Evil Ed

Congrats! The "easy" missions might be handy if you run low on cash...

Today I started to build what will become my first station. After assembling is completed it will be shipped to an orbit around Jool or one of Jools moons. There will be 10 lifts to build the station and maybe an 11th with some kind of lander + the crew needed in the lab. 5 lifts done so a few more to go!

Rescued Jeb who got stranded on Duna yesterday. Sent my first rover to another planet:

Finished a science harvest run at Minmus. Brought back the lander+lab/nukeengine-unit to Kerbin and sent Jeb to the surface with all the science. Modified the lander and added two tiny RC-rovers. Sent the lander + refuel up to the lab and did a successful docking. Decoupled the tank and crashed it on Kerbin. Transferred to Duna and did a beautiful aerobrake. Triple checked fuel levels on the lander, parachute timings etc. and undocked. Maneuvered away from the lab using RCS and activated main engine to begin the descent. But wait? Somehow, while trying to fit the rovers, I managed to remove the engine from the lander! Decided to brake with RCS and at least learn something about how the parachutes works on Duna and maybe even decouple the rovers before crashing on Duna surface. Managed to bring down the speed and entered Duna atmosphere. Didn't look good as it seemed like I was going to (crash) land at high ground but deployed the parachutes anyway. Also dropped the rovers that both got stuck under the landing gears but managed to wiggle the lander so the rovers could separate. The descent speed didn't look that bad, around 10m/s, so with full RCS-burn I actually managed to get the lander to the surface and flipped over it was still in one piece with the door facing upwards. The rovers also fell down in good shape, just one broken wheel each which became Jebs first assignment to fix. Science gathered, rovers tested and crashed. Jeb is now waiting for yet another rescue mission. This will be a challenge as I must bring the rescue lander within walking distance of Jeb, and will probably have to try different approaches before successful. Unfortunately for Jeb Star Citizen - Arena Commander just got released - so I guess he will have to wait for a couple of days...

Grinded some science at Minmus with a lander shuttling between an orbiting lab and Minmus biomes. Lander needs update as it is very unstable when landing in sloped terrain, guess that will be todays project...

In those situations, hit F5 to quick save, then do the risky move. If it fails, just hit F9 to load the quick save.

Still in orbit around Duna, but now together with Bob. Engineering forgot to connect fuel hoses to the nuke engines... 2nd rescue mission will soon reach them.

In orbit around Duna. Was about to dock with the nuke engine when I by accident jettisoned the docking ring...

A little probe I sent to Ike to test the technology:

First successful mission to Ike! This mission included docking as I used a separate tank/engine (need to learn all the acronyms) to get back home with.

Had. I had it. It's gone now...

Good job! Will try to do something similar, but only hit Duna in one go. New player so have still a lot to learn, but have done a couple of trips to Duna - still working on the get-back-part...

Flying very low with my ion engine-powered probe, trying to clear a ridge line when this happened:

I found this game via the Star Citizen forum and I'm hooked! So far Jeb has visited Minmus, Mun and Ike. An unfortunate miscalculation made him end up in an orbit just inside of Duna - but after 25 years resources are finally reserved for a rescue mission. Bill also did visit Ike and has now done a successful docking with the tank/engine supposed to take him home again. He is waiting for a launch window. I have also built a low flying probe that visited Ike in preparation for the manned mission. The ion engine powered probe did some spectacular low flying: An attempt to clear a ridgeline failed due to... solar eclipse: Next on the to-do-list is to find an add-on that improves the navigation node tuning and something that helps calculate dV.