Richy

Finally I managed to complete my tribute to my trusty mothership: The Legacy of the Hermes

Finally I managed to complete my tribute to my trusty mothership: The Legacy of the Hermes

Part 19: Homecoming We have completed the mission and returned all of our Kerbals back to Kerbin. A very successfull mission meets it's end. https://imgur.com/gallery/uuhsh

Finding a map of Laythe and then practically using paint to draw it ontop. (I actually used GIMP, having multiple layers gives you a better overview). There could have been so much more. I was even thinking of crafting a refinery on site, some propulsion section, lander and sending it to other Jool moons in hope of getting a viable refueling option for the Hermes. Of course, after sending first DIY reco sats there. But it's not only the crew on Laythe, who's getting tired. ;-)

I'm just making this up. A moon in this configuration would certainly have tides, but they aren't simulated in KSP. Part 18: Homesick We can hardly believe it, but after staying so long on Laythe, calling it home, we finally moved up to leaving. But we won't start directly heading home. There are still some dangerous task to do on the way. https://imgur.com/gallery/Aqfb7

Part 17: Extended Mission 2 We completed all our additional exploration of Laythe. Soon it will be time to head back home. https://imgur.com/gallery/FeXGv

Part 16: Extended Mission 1 We're not finished yet. Having such a capable base on Laythe invites for a lot of other activities that have to be done. https://imgur.com/gallery/m7fGn

Part 15: Oxygen! We've completed the most threatening topic on this mission and filled up our mothership's oxygen tanks. But as it is always the case with murphy's law, there are always unexpected turns... https://imgur.com/a/YFcwP

Part 14: Unraveling Mysteries We're still collecting science and fulfilling our contracts. Even as we uncovered one of Laythe biggest mysteries, we still have an interplanetary ship in orbit, that lacks of oxygen. https://imgur.com/gallery/ZFpfG

Part 13: Fixing broken Wings Finally, we succeeded to put all the space planes on Laythe again into full working order. Now, there is nothing in the way to unleash the full exploration potential of our Laythe mission. https://imgur.com/a/cUA5W

Yeah, that's it. Space's a poodle, the old concurent space program covered it up and soon after, it ceased to exist (me losing interest).

While the Kerbals on Laythe were busy exploring this so far untouched world, they discovered an anomal structure near the beach of one of the islands. It seems to be an improvised shelter, defently made by kerbal hands. Further investigation also revealed an old roving vehicle of kerbin origin half burried in sand. The conclusion was clear: There was a Laythe mission years before the Hermes first arrived at the Jool moon. But the mission ended in a disaster and was therefore covered up. Now with the new media attention, retired Cmdr Adly Kerman breaks his silence and diggs up old media reports to uncover the truth once and for all. Part 12: Ghosts of the Past https://imgur.com/a/dqusZ

Ok, an update of TAC solved the problem with the "EmptyEVASuit". And the updated KIS/KAS seems to make those pipe connections a little bit more stable. So exploration of Laythe can commence: Part 11: Exploring Laythe With the wide variety of assets we got on ground, we really can now explore the world we're landed on. https://imgur.com/gallery/B0Y9d

I work in aircraft maintenance, and it always fascinates me, how engineers have solved problems of detecting how fast, how high or in which direction an aircraft is moving. In KSP even debris knows exatly it's speed, altitude and a lot more of it's trajectory parameters. But in rocket science, knowing where your craft is going is one of the big challenges. It would add a nice extra insight into rocket building, if a player needs to "invent" speed-o-meters, altimeters or say compasses. This could be implemented in certain probe cores have different sofisticated flight data aquisition or radar tracking can be unlocked by upgrading the tracking station, etc. I don't even know if this is an idea, that would add playability to KSP or if anybody else likes it. Or is there even a mod that already supports my idea, I didn't find anything like it. Thanks, for your consideration. Richy

Thanks for the patch! Hey there, seems like my tourists are messing up with TAC life support. As soon as I get a tourist in my ship, the life support counter is messed up (negative numbers) and I get the following error message on the screen as soon as I reenter with an EVA: "Error - EmptyEvaSuit - Cannot find VesselInfo for <long-vessel-id>" Anyone has an idea, how to fix this? But nevertheless, we continue: Part 10: Welcome to Laythe All our guests have now arrived on the surface in a fully functional base. Mission so far was a success, but before tacking up the next challenge of returning home, there is still some more exploration to be done, than was achieved on the first mission to Laythe. We have contracts to fulfil, anomalies to investigate, attempt a repair of the gliders and the most importan of all the tasks: Filling up the Hermes oxygen reserves! https://imgur.com/gallery/uemq8

Part 9: Solving problems. We haven't yet fixed all of our problems. But with work they became manageable. The base grows and soon welcomes it's first paying customer. https://imgur.com/gallery/JFzON

Yup, that's probably the reason. They were connected by winch cable, but it doesn't matter for KAS, I think.

KSC, we have a problem here. In the next morning, Hangan discovered something concerning, while checking the gliders. Both SSTO gliders suffered structural damage with abnormal fuselage deformation*. The cause of this deformation is at the moment unknown, but it seems, that it didn't happen overnight. The RAMSES already did some orbital trips with it's both wings swept unnaturally up, only suffering a slight pitch-up moment when thrusting (due to it's CoM beeing slightly higher than the thrust axis). But the OSIRIS' condition looks more severe. KSC is investigating, but it looks like the repeated load cycling under Laythe gravity could be one of the factors. Even the salty ocean air in combination with the long exposure to space can't be ruled out. So far, the mission isn't called off yet, we still have a fully functional backup glider in perfect condition docked to the HERMES in orbit. But before we'll give up OSIRIS-1, KSC will conduct simulations, after which pilot Hangan Kerman performs several high speed taxi, take-off and landing tests, to evaluate the SSTO's flight condition. It may look worse than it is. And we still have capable engineers on site, so even a repair attempt is possible. In the worst case, maybe the structural parts of the OSIRIS-1 can still be used as emergency crew cargo for the RAMSES to have a second way to space, if everything else fails. We're not out of options yet...

Part 8: We're building that base! Landing of the very first base module was a success, and the Ramses did it's job really well, cycling back and forth from surface to orbit, to land every part one by one. Now base construction can begin! https://imgur.com/gallery/Kbrjp

Part 7: Laythe Arrival So far, we're still making progress. Both ships have arrived and achieved a low Laythe orbit. But one threatening problem remains: The O2 reserves on the Hermes are at 10% and insufficient for a trip home. It's enough for several weeks, they're not in immediate danger, but the will have to science the heck out of it, to get out of this misery. Will they find a way, to fill up their supply and finally get home again? https://imgur.com/a/PGATn

Part 6: Departure It has been a long road until this point. But finally our crew heads out into the outer solar system. They will journey almost a year in their epic ship, so it'll take some time, until more updates arrive (mainly because of private reasons; having an offspring to feed now ). http://imgur.com/gallery/koUd4

Part 5: The Real Thing Now it begins. This time, there will be no way back. But countless supply missions to fix stuff that wasn't planned properly - as long as the ships are reachable in LKO. Let's hope we'll fix everything before we go... http://imgur.com/gallery/YjQDy

Part 4: The Mission Plan So far, Phase 1 of the Mission is complete. The Hermes is retrofitted, and the hardware has been developed. Structurally, the Hermes is ready, but it needs topping up of it's life support and of course, it's fuel. The plan for the upcoming missions looks as follows: Phase 2: Preparations Launch of the Hab-Rack to LKO (incl. Mainframe (refinery), Hab, Greenhouse, Workshop + 3D-Printer, utility module, mobile Crane, Solarpanel Array, Expedition Vehicle and spare parts and additional ressources) Launch of the Cargo Glider, which will dock to the Hab-Rack Launch of the propulsion section, which will also dock to the Rack (incl. the Glider) Transfer of the Rack-Stack to Minmus for refueling operations Undocking of the propulsion section and landing on Minmus Launch of a crewed supply ship* which heads for the Rolling Thunder, which is still on the surface of Minmus and serves as a refueling station. Launch of the refueled propulsion section to Minmus orbit and redocking with the Rack-Stack. Topping up of the Rack-Stack with the "Little Chinese" (http://imgur.com/NMqwb5g). Phase 3: Pre-Departure Launch of the two Osiris Laythe SSTO's with the Mission-Crew which will dock to Hermes (expection a mission crew of 13 [6 crew + 7 pax]). Hermes transfer to Minmus Split of Hermes' propulsion section and surface landing for refueling Launch of the refueled propulsion section to Minmus orbit and redocking with Hermes Topping up of Hermes' tanks with the "Little Chinese" (http://imgur.com/NMqwb5g). Secondary supply ship for topping up life support* * probably including mission crew and/or tourists for Laythe (tbd). Phase 4: Jool Transfer Simultanous transfer of Rack-Stack and Hermes to the Jool system around departure window Planing trajectories, so Rack-Stack arrives first Expecting gravity assist in Jool system for orbit capture Arriving in coplanar low Laythe orbits with Rack-Stack and Hermes after planned transfer time Phase 5: Layhte Base Buildup Unpacking of stack, decoupling of Mainframe and docking to Cargo Glider payload bay. Landing of first base part (Mainframe) at predefined base location Landing of first installment crew via Osiris-1 to the same location Powerup of the Mainframe refining unit, establishing connection to the Cargo Glider and refueling it's tanks. Cargo Glider launches back to orbit, and gets the other parts in the following order: Workshop, Greenhouse, Hab, mobile Crane, Expedition Vehicle, Solar Array, Ressources Refueling on ground, repeat step 5 until all parts have landed (some components need special extraction with the Expedition Vehicle from the belly of the glider) Landing of Osiris-2 with the second regiment of Hermes crew Refueling of Osiris-1 and launch back to orbit, to get the last Hermes crew Landing of Osiris-1, leaving Hermes empty in orbit. Buildup of base components and startup of 3D-printer Starting of the Greenhouse to bring the food supply online Phase 6: Mission Science Exploration of nearby biomes by means of the vehicle and the Osiris SSTOs. Extension of the base infrastructure with the 3D-printer (maybe even rocketparts and a launchpad for further exploration of the Jool system with insitu assembled rockets) Phase 7: End of Mission Return of the crew back to Hermes with 3 Osiris flights. Osiris SSTOs remain in Laythe orbit (docked to the Rack-Stack) Transfer of the Hermes for Kerbin intercept After panned transfer time, capture and circularization of Hermes to LKO Return of the crew (13) to Kerbin with the Ravenstar (pax config.) All the assets used in this mission are summarized here: http://imgur.com/gallery/CGuhd

Part 2: Developing the technology Getting the base and everything our future colonists need there, is quite a big task. http://imgur.com/a/aNtVF Part 3: The Hermes retrofit To bring the now much bigger crew and heavier gliders to Laythe, our trusted Deep Space Vehicle needs an upgrade. http://imgur.com/a/t1weg

The Next Step: A Laythe Base Part 1: Prelude Outpost on the Mun Testing out the capabilities and the feasability for a self sustaining colony. http://imgur.com/a/LoZFP