This article was taken from the February 2014 issue of Wired magazine. Be the first to read Wired's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by subscribing online.
If you've ever wanted to get your hands dirty and build your own spacecraft -- be it the Saturn V rocket or the Space Shuttle -- the Kerbal Space Program (KSP) gives you a chance. Played by thousands of people worldwide every day (including, reportedly, engineers at Nasa's Jet Propulsion Lab) the game is the closest an Earthbound enthusiast can get to building his or her own space programme.
With seven planets governed by Newtonian orbital mechanics, navigating the Kerbal solar system is no easy task. The game offers a rare insight into the complex problems that face real rocket scientists. Want to reach the solar system's distant fringes? You might have to slingshot around the Moon, a manoeuvre known as a "gravity-assist", to conserve fuel.
The brainchild of Brazilian games developer Felipe Falanghe, KSP was released by Squad in 2011 after an intense seven months during which a new, fully playable version was updated every three weeks. The speed of development was driven by uncertainty. "We didn't know how far we could go before someone pulled the plug," says Falanghe.
The game is still in early-access alpha and updates in 2014 will build out missions and goals to give the game greater structure and make it more accessible to a wider audience. It will also introduce dynamically generated contracts, with players being hired for specific space missions, rather like Elon Musk's SpaceX. But not quite as expensive.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
