KSP also allows for a lot of configurations that are mathematically solid, but impossibly expensive or complex IRL. This bends the economies of scale in ways th

KSP also allows for a lot of configurations that are mathematically solid, but impossibly expensive or complex IRL. This bends the economies of scale in ways that don’t happen with real rockets. My favorite example is “asparagus staging”. In a normal rocket “onion staging” is where multiple liquid rockets are wrapped around a center core, and the outside rockets are drained and expended first. This allows greater thrust at takeoff, while ditching weight once you don’t need it. In KSP these outer rockets can be trivially plumbed together to share fuel, so that only 2 rockets are drained at a time. At the end the center core is left fully fueled for continued flight, since only the exterior tanks were drained. This is mathematically correct and damn near impossible to engineer. The pumping pressures and volumes are just absurd, since every single tank would need external, severable fuel and oxidizer lines capable of feeding a single motor at 100% thrust. There’s a reason why this tends to show up in KSP and not at say, SpaceX.