DerekL1963

Expedition IV - To the North Pole (continued). Days 4 and 5 Night Flight and returning to KSC. During the night Norge swings wide to the east of the mountains she flew through four days earlier. As the sun lightens the horizon... the Mun also rises. And so does the crew - who are surprised to find a full breakfast cooked by Scientists William and Charles. Commander Hugo's place however is set with just a bowl of cereal. "Sorry, we were napping and couldn't make enough" explains William. Commander Hugo relieve Pilot Emery, who goes aft to enjoy a full breakfast and a brief nap. Finally the mountains are behind them and the rolling hills north of KSC, the site of so many training cruises and exercises, open up before them. Shortly afterwards, Commander Hugo yields the pilot's seat to Emery for the final approach to KSC. An eclipse forces Engineer Henri to shift from solar power to the Cyclone engines. Pilot Emery makes a steep approach to KSC.., and appears to be overshooting the runway. He grins... And brings Norge to a near stop in front of her hangar... (Much to the discomfiture of the control tower personnel.) Followed by a picture perfect touchdown. As he stands and stretches, Commander Hugo points out an envelope tucked into the seat cushions and reminds Emery not to forget it.

Expedition IV - To the North Pole (continued). Day 4. Polar landing! As soon as there is enough daylight, Commander Hugo order Up Ship! - ahead of them lies one of the most arduous days of flying and a historic mission. But first a flyby of DSN North Station for a PR photograph from a KASA drone. Commander Hugo makes a note to get a copy and have the crew sign it for the station staff in return for their hospitality. As the arctic wastes approach, Engineer Henri keeps a close eye on his gauges... Solar power output is dropping as they proceed northward, and he must shift to the Cyclone engines before the battery is flat. The battery can be recharged using the onboard generators, but not having a reserve this far from base is not a good idea. A view of the arctic wasteland from the warmth of the pilot's station in the command gondola. Touch down at the pole! Or at least close... the Norge is several tens of meters from the pole. Scientists Charles and William unload Rover-I and despite balky controls, locate the exact pole. A historic moment! The crew assembled at the pole during the flag planting ceremony. (I was in a bit of a hurry at this point, and once again forgot to turn off the UI. The Norge was doing a kraken dance while I was offloading the rover and trying to get it to work and then EVAing the crew. At this point, it's turned itself through ninety degrees and moved about thirty meters - and on it's current course was due to cross a seam... as I'd already had problems with the kerbals at the seams, I just wanted to get out of there before it did.) After the flag ceremony... Rover-I's controls failed entirely. Unable to re-load it, Commander Hugo directed that it be abandoned and the Norge lifted off and set course for home. (Note Minmus on the horizon.) (I was able to unload the rover using MechJeb's controls, but it wasn't responding to manual control at all... and MechJeb's controls are nowhere near delicate enough for the loading operation.) Setting a southbound course... the crew wait for a commsat to rise above the horizon, and when it does Commander Hugo, Pilot Emery, and Engineers Umberto and Henri hold a long conversation with KSC. Given their fuel state (still nearly full) and the condition of the crew (moderately tired but motivated) - KSC approves Hugo's suggestion that they make a direct return to KSC. (The science team later complains that they weren't included - "because you were napping and will nap all the way home not matter how we proceeded" Commander Hugo points out.) As the sun sets, finally the arctic ends and the open oceans beckon beyond. Shortly after this photo was taken, Commander Hugo, due to relieve Pilot Emery in three hours goes to bed. Engineer Umberto, due to relieve Engineer Henri in an hour heads to the galley for a snack and a cup of coffee as he's due to relieve Engineer Henri in an hour. They'll continue through the night, pilot and engineers offset by two hours and spending four hours on, fours hours off. Shortly after he takes the watch Commander Hugo realizes there is something crinkling in the cushions of the pilot's seat... and is unsurprised to find an envelope with a ten dollar bill inside.

Expedition IV - To the North Pole (continued). Days 2 and 3. DSN North Station Norge takes to the air shortly after dawn, and soon reaches the North Station. And finds a spot to touch down near the base camp. The rest of the day and the following day will be spent refueling and reprovisioning. The crew gives the Station staff a tour of Norge, and in return the staff hosts a dinner for the crew at the base camp. The crew turned in early on the last day as the next forty eight hours will be long and fatiguing. (Refueling and reprovisioning = using Hyperedit to fill all the tanks. I'm roleplaying that there's a functioning base at the DSN station. I've used very little fuel since most of the flight so far was accomplished on solar power, but the low sun angle near the poles means tomorrow's flight will likely not be able to use solar at all.)

Just uncheck "require signal for control" in your [save game] option settings.

It's not even the entire optics, it's just the primary mirror.

Expedition IV - To the North Pole. (The Norge recreates the voyage of her namesake.) Day 1 - Proceeding North, exploring an anomaly, and stopping over for the night. The Norge makes her usual early morning departure and heads northward with Rover-I safely ensconced in the loading bay. The crew admires the scenery as it passes below them. Even the Science team takes a break from their naps instruments to enjoy the view. (Seriously, I want a cabin down in that valley... Preferably not too far from the river that would along the center of it.) On the route northward to the North Station DSN station, the crew of the Norge has been tasked with exploring this remote mountain valley. A KASA survey satellite has detected an anomaly, and if possible the Norge is to land and inspect it. Though Commander Hugo has been piloting so far, as the mountains approach he turns over to Pilot Emery... But rather than observing from the upper gondola, he stands behind the pilot's station to observe. Emery rapidly calls out engine and ballast commands to Engineer Umberto as he carefully threads a gap into the valley. Too low, and they risk crashing into the mountains. Too high, and they'll be unable to make useful observations of the valley. (Sorry for the UI in the screenshots... I wanted to get shots, but there wasn't really time/concentration available to turn the UI on and off. On the other hand, other than the AmpYear mod I use to manage the electrical systems near sunrise and sunset, you can get a good look at what mods/windows I have open when piloting. A huge shout-out goes out to @JadeOfMaar for answering my questions on the forum and leading me to AmpYear.) Inside the valley, Commander Hugo makes the difficult call - there is no place safe to land, and even if there was, the anomaly is located on terrain too steep for the airship's crew to safely reach. They continue through the valley, and exit to the northeast before turning northwest for lower ground and North Station. (And I totally forgot to get any screenshots of the exit. Sorry.) Shortly after reaching the lowlands, Commander Hugo decides that since they cannot reach North Station in daylight, they will land for the night. The mountains surrounding the station are simply too dangerous to risk at night, and there's no point in fatiguing the crew by operating overnight. Pilot Emery once again find a ten dollar bill tucked under his pillow when he goes to bed.

Um, no. The optical systems (based on what is known of the KH series) are completely different, as in 'apples and the thing least like apples you can imagine'. That's one of the reasons NASA wasn't in any hurry to use those mirrors, they're not really suitable for much of anything astronomical and using them doesn't save much money since the mirror is such a small fraction of the total cost. (The decision to use them on WFIRST was political in nature, not science or finance driven.)

What mod is providing your aeroshells? And how did you get the rover down from there?

JWST works in the far infrared. (That's why it has that insane thermal shield - to increase infrared sensitivity.) Hubble in the UV, visible, and near infrared. There's no overlap between the two.

That's like saying "I doubt the new Administration will fix the roof, after all we're getting a new driveway!". The JWST is not a replacement for Hubble.

I'm trying to fly *to* them, so that's a *very* workable idea... (Since I do use MJ. Shoulda thought of that myself.) I'm using Scansat 16.11, and they're not showing up. Just the 'normal' anomalies.

Yes.

I use the heck out of NF Construction, it makes for some very attractive vessels. Here's a pair of orbital tugs built using NF Construction.

Thanks!

White knuckles piloting on my latest Airship Adventure - trying to see if I could reach the monolith North of KSC on my way to the North Pole. (No full write up yet, it's late and I'm tired.) After piloting an airship for some hours, I'd had enough of airships for one day. Swapped over to the save where I've been working on mining infrastructure to support a Dres landing campaign. I needed a depot in Kerbin orbit to store the fuel brought down from Minmus. At first, I went back to my Jool-5 save and the massive tank farm I used to fuel my mothership.... Then I thought through what I was doing and realized two things... First, since I was bringing fuel down from Minmus, I didn't need to send fuel up from Kerbin. Second, I already had a solution in hand and had used it to make the refinery/depot in Minmus orbit - using Modular Fuel Tanks to rejigger an existing tank. (Decreasing oxidiser storage, adding monopropellant storage, and increasing Liquid Fuel storage.) The result is a much simpler single tank system. It's equipped with both Clamp-o-Tron and Sr. docking ports, for visiting vehicles and possible future expansion. And sitting here writing this, I realized I left a hole in my infrastructure - no tankage in place to bring Monoprop down from Minmus. Balancing the mass of the Monoprop against the mass of the tug (which is sized around bringing down 6400l of LF at a pop), it'll probably be more efficient to just send a load up from Kerbin now and again. This is why I work all this stuff out in the Sandbox first, before trying it in a campaign game...

That's probably due with the spacecraft being a very small enclosed environment and the occupants thereof having little opportunity for personal hygiene as the lack of a toilet.

Myself, I'd consider staging when your peri is still in atmosphere, and finish circularizing on the interplanetary injection stage. Either way, with so little d/v remaining, I'd just get of the rid of it just to make things easier.

Thanks! And looking forward to them!

If you can get the coordinates off that... you're a better man than I am.

Does anyone have the coordinates of the DSN stations? Either my google-fu is weak, or the KSP wiki has them hidden in some obscure location.

Rats in the desert with nothing more than a Stinger almost certainly don't pose sufficient threat that you have to get eyes on them that fast. Even at hypersonic speeds, it still takes considerable time to get from their likely bases in the US or Europe, so there's still going to be significant delay. Better to use a forward deployed drone. Speed isn't always the solution. That's certainly a valid argument... But I'd phrase it slightly differently, they need an engine that works - and that can be operated economically. The one they're proposing for passenger aircraft uses LH2, which is almost certainly a non-starter. If I were them though, I'd be looking at the luxury bizjet market... It's not a big market, but the folks buying in that range aren't as obsessively focused on the bottom as the airlines are.

If they've nothing better than a Stinger, you don't need a hypersonic aircraft either... Any one of a number of drones currently in service will more than suffice. That's the big problem with manned recce aircraft in general nowadays, increasingly they're solutions in search of a problem. REL has been shopping around air breathing SABRE derived engines for everything from hypersonic cruise missiles to hypersonic passenger aircraft for some years now, no takers.

No, they've never failed AFAIK. But the margins are lower and the risk level greater when you're off to the moon rather than delivering supplies to a station that has a reserve *and* multiple potential routes of supply.

And a backup plan in case docking fails entirely...

My apologies for jumping to unwarranted conclusions. But my basic point still stands - there isn't a loophole because it's covered by the higher level rule that allows the maintainer to ban overpowered mods.