I need help with a stuck-up on my career save...

[Duck Kerbal]

I've unlocked everything on the techtree that is a available for the first level of the RnD Building (except the airplane and probe fuel/engine parts). And I don't have a problem with budget. I have Bob and Jeb landed on the mun with a large amount of science, but they have no fuel to get back home.

I have tried creating an All-in-one recovery vehicle made for landing on the mun and going back, but it was too heavy to go into orbit (Always had to use the transfer stage to orbit kerbin, raised fuel issues)

I tried separating it, using the only dock I have, the Clamp-o-tron dock junior. The order would be (1)The Cabin, (2)The Landing Stage, then (3)The transfer stage. The rendezvous and the docking was easy. It was just too wobbly, so it was really hard to control.

Im in a crisis

[suicidejunkie]

The simplest thing to change in your current setup would be to launch two of those ships.

Have them rendezvous in LKO, and pump all the fuel from one into the other, and have that other complete the rescue starting with a full tank in LKO.

 

A harder but ultimately better way would be to improve your mun rocket into one fully capable of the whole return trip, but send it to mun with some empty seats so it can pick up the hitchhikers.

[Snark]

Moving to Gameplay Questions.

Also, if you're looking for help on your ship designs, it helps if you can post screenshots-- then people can give specific suggestions.

[IncongruousGoat]

Extending & qualifying @suicidejunkie's advice, you need the R&D facility to be at least level 2 in order to transfer fuel in flight. Since it sounds like you're being limited by the size of your vehicle, I advise a pad/VAB upgrade, followed by building a bigger rocket. You can go pretty much anywhere with 1.25m parts, it just takes a lot of asparagus.

[bewing]

So you have Kickback SRBs? Looks to me like all you need to do in that case is upgrade your launchpad once. It's really cheap -- and then you can launch 140 tonnes. Use the kickbacks to toss any rescue vehicle you like into orbit. It should be more than enough to get you to Duna and back.

Just for fun I threw together a Mun rescue craft using 4 kickbacks as the first stage. 106 tonnes on the pad. No problem getting landed on the Mun and back.

Edited June 8, 2017 by bewing

[Reactordrone]

You could also consider using the Mun lander to partially boost the crew to orbit and bail out and circularise using the jetpack. You can take all of the science with you and then you only have to send up a Munar orbiter to bring them back.

[Duck Kerbal]

6 hours ago, IncongruousGoat said:

Extending & qualifying @suicidejunkie's advice, you need the R&D facility to be at least level 2 in order to transfer fuel in flight. Since it sounds like you're being limited by the size of your vehicle, I advise a pad/VAB upgrade, followed by building a bigger rocket. You can go pretty much anywhere with 1.25m parts, it just takes a lot of asparagus.

Well. I am not really limited by the size of my ships. I have Level 2 VAB and Level 3 Launchpad because I tried to do an Apollo-style recovery craft (all stages for going to mun is launched separately and docked in orbit around kerbin). I figured I would use the Kickback boosters, but it would be too big for my launchpad so I upgraded it :p. Also, I have some issues with aspargus right now. Can't seem to really stabilize my Ship while it's escaping atmosphere on the first stage.

4 hours ago, bewing said:

So you have Kickback SRBs? Looks to me like all you need to do in that case is upgrade your launchpad once. It's really cheap -- and then you can launch 140 tonnes. Use the kickbacks to toss any rescue vehicle you like into orbit. It should be more than enough to get you to Duna and back.

Just for fun I threw together a Mun rescue craft using 4 kickbacks as the first stage. 106 tonnes on the pad. No problem getting landed on the Mun and back.

Aha, I should try it again with a better design

1 hour ago, Reactordrone said:

You could also consider using the Mun lander to partially boost the crew to orbit and bail out and circularise using the jetpack. You can take all of the science with you and then you only have to send up a Munar orbiter to bring them back.

That would probably work...

I'll try it as well (with quicksave of course :p)

6 hours ago, Snark said:

Moving to Gameplay Questions.

Also, if you're looking for help on your ship designs, it helps if you can post screenshots-- then people can give specific suggestions.

Thank you

 

14 hours ago, suicidejunkie said:

The simplest thing to change in your current setup would be to launch two of those ships.

Have them rendezvous in LKO, and pump all the fuel from one into the other, and have that other complete the rescue starting with a full tank in LKO.

 

A harder but ultimately better way would be to improve your mun rocket into one fully capable of the whole return trip, but send it to mun with some empty seats so it can pick up the hitchhikers.

I've tried that as well, but as IncongruousGoat has said, I can't really do that yet.