What is exchange rate of Kerbin dollar?

[BezKartuza]

Greetings to members of the forum!

Has anyone asked such a (possibly strange) question - What is the exchange rate of the Kerbin dollar against the real US dollar? Or to the euro, for example.
I think it is possible to understand at least approximately if you know the real value of some equipment from the game.

Sorry for my bad english.

[paul23]

Well if we take a simple engine for example, the "wheesley" engine. It seems a standard last-generation turbofan engine. That's about the Pratt & Whitney PW1100G. That engine costs roughly  $12 000 000. So if we take this as guide 1 kerbin credit is about 1000 dollar. With other things it's even more expensive, mainly due to most things in real life being produced "a piece" and not having the numbers for a stable continuous production.

 

A command pod module in real life would cost well over 1 million, probably 5 to 10 times as much. So there 1 credit is 10000-20000 dollar.

[BezKartuza]

30 minutes ago, paul23 said:

Well if we take a simple engine for example, the "wheesley" engine. It seems a standard last-generation turbofan engine. That's about the Pratt & Whitney PW1100G. That engine costs roughly  $12 000 000. So if we take this as guide 1 kerbin credit is about 1000 dollar. With other things it's even more expensive, mainly due to most things in real life being produced "a piece" and not having the numbers for a stable continuous production.

 

A command pod module in real life would cost well over 1 million, probably 5 to 10 times as much. So there 1 credit is 10000-20000 dollar.

It turns out not a very stable rate
somewhere 1 = 1000, and somewhere 1 = 10000

As they say with us - "Accuracy approximately plus-minus bast shoe" (Как говорят у нас - "Точность примерно плюс-минус лапоть").

I'm not sure that Google correctly translated this folk wisdom ...

[paul23]

Well I didn't even think of going to the rockets, the larger ones look like the saturn V engines, which costs in the order of the 100s of millions in reality (due to all development having to be paid by only like 15 productive builds. So you'd see a 100 000 factor. On the other hand the fuel itself might only be a factor 100 times as cheap.

Edited October 15, 2019 by paul23

[BezKartuza]

6 minutes ago, paul23 said:

Well I didn't even think of going to the rockets, the larger ones look like the saturn V engines, which costs in the order of the 100s of millions in reality (due to all development having to be paid by only like 15 productive builds. So you'd see a 100 000 factor. On the other hand the fuel itself might only be a factor 100 times as cheap.

The cost of development and government subsidies of development companies in the game, I think, is not taken into account.
So the most realistic rate will be if you take the cost of fuel as a landmark!
Great idea with fuel!

[BezKartuza]

I counted like this:
An empty tank FL-T400 costs 316 Kerbin dollars
Tank with fuel (no oxidizer) alone costs 460 Kerbin dollars.
Liquid fuel is 0.9 tons. Cost - 144 Kerbin dollars.

Aviation kerosene in Russia costs 35,000 rubles for 0.9 tons.
35000 : 144 = 243 rubles for 1 Kerbin dollar.

[Pds314]

IRL fuel is ridiculously cheap. A Saturn V costs on the order of a billion US dollars, but a kiloton of RP-1 for the lower stage is a few million.

 

KSP sort of pays lip service to this, but it underestimates the difference in price by quite a lot. A kiloton of fuel costs 160000 \|` whilst a rocket that size might cost 1600000 \|` A factor of 1:10 instead of well over 1:100.

Edited October 17, 2019 by Pds314

[AHHans]

11 hours ago, BezKartuza said:

As they say with us - "Accuracy approximately plus-minus bast shoe" (Как говорят у нас - "Точность примерно плюс-минус лапоть").

I'm not sure that Google correctly translated this folk wisdom ...

[Off topic:] Well, Google probably gave a good enough translation of the sentence as such. But the cultural background is missing. What have bast shoes to do with accuracy? I would really appreciate it if you could give us some insight into Russian culture here.

Edited October 16, 2019 by AHHans
Changed wording to improve clarity.

[BezKartuza]

6 hours ago, AHHans said:

[Off topic:] Well, Google probably gave a good enough translation of the sentence as such. But the cultural background is missing. What have bast shoes to do with accuracy? I would really appreciate it if you could give us some insight into Russian culture here.

Well, I'll try

Eng (Google translator with my edits):

I don’t know why Google translates lapti as the best shoes. This is not at all true

This is lapti (in the picture below). National Russian shoes. Weave from tree bast (linden, elm or willow) or birch bark.
In ancient times, Russian peasants walked mostly in laptiah (often of their own manufacture). Almost all peasants were illiterate and used their lapti as a measuring device.

For example, one peasant asked another peasant - "How long is yours wagon with horse?"

Another peasant removed the lapot from his leg and measured the length of his wagon with it. For example, 15 laptei were obtained.

But since all people have different shoe sizes, the accuracy of this measurement method was very low (to put it mildly).

From there the expression went - "Accuracy plus-minus Lapot."

Rus:

Я не знаю почему Гугл переводит лапоть как лучшая обувь. Это совсем не верно

Это лапти (на картинке ниже). Национальная русская обувь. Плетутся из древесного лыка (липового, вязового или ивового) или берёзовой бересты.
В давние  времена русские крестьяне в основном ходили в лаптях (часто собственного изготовления). Почти все крестьяне были неграмотными и использовали свои лапти в качестве измерительного прибора.

Например, один крестьянин спросил у другого крестьянина - "На сколько длинная твоя телега?"

Другой крестьянин снимал лапоть с ноги и замерял им длину своей повозки. Например, получалось 15 лаптей.

Но так как у всех людей размер обуви разный, то точность такого способа измерения была очень низкой (мягко говоря).
От туда и пошло выражение - "Точность плюс-минус лапоть".

Edited October 16, 2019 by BezKartuza

[AHHans]

4 hours ago, BezKartuza said:

Well, I'll try

Eng (Google translator with my edits):

Thanks! Even though in English they use the unit "feet" I didn't think of using shoes as length unit. With your explanation this saying makes sense now.

(And either Google translate has gotten a lot better then when I last used it, or your edits helped a lot. )

4 hours ago, BezKartuza said:

I don’t know why Google translates lapti as the best shoes.

Don't worry, Google translated it right and I got that from your first earlier message. Bast (not best!) is the English (and German, the two languages have many words in common) word for this kind of material. I mostly know it as some kind of compostable strings that we used in garden work when I was a kid.

[Kernel Kraken]

So how much does a strut weigh? It costs 42 credits, so If we compare it to how many credits/ kilo per the steel its made out of to the dollars/ kilo of IRL steel we should get a good estimate for USD exchange rate.

[BezKartuza]

12 minutes ago, AHHans said:

Thanks! Even though in English they use the unit "feet" I didn't think of using shoes as length unit. With your explanation this saying makes sense now.

(And either Google translate has gotten a lot better then when I last used it, or your edits helped a lot. )

Don't worry, Google translated it right and I got that from your first earlier message. Bast (not best!) is the English (and German, the two languages have many words in common) word for this kind of material. I mostly know it as some kind of compostable strings that we used in garden work when I was a kid.

Bast is not Best ! I mixed up these words!

10 minutes ago, Kernel Kraken said:

So how much does a strut weigh? It costs 42 credits, so If we compare it to how many credits/ kilo per the steel its made out of to the dollars/ kilo of IRL steel we should get a good estimate for USD exchange rate.

Same interesting thought

[magnemoe]

18 hours ago, Pds314 said:

IRL fuel is ridiculously cheap. A Saturn V costs on the order of a billion dollars, but a kiloton of RP-1 for the lower stage is a few million.

KSP sort of pays lip service to this, but it underestimates the difference in price by quite a lot. A a kiloton of fuel costs 160000 \|` whilst a rocket that size might cost 1600000 \|` A factor of 1:10 instead of well over 1:100.

At an gas station fueling up your car you don't think fuel is ridiculously cheap. RP1 is only expensive as its not much in demand, rockets are not an major fuel use. Now say you could build an jet engine who required RP1 over jet fuel but used 3% less fuel. RP1 would become just a bit more expensive than jet fuel.
its an supply and demand cycle. 

[Kernel Kraken]

Struts weigh about 5 Kilograms (KSP Wiki)/ 42funds per strut= about 8.4 funds per kilo of Kerbal Steel. I'm assuming Kerbals don't have very extensive or advanced metallurgy practices, so I'll be using some cheap Chinese steel I found for about $0.17/ Kilogram. 8.4/ 0.17 is about 49.4, so 0.17*49.4= 414.96.

 

The exchange rate for USD/ Funds is about $1 USD to 414.96.

Feel free to correct my math, my brainpower has been spent on a Pre- SAT test and the math section melted my brain.

Spoiler

I can't delete spoilers on mobile 

Edit: the KSP wiki has blessed me with the ability to call the Kerbal currency s p e s o s so yeah, $1USD= 414.96 Spesos.

Edited October 16, 2019 by Kernel Kraken

[BezKartuza]

22 minutes ago, Kernel Kraken said:

Struts weigh about 5 Kilograms (KSP Wiki)/ 42funds per strut= about 8.4 funds per kilo of Kerbal Steel. I'm assuming Kerbals don't have very extensive or advanced metallurgy practices, so I'll be using some cheap Chinese steel I found for about $0.17/ Kilogram. 8.4/ 0.17 is about 49.4, so 0.17*49.4= 414.96.

 

The exchange rate for USD/ Funds is about $1 USD to 414.96.

Feel free to correct my math, my brainpower has been spent on a Pre- SAT test and the math section melted my brain.

  Reveal hidden contents

I can't delete spoilers on mobile 

Edit: the KSP wiki has blessed me with the ability to call the Kerbal currency s p e s o s so yeah, $1USD= 414.96 Spesos.

With this kind of math, it turns out that the US dollar is much more expensive than the Kerbin dollar.
But the cost of a rocket in Kerbin dollars is much cheaper than in American. And fuel in Kerbin dollars, by the way, is the same cheaper.
Something does not grow together ...

[Kernel Kraken]

The Kerbals use a lot of junkyard parts, which could explain this. The fins were literally just picked up on the side of the road and the most useful rockets (especially in the early game) are literally from a junkyard. I can see the kerbin dollar being very inflated but paying low prices for rockets. Also, there aren't too many competitors to increase demand and increase prices, if you haven't noticed lol.

[BezKartuza]

11 minutes ago, Kernel Kraken said:

The Kerbals use a lot of junkyard parts, which could explain this. The fins were literally just picked up on the side of the road and the most useful rockets (especially in the early game) are literally from a junkyard. I can see the kerbin dollar being very inflated but paying low prices for rockets. Also, there aren't too many competitors to increase demand and increase prices, if you haven't noticed lol.

Probably this option is also possible.
It is possible that Kerbin is a planetary government. The economy does not depend on the world market, because the whole world is one country!
It is possible that on Kerbin - socialism!
We don’t know anything about their political structure.

[Kernel Kraken]

1 hour ago, BezKartuza said:

Probably this option is also possible.
It is possible that Kerbin is a planetary government. The economy does not depend on the world market, because the whole world is one country!
It is possible that on Kerbin - socialism!
We don’t know anything about their political structure.

We don't really know anything other than 'Kerbals are capable of colonizing other planets despite not having any way to harvest natural recources'.

[BezKartuza]

7 minutes ago, Kernel Kraken said:

We don't really know anything other than 'Kerbals are capable of colonizing other planets despite not having any way to harvest natural recources'.

By the way, yes!
Although, in fact, we know that they can process some of the ore they mine into fuel.
Something like our Earth technology, producing petrol from coal

[Pds314]

17 hours ago, magnemoe said:

At an gas station fueling up your car you don't think fuel is ridiculously cheap. RP1 is only expensive as its not much in demand, rockets are not an major fuel use. Now say you could build an jet engine who required RP1 over jet fuel but used 3% less fuel. RP1 would become just a bit more expensive than jet fuel.
its an supply and demand cycle. 

Well also it reflects the effort put into things.

But I still maintain fuel is ridiculously cheap even for automotive fuel. Your car costs $20k new, but $20k of fuel is enough to refuel it hundreds of times. Meanwhile, the cost per kg of engineered components in a car is much lower than in any rocket. Seeing as a car actually weighs more empty than, say, an Electron rocket, but the latter is about 300 times the price.

Edited October 17, 2019 by Pds314

[Kernel Kraken]

Oh, new idea. The ion engines use Xenon gas as a propellant, so we need to find out how much xenon tanks weigh full, subtract how much it weighs empty, and find out how much Kerbal Xenon costs, and compare it with irl Xenon costs (which I'm guessing are more consistant than human gas prices) I'll math it real quick.

The PB-X150 xenon container weighs 1 ton full, .2 tons empty, so It contains 0.8 tons of xenon gas. It it costs 3,680 full, and 800 empty, which means 0.8 Tons of Xenon costs 2,880. 

I mathed this out, and got 360/ 0.1 ton of Kerbal Xenon, or 3,600 per ton.

I'll find out the cost of xenon in the USA when I have time, which is not now. 

Edited October 25, 2019 by Kernel Kraken

[Sidestrafe2462]

Xenon in the U.S is $1.20 per gram according to google. Quick math makes xenon  $1,088,622 per ton. Divide that by 3600 and you get...

$302.95= 1

I done did it for you @Kernel Kraken!

 

 

[Kernel Kraken]

1 hour ago, Sidestrafe2462 said:

Xenon in the U.S is $1.20 per gram according to google. Quick math makes xenon  $1,088,622 per ton. Divide that by 3600 and you get...

$302.95= 1

I done did it for you @Kernel Kraken!

 

 

Oh nice, thanks. I saw the same number but I wanted to find a few more sources to make sure and I ran out of time. 

What year were the ion engines put in the game? Could we make it by using numbers from X year instead of 2019. 

I remember reading on a thread somewhere in a chemistry forum that one of NASA's ion spacecraft carried 465Kg of fuel and cost something like $16,000,000 USD. This is a mess.

Oh, and thanks for my 1,000th rep!

 

Edited October 25, 2019 by Kernel Kraken

[Sidestrafe2462]

1 minute ago, Kernel Kraken said:

Oh, and thanks for my 1,000th rep!

 

Congrats!