How little green aliens are helping the space flight experts of the future

It may be just a game but some players have gone on to careers in physics, engineering and aeronautics. Now the team behind Kerbal Space Program 2 is working with the European Space Agency to make it even more realistic

When Dr Uri Shumlack was contacted by a video game developer who wanted to discuss his work on interstellar propulsion, for a game about spaceflight, he was wary. A professor of aeronautics and astronautics at the University of Washington, he was a busy individual, and not exactly an avid gamer. He asked some of his engineering undergraduates whether they had heard of a game called Kerbal Space Program, only to discover that half the class were there because of the game.

First playable in 2011, Kerbal Space Program is an idiosyncratic and extremely difficult video game that involves getting little green aliens off the surface of their planet using rockets that you must cobble together from a library of parts. To do this, though - and leave the launchpad without exploding - you have to develop a pretty good understanding of the physics of space travel, calculating orbit trajectories and figuring out how much fuel you need, and whether you can carry it without messing up your thrust-to-weight ratio. It is beloved by space and astrophysics enthusiasts, who have posted thousands of hours of gameplay video showing off their unlikely crafts and ambitious missions in this simulated solar system.