Are The Ships In No Man's Sky Scientifically Plausible?

If you are a fervent fan of fantasy No Man’s Skyyou are aware that the game recovered from an absolutely catastrophic launch, to become today a reference in its genre. Over the course of numerous patches, it has improved, like a good wine, and the Hello Games studio has never been more convincing than since their penultimate update, VoyagerAugust 27, 2025.

It gave us, among other things, the possibility of building piece by piece the ship of our dreams, the Corvettes in order to make it a real flying base. The absolute dream for any fan of space-opera or survival game in space, which has given exceptional momentum to the game since this summer. A very good opportunity to ask yourself this question: the many ships that you can pilot in the game could they exist in real life ?

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The impossible physics of ships No Man’s Sky

The millions of ships present in the game are equipped with an engine allowing four modes of movement : standard flight, impulse flight (boosted), hyper-propelled flight (for interstellar travel) and jumping between galaxies (Hyper-jump).

When entering atmospheric flight, a standard (unmodified) ship reaches a speed of 50 units/per second. Assuming that one in-game unit equals one meter, this would be equivalent to 180 km/h, the speed of a small passenger plane. As soon as we wish to leave the atmosphere of a planet, the propulsion revs up and the ships speed up to 1,800 units/per secondor approximately 6,500 km/h.

Knowing that it is possible to go from 180 km/h to 6,500 km/h in just three seconds, this would represent an acceleration of more than 60 g, or sixty times Earth’s gravity. The inertia would be such that the entire structure of the ship would be compromised and it would completely disintegrate under the strain. Without a perfect inertial compensation system (which does not exist), the pilot would be transformed into mash. A human can only tolerate between 4 and 6 g maximum for a long period of time, and only 9 g for a few seconds (what astronauts experience when taking off a rocket).

By enabling impulse flight for jumps between planets, ships can reach nearly 20,000 units per second, in other words more than 70,000 km/h according to the same scale. A speed that no human machine could withstand without instantly vaporizing; the official record belongs to the NASA probe Parker Solar Probewhich approaches 700,000 km/h, but only in solar orbit and without passengers on board.

Example of a simple Corvette model, inspired by naval utilitarian aesthetics: without frills or superfluous decoration. © Screenshot by Camille Coirault for WorldOfSoftware / Hello Games

As for moving between star systems, these only take a few seconds even though they are sometimes separated by several hundred light years. Which could take us to theoretical speeds (not given in the game) greater than several billion kilometers per secondtherefore well beyond the speed of light. An absolute impossibility according to Einstein’s theory of relativity.

Besides these surreal speeds, in No Man’s Skyatmospheric friction does not exist: the ships dive into or come out of the atmosphere of the planets without experiencing the slightest overheating or turbulence. So yes, the result is absolutely exhilarating, but on a scientific level, it makes absolutely no sense.

The machines maintain the same maneuverability and the same maximum speed, whether in the vacuum of space or in dense planetary atmospheres (or even frozen or overheated). A ship designed for space would be completely unmanageable in an atmosphere, because it would lack essential lifting surfaces, and vice versa.

So no, No Man’s Sky is not realistic, and itThis is precisely why we love him, because he is not meant to be. His ships are fantastic and beautifully made so that we can abandon yourself to exploring your quintillion planets ; if Hello Games had to take into consideration all these physical parameters, the game would have lost all its interest. The only real space simulation existing to date is called Kerbal Space Program(or his second opus, which struggled to convince us), but they are two different propositions. No Man’s Sky is aimed at those who dream of exploration, adventure without constraint, infinite horizons, the exhilaration specific to the unknown, and he excels in this role like few others have been able to do. It is therefore well worth some concessions to Newton’s laws, if it is to preserve this rare feeling of total freedom that too rare games manage to convey.