teh_orph

Hello guys for the lols I recently tried to see if I could get into orbit from Duna just with the EVA jet pack. With infinite EVA fuel, it turns out it works! Which is surprising because AFAICT there's not enough thrust to do this...or your man isn't as heavy as he looks! Anyway I decided to do a grand tour with infinite fuel with my man, to visit and land at every place you touch down safely. It took 17 earth years but he made it. By far the trickiest thing is doing burns. You don't really know which way you're pointing, so each burn requires a bit of a 'feeler' to see if you're going (eg) prograde. (Also, the camera has major gimbal lock problems.) It actually became pretty good fun doing this. I tried different landing techniques, and as all burns are totally manual long burns to be caught in an SOI means you can burn long before reaching the SOI. For example, getting into Moho orbit needed 3+ km/s of dV. I burnt for a long time before reaching the SOI, constantly adjusting the orientation to keep the periapsis just where I wanted. This is tricky when you're doing single burns with mechjeb in a real craft... Right take off from Kerbin off to the mun, plus landing Minmus off into interplanetary space to reach Moho - with overheating on the way! landing at Moho Moho->Gilly, landing there Gilly->Ike, landing there Ike->Duna, landing Dres, landing aerobrake around Jool Bop, landing Pol, landing Val, and a very heavy landing there! a very long journey to Eeloo + landing a fast return to Kerbin + aerobrake a rendezvous with my craft...still in orbit! (he hit it face first at 30 m/s) landing at KSC I'll feed him next time along the route.

Ha, cheers! Seriously no-one else has done it on ion? I was considering leaving two-thirds of the team just drifting but figured it'd be more fun to rescue them...and much more important than the main mission goals. Of course I couldn't collect them until I had new chairs. That would have been my opportunity to really change the replacement craft but I would have counted that as cheating in the spirit of things to swap it out for something smaller knowing I was only going to Vall, Bop and Pol. The extra solar panels were something I wanted from the start, and the ion drives had not yet been used so didn't think it would be too bad to add them on. After rescuing them and docking with the original craft stealing some fuel for the pleasure of all those plane changes ( https://www.dropbox.com/s/donuni9r0dulvvp/71%20yes%20we%20need%20to%20land%2C%20then%20dock.PNG ) didn't seem too bad Well done on making this challenge - I learnt many useful things. I might do it again - maybe this time with a pod for one and they can take turns. My very first version of the craft (which I have not shown here) highlighted that I had insufficient torque, and also failed to add air intakes. So I aborted that version and restarted, I added a big SAS unit on the top. When I landed and the craft fell over, as you see in the picture, I had so much torque that I could literally stand the rocket up after it fell over with just a small puff of the engine. This paid off at Bop/Pol where I managed to land on a slope just fine - also my landing legs were not long enough to touch the ground due to the size of the atomic engine. https://www.dropbox.com/s/xka4u0irrvcrhkb/96%20landed.PNG https://www.dropbox.com/s/2h9783a195udqr0/101%20landed%20on%20bop.PNG This was awesome on Minmus - it fell over on landing, despite the surface being completely flat. https://www.dropbox.com/s/pfcped4qwzc5f1k/131%20landing%20on%20minmus.PNG When I hit the T button the lander just hung there at 20 degrees to the ground standing on just one leg! Massive torque is amazing.

Oh no, really?! Although I don't see that in the original description? Nuts. In retrospect I would not recommend using external command seats for that duration. They don't charge electricity for their lights though!

Hello guys long time lurker, first time poster. After getting a bit bored and directionless this challenge inspired me to get back on it! Here's my mission report for the "level 2" challenge. I landed on every moon in the system bar Gilly, where I made two fly-bys. I built a two part ship - the first part was a fat liquid fuel tank covered by 96 small xenon tanks, four xenon engines and seven solar panels. The other part was a lander. This craft carried three guys in external command seats. The combined craft would fly to Jool, aerobrake, ditch the atomic engine and get into orbit around Tylo. The craft would split, and the RAPIER would take the lander down to the surface. On the ascent it would ditch the external tanks, redock and travel to Laythe, parachute down, jet ascent. After a redock on they go to Vall, Pol and Bop. Then home. Here's the craft on the launch pad. https://www.dropbox.com/sh/6s6x5ei4qh3bncg/mJtmIaXyy-#lh:null-00%20final%20craft.PNG Here's the whole album. https://www.dropbox.com/sh/6s6x5ei4qh3bncg/mJtmIaXyy- BUT! Of course things did not go to plan. My first entry into the Jool system was backwards, and I had to fight against moons going the wrong way. Several hours later I was in orbit over Tylo. I then realised there was only four solar panels, when I thought there was eight. 38400 units of xenon won't burn themselves! Four engines going full pelt will take 22(?) hours to expend this fuel. So I relaunched with seven panels, got into the correct orbit around Jool, orbit around Tylo, undocked, landed (very painfully..took hours). The ascent was an "only just" as I spent far too much fuel getting onto the surface. So I did a manual orbit realignment with the mothership (no mechjeb) using just the ions. Hours later I was ready to dock. On docking, there must have been some clipping parts as all three Kerbols exploded out of their seats! On putting them back in, it was apparent two of the seats were blown off too. https://www.dropbox.com/sh/6s6x5ei4qh3bncg/mJtmIaXyy-#lh:null-38%20major%20failure.PNG I had to continue with just the one guy. Entry to Laythe and jet flight around the poles was amazing ( https://www.dropbox.com/sh/6s6x5ei4qh3bncg/mJtmIaXyy-#lh:null-52%20down.PNG )...but I was worried about my poor lost Kerbols in Tylo orbit. So a rescue craft was sent ASAP from Kerbin. https://www.dropbox.com/sh/6s6x5ei4qh3bncg/mJtmIaXyy-#lh:null-56%20rescue%20vehicle.PNG This ship was of the same design but no Kerbols. I dropped the RAPIER leaving the atomic engine instead and three new chairs. The mothership section had no xenon but had three extending solar panels. As the orbits of the lost Kerbols were so eccentric a manual rendezvous and 'docking' was necessary. https://www.dropbox.com/sh/6s6x5ei4qh3bncg/mJtmIaXyy-#lh:null-64%20rescuing%20second%20guy.PNG https://www.dropbox.com/sh/6s6x5ei4qh3bncg/mJtmIaXyy-#lh:null-66%20getting%20in%20the%20craft.PNG Both craft then rendezvoused at Vall and docked. The team was back together again in the replacement lander. https://www.dropbox.com/sh/6s6x5ei4qh3bncg/mJtmIaXyy-#lh:null-76%20get%20all%20the%20crew%20back.PNG The extra mothership section with three solar panels was attached. Full power on the xenon! https://www.dropbox.com/sh/6s6x5ei4qh3bncg/mJtmIaXyy-#lh:null-78%20all%20connected.PNG However on extending the solar panels (again no trouble in the VAB) there were clipping issues. Whatever, they worked! https://www.dropbox.com/sh/6s6x5ei4qh3bncg/mJtmIaXyy-#lh:null-79%20all%20guys%20in%20major%20solar%20panel%20clipping.PNG Everyone landed on Vall together, with the two mothership parts docked in orbit. https://www.dropbox.com/sh/6s6x5ei4qh3bncg/mJtmIaXyy-#lh:null-83%20the%20boys%20are%20on%20vall.PNG On return and docking with the two mothership components, the docking port on the new section would not work - the retracted solar panels were in the way. https://www.dropbox.com/sh/6s6x5ei4qh3bncg/mJtmIaXyy-#lh:null-86%20more%20problems.PNG Even after smashing off those panels, the dock would no longer work. So I stole some fuel from the back port, and carried on with the original mothership section (but losing some fuel and the three panels) https://www.dropbox.com/sh/6s6x5ei4qh3bncg/mJtmIaXyy-#lh:null-87%20let's%20lift%20the%20fuel%20from%20that%20part.PNG https://www.dropbox.com/sh/6s6x5ei4qh3bncg/mJtmIaXyy-#lh:null-89%20what%20a%20waste.PNG On to Pol (the whole craft landed - TWR was fine with the atomic engine) https://www.dropbox.com/sh/6s6x5ei4qh3bncg/mJtmIaXyy-#lh:null-95%20mild%20peril.PNG https://www.dropbox.com/sh/6s6x5ei4qh3bncg/mJtmIaXyy-#lh:null-97%20team%20talk.PNG On to Bop https://www.dropbox.com/sh/6s6x5ei4qh3bncg/mJtmIaXyy-#lh:null-101%20landed%20on%20bop.PNG At this point all five moons done, but plenty of xenon was left and a enough liquid fuel for a few landings. The atomic engine would work on the other few moons...hmm... Very little EVA fuel though. https://www.dropbox.com/sh/6s6x5ei4qh3bncg/mJtmIaXyy-#lh:null-104%20a%20long%20ion%20burn%20to%20reach%20duna.PNG Landing on Ike https://www.dropbox.com/sh/6s6x5ei4qh3bncg/mJtmIaXyy-#lh:null-110%20selfie%20time.PNG On to Eve https://www.dropbox.com/sh/6s6x5ei4qh3bncg/mJtmIaXyy-#lh:null-114%20eve%20orbit.PNG Two fly-bys of Gilly. There the SOI of Gilly is so small however, and the TWR was too low that I could never make the 575m/s breaking needed to get into orbit. https://www.dropbox.com/sh/6s6x5ei4qh3bncg/mJtmIaXyy-#lh:null-116%20flyby%20of%20gilly.PNG Returning to Kerbin's SOI a perfect aerobrake that made an orbit that dropped straight onto the Mun SOI: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/6s6x5ei4qh3bncg/mJtmIaXyy-#lh:null-124%20aerobraking%20to%20the%20mun.PNG Landing on the Mun https://www.dropbox.com/sh/6s6x5ei4qh3bncg/mJtmIaXyy-#lh:null-126%20landed%20on%20the%20mun.PNG Landing on Minmus https://www.dropbox.com/sh/6s6x5ei4qh3bncg/mJtmIaXyy-#lh:null-132%20time%20to%20go%20home.PNG Powered landing to KSC https://www.dropbox.com/sh/6s6x5ei4qh3bncg/mJtmIaXyy-#lh:null-134a%20aerobrake%20into%20ksc.PNG https://www.dropbox.com/sh/6s6x5ei4qh3bncg/mJtmIaXyy-#lh:null-135%20coming%20in%20to%20ksc.PNG 833 days of flight! Easy sixty hours of gameplay. A lot of them were ion burns. https://www.dropbox.com/sh/6s6x5ei4qh3bncg/mJtmIaXyy-#lh:null-137%20stats.PNG I used mechjeb, kerbal engineer and a docking plugin I can't remember the name of.