Wiseman

It's taken a really (really) long time, but I think we finally have a lander capable of touching down safely on the surface of Venus! Can I finally be done with this contract? I love interplanetary missions, but the time between failure and trying again is just forever in an RP-1 career!

The first of two Martian exploration missions has arrived! We start with the Mars Pioneer, which is intended to attain a scientific orbit, test the atmosphere, and attempt put an experimental lander onto the surface. Let's see how the Martian atmosphere treats us!

By request, I spend some time breaking down my decision-making for the RealAntennas used in my commsat network. Then, we work on deploying them to their proper orbit!

After waiting for the sun to rise and our new Lunacom satellite to get into position, let's see if we can drive the Solarback rover! It goes great. Really, just great. Then, on the theme of communications, we launch a heavy lifter with three satellites at once!

Let's work on the next generation of crewed service module and launch vehicle! Then, it's on to sending our first lunar communication relay to hopefully hear from the Solarback rover!

We've done the design work, waited for the transfer window, and have raised our rockets on to the launch pads. Now all that's left is to send them towards Mars! We've got five or so contracts riding on this, so no pressure - I'm sure it'll all go super easily!

It's been a while since I did a design episode, so let's talk through the process of building an exciting mission to the moons of Mars! I may have forgotten to do it during the process, but we can reverse engineer, right? Then, I send a mission I've been teasing for a while - my first lunar rover!

We managed to return from the Moon with a tiny probe, can we do it with an actual Gemini spacecraft? I swear I tested it before, but that little Soyuz heatshield is not capable of protecting a full Gemini after a mission, so let's size it up! It looks a little goofy, but that's the price we pay for protection. Then, we take another swing at the Pioneer Venus mission profile!

Let's finally get this lunar exploration properly underway! This time, we're over-building for a Luna 16 type mission with tons of new science and the possibility to return a sample to Earth. We bookend this lovely experience with the tale of the cursed H1s, woOOooOo! I'm back from vacation! Did you miss me? I took a week or so off to unplug, I hope you're all doing well. We've got a busy set of missions to get to! Our Lunar Returner craft comes back from the Moon, let's find out if I've finally got the right re-entry configuration! Then, a geostationary commsat test, and finally, the grand return to crewed spaceflight!

For my 50th episode, I decided to do a dumb! Well, I didn't decide to do it. Does anyone, really? As the clickbait title implies, something terrible lurks near the end of this video, and it's entirely the fault of bad design. What will become of our intrepid astronauts on the far side of the Moon?!

We've got new technology, new science parts, better solar panels, and more! We're revisiting some old mission profiles (a simple Moon orbiter), but with all-new purpose. Then, the Pioneer Venus 2 arrives! We've finally arrived at Venus, again! But we've learned more about how to build landers with heat shields since we launched this craft... Hopefully this one still works?? And then, on to our first Gemini Advanced concept: The Translunar Gemini Centaur!

Is anyone surprised Jonny Flores would behave like Ed White on the first American EVA? I (mostly) accidentally recreate the historic Gemini 4 mission, with it starting out with a dock and boost from an Agena Target Vehicle, start my EVA in the daylight, and have to be shooed back in after the sun sets. Then, I get super stoked about building a Titan IIIE!

Let's wrap up our first rendezvous, dock, and orbit change of a Gemini spacecraft and Agena Target Vehicle! Then, I spend some time digging into my process for building proper Moon lander that includes sample return. We've got big plans on the Moon, so let's keep pushing towards those milestones!

Well, we wanted to get back to the manned space program, and here it is! I spend probably far too long pontificating as we launch our first Gemini + Agena mission. I do things manually and it winds up being the slowest rendezvous I've ever done, both in real time and in-game, which is... A sort of achievement? In any case, we're learning a ton about the Gemini and Agena Target Vehicle architecture, which will pave the way for Gemini Advanced concepts!

Let's get working on some new science! Then I fuss with KSC upgrades for a while, and talk about our plans for the future. Finally, it's time to take another swing at the Pioneer Venus mission, taking everything we've learned and applying it to a new launch vehicle and new spacecraft!

A very eventful episode, it was hard to figure out which screenshot to use! We finally (finally!) put the Pioneer Venus lander down on Venus' surface, launch our very first Titan II GLV, and then perform a flyby of Vesta! Surely everything I've planned for will work out perfectly?!

I do some hopeful checking of Pioneer Venus' orbit and conclude that I got it exactly backwards. Well, maybe in a few more months we'll be able to land. Then, it's time to build our first Titan II Gemini Launch Vehicle, which indeed includes our shiny new Gemini spacecraft! Finally, fast pitch to Mercury indeed, we're already there for our flyby! Hopefully, I tuned my antenna properly. I did check that, right? Right?!

We continue to tie off loose ends of missions we've been planning for a long time! As it turns out, executing 5000~ m/s dV burns in Earth's orbit is not a perfectly precise operation, so we make some adjustments to Pioneer Venus' final trajectory. Then, I finally get a Surveyor Moon lander that I'm happy with, just in time to discontinue the program! And last, my mission to Mercury goes so well that it makes me nervous.

After a bunch of design work, we're finally ready to just launch a few things! We've got a bunch of Moon missions lined up, the return of our CORONA spy satellite's film capsule, and a SCANSat mission on the way!

All design, all the time! I continue walking through my process for building a spacecraft (and a new booster!) for a complicated mission. Will the dang thing work? Who knows! The fun is in building it, right?

First, let's launch the fateful third of three Combox Satellites, and revel in how wrong I was about them staying put in their relative orbits. Then, we go really deep into my design and build process as I tackle my most ambitious project yet: Pioneer Venus, a combination orbiter and lander!

I'm going to earn that First Rendezvous contract if it takes me all day! And it very nearly does. Rendezvous with other craft in RSS is a different beast due to the scales and speeds involved, not to mention how precious fuel is in orbit. But yet, we need a proper capstone for the Mercury program! Then, it's on to the Asteroid Belt with a new rocket!

Let's take a stroll through the Mars system, for cash and prizes! Apparently, Phobos gives me the giggles. I spend a bunch of time waxing poetic about comm networks and KSP in general, and then we see if lightning strikes twice on a dicey lunar landing!

This is an other one of those episodes where I get super into talking strategy and plans instead of, y'know, executing them. I'm really good at that, apparently. But this time we send another lander to the Moon, but with a twist! Then, it's time for Intrepid 5's orbital insertion at Venus!

Oh, perhaps! I'm not sure it matters in this case, though, since MechJeb is happy to execute maneuvers even if you don't have signal. A handwave and a nod compared to the way RemoteTech makes you actually pre-load the manuever with a delay, but it makes it dramatically less annoying. Let's talk communication networks! I'm apparently still very used to and stuck in my ways of thinking about old RemoteTech strategies. RealAntennas in RP-1 are a lot more forgiving in certain ways (and more challenging in others). We need to think through what our actual goals are so we can plan for the future! Oh hey, also, we're going to Mars!