Wait, these still exist?

[Kerbart]

My first thought was that is was odd that for rescue operations I now had Kerbals as icons in orbit.

My suspicion was comfirmed as I got closer to the "vessel" to rendez-vous with...

Lo and behold! Just to the right of the exhaust of the rescue vessel... there it is, the elusive lonely Kerbal to be rescued from space! I thought they were all in vessels now... Apparently, not!

[swjr-swis]

5 minutes ago, Kerbart said:

there it is, the elusive lonely Kerbal to be rescued from space! I thought they were all in vessels now... Apparently, not!

Confirmed, I had one appear in low Munar orbit in 1.2.0. I don't know if it's meant to happen or not. Was this in any release notes?

[klgraham1013]

Still as ridiculous as they were when first implemented.

[HoloYolo]

Knowing kerbals I think it makes sense for them to be only in a pod.

[Kerbart]

30 minutes ago, swjr-swis said:

Confirmed, I had one appear in low Munar orbit in 1.2.0. I don't know if it's meant to happen or not. Was this in any release notes?

As an extra consequence, because you don't EVA him/her when rescueing... They enroll in The Program with zero stars.

Note to self for next time: after boarding, EVA first.

[Moesly_Armlis]

I honestly have just figured out how EVA kerbals are becoming stuck in orbit.  It is because of players like me who are playing Extreme Hard Career.  I use a Kerbal Korral to achieve EVA science without improving the Astronaut Complex.  The kerbal EVA while on kerbin climbs into the corral and goes to space.

Just recently Bob was sent over to Mun to collect science and reset the experiments on the science lander.  He was nearly stranded because  the jetpack propellant was nearly depleted.

I was almost faced with the problem of rescuing Bob while he had zero jetpack propellant.  A claw could capture him but that science node was a long way off.  Only prospect for rescue was the 1.25m Service Bay.

[Deutherius]

It does make sense to me to find them alone, perhaps even more than finding every stranded kerbal in orbit in just a capsule. How likely are kerbals to drift away from their ship during an EVA? Much more likely than having all of their ship except the capsule explode I'd say.

[samstarman5]

8 hours ago, Deutherius said:

It does make sense to me to find them alone, perhaps even more than finding every stranded kerbal in orbit in just a capsule. How likely are kerbals to drift away from their ship during an EVA? Much more likely than having all of their ship except the capsule explode I'd say.

The likelihood of a sole capsule or module surviving increases when there is a kerbal there to make sure it doesn't.  It seems silly to not consider a kerbal as part of the equation of a module being left in orbit.

[Terwin]

I always figured that any ship-less Kerbals were on a vessel with not quite enough d-v to get to orbit, so they ditched the ship to go into orbit on their jet-pack instead of crashing back into the ground with the ship.

I have seen a number of postings where this was done, so it seems perfectly reasonable to me.  (usually there is another vessel up there to collect the Kerbal, but not always...)