Kuansenhama

From a gameplay perspective, good reasons above. One can also simulate an interplanetary transfer between the mun and minmus.

Unfortunately I lost both motivation and the save file for this. I might do a sequel series and hopefully accomplish my original goal of landing on every planet.

My kerbals celebrate by building an interplanetary transfer vessel with wayyy too many separate modules held together by only 0.625m docking ports. Because even the kraken deserves to get a present.

Chapter 16: Project Phoenix Part 1: Kraken Bait Unfortunately all the careful planning and preparation that chat GPT emphasized went out the window on this project. The one thing I will credit it for is giving a good name for the project. My failures in planning include but not limited to making about 90% of the launches related to this project happen at night so the screenshots aren't nearly as nice, forgetting several science experiments which may need to be added in a follow up mission and doing this whole project spread out over two weeks of IRL time so that I could repeatedly forget what I was doing. Hopefully things still pan out OK. Phosphorus-1: Phoenix Keel Beam The phosphorus launcher was one good thing to come out of this program. Its pretty competitive with the other disposable booster designs that I've come up with for this playthrough. The phosphorus uses the prescribed components of our AI overlords to make a "stage and a half" design which I tuned such that the booster liquid fuel tanks run out right as the SRBs burn out. It has proven perfectly capable of ~150 ton payloads to LKO. Project Phoenix officially begins. Godspeed and and hope that kerbals don't blow up. Always a sucker for booster seperations. Phoenix Keel beam arrived in LKO. The idea is that I can dock all the other stuff I need onto it and make one massive ship. Spoiler alert this thing turns out to be kraken bait. Phosphorus-2: Phoenix Drive Assembly I would imagine this caused more than a few regulators to turn heads. Why did I need to launch 19 nuclear engines? Yes. Phosphorus-3: Phoenix Base Solar arrays and utility module The base modules were sent up two at a time on this slightly janky but also efficient forked upper stage. Each base module fits in a size 3 cargo bay landing pod. I made sure the landing pods had more than enough DV and TWR to land on Duna, did not want to ship an entire base out there and then find out I couldn't land it. Phosphorus-4: Phoenix Surface Base hub and Lab Phosphorus-5: Phoenix surface base ISRU and Rover I triple checked that the rover could decouple from the inside of the cargo bay. All modules docked. Deorbited these upper stages. Phosphorus-6: Phoenix Empty Fuel Bays This launch turned out to be a complete waste of time and kerbucks. Since these fuel bays were attached with rubber bands (I had intended to strut them in orbit but due to logistical complications (first forgetting the struts, then forgetting that kerbals could not carry parts while using the EVA pack) I was unable to do that. I later wound up de-orbiting all four of these rather than getting the minmus ore miner to fill them up. if I wasn't playing in the spirit of the challenge and using the launch vehicle, I would have built a monolithic spacecraft with more rigidly attached fuel tanks. Ill save that for Jool or Moho. \ Phosphours-7: Command Module The command module was one of my favorite designs. But upon docking it I realized this thing was a slideshow (even on my decently beefy gaming pc). It was also kraken bait. Uhh this didn't happen. The command module has its own propulsion. Now all I have to do is fix that crooked fuel bay at 10fps. Thorium-10: Crew Lander 1 I sent up the landers/return ships and 14-kerbal crew on two thorium rockets. No reason to use a full phosphorus for a payload 1/3 of what its rated for. Sure I didn't use the phosphorus rocket for everything but I felt like I fulfilled the spirit of the challenge by launching most of the hardware. One lander docked. Can you see bill next to this mammoth? Thorium-11: Crew Lander 2 Transfering out to minmus. The nuclear drive was hula dancing the whole way there. Sarah, Kardock and Bill all be like "this is fine" Bringing in the refueling ship. And the kraken strikes. After this I was a bit stumped as to what to do. I had already invested a lot of time and energy into the mission and didn't want to have to scratch everything, but also couldn't. I sat around for a week, played some other games, and generally tried to think about it. Until the "duh" solution finally hit me. I wasn't so much fighting the actual laws of space as I was the space kraken and Kerbal Powerpoint Program. So the following action plan was implemented. 1.) Ditch the fuel bays. The nuclear tug is already at minmus and therefore doesn't need much DV to transfer to Duna. I'll top off the integrated fuel tanks in the keel beam and drive and call it good. 2.) Split the mission into two ships. Theres no reason it has to be one giant ship. The command module will get an extra fuel tank and make the trip on wolfound power. Phosphorus-8: Command Module Fuel Bay This was the only rocket in this program that actually looked somewhat normal. deorbited these fuel bays on their RCS thrusters. With just the base modules the nuclear tug transferred to minmus. With just the Minmus miner, I was able to dock with the nuclear tug (the larger and laggier half of the mission) and fill it up almost all the way in just one trip. The fuel tank was also added to the command module section. Both ships are in orbit of Minmus and ready to ship out when the transfer window arrives. I realized too late that I forgot to take screenshots of the finished command module ship, and don't feel like booting up the game just to get a screenshot but we'll be seeing more of it in part 2 of Project Phoenix.

Yeah would be nice. Past a certain point large (sometimes even perfectly sane) rockets become overly wide. JNO has this. Though I haven't played around with it much it seems pretty difficult to use. Anyways if I could have one wish granted, I'd say some new parts. I know this doesn't qualify as "one thing" but I'm indecisive. I know modders will grant this wish but my days of having saves borked by modded stuff are over and mods don't always match the stock aesthetics or stay updated. -A 4-5 kerbal dragon/orion style capsule. -Fuel tanks for nuclear engines (or the option to switch any tank between LF/OX and pure LF with existing tanks). The main problem is the large LF tanks are plane parts that have added mass due to the increased impact and temperature tolerances. But nuke ships don't need that as they tend to be vaccum only. If you want mass/cost optimization you have to use the smaller tanks which give you a high part count and a wiggly ship. -More powerful monoprop RCS. Customization for the base RCS block like we now have for the tiny one. -Falcon 9 style booster landing legs. -Size 3/ 3.75m probe core (where is it?) -2.5m klaw for large asteroid movers. -A "fully realized" rhino. Ideally one where I can toggle off the "base" of the engine like you can with most of the other 2.5m engines such that I could cluster them on the bottom of a 5m tank. Its implied in the text that the rhino was originally going to be a massive first stage engine. Mammoths are good but they don't look good clustered due to already being a cluster.( I'd like to be able to toggle that base off on a rhino so I can cluster 3-4 of them on a 5m upper stage.)

Chapter 15: A Brief 'Inter' Mission. Decided I wanted to have a fresh stock of crash test dummies astronauts, and the duna transfer window isn't anywhere near. Part recovery, rover repair and kerbal rescue are good ways to make money. One mission I took was a rover repair that paid out well over a million dollars. I have been tracking how many launches have been conducted with each type of lifter. We have had 17 launches on the Gallium lifter after all of this. Many kerbal rescues were conducted with the orbiting rescue station I put up way back when. Bringing home this lander can netted me 400k. Rodock Kerman (1) was rescued from around the Mun, using the old gallium orbiter. Raylas Kerman (2) and his lander can was also brought home from Munar orbit. Erinand Kerman (3) was brought home from a rescue station ship. Another empty command pod rescue. I don't know what a rover cockpit was doing in Minmus orbit. Here at Hunter Space Program, we don't ask questions as long as we get paid. Halzor Kerman (5) coming home from another rescue station ship. Luwise Kerman (6) coming home along with a plane cabin. Kerner Kerman (7) Low orbit rescue ship cabin. Wehroly Kerman (8) Phofurt Kerman (9) Timy Kerman (10) Anyways this contract... ... Plus theres one more kerbal to pick up. I made this new Thorium orbiter that fits on the appropriate booster. I'm thinking these might be the lander/return ships for the phoenix project. (This was a test launch, I took bob off for the actual mission cus I needed a seat for Desus) Oodles of orbital DV. Desus Kerman (11) Now to get the rover. It needs control point so I brought some seats (in the service bay) to duct tape on. It has solar panels too. And that's that. That should be sufficient funding and crew for project phoenix.

Anyways I've seen several people do this and I thought it would be fun to incorporate this idea into my playthrough. That being AI generated missions. So here is what our robot overlord chat GPT had to say and I think this is going to be the next big challenge that I work towards. It even gives me a snazzy name, that I think is appropriate. Like a phoenix rising from the ashes I will revive my KSP playthrough. Mission Name: Project Phoenix Mission Objective: The objective of Project Phoenix is to establish a sustainable colony on the surface of Duna, the fourth planet in the Kerbol system. This ambitious mission aims to lay the foundation for long-term human habitation and scientific exploration on Duna. Mission Parameters: Launch Window: The optimal launch window for Project Phoenix occurs when Duna and Kerbin are in the correct alignment. The launch window opens every 687 days, which corresponds to Duna's orbital period. The next launch window is scheduled to open in 23 days. Payload Configuration: The payload for Project Phoenix consists of three components: a. Crew Module: A specialized habitation module capable of supporting a crew of four Kerbals for an extended period. It includes life support systems, communication equipment, and scientific instruments. b. Lander Module: A descent module designed to safely deliver the crew to the surface of Duna. It is equipped with parachutes for atmospheric braking and landing legs for a soft touchdown. c. Return Vehicle: A separate module designed to return the crew safely back to Kerbin. It includes a heat shield for atmospheric reentry, a propulsion system for the journey home, and parachutes for a controlled landing. Launch Vehicle: The launch vehicle for Project Phoenix is the Kerbodyne S3 KS-25x4 "Mammoth" liquid fuel engine. It provides the necessary thrust to lift the payload into orbit and perform the trans-Duna injection burn. Additional boosters, such as the S2-17 "Thoroughbred" solid rocket boosters, can be used to augment the launch vehicle's performance. Trajectory and Course Corrections: The mission will utilize a Hohmann transfer orbit to reach Duna efficiently. During the transfer, multiple course correction maneuvers will be performed to ensure a precise rendezvous with Duna. The mission control team will calculate the required delta-v and timing for each burn. Surface Operations: Once the lander module reaches Duna's surface, the crew will initiate surface operations, which include: a. Setting up a base camp: The crew will establish a base camp to serve as the central hub for scientific experiments and resource utilization. The base camp will house a laboratory, living quarters, and storage facilities. b. Resource utilization: The crew will deploy mining equipment to extract and process resources, such as water and minerals, for life support and fuel production. c. Scientific exploration: The crew will conduct experiments to study Duna's geology, atmosphere, and potential for supporting life. They will collect samples and perform experiments to gather valuable scientific data. Duration and Return: The crew is expected to stay on the surface of Duna for approximately 400 days. After the completion of surface operations, the crew will board the return vehicle and perform the necessary burns to initiate the journey back to Kerbin. The return trajectory will be carefully calculated to ensure a safe reentry and landing. Communication and Support: Mission control will maintain constant communication with the crew throughout the mission. A network of relay satellites will be deployed around Duna to ensure uninterrupted communication. Supplies and additional equipment can be sent from Kerbin to Duna if needed. Note: The success of Project Phoenix relies on careful planning, precise execution, and effective problem-solving. Unforeseen challenges may arise during the mission, and the mission control team will work closely with the crew to address any contingencies. Safety and the well-being of the crew are of utmost importance throughout the mission. I want to try and follow the spirit of the challenge as closely as possible. I actually tried asking it for KSP challenges a few months ago and it tended to come up with impossible or bizzare mission parameters. This seems to be one of the most sensible responses I have gotten out of it. -I feel like the launch window its telling me about is the first ingame launch window when the planets are at their default positions. I'm about eight years into the game at this point so we'll just be waiting for the next one, whenever that is. We will at least be trying to fly precisely and keep the crew alive as we generally do. -It asks for specific parts on the launch vehicle. I've already played with a few configurations and I might throw up a screenshot, as a launcher that can put 120 tons in LKO using 4 thoroughbreds and a mammoth and is a pretty sensible vehicle that will slot in nicely with the family of launchers that we have already developed. It never says this has to be a single-launch mission so I am giving myself full liberty to use the lifter to fly multiple missions in orbit and build a large interplanetary transfer vehicle to send everything we need over in one big mission. -It mentions having a lander, a return ship, a network of communications satellites and a surface base. It mentions specifically that the base should have a lab, living quarters and storage (I interpret this as inventory storage or spare parts). -The lander and the return ship may be able to be bundled together, possibly with an upper stage to the lander which can send the pod back to kerbin. It also mentions mining capabilities on our landers. This would be very good if we want to biome-hop. (I am thinking we maybe want to snag all the Ike science while we are there.) The lander can have a science bomb, hop around once or twice and refuel and then do it again. I think we will bundle those onto our lander(s) rather than making a seperate ship. I will play with some designs and think about it.

Hello. I took a spin-the-wheel challenge in (checks notes) November of last year. Just today I actually finished flying the mission.

Chapter 14: A Long Time Coming After almost three months of silence (and almost three years of in-game time) I have finished this mission. I have a silent goal of getting flags and footprints on every planet in the kerbin system. For the amount of time that I have spent playing this game, I haven't actually been everywhere and I would like to pick this project up again. Regardless I flew most of this mission in april and just came back to finish it now. So I'm going to be guessing at what I was actually thinking/doing at each stage. Also this mission is a submission for the spin the wheel challenge. I must fly a single launch mission to Dres, plant a flag (so crewed) and not use ion engines. I am not a big fan of ions to begin with. And I wouldn't use them for a crewed mission in career due to the xenon costing an arm and a leg. (Yes I know I have like 7mil kerbucks I'm greedy) Landing on dres isn't hard to my knowledge. It's pretty similar to the mun. But getting out there has been a nightmare in my experience. In my intermittent attempts to make interplanetary transfers over the years, I always end up running out of Delta-V. Which is where getting there in one launch with enough nuke fuel becomes a thing. Never said how big the rocket had to be. Laughs in 200t to LKO launch vehicle. Meet the Vanadium booster. The Vanadium booster is surprisingly well behaved. I don't remember what this disaster was. I strongly suspect it resulted in me making a last minute change to the rover and reverting the mission, one that would bite me in the bum later. Nuclear spacecraft in orbit. This thing was poorly designed. Coming back to this after a few months of having not played I am wondering what I was thinking keeping the lander docked between those two prongs, it made rendezvous and docking a pain in the patoot. Well... its a transfer all right. Already the side pods (which were hybrids of cargo bays and staged fuel tanks) were almost empty. I really started getting nervous when I saw I needed a 3kms burn to get into dres orbit. One of the cargo/fuel side pods of the transfer vehicle had a quartet of comms satellites stashed inside. These work alright, their comms barely reach when kerbin and dres are opposite each other but since I plan on going everywhere eventually they can contribute to the interplanetary network quite nicely. Deploying the lander. Regardless. This was it, challenge complete, flag planted. Now the only part is landing the crewed/uncrewed science rover I had stashed on the other side of the transfer vehicle. Though its really easier for me to show what the problem was. Re-Docking This was the problem. The mission was mostly successful. But apparently (this may have been related to the disaster pictured above and the last minute changes) but I only found out there was no means to decouple the rover from the inside of the bay. I tried to have Halfrod decouple it. But unfortunately, Halfrod is unable to half a rod of parts. With that I just decided to scrub the science-gathering portion of the mission and chart a course for home. I had completed my long-overdue challenge of getting to dres. I put the transfer ship on a sub-orbital trajectory since there was no means of getting the rover detached and burned for home. E Entering the kerbin system at 4.5kms. Not using my copious DV reserves to slow down? Lets see how it goes. Was very surprised that reentry speed was survivable. -+- Bonus screenshots// not related to the challenge. I tested a janky SSTO that I don't think i'll be using. Its a pretty exotic design. Though the mission (which these screenshots are helping me to remember) was a kerbal+pod recovery mission in kerbin orbit. This thing was falling apart and generally having problems throughout the mission, though if memory servers I did land it first try. I don't feel like doing much typing or explanation so I'll let the pictures tell the story.

Chapter 13: Contractual Obligations I feel like I'm learning more about the contract system than actually how to navigate space travel. Regardless I saw this contract for taking a craft to four separate bodies. My only question was did these have to be in order, because three are relatively easy to get off of. That and I didn't want to have to fly to gilly, back to kerbins SOI and then back to eve. But the payout was incredibly tasty. Extremely high DV ships arent hard to build with fuel crossfeed and a nuke engine. It doesn't need to carry any science so the final payload can be quite light... Yes. Looks like I can do these in any order. Mun landing was a bit dicey, started falling over immediately upon touching down. But I had the contract checkmark so I just carried on. Minmus was much easier. Much easier transfer to Eve than my previous attempt. Touch on one leg like a tip-toe (Gilly moment) Aaand as far as contracts for 1.7 million kerbucks go that wasn't too hard. I also had a whole bunch of kerbal rescues, most around Minmus. Some of the contracts called for me to recover the pods too. So I sent up a very odd spacecraft to bring them home. Welcome aboard, Rosbal Kerman Did I mention one of the kerbal's names was Arson Kerman. Had to add her to the krew. We also had 'Podman's Pod' (Screenshots are out of order.) These heat shield crafts I used to bring back the kerbals with contracts that also called for me to return the capsule were a little harrowing, but they got the job done, no F9's required. I also put up a sentinel telescope and mapped some asteroid but forgot to take any screenshots of that mission...

Chapter 12: The Grandest Slam I sort of did this as a joke. So I had a contract to get the science from the ground science seismometer instrument on Minmus. But in order to get it you need to actually crash something into the planet. I wound up making an asparagus staged nuke torpedo, deciding I wanted to hit it as hard as possible and be absolutely sure I got the science. (With the payout from the contract, I still pulled a profit even though this was probably overkill.) Targeting Minmus, beginning acceleration. First set of nuke tanks away. Second set away, now we're really picking up speed. Dropped the final set early as I started accelerating too close, and wanted to see how fast I could get going. >8kms enough going to hit hard enough? Yep that will do it.

Landed a rover on Eve. First time going there in about 7 IRL years. Only broke one wheel due to Kraken. Crewed mission to Gilly.

Chapter 11: An EVE-ntful Mission Okay so when I used to play this game back in the day I had a nasty habit of spending all my time faffing around in Kerbins SOI and not exploring the other bodies in the system. So when I started this playthrough I made it a goal of mine to get a flag on every planet and bring the kerbal back safely. I didn't fly an eve-return mission yet. But I did fly out there. The contract I had called for returning from Eve, so I figured I might as well crew the mission. Hence the Thorium spacecraft on a Tellurium rocket. Liftoff Orbital insertion went a lot better than a certain recent spaceX flight. The Tellurium was mostly up to the task, only needed a small apoapsis kick from the nuclear engine stage. Am I good at making efficient transfers. Err... not really. Arrival at eve. Night side insertion burn. Deploying the eve lander. I have very little experience with other planets, so I wasn't quite sure how to optimally engineer this thing. I seem to have lost my aerobraking screenshot. Regardless the 3.75m heatshield with full ablator defeated eve's atmosphere just fine. Unfortunately the Kraken lives yet. Especially here. It took me some save scumming to get the rover out from under the lander without everything exploding. Eventually I got it with one broken wheel and decided that was good enough. The rover liked to jitter around which messed with the surface scanning arm, probably due to the high gravity. The best trick seemed to be to wedge the rover up close to surface features to scan them. I found both basalt hexagons and a volcanic rock, and scored the science for both. The rover lost a second wheel along the way and it had become rather difficult to control at that point so I called this section of the mission complete. Regardless I got science readings from two different biomes and had driven about 6km from the landing site. Am I the only one who likes reading these? I like learning about the fictional scientific history of the kerbin system. I brought the Thorium spacecraft along and decided it would be used as a gilly lander and return vehicle. Landed on Gilly. Bobsy hit a golf ball to escape velocity. Getting the surface science set up required me to tip the ship over. (but... its Gilly so I could just bring it back to upright with the reaction wheels) Since kerbals have just-not-enough inventory space to move surface science parts and use the jet pack. I became surprisingly proficient at using a jet-packed kerbal to bonk a non-jet packed kerbal back into the ground to save me from having to wait a few minutes each time one of them decided to yeet themselves off into space. Regardless heres a publicity photo. The mission also came with two these little mini relays. While they are a cute design they aren't powerful enough to send a signal all the way back to kerbin. I just deployed them anyway... I was worried I wouldn't have enough DV to make it back to kerbin. But my concerns were unfounded. Having ditched the landing stage of the Thorium, the Eve Lander and the relays I had DV for days on the nuke stage. I came back in to find I was heading for a mun encounter. Dont mind the radioactive mess of deorbiting an unneeded nuke stage. Sci returns were pretty good. OFC they mostly turn into money now with the strategy I have invoked. Up to 7 million and back down to about 5.7 million after I max upgraded the remainder of KSC.

Chapter 10: Easy Money Quick short chapter, might upload more tonight. Anyways I found this contract. I don't remember this type of contract being available back in the day. It seems new with the engineer konstruction ability. I was curious about what doing it might entail so I went ahead and took it. I was mostly curious because of the absurdly high payout. Regardless (We actually have almost 4 million, over 4 million now. I should probably be playing on higher difficulty. But in my experience higher difficulty just makes career more grindy.) Alright heres the rover it spawned. Looks like it just needs a power supply to be usable. I was worried it would be flipped or id need to jack it up and add wheels or something. Sending a 3-man Throium rocket was probably overkill. But getting almost 700k for a 70k rocket. Its still like 900% profit. Plus its a chance to get the OG Krew together for a very classic feeling mun mission. Was this low orbit plane change inefficent as heck? Yes. Did I care when I had 3kms in the can? No. I've gotten quite good at landing close to things. Came down within 50 meters. Few static solar panels was all it took, the rover was charging. Not sure why the wheels are cantered like that, but its no my rover so... The drive turned out to be about 3km to the target zone. But it was over very easy terrain so no biggie. Success. Sent the Krew home, no screenies of that though.

Chapter 9: Extended Deployment So last time we left the Thorium spacecraft on Minmus with most-likely not enough DV to get back. Normally I think the ISRU is a bit overpowered but in this case, I'm going to use one to set up a fueling station. Thats what I've got in this fat fairing on the Tellurium Rocket. Booster sep, Tellurium is fun to fly. Side tangent, the skipper is a serious sleeper engine. Cheap, relatively efficient and quite powerful. This center stage can get into orbit with a ~90 ton payload... Faring Deployment. Enough DV to land on Minmus... we shall see. Made it with only 154m/sec in the can. Put bill in the command seat. The lander has four cupolas to clear that minmus base contract, and because it looks cooler that way. As well all know cool looking ships work better. Cleared a quick EVA survey contract. Wound up having to fly Bobsy to four locations. Almost ran out of propellant. Filled up after only 2 ingame days. Sisted and kathul will be staying on the base without a means to return, at least for now. Luckily those two lovely ladies don't mind staying on the minty little mun for awhile doing research. Set the refueling lander and the Thorium spacecraft into orbit and refueled it. Then decided I would stop by Easter station and pick up the kerbals on the way home. The refueling lander can be piloted remotely, it just has crew accommodation so I can put engineers in there to speed up mining and refining. Normally I keep orbital stuff out of this but Minmus-Mun transfers are pretty rare. Docked to Easter station. It was at this juncture that I realized that I had forgotten the 80-some-odd science reports on Minmus. They were still in the nuclear lander... The Thorium still had over 1km/s. I transferred back to Minmus, and took two rescue contracts along the way. Agager and Cordrin will be joining the crew. The Thorium has seating for 15, might as well use it. Landed back at Dragonfly base (Again) and Mirbeth got the forgotten science. Even though I copiously quicksaved with now 3 rescued kerbals and an entire Mun's worth of science reports, this return and reentry was still a nail biter. Regardless the Thorium spacecraft held up. Tech tree cleared, still almost 6k science in the bank. Upgraded the administration building for the first time. I think this is the first time (ever) that I've used this facility. But since I had the tech stock tree maxed out, science is pretty much useless now. Sadly I could only invest in the strategy 95%, apparently my reputation is still too low. But that's good enough for now, as pretty much all the science I bring in will now just convert to more money.

Bookmarking this challenge, as I am planning to visit every stock planet in my career save.

Tried to match the colors as best I could, at least I have green and orange. Unf can't get rid of the black on the carrots.

Chapter 8: Mostly Successful Big report today. First of all I made a spreadsheet to catalogue all the launches and the launcher used for each one, as part of the standard lifter challenge. I don't know If as I continue to work my way along I will end up making variant launchers or end up with more than 10. But thus far I have found I greatly enjoy playing with standard launchers. It actually saves me a lot of time designing rockets when I can just slap the launch stage on underneath. Ga-10, launching to munar orbit to preform a rescue and return a spare kerbal on Easter Station. Bloody comm net blackout made this annoying. But I eventually managed to get to Gilbrett in a scary low munar orbit. Stopped and picked up Burdock Kerman at Easter Station. Once those two were safely home, I took a look at my contracts. I have a lot of contracts I've picked up or were available for stuff on Minmus, so I think now that the Mun is mostly mined out of science, It's wise to switch our efforts there. I have a contract for basic Eve exploration but were nowhere near a transfer window... I actually put one of these up around the Mun and somehow forgot to screenshot or record it here. But I designed a survey satellite, which I have been referring to as the "Insight" spacecraft. It does double duty as a resource scanner and relay, and can be launched on the Gallium rocket. Scan Complete. The Minmus Insight spacecraft had a gravioli detector, mostly so I could use it to pick up a very lucrative gravity survey contract. There actually seems to be a fair few typos in the contract messages. No space between 'these' and 'gravimetric'. I then wanted to start testing a high capacity orbiter. I really, really wish we could get a stock 4-5 kerbal command pod to fit with the 2.5 meter parts. Something like the MK1-3 but maybe with a longer shape and heavier mass. Could be modeled after the Orion or Dragon capsule. I went with putting 3 of the Mk2 plane fuselages together to get a sort of starship like design. I brought along a couple tourists who just needed "orbit around Kerbin" to complete the contract. Because, you know, using tourists as crash test dummies is about the most kerbal thing you can do. Yep. The Bismuth booster isn't the best design. Partially because it lacks separation rockets (it was designed before I had them)... The kerbals landed safely though, the 3 parachutes are more than enough for the ~10 ton final stage of this thing. Ultimately tried a completely new launcher. This one dubbed Thorium. It costs about the same as a Bismuth, but seems to have better TWR and since I used soyuz carrots to build the asparagus boosters, it has a much lower risk of exploding during launch. Further testing showed that fins were needed. But I will probably proceed to canonize this as a middleweight lifter. ultimately got the tourists and this "starship lite" spacecraft works quite well. Now, time for some serious Minmus Exploration. Broke out the heavy Tellurium launcher for this mission. Big rockets are always so much more fun to fly... So what I put in that fairing is both a science outpost, and a nuclear engine lander... The Tellurium preformed way better than its first use. I'm not sure if the payload was slightly lighter (they were both around 90-100 tons iirc) or I just flew a more efficient ascent profile. It seemed to work best flying more or less straight up, maybe tipping a little until the mainsail boosters are ready to drop, then turning over to about sixty degrees. Wolfhounds are fantastic and possibly slightly OP. I spare you all most of the boring orbital transfer stuff so here we are... This nuclear lander is a bit sluggish but it has an absurd amount of DV. Touchdown. Had to do it with partial probe control due to lack of relays... I didn't really care where I landed this stuff. Sending down the base, which lands horizontally. Disposed of the transfer stage. It was at this point, an hour into this mission that I realized the base was supposed to have a docking port. The lander has a docking port in case I ever want to refuel it. But the base was just designed to be a support system for a surface lab. I couldn't think of a situation where I would need to dock with or expand it. You apparently get bonus science returns from labs if they're on the surface of a body. And it had to be fully assembled on launch, no taking an engineer to go weld one on and having it count for the contract. Whatever, we still have a usable base and lander. I shouldn't worry too much, I have over two million spare Kerbucks at this point. Thorium rocket on the pad. Time to send the crew. I could have sent them in the base and lander. But neither of those can return to Kerbin, and I liked the lite-role-play element of sending the crew in their own spacecraft. Thorium rocket is fun to fly. Had to stop and pick up a Staman Kerman in Minmus orbit. Thorium Starship on approach for landing. Touchdown. Can we make it back to Kerbin with only 426m/sec in the tank? Well... that's a problem for future me. I'm planning on doing some fueling infrastructure here too, so I can make amends on the contract and hopefully get a good use. Also this screenshot got photobombed by a discord message please ignore that. Surface science set up. Flag planted (Minmus flag contract done. Surface science contracts now in the works...) I got the lab crunching data. This, coupled with the one in munar orbit will probably be enough for me to soon fill out the tech tree...

I flew a bunch of munar landings, sweeping most of the science out of most of the biomes. I didn't take screenshots as I realized it would be the same lander, same kerbals each in a different gray biome on the mun. Just trust that I did 12+ landings in different biomes. I used up pretty much all the fuel in that giant tank I sent. Enough to rendezvous with the station? Only 39m/sec... When i finished my last science run, the lander didn't have enough fuel to make it back to the station. So I sent an orbiter to go get the Kerbals. Bobsy is the only one I trust to handle 100+ science reports at the same time. 6727 science returns from one mission. Enough to clear the tech tree? No, unfortunately...

Yeah thats it. But I swear these were actually available for purchase and not just a concept...

I apologize if this is the wrong section of the forum. I remember there being KSP salt/pepper shakers that looked like the Mun and Minmus and mugs that looked like Duna and Kerbin in the merch store. But I cannot find them anywhere. I cannot even find pictures or mentions of them online. But I swear they existed...

Chapter 7: Surveying the Mun So things started off pretty simply, taking the Gallium spacecraft off of Easter station to go get Sidden Kerman, who had gotten himself into a pickle in munar orbit. Only for me to realize that he was retrograde relative to the station... I did get him though, only after stealing fuel from the station and inverting my orbit... I decided to mine the Mun for science points. It has lots of biomes and now that I have the gravioli detector, I can clean out every biome. I made a reusable lander I called the dusthopper and put it on a Bismuth rocket to explore the Mun. Dusthopper Launching Landers with wide bases are always a good idea. Bobsy and Mirbeth set up surface science. The canyon landing was particularly harrowing... But lifting off flying down the canyon like the mun death star trench run was fun. Docked the Dusthopper to Easter Station. And sent everyone save the scientists home with the data. 3635 science from one lander and I can reuse it to hit more biomes... Somewhere along the way I rescued a Valdin Kerman from LKO using the rescue station. I then created this new large lifter with a 3.75m core to get a Kerbodyne tank (at least a more-than-half-full one) to Easter Station. I'm thinking Tellurium for this Launcher name but I'm not settled on that yet... Tellurium? Rhodium? Obligatory reminder to check your staging. Turned out to be not quite enough to get this thing into orbit, but the Wolfhounds give full thrust up here so... Now I have ~4,000 liquidfuel and ~5,000 ox on the station, enough for several trips to the surface. I just need to transfer Kerbals back out to the station...

Aye, I'm sticking to stock parts. Not so much for a challenge, but just for a stock experience. I'll have to give mammoth engines and SRB designs a go. And yeah, I did put engine plates on the bottom of every stage, I know about the airstream issue and its annoying.

In my latest Career save, I am doing a challenge to use a limited number of launchers, and I decided to test out designs though I don't formally consider them part of my roster yet (and the names are just proposals). All of these are takes on the same basic concept; skipper core and asparagus staged mastadon boosters. I themed their names after periodic table elements. This seems to be a pretty efficient configuration for cost per amount of mass I can put into orbit. Mastadons are cheap and give a lot of thrust. Skippers have decent thrust and efficiency at higher altitudes and can be used for orbital injection. Took some tweaking to get the TWRs and fuel just right. I should probably play with other engine types but I was having fun optimizing these. Also the Bismuth launcher subassembly is false advertising. That thing cannot get 50 tons into orbit. It can't even get an orange tank into orbit. I don't know why I put that in but I need to change it out. The Vanadium was by far the most successful. Probably because it has 4 asparagus stages rather than 2 or 3. IDK what the actual relationship is though. The Osmium is ofc an absurdly proportioned rocket it being the heaviest launcher by more than double the next biggest one. It picks up weird torques and likes to wobble and is probably about the practical limit for a "slap it on the bottom" type launcher. The engine cluster just gives me a fuzzy feeling though.

Chapter 6: The Dynamic Duo Well, time to send Bobsy and Mirbeth on their way. I reused a design for a two seater science spacecraft on the Gallium LV. The Mission was for a Minmus orbit and to grab the science there. I may have done something wrong because Bobsy didn't panic on the flight up. Mirbeth: "Sure looks like mint ice cream." Bobsy: "Please, I am tired of dispelling this myth. The myth that Minmus is a huge ball of mint ice cream is preposterous for several reasons. It couldn't be any sort of ice, it is inside the frost line and it would evaporate like a giant comet. The likely, and more scientifically accurate proposal is that Minmus is made primarily of glass or quartz. The slightly green coloration might come a trace amount of copper or chlorine." With that done, I got a contract to rendevouz above the Mun. The mission to Minmus earned me enough science to get the lab, so I decided to start a station. I declared it 'Easter Station', since today is Easter. Night launches aren't the best for screenshots. But the Bismuth launcher was more than up to the task of getting the lab station up in one go. Easter Station in orbit of Kerbin. I took some experiments to fire up the lab. I moved it into Munar orbit but I didn't take screenshots. Once I had the station up, I decided I wanted a crew spacecraft that I could use to send crew to and fro. While I'm not a fan of the spherical command pods, this design fit nicely on the Gallium LV, and I didn't feel like designing a new launcher or sending up a Bismuth just for a crew vehicle. I figure this spacecraft will be a stop gap until I develop something else. The nice thing about this design is the payload and DV are such that you end up dropping the last Gallium stage as you get into orbit so it doesnt't rampantly make space junk. The top stage has about 2.7km/s to play with. Enough to go places. For only 30k kerbucks a pop not bad. Docked to Easter Station, Munar Rendevouz contract complete. So good I sent a second one. I have five Kerbals on the station now. I rotated the monoprop tanks 45 degrees. Though the tanks don't actually block the thrust plumes from the RCS blocks, I liked the idea of the thrust plumes not clipping through the the monoprop tanks. Once that was done, I got my contract for surface science on Minmus. Time to send Mirbeth and Bobsy out again. Bobsy did EVA science along the way. Landed at the Minmus north pole. Bobsy smashed a frozen banana for surface EVA science. Didn't know that was one of the things they could do. Gratuitious high speed reentry. The minmus landing mission provided tons of science. Enough for me to finally unlock the most overpowered science experiment of them all, the Gravioli detector.