Gunnerline

Greetings you Galactic Go-Getters! When I last posted, I had just tasted the victory of a successful interplanetary mission. So naturally, it was time to try again. But the previous ship, the Unnecessary Expenditure, while functional, lacked some desirable traits. We had come in very tight on delta-V, and while we are there around Duna, we didn't have sufficient fuel to explore Ike. Further, while the return journey had plenty of fuel left to enter a final parking orbit, KSC still had to send a separate recovery vehicle to the ship to return the crew. Finally, the Duna lander was, for all intents and purposes, just a redesigned Mun lander. That wasn't nearly fancy enough, I think, for our space program. So, for the next Duna mission, I put together two separate vessels, an interplantary transport vehicle, and a heavy Duna/Ike Lander. Of course it's a Copernicus-style MTV The Greater of Two Evils enters solar orbit, en-route to a Duna encounter some 260+ days later. Before the Greater of Two Evils left Kerbins' SOI, a separate 25 ton heavy lander, the Lesser of Two Evils, was launched on a more aggressive trajectory, entering Duna orbit some 46 days before the manned crew would arrive. Thankfully the journey to Duna was relatively uneventful, and the automated docking of the Lesser of Two Evils proceeded without incident. Seriously, The Lesser of Two Evils is so much larger (and heavier) than it looks Brendan Kerman takes a stroll along the Western Canyon. Thankfully, 25 tons is a lot easier to move in low gravity. Having successfully transported a three-kerbal crew to Duna, the Greater of Two Evils acted as a tug for the lander and brought the crew to an equilibrium orbit around Ike. This also represents the first time I've managed to visit two separate planetary bodies in the same mission (not counting starting from Kerbin). All in all, the mission was a rousing success, but flaws in the MTV I had designed became quickly apparent. Principally, over 3000 delta-v had been lost during both transits due to fluctuations in available electric charge to keep the liquid hydrogen from boiling away. For the next interplanetary mission, better solar panel placement would be necessary, and with panels large enough to ensure minimal sunlight would keep the fuel cold: The MTV certainly didn't get any smaller after a revision. With a new MTV assembled, it's time to head for Dres! And this time, with a Mun lander in tow because if it's not broke, don't try and replace it with a vehicle 5 times heavier...

Greetings you Generous Gentlefolk, I hope your KSP endeavors have been well! When last I posted, I had a few probes out heading towards outer planets. One passed by Jool, and the other, through miscalculation of delta-V and general incompetence the whims of fate and the fickle mistress that is space, managed to impact into Dres in a rather spectacular fashion. Oh, and we decided to go to mother-flippin' Duna. And to do so, we would need a once-in-a-lifetime ship capable of taking us to the stars in quiet luxury. A ship that was the envy of entire nations, that would cradle our brave kerbonauts through the rigors of space, no matter what may come. Sadly, the budget office came back to us and said that we couldn't spend, and I quote, "All of the money," and that the arbitrary application of lasers did not, in fact, make the ship more, "science-y." So, in lieu of that particular ship, we got to work on constructing the Unnecessary Expenditure: The start of something beautiful. The This Side Up half of Unnecessary Expenditure is placed into high Kerbin orbit (~500km) The This Side Up and This Side Down meet up to form Voltr something considerably less interesting, but undoubtedly more functional. The Unnecessary Expenditure begins its trans-Duna injection. So it was that the hopes and dreams of the KSC were placed on the shoulders of 4 kerbonauts: Andrew, Garran, Matthew, and Thomas. And a ship made of 90% fuel. And 5% also fuel. 3% instruments and computer banks, and about 2% living space, if that's just so darn important. After 200+ days in space, the Unnecessary Expenditure arrives at Duna. It turns out that when you enter Duna from only 50 km up, the heatshield was overkill for protection. The landing crew rendezvouses with the mother ship and the lander itself is left behind to save weight for the return voyage burns After 160 days in Duna orbit, the Unnecessary Expenditure begins the long journey home We didn't actually pack any parachutes or heatshields on the ship, so they had to wait for KSC to send up a recovery team Until next time, Duna

Fellow kerbonauts, I present, fully assembled, the Intentionally Left Blank Fast stats: 188 (in game) days to complete construction 26 total launches for station assembly 14 crewed missions, including EVA construction Career mode construction

Salutations you Scions of Space, you Sultans of Science, and you Settlers of the Stars! Hopefully you haven't forgotten about me, because I bring a whole host of endeavors in KSP to share. Having tried out the current rover, the crew of the Munar base, Do Not Leave Blank determined that the vehicle, while functional, was not particularly well designed or comfortable, and began to pose comments and questions like, "This rover isn't particularly functional," and "You landed us in the one place on the Mun that doesn't seem to have any rocks, yet the rover has a scanning arm" and even, "Are we sure the Flight Director isn't an eldritch being who exists beyond time and space, reverting launches as they see fit?" Having taken their comments to heart, KSC built a brand new rover, courtesy of @Nils277 and the Feline Utility Rover mod. Meet Sven, the Lynx Utility Rover: Space Truckin' 3: Truck Hard with a Vengeance To commemorate this new bit of technology, the Do Not Leave Blank crew took their rover out for a long-range exploration mission to the various hills and valleys that make up the Farside Crater. Good thing we packed lots of board games along with the rover... Of course, it wasn't all smooth sailing... The Pathfinder 2 crew manages to flip their brand new rover, cracking the solar panel in the process and necessitating a swap of the panel for one of the spares brought with the Do Not Leave Blank Resource Pod. I also made serious headway on the Intentionally Left Blank project, with new crewed missions sent out to install the: Second primary radiators on the truss system Erikson Laboratory Module Tranquility multi-attachment node The logistics module for the Tomodachi laboratory PMA-3 with Clamp-O-Tron docking port Cupola observation port Additionally, robotic missions completed the truss system by installing the solar panels and secondary radiators: Any closer, and we'd have to start filing insurance claims. ♪ Come sail away / Come sail away / Come sail away with meeeee! ♪ Centaur upper stage courtesy of @CobaltWolf and the Bluedog Design Bureau So many pieces... Of course, it wasn't all station construction: Yep, it's green alright. I even managed to finally get a crew out to Eve! Sadly, even with chemical rockets, they won't be able to get into close orbit for nice pictures. But in their absence, we've greatly advanced our tech, so who knows what the next crew will be able to achieve? Now that's a sexy rocket (shoutout to @Nertea and their Cryogenic engines mod) First interplanetary space walk!

If you read the manual for the SOCK, it suggests a Primer Vector Guidance for the ascent:

Normally, I'd put together some sort of rhyme and/or attempt clever word play, but I don't know how else to say that I finally reached Eve in KSP! Of course, that wasn't the only thing being done; I continued my STS challenge by recreating the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft:

Challenge STS-1T AKA "Falling, with Style!" Design Philosophy Mission Profile

Greetings cosmic jammers and lithoslammers! With the truss complete on the Intentionally Left Blank and the Cумрак/Cолнце portion of the station now attached, it has been time to begin the next phase of construction of the project. The first task was to bring the Z1 module up to the station so that the structure is capable of orientation and RSS control from a centralized location, especially with regards to its powerful set of reaction wheels: The Z1 module is used here to orient the station in a polar orientation, ensuring maximum coverage of the Cумрак/Cолнце solar panels. With station control finally established, I believed it was time for the station to receive its first inhabitants. It felt appropriate that, with the "russian" side of the station complete (more or less), that it would provide the most reasonable place to dock a capsule for kerbal transfer, while construction continues on the other side of the station. To this end, the I sent a Soyuz capsule with three of our most recent rescued kerbonauts eager kerbonauts along with the "Mол" specialized airlock and docking module: Soyuz rocket/module and Russian ISS modules courtesy of @Beale and their Tantares mod Additional construction included the addition of the Serenity multi-connector module with PMA adapter (though sadly, all mission images were corrupted), and the Tomodachi science laboratory: When in doubt, just fire a massive module into space on an even taller rocket. Because of the lack of connection points on the end of the Tomodachi module, I had to get creative with creating an orbital tug and RCS rendezvous/docking system. A small drone core was placed on the upper docking port of the Tomodachi, but control was enforced on the longitudal axis of the laboratory module, allowing for precise alignment with the Serenity module. The station is starting to look respectable. Since contractors Kerbin-side had forgotten to install radiators on the truss system, and QA forgot to check to see if they were installed, I also completed the first of two service missions to install the large radiator panels on the rear of the station truss system: Thomas Kerman inspects his handiwork after installing the right-side radiator system on the Intentionally Left Blank truss. Also pictured, the Free Churro slowly trying to eke away from the camera The biggest event, however, of the KSP missions I've run was my participation in the Shuttle Challenge! Yes, having flown mod-installed orbiters for many of these station installation and maintenance missions, I believed it was time to give it a go and build my own orbiter. Completely original design, Do Not Steal! Everything is on fire, and yet they are so. damn. calm. I should probably rebind my F12 key at some point

Congratulations! SSTOs are no easy feat, and you seem to have had a respectable amount of fuel even before de-orbiting.

I certainly don't think it came off that way. As I stated, I completely understand why that would exist, and I would understand your call in either case. It certainly makes sense in retrospect. My posts in the forum so far have usually be curated photos of my missions/adventures in KSP, and this was my first attempt at posting for a challenge. I wasn't really sure how much detail should be brought forward to the moderator, but again, in retrospect, of course it makes sense that more information and pictures would be better. Thank you again for your feedback and helping bring me up to the standards of the challenge mission reports! It feels good to start in on these challenges,

Thank you for being understanding, it was certainly not my intention to attempt to game the system. And I completely understand why attempting to do two missions would potentially allow for "easy" ways of getting around mission objectives. My thought process at the time was that, since there was no actual orbital rendezvous, my ability to complete mission STS-1b was completely dependent on my ability to complete STS-1a. I actually thought I might get told to not waste your time and have them separate! I have a rather humorous story about the second time I flew Benjee's Shuttle Orbiter Constructor Kit that your thoughts remind me of. When I d/l the mod, I decided to test it out in sandbox, and then test it in my actual career save. During that career save, it became necessary to ditch in water, and I was so afraid of losing my kerbonauts I had had them bail out of the orbiter when it was about 4 km up. I subsequently discovered that the orbiter glided calmly down into the water and was completely intact after the two test pilots managed to parachute into the water. It actually is quite pleasant to fly my orbiter down from space. The glide can be a bit wobbly in the upper stratosphere/thermosphere due to lack of air pressure to generate lift on the control surfaces, but in the troposphere it controls pretty well. Or at least as well as any other aircraft in KSP generally behaves. When I used shuttles from Cormorant Aeronology and Benjee's Shuttle Orbiter Construction Kit, I also found that belly up was the best way (and for the same reasons as you just mentioned). However, during testing of my design, I consistently had problems during booster separation where the boosters would slam back against the wings, either taking the entire delta wing assembly with it, or just an elevon or two. Which either speaks to the sensitivity of an orbiter design to changes in COM and thrust, or my general incompetence (possibly both). When I switched over to belly down, many of those problems simply stopped being issues. Even when using sepratrons in a belly-up position, I usually found that while I could avoid hitting the wing structure, the natural "rolling" tendency of the boosters in the upper atmosphere would still "kick" the elevons as they peeled away, usually taking one of the flight control surfaces with it. I do not wish to be considered deficient in my tasks for this challenge, so please consider the following as a supplement/redo of STS-1a:

Presented below is my entry into the STS challenge. I have included details concerning the construction and the mission overview for STS Mission 1a and 1b in separate categories: Mods used in construction: Near Future Propulsion Restock+ Taurus HCV Additionally, I used Kerbal Engineer Redux to estimate delta-V values, and the Restock mod to make everything look pretty (and slightly deviated from the normal apparent of stock modules). The dry-mass delta-V of this shuttle is 6,120m/s, and approximately 990 delta-V for orbital maneuvers. With a 40t load, delta-v values are roughly 4,400 delta-V with 450 delta-V for orbital manuevers. STS Construction Details STS Mission Profile - Mission 1a and 1b

A fine evening to all you space walkers and code talkers! Today's set of missions were once again focused on maintenance and construction, with an emphasis on further development of the Intentionally Left Blank and the Do Not Leave Blank facilities. As part of our commitment to providing more resources towards permenant habitation of celestial bodies, the Do Not Leave Blank received a shipment of a brand new munar rover, the Vagabond: Our engineers have also discovered the vital secret to building useful sky-cranes: check your center of mass before adding thrusters. Equipped with a scanning arm and a resource scanner, the Vagabond is ready to assist the Do Not Leave Blank in finding useful, or at least interesting, things to mine out of the regolith. Meanwhile, construction continued on the Intentionally Left Blank as the solar panel and station support truss continued to be expanded: The "S4" mission completes the truss assembly with the final hexagonal end component With the truss components now fully assembled, it was time to expand the existing modules from the Union, Adventure, Fortune, and Cумрак modules. The Krussian space administration had prepared the next major module for the Intentionally Left Blank, the Cолнце habitation and work module: Is it just me, or are these components starting to look very familiar? It's probably just me. And last, but not least, during the construction of Intentionally Left Blank, I was even able to nearly land the orbiter back on the runway of the KSC:

You and me both. I spend more time constructing things on the dark sides of planets than not

Good Evening Fellow Star Sailors, I hope your time in Kerbal has been fruitful! I believe my time certainly has been. Firstly, I realized at some point that I had yet to build a proper plane so far in career mode. So, I built a small forward-swept wing design incorporating an engine nacelle design that emphasized supersonic capabilities. This X-1 (creative, I know, please hold your applause) was capable of achieving nearly Mach 5! So close, yet so far away, Is it supposed to be on fire? I don't think it's supposed to be on fire... The X-1! Now with 75% less fire than previous entries! The haunted, blank expression of those who were asked to do so much. Or the passive expression of a professional crew waiting for snack time. But there was little time for simple space-place shenanigans, for you see, there was an itch that I had. An itch that could only be scratched bly the addition of yet more space stations. With the Munar and Minmus station complexes now in operation, the two space stations I had constructed over Kerbin had become, sadly, out of date. So, it was time to rectify this deficiency with the construction of a newer, modern modular facility. This facility would be hence known as Intentionally Left Blank, and began with a simple functional cargo block, the Cумрак module and the Union module: The crew of the Free Churro prepare to deploy the Union module to dock with the previously-orbited Cумрак module. Orbiter brought to you by @Pak and their Cormorant Aeronology Mk3 Shuttle This feels like the start of something very familiar... Somewhat unrelated, a kerbal engineer enjoys the experience of floating in space aboard an MMU. The Pirate Radio deploys the Adventure airlock module to the Intentionally Left Blank Analyzing the structure for mistakes and verifying structural integrity of the superstructure Unable to effectively fit both the Fortune module and an RCS tug into a single orbiter, the Fortune laboratory module is launched autonomously into orbit. Like the Fortune, the S0 truss was too large to fit upon a single orbiter payload bay. Unlike the Fortune, the S0 truss is much less subtle... The Free Churro crew prepares its servicing mission to remove parts from the Intentionally Left Blank to reduce part count The Free Churro even manages to land in one piece and only a minimum number of crew teeth misplaced!

I've notated its construction in another thread, but I present the Object Not Referenced: A modular space station making liberal use of Habtech2 and Stockalike Station components, the Object Not Referenced is also inspired by the Lunar Gateway proposals, and Lockheed-Martin's proposal in particular. It contains a cryogenic fuel (H2/Ox), laboratory, EVA airlock, station command and habitation modules.

Amazing mod, @benjee10, all of your mods are something else! With regards to the robotic arm, I was attempting to remove a payload from the orbiter, but as the module moves out of the cargo bay, the orbiter starts to swing violently, essentially trying to pivot around the Orbiter. I've tried both increasing and decreasing the damping on the robotic joints, but neither mid, high, or low damping has been able to stop this shuddering and wavering. Is there a method to using this arm that I am missing?

And you were most correct! Greetings starfarers and space-suit wearers, I hope your adventures in KSP have been fruitful, or at the very least, morbidly entertaining. The docket for my space program was rather anemic on unusual missions or strange places, largely due to upkeep and maintenance of the various stations and even a munar base! First, the final module of the Munar Gateway Complex, hereafter referred to by its official christening, Object Not Referenced, was finally connected: What even is this rocket? I don't even. I can only imagine @CobaltWolf is proud of these shenanigans. Or horrified at what I've done to his creations. There is very little that is cooler than watching the fairings on a Saturn V derivative open up like some sort of space kraken. A Block 1 AARDV from Bluedog Design Bureau. The next best thing to being on the Mun itself! Additionally, the munar base, Do Not Leave Blank was, I thought in dire need of additional leg room. When you are stranded enduring tolerating adventuring munar-side, it's important to make sure you have as many creature comforts as budgets (and pilot skill, >.>) can allow. To that end, the munar base was extended with a habitation module specifically to provide better living accommodations to our brave munar explorers: Oh, and I decided to try out some visual overhauls to the game while practicing my space shuttle piloting:

Good Evening Kerbonauts and Tasty Kumkuats, I bring fair tidings from the Land of Gunnerline. Where the physics are hot and the engineer's warnings are dutifully ignored. The primary task of today's Kerbal session was to take advantage of a fortuitous transfer window. Eve has come rather close to Kerbin, enough that a full transfer and entry burn should clock in at around 2800 delta-V or so. But a transfer window is nothing if I don't have a spaceship that can actually take advantage of that window, so I needed to assemble something that could take my kerbals to and from Eve. It was pretty clear early on that a single-vessel was not really something I wanted to build, not only because of simplicity, but also because the idea of sending kerbals all the way to not-Venus and back in a capsule less than the size of my bedroom seemed like the sort of slow-burn psychological experiment that would get me tried in the Hague for crimes against humanity (kermanity?). So, before we could leave, we needed a ship. And a ship needs fuel and propulsion. Between nuclear thermal rockets and cryogenic rockets, cryo seemed to win out, if only because I could not manage to get an acceptable TWR and delta-V amount with the technological level of NTRs available. But I would need a concerning amount of fuel, and a very large launch platform to carry it into orbit. Pictured: A concerning amount of fuel, and the very large launch platform From there, the next phase was to assemble the crew complex, which was much easier to send into space. Possibly due to not having to worry about the transportation of incredibly flammable material via controlled explosions. The Pax Glupp* is completed in LKO With the final assembly complete of the Pax Glupp, the ship was ready to take its victims brave kerbonauts through the silent ocean of space, if oceans were mostly empty and devoid of whales. Not pictured: The restart of the acceleration burn necessary when it was discovered that the command station of the Pax Glupp had been installed "upside down" With the mission to Eve now established, and realizing that I'd spent much of my past few days in KSP pointedly *not* landing on extraterrestrial bodies as part of a continuing effort to plant a flag on every biome of a planet. With the Mun well explored, it was time to start looking at the more extreme biomes, such as the poles: Raven IX high above the rocky surface of the munar south pole. You gotta take the time to enjoy the little things in life, like running on the surface of another planetary body. *Ed. Note: It's a long, probably very boring story involving a 4X game called Stellaris.

Congratulations! Hopefully this is the start of many others! I continued construction of a lunar gateway, mostly as an excuse to try out these fantastic Habtech 2 modules (link) by @benjee10. Here, the airlock module is being added to the assembly in Low Munar Orbit: And the primary habitation and control module. Also a nice shot of the cryogenic engine and the spherical hydrogen tanks attached to it from the Near Future and Cryogenic engines mods from @Nertea: If orbital space stations are wrong to have cryoengines, I don't want to be right. However, my primary task of the day was to assemble a munar research outpost. Not only for the contract that had been accepted many moons previous, but also because I've never put together a station out of mod-based structures designed to look like a planetary base. Of course, we had to get there first: Gunnerline, you might say, why is it that you don't have a second base structure on this coupler? The answer, dear viewer, is that Gunnerline is not always very smart, and this time he didn't realize that the off-center mass would have rather aggressive effects on the thrust profile of the trans-munar injection stage. As in, "it took four periapsis kicks to make it to munar orbit" aggressive effects. And then I discovered that the sky crane was also not able to account for the difference in weight distribution, potentially throwing the entire mission into FUBAR territory. But thankfully, I was able to jerry rig a fix by decreasing the thrust in the front half of the skycrane to 65%, balancing out the overall thrust profile: Space Truckin' 2: Electric Boogaloo After numerous restarts "simulations," I was finally able to tease the munar station down to the surface right in the center of a small crater. That's a tasty boi right there. But a munar base is nothing without kerbals to make it home, so the Pathfinder program began with an auspicious start with Pathfinder 1: It's the moments like this that make all the trials worth it.

Given the date of July 20th, I figured it would not be a proper KSP day without at least one Apollo Recreation! So it was that I shot three brand new kerbals on the historic mission to thread the needle and land in one of the remaining biomes not explored on the Mun, the Canyons. And no Apollo Recreation would be complete, in my eye, without a good Saturn V, courtesy of the Bluedog Design Bureau mod: Unfortunately for my picture taking ways, I seem to do most of my best work in the dark. Maybe I'm just a really lame vampire.

That is superbly done!

With my primary Minmus station, the Hubris II, now fully operational, and having paid for itself through contract and science work, it was time to begin the next phase of my development of the Minmus Exploration Complex: preparing for surface-based habitation. To this end, it was finally time for me to break out the K&K Planetary Base Systems (courtesy of @Nils277) that had been sitting unused in my assembly plant since unlocking them. I've never used the K&K system before, so the first thing to try out was how to stack the would-be future bases onto rockets, and what their deployment into a sphere of influence might require. The best way to go about this, as I interpreted my goals, was to strap a test facility shaped like a bus onto a small rocket and launch it towards the green meadows to the west of the KSC, like some sort of bizarre public transit ballistic missile: ♪ Come on! Come on! Come on! Let's go! Space Truckin'! ♪ The test was quite successful, I assure you. Additionally, I decided to try out the Shuttle Orbiter Construction Kit, from @benjee10 : Where are we, and where did our ailerons go? You may notice the lack of control surfaces and the orbiter manipulator arm sadly sticking out of the bottom of my shuttle. It was not a soft landing. Turns out the orbiter is hard to land, especially when you undershoot your reentry envelope by ~400km. Who knew? Still, the brochure said the shuttle was "partially reusable." And no one died, so it's at least somewhere between a good and great landing. And, naturally, a Munar mission was quite appropriate:

My first major space station of this newest career game, courtesy of the beautiful work of @CobaltWolf and the BDB mod: My second, and so far most extensive station ever developed in KSP thus far, the Hubris II, this time courtesy of @Nertea. I can count on one hand how many of these unique parts are from stock. Comes with one orbital tug, a mini-lander, and a fuel supply station: And now, the most recent addition to the collective, Line Item: