Norcalplanner

What do you get when you don't know what you're doing and graft an electric turbofan onto an existing rocket design? In my case, something that looked like this: Sort of like an overweight manned missile with really bad performance. I freely acknowledge the horribleness of the design.

Today I did my first MOLE experiments in interplanetary space thanks to this little cruiser: The cruiser dropped Pe so that the orbital period was 30 days, precisely 2/3 of Nodens' orbital period. Three orbits later plus a minor correction burn, all four occupants made it back to Nodens safe and sound. Keeping everyone happy and alive with both Snacks and Kerbal Health in play is proving to be an enjoyable challenge. In particular, I've taken to reinforcing the radiation shielding by attaching structural plates to the outside of the craft. Gives it a bit of a steampunk vibe.

Nice! Gravity assist off Sirona? Or brute force straight from Nodens?

What other mods are you running? You may require Equipment (WBI) or MaterialKits (USI) depending on your settings. Or they may need to be EVA.

And/or give them a thrust curve.

Chapter 8 - Sirona Sojourn With Kerbaled (Nodensianed?) missions having a bit of a mixed record of late, it's decided to focus on unmanned craft for a bit. First, an over-engineered LDEF science satellite is sent up. The satellite completes some orbital experiments which would normally take a MOLE station to perform. Once they're done, it deorbits... Told you it was over-engineered. We were able to retroburn enough with all the extra fuel on board that we recovered every single bit of this craft except for fuel. (Stage Recovery took care of the initial booster during launch.) Next, it's time to put the recently unlocked biome scanner to work. We have contracts for scans of both Nodens and Belisama. After scanning Nodens, the probe heads to Belisama... ...where it manages to go directly over the north pole. I don't think we'll try landing there anytime soon. There are some nice visuals landing at a higher latitude, though. Another Wren is launched, bound for Belisama station to finish up the experiments which weren't completed due to the sudden evacuation. Billy Bob is on this mission, and he's brought the largest can of Lysol that anyone has ever seen. After a few weeks on the station, the experiments are completed and shipped back to Nodens, completed their respective contracts. Now it's time for something a bit more epic. Introducing... the Boomerang. We're heading to Sirona, our nearest and easiest to get to neighbor. Big S is a gas giant with three moons. We have contracts to get to Sirona, do some science, do a radar scan of Damona (the outermost moon), then return to Nodens. Staging during ascent. This craft packs over 16 km/s of delta V, using nothing but LFO engines and SRBs. It'll need it that much - the transfer to Sirona alone is over 3.7 km/s. Success! Completing the orbital insertion burn a bit too close to Sirona. The engineers on the ground aren't appreciative of the sandblasting the probe will receive from passing through the ring. Lightning! It's easier to see on the dark side of the planet. Got to work on my gravity assists. Sirona seems to be well suited for it, although it adds a lot to mission time to do it this way. We'll probably use a different flight profile if/when we bring Nodensians out here. Getting a gentle correction from Brovo, along with some nice visuals. We did a low flyby of Airmed, the innermost moon, then headed back to Brovo. Let's see, we have a good trajectory to Damona if we do a 40 km Pe assist off of Brovo. Should be able to get some good science low over Brovo on this second flyby, too. Wait a second... Why did the music stop?!? Is that a fuzzy horizon I see?!?!? ABORT! ABORT! ABORT! A few seconds of full throttle radial out is enough to halt the descent into Brovo's atmosphere, which tops out at 72 km. We got as deep as 56 km, but thankfully the atmosphere is pretty thin, and all our non-retractable solar panels survived. Note to self - check to see whether any moons have an atmosphere before playing gravity-assist pinball in the future. The Boomerang finally made it out to Damona, and completed the orbital radar scan. Checking the fuel state, the decision was made to head down and try out those landing legs. Nice view on the descent. The first landing was unremarkable, but we were able to hop over to another biome... This is more like it. Similar to Belisama's Flats, Damona's Impact Basin biome has vast tracts of land suitable for future base building. After an assessment of remaining fuel, it's decided to forgo any more biome hops. It's time to head home. Since Damona is already closest in its orbit to Grannus and heading retrograde, the Boomerang ejects directly from Damona orbit without any gravity well dive-bombing Oberth maneuvers. After some mid-course corrections, the final stage obtains an intercept with Nodens. The last few hundred m/s of fuel are burned to slow down a bit just prior to reentry. It's still pretty darn hot. Thankfully we have a slightly oversized heatshield to survive reentry. Science, Baby! Over 4K science is brought home. This is on top of 1.5K or so that was transmitted during the trip. So we've made it to Sirona and back with a probe. What's next? Find out... in the next chapter.

Sorry for the delay, folks. My install got borked to the point where it was crashing to desktop nearly every launch. The good news is that I've successfully migrated the career to 1.4.5, and things appear rock solid so far with a slightly altered mod mix. BARIS and KCT had to leave our company, along with some other older mods that were throwing errors. Things should be continuing shortly with a new chapter going up sometime this weekend.

I'm going to have to back out of this for now - this challenge occupies the same mental space that I need to devote to work right now.

FWIW I tried 2.5x in GEP Primary with Kopernicus 1.4.5-2. The gross changes were correct (planet size, atmosphere height, orbit size) but there were problems with the terrain occluding parts of the KSC, including a portion of the runway. It's my understanding that something changed in the PQS realm with 1.4.5, so this would appear to be consistent.

Sigma Dimensions, upon which this mod depends, has not yet been updated to 1.4.5, AFAIK. Mini-AVC warnings are simply that, warnings that you're headed outside of the netted lagoon and out into the open ocean. There may or not be krakens lurking there...

I'm creating a new 1.4.5 install, and MOLE was working correctly with the version 1.55.10 of WBItools. Pathfinder parts (such as the Ponderosa) still give the persistent blank gray screen in the VAB that others have noted when selecting Manage Operations. Since I'm much more of a station guy than a base guy, I may temporarily remove Pathfinder and possibly Buffalo, then reintroduce them later.

Awesome. Is Kopernicus playing nicely in 1.4.5 with planet packs? I'm definitely thinking of jumping over to 1.4.5. My GEP career install has always been buggy, but recently it's gotten worse, crashing when rolling out to the launchpad more than half of the time. I'm committed to exploring GEP, so if I can't bring the save file over to a new 1.4.5 install, then I'll cheat in approximately the same amount of funds, rep and science that I currently have and just keep going. Probably with a slightly different mix of mods that's more stable.

Chapter 7 - Highs and Lows Things continue to progress in the Nodens Space Program, but first we have to go backwards a bit to note two things which happened prior to the MOLE wing being added to the station around Belisama. First, Bob fulfills his destiny: We always knew he had it in him. And second, there wasn't quite enough fuel for that new MOLE wing to make it to Belisama, so we sent up a small tanker to make up the fuel deficit. Here are a few pics: A new crew is sent up to the station, to use both the new MOLE wing and the lander. BARIS keeps throwing monkey wrenches into the works... We check in on the crew's health. Everything appears to be good, but it shows how staying in a cramped poorly shielded capsule for a long period of time isn't the best idea. BARIS likes keeping the crew company. After docking to the station, Val and Jensel climb into the lander and head down. For Nodens! For Kerbalkind! For Glory! The first landing site wasn't the best. We still don't have a biome map, so we're guessing and watching the MJ biome readout closely to try and target particular biomes. In this case, the enthusiasm to come down in a new biome led to a suboptimal slope. The crew heads up and hops a little ways over to a new, flatter, more photogenic landing site. Val and Jensel pose for the history books. Kerbalkind is elated to new heights. Without sufficient fuel reserve for a third landing, they head back up to rendezvous with the station, visible as a speck in the upper portion of this pic thanks to DOE. After an uneventful docking on the dark side of Belisama, Val and Jensel reenter the station. The lander is refueled, then Bill and Nedley hop in for their turn at glory and flag-planting experience. They cast off and head down. Bill is (in hindsight) looking a bit greener than usual. They land without incident. Nedley has a bit of trouble navigating the ladder, but is able to plant a flag. Bill stays in the lander - he has developed a horrible hacking cough, and looks extremely unwell. A second landing is nixed so that Bill can be brought back to the station with its medbay, and possibly evacuated back to Nodens. As they approach the station, Bill has passed into feverish delirium. The message flashing in the upper right corner is informing us that Bill is, quite literally, at death's door. Sadly, this image is the last one we have of poor Bill. As Nedly lines up for final docking, Bill's body shudders with his final breath, then becomes still. Kerbalkind is crushed to new depths by news of the first fatality in space. The crew's mourning is cut short, however, by news from the flight surgeon. It turns out that what Bill had appears to be contagious. The decision is quickly made to evacuate the station and head back to Nodens post haste. Nedley, who feels horrible about his ladder antics while his friend was in distress, volunteers to sit in silent vigil next to Bill's body during the trip home. Extra fuel is burned for a high-speed return. With sad hearts, the crew lands and heads over to the astronaut complex first for physicals and immunizations, then for drinks to remember their comrade. Val is presented with her orange jumpsuit, but the ceremony is bittersweet. She was mission commander, and Bill died on her watch. Then Val notices a new, vaguely familiar face across the room. Bill's cousin, Billy Bob Kerman, has joined the team. And he's already a level 2 engineer. It's almost enough to bring a small smile to her lips. Almost.

I may not have been clear - the part count goes up because that big initial initial launch includes (in my case, anyway) the miner, several smart fuel tanks, a reusable nuclear transfer stage, three multi-part comm/scan satellites, the DAV, the EAV, Duna/Ike LFO transfer tug, reusable lander crane, and then all the ground modules, rover, and Duna surface ISRU equipment. Edit: I almost forgot - the first stage of the lifter is so large it takes 72 parachutes for recovery.

Awesome and thanks for the clarification. I should have the next chapter up today.

Yep! I typically add that readout (found under the Misc group when customizing your MJ windows) to the bottom of my Surface window. It seems to do a much better job of calculating burns for shallow entries than the one in KER. And if youre using SmartASS for holding surface retrograde, it's really easy to dial in a few degrees of pitch or yaw to fine tune your landing approach. I'll also add the current biome so I know where I'm at for science gathering purposes.

This is the reason I'm working on a 150 ton payload SLV. The way the math works out, you can hurl up to 630 tons into LKO, plus the NPM of your initial launch. With a 150 ton launcher, you get 750 tons of total payload, while still having one launch prior to each transfer window. That said, part of the challenge is based on efficiency, so effectiveness per ton still counts. And part count and complexity go up with a larger launch vehicle.

Chapter 6 - Quick Highlights This chapter is going to be somewhat minimalist. Work has ramped up, and I find myself being drawn to the DOMA challenge like a moth to flame. Here are a few highlights of what's been happening: We took some more tourists for a ride and added Jensel Kerman to the space program. The crew from the station high-tailed it home, suffering another BARIS failure on the way. They burned up extra fuel to speed the trip home, then burned everything they had left prior to atmospheric reentry to slow down a bit. We sent commsats to Belisama so that probe-controlled craft could work over most of the moon. Pretty! Commsats heading out. Commsat away! I love using the Ant engines for commsats. You can thrust limit them down to 0.5 percent and generally get within a few hundredths of a second when matching orbital periods. Commsat beauty shot. Solar panels and redone dish and Ant courtesy of Ven's, probe core courtesy of BDB, and combination fuel/battery tank courtesy of SSTU. We sent a probe-controlled lander to Belisama station to await a landing by the next crew. Lander and transfer stage docked. Put the surplus commsat mothership to good use by impacting Belisama at high speed to fulfill a contract. And we finally started to figure out this whole MOLE science system, and made a new wing for the station. Up she goes! And docked to the station. Hey, it actually looks like we know what we're doing! Let's see how that landing goes... in the next chapter.

I'm using a rocket, but Mk IV Spaceplane Parts and OPT have some bigger cargo bays.

The launch configurations have multiple columns of payloads beneath the fairing. I think I can tweak it so there are 2x 3.75m columns, and 2x 2.5m columns. Accounting for bits and bobs that make each stack wider, I think I should be able to get the fairing down to 10 meters or less.

I'll just note the fairing is 14 meters wide. Clearly my packaging can be improved.

I have an uneasy feeling that my SLV prototype passed right by "That's so Kerbal!" and headed straight to "What the heck were you thinking?!?" Back to the VAB...

Five star sandbox engineers want to know... ;-)

I did things the old school way. Once I figured out that the plane of Belisama is just about the same as the plane of Sirona, I turned my tiny docking target probe into the Belisama Plane satellite and adjusted its orbit to match. And to make finding it easier in map mode, I always change the craft type for this type of navigational aid to "plane" (ba-dum).

I sure hope so. They're on a number of my craft, such as the miners.