years ago i dabbled in relatively early builds of kerbal space program i dont think i even made it to the moon but i had fun trying to get there for a while before realizing i would never reach the very literal heights of some of my fellow players without doing some serious booklearning returning now to kerbal space program 2 i thought i might be able to start more or less where id left off but it was soon clear that wouldnt be the casefor my first attempt at a rocket i forgot to take advantage of the building modes symmetry feature and crashed immediately into the gantry after a swift rebuild i did actually make it into the sky but failed to either clear earths kerbins gravity or activate my parachute on the way down marking a rather unceremonious return to sealevel for my command module and the little green kerbal inside iti was out of my depth but fortunately kerbal space program 2 comes with a comprehensive tutorial after running through its first few steps i was able to get into what one might consider space even if i still couldnt break orbit i tried again and after a few more clumsy attempts i finally managed to bring my unfortunate kerbal back to the surface in one piece a few more attempts and i was starting to iterate on my early designs leaning into the trialanderror and constant learning loop that makes kerbal space program so fascinating it wasnt long before i had a full multistage rocket with enough fine control that for the first time ever i reached the moon i was traveling too fast and my kerbal met another explosive end on its lunar surface but id had the right set of ideas a little while later and i was starting to manipulate gravitational fields pulling myself into orbit around celestial bodies to set up for future missions per ardua ad astra image credit intercept gameskerbal space program is one of those games that genuinely fascinates me an idea so niche that it could only ever miss its mark completely or embed itself within its intended community so firmly that it could become an enduring part of the furniture a community you occasionally gaze at in baffled admiration as it achieves things that seem impossible a decade ago the thing that pushed me away was the extracurricular astrophysics that seemed to be required reading for those wanting to boldly go and which my literature schoolwork left no time for kerbal space program is as much as a video game can be literally rocket science and its sequel builds on that premise with the wellearned confidence of a development team that has spent years honing its craft in every way that my untested eyes can see kerbal space program 2 is more polished more detailed and more accessible than its predecessorbut crucially those eyes are untested what i was able to achieve was basic