TheKrakenHerder

Chapter 1, Part 1: Project Polaris (Writing this while rewatching The Martian to get me in the mood) Well, we have to start somewhere. I kicked off this save with the start of the Kerbal Aeronautics and Space Administration (how original) and the launch of Valiant 1, the first satellite. No pictures, unsurprisingly, but it was basically Explorer I. Just a stick with a thermometer and some antennae. A little while later I launched Valiant 2 and 3 to higher orbits, this time with a BAROMETER! Next began the Polaris program, basically Mercury, with Polaris 1, 2, and 3. Jeb, Bill and Stedzon Kerman. made short suborbital hops on top of Minerva ballistic missiles and became the first kerbals in space. Again, no pictures due to my own lack of foresight the launchpad cameras being destroyed (sorry there will be more pictures in the future). Polaris 1, 2, and 3 were a complete success (despite a brief scare with the retropack on numero dos), and so I decided to scrap the planned fourth suborbital flight and instead move straight to orbital missions, starting with Val going up on Polaris 4. This I DO have pictures of, albeit only two*. Val's Polaris-Hermes rocket ascending. I was quite proud of this rocket, especially the Atlas-style skirt. Val made it through the lethal mildly turbulent ascent on her death chariot Hermes rocket, transmitted her thoughts on the nature of the cosmos (which were promptly inserted into a burn bag), took a few temperature and pressure readings, then fired her retropack after five orbits and came home. Bathtime for Val Kerman (that is in fact all the pictures I have from the Polaris program) After another complete success, I decided to try squeeze a little more performance out of the Hermes in the hopes of getting data from higher orbits. Just small relatively unseen stuff, like outboard fuel tanks surrounding the turbopump, lightening the retropack, y'know. And apparently, I tried my hand at messing with the staging. This had predictable results on Polaris 4, and resulted in Bob getting the 15G ride of his life on the LES tower after a very short mission before landing a few hundred yards from the beach. I'd imagine he wasn't too happy with this. Sorry Bob. Back to the drawing board. After fixing the staging, Polaris 5 went up with Agary. The non-staging-related improvements juiced the Hermes booster enough to get an apoapsis of over 300 kilometers. She tested out an early SCANsat scanner before coming back again. At this stage, however, I was getting a little bored, and there wasn't much else I could do with Polaris. So, I decided that Polaris 6 with Bob again (yay compensation) would be the last mission in the program. Bob lifted off from the Tundra Missile Range on a Hermes. Once he was in orbit, he burned the upgraded Hermes core stage again to increase the apoapsis to higher than ever before. He got some high-above-Kerbin science before coming back down again. And so ended the Polaris program. Coming up next: Probing the Mun and the Antares capsule! *Keen eyed readers will notice that these screenshots have been seen before in the What Did You Do in KSP Today thread.

Heya, any updates? I've really enjoyed this so far.

Hello friends. After a good few failed attempts (due to my own lack of motivation) and a lot of messing around with mods, I think I'm finally ready to make a long-form mission report about my current KSP save. I hope y'all will have as much fun as I'm having playing it. A few rules, first off: -I'm doing this in sandbox, because the idea is to actually have fun -I only really just had the idea to make this a mission report (in game I'm up to the first crewed Munar landings) and so I do not have screenshots of every mission. Once we catch up to where I actually am ingame there'll be a lot more pictures -I'm trying to do this in a pretty realistic fashion, e.g. builds must look realistic, gaps between missions, habitation space, ground testing, the works. That being said, I didn't want to use anything like part failure mods or KCT because my install is already bloated as is Without further ado, please enjoy:

Any news? I really hope this continues.

[Deleted]

Hey, sorry if this is a question you get a lot, but is there any sort of workaround for Mac users to install it? I used to be able to run Parallax 1, I'd take that gladly.

Launched a boilerplate MEM on an Aegis I. I modified the launch tower, milkstool, and replaced the two mastodons with nine of the 1.25 meter engines whose name escapes me.

An Aegis I rocket with a Columbia Block I capsule on top is rolled out to Launchpad 39A at the ASC.

The crew of Antares VIII, the final mission of the Antares program, become the loneliest kerbals in history, as they reach their apogee of 4000 kilometers from Kerbin. The capsule is docked to the Calypso Docking Target, which boosted them to this altitude.

"The nation was blessed to have Agary serve in our space program..." State funeral for Agary Kerman, who died in a botched bailout after a heatshield failure on Antares VI. The mission commander, Jedediah, can be seen paying his respects at the front. I've renamed the KSC to the Agary Space Center after this.

Did some stuff for my equivalent of the Gemini program, Antares. Lifting off atop a Hermes-Calypso. And back down again.

Just found this pic as well. A Hermes-Calypso (Atlas-Centaur/Atlas-Agena) lifts off carrying Prospector-1, an early Munar orbiter.

Started a new save, trying to play in a "restockalike but realistic" style. Don't have any pictures of my Mercury-Redstone equivalent, but here's Val riding a Hermes (not-Atlas) booster on Polaris 4. And back down again. Since taking these pics, I've done some of my Gemini equivalent, so pics of that later today. Might make this a thread.

Any updates?

Continued my Kerbin Orbit Rendezvous Munar program and took this hard screenshot: An Odysseus V rocket prepares to launch the Columbia 2 mission's Munar Injection Stage. In the background, a second Odysseus V carrying the mission's Athena capsule is visible.