Ultimate Steve

Reported Version: v0.1.4 (latest) | Mods: none | Can replicate without mods? Yes OS: Windows 10 | CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 1400 | GPU: 1650 | RAM: 16gb What I did before the bug occurred: Started a fresh save on v0.1.4 Flew around the KSC with a plane and reverted a few times Changed graphics preset from medium to high and hid the FPS counter Built a prototype Eve ascent vehicle and flew it to the Mun, reverted (also noticed a bug where Bob wouldn't stop freaking out in the EVA chair but I do not have enough documentation to submit a good bug report on that) Built an SSTO intended to be used for a one way Eve mission to test out stability Launched said SSTO: At this point I noticed that the orbit lines had all disappeared: This made it very difficult to plot a transfer, so I exited the game (quit to desktop and saved). Upon reloading the game, my ship had transformed into this: I have noticed the grey Kerbal portraits upon reloading a few times, unsure if that is related, but the main attraction here are the severely deformed wings. The wings are all the smallest wing part. The orientation of the landing gear leads me to speculate that it could possibly be related to mirror/radial symmetry. The save I made before exiting the game is attached below. This is probably not enough information to nail down an exact cause, but if anyone else experiences this, I'd like to leave a paper trail. Included Attachments: autosave_3.meta

I recall from the last KERB post that they found one reason orbits were drifting and fixed it, but orbits are still drifting for a different, unknown reason. Note that these are not mutually exclusive. If, for example, there's one factor pushing a vessel 0.1mm/s^2 retrograde, and one factor pushing a fessel 0.11mm/s^2 prograde, the vessel would drift 0.01mm/s^2 prograde. If the devs found the cause behind the 0.1mm/s^2 retrograde push and fixed it, vessels would now drift 0.11mm/s^2 instead of 0.01mm/s^2, or 11x as much. This is a simple and exaggerated example, but in short, it is possible that there are two (or more) forces that partially cancel each other out, and fixing one root cause will make the overall effect worse until all causes are resolved.

Where did you get the 31 number from?

Static fire stream starting in 18 minutes, unsure when static fire is.

Extrapolating this to the wider goings on with KSP 2 and it becomes very obvious why KSP 1 almost never announced release dates beforehand. You'd wake up one day and be like "Oh, 0.22 is out! Nice!"

ESM for Orion was announced in 2013 and was thrown around earlier, production lines and staff were almost certainly continuous. As the others have said, anything can be made to work together eventually, but certain integrations are far easier than others. Adapting existing spacecraft is not necessarily the fastest option. Heavily modifying a long term LEO service module into a long term Lunar service module is doable although not ideal, especially when given eight years to do it, and starting work before the production line is shut down. Swapping a Boeing built short duration high energy upper stage from one Boeing built core stage to another Boeing built core stage, that all share propellant commonality, is also on the easier end of such transformations, especially as the role the upper stage plays does not change much (delta IV even carried Orion at one point). This has even happened before with this stage, as it had previously been on the Delta III. The hard part is making the GSE for this new combination, which, again, they had several years to do. In this case the production periods also overlapped. I would argue this is pretty much ideal Lego territory if such a thing exists. You are proposing to take a Thales Alenia pressurized module, designed to work with a Northrop Grumman service module, for LEO station resupply, and redesign it into a viable Lunar lander by combining it with an out of production EADS medium duration LEO/MEO upper stage designed with only Ariane 5 in mind. That is very possible, but there is very little that won't have to be modified, redesigned, or created from scratch. A pressure vessel and a rocket stage are important parts of a Lunar lander, but far from the whole thing. The point of this is to save time, if I read you correctly, and sure, started at the same time as a purpose built design it may finish a little faster, but even then I'd rather have something far more capable even if it takes a little longer. Centaur on SLS, sure, Centaur has been adapted enough times that it could be done. Propellant commonality is another bonus. Building yet another mobile launcher and reconfiguring the VAB again, and recertification of the new stack for crew, and hopefully an unmanned test flight in that configuration... those are the parts that I'm worried about.

A few issues: The last EPS flew in I think 2018, it has been out of production for a while Aestus cannot throttle, you might need a separate propulsion system for landing to be safe Does the EPS have RCS? If it does, it is likely rotation only as there is no normal need for the EPS to translate, so to dock, upgraded RCS would be needed Just now noticed that you do account for RCS from the Phoenix concept but then pivot to Cygnus and assume everything still applies so I'm not sure how to count this one More minor things that aren't that consequential on their own but the mass adds up: Landing gear Deep space navigation capabilities Deep space communication capabilities A budget for surface science experiments A budget for samples to be returned The surface stays Artemis wants may be longer than the life support that was planned for An airlock, or modifications to allow exiting the forward hatch If the entire spacecraft is depressurized, ensure everything inside is vacuum stable Budget for the gas that will be vented overboard that has to be resupplied for every EVA A ladder EPS was not designed to last weeks on its own and was designed for LEO, not deep space and the lunar surface, some form of thermal protection is likely needed, and it is likely that other design changes are needed for it to function this long in this environment I did a whole paragraph or two about how the numbers don't close for a NRHO landing but then I read your other blog post describing a LLO landing. Under your plan this would require a heavily modified SLS to house the Centaur. At that point this is no longer a cheap quick mission. The VAB would have to be reconfigured, the ML would have to be redesigned, maybe new fairings (which add mass), etc. I will say that given the excess Delta-V the lander has (assuming the above items and the ones I did not list do not eat it up), it might be possible to get away without the Centaur, by using an elliptical Lunar orbit to make the most of the lander's fuel capacity, or underfueling the lander so EUS can push the stack farther, but this is more math than I want to do right now. This, however, leaves us uncomfortably low on fuel, and to be frank, your proposal, at 200m/s remaining, already has me a bit wary. As you noted on the blog, it was later found out that the 1500kg number does not include the service module. As you had previously subtracted the mass of the service module from this 1500kg number, this will increase the mass by a lot, and the service module also has the solar panels on it, so those will need to be added back in. The Cygnus RCS was probably partially or mostly or entirely on the service module, so there's going to be some mass associated with adding it back in or upgrading the EPS RCS The Apolo LM Ascent Stage was about 2150kg alltogether. We have made some advances in lightweight structures since then, and this includes the empty tanks, so I am inclined to believe that your 2 ton 3 man crew section is probably possible, but only if the 2150kg number means "without fuel" and not "without astronauts, suits, and any other consumables." I fear the latter is more likely. 2 tons is incredibly light for something that has to provide that much. There's also higher safety standards to keep in mind, the LM would not fly with today's safety culture. Assuming that ESA would foot the entire bill if they were selected is probably unrealistic. The biggest one: Reusing stuff for situations they were not designed for, and integrating stuff with stuff it wasn't designed for, is hard. Very hard. I used to hear people say that and think they were exaggerating. "Rockets aren't Lego!" they'd say. I couldn't think of why they wouldn't be. But then I joined my university's cubesat team. About half of the satellite is subsystems from the same manufacturer. Integrating those and deciphering the documentation so we can figure out how to get them to work properly has been a multi year long ordeal. To be fair though, a great deal of that is the fact that the team has been all undergraduates, who have maybe a year and a half of programming competence at best before they graduate, assuming they even stay on the team for that long, so brain drain and covid have been huge obstacles. I'm tearing my hair out over stuff that by space standards is as close to Lego as you can get. I can guaruntee you that creating a lunar module out of an upper stage and an ISS resupply craft is not going to be simple. It will not be an integration, it will be a derivation if not practically a redesign. Possibly still better than a clean sheet design, but not by the huge margins that you seem to imply. And even then, as Tater said, this lander is not going to be suited for the lofty ambitions of Artemis. Last note: You can probably look back in my post history and see me doing the same thing talking about Dragon missions to the Moon, an X-37 derived moon mission, and countless other flights of fancy. I was younger and more naieve and I officially apologise for these.

Where are you getting the 8 from? I counted six with one restart, and we know three of them failed during the startup procedure (and if a fourth one had failed, it would have been an aborted takeoff. Setting the limit assuming nothing else would fail is my second biggest issue wth IFT-1, second to only the failure of the FTS). I think they are justified in doing short static fires in this case. The most complicated parts of rocket engine operation are generally startup and shutdown. There's also the issue of vibrations causing problems as the fuel drains a la N1 but those cannot be discovered when the vehicle is affixed to the launch pad, the dynamics in play are not identical (and would change significantly throughout the flight). That's a situation where problems can only be discovered by flying it or with really really good computer simulations. Absent of this, after sufficient ground testing, an engine that lasts five seconds will probably last a lot longer. Of the six engine failures on the starship test flights (assuming I counted right), three were aborted ignitions, the kind that should have been caught by short static fires, and the kind that, imo, should have aborted the launch, but it is now clear that the engine out limit was not set up in a way to deal with what ended up happening. The other three failures were in flight failures, and they were able to restart one of them (I think that is the first time that's ever happened on a rocket actually). Assuming the rocket had made it off of the pad with those three engines healthy (if the limit had been set to 0, this would have taken several launch attempts most likely) it would have been able to take the remaining 3 engine outs (although it still would have failed when they lost all gimbal control, and later when the FTS didn't work (which is by far the most alarming thing about IFT-1, a few engine outs don't even come close)). Basically, of the six engine outs, a full duration static fire would have, at best, caught two and a half of them (which may have been flight specific issues, we don't know, it could have caught none), at the cost of having to build a massive test stand, and we know what a kerfuffle it was getting the permits to build their fairly minimal launch pad as is, and that was specifically designed to avoid having to do much time and paperwork intensive business. This particular static fire was also as much about testing the new deluge as it was testing the new booster. Given the chance to do a full duration ground test at little to no additional cost, anyone would. However, the infrastructure needed to do that does not come fast or cheap. SpaceX judged that the could get the same data for cheaper in other ways. So far I think that judgement is correct.

Two of the WB-57 views from the OFT got FOIA'd! Engine rich combustion is much more spicy in these views. Cam 0 is probably the most metal thing I've seen all year. Kinda reminds me of the Atlas failure that was featured in Koyaanisquatsi. That was quite the deluge!

Doing a gravity assist chain to get close enough to the sun to burn the ablator off of the heat shield... You never cease to amaze me.

The goal: Launch the stock Kerbal X and fly to the Mun and back using the least fuel. Your score is the fuel remaining in the upper stage tank at the time you decouple it for re entry. The Kerbal(s) must survive landing. No getting out and pushing, no modifying the craft in the VAB, no kraken driving, no including extra stuff in the inventory at launch. You know it, but also no debug menu, no mods that change craft performance, etc. No autopilot mods like MechJeb but if you want to do it to see how low you can go I guess I can put it up as an honorable mention. No assistance from other craft. However, there are still some edge cases, so I've decided to split this up into two categories. Jeb mode is exclusively about piloting. You must launch with three Kerbals with the default inventory, you may not modify the craft with the construction tool, you may not crash or burn up to remove parts, etc. Basically, keep it as close to the default Kerbal X experience as possible. Val mode allows some modifications. You may alter the number of Kerbals carried, and remove things from their inventories (but not add them). You may use the EVA construction tool to modify the ship, but of course you are limited to what is on the ship. You may not modify the ship in the VAB. You may use lithobraking and atmospheric heating to delete parts. Still no Kraken drives or getting out and pushing, though. Additional restrictions: No transferring fuel around. Score is measured as liquid fuel remaining. This opens the door to transferring out excess oxidizer to the lower stage, and given how annoying it is to get an exact amount transferred, I'm going to save us this headache and pre-emptively ban this. Oxidizer and liquid fuel levels must remain proportional. The command pod must reach the atmosphere intact, no abandoning the ship and jetpacking home the last 600m/s. Jeb mode leaderboard: @Ultimate Steve 158 liquid fuel remaining Val mode leaderboard: @camacju 332 liquid fuel remaining @Ultimate Steve 278 liquid fuel remaining My Jeb mode attempt: My Val mode attempt:

Hey, about three weeks! That's not actually a bad cadence so far compared to some of my past projects if I can keep it up! Unlike the my past projects, this is kinda inspired by television stuff, and I want each chapter to be its own mostly self contained story from start to finish with links to the overall plot. When I get going, however, I really get going, so these semi-self contained chapters tend to get pretty long. In addition, this series is intended to cover somewhat heavier subject matter than my other works, and while I'm sure it is imperfect, I have spent some effort trying to give these things the respect and thought they deserve. Anyway here's chapter two, where things heat up, both figuratively and literally! Chapter Two: To The Core

Firstly, do you have a list of the 6000 meter peaks? I kinda want to try climbing them. Secondly, given the ironic nature of it, I think it is probably best to keep it simple and allow planes and stuff, but there could be an alternate "hard mode" version of the challenge where no flight is allowed for certain segments.

Hi! Last night I had a really weird dream. I was brought into a group chat on the forums with a long list of people who are really good at the game, to collaborate on a world record low mass "low tour" but not for any design or piloting, but strangely for my video editing??? As I recall from the dream, a Low Tour is pretty much the opposite, or really more of a parody of a grand tour. I don't remember the full extent of the mission, but I remember that the objectives and destinations were kinda nonsensical and all pretty close to home. It was all very semi-ironic. I am unsure if going to space was even required or not, most of if not all of the objectives pretty much only dealt with Kerbin. The challenges that I can directly remember from the dream are: Ascend the tall mountain to the west of KSC Ascend the highest mountain on Kerbin Descend in a submarine to the lowest point on Kerbin Others I have decided to retroactively add because they fit in are: Reach the inside of the control tower on the island airfield Take a dive in the astronaut complex pool Destroy at least one KSC building In the spirit of the above, what would you add to this semi-ironic "Low Tour" challenge? I may start an actual challenge thread if it is compelling enough.

Is this the longest gap between sequentially numbered spacecraft in history?

You know, this is why I love this forum so much. You two have been debating for at least a page with giant posts of several paragraphs in length, and there's been no shouting or insulting. That doesn't seem to happen many other places these days. Good job, keep it up!

On discord we were kinda freaking out as we realized that SECO was about 300m/s short of orbital velocity, but then we remembered that the Livestream value is surface velocity and not orbital velocity, and breathed a sigh of relief.

Granted, KSP 1 and KSP 2 isn't the fairest of comparisons, it is worth noting that not catching a simple and extremely disruptive bug is not something that is unique to KSP 2: v0.8.2 Released 13 th July, 2011 This version is a hotfix for a couple of ugly bugs found with the 0.8.1 release. Note: The 0.8.1 release introduced a few changes to the .craft file format, so it is possible that ships created with versions prior to 0.8.1 might not be compatible with the new version. Bug Fixes Fixed a serious bug where swapping about symmetrical parts would crash the game Pod cannot be dropped if an Escape Tower (PunchOut addon) is attached v0.8.4 Released July 14th, 2011 Bug Fixes Fixed a small but incredibly disruptive bug which prevented engines from being connected to fuel tanks v0.11.1 Released 13th October, 2011 Bug Fixes A pausing glitch that would happen every time the menu was selected. v0.15.2 Released 1st June, 2012 Bug Fixes and Tweaks Fixed an issue with part-to-part collisions that caused unphysical forces and caused some designs to break apart. v0.24.2 Released 25th July, 2014 → Main article: 0.24.2 Summary Fixed a critical issue which prevented opening the right-click menus for several parts. v1.0.2 Released 1st May, 2015. → Main article: 1.0.2 Summary Overlooked an issue in 1.0.1 regarding overheating when splashed down v1.0.4 Released 23rd June, 2015. → Main article: 1.0.4 Summary Hot-Fixed an issue where loading vessels equipped with heatshields from pre-1.0.3 saves would cause the game to crash v1.5.1 Released 17th October, 2018 → Main article: 1.5.1 Summary Hotfix for Aero body lift in flight integrator.

WIZARDS A Tale of Magic and Science Prologue: The Light Heist There are five rules of wielding. Anyone can wield. All known worlds grant different powers. Powers are not inherently good or evil. Power harnessable from a world is inversely proportional to the square of the distance from the world. Do not try to wield the sun. There are four ways around (4). Using a lens to focus a world’s power on oneself. Bringing rocks from another world with you. Distilling rocks from another world into pure magical essence and bringing the essence with you. Being present along the line of a planetary conjunction. There are three names you must know. Mia Kerman, cynical but crafty, space transport engineer and non wielder. Lawrence Kerman, sensitive but knowledgeable, space transport pilot and wielding enthusiast. Keenan Kerman, self critical but determined, space transport attendant and wielding amateur. There are two sides of a war past and brewing. The Joolians, practitioners of six. The Kerbans, practitioners of three. There can be only one winner. Chapter One: Fire and Ice Hello everyone welcome to Wizards: A Tale of Magic and Science! This story has been in the works for a long time, just over a year and a half if I remember correctly, things just kept getting in the way. This was originally inspired by two things. One, I had recently seen some of Avatar: The Last Airbender, and two, I was wondering how the Kerbals would handle magic, in particular how they would balance using Magic or technology, as in most stories, one tends to dominate, you rarely see both being used. With those inspirations in mind, I set out to create my own twist on the traditional elemental magic system, set in the Kerbal universe. I came up with this, a slightly dystopian arrangement, where technology and magic are balanced twofold. First, Kerbalkind didn't discover anything was amiss until they reached the Mun, at which point they already had some technology. Second, due to the inverse square nature of said magic, you cannot make general purpose or deep space vehicles using magic and have it still be cost effective, necessitating magic-tech hybrids for specialized purposes, and technology only ships for general purpose use. I hope that I can deliver installments in a timely manner (which, given my track record, is, well...), and I hope that you enjoy the story!

I will say that is a very picturesque launch site, in my mind second only to Mahia. I'm a sucker for islands.

Hello everyone! Good news, KSP 2 0.1.3 improved performance enough that I'm now actually getting above 15fps except for some Kerbin flying situations with reasonably sized craft. Sometimes it dips as low as 6 or 7 but there are some situations where I can get a stable 30 flying around KSC. Weirdly enough the same craft launched again and it goes down to 20 or 15 but that's not important. The important part is that I can play it now without wanting to tear my eyes out most of the time. I intend to do a proper long term save (and possibly a mission report to go along with it, although a mismatch between my willingness to play and my willingness to write has doomed many of my stories and saves so far), but I am likely going to wait until science mode comes out to do that. Frame counters are shown so you can get a good idea of how it is performing for me. The first thing I did in 0.1.3 was make a small plane and fly around the KSC, basking in the greatly increased performance. At takeoff I was managing a stable 30 frames per second and that's when I knew KSP 2 had passed the fun threshold for me. Granted it tanked down to 15 once the rest of the KSC was in view, but considering I got less before... They did not have to go this hard on the KSC. Like any self respecting KSP player, the second thing I did was send Bob Kerman on a one way trip to Laythe to check and see if I could do interplanetary without the game breaking on me. The massive "E" will never not be funny. I wonder what it is made of. Is it iron? For Iron-E, or maybe concrEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEte. Personally I think the reflections are slightly overdone but the game is certainly beautiful, enough to make me tear up in places. New extendable engines are beautiful. I eyeballed the Jool transfer and regretted it as I missed the first time around, thus Bob spent 13 years in space. Jool is gorgeous, and I like how well defined the shadows are from afar. You can even see the great eye of Jool! That is... A bit less gorgeous. The eye is now in "angry mode" and is very closely observing a terrified Bob. Does it seek to learn? Does it seek sacrifice? We won't know until we explore further. After one flyby I time warped through, very nearly sending us plummeting into Jool, Bob begins his Laythe descent. ... And is promptly thrown out of Laythe's atmosphere at a 90 degree angle to the way he came in, on a steep suborbital trajectory, before smashing into the ocean at Mach 2. The new 0.1.3 drag bug has struck... Fortunately I was able to work around it in this case by re entering with the bottom stage still attached. Eventually, Bob splashes down and then later the sun rises. A bit less grand of a sunrise than I was expecting, and the ocean textures and physics could use some work, but miles better than KSP 1's stock graphics. I only really encountered 2 bugs on this mission. One, the catastrophic drag bug that basically prevents capsule landings for the time being, and two, the engine sounds turning off after a while. KSP 2 isn't quite there yet but the developers have earned my cautious trust for the time being at least. I initially was going to leave it like this, this was just supposed to be a save where I could pop in and test stuff before science mode comes out later, but I felt myself feeling kind of bad for Bob... And you know what that means. It's rescue mission time! This is the Laythe SSTO, which is weirdly the only picture I have of it for some reason. Originally the mission was going to be two parts. A SSTO to rescue Bob, and a mothership to return him to Kerbin. Due to concerns about the aircraft's empty performance (which was probably caused by a control bug rather than the flight dynamics come to think of it), the wet centers of lift and mass basically overlap, making this aircraft an absolute joy to fly, doing spins and flips and loops and bridges and everything in between, while also being Kerbin SSTO capable, and capable of holding up to three Kerbals. In 0.1.0 and .1 and .2 I tried to make actual acrobatics aircraft and all of them felt really stiff, but I wasn't even trying to make this one maneuverable, just spaceworthy, and it cartwheels through the sky without a care in the world. Come to think of it I'm going to rename it right now to the "Skydancer" and I would give it an X designation but I'm going to hold off on numbering things until my long term save starts. Unfortunately, well... It sinks. So I added the empty fuel tanks you see above, for use as pontoons. ...It still sinks. KSP 2 seems to be a lot less forgiving than KSP 1 as far as buoyancy, which I'm alright with but I think there is still something fishy going on as when I added the pontoons, which are empty fuel tanks, it somehow sank faster. And then a few days later I flew it again and it floated fine??? I've decided to not take by chances landing the Skydancer on water, and I have designed another craft to land near Bob and fly him over to the nearest patch of land. Here is the HydroHopper! ...Aaaaaand it sinks too. Falling back on my KSP 1 Alpha knowledge I built the HydroHopper with some radial intakes as they were stupidly buoyant back in ~2013 and maybe the devs have a sense of humor. However I have a hunch that the struts there added more buoyancy than the intakes. At this stage its land performance was actually pretty good although hard to land as usual considering it is a jet lander. 3D modelling devs, continue doing what you are doing, you didn't have to go this hard on the ground support equipment, I just have one request. If there isn't too much of a performance impact, let us walk around inside! There's invisible walls blocking everything off. Parking spaces are oddly huge but that's probably because the mission controllers know Jeb likes to drive his planes to work some days. I attempted to show off my precision landing skills by landing on the launch tower only to find that is has no colliders at all, which is probably to avoid the same controversy as the really old KSP 1 launch tower, which is fine. Eventually I got it floating, but no matter what I did, it always flipped upside down upon landing. I haven't checked in KSP 2, but in KSP 1 the jet engine's mass center was offset to simulate the engine internals, and that might be why this thing has such a high dry mass. After trying a lot of things to make it float upright, I gave up and attached a really long ladder so the ship could be boarded in this state. And ascent is now performed by activating the thrust reverser to take off backwards. The HydroHopper is ready for flight! It still needs a de orbit system I guess... I'll probably just slap a few sepratrons on it. Stay tuned for part 2 of Operation: Bring Bob Back. This is completely unrelated but I'm not the only one seeing the 60 ton monopropellant tank, right? In KSP 1 if I use RCS at all, usually the cockpit RCS stores are sufficient... I can see how someone would use the 1.25m containers especially if they aren't a docking expert yet, but I thought everything 2.5m and above was fairly excessive. I shudder to think of the infernal contraptions that would need 60 tons of monopropellant... Although maybe this is just future proofing for the massive interstellar ships and such. Come to think of it, it kinda looks like an eye... We might need to hold a staring contest with Jool.

Performance still not where I'd like it to be but a significant improvement and I can play without extreme annoyance now. I almost want to start my long term save now instead of waiting for science mode. New engines are gorgeous. I can report that the new drag bug also happens on Laythe. Yes, I did send a one way mission to Laythe... Ship was the medium pod, small parachute, and medium heat shield, as well as two small drogue chutes, and upon Laythe entry at ~2.5km/s, it steered sideways and shot off in a complete other direction without losing much speed, and on the second pass it smashed into the ocean also not slowing down much. Looks like the drag system is not as fixed as we had hoped, but for me at least this update has been a massive step in the right direction regarding playablility.

Ah, I built a lot of those out of 2L bottles back in the middle school and high school days! They are fun and it is a great way to get into rocketry, either instead of or in addition to Estes/similar model rockets. If you and your son are interested in building your own at some point I will detail my adventures with water rockets, I'll ping @RKunze here because he (?) seems like he would be interested, and it seems we both know of and possibly were inspired by Air Command Rockets. Kinda long so I'll put the whole thing in a spoiler. Please update us with your continued progress, and keep a mission log so you can look back on it years later! That's something I wish I had done, recorded everything in a notebook somewhere. I tried to do it but I couldn't keep up and it is something I regret not sticking with.

This reminds me a bit of the "Whoops, it turns out that titanium is flammable under these conditions" thing that Dragon had back in the day. It should be simpler, though possibly more annoying, than that to fix, depending on how much stuff they have to rip out to get to all of the tape.

This is kinda a reverse challenge, sorry if it is in the wrong place. Background: A while ago I was on reddit and I saw a post of someone's Kerbal getting krakened out of the solar system. Usually this happens at ludicrous velocities, but this one was surprisingly only going at 150 kilometers per second, almost a reasonable velocity. I started doing the math and realized that it would be possible to use a series of four xenon powered ships to bring him home at an almost reasonable part count, assuming better time warp was used. Unfortunately, KSP's exponential fuel flow calculations prevented this, but if Jeb was going 140km/s instead of 150 I would have attempted it. In either case, he never sent over his save file. The other method I was going to attempt was using Stratzenblitz's high speed mass driver technology to shoot parts out at over 150 kilometers per second and EVA assemble them. However, I could not get stable launches beyond about 80 kilometers per second. This has gotten me wanting to attempt, or at least think about, more extreme rescue missions. Comment below a scenario you would like to see me attempt, save file optional, and I will give it an attempt (I'll teleport the Kerbal there if a save is not provided), or at least work out the math if it proves to be too much to actually fly.