Gravity on Asteroids

[2001kraft]

Hello! Rather interesting idea here.

Is it possible to add gravity to asteroids?

It seems very unrealistic how real life asteroids have little gravity, but KSP asteroids don't.

Gravity's pull can vary by size of asteroid to make it realistic.

[Tuareg]

rl asteroids have such gravity they couldnt hold a piece of paper...

[LABHOUSE]

Actually, ceres, the largest asteroid, and vesta, another big one could hold some things.

[dansmithers]

No, this is not possible due to the way KSP's physics engine works. The planets (and all objects with gravity) are immovable form their orbits to avoid having to solve some very tricky physics problems. This suggestion is also dangerously close to some on the WNTS list.

[LethalDose]

Actually, ceres, the largest asteroid, and vesta, another big one could hold some things.

Ceres is represented in the game by Dres, and really is a minor planet. So is Vesta, but it doesn't really have an equivalent in the game. Tuareg is correct, even the E-class asteroids in the game aren't massive enough to exert any meaningful amount of gravity.

@ the OP: From a game stand-point, the gravity in the game is really simplified using what's called "patched conics", meaning any vessel is only affected by the gravity of one body at a time, unlike real-life. In the game, this is represented by "spheres of influence" around each of the planetary bodies. All the planetary bodies are also "on rails" meaning that they cannot be moved or influenced in any way.

To add gravity to asteroids, they would need an SoI around them, but from my understanding there's no way to do this without putting them on rails. And if this were done, you wouldn't be able to modify their orbits.

So, there's really no need for asteroids to have gravity, and it would really muck up the physics system if they did.

[EndOfTheEarth]

In the event that you were thinking of this because of the Rosetta mission, the comet is less than 4km across and has an escape velocity of 1 m/s. If it were implemented into the game, Jeb could enter or escape orbit of the comet at a brisk walking pace.

The asteroids you visit in KSP are substantially smaller than 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko, so the actual gravity exerted by them is technically already simulated by the game: almost zero.

[Boomerang]

As others have said, there's the technical problem of adding gravity to asteroids stemming from how the game handles physics. And besides that, the amount of gravity that KSP-sized asteroids have would be entirely negligible. Jeb couldn't walk on a Class E, you certainly couldn't orbit one and you'd still need means of grappling to the rock unless you wanted to just orbit alongside it.