CatastrophicFailure

Psst... PM me.... I may have a solution for you...

Taking that at face value, if it really "never before happened in history" I think SpaceX deserves a bit of a pass. Curious to hear the details but on with the show! (and soon, Elon, please! Before this thread implodes again! )

just chiming in to say D'awww garsh... We now return you to your regularly scheduled thread.

StockVisualTerrain, be careful what you wish for.

Nope, still on 1.2. Tho I have noticed the Duna polar rocks are not actually solid.... ETA: Well now, this is embarassing... Upon rechecking my modlist... apparently I don't have SVT installed at all.

I tried playing around with some designs to (eventually) get my parts & crew back from low Kerbin orbit (once I finally get them back from Duna), since I got a lab instead of a cockpit. And, well, I kinda sorta accidentally made a spaceplane. I hate it when that happens! Ugly as flarp, pushed on by six Whiplashes, but all I was trying to do was test if it could re-enter. Dump the jets once they start loosing thrust, and continue on the Skipper I'll be returning. Means to an end. Made orbit easily. A more efficient ascent with more time on the jets might even leave enough fuel for a Münar swing-by. Enough room inside for the Hitchhiker I'll be cannibalizing from the rover, and the stupid lab I wasn't expecting. Should be able to shoehorn the big radiator in there, too. Mostly uneventful reentry. Don't think the lab could take that unshielded tho. Couldn't make it back to KSC, so I had to set down in a forest west of the mountains. Without hitting any of the solid trees (thanks @Galileo ). Still got it down in one piece. Glamour shot at sunset

Love that lil thing, where are the folding wings from?

Was it a full stack or just the first stage? Iridium's going out of Cali, right?

Seriously, guys, this thread is rapidly becoming little more than a comparison of personal rocket sizes. You're not gonna find any consensus over the speculative colonization of Mars. It's time to just agree to disagree and...

Today (well, this weekend, when I wasn't busy moving boxes & throwing my back out), I dispatched my flotilla to Duna! (Part 1) Ok it's only three ships, and one of them is only going kinda-sota-close to Duna, but still... Er... Ceralla... you're supposed to hook up with the other end. What's that? Oh. The rover is solar powered, the sun's not up yet, and the batteries just ran out so you kinda-sorta coasted into the trailer cuz you happened to be heading that way when the juice quit... ok, that's different... Part 2 to follow... um.. Eventually! (patent pending)

Renaming your quicksave to persistent should work, but make sure it's backed up! Also, you might be able to go thru the corrupted sfs and cut out the obvious block of garbage from the corruption.

@AccidentsHappen has it right, the Dunian poles are extremely hard on the eyes. Hope my Kerbals have sunglasses. It's actually a good thing I took over when I did. The last couple clicks were a veritable minefield once I hit the frost line. Now I have to actually cross the pole to reach my next objective. . . . How bout timewarp? That's usually a good unsticker of things.

Purchase, actually. We are now the proud owners of 2.25 acres of real land! (Well, actually, the bank is, I suppose, but still... They'll get their money, even if it takes me 30 years! Er, wait..) But they took down the darn sign before I could get a proper picture! I'm going gush here cuz the wife has the whole facebook thing handled, and it's my thread, darnit! THIS was the cause of all the headaches: The Imperium Vogons bank decided to make quite the kerfuffle about this unpermitted freestanding noncomplying secondary dwelling on the back acre despite the fact that it's been there longer than I've been alive (probably, no one could say for sure) and we're just gonna use it as a fancy storage shed. Might be a Kraken underneath there. Haven't checked yet. There certainly is a Creaken, tho. Found a cool safe inside! Nothing very interesting inside, tho. Just an old dog toy and a big magnetic ball bearing. That's mildly interesting, I suppose... Is absolutely storage shed! No dwelling of any kind going on! And I have the papers to prove it! A garage and a barn! 'Scuse me, my 'Murica is showing... 100% Guinea Pig approved! Soooooo.... back on topic... Sorry for the long delay, it's been a perfect storm of delay-causing things. The next chapter is going to long, like very long, like @Ten Key at his best long. 3700 words in and I don't think I've even hit the halfway point, but it wouldn't be right to cut it and break up the emotional momentum. So all that, and now I have to flarping move, too. Only two days in and I already feel like I've been hit by a freight train. Bits hurt that I didn't even know I had. I actually feel about like Val does ATM, which would be helpful, except it's left me nearly zero time for writing. The new place doesn't even have internet or phone service yet, and cell reception is so bad it's like the 1980's, so I couldn't even check up on the forum and have been coming home and basically falling into bed. Then staring at the ceiling wide awake thinking of all the crap I still have to do. Finally having our own house is awesome. Moving sucks. So there will be a new chapter along eventually, my plan to release it for Hallowe'en has been reduced to a bad joke, tho. Paperwork of the Kraken. So much papers, so much.... Yaks might be a bit much but we wanna get goats eventually. That's kinda-sorta like a yak. If you squint & stand upwind.

Er, this probably won't end well... Nope. It didn't. We're going to need another Timmy! Kerman.

Hah! MechJeb 1, Duna 0! To my unending astonishment, and despite the reddish planet's (and @Galileo's ) best efforts, my rover truck successfully navigated just shy of 250km across Duna's surface, from the equator to the frost line, with out falling over, flipping out, or running into any rocks. All while driving in a perfectly straight line under MJ's rover autopilot control. Left it running while I moved some stuff to the new house. Was expecting to come back to a smoldering heap of parts, instead she was merrily chugging along and only 7km from the destination. Details to follow, but I have now acquired both parts (and one Kerbal) I need to return to Kerbin! *record scratch* Er, wait a minute... I was expecting a Mk3 shuttle cockpit, not a science lab! This may complicate things...

Details to follow.... *disapproving Val stare intensifies*

My Kerballing life in a nutshell. But where'd you get that balloon?

Are you running 1.2? From what I've seen, the autostruts seem to have eliminated the need for KJR in the update. Even big stringy things fly solid as rocks. And fall like them too, but that's usually my fault.

Oh, i don't take this save nearly seriously enough to worry about that. I'm just a bit used to Kerbal Construction Time and forgot you loose revert ability when you map-switch. User derp. hmm, maybe I could use it for a long distance rescue or something...

Hey, wait! I'm not done with you yet! Come back here! Heeeeeyyyyyyy!!!!!

Things have a way of breeding when you're not looking. They're fertile like that. Meanwhile, we'll wait.

I launched this into space. Cost a bundle. 'Sposed to go to Duna. Trouble is, it was only supposed to be a test, and wasn't quite ready for prime time. Then I switched to another vessel, now I can't revert. So I'm stuck with it. And it's pretty much useless as it is. Sigh.

Whoops, thanks for the reminder. I just installed SVT for 1.2 and I'd almost forgotten I need to pay attention before I start ramming boulders. Well, so much for having MechJeb make the trek across Duna's South Pole unaided.

This. Mind your P's & Q's and give a look to any local laws regarding the production of minute quantities of MOAR BOOSTERS! Probably perfectly legal unless you're in a big city, but best you find out ahead of time lest we see you in a not-so-flattering evening news report.

This actually makes sense in context: This horrid little thing is my overly complicated solution to returning half a dozen Kerbals and a couple of big parts from the surface of Duna. The catch is, the cockpit & Skipper are what's waiting on the surface. I'll need to bring them together with the rest of it, assemble it with KAS/KIS, then get the whole mess back to Kerbin in one piece. Well, at least the important pieces. Who needs heat shields? I'll just use those big ol' wings to aerobrake down from interplanetary speeds. Nothing could possibly go wrong, right? Actually, initial testing from near-Münar apokee is surprisingly encouraging. Freed of all fuel, the thing actually flies quite nicely, got a little warm on re-entry but not quite toasty. It, erm, actually lands very gently too, around 35m/s. As long as I'm not trying to make a 90 degree bank at the exact same moment.