Ad Astra Space Program Archives

[Wjolcz]

I never have enough motivation to finish my career games. I start them, get to the point when I can built SSTOs and get bored or a new version comes out breaking the mods I use.

But this time it's different! I have a bunch of mods that make the career a really enjoyable experience and I want to achieve one of my long-standing goals which is a permanent Laythe polar base. Why Laythe and why on one of the poles? Simply because Laythe is another blue dot with oxygen and I want to use horizontal take-off and landing SSTOs, and the polar regions are great for that. So the plan is more or less like this:

The base:
-ISRU (1x ISRU unit, radiators, a drill, ore storage, LF/Ox+Mono fuel tanks)
-Power source (auxiliary solar power plant, RTGs, fuel cells)
-Habs (at least 2x Hitchhiker modules, KAS pipes to attach them to the power plant and ISRU)

The additional ground equipment:
-Shuttle system (1x SSTO crew ferry)
-Rover
-Juno-powered science/recon drone

The orbit:
-Simple scientific probes equipped with ore scanners (sent before everything else arrives)
-Kerbin-Laythe ferry (which also serves as an orbital station and possibly Joolian system explorer later on)
-Comm sats

I'm still thinking about installing some sort of LS mod like Kerbalism. I've just recently planted a flag on the Mun, so I still have some time to think about it. Another thing is the EC management might be tricky with stock parts, so some sort of nuclear power mod might also come in handy. I'll also try and do some story telling once the base is up and running. Each next post will be themed (first Mun rover, first Minmus orbiter, etc.). I hope that when I suddenly start posting like crazy I won't get banned for being a bot, or something. We'll see how it all goes.

Edited December 10, 2016 by Veeltch

[Wjolcz]

Please note that at the beginning I set up a rather unsuccesful GPS system and then turned the additional DSN station on (I just assumed they got built after some time). Anyway, here comes...

THE UNMANNED MUN EXPLORATION PROGRAM

Spoiler

The objective was to land a vessel and return it back to Kerbin. I didn't achieve it until the first manned Mun landing mission.

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During the Mun exploration program I was rising my reputation by accepting some tourism contracts.

THE BLUE ORIGIN-STYLE TOURISM PROGRAM

Spoiler

I also killed one of the tourists and I did some high-G blackout contractracts with a Juno-powered aircraft I'll post the pictures of later on.

EDIT: Oh noes! The posts got merged!

Edited December 10, 2016 by Veeltch

[Wjolcz]

The next step was to drive a rover on another body.

THE MUN ROVER

Spoiler

The ERL rover mission (apart from landing on the wrong side of the Mun and having to use the Mun orbitting probes as relays) was pretty successful until I crashed after tumbling down one of the nearby lesser craters. At least EaRL went out in style.

Edited December 10, 2016 by Veeltch

[Wjolcz]

Back to Kerbin

THE JOYS OF G-LOC

Spoiler

Decided to have some fun with planes. And because tourists asked for this. The rocket pods on one of these double-cockpit vomit comets are for additional acceleration during the high-G pull ups. My main design influences here were Me 262 and MiG-9 obviously.

[Wjolcz]

Even more local activity.

STATIONS ARE EASY

Spoiler

The first station in the career. Woo! It's not big, but it will be one day.

[Wjolcz]

About the same time I put that station in the orbit I also went to the Mun.

THE FIRST MANNED MUN LANDING

Spoiler

Forgot to take pictures while on the surface but the flag is there in case anyone's skeptical about the presence of Jebadiah himself on the surface. I also got lucky during the reentry. The lander had quite a lot of dV I used to slow myself down before hitting the atmosphere. As I separated the capsule I realised it was a good decision because the heat shield was clearly missing. The next iteration was immidately equipped with one after the authorities realised how lucky Jebadiah was.

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Remember to reuse your stuff.

THE PROCESS OF RECYCLING

Spoiler

This is Muna-II. It failed to achieve Munar orbit during the fly-by because of insufficient signal. Renamed Muna-M2 it had a new mission: to explore an icy moon in the outer ridges of Kerbin system. This low-tech piece of early engineering proved itself more than useful. It will also serve as a communication satellite during the next missions.

Edited December 10, 2016 by Veeltch

[Wjolcz]

Some more Minmus activity.

IS IT ACTUALLY EDIBLE?

Spoiler

The first Minmus lander. It landed with surprisingly high levels of fuel. The primary objective was to just land on the surface and probe it for any traces of sweetened frozen food. However, its mission has a high probability of being extended. It will be hopping around until the most important question in the kerbalkind history is answered: Can we eat it?

PS: I forgot to take any pictures, but there is also a Moho probe on it's way.

Edited December 10, 2016 by Veeltch

[Garrett Kerman]

This is cool! Keep going!

[Wjolcz]

The relocation of that Minmus lander didn't go well.

A TASTELESS IMPACT

Spoiler

Tried to make a suicide burn. It was not a good idea.

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Just some purposeless sightseeing.

THE FUEL FOR THAT TRIP WAS FOUNDED BY OUR LOVELY TAX PAYERS

Spoiler

Not much happened during this "mission". It didn't even bring anything significant. Just a trip to the southernmost bit of that continent KSC is on. I might do some more of these in the future. I could also build a new plane using other engines, but I really like Juno-powered machines. Making small modifications to them is pretty fun too.

Edited December 27, 2016 by Veeltch

[Wjolcz]

FInally more interplanetary action.

BE MY JOOLIETTE

Spoiler

Another interplanetary mission, woo! The Jooliette probe is meant to study the joolian system (duh). It's powered by a single PB-NUK (that's what that hot thing is called, right?). Unfortunetally it messes with the CoM. How to deal with the issue: give your spacecraft more than one engine and adjust the thrust in one until the thrust offset is 0. It seems like the Cassini spacecraft does just that. I love KER. Also a Tylo gravity assist because who wants to waste fuel for gravity insertions anyway?

Edited December 27, 2016 by Veeltch

[Wjolcz]

I think I'm starting to run out of ideas for titles.

FIRE FLIES...?

Spoiler

The rocket here is named Firefly (I'm not very creative, I know). It's meant to be a relatively cheap feather class lifter. The first iteration had a tendency to flip. The newer one is stable thanks to the bottom wings. I might try and make it reusable in the future since it lands in the water so well. The probe here is some random thing built to fulfill a contract, which I failed, because I didn't include parts the contract specified. The cool thing about the rocket is using the Aerospike + Spark combo and then switching to the tiny radial engines only (IIRC think they have better vac Isp than the 'spike).

Edited December 27, 2016 by Veeltch

[Wjolcz]

Soooooo... About that station...

YOU DID WHAT!?

Spoiler

I am an idiot. What happened: in order to expand the station I decided to attach the HubMax. The problem is I don't have it yet, so I decided to go with a new module instead. The new problem is the station has only one tiny docking port. And I forgot about it. Because of this I had to make a decision to either attach the new module with an adapter in the middle (which I wouldn't be able to remove afterwards because it would be between them) and leave the RCS drone floating around, or attach the RCS drone to the station and leave the module floating around. I did the second thing. It has no power source of it's own so it needs the station's solar panels to stay alive. I now have a dead module floating in the vicinity of OSS New Frontier and I'll have to bring an engineer up there next time to replace the station's docking port with a bigger one (using our lovely KAS).

Edited December 27, 2016 by Veeltch

[Wjolcz]

I really like the real plume mod.

FIXING THE MESS

Spoiler

The station designers screwed up (me) so someone had to fix it (also me). The lady engineer present in the pictures took a docking port and attached it to the local space station. But before it took place she ran out of fuel. RCS manouvers involved. However unlucky, the mission was a success. She came in, glued the pieces together, went back. It's completely offset but who cares? I do. But I'm not fixing that. The station will get deorbited and replaced by something new eventually. Right now I have some tourists wanting to go there. After their cash is in my pocket I'm making a new one.

Edited December 30, 2016 by Veeltch

[Wjolcz]

Some more stuff from a while ago.

STILL TOO EARLY

Spoiler

SSTOs aren't easy. Especially when there's no tech that allows for making them. It only went for a sub-orbital hop, but was worth a shot IMO.

THESE TITLES ARE GETTING SILLY AND ALSO A DUNA PROBE

Spoiler

Finally another transfer window has opened. This one's for Duna. Hopefully that antenna will be enough to keep the connection stable.

EVEN MORE FLYING, TESTING AND MESSING AROUND

Spoiler

Took the newly acquired Whiplash engine for a spin. And that MK2 Juno-powered atrocity was... Erm... No idea what I was trying to achieve with that. Guess it was some sort of SSTO prototype, or something. That last MAKS/Adeline-like thing is actually something I'm looking forward to. Only did one test flight and it looks like the return engine section has a messed up CoM, but that ain't nothing I cannot fix. A system like that might come in handy some day.

Edited February 1, 2017 by Veeltch

[Wjolcz]

Here's a thing. Probably the last one.

MAKS

Spoiler

Here's my little shuttle project. Take the SpaceShipTwo, Dream Chaser, strap a fuel tank MAKS-style to it and you get 1.6 of initial TWR and about 3.6km of Delta-V. Made for cheap space tourism. It can take either 2 tourists (if equipped with a probe core first), one astronaut and one tourist or two astronauts. It's just a prototype so no RCS, no docking capability and no payload capability. Getting into orbit is a bit hard and I would have to work on it some more, but the reentry profile is just textbook. Just deploy the elevator and it reenters by itself. Later on roll left or right a bit and it spirals down on its own. It could probably even land like this but it would be a rather hard and bouncy landing.

Anyway, I think this is the last thing I did in my career game. I'm finding it hard to continue playing this game. I'm simply not motivated enough. The development of KSP seems to be stalling and the career will probably never change. The modded one I'm playing is much better than stock, but it still isn't as fun and involving as I'd like it to be.

Edited March 5, 2017 by Veeltch

[greenTurtle1134]

Surprisingly, I also recently started a heavily modded KSP career called Ad Astra. Coincidence?

[Wjolcz]

4 hours ago, greenTurtle1134 said:

Surprisingly, I also recently started a heavily modded KSP career called Ad Astra. Coincidence?

It's a good name and motto.