Imagine, the freedom to design your own space launch vehicle without the hassles of budgetary constraints and bureaucratic wrangling. Enter: the Kerbal Space Program, a genre spanning space simulation game that allows players to design multi-stage rockets, and (hopefully) hoist three members of the ambitious Kerbal alien race into the cosmos.
The Unity3D-based game is being developed by Squad, an ingenious digital outfit based out of Mexico City that seems to provide just about every type of online service you can imagine. What makes Kerbal Space Program stand out is its adherence to realistic physics, which present a real challenge when trying to steer vehicles. The first alpha version was released in June 2011, and a demo version remains free to play.
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Below is my mission diary, outlining a series of attempts to catapult some of Kerbal’s finest astronaut candidates — Bill, Jebediah and Bob Kerman — into orbit. Rather than pausing to go over for some boring tutorials, I dove right in and began to assemble my ships. That’s just maybe the sort of reckless initiative that got Yuri Gagarin into Earth orbit.
The game (the demo version, at least) gives you two player stages: the Vehicle Assembly Building, and the Launch Pad. At the assembly building there are several categories from which to choose rocket components, including a few boosters, ejection rings, and navigation controls. Once the ships are ostensibly ready for launch, they are whisked away to the launching pad, where the player is responsible for manually controlling the rockets, and ensuring the safety of their hapless Kerbal passengers.
Squad has made their game extremely friendly to end-user MODs, which has resulted in a really vibrant community of gamers that are working on everything from a space shuttle to a Gemini replica and an entire Soyuz program. Future extensions include docking abilities, and even a rover (!).
My first vessel: The Evita Peron I
Building philosophy: this was quick and dirty, I slapped on a few pieces and couldn’t wait to pilot the vessel right smack into orbit! Sadly, I was far too hasty.
Total Mission Time: 0 min, 2 seconds
Distance traveled: None
Outcome: Collapsed on launch pad prior to launch; critical design flaws included absence of fuel
Crew: Survived
Enter the Evita Peron II
Building philosophy: Having learned some valuable lessons from her doomed sister ship, this time I included fuel, and carefully positioned a third winglet to achieve maximum stability on the launch pad.
Total Mission Time: 0 min, 16 seconds
Distance traveled: 131m
Outcome: Destroyed. Oh, Icarus, thy wings have been melted, betrayed by thine own star!
Crew: Killed upon fiery impact; Kerbal remnants strewn about the scorched landscape. The hardest part will be informing the Kerbal families; I like to imagine that they live in multigenerational “hive” villages attached to massive arboreal forests.
Evita Suprema (III)
Building philosophy: The pressure was on. Having experienced mixed results with a design that relied heavily on winglets, I instead decided to equip this craft with mono-propellant thrusters throughout the assembly. I also chose to increase the design to three booster engines, hoping to reproduce the success of America’s Delta IV and France’s Ariane 5 vehicles.
Total Mission Time: 1 min, 6 seconds
Distance Traveled: 4,912m
Outcome: Reached 4,000m altitude, went into irrecoverable spin, separation of stage 4 booster rocket; destroyed
Crew: Killed on impact, in spite of scrambling attempts to release parachute
Final vehicle: The Gilmore Girls
Building philosophy: Not a solid fuck given. If I was going to get the Kerbal Space Program off the ground and put past failures behind me, I needed to think bold, and I needed to take a leap of faith. Which is why I opted for solid fuel boosters, a powerful but indeed dangerous propulsion setup. The decision was also made to retire the Evita Peron series namesake, so as to shake off any negative associations.
Total Mission Time: 2 minutes
Distance Traveled: 11,017m
Outcome: Reached 7,000m altitude, went into a wobble, separated stage 2 assembly, wobbled some more, gave up, aimed straight for the ocean.
Crew: Entombed in the planet’s principal body of water for the foreseeable future.
Forgive me, great people of Kerbal, for I have failed you as space administrator.
