Wabbit

Looks promising! Although, you do know that Brotoro has just started basically Long Term Layhte on Duna, right? But, your missions are looking good. I don't have the attention span to synchronize sats, so I just put 4 or 5 in normal orbits. I salute your patience, sir!

OP updated with PSE's ribbons (updated regularly as things happen) and Joe Explores Minmus. More Minmus coming... Today-ish! Probably some kind of long-term surface base.

Nope, it's a stock easter egg near the north pole.

If I'm using side boosters, I usually wait at least until those burn out so there's less of a chance of them twisting around and clipping the central core.

Thanks

Today, PSE had its first launch to Minmus (in .90 restart) and it was a complete success. There were a few quirky moments, but the mission was a big step in the space program. The launch was a 2-Kerbal lander in a rather unique design. As you will see, Joe uses a first stage of monopropellant engines, but it has a second stage comprised of small radial motors that use an LFO mix. Below, just after liftoff. The crew for this mission are Karla Kerman and Rodwig Kerman. Ascent went without a hitch, and the crew reached Kerbin orbit safely, which is good, since I didn't add any type of LES, so if things go RUD they just have to hope for the best. The trans-minmal burn is shown below. It won't get me an encounter yet due to Minmus being very inclined in its orbit. The ship still has about 1/3 fuel in its transfer stage, powered by a single Poodle. Coming into Minmus' SOI, the circularization burn took the rest of the transfer stage and a little monopropellant from Joe. Karla and Rodwig seem content. The first landing spot was chosen to be on the Great Flats area, mostly because a certain player is out of practice doing Minmus landings... But, the landing went well. The engines (which were as of yet untested during a landing scenario) performed great, and look really cool when they fire. I suppose that's a bonus. So, after landing the high-gain antenna was unfolded, the ladder lowered, and the straws drawn between Karla and Rodwig... and, unfortunately for Karla, Rodwig gets to be the first Kerbal on Minmus. He celebrates by planting a flag, the plaque of which was just a message citing something about how Minmus was going to taste like minty ice cream... As you can see, the snacks on these boring, long trips are not very tasty, and certain crew members have been near-mutinous half way here, so those certain crew members cannot resist the idea of a tasty destination. Now it was time to do a sub-orbital hop to a new location to see more sights and bring in more Science! But, unfortunately, I guess the Kraken had other ideas for the poor Kerbonauts... Joe started twitching, and then flipped over, knocking off a solar panel and two engines! Fortunately, Joe had backup RTGs, and another fold-out solar panel. Also fortunately, the engine damage was symmetrical, which meant I could decouple the two damaged engine units and use the other two normally. The crew would still have more than enough to get around, especially because this is Minmus... And the lander may be just a tad OP... But never mind that. Below is the second engine unit being jettisoned after Joe is righted. This will allow us to contine the mission normally. You can see the first engine and Rodwig's flag in the background. After that, we're off! We were going back to orbit, and then from there it could be decided whether to land again or to return to Kerbin. The decision was made to attempt another landing, so (having proven myself landing-capable to the world) decided to let Mechjeb land me in a specific spot. Apparently,though, MJ cannot do Minmus. He had to keep doing course corrections on the trajectorym because even the spacecraft's torgue was enough to shift the landing zone several kilometers! So I decided to do it myself again. Karla got to get out this time. She jetpacked around for a quick bit, then got back inside. It was decided that they would return now because of time (1 am) constraints. I forgot to take any screenshots of the return (1 am), so I am sorry if the last bit feels a bit empty. We were back at Kerbin, with just enough fuel for a roughly ~300km inclined orbit. Tomorrow the craft to retrieve the crew goes up, but now comes sleep. And so ends the story of Joe... For now...

Also, you gotta remember to bring plenty of Science! experiments. Goo-Dudes!

I'm doing a mission to Duna right now, actually. Your video is looking cool, can't wait to see pt.2 And also welcome

This is awesome! I must try to make tinymoons everywhere now... The fanart will be great! Jeb just standing on top, with a flag planted. Just a question... Is it possible to make a tall craft that reaches out of its SOI?

Apollo style landers. I can never find a good configuration for launching a CM and LM together... I can only do a). Lander to mun, return ship comes later. . Lander that can land and return. And also I suck with large lifters.

Those are some super samples...

Tylo. It's like landing om Kerbin with no aerobraking or chutes.

A stage ignitor would be great.

This thing puts the LV-1 out of business. It literraly beats the LV-1 in almost EVERY way. TWR, ISp, same weight. It's awesome. My typical 1.25m second stage is a cluter of these.

Reminds me of the Besiege main menu.

Awesome job, exploring the Kraken's domain.

The unlucky Pixie 1. It was the first of the Pixie missions, carrying Edvy, Kelsby and Lolorf Kerman to the Mun. It was launched on an undertested prototype lifter, and it had no separatrons on its side boosters. This is what happened next. An all-too-common mistake, from something as simple as neglecting to add separation motors... The adventures of Pixie 2 and Pixie 3 coming soon. But, despite the failure, there were no casualties and it turned out a great crew picture. Also, it seems Kelsby and Lolorf are twins... Pixie 2 is on the way.

The unlucky Pixie 1. It was the first of the Pixie missions, carrying Edvy, Kelsby and Lolorf Kerman to the Mun. It was launched on an undertested prototype lifter, and it had no separatrons on its side boosters. This is what happened next. An all-too-common mistake, from something as simple as neglecting to add separation motors... The adventures of Pixie 2 and Pixie 3 coming soon. But, despite the failure, there were no casualties and it turned out a great crew picture. Also, it seems Kelsby and Lolorf are twins...

Can't wait to see the crew. If Nelemy dosen't come I will cry.

Actually I use stage recovery so whenever I'm in sandbix and don't care about reusability, it just spams my notifications with stage destroyed.

A-ha-hawesome! Off to a great start!

The lost-in-spaceness is entirely possible, as I am using both Dangit! and Entropy. It adds a bit more unpredictabiliy to your mission outcome

Take that, Tylo!

Updating crew roster, and Pixie Project added. Working on a continuation.

After the success of the Kemini program, it was clear that the next stage would be the Mun. Immediately, plans were drawn up to send a Kerbal there. An early manned launch attempt's failure prompted the PSE to rethink its Munar plan. An unmanned lander and a surface scan would precede the original plans. Finally, then we could start manned landings. Kelsey 1 I sent out Kelsey 1, an unmanned probe lander. A rather simple, small, and effective design, it worked very well. Its mission was to land, do some crater hopping, and then stay on the surface as a marker. Kelsey 1, hidden away in the fairing, right after ignition. It had to fit into the fairing, so I just decided to go with something small and light. Below we see the Alpha's third stage pushing the periapsis out of the atmosphere with its three Rockomax 48-7s. It is powered entirely by a single RTG, so there is no need to worry about doing things on the daylight side, other than for screenshot purposes. Here you see I put us on a trajectory with a very steep Munar impact. I did not actually mean to, so I let MechJeb circularize it at the right time since I am rubbish with circularization maneuvers. Below is a nice picture of Kelsey coming in high over the Mun in its very steep crash-course. This was taken a few hours before I needed to make my circularization burn. I think that unmanned missions are less fun, because there are no Kerbals to talk about. Kind of lonely. So, the burn was made, and we de-orbited on a path to a small crater. It actually looks like a combination of several craters; I will have to check out the topography when I land. Below you can see Kelsey doing "her" braking burn, coming down over the triple crater. After that, the landing. It was a very smooth landing, near the edge of a cliff. I'm quite happy I didn't fall down, as it certainly would have been the end of Kelsey. Or maybe not, as these things seem to be pretty tough. The landing was good, and below is Kelsey with antennae unfolded, probably transmitting all of the juicy Science back to Kerbin. After a couple of minutes, I decided to do some sub-orbital hops. Kelsey had fuel to burn (haha, punny) and I had time to spare. The first hop was not very far, just from my little ridge to the crater's edge. Below, the first hop. Its landing location The next hop took me a little farther- to the middle of a small cluster of craters. Unfortunately, there was no fuel for a third jump so I left it there to sit. And that marks the end of Charlotte's mission. For now...