It's almost a silly thing to admit, but sometimes while playing KSP...

[JRF2k]

..I fall under the Overview Effect. I really can't help myself. I draw the parallels between Kerbin and Earth and our solar system. And I find myself in love. In love with such a game that is not only awesome to play and fool around with like a LEGO set, but subtlety under all the code, under all the 1s and 0s speaks to that part of us that are still

. We still want to set off in a direction, come what may, and discover something new.

KSP gives the 'normal person' a chance to do this. I am wholly ignorant of much of the physics and other things related to space travel and rocket design, but, you know, guess what? I've left my home planet. I've traveled to the stars, maybe only briefly, only to the the Mun, only to Minimus, only to, with much struggle, to Duna, but I achieved this. I've expanded my view. It has grown past those little green men. I've grown past my planet. I've seen that, in the solar system I am given, that only life persists on one of them.

At that point, I cannot but feel the corollary between Kerbin and Earth. I cannot help but feel that we humans are the little green men and I am left watching

over and over again. Such a powerful statement on what it is to be human and to live the very short existence afforded to us.

And they say video games are a waste of time.

SQUAD, man, you all are doing something amazing with this game. You are capturing minds and you are igniting curiosity. Consider this as you move forward. You have the chance to change the world with a simple game.

(I posted this over at Reddit, too. Username, VaccusMonastica. I just want to make sure Squad sees this, so they know what this game is doing.)

Edited September 9, 2013 by JRF2k

[Rage097]

That was beautiful. Bravo, Bravo.

[AmpsterMan]

This sentiment is one that many share on this site, including myself. For whatever reason this isn't a mere game, it is more. I really feel like I am leading the Kerbal race in one if their most noble endeavors.

[RoCkEtZoMbIe]

That was nice. and I too blend KSP with life.just yesterday I was asked , what is the second planet from the sun? Without even thinking about it I said Eve.but then I remembered I live on earth not kerbin

[Ferrit]

Brilliantly put and yeah, I know what you mean. KSP has caused shift in my thoughts about space travel, had always been a fan but now I see it as vital for us all.

It could be said to be strange that a video game about the (mis)adventures of little green spacemen has brought the accomplishments of our human space heroes that much closer but I think it has given me a much greater appreciation of the risks every launch brings.

And the benefits too, being able to look at this little blue marble and indeed thinking 'How much like Earth this is' and appreciating the beauty of both worlds all that much more.

KSP has become more than a game, it is a lesson about our own home too.

[SkyRender]

While I am glad KSP gives people a greater sense of perspective on the insignificance of the petty non-issues we absorb ourselves with to distract us from the reality of living on a microscopic dot orbiting a microscopic dot which is a part of a cluster of microscopic dots we call a galaxy in the vast expanse of galaxies we call the universe, I would be just as happy if it simply helped dispel some of the sillier myths about space. Like the idea that gravity just vanishes once you cross the Karman Line, or that objects in space are stationary. Or that flying at the ground is how to deorbit something.

[RocketYeah]

As others have said, well said! KSP, shows us the great desire to explore. Kerbin itself is great to draw parallels from of how lucky we are on earth, I find this feeling to be summarized rather well in the Apollo 8 Astronauts reading from the book of Genesis during the Earth rise from the moon basically saying we are so small in the vastness of space and have so much to be thankful for on this "good earth".

[Javster]

Yup. KSP is awesome.

[BubbaWilkins]

It's rekindled my love for everything that flies and blasts off.

[RickRastardly]

well said. that is all.

[toric5]

this is one thing that i liked about this game, before it froze very time i loaded a save. (see below, the more activity the thread can get, the more likely the devs will look at it!)

[Raikoutrio]

Sometime the beauty of the game catches you off guard. I experienced that kind of feeling when i saw the tiny Kerbol from the apoapsis of Eeloo's orbit.

[Daisy Blossom]

An eloquent expression of a sentiment I'm sure many of us share. Thanks for sharing.

[Tank Buddy]

I've started writing Moon "Mun". I've caught myself multiple times.

[MinerEdgar]

As I was reading your post, I began humming the chorus from Major Tom (or is it called Space Oddity?)

[AlamoVampire]

I agree 100% well said! This game is what happens when you cast aside the stereotypes "space" games seem to fall into a majority of the time. While right now in the real world only a handful of very brave, smart and lucky people will do what Kerbal Space Program lets us do, we get to do on a daily basis, which is wonderful. The lessons we learn here in this game are not lightly learned nor easily dismissed. If for but an instant in time we get to learn "firsthand" what it is and means to be astronauts! Space exploration is our future and no matter what we must embrace this truth.

[NGTOne]

..I fall under the Overview Effect. I really can't help myself. I draw the parallels between Kerbin and Earth and our solar system. And I find myself in love. In love with such a game that is not only awesome to play and fool around with like a LEGO set, but subtlety under all the code, under all the 1s and 0s speaks to that part of us that are still

. We still want to set off in a direction, come what may, and discover something new.

KSP gives the 'normal person' a chance to do this. I am wholly ignorant of much of the physics and other things related to space travel and rocket design, but, you know, guess what? I've left my home planet. I've traveled to the stars, maybe only briefly, only to the the Mun, only to Minimus, only to, with much struggle, to Duna, but I achieved this. I've expanded my view. It has grown past those little green men. I've grown past my planet. I've seen that, in the solar system I am given, that only life persists on one of them.

At that point, I cannot but feel the corollary between Kerbin and Earth. I cannot help but feel that we humans are the little green men and I am left watching

over and over again. Such a powerful statement on what it is to be human and to live the very short existence afforded to us.

And they say video games are a waste of time.

SQUAD, man, you all are doing something amazing with this game. You are capturing minds and you are igniting curiosity. Consider this as you move forward. You have the chance to change the world with a simple game.

(I posted this over at Reddit, too. Username, VaccusMonastica. I just want to make sure Squad sees this, so they know what this game is doing.)

I agree 100% well said! This game is what happens when you cast aside the stereotypes "space" games seem to fall into a majority of the time. While right now in the real world only a handful of very brave, smart and lucky people will do what Kerbal Space Program lets us do, we get to do on a daily basis, which is wonderful. The lessons we learn here in this game are not lightly learned nor easily dismissed. If for but an instant in time we get to learn "firsthand" what it is and means to be astronauts! Space exploration is our future and no matter what we must embrace this truth.

I salute you both, gentlemen. I, too, feel the same effect... Especially when I'm doing something big. I land 600 tons of steel and plastic and aluminum and who knows what else on Eve, stand a Kerbal next to it, and see how huge it looks... then I zoom out as far as I can, and it disappears, until it's not even a speck. I've been a believer in space travel for a long time, but it was dormant for years... until I discovered KSP, and got to experience that awe for a second time... and a third... and a fourth... and I still do, every once in a while, as I'm orbiting Kerbin or Eve or wherever I've catapulted the little guys off to that day... It's a big universe, and it sure as hell doesn't like to let us forget it... And we, humans, the great explorers of planet Earth... there is an infinite frontier out there, filled with wonders not even imaginable in our wildest dreams. Our era has yet to have a Columbus or an Ericson (Leif, that is). That, I think, needs to change.

I had one of those moments recently, not even playing KSP... I looked at the picture of Earth that Cassini took, from Saturn, just a few months ago. Rings of Saturn in the foreground, pale blue dot waaaay off in the distance... Made me feel very small...

Hats off to you, Squad, for this awesome game!

[JMap1]

JRF, you got this completely right.

I love space. This game is my escape. I want so badly to see Earth from orbit. To see the stars as clearly as the universe will allow. I likely will never achieve this, but Jeb, Bob, and Bill can and I live my dream vicariously through them.

[hansman1982]

Well shoot, just as I wrote this game off as boring (happens everytime I install hyper edit cause I'm sick of spending the time to fly the same craft somewhere over and over trying to tease out a lack of delta-v or some flaw) you guys remind me I still have three rave kerbonauts in a Soler orbit cause they ran out of fuel on the way home from Moho.

We shall rescue these brave men, because...well...the insurance company says we have to! (And, I guess, it's the right thing to do)

[CoriW]

I completely agree with pretty much everything said in this thread thus far, I just felt the need to log in and post that.

[OrbitusII]

So much feels!

Once I started to get into KSP last December I began to gain the overview effect as a part of my regular consciousness, I can't help but try and see myself from other peoples' perspectives and understand how I make an impact on them. It's also made me realize that we're just tiny little people in a huge universe, doing random stuff because we can. It's quite scary. Fortunately I know there's One who always watches over me, and I start thinking of how utterly awesome it is that we have the ability to do what we do because we want to. Man, if I was an atheist, I would be one lost, sad, confused dude.

[SpaceSphereOfDeath]

Umm, what was that about being an atheist.

Not wanting to start a flame war, I completely agree with the OP point, and I find that this is why KSP is better then any other game EVAH because you feel like your actually doing something, not just mindlessly mashing buttons.

(Thank you below poster,I'm haveing problems with quotes,that was exactly what I was going to say)

Edited September 10, 2013 by SpaceSphereOfDeath

[Autochton]

Man, if I was an atheist, I would be one lost, sad, confused dude.

I'd just like to say, I'm an atheist, and I don't feel lost or sad by looking at this perspective.

I feel empowered. In all our solar system, there is one rock that supports life - we may not find any its like in many solar systems around us. That life is, among others, us. We are the only sapient, technic species we know of - a way, as Carl Sagan said, for the universe to know itself. We're inextricably part of this universe, part of this world, and it is part of us. In that way, we are, ourselves, part of the divine. Part of this wondrous thing we see around us. We are all of us made of the matter from long-dead stars, an enormously unlikely and enormously significant accident that had a probability of 100% from our point of view.

We are at once enormously insignificant and enormously important. It all depends upon perspective.

[tizalee]

Well that is KSP for us. It is a world class game. We are doing what we couldn't imagine earlier. KSP rocks.

[AlamoVampire]

We are but travelers on Spaceship Earth. We are star stuff. "... to boldly go into the final frontier, to seek out new life and new civilizations. To boldly go where no one has gone before." As cliche as that quote is, it by the very nature of who and what we are by law of common sense should and must be our mandate as responsible citizens of the universe.