Zeiss Ikon

If you're sending Kerbals, you do. I've got a reliable Mun/Minmus ship that uses 1.25 m parts, but in order to reliably send even one Kerbal anywhere further, with capability to land and return, and do the mission with a single launch, I've had to build a monster with thirteen Mainsails and thirty Thuds burning at launch -- but it's got 5+ km/s dV from LKO, while pushing a lander that I'm pretty sure can land and return from any airless body in the Kerbol system with the possible exception of Tylo. And that's still all 2.5 m parts. Once I get enough 3.75 m parts unlocked, I'll be able to send the Mk. 1-2 anywhere in the system on a single launch, I think.

Truer words never spoken. Says the guy who has, over time, stranded multiple Kerbals in various orbits...

I think that's more of a tumble -- you can't start one of those after your get into heavy heating, at least with a simple command pod, because it's too stable in the base-first position. I'm talking about a roll (E or Q keys), which seems to even out the heat a bit and can by started after the capsule is too stable to do more than tip a bit under pitch or yaw command. Okay, I may have gotten that from trying to bring in a second goo canister or thermometer reading from the same location -- and then quit trying because I was trying not to lose the science I'd gone clear to the Mun to get. I'll try bringing the science inside next time, so I don't chance burning it up.

Yep, it was Scott Manley's videos that got me to buy the game, too. After trying the demo for a week or so, of course. An online tutorial showed me how to build a rocket with demo parts that could make orbit -- and I was hooked. I bought the game in December, and I've flow many missions to Mun and Minmus, as well as one Duna flyby (in Sandbox mode). I'm currently pursuing a Science game, and looking forward to the day I feel confident enough to try Career.

Yesterday, i had about an hour to play, and I flew an unusual mission. (Science game) With Jeb having recently managed to get himself to the Mun, Val started whining about being grounded. In fact, she whined loudly enough that the Planning Committee came up with somethign special just for her. The most recent mission to Minmus had generated reports of "mystery objects" showing on the orbit planner displays. One of these was fairly close to Kerbin -- a little closer than Minmus -- and the Planning Committee decided to try to send a ship out to get a close look at it. Valentina got the seat for this one, and climbed into the reliable Munar Lander Mod. 2, well proven to have the delta-V to get to Minmus, capture, and even deorbit with the transfer stage. Complicating things was that the mystery object selected was far out of the ecliptic, relative to its distance; Val would have to launch into a polar orbit, close to the correct time of day, to be able to reach it without dV prohibitive plane changes -- and no one had ever flown into polar orbit previously (though Jeb had flown suborbital missions near, to, and over the North Pole, giving a good idea what was needed. At the best estimate time, Val lifted off and promptly rolled five degrees, then started to pitch (normal launch profile is to yaw directly to the east, to take adavantage of Kerbin's rotational speed). The rest of the launch was completely routine, except that the combination of losing 300 m/s from Kerbin's motion, and in fact having to kill that velocity to get a polar orbit, meant that the launcher used more fuel than usual getting to orbit. This was expected, however, and Val's early gravity turn saved enough that she was still able to circularize without using any more fuel than was considered normal for an eastward launch. One partial circuit of the 130x130 km orbit brought her into position for her ejection burn toward the mystery object, which had to be combined with a mild plane change, as the launch timing hadn't been perfect. Then it was time for the waiting -- five days to apoapsis. It was not unexpected that the object had moved before Val got close, but how far it moved was instructive, as was the fact that it wasn't visible with on board instruments (strongly implying it was tiny, by cosmic standards). Then came the breakthrough: the same intern who'd taken a tape measure to the VAB during the booster staging crisis in the early days of the Munar Lander series had been assigned to distribute coffee in Mission Control -- and (she said) while trying to zoom in a screen for a better view of Val's track, discovered that the mystery object was trackable. These objects had previously never been tracked, apparently because no one in Mission Control had thought to try. By the time Val had returned to Kerbin (after the decision was made not to attempt to pursue a rendezvous with the original target object -- too far and too fast, she'd have never gotten back to Kerbin with the fuel available), the Tracking Station (once they knew it could be done) had discovered and plotted orbits for a round dozen of these objects, few if any as far from Kerbin as twice Minmus's orbital distance -- and one projected to pass Kerbin at a distance of only 900 km in about half a year! Suddenly the whole focus of the space program was changed: if these mystery objects could approach Kerbin that closely, there was no good reason they might not actually hit the planet. It suddenly became a priority to know what these things were, how big they were, and if there was a way to steer one away if it was detected on an impact orbit (in time).

Not to mention the core premise for a really nifty set of short stories that were eventually published in book form as "Venus Equilateral" -- except their "relay station" was not just manned, but a large-staff space station that also engaged in research (and, of course, story action, else it would have been a pretty boring book). I'm seeing my space program as similar to Heinlein's early days of space travel, only without the immense nuclear thermal engines he thought (as of ca. 1950) would be the only way to get around the Solar System. In his world, every ship carried pilots, engineers, and other crew who had actual functions aboard -- and occasionally scientists, if that was what the mission was about. By the time he got to torch ships, they were small towns inside a hull.

Apparently, there's a (fairly low) limit to the number of experiments' data you can store in the Mk. 1. I've had problems in the past with losing science because (for instance) I couldn't bring a second barometer/thermometer reading back into the capsule; I had to either overwrite a stored one, or discard the one I had just pulled out of the instrument. Even then, the recovery level is lower than bringing back the whole instrument, if I've understood that correctly. My standard science load for Mun/Minmus (in this Science game) has been four goo canisters and three each barometers and thermometers (don't have any other science instruments as yet; I've been pushing the rocket engines and tanks because they get me further, sooner). Where I've had problems with the science burning off is losing the goo canisters if my reentry is a little hot -- they're apparently even more fragile than the RCS quads, as I've got my capsule RCS mounted right at the rim, with the goo as high up the cone as I can get it without interfering with the parachute, and the goo burns off first. Interestingly, the thermometers and barometers are tougher than the RCS; I've had a couple missions land with nothing left on the outside of the pod but a single thermometer/barometer pair. My last reentry, I did a "rotisserie roll" after turning SAS off (neither needed nor helpful once the capsule become base-stable during reentry) and it seemed to help keep the goo from burning away -- but on that mission I hadn't done any goo experiments, it was a completely different mission reusing a capable vessel design.

I've had problems with the experiments and RCS quads burning off the exterior of a Mk. 1 command pod on reentry from Minmus, never mind further out -- but the capsule always survives. I've even had one survive a retrograde reentry, from Minmus, where I went a little too low; almost lost the pilot to G force, but the ablator held up and the capsule was fine. What I plan to start doing in the near future is using science storage parts -- there's a "material exposure bay" that fits between a Mk. 1 and a 1.25 m heat shield, and a Science Jr. that can store science data and connects at the small end of a Mk. 1. These do require an EVA to take the data out of (for instance) a goo canister and store it in the Science Jr., but by the time you're ready to fly to Duna or Even you ought to be able to handle a short EVA without problems. Small lander cans, unfortunately, are just a little bit bigger than the 1.25 m heat shield; they stick out into the multi-Mach blast, and the corners quickly melt (which the game depicts as an explosion). There is no way to get a lander can down to Kerbin with that heat shield, unless you can enter slowly enough to almost completely avoid heating effects (hint: you'll use a BUNCH of fuel trying to hover down, but it will work if you can spare the fuel) -- and if you can do that, you don't need a heat shield at all.

I realized over the past few days that in my current Science save, I've implemented a few self-imposed rules that may be a little different from the common ones like "don't leave debris in orbit" or "no Kerbal left behind". Mind you, I try to do both of those (though I currently have a stage persistently ellipsing Kerbin -- not circling, it's pretty eccentric -- with a periapsis too high to ever decay without a "decaying orbits" mod). What I'm referring to is that I made a decision very early on, after Jeb's first flight in a Jumping Flea, never to put a Kerbal on top of a solid fuel engine again -- just because I think an engine you can't shut off or throttle once ignited is generally a bad thing for crewed flight. I started making decisions in the tech tree that amounted to making mine a rocket science program, without any of those dangerous-looking hypersonic gliders or HOTOL launchers. And, a bit further on, I realized that my particular KSP (at least this Science game) is basically about Kerbal heroism -- individual Kerbals (so far, don't have multi-crew command pods yet other than lander cans) going out into the Kerbol system in flying tin cans, piloting their own ships, using helper automation (like SAS and maneuver nodes) but not letting automation replace the pilots. In my mind, I've rationalized this as being due to a very strong union representing Kerbal space pilots, engineers, and scientists, applying pressure on the decision makers to ensure that their constituents are never put out of work by robot replacements. It makes for an interesting space program, in my opinion -- no solid boosters means if I need "moar power" I have to find ways to get it with liquid fuel, which sometimes means flying an old model rocket for multiple missions to bring back enough science to upgrade enough nodes to build a bigger rocket that can lift itself -- or using Thuds, now that I have them, to increase thrust of a stage. A design I'm still refining has 13 Mainsails and 30 Thuds firing at launch, with seven cores boosted by six strap-ons (the latter of which have five Thuds each), and can orbit a transfer stage with 5000+ m/s delta-V (pushing a heavy lander that can land on, and hopefully return from, any low-atmosphere body in the stock system, possibly excepting Tylo) -- and I designed that before even unlocking the Rhino, Mammoth, or Vector. Sure, I could send probes to Moho, Gilly, Ike, Duna, Dres, Vall, Bop, Tylo, and Eloo with launchers a tenth the size -- but that would get the Kerbal Space Pilots' and Engineers' Union up in arms, and you don't want those guys to go out on strike (plus, they own the Design Committee and everyone in Mission Control is a member). No space planes or glide return shuttles means everything comes down under parachutes, at least until I can build thrust-hover landers that return to Kerbin with enough fuel to, well, land. And no unmanned missions means I "have to" send multiple missions to Mun and Minmus to mine the data from their various biomes, always do the local science when a command pod lands on land (in hopes of getting some biome other than "grasslands", "mountains", "highlands", "shore", "waters" -- Jeb's been to the Northern Ice Shelf, but no one has been to the southern one yet, I'll get it eventually). So far, the science has been good, but I think I'm going to have to send missions to Ike or Gilly soon -- the new ship can get there, the only question is whether it can get back after orbital capture and adjustments. You can bet a Kerbal will be checking the fuel gauge before undocking the lander...

Mostly, just let them reenter engine(s) first. The engine bells can take almost as much heat as a heat shield. One of the better YouTube videos on "how to fly to orbit" is based on very low tech level -- Swivel engine (or Reliant, this may have been old enough you got the non-gimballed engine first), bunch of short 1.25 m tanks, Mk. 1 pod, parachute, but no heat shield or decoupler yet. They orbit, deorbit engine bell first, and then use the engine to slow down their descent just before landing in the sea so nothing explodes. I routinely watch my discarded stages reenter (from orbits halfway to Mun, in many cases, after they flew through command pod recovery), and even entering fast enough to burn all the experiments off the outside of a command pod, they hold together long enough to hit the ground unless they go way too deep for periapsis on their reentry orbit.

I thought I'd "got it" when I learned to reliably rendezvous and dock (after deleting a save in which I'd managed to strand all three of my game-start pilots in orbit around the Mun -- two in their space suits with no EVA fuel, the third out of RCS propellant and without enough fuel to get back to Kerbin). Then came the day I was committed to land on Minmus before realizing my landing point "near the previous landing flag and descent stage" was in darkness, because Minmus isn't tide locked. Landing with only the navball, altimeter, and target marker for the previous flag, and getting within 40 m, in complete darkness (the lander had no external lights; I could faintly see the surface, lit by my own descent engine, only for the last five meters or so) was what convinced me I "had it".

(Science game) Today, Jeb managed to sneak into a command pod. Ground Control didn't notice it was him (Sherny was up in rotation) until he was already in orbit, and by then it was too late to keep him from going to the Mun. His Munar Lander Mod. 2 handled the task superbly, and you can always trust Jeb to get the job done (except when he doesn't). This time, he landed in East Crater, on none-too-level ground, but was able to get the lander to stabilize by landing with one leg pointing down the slope (the lander can take several degrees more slope that way than if two legs are down). Once he was sure nothing was going to fall, he gingerly left the command pod to plant his flag and take surface samples and reports, then expertly flew his maneuvering unit to return to the hatch (the lander stages of Munar Lander family vessels don't have ladders; they aren't capable of going anywhere the pilot needs one). Of course, even Jeb can't land this vessel on Mun with enough fuel remaining to hop to another region on the surface, so once the surface chores were done (including goo, barometer, and thermometer observations), he turned on SAS, slapped the staging switch, and throttled up the ascent/return stage. His return to Munar orbit was uneventful, aside from a little bobble where he started to tip the wrong direction. Once around the Mun, and then it was time to burn for home. Either Minmus return is just that bit more punishing, or Jeb did a better job hitting his reentry corridor; all the experiments stayed attached to the outside of his command pod, all the way to the ground -- where he dutifully popped out of the capsule to perform ground experiments in Kerbin's Highlands. While Jeb was landing on the Mun, an unnamed source with access to the Design Committee let a little something slip -- hinting that an upcoming ship would have an unprecedented 5+ km/s delta-V from LKO. Instantly after that, he seemed to realized he'd spoken out of turn, and clammed up, but press pundits had a field day speculating about what such a ship could do -- in a nutshell, they concluded that that was enough dV to reach and return from nearly any body in the system.

After a bit of a dry spell (work and stuff), I was able to play a while on Saturday. (Science game) With R&D clamoring for more data that they can use to research (currently secret) upgrades, the decision was made to send additional missions to Mun and Minmus, to mine data from different areas of their surfaces. Maltrey was up for the Mun mission, flying a Munar Lander Mod. 1 (which has proven over multiple missions to be a reliable craft for single-Kerbal missions to the moons). He again chose Farside Crater as his landing site -- possibly in part due to personal reasons (that was the location of his failed attempt at the first landing on Mun, cancelled by the incompatibility of the landing legs than availble with any sort of descent stage engine), but also, in fairness, because no one had gathered data from there. This time, with better legs and more collective experience (plus RCS upgrades to the lander, not yet available for his first attempt), the landing was pretty routine; the site was less sloped than on his previous attempt, and the lander remained upright and intact. In a move that will likely cause minor confusion for a long time, the flag he planted carried the same location name, "Maltrey Base" as the one left at his first-ever Minmus landing site, though it should be sufficient to specify "Maltrey Base on Mun" or "Maltrey Base on Minmus" if there's ever an ambiguity. It was his intention to make a short hop and collect still more data from another area of the Mun, but as he was preparing to do so, he found the descent stage was nearly out of fuel, so he accepted his fate and launched to Munar orbit, then burned for Kerbin. The exterior of Maltrey's capsule had barely cooled on recovery before Sigemy, freshly back from administrative leave (over his cowboy attempt at a first Munar flyby in a ship without the delta-V to get all the way home, necessitating a crash research program and rescue mission), climbed into the slightly upgraded Munar Lander Mod. 2 unit (further upgraded with fuel cells and external lights) for a trip to Minimus. The ship performed as it had done since its last upgrade, which is to say flawlessly, and Sigemy, while a little loose on following orders, is nothing if not a good pilot. He was able to finish his Minimus capture, circularize, and lower his apses all with the transfer stage of the launcher, thus to begin the descent to the surface with full lander tanks. Compensating for the rapid rotation of the pudding moon, he landed first in the Great Flats, about a third of the way around the tiny moon from Maltrey Base (Minmus), and did so efficiently enough to have nearly two thirds fuel remaining. He was excited enough that he forgot to take the goo observation while landed, but he made up for it by hopping to a location near the south pole, then making a successful, if precarious third landing back near the equator. The third time, he landed with completely empty tanks in the descent stage, badly depleting his RCS fuel to finish the job and then upright the lander (the third landing site was at the very edge of the slope tolerance of the Mod. 2 lander). Still, he was able to collect the data and launch back into Minmus orbit, then at the proper time burn for Kerbin. Unfortunately, the high reentry velocity for a Minmus return is still not a fully solved problem; during reentry, Sigemy's capsule lost all four of its RCS quads (no propellant left for them anyway), and all four goo canisters. Fortunately, the surface samples and reports were safe inside the capsule, and even without a single goo canister to return, the data haul was of unprecedented magnitude. Sigemy's reputation as a cowboy is fully entrenched -- but the Kerbal Space Program doesn't really mind cowboys, as long as they deliver the goods.

No matter how many KSP parts are described as coming from junkyards or along the side of the road, they look reasonably aerospace and you have to load a mod to make them fail occasionally, in the absence of poor design/construction of the completed vessel. Once I unlock enough heavy rocketry parts, I can make a rocket that is a reasonable approximation of a Titan, Atlas, even a Soyuz, with stock parts, and have it perform in a predictable way. The "kerbal way" of using huge numbers of strap-ons, asparagus staging, "moar struts", and so forth is mainly fostered by a combination of a viral esthetic (preserved in hundreds of YouTube videos from the early versions of the game) and limitations of having to attempt missions your tech isn't really ready for in order to get the science to upgrade your tech. Play a sandbox game, and you don't have to "kerbal" stuff (much). Play science, or more so career, and you wind up having to use methods like explosive decoupling, or using a stage as a heat shield, to (for instance) make a Munar flyby with first and second tech level parts (because you don't yet have decouplers, heat shields, etc.). This is further enforced by the order some tech appears in the tree -- NASA had fuel cells before they had solar panels adequate for large loads, they used explosive bolt decoupling on the very first Redstone manned launches (and even earlier, in the first orbital attempts and for the first ICBMs). They had primitive cold-gas RCS on the X-15 and the Mercury capsules (first flights in early 1960s), but didn't use reaction wheels (as far as I know) until they started putting large telescopes into orbit in the 1970s. Men flew supersonic aircraft for more than a decade before the first rocket took a human into space. Rabbids are just fun. Their approach to technology is just silliness, created for pure amusement. Kerbals do what they must to get the job done, including (from time to time) using inappropriate tech because they aren't yet allowed/able to use the proper parts. Often, it's a lesson in "outside the box" thinking, as well as in the real science of spaceflight.

This is why I prefer fuel cells over solar. One objection I have; in the tech tree, fuel cells are much further along/more expensive than solar panels, yet historically, NASA had fuel cells more than adequate for Moon voyages before they had any but the most basic solar panels.

Yep, my timing was apparently pretty good on getting my used Core2Quad 2.7 GHz when I did. It's served me very well, and it was a socket drop-in replacement for the Core2Duo 1.8 GHz it replaced -- which was all the CPU I could afford when I had a motherboard failure about 9 years ago (I replaced that motherboard a few months ago, with a used unit from eBay, but the only real upgrade was support for 8 GB DDR3 RAM instead of the 4 GB that was max for my old motherboard). Next year's tax refund will probably have to go toward a new LGA1151 motherboard, with 16 GB of DDR4 and a faster-clock, reasonably current CPU (not sure if I'll be able to afford a quad core, but I do other things that make a quad preferred over dual if the money will stretch) -- unless I see enough good things about Ryzen between now and then to jump back to AMD (I ran AMD for years before my Core2Duo).

I won't argue, but my budget hasn't improved, no matter how many pay raises I get (they barely keep up with inflation). My current (Core2Quad) CPU was bought used, on eBay, 4-5 years ago, and I've been on multi-core architecture for roundly ten years, with a jump from dual to quad (which also brought a 50% clock increase) with the current CPU. My dual-core laptop is ten years old, as well -- seems to handle my low demands pretty well, most days (though it's time to shop for another replacement battery).

My personal rule in 30 years of building and upgrading my own PC hardware has been to buy all the performance I can afford -- because it'll be on the verge of hopeless obsolescence by the time I can afford to replace it.

This came up when I asked about performance on my desktop machine in the support section -- one CPU suggestion I received over there was for a Pentium G4560. It fits the same LGA 1151 as the Core family, has two cores and four threads, and can be had in clock speeds that make it highly competitive in the Core i3 range -- and it's under US$70. It's also a bit future-resistant, in that you can upgrade in future just by dropping in a new CPU chip in the existing motherboard.

(Science Game) Today, Maltrey finished his return to Kerbin after his attempt at a Munar landing (aborted by destruction of his descent engine after landing on too steep a slope -- surprisingly, without damaging the tiny landing struts). His reentry was routine, and selecting a higher entry corridor (around 38 km periapsis) than the previous two missions preserved all his science instruments down to the ground. Almost no science was had from the mission, however, because he'd had no time on the surface to collect data, and everything that could be done from Munar orbit had already been done by Sherny. Munar landing was out, due to inadequate landing legs, and R&D insisted they couldn't do better without more data. It was time for Jebediah to step up. Strapping into a Swiveler III, he flew two suborbital science missions northward from KSC -- one intended to reach tundra, but winding up in the grasslands, a little too far from the Northern Ice Shelf, and the other, piloted for near-optimum distance, crossed completely over the polar region hoping to find the elusive badlands, but instead landed in another region of grassland. Finally, he launched a "barely up" in a Swiveler II, and landed back on the KSC grounds to get samples and data logs from the grassy area north of the long runway, and managed to amass enough information that R&D reluctantly coughed up a better set of landing legs (along with a few other items). With Munar Orbiter upgraded to Mod. 1 using the new, much longer and heavier landing legs, Maltrey stood aside while Sherny took the second stab at the Mun. Applying the lessons learned from Maltrey's aborted landing, Sherny selected a flatter area, between the major craters on the northern half of the near side, for his landing, and was able to set the lander down on a gentle slope without incident. He was able to plant his flag, take surface samples, and fully deploy the command pod's science instruments. In his excitement, however, he tipped the wrong direction on ascent and entered Munar orbit retrograde, which then required his Kerbin return burn to to made on the far side of Mun, and in the dark. Sherny was up to the task, however, and a little over a day later returned to Kerbin with an excellent data haul -- to which R&D responded by turning out larger engines and tanks that will be used in future to visit destinations beyond Mun and Minmus. Before leaving Kerbin's sphere, however, there was unfinished business. Maltrey was owed a "first", and Gene offered him Minmus. The offer didn't require a repetition. It was time to find out if that tiny body was actually made of pudding, or if it was just ice and rock, like the astronomers insist. Using a second Munar Orbiter Mod. 1, Maltrey launched carefully, preserving as much delta-V as possible, so as to have the large transfer stage still available for capture and deorbit at Minmus (more out of caution than need, since LKO to Minmus surface was calculated to be less dV than LKO to Mun surface because Minmus is so tiny). Still, Maltrey is developing a reputation for getting what he wants, as long as the engineers do their part: he was, in fact, able to perform his deorbit burn at Minmus with the transfer stage, leaving a tiny amount of remaining fuel in the detached stage when it crashed into the Minmus flats. That allowed Maltrey to start his landing burn from a full descent tank, and newly upgraded onboard software (Better Burn Time) allowed him to conserve fuel during the landing as well; he landed with more than half his descent fuel to spare. Given that, after planting his landing flag and collecting the required science data, he had enough fuel to make a hop to another region on the Minmus surface (and hoped he might make it to a third). Unfortunately, he badly misjudged the hop, giving himself an apoapsis of 57 km and taking nearly a half hour, then having to spend a lot of RCS fuel correcting for the rotation of the pudding moon under him as he floated high. Then, after landing on the incredibly flat "lake bed" he'd chosen, he bumped the lander a little while flying his suit jets down to the surface and, incredibly, the machine tipped over on its side. Fortunately for Maltrey, the lander fell with the crew hatch up, so he was able to re-board without difficulty. The bad news was that the tiny amount of remaining RCS fuel wasn't enough to upright the lander (the RCS quads might not have had enough authority, even if they'd had more fuel and even in the low gravity at Minmus; the system wasn't designed for that). The reaction wheels, which had been shut off to save battery power because the Terrier descent and ascent engines lack alternators, couldn't do the job by themselves, either -- but Maltrey had no plans to spend weeks on Minmus waiting for a rescue mission. He applied his go-to solution: hit the staging button. After doing so, the reaction wheel was able to lift the nose of the tiny ascent stage far enough to fire the ascent engine, after which he was easily able to establish an orbit, and subsequently set up his return to Kerbin. When R&D got hold of his command pod, one of the engineers had to be taken to the Center infirmary -- he'd fainted, and struck his head on the hard tile of the floor. The faint was caused when the smart guy got a look at everything Maltrey had brought back form Minmus -- goo observations from three completely new regions, surface samples, crew, and EVA reports from a previously untouched body, and a capsule that had been where no Kerbal had ever gone before. Report is, R&D will be working overtime for a while, and what they'll be able to do with the data will be astonishing. It may need to be -- while plotting his Kerbin return, Maltrey had noticed three unknown bodies well outside the orbit of Minimus, and the tracking station confirmed them to be NKO -- Near-Kerbin Objects, asteroids with the potential to strike Kerbin.

(Science game) Last night, I was able to resume Maltrey's mission to place the first Kerbal boots on the Mun. From the parking LKO where I'd left him, he made a routine burn for transMunar transfer, and had plenty of fuel left for Munar capture, lowering apses, and circularization below 30 km -- and still had enough in the transfer stage to handle the deorbit burn. Once that was done, the transfer stage was jettisoned with just a whisper of fuel left in its tanks and Maltrey had the two-stage lander for his landing attempt. Because of mission timing, in order to land in daylight, he was landing on the farside of Mun, out of touch with Kerbin -- if something went wrong and stranded him on the surface, he'd be there until he was marked "overdue" and then found by a presume SAR mission. No pressure, right, Maltrey? His deorbit burn had been set up to drop him into the large crater on that side of the Mun, in hopes there would be flattish ground available, but after a longish burn of the descent stage engine left him in a vertical descent at low speed and altitude, he could see that the ground was anything but level. Unfortunately, until he was almost in contact, he couldn't really see how not-level the terrain was. With plenty of fuel in the descent stage, he hovered a bit, trying to land gently enough not to damage the (spindly, fragile-looking) landing legs. When he finally touched down, there was a pretty strident "bang", however -- but two things were immediately clear. First, he had all the landing legs; second, the ground was too steeply sloped for the lander to stand on them. It took a few seconds of manipulating the descent engine throttle while SAS/RCS kept the craft upright on two legs to realize the third thing: despite testing in the VAB to ensure the legs protruded beyond the nozzle bell, the descent engine had been destroyed by the seemingly minor impact with the Mun's surface. Maltrey kept his wits about him in the finest tradition -- tapping the RCS forward translation, he hovered briefly (confirming that the installed RCS, three rings of four quads, was sufficient to hover the complete lander in Munar gravity, at least with the descent engine gone and a third or so of the descent fuel burned), scanned the terrain for a level enough area for the lander to actually stand on its tiny legs, then reached the decision to abort. Slapping the staging button, he separated the ascent stage and burned for Munar orbit. The tiny ascent stage (Mk. 1, 400 tank, Terrier, two RCS spheres and now two rings of four quads, and the science suite) was up to the task, and soon he was in a high orbit over Mun; in less than another hour, he had completed the burn that put him on a reentry profile, still with about 10% fuel remaining in the ascent stage tanks (and close to 50% RCS fuel). Only a single goo canister had been opened, and that in low Munar orbit (already well covered in previous flyby and orbit missions), so little "science" would be gained from this mission -- and no flag planted on the Munar surface; that will have to wait on better landing legs -- but the experience, suggesting the landing legs really are as inadequate as they look, was none the less invaluable.

Tonight, in reading through the forum, I tried to "like" a post -- and got a message that "you cannot give rep to this user." A little later, in the "What did you do in KSP Today" thread, I ran into the same message again. I know I haven't already given out all the likes I can give for a day (those were the first two for today), and I'm pretty sure neither of the posters had hit a daily limit for receiving rep. I've liked posts before without seeing this message. So, have I uncovered a new forum bug, or am I missing something in the way the forum operates? BTW, Mods, please feel free to move this post if it's in the wrong place -- I didn't see a location that looked like the right place to ask about forum bugs...

I'll confirm this. When I was learning this level of doing things in sandbox, I found that all I had to do to get to Duna (a flyby and return, with a little help from Duna's gravity well to set up the return orbit) was delete the lander from my Mun/Minmus vessel (which used an Apollo-style, separate lander vs. command/service stage). With the two-stage lander removed, the transfer stage (a large orange tank, a Poodle, a small RCS tank, and a Mk. 1, plus assorted decouplers, parachutes, heat shields, RCS blocks and Vernors, etc.) had enough delta-V even without waiting for a "most favorable" transfer window. That same ship couldn't come anywhere near Moho, unless I managed to use a Duna or Eve gravity assist to get a flyby. BTW, if you don't like Duna for some reason, Eve is only a little more expensive to get to than Duna -- but be warned, if you land there, you probably won't get back to orbit. Getting a lander up from Duna is only about three times the dV as Mun (and the air's much thinner than Kerbin's).

One important difference, though -- a docking port will disengage on excessive bending force or tension, while a decoupler won't disengage until it explodes (unless triggered). Decouplers are also a great deal stiffer than docking ports (especially the Jr. size, the ones that fit the small end of a Mk. 1 Command Pod), which can make a BIG difference during launch (say, of a command/lander setup like Apollo, but with Mercury capsules). Struts and/or autostrut are your friends...

Yes! This!