mining straight in the asteroid belt might have its advantages, but I doubt current robotics are up to the job (we couldn't even land on a comet, don't expect to automatically mine an asteroid).

I suspect that "air breaking" might even be easier in real life than  in KSP.  Remember, since the planets are smaller, the orbits are smaller to and thus the amount of time we have to aerobrake/aerocapture.  Real life has the distinct advantage of 90 minute orbits (out by ISS).  For example, in real life, I thing they should try to use an Al foil "parachute" (definitely a drogue) in real life.  Doesn't have to have much of a surface area higher than the craft it is braking for (unless you want to go a lot higher), the idea is that as long as you don't melt the parachute, you should be able to have a ton of breaking with a relatively weak chute.  A hundred minutes or so of easy breaking should provide enough delta-v to capture.

Finally, if you want the "lego" construction, look to Orbital-ATK.  I'm sure it is plenty more complicated than KSP, but they manage to use off the shelf boosters for space.

[PB666]

1 hour ago, wumpus said:

One of the big differences is that going to jool typically has a kerbal sitting in a capsule for years.  This might have been realistic for the Apollo missions, but that is as far as you go (and presumably they could get out and go into the LEM at some point).

Missions for Mars typically want a habitat the size of the ISS.  NASA pencils in a budget of something like 60 tons just for the crew cabin to get to Mars, while KSP can often get away with a .7 ton mark 1 crew capsule (you don't even need budget snacks).  I'd hate to think what you want for a Jool mission, and how long the astronauts would age before they returned home.

Politics and economics are everything if you want to mine asteroids.  Presumably the whole point is to deliver platinum or similarly valuable metals to Earth, so you want to fake up a "return vessel" that is nearly solid ore with barely enough "return vehicle" to hide the fact that you are essentially dropping a meteor on Earth (you also want to control the thing to somewhere you can easily pick it up, so maybe just a little bit more "vessel").  Mining straight in the asteroid belt might have its advantages, but I doubt current robotics are up to the job (we couldn't even land on a comet, don't expect to automatically mine an asteroid).

I suspect that "air breaking" might even be easier in real life than  in KSP.  Remember, since the planets are smaller, the orbits are smaller to and thus the amount of time we have to aerobrake/aerocapture.  Real life has the distinct advantage of 90 minute orbits (out by ISS).  For example, in real life, I thing they should try to use an Al foil "parachute" (definitely a drogue) in real life.  Doesn't have to have much of a surface area higher than the craft it is braking for (unless you want to go a lot higher), the idea is that as long as you don't melt the parachute, you should be able to have a ton of breaking with a relatively weak chute.  A hundred minutes or so of easy breaking should provide enough delta-v to capture.

Finally, if you want the "lego" construction, look to Orbital-ATK.  I'm sure it is plenty more complicated than KSP, but they manage to use off the shelf boosters for space.

Not to mention you could power to jool with ion drives and solar panels, to get to jupiter with ion drives would be near impoosible without fusion power. In the game i have built mun launch vehicles that took off with ion drives, completely impossible in rl. 

[FungusForge]

All I really feel I'm qualified to say on this matter:

Never go up to NASA or some such saying a thing is possible because you did it in KSP, even with all the realism and logistics mods, that's like saying you can shoot a penny out of the air with a bent arrow because you hit the broadside of the Earth itself.

[ProtoJeb21]

I like to imagine that Kerbol is actually a mid-K Class star, and each celestial body (excluding Kerbol) is scaled down just for the heck of it. In real life, the planets and moons of the Kerbol system would be 10x larger than in the game. Kerbin will be slightly smaller than Earth, Jool will be about the size of Saturn, and Moho would be slightly larger than Mercury. The list goes on. However, it is possible that Gilly would still have a 13km radius in real life, especially since objects that size are more likely to be captured.