Caveman to MUN, Planning for Duna and preparing for bigger Journeys, 60+ pictures

[Sirad]

Hello Alltogether. I was just fiddling around with 'advancing in my caveman mode'

Since i used MJ because i was initially trying to fly to Duna, land a kerbal and return him savely, but failed a long time in properly eyeballing my transfer window (wild swearing here) i just postponed that goal and took the Ship to land a Kerbal on the moon and returned him by playing with no facilities upgraded. Any good tips for eyeballing a transfer to Duna ?

Due to i did use MJ just for Orbit info and DeltaV (jor more its anyway not of use bacause no facilities upgraded) i made a Photo book of my Journey.

Besides that, while building the ship, i mastered the art of docking even without RCS jut by eyeballing target. Just quite something i learned by the way. That led me to the capability of constructing big ships in Orbit, so nothing is immpossible now, even with no facilitys upgraded.

I Built that ship out of Modules, the Fuel usage while accelerating to Mun and flying back was just made by disabling any fuel tank except the one i wanted to use...

I had 4 kind of Rockets that were needed to lift the modules upwards. The Lander capsules were a bit fiddly because it has to start optimal to reach proper orbit with enough dv left for Docking. That Type of Mothership i Built need only 8 more fuel tanks to have enough DV for Duna and baclk. Its possible even for a caveman. But i think thats no big deal, many have done this before but for me, it was a big deal.

 

First module in Orbit, the reentry to Kerbin Module. Made all the way to Mun and Back and worked as intended.

All Rockets had their Corona mask on so better performance in Air up to 25.000

Starting to Build up the Ship.

Docking the first Fuel tanks. later on with a bit redesingn i managed to lift and Dock bigger Fuel tanks. Quite a Time saver,

Undocking for reentry of the Lifting module.

Quite a lot of starts and Fails went along while finding the optimal ascent path.

Eyeballing everything is quite hard, but one gets used to it somehow...

I just made my orbit just 3-5 kilometers belom the station i wanted to dock at and then circulated and waited until i catch up with the station.

Just like that

With the Fuel tanks on, the Fuel-Hauler Tug has somewhat around 550DV left over. enough for docking and manually eyeballing intercept to station.

Catching up with the station.

At This Point i manually tuned the main engine down to 4% throttle to be able to finetune the intercept and docking position with the Navball. The RCS Thruster are obsolet now because i can dock without them now...

Getting near to the station with 0.3-0.4 m/s

Using Target and Pro/Retrograde in the navball, that works.

Its growing.

Now the lander. Its capable to land at Duna and ascend. It has 2 docked modules for that.

Navball docking with no rcs.

Just see the Navbal. that how it should be aligned to fit.

It Grows.

More Fuel tanks to be added to the station.

And more

And more

more

And so on.

I left the last tugs on to squeeze the last bit of fuel out for me ascent to Mun

Used up, undock and swith next tanks active

Had to accelerate 3 times because Main engine is to small.

On my way to mun.

Just a scenic view :-)

And so on.

I took this aproach to come out with reverse orbit.

Catching Mun passby.

decelerating until orbit and circling down.

Until 30km Orbit.

Checking all systems and transfering Jeb to Lander.

Just a caveman around the mun.

Undocking for Landing

Just try to not waste fuel and had my adrenalin on 'to much' to make a good last burn-to landing.

Looks good

Final descent.

Landed. And no Flag Planted because: Cavemans can only walk on Kerbin....

Quite fast i need to accelerate to not getthe mothership to far ahead.

Reverse Orbit Start

Catching up with Mothership

Catching up for docking. While aproaching i noticed that the mothership could not control himself, but i managed to dock, lucky one...

Aproaching

Docked

Leaving SOI of Mun for Flight home.

Burning.

Trying to get the optimal point

Leaving Soi soon.

First Aerobrake around Kerbin

Empty fueltanks that get undocked pop off.

I was scared to burn off because i came in very fast.

Now circularized and still 1000DV left over.

Reentering Kerbin with everything because there are things to make better for the Big trip to Duna.

Fireworks

Decoupling from Mothership

Enabling Chutes

Andddd

Coming down.

Touchdown.

Made it to Mun and back with Jeb and no facilities upgraded.

Edited April 26, 2021 by Sirad
typos

[Vanamonde]

Hi guy. Your pictures are not displaying for me.

[Sirad]

13 hours ago, Vanamonde said:

Hi guy. Your pictures are not displaying for me.

Hm. i dont know why that happens.

They are on my webspace/domain. What browser you use ?

Anyone else that dont have pics displayed ?

 

Im just refreshing my SSL certificate. maybe that helps.

 

Edited April 28, 2021 by Sirad

[theJesuit]

I see pictures.  And fun.

Looking forward to you getting to Duna!

Peace.

[Sirad]

1 hour ago, theJesuit said:

Looking forward to you getting to Duna!

Peace.

Did it :-)

Im just dunno where to post the mess of 180+ screenshots to document it...

[paul_c]

How did you control the modules and station, I can't see a controller there?

Also....any science? I don't see the Science Jr or Goo!