doggie015

That already happened - Apollo 13. Starting out with an early inboard cutoff on the second stage and then the explosion and venting and the power conservation to get home alive in the LEM which was only designed for 2 men for 2 days - not 3 men for 4 days

Solar Panels and the Mainsail engine. I can get to Duna with skippers but that's just a one-way trip

I don't care if it breaks saves really. Having an excuse to get better at the game is a good thing

Currently he is waiting for my Duna space station to be completed in order for a rescue mission to be sent. At least Bill is in said station to keep him company while the launch window opens for more fuel and parts. Also: Attempting a Duna mission before you unlock mainsail engines: Not such a good idea!

Mine is a simple 6+1 asparagus staged mainsail launcher with two Rockomax Jumbo-64 tanks and one Rockomax X200-32 fuel tank connected to the mainsail. I can either stage them having the outers all go at once or two at a time. It gets about 100 tons to LKO and quite often the centre stage has fuel to space to I whack on a 2.5m RCS tank and some RCS thrusters to use it as a departure stage for interplanetary missions. I once modified it with a docking port and jettison-able engine (That took a few iterations to get right!) to use as a one-launch refuelling depot.

Try using an asparagus-staged lander. I have a lander that user 5 lots of 2-high tier 0 fuel tanks. Launched with a further asparagus of 1 4-tall stack of Tier 0 tanks with three outer tanks of 3-tall then another three of 2-tall then another three of one-tall (This was before I got fuel lines!). If you have fuel lines then keep the inner but have four lots of four tanks as the outside stage all feeding fuel into the central stage. Obviously each stack has an engine attached (The outers have an LV-30, the inner has an LV-45)

Jeb is stranded on Duna in a unintentionally horizontal lander with not nearly enough fuel to get back (The trick of using the Mystery Goo canisters as ramps by rolling really fast is not gonna work here!)

In my timeline he is celebrating the first Mun landing and return which he flew. He has told the engineers to build a space station around Duna and he is disappointed that docking ports have not been invented yet

That's... not a bad idea!

Thanks to Career mode I am refining my skills in the stock game. Thanks to progression I don't get bored of stock as quickly! (Plus it gives me an excuse to make new rocket designs)

Case in point: The Apollo 13 ascent. The inboard engine shut down two minutes early but they were able to burn the outboards longer and still get into normal orbit.

I am having fun in career mode! it provides a good incentive to improve my piloting skills!

That's actually not such a bad idea... Will have to try that! I think I'll just do an orbit/flyby first and assemble a station in orbit so I can refuel at Duna for the first manned landing and get as much science as possible.

That's one slow descent for a kerbal, one fast ascent for science

With the release of 0.22 I decided to use career mode as a means to improve my skill at the game to get more science and more parts to get more science and so on... After getting fuel lines I was finally able to get to Minmus and back with about 460 science on recovery at Kerbin and a few more transmitted back. All manual with 100% stock parts. And I got this photo on the way... Now that I have larger rocket parts thanks to that mission... Next stop: Duna!

I'll play the career mode stock as the devs intended. The first flight or two will just be a ballistic arc until I get enough science for decouplers to get into orbit and beyond to do more science. It should be fun!

Well they've already posted their "First time in 0.22" vid

Replace the rocket engines with nuclear engines. On something that small it should not make that much difference. Also: Try to fly a shallower ascent profile. Take it up to 15-20 KM and build up horizontal velocity. Once it reaches 1500 m/s or so pitch up and get your apoapsis to 100-150 km or so. Try to use your jet for as much of the ascent as you can, the atmosphere is your friend here!

I have a craft with 100 ton to LKO capacity that is much simpler: https://mega.co.nz/#!ec1ghD5I!bO3iXmys8k7iFR-pZ5eLqVIiueMNJdUat9UVyWJ8SsA

Whenever I hear about reaction wheels I always think of

If simulating the solar system is too much for a modern PC then how can Orbiter do it just fine?

"Let's see what happens when I replace this engine with that engine..."

I can run KSP on a 1st gen Intel i7, 4GB RAM and an nVidia GeForce GT 330M rather nicely. I am sure that OP's computer would be able to handle it but they may need to dial some settings down a bit

Just started reading this. Cannot wait for the next part!

As long as it gives the Kerbals cake to keep them happy then I will be happy