purpleivan

I had to think for a moment about that question and then the obvious hit me, once I'd remembered it. The single stupidest thing I did was on my first Eve return mission in which I sent this to Eve. Only to then find on attempting to launch the thing back into orbit that one of the many, many fuel lines... one of these little yellow fellas here... ...instead of connecting one fuel tank to another, was snagged on some other part (I think it was a parachute pack). This meant that the entire trip was wasted, as the asparagus staging failed to operate as intended, due to one of the engines running dry early, causing the vehicle to roll over during ascent. So I had to revert to an earlier save, from before the mission had left Kerbin orbit. I then De-orbited the vehicle, recovered Jeb and relaunched him on an entire new vehicle, with the one errant fuel line fixed. This vehicle here. Which fortunately took off as planned.

Some pics from my 1.3 career game. Bringing 400 units of ore back from the Mun for OMB Demolition Enterprises. Moving Mun lab to a polar location. Jeb goes exploring the depths (bottomed out at just over 1km down). 1st flight to Jool waits in Kerbin orbit. Sciencing in planes. Return vehicle rendezvous' with space station to bring home the crew after a 180 day stay. The all important science work continues through the night (then day then night again, repeat ad infinitum..)

A few recent highlights from my 1.3 career game. Bringing some ore back from Mun Moving a Mun lab to a polar location. Exploring the depths. Return to the surface was not so smooth (shot up into the air at about 15m/s. 1st flight to Jool waits in Kerbin orbit. Some fun with planes. Picking up a bit of science with planes. Planting flag on Minmus at Kerbinset. 1st landing on Duna. Return vehicle delivered to bring home the crew of three after 180 days in orbit. Lab in Kerbin orbit.

I often think about using pet names... well, I am now. Snowy - currently in orbit of Eeloo. Lucky - Crashed somewhere on the surface of Eve. crew presumed lost. Rusty - Operational base on the surface of Duna, a redesigned version of its predecessor, Scruffy. Scruffy - Status abandoned on Duna. Was a bit of a handful while passing through the planet's atmosphere (top kept poking out from behind the safety of the heat shield) and on arrival made a mess on the surface. Design couldn't be depended on for long duration trips after that, so was abandoned. Tiddles 2 - Currently en-route to Laythe, a replacement for Tiddles 1, which after exceeding it's expected system lifetime, returned home to Kerbin. Current buried at the back of the administration block Sparky 2 - Power module (upgraded version of Sparky 1) with 4 RTG's in addition to Sparky 1's 3 pairs of Gigantors. Currently en-route to a station in Mun orbit (Scamp) Ginger - Fuel module consisting of a single Jumbo 64 with a Round-8 on top of it for some unknown reason.. also currently en-route to Scamp. Scamp - Originally placed in a circular, 100km equatorial orbit of Mun, but has since been affected by gravitational anomalies generated by mascons that have perturbed this into 38 degree inclination with an AP of 92km and a PE of 0.05km. Both Sparky 2 and Ginger now have no chance of a rendezvous with Scamp. Note: A rescue vehicle (Claw as Universal Docking and De-orbit Limitation Emergency System) is currently being prepared for delivery to Mun space in order to bring Scamp to heel.

I still remember when I saw my first eclipse thread...

Yep... seen plenty at KSC and even more in orbit. It actually becomes humdrum after a while, it can even be a bit annoying... about to take a nice screenshot, but there's a big black blob on the planet below, or you wonder why your supply of solar power suddenly disappeared

Wondered what you meant for a moment. Parachutes... absolutely essential for a Munar landing because of... er... erm... physics.

For me it was the flight of the Eve Party Boat, a four kerbal return mission to the surface of Eve, back in the ancient days of my KSP experience (September 2014) about 7 weeks after starting to play the game. For me it was more than a mission, it became an obsession. No matter how impractical it was (or how ludicrous my solution) I had to do it and in the end came up with this. Launch the lander about 1/3 fueled into Kerbin orbit... check. Make a silly number (must have been about 6) of launches to fuel the thing... check. Attach a pair of huge tugs to get the thing to Eve... check. Float down on an insane number of parachutes to a 6000m landing site I'd scouted out with rovers... check Land perilously close to the scout rover that I used as a marker for landing... check. Take snapshot of the brave crew and their.... er... fine ship. Get everyone back on board again... check. Liftoff safely... check. Make it to orbit... check. Trash the landing site... double check. Rendezvous with one of the tugs to bring the guys back home... check. Get the guys back home and wait for ticker tape parade... check. Some time later I took the same design for a local hop to the Mun, as the entry for my Mun Rocked challenge.

For some reason this thread has me thinking of a song, something along the lines of "la, la, laa, la, la, laa... James Kermaron"

I'd forgotten all about the multiplayer mod that did the rounds some time ago. I have to admit the idea intrigued me, but I never got around to checking it out.

Eve return missions are always satisfying, I've done a few of them myself. One of my early ones was with this monstrosity (the Eve Party Boat) that took four kerbals in a hitchhiker can to Eve and back. A single launch to put the lander (about 1/4 fueled) in Kerbin orbit, two more for the pusher vehicles that got it to Eve and another five to get the lander filled with fuel. That mission neither quick nor cheap

The latest post to my "The truth can now be told" thread.

Hi peeps. The guy with the truth catching antenna gived me more pics. He said that these are from the past but he put the data for em together today, ... sumfin about using a special filter that adds the missing bits. He said that's why he painted his umbrella antenna green, to catch all the natural truthiness from the pictures. He also said sumfin about it using special harmonic crystals that looked a bit like marbles... but he can't find em now, so it might be a while till he gets some more pics. Well that's all the news from Truth Headquarters (my room in mom's basement). Jumping jacks Anyone order pizza with a side of science?

I've done something similar, although at not as high a velocity, with a vehicle returning from Jool. In it's case I just didn't have sufficient fuel on the vehicle to get it closer than a few thousand km away from Kerbin as a return orbit, leaving it zooming past at about 4.5km/s. The fix I chose was to launch a fuel transfer vehicle I had at my Minmus fuel mining base towards the incoming vehicle, dock with it and transfer what fuel was left on the rescue vehicle and then adjust my Jool vehicle's incoming trajectory. So a similar problem, just not as extreme as the OP, although my rescue vehicle wasn't designed for the purpose and could have been a much more efficient deliverer of fuel.

Already done (although not as many pics). The Tinfoil Times.

A couple of pics from this weekends work in my Career Evolution Contract Pack game. This time its fueling up a station for transfer into Kerbol orbit. The contract called for 6000 units of fuel for the station to qualify for the contract, hence the need for a refueling ship.

Following pressure for more information on the presence of another species on the Moon during the Apollo program, a senior press officer released the following image and accompanying section of mission debriefing of one of the astronauts. "We'd already encountered these things on EVA 1 when they appeared to copy our flag raising. Although it was a weird experience, they didn't seem to be dangerous. Ah... we'd just placed the last of the thumpers for the Seismic Profiling Experiment and were heading back to the LEM when this rover like vehicle shot past us headed right for it, I mean it was really moving. Our rover was as aerodynamic as a barn but that thing of theirs looked more like a dragster, 'specially with a rocket blasting out the back of it. For a moment it looked like our ticket home was going to end up in a thousand pieces on the surface, but at the last moment that rocket jockey pulled the nose up towards space and shot over the top of the LEM... missed the S-Band by the length of my arm. I'd like to tell you what I thought about that but don't think I should use that kinda language in an official report."

Further pics from my Career Evolution Contract Pack game. Tomsey Kerman excitedly plants the flag for a few of those all important funds, although with the unnerving feeling of having the entirety of Kerbalkind behind him and wondering what they're up to. Is the guy in the science lab happy to be here... he seems unsure. After a moment's deliberation he decides yes he is... very much so. Meanwhile back in Kerbin orbit a pair who have been on a long duration stay of 180 days on the fabulously named "Station 1" received a visitor in the form of an unmanned return vehicle, sent up to bring them home.

communication

Typically my first stages burn out at 10-20km, generally high enough for the atmospheric pressure sensitive engines to be working fairly efficiently. But if I'm launching some massively asparagus staged beast then all bets are off... it could be as low as around 300m.

Here's my version of Skylon's screenshot. KSC just around the corner So I've got some time to work on some other things (including real life work... going to be busy for the next few months) I'm going to have to close up shop on wallpaper image request for a while. Hopefully I'll be able to do some more in a few months.

This sounds like a lot of my early interplanetary missions. I'd get to my destination with (usually) enough fuel for a landing and return to orbit, but then not have enough for the trip home. I think I spent half my time in my first two or three months flying refueling ships around the system, topping up stranded explorers. Does your lander on Duna have a docking port, or failing that does your game (if its career) have access to the Clamp-o-Tron, which you could use to refuel?

Anything with wings... well, wings that are there to act as wings and not as some kind of general guide as to where I want to go (i.e. slapped on the side of a rocket). I've flown a total of two spaceplanes to orbit. The first overshot the KSC runway on its return by some margin, so I was forced to land at the alternate on the runway island. Almost came to a stop by the end of the runway though... but not quite. The second made it back to the KSC runway, but not in one piece. Yep, anything I build with that fancy shmancy wing technology is pretty much doomed to some kind of failure.

A few pics from the early days of my Career Evolution Contract Pack game. 1st rendezvous A strange craft (some might call it an abomination) sent over to the mountains West of the KSC to pick up some much needed science. Jeb hitching a ride on a rover that was sent to the 1st Mun base, after he'd checked out sites of scientific interest. Jeb departing the Mun base leaving one lonely scientist to carry on the important work. Unfortunately the mission planners didn't realise that a science lab requires a command module to function, so some thumb twiddling for this scientist until a new base is sent up. Welcome back Jeb.

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