Speeding Mullet

I had a stab at making the shuttle, but to be honest I'm not even sure if this is what you had in mind. At least it is stable in flight! The Mk1-2 command pod has docking ports and parachutes. It can separate itself from the rest of the craft in an emergency. The service module is also decouple-able and has wings, a service bay and two thuds. A large cargo bay is underneath the CSM which can turn and dock after circularisation. Why you would want to do this I'm not sure... Haven't designed the rocket. This was only for interests sake rather than wanting to take it further. Not sure I'm even on the right track! SM

Sorry for the delay in reviewing this. I've been having a break from reality (holiday). I'm back now and this has given me the perfect 0600 jet lagged and awake chance to review your video and challenge submission with a cup of tea in hand! Great video and nice twist on the challenge using a Buran and STS! The Buran as you've noted is clearly more controllable. I've tried both designs also and found the Buran to be the more forgiving shuttle in virtually every task. I did get a pang of nostalgia of the steam fair when you accelerated the video - the music on orbit sped up reminded me of old steam powered merry-go-rounds! Anyway, with all things said and done you have passed with flying colours, and I cannot like your post more than once, otherwise I would have done Please have your STS Commander - Rank 4 badge and wear with it with much Russia/USA space cooperation pride. Now where is ESA's shuttle?! I'd certainly like to see you develop this shuttle to the challenge requirements and fly a couple of missions. Looks like you have the beginnings of a very capable one boosting an orange tank up already, so I say go for it! Post your results if and when you like, but otherwise thanks for sharing! Hi and sorry for the delay also! In the interests of overcoming my jetlag I'm going to ask you to post some pictures. I have it in my head what your design might look like but in the spirit of adhering to the challenge rules I'd still like to cast my eyes over it. Mostly nothing to do with espionage I promise OK cool this sounds very interesting. Again not espionage related but I would definitely love to see some early stage screenies if you have them? Thanks all, good to be back SM

Yeah the textures aren't great. I'm really hoping for a massive planet overhaul one of these updates! Its not a one way trip, or at least it's not supposed to be. The descent stage is actually 3 tanks - You'll spot 2 FL-T100 tanks on the side of the Rockomax X200-8. The ascent stage is entirely mono fuelled and very very small. when I upload the gallery of the ascent you will not only see if they make it, but also how small the stage is No ISRU for the whole mission this time round. I've played around with it for a bit, but for this one they are carrying (hopefully) all the fuel they need for the entire trip - hence the 4500t launch haha! SM

Yep definitely warm down there, hence the radiator clad space station. While in game this won't help so much in my head they are reflecting the enormous heat and glare of Kerbol back into space. Plus I think the station looks cool. Speaking of space stations it's time to deploy the command module to assemble it. Let's check in and get the latest from my first Moho mission: The Moho orbital station and science lab is now in permanent orbit at 39km and a reasonably high inclination. This will allow future missions to use the station as a base of operations to visit the vast majority of Moho's surface as required. Let's take a peak at the station complete and in orbit. Once i'd assembled everything I took a look at the fuel requirements for the journey home and realised that It's probably going to be cutting it very fine. I didn't (or couldn't) afford to use any more fuel to get the two vessels together again to pick up the remaining crew member before departure, so a decision was made to mate the station back to the main engines before the lander could take the lucky two down to the surface. The command pod is running relatively low on RCS at this point but luckily we get there with some mono remaining for future maneuvers. We've also detached the Ohno Moho lander which is just out of shot here: Ok so we are ready for the big event. The lander is the one thing that I did pay attention to the delta-V requirements of so I hope that I've planned things well. The lander is a relatively simple "Apollo style" tin can, built for two to descend to the surface, stay for a number of days and then return to orbit. It's lower stage is powered by 4 24-77 "Twitch" liquid fuel engines, and the ascent stage is driven into orbit by 4 O-10 "Puff" mono-propellant engines. Let's have a look at the lander mission and see how that went down: OK so not well at all. Firstly the crew missed their target of the large flat bottomed crater, and also ran out of fuel on the descent stage a few hundred meters above the surface, and in a flap had to engage the ascent engines to complete the rest of the descent. The good thing is for the moment they are on the ground, and possibly for the very long term unless they can come up with a plan. I think they fuel load was skimped on in favor of guesstimation rather than calculation and so there's certainly not enough to reach orbit again, but what can be done? In the meantime the crew pose for a photo which will be released to the general public, smiles hiding their abject panic. Next time we will see if the crew can be rescued using only a paper clip and a length of...wait. Of course we can rescue this can't we? Well I already know the result of not having enough fuel (i think) to reach orbit but you'll have to wait for the next update to find out what happens next. It's sure to be a nail biting exercise in crew rescue, and even if they can be rescued then there's still the story of getting home to come. As always comments feedback and conversation much appreciated! SM

Pussy cat

Moho FTW indeed! Well having said that the point of this mission is to win over Moho hopefully so let's check in and see what the progress looks like: First thing I had to do was to make sure that we had the transfer window. Due to the fact that I didn't launch this anywhere near a Moho transfer window it involved asking MJ when the next one was and then scanning forwards two hundred and forty something days in the mission control room to avoid three weeks of time warp below 120km altitude. This went pretty smoothly as you might imagine and we can joint the ship just at the point that the transfer is about to start. To give you an idea of the requirements for the burn we have a 1.621 km/s burn in 4 hours, with a total transit duration of 139 days or just over, which is perfectly acceptable. The one call out I'd like to make at this point is obviously our inclination around Kerbin is not very favorable, but the fact that the ship has such massive power at it's disposal means we can sort that all out in the trans Moho injection burn and save ourselves a heap of time and complications, even if it means it's not the most efficient process. I just hope the Delta-V is enough to make it there and back! Here's the staged burn sequence: Now we have the transfer at "nearly there" stage and realising that it's going to be pretty much impossible to refine this until we are much closer, there's a little bit of housekeeping to do. Namely the return capsule has to undock, and spin 180 degrees to re-dock to the home that will occupy the crew for the next 139 days or so of the journey to Moho: The next 100 some days pass pretty uneventfully as the crew concentrates on relaxing, and keeping up with the daily science and maintenance schedule onboard the ohnomoho. They also wonder why they cannot access the enormous bulk of the space station as even though they have the hitchhiker and science module to roam through there is three of them, and finding privacy and space is pretty hard. The only thing that has to happen now is the critical adjustment burn to refine the periapsis to a reasonable height on Moho. The plan is to skim as close to the planets surface as is safe from interplanetary speed in order to get the most out of the small gravity well that Moho provides. I'll be honest I didn't even expect to get this far in the mission. It seems to have been rather smooth sailing so far and the crew are on course for a very very high speed interception with Moho. Luckily we have use of the last couple of stages of the main injection engine, designed to scrub off speed to a level that will be manageable by the final stage, powered by 8 LV-N "Nerv" Atomic Rocket Motors. This is the stage also that will power the crew (hopefully) back to Kerbin at the end of the mission. I get ahead of myself though let's see how we got on with the orbital insertion burn at Moho: WOW! I literally have no idea how we've managed this. Apart from using MJ to map the transfer burn this mission has been and will continue to be totally hand flown. I'm a little worried that we've not got much fuel left, but the reality is that the only thing that is going (I hope) home is the hitch hiker and the command pod so we will have shed plenty of weight. Here's an on orbit shot to play away this update. I think this is rather a large vessel to have made it to Moho low orbit so I am quite proud! Next I'll have to do some orbital assembly of the space station, so the crew will have some super complex maneuvers to perform, and hopefully they will manage to get down to the surface using the lander! Until next update and as always welcome any comments criticism or other from anyone that is interested in the progress of my first Moho mission! SM

Hi there yes this is the KSC Kraken by the looks of it. It's a well known bug where your vessel collides into the VAB or other building when it's clearly no where near it but has proved a challenge to identify what the actual route cause is. Whether this is repeatable or not in your case the best bet is to upload a full bug report and it will be added to the list of other similar ones. Eventually they will track it down and I know of one mod who will be very pleased when that eventually happens!! I've heard a solution is restarting KSP and loading the quick save, but I've not tested that. I just know it happens all the time with my Buran shuttle. SM

It's definitely a mission report and not a challenge. In fact I very specifically created it in the mission report sub section but for some reason (I'm thinking a similar reason to why quotes from old post appear when I create new posts sometimes) it's posted to the challenge section. Time to report myself to the moderators Edit: 500 POSTS WHOOP! SM

Yep totally stock mission (apart from MJ to handle long burns for me it's totally hand flown). I'm very used to a lot of mods but for 1.05 I'm sticking to stock. Waiting for 1.1 and will probably mod back up again! SM

Ah ha! I thought someone might ask that so thanks for posing the question. I actually tried launching the main payload on it's own and the rocket that I needed to build was considerably smaller to get the payload to space: However when assembling on orbit the whole rocket was found to be rather noodly, so a decision was made to go bold or go home essentially. Aside from this the trans Moho injection and trans Kerbin injection stages make up so much of the weight of the mission that actually it was over all easier (if a little risky to the crew) to launch in one elephantine lump. SM

OHNO IT'S MY FIRST MISSION TO MOHO There comes a time in everyone's KSP career when they consider their first mission to Moho. Extensive forum browsing normally ensues and I certainly partook in much reading of outlandish stories about insane delta-V requirements, but also good solid advice such as perhaps try a flyby first, always a good idea to start small etc. Once I'd read all of the requirements I fully understood what I needed to do and designed a modest mission to Moho, to get my eye in so to speak. This therefore is my "Ohno it's my first mission to Moho" mission report, and with that in mind let's check out the small probe that will make the journey to Moho: If you didn't get it from the picture let me fill you in that this is clearly no small probe. I genuinely started out with the best intentions, but as the wish list for "doing Moho" grew I decided that I required the following to say that I had effectively "done" Moho: 1) Lander: Clearly why bother unless we are actually going for boots on the ground (and returning them safely) Room for 2 Kerbals 24-77 "Twitch" liquid fuel descent stage O-10 "Puff" mono-propellant ascent stage 2) Orbital outpost: If we are going we are going big and I'm pretty confident I don't want to be sending any more than 1 rocket if I don't have to. Room for 24 in emergencies, but otherwise built to handle 6-12 in spacious living conditions Radiator due to proximity to Kerbol Junior and Senior Docking port adapters for full expandability Science module, short and long range communication capability 3) Return vehicle and habitat: Yes, it's a pretty long mission, so the crew needs somewhere to play cards and also to return safely if at all possible. Supports a crew of three with extended living space Also functions as orbital utility vehicle Much ablation - High speed returns If you still don't get a picture of the scale of this absurdity then let's cover off some basic facts on the mission with my mission factoids section: Tall - 50.2 meters to be precise. Not the tallest out there but nearly the height of the VAB and certainly long enough to experience massive noodling Wide - Almost exactly 25 meters each way. It's both long and very chubby Heavy - Four thousand five hundred tonnes, and seven hundred kilos (snacks). the trans Moho injection vehicle and payload alone are over 800 tonnes Computer crushing - 608 parts on the launch pad. Could be worse but it's not friendly. Luckily Gerty 3000 is up to the job Expensive - 1,659,692 things. Now as with many (every) one of my missions, I didn't just start with the perfect rocket (or end with it) and there were many, many, many design iterations that preceded what I thought might actually be able to leave the launch pad without hailing the Kraken or destroying KSC. This resulted in some rather fervent explosions. Some were even eager enough to end my KSP session is a molten pool of memory dribbling from my pc case, but onward I gallivanted through failure after failure secure in the knowledge that the escape tower would hurtle the crew far away from the all consuming rage of nearly twenty stacks of S3 KS-25 "Mammoth" driven fury. Let's have a quick browse through some of the more memorable failures: 1) THE "YEAH, NO MATE" 2) THE "ILLUSIONIST" 3) THE "NOTHING TO SEE HERE, QUITE LITERALLY" Post these brazen and runaway series of successful launches (honestly 3 of nearly 20 shown) I decided that I needed to do a few things. Firstly I needed to completely remove and reroute the fuel lines. Something wasn't flowing correctly and the rocket drifted considerably off course as a result. Secondly I needed to completely re-do all the strutting due to the rocket frequently eating itself on the way to orbit. Lastly I needed to appease the Kraken. Luckily I'd already done this nigh on 20 times already so all I did was cross my fingers and hope to Gene Kerman that everything went smoothly. Let's see if it did with the first launch of the final iteration of the Moho Ohno: Wow so that actually worked, and worked well. A good 4 days of working, reverting, reworking went into making this thing a success. The worrying thing is that while I had total oversight of the Delta-V stats during construction I actually never looked at it. I had no idea this thing would reach orbit, and I still have no idea at all whether it will reach, and or return from Moho. It's going to be a nail biting mission for sure. Follow me over the next few updates to see how the mission goes, and as ever I am open to questions, comments, criticism, or commitment to the KSC asylum for bad mission planners. SM

banned for correctly referring to my avatar as an overused joke

8/10, but I'm pretty sure you are way more famous than I'm giving you credit for.

Thanks for the answer! I would say we are using the good old Cavendish Banana as a standard unit. The Cavendish banana has an average length of 0.1778 Meters, and so 1014249600 Bananas per Fortnight would equate to a current hype train speed of 180333578.88 meters per fortnight, or 149.0853 meters per second. Given @GregroxMun needs to take a red pen to this post and mark it out of 10 valencia oranges I would think he may show next. SM

Banana hazard

Sniped. @GregroxMun how fast is the Hype train going in bananas per fortnight squared currently?

Banned for making me look at Urban Dictionary.

I accidentally boarded Blaine the mono, which platform do I transfer at?

Seriously the amount of times I've blown up something miles away while landing my shuttle! Anyway, this was a great mission and while I cannot update you onto the leaderboard I'm sure FCI will do it when he is back around. I've had a thorough check and unless I'm missing something you are only running info and visual mods, so no complaints here, and happy to award you the Flight Director badge. Wear it with pride, and funk. Nice IVA mate, looking forward to seeing the finished station also! SM

Banned for banning once banned.

Banned for being difficult to think of something to ban you for.

Nice use of Jeb and Vall to extract the module from the payload bay, I didn't think of that. This thread is getting to be a decent compilation of times the bug has struck, semi or fully destroying vehicles, but clearly you landed firmly in one piece despite losing a couple of non critical parts, so pass I say, a clear pass! Have a badge. I loved the STS-3 mission. Did you simulate that explosion on purpose or was that just serendipity? Either way, a cool little story there. I take it from your dialogue in the imgur album you knew that the real rescue would be EVA, but I like the added complexity of assembling the docking tube, and the requirement is absolutely not specific. That looked like a hot re-entry, and love the panic deployment of the solar panels at the end! Have another well earned badge! You clearly have a well developed and capable shuttle there, so it would be superb to see you complete the final space station assembly missions! The Hubble mission and the rescue mission are definitely favorites of mine, but the station building mission is very rewarding. SM

Banned for correcting correctly.

Feel free to revert if you like. It sounds like you've been subject to the KSC Kraken, and if you look back through the thread it was something that my shuttle got hit with a few times (once so bad that only the cockpit managed to land ). However it's a beastly bug and reverting to over the mountains I don't think is going to help you. The bug could have got started far earlier in your mission and no one really knows what causes it or when. Still try - If anything else it will be fun watching more bits fall off and trying to land in one piece! There's a big difference to landing in only a command chair, and having 1 piece eaten by a bug. So considering this, and the fact that I've also had a successful mission passed despite losing a couple of bits to the KSC monster you will be fine, but I won' be able to check out your mission report until I get home as this work computer blocks the gallery. Edit: @robertlong13 I've got home and reviewed your mission. Congratulations that's a clear pass, and another clean run (taking the kraken out of the equation) so I'm pleased to award your STS Commander - Rank 2 badge. Here it is: SM

Oooo-Kay! You should definitely do that, not sure how that would work for the leaderboard though lol. No problems at all! SM