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Say you're a SpaceX launch engineer.

You have a mission design meeting where you'll talk about different mission scenarios.

The meeting is in a few hours.

Would you run a quick simulation in KSP to get a quick rough baseline idea of what might happen in various launch scenarios?

"Might need more fuel if we do this, might be able to lift more cargo if we do that."

Would you share your KSP simulations at the meeting to strengthen your case?

Are there photos of SpaceX engineers doing this :/

uhoh
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    Congratulations. Welcome aboard. We have missions to design. Did you bring simulations to show? –  Mar 21 '21 at 04:19
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    KSP? Seriously? – David Hammen Mar 21 '21 at 12:48
  • "Pick up your check on the way out, and good luck in your future endeavors." – Organic Marble Mar 22 '21 at 19:25
  • Wait, we're getting paid? –  Mar 22 '21 at 21:32
  • David, what specifically makes KSP a bad choice for a rough simulation, other than "oh it's a game and us serious super professionals don't play games"? KSP is friggin' impressive for what it does and I'd dare any of you to create a tool half as good as KSP. –  Mar 23 '21 at 02:35
  • user39728 That's a profoundly ill-informed comment. – Organic Marble Mar 23 '21 at 15:31
  • Would be glad to test-drive your serious super professional KSP-shaming space simulation software ;-) –  Mar 23 '21 at 15:46
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    I'd be absolutely unsurprised if SpaceX was actually doing the first-draft of their maneuvers in KSP. They have a very strong propensity for "quick&dirty" prototyping, and KSP will take 5 hours to eliminate faulty ideas that would take 2 weeks of work with professional simulation software to arrive at the conclusion "That has no chance to work." In other words, "If it can't be done in KSP, it can't be done in real life." Obviously after promising results in KSP it would receive proper attention in professional simulation software. – SF. Apr 02 '21 at 20:24
  • That's what I'm saying. Detailed simulations are slow and lots of work to get right. Not the way to go if you need a quick rough proof of concept. "What if we did this?" "What if we did that?" Especially when you have to "sell" the proposal to project managers and the like---people who have to sign off on the plan and don't need detailed simulation results but who can be persuaded by a quick visualization of what the mission profile will look like... People who maybe would want more detailed simulations when they're available but who for now just want a general idea of what the plan is... –  Apr 05 '21 at 02:12

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No doubt many SpaceX employees have dabbled with the Kerbal Space program including Elon, but I very much doubt that it is used for any serious calculations at SpaceX. I’m confident that they have a suit of in house simulation programs available for all astronautical engineering and celestial mechanics type questions for anything more than a back of an envelope check. Here is one example: https://spacenews.com/spacex-teams-with-microsoft-for-space-development-agency-contract/

Slarty
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