-M-TheDoctor

Didn't do much of note today, spent most of the afternoon at the local Blueberry festival! Love my Blueberry shakes... anyway, did some experimenting and poking around and about KSC to pick up this sweet last drops of science credits, crashed a few drones because they're cheap, pilots are not (I MISS YOU VAL!!! ) Got the science I needed to unlock the next set of rocket parts and set my sights for the first Kerbal to orbit Kerbin. I had only one Kerbal on my mind for the job- Valentina Jeb Palan Kerman!! Yes the brand new, never before even flown in a plane, first time in the drivers seat of anything of value, Palan Kerman was the top pick to be the first Kerbal to not only got to space, but enter a stable orbit around the planet.... she managed only one of those two things.... Val would have done significantly better Jeb tried to talk her through the complex maneuvers needed to enter a stable orbit ("point the blasted thing pro-grade and push GO! It's first day stuff Palan!!") she got lost, aimed too low, fell into the atmosphere for some unplanned aero-braking, and ended up with an apoapsis of 250km and a pariapsis of only 2000m.... So, again, congratulations to Palan Kerman on being the first Kerbal to exit the Kerbin atmosphere! yay...... One good shot of the final decent though, including a red Mun and Jool way in the distance....

This is the high quality content I come to expect from these forums.

...... I.... have..... SO many questions....

Started a new Science career today, since sandbox mode was providing no rewards for the work. And I decided this would be THE career... The career where mistakes mean death, and failures cannot be erased..... This career would define who I was!! THE PRESSURE IS INTENSE!!! IT'S ALMOST TOO MUCH TO HANDLE!!! YOU CAN CUT THE TENSION WITH A KNIFE!!! .... EHEM.... Valentina died within 10 minutes... Can I go back to reverts now?

I FINALLY DID IT!!!! That is the Hopper, SSTO-4, personnel shuttle. The variant pictured above is a bare bones SSTO for training only. It can reach a 75km orbit with enough fuel to deorbit and about 2 minutes of additional flying time. This is the perfect platform for helping Kerbanauts get that first star. The Bouncer, SSTO-5, is going to be the primary crew shuttle between future planned space stations and KSC. It sports five RAPIER engines and over 10k deltaV (most of which is used getting it into orbit.... I'm still getting the hang of SSTOs, but the first step is getting to orbit successfully, and I finally did it! Other than that, I got bored and built the fastest air breathing aircraft I've made to date, the S-1 Lancer. Got it up to 1,428 m/s (under 10 km) before I accidentally let my finger fall on the down arrow.... bye bye Jeb. I've never seen a plane fall apart that fast.....

Well, it's been a busy week at the Doc's space center.... First, the Twilight 1. When I last mentioned this vessel it was in orbit over the Mun, plotting a landing sight. I am proud to say the crew successfully landed 15 km outside of the NW Crater, near the equatorial plain. After the required photoshop- I mean photo op, Jeb and Bob retreated back to the comforts of the lander while Bill got to work on building the rover... There were setbacks. SEVERAL setbacks... I didn't get screenshots of the ensuing chaos because I was so focused on the problem. The rover and science package were tucked away in the service bay in four boxes. After the boxes were removed and emptied, construction of the rover began. Bill attached the wheels to the bed of the Akita Rover, no problems. Went to attach the wheels to the Akita control module aaaannnd BOOM! The thing blew up with the wheel still sitting there. I revert to the quicksave I made just after removing the boxes. Ok, no big deal, it was a random Kraken attack, whatevs. BOOM!!! happens again. OK! There must be a physics bug with the mod interacting with the physics of the Mun. Turn physics off for a moment... nope, still boom. Ok... Well, let's just build the science package, it's a rover, so it can collect data for us! NNNNOPE!! Pull the wheels out and get ready to attach them to the rover chassis and BOOM!!! Rover chassis detonates and the wheel takes off for Kerbin. THAT'S IT I'M DONE! So, leaving a mess behind, the now very angry Bill climbs back into the command module, yells at Jeb to fly home when he says hi, and eats way more than he should before Jeb quietly fires up the rockets and heads home. But they couldn't get home before one more surprise reared up. Suddenly a warning light goes off, its a fuel leak from one of the monopropellant tanks! Bill groans, clambers out of the hatch, goes to the damaged fuel tank, forgets the duct tape, goes back to the command pod, and finally repairs the leaking tank (by the way, "Dang it!" is an awesome mod). After splashdown, Bill said only one word to anyone during the whole ride home... vacation. SO! After that ordeal, we had opportunities for our newest batch of kerbalnauts. Two brave and stupid pilots and two brave and stupid engineers would be the first to test a brand new SSTO design, project "Leviathan." ... Tests have been less than stellar, literally... There were four Goliath engines when it took off.... Fortunately all four Kerbals were able to safely eject after an engine overheated and caused the left wing to shear off at the main spar. Several redesigns later, the crew was (unwillingly) strapped in and ready for another test flight. Again, there was a setback.... The looks on their faces say it all. That was a deliberate act of vandalism. Management agreed we probably deserved it and didn't press charges... At this point I come to you, oh friends and family of the Kerbal Space Forum... I CAN NOT for the life of me get a working SSTO. I can't get a shuttle up, let alone cargo... What am I doing wrong? Here are the specs for my current design... Help me KSP Kenobi's you're my only hope.

The atmosphere of Kerbin extends out to 70 km (70,000 m). So setting up a satellite in an orbit below 100,000 m, or 100 km, you should have no issues.

The time.... It has come... BEHOLD!!! Explorer 1, "Twilight", sitting on top of the most powerful rocket ever developed by The Docs engineers, the Explorer Launch System! Pretty impressive right? .... No? Ok... Anyway, the lander has space for a rover and geographic survey probe to be packed away inside the service bay, and enough life support to last the three Kerbal crew for a month. After a flawless launch and initial orbital insertion burn, Bill was doing a post launch assessment to ensure the proper amount of snack rations were on board when he discovered there were no tools on the ship. They would be unable to put the rover or the probe together... So the first launch of the ELS was a simple test to ensure every system performed as expected. At least the view was nice. After some choice words between the ground crews and Bill, the vessel was stocked with all the necessary tools for rover and probe construction, and another flawless launch was completed. This time, all systems were go for the transfer to the Mun! The boys are now safely in orbit around the Mun, and are calculating their next burn to ensure a proper landing site

Testing? What's that? Strap em in, light the fuse, and run like hell!! No but seriously, my play style is less calculated and more "this probably wont RUD on me..." I might test a component a few times to make sure it does what I made it to do, but a lot of stuff I end up figuring out on accident. Or there is an accident.... Most of what comes off my runway and launch pad could theoretically be seen in real life. I try to play with as much realism as I can, though that revert button is getting worn out. It might explain the slow process I have, and it might explain why I've played this game off and on for years and yet I've never had a Kerbal intentionally leave the Kerbin SOI, and I've only ever landed probes on Minimus.

Finally got my Airdrop LanderTM (Patent Pending) on solid ground in the mountains to visit the mountain monolith just beyond KSC!! Jeb dropped the lander, then turned to observe the landing process. It stuck right to the ground when it landed! So the flight crew returned home, overshot the runway, got the go-around and retry, came in too hot, bounced a few times off the runway, finally stuck to the ground, then proceeded to skid off the end of the runway and take the Atlas for some unscheduled off-road testing.... All bodies- erm, all Kerbals accounted for and ready for the next mission... Anyway... Erdon Kerman was the scout I sent to investigate the monolith. Upon returning to the lander, physics struck! Darn thing bounced upon loading and nearly killed poor Erdon... And Jeb still can't hit the broad side of a barn.... ... Erdon here had to hike along the side of a steep mountain face for over 7km! SO. FAR. AWAY!!! It took a good hour of running to finally reach the blasted thing, but... success!!! Now, I'm ready to send my first manned (Kerbaled?) mission to the Mun. There are several anomalies there that need exploring, as well as others on Kerbin.

Today, I lost Enby Kerman to the side of a mountain while trying to plant a flag next to the monolith.... He was airdropped in riding a lander. Gears deployed flawlessly, parachute opened without incident. Everything went perfect..... except Jeb's aim... He was supposed to drop in on a small flat area about 2km from the cliff that had the monolith.... He actually dropped on a shear cliff about 5 km away from the target landing zone.... We're working on Jeb's aim now.... *Ground Control to Major Tom....*

Finally perfected my C-1 Atlas light cargo plane. Also, I designed a lander that is specifically for airdrop missions to inaccessible locations, and ran one test.... .... Close enough... Also, I realized today that I have 13 flights currently in progress, It's day 68, and not one of my Kerbals have reached orbit yet. So, I built a basic launch trainer, and leveled up a handful of Kerbals for the next endeavour, landing on the Mun and Minimus... ... very soon... and @Triop Don't you laugh at it!

Is that what Jeb told the engineering department?