Bekiekutmoar

Arrrr, welcome back Capt'n ... ! Good to see your KSP-boat didn't sunk.

A full fuel tank of 2,25 kg is in my 'imagination' 2,25 tons, or 2250 kg. So the small capsule is 800 kg, the large one 4000 kg. A large landing leg 100 kg, just like a small parachute package. And so on ...

"Ladies 'n gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. We're approaching our destination and we can expect a little turbulence, but the weather seems perfect for a dip in the ocean with sunshine and temperatures around 300 degrees celcius. And to make things even better, we serve coffee and cake on your funeral"

In general, I can reach destinations like Duna, Eve, and the Jool system without too much problems. But I've never completed a return-trip. This evening I launched a rocket to Duna with the intention of doing a return-trip. I reached the SOI of Duna in just 56 ingame days, proper aerobraking resulted in a nice and stable orbit, but the landing got messed up again. Positive note: my Kerbals rarely die ... !

I tried to approach the thing the last time I saw it, but it disappeared behind the horizon. Its possible I'm indeed chasing a visual glitch ... !

Looks like it ... ! If it can travel the entire solar system, you'd say its a sentient being or something artificial. I just flew another rocket to the Mun and saw the object again.

Well, a small hint wouldn't hurt I think ... ! I gotta say I thought about a graphical glitch first.

Well, a ship designed for observation (cockpit with large windows for IVA) is en route. I'm aiming for orbital altitude of around 70 km ...

Its moving away now. Strange case ...

I was in orbit around the Mun at around 140 km altitude when I saw something what appeared to be on the surface. I expected a Munar Arch or Armstrong Memorial or something like that, got into IVA modus and zoomed in. It looked like a beam-shaped thing that was in a prograde orbit around the equator of the Mun. Object visible as a bright dot at the right center of the pic. Now a tiny dark dot between two darker areas in the center of this pic. (Exactly right from stage 2 icon) Dark dot above darker area (again, exactly right from stage 2 icon but closer)

First, the position of several celestial objects relative to my landing location, the antarctic region of Laythe. View from my position. From left to right; Tylo, Vall and Bop. Tylo appears bigger than Vall while it is farther away. Jool looks a bit intimidating from Laythe. Reminds me of a scene in the movie Melancholia.

Landed in the antarctic region of Laythe.

Thanks for all the hard work, Capt'n. You were like a Cesar Millan for the community. It's a shame the situation appearantly derailed ...

Objects I've visited so far in 0.17: -Mun (with now 4 Kerbals stranded on the surface and 3 more stuck in orbit) -Minmus (currently one Kerbonaut, enough fuel for return-trip) -Eve (lander with one Kerbonaut floats in metallic ocean, unable to return) -Duna (two Kerbonauts on the surface, both unable to return) -Ike (One Kerbonaut, could reach Duna but unable to return home) -Laythe (two Kerbonauts, both unable to return)

Well, I have a second ship en route to the Jool System. See if I can aerobreak decently now ... @Luxmaster: nice pics ... !

My speed relative to Laythe was around 7600 m/s and tried areobreaking with lowest point at around 9 km. The kerbonaut is now training his swimming skills in the ocean ...

You'd say when you hit the SOI of Laythe, landing would be a piece of cake. Go into orbit, carefully pick your landing zone and descent. But Laythe was about to give me a nasty surprise. Laythe orbits Jool with high velocity and I basically traveled in the opposite direction. With a speed of around 7560 m/s, I had absolutely no chance to perform a nice and stable orbit around the moon and was just 15 minutes away from being shot out of the moon's SOI. Violent atmospheric breaking was the solution and I adjusted periapsis to around 9 km. Speed increased to 7750 m/s ... To make a long story short; the brave kerbonaut survived the extremely rough descent but now floats in a massive ocean with land at least 60 km away, and not even a stunning view on Jool ... ! To make matters worse, the gravity is too strong for the jetpack to function. Looks like he's gonna swim for a while.

I'd say temperatures on Laythe hover mostly between 0°C (polar regions) and 8°C (equatorial regions). Laythe is like the Shetland Islands in northwestern Europe. Why? The Shetland Islands are located at around 60 degrees north and basically outside the main warm zone of Earth, but the North Atlantic Current en prevailing wind blowing from the southwest prevents it from being an icy wasteland most of the year. Laythe floats far from the sun and outside the main warm zone, but tidal heating from Jool and a dense atmosphere prevents it from becoming a frozen world, like Vall ... !

I'm mostly guessing when performing interplanetary travel (and sometimes very very simple math). So far in 0.17 I've reached the Mun, Minmus, Duna and Eve. I find Duna easiest to 'hit', although its SOI is pretty small, Eve has a orbit with inclination ... ! I haven't done return trips to celestial objects outside the Kerbin System yet due to poor rocket design.

Its a sunny day when Jebediah boards his rocket to embark on a dangerous mission to Duna, a planet at around 20 million km from the sun. Liftoff ... ! In parking orbit after 6 minutes. I'd rather keep my orbit around Kerbin as low as possible to maintain speed, so less fuel is needed to reach escape velocity ... One last look at Kerbin after the escape burn. Jebediah will probably never come back ... ! The Hohmann-transfer to Duna was messed up due to horrible timing, but after a while I managed to hit its SOI. Approaching the strange red planet with its enormous ice-caps. Time to lose some velocity before entering the atmosphere ... The parachute fully deployed just several hundred meters from the ground, and when velocity was reduced to around 50 m/s by retroburn. Jebediah Kerman, the first Kerbal to actually set foot on Duna. He is now a famous celebrity on Kerbin. Too bad he is stranded on Duna forever. Unless ... an improved interplanetary vessel comes to rescue him ... !

Maybe its just me, but Laythe looks remarkably large. I'd say Laythe is bigger than the Mun (diameter 400 km) ...

I'll probably have to redesign the vessel when aerodynamics are correctly implemented. And for now add a few struts, the ship is wobbling a bit too much.

This is the Mosquito, a prototype of a interplanetary vessel meant for travel to celestial objects with substantial atmospheres. The Mosquito is basically an airplane put upside down onto a rocket. With its atmospheric engine, the plane-part of the ship probably won't function on extra-terrestrial worlds with atmospheres due to the lack of oxygen, but its a nice but rough concept of what could be a efficient vessel capable of extensive exploration of strange new worlds.

My standard moonlander (Mun and Minmus)

These new celestial objects will have atmospheres suitable for parachuting: Eve Laythe (moon) Duna (bit tricky though with thin amosphere) Jool (one way ticket)