[AAR] Got out and pushed!

[MajorThomas]

I'll keep this brief.

Scene: Visit of "heavy" Apollo style LM to north Munar pole, carrying one Kerbal.

Orfurt Kerman, thinking he was a pretty hot pilot and up for an awesome adventure on the Mun, with his heavy, rugged, Apollo-style lander, was thinking "What could possibly go wrong?"

The liftoff and flight to the Mun was smooth, up to the last few minutes of landing at the north pole. That was the first challenge; the terrain there is nothing but steep ridges, spiky peaks and deep valleys.

After flying back and forth several times to find a suitable area, he finally landed right on top of a ridge. But the ridge was steeply sloped, so the lander leaned back at almost 30 degrees from vertical. He dropped out the hatch, and to be safe, practiced going back in. He found he could get back in by using jetpack to fly right at the hatch and grab hold. He then took a look around and quickly spotted the tall pyramid of the north pole itself, not far away!

Naturally, he flew to it immediately. Using 50% jetpack fuel to get there, he landed at the highest shelf of land he could, near the pyramid. He planted a flag at this place, not at the pole exactly, but because he wasn't sure he could make it to the top of the pyramid and survive. No chance of climbing. So Orfurt proceeded to fly to the tippy top using the jetpack. Immediately he recognized his error, as the pyramid and the whole world started swirling around...he was experiencing total disorientation, and getting dizzy. OK, forget the top, let's fly back to the LM. I am running low on fuel anyway.

On the way back, he did run out of fuel and slid along the ground a while, toward the LM. But then his skid took a nasty turn, arcing down and down, into a deep crater that kept getting deeper. (While Orfurt did this, my 8-year old son sketched the adventure on a piece of paper, like a comic strip.) Will this slide ever stop? Will he survive? At long last yes, eventually, he came to a very gradual halt at least 1.5 km from the LM, got up and brushed himself off. I rigged the usual keyboard crutch of holding down the "w" key so he could slowly amble his way back while I left the keyboard a while, and put my kid to bed or something.

Orfurt finally arrived at the lander. Uh oh. How does he get back in? No ladders, a round RCS tank in the way, and the LM is at a steep reverse angle. He tried jumping in from every angle. He even tried climbing up through the engine, like Bugs Bunny. But...when running under the LM he accidentally ran in to a footpad, and easily lifted the entire leg off the surface of the Mun. That's one strong Kerbal. So I had Orfurt lift the high side leg up, which pushed the LM over on its side. It did NOT break or explode. Now the hatch was in reach. He was in.

Next...using internal controls only, he wrestled the LM down the slope. Once there, Orfurt managed some sort of judo-flip, closing and re-opening the landing legs at the same time, which amazingly stood the LM up once more on its feet. Miraculously, he was at the controls, and his ship was flight-ready again.

We all know the rest...he took off, returned to Kerbin, signed another LIFE magazine contract extension, etc. etc.

Moral of the story: Sometimes in KSP you really DO have to get out and push!

Edited January 21, 2014 by MajorThomas
Clarity