Kraken

[Ethanadams]

In real life could the kraken destroy ships?

[LordFerret]

The Kraken is a fictional creature - not real - unless you're referring to the Giant Squid... that's another story.

[Ethanadams]

I mean if a ship was traveling at extreme speeds a past a planet would it be ripped apart

[GoSlash27]

Why would it? A RL ship wouldn't be ripped apart by anything other than excessive stresses.

Best,

-Slashy

[Leszek]

If it traveled past a black hole perhaps.

The thing is that gravity for the most part acts on all parts of the ship equally. So as it passes a planet, the ship feels nothing but its course has changed. The only way passing something will wreck you is if there is a steep enough gravity well that the gravity is noticeably stronger on the one side of the ship than the other. So for best results we are talking about a large ship that isn't very sturdy passing close to something with lots of gravity that itself is dense and small.

So not doing any math here, perhaps a large truss or frame ship made for travel only in space passing close to say a neutron star.

The comet Comet Shoemaker–Levy 9 broke up when coming closer to Jupiter, but this comet was held together by its own gravity not by nuts and bolts. A ship would have to be of weak construction indeed to suffer the same fate.

[Ralathon]

If it is moving at relativistic velocities the exosphere of a planet might break things.

[Jovus]

Almost certainly. Real life has even larger problems with part clipping than KSP - it tends to make things explode very violently.

[PB666]

I mean if a ship was traveling at extreme speeds a past a planet would it be ripped apart

Yes if it got close enough to the planet that it went from space physics, were space moves relative to the craft to locale physics were ship moves relative to ground (on Kerbin it is below 6500 feet)

In physics warp on Kerbin the Kraken will kill your ground vessel, its even eaten Jeb a few times here. One of Jools moons is about Kerbin size but has no atmosphere see if you can get the periapsis to skim below 6500 on a very fast hyperbolic orbit.