Artemis II has launched, sending a crew of four astronauts on a mission to circle the moon and back to Earth, the first step toward planned lunar landings and eventual habitation on the lunar surface. The mission will take the crew of the Orion spacecraft farther from Earth than any manned mission in human history and will mark the first time humans have traveled beyond low-Earth orbit since the Apollo program.
Perhaps not surprisingly, the launch has had some digital echoes, not least of which is a massive spike in interest in “Kerbal Space Program”. The game, which allows for highly realistic simulations of manned (or Kerballed) missions to space (including lunar landings), has seen its second-highest number of concurrent Steam players ever, only beaten by its full launch way back in 2015.
Numbers began to skyrocket around the time of the Artemis II launch on April 1st, peaking at around 12,434 at time of writing— a huge jump against the game’s standard average player count, which hovers around 3,000 to 4,000. The significantly less popular sequel, Kerbal Space Program 2, also saw a modest bump, though only up to 370 concurrents from a prior high of about 118 players a month earlier.
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Kerbal Space Program (and KSP 2) is one of the most accessible ways to conduct your own proper space launch, with realistic orbital mechanics and requirements for staging and mission planning. It seems the sheer complexity of Artemis’s human‑lunar return mission is inspiring players who want to experience concepts like trans‑lunar injection, landing stages, and orbital rendezvous.
While Kerbal incorporates a lot of advanced concepts that real-world astronauts actually grapple with, it’s also delivered in a goofy, approachable shell (the eponymous Kerbals are closer to Minions than real people) that’s been key to luring in newcomers.
KSP also does an excellent job of tutorializing all the various steps and considerations that go into constructing a spaceworthy rocket. While the game lets players learn through incremental trial and error, our coverage of Artemis II breaks down how NASA sent humans swooping around the moon, and how the agency plans to eventually settle the lunar surface.
Humanity’s return to our closest neighbor has clearly captured our collective imaginations, from civilians and gamers to NASA scientists themselves. Don’t be surprised if we continue to see upticks in interest around games like KSP, space flight sims, and space settlement games in the coming months and years, particularly ahead of Artemis III and IV, which plan to develop, test, and finally deploy a lunar lander to the moon’s surface.
<em>Kerbal Space Program is available on PC via Steam, MacOS, Linux, PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, and Xbox One.