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OHNO IT'S MY FIRST MISSION TO MOHO There comes a time in everyone's KSP career when they consider their first mission to Moho. Extensive forum browsing normally ensues and I certainly partook in much reading of outlandish stories about insane delta-V requirements, but also good solid advice such as perhaps try a flyby first, always a good idea to start small etc. Once I'd read all of the requirements I fully understood what I needed to do and designed a modest mission to Moho, to get my eye in so to speak. This therefore is my "Ohno it's my first mission to Moho" mission report, and with that in mind let's check out the small probe that will make the journey to Moho: If you didn't get it from the picture let me fill you in that this is clearly no small probe. I genuinely started out with the best intentions, but as the wish list for "doing Moho" grew I decided that I required the following to say that I had effectively "done" Moho: 1) Lander: Clearly why bother unless we are actually going for boots on the ground (and returning them safely) Room for 2 Kerbals 24-77 "Twitch" liquid fuel descent stage O-10 "Puff" mono-propellant ascent stage 2) Orbital outpost: If we are going we are going big and I'm pretty confident I don't want to be sending any more than 1 rocket if I don't have to. Room for 24 in emergencies, but otherwise built to handle 6-12 in spacious living conditions Radiator due to proximity to Kerbol Junior and Senior Docking port adapters for full expandability Science module, short and long range communication capability 3) Return vehicle and habitat: Yes, it's a pretty long mission, so the crew needs somewhere to play cards and also to return safely if at all possible. Supports a crew of three with extended living space Also functions as orbital utility vehicle Much ablation - High speed returns If you still don't get a picture of the scale of this absurdity then let's cover off some basic facts on the mission with my mission factoids section: Tall - 50.2 meters to be precise. Not the tallest out there but nearly the height of the VAB and certainly long enough to experience massive noodling Wide - Almost exactly 25 meters each way. It's both long and very chubby Heavy - Four thousand five hundred tonnes, and seven hundred kilos (snacks). the trans Moho injection vehicle and payload alone are over 800 tonnes Computer crushing - 608 parts on the launch pad. Could be worse but it's not friendly. Luckily Gerty 3000 is up to the job Expensive - 1,659,692 things. Now as with many (every) one of my missions, I didn't just start with the perfect rocket (or end with it) and there were many, many, many design iterations that preceded what I thought might actually be able to leave the launch pad without hailing the Kraken or destroying KSC. This resulted in some rather fervent explosions. Some were even eager enough to end my KSP session is a molten pool of memory dribbling from my pc case, but onward I gallivanted through failure after failure secure in the knowledge that the escape tower would hurtle the crew far away from the all consuming rage of nearly twenty stacks of S3 KS-25 "Mammoth" driven fury. Let's have a quick browse through some of the more memorable failures: 1) THE "YEAH, NO MATE" 2) THE "ILLUSIONIST" 3) THE "NOTHING TO SEE HERE, QUITE LITERALLY" Post these brazen and runaway series of successful launches (honestly 3 of nearly 20 shown) I decided that I needed to do a few things. Firstly I needed to completely remove and reroute the fuel lines. Something wasn't flowing correctly and the rocket drifted considerably off course as a result. Secondly I needed to completely re-do all the strutting due to the rocket frequently eating itself on the way to orbit. Lastly I needed to appease the Kraken. Luckily I'd already done this nigh on 20 times already so all I did was cross my fingers and hope to Gene Kerman that everything went smoothly. Let's see if it did with the first launch of the final iteration of the Moho Ohno: Wow so that actually worked, and worked well. A good 4 days of working, reverting, reworking went into making this thing a success. The worrying thing is that while I had total oversight of the Delta-V stats during construction I actually never looked at it. I had no idea this thing would reach orbit, and I still have no idea at all whether it will reach, and or return from Moho. It's going to be a nail biting mission for sure. Follow me over the next few updates to see how the mission goes, and as ever I am open to questions, comments, criticism, or commitment to the KSC asylum for bad mission planners. SM