Your first Mun landing

[Superfluous J]

I discovered KSP on a Saturday and landed on Mun on Sunday. Or maybe it was Friday to Saturday. Don't remember. It was a weekend and I landed before the end of the next day.

It went moderately well. I knew a lot of the basics of orbital mechanics (though had some glaring holes in my knowledge. For a while I thought going straight up to 70km and then burning sideways was most efficient) so never missed the Mun or anything like that. From my memories, the biggest hurdle was killing sideways velocity while also not either crashing into the ground at dozens of m/s, or shooting back up into space. That, plus my complete lack of knowledge regarding quicksaves, made me almost throw away the game.

Ironically, I learned about quicksaves, used them prodigiously, and then landed safely (though still roughly) without ever having to restore from one.

Then, I bought the game. This was all in the demo, and was my personal goal to achieve while deciding if the game was worth buying.

[Triop]

Edited February 24, 2016 by Triop

[AlextheBodacious]

After lots and lots of suborbital, then orbital, then actual flights (they never had enough fuel to go home), I began a mun program. I did not know you could zoom in map (I was on a laptop) so it... didn't work... I also didn't quite know when to burn, until a video (I forget) showed me two things: the phase angle, and how to return. In retrospect it was obvious, but until then it was "oops, missed, maybe time warp will let me just wait...... no.... ok, now I'm orbiting the sun..." repeatedly. I had a great design but not enough know-how to get me there. It wasn't until I made an awry ship and took it all the way there did anything come of it, and I ran out of fuel. Lost in space.

Then along came the crashing. It was horrible the masses that died on the Mun back then. Too many. Eventually I sent a top-heavy rocket up... and it fell over. Trying to wiggle it back up killed the joints. Over time (and non-backed up installs) a shorter version was made, and it worked... until it fell over. I was inept at landing site picking. I eventually found a nice place, and it worked! The whole thing! I had beaten the game.

And then someone got new planets installed.

Edited February 24, 2016 by AlextheBodacious

[bobcook]

I recall my first Mun landing pretty well. It was in version 0.19 and I'd spent a serious amount of time researching how to do it. In preparation I watched quite a few Scott Manley videos to get the idea. I built a very large rocket with a completely over engineered lander, launched Jeb on his greatest adventure yet, and proceeded to enter Mun orbit. I picked my landing site with great care, and then begun my descent. I was rapidly switching back and forth between the IVA view (to get a peek at the radar altimeter) and the regular view (so I could rapidly pan the camera around looking for any sign of danger) as the capsule slowly descended to the surface. I was so nervous, my heart was racing, my heart rate was probably something like 120 bps. The descent took forever, as I was afraid of letting my descent rate exceed 10 m/s. Eventually I touched down on the surface, and I let out a huge sigh of relief. I felt like I'd just won the game.

Much later, with many missions successfully accomplished, I set out to create a Mun mission in the style of an Apollo lunar rendezvous mission. Don't recall which version of the game was used. Lots of fun, but nothing will ever beat that original feeling of fear and excitement from the very first landing.

 

[razark]

There's a reason my first Mun landing screenshot is captioned "We came in pieces for all Kerbkind."

[KevinW42]

First I spent several hours trying to get my over engineered behemoth of a rocket into orbit, but once there I made a fairly uneventful transfer, insertion, and descent before tipping over my overly tall lander on touchdown. My lander was mostly undamaged, but it wouldn't tip upright again, so I tried using a nearby hill as a ramp to get airborne. It went about as well as you'd expect, with the craft exploding as soon as it hit the slope.

I did manage to get it right on my second try though.

[Wallygator]

My first Mun landing came in .21 and follows many of the above recollections.  Over powered, under piloted, so many wasted Kerbal lives... Oh well... So long ago. I avoid Mun now just because it seems so straightforward after all these hours of play.

Now, the Moon on the other hand...  this has reinvigorated my enthusiasm for the game!  RSS/RO/RF have returned the knuckle-biting tension to my gameplay - OK, so it takes "forever" to get to orbit, but even with the few remaining bugs and quirks, it lets me re-experience KSP as new - all over again.  The decision to descend to the Moon's surface comes with a trepidation and deep concern every time. Long continuous burns with limited engine restarts.  A lunar surface that can sometimes be firm and sometimes not. I now understand the value of a Surveyor-esque probe lander program! Gonna make me one of those...

[Tex]

I forget what version it was, but my first-ever Munar landing was with an unmanned landing probe, named the Armstrong for obvious reasons. I touched down and it was triumphant, but it wasn't in a very good location for screenshots. I attempted to slightly maneuver the craft to get a better picture, but ended up losing control and crashing moments later. Sad day.

The earliest picture I ever took of a Munar mission was of my second Munar landing, with the Aldrin munar lander. That one I got a good picture of.

[KerbMav]

On the first attempt I totally overlooked the whole issue of horizontal speed - did not work well.

Then I stumbled a few times over the necessary efficiency and timing of my burns before I could go on and not bring oceans of fuel on my missions.

[razark]

2 minutes ago, KerbMav said:

On the first attempt I totally overlooked the whole issue of horizontal speed - did not work well.

This is exactly what happened my first attempt, as well.

[legoclone09]

I don't even remember, but I don't think anyone ever returned and I reverted each time something went wrong. I only really did one with an Apollo-like mission.

[Madscientist16180]

14 hours ago, KevinW42 said:

 so I tried using a nearby hill as a ramp to get airborne. It went about as well as you'd expect, with the craft exploding as soon as it hit the slope.

Lol, i tried that on more than one occasion with the same kind of result. Did anybody ever managed it?

Edited February 24, 2016 by Madscientist16180
Spelling

[Nightshift83]

On 23.2.2016 at 7:02 PM, Peder said:

My first few missions to the mum resultet in me making a fly by instead of going into orbit.
I saw that I did not have enough fuel so I fly back and redesign my rocker.

After the few test flights I made orbit and landed but I used way to much fuel to land, and decided to launch a rescue mission instead of risking not being able to reach a stable orbit.

I cannot remember if my rescue mission was a success, but I kind of doubt it since I had to design a rocket that could carry more than 1 kerbal and make my secound mum landing and go all the way back with a new rocket design "before" jeb running out of oxygen on the mum  ;-)

So what does your mum think about it ? Whats her SOI by the way ?

Just kidding, but it's really called mun or mün back in the days..

[federicoaa]

Mine was on the demo, about 3 years ago.

When I finally landed on the mun, I bought the full game.

[Kosmonaut]

I tried to use bob to slow down the capsule...

 

Enough said

 

I'm an A-hole

Edited February 25, 2016 by KosmonautwithacapitalK

[Snowstorm]

My first moon landing is something I'm not proud of.  I still had almost no idea how to play the game, so I strapped a mk2 command pod onto a Twin-Boar engine, and infinite fueled my way to the moon!  Unfortunately I don't have any screenshots.

[Dnaha]

My first Mun landing was successful if you discount the fact that the lander ended up landing sideways...

[nobodyhasthis2]

My first landing in relation to .....

Initial Stock: horizontal speed bad but vertical speed good. Craft rolled badly. Significant damage. Success up trying to lift off again. Boom.

Mechjeb : Using the old unmodded vanilla version. Touch down successful but got raped on fuel consumption. Also not giving it RCS authority and higher m/s tolerance at the correct time was serious user error. Never made it back home.

Remote Tech : Forgot to use program guidance for timed orbital insertion. Lost telemetry at critical moment. When communication established window of opportunity has passed. Craft to now low and used all remaining fuel in hastily attempted direct approach. Impacted.  

K-os : 1st version Impact. Error in nested PID loop. 2nd version horizontal good bad but vertical speed bad. Lost landing gear. Craft rolled badly. Learned to break it down to distinctive go/no go phases.

RO+RSS: Single vehicle used. Did not realise fully potential of dedicated lander through bad habits learned in stock. Wasted fuel and had terrible control authority after using all the monoprop. Had to dump weight and abort to low orbit. Interesting to think that a single vehicle was a real world plan until somebody had the balls to tell the NASA management they where wrong.  

  

Edited February 25, 2016 by nobodyhasthis2

[78stonewobble]

Uhm... I think it went something like this... First I missed the mun, then I crashed into it... ALOT... My first "successfull" (survivable) tipped over and I can't remember how many times that happened. When I finally did land and not miss, crash or fallover... I had forgotten a ladder.

 

Pretty much everything that could go wrong... ... but you know... a learning process

[Frank_G]

My first Mün landing was a tiny probe. It had a Stayputnik probe core, a small antenna, a light, a thermometer and a Gravioli detector. I chose a far to steep descent trajectory and after almost crashing, because of fuel running out, i touched down on a slope... The probe fell over and rolled down the slope without exploding... I was able to run and transmit the experiments after all... So for me, it was a big success, but it sure was ridiculous and close to catastrophy...  But still, i landed  

[radonek]

0.18.something… I went through Mun transfer tutorial, which featured landing-capable craft (with legs) and left me on low orbit with lots of fuel to spare. I just HAD TO give it a try.

[Fearless Son]

Took me a while to dig it up, but I knew I had an image of the moment saved somewhere from when I first landed a couple years ago, and here it is:

Considering I was a such a noob at the time and that probe cores were so plentiful, I elected not to send crewed missions anywhere until after I had gotten a good handle on it.  Fearing that I would not have the skill necessary to be selective about where I set down, I resolved to land a robotic rover so I could explore elsewhere.  This design used structural elements to give the rover a wide stance for stability, and pylon extensions were added to the engines so the landing legs could extend past the rover.  The engines themselves also had to be set wide with structural girders to make sure they could get around the rover.  

The landing was done on a direct insert from Kerbin orbit, there would be no transfer to a Mun orbit.  I thought that a Munar orbit would use up too much fuel, but did not account for harder it would be to slow the craft to a landable velocity from the high point of an ecliptic Kerbin orbit where the apoapsis intersects the Mun.  Fortunately I was able to start my descent burn from far enough out that I only needed a few extra breaking thrusts on the way down, finishing with next to nothing on my fuel gauge.  It was only after landing that I realized that the fuel lines between the central and radial tanks were installed backwards, so the entire descent was done on only the fuel in the radial tanks.  Whoops, that explains why the fuel was so tight!  

It was a proud moment for me, though the rover eventually flipped over while going at high speed down the long interior slope of a crater.  

[RichMac]

My first success was nearly a catastrophe.

I made a beautiful descent, but made the mistake of coming down on a slope far too steep to support my lander. When my first two legs touched, the lander started to roll down the slope - I panicked and thrust my engines to abort. In that very brief moment I realized I had come too far to just give up, so I cut my engines and watched the entire lander do a sideways somersault. By the grace of the Kerbal Gods, I applied the perfect amount of counter RSC thrust to stop the roll and land gently at the bottom of the slope. No damage was done to the lander.

However, Bill's suit was ruined.

[DrMarlboro]

I made it there easy enough.. For me, the problem was landing. It took me several hours worth of reverts to land *safely.

 

*safely - 5 out of 6 landing legs broke on the descent, and I lost on of my fuel tanks. Getting home was a PITA thanks to the COM shift due to the lost tank.

[regex]

On 2/24/2016 at 6:51 AM, KerbMav said:

On the first attempt I totally overlooked the whole issue of horizontal speed - did not work well.

Then I stumbled a few times over the necessary efficiency and timing of my burns before I could go on and not bring oceans of fuel on my missions.

Basically this for me too.  I built a few "Corollas" in 0.20 before getting the hang of landing.  No screenshots, I've deleted so many installs of KSP I can't keep count.