Ace in Space

I tend to bounce around between moon and mun, but usually moon. Does anyone else think we missed an opportunity by calling it Mun but not calling the star Soon?

Well, the first thing I did today was attempt to apply @Azimech's chains to my trebuchet. Unfortunately, it seems that short, hanging chains made of large loops are significantly more stable than long, dragging chains made of small loops. While testing the chain I found that it took considerable patience and luck to even get the trebuchet ready for launching without the chain coming apart, and even if I succeeded, it had a tendency to undergo RUD from the sheer force of its own launch. I lost interest in tweaking it so it hasn't actually tossed anything yet. Rocket parts are built to go to space, but not to lay siege to castles. Who knew? Anyway, back in the Career game, I had several days before the next burn on the Dres Wagon Train, so I decided on a whim to do a quick Mun landing, but for the first time I decided to land on one of the poles. Despite the craggy landscape, my recent track record with landing legs convinced me to try to land on the engines, which I managed to pull off. Since I dropped down so close to the Polar Lowlands biome, I decided to fly over and pick that up too, but the slopes there were so steep that after much hovering and course-correcting I gave up and deployed the legs. Shockingly, they did not explode on landing! So with two biomes down, I hopped back into orbit. Normally I am used to leaving the Mun from equatorial orbit, so I was rather dismayed to find I didn't have enough fuel to adjust my polar orbit into one. I launched Jeb in a rescue vehicle to go pick the stranded kerbal up, along with a few rookies in the spare seats of the vehicle so they could get some experience. But after I put that into LKO, and was fiddling with maneuver nodes to try to intercept Munstone, I realized two things. First, I realized, to my dismay, that the stranded craft was in an orbit that would be hard for incoming crafts to match. Second, I realized, to my joy, that this orbit just so happened to be one that I could easily get back to Kerbin straight out of polar orbit. So I did. The heat shield exploded on impact with the ground, but the lander can was fine, as was the science container. So the rescue mission was cancelled and the craft just returned from orbit. Sorry, Jeb. At least the rookies got a little experience anyway, so it wasn't a total loss. And I got a couple rather... interesting... screenshots out of it. Finally, the Dres crafts did their plane adjustment burns. Drill Tank Conv. Hab. Sci. Rover Com1 Com2 Com3 Com4 Com5 Delta-V Before Burn 2557+ 3410- 2555 3455 3472 3437 ~2893 ~3173 ~3097 ~3031 ~2850 Delta-V Spent Today 705 726 719 811 805 821 734 714 719 717 777 Delta-V Left 1852+ 2684- 1836 2644 2667 2616 ~2159 ~2459 ~2378 ~2314 ~2073 Is this enough? I don't know! It's late, so I decided to leave setting up nodes for intercept fine-tuning and capture burns for tomorrow, or whenever I next get to playing this game.

Bad idea - with all the glitches this game has, it's probably better to not allow yourself to load. The difference being, the latter forces you to accept your own mistakes only. The former forces you to accept SQUAD's mistakes too. Hm... I think I can finally build that trebuchet of mine properly now...

So Kerbals can actually pull themselves up by their bootstraps. Brilliant!

That looks... very strange. But wow. That is OP. And hilarious!

The frantic flurry of activity at Jade Station continued in order to get the three docked crafts back on track as quickly as possible, since they were already behind schedule. And of course there was the obligatory kraken encounter, albeit a minor one that just ate the legs on the fuel lifter. After plenty of frantic fuel shuttling that went well into the Minmosian night (which was a challenge since the vehicles were never intended to be constantly zipping back and forth like that in the dark), all three crafts were undocked and set on their way, with their entire travel stage delta-v budget restored. The rover's naming priority continued to be weird. Previously, the entire station had automatically taken the rover's name, and I corrected this by renaming the station back to what it should have been. After undocking the rover, it was now also named Jade Station. I really, really, really hope this behavior is unique to its interaction with this particular station and it doesn't do this on Quartz Station. Anyway, I corrected the name again, and then Buzz, Anger, and Hairy were back on their journey. I was initially just a touch concerned by the fact that Jade Station orbits backwards, but with the low gravity (and being so close to the edge of Kerbin's SOI), it proved trivial, and the crafts achieved Solar orbit with delta-v expenses still within the double digits. Habitation Science Rover Delta-V at Departure 5211 5198 5161 Spent on Solar Orbit 91 66 72 Spent on Maneuver #1 1665 1660 1652 Current Delta-V 3455 3472 3437 Although, that makes it sound smoother than it was. In reality, I had to quickload once or twice to figure out why something was happening; while flying the habitation module from map view, burning toward my maneuver target caused the delta-v cost to go up and my navball to wobble uncontrollably. It turned out that when undocking from the station the control point had been set to Hairy's cupola, which is mounted in the rocket backwards so the docking port can face forward. Because I was in map view to watch the orbit line, I couldn't see that the rocket was now backwards due to this unexpected default. Once I correctly set my control point to the probe core under the port, everything was fine, save for some weirdness with the maneuver nodes on the map. Once everyone was safely on their way, Jade Station could try to recover from this madness, and there was yet more fuel shuttling (but at a more relaxed pace) to refill the tank that had been bled totally dry. But now everything's back to normal, and all crafts are en route to Dres as intended! For the record, here's a summary of the Delta-V situation so far. Note that I didn't actually go back and add up all the delta-V spent so far, but got that row of numbers just from subtracting what I have last written down for the current delta v from the initial numbers. So if I've made any math mistakes, this is the bit I'm going to quote when they come back to bite me. Drill Tank Conv. Hab. Sci. Rover Com1 Com2 Com3 Com4 Com5 Initial Delta-V 4302+ 5351- 4419 5211 5198 5161 ~4880 ~4886 ~4886 ~4889 ~4889 Spent So Far 1745 1941 1864 1756 1726 1724 1987 ~1713 1789 1858 2039 Delta-V Left 2557+ 3410- 2555 3455 3472 3437 ~2893 ~3173 ~3097 ~3031 ~2850 Most of these numbers look good. I've projected the next maneuver for each module and it ranges about 700-820ish m/s. I haven't plotted nodes for the final capture burn, since there's likely going to be disparity between the projected course and the actual course, but my initial test numbers put that step at just shy of 2000 m/s. So that means our budget is around 2700-2820 delta-V. The converter and the drill have me worried, but may still be alright - the drill has more than my calculated amount due to having an unknown amount of delta-V left over from ascent, and the converter (which has one of the lowest costs for the next burn) has lots of monoprop on board and may be able to squeeze out the last few m/s for capture. From there, the vast amounts of monoprop on most of the crafts should be enough to enable rendezvous and docking to assemble the station.

I may just be missing something, but now that we can set name/icon priorities when designing crafts in the VAB, and we already had the ability to change the name/icon of existing crafts, could we please have the ability to change the priority on existing crafts too? New crafts with priorities set sometimes interact undesirably with existing crafts that pre-dated the introduction of priority. If I'm missing something and we can already do this, pay me no mind.

It's the spork of engines - its strength is it does two jobs at once, but at the cost of not being as good at either as a dedicated engine. Jack of all trades, master of none.

Didn't get a whole lot of time to play today, and not a whole lot to report. Jade Station kicked into frantic action trying to supply all that fuel. One of the crafts is now fully refueled, and the others will be soon. Had a minor encounter with a kraken that necessitated a reload - the fuel lifter descended to the minmus flats at the breakneck speed of two or possibly even three meters per second, which blew one of the legs off in a fiery explosion. I also discovered something rather obnoxious - the rover docked to Jade Station has a name priority of 3 (I went back to the VAB to check!), while the station, of course, pre-dates the patch that introduced priority. Somehow this works out to the rover taking over the name/icon for the station. I changed it back, only for the rover to take over again when I undocked the lifter. I changed it back again but at least upon re-docking the lifter the name didn't change a third time. Which makes me wonder - is there a way to set the name/icon priority outside of the VAB (that is, to set it for crafts that already exist)? If there isn't, there really should be. I'd like to be able to adjust the priorities of crafts that already existed at the time the patch hit.

Welcome to the Shadow Realm. It's good to have some company.

I swear, this mission... So, today I got a visit from my old "friend" allergies and got to do delta-v budgeting in a haze of benedryll and sneezing. That was "fun." Unfortunately I don't have that excuse for when I calculated my budget in the first place. The original plan was to intercept Dres by way of three consecutive maneuvers, the last of which I had written down as a very small adjustment requiring only 55m/s. I am not certain whether I got spectacularly lucky with my nodes when I first found and wrote these numbers down, or if this last maneuver was supposed to be 550m/s and I somehow failed to write the zero down. Either way, while placing nodes today I discovered that my crafts were several hundred m/s short of having enough delta-v to make these three maneuvers to intercept Dres, as the last node consistently ended up coming out to 500-700m/s, with most at the 700 end of the spectrum. This means that even with leftover fuel from ascent, nearly all of the crafts would not be able to make it to their destination and have enough delta-v left to actually achieve orbit instead of flyby. But I may still be able to salvage this situation. For one thing, after extensively fiddling with the maneuver nodes, I was able to find a combination of only two burns that required less delta-v overall. I only completed the first of the two maneuvers tonight, but now I've got some time to work with before the next set. This turned out to be absolutely critical, and because of that, I am adjusting the numbers now. Drill Tank Conv. Com1 Com2 Com3 Com4 Com5 Initial Delta-V 4302+ 5351- 4419 ~4880 ~4886 ~4886 ~4889 ~4889 Spent This Phase 1745 1941 1864 1987 1713 1789 1858 2039 Current Delta-V 2557+ 3410- 2555 ~2893 ~3173 ~3097 ~3031 ~2850 You might have noticed that the habitation module, science module, and rover are missing from the table. Incidentally, these are the three kerballed crafts. No matter how I tried, I just could not get the rover or the habitation module to intercept Dres and still have enough delta-v to achieve orbit; they were always short by a couple hundred m/s. Since they were not yet out of Kerbin's SOI, having just left their Munar flybys, I quickly redirected them to Minmus. Because they've already used a few hundred delta-v to achieve an escape trajectory, they have a few hundred delta-v worth of empty space in their tanks. If they refuel at Jade Station, they should be able to return to an escape trajectory from the much-easier starting position of orbit around Minmus, and still have enough extra fuel to make it to their destination. As for the science module... uh. It was actually lucky that the shroud did this weird thing because that's what prompted me to investigate further, which is how I noticed that this one also had an empty travel stage. The first one, I immediately accepted as my own fault. This time, I'm starting to question what's going on here. I didn't really make that same stupid mistake twice, did I? I'm lucky that I noticed this before I'd completely spent the ascent stage, since I was able to move the last few precious drops of fuel into the empty tank and ditch the ascent tank. Turns out it had just enough juice left in it to redirect this craft to Minmus as well. There's just one problem: Jade Station is woefully unprepared and unequipped to handle this situation. The station had a nearly-full Rockomax-64 tank, which is normally sufficient for refueling several crafts. However, there are now three rockets docked for refueling at once, one of which has a nearly empty Rockomax-64 of its own. Jade Station just doesn't have enough fuel. So Hairy, Anger, and Buzz are just hanging out on the station while waiting for more fuel to be shuttled up from the surface base.

@m.kerman You appear to have miscredited my doomed probe screencap to qzgy. Good work, otherwise!

Didn't play much KSP today; was too busy baking cupcakes. But when I did get around to it, it was time to re-launch Anger's rover and the replacement satellite. Turns out, rather unsurprisingly, that the weight of all the fuel that was missing from the rover the first time around rendered the old ascent stage inadequate and the thing had to be redesigned once more. Even after redesigning it, it ended up needing to tap into the travel stage to raise the periapsis up the last few kilometers. I'm hoping this does not turn out to be a problem. The crafts are a ways behind the others, but not too far. They were getting close to their Munar encounters at around the time that all the other crafts were escaping from the Mun's SOI. Continuing yesterday's table, here are the numbers for the replacement crafts. Incidentally, this time I was able to measure how much delta-v was left over from the ascent stage on the comm sat, and it turns out it was a good 540m/s. I probably won't adjust the numbers in future reports for this, but it's good to know. Rover Com1 Initial Delta-V 5161- 5224+ Spent This Phase 858 884 Current Delta-V 4303- 4340+ With all crafts on their way out into Kerbolar orbit, I finally had the time to deal with the failed fuel tank. I've decided to just leave it attached to the end of the Kerbin Space Station. It doesn't look that bad, and it'll be useful to have more room for fuel.

Today the first phase of the journey to Dres began. Things started getting pretty chaotic pretty fast. This was by far the most frantic section simply because, with everything in LKO, I didn't have a whole lot of time between maneuvers, and all these orbit lines and the tracking station's tendency to flash back and forth between MET and time to maneuver made it hard to see who was next. A couple crafts ended up overshooting their maneuvers. The good news is that being in LKO means getting another shot at the maneuver about a half hour later. The chaos was amplified by the fact that I noticed possibly the dumbest mistake I've made in KSP so far, right in the middle of it, and had to make emergency corrections. I had apparently forgotten to refill one of the tanks on Anger's rover after draining it for delta-V calculation. The tank that was supposed to hold the majority of the travel stage fuel. Thankfully I noticed this before it got too far away from Kerbin, so I was able to hastily bring it back down into a lopsided orbit instead of slingshotting off the Mun. Unfortunately, the rover isn't intended or equipped to re-enter the atmosphere, so it had to simply stay in orbit to wait for a rescue that couldn't be sent immediately because mission control was way too busy juggling the rest of this mess. Anger's reaction to this situation was predictable. Meanwhile, spam from the Gilly Station contract was accumulating: Once that had been cleared out (it really needs a "delete all" button), and everyone else was on their way to the Mun, Valentina was sent in Pendragon I to rescue Anger. It should be noted that while it is technically an SSTO, Pendragon I only barely gets into orbit. So she had to intercept the Kerbin Space Station to dock and refuel before she could even attempt to rendezvous with Anger. So it took a while before we got him back. On a side note, Val needed every last drop of fuel in the station, so having that failed fuel tank in orbit is going to come in handy for filling it back up. By the time Anger had been recovered, everyone else was already flying by the Mun. With one exception. We seem to have lost a Comm Sat. I am legitimately unsure whether its periapsis was too low and it crashed into the Mun, or if it just fell into the Shadow Realm. At this point, with the track record this space program has, these are equally probable scenarios. But of the eleven crafts launched at once, with all the multitasking that entails, I'd say getting nine of them successfully onto a Munar flyby into Kerbolar orbit is pretty good, especially since no kerbals were lost. I intend to launch a new rover (with a full fuel tank this time) and a replacement comm sat tomorrow. In the mean time, because the delta-V budget is tight and I measured how much would be needed for each step, I'm actually tracking delta-v usage for each craft. My initially measured value for this step was 861m/s. All but one of them went a little over-budget on this round, but since many of them had additional fuel left over from their ascent stage, I don't see this as a problem. In all the chaos, I failed to write down how much delta-v comm sat 3 used, so I just averaged the other comm sats. Drill Tank Conv. Hab. Sci. Com2 Com3 Com4 Com5 Initial Delta-V 5172+ 6229- 5289 5211 5198+ 5224+ 5224+ 5224+ 5224+ Used This Step 870 878 870 858 866 878 ??? 875 875 Current Delta-V 4302+ 5351- 4419 4353 4332+ 4346+ 4348+ 4349+ 4349+ Since the estimated amount of delta-v needed for the rest of the journey is 4306m/s, things look promising so far, despite the chaotic start. Given that the drill had some ascent fuel left over, I don't think it's actually dropped below this threshold. We shall see.

Rocket needs to be called the Muffet.

No problem.

I've got another one for ya today.

After having seen the results of this slippery slope in some of my games before, as well as seeing the chaos when an update breaks peoples mods (plus a few bad experiences with viruses and/or borked games), this is why I now have a strict "no mods" policy. A broken what, now? After a couple days of not playing KSP, I got back into it today and finished launching components for Quartz Station - the converter, the fuel tank, and five comm sats. The Ugly Space Flowers comm sats are uglier than ever, but also slightly less flowerlike, I guess? Got a rather striking screenshot while the converter module was on its way up, too. I actually ended up launching two fuel tanks. It was only after launching the first one that I noticed that those delta-v calculations I did before that gave a significant amount of wiggle room didn't take into account the weird design of the module. Because of reasons that ultimately boil down to "because the tank itself is payload," I essentially had the fuel tank for the final stage also contributing to the ascent stage. Once the tank was in orbit, the fuel levels looked too low to get all the way to Dres, so I headed back to the space center, intending to go to the VAB. Instead I apparently went back to the void. I decided to ignore it and just click the VAB button; the game promptly crashed. Thankfully I had just saved - if Skyrim taught me anything, it's "save every 30 seconds, and always in a different file, because you never know when the game will crash, or worse, glitch without your knowledge and require reverting to an earlier save." I should probably clean out my save folder, because I have several hundred saves and the "load game" menu is getting slow, haha. At any rate, when I launched the game again, I went to the VAB and opened the fuel tank. The first thing I did was take the ascent stage parts off and lower the fuel levels to roughly what the existing tank had left, and did a quick, rough delta-v calculation that confirmed that I was about a thousand m/s short. So I proceeded with redesigning it to have more distinct stages, and as a byproduct I somehow boosted the delta-v of that last stage to 6230-ish. I would admittedly not be surprised if I made a calculation error somewhere. In practice, however, it will have slightly less than that, as the ascent stage wasn't quite enough to achieve orbit. However, with over a thousand m/s worth of wiggle room and only a small amount of final stage fuel used to compensate, I don't think that'll be a problem. On the Duna Wagon Train, I put each component on an escape trajectory directly from Kerbin before launching the next craft. This time around I did things a little differently, simply leaving each craft in LKO while I launched the rest. I intend to slingshot them off the Mun one after another. As for the first Fuel Tank (visible as "Abandoned Fuel Tank" above), it's not a complete waste, as I intend to dock it to the Kerbin Space Station and either transfer the fuel or just leave the tank there indefinitely. On a semi-related note, I had something of an epiphany/revelation today. I have a tendency to jot things down on little note sheets (like sticky notes but without the glue) which accumulate on my desk, especially but not always related to video games. I tend to recycle these notes until there's no room left on them. Today I realized just how bizarre the resultant scraps of paper littering my desk really are: various combinations of alchemical formulae, recipes for pie and cookies, delta-v calculations, telephone numbers, hastily-scrawled maps, logic circuit diagrams...

I am getting the same spam and I have no mods at all, so it's definitely not your mods.

Well I've got this rather nice shot of Onyx Station with Duna in the background: EDIT: Oh, I found a few more nice shots.

Today I took a good long look at the situation I got myself into last night. With the Drill/Hub in orbit, I decided to take advantage of the situation by slingshotting it past the Mun and onto a path into solar orbit, so I could play with some maneuver nodes until I got a Dres intercept. I found that my delta-v requirement was, in practice, a little higher than what the internet had told me it theoretically was - likely because I'm not launching in the absolute most optimal conditions possible, and because I wasn't necessarily able to find the absolute most optimal maneuver node positions possible. Having gotten my numbers, I terminated the Drill (and waited for Mortimer to stop having a seizure over the wasted funds). Then it was back to the drawing board for further optimization to meet my new ~5167m/s requirement. Again, I'm only doing the math for the final, vacuum-optimized portion of the crafts - the intricacies of delta-v calculation in an atmosphere still elude me. Craft Old Delta-V New Delta-V Drill/Hub 4049 5172 Fuel Tank 5802 Unchanged Converter 4113 5289 Habitation 4033 5211 Science 4256 5198 Rover 4130 5161 (+50)* Comm Sats 2447 + 1305** 2893 + 2331 * The rover will likely run out of fuel just shy of its target, but has 50m/s worth of monoprop on board, so this should cushion the margin for error. Actually, all but the comm sats and hub have lots of monoprop, but this is the only one I bothered to calculate delta-v for. ** The comm sats have two vacuum-optimized stages, a Terrier-fueled stage and a smaller Spark-fueled stage. I had initially forgotten to update the comm sats for delta-v, so these numbers are for the version sent to Duna. I don't think I've done this much math for a video game since I (badly) optimized my World of Warcraft character's damage output. Let's hope I'm a better rocket scientist than mage. As before, the Drill/Hub was a particular struggle to improve, and once I'd increased the performance of the travel stage, the ascent stages were no longer sufficient, which required many, many redesigns and a lot of testing. Finally, I found a design that worked... when I rearranged the first stage to have not twelve but sixteen Kickback SRBs. What have I wrought? After that abomination was in LKO, I launched three other components as well (with plenty of time spent tweaking them too): the rover, the science lab, and the habitation module, each carrying a kerbal. I decided it would be wise to spread them out so that if any one craft was lost, I wouldn't lose all my kerbals - not putting all my eggs in one basket as it were. These three intrepid astronauts are Hairy, Anger, and Buzz. If that doesn't sound like a miniboss trio from an oldschool RPG I don't know what does. One of these crafts - I believe it was Buzz's science module - actually got into orbit with some fuel left to spare from the ascent stage. On the other end of the spectrum is Hairy's habitation module, which, appropriately enough, sort of looks like it could be Rapunzel's tower. The ascent stage ran out of fuel with the periapsis just a couple dozen kilometers short of 70, so Hairy had to tap into the travel stage for a small amount of fuel. Given that this module ever-so-slightly exceeded my minimum delta-v requirements and can fall back on its significant supply of monopropellant in a pinch, I think it should still be okay. I hope. Otherwise my brave astronaut will find herself in a rather hairy situation. Tomorrow, the unmanned fuel tank and converter modules, as well as 4-5 comm sats, will join them, and they'll hopefully set out on their journey to Dres.

I totally know what you mean. My first few weeks of KSP were spent trying to bring Jeb back from orbit. I was getting more and more frustrated and hopeless... and then I managed to get within a few hundred meters for the first time. "Maybe I can do this after all" is a great feeling. The Dres Scouter probe finally paid off today. I've identified several asteroids around Dres that should make for suitable potential bases - two class C, two class D, and two class E. Shortly after, the scouter crashed into the surface of Dres. I intended to also get a shot of it exploding on impact but it hit the back side of a hill and it wasn't very impressive. Rest In Peace Pieces, Dres Scouter; you performed your job admirably. With the green light for the Dres mission, plans changed as the launch window for it opened up before the launch window to Eve (and therefore Gilly). So I'll just have to put up with notification spam a while longer. I built a new habitation module for the station (since my old blueprint got deleted), but I was wary of launching. Since most of the parts are exactly the same as the ones that went to Ike, and that mission ended in near-catastrophe from running out of fuel, their ability to get to Dres seemed dubious. What's worse is that because Quartz Station would have no associated ground base (mining directly from an asteroid), it would have no fuel lifter. In a pinch, the science rover could theoretically act as an emergency refuel vehicle, but for obvious reasons it doesn't have the same fuel-carrying capabilities as a lifter. I decided it would be wise to crunch some numbers and see if I could boost the delta-v of each module. So I tweaked the rocket parts for the station modules until my calculations came out decently, and while I haven't actually tested them yet, if I've been doing my math correctly there was one particular change that I noticed granted an instant increase in delta-v. Dear Poodle, We've made some very happy memories in our short time together and I will never forget how important you've been to me. But there's a new engine in my life. There is no easy way to say this, so I won't sugar-coat it: I'm leaving you for Wolfhound. I'm sorry. I wish you all the best in your future endeavors. - Ace The numbers are still a bit short of what my research recommended, but I'm cautiously optimistic about most of them because I only calculated the final stage, and some of the modules may well have a little fuel left over from earlier stages when they achieve kerbin orbit. There's also the fact that each module has plenty of monoprop, so if push comes to shove, that may grant me some wiggle room. I hope. But most of today was spent tweaking and re-tweaking the Drill/Hub module, the very core of the station. This one is the most critical, not only because it's the central part, but because it cannot be refueled - its docking ports are not accessible until it sheds its engines. It also doesn't have any monoprop. The version I tested previously worked just fine but it certainly didn't have the fuel to reach Dres (it was, after all, only intended as a proof of concept), and I was having the hardest time all day getting the real deal into orbit without tapping into its final stage. This module is inherently an awkward structure that requires a ring of rockets attached to its branches rather than under it, because of a radiator that blocks conventional rocket placement. So after many redesigns, this was the monstrosity I ended the night with: Not only is it a total mess, it's insanely difficult to fly - especially when you've got a dog curled up on your lap! Even this design, the most efficient one yet (as hard as that may be to believe) had to use a small amount of fuel from its last stage to achieve LKO, which is questionable given that its last stage delta-v is already dangerously low to begin with. Tomorrow I will make my decision about whether the current situation is acceptable. I imagine my verdict will probably be "no" but it's a choice better made when it's not midnight.

That's really cool and I'm having a hard time figuring out how you did it. Specifically, how you built the containing chamber to be structurally sound and to pop open like that. I only have one screenshot for you guys today. I threw together a bare-bones rover to test something very quickly, and apparently it levitates. The reason I have nothing to share with you guys is that what little time I spent playing KSP today went into building stuff but not launching anything, in preparation for construction of Tiger's Eye Station. I designed a converter module for the station first. Unfortunately I also noticed that I have indeed deleted the habitation module, which isn't necessary for the Gilly mission but will need to be redesigned for any asteroid-based stations, so I'll do that tomorrow maybe. The other thing I tried to design was a mission to Gilly, on the logic that if I am waiting for a launch window to go to a moon with only three biomes, I might as well check all the science off my list while I'm at it. I ultimately designed a pretty normal rocket that used the new structural tubes to hold a small disposable lander (since the crew could easily just grab the science out of it and use their jetpacks to return to the orbiting rocket). The plan was to send the orange suits in this rocket during the same launch window as the station parts, get all the science from Gilly, and return home. I feel like I'm not thinking very clearly today; this week's just been really exhausting. So it was only after completing the rocket that I realized Gilly is so forgiving to land on that I'll probably just wait until I do a proper Eve mission (in the far future) and just land on Gilly on the way out. So I've nixed the Wagon Train Escort idea. Take the cowboy hat off, Jeb.

Didn't do a whole lot in KSP today (or yesterday for that matter). Been kinda drained overall this week. By popular demand, and out of pity, I launched a Fetcher probe to grab Hairy's craft and bring it back to Kerbin - the first time I've done this with something that actually had a kerbal on board at the time. I also hired a couple new pilots. Hairy's not the only kerbal with an unfortunate name, it seems. Hairy and Anger are siblings whose parents evidently hated them. Hairy prefers to go by Harriet. Anger's name suits him well, though he insists it's pronounced "ahn-JERR." It also suits my own reaction to a relatively minor but obnoxious glitch. ALRIGHT I GET IT ALREADY. Work on Spinel Tiger's Eye Station starts immediately, if only to complete the contract ASAP and thereby stop the flood of notifications.