Concentric

Built a safe twelve-man return vehicle, to take 11 tourists to orbit and rescue a kerbal, bringing them all home safely. You know, after my struggles with getting my previous deathtrap down safely carrying only a third as many. By sticking heatshields on the bottom, and keeping the probe core in a bay, everything becomes safe for re-entry. Parachute placement has also been selected for safety, and they automatically deploy based on pressure (I activated them while in orbit). There was plenty of excess fuel. In fact, I could probably have replaced the central tank of the return vehicle with a structural fuselage and still completed the mission. I just spent a little towards the end to help decelerate for an extra safety margin.

Haven't had much time over the last two weeks, but I did manage to launch that ten-mission rocket. Three satellite contracts (Kerbin at about Mun level, somewhat eccentric Mun, and tundra Minmus), two LKO rescue contracts, two parts tests, Explore Minmus, LKO tourism contract with two tourists, and finally a science from space around Kerbin. Let's get to it. Drop tanks on the SRBs run dry just before the SRBs themselves. The Reliants' tanks feed into the central core with its Swivel, and everything works out, with a little tweaking of throttle and thrust limiters. This still has a bit of fuel left in the core after circularising. I quicksaved here, and after one particular disaster, ended up having to do almost everything that follows twice. The ant was an experimental part, as was the 0.625m decoupler. The probe portion went off to Mun first, as one of the parts tests was in Mun orbit. Meanwhile, the tourists began to set up a rendezvous with the first of our rescuees. The first rescuee encounter was before the probe reached Mun, and the second was after the probe escaped Mun, having finished its jobs there. Next was the tough part, the one that had caused the disaster: re-entry. This thing isn't safe, really. It's not well-suited to re-entry at all. The first time, both the crew capsules containing rescuees exploded from the heat, which also happened to take the parachutes away from the poor, doomed tourists. The second time around, I made a quicksave before attempting the descent, and still ran into a couple of failures. Finally, I lowered periapse to about 60km, then periodically burned radially to lower my apoapse and keep the descent from being too steep. Once things were really heating up, I started burning retrograde. Even this and some wild flailing to try and spread the heat out didn't save the probe core and its attached 'chute. Fortunately, the remaining parachutes (and a little thrust to soften it) were about enough for a safe landing. Everybody lives! Despite the best efforts of the designer of this deathtrap. (Or rather, my own negligence wrt designing a safe re-entry vehicle.) This landing completed four of the ten missions, the other six are for the probe. I didn't get footage of the actual mission completion parts of the probe's mission. However, it got orbit at Mun, matched inclination with the target orbit, then tested the decoupler. Once the decoupler had been tested, I ran into a small issue: my only control node was pointing the wrong way, and it had taken until the decoupler was loosed for the game to realise this. However, I worked around this and matched the required orbit, then escaped Mun in such a way that I would then be escaping Kerbin, too. Once in Kerbin's SoI on an escape trajectory, I tested the Ant, switched to perform the second rendezvous with the rescue mission, then matched inclinations with Minmus, and put my apoapse at Minmus orbit. This was a little awkward with a backward control node... Anyway, I am now waiting to reach the apoapse, where I'll raise my periapse enough to encounter Minmus on the next pass. In the mean time, this pair of tourists wanted to join the 44-mile-high club with an orbital journey, so I built a little something for them. They had a slightly under-soft landing, but everything but the engine survived, so it's fine.

A six simultaneous contract launch. First, a landed test of the fairing. I attached a pair of fairings to the launch stabilisers for this, but also used one in the main part of the rocket. Also, two orbital tourism contracts for a total of four tourists. When the Thumpers ran out, and the swivel was still burning, I dropped them and fired a pair of Hammers, which brought the thrust up so that acceleration would continue. The Fleas are there mostly for structural purposes, holding on the crew cabins, but they also help start the circularisation and raising the apoapse while in atmosphere. They fire once the Swivel drops. And here's what's in the fairing: a probe. The materials bay is for a satellite contract, the thermometer and antenna for the Exploration contract, and I have a Test TT-70 landed on Mun contract too. Didn't particularly want that hanging out in the wind on the way up. This probe-piloted return vehicle had about 45 liquid fuel left over after deorbit, but on my test launch there was only 10 left before deorbit, so I left the tanks as they were. By test launch, I mean I forgot to put the tourists in and only realised once in orbit, so I reverted. The probe has buckets and buckets of delta-v. Over 3km/s. So, even though the target orbit for the satellite contract is oddly inclined and retrograde, there's still plenty of fuel. I actually also transmitted the data from the materials bay, too. The money has allowed me to upgrade my R&D centre for the first time this career, and also Mission Control to the unlimited mission capacity. I've taken on ten missions, and I think I can actually complete all of them in another single launch.

More suborbital tourism with retrorockets, parts tests and hauling, and reached orbit. Cut things down a little to take four tourists up, and also test the Swivel. After, I cheapened it up with a Flea instead, and strapped on a heatshield for a splashdown test. I also sent up my SolidSixSuborbital rocket, once with a decoupler in for a splashdown test, along with thermometers to take readings in space and the upper atmosphere (though that wasn't a contract). Bob got out to do some EVA reports, and took the readings in, ready to take new readings in and over the water. There was an additional modification - an Okto probe core. So, I sent it up again, this time with all seven seats filled with tourists, and a heatshield for yet another splashdown test. No footage for those. I didn't take a picture of the launch, but I made a rather simple rocket to get the orbit contract, and decoupled the capsule when the periapse was at 20km. The drag was enough to slow it down to a safe deployment height for the parachute, and possibly also for the haul contract for the parachute. I'd gotten that out of the way on the way up, though. It would have been simple enough to fly the JunoBug up to get it, of course.

JunoBug flights, surveys, and something solidly silly. [img]http://i.cubeupload.com/a1hH7c.png[/img] [img]http://i.cubeupload.com/lwvZw5.png[/img] I fit a thermometer to the JunoBug, and had Valentina taxi it around to complete a thermal survey contract that was pretty much right at KSC. Then, she took off, to get three survey reports in flight over the mountains. You can see her flying back, here. On the launchpad is the silly thing... but that aside, I also performed a couple of simple parts tests and haul contracts. One was actually a Juno haul contract, which was really simple. Some were taken care of by the other mission, and a couple were just one-off little things that I didn't take any pictures of. [img]http://i.cubeupload.com/WaLzM6.png[/img] Here it is taking off. This actually happened before the JunoBug mission, but I launched another one after. I had a few tourist contracts for suborbital hops, a haul contract to take a Hammer to 60km with a reasonably low speed, and two landed parts tests - specifically the small heatshield and the Thumper. This rocket has empty tanks, apart from the solid rockets, and can fit all six tourists and a pilot. [img]http://i.cubeupload.com/PnW41Z.png[/img] [img]http://i.cubeupload.com/Dx9NXi.png[/img] [img]http://i.cubeupload.com/5TO4ui.png[/img] As it approaches Kerbin at high speed, due to its sharp descent, it needed a little something to slow it down - another Hammer. At about 12km, I fire the retrorocket and descend on a pillar of flame, then the four radial parachutes take over the landing. [img]http://i.cubeupload.com/5nUKmv.png[/img] [img]http://i.cubeupload.com/hnHdgY.png[/img] And here's the end of the second flight, with another six tourists and one pilot, and another heart-stopping braking procedure. Works though. Under 15k funds for a six-tourist suborbital is pretty profitable, really. And it's got no expensive LFO engines. All solids. Anyway, using the money earned from this and other contracts, I've now upgraded my astronaut complex, runway, and tracking station for the first time this career. Of course, in order to launch this and to have all those contracts at once, I had to upgrade my launchpad and mission control once each, too.

Escaped the atmosphere, did some experiments and a suborbital test contract, then returned home safely. Also, designed a little jet plane for low-altitude observational survey contracts. [img]http://i.cubeupload.com/2mJnBy.png[/img] Here's the suborbital craft taking off. All solid rockets, with the central one at 20% thrust, and the other three at 40%, held on by radial decouplers. The fins are there for a reason... [img]http://i.cubeupload.com/h1olCq.png[/img] [img]http://i.cubeupload.com/z57qsH.png[/img] Specifically, it's so that the return vehicle can have these tilted fins to help reduce speed on the way down, so that the parachutes don't just rip themselves off. I ended up landing this on a mountainside, but the launch without these drag-increasing measures would have collided with the sea at over 400m/s, if I hadn't reverted first. The suborbital test was the stack decoupler, at 80 to 90km above sea level. [img]http://i.cubeupload.com/B5NhIb.png[/img] This is the JunoBug, my solution to low-altitude, mid-to-short range observational survey contracts. I haven't tested its maximum range or performance ceiling just yet, but it's a rather inexpensive plane, and it can come back to the runway easily enough. [img]http://i.cubeupload.com/3HvTeN.png[/img] [img]http://i.cubeupload.com/uQoicw.png[/img] It completed a survey contract, then flew back and performed a parachute test for a contract. I even managed to guide the descent to the runway, and soften it to a gentle landing. I'll have to see if it can land horizontally, too, but the parachute will be a fine alternative if it can't.

Backed up a 1.0.4 version, updated to 1.0.5, started a fresh career and got a few basic contracts done. [img]http://i.cubeupload.com/1LpmzS.png[/img] [img]http://i.cubeupload.com/Rtl8BS.png[/img] Went for the new Juno engine before getting a proper LFO rocket engine, to try and get some focused survey work done. As you can see, this particular plane needed an emergency parachute that it didn't have. As the unupgraded runway is so horribly bumpy, I taxied around to the flatter grasslands and took off from there, before flying to the destination to take a crew report. I also did some solid-fuel ballistics to get some surveys, and managed to combine a high-altitude survey with a Wheelsey test contract. [img]http://i.cubeupload.com/vKODgu.png[/img] Speaking of test contracts, I took a few of the new haulage contracts, too. The above ship had an experimental parachute to be hauled, and used it to land in the ocean, where it tested the Juno in the splashdown situation.

Mostly station management. First, I flew the empty SixPlane home, with only minimal fuel and monopropellant remaining. Also, I docked the panels probe to the Labtug. Then, I got the rendevous of Triangle with the rescuee... but ran out of fuel matching speeds. Got close enough and slow enough that he could EVA over, though. Even firing RCS couldn't deorbit... so I needed to get some fuel there. The lab needed scientists, too, so I docked a tank/pod module to my little interstation ship to take two scientists from Stopover to the lab. I put 53 data into the lab, then put one of the readings (worth two science points, as it's been taken already) into the interstation ship. This then went to the Triangle and the rescuee, allowing him to take the data back home, and take more than enough fuel to deorbit and return.

I haven't actually seen the Target CoM thing before. Would I have to release the lab, and then attempt to attach again without blocking the possibility of using my Thuds to pull the lab? The tug is out of monopropellant, too, so fine maneuvers will be difficult (but might still be doable). Also, I've never actually caught an actual asteroid, and this is the first time I've caught something with the intent of moving it, rather than draining it (i.e. getting the last dregs of fuel from some debris).

Used a spaceplane for a "station" contract, caught a wild orbital laboratory, and bashed together a replacement for some lost solar panels. First up, I put an antenna in the cargo bay of SixPlane, which is actually not for cargo. It's just where the probe core, batteries, docking port, monopropellant, and solar panels are kept, along with a bit of fuel. This made it valid to fulfill a space station contract I had: it holds five people, has power generation and storage, and has an antenna. So, I put it up into orbit and docked it with Stopover, taking up two scientists and three tourists. I put a bunch of excess fuel into the station, but this isn't a big fuel tanker plane. My lab tug finally used up the last dregs of fuel in its lifter during the rendezvous with the lab itself. This lab was left by a rescuee, and means I don't have to send one up yet. Unfortunately, the lab isn't quite on the centre line, so the centre of mass is a bit off. Also, I somehow broke the solar panels on the way to the lab, or possibly while attempting to grab it (I didn't put them away). So, I've come up with a solution, which should be good for both issues: Send up a probe to dock on one side as a small counterweight, and also provide some solar power. I just slapped it onto the nose of a Triangle that I was sending up for a rescue mission, it'll be fine. I did get it to orbit, just about, but I used up all the oxidiser in the plane, and a bit of the oxidiser in the probe. I redistributed the fuel and oxidiser a bit, and now the probe has about a fifth of its tank, and the plane has the rest. There should be enough there for the rendezvous and return or the plane, if I'm frugal. A fifth of a tank is probably a bit more than necessary for the probe, though. Hopefully, those little flaps from the solar panel box won't make docking this awkward. Maybe I'll retract them for the docking...

To avoid radial boosters colliding with the bottom of the central stack... Drop the bottom of the central stack first! But seriously, I haven't really needed any separatrons to remove boosters for a while, and I doubt I will in the near future.

Adjusted the lifter of my LabTug so that it could handle a 20t payload, tested it, and used it. Also, the amazing exploding drone put up a strange, imbalanced satellite, then exploded on its way down (didn't bother reverting, and it's not like it had been tested at all). Finally, SixPlane docked and flew home. The test payload actually ended up being 19.99t, not 20t, but I'm certain that a 20t payload is within the capabilities of my lifter. As you can see, there was even left over fuel... but not very much. The changes amounted to swapping the tail connectors for advanced nose cones, changing the fins for the lighter Delta Deluxes, and moving the drop tanks so they're all on the boosters (so only one set of radial decouplers is needed). So, I added a small fuel tank to the LabTug, and a bay with some science instruments, which I think brought it up to 19.96t, or something like that. The tug is draggier than the test payload, though... Still worked. Cut it a little finer than I might have liked, but I'm happy with it. Now I have to grab the lab with it. This drone didn't really have a name, it was just something I threw together. Half the oxidiser from one of those converters has been removed, so there's some dedicated jet fuel. Inside it is a little probe, intended to hit two satellite contracts - one keosynchronous, and one at 22Mm, and the latter is retrograde and requires a goo container. To minimise imbalance and assist in getting out of the bay, I stuck a landing gear on the other end, keyed to the RCS action group (as it wasn't otherwise being used), and attached a battery and antenna to it. I'm now waiting to maneuver to get it to the higher orbit, which is going to be a total orbital reversal once I get the apoapse to the right altitude. I've already completed the lower one. The drone itself suffered a... minor heating issue. The higher of the above two images is of one of the batteries in the cargo bay exploding, not long after the probe core itself exploded. The drone wafted around a bit, but in the end didn't slow down enough that its collision with the mountain would be survivable by the majority of its components. SixPlane is the spaceplane seen above that I mentioned yesterday. It ended up with more fuel than it needed, but it served its purpose of flying up five tourists and Mirgrid to Stopover, then flying home safely. I have an img42 collection of the flight's screenshots here.

Built and tested a new lifter, to put up the claw-tug I hope to use to bring the Lab a rescuee left in LKO to a more convenient location (or possibly take the Mun Retrograde one to Minmus), and provide the crew capsules for science transfer. Then, I decided to bring Mirgrid home from Stopover in the Triangle Prototype, along with her Minmus science, so I could unlock the parts to build a new spaceplane, with a proper crew cabin. Of course, this means that I need to go get more science data in order to stock up the labs... ah well. Here's the lifter and the tug on the launchpad. Took a bit of fiddling to make sure the droptanks drained in the right order, but they didn't need to be tied to each other. The tug is 19.3t, and with the lifter it comes up to 139.9t, just under the weight limit of my launchpad (I have plenty of money to upgrade it, I just haven't seen the need yet). The Kickbacks are at full thrust, and at launch the whole thing has a TWR of just over 1.2. The droptanks that are not on the boosters drain completely before the ones that are on the boosters even begin to be tapped, and the solid fuel runs out just after the droptanks on the boosters run dry, which is all very neat. There's a slight drop in speed at that point, as TWR is then at the lowest point in the whole launch (dropping below 1 for the first time), but momentum and the beginnings of the gravity turn - along with continued fuel burning - mean that soon the rocket is accelerating again. I tried to keep the apoapse about a minute away until it reached 72km, and then roughly held it there, coasted and circularised. And as you can see, there's still a little leftover fuel in the lifter once at a circular orbit. You may also see the problem with the tug that was the primary reason I reverted this and decided to try and test my ability to time a launch to catch up with an orbiting body without much maneuvering by relaunching this at some point in the future - the solar panels obstruct the thrust of the Thuds that will be pulling the Lab. So, I've taken the probe core, batteries, and solar panels out of the service bay, swapped the batteries and solar panels, rotated the bay, and put the probe core back in (to keep its alignment), and then put the rest of the ship back. Effectively, I've just exchanged the positions of the doors and solar panels with the walls and batteries in the bay. Mirgrid's flight home was largely fine. I wasted a touch of fuel for a course correction that I could have just adjusted my gliding to perform, and ended up rolling off the runway when stopping. I think I need to dive earlier. She got back with enough science to bring me to 293, and I unlocked the parts to make a crew carrier spaceplane (specifically the Mk2 Crew Cabin's node). I've already tested its ascent into orbit, I just have to dock it, let off passengers and fly it home. Once that journey is complete, I'll talk about it in more detail.

Did a few maneuvers, some station stuff and some flyback today. SixFerry arrived at Stopover Station. The four tourists were transferred to the now-obsolete two-man minishuttles, and our actual employee took the science from the lander can and transferred it to the Triangle prototype that had come up when I was first developing that spaceplane. I also shuffled fuel around, draining excess from the minishuttles and refilling SixFerry's tanks from the stations main reserve. The tourists already aboard moved into SixFerry, along with Bill. I might see if I get two more Minmus tourists in a contract that comes up soon, so I can send SixFerry off full, instead of with only four passengers. Anyway, I began to fly back the minishuttles. Two rather simple glides later, and the four tourists were home. The reason that the minishuttles are now obsolete is of course the fact that I now have a reliable spaceplane to get to and from Stopover - so I don't need to keep other ways of getting down around. The shuttles were a good solution for the tech level, but their use is now too expensive to justify (compared to a spaceplane flight), and their part count means it's better for my system to get them off the station rather than those simpler drop-pods that are still attached. In the meantime, I also took on an orbital rescue contract. I sent up the Triangle to rendezvous, and it just so happened that the capsule in which the engineer was stranded was in fact a Mobile Lab. Now that I have Actuators (and thus the Claw), that saves me the trouble of putting one up. There's also one over in a retrograde orbit about the Mun, so in a future mission, I can drag that to a suitable location. Perhaps to Minmus, and there make it the core of a station. As for the rescuee, their landing was fine, if a little close to the end of the runway. I didn't have wheels on the ground until I was less than a kilometer from the end, so that would be why. Finally, I made an adjustment to the course of a satellite probe that is heading off to fulfill a contract in Minmus orbit, and perhaps afterwards some temperature measuring at Minmus. Additionally, I noticed one of my new contracts is an interplanetary tourism contract. But, I'd rather finish a thing or two in the local system (at least set up an orbital lab to process data) before I go to Duna and Ike... but I suppose I already have plenty of funds, so I can just accept it and make it a reasonably long-term goal.

Brought back last time's cargo spaceplane and documented it for the K-Prize. Also, some aerobraking, maneuvering, and re-used an old satellite. I had a set of Mun temperature measurements to do for a contract, but my lander's legs are broken. I could probably still do it with that, but I'd rather train up an engineer and go fix them, which is why Bill is waiting at Stopover for SixFerry to get back and take him to Minmus. So, I cast around for anything that had a thermometer and enough delta-v to land there. There was a really old satellite I put up in orbit on one of my early Mun missions, carrying a thermometer, a Terrier engine (it did double duty as a transfer stage) and some left over fuel, so I gave it a shot. Managed to get both of the Flight Below readings in a single orbit, then needed only a slight adjustment to land on the next one. Landing in the dark, with no lights, no landing legs, and no Ground Altitude gauge can be kind of nervewracking. This mission had a science payment that got me to 160 science, so I can get the actuators node next time I play. Haven't ever really used the claw (maybe once in 0.23.5?), so that'll be interesting. SixFerry had two aerobraking passes, and the lander cans started to glow a bit. It is now in a low orbit, waiting for a maneuver to encounter Stopover. Finally, just for kicks, I took a tourism contract for two individuals to go to orbit, and just offhand built a spaceplane for them. The probe core is clipped inside. Look at all that heating. You'd almost think something would explode. Anyway, I landed it back home safely, with nothing actually exploding. Needed some swooping to bleed off speed, but it worked. Perhaps radiators and solar panels would be a good addition to this one, if I don't just make something completely different for future flights.

Made another one. This time, I didn't dock, but I carried a payload designed to do single-person crew transfers between Stopover and MunRod. It masses 3.515t and just about fits in the cargo bay of the Delta Drone. Here's the drone before takeoff. The fuel balance ended up a little off, but it got up there. The engine situation is a little different, too: once out of the atmosphere, I shut off the Sparks to use the higher isp of the Terrier, as the thrust boost wasn't needed. I quicksaved before letting the payload out, then reloaded to that point. I had to turn down my graphics for rendezvous with Stopover, and I have no images of that. But the drone can't dock, anyway. The payload was released there, and docked while the plane drifted away. And here we are, back on the ground. The fuel situation is kind of off: over 220 excess oxidiser, but only 150 excess liquid fuel. Still, it got the job done, I guess. Might want to finetune it, is all. I also did another plane, but that one didn't do anything that hadn't been exceeded by either the Triangle or the Delta Drone. Still, utilitarian.

A bit of spaceplane fiddling. I tried to make a two-man drone-piloted tanker plane to take fuel to Stopover, but decided that I can work on that one a little later, once Stopover's been cleared a little, and the flyback shuttles currently attached have gone back home. It does need some more tweaking, it ran out of oxidiser to circularise without the payload tank, but was carrying about 370 units of liquid fuel spare. Also, this thing. Made a little one-man interstation shuttle that fits in a long Mk2 Cargo Bay, then built a drone spaceplane to take it up. This one has lots of excess oxidiser, and a full Mk2-1.25m converter tank of LFO to boot. I quicksaved before taking the payload out, thinking I might want to use some of that excess fuel to take the interstationer to Stopover, then took the screenshot and tried to land the empty plane back home. Too much low-atmosphere physics warp and having to shift all the fuel to the front to cancel a flip put an end to that, so I reloaded. The interstationer has 2476m/s of LFO delta-v, can perform all translations on RCS, and so should, if I recall correctly, be able to carry a single passenger between MunRod and Stopover, and perhaps also return without refuelling. It may require fuel if it has to go to Minmus and back, however. I can't recall the requirements off the top of my head.

Completed the K-Prize challenge with the new version of my Triangle plane from last time (details here). With this, I now have a new cheapest-per-kerbal standard method to get people to and from Stopover, as the journey's fuel cost was only about 400 funds. Previously, my best was to send up my two-man minishuttles, which would then glide back to the runway, and I think that was over ten or fifteen times the cost per passenger, as their lifter was dropped on the way up.

Just made a couple of adjustments to my new Triangle spaceplane (see here). I took a bit of advice on ascent paths from this thread, and it worked out well. The spoilers are very image heavy, covering the whole journey. First, a glamour shot on the runway before takeoff. This is the Triangle, a one-man, drone-piloted spaceplane with a single turboramjet and four 48-7S engines for propulsion. Inside that bay is the probe core, solar panels, and batteries, for safekeeping against reentry heat. The plane docks with its nose, and doesn't carry any cargo. Some of the fuel in the central tank has been removed to reduce weight. Here is the Triangle docked to Stopover Station, my current career mode space station at 100km circular orbit around Kerbin. I just docked, then undocked, without transferring anything. The Triangle flew up uncrewed, and the whole path is available in the spoilers above. In summary, however, I took off from the runway and immediately levelled out. Then, I built speed to about 340m/s, increased angle to 30 degrees slowly so as not to lose too much speed, then levelled off again around 11km. Here I built speed to roughly 1km/s, and began to climb again, trying to continue accelerating. I switched to map view, and tried to keep apoapse one minute away, firing the rockets when I needed to. I put the apoapse to 75km, coasted there, circularised, and then set up for docking. I had to turn my graphics down as the station came within physics distance... but I turned them up again once out of physics distance after separating. Finally, here is the plane landed back on the runway. I actually managed this first try, but I wasted some of the oxidiser firing rockets to adjust the descent where I could have just used the air and my angle. There's still lots of excess fuel in the plane, but I might want to keep some of that as a safety margin. So, I think this qualifies for Advanced Pilot Proficiency 1st class?

A few things. Got Bill home, only to find out he's short of the level I want (so he's going to Minmus with the next tourist batch), learned something about spaceplanes, figured out a bit more about the limits of my new lifter, and did some fiddly docking things. First up, Bill and Jebbo set off from Mun orbit. Once they had a 40km periapse over Kerbin, I split the fuel amongst the lander's tanks and decoupled the rest of the orbital module, leaving only the capsule. The parachutes are clipped under the docking ports. Reentry was pretty hot, and took two passes. Fortunately, nothing exploded. I actually happened to pass over the KSC at 30km up on the final pass, so the landing was only about 63km away. This is the Triangle. I've since added an Oscar-B just before the docking port and removed some fuel from the central tank, for reasons that will become clear. Here's what I learned about spaceplanes, that I read in the K-Prize thread: levelling off early to build speed, climbing fast then levelling off again at maximum thrust altitude, and finally climbing out is a more fuel-efficient, effective ascent path than the one I had been using. So, I checked it out with this simple new design. Yep. Works just fine. I might have fired the rockets a little early, but I think a little bit of weight-reduction (by removing some excess LF) and a touch more oxidiser (the Oscar-, and even with the early fire, there should be enough in it to dock with Stopover and go home. I did manage to get this version to Stopover, but there wasn't enough left in it to match speeds properly and dock, so I had to link it with a little tug. This payload is about three tons heavier than the MunPair payload this lifter was originally built for. The ascent path wasn't as efficient either... So, it had to take a bit out of the payload tank to circularise. I then docked this contraption to Stopover: it should provide a few more docking spaces to the station, and some more fuel and monopropellant capacity. Unfortunately, that means that Stopover now has 411 parts, so I've needed to turn down my graphics settings so my laptop can handle things like transferring fuel around the station. Bill is now waiting in the Triangle docked on Stopover, to switch with Tamrie when she gets there in SixFerry, and then take the next batch of space tourists (currently resident on Stopover) to Minmus, and finally level up to be able to repair Natatrice's broken landing legs at MunRod. Convoluted.

Came back to KSP after a break in the last few days. Did a couple of routine maneuvers, gave up (for now) on making a spaceplane, put up an orbit tourist with a cheap disposable rocket to get a new contract generated, then did a Mun landing for some contract completions. But I jarred the landing legs, and now two of them are stuck open, and I don't have a level 2 engineer. The solution is obvious: Build and launch a new rocket! The lifter is all liquid fuel, and an unusual sequence. First the five Reliants fire, each only burning off its own tanks. Then, the central pillar's first stage runs dry, and is dropped. The Swivel second stage fires, and feeds off the tanks of the four radial boosters. Then they drop, and the rocket coasts to its apoapse before circularising. I sent it to rendezvous with Stopover Station. Inside the fairing is a slightly overengineered Mun lander, an orbital module, and a small satellite probe. The probe has over 3km/s of delta-v, so it should be easily capable of getting a satellite contract just above Mun's orbital height, then one around Minmus, and then taking several Minmus orbit temperature readings in specific locations. Bill was sitting in the lander can. I used a monopropellant passenger tug to transfer a Mun tourist to the ship, then set off, letting the probe get to its target orbit separately. I got orbit, then suborbital, then back to a parking orbit (to fulfill the tourist's list), and then Bill landed. He planted his flag, then got back in the lander and took off. I'm now waiting for the rendezvous with the orbital module, and then it'll be time to head back. In the mean time, I also did a targeted landing on Minmus for a survey contract, landing contract, and science from the surface contract, using the lander already placed in Minmus orbit, and the newly arrived scientist aboard SixFerry. SixFerry is now on its way back with said scientist, along with four tourists whose lists are now complete. They'll dock with Stopover Station, and I'll use the shuttles and descent pods to get them down safely.

Spaceplanes! Well, almost. I had a look at an old design of mine from 0.25, and tried to modify it to work in 1.0.4. I removed its cargo bay in favour of more fuel, but the Delta still ran out of fuel without getting its apoapse out of the atmosphere. Afterwards, I built a new plane from scratch, and called it the JetAlone. It had only a single cockpit, and an Okto in a service bay just behind, and had a Swivel and two Turboramjets. I don't have an image of it on hand, but it's likely to be the plane I develop further until it can actually make orbit. I put a Suborbital tourist in the cockpit, and went to test the plane out. Things were looking good: I got the apoapse up to 75km, coasted up, and began to burn to circularise... unfortunately, I fell just a tiny bit short of orbit (periapse 65km), and still had a bunch of my jet fuel left. Then, instead of reverting, I switched to the Space Center... and couldn't remember when my last quicksave was. So, it was time to see how the JetAlone fared in a re-entry. I managed to use the lift and angle of attack to glide over the KSC. Unfortunately, I was about 50km up as I passed the KSC, so I decided to try and turn around. I lost control somewhat over the ocean as I tried to brake enough to turn: the nose kept trying to point retrograde, so I guess my drag was misplaced. Eventually, I was plummeting straight down, and even got to start to fly in the direction of the runway for a bit. Now my next mistake: physics warp. In physics warp x4, the central fuel tank just behind the service bay overheated and exploded, destroying much of the plane. What remained was the service bay with extremely hot probe core and batteries inside, the cockpit with the tourist, a landing gear, a red-glowing Ram intake, and two delta-winglets that were meant to be canards. This was about 15km above the ocean, nowhere near any land. By using the torque of the cockpit, and the lift of the winglets, I managed to make the trajectory a spiral, and slow the impact with the ocean. In the end, I hit the water at a little under 30m/s, losing only the service bay and the winglets. Somehow, what could have been a total disaster turned into a ridiculous recovery, as the tourist lived despite all odds. Don't ask me how the probe core survived, I have no idea.

To get that image to work, you want to put "http://i.imgur.com/aHapKV9.png" between the tags, rather than "http://imgur.com/gallery/aHapKV9", as the first is the URL of the image, rather than its gallery page. I launched several things on top of the Kickback boosters, with fin stabilisation. This is a nice, cheap way to get a small payload up to suborbital so it can circularise. The above ship was intended to dock at Stopover to refuel after circularisation, then travel to MunRod and dock there so that Natatrice could crew MunRod and plant flags for contracts with MunRod's lander. But, fuel was looking good: I didn't need to dock at Stopover, there was plenty to get orbit at Mun... ... but not to dock with MunRod. I managed to get a 0km intercept that was reasonably slow, then ran out of fuel and monopropellant. By 0km, I mean impacting at over 10m/s. Fortunately MunRod was undamaged, and Natatrice could EVA from the wreckage of her transfer ship over to MunRod. She descended, planted a flag, picked it back up, got back in, and docked back at MunRod. I put a little rescue mission in a fairing atop a fin-stabilised Kickback, too. Until I get spaceplanes working, this is my current cheapest way to get Kerbals to/from orbit. Managed to come back pretty close to the KSC, too. Not sure the radiators were needed, but they were there to balance the solar panels. Speaking of spaceplanes, I sent this thing up to grab some science that I missed, by stacking it atop a fin-stablised Kickback. Two of the readings were from Space High, so the first time, I put my apoapse to 400km. This caused everything to explode on reentry, so I reverted, looked up the border of Space High over Kerbin (250km), and had a lower apoapse the second time. Ran out of fuel trying to lift the periapse out of the ground, but managed to land without losing any parts. Combined with a science rover picking up readings from some of the KSC buildings, I have now purchased Turboramjets. And now, the tie to spaceplanes is clear: they're my next project. Haven't built or flown one since 0.90, so this'll be fun.

Upload your image to an image-hosting site like CubeUpload or imgur, then put the URL of the image between [ img][ /img], without the spaces. I think quoting a post with images in will show you, too. Edit: Actually, it just gives the image URL. Replace the "url" in the tags with "img", and put the URL of your uploaded image in the place of the quoted one. The Mystery Mission continues... It's an over-engineered two-stage Mun lander! Jeb's getting a Mun visit in while SixFerry continues to carry tourists to Minmus. Lights at the bottom to help with the night-landing. Jeb grabbed a couple of survey crew reports the orbit before landing, then landed at the Alpha site to get an EVA report. There was plenty of fuel left in the descent stage to go land at the Beta site for the surface sample, and he also got pressure and temperature readings and planted a contract flag. As the descent stage would break apart the moment it's staged off, and the ascent stage only barely has a Mun TWR above 1, he took off with the descent stage. Circularisation and escape didn't use up all of the ascent stage's fuel, either. Jeb came in at 32km periapse for my first experience with 1.0.3 re-entry. A little rotation and fuel-movement, and a touch of burning, managed to keep the temperature of the bottom tank down, and the capsule was never in any danger. Batteries looked a little shaky for a bit, but it turned out fine. The parachute deployed automatically at 0.5 pressure, and I raised the full-open altitude to 800m from 500m. This resulted in a safe landing in the ocean. I immediately spent the science and took on some more contracts. Four tourists, no satellite. When not carrying a satellite up, the PairedShuttles lifter is actually slightly overpowered. Clean separation of stages, but shock-heating on the way up... ... and still having the lifter with over 220 LF left at rendezvous with Stopover. Docking was a little troublesome, and I had to use the monoprop tug when one shuttle ran out of monoprop. Still, delivery of four tourists to Stopover complete, and now they wait for the next parts of their journeys. I deorbited the lifter core as steeply as I could, but it didn't explode until it hit the ground... no re-entry damage I could see. Got some nice atmospheric effects, though.

A double-probe mission, finished rescuing Jebford, and designed and launched a Mystery Mission. This little probe is so massively overkill for doing a pair of satellite contracts... I was already part of the way out to the higher one (further out than Mun) by the time the final circularisation stage ran out. And even then, there's a lot of delta-v in what remained. Trying to cram in a landing on top of everything else is what messed up Jebford's previous rescue and left him in LMO, or perhaps it was not judging the delta-v budget correctly. So, this one just picked him up from orbit and went home. A safe return netted me a bunch of science, too. I could get some of the cheaper nodes, but I'm not sure what I want. I'm short a little of Field Science, which is probably what I want to go for. What is this mysterious egg? It contains Jebadiah Kerman and masses 10t from the Terrier up. It's overkill for its mission profile, too, and was lifted on a slightly overkill lifter. But, well, the space program has a large cash reserve, so it's fine.