TanDeeJay

Yes I have the advanced grabbing unit. Your instructions worked! thanks. The Kerbal space program thank you The astroid got parked in kerbin orbit, and is now getting converted into LFO and monopropellant

Hi all, The kerbals in the tracking station brought to my attention an asteroid designated QTM-779 that is on a collision course with Kerbin. It is due to hit Kerbin within the next 15 days. Is this something I could divert? Do I have enough time? Do I have sufficient technology? Biggest rocket engines I have are the RE series (Skipper, Poodle and Mainsail) Don't have the nuclear engine yet. Trying to figure out how to intercept it, but all the online tutorials about intercepting asteroids I've found so far talk about intercepting at the periapsis, however, the periapsis is deep within Kerbin! Can I save the Kerbals from extinction, or do i just sit back and wait for the inevitable? Cheers, John

issue 19530 created

I was going to put into the bug report the steps that always reproduce... is it acceptable to put a link back to this discussion in the bug report for reference? or should everything discussed here be included in the bug report?

Ive only got KER, so easy enough for me to get a stock install and to replicate the way @mystifeid did. I'll look into raising a bug report.

I'm going to have to look into the controls for my rovers. Might make it easier than a custom action that changes the reaction wheels between 3 different settings with no way of telling what setting they are on without right clicking on a reaction wheel.

I've been thinking about this, and wondered if this was something that the engineers report could report on in the VAB? Along with "missing ladder", "missing parachute", etc... Add a "overlapping tanks" with a red exclamation mark

Being able to change the reaction wheels to pilot or normal in a hurry can also be useful if you find your rover airborne and the ground below is a significantly different angle to your rover. I've set up a custom action group for this, although I've yet to perfect adjusting my rovers flight to be parallel to the ground I'm about to land on...

Thanks @mystifeid you seem to have nailed this one. I think I can now accept this as a design flaw in my module, not a bug in KSP. Also, Your test proves it is not the locked autostrut on the rover wheels but the overlapping ore tanks. I think I'd be happy to replace my fuel conversion module with an upgraded design, and I can stick with my ore transport rover. The aim was to load up the station based tanks and start the conversion, and immediately return the ore rover with now empty ore tanks to the mine to fetch the next load of ore.

Hmmm... I don't actually have the module that contains the station attached ore tanks saved in the VAB directory. I think I created it and forgot to save it, so only version available is the one attached to the station. Here's the save point just prior to doing the ore transfer. The Mun fuel station starts at line 18867 (sorry i made a typo when I named the space station, so it is currently called "Mub Orbital Fuel Station") https://www.dropbox.com/s/r2978iuxwj7vc8z/PRE TRANSFER.loadmeta?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/s9bdpaayqwqnf44/PRE TRANSFER.sfs?dl=0

Yes, I did testing only filling 1 tank at a time which was how I determined it was not a specific tank but rather while the 5th tankfull was being transferred. In the video, I opened the popup for all the station mounted tanks to show the 4 full tanks, and then when I did the transfer, it transfered to both empty tanks at the samr time. I think the wobble leading to the explosion started after a certain quantity of ore had been transferred. According to the log, the explosion occurred when a docking port collided with a tank. I think it was the wobble that caused the collision. So question is what caused the wobble? Will look for the ship files to upload shortly...

Since everything is docked, that would just be a single file? I'll have a look once I'm back on the home computer later today.

Finally got another ore rover full of ore docked and captured this video of the exploding tank https://www.dropbox.com/s/azrybhzavxc5i4s/Kerbal Space Program 11_08_2018 9_48_15 PM.mp4?dl=0 I've experimented a bit, and found it is not a specific tank, it occurs as the 5th tank full of ore is transferred. In the video, I'm transferring from a single tank on the ore rover, to the last 2 tanks on the station. However, I have done the transfer single tank to single tank as well with the same catastrophic result. Here is the KSP.log file from immediately after this incident. https://www.dropbox.com/s/bp4zcdktteuzk70/KSP.log?dl=0 I have a save point prior to beginning the ore transfer so I can re-do the transfer if you want me to enable additional logging. Found the output log file:https://www.dropbox.com/s/1yja27ei16h78ai/output_log.zip?dl=0 Regards, John NOTE: the LFO tanks on the station are full this time from previous ore conversions done without transferring to the station based tanks so wouldn't those rover wheels autostrut to the Rock-o-max LFO tanks?

Mun land speed record fastest time from crater rim to opposite crater rim of a biome crater (eg polar craters, farside crater, etc...) in a rover built from stock parts. no rocket engines. (rcs thrusters would only be permitted for stabilization) Each of the crater biomes would have their own time category, so your polar crater time would only be measured against other polar crater times. Manned by at least 1 kerbal. All kerbals must survive. Engineer is permitted to repair wheel damage but timer does not stop while repairs are made. easy - permit f5/f9 hard - no f5/f9 extreme - night time run - must be performed when the crater is on the dark side... (headlights permitted)

I found reaction wheels on my rovers greatly improved stability, and setting them to SAS only.

Maybe thats because Jebediah, being the 'default' pilot, most often gets stranded due to new players inexperience?

"There's someone here who'd like a word." Valentina was somewhat surprised. Who could possibly want to speak to her urgently enough that they would interupt the daily report? Surely this could have waited until the report had finished. So she replied "Whats gone wrong now?" "Hi Val, it's me," announced Jebediah. "Jeb?" replied Valentina in confusion. "Is that really you?" Suddenly her head was so full of questions that none of them could get out her mouth. "Val, it really is me! I'm back!" exclaimed Jebediah. All of a sudden, the questions started to poor forth. "How? When? But you're orbit doesn't collide with Kerbin for another 3 years! But I'm supposed to save you! Why didn't you radio ahead before you got here? Then I could have been back on Kerbin, but now I'm up here and you're down there..." As soon as there was a break in Valentina's gush of questions, Jebediah managed to squeeze in "I've missed you Val!" Valentina responded "Hold it right there Jeb! Don't go anywhere! I'm coming!" At that, Valentina launched out of the radio operations seat, shot through the corridors of the space station, entered airlock M#1, and climbed through the docking port to MunSci Mk1. She then hit the refuel leaver, and watched as the fuel gauges slowly moved up. Oh how slow this fuel transfer happens. She wanted to get undocked before anyone on the station comprehended what she was about to attempt and overrode the docking port lock, but she needed the fuel tanks to be absolutely full, as this ship she was about to steal was not designed for a Kerbin re-entry, and she would need to get her orbital speed low enough before touching the atmosphere if she had any hope of landing safely. with luck she might be able to dock with the Kerbin Station for a final top-up before attempting re-entry. Finally the needle reached the full mark, and Valentina disengaged the refueling system, and undocked faster than she had ever thought possible. As Valentina drifted away from the station, she turned on the radio, to hear frantic calls "Valentina, what are you doing? Come back! This is an unauthorized launch." But it was too late. Valentina was turning the ship to a prograde orientation in preparation for a trans-Kerbin burn. Unlike the ship Valentina tried to rescue Jebediah in, this one did have an onboard Orbital calculation system, so it only took Valentina a few minutes to calculate an orbital manouver that would bring her within 400k's of Kerbin. Having been heavily involved with the design of the Kerbin orbit space station, Valentina knew that the older station did not have the same docking system as the Mun station, and it would be easy to dock and refuel without interference from the crew on the Kerbin station, as there was no manual docking port overrides on the older station. That had been a design enhancement which was included when the Mun station was built. The crew on the Kerbin orbit station wern't surprised when Valentina radioed requesting to dock with Docking port K#1. They had received instructions to allow her to dock, and that she would need to wait for a re-entry vessal to be sent up. After a successful docking maneuver by Valentina, the Kerbin orbit station were not surprised when Valentina refused to enter the airlock, and chose to remain on the MunSci Mk1. Afterall, she had spent the past 16 years trying to save her "Jebibaby" and to find out he was back, of course she would need some time alone to think. One of the engineers on his rest period noticed a faint humming sound that he hadn't heard in a while. It had been so long since any ship had docked with the Kerbin station, that it took him a while to realise the fuel pumps were operating, so he raced up to the command module to see what was going on. He radioed to Valentina to see if everything was ok, and Valentina replied that she was just transferring unneeded fuel to more appropriate tanks. The engineer thought thats ok then, that explains the fuel pums. So he watched the fuel gauge to see how much fuel Valentina transferred to the main tanks. "Valentina, there's something wrong. The fuel is going the wrong direction. Can you check your fuel transfer valve?" Valentina responded, "Checking now...Nope, my transfer valve is set the right direction. I'm showing the fuel flowing where it's supposed to be going" "Well, you'd better shutdown the transfer. There might be a leak somewhere. It's been a long time since we've used that fuel transfer system." Valentina replied, "Hold on, shutting down now." Valentina watched her fuel guage reach full for the 2nd time that day, and then shutdown the transfer. Then radioed back to the engineer. "All shutdown now. how is your situation now?" The engineer replied "The fuel loss has stopped now, but you won't be able to transfer anymore fuel until I can examine the entire system. Let me get the rest of the crew to assist, this will take some time" With the Kerbal Orbit Space station crew distracted looking for a non-existent leak, Valentina took the opportunity to undock and prepare for the riskiest maneuver she had ever performed. She was going to try to land as close to the Kerbal Space Center as she possibly could, and her ship did not have any heat shields or parachutes, so she would need to slow down enough to safely enter the atmosphere within the safe confines of the ship, and then abandon the ship and use her own parachute for the final decent. Valentina carefully lowered her orbit to 90k, and was thankful that the Kerbin Orbit station was in a prograde orbit, she would not need to change her orbital plane to meet the Kerbal Space center. Never having attempted a reentry like this, Valentina was not totally sure of when to begin the final decent burn to land her on the space centre, so she started the retrograde burn at her estimated point. With full power on, Valentina watched her orbital speed decrease as her altitude decreased, and she hoped her calculations were correct and that by the time she entered the atmosphere, her speed would be low enough. ---===#===--- Meanwhile, on the Kerbin Orbit Space station, everyone had heard the distinctive clank as Valentina disengaged the docking clamp. What was Valentina thinking? Her ship had no way of re-entering the atmosphere. so an emergency call was put through to the Kerbal Space Center notifying of the situation. The Tracking station immediately when into action to determine Valentina's orbit. They watched as her orbit was lowered to 90k. Suddenly, Jebediah said "I know what she is attempting! She is going to try to re-enter using her rocket engines to slow down, and then to use her own parachute to safely reach land. Where is she going to come down? we need a recovery crew!" But no-one knew the flight plan so they didn't know where to send any recovery crews. All they could do was watch and wait. Everyone in the Space Centre crowded into and around the tracking station to watch events unfold. Soon, the tracking engineer announced that Valentinas ship was changing orbit again. The rate of orbital change indicated her rockets were firing at full power with the ship in a retrograde attitude. The director shouted "She'll burn up on re-entry! what does she think she's doing?" There was silence for about a minute, when a voice piped up "No! I don't believe it! Jebediah's right! I've just done the math, and at her current burn rate, her velocity will be below 600m/s by the time she hits the atmosphere." Another voice piped up "I hope her parachute was packed correctly!" "Where's she going to land?" "30-40km due west of the Space centre" Jebediah said "Is there a rover in this center?" Somone said "yes, there is a Rover Mk3 in the space plane hanger waiting for a test run" Jebediah bolted! Valentina would be on the ground before he could get there, but he was determined to be there for Valentina. ---===#===--- Valentina's fuel ran out while she was still at 25k. She looked out the window and could see the lights of the Kerbal Space Center on the horizon. Damn! she was going to be about 40k's short. It would be a long walk back to the Space Station. She was wishing now that she had organised for someone to pick her up. No matter, there was nothing she could do about that now. She watched her air speed reduce, and when it reached 245m/s that the ship was at terminal velocity, and it was time to abandon ship. Oh well, this boat was due for decommissioning anyway. At least it got to go out with a bang. As Valentina opened the airlock, the air rushing past the opening sucked her out into the atmosphere. The sudden change in velocity shocked Valentina for a while, but the space suit she was wearing protected her from damage. Once she got her bearings again, she activated her parachute, and headed towards the lights of the space centre. She was definitely going to miss by about 30 - 40 k's but at least she was going to land in the grasslands east of the mountains, and she would not have to mountain climb to get to the space center. On touch down, Valentina found that her spacesuit was stocked with the standard issue flag, so she did what she had done every time she had returned from space. She planted a flag. As it was night, Valentina decided to rest until morning. no point getting lost in the dark. At ground level, she could no longer see the space centre. ---===#===--- Jebediah raced to the Space Plane Hanger, and found the Rover. There was no-one around to stop him, as everyone had gone over to the tracking station as the story spread of Valentina's reckless return, so he jumped in the rover, powered it up, and headed out the door. His plan was simple... head west, find Valentina. Jebediah was impressed with this Rover. The engineers had incorporated reaction wheels in the design which seemed to provide a surprising level of stability. It was night as he headed away from the Kerbal Space center, did this rover have headlights? Jebediah searched the control panel and found a button marked "Lights". He hit the switch, and was pleasantly surprised when 3 lights under the front edge of the rover lit up and illuminated his path. How fast could this thing go? How fast did he dare travel at night? The sun was due to rise shortly so that would make his search for Valentina easier, as it would be daylight before he reached the nearest possible location of Valentina. As the rover bounced across the countryside at 35m/s, there was one moment when 1 particularly large bump tipped his rover forward to the point where he thought he was about to flip, but as his front wheels touched the ground with the rover tipped forward at 60 degrees, Jebediah pulled back on the control stick and found the reaction wheels recovered the angle, and he managed to get all 4 wheels back on the ground. Unfortunately, the steep angle the rover had been at when the wheels touched the ground had ripped all the lights off the rover. However, with the aproaching dawn, the increasing light gave Jebediah courage that he could continue without having to wait. Not wanting to flip the rover at high speed again, he backed off his speed to about 30m/s. ---===#===--- As the sun was rising, Valentina prepared to set off towards the Kerbal space centre. This shouldn't be too difficult.. just head towards the rising sun... rest at midday, then head away from the setting sun. She should be there tomorrow. As Valentina took her 1st steps away from the flag she had planted, she thought she could hear a noise that could not possibly be produced by the nature around her, so she stopped to listen. She couldn't believe her ears! that sounded like a rover, but it seemed to be traveling at a much higher speed than she had seen the engineers trialing it at. The sound was coming from the direction of the rising sun. Valentina waited and the sound seemed to be coming closer. Was that a shadow that passed before the sunrise? she could faintly make out the shape of a rover against the morning sun. But she could not see who was driving. She started waving to catch the attention of the rover driver, but it soon became apparent that the rover driver knew she was there, and was headed straight for her.... well she hoped they knew she was there, otherwise if they didn't stop, they would run over her... ---===#===--- Jebediah was scanning the horizon and the ground in front of him. Somewhere out here was Valentina trying to get back to the Space Centre. The sun was rising directly behind him so he should be able to see Valentina soon. As he crested a hill, he saw in the distance a smudge of colour. As he got closer, he could see a figure in a space suit, next to a flag. He decided he should start braking to ensure he stopped in time. 100m away he could tell it was Valentina. The rover came to a stop 20m away, and he jumped down, and ran towards the lone kerbal shouting "VALENTINA" ---===#===--- The silhouetted rover came to a halt 20m away, and a kerbal jumped down, and started running towards Valentina. Valentina's heart gave a leap when the kerbal silouette shouted "VALENTINA!" It was her Jebediah! The one she had set out to rescue 16 years ago, had come to rescue her.

no the LFO fuel tanks were less than half full. The ones on the rover are about 1/3. The mono propellant module you can see a glimpse of behind the solar panel is full. I found I need far less mono-propellant than I catered for Oh yes, your right about the wheels I set everything to autostrut to the grandparent part, but those wheels are locked to autostrut to the heaviest part. and the main station is going to be heavier than the rover. Thanks for the hint about the set orbit. That will enable me to get up a wheel-less rover full of ore... I'd better get stuck into it... lots to test, and I also need to finish off the Saving Jebediah story...

I'll need to get my mining ship back up 1st because the one I had I believe got destroyed by kraken as the drills were mounted low enough that when in operation they lifted the entire ship so that it was bouncing between landed and low in space, making it difficult to leave it while operating. Had trouble last night launching the new mining ship, as it kept loosing stability once more than 10degrees off vertical. Will try again tonight. Once I have more ore available, I'll retry filling the tanks again to see if it is a specific tank or a specific quantity of ore.

Thats right only KER installed. I'll need to doc another ore transporter to try and replicate. I ended up running the ore conversion straight from the docked ore transport ship. As the "ore rover" you can see in the background suffered minor damage earlier by kraken, when I crash landed on the way back down, I didn't bother reverting to a quick save, as I wanted to rebuild with some minor changes to the rover design... then when I returned to my mining site, I discovered my mining ship had destroyed itself, so I'll need to re-establish my mine site before I can attempt to reproduce the explosion on my station. The 6 ore tanks in the image are the medium sized ore tanks that hold 300 units of ore each, and are attached radially to a stack of the round batteries directly attached to the convert-o-tron. I attached the ore tanks using radial attachment mode with the 3-way setting, so that 3 of the ore tanks could have the radiator panels attached, and the other 3 have no attachments. My alignment of the 2nd set of 3 was by eye to try and fit them neatly between the 3 tanks already attached. There is a Clamp-o-tron on the end of the stack of batteries. (This was the 1st module attached to my space station using the Clamp-o-tron. All previous module attachments are via Clamp-o-tron JR. The Ore rover uses an advanced grabbing unit instead of a clamp-o-tron (this was so it could connect to the side of the mining ship to collect ore and fuel) I initially attempted to dock my ore rover directly to the end in the front of the screenshot above and when the ore tank exploded, I thought it might be because the advance grabbing unit somehow impeded the structural integrity of one of the tanks, however, after reverting to a quicksave I next docked the ore rover to the location visible in the above screen shot. I will endeavor to reproduce the explosion, and see if I can narrow it down to a specific ore tank, and I'll post the log and a video of the explosion. I tried reproducing on the launch pad, but it seems that I forgot to save the ore conversion module so I had to create a new one which I could not get to explode on the launch pad.

KSP Version 1.4.5 Mods: Kerbal Engineer Redux I have an ore conversion module attached to my Mun fuel station, and every time I try to transfer ore into the tanks they explode. Here's the ore tanks I'm trying to load from my Rover/lander you can see in the background I seem to be able to transfer ore to 3 or 4 of the tanks, but when I try to transfer the next one, it gets partway through and then explodes. Any ideas on whats wrong? is this a build flaw? Regards, John

Jebediah's Story... The lift-off from Kerbin went almost exactly as planned, and and there was only a minor inclination adjustment that needed to be made. Jebediah calculated the burn required for the Munar transfer burn just as the mathematitions had instructed him, and fed the coordinates into his SAS computer. if his calculations were right, this would put him within 200km of the Mun. Closer than any Kerbal had ever been. The excitement level was very high both in Jebediah's rocket and also in the control center. Jebediah aimed his rocket in the direction that his calculations indicated and sat back and waited for the burn countdown timer to expire, when he hit full throttle. This would be quite a long burn and no one had ever tested the SAS systems ability to maintain stability over such a long burn. He carefully counted down the seconds until he had to cut the throttle, then checked his new orbit, to confirm that he would pass within the desired distance from the Mun. He requested confirmation from the Kerbal Space center of his new orbit, and they confirmed that he was within acceptable margin of error. Jebediah then proceeded to calculate another maneuver node required for the Munar Injection burn, and programmed the coordinates into the SAS system. He now had a long wait before anything else needed doing, so he explored the ship that the engineers had built for this epic journey. He wasn't quite sure what the engineers had in mind when they had stocked one of the store cupboards full of orbital mechanic textbooks, and note paper, and even the full specifications of the ship he was in and an operations manual. Did they think he would forget how to fly? or maybe they wanted him to write down every last thing he observed so that someone could write an epic space opera about "Kerbals in Space". Yeah! Jebediah liked the sound of that. So he spent a good part of the next day thinking about who could be part of the story. He had just got to imagining Kerbals having to perform a space rescue to the Mun because someone had forgotten to top up the tank before lift off, and his ship ran out of fuel on touchdown on the Mun, when his manouver alarm sounded draging him back to reality. It took him a moment to remember what the alarm was for and suddenly remembered the Munar Injection burn so he pounced on the control pannel and hit full throttle. "That was close," thought Jebediah, as he sat back and watched the burn timer slowly count down the seconds to the end of the burn. At 1st, he thought it strange that the countdown timer was counting down so slowly. Did time move at a different speed this far from the Mun? perhaps gravity afected reality? as the timer reached the halfway point, it seemed to slow even further. When the deltaV indicator started moving the wrong direction, Jebediah started to realise something was wrong. Had he missed a step? he carefully did a mental walk through of everything he'd done. Suddenly he realised that he'd forgotten to press the 1 button that would align his ship for the Munar Injection Burn. He was firing his rocket in the wrong direction. In a panic, he stabbed the maneuver node selector button, and he felt his ship jerk as the reaction wheels kicked in to rotate his ship by nearly 90 degrees, but as he looked at his fuel guage, he realised he had let the rocket burn for far too long, and suddenly there was nothing more he could do. The guage was reading empty, and he just heard the roar of the rocket engine die. There was a deathly silence in the cabin. Suddenly the radio burst to life "Jebediah, the tracking station just reported that your ship was mis-aligned when you started the Munar Injection Burn. Are you ok?" "I just ran out of fuel and you ask 'am i ok?'" no im not ok, I've no idea where I am, and I have no fuel, its my own fault, I got carried away thinking about a space opera I could write, and forgot to select the maneuver node button." "Don't panic! We'll work out what to do." Jebediah then spent the next few hours reliving the past day. Trying to see if there was someone else he could blame, but he could not escape the truth. For days his ship traveled further away from the Mun, and for days, the space center kept telling him they would figure out something. Just as his radio was starting to get to the limit of his range, he heard Valentina's voice saying to him "Don't give up Jebediah! I'm <crackle crackle> team that will work out how to <crackle crackle crackle>....." at that point Reception dropped out, but hearing Valentina's voice had given him hope. What could Valentina do? Here he was stuck in a ship with empty liquid fuel and oxidizer tanks, and a nearly full RCS tank. And what could he do with RCS thrusters? They were designed to allow maneuvering but what if he could harness the monopropellant? Could he funnel it somehow into his main rocket engine? How much thrust could he get out of it? Would it provide him enough deltaV to return to Kerbin? He pulled out the spaceship operations manual and started to flick through it until he found the part about maneuvering. As he had never performed any docking maneuvers in space, he was somewhat unfamiliar with maneuvering, and was pleased that his thrusters had directional operations that might be able to be used to perform any orbital changes... great! But he had no information on how much deltaV he could hope to squeeze out of his monopropellant. So he found he had 2 tasks that would occupy him for some time. He had to calculate his current orbit, and figure out how much deltaV he had available. Accurate orbital calculations would take some time as he had to do everything with pen and paper, and initially, he had to triangulate his position. Everyday he took readings to locate his position, and each day, the new position readings enabled him to improve the accuracy of his orbital calculation. It was 3 months before Jebediah was satisfied with the accuracy of his orbit. He then spent the next 6 months trying to calculate an orbital change maneuver that would bring him within the atmosphere of Kerbin, he finally found a location where the required deltaV was low enough to fall within the capabilities of his RCS thrusters. It was going to take 14 years to get to his calculated maneuver node. Jebediah earnestly hoped that Valentina could find a way to get him back sooner, but without radio contact, there was no way he could find out what they were up to, nor could he let the space centre know of his own solution. The next few years were un-eventful except for 1 incident when early one "morning" Jebediah's radio burst to life "This is KSP to Valentina Kerbin, ABORT ABORT ABORT..." Jebediah thought "What?!?" Then it occurred to him, that Valentina was somewhere in this region of space trying to rescue him. He immediately jumped up and started scanning the sky trying to find Valentina, but as he listened to the rest of the radio transmission, he realized she was still too far away for him to be able to see. He didn't even know what direction to point his antenna to send a signal to Valentina. As he heard the end of the transmission telling Valentina to return home, he knew that his plan was the only one that was going to work. But if the space centre had a transmitter powerful enough to reach him here, why hadn't they been transmitting to him all along? The answer to that question would have to wait until he got back. Jebediah was determined to make his plan work. Upon reaching his calculated maneuver node, he carefully aligned his ship with the maneuver marker (never again would he make the mistake that got him out here), pushed on the RCS thruster control for the calculated time, and then took more position calculations. it would take a few more readings to confirm his orbital change, but from this moment on, he was outside of KSP's ability to rescue. He had changed his orbit, and unless the Space program had improved their tracking station, they would not know of his new orbit, so if they sent any more rescue missions, they would not find him where they expected. Calculations taken in the following days and weeks confirmed for Jebediah that his RCS burn had him targeted to within the atmosphere of Kerbin. He still had sufficient monopropellant that he could adjust as he got closer if needed. 16 years after departing Kerbin, Jebediah was finally within radio range of Kerbin, so he put in a call "KSP, KSP, KSP, this is Jebediah Kerman checking in" "Who are you? Please get off this channel, this is a private channel," came back the reply. Jebediah was shocked. He checked his radio to make sure it was transmitting on the correct channel, and tried again; "Kerbal Space Center, Come in Kerbal Space Center." "This is the Kerbal Space Center. You are transmitting on a private channel, please stop. We could receive a transmission from any of our Kerbinauts currently in space, and we need to keep this channel clear" "I am one of your #@&!* Kerbinauts currently in space. I've been here for 16 years. I was flying planes before you were born. Put me onto Valentina" "I'm sorry Valentina is not available at the moment. She is off planet. Now please stop transmitting on this channel. Jebediah's current orbit does not put him in radio range of kerbal for another 5 years, you can't possibly be Jebediah." "I am Jebediah, and when I get back on Kerbin, I'll be having words with your supervisor." Jebediah threw his hands up in exasperation, and decided he was just going to have to land and make his own way back to the space center. He was just hoping his parachute was still functional after 16 years. Several days later, there were many reported sightings of a ball of orange light in the sky. The Kerbal Space Centre claimed an uncharted meteorite burning up on re-entry. Some fisherkerbals who were out on the high sea trying to catch a fabled kraken noticed a command pod hanging below a parachute falling towards the sea, and cranked up their engines to try and get close enough to the pod's landing to be able to witness the recovery of a ship returned from space. By the time they reached the touchdown location, they found that there was no recovery crew, only a single command pod with Kerbinaut sitting on top waving at them trying to get their attention. Rather than sitting back and witness a recovery, the fisherkerbals realized that the kerbinaut was calling out to them, so they approached, and the kerbinaut announced "I'm Jebediah Kerman, back from around the sun. Thank-you for picking me up, can you take me to the Kerbal Space Centre please" Upon arriving at the Kerbal Space Centre, Jebediah went straight to the Administration building, and knocked on the door to the Directors Office. When Jebediah entered the office, the Director said "Jebediah? Is that really you? How did you get back? We haven't saved you yet!" "I couldn't wait... Used my monopropellant... Sorry, it took a while for my orbit to be favourable to an RCS thruster burn. I tried radioing as I approached, but the dimwit in tracking station didn't believe me." replied Jebediah. The director said; "Lets go over there right now. I'll have words with the Tracking station staff right away, and you can contact Valentina. She is currently in orbit around the Mun overseeing the mining operation. We were trying to cut down on the number of refueling trips for science advancement, so that we could save you." Jeb replied; "Well, don't stop advancing science just because I'm back now!" Jebediah had an idea, "Hey Director, don't go too hard on the young comms officer. But can I have a little bit of fun with him? Can you get me a two-way radio, and then walk up to the Comms officer while I hide in this room with the radio." The director smirked as he realized what Jebediah wanted to do, and agreed to the plan, and found a radio for Jebediah. The director walked up to the comms officer while Jebediah called on the radio "KSP, KSP, KSP, this is Jebediah Kerman checking in" The office turned around and saw the director. "Director, there is an idiot claiming to be Jebediah on the radio again." "Let me handle this," said the director. The director takes the radio, and presses the local transmit button saying; "Jebediah, welcome back to Kerbin! Come on down!" At this queue, Jebediah stepped out of his hiding space and approached the communications console. "Director", said Jebediah. "Jeb," said the director, and they hugged like two friends who had not seen each other in years. The poor comms officer looked on in confusion and embarrassment. Here was the kerbal with the voice he had heard over the radio, and the Director knew him? "It's Ok, son," said the director. "Anyone could have made that mistake. Can you please put in a call to the Mun Station, and get Valentina on the line". "They are due to report any second now Sir! I was just waiting to receive their daily report." "Excellent, then we'll wait." A few minutes later, the radio crackled to life with Valentina's voice "This is Mun Station to KSP we have a request for additional equipment." The comms officer pressed the transmit switch and said "This is KSP, Valentina, can you please hold that request, there is someone here who'd like a word..."

The atmosphere in the Kerbal Space Centre was cautiously optimistic. The optimism generated by word that Valentina was on her way back to Kerbin was dampened by the news that the rendezvous with Jebediah did not happen. However, everyone knew that the Jebediah Rescue committee was incompetent without Valentina around, and they were all looking forward to sanity being restored to the Committee. Megwin’s Mining team were finally ready to launch their mining ship and ore conversion module. So the Committee scheduled the launch in the hopes that they could show they could achieve things without Valentina around, and they managed to prepare the Mun Station for the mining program: to try and justify their progress in the absence of Valentina, they also launched a Rover MK III to see if they could visit the rest of the Mun before Valentina returned, and managed to get the rover into high Mun orbit, before the committee got bogged down in deciding who to man the rover. As is the way of committees without strong leadership, they excelled in their committeeishness and successfully managed to fail to decide on the rover crew by the time Valentina returned. The Mining team successfully landed on the Mun and filled their ore tanks with ore, and in the rush to satisfy the committee with full Munar station fuel tanks launched in the wrong direction and after attaining low mun orbit, they ran out of fuel trying to correct their orbit in preparation for docking with the station. So when Valentina walked into the Kerbal Space Centre after returning from her mission, she was not happy to discover the state the committee had managed to get things in… 2 more kerbals stranded without fuel, a rover in orbit with no pilots… She was not happy! The committee sheepishly assigned the committee leadership back to Valentina in the hope that she would be able to restore order to the chaos they had created. One look at the plans for the mining ship, and Valentina could immediately tell that it would require hundreds of trips between the mun and the station to fill the stations tanks, as the ship would require most of the fuel it generated to be able to make the next trip, so she ordered a bigger ship that could create its own fuel. One terrified junior communications officer was too scared to report a nutter who had been using KSP radio frequencies claiming to be Jebediah. After all, on Jebediahs last known orbit, it would be several years before Jebediah was due to be close enough to Kerbin to make radio contact. Valentina insisted that she be the pilot to fly the new Mining ship to the Mun as she was still furious at the lack of progress while she was away, and was not inclined to trust anyone. The committee were still terrified of Valentina since they failed her so badly, so they let her have her way, and soon the Mining ship was on its way and landed on the Mun with its teeth sunk into the surface. Valentina was impressed with the Convert-o-tron that had been included in the ship, but the engineer with her reported that he could not run all 4 conversion programs at once. 3 concurrent programs was the limit it could handle before the operating temperature started to rise above the optimal operating temperature. Still, the fuel tanks were filling, and soon the ship would be full of both fuel and ore ready to return to the station. The return to the Mun space station was uneventful, but Valentina found the ship maneuvered like a cow and it took longer to dock than she had ever taken before. Once docked, both convert-o-trons were activated while Valentina called a meeting of the crew who had been manning the station. She found they were very likable and were full of ideas. These were Kerbals who had been away from the committee since they had come to the station. They remained free of their influence. They had ideas. Their ideas were good! They wanted to do the science collection with a hopper that could get in and out of each zone on the mun. But to do it efficiently they wanted to change the orbit of the space station to a polar orbit. This would reduce the need to do inclination burns to get to each zone, also a smaller ore transport that didn’t have to carry the weight of the convert-o-tron if it could be designed with a fuel tank big enough to lift off from the mun with a full load of ore, and then return to the mun without needing to refuel before it left the station, it could refuel from the mining ship which could be left on the mun to continue to mine and create fuel. The crew could be rotated so that no one got complacent being stuck in the one job for too long. Trust began to build between Valentina and these valiant kerbals. Valentina decided to allow one of them to pilot the ship back down, but 1st they would change the inclination of the station to a polar orbit. The 1st stop for the mining ship on its way back down was to the 2 Kerbals stuck in orbit to refuel them so they could return to the space station. Valentina called the Kerbal Space station to relay their requirements for a new lander/hopper with additional science collection experiments. And was surprised when told “there is someone here who’d like a word…”

The mood in the Kerbal Space Center was sombre. Two Kerbals had lost their lives, Valentina was millions of miles away on a crazy rescue mission, and Jebediah was still stuck in space. This was a low point for everyone. There would be an inquiry, and all further work on the program would be halted until the findings from the inquiry were released. During the inquiry, it came out that the Munar station was out of fuel, and that a mining operation was being planned by Megwin. It was determined that too many corners had been cut trying to rush through missions. A new rover should be designed with additional stability. The Mining operation should be endorsed and made an official part of the Kerbal Space Program, after all, having a station around the Mun that could refill itself sounded like a great idea, and was a boost to the morale of everyone in the space program. After the months of the inquiry, activity started up again at the Kerbal Space centre. The Kerbals in orbit around the Mun breathed a collective sigh of relief. Their future was no longer in doubt. The staff kerbaling the tracking station got back to work to see where Valentina's flight was. One of the mathematicians remembered that Valentina had requested them to recalculate the orbital transfer nodes and burn data for the Jebediah Intercept burn. After several late nights and many calculations, he worked out that the initial rushed calculations were within 1% of the correct values, but at solar distances that would leave Valentina more than 1000Km away from Jebediahs craft. Unfortunately, the correction burns should have been made 6 months ago in the middle of the inquiry, and Valentina was due to rendezvous with Jebediah in about 5 days. Valentina would have only enough fuel to return home, and would not be able to correct her course. He grabbed his calculations an ran as fast as he could to the tracking station to request an urgent transmission to Valentina. After her launch, Valentina knew the burn calculations were not as accurate as they could be, but she was confident her hand picked mathematician would have the time to calculate more accurate orbital maneuvers, and more importantly, have time to feed the new calculations into the KSP simulator program to confirm the updated data. She was unconcerned, as it would be a year before she needed to perform the 1st burn. This was going to be a long journey, so she pulled out her favourite book "Harry Kerman and the philosophers stone". the plan was simple... Get into solar orbit, adjust orbit to be inside Jebediah's, lots more waiting... burn to intercept Jebediah... more waiting (and wishing real life had a warp mode like the KSP simulator..) then retrograde burn to intercept Jebediah, Then grab Jebediahs ship with the advanced grabbing unit the research centre had produced, and then transfer fuel to Jebediah's ship and then for all to return home safely. What could go wrong? There was plenty of time for the updated burn data to be transmitted. If only these rockets had bigger onboard computers, she would be able to re-calculate that data herself. In the early days, they had loads of paper in the craft and they would have done the calculations themselves, but these days, the builders were so confident with the simulator calculations that they left out any mechanism for manually performing calculations. If only she had Jebediah's ship. His was of an era that was well stocked with all the necessary log tables and work books for manually performing all the orbital mathematics. As Valentina approached the 1st maneuver node with no updated data from Kerbin, she made another request in her daily transmission to Kerbin for the updated data. The reply back was that there was no updates to the flight plan. there was no indication at all of the upheavals occuring within the space program back on Kerbin. Valentina performed the burn as planned and then went back to her daily routine of passing the time. Again Valentina was approaching the maneuver node that should put her ship on an intercept course with Jebediah, and she put in the same request as before for updated data, receiving back the same reply. anyone could have thought there was a robot at the other end as the response was word for word the same as for the approach to the previous maneuver node. Valentina could not believe that the initial calculations were still valid, and she was sure there was something wrong, but without the means of performing the calculations herself, she had to trust the data she had, so she performed the burn as planned, and then sat back to wait again. Finally, Valentina was approaching the point where she needed to perform the retrograde burn to bring her to a complete stop relative to Jebediah. As she begins the burn as planned, a voice breaks into the cabin over the radio. For half a moment she hoped it was Jebediah, but she knew he was unaware of this rescue attempt, and was not likely to be wasting his power transmitting. The voice was one she had not heard since before she left kerbin. It was the voice of the mathematician she had charged with confirming her maneuver data. "ABORT ABORT ABORT" The call that no kerbinaut wanted to hear, especially after spending several years traveling somewhere and then being within a stones thow of your destination. "This is KSP to Valentina Kerbin, ABORT ABORT ABORT. By the time you receive this transmission, you should be slowing down relative to Jebediah Kermin. The original calulations are wrong. You are still over 1000km away from Jebediah. you don't have sufficient fuel to make the necessary corrections and then return safely home. ABORT ABORT ABORT. Included with this transmission is all the maneuver data required for your safe return to Kerbin." The transmission then proceeded to relate to Valentina everything that had occurred since she had left. Valentina realized that leaving Kerbin was a mistake. Without her at the helm, the Jebediah Rescue Committee was incompetent, and she needed to get back to Kerbin as quickly as she could if there was any hope of progressing the rescue effort. So she programmed the updated maneuver data into the onboard computer, for the long journey home.

We interrupt this broadcast with some distressing breaking news. Two Kerbinauts, Gary and Frank, today lost their lives in service of the Saving Jebediah foundation. The two Kerbinauts were well loved by their peers, and weren’t afraid to go anywhere or do anything in their tireless effort to collect science for the sake of rescuing their beloved hero, Jebediah. These two fine young Kerbals performed above and beyond all they were asked to do. The circumstances of their deaths is still being investigated, but it is understood by our corespondent, that the brave young Kerbinauts were attempting a dangerous science mission when their craft lost control as it was being manoeuvred into a crater. Several low fly overs have confirmed no survivors. A recovery mission will be scheduled once a suitably experienced pilot can be located. This is a major setback to the Jebediah Rescue program. And questions are being asked about whether we can continue to risk further lives for one.