Captain Tom

This is the third iteration of my Multi-Purpose line of spacecraft, and this is THE most multi-purpose of them all! It is capable of going ANYWHERE in the Kerbol system and is able to return to Kerbin in almost all circumstances! I have used it for almost all of my inter-planetary voyages, and I have used it most recently to do a crew transfer on Ike. This is it decending to the surface of Vall. This is it CRASHED on the surface of Vall. (You can find the full story HERE) Here it is transferring crew on Ike. It Has landing struts on the bottom if a return mission is planned, or alternatively, if you are landing somewhere where the single NERVA will be unable to bring it home, the crew pod can be separated from the drive stage and use its own landing legs and parachutes, Off course this is for more than landing on other bodies, as mentioned it can preform rescues and also act as a fuel tanker, toting fuel long distances to refuel other vessels. It can connect to other things using the single docking port on the top and the large RCS tank. IMPORTANT 1: The core part is the Octo Probe-Core under the docking port. It does NOT start with crew in the capsule. I use the Crew Manifest Plugin to 'Manifest the pod with crew.' 2: When burning out of Kerbin's orbit, the Mainsail will run out of fuel. So what I do is, before the burn, transfer all the fuel from the Interplanetary stage to the Mainsail stage and use it to rapidly escape the gravity of Kerbin, then transfer the fuel back. However this might not be as efficient as using just the NERVA, I am not sure. 3: When detaching the Mainsail stage and preparing to engage the NERVA, you must use the 'right-click' menu on the NERVA and select the 'ACTVATE ENGINE' option, for using the staging key will violently eject the fairing from the engine and potentially break off the landing legs. This is the download link: http://www./?x4x5bczn8a5oewc Finally, ENJOY! -Tom

This is in my opinion, one of the best vessels I have ever made. It is a small One-Kerb rocket which is carried to the edge of space by a disposable jet-stage. It launches just like any other space-plane, then once the engines begin to flame out, the jet stage is shut off and jettisoned. MAKE SURE IT IS SHUT OFF FIRST! The rocket is then engaged and used to increase the apoapsis to orbital altitudes. (I used 70Km for the flight.) It is very likely capable of getting into a full orbit but I just did a half orbit, because I was unsure if i would need the extra fuel in the atmosphere. Because it was a shallow sub-orbital flight I did not have to preform a de-orbit burn. It gently re-entered the atmosphere and glowed a brilliant orange as it passed through the upper atmosphere. Turns out I didn't need the extra fuel and it was perfectly able to glide down to a safe landing. But be careful as if you are not pointed right down the prograde pointer you might flip over if you land slightly off-center. But it landed safely and Tomley Kerman is happy! Action Groups: 1: Toggle Rocket Engine 2: Decouple Carrier-Stage 3: Toggle Carrier-Stage Jets 4: Jettison Front Control Surfaces (Un-needed) Here is the download: http://www./?i223nm4inud5z6o Enjoy the AWESOMENESS!

Here is a link to the thread on my interplanetary ship, the "Black Cat's Luck". It can do a Gilly return mission just fine and has no mods http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/26489-The-Black-Cat-s-Luck And here is a picture of it orbiting Gilly

This is my first ship shared on the spacecraft exchange, so please bear with me After a public outcry at the lack of reusable, interplanetary spacecraft, the Kerbal engineers, with some assistance from Jebidiah himself, got straight down to the business of creating the largest and post unique ship the Space Program had ever seen. After about 25 minutes in construction, they had completed what they believed to be the best ship ever! After the leaders of the program got a look at it, it was immediately awarded it the prestigious prize for "Ship most unlikely to reach orbit". They were about to see that they were wrong... This is it in the VAB. Note that it does NOT have Mechanical Jeb, that is only shown to display it's statistics. Using the most unsafe method of craft delivery it eventually arrived at a stable orbit. Where it remained, doing nothing for several days, until command had the idea of sending the ship to Eve, because, why not! It got to Eve easy enough and preformed a few aerobrakes to save fuel. Gilly was in the ideal spot for a visit, about to pass the decending node, no Kerbal had ever been to Gilly before so the engines were fired again. It took a bit of working to get it into orbit over Gilly but it did, and was moving at a whopping speed of 12 Meters Per-Second!. The ship does not come with it's own landers so Thompbin Kerman stepped out and used his EVA pack to land on Gilly. After discovering that he could take one step and move more than a few meters, he determined that Gilly is silly and proceeded to return to the ship using the EVA pack. There was still more than half of their fuel left so they cruised back to Kerbin and entered orbit at 240 Kilometers. The "Not able to get to orbit" award was then revoked. STATISTICS: Weight at launch: 375 Units Farthest distance traveled: Gilly Return Mission Maximum Crew: Seven Kerbals Number of Parts: 208 at launch, 167 in orbit. Engines: Eight NERVA Rockets for Space Operations, producing 480 Kn of Thrust. This is the link to download the ship. http://www./?ixaokim2f9tljxi Once again, this is my first post to the Spacecraft forums so feel free to give me constructive criticism on what I could do differently.

This is my first ever post on the Forums, so i decided to write about my recent and ill-fated mission to Jool's icy moon Vall. This mission begins like any other. Melmy Kerman and Edwig Kerman are Secured in their Lander Module. Their ship, the 'M.P.S.V 3' launches without a hitch, and the gravity turn begins at 10 KM. They circularize at 110 KM with half of the booster stage's fuel remaining. As always they do not wait until the correct moment to begin their escape burn, and it requires 3 passes of the periapsis in oreder to compensate for the NERVA's lack of power, but they make it to interplanetary space with more than 80% of their fuel remaining. After some calculating it is determined that the ideal joolian injection burn should occur in 104 days time, this will be a long trip. The burn lasts 18 minutes and consumed more than 40% of the fuel, but the two kerbonauts are still confident in their ship's ability to keep them safe. Due to laziness at Mission Control, they will arive at Jool in a polar, retrograde orbit, once they have waited the 200 days for them to enter Jool's SOI. No one really payed attention in training so no one really knows what altitude is the best for a aerobrake at Jool. Eventually 120 KM is chosen and the ship's course is adjusted accordingly. They enter the atmosphere and immediately a red flame engulfs the ship as the enter. After they exit Jool's atmosphere they find out that they have got an encounter with Vall already! However it is polar and retrograde which makes things more challenging. Holy Bio-Propellant Batman! There is less than 20% of their fuel left! That same fuel is supposed to land them on Vall and then return them to Kerbin. The crew decides to take a risk and land on Vall anyway, Mission Control is holding their breath in anticipation... Even with a very light ship, (due to the lack of fuel), the NERVA is unable to slow the ship in time, and they hit an icy slope at 20 Meters-Per-Second. But luckily the ship is undamaged! Unluckily, they have bounced up several meters and are tipping over! The gravity is too strong for the RCS to overcome in time! The ship falls over as the last of the RCS is exhausted. So, to sum up, Melmy and Edwig spent more than 400 days in space, only to end up sideways on a slope more than 50 Million Kilo Meters from home. The crew is fine and so is their capsule, but they aren't going home any time soon. And Melmy had already spent more than 4 years on Eeloo prior to being recovered. The head of the Space Program is planning what will be a rescue mission if it is successful, or the start of a colony on Vall if it fails to lift of from Vall. Thanks for reading my story, keep a look out for how the rescue goes. Thanks to architeuthis for explaining how to insert pictures for me