Brotoro

A Second Addendum to my Soviet-style Münar landing mission: I didn't much like the look of my first Soviet LK lander, so I made a new one. The difficult design aspect of the LK is that it must use the same engine for liftoff that it uses for landing, and it must leave an intact undercarriage on the lunar surface after liftoff. My original design used a small decoupler mounted sideways to a cubic octagonal strut as the separation point, since I wanted to have the centerline of the LK clear to mount the engine. But, after I went with an "engine" that consisted of "two combustion chambers" (so that I could accommodate a contingency engine, as the real LK had), I no longer need to keep the centerline clear. My new design uses two 24-7 engines as the primary engine, and two more 24-7 engines as the contingency engine (not normally used). These engines are tilted inward one click (to make up for the built-in outward tilt of these engines), and rotated around to clip into the fuel tank (which the VAB allows you to do with no cheats turned on). It did feel a little 'cheaty' to me, so I did not bury the engines deep into the tank, but had them sticking out as far as possible. Then the rest of the undercarriage structure is built primarily out of cubic octagonal struts, and it is much more compact and looks much closer to the original USSR design. The new design also uses a smaller fuel tank. I designed my original to basically be able to descend and ascend from münar orbit unaided, and I treated the descent help of the Block D stage as an extra (but unnecessary) step required for the re-creation of the L3 mission. But the fun of the Soviet style landing is using the Block D properly as a "crasher stage" to save fuel in the LK. So with the new version of my LK, I use the Block D (which has to be large enough to have already slowed the LK and LOK return ship into lunar orbit) to bring the LK down to under 1000 meters and a few dozen meters per second. Then I drop the Block D and use a relatively small amount of fuel in the LK to finish the landing. Perhaps not the landing technique you'd want to use when bringing a lander into an area where you already have a moon base, but it's fun to do as a change of pace. Below you can see the LK landing a relatively short distance from where the Block D crashed, although there is nothing left of it. Maybe I should include a few parts on it that have high impact tolerance so that there would be cool wreckage to view. Below, the same engine used to land the LK is used for the ascent to münar orbit, with fuel to spare. I did run into something unexpected during the tests: I was under the impression that if you separated a stage from your ship that had liquid engines firing, the liquid engines on the separated part would stop firing...IF the separated part had its own probe core. This sort of behavior happened to me back in version 0.18 when I was first landing rovers using a "sky crane" maneuver. If I had no probe core on the sky crane, its engines would continue to burn after separation; but when I added a probe core to the sky crane, its engines would shut off upon separation. Has this behavior been changed? Apparently...since I have to be careful to cut the thrust before separating the Block D, or it will head off still burning.

Second Addendum I didn't much like the look of my first Soviet LK lander, so I made a new one. The difficult design aspect of the LK is that it must use the same engine for liftoff that it uses for landing, and it must leave an intact undercarriage on the lunar surface after liftoff. My original design used a small decoupler mounted sideways to a cubic octagonal strut as the separation point, since I wanted to have the centerline of the LK clear to mount the engine. But, after I went with an "engine" that consisted of "two combustion chambers" (so that I could accommodate a contingency engine, as the real LK had), I no longer need to keep the centerline clear. My new design uses two 24-7 engines as the primary engine, and two more 24-7 engines as the contingency engine (not normally used). These engines are tilted inward one click (to make up for the built-in outward tilt of these engines), and rotated around to clip into the fuel tank (which the VAB allows you to do with no cheats turned on). It did feel a little 'cheaty' to me, so I did not bury the engines deep into the tank, but had them sticking out as far as possible. Then the rest of the undercarriage structure is built primarily out of cubic octagonal struts, and it is much more compact and looks much closer to the original USSR design. The new design also uses a smaller fuel tank. I designed my original to basically be able to descend and ascend from münar orbit unaided, and I treated the descent help of the Block D stage as an extra (but unnecessary) step required for the re-creation of the L3 mission. But the fun of the Soviet style landing is using the Block D properly as a "crasher stage" to save fuel in the LK. So with the new version of my LK, I use the Block D (which has to be large enough to have already slowed the LK and LOK return ship into lunar orbit) to bring the LK down to under 1000 meters and a few dozen meters per second. Then I drop the Block D and use a relatively small amount of fuel in the LK to finish the landing. Perhaps not the landing technique you'd want to use when bringing a lander into an area where you already have a moon base, but it's fun to do as a change of pace. Below you can see the LK landing a relatively short distance from where the Block D crashed, although there is nothing left of it. Maybe I should include a few parts on it that have high impact tolerance so that there would be cool wreckage to view. Below, the same engine used to land the LK is used for the ascent to münar orbit, with fuel to spare. I did run into something unexpected during the tests: I was under the impression that if you separated a stage from your ship that had liquid engines firing, the liquid engines on the separated part would stop firing...IF the separated part had its own probe core. This sort of behavior happened to me back in version 0.18 when I was first landing rovers using a "sky crane" maneuver. If I had no probe core on the sky crane, its engines would continue to burn after separation; but when I added a probe core to the sky crane, its engines would shut off upon separation. Has this behavior been changed? Apparently...since I have to be careful to cut the thrust before separating the Block D, or it will head off still burning.

Apollo style? I did it Soviet style! <--Link

Today I drove to Vallhenge via rover.

I tweaked the engine ring and replaced all the outer LV-T30 engines with LV-T45 engines...it still lifts OK and gets its payload into a 250 km orbit with the third stage over half full of fuel. In the VAB: In the air (and I smashed up a perfectly good N1 for this picture, I'll have you know): And, since somebody requested the craft file via PM, here it is: http://www.mindspring.com/~sportrocketry/ksp/N1-L3.craft Abort (backspace) - pulls the capsule free. 1 - jettisons the launch escape system (use in a normal launch). 2 - separates the launch escape system and deploys the capsule parachutes (use after reaching max height after an abort).

Note: I added an addendum to the original post to include a flag-planting photo and the images of the launch escape system working.

The positions of my Block A motors could have been tweaked a bit more to get a better circle shape, since it's a bit hexagony at the moment. And it would look better to put the six LV-T45 engines in the center rather than as part of the outer circle...but I needed the LV-T45s to be part of the engine group that burned out last (since the rocket really needed their thrust-vectoring abilities near the end of its burn). A little more fuel in the central tank stack (even as some small radially-attached tanks in the strut gap at the top of the Block A) would do the trick. Or just use all LV-T45 engines in the outer ring...but I think that might not have been quite enough thrust.

Oddly enough, I enjoyed Scott Manley's "Papers Please" video series very much, and the "Gloria to Arstotzka" song was running through my head during much of the building process for this rocket

I've seen some stock-parts N1 designs that looked quite nice, but I was not sure of their payload capabilities...they looked like they were designed with aesthetics in mind, no matter how that would affect their flight characteristics. My goal was to simulate the N1-L3 mission profile, so it was important to me to have the right number of stages with the right number of engines doing the right things. So my design process was top-down. First I needed an LK lander that could carry one kerbal to the surface and back using the same engine, and leave an intact lander base on the surface. Then I needed a three-section LKO that could hold two kerbals in a mostly Soyuz-shaped craft. The size of these two craft dictated the size of the Block D stage...and the mass of all those parts dictated the capacity required of the Block G Kerbin departure stage...and down the line, making sure I had the right arrangement of engines in each stage.

Today a flew a Soviet-style Mün Mission (instead of an Apollo-style mission). Link below. http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/52286

Soviet Style Mün Mission NOTE: Link to my Apollo Style Mün Mission. Lots of people do "Apollo-style" moon missions, so I decided to do a "Soviet-style" moon mission. Welcome to a universe where the Soviets were the first to the Mün and won the space race. We all know the sad story about the KSA's failed attempts to land on the Mün: First there was the heartbreakingly close Kapollo 11 mission where flight controllers waived off the lunar landing after repeated 1202 and 1201 computer alarms. Then Kapollo 12 was struck by lightning during liftoff, lost all power, and the flight was aborted (because the only guy who knew about the SCE switch was home sick that day). And Kapollo 13 experienced an oxygen tank explosion enroute to the Mün, and the crew was almost lost...which lead to a two-year program hiatus as the systems were overhauled, causing the KSA to miss Kennedy Kerman's (sorry about having to make up all the "K" names) deadline to reach the Mün. And then when the Kapollo 14 landing mission had to be scrubbed because the docking latches on the LM failed to catch and it couldn't be pulled out of the S-IVB...well, the Kamericans just threw up their hands in disgust. But this delay was just what the peoples of the glorious KSSR needed to complete work on their giant N1 launch vehicle and get it ready for a mission to the Mün! Below, the marvel of socialist engineering: The mighty N1 rocket! (This rocket was built stock in KSP version 0.21.1. It is an N1 "work-alike," built to function like the real N1-L3 vehicle, but not necessarily LOOK like it, since there is only so much you can accomplish with looks when using stock parts.) Below: Liftoff of the N1 with Leonov Kerman and Popovich Kerman on board -- brave comrades! The Block A first stage has 30 engines firing, yet the beast of a rocket lumbers slowly into the sky. (I used LV-T30 engines, but I included six LV-T45 thrust-vectoring engines in the mix because I was having trouble controlling the ship, even with lots of SAS units on it.) (It would have helped to add fins, but the N1 doesn't have any. Although I did include drag-stabilizer plates. The launch escape system on top is fully functional and can pull the capsule to safety...as I found on on a test flight where the game decided to control the ship orientation from...well, I don't know...some random part, I guess, since the rocket veered over and headed for the horizon.) A view from under the ascending N1. The engines are arranged as on the real N1, with 6 clustered in the center and 24 in a ring around the perimeter. No engine fires ensued due to pogo effects. No loose bolts were ingested by oxygen pump turbines. The Block A performed flawlessly, as expected from the handiwork of the heroic Soviet workers! Near the end of the burn of the Block A, the engines were shut down in sequence to keep acceleration within limits... first the center 6 engines, followed by 12 of the engines in the outer ring. When all of the Block A fuel was expended, the Block B second stage fired. (Look, boys and girls...this is what an N1 looks like when the second stage gets a chance to fire.) Below: Is this a pretty flower strewn at the feet of our brave cosmonauts by adoring socialist girls? No...this the the bottom view of the Block B engines firing. The engines (eight LV-T45 engines) are arranged in a circular configuration as is right and proper for such things. The launch escape system was jettisoned after the successful ignition of the Block B. Comrades Leonov and Popovich may look concerned, but I assure you they are just singing patriotic socialist anthems of the KSSR. After the Block B expended its fuel, the four engines of the Block V third stage are fired to complete the flight into orbit. The engines are in a four-square arrangement, as is the only way a true socialist would arrange the engines of a Block V stage. (In order to do this, I had to run a girder support down the center to connect to the lower stage.) Below, the Block V performs a circularization burn at 250 km, placing our cosmonauts safely into orbit. (My N1 turned out to be somewhat overpowered, and it required less than a fourth of the Block V's fuel to get the Mün ship into orbit. This was dumped and wasted, since this stage was NOT designed to send the craft on the way to the Mün.) Below, the Block G Kerbin departure stage successfully fires to send our gallant cosmonauts on their way to the Mün. I shall not refer to its single engine as a "poodle," because poodles are a silly affectation of the bourgeois French. (Not my best münar trajectory ever...but it will do.) The Block G has nearly expended its fuel, and it is left behind, just like the capitalist running dogs and their failed economic system. Below, the single engine of the Block D stage slows the ship into orbit behind the Mün (and in darkness, sorry... but there was a nice view of backlit Kerbin after sunrise.). Leonov Kerman transfers over to the single-kerbal Lunniy Korabl (LK) lander via EVA. There was no wasting of mass and requirement for an effete 'transposition and docking' ballet maneuver because no docking tunnels were used in this superior Soviet design. Once Leonov was inside the Lunniy Korabl, the Block D and LK were separated from the Lunniy Orbitalny Korabl (LOK) command ship, where the stoic Popovich Kerman will await Leonov's return. (Yes, yes, I know my LOK is really stubby, but with no proper 2-kerbal capsules to use, I had to go with the 3-kerbal capsule and squeeze the ship lengthwise. There was an annoying engine fairing piece that came off between the separated ships, but I rotated the Block-D/LK around and swatted it out of the way for the second picture below.) One of the hallmarks of the Soviet-style lunar landing mission is the use of the Block D (which still had fuel left in it after slowing the moonship into orbit) as a "crasher" stage to power the initial descent of the LK to the surface. The legs of the LK have been deployed below as well. I'm not sure how far the Block D was supposed to take the LK down toward the surface, but I cut it loose at around 2,500 meters, the started blasting with the LK's engines to complete the slowing. Sure, this saves fuel in the LK, but one must be sure to burn off enough of the LK's fuel to make it light enough for its small engines to slow it up. (The Block E propulsion system of the Lunniy Korabl was used for both landing and liftoff of the LK, unlike the NASA Lunar Module that has separate descent and ascent engines. But the Block E also has a backup engine that can be used for lunar liftoff if the main engine fails to restart. I'm not sure how these engines were arranged, but since the Soviets were in the habit of calling collections of multiple combustion chambers fed by a common propellant supply system as one engine, I will do that here and point out that two of the three Rockomax 48-7S engines you see on the bottom of my LK are, in fact, one engine -- the primary Block E engine. The single 48-7S in the center represents the backup engine, and was not used on this flight...but I did check to be sure that it can lift the LK back into orbit by itself.) Below, Leonov sets the LK down gently onto the münar surface. A glorious day for all socialist peoples on Kerbin!! Leonov Kerman, the pride of Soviet manhood, becomes the first kerbal to set foot upon the Mün. Wave the red flags, boys and girls, because in the excitement of doing the mission.....I forgot to plant a flag. Gah. Those things sticking out of the sides of the LK are high gain antennas for beaming television signals back to the beaming communist leaders on Kerbin. He may have forgotten the flag, but Leonov does notice an object on the surface not too far away. So close! His piloting was exceptional! Leonov bounds on over to check out the Luna 9 probe, the first probe somewhat-soft-landed on the surface of the Mün, before the KSA and their silly Surveyors. Below, Leonov climbs back into the LK. Hopefully he will not get in trouble for having forgotten to plant the flag. He was probably distracted by worrying whether or not he'd have to let most of the air out of his suit before he could squeeze back inside the hatch. Another hallmark of the Soviet-style moon mission (and the one that gave me the most design trouble), was that the LK uses the same engine for liftoff as it used for landing...but also leaves the bottom of the LK on the surface after it serves as launch platform. Below, liftoff from the Mün... ...and the lower parts of the LK left behind to stand vigil (along with Luna 9) on the münar surface. As Leonov boosts toward orbit, he catches a glimpse of an odd...well, it almost looks like some kind of memorial. But that makes no sense. Probably best if he doesn't report this. The LK had plenty of fuel (due to using the Block D crasher stage for much of the descent burn), so I used the LK to do the rendezvous maneuvers to get back to the LOK. I did use the Lunniy Orbitalny Korabl (LOK) to do the final docking maneuver because it has RCS (which I left off of the LK to save weight, since even a roundified monopropellant tank had way more propellant than was needed, and was too heavy). Below, Leonov transfers back to the LOK via EVA. I don't see his bag of rocks, but I'm sure he must have it with him. The LOK, basically a Soyuz varient, performs the burn to send our brave cosmonauts back to Kerbin using its Block I engine. Which, I guess, really should have two thrust chambers. Sorry. You'll notice that the LOK does not use solar panels like some other Soyuz variants...it's supposed to be powered by fuel cells. (Mine was powered by a couple RTGs clipped inside the SAS unit.) As the LOK approaches Kerbin, the orbital module is separated, and then the Equipment Module is separated. Re-entry near the KSC... ...and the parachutes are out. Fear not, Leonov and Popovich...that explosion you hear is just the Equipment Module hitting the ground. With the parachutes fully deployed, the capsule descends gently onto the steppes west of KSC, with a Red Mün hanging in the background. Our heroes, Leonov and Popovich! Wait...maybe that's Leonov on the right. No matter...Cue the national anthem of the glorious KSSR! Addendum: Ah! I apparently was mistaken about Leonov Kerman not planting a flag on the Mün, because the KSSR officials have released the photo below of Leonov with the flag on the surface. And they said that he later moved it to a safe distance away from the LK before liftoff so it wouldn't get blown over by the exhaust, because that would be just a silly thing to let happen. Any suggestions that this photo was taken later in a Soviet movie studio will be treated as the scurrilous lie that it is (probably the result of evil KSA propaganda). Also, released by the evil propaganda machine of the KSA are the photos below supposedly showing an abort that occurred when a KSSR N1 malfunctioned on launch. Obviously this could have never happened. If the KSA spent as much time working on rockets as they obviously spend mucking about in Photoshop, they might have had a chance of getting to the Mün first. (Lately I've been having a problem in KSP where the game will seemingly set some random part of the ship as the "control from" point...and the navball ends up oriented at some weird angle, and I can't even figure out which part of the ship it's using as the reference point. So I have to keep resetting the control point before launch to get my navball back on kilter. Or, if I'm using MechJeb, as I was for this N1-L3 test launch, MechJeb will blithely carry on and arc the rocket over to crash. Am I the only one this happens to?) Below: The crew capsule successfully pulled away from the errant N1. Supposedly. The chutes deploy and the capsule descends safely as the N1 smashes to pieces on the seashore, with pieces flying off into the sea as well. As if such a thing could ever happen..

Amazing! I'd say amazing luck, but you put the effort into checking out all the peaks, so it wasn't a matter of pure luck.

I thought about that, but I rejected the idea because it would make the station unbalanced and get in the way of other things out there. But your comment made me think about it again... and, if I put the triple-adapter on the BOTTOM of the station (using the upgrade adapter), it would be symmetrical and out of the way. So I will take your suggestion, thanks.

Apollo Again: Apollo Style Mün Mission NOTE: Link to my SOVIET STYLE Mün Mission. I built an Apollo-Saturn V "workalike" from stock parts. It wasn't meant to LOOK a lot like a Saturn V, since there's only so much you can do with stock parts...I was more interested in the functionality. I did use some clipping to construct the lunar module. Too bad the launch tower is gone...it would make the liftoff look more Apollo-ish. Below is the liftoff of the Pseudo Saturn V on its five mighty "F-1" Mainsail engines. The new SAS system of version 0.21 held the rocket steady without the Mainsails trying to shake it apart. There is no asparagus or any other vegetable kind of staging here...just straight-up three serial stages like the original. Below, the "S-IC" first stage has expended its fuel and is separated. The five "J-2" Skipper engines of the "S-II" second stage fire up to continue pushing the stack toward orbit. Having passed the most dangerous phase of the launch, the Launch Escape System (the Escape Tower) is jettisoned. The second stage possibly had enough fuel to put the rest of the rocket into orbit, but that's not how an Apollo-Saturn V does it, so I jettisoned the second stage and fired up the "S-IVB" third stage to complete the push to Kerbin orbit on its single "J-2" Skippper engine. Once in space, the ship makes a few orbits while all systems are checked out for the trip to the moon. In my case, I let it orbit a while so the Mün would be in a better position in its orbit for nice lighting. Below is the trajectory I plotted. Just like the Apollo 11 trajectory, this one will place the spacecraft into a retrograde orbit around the moon at about 100 km. Note that I tweaked the path so that it was a "free-return" trajectory...which means that if no burn is made to stop the spacecraft in munar orbit, it will automatically swing around the Mün in a figure-8 path, and then return to Kerbin entering its atmosphere at an altitude of 24 km to assure the capsule can return home in case of engine failure. The J-2 Skipper restarts to send the Apollo on its way to the Mün. This is the "Trans-Münar Injection" maneuver. Once the ship is on course for the Mün, next comes the "Transposition And Docking" maneuver. Below, the S-IVB, lunar module (henceforward the "LM" or "Eagle"), and the Command/Service Module ("CSM" or "Columbia") are still in their original order. The TD-18 double-sided stack separator between the LM and the CSM is fired to separate the craft. The CSM pulls forward on RCS power. In the actual Apollo, the fairing around the LM separated into four pieces and flew off to the sides. In my case, that annoying piece of debris is in the way...so I terminated its flight to remove it. The CSM halts, then turns around 180 degrees using its RCS. Then the CSM moves back toward the LM to dock. The LM is separated from the third stage, and the CSM pulls it away using RCS. The CSM and LM traveled to the moon oriented at right angles to the sunlight, and rotating slowly (slower than shown below). This "barbecue mode" was used to ensure even heating of the spacecraft by the sunlight. The SM's high gain antenna has also been deployed. The S-IVB stage of Apollo 11 was fired again by remote control, placing the stage into solar orbit. (The stages of later Apollo missions were maneuvered to hit the Moon to provide seismic signals for the seismometers left behind by earlier Apollo missions). I aimed the third stage aside a little, then boosted it out into orbit around Kerbol. Around the backside of the Mün, the Poodle engine of the Service Propulsion System was fired to slow the spacecraft into orbit around the Mün...the "Münar Orbit Insertion" maneuver. Once in münar orbit, Jebediah and Bill transfer over to the Eagle to check out its systems and prepare to for landing. Apollo astronauts transferred between the CM and LM via a tunnel...but my kerbals had to transfer via EVA. Below, the Eagle separates from Columbia to start its trip down to the Mün. First a small plane-change maneuver (the target landing site is a little north of the equator), and then a deorbit burn to get the Eagle headed down to the surface. The trajectory image shows the path of the Eagle into the target area (still a bit long), which I would call the "Sea of Tranquility" were it not covered with craters. I'm aiming for the location on the Mün with the same coordinates as Apollo 11's landing site onour Moon. Below, the Eagle descends vertically for the final descent phase before touchdown. The descent stage of my LM used and LV-909 engine and had four fuel/oxidizer tanks in the same kind of cruciform arrangement used in the real Apollo LM. The gaps between the tanks are walled off with 1x1 structural plates to give the descent stage to overall octagonal shape of the Apollo LM descent stage. My LM landed with a bit less than 1/3 of its fuel left. I landed it in the middle of one of the new craters added in version 0.21. Below, Jebediah gets out and climbs down the ladder. The scene has crappy backlighting just like the real thing. Also for traditional reasons, Jeb will muff his line as he steps onto the münarsurface. Bill comes down to join Jeb on the surface. They plant a rather smart looking flag in spiffy red, white, and blue colors that the art department people assured them would look fabulous on the Mün, even though it doesn't represent any country on Kerbin. I spotted the memorial as I was coming in for the landing. It was 2 km from my landing site, out between the crater I landed in and another crater. Jeb flew over using his rocket pack and looked it over. The second image shows a map view of where the Eagle landed. After they were done playing around on the surface, Bill and Jeb got back on board the LM and prepared the Eagle ascent stage for liftoff. My LM ascent stage uses an LV-909 engine that is mostly clipped into the empty center of a large ASAS module that sits under the two-kerbal lander can. The two fuel/oxidizer tanks for the ascent stage are located either side of the cabin (just as on the real LM), with four RCS tanks on there for good measure. The "windows" one either side of the hatch are made from solar panels. The "high gain" and "radar" antennas are made from cubic struts, OKTO2 probe bodies, and unextended omni antennas. There is an assortment of other omni antennas mounted around the exterior of the crew cabin in traditional locations. In the final frames of the liftoff sequence, you can see the Armstrong memorial on the surface. The second image below shows a view of the underside of my ascent stage, if you are interested. I turned over fairly quickly after liftoff because that's thebest thing to do an an airless body. Left behind on the Mün is the descent stage and flag (which happily did not fall over int he ascent stage's engine blast). I will leave them there as my own memorial to Neil and Buzz inversion 0.21. Once in orbit, I used the Eagle to perform the rendezvous maneuvers to return to the Columbia. Below, we see the backlit Eagle approaching the backlit Columbia, with Kerbin very close toKerbol in the background. Below is the "Lunar Orbit Rendezvous" that is the hallmark of an "Apollo-style" mission. I used the Columbia as the active ship in the docking. Once docked, Bill and Jeb EVA'd back overto Columbia. The Eagle ascent stage was then jettisoned and left in münar orbit. I will crash it into the Mün later (this was the fate of the Apollo 11 Eagle as well, because our Moon has mascons that perturb orbits around our Moon, and craft will eventually end up impacting the surface). Around the backside of the Mün, Columbia's engine is again fired to send the ship on a return trajectory to kerbin (this is the "Trans-Kerbin Injection" burn). The trajectory was chosen to put the ship on course to pass within Kerbin's atmosphere at an altitude of 22 km so that it would land on Kerbin. Back to Kerbin in barbecue mode. I was going to end up coming down on land, so I did a late course change to give a water landing, since that's what Apollo's do. Below, the Command Module has separated from the Service Module. You can see where I clipped the four RCS tanks inside the empty center of the decoupler. Reentry fire! Fairly impressive because of the münar-return trajectory...and because I made it a steep entry when I changed to a ocean landing target. Three good main parachutes makes for a happy crew. Splashdown in the oceanwas perfect. There you go! My Apollo re-creation in KSP version 0.21.

This is a far cry from my definition of "breakeven."

Those each got launched along with a lander pod that supplied the kerbals. I was testing these out as possible low-weight rescue craft to attach to the side of a station or whatever...so they wouldn't start out with kerbals in them in normal use.

You can send up a rescue ship and rendezvous, then just EVA the guys over. No port needed.

Why would one think kerbals don't eat? My kerbals eat. They eat a lot. They enjoy eating. They love their snacks. They're practically hobbits.

My long-time answer has been: overpopulation. All our problems would be reduced proportionally if there were fewer people.

Excellent thread! Have some kerbal snacks.

I was playing with making lightweight reentry vehicles a while back. That was fun. This first one seemed too likely to scorch your helmet: So this one has a bit more protection: But for only a little more weight, you can bring along a friend:

I don't see a face on Pol, but I once saw an image of Pol on a piece of toast.

Long-term Laythe - Part 16 Vall Venture - Part 3 Time to get all the new equipment landed on Vall and Laythe, or otherwise positioned where it's needed. I've been looking forward to breaking apart the lag-beast at Vall, so let's start there. The three Tugs have a little under 47% propellant remaining in their main tanks, so almost all of that propellant was removed from the right Tug (in the picture below) and moved it to the Tug of the main Vall ship (on the left). The right-Tug retained enough fuel to return to Kerbin. A little extra fuel from the middle-Tug, and the main ship was 100% full. The double Fido rover payload was separated, and then the middle Tug was separated. Emilynn Kerman then moved the main ship off to the side, and then the separated middle-Tug docked to the rovers. The rovers were then sent off into a slightly lower orbit (by about 3 km) to get them out of Lag City. Happily, things got much nicer after that -- those rovers seem to be the major cause of the lag with this ship. The next step, below, was to move the unoccupied Lander over to dock to the top of the main Vall ship (which is now on the right side, just to confuse the innocent). You know...I really love Romfarer's Lazor docking camera mod. After the Lander was docked to the top of the main ship, the main ship and its fully-fueled Tug were separated from the triple-tug adapter, and the remaining Tug attached to the adapter dragged it off tot he side. Then the main Vall ship was docked back to its Tug. Most of this docking ballet was easy because the ship parts were just kept aligned to North, and it was very easy to slide parts back together. Below, Jool comes over the horizon to greet the completed Vall Station. It has the Tug that will eventually return Emilynn and Hellou back to Kerbin. It also has the main Habitat, which will serve as living quarters for the return to Kerbin, but also is a fully capable emergency lander that could go down to Vall and back if needed -- or it could even land on Laythe, since it has some parachutes attached -- and it also has two single capsules with retro packs that could be used to land on Laythe (I love having lots of options in case of emergencies). And on top is the Vall Lander. This Lander doesn't drop any tanks, so it can be used to go down to Vall and back multiple times if it's refueled. That is, in fact, the plan: Emilynn and Hellou will explore from two different widely-spaced locations on Vall as part of their mission; and that's also why they brought two rovers. The last Tug attached to the triple-tug adapter was shifted to the middle docking port so that it could push the adapter into a higher orbit where it will be left behind. I don't plan to use it, but I decided to keep it where it might be handy if needed. Its three tanks are empty. I also took the time to put the remaining three comsats into high circular orbits where they could join the first one that was already there. These were still in the elliptical orbit that the Vall ship first came in on, and I just waited until one of the comsats reached apopasis at a time when the already-placed consats were not nearby, then did a circularization burn for that comsat. Time to start the Vall surface exploration mission! Vall Fido 1 with its lander stage on top was popped off of the stack, ready to make its descent to the surface. The other rover will stay with the Tug, which has a fair amount of fuel, so it could potentially be used to do a large plane-shift maneuver and drop the second Fido anywhere on Vall if Emilynn and Hellou crash their first rover and need an emergency replacement. But the second rover will hopefully not be needed for this...in which case it will be used later for a second exploration location on Vall. Two LV-909 engines will take care of the deorbiting and landing of the Fido 1 rover. It is being targeted a couple degrees south of the equator to the northern edge of a large basin. Below, the Vall Fido 1 descends to the airless surface of Vall. The landing location of the rover was on a long 12° slope, which was more of an incline than desired for setting up base operations, so the Fido drove down the slope, keeping its speed to less than 10 m/s because it was still carrying its lander stage on top. It eventually found a less-steep location to the south, and parked there to act as landing target for the Vall Lander with our intrepid crew on board. Below, Emilynn transfers over to the lander via EVA. Really, with all these hatches on all these docking ports and other parts, why hasn't Squad implemented internal transfer between docked modules yet? OK...Emilynn would probably use the transfer as an excuse to do an EVA, anyway...but I'm sure Hellou would prefer the docking tunnels. With Emilynn in the lander can, and Hellou in the (Hitchhiker) habitat module, the Vall Lander separated from Vall Station and headed for the surface. The lander has six of the small Rockomax 48-7S engines on the bottom of its six FL-T400 tanks. This should be plenty of fuel to land on Vall and return to the station in equatorial orbit later. In the right half of the picture, we see the lander with antennas and landing legs deployed, dropping toward the surface. Hellou: "Vall Lander calling Laythe Base." Kurt: "This is Laythe Base. Kurt here. I read you loud and clear." Hellou: "Hi, Kurt. We are descending to Vall. Retro burn went as planned." Kurt: "OK. We're monitoring. Is all going well?" Emilynn: "Oh, hell yes, Jaymak! The ship is handling like a dream. It might be nice if it had some more powerful motors than these little 7S toys, but I'll avoid trying to do any last-second kamikaze burns." Kurt: "Roger, Hawk. Put her down gently." Emilynn: "No worries! Time for the big braking burn. Talk to you later!" Below, the Lander slows using the very efficient, if not overly powerful, 48-7S engines... ...and touches down gently 2.3 kilometers from the Fido rover. Emilynn: "And we are DOWN! Attitude stable. Engine Arm circuit OFF. Fuel level at 44.8%. Greetings from Eve Basin, boys! Kerbals have returned to Vall!" Kurt: "Roger, Hawk. We copy you down. Eve Basin?" Hellou: "Yes. We are naming this basin after Eve, the goddess of love, the color purple, and telling male kerbals they are wrong." Kurt: "I'm sure the boys at KSC will love the name." Emilynn: "You're probably wrong about that, Jaymak. OK, I'm going to take care of wrangling that Fido over here, then maybe we'll go out for a little walk later. Can you check the video relay links back to KSC for me, Hellou?" Hellou: "Already on it, Emi. We want to look good for the primetime news." Below, the landing site of the Vall Lander, seen in the center of the picture, at 2° 23.7' South, 141° 20.5' East, at an elevation of 749 meters. The probe icon off to the right is the science package left behind where Bill Kerman landed the Vall Lewis Lander to become the first kerbal on Vall almost 12 years earlier. The probe icon near the bottom-left is where Bob Kerman left a science package by Vallhenge on that same expedition. Emilynn and Hellou's landing location was chosen because they intend to do an epic rover journey to Vallhenge, and it looks like there is a navigable route to get there. Emilynn remotely guided the Fido rover over to the Vall Lander, then separated the lander stage from the top of the Fido and hopped it to a landing a short distance away. Then Emilynn fired the two little decouplers, and the two engine pods separated from the lander stage. You may have noticed the command seats on top of those engine pods. During my "engineering simulations" when designing the Vall Fido lander stage, I always had those engine pod tanks end up over half full of fuel (because it's always nice to have a little extra fuel). So I figured with the added command seats and the decoupler mechanism, I now have two emergency return-to-orbit pods that give our intrepid explorers another option for getting off Vall in case something went wrong with their Lander (perhaps during landing). Anyway...waste not, want not. Be prepared. And other clichés. Somewhat disconcertingly, when I switched away to some other location (taking care of a different ship) and returned my focus to the landing site, the collection of empty fuel tanks exploded a little ways into the sky and fell back. But nothing important was damaged. In time for the primetime news hour back at KSC, our heroines disembark for their first EVA on Vall. Below we see Emilynn about to step onto the surface. Emilynn: "Greetings to everyone back home on Kerbin! That was a heck of a fun landing! Wish you all were here!" Hellou: "Nice words, Emi. Thanks for using 'heck'." Emilynn: "Hey, I said you could be first out if the words were important. Come on out, Chickadee... the water's fine. Hard as a rock, in fact." Hellou: "OK, I'm opening the hatch now." You'll notice in the image above that there are two lights angled inward on either side of the hatch to the lander can. This is because I found out during engineering testing that a single light located above the hatch (which seemed like a good idea) causes the kerbals to bump their heads upon exiting the hatch and getting rather violently thrown to the ground. Which never looks good on world-wide television. Unfortunately for the boys on Laythe, their new Base 2 has exactly that kind of arrangement. Very embarrassing. And I believe I've had this happen in the past on a ship in orbit around Kerbin...and the kick from the bumping the light caused the kerbals to go sailing off a considerable distance from the ship when they went out for EVA. So heed well my warning. Below, Hellou joins Emilynn on the surface. Hellou: "I'm on the surface. Hello to everybody on Kerbin! The view is beautiful! I'm going to take some contingency samples of the surface material now." Emilynn: "Looks like dirty ice to me." Hellou: "Yes, Emi. I'll handle the geological reports." Below, with the video transmission back to Kerbin completed, Emilynn and Hellou watch Kerbol set behind the mountains. Aldner: "Laythe Base calling Vall Lander. Aldner Kerman calling Vall Lander." Emilynn: "Hi there, Buzz! What's up?" Aldner: "We watched your show. Great work. I notice you didn't plant a flag." Emilynn: "Ah, you noticed that, did you? Planting flags is under Hellou's department. I handle the piloting, half the rover driving, and the repair of equipment and wheels. Hellou handles flags, the other half of the rover driving, science, and explosives." Hellou: "Umm...I forgot to bring out the flag." Aldner: "Wait...explosives? Why explosives? Is this some geology thing?" Hellou: "No. Well, I have some small charges for that as well. But the explosives are mainly for blasting a shelter into the ice if we need to hide from any radiation storms. I can blast us a nice bunker in 20 minutes flat...but I can do a much better job if I have longer. You see, we aren't lucky like you boys on Laythe with your nice atmosphere to hide under. If there's a kerbol-flare and Jool's radiation belts act up, all we have around us is vacuum." Aldner: "I thought Jools magnetic field would protect us from any kerbol-flares." Hellou: "Sure, it will deflect a lot of it. You wouldn't get blasted directly like you would if your ship was out between the planets. But a lot of those high energy particles will work their way in to add to Jool's radiation belts. And if the kerbol-flare is accompanied by a strong coronal mass ejection, it would compress Jool's magnetic field and the radiation belt intensity could spike by a few orders of magnitude. Best to be under several meters of ice if that happens." Emilynn: "My little Chickadee sure does that geek-speak real well. And it was a lot of fun watching her blast holes in the ice cap back on Kerbin for practice! Listen, Buzz, we're going to pack it in for the night. We have to check out the rover tomorrow and get ready for our big drive. We'll talk to you later." And so our heroines retired for the night in their comfy habitat module...where the bunks are located down low so the fuel remaining in the surrounding tanks acts as additional radiation shielding. Emilynn's Dream NOTE: The sequence below DID NOT HAPPEN. This is only one of Emilynn's dreams. Below, we see the Emilynn dreaming that she's out inspecting one of the engine pods from the Fido's lander stage. It only makes sense to check out the command seat to see if it's comfortable. Yes. Very comfy. Hmmm... the fuel tank is over half full. "Yeeeeeee-HA! Now that's a ship with decent thrust!" "And enough fuel to make it all the way to rendezvous with Vall Station! Hahahahahaha! That's fine! Fine! F-nine!" Hellou: "Umm...Emi?" Emilynn: "Zzz..Huh? Wassup?" Hellou: "Are you OK? You were making funny noises in your sleep." Emilynn: "Oh, sorry. Just having a little dream. Hmmm...I wonder how far I could fly one and land back on the surface?" Hellou: "What?" Emilyn: "Huh? Oh, nothing. Go back to sleep." Meanwhile, back at Laythe... Orbiting Laythe, the big triple-tug BirdDog transport was ready to be disassembled. It was still in its eccentric orbit, and I decided to leave it there until after disassembly in order to save fuel (rather than drop the ship to a low circulr orbit first -- the BirdDogs and GasStations would come in a little hotter this way, but they each had enough fuel to deorbit from there). First off was the BirdDog 3, which would be remotely piloted down by Nelemy. Below, the BirdDog fires its retro pack. I have a probe core between the retro pack tanks and the top docking port to give me a handy place to control the ship from during retro burn. The standard entry profile for landing at Fido Bay on Dansen island is shown: a small plane shift is required, and the trajectory is targeted to halfway between Dansen island and the tiny Mariliza island. Nelemy orients the BirdDog 3 for entry and the entry plasma flames begin to appear. Aldner: "Yo, Little Buddy...you still have the retro pack attached." Nelemy: "Huh? Oh! Yeah...hold on, Dude... OK...it's decoupled now!" Kurt: (at the hatch) "Wow...Great entry flames. Hey, you got nice Mach effects there for a couple seconds. Aldner: "It's through entry. Remember to jettison the wheel heat shields." Because of the lift, the BirdDog overshot the Fido Bay area, and Nelemy circled it back around, managing to pitch up violently a couple times...but the plane recovered quickly. But that did place the plane lower than expected. Rather than burn lots of jet fuel, Nelemy set the plane down about 5 km east of the base on steeper terrain than usual. Then Nelemy raised the nose gear to drop the rover wheels to the ground, and drove the plane over to the new base. Nelemy: "Allright, Dudes! Down and safe." Thompbles: "Try not to run it into the base or rover when you park it." Nelemy: "No problemo, Captain Thombples, Dude. Wheels stopped. OK, I'll go unload all the supply boxes from the cockpit!" Kurt: "Just don't eat all the new snacks, OK?" Then it was Kurt's turn at the remote-control panel. BirdDog 4 was separated from the big ship and Kurt fired the retros for a standard entry. Below, the retro pack drifts away from the BirdDog... and then the intense entry flames of the steep entry, and then Kurt popped off the wheel heat shields over Fido Bay. I've never seen these shields survive imapact... maybe they despawn first. Kurt made a more liesurely turn to bring the BirdDog back around to the base area, then landed it gently on the flats a little over a kilometer from the old base. Then he remotely drove it over to the new base in rover mode. Kurt: "BirdDog 4 is parked and powered down. I'll go unload the supplies from the cockpit." Thompbles: "It looks like Nelemy is alreay over there pulling out the boxes." Aldner: "Guys, we have quite a nice little air wing here." Kurt: "The famous Laythe Air Force!" Thompbles: "And now that we have several operational planes with lots of rescue options, you guys can finish off the island surveys." Next to be deorbited was the Double GasStation. This was separated from the big ship, and its twelve 24-77 engines were fired to send the station on its way down to the Fido Bay area. Below: the entry flames. Then it was a matter of waiting for the right moment to deploy the twelve parachutes. I was trying to land it by the previous GasStations, but it went a little long and actually ended up touching down closer to the new base (which you can see off in the distance wih the Laythe Air Force. The Big Question, of course, was "will the BirdDogs be able to dock to either of the two refueling booms on this ship?" ...since it would be annoying to have all that jet fuel unavailable. So Aldner drove his BirdDog on over and tried it out. The boom port looked to be a bit high... but with careful placement of the BirdDog, the ports clicked together after the nose gear was lowered to raise the front of the plane. Excellent! Up in orbit, GasStation 4 was separated from the increasingly-inappropriayely-named Big Ship. The gas station was targeted to Aldner Island to serve as a refuling base for the exploration of the remaining islands in the southeast section of the Big Ass Impact Feature on the far side of Laythe. Below, we see the six 24-77 engines deorbiting the station, and then see it passing over Bsalis Island on its way to the southeast corner of Aldner Island. The southeast corner of Aldner Island has a long, sloping landing area located at Laythe's equator, so it's a nice place for a reconnaissance base. GasStation 4 ended up at a 6° tilt. GasStation 5 is being left in the eccentric orbit so that it can be landed at some future time at a place where it will be needed. By keeping it in the high eccentric orbit, it will be easier to easily land it at a high latitude, if desired. Below, the GasStation and Tug are separated from the triple-adapter, which the other tugs pull out of the way, and then the Tug docks to the GasStation. The main tanks of these tugs all all still pretty full. As you may recall, a secondary Base + Fido rover payload came into the Jool system and was parked in Laythe orbit waiting for a decision about where to put it. I was originally thinking of putting it on Aldner Island, but the payload includes a rover, and Aldner Island (although nicely placed at the equator for a fine base location) is really not a very large island, and I thought the rover could be put to better use exploring a bigger island. So I decided to put this Base/rover combo onto the high basin area on Fredoly Island (the large island to the southwest of Dansen Island). It has a nice wide basin, easy for landing planes, and is located far from the oceans, so no danger of tsunamis. But it is located at over 13 degrees South latitude, so first I had to use the Tug (the recycled/upgraded Tug L5) to shift the orbital plane to reach 12 degrees South...and the Base's engines could handle it from there. Then it was just a matter of waiting for the right time when Fredoly Island would be lining up under the orbit, and the payload was separated from the Tug and deorbited with its four 24-77 engines. Below, we see the retro burn and then we see the payload heading in toward Fredoly. The payload came in from a relatively high elliptical orbit (I left it there so the plane change maneuver would take less fuel), so the entry flames were strong (they are just getting started below), and I popped out the drogue chutes as soon as possible after the plasma dissippated to slow down the ship fast. The heat shield was separated after the drogues deployed. I also got the main chutes out in reefed condition right after dropping the heat shield. Below we see the base/rover stack descending vertically under the fully-opened drogue chutes and the reefed main chutes. The landing legs of the base have also been deployed. Since the base was all set to land, I separated the rover at a couple thousand feet and let it freefall a bit to get it clear of the base (this whole operation has been controlled from the probe core on the top of the Fido rover), and then deployed the six parachutes on the Fido. You can see the Fido hanging from its fully-deployed parachutes with the base high above under its fully deployed chutes. Below, the Fido toucheed down, and I immediately ran it off to the side to get out from under the base, which we see descending from the Fido's viewpoint. The base landed on a slight slope, bounced a bit, and did a heart-stopping partial pirouette around on one leg before settling into place. Whew. The base landed a couple kilometers short of my intended target in the flat bottom of the sandy basin, but it's not tilted too badly. Now the base (Laythe Base 3) and Fido will sit and wait for me to assign a kerbal or two to use it as an exploration camp. Last came the drudgery of handling the Tugs. A thankless job, but one that had to be done. So Thompbles probably had to take care of it. There was stll a lot of fuel left in the Tugs from the BirdDog ship, but those Tugs only had Senior docking ports, and Laythe Space Station has no Senior docking ports (having been sent out before they were invented). BUT, the Tug L5 that just dropped off Base 3 has a standard port on the front, and has a Senior port on the rear that it acqired during its refurbishment back at Kerbin before it was sent back to Laythe again with the Base/Fido payload. So, Tug L5 was docked to the Space Station first, then the two Tugs from the BirdDog ship were docked (after coming down from their higher orbit and dropping off the triple-tug-adapter in a slightly higher circular orbit in case I have some use for it in the future. The fuel from all of these Tugs, except what they would need to return to Kerbin, was transferred to the tanks on Laythe Space Station. After the fuel transfer, I separated Tug L5 (WITHOUT its upgrade module that had added the Senior docking port and a bunch of probe cores that were for extra torque...but which are not needed now that the Tug's ASAS unit mysteriously started generating torque). Tug L5 scooted out of the way, and then the remaining Tugs re-docked the upgrade adapter to the Space Station...where it will serve as a Senior docking port for any future operations needing one. The two Tugs then backed off and moved to a higher orbit to await being sent back to Kerbin. I have them docked to each other, rotated at 90 degrees, just so I'll be able to send them back as one ship (much less bother that way). So that's all the new assets at Laythe. The high orbits have the four comsats wandering around; the ellipticl orbit is the Tug with GasStation 5 waiting to be placed somewhere in the future; then comes the ancient Clark lander from the original Laythe expedition; then comes the orbit of the possibly useless triple-tug-adapter; then the low circular orbits close together of the Laythe Space Station and the recently released Tugs awaiting return to Kerbin. And then all the goodies on the surface. It makes me happy to look at all my goodies in place at Laythe. And so ends this installment. Oh, OK... here's a last look at our girls on Laythe readying their rover for their Big Trip. The rover is my tried-and-true eight-wheel design that has done so well for me in the past, but this one has a control cockpit (good visibility, and very high impact tolerance) for the driver, and a single-kerbal lander can that has been refurbished into a living quarters module so that the off-duty kerbal can stretch out, wash up, and ride in comfort. There is also a "Granny Clampett" chair on top of the module that a kerbal could ride on to get a good view of the surrounding terrain as the rover travels along. The Fido has RCS for those unexpected moments when the rover might become airborne over a bump (but I expect the cockpit torque will be sufficient to keep the rover steady in such a case), a couple RTGs for power, and lots of bateries.

Minmus is a Small Kerbol System Body that was captured early on by the planet Kerbin. It is composed primarily of water ice surrounding a core of unknown extremely dense matter. When Minmus was young, and its crust was still in a liquid state and before it lost its thin carbon dioxide atmosphere, a species of microorganism thrived in its oceans. This microorganism secreted copious quantities of lipids, hexahydrothymol, chlorophyll, and resins which remain in the crust of Minmus today. This theory explains why Minmus can exist as close as it does to Kerbol: As the ice of Minmus's crust sublimes in the vacuum of space, the resin is left behind and forms a barrier to further sublimation. This theory also explains why the crust of Minmus tastes like mint ice cream, and why it is such a popular destination for spacefaring kerbals who are running low on snacks.

Well that's just sad. Yuri Gagarin is doing barrel rolls in his grave.