purpleivan

Ok then... could have sworn I tried that in the past. Ah well here goes. @JP_Magoo I choose you. Well wha'da ya know... it works (now feeling a little stupid).

Zzzzzzz... huh... ah, what. Sorry you caught me napping. Minor admission... I don't know how to get one of those pretty blue profile links into a post.

I think it's classified as verizontal

Not a real entry, but I had some fun with this Flea based rocket glider. Val insisted that the SRB be set to full thrust for some ramp assisted shenanigans... who was I to argue.

I've been having some fun in the Flea Jump Challenge, including an attempt at a ramp assisted takeoff of a rocket powered glider (Valentina insisted). Ready to go. Takeoff... er liftoff... er... something involving fire and lots of sparks. Val enjoying the ride. No more fuel. Coming in for a landing.

I paid 25 euros for it and have played it for well over 2000 hours. It's not just the best value games purchase I've ever made, it think it's the best value I've had from any type of purchase I've made. That might sound like an exaggeration, but given the price and amount of time that I've actively used it, I honestly can't think of another purchase I've made that beats it. Perhaps I've got some particularly durable pairs of socks in a draw that might, but that's about all.

Dark Star style.

One little tip. If you want to practice docking without the whole rendezvous part, send up two docked vehicles in the same launch. That might seem obvious but it's an option that can easily be overlooked. Once in orbit, undock the vehicle that you'll be controlling and move away from the other, then maneuver back and re-dock. Do this as many times as you have mono-propellant for. Might as well add a mono-propellant tank(s) to supplement that in the capsule to give you plenty of opportunity. Each time you undock, move to greater distances before returning to dock as well as bigger differences in attitude between the two vehicles. This was the way I did it when I first started playing the game, following rough recreation of Apollo missions. So in in my "Apollo 9" mission I was made multiple dockings of my CSM and LEM vehicles in Kerbin orbit, before heading off to the Mun for the real thing. Like with most things, practice is the key.

A new photo showing the presence of alien creatures and their craft during the Apollo program were discovered today. A source at the Johnson Space Center gave the following quote. "One of the image analysis team found it jammed in the photocopier, along with a memo on refilling the coffee pot when it's emptied and a recipe for spicy sauerkraut". Released with the photograph was a transcript of an interview with one of the astronauts. "Gene was parking the rover next to the SEP to give us some calibration data, while I took a panorama of the site. Suddenly I saw a vehicle approached behind the rover from up sun, which came to a stop just behind it. I couldn't speak for a moment so, when Gene looked my way I gestured to him to take a look behind. He swung around so he was, half on, half off the rover to get a look at what I could see was parked to his rear. Well Gene took one look at that thing and swung back on the rover, don't think I ever saw him move so fast. Then he headed off as fast as the rover would go. Kicked up a big plume of dust all over that thing. Then that crazy looking contraption took off after the rover, following right in its wheel tracks. Gene drove around the landing site for five minutes trying to shake it off. A couple of times I saw him trying to get a look behind him with his wrist mirror, to see if it was still on his tail. I guess that thing didn't have as low a center of gravity as the rover, because in the tighter turns it was up on two wheels, teetering away looking like it was on the edge of toppling over, first to one side, then the other. In the end it took one fast turn too many and went into this slow, slow, roll to the left. Well it was a bit of a mess. A big antenna looking thing on the rear of broke off as did about a half dozen other things. Looked like something from a scrap yard after that. Well... more like something from a scrap yard than it did before the crash. A half minute later Gene arrived back to where I was standing by the SEP. While he dismounted I saw what I guess was the driver of that vehicle, exit it and start to gather some of the pieces they'd strewn across the surface. I don't know if they we planning on making repairs, or just being tidy. That weird little guy made their way over to that antenna like piece and started dragging it back towards their vehicle. After about a minute it must have got tired of dragging it along, because it dropped it halfway back to the vehicle and made their way over too what looked like some kind of round pressurised tank. When they got up to it, they grabbed it around the center and picked it up. But I guess the accident must have weakened it, because just as that little guy got a hold of it, some kind of gas started to vent from the underside. It must have been under quite a pressure, because the tank and the little guy holding it took off at about a 30 degree angle to the surface. That thing was really moving, shot over the top of that vehicle of theirs and then headed on out over the South Masif. Gene and I watched it for about a minute until we lost sight. I still wonder what became of that little guy."

I rarely re-fly a design so launching something I made earlier isn't usually an option. The only exception to this would be some Kerbin orbit launches early in a career game, such as the "rescue kerbal x" ones, but even then I tend to select the vehicle from the VAB.

I take screenshots of KSP with the kerbally bits I want in the right orientation etc. for the photo that I'm editing them into. One I've got one that's a good fit, I cut out what I want then adjust lighting and shadows etc. to make a decent match to the photo.

I have to wonder when a thread where everyone except a single person is in agreement is going to end.

How about some JG Thirlwell... if you're in the mood for a creepy rover drive around the polar regions of the Mun.

But only for well connected kerbals, the rest have to make do with being "mechanically recovered" and then processed into heat shield ablation material. Something to think about that on your next fiery re-entry.

After a lull in the releases of photographs showing alien creatures on the moon during the Apollo program, a new photo was made available to the press today. A transcript of an interview with one of the missions' astronauts, made a few years after the events described, accompanied the photo. "Well I was taking a series of panorama photos with the Hasselblad. This was at the 8 o'clock position and Ed was using the TV camera to give a live panorama of our landing site. I'd worked my way round clockwise and just taken a shot looking toward the solar wind experiment when I saw some high velocity dust flying past me from my right. It was real light, but it was really moving and that got my attention because I was thinking it might have been some kinda leakage on the LM. So I dropped what I was doing and turned round towards the module, just in time to see a vehicle of some kind touching down about 150 feet away. Course I'd heard the rumours, we all had, but it wasn't something we really talked about and my jaw kinda dropped when I saw that thing set down. I turned towards Ed and could see he was still working the TV camera, but he was looking off to his side at this weird looking thing while pointing the camera in the opposite direction. By the time I took a shot of the vehicle something had come out of it and was moving around on the surface. It was kinda small, but other than that looked a lot like us, well until it turned round and I got a look through its visor. Everything was in the right place I guess, but it had a head the shape of a pencil eraser and these big eyes, I mean real big. Only thing bigger than those eyes was its mouth. Kinda unsettling at first, but it gave me this big goofy grin that looked friendly enough and then set of around the far side of the vehicle. A minute of so later I see it come up behind that vehicle on some sort maneuvering unit, like Gene tried to test on Gemini. Well it moved over the top of the vehicle of theirs and then dropped down on to it. I guess it was made of something a bit stronger than the LM, because when it gets up there it takes a walk across the top of it, to a dish mounted at the edge. When it gets there, it grabs hold of the dish and starts yanking away at it. I'm standing there waiting for that dish to break off in its hand, I mean this was not some kinda careful repair being attempted. It was yanking at that thing like a plumber pulling on stuck u-bend on a bad day. But something must have clicked into place because that thing stopped yanking at it and the dish swiveled round to point down sun. I guess that was it's work done, because after that it headed back inside the vehicle. A few seconds later the upper half of that vehicle, something like our ascent stage I guess, takes off leaving the base section behind. Once we got the OK from Houston we went over to what was left to take a closer look. When we got over there Ed and I each pulled free a few small pieces of it to bring back with us. I gotta say they didn't look like much, I mean I've seen farm equipment that looks more advanced. I don't really know what happened to those pieces after we got back. I was told that they were going to be looked at by our top engineers, but later I heard they got crated up and shipped off to some huge warehouse instead. Could still be there now I guess."

One of the freakiest things that has happened for me was when I landed a large(ish) rocket on the runway island as part of a challenge. The vehicle was identical to this one, except it was sitting on the runway instead of the control tower (I'd missed it and landing on it was part of the challenge). After landing I decided to take its pilot for a little run around after their hop from the KSC, but a few seconds after leaving the vehicle I noticed that it was no longer sitting on the ground, but instead was a couple of metres above it and slowly drifting up at about 0.5m/s. After watching the thing eerily ascend until it must have been about 100-200m up I loaded the last save that I had before the launch.

The Kraken took a big bite out of my wheeled fuel base on Minmus. However it's the only time this has happened to me, so the "wheels and claws" method of base building is still my go to technique, if potentially risky.

I actually had that book ("Destination moon" I think) when I was a kid. .

The last pics from my 1.3 Career game (abandoned it after an update snafu). Jool 1 landed on Pol Filling up a tug from an abandoned contract station that was stuffed with tasty propellant. The tug and a separately launched rescue vehicle were to collect a kerbonaut stranded on Duna. Jeb sneaked on-board the rescue vehicle (the upper section of the craft bottom right), as he is want to do so I dropped him off at the contract station before docking the rescue vehicle to the tug.

A high stakes, adrenaline fueled rescue mission is the ONLY option. Just Imagine it... Bob Kerman is "The Rescuer"... scrub that, too literal. "The Scientist"... ah, too sciencey, the kids won't like it. "The One"... Nailed it! A one in a million chance to save the stranded crew of a Mun mission gone wrong. Trapped on the barren landscape of an alien world with snacks and hope running low. Only the chiseled good looks, no nonsense attitude and zippy one liners of your A list star can save the day. The dramatic music, cutting edge (well not quite) special effects, slightly ropy dialogue, liberty taking with the facts, and a slew of expendable extras will make this THE hit of the summer. Oh... KSP "the gaaame". Forget what I said.

I've left most junk on Eve I'd say... including this pile from a single return to orbit.

Two or three times I've had that "you've gotta be kidding" moment and had to get out and push. Did it once on a trip to Mun and back in a challenge. The vehicle had 8 kerbals in command seats on the outside of the vehicle, so when one of them got out to push, the other 7 just sat back, taking in the view.

For me it was snagging one of the many fuel lines on my heavily asparagus-ed Eve lander (the 1st workable design I landed) on a small part (parachute I think) instead of connecting to a fuel tank, resulting in the supply of fuel to the engines being unbalanced. This ended in the expected, expensive, fiery way, forcing me to F9 to pre-launch and then sending an (almost) identical, but unmanned vehicle to give my brave explorer a chance of seeing Kerbin's blue skies again. Thankfully all went well with the 2nd vehicle.

All of them, plus a couple in one of the planet pack mods (can't remember which pack or or planets). I'd guess that most people who make it beyond Duna end up visiting all the planets and most/all of the moons, if only to tick them off the list.

Can't pick a single one, but these come to mind. 1st Mun landing, which was preceded by Apollo 8 and 9 type missions to test my vehicles. 1st orbital rendezvous in RSS. 1st asteroid capture.