Concentric

Started using fairings, forgot a couple of instruments, and ran out of fuel. The above probe-capsule combo was intended to first take a scientist to Stopover to get them on SixFerry to head to Minmus, and then to take the empty capsule for a Mun rescue mission. I wanted it to dock with the rescuee at MunRod to refuel, get some readings with the probe portion, and take the rescuee home. However... the rescuee's orbit was in the opposite direction to MunRod, and I knew this didn't have enough to do that job. I still sent the scientist to Minmus, though. Tamrie was selected, and went off to Minmus with four tourists in SixFerry. The plan is to be just about suborbital when entering Minmus SoI, then adjust periapse so that getting orbit will lead to docking with the Minmus Lander in reasonably short order. Shortly after her departure burns, the new rescue ship encountered the Mun. I wanted this one to pick up Jebford and take some thermal readings at Mun, before heading directly home. Jebford happened to be in a Mobile Lab, so I may look into researching the grabber to avoid having to put one up myself just yet. Perhaps I'll send it to Minmus orbit, that shouldn't be too bad. As for the thermal readings, they were all quite low down and close-ish to the south pole, and two of them were landed in the highlands. Jebford also got what science he could, and planted a flag for a contract at the second landing site. The first time I attempted to do this, the lander fell over and I couldn't get it back up. So, I quickloaded... all the way back to before Tamrie's departure. So, of course, I redid it, making sure to quicksave more regularly and also to touch down softly, then wrestle to stay upright. Unfortunately, I ran out of fuel after picking up the final reading in space and making a shot at escaping. This looks a bit far for a get-out-and-push to be worth the bother... so I guess its another rescue mission for Jebford.

That's precisely what Kerik is saying: it would be more efficient to go to Eve with a separate mission to the one going to Duna. However, if the return and mission stages for each location can detach and get orbit during the flyby of the rest of the ship, it seems plausible that it might be more efficient to send the single, splitting mission than two entirely separate ones. It would, of course, require calculation and/or testing.

More shuttling, lots of docking, and the triumphant returns of Minmus tourists and my Mun Flag-planter. First, Tamrie deorbited in MicroShuttle D. Slightly overshot KSC, so I turned around, fired the remaining fuel and came back to the runway in the other direction. A bracingly direct landing, flaring the flaps for airbraking, and doing some swooping to bleed off speed. What a great first impression Tamrie got from that flight... I designed a larger, two-man shuttle, and a lifter for it. The lifter initially made it to orbit with over 100 LF remaining, so I added a FL-T400, Terrier and decoupler to the end, so it can fulfill a couple of satellite contracts (a ~3000km over Kerbin one, and a Mun equatorial one). The boosters are attached to drop-tanks, which are used as spacers, and attached to the inline cockpit, which is a reasonable reshuffle of their locations, I think. Also, now that I've scraped together the science for a proper retractable landing gear for planes, there's no longer a need for a spacer between the shuttle and the core. Lifter ran out while circularising, so I decoupled the shuttles with their engines firing. They flew together and touched, flying side-by-side until the periapse was high enough that I cut the engines. Quickly switched to the other and cut its engines too, because they were starting to glow for some reason. That actually started during the circularisation burn, now that I think about it. Also, proof that solar panels work through the closed doors of a service bay. Then, I switched back to the probe, decoupled it, and raised its apoapse to the appropriate height, letting the lifter fall back to Kerbin. PairShuttleA docked with Stopover first, as it was lower, so its maneuvers were closer. In the mean time, I got the probe to its designated high Kerbin orbit, then set up its encounter with Mun, to enter in the correct direction. SixFerry aerobraked after returning from Minmus. The aerobrake was just before a maneuver from PairShuttleB, and then I just used SixFerry's engines to set up its docking with Stopover. The final close intercepts with Stopover for both SixFerry and PairShuttleB were very close together - in fact, just as SixFerry was finishing docking, I saw PairShuttleB fly past in the background of my screen, at about 150m distance. I switched with the bracket key and docked. A little fuel transfer finally emptied a set of tanks that were sent up to refuel Stopover and just stayed attached to the descent pod ever since. I got rid of them, then moved the tourists about. Four tourists are now in the shuttles awaiting their descent, and four more are in SixFerry, waiting for a scientist to arrive and take them to Minmus. They'll mostly get momentary suborbital runs, but the scientist is going to take some readings and plant a flag. Also, I realised that Dannand had already drained MunRod's transfer stage to the point that I had previously said would be the trigger for his return home. Whoops. So, he got in his capsule, escaped, lowered periapse into Kerbin's atmosphere and decoupled from the tank. The safe landing brought home over 400 science points, which I promptly spent. Now I have extendable solar panels, the Skipper, circular intakes, and extendable ladders. Also, the mobile lab, so I can try the new functionality of that out.

Another Mun Flag mission, this time being somewhat more efficient with Dannand's descent. Dannand landed in the East Crater, this time. This rescue mission is becoming rather prolonged... probably because he's sticking around until there's less than 90 fuel in the transfer stage for his return. He only lands when I need him to plant a flag, too... but at least he's picking up science from each new location. Tried something rather ludicrous, looking at my current expenditures for rescue missions. The above was eventually made into something that worked, successfully getting the little shuttle to orbit... but the expense was too much, even with the recovery value of the shuttle taken into account. It turns out that of my currently developed 1.02 solutions to one-man rescue missions, and perhaps even multi-man rescue missions, sending up a pair of shuttles is my most cost-effective option. I removed the probe from the previous shuttle lifter and added more fuel. After a test launch began to lose control authority, I added an additional AIS, too. The current version of the lifter runs dry when suborbital, but coasts out of the atmosphere. The two shuttles are staged off in the high atmosphere once the fuel of the lifter is out, and I raise the apoapse and periapse of one a little. This allows me to switch to the other, circularise at its apoapse, and still have time to switch back and circularise the first at its new apoapse. Once the shuttles were in orbit, I set up maneuvers for rescue missions and decided to watch the empty lifter stage fall. The nose-cones on the spacing girders nearly overheated, as did the probe core. I used the shuttle from Stopover and one of the two I'd just sent up to perform two rescue contracts, and set up a maneuver for another with the last shuttle. Because of all the tourist contracts I've yet to complete (on their way back from Minmus, or waiting at Stopover to go to Minmus), I can no longer receive new contracts until I complete some, despite having a fully upgraded Mission Control. So, of course, two-man shuttles are not yet needed. However, when SixFerry gets back to Stopover with its tourist crew, I'll probably look at sending up a pair of two-man shuttles, and see if that'd be cheaper by the head than my other options for returning four tourists. First, though, I'll need to develop those higher-capacity shuttles.

Several things over the last few days. First, I picked up a rescuee, Dannand, and put him in MunRod, then sent it to Mun orbit. That took a few orbits to do the transfer, as the thrust was very low for the size. Once MunRod's auxillary tanks were empty in Mun orbit, they were decoupled from the station. The Mun Lander docked with MunRod, and Dannand landed on Mun, did some science, and planted a flag. MunRod and Dannand have thus far completed a Mun Orbital Station contract, a Plant Flag on Mun contract, a Land on Mun contract, and a Science from Mun Surface contract. Dannand will remain aboard MunRod, landing to plant flags and take readings, until he has used up a majority of the fuel left in the transfer stage, at which point he will leave the fully-fueled station behind, and return home with the capsule on the transfer stage, finally completing his rescue mission. I also tried my hand at creating a one-man microshuttle. Unfortunately, I currently have to launch it as part of a pair. I attempted to put up a probe at the same time, but it lacked the delta-v to change orbits to the contracted orbit (a later probe was sent to complete the job), and the fuel of the lifter ran out suborbitally. I decoupled the shuttles, and they managed to finish circularising while unfocused. One contained an orbit tourist, and the other was empty. The tourist was flown home by the probe core in the service bay, landing on the runway properly. The microshuttle is nice, and has air-brake functionality through deploying flaps (and inverted flaps), but it's probably not the most cost-effective method for orbit. I'll develop a bigger shuttle, I think, to manage crewing Stopover, at least until I get turboramjets and can try for a spaceplane. The empty shuttle flew to Stopover and docked. I later redocked my monopropellant tug between the shuttle and the station, and did some shuffling. Stopover's monopropellant tanks were running dry, and I had a couple of rescue missions, so I sent up a retrieval/fueling mission. Carrying 510 units of monopropellant, with capacity for two rescuees, and parachutes for the descent, the monopropellant-fueler was a little heavy, and it took me a while to work out a lifter for it. One design had a sudden failure of two of its boosters, but still managed to fly up until it ran out of fuel, still apoapse in atmosphere. The lifter I eventually went with is rather overpowered, but it worked. Once I docked with Stopover, I accidentally staged off a descent pod, so I had the rescuees EVA over to it and use it for their descent instead, leaving the monopropellant-fueler docked. Finally, I scared Jebadiah Kerman. Apparently, not even he can smile when surviving a jet crash into Kraken's Peril. He got out and did the EVA report and surface sample for the visual surveys contract, then was recovered so he could fly again, this time to get a flight-below crew report to complete that contract. I guess I'm not yet up to landing planes in the mountains...

A retrograde launch, a total orbital reversal, preparation for an orbital rescue, testing of my most recent descent pod, and putting a small station and transfer stage in LKO to go to the Mun. I took a pair of orbital tourists up on the launch of a satellite, which was intended to fulfill two contracts. One was retrograde at over a million metres altitude, and the other was prograde, reasonably low, but with periapse over 150km lower than apoapse. So, I went for the retrograde one first, releasing the descent pod after circularising at 70km, deorbiting it, and switching back to raise apoapse. Once the first satellite contract was fulfilled, it was time to burn for the other. Total orbital reversal was performed above the ascending node, twisting the orbit about until the periapse was roughly at the point of intersection. There wasn't enough fuel left over to deorbit, not that the satellite has a parachute. MunRod Station will fulfill a Mun Station contract, with power generation and five Kerbals. The two-man tug from Stopover Station will pick up a rescuee and deliver them to MunRod in LKO, where they will transfer to the sixth capsule, attached to the transfer stage. Then MunRod will go to orbit Mun, and the Mun lander will dock with it to take the rescuee to plant a flag for a contract. After, the rescuee will return with the transfer stage's remaining fuel, and land back on Kerbin with the attached parachute (in the decoupler). MunRod is long, and an inconvenient payload for a conventional lifter, as I found out through repeated attempts. The lifter I used in the end was almost entirely radial to the payload, and fed liquid fuel inwards to the final stage. Even so, I needed to burn more than an FL-T800 of fuel with the transfer stage to get orbit. So I needed to refill it, and also replenish 60 units of monopropellant (taken out to get under 140t launch mass). Lifting this filler was not difficult. I also grabbed some science around KSC, landing on the VAB, tracking hub, and Mission Control with a little jet-powered lander armed with all the science equipment I have so far. This got me enough to get Propulsion Systems, and thus the Spark and Ant. The two Sparks I have on my landers in use were experimental, but now I am in a slightly better position. The next generation of descent pod is likely to be LFO-Ant powered, with an Oscar-B, to take advantage of the greater ISP. If I recall correctly, if you have a Kerbal on the surface of something, for example in a base, you won't get a Plant Flag contract until they are no longer on the surface. This was a change immediately after Contracts were introduced, to remove an exploit. I don't know if Kerbals on ladders count, though they of course should, for some science purposes, they are considered "in flight/space over" the location.

That's what people have brought up an "acceleration ms-2" option for. Just divide the delta-v by the acceleration and you get roughly the length in seconds of the burn. I recently went about doing this manually for a ship: I calculated the post-burn mass from the delta-v, ISP and initial mass, then took the (geometric) mean of the initial and final masses, multiplied by delta-v and divided by total thrust, and ended up with a closer estimate for the burn length than the manuever node gave (once I began to fire). I think those might just use the initial mass, rather than the mean of the masses.

Managed to use a Mun slingshot to reduce the cost of getting to Minmus with the Minmus Flyby Tourist Team aboard SixFerry, then put the Minmus lander into orbit. I got a Minmus Temperature Scan contract, too, and I used most of the remaining fuel in the transfer stage (less than .05t of fuel left now) to push the lander so it passed over the various locations. The requirements were all for above certain altitudes, so it's fine to take the reading at 50-100km. Spent a load of money on the first SPH upgrade, then later realised I was tired of having limits on the number of missions I could take, when that caused me to miss a "rescue from Mun orbit" contract. So I needed a little quick cash to upgrade Mission Control again. The two-man tug set off from Stopover Station, gathered a pair of orbital rescuees, then returned them to the station. They used a descent pod, so I needed to put another up. The probe core of the pod actually suffered a little heating, despite being at the back, but it didn't overheat. While I was at it, I decided to send up some fuel with a new, cheaper fueler. While it uses primarily lower-tech parts, this rocket is cheaper and more effective (bringing a greater unused fuel quantity) than my previous fueler. It still needs to drain a touch from the four radial payload tanks, but that adds up to less than an FL-T100, and a descent pod was brought up, too. I think drag-reduction has helped it, mostly, though I guess it could also bring some Monopropellant up. The new pod is higher-tech and lighter than the old one, but it's still two capsules, a 'chute and a probe core at heart. I also managed to scrape together enough science and funding to get the Aviation node and buy its parts, so with my midrange SPH and runway, I put together a cheap little plane to fly to the Island Runway. Lots of high-G turns, looking at the speeds reached, and a bit of a botched landing... on the first pass I was too high, so dived, then was too fast and accidentally took off again. Turned around, bled off speed... and smashed off the engine on touchdown. Whoops. So Jeb was recovered from the Island, rather than flying back to the KSC runway.

No, in that case angle of attack would be increasing, not decreasing. Sometimes, if you don't have overwhelming torque, or possibly it's an issue of wing placement, the nose will drift downwards over time, until the plane is in a full dive and getting far more lift toward the front. This sometimes happened in the old aero model (I haven't got around to planes in new aero yet, but it seems to be what is being described).

Decided to send my landers on without filling their monopropellant tanks. So, Natatrice came home: Parachutes that are inside a service bay can't be deployed unless the bay is open, and if you shut the bay before the parachute comes out at its deployment pressure, then although it visually deploys, it has no effect. I actually opened the bay and left it open for Natatrice, and only learned the latter part later in empty tests. If the actual highlighting part of the 'chute is outside of the bay (even if it was placed within the bay), then it deploys normally, and I think also counts drag normally before deploying. SixFerry picked up all five tourists that wanted to visit the Mun as part of their trip, and set off while the landers were separating at the Mun. The Mun lander was left in orbit around the Mun, and the Minmus lander and transfer stage escaped retrograde to burn at Kerbin periapse for a Minmus intercept. Monopropellant had been transferred from the Mun lander to fill the Minmus lander's tank. One of the tourists wanted a suborbital flight at the Mun, so he was transferred to the lander, which burned to briefly go suborbital, then turned around and burned to redock. The Mun lander was filled from SixFerry's tanks, and SixFerry set off to return to Stopover Station in LKO. Now, I had accepted a contract to put up a Mun station, carrying five kerbals, with no fuel requirement, before launching SixFerry. As such, SixFerry satisfied all the requirements, even though it was only there temporarily. I used the extra contract slot to get a rescue contract, and put up a two-man monopropellant tug-shuttle. It grabbed the rescuee and took them to the station, refuelling from the station's tanks, and SixFerry redocked. One of the tourists had now completed her itinerary, so she and the rescuee got in the first descent pod and returned home. All told, a great success. Next, four tourists on Stopover need only a Minmus flyby to be satisfied, so they'll be getting that in SixFerry and returning home with the other two descent pods.

Hm. That's much, much, much more drag than I thought... perhaps removing a few struts from my most recent lifter (or its payload) will get higher-drag payloads to orbit without using the payload tank. Also, I like the RapierSpike and its accompanying plane, good job on that build.

Ran into the problem of drag. I built a lifter massing almost exactly 122.5t that lifts a 17.5t test payload to a 100km circular orbit. But, as the test payload was so much more streamlined and aerodynamic than my actual 17.5t payload... I had to burn from the payload's tank. But first: Natatrice docked the Fueler to Stopover Station and refilled its tank. I also have a pair of empty landers in LKO, one for Mun and one for Minmus, so I'm deciding whether or not to dock them to the station before sending them on their way. If they're going out without docking, Natatrice will return first, otherwise she'll wait to refill their monopropellant tanks. The test payload consists of an X200-32, with 90% liquid fuel and 100% oxidiser, an Okto, some batteries, and an AIS. This adds up to 17.5t. I guess that from the low remaining fuel and how my later, less-aerodynamic launch went, it's probably better dealing with smaller loads than the test payload. But if I ever need to put up most of an X200-32, I've got a lifter for it now. The launch is straightforward. Starting with a little tilt eastwards, the seven Reliants and six Hammers fire. The Hammers run out and drop, and a few thousand metres later, so do the drop tanks. The central Reliant feeds from the radial tanks, too, and when those fall, the four outer Swivels fire. This burns off two of the control fins, but that's fine, as we have the gimballing of the Swivels. The core feeds the asparagused Swivels, and when it drops the central Swivel fires, then the radial Swivels drop in pairs. Unfortunately, the above FerrySix ship can't say the same of success. Despite massing the same, its vastly less aerodynamic shape and other drag-increasing qualities meant that it needed to burn with its Terriers to get orbit. Oh well. It needs to pick up its tourists from Stopover anyway, so I guess I'll just refuel it there. Even if it was inefficient, it'd be less efficient now to send up the lighter, lower capacity, more streamlined FerryFour now that FerrySix is in orbit. Once I have considerably more money, perhaps I'll look into updating things up there. That might be after a Launchpad upgrade, though...

Brought Jeb and his tourists home, bringing in enough cash and science to get Miniaturisation and Fuel Systems, then upgrade the R&D for resource transfers and surface samples. Next, I got some of the KSC science, particularly the crawlerway and runway, so I could get the RCS node. That's enough for a basic spacestation. Didn't take a picture when passing Mun, but I made good use of the Warp To feature. On reentry, the capsule and Hitchhiker were fine, some of the solar panels glowed a little, and two of the batteries exploded, but it worked out okay. Ran a test of a descent pod - I took my previous drop-pod, filled the capsules' monopropellant tanks and fitted a linear RCS thruster and a probe core. After putting it in a 100km circular orbit, I used the RCS to deorbit the capsule: half of the fuel sufficed to get periapse below 51km. These will be used to bring tourists and other astronauts down from the station to the ground. I had a launch site test contract for the Skipper, so I built my lifter for Stopover Station with it. I had to send the station up empty to get under the weight limit... but I did fill it with all my tourists. Three descent pods and a normal capacity of five kerbals, 250 monoprop and an X200-32 should be a reasonable early station. After, a contract for putting up a five-man station appeared, but it needed more fuel, and I'd just put one up, so I didn't take it. Speaking of fuel, I sent up a fueler to top up the station. It'll be a while before it docks, though. The fueler just barely squeaks under the 140t limit, and launches a little oddly. First, the seven Swivels at the bottom fire, along with the six 80%-filled Fleas affixed below the drop tanks. Once the Fleas run out, or are about to, the Hammers at the top fire, to pull the rocket to a speed and altitude that it can keep with liquid fuel alone. The Hammers decouple, then the drop tanks run out and drop next. The seven Swivels all run out of fuel at the same time as each other, so the five-Swivel asparagus stage kicks in then, but doesn't quite get the fueler to orbit. So, it burns from the transport tank a little. Fortunately, with the fuel leftover from the ascent of the station, there should be enough to fill it and deorbit the fueler. The service bay contains RCS tanks and a parachute for the pilot's descent and the docking procedure. I also had a launch site test for the Spark, so I tweaked one of the ones on these two landers to disable its thrust, and fired it with the launch stage. At the nose is a capsule for a rescue mission, with RCS thrusters for the deorbit, and in the middle is a transfer stage to ferry landers between stopover and the moons. These should take care of some of the space tourists, and possibly other jobs at those locations.

Not just today, but in the past few days, I found I had a little time opening up, and then found that KSP had updated into release. So of course, I updated, and started a new Moderate career, to get back into the swing of things. Alt-speed-dist records, suborbital flight, orbit, launchpad, astronaut complex, mission control and VAB upgrades, I'm sure we all know the drill by now. I've been trying to cram space tourism contracts in with my other missions, too. I developed a simple two-man drop-pod that gets down from orbit safely with no power whatsoever, if released on a decaying trajectory. I had a set of test contracts, and combined them with a pair of space-tourism ones as follows: Test the TR-2V suborbitally at 80-94km, the TR-2C orbitally at the same, and the Rockomax decoupler on an escape trajectory. When combined with my drop-pod, a pair of suborbital tourists, and a probe core for control, I could detach the tourists when I tested the TR-2V before circularising, then run the other tests and burn the escape before the tourists re-entered the atmosphere. The drop-pod also came in handy when combining tourist and rescue missions - or just performing two rescue missions at once. In the above case, I hadn't fit any solar panels to the ship, so I had to carefully turn things off and on again, and there still wasn't quite enough fuel to deorbit... but Lagerselle could use what was left in her pack to put the periapse below 60km, and then get back in before detaching from the probe. I also built a rather silly looking 139t (14t of that payload) rocket to get this little number up to space. I'd gathered enough space-tourist contracts that I had four that all wanted Mun-Minmus flybys, so after a quick empty parachute test, Jeb took them off to see the sights. The plan is to use the Mun to reduce the speed with which they'll enter the atmosphere, reducing the risks of reentry. I don't have a picture of the rocket in full, but I lack the 2.5m tanks at this time. There was a cluster of four Swivels with a couple of FL-T400s each, above a six T400 stack with a Swivel, and attached with radial decouplers, six stacks of four T400s with Swivels themselves. This didn't get enough thrust, and was close to the borderline - three Thumper boosters would be too much. So I strapped two to the sides of the payload with more radial decouplers, and they got enough speed on launch that when they ran out, the Swivels could take over. Finally, I did a little messing around and learned something about the damage caused by the RT-5 Flea. Unlike the RT-10 Hammer, if you put a Flea either side of an Okto, attached with their engines pointing in, the Okto will not be directly harmed. In fact, one of the Fleas (which, mind, have higher temperature tolerance than an Okto) will explode, and the other will shoot off, carrying the Okto with it. A little after the fuel runs out, heat conducted away from the Flea will finally do the Okto in, leaving a cooling, uncontrolled, empty Flea on a ballistic trajectory. If you try this with Hammers, the Okto will explode almost instantly, and both Hammers will fly away (or thrust into the ground aimlessly).

Tested a payload-carrying RATO spaceplane, used it to finish a survey contract and complete a satellite contract, and put Seanski on his return trajectory, with a periapse of 25km. Haven't named this one, either, but it needs a little work, still. The jet engines come on and rev up, then the RT-10s ignite as the launch clamps release. These get the plane climbing immediately, without the need of the runway, so I can use more parts than my SPH allows. It's a rather straightforward flight to orbit, and Engineer Nelton got it to a ~90km circular, though I think I wouldn't like him to fly it without the Okto's stability assistance. Those fins on the payload satellite ensure that the CoL is in the same location relative to the CoM with or without the payload attached, which is nice. It was at this moment that I realised that the target orbit for the satellite went around the other way. My quicksave in orbit (and quickload to same) had removed the ability to revert the flight, so I decided to go ahead and salvage it. First, I disabled access to 55 units of the plane's oxidiser, then burned prograde until the rest of the plane's oxidiser was used. Those 55 units would be reserved for deorbiting the plane to go to the survey locations and land. Next, I detached the payload, and had it raise its apoapse to half-way between the target periapse and apoapse. Then, a burn retrograde until that became prograde, reversing the orbit and bringing the periapse to 1Mm. A prograde burn with some radial components put the periapse in about the right place, and a burn at the descending node fine tuned that and matched inclination. Finally, I made a burn at periapse to get the target orbit, and there was still a bit of fuel left over. After the first burn of the payload satellite, I worked out some timings. Using a Keostationary satellite I put up for another contract a while ago, I determined how many orbits it would take to bring the survey locations almost exactly under the plane's periapse, and from there how long before I wanted to deorbit. I also checked the times of the burns for the satellite and Seanski. It turned out that the satellite would perform its reverse, then about an hour later was Seanski's escape from Mun SoI (and thus his burn), then an hour and a half before Nelton's deorbit in the plane, and about another hour after his landing was the satellite's inclination burn. Burning the last of the fuel brought the periapse just under 190km, so it was clear that Seanski would have to use the miraculously-refilling EVA pack, get out, and push. I determined that it was probably easiest to push from the bottom of the capsule, so one long shove later his periapse was down below 55km - I left 0.25 units to get back in. Now, that'd work, but it would take several passes, so I got Seanski out to push again. I don't know the exact point, but there is a particular height of periapse where the camera angle of a Kerbal on EVA changes. It's somewhere between 20 and 50km, I know that much. Every time Seanksi's periapse crossed this mystery point, the camera turned 90 degrees, changing the "downward" direction between radial in (below) and antinormal (above). This was rather irritating when adjusting the periapse to roughly 25km, and when subsequently trying to get back in, but I managed. This trajectory should bring Seanski home without any additional passes, I think, and that'll be about a Kerbin day away. Finally, Nelton's flight back. I used all the reserved oxidiser to deorbit with the 30km periapse roughly at the survey locations, which were both >18km on pretty much the opposite side of Kerbin to KSC. In fact, these were the two left over from the mission I sent my VTOL on. Making use of the wings and drag to adjust course, I got the westernmost survey location first, then fired up the jets to fly to the other one, climbing back over 18km altitude in time to get that too. Next, I cut throttle, quicksaved, and glided down to the grasslands below. Deceleration and low speed, low altitude behaviour was horrible, uncontrolled loops, spins and sudden lifts all over the place, but fortunately Nelton had parachutes to make the landing easier. This still wasn't great, but I guess it's because I never checked against the dry CoM when I adjusted the wings. Perhaps there was a bit much lift, too. However, Nelton did eventually land safely, and was recovered - and the combined rewards from the contracts brought my funds to 1038k, finally enough to upgrade my R&D centre to level 2. With 790 science and all <100 science nodes unlocked, this is an important step for the space program, even if it makes me near-broke.

2708. With each update since 0.24, I've copied my KSP folder elsewhere and cleared both saves and screenshots from the Steam folder. So, I can give the breakdown across versions: 1416 in 0.23 and 0.23.5 combined, 848 in 0.24, 236 in 0.25, and 118 in 0.90. There's a reason my "What did you do today" posts tend to be so screenshot-heavy.

Continued with the MunTherm Mission, and took my VTOL out for a spin for a survey contract. Running low on fuel is today's theme for me. First, I made a delta-v calculation: only 2km/s didn't seem to be enough to grab all of the readings and reports needed... in fact, making a second landing was looking to be out of reach. So, Seanski took off and made to grab all the orbital reports and readings there were. One of the thermometer readings was an "above x m", and I thought I'd get it in the same pass as a similar report, but Seanski was too high up for the thermometer to work. He grabbed it in the second pass, eventually getting all of them. However, there was now only 367m/s left in the ship, and it was on a highly inclined orbit that wasn't well suited to returning home. I spent 98m/s on escape, then set up a maneuver in high Kerbin orbit to bring the periapse into the atmosphere. That's four hours away, and is going to involve a little of the old "get out and push". While I waited, Mitzer took the still-unnamed VTOL to try to perform a Kerbin Survey contract. The targets were a landed Alpha and Beta, and three "in flight above ~18km" reports. Fuel was looking pretty low... at about half-way to Handred's Tract, cruising at 21km with two out of three rear engines running, fuel was already half down, so collecting all the reports was probably not in the cards. After checking fuel again as I arrived, I decided that with a little gliding, it should be possible to make the landings after the Tract report. This turned out to be the case, and low-speed behaviour was excellent, even when gliding as slowly as 30m/s. Mitzer made both horizontal and vertical landings at the Alpha and Beta sites respectively, made the reports and was recovered with five units of liquid fuel remaining. I didn't take pictures of the landed plane... So, it seems that my next survey plane will need more fuel, as, I think, will my next Mun lander. I suppose you need to consider this sort of thing when deciding to hit multiple distant survey locations.

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Built a VTOL jet, and worked on the Mun contracts with Seanski in MunTherm. This was my second attempt at making a VTOL. The first one was serial, with the vertical engines at the front and back. Not only did it look goofy, it spun out of control and was difficult to make hover. The offset tool has been rather helpful getting the CoT the right side of the CoM, and disabling the thrust of the rear jets while constructing allowed me to get things in line properly. A good bit of the modification was done in the VAB, once the majority of the structure was there - particularly setting up the action groups. Hopefully, the dry CoM won't be too far forward, but I haven't tested that. Clipped within are two Z-200 batteries, and an Okto in the bottom - girders gave me a good way to lower the CoM, attach torque and orient the probe core. Seanski used the remains of the transfer stage to adjust orbits and get a couple of temperature readings for one contract, then missed the altitude window for the third of that one. I decided it would be better to move for a landing at this point, as the lander was now separated and operating under its own power, so I sent it to Zone Q303. I landed, got the Beta reading, took some reports and planted a flag. Then, I made a couple of hops. A couple more temperature readings and I've completed the Zone Q303 contract. Some of the needed readings and reports lie on the same Great Circle as the current site, so it should be possible to grab a few in series before looking for the next landing - I'm not entirely certain how many landings this lander can do and still get home... and there's still a few to do here.

Mostly messing about. Got the two satellites into their positions (the allowed deviation was higher than I expected), put Seanski into Mun orbit and tested the LV-1R there, rescued an orbiting engineer and fiddled with a spaceplane design. Also, found out that the Jet Set Radio's low-speed behaviour is completely unworkable, so it can only parachute-land - so I recovered the one with Jeb in it, as he can't repack the parachutes. I guess I'll need to make a new plane that can land normally, or perhaps includes ladders and an Okto. The unupgraded runway is so uneven that I don't really see the point launching planes off it. Also, using the VAB allows me to overcome the 30-part limit and lack of action groups in my unupgraded SPH. Thus, boosters and launch clamps. This spaceplane design actually got orbit, which was a bit of a surprise. I didn't test its landing abilities, however, and it was really quite expensive. Perhaps the fuel cost is low, but seeing as I'm unsure that I could land it intact - let alone on the runway/launchpad - I decided to go with a disposable rescue launch. I grabbed a cheap early orbiter, added a little extra fuel for rendezvous and stuck on an Okto, some batteries and some solar panels. I tested its landing ability, of course - the parachute set it down intact on the legs when landing on solid ground in the test, but it was too fast for the water landing that followed the actual rescue. Whoops. Fortunately, the rescuee and probe core survived, so that's something. Finally, Seanski is now in Mun orbit with a reasonable amount of fuel left on his transfer stage. I'll use that to get as many of the non-landed survey reports and temperature readings as I can - no need to waste it, after all.

A few things. First, a launch of a Mun thermometer mission: Using an experimental LFB, and reducing mass by only part-filling the X200-32 tank, I built this lifter that just about fit under the 140t launch limit. Unfortunately, I don't think my launchpad is strong enough to fulfill that particular test contract at this time - because it's a Landed on Mun test. But it does mean I have access to the LFB before my R&D complex can research it, which is nice. Attached are a pair of satellites to go to specific Kerbin orbits, though they are a little overkill in their available delta-v. I also forgot to balance the decoupler from the other side of the probe, which made moving them a little awkward. The target orbits were slightly different, and I could probably have managed to fulfill both with a single probe, but I decided not to. I haven't finished actually putting them into their orbits, but I have the maneuvers lined up. Seanski also did his burn to get a Mun intercept, and the plan is for him to run the LV-1R test, then perform several landings and temperature readings to clear out my Mun Survey contracts. In the mean time, as there was an hour between the last low-orbit burn of the satellites and the first high-orbit one, I decided to make a Kerbin survey run. A little over the other side of the North Pole is Zone C-2GOF, and Ludman's Descent. I had a crew report to get below 17500m at C-2GOF, then a surface EVA at Ludman's Descent Alpha and Beta. Not sure whether I could have managed just with the Jet Set Radio, but I put Jeb in the Jet Set Radio P-Drop-type, taking off from the launchpad, facing North. There was a moment the wheels touched back down, but Jeb was in the air and climbing before encountering the runway, so all was well. Over the ice caps, the drop tanks ran dry, so I jettisoned them. Had to tip down a little further to cruise due to the lost weight, but things continued well enough. I reached the zone, took the report, then turned around to make a landing at Ludman's Descent. Had a little trouble at low altitude and speed, so I made a parachute landing a little north of the Alpha site, then taxied my way to the target locations for the surface report. Jeb stood on the plane wing to take those down, then got back in to taxi to the next one. Jeb will wait there for a little while, perhaps until there is a survey contract in the vicinity, as I'm unsure that he has the fuel to make the flight back. Horizontal, non-parachute landings also need a little testing with this one, I think. The next thing to do, of course, is finish putting the satellites into their respective target orbits, and then for Seanski to do his job over at the Mun.

Attempted to clear a few Mun contracts before an interesting Minmus one expired, but unfortunately timewarped too far, missing the burn for Mun orbit, and thus leaving not enough time to do it. I tried to salvage the mission by leaving Kerbin's SoI for a short time, then swinging back around to Mun, but I had a minor incident with a re-entry I was running at the same time, so reloaded from last quicksave... which happened to be that unmanned mission where I misread the contract. I decided to bite the bullet and make the upgrade to Mission Control rather than saving up for R&D. With the time pressure off, I re-ran the re-entry. Jeb took off from Mun's surface (flag planting missions weren't turning up), grabbed a survey crew report on his way out, and returned home safely - this time without cutting the parachute with his engines unsurvivably far above the ocean. The survey had a few surface EVA reports in one area, and a crew report below 9700m at a different point over the equator, which was perfect for Jeb as he'd made an equatorial landing. Finally, I messed about with survey planes, and an attempt at a spaceplane that didn't really get anywhere. The unupgraded runway is very uneven - not the sort of thing I like to take off from. Extremely Short Takeoff planes like the Jet Set Radio, on the other hand, need no more runway than the launchpad provides. Thus, I added a pair of droptanks using fuel lines to feed the rest of the plane, bringing the Jet Set Radio D-type to 36 parts, which is too many for my unupgraded spaceplane hangar to field. Instead, it's saved in the VAB, pointing north, and can launch horizontally off the pad. I have a survey contract just the other side of the North Pole, due north until it becomes due south. Those six separatrons lift it into the air instantly, and the jet takes over without the plane touching down, just about. It gets well clear of the runway, though I wouldn't like to try and launch it facing west.

Launched the new Polaris30 version into polar orbit, having more than enough leftover fuel to change it to another polar orbit and complete two satellite contracts. I also performed some parts tests for science, put up a small orbiting thermometer satellite, and eventually nudged the imbalanced, SAS-less keostationary probe into the required orbit for its contract. I had enough science then to research jet engines, so I put together a plane. 30 parts, no landing gear. I called it the Jet Set Radio, and it used six separatrons for a rocket-assisted takeoff. It parachute-lands, too, just to be safe. I flew it north to get the closer survey marks (two above (17500, 16100), one below 16900), and then tried to fly it across the ocean to Kerbin's Reach and get the three upper atmosphere ones around it before landing there. Unfortunately, I ran out of fuel shortly after crossing the ocean and getting the one above the Tranquility. It did give me the science to get landing gear, though. The next Jet Set Radio had half-again as much fuel, and three gear bays replacing the four skids. This one got the remaining two upper atmosphere surveys, then parachute-landed at the Reach for the surface EVA report. It might be able to land horizontally, too, but I didn't try it. Finally, I accepted a bunch of contracts, then had to clear some out in time to pick up other ones that looked neat - but I misread one. It was a Mun orbit test, not a Kerbin orbit test for the LV-1R. No wonder it had a high reward... So, next up, I'll be sending a Mun mission to clear some contracts before a particularly interesting-looking contract expires.

Returned Jeb safely after a series of aerobrakes (previously in my career...), and rediscovered to my pain that the radial parachute is massless, despite claiming to have the same mass as the Goo canister. However, through the wonders of makeshift gyroscopic stabilisation (read: spinning the probe really, really fast) and a low throttle, I managed to get the satellite almost up to its target orbit. I have its apoapse at the target orbit and the periapse a bit below, so I just need to wait until it's over the required location and circularise. Then I saw a few really neat contracts: 24-77, ant engine and TR-2V orbital tests, and a KD25k SRB suborbital one. Seeing as my launchpad can handle 140t, these experimental parts gave me the power to shoot for the Mun in 30 parts. So, I slapped together a Mun lander and transfer stage, sticking them atop a five SRB cluster. The central SRB ran out at the above location after apoapse - the first pair were on 64%, the second pair (with reaction wheels) on 32% and the central one on 16% thrust. I activated the central SRB manually just after launch, staging it only when the time came for the test. The decoupler between SRB and transfer stage stayed with the transfer stage, and I activated that and the 24-77s manually too. Then I burned to orbit at the right height for almost all the orbital tests, performed them, and immediately burned for Mun intercept. I realised later that I had missed the ant engine test's orbit height range. No patched conics, but I was confident I could do it - it's been a while, but Mun missions aren't difficult to do mapless if you can work out your apoapse from your speed. Or make a note of the required speed. In this case, there was no need to do those, as I had the apoapse, just not intercepts. I then noticed I had very nearly enough money to upgrade my tracking station and get those patched conics anyway... but a good chunk of that came from the parts tests I had run on this very mission. One transmission contract later, and I had enough. It turned out that my trajectory would collide with the Mun's surface, but it was no trouble to move that a bit and get a nice path. I got orbit, lowered it, took a few reports and transmitted one for the contract, then moved to land in the East Farside crater. Jeb got out and made an EVA report from the surface, then rolled the ship into a better position and got back in to transmit a landed crew report. I looked for flag-plant missions, but there didn't seem to be any. Jeb planted a flag anyway. With science from those transmissions, I could now get fuel lines and the Okto core - which has SAS. Combined with the fact that I now have Flight Planning due to the combination of Tracking Station and Mission Control upgrades, I decided to perform a rescue mission, some parts testing, and get Bill and Bob to level 1. The stabiliser was just for a parts test. The rest of the ship was 29 parts, so I could squeeze it in. I tested the BACC and stabiliser landed, the LV-1R pair suborbitally, and the Poodle and LV-1 in orbit. Fuel line technology allowed me to use droptanks to hold the boosters away, and to save on parts I built up spin when I released them - taking them clear of the engine without the use of separatrons. I didn't have General Construction at the time, so no TT-70 radial decouplers were available. Bill and Bob rendezvoused with the orbiting scientist (Seanski?), then deorbited and made a safe water landing. The launch core was also deorbited, as I dropped the periapse back into the atmosphere to decouple it between the Poodle test and going to the rescue. Edit: Oh yes. Got a pleasant surprise in that the rescued Kerbal got 2 KXP because he'd technically been orbiting Kerbin. Finally, I accepted a pair of Polar satellite contracts, putting together the Polaris30 to fulfill them. With fuel lines and the 48-7S, I decided that it might be possible for a sufficiently fueled probe to fulfill both contracts, and a little asparagus could give the lifter the oomph to get the apoapse halfway to the lower periapse height. Polaris30 was a fiddly build, I kept running into the part limit and having to remove critical-seeming things. There was another landed BACC test, too. The version you see above, I actually launched nearly to the orbit, still with plenty of fuel left, before I realised its fatal flaw. Exactly 30 parts... no antenna whatsoever. The only place I could see to remove parts was the solar panels, so the next version (not yet launched) has only three, leaving it with a small blindspot - unfortunate with its lack of battery other than the probe core. So long as I keep the blindspot in mind, it shouldn't be that big of a deal, I guess.

Orbited with a simple orbiter, constructed a cheap disposable suborbital-hop rocket to get data contracts, performed some Goo Science and upgraded a couple of facilities. Afterwards, I did several parts tests and made some headway on placing a Keostationary satellite for a contract. Coming to the end of Kerbin day 1 of my 0.90 career. I don't have an image of the version that actually made orbit with the payload, but here's its immediate predecessor that got suborbital before being reverted. The current version removed the 'chutes from the top of the tanks, and added two more BACC boosters with radial decouplers, keeping the total part count at 30. I'll be saving up to upgrade my VAB next, I think. 30 parts is rather limiting right now. Fortunately, I upgraded my launchpad and mission control, and am running a Fundraiser at 25%, so it shouldn't be too difficult to make money. The big reason for the strange shape was the BACC orbital test, though the LV-T45 orbital test was also a consideration. I built up enough science for the FL-T800 tank because otherwise there was no way to fit enough fuel on to even get suborbital with all this weighty payload. It's funny how not even three tons of payload seems to be rather a lot in early career mode. Jeb (now a level 1 pilot) flew the ship to a 670/70 orbit (leaving 4 LF in the main tanks), ran the tests at the appropriate heights, detached the satellite at periapse and burned the remaining fuel retrograde at apoapse. It'll be a multi-pass return, but he is deorbited. Hopefully, the capsule will survive the reentry, though I doubt the rest will. Only two radial parachutes, both on the capsule, see. The satellite itself has a 'chute to balance the required Goo canister, three solar panels that might not actually provide all-around coverage, the required antenna, a reaction wheel, a Z200 and an LV-909 for propulsion. No SAS units yet, and also no tracking station upgrade, so this flight to the target orbit might be a little awkward.