purpleivan

Part 5b. A Kerbal on Eve After a flight of 200 days, Malzor entered orbit of the planet that he had been watching grow from a purple spec in space, to the world that now dominated the view from the navigation window. A burn was made of the transfer vehicle's engine to de-orbit the combined vehicle. The transfer vehicle, which had insufficient fuel for the return to Kerbin, was detached and went through the fire of re-entry along with the lander. Much to Malzor's relief, all parachutes opened correctly and with the lander hanging level below them, he drifted gently towards the surface. On touching down, the parachutes were cut free, leaving the lander standing proudly on the surface of Eve. Minutes later Malzor opened the hatch of the Mk1 Lander Can and stepped out onto the ladder. After the long descent down the ladder sections, he finally placed a Kerbal bootprint on the surface of Eve. With the distance from Kerbin being so great, Malzor was responsible for monitoring his scheduled activities on the surface. He took the obligatory press shots of himself standing in front of the lander, including one some distance away from it, during which he remembered that he'd left the controls set to "auto return", so raced back to it, before it could zoom upward leaving him stranded. This first error was followed by another that would haunt his career, which was that either due to his excitement of finally being on Eve, or his urge to "get out of this hellhole ASAP" he forgot to place the KSP flag on the surface. Not realising his error,, Malzor decided it was time to leave and ascended the ladders back to the hatch, slammed it shut and prepared the ship for its ascent from the surface. In Part 5c. Malzor heads for home.

Part 5a. Malzor's Folly With attempts to design a lander capable of a return mission to Eve, crawling towards that goal, a young kerbonaut named Malzor decided to accelerate this process by volunteering to fly the next design, untested, to Eve. His fellow kerbonauts at first laughed this off as a stunt by their inexperienced colleague, to push his way up the flight roster, expecting him to come up with a last minute excuse not to fly such a high risk mission. But no such last minute excuse came and Malzor was launched into Kerbin orbit on top of the largest launcher that the KSP had designed to date. On reaching orbit the fuel of the combined transfer vehicle and lander was topped up for the trip to Eve. However before launch could take place, a fault was discovered with the fuel transfer lines in the lander, that would have prevented Malzor's ascent from the Eve surface. Fortunately a sister vehicle was in the later stages of construction at the time and with the made fix to its fuel lines made, it was launched for a rendezvous with Malzor. After a tortuous docking of the two huge vehicles (allowing fuel transfer to the replacement vehicle) its pilot for the launch, Herman Kerman and Malzor went EVA to inspect the new vehicle and to shake hands before Malzor's departure. With the two pilots having swapped vehicles, the faulty one, at the hands of Herman, detached from the Eve bound craft and de-orbited. Malzor took a final look at his old ship from the navigation window before setting his new one on course for Eve. In Part 5b. Malzor lands on Eve.

"Wow, Kerbin's green. Better check plugins." A true story.

I think I need to withdraw my entry from the challenge as I put the wrong, i.e. non stock RTG's on it by mistake. I have the Near Future Electrical add-on in my install for a cinematic I'm working on, and must grabbed the PB-AS-NUK part from that instead of the stock PB-NUK. I only found out when someone on another thread noticed it in the IMGUR album I posted there. I'll update my vehicle at some point and re-run the flight with all stock parts.

Ion drive vehicle heading for Eeloo.

Argh... you're right of course about the RTG, I missed that. I put the vehicle together for a challenge and I always build stock vehicles for those, but I've also made some cinematics and those larger RTG's must have been in one of the parts packs I installed for use in one I've started to put together. In my rush to build the vehicle I must have just grabbed the RTG that my attention landed on, instead of the stock one. I wish there was a convenient way to separate stock from non stock parts in the VAB.

So the winner is "Thinking of home". I'll probably be working on the image this weekend.

Bob choosing to ignore Jool while ascending from Vall in the Jool 5 challenge.

Ok... today is the last day for any votes.

I'm a bit confused about the rules for this challenge. Is the idea to Hyperedit an ion powered craft to somewhere in Mun orbit, then de-orbit, land on the Mun, then return to an orbit between 60 and 100km from the surface? Back in 0.25 I made a manned (with a Mk 1 Lander can) vehicle that went from LKO to a landing on Mun then returned to a landing on kerbin. Just want to make sure of the rules before I take a crack at this. I also did a trip to Dres in a similar vehicle.

Thanks. I used a couple of audio clips of shuttle launches for the rocket sound. Even the clang of the umbilicals dropping was from one of these, I just had to line the audio up right with the video to get it in sync. I didn't have Realplume for this, although I've downloaded it now. Looking forward to seeing the effect of that in-game.

I put together a cinematic video that's a "dramatic re-imagining" of my Grand Orbital Space Station challenge entry KOSTAR, a 270 ton station in Mun orbit. Part 2 to follow when I get the time.

I made a new cinematic video about KOSTAR.

Well I did it again, I made a cinematic video when I wasn't planning to. I started out constructing a station in Mun orbit for the Grand Orbital Space Station Challenge then I thought I'd make a guide tour of the exterior of it as a short cinematic... then thought I should show so parts being launched etc. etc. etc. Finally I decided I'd make the whole thing a two part series, with part 1 (which doesn't include the guided tour) being made this weekend. Part 2 to follow sometime soon.

I can confirm that KOSTAR is entirely stock, no use of KJR or other construction mods (just aesthetic ones). On a slightly different topic, I've just completed Part 1. of a cinematic video that's a "dramatic re-imagining" of KOSTAR. Part 2. will follow when I get the time, hopefully next weekend. ... and all of this started out with putting a station in Mun orbit for a challenge. KSP getting out of hand again

I still remember the sheer terror of my first manned mun landing... long time ago.

I had a kerbal (Roley Kerman) blasted into space at high speed by the anomaly at the abandoned airstrip.

Some images from the preparation in Kerbin orbit of an early attempt I made at an Eve return mission, included in my Tales from Near and Far mission thread.

Part 4. A Trip to Eve With the interns busy making coffee while the engineers concentrated on the effort to put a Kerbal on Eve, the KSP soon had a design that they believed would do the job. After the dismal failure of their previous attempt, many more tests were conducted on the new, more powerful design, including several drop tests to confirm the suitability of the vehicle's parachute system and a massive ladder tower structure running down its side, that would give one brave kerbal the ability to descend to the surface of Eve and almost as importantly, climb back up to their capsule again. With testing on Kerbin completed it was time to send the lander to Eve. To achieve this first the lander was launched into a 200km orbit of Kerbin, followed by the launch of the transfer vehicle that would provide the thrust for the return journey to the purple planet. As the final stage of the lander's launcher still had a significant amount of fuel in it's tank, it was decided to leave it attached to the lander, to allow the transfer vehicle to dock with the single port that attached the capsule to the lander, to top up the transfer vehicle's tanks. With the transfer completed, the lander's launcher stage was detached and the transfer vehicle docked to its intended location, at the rear of the lander. Finally the little capsule was returned to the tip of the combined vehicle. With the vehicle now complete its eight nuclear engines were lit up and the transfer to Eve was made. After making the necessary burn to put the vehicle in a circular orbit, the lander was detached and fired up its own engines to begin the descent to the surface. The lander endured a long and spectacular entry through the dense Eve atmosphere before slowing on its many parachutes to a sedate landing on a near flat area of terrain. With the successful landing made, the lander systems were given a quick check over before the testing of the vehicle's surprise feature, detachable ladder towers. The lander's designers had realised that carrying the two (a second one was included for balance) enormous ladder towers through part of the ascent would be wasteful on fuel, so the recently certified "F for fun" Sepratron 1 mini SRB was used to push the detached towers clear from the vehicle. With the towers now just scrap on the surface the long series of staging and burns to the hoped from orbit was begun. However it was again found that the hell hole that was Eve's atmosphere, would not allow a Kerbal rocket to leave it's purply grip and at a maximum altitude of 50km the thankfully unmanned capsule began its second descent to the surface that day, although not one slowed by parachutes. The loss of signal from it was reported some minutes later. With a second failed attempt to build a vehicle capable of returning a capsule to Eve orbit, some engineers at the KSC started to seriously doubt if such a feat was possible, with a small secretive group forming the short lived "goddess of Eve" cult, that had come to believe that a purple haired deity was throwing it's luscious locks around any departing ship, angry at their failure to bring supplies of the famous Kerbin snack bar, "Kerby Krisps", in their distinctive purple wrapping, as an offering. Following a round of psychiatric evaluations, and the removal of all Kerby Krisps from the vending machines at KSC, the engineers redoubled their efforts to design a lander fit to send a kerbal to Eve. In part 5. A brave young kerbal lands on the purple planet. A kerbal named Malzor.

I'm more of a space/rocket player but I have to say that's a very cool design.

That's why I used RTG's to power the ion drive.

Er... lets see. Sent manned return landers to all of the planets at least twice (including a four kerbal return vehicle to Eve, that's the one in my sig)... ditto for most of the moons. Built a bunch of space stations including a 270 ton one in Mun orbit a couple of days ago. Sent kerbals out to visit all of the anomalies Set up a mining camp on Mun Set up a small base on Mun Grazed the surface of Kerbol (I think it was about 67,000km) at 90,000m/s Captured some asteroids Had Jeb whiz past the surface of Eeloo (3500m at closest approach) at 31,000m/s Completed the Jool-5 challenge (and a whole bunch of other ones) Made a couple of cinematic videos ... and there's still plenty of stuff to do

I finished assembling my 270 ton Mun orbit station called KOSTAR and I'm thinking of making a "tour of the station" cinematic video this weekend.

I'm looking at that thing and thinking "what is that".

Hmmm... not that hard to get to Eeloo I think. I sent a lander return vehicle there a few days ago, using an 88 ton (on the pad) launcher for the Small Rocket Long Way challenge (no Rockomax or Kerbodyne parts).