Is there a way to get infinite fuel in kerbalism?

[WulfyKerman]

In kerbal sapace proram you can get infinite fuel using ore and converting it to fuel is there a way to do that with kerbalism?

[king of nowhere]

yes, mining fuel is still possible, you need carbon and water.

it's just generally too impractical to be done.

Water is only found in a few biomes on a few planets: among those mun, duna, ike, dres, eeloo. gilly, minmus and pol may have it, but it's rare and there's no guarantee you'll find a biome with a suitable concentration.

carbon can be extracted from ore, but with such a huge energy cost and time that the only practical way to do it is with nuclear power, and even then it's "practical" only in comparison. it can be gotten easily on duna from the atmosphere, but only on duna.

in any case, the process is slow and energy intensive. and by "energy intensive" i mean, my plans for duna refueling involved 150 gigantors and several years.

oh, by the way, space vehicles aging in the years it takes to perform isru is a problem all of its own.

all things considered, successfully performing isru with kerbalism is among the most difficult challenges in this game.

but yes, it can be done.

 

[jimmymcgoochie]

In practical terms, no- Kerbalism ISRU processes take so long that your mining and ISRU equipment will inevitably fail before you produce enough fuel to make it worthwhile. Producing both CO2 and hydrogen, needed for liquid fuel production, is a slow and power-hungry process, but combining them into fuel requires lots of gases to produce a trickle of liquid fuel- we’re talking 30-40 units per second of CO2 and H2 combined to produce a few units of liquid fuel per hour, but you’ll need dozens or even hundreds of CO2 and H2 generating ISRU units to keep up with the demand.

[theJesuit]

With Kerbalism Simplex, yes you can.

Peace.