Opus_723

Haha! Well, I guess recovering funds is helpful for rookies like me who spend way too much money, at least. Good to see just how much room for improvement I've got, though.

It sure helps when you launch a 200 ton payload on a single stage and recovery of the lifter gets you 400,000 funds back. Especially when it's not for a contract. Of course a disposable lifter would've been lighter and cheaper, so who knows. But I'm not sure I could have shaved off half a million funds.

Aww, I really want to do this, but it'll be awhile. I was dreaming up an extensive Duna/Ike expedition, and started designing the mother ship awhile back. I want to launch some large missions to thoroughly explore/colonize the Duna and Eve systems, but... That is a lot of fuel to launch into orbit. I decided that I really needed to invest in some Kerbin SOI mining and fuel infrastructure if I'm really gonna start doing missions on the scale that I want. So I'm spending all of my money in Career mode to develop a very large set of fuel depots, in the hopes that I'll make it back and then some as I start to colonize the middle solar system. When I finish with that, I will definitely be back.

That's a nice lander for your first Minmus mission! I only managed a Mk I capsule when I did it, but you got three whole kerbals. And your lander didn't tip over at all! You did good. Looking forward to the Duna mission!

Jeb, Val and Bill worked through the night to dock the Charon ferry and its payload to Tower Station. The ferry and utilities weigh almost 300 tons and Tower Station just over 200, so that was... tedious. And of course, only the heavier one had any RCS or a pilot. Bill helpfully pointed the tower toward the ferry as best he could though. At last, we've got everything we nee... But wait! I said we were going to refuel Charon at the Mun! How are we going to get the fuel back up to Charon? Well, we're bringing one more thing along, but it doesn't need to hitch a ride. Introducing the Sisyphus Class Fuel Ascent Rover: This is Sisyphus L, a remote-controlled rover/lifter which will lift 35,000 units of liquid fuel and 3,000 units of monopropellant to munar orbit on each ascent. It's the first of a pair. The other will carry liquid-oxygen mix and even more monopropellant. For the initial setup of the mining station and fuel depots, though, we'll just need liquid fuel for the heavy-duty tugs, so Sisyphus L will do for now. Since it's meant to lift its heavy full tanks to munar orbit, it has plenty of dv to get to the Mun on its own with empty tanks. So it'll just follow behind Charon. Yeah, I didn't really need to rendezvous them, but I couldn't resist a group photo. So here we are, with Phase I of Operation Underhill assembled and ready to burn. On to the Mun.

Thanks! I'm still terrified I'm gonna get to the Mun and realize that I screwed up a vital part.... *shudder*. Anyway, onward and upward! ---- Presenting the new and improved Atlas Reusable Heavy Launch System! Now with only....Um....fifty-two parachutes. *Ahem.* So I'm not a brave person. But that's 16 less than I used on the first launch! Anyway, the solar array and the radiator bank (AKA the S+R Utilities Package) are kind of funky looking, awkward things. I designed the docking ports on Tower Station and the yet-to-be-debuted fuel rovers around each other, and I didn't feel like adding any more complications, so I just stripped the fuel rover down to its skeleton to make dockable equipment beds. It's not pretty, but it works. They were also tricky to load up because they don't weigh the same. I couldn't fit them vertically, so they had to go lengthwise, and I messed around offsetting girders until I got the center of mass just right. Strapped to Atlas and ready to go! Charon will come pick that up in a little bit. But we have more important news. I TOTALLY LANDED A SHIP AT THE KSC YOU GUYS!!!!! Yeah, I've never done that before, with any ship. I burned way too much fuel to make that happen, so I lost some funds. BUT IT WAS WORTH IT! All the kerbals are like, "what's that sound?" Then the ATLAS LANDS OUTSIDE THEIR WINDOWS ON THE GRASS and they're like "whaaat?" *AHEM* It was also the first night landing of the Atlas, so that is a significant milestone, and will be noted accordingly. Alright, that was silly, but I was excited. It's time to get back to work. Jeb and Val rendezvous'd with the utilities package and carefully docked with it. That's it for now! Next I need to dock this whole mess to Tower Station. It's getting awfully heavy, so I don't think that will be fun. But at least I included some RCS thrusters on the girders in the utilities payload so that my thrust isn't horrible unbalanced.

Thanks! I'm actually having a lot of fun documenting the process. I've never done a long-term project like this, and I hope the mission report will keep me motivated long enough to finish. Second launch complete! Today we brought up the Charon Class Ferry, along with Jeb and Val. Val is actually going to pilot Tower Station down to the Mun's surface with Bill, but I hadn't decided which pilot was going yet when I launched. But here she is. Charon was designed to take payloads as far out as Jool, and after Operation Underhill is complete it will serve as a workhorse for more exotic missions. It is also my first attempt at a permanently skybound ship, and it will rely on the performance of my new fuel infrastructure. Since it was designed for interplanetary cargo, it should be able to tug a far more massive payload to the Mun. In fact, I haven't docked it to Tower Station yet because I've decided, after a bunch of calculations, that Charon will be bringing several more pieces of Operation Underhill on its first trip, which I'll have to squeeze in front of the mining tower itself. If I'm correct, we can just barely bring enough equipment along to actually start the mining operation and refuel Charon in Munar orbit before returning to Kerbin for more equipment. This will save me several trips and a planned fuel launch that I think I can skip now. I hope this works. Brief update on the Atlas: It now comes with slightly fewer parachutes! It's also getting easier to land now. I think I can even take some more off. Tower Station and its skycrane was the heaviest payload and Atlas was pushed to its fuel limits. The rest of Operation Underhill should go pretty smoothly, as long as I keep managing to find flat ground to land on. Upper arm struts seem to have eliminated the landing wobble. But of course, the important thing is that it looks cool. Next Mission: Atlas will bring up the solar array and radiator bank for Tower Station, as soon as I decide how to secure them for launch.

First Launch was successful! But first, a bit of context. I've never done even a tiny mining operation before, so I slapped together a testbed to make sure I understood how the parts worked. This little ship is Olivine, and I sent it to the Mun. I planned ahead when I started work on Canis Base, so I already had the best ore spot mapped out. This is absolutely the only prior mining experience I have: Now, to demonstrate the ridiculous learning curve I'm forcing on myself, here is the crux of my new mining operation: Tower Station. 16 large drills, 4 ISRUs, large battery capacity for night-time emergencies, tanks for Liquid Fuel, L+Ox mix, and monopropellant so that it can still do some work while the fuel ferries are away, and spacious seating for 29 kerbals, including a fancy cupola so the engineer isn't too bored.The 4 Senior Docking Ports are meant to be a bit flexible so that docking doesn't jolt the tower too much, and one of them will be used to attach the solar panel and radiator banks, which will arrive separately. The rest will remain open for the fuel rovers. I might be biting off more than I can chew, but here we go! Now, this thing weighs about 150 tons dry. I have never launched anything close to that into orbit, let alone to the Mun. And I'm doing this in career, so we need to save as much money as possible. I needed something truly massive. And I needed it to be 100% reusable. Can we do it? Yes! HAHA! I've never launched anything that massive before. And I've never built a reusable launcher before, so this is just fantastic. That is the new Atlas Reusable Heavy Lift System, carrying Tower Station and a disposable skycrane that will land the station on the Mun's surface. The tug that will take that whole mess to the Mun will come up on the next launch. And yeah, the parachutes are way overkill. I'll come back to that. For now, we've just got to get Tower Station and Bill into orbit... The Atlas actually makes a surprisingly good gravity turn. I'm ridiculously pleased with it so far. Now, we part ways with Tower Station and Bill. The Atlas itself is entirely remote controlled. Bill will stay in a parking orbit until we bring the ferry up. Our challenge now is to... *gulp*.... land the Atlas. It's designed for a powered landing, and it even has to burn a little bit on reentry to keep it at safe speeds since the central docking port is unshielded, so this is a bit tricky. The insane number of parachutes is not strictly necessary, but I'm honestly still learning how to land this thing, so the margin of error is appreciated. Here we go! IT WOOORKED!!! Phew! I'm ecstatic that the first mission was a success! But Atlas will undergo some slight improvements: 1.) We'll add a couple of small solar panels. The batter drained substantially as I waited for the orbit to come back around to the KSC. I set SAS to retrograde the whole way down, and I ended up doing a couple of unnecessary burns just to keep the battery charged. 2.) The upper parts of the arms will get some struts. The Atlas performed beautifully in flight, but the landing sent those arms wobbling more than I like. *EDIT* 3.) I just realized looking at the pictures that the Mammoth engines are on crooked! We'll have to fix that too. With these tweaks I think I will be using this lifter for a long time. I recovered about half of the funds from this launch, and most of what I spent was just the dry mass of the station. (Still cost a lot though *grumble*). That's it for now. The next mission will be to bring up the ferry that will take Tower Station to the Mun. This project has a long way to go...

Hi all! This will be my first mission report, so that's exciting. I only started playing KSP a few months ago, and I've only played sporadically, but I'm loving the game, and I know I'll be playing it for years to come. But so far I haven't done anything I felt warranted a mission report. I haven't even finished the tech tree. I've landed on the Mun and Minmus, built a small science station in LKO, started work on a small Mun base, sent a few probes and rovers to the Duna and Eve systems. The biggest mission I've launched was my recent first landing and return of a couple of Kerbals from Duna, which was a huge milestone. But now I've been dreaming up even bigger projects: large expeditions, expanding my Mun base and building more on other worlds, interplanetary stations, and adventures to the outer and inner planets. The stuff I want to do is far beyond anything I've set a precedent for. If I'm going to do all of this in career, I need to plan ahead. So I've decided that I need to invest the time, effort, and funds into some mining and fuel infrastructure. My goal is to set up a system where I can mine the Mun and process fuel there and send it up to an orbital fuel depot. I'll also set up a depot in LKO and ferry fuel there from the Mun depot as needed. I know that it would be easier to mine Minmus, but I want to start with the Mun as a challenge. If I can build a substantial mining operation on the Mun, then I can build an even more effective system on Minmus some time in the future. The operation is going to be fairly ambitious, as I want it to be as future-proof as I can make it. I plan to make depots with far more fuel than I could use right now. I think every single launch in the assembly of this operation will be larger than my Duna mission, often by a huge margin. Fingers crossed. Hopefully this is interesting to some people, and it might serve as inspiration to any other rookies like me that want to try something like this. I know most people here could probably design something far more efficient and lovely than what I've come up with, but I think it'll be good to have a newbie mission report. I'm sure I'll have some educational failures along the way . Also, this is going to be expensive, so I'll have to take some breaks here and there to raise funds. I'll leave a note when that happens so that everyone knows I haven't just given up and gone home. Anyway, first pictures in the next post!