msasterisk

Like so many others, Duna. The details are foggy, but what I do know is that to this day, I have never sent a Kerbal to another planet other than Duna, and those ones never came back. However, once the mission is approved, construction of the interplanetary mothership will start, and finally I can have a second kerballed landing.

Asteroids up to class F or G. Those ones wouldn't be meant for redirecting, mainly for refueling or building bases on. They could even have SOIs based on their mass. Also, a carbon planet, which is really dark, even in daytime. For all those hardcore players. It would also have a CO2 and CO atmosphere about as thick as Duna's.

Maybe simply two pilots on one ship? Obviously not for large groups of people (unless you have a huge colony ship), but what I'm saying is that each player plays as a Kerbal, and they do one mission at a time like normal KSP, so time warp still works like normal. Maybe also have somebody playing as Gene. I think it could work, and EVA's would be fun! However, time warp on EVAs would be disabled.

I decided to build an orbital retirement home. It's basically a big, empty box attached to some crew cabins. With the newly built reusable spaceplane, the active Kerbals can visit them. The retired Kerbals secretly hope for a class-E asteroid to come towards Kerbin because in the event that it happens, they get to go catch it and stick it onto their home. Anybody that I rescue first comes home (for the levels) and then goes to the station.

Like all rocky bodies in KSP, it has oxygen, hydrogen, and possibly (but unlikely) some carbon or nitrogen. It also has some sort of dark matter core. We know this because of the ISRU system and the density of kerbal planets. Seems to suggest that every rocky body, not just Minmus, has water in some form under its surface. The reason for this is a mystery.

Below is a timeline of my attempts at docking, starting at 0.90. Each event is separated by a line break. My first docking attempt: couldn't figure out orbital mechanics. Gave up. A while later, I discovered RCS. Made my first rendezvous when I finally learned orbital mechanics to some degree. Learned about target mode on the navball, didn't know what it did though. After a de-orbit happened instead of a rendezvous, I thought the prograde marker in target mode was which way the target was facing. In fact, I had simply forgotten to switch to target mode. Figured out what the markers meant. Worked out how to move in on the target by keeping the retrograde node on the antitarget node. Docked! Kerpallo missions. Kir station. Minmus planetary base. By now, nearly six months have passed. Career mode saves have risen and fallen, sandbox LKOs have been cluttered with debris, and 1.0 has come out. Visiting an earlier save, I came upon two ships, drifting through space in each other's general direction, and realized that my first docking attempt had never been finished. I took control and docked the two ships with only the main engine. In conclusion, my first docking attempt took about half a year to finish. Have fun!

By technical definitions of 'landing' that were made up on the spot, the spaceplane has landed. I've been playing career mode for months now, ascending into the interplanetary age. If that sounds like a long time, it's because I thourghly colonized Minmus before leaving Kerbin's SOI. Anyway, the problem with that is I have minimal practice landing a plane with no parachutes, airbrakes, or thrust reversers. My other planes had thrust reversers, but Panthers apparently don't. After invoking the emergency paracute system and hardware-assisted lithobraking, the plane landed. Two engines and a fuel tank were sacrificed to slow down the rocket. But Jeb, Bill, Bob, and Valentina have come home! Meanwhile, the biggest rocket I have ever built will soon be entering the testing phase! It will bring Jeb, Bill, and Bob to Duna. Also meanwhile, a Mun base was constructed to fulfill a contract. It will probably be used for science, and possibly shipping ore to Kerbin Station, where it can be used to refuel crafts and still let them use the oberth effect. Landing that VTOL lab on top of the core just right was a pain. I should have used the wheeled base on the Mun and the rocket-built base on Minmus. Mistakes were made. No pictures because I'm posting from my phone and can't get to my screenshots at the moment. EDIT: added pictures!

After a complete redesign of my spaceplane, I decided to test it by having a new-to-KSP friend pilot it to orbit. Even with its horrible aerodynamics and lack of fuel, it made orbit just fine! Being a more skilled player, I fixed up the wings and added a couple tanks and it performed spectacularly. It will be the plane that will get the big four home after nearly a year on Minmus. They've already been brought to KS1 in LKO by Minbus 1.

In total, I've harvested about 2000 science from the KSC. Fully upgraded R&D center has a lot of building biomes. The director of the space agency gave a little speech today. "A year after the launch and return of the first extrakerbin probe, we are ready. By the end of this decade, a Kerbal will have set foot on Duna. He will go boldly forth, exploring where none else have gone before. We expect many discoveries on this mission, and we really hope Von Kerman was right about Duna being made out of snacks. We will look into the night sky, and we will know we have been there." The speech went on a little longer, but by then most of the listeners had gotten hungry and left. In related news, the new and experimental Minbus brought Jeb, Bill, Bob, and Valentina back to Kerbin Station One. An equally new and experimental SSTO will pick them up from the station, but the technology to build it is still on the drawing board. They (sans Valentina) will be the first Kerbals on Duna.

Why not just use a normal docking port? If a nornal one is too big, how about the tiny one?

A Dres-like planet between Kerbin and Eve, on a Moho-like orbit. It would look like two planetoids crushed together and would have several Gilly-like moons.

I tried making the Little Prince's asteroid with Kopernicus, but a 1.75 meter asteroid with Kerbin gravity was a bit too much for KSP, especially when the terrain map turned it into a malformed hedgehog. Then I played with rotating reference frames when I made a Kerbin-size planet with a 4 minute rotational period. The equator was moving at just under escape velocity, and the intrepid Kerbonaut who "volunteered" was sucked towards the equator and flung into space. Kopernicus: great for making big (or small!) rocks in space that do weird things.

Waaahhh it's so pretty! Unfortunately, my computer is not quite awesome enough to use beautification mods.

I'm committed to the Kasteria missions now. Duna, I'm coming for you! The design for the rocket seems functional. It has solar power, fuel, a convert-o-tron, nuclear propulsion, batteries, a little RCS, and a detachable lander (Apollo style). The first mission will simply get three Kerbals to Duna and back, along with mountains of science. The next will involve rovers and a more thorough exploration of the planet. The third will concentrate on Ike, as will the fourth (yes, I have the funding to do this). The fifth, finally, will establish a permanent presence on Duna, and possibly Ike. Jeb, Bill, and Bob will command Kasteria-A. That's the plan. The convert-o-tron could be useful for exploring both Ike and Duna on the third mission, but it's mainly for the return trip.

Mine is on Minmus, having spent almost all of his 300 day career on the base. The whole crew is overdue for a rotation, and Jebediah will soon be back home, ready for the upcoming Duna mission. Meanwhile, in an alternate reality, Jeb's remains are spread thinly through the western mountains. Some distance away, the ripped, burnt parachute lies on the rocks. We will remember. :'(

I read "early game" and decided Kerbol Station. There are some problems with that involving lack of ore, but asteroid grabbers can fix that. It might be hard to rendezvous with it from other planets, but it could be positioned right outside Kerbins SOI for easy refueling. This unfortunately means that you lose Kerbin's oberth effect. But it might be the only option possible to someone in the early game.

I've got 1,000,000 funds in bribe money, will that be enough to get me on?

The space program hit a depression as more money was being spent faster than it could get from tourists. After some quick thinking, Gene saved the space program, but to this day he is haunted by "budget constraints" that aren't there. He has money to burn (4 million funds), but until Jeb goes on strike or does something stupid, the "Kasteria" Duna Program is on hold. In other news, former webcomic writer Randall Kerman (I did not edit that kerbal in) and his friend Lenwell have become the newest additions to Minmus Outpost One's rapidly growing population. Much science was done with their help, and things are looking great on good ol' Minmus! And a question: what is this "Imgur"? Is there another way to post images? I want to but don't know how... EDIT: Minmus Outpost One, surrounded by spent descent stages of all its modules.

Thought a bit about a Minmus Rover test rig that involves the rover dragging along a little fuel tank that feeds into an engine on the bottom of the rover. The engine will partially cancel Kerbin's gravity, so I can see how it would act on Minmus. Best part is, it's adjustable, so it can test my Mün rovers as well. Didn't have time to build it though. The dark forces of homework ensured that. Maybe tommorow...

Those rare times when you wish that orbits DID decay in KSP...

After figuring out the problem on the tourist rocket (the parachute indicators are lying to me), I sent 4 tourists to Minmus. They came back, aerobraked, and descended at a sedate 5 m/s into the water. The rocket would have survived such an impact on land. But I guess the rocket was made of salt, because it dissolved into the water. Reloaded, even though I had said earlier I wasn't going to, because that doesn't seem right. I used the engine to slow down to a tiny speed just before hitting the water. Same result. Eventually, I got it over land. I figured that that would work better, because it would support the rocket better and not break it as much. As I was going down, I ejected the fairing (I had kept it for re-entry) so I could deploy my parachutes. All four Kerbals died as the bits of fairing ripped through their capsule. This problem had not come up during testing, even when I used an LES while the fairing was ejecting. I failed the contract and gave them a memorial service at the flagpole. But I earned money from it! So it's all good!

Tested a tourist rocket. It can send 4 Kerbals on a fly-by of Minmus free return of course. Played it safe with the perikee at 50 km on return, which was actually rather high. So far so good, though. Final descent into the atmosphere. The transfer stage is at this point still attached; it had parachutes and would land with the capsule. The parachute indicators said it was safe. Waited a bit just to make sure, and staged. The parachutes instantly ripped off. Panicking, I ejected the capsule and activated the emergency retro-boosters. It wasn't enough. The capsule, with its four hypothetical tourists, was destroyed on impact. I lost tens of thousands of funds on the "recoverable" transfer stage alone. This is why we do tests. On a side note, I did some science when I realized that EVA report from low orbit was biome specific. On landing, I found an oasis (in what looks like a salt flat) where the pilot waited for the recovery team.

I quit because I thought it was a LOT harder than it really is to get to Duna and the other planets. Then I found out how easy it is if you know what you're doing.

Two things. Had problems making my custom part (which was expected, but still...) Planned a test mission to Duna. Once everything is VERY tested, I'll send a crew of engineers (they need trained engineers at Minmus outpost) to be the first Kerbals on Duna. Hopefully, it will be so tested that I won't need quicksavea. But first, they'll stop off at Minmus outpost to refuel and pick up Jeb. Jeb must be first.