Help comparing kerbal engines to real engines.

[EpicBatCow]

I am using kerbal space program for my science fair project and need to find out if the engines are related to real life engines; specifically the LV-T30 Liquid Fuel Engine, the LV-T45 Liquid Fuel Engine, and the LV-909 Liquid Fuel Engine. If you could find any real life engines like it I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks for any help!

[UmbralRaptor]

Not really.

We can talk about some engines being vaguely similar in thrust, mass, or Isp, but rarely 2 and never 3 at the same time. If you want to use real-world analogs, I suggest looking at Real Solar System or the like.

You could try to compare the AJ-10 with the LV-909 or 48-7S, but I'm unaware of any real-world analogs to the LV-T30/45.

Edited November 16, 2014 by UmbralRaptor

[Taki117]

What's your project on? From there we can help you fit KSP into it. For example if your trying to explain the rocket equation any engine ( real or otherwise) will do.

[Starman4308]

There might be some aesthetic similarities here and there, but KSP engines are, as a rule, far heavier and lower-thrust than realistic engines. Isp is a complicated bag of kittens, because that depends on what fuel type you're using. They'd make hideously inefficient LH2/LOX engines, but they're better than any other fuel mix I see (better than RP-1/LOX, Aerozine 50/NTO, etc).

If you're interested in making KSP replicas of real rockets, I strongly suggest Realism Overhaul, which comes prepackaged with many real engines, as well as realistic fuel tanks. Those 9:1 full:dry KSP fuel tanks are more or less lead weights compared to real tanks: the Space Shuttle fuel tank was about 96% LH2/LOX by mass, for example.