Concentric

Yes, and in fact that is how I do it. I've also sent a permanent probe satellite to each planetoid I've visited, and this works out just fine. Just take the reading and transmit it again, even though you've transmitted the same data every single time. It's basically a money-printer, and an endless fountain of reputation points, for no additional cost once you've put it there. Getting a report from a rescuee and doing two contracts at once that way is another alternative. As for getting science points from contracts, I've found so far that high-end part tests tend to provide them in abundance. You could probably go without science equipment or reports and complete the tech tree purely by contracts - it's not as though they'll run out. You wouldn't be able to get the "Science from" or "Explore" contracts that way, of course.

Those contracts aren't about science value, only data. Even meaningless data like a previously transmitted crew/EVA report counts, as does a temperature reading that you've recovered/transmitted many times over. So, even if you've got all the science from the target location, you can always complete such contracts.

Some spaceplane messing-about. Built a Turbojet-ion SSTO spaceplane that, once in orbit, has over 6km/s of ionic delta-v. There's also over 50 units of spare liquid fuel, so I think it should be capable of single-stage to Laythe and back. If it doesn't manage, that's fine: there's a Jr docking port to dock a xenon refuel ship to it if need be. After returning this, I added some cubic octagonal struts to prevent the plane from tipping over to the side to any serious degree: if I want to fly it back from a Laythe landing, I need to be roughly level before takeoff. Also, I added ladders by the cockpit, and slid the rear landing gear back a little. The undercarriage of the plane is rather busy, with Z-400s, the landing gear, the docking port and two of the Gigantors visible. There's quite a lot of winglets at the back, largely for control, but also to pull the centre of lift back. I ended up doing a turbojet test on the test flight, too. Speed-building at 20-25km got rather heated... I didn't get above the atmosphere before the turbojet cut off, but I continued with the ions for a bit. I put the solar panels away again, then fired up the turbojet as I descended, getting the apoapse to 80km with a bounce. And circularised. I used the figures as shown in the middle of the three above images to calculate remaining delta-v on ions alone: 6187m/s to the nearest m/s. With so much jet fuel left too, I think a transfer to, landing on, and return from Laythe are in the cards for this plane. But the next Jool window isn't for 280 days, by my estimate. That's before my Duna window, which is before my Eve window, though. Returned on the first attempt, but had to fire up the turbojet to finish the flyback. Used less than 15 units of jet fuel, though. It's not easy to keep a bicycle plane upright after a landing... there's a reason I decided to add the structural supports afterwards. Sometimes, it'll even fall over before takeoff, let alone landing...

A bit of messing around, and a couple of easy contracts. Landed tests, flag-planting, transmissions and an orbital rescue. First, I attempted to make a VTOL aircraft and land on the helipad. VTO - check! L - not check! Managed to get it to take off vertically, and land horizontally on the runway, and also take off horizontally - but I struggled to perform vertical landing, and ended up smashing into the VAB roof. Had Jeb climb down the side ladders, mostly falling and grabbing - managed to somehow clip him into the VAB. He could walk out through a wall, but not back in, so I reverted to do something else. Then, I managed to destroy a probe core through atmospheric (I think) heating, in stock KSP. Yeah, I was surprised, too. Just take an Okto, strap 24 separatrons to it, and activate them all at once. The Okto is not damaged by exhaust, but explodes due to overheating - is it a speed issue or the engine heat? Well, adding a ballast mass beneath prevented the Okto from being destroyed, so I think it's probably the speed. When the probe core explodes, there are 24 other pieces of debris: the empty separatrons. With a little tweaking of trim before launch, I managed to cause this cluster to hit the R&D complex and explode. Next up, Bicycle Races. I got a test contract for the RAPIER again, and decided to build a cheaper, payload-less spaceplane to perform rescue missions. I also added ion engines and lots of monopropellant - perhaps it could dock, dump fuel and transfer to Laythe, or something, I thought. Once in orbit I did a delta-V calculation: not even 1km/s, with fuel and monopropellant levels as they were. I didn't check against fuel-dumping, though. Still, I think more xenon would be needed for a SSTL spaceplane. The RAPIER test was "landed at Kerbin", so I stage-activated it. The reason I said "Bicycle" earlier, is because I decided to use only two gear bays. The VTOHL earlier was actually a unicycle, by this reckoning. I had a rescue mission contract, so the cockpit was empty. I wasn't particularly efficient in my ascent profile, particularly as I was initially going for a 100km orbit, then burned straight down when out of the atmosphere to bring the apoapse to 80km instead of 100km. If I'd thought beforehand, there'd be a fuel saving there. Get in, Jonvey. Managed to descend much better on the second attempt - the first time, I deorbited immediately, used up all the fuel and had to turn around over the ocean. Got back to KSC, but lost control and crashed, so I reloaded to orbit. Of course, the second time I was a little short, but as I still had fuel, I could fly the rest of the way. And a night landing. The descent wasn't as nice as I'd have liked, but an intact flyback runway landing is something I only recently became capable of doing, so I'll take it. Of course, I now have lost access to the RAPIER again - so I took this plane, replaced the RAPIER with a turbojet and the R-10-xenon-ion engine bits on the nacelles with an Oscar-B and 48-7S on each side. Had to fix the fuel-flow for that, but hey, it's fine. I'll probably want to come up with a name - it's under SpacePlaneA at the moment.

Designed my Duna-Ike ship. Rather modular, has several Sr. docking ports in line, two normal docking ports to attach the nuclear drive modules that are currently in orbit (put them up a while ago when I did the suborbital nuke test and thus had access to the engines), and three Jr docking ports. I have already planned the flight procedure for it, though I haven't done any calculations. The mass is 50.17t, so I needed a lifter. I had the science to research the Kerbodyne tanks, but I decided that was unnecessary. I made a 50t test payload out of fuel tanks with their resources disabled, but the first few lifters were more powerful than I needed: they could be pressed into service as 55t lifters, really. Eventually, I settled on a lifter: four of the Kerbodyne SRBs, and four LFBs around a mainsail-powered liquid core. The LFBs fed into the central tank. In the above image, you can see a fuel-dump station I decided to put up as a demonstration of my lifter: it masses exactly 50t, and has electrical generation and storage as well as 3600 liquid fuel, 4400 oxidiser and 750 monopropellant. The docking ports are nice, too. Full throttle until 1km, then throttle down to keep TWR at ~1. SRBs detach at about 10km, throttle up to half and turn to 45 degrees. LFBs detach a little after, throttle then goes to full. Want to keep the apoapse about 30 seconds away by tilting, until horizontal. Then, push apoapse a bit above target orbit, and cut throttle. If apoapse falls below target orbit, throttle up a little to raise it. Got to 80km circular and decoupled the fuel-dump station. The decoupling messed up the orbit a little, but it's close enough to 80km circular. Not like there's any propulsion on it... Had a little more than enough leftover fuel to deorbit, too. Tried to get close to KSC, but ended up mid-ocean to the west. If you notice a discrepancy with parachutes, that's because the deorbit of the first one broke a tank in the ocean, and when recovering debris, the science modules in orbit somehow also got recovered, so I had to reload from quicksave. Moved some 'chutes, added some struts, and launched again without taking pictures until in orbit. The Duna-Ike ship has a Sr. docking port on the bottom, so if need be, I can remove that decoupler and decouple with the docking port instead. I took a couple of pictures of it on the lifter on the launchpad (before adding 'chutes and additional struts to the lifter). They're in the following spoiler:

I typically use hybrid first stages, with SRBs and a liquid core. Sometimes there's asparagus and/or droptanks, but I like the control of a liquid core and the low cost of the SRBs. My ultralight lifter (as in my disposable orbital rescue ship) is two of the Rockomax boosters, then an asparagus with two LV-T30/FL-T800 boosters feeding a LV-T45/FL-T800 core. That gets me my rendezvous and orbit matching with fuel to spare. However, I have just managed to make a spaceplane that puts a small payload up, performs orbital rescue, and then flies back to the runway, so there may be a small shift coming in my playstyle. Perhaps just to orbital rescue and some probe missions.

Saw this mentioned in the "What did you do today" thread, just when I'd finally managed a flyback SSTO spaceplane myself in career. Entirely stock, a small 1.63t payload to orbit (my Eve-Gilly probe stack and its ion drive), and also an orbital rescue at over 100km periapse. Pulled a little part-clipping in the editor, but not a load of intakes or wing-stacking, so I think it's good on that front. If I'm reading this right, it gets the Advanced Pilot Precision for landing on the Runway, the Pilot Proficiency (because the runway is also KSC territory?) and the Utilitarian for the payload (it was unused until decoupling). Took off horizontally (no VTOL capability), spaceplane, the only decouple was the payload itself... it qualifies, right? Details of the flight (such as they are) here. Do you want the .craft? Edit: Ah, right, a name... the Magpie.

A first! Specifically, first flyback to the runway with a spaceplane. After the glitchy disaster that was the previous attempt, I loaded up the RAPIER test plane. I ripped out the old payload, and replaced it with a support rig and the new payload. Added an empty Mk2 cockpit, some RCS thrusters and a docking port. Also, changed the RAPIERs for Turbojets, shuffling wings. One of the best things about RAPIERs is the ability to attach wings etc. - so changing to turbojets makes a structural change, too. For rockets, I put in eight 49-7S-cubic octagonal strut sets, four on the central tanks, and four on the outer ones. A couple of fuel lines needed to be added to ensure flow. I was also running a Turbojet test (though I do have it by research), and an orbital rescue mission. The test was above 19600m, under 380m/s (those being the most critical of numbers for this test). Had a steep angle of attack to get the time-to-apoapse above 30s before I began to tip back towards horizon. Timewarped the probestack payload out and twitched its orbit to be cleanly 80km circular. The top probe is the Eve parachute-lander, under it the Eve orbital satellite, then the Gilly orbital satellite, and finally the Gilly return-lander/ion drive. Its all those expensive, high-end science instruments that I want back, though the ion drive itself and the RTG are also a motivating factor. Then, it was time to grab Adbro from his orbit, which I think was 116 over 112? Anyway, I used the entirety of the monopropellant with the rendezvous - it was only what's in the cockpit. If I was docking, I'd have focused on the rocket engines to match orbits, then only done the bare minimum with RCS, but the monopropellant wasn't really required here. Got Adbro in, and deorbited. This was a first try to determine the periapse I needed to land on the runway, but somehow, it unexpectedly turned into a success. Banked back and forth to decelerate a little and line up with the runway itself. Did a little diving, too - I might have glided clear over it if I wasn't careful. And with that, I can call this a certified success. A 100% reusable, payload-to-orbit, rescue mission spaceplane. I saw on a recent page the K-Prize challenge, I'll see if this qualifies. Finally, I can say that planes are no longer a critical major weakpoint of mine.

Landed a part-test ship on the runway with its 'chutes. Then, many, many attempts to accurately deorbit the old Eve-Gilly probestack at KSC. Eventually, I figured out a height that got me close enough. Also, got Bill off Minmus. First, he had to dock with the Minmus satellite to leave the science module there. Rendezvous was not too difficult, just putting the intersect at the descending node, then burning there until the next intersect separation was minimal. The inclination was dealt with at that rendezvous while orbit-matching. A modified Exley Maneuver? Docked the science module to the satellite and left it behind. Next, to work out the return burn. Kept getting Mun encounters, so I decided to take a quick Mun-assist to bring the periapse into Kerbin atmosphere for extremely little delta-v. And Bill's on his way back! After that, I redesigned the Eve-Gilly stack. Three times the xenon, and replacing the Hecs probes with Okto2s, then adding landing legs made from cubic octagonal and octagonal struts: by my calculations that should be considerably more than enough. The first xenon tank is on the Eve-lander probe, providing much-needed bulk, and almost all of the fuel for the Eve transfer (using 90% of the monopropellant first makes it a touch more than enough, according to the delta-v map). Even if the monopropellant is unused, though, the other two xenon tanks on the ion drive/Gilly lander make the probe-stack capable of landing on Gilly and returning to Kerbin, by the raw delta-v numbers. Tried to put it up and perform an orbital rescue with a new cargo-spaceplane. As I don't have the RAPIER now that I completed that test contract, I put two turbojets, six 48-7Ss and ten 24-77s on a similar plane-shape. The wings making the body were tilted somewhat, and a pocket I-beam served to hold the payload in the bay. Unfortunately, I kept running into asymmetrical fuel-drain, no matter what I did. Eventually, the SPH glitched out, removing wings and fuel tanks, duplicating large portions in the same place, and creating floating tanks and intakes. So, I stopped and did a few simple contracts. Just flag-planting and orbit-transmissions.

Built a successful (unmanned) payload-carrying spaceplane! With a bit of effort (and not using the parachutes, as I had to test the Mk25 drogue 'chute), I'm sure I'll be able to fly this one back - it was handling rather well on the way back down. The payload is a set of four probes, one of which is an ion drive: the plan is to put one on Eve, one in Eve orbit, one in Gilly orbit and land the drive on Gilly itself, before returning the Gilly landing probe to Kerbin. Unfortunately, I've been doing some delta-v calculations, and (though I'm erring on the cautious side), I don't think the ion drive's got the fuel to do it (only one xenon tank). Also, it's extremely expensive, and has no docking ports whatsoever... Got the RAPIER as an experimental part, and don't have Supersonic Flight. I did, however, recently unlock the ram intake and structural wings, so even without the Mk 2 jet fuselage or higher, I could still build a plane. As my payload was narrow and under 2t, I decided to mount it in the centre, and make a bay around with wings. The engines were on FL-T800s, with their own FL-T400s and a shared Mk 1 jet fuselage between them Had a couple of plateaus to build speed, particularly to get the Small Gear Bay test. The heating effect is at the end of my 20km speedbuild. After that, I went a bit higher, and soon switched to closed-cycle. Got the apoapse high enough that I doubted it'd decay back into the atmosphere (but I kept an eye on it), then coasted. Got orbit and circularised, still lots of fuel remaining. The critical improvement over the previous version seems not to have been the added FL-T400s, but rather the attached strong reaction wheels and ram intakes. The previous version, by the way, didn't even manage to get its apoapse out of the atmosphere, going into a flat spin at a poor time. More yaw control also possibly helped. The RAPIERs switched modes asymmetrically, which gave a good hard kick to the plane's yaw. It took timewarp-clipping to actually get the payload out, which wasn't ideal. If I was playing with a mod with bay doors, I'd probably have installed them to reduce the hassle. I think the wings and struts were too close to the solar panels and the probe stack kept getting caught. Deorbited, trying to come down in the ocean just past KSC, as close as I could manage. The drogue 'chute test was rather high speed for the low altitude, so I decided to do it on the return, then land in the ocean on parachutes to perform the RAPIER splashdown test. Came down close to the space centre. If I'd lowered the periapse further, perhaps I could have come in for a runway landing, but I needed the splashdown, anyway. Tried to turn back and reduce distance after deploying the 'chutes, but didn't get much closer. I've never built a seaplane, much less a seaspaceplane, so taking off again and landing on the runway just wasn't in the cards. How high can the recovery rate go outside KSC itself? 98%? Still, in the 97% region is an okay recovery rate. That extremely expensive payload, though... as my calculations tell me it in no way has the fuel to do the job I want from it, I'll probably be bringing that back down with it's 'chutes. Six gravioli detectors, a seismic accelerometer, an RTG and the ionic peripherals are quite a bit to leave elsewhere, particularly with not a docking port in sight to attach an extra fuel tank or three. I'll rework the payload somewhat to give it enough, then send it up again, probably with another spaceplane. My window's not for another year and a half, anyway. Maybe I'll make it a manned-capable rescue plane, too - there's an orbital rescue mission available, and the fuel cost was certainly cheaper than my current disposable RescuerC launch.

Launched the multi-mission. It turned out that I didn't need that first set of drop tanks, after all. As for profit: the orbital test alone brought in more than three times the launch cost... Ended up with almost 1.5 million in net profit, and that's before deorbiting and recovering the launch core. Launched straight up until the overlap point came, slowly reducing throttle without letting the speed drop. Once at half throttle, I left it there until the LFBs were on their last dregs, at which point I throttled all the way up. The overlap point came just before it was time to drop the drop-tanks, so I staged the TR-2V and radial 'chute tests then. I then realised that I had yet to begin gravity turn, so I started that as I dropped the tanks. Performed the LV-N test suborbitally before burning for orbit and testing the S3 KS-25x4. Then, I set Seanlan as the target. Checked the fuel levels: one full X200-32, and a little left in the last Jumbo-64. Then, for ease of control, I dialed down the thrust-limiter on the S3 KS-25x4 to 10%. Spent a little fuel making a rendezvous and matching orbits with Seanlan, then staged off the ship from the lift core to more finely approach him. Got him in, and then quicksaved. This was a slight mistake, as I learned after I had attached the science module to the Minmus ship: Somehow, fuel had fed from the tanks of the Mun and Minmus ships into the Vernor engines on the lift core (only place I can think could have used it...), leaving only 15 liquid fuel in the Minmus transfer stage, and nothing in all the others. Fortunately, I had a plan. It was a ship I had been thinking of putting up previously, a probe-controlled rocket with a Claw, a large empty LFO tank, some xenon and empty xenon tanks, and some monopropellant in an R1. The idea was to grab and drain debris, push it into a decaying trajectory, let go and stabilise the Fuel Recovery Probe's orbit. It could then grab other ships and fuel dump stations to transfer fuel into them. It could also drain fuel from the lift core, which had probe control, no docking ports of any kind, and a bunch of leftover fuel that would otherwise go to waste. A Skipper and Jumbo-64 is perfectly capable of vertical SSTO. I then rendezvoused with the ManyMission lift core, and through trial and error managed to figure out a correct ramming speed to get a grip on the ship. I completely drained the X200-32, then poured the contents of an FL-T100 into it, refilling the FL-T100 afterwards. Managed to smash off one of the Fuel Recovery Probe's solar panels, though... Rendezvoused with the crewed (still connected) ships, and rammed them also. This set it rotating and wobbling, so I disabled the SAS and just performed the fuel transfers. Once all the tanks were full, and the excess monopropellant had been drained (the Minmus satellite's Cylindrified tanks were full, the science module was connected, and the rescue capsule had full tanks too - there was just 2.22 spare in the other capsules), I detached the Fuel Recovery Probe and disarmed the claw. That will wait in orbit, possibly returning to the lift core if it turns out that an FL-T100 worth of fuel is not enough to deorbit that once the LV-N modules detach. Next, I staged to separate the three ships by destination. I could have used decouplers rather than stack separators, really. It's not as though the Mun lander or the return capsule need their docking ports: they were just there to provide a connection point and hide the clipped parachute underneath them. The Minmus ship made its inclination burn, and then the return capsule reached apoapse and burned retrograde. As Seanlan parachutes back to Kerbin, both the other destinations of the launch are visible in the sky: Mun on one side by Kerbol, and Minmus on the other. The Minmus transfer burn preceded the Mun one by almost an orbit. Bill's burn seemed to give a Minmus periapse of 60km, on the prograde side, but this later disappeared for some reason. Songer arrived at Mun and burned for a 50km orbit. Then, he lowered it to 10km circular before coming down over the East Crater. I spotted an arch during the deorbit burn. I may have to investigate that more closely at some point. Songer's landing was on the edge of the crater. There was a slight skid downhill, but it stopped soon and nothing broke off. There should be enough fuel there for a safe return - or at least a return to orbit. But Songer's going to stick around for a bit and plant flags for money, just like the one he planted when he arrived. Bill apparently lost his Minmus encounter on the way out. Some adjustment burning made it reappear, but with a high, retrograde trajectory. An adjustment just after the encounter brought the periapse to the other side of Minmus at around 20km. Then, he burned into a circular orbit and undocked the satellite. The science module would come with him. Also, he took reports and readings in high and low orbit over Minmus, transmitting the crew report from Minmus orbit. Bill then waited in orbit until the Greater Flats were on the day side of Minmus, before deorbiting to land there. Once landed, he took more readings and reports, transmitting the Crew Report to complete the last mission. Well, I say last, but I then accepted Mun orbit science, Minmus orbit science and Minmus flag-planting missions. Those were quickly completed with the aid of the Mun satellite and Bill's earlier readings. Bill should still have the fuel to get orbit, rendezvous with the satellite, leave the science module behind on the satellite and return safely. And that's my active contracts clear. New part tests have become available, as has a new exploration mission: Eve. I think I'll just send probes there for now: I've never done an Eve ascent, and I don't really want to send any Kerbals to a place from which I will be unable to retrieve them. Perhaps four probes? One to land, one to orbit, and the same again for Gilly. Duna and Ike exploration will be manned, though. They'll also use my remaining science modules.

Accepted the Explore Minmus mission and built a rocket that I plan to complete all my currently active contracts in a single launch. That's a flag on Mun, Explore Minmus (also taking a science module and a satellite there), Orbital Rescue, and five different part tests, only three of which I have already unlocked the parts through research (LFB landed at Kerbin, radial 'chute and TR-2V tiny decoupler in flight over Kerbin). I'm also using it to put up a set of four nuclear drive modules (suborbital test and preparation for future missions). There's a total of three command pods in the rocket, one is empty and is to return the orbital rescuee to the surface, and the other two are manned and part of landers. Hopefully the landers will be capable of a return - they're fitted with parachutes, so that is in the plan. The most recent version had two sets of drop-tanks. The LFBs feed into them, and they feed up the line and into the main tank. The radial 'chute and decoupler tests have an overlap in altitude/speed requirements that lies between the dropping of the tanks. Here you can see that there was a lot of leftover fuel in the core: a full Rockomax X200-32 and more than a third of one of the two Jumbo-64 tanks. As such, I believe that I can remove one set of drop tanks and still reach orbit and rendezvous. If this next version doesn't make it to orbit, I'll probably look at splitting the set of X200-16 drop tanks into two sets of X200-8 tanks, and see if that helps at all. If not, well, I can put some small tanks on the LFBs. The 'chutes will come in handy when I attempt to land the thing back at KSC - I'll have to practice my precision de-orbiting. The total cost of this rocket is almost 260k funds, but with all the mission rewards, I still anticipate turning a profit.

Finished up my Mun rescue mission (had to run it twice because of a strange thing that happened later on - last quicksave was after the docking below), did some assorted part tests, performed yet another orbital rescue mission and made some plans for my next mission. Docked the satellite with Jeb and transferred the science module to it. Jeb has the data, so that can wait there until I want to do more science collection on Mun. Ran out of fuel on the escape, which happened to coincide with an eclipse of the sun by Kerbin. Jeb got out and pushed, but eventually electricity ran out, so he had to get back in and wait for the sun to be visible again. It took a lot of pushing, but I managed to get him home. Testing the mainsail, skipper and poodle in flight at various heights and speeds. Parachuted onto the runway to reclaim the money. Other tests included a splashed-down turbojet, and several landed components (the 48-7S and a few different decouplers). Did a bit of delta-v calculation: I want to put a man on Mun with a safe way back to plant flags for money (no science equipment), do a Minmus landing and return, and also do an orbital rescue mission all at the same time. Two O-10 engines, an R1 and some peripherals (like a capsule, some legs and some 'chutes) can get over 2200m/s dV.

Planning to use the Kerbodyne 4-engine cluster contract to put up a few nuclear engine modules in orbit (also an experimental part). I have to test that in Kerbin orbit, so I want to get some good use out of it. I tend to test them when I send them up, but I'm planning to use those drive units modularly for future interplanetary missions.

Back in 0.23.5 I got the price of a rocket from Launchpad to Mun and back to Kerbin under 4.5k. Haven't tried cost-optimising in 0.24 yet, but it was kind of ridiculous. The change in pricing would have had an effect, and perhaps the ability to tweak the fuel quantity can shave a little more.

Some part testing and some rescue missions. Due to recently researching and unlocking the FL-R10 monopropellant tank and the cylindrified one, I compared the prices and mass-fractions of the monopropellant tanks (other than the largest, the R1). The FL-R10 is the same price as the roundified, but has a lower dry mass and carries more fuel, so I replaced the roundified tank on my RescuerB standard orbital rescue ship with an R10. The R25 has twice the price and fuel quantity of the R10, but three times the dry mass, and the cylindrified is the same price and dry mass as the R25, but with one and a half times the fuel. So, until the R1, the most cost-effective and mass-effective monopropellant tank is the cylindrified. RescuerC's capsule returning after a routine orbital rescue mission Where am I going with this? Well, after Jeb's rescue ship in Mun orbit crashed instead of landing, I sent another, better one. While I was at it, I sent a monopropellant-driven satellite ship, and also one of the nonatmospheric science modules. That little satellite ship is my first experience with the O-10 engines, so I fit it with two cylindrified tanks for fuel. This Mun rescue mission has a number of part tests attached: first, the Rockomax SRBs and radial parachutes in flight, then the KR-2L in Kerbin orbit. Then, the Mainsail, Rockomax decoupler and 24-77 landed on Mun. As such, there is a small ascent stage consisting of the capsule, probe, docking port, 'chute, an FL-T100 and two 24-77s. Atop is the Mun satellite that will be left in Mun orbit. I put the KR-2L on an action group so that I could use it before it needed to be staged for the test. Also present are the Vernor engines, which helped turn and control the ship along with the large reaction wheels. You may note that I've used large numbers of the smallest battery, rather than using larger ones - that's because that's the most cost-effective way currently available to me (I don't know the prices of the Z-1k and Z-4k). Here's the ship circularising into orbit. The vernors were very helpful in turning the ship - I disabled the monopropellant tanks so that I didn't use any of their fuel on RCS on the way up. I wanted to send a science module, so I moved the ion tug (which actually still had 2900 xenon of its 3000) to rendezvous, then detached the satellite, piloting it on RCS over this short range to pick up the outermost science module: a non-atmospheric one. That leaves the science module ion tug with an atmospheric and two nonatmospheric, or ANN, as I renamed it. Docked it back with the ship, having used a little over 10 monopropellant. I tried to split the monopropellant from the capsule evenly as I transferred it into the cylindrified tanks, but I didn't immediately disable them, so I don't know if it worked. Burned for Mun, with a small adjustment part-way. The lift core was left on a Mun-collision course while the lander adjusted to get a periapse of 50km. I did some simple part testing and rescue missions (and failed utterly at aircraft) while I waited for the encounter. Circularised and left the satellite in a circular 50km orbit, then deorbited to land near Jeb. Jeb got out and took the science from the crashed pod. He also took the readings from the science module, and transmitted an Eva report from Near Mun and a crew report from the surface, thus completing the Explore Mun mission (and a Data from Mun orbit one). Then, liftoff. It's very satisfying to complete three top-tier test contracts with a single button-press. Got Jeb into a 50km circular orbit and began rendezvous and docking procedures with the satellite to avoid using up Jeb's remaining fuel. If all else fails, he'll be able to get out and push, but I'd rather not resort to that if I don't absolutely have to. I do want to leave the science module with the satellite, though. I'll finish the docking later, and then I've got another orbital rescue mission to do.

Carefully look at the speed/altitude requirements before accepting a contract. Some of these are utterly ludicrous, and if you think you can't reasonably complete it, decline it. Typically, a replacement contract will appear almost immediately. Contracts from some companies reduce their rewards the longer you take to complete the contract. Waiting for deadline is not necessarily a good idea. Accept contracts you think you'll start on soon. Get good at Kerbal rescue missions - even if you don't fly-back, a cheap, disposable standard rescue mission ship makes money hand over fist, particularly if you do some part tests along the way. If you are doing a part test on an engine and it doesn't have the "Run Test" option (or that doesn't work), that doesn't mean that you can't activate the engine beforehand. All it means is that you can't activate it by staging beforehand. Action groups and the context menu are fine. Even if the engine is already active, it counts. If the throttle is cut, it still counts. If there's no fuel, it still counts. You can stage engines before you need to use them by putting them in their own stage and assigning their toggle to an action group. Move the stage into the right place in the order (in flight if need be), stage for the test and disable immediately with the action group. Later, when you need the engine, just use the action group again. If testing some things that don't need to go to orbit, tilt west a little to come down over KSC again. Also, the runway is a big, easy target even for vertical return ships, and gives the full 100%. Also, note that higher end part-test contracts often have a substantial science reward. That aside, deliberately putting off completing a contract in order to keep the experimental part around for use is also valid.

A bunch of part testing, mostly. It has actually provided the vast majority of my science - to the point that heavy science equipment like the lab, the materials bay, and the goo are obsolete and I'm extremely unlikely to use them in future (I hate those things). A probe, hopping into the ocean to test the big Kerbodyne engine. By activating it with the context menu, then only actually staging it while splashed down, I can put the engine there and do the test without needing to attach any other engines. Same probe, parachuting onto the runway after a water liftoff. A silly looking thing, isn't it? This is what happens when you need to get over 430m/s before 8000m to test the Skipper. It also had a parachute test a touch higher and faster, and was testing the basic jet at a rather lower speed over 20km up. I'll be looking more closely at the speed/altitude on in flight part test contracts, and possibly refusing them in future. Managed to parachute it onto the runway. Decided to spend some money on preparations for future missions: that tower is three nonatmospheric science modules (thermo, seismic, gravioli, antenna around a battery and probe core, capped with tiny docking clamps), one atmospheric one (barometer instead of antenna, atmospheric nose cone clipped in), then a small ion tug (3k xenon). That'll cover my science equipment for my future planned Duna, Ike, Minmus and return to Mun manned missions. The tower cost a little over 100k. I put it atop a refitted orbital rescue mission, thinking that I could just get the kerbonaut into the capsule, then decouple the tower and leave it in LKO until it's needed. Unfortunately, the fuel of the lifter ran out before periapse was out of the ground, and the Round-8 ran dry before it was out of the atmosphere... fortunately, the ion engine can still provide thrust when blocked by a capsule. Got close with the ion engine, a little more slowly than I typically do. Took a few orbits, but I managed to circularise, rendezvous and match orbits for ~500 xenon. I decoupled the capsule and fired all the monopropellant to deorbit, running out with periapse just under 40km, which was a relief. The return from there was just a matter of letting the parachute automatically open as planned. I managed to turn a profit on that mission, what with the rescue and the three part tests (launch stabiliser, LV-909 in flight, and ion engine in flight). Just goes to show that you don't have to spend money to build infrastructure, you can build it incrementally on someone else's dime.

6.5 Million, haven't even finished the Explore Mun contract yet - Jeb crashed there and has no antenna, so the only way to complete the contract (other than sending another mission there) is to rescue him. He's been planting flags and taking them back down for money. My rescue ship is in Mun orbit, waiting for Jeb to be on the day side again, which should be in one Kerbin day, on Day 13. It also tested the Mainsail in Mun orbit, and will test the Rockomax decoupler landed on Mun. I've been taking a lot of test part contracts, and cramming them together into strange ships, and occasionally fitting them to rocket-assisted rovers for splash-down tests. The rovers can drive back to the runway to be recovered for all the money, and I try to parachute any tester ship that didn't need to go to orbit onto the runway as well. It's a bigger target than the launchpad, and still 100% recovery rate. Haven't perfected my deorbit-back-to-KSC, though. Rescue missions, flag-planters and data transmissions from my LKO satellites are my main moneymakers. I recently put 100,000 funds of science equipment modules and an ion tug into orbit, and managed to turn a profit on the mission by testing two attached engines and doing a rescue mission with the additional payload on the nose.

More testing. Made an attempt at a rescue mission for Jeb on Mun - not enough fuel, smashed into the ground. Sent a second, several contracts later - it also tested the Mainsail in Mun orbit and the Mark 55 engines in flight. I'll test the Rockomax decoupler landed on Mun with that - about two Kerbin days until Jeb's on the day side. I've been taking lots of contracts, mostly rescue missions and part testing. Got a cheap-ish (<18k) standard orbit rescuer now, and there's always throwing as many part tests as I can fit into a cheap rocket. Often, I'll try to fit a few onto the rescuer missions. Did a couple of tests splashed down by using a probe rocket-rover and small gear bay wheels. Multiple decouplers and a Kerbodyne SRB in flight, all sorts of things like that. Landed a part test rocket with parachutes onto the runway... And so on.

I haven't done much with rovers. After the first rover was a monstrously large thing hanging off an arm of my Aegis Lander, I downsized considerably. The next rover was for my "Delivery" experiment where I built a cubic box with structural panels, attached drive/landing systems, filled it with a mini rover and an ion probe-lander each with four external seats, then sent it to Minmus surface to meet up with the crew of a pair of one-way landers (descent only). The ion probe lifted them back to orbit and rendezvoused with an orbiting return ship. Because the intention was "send something in a box", it was just a small thing in a box. The only other time is for my Apollo-Like, where I made a pair of small rovers and put them in a structural panel box container on each side of the descent stage. So, I guess I just build them to fit in the boxes?

Didn't take a picture of it, but I did a test of the small gear bay on Kerbin escape trajectory at the same time as a Kerbodyne SRB test in LKO and a Rockomax Poodle on a suborbital. Still haven't researched the Rockomax tanks, so it looked really silly. To make it easier to get up there, I tweaked the SRB down to 10% fuel - still more than enough to get the escape trajectory. Also, my big Rockomax test (deliberately didn't complete the LFB test) where I activated then disabled the Skipper in flight with the throttle momentarily cut, and continued firing the LFB to get suborbital, and dry-fired the Poodle and Mainsail at the appropriate altitude. Came back down to land at KSC with radial parachutes down one side and landing gear on the other. Also tested a Launch Stabiliser at the same time. That looked rather funny. The engines didn't come out of their fairings. Put a radial 'chute and a big Rockomax decoupler atop a rescue ship once in place of the ordinary 'chute. The orbit was about the right height to test the decoupler.

Started up my 0.23.5 copy for some unfinished business. First, my Apollo-like Mun landing. See here for details. Then, finishing up FourJade with the redock and return journey. And with that, I don't think I'll be starting up my 0.23.5 copy again. I'll keep it around for a bit, though.

It's been a while since the return journey started, let me look at my notes... Now that the mission is over and Jeb, Bill and Bob have returned, Gene's been bugging them to finish writing up their report. There's a new Space Program starting up that's taken over the centre and is looking to hire them - it even pays cash money! Unfortunately, all the research breakthroughs and milestones will be lost, but the experienced engineers should mean it won't be too difficult to discover them all over again. All that is needed is Bill, Bob and Jeb's piloting skill and experience - but they can't be hired until they've signed off the FourJade report! So, where last we left off, Bob was in Jool orbit, Jeb was on Bop, and Bill was on Vall. We'll cover Jeb first. Jeb lifted off and docked with his orbital drive rather simply. He then plotted his Bop escape and inclination adjustment. The LV-N ran out of fuel part-way through the inclination burn, so Jeb undocked, turned around and fired up his central ion engine. The burn was slow, but steady. He next burned to reduce orbit and get an intersection with the adjusted orbit of the transfer ship. Docking was a little fiddly, but it worked out fine. Jeb transferred all the science over, but suddenly realised that he had deleted the Bob-surface crew report when moving monopropellant from the orbital drive. Too late to go back and get it... Next, Bill. Bill launched his ascent stage into Vall orbit and arranged an intercept with the ion transfer probe. Docking with it was straightforward, and it would provide the delta-v to dock with the transfer ship. He boosted his escape burn slightly with remaining ascent stage fuel. He docked to the rear of the ship and transferred over with the science. The last of the fuel was drained into the tanks of the transfer ship. It was only a drop in the bucket, but Bill wanted to do it. Finally, Bob. With a couple of burns, Bob adjusted his orbit so that it was circular, equatorial and just above Vall - easy to find and rendezvous with. Then, with some waiting, Jeb docked, and after that Bill. Immediately, there was a window for a Tylo flyby to escape that would need minimal adjustment outside of Jool's orbit to get a Kerbin intercept. The combined cost of these burns was 1437.5m/s And after that burn, another maneuver was plotted at the orbit-height of Duna to lower the Kerbin periapse into the atmosphere. Let's do the time warp again! The Kerbonauts burned the final adjustment, bringing the periapse low enough to return to land by aerobraking. With the periapse so low, it was decided that all that mattered was the safe return of the capsule and crew. Everything else was undocked and decoupled. The landing was at 9.8m/s, too fast for the emergency ion engines, which provided a touch of lithobraking. The xenon supply went entirely unused on this mission. Jeb, Bill and Bob were recovered after their five-year mission to Jool, having completed all mission objectives and only lost a single report. The science return (despite no equipment being brought) was over 4.4 thousand. The brave, successful kerbonauts left together, and went to accept their First Contract. And with that, the FourJade mission is complete, and I am unlikely to start up my 0.23.5 copy again. It was fun, and more complex than any other mission I've done. Jool and its moon-system is beautiful and full of photo-opportunities, and I'd recommend that every player visit at least once.

Got my 0.23.5 save back up, as that's where I'd done all my preparation. My Apollo-Like 2014 rocket on the launchpad before ignition. Harbus, Dozer and Patny Kerman in the capsule. The flag for this mission is the one suggested and provided earlier in this thread. Cleared the launch supports. The first five-engine cluster of the FiveByFive lifter is a KR-2L and four KR-1s, in the form of two clipped KR-1x2 LFBs. I referred to instructions I had written for myself for FiveByFive launches. Everything went as anticipated - there was no need to use the (tested and operational) Launch Escape System. The second cluster is a Poodle and four Aerospikes. Clipped tanks for the aerospikes and careful fuel-line placement make the short final lift stage rather dense. Started the transfer to Mun with the last of the fuel in that stage. Unfortunately ran dry before encounter, so I performed the twist-dock and finished with the CSM. Burned at Mun periapse into orbit, then began to fine-tune. The memorial was on the night side of Mun, so I debated whether or not to wait until it turned to day. Released the subsatellites. They're in a similar orbit at this time, but can move themselves with their monopropellant. Harbus and Dozer transferred to the lander, leaving Patny in the CSM. Then, they deorbited. Landed on the dark side by the memorial. The probe was marked to make it easy to locate. After landing, they waited out the night. The outer panels were fired off, and the rovers revealed. They were then taken out and parked nearby. Dozer planted a flag under the Memorial flag. He attempted to think of something profound-sounding to say, but decided instead to plant it in silence. A quick drive on one of the rovers to examine the shed panel and come back. Harbus' flag was by the lander instead. He got Dozer to stand near him for the photo. Then, it was time to lift off again. The ascent stage had more fuel than it needed, in the end, but the safety margin was good for Dozer's peace of mind. It wasn't difficult to get a rendezvous with the CSM. Fine-tuning it to perform the docking on the day side was a little more troublesome, but nothing outside of the kerbonauts' abilities. Docked, transferred back over, and then flung the ascent stage away. It was immediately time to burn the escape. There was quite a bit of fuel left over, to the point that I think I could have replaced the CSM's X200-32 with an X200-16. Decoupled the capsule while aerobraking. The rest would be destroyed in atmosphere. And a safe return. It was over land, unfortunately, but it's not like I landed on the day side, either. This was an Apollo-like, not a perfect recreation (nor was it intended to be).