Kerbal space program review nasa simulator#

Alternatively, Cueball may have gotten it wrong, or Randall may simply not have concerned himself with such things for the purpose of a webcomic sketch.Īn Oberth maneuver in the close vicinity of the Sun, while theoretically possible and extraordinarily effective at the speeds the spacecraft would reach, would however be very difficult to carry out in real life, because the neighborhood of the Sun is an extremely hostile environment and the spacecraft could be incinerated during a too-close flyby.Ĭueball's argument for why the maneuver will work in real life is that it works in Kerbal Space Program (KSP), a sandbox spaceflight simulator game. The second burn would occur about halfway to Venus. The first burn would occur immediately after escaping Earth's sphere of influence. For example, the trajectory from Earth to Venus would require two separate burns in deep space. It is possible that the diagram might only be a simplified outline of a more complex flight plan. The theoretical way to use rocket fuel most efficiently is therefore to execute the burn during a flyby of the most massive celestial body available, as close as possible.Ĭueball is proposing to implement an 'Oberth Kuiper Maneuver', and the proposal diagram shows the spacecraft using gravity assists to travel first towards (presumably) Venus for a first boost, then towards Jupiter for another swing by, aiming it back towards the Sun, the most massive Solar System body, to perform an Oberth maneuver at the point of closest approach, as indicated by a small dot along the spacecraft trajectory. The more massive the body and the lower the altitude, the higher the flyby speed will be, and the greater the performance gain due to the Oberth effect. The point of this is to optimize usable energy, because rocket burns are more effective to perform at high speeds than at low speeds. An Oberth maneuver is a spaceflight maneuver, specifically an engine burn performed during the flyby of a celestial body. The Kuiper Belt is a region of the outer Solar System beyond the orbit of Neptune consisting of numerous small icy bodies, including the dwarf planets Pluto and Eris. The six words are: 'It works in Kerbal Space Program'.

Kerbal space program review nasa