What's your most daring rescue?

[Chel]

We all have that moment when something goes wrong. Whether you are touching down on the Mun, and suddenly realise that you forgot the fuel to get back to Kerbin, or you are landing on Duna, but crash (or in Jeb's terms, a successful flight), we all are faced with two options: Revert flight (coward), or attempt a rescue (hero). Normally rescues don't go to plan. Normally they either make it back just in time, or they screw up (and you have to launch a rescue mission to save the rescue ship that was trying to save a crew). So what's your most daring rescue?

Mine was when I had the infamous 'Dead Kerbal' bug, where the Kerbal is seemingly 'dead' by hitting something at high speed while in a EAS-1 seat. You can't move them, but you can switch to them, and do everything else. It was on Minmus, but I had a station in orbit that was equipped for emergencies. I sent down a small craft that had the Klaw, positioned it over the Kerbal, and picked them up. I then docked with a fuel drone (a big tank with a big engine), and went back to Kerbin. During re-entry, I had to flip it upside down, otherwise the Kerbal would get fried! Opened the parachutes, and had a bumpy (but ok) landing, rescuing the Kerbal from doom.

[luizopiloto]

one of my high orbit stations had some problems... various modules got astray... a shuttle that was docked to it survived the explosion and was able to rendezvous to all 6 crew modules and rescue everyone...

[invision]

a few months ago i ran out of fuel coming back from duna, i made it to kerblins orbit. i was really bad at docking and used mechjeb to fly me out there and do all the work while reaping all the glory.....or so i thought thats what  was going to happen. 

so i flew out a new craft to save the other, did the mechjebs things, and like  a good hero i went to make coffee. while making coffee i hear mechjeb doing its usual maneuvers and then silence for a about a min, i figured this must be where the crafts will meet up, and meet they indeed did.

while jamming large amounts of sugar into my cup i hear BOOM..................

i come back to see the engines to both crafts are torn off....nice.......

now im annoyed with mechjeb, this is the 2nd time its blown me up, so i make a new rocket  and fly back out this time no mechjeb, it took me forever but managed to save the first craft and landed back on the ground. that was the last time i used mechjeb. 

Edited August 23, 2017 by invision

[Johnny Wishbone]

I've told this story several times here before, but since its a cool story, I'll happily tell it again:

 

Early in my KSP playing days, I was doing an Apollo style Mun landing. I was horribly inefficient in my landing and burned up way too much fuel. I knew I didn't have enough to even get my lander back into the lowest possible Mun orbit. So, I waited for the orbiting CSM to come around, and launched the lander into a high arcing trajectory that passed through the orbit of my CSM twice (once on the way up, once on the way down). I then switched to my CSM, and did a rendezvous with the lander at the "coming down" intersection, quickly docked them (less than 10k above the surface, and falling fast), and used the CSM engine to boost both craft back into a low Mun orbit. And I did it all on the first try (thanks more to luck than skill).

That was the moment that I knew I could do anything in this game, and to this day is still my most proud accomplishment.

[linuxgurugamer]

Not caused by my actions, but I did the Retro Solar Orbit rescue challenge in 99 days, using life support.  Rescue ship had about 60,000 m/sec dV , the first if the two launch vehicles weighed over 20,000 tons

[Bottle Rocketeer 500]

12 minutes ago, Johnny Wishbone said:

 So, I waited for the orbiting CSM to come around, and launched the lander into a high arcing trajectory that passed through the orbit of my CSM twice (once on the way up, once on the way down). I then switched to my CSM, and did a rendezvous with the lander at the "coming down" intersection, quickly docked them (less than 10k above the surface, and falling fast), and used the CSM engine to boost both craft back into a low Mun orbit. And I did it all on the first try (thanks more to luck than skill).

That was the moment that I knew I could do anything in this game, and to this day is still my most proud accomplishment.

I actually had the same exact situation as you described.

[monstah]

2 hours ago, Johnny Wishbone said:

and did a rendezvous with the lander at the "coming down" intersection, quickly docked them (less than 10k above the surface, and falling fast), and used the CSM engine to boost both craft back into a low Mun orbit

I had a similar moment; noticed my reentry capsule didn't have damn parachutes a few minutes before hitting atmosphere. I send a small probe with parachutes, rendezvous and dock the damn thing on the way down, but I obviously ain't gonna trust the docking ports to hold the yank, so... Bill hops out, KIS wrench in hand, and attaches the parachutes from one ship to another at 60-something kilometers up (and shouting profanities through the upper atmosphere...) before hopping back in with his butt slightly scorched....

[OhioBob]

My biggest rescue came when I landed a crew of three Kerbals on Eve with no plan for a return.  I did it just to fulfill several contracts, included landing a base on Eve and planting a flag on Eve.  I figured I'd deal with how to bring them home later.  The eventual project that I mounted to rescue them was a massive undertaking, but it worked.

[NSEP]

I never rescue my Kerbals, i either leave them there or cheat my way out.

Im lazy.

[suicidejunkie]

I had a Minmus bus which had been reconfigured to hold extra snacks to deliver.

At the last minute, a tourism contract came up, so I piled in a full set of 6 instead of the originally intended single pilot.

Between the overcrowding and the reduced tankage, I got the 10% low O2 alarm halfway to Minmus.  By burning all the landing and return fuel, I was able to accelerate the bus to the point where it would reach Minmus SoI in 3.5 hours instead of 3 days, but it would be performing a 1000m/s flyby at PE.

Bill was working at Jeb's Junkyard at the time, so he assembled an LV-909 and stacked a bunch of FL-T400 tanks around it with KAS.  Scraping all the fuel in the area together along with an extra can of air, he launched vertically and fought hard against the unbalanced load to hover near the incoming trajectory before burning to rendezvous.

Going EVA, he bolted the can of air onto the bus with 9 minutes to spare.

The subsequent docking and fuel transfer was much less panicked, and the combined vehicle was able to land safely at Minmus with no casualties.

[joacobanfield]

The rescue mission of the rescue mission of the rescue mission of the third manned munlander.

[NorthernDevo]

A capsule full of Kerbals: Val, Mitvan and Shelby testing the docking approach to Kerblab II (1 blew apart and carpet-bombed KSP - expensive!) Orbital insertion went well; blew off the escape system exposing the docking port; docking worked perfectly. Cool! It was only until I burned for re-entry did I realize that yes...you guessed it; the parachutes were on the escape rocket. And the retros were already discarded. Oops....

They just happened to be coming over KSC so I built something cheap and stupid with a Hitchhiker module; launched it off by eye and somehow managed a direct rendezvous. The three Kerbonauts transferred just as skin heating was getting bad, and somehow managed to land in the Katlantic safe and sound. Wow - my heart was really racing in that one; it was a real nail-biter.

 

Edited August 26, 2017 by NorthernDevo

[monstah]

10 hours ago, NorthernDevo said:

the parachutes were on the escape rocket. 

No, man, I wouldn't have guessed

[NorthernDevo]

9 hours ago, monstah said:

No, man, I wouldn't have guessed

Chuckle - I'm sure I'm not the only one who's made that mistake. But if I am then whoopee! I set a record! lol

I built the Kerpollo module carefully; tested the systems; assigned the action keys. I just forgot that the fairing was above the docking port; and that the parachutes slipped into the fairing quite nicely.

Oh well, they all got back - and I'm still employed.

 

[agrasyuk]

after years of exclusive sandboxing I finally started career game few month ago. while I hate the tech restrictions oh boy its so much more fun as there is some sense of purpose. Normally I am diligent enough with the F5 that in case of SHTF I can just F9 . But there was that one time ....

Prestigious orbit rescue contract came up. Billy-Bobzer found himself in a very peculiar situation and orbit that commanded a 2star contract while still in Kerbin SOI (or perhaps it was 3star, but I will go conservative on this one), a ~45degree , around 8 Mil Km.  KSS "Badabunga", basically just a cluster of reentry rated rescue capsules with some fuel and sparks hanging out together at 100Km orbit (a very economical way to handle the surge of strugglers that was going on at that time), got the call. I guestimated that dV should be surely about enough, staged "Badabunga-03" pod, burned to raise AP, hibernated the probe core, set Alarm in KAC. all is good and trivial I thought, easy money, unlike the drama unfolding with Mun lander "Abutbul" mission, landing recklessly to discover dangerously low fuel levels. after over 10 attempts (and reloads) managed to launch "Abutbul" to very very , mountain scraping low orbit above Mun (as I found out solid blue line can still intersect with terrain and "scrape" the ship) and all out burn home with kerbin Pe of 45Km. yey! happy F5! F5 F5! Ok now to get poor Billy-Bobzer home! throw some reckless maneuvers, and tank is dry... wht? lets retry. reload, no stupid maneuvers now, carefully plan inclination match, rendezvous, cancel out relative speed, gotcha! lower that PE, aaaand tank is dry nowhere near atmo... Mothe&^%*^#! lets reload, plan, burn, Mothe&^%*^#!  on one hand there is a life of a very valuable Engineer, on the other it will cost 50K funds to send a dedicated rescue ship plus tons of paperwork to account of wasted capsule. Well Billy, its good that you have that Jetpack on ya, and wiki says you are packing 600 dV in it! . updated mission profile dictated setting the capsule for a quick flyby , ] switching to wreckage when close enough, EVA and with space pants on fire chase the rescue capsule to board as it speeds away at about 400 M/s Relative! now that was something, managed to pull it off on try 3 with nearly empty RCS tank, and burning capsules tank dry (at AP) finally got the guy low enough into Kerbin Atmo to be on the ground after 2 more orbits around.

sheesh, that came out quite long  . Since then I learned to do much more fuel efficient phase matched intercepts (oh so that's what that radial in/out slider is for! cool!). Billy, now a 3-star Engineer, productively works on Minmus outpost and bagged quite a few repair missions including a daring antenna install (thank goodness for KIS/KAS) when contracted satellite left kerbin launchpad without one. Antenna absence was obviously only noticed after carefully positioning the  satellite in target polar orbit.

Edited August 29, 2017 by agrasyuk

[Ethen Sun]

About a week after I started playing (most of which was spent figuring out that I had to press space to launch), I go for a Mun landing using the Kerbal X. Great idea. I had absolutely no clue how anything worked, and spent basically all the lander's fuel getting to the Mun. Also, i tipped the damn thing over on landing, cleanly detaching the Command Module. As a noob, of course it had 3 crew. 

I had no idea of quicksaves and reverting, so I (gasp) MODIFIED the kerbal X to be unmanned, and landed it WITHIN A KILOMETER of the landing site! Wow! I fly everyone over with their EVA suit, and flew it home.

Now, A year in, I have left the module there as a memory and proof of Beginner's Luck. Or maybe my natural talent in Kerbal Space Program. I don't know,

[Atkara]

My most daring rescue was without doubt, the first one I ever attempted. See, I was specifically not doing rescue contracts, since I had no clear idea how to do it -yet. Things changed when one of my own missions got stranded around the Mun. I decided to bite the proverbial bullet and go for it and guess what: I did it.

Another, not really daring, but certainly more complicated than usual, was when an ion-propelled rescue ship of mine, carrying a solar orbit stranded kerbal and it's pod, entered Kerbin's SOI and circularized in high orbit (500km IIRC). I figured the whole assembly would fit on the mk3 carbo bay, which meant I could bring the whole thing back on a spaceplane. Having a claw-fitted craft already docked with one of my stations, I decided to send it over and bring the ion rescue craft in LKO.

Problem: the claw craft was never rated to carry something of that mass. I would ran out of fuel if I attempted to circularize, let alone rendezvous with a spaceplane. But hey, I've got fuel drones in orbit. So:

1. Brought the claw craft to an, as circular orbit as possible (with the ion rescue craft in tow). Fuel remaining: 0
2. Sent up an LfOx carrying spaceplane, met up with the fuel drone, transferred the fuel and brought the plane back.
3. Set up a rendezvous between the fuel drone and the claw craft. In the meantime, I launched another spaceplane, with a claw and enough space to get the ion rescue craft (along with the pod and the kerbonaut itself) safely back to kerbin.

The most tricky part in the whole process, was to line up the ion rescue craft properly inside the spaceplane's cargo bay -I basically had to eyeball it. Wasn't easy, but not as hard as I initially thought. In the end and after I don't know how much time, both the spaceplane and it's cargo were touching down.

Was it worth it? No. And yes

[Greenfire32]

long long long time ago:

Tried leaving the Mun. Didn't have the juice to make orbit, exited the lander and boosted my sub-orbital path as much as possible while still leaving some EVA fuel for moving. Trajectory=ballistic.

Managed to get a rendezvous using my command pod in orbit (luckily it was directly overhead my kerbal at the time). Command pod swooped down, Kerbal got in. Command pod burned for orbit. Lander lithobraked with extreme prejudice. Command pod successfully returned to Kerbin.

Something, something, any landing you can walk away from.

 

[Bill Phil]

I remember when I used to have to send rescue missions for my Mun landers. I got better after a while. 

I usually over-engineer my vehicles so that they have large margins, and then spam quick save. So not that many rescue flights. Usually.

Once I had to rescue Jeb from Kerbin orbit. He didn't have any propellant to get inside the rescue ship. So I had to put the ladder in front of him, switch to Jeb, and grab the ladder. Turned out all right in the end.

[Firemetal]

2 hours ago, Greenfire32 said:

long long long time ago:

Tried leaving the Mun. Didn't have the juice to make orbit, exited the lander and boosted my sub-orbital path as much as possible while still leaving some EVA fuel for moving. Trajectory=ballistic.

Managed to get a rendezvous using my command pod in orbit (luckily it was directly overhead my kerbal at the time). Command pod swooped down, Kerbal got in. Command pod burned for orbit. Lander lithobraked with extreme prejudice. Command pod successfully returned to Kerbin.

Something, something, any landing you can walk away from.

 

 Not to toot my own horn here but I did that, like, on Moho.  (No offense meant here, just joking, though it's true, that was my Moho mission plan)

For me, it was rescuing to kerbals from an empty ssto in laythe orbit. I know, not very daring but I usually quick load before having to rescue a Kerbal.

Fire

 

 

 

Edited August 31, 2017 by Firemetal

[RoadRunnerAerospace]

well, I conducted a "apollo 13" with a mun mission, the throttle got stuck on sticky keys, and could not throttle down, lets just say I got back