Everyone's playing Kerbal Space Program (and you should too)

That's one small step for Kerbal-kind, and another for public interest in space. Credit: PCGamer

As a member of Gen Z, the last generation to be (somewhat) raised without the corrupting influence of social media at an incredibly young age, I feel like our generation was the last to have that "I want to be an astronaut when I grow up!" optimism. Maybe this is me being crochety and old, but I think my ramblings have some credence; go to any elementary school now and half the Gen Alpha kids dream of being podcasters or gym influencers, not astronauts or presidents, and how could they not in a world of constant chaos and uncertainty? However, I have some hope for the next generation, thanks to the confluence of public interest in space and a silly video game where little green men die in hyper realistic rocket accidents.

Thankfully, Artemis II was far more successful than the average Kerbal mission. Credit: Space.com

The Artemis II mission, which launched April 1 and returned April 10, marked the first orbit of the Moon by humans in 50+ years, and NASA beat not only foreign rivals but also private corporations like SpaceX and Blue Origin to the punch. NASA has thus resurged in the public consciousness, and this has caused a huge surge in players for one popular space exploration game.

This game, of course, is the 2015 game Kerbal Space Program, a game where one may construct rockets to conduct studies and research foreign planets for their little green overlords, known as Kerbals. One thing that makes this game unique is just how in-depth and realistic this process is; if you go in with little to no knowledge on how rockets work, you'll be pretty lost. However, going through tutorials and guides, it turns out Kerbal portrays a tastefully watered down version of the truly complicated mechanics and sciences that make up rocketry.

Kerbal Space Program features not only a 'Mun' to land on, but also 8 other planets and dozens of asteroids/dwarf planets to explore. Credit: KSP forums

I myself have started playing this game in response to these recent events, even if the game is over 11 years old, it still holds up in complexity as well as opportunities for creativity and problem-solving. Coming up with a rocket idea, testing it & enduring catastrophic failure, and then using your rudimentary knowledge of rockets to come up with a remedy is a fun and surprisingly hypnotic gameplay loop; this week alone, I've lost countless hours to it.

Overall, Kerbal Space Program's resurgence hopefully represents a greater interest in space from the average chronically online person; I cannot recommend this game enough, it's boatloads of fun and has so much creativity. Don't play the sequel, though.