GreenWolf

It's been a while. I return to the mission report subforums once again to finally document what has long been a goal of mine in KSP -- a fully functional Eve colony, done entirely in career mode. However, in light of the recent and final update to the game, I've decided to add a twist -- I'm going to do this almost entirely without mods (at least for now -- things might change as more mods get updated and we start running out of things to do in the stock game). I say "almost entirely without mods" because I will be using some mods, but none that significantly alter gameplay. My rule (for now) on mods is that everything I build and launch must be capable of being loaded and flown in an unmodded save -- so no parts mods, no changes to the physics of the game, and no major changes to the editor. UI and information mods, visual and cosmetic mods, and some small quality of life mods are all fine. You can see my full modlist (excluding dependencies and DLC) in the following collapsible. Most of this playthrough, including all of the Lilith Program missions, is being streamed over on my Twitch channel. I've already done quite a bit, including several Mun and Minmus landings, and I may end up making a supercut video of the important highlights. However, I wanted to wait until I actually started the Eve missions before posting this thread, and only the Eve program will be getting full mission reports here. We'll be starting with the Morningstar Initiative, which will be the initial probes and flyby of Eve. The writeup on that should be coming later this week, but if you don't want to wait, I'll be streaming it today and tomorrow.

@cratercracker Oh man, that's super neat. Might see if I can find a way to edit that onto the shoulder of their EVA suits without changing the overall mission flag. I've been out of town most of the last week, but updates should resume tomorrow/this weekend. Want to see if I can maybe get all the way to the south pole by Sunday.

INTERMISSION Mango Resupply Mission (Full album link.) I finally had some more time to play KSP last night, so I set about resupplying our prosaic polar pals. After some conferencing with mission controllers back at KSC, it was decided that, in addition to carrying a full can of spareparts for the Cricket, the Mango Cargo Lander would also bring up two boxes of rocket parts, which would be used to assemble 4 ground relay stations on the far side of the moon. (These ground relay stations will form the first part of a circum-minmusian ground communications chain, which will be expanded later by several seismic probes being sent out in the next launch. But more on that later.) After quickly fabricating the necessary parts in the Minmus Workshop Module, Obgas (Auxiliary Engineer) and Tanly (Lander Pilot) packed them into boxes and shoved them into the hold of the Mango. Then they took off for the north pole. (Important note: The Mango has enough delta-v to boost into a ballistic trajectory and land at the north pole, but won't have quite enough delta-v to do the return. Instead, it will boost into a low polar orbit and rendezvous with the Apricot Fuel Tanker [which itself will be sent down to Minmus Base to fill up, and then launch into a polar orbit]. Obgas and Tanly will spend the time waiting for the Apricot doing some long-term observations at the pole, or something.) A few minutes later, and they were landed half a kilometer from the north pole. And to think, it took me all that time to drive here. Assembling MGR-1 (Full album link.) Once Tanly and Obgas were landed, Virburry drove the Cricket over to greet them, taking care to keep the Mango in the safety of the Cricket's shadow shield. Wouldn't do to accidentally irradiate your resupply mission! Virburry: "Look Patzor, we found Santa." Patzor: "Funny. Try not to crash into them, maybe." Virburry: "I would never run over Santa with a rover. He probably has a separate list just for that." The two crews got out of their respective vehicles, and after a quick exchange of greetings, set to work. First, the Cricket would need to be retrofitted to carry the cargo boxes, at least temporarily. After a short argument with Patzor over the placement of the new cargo racks, Obgas bolted them into place. Then the two of them brought the supply boxes over from the Mango and mounted them on the new cargo racks. Virburry and Tanly watched from atop the Cricket. Obviously practicing their management skills. With that out of the way, they set to work assembling the first ground station nearby. (Which did necessitate bringing one of the cargo boxes over to the construction site.) Tanly: "Wow, that thing fit inside one of those boxes? How the heck?" Virburry: "It's an ancient engineering technique called IKEA, primarily used for creating flatpack furniture. I did my thesis on applying it to space construction." Tanly: "Huh. Neat." Up next: Heading south.

This is your problem. 95% of what you are taught in high school physics, up to and including Newton's laws, is wrong. Not wrong in the sense that it is completely incorrect, but wrong in the sense that it has since been superseded by modern theories that are more correct. It's important to understand that all scientific models of the universe are descriptive approximations of how we think the universe works based on the observations that have been made, and that new observations can subsequently overturn previous models that fail to account for them. So Newtonian physics is a model that explains the observations that were available to Newton at the time, but failed to adequately explain later observations (most importantly, its inconsistency with Maxwell's equations of electromagnetism). Special relativity was formulated as a new model to replace Newtonian mechanics (and was itself later superseded by general relativity, which extended relativity to include gravitation). But the current theories (general relativity, quantum chromodynamics, etc...) aren't taught in high schools because they require mathematics that, for various reasons (most of them stupid), also aren't taught in high school. So the older theories are taught instead, because they're considered "close enough" for the needs of most laymen. (And indeed, even in physics, we still use Newton's laws as a first-approximation for non-relativistic motion.) The take away from all of this is that you can't apply Newton's laws in a relativistic frame work. It don't work like that. As for an actual answer to your question, it specifically comes down to the fact that at relativistic speeds, F does not equal ma. More specifically, because of mass-energy equivalence (the ever-so-famous E = mc2), as an object with mass gains velocity, it also gains (relativistic) mass from its kinetic energy, which means that you need more force to accelerate it the same amount. The faster you get, the more mass you gain, the more force needed to accelerate, increasing asymptotically as you approach the speed of light. What this means is that you can approach the speed of light, but never reach it. Photons can travel at c because they have no rest mass. (They do, however, still have energy, and thus momentum.) (Also, photons don't accelerate. They're always traveling at light speed.) Other than the impossibility of accelerating an object with mass past the speed of light though, there's nothing specifically preventing you from traveling faster than light. Although if you did, it would violate causality, but to explain why I'd need some more time to prepare diagrams. And also probably some calculus.

Planets are a distraction. I expect all of you are familiar with the extreme delta-v requirements necessary for landing or launching something on a planet.So I'm going to pose this question: If you have the technology to create a closed-cycle life support system that is self-sustaining (or needs only a relatively small amount of occasional materials inputs) and capable of indefinitely supporting human habitation in space, why would you go to the trouble of building it on the surface of another planet, which would require you to haul everything up and down two gravity wells and across vast interplanetary distances? Gravity? Well, Mars doesn't have very much of that in the first place, and it's trivial to build a counter-weight and tether system to provide centrifugal gravity. Minerals? Maybe, but anything you can get from Mars, you can get far more easily from asteroids. In fact, there's a lot of things you can get from asteroids that you can't get from Mars, like phosphorus. Water? Same deal as before, get your ice from comets and asteroids. Radiation shielding? Here Mars has a slight advantage, in that it has more space available to put stuff beneath several meters of rock. But it's not too hard to add some layers of shielding to a spacecraft. If you really want to go the distance, you can hollow out an asteroid and use that as your living space. There is nothing on Mars or which can be provided by Mars that cannot be obtained more easily from small-mass asteroids. Colonizing planets is a foolish distraction, the idea of which is only kept alive by naive romanticism. We should be focusing on building arkships and asteroid habitats, which pose far fewer engineer challenges and have the added benefit of being mobile. (Or mobile enough that we could set one [or two, or three, or a hundred] up to slowboat out of the solar system, thereby ensuring the continued survival of the human species, even if, say, a gamma ray burst scoured the life from every planet in the system.) TL;DR: Mars ain't the kind of place to raise a kid.

At the risk of getting slightly off topic, it's not nearly as simple as that. The mechanics of orbiting tethers are non-Keplerian, and at best only marginally well understood. But it is known that a tether of any significant length is not going to be following a normal Keplerian orbit, and in most configuration is highly unstable. It's a result of the ends of the tether orbiting at different altitudes, and thus different speeds.

Then they aren't comparable to or competitive with NTRs (which was the initial context they were brought up in) since one of the biggest advantages of an NTR is that it gets significant thrust and specific impulse. Also, nothing with humans onboard is going to do Earth/Mars transfers at milligee accelerations, because it would take literal years. Except that's not how orbital mechanics works. That 2 km/s figure is for a Hohmann transfer, which requires you to burn at a specific phase/ejection angle. But if you're burning on the sunward side of Earth, your ejection angle will be almost 180 degrees away from where it should be, which will require you to perform expensive correction maneuvers in deep space, which massively increases you transit time and delta-v requirements, effectively losing any propellant savings you might get from having a higher exhaust velocity. You'll run into a similar problem at the other end when you reach Mars, essentially having to match velocities with the planet before you get into its SOI and then gradually getting closer, so that you can actually perform your insertion burn once you get into the SOI and not just fly off into space again. The long spiralling trajectory that the Dawn probe took out to Ceres is a good example of what your actual transfer would look like. There already exist a number of civilian sea-faring ships that are powered by nuclear reactors, and most nuclear power plants are operated by civilian contractors or companies. Considering the ease of tracking things in space, and the difficultly of launching things, it'd be pretty easy to regulate nuclear reactors in space.

Mylar is a pretty terrible structural material though, and if you want your mirrors to hold up under acceleration, you'll need to reinforce them with stronger -- and heavier -- structural supports. Additionally, your mirrors will still be absorbing some thermal energy from the sun, and that has to be radiated away (separately and in addition to any waste heat generated by the ship's electrical systems) which will necessitate more mass in the form of radiators. Also, that still doesn't address the planetary occlusion issue, which is a major problem if you want to insert into orbit -- you aren't going to be doing an aerocapture with a set of giant fragile wing mirrors attached, and orbital dynamics necessitates that the orbital insertion burn into a prograde orbit for a spacecraft traveling from Earth to Mars will happen on the night side of the planet. (You can, of course, get around this by not burning at closest approach, but this massively increases your delta-v requirements and forces you to do a lot of orbital maneuvering to get into the proper orbit -- and if any of that maneuvering requires you to perform a burn on the night side of the planet [which is almost a certainty] you're totally screwed.) (Actually, it gets even worse than that, because I remember that the phase angle for Earth/Mars Hohmann transfers involves beginning your transfer burn on the night side of Earth too.) Your solution at that point is to move the collector off the spacecraft and rely on beamed power/lasers, which is all well and good, but has its own issue in terms of infrastructure requirments and also doubling as an orbital superweapon. Edit: Also, some figures for space nuclear reactors, just for reference. Most proposed/prototyped designs for spaceborne nuclear reactors (be it for propulsion or power) have a mass in the range of 0.5 to 1 metric ton for the core (unshielded). Adding a shadow shield adds another ton or so. 2 metric tons is not at all unreasonable for an engine that can get exhaust velocities of in excess of 8000 m/s and can function as a power plant in low-power mode. And doesn't go out whenever you get occluded by a planet.

But it comes with its own drawbacks, such as thrust drop-off the further you get from the Sun, planetary occlusion (that's going to be a really big one if you intend to use it for planet-to-planet transfers), and a huge mirror/heat exchange apparatus that probably ends up massing more than a decently designed nuke + shadow shield.

Throwing my two cents in, since I've been doing a lot of number crunching and general thinking on this subject lately for a book. I doubt we'll ever see manned interplanetary spacecraft with a crew of less than half-dozen (maybe a little bit lower if you make some generous assumptions about AI and robotics), and that would be on non-bulk cargo carriers. (Caveat that I'm assuming something like Rick Robinson's Mission Control Model, where the crew are mostly there to oversee the automated subsystems of the ship and maybe make repairs.) Personal spacecraft will be rare or non-existent, especially for passengers/leisure/tourism, because transfer windows will constrain when you can use it (and thus make it easier and cheaper to just take a dedicated liner). Spacecraft will be more like trains than cars, and most of them will be owned by larger collective entities (like corporations and cooperatives) rather than individuals. Part of that is cost of owning and operating a deep space vehicle, part of it is the way in which spacecraft would be used, and part of it is regulatory, to a degree. As for the design of such a spacecraft, that depends on what you want. If you're moving ice or metals, time isn't really a concern, so you'll be angling to maximize payload and specific impulse. For ice, you'll get popsicle-pushers -- basically a nuclear reactor on a stick, shoved into a chunk of ice carved off a comet, using some of the comet as remass. Your propellant is "dirty" (in that it's going to be a mixture of whatever the comet is made out of -- likely water, ammonia, and some carbon dioxide), so your specific impulse isn't great for an NTR, but you've got plenty of material available, and you can afford to take low-energy, long-transit transfers. For metals/minerals mined out of asteroids, you'll probably be using nuclear electric instead of nuclear thermal -- using a nuclear reactor to run an ion thruster or mass driver. Again, travel time isn't a concern, and since you don't have a readily available source of reaction mass, you'll be optimizing for efficiency. But that's fine, metals don't care. For things carrying people -- be it passenger liners doing an Earth/Mars run, or non-bulk cargo carriers with a minimal crew -- you'll be wanting to strike a balance between travel time and delta-v. NTRs hit this balance pretty well, and depending on your propellant and core design, you can get exhaust velocities of as much as 8000 m/s. A lot of people like hydrogen, because of its low mass and ready availability, although I personally favor ammonia, at least on an Earth/Mars cycler. Your exhaust velocity isn't as good (only in the range of 5000 m/s), but your fuel is a lot denser and easier to handle (providing some impressive savings on tankage and structural mass), and the increased thrust lets you be more aggressive with your maneuvering. And ammonia, while less abundant than water (and thus, hydrogen), is still pretty easy to get. The basic design of one of these spaceships would then look like a very long dumbbell, with the drive unit (with the reactor and a cluster of propellant tanks) at one end of a long structural truss, and the hab module at the other. Cargo and additional propellant tanks can be attached along the length of the truss. While not exactly modular, the drive section could be detached for servicing, or jettisoned in an emergency (although the hab module would then be left with limited or no independent maneuvering).

Indeed. I did my best to design the Cricket with long-range over varied terrain in mind, keeping in mind the problems that some previous Elcanoists have had, and I would say that I've largely succeeded in that regard. The design itself is robust and capable enough, but there are a couple things I hadn't accounted for. The first, of course, is the rate at which Dang It failures would occur (normally I don't have a vessel in-focus and actively doing things for this long), so I underpacked on spare parts. Then, of course, there's the issue of terrain tears (which, fortunately, I haven't seen any more of since the first disaster). I hadn't accounted for the fact that at 50 m/s, slowing down in time for a tear would require me to spot it 3+ kilometers out. But probably the biggest thing is just time and distance. I picked Minmus because it's small, but in 6.4x scale, the circumference of Minmus is just over 2400 km (making it larger than stock Duna). And the route I'm taking is not the most direct path, so that probably adds another 100 to 200 km to the whole thing. As with any Elcano, what it ultimately comes down to is an endurance test. So in a way, I'm glad that I have to send over a resupply mission, because it helps break up some of the monotony of driving. It's also why I'm going to start adding some additional objectives to the mission, just so that I have things to do beyond tabbing in to make sure it hasn't gone airborne.

Version 0.2.0 (Leonov) has been released. Changes in this version: Increased science cost of hiring instructors to 330 Added a cap to the funds cost of hiring instructors Added group basic training contracts Reorganized the contract groups for basic training contracts Fixed issue where the MoonStation parameters were checking for a Base vessel type Fixed issue where the MoonStation and MoonBase durations were reversed from what they should be Culled trailing full stops from the ends of contract requirement descriptions Link to latest release on Github. The next release that I'm targeting will be 0.2.1, which should include compatibility for RSS, GPP, and other planet packs. Current known issues in 0.2.0: Science cost is still only applied on contract completion instead of acceptance. (Can't fix on my end, would require @nightingale to add an advanceScience hook into CC.) Kerbal names in group contracts are enclosed in square brackets and aren't space separated. Should be fixed in 0.2.1 Group training contracts award 4 XP for training from level 0 to level 1, instead of the 2 that they're supposed to. Unsure what's causing this, might be a weird stock interaction (possibly adding 2 XP on top of the 2 XP for orbiting Kerbin? but it also happens when I use a planet-side base to train them). The correct amount of XP is awarded for all other level advances If you find any other bugs or general weirdness, let me know and I'll see what I can do about it.

THE JOURNEY (CONTINUED) Part 5 -- E4 to E5 (Full album link.) After spending the night camped out next to the monolith (which mission control insisted was completely harmless), our would-be circumnavigators awoke just in time to watch Kerbin, the Mun, and Kerbol rise in short succession. Before setting off again, Virburry took a moment to place a flag marking the location of the monolith and documenting their discovery of it. Then, with the morning shadows once again at a suitably photogenic angle, they headed north, towards the next waypoint, and the north pole beyond it. The goal was to reach the pole before the sun set again. However, before they were even out of sight of the monolith, one of the tires on the Cricket burnt out. Virburry: "Ugh, seriously? A motor burnout already? We'll never reach the pole at this rate." Patzor: "We're not even up to speed yet, it shouldn't take too long to stop and fix." Virburry: "Nah, I've got a better idea." {Virburry sets the rover controls to auto and starts to get out of her seat.} Patzor: "Whoa, hey, what are you doing? We're still moving!" Virburry: "Don't worry, I'm just gonna do a quick hot-fix." Patzor: "That's not what people mean by hot-fixing!" Virburry: "No, it's what I mean. Be right back." After that bit of excitement, the rest of the trip to waypoint E5 passes quickly and relatively quietly, although Virburry does perform another Burry Brake to slow down when they reach the waypoint, much to Patzor's consternation. Part 6 -- E5 to E6 (The North Pole) (Full album link.) For this part of the trip, I deviated slightly from the direct route (which would have taken me through a rather steep valley that I didn't much like the look of), instead aiming for an intermediary waypoint designated E5.5 (which would take us along the top of a relatively level plateau). Once we reached E5.5, we turned due north and took off on a straight path to the pole. This leg of the trip would be the longest one so far (almost 100 kilometers longer than the trip from E3 to E4), so I didn't want to have to repeat it. Quicksaves were made every 50 to 75 kilometers, and I tabbed back into the game regularly to check the progress. About 50 kilometers into the trip, we had a reaction wheel failure that necessitated a stop (it was too far back for Virburry to reach from the lander can ladder, and trying to walk along the frame at 50 m/s would just ragdoll her). Being very careful not to leave the cover of the shadow shield, Virburry repaired the reaction wheel, using kerbal space magic to fix it despite the solid structural plate between her and the wheel. Then 20 kilometers after that, we had another motor burnout, which Virburry repaired with another hot-fix. At this point, I started to get concerned about the number of spare parts I had left (8), and the rate at which we were going through them (way too high). So Virburry radioed back to Minmus Base to see if a supply drop could be arranged when they reached the north pole. Virburry: "Elcano Expedition to Minmus Base. Anybody home over there?" Valentina: "We're reading you Elcano Expedition. What do you need?" Virburry: "Well this is a bit embarrassing, but we seem to be running a bit low on spare parts, which, as you're aware, we require to perform repairs in the unlikely event that we experience a mechanical failure. Wait, did I say unlikely? I meant extremely likely." Valentina: "Is there something wrong with the Cricket?" Virburry: "Not per se. Just normal wear and tear, writ large. Nothing I can't handle. As long as we don't run out of spares." Valentina: "Understood. You want me to send the Mango over with a resupply?" Virburry: "Has Obgas fixed that engine yet?" Valentina: "Supposedly." Virburry: "Then I would love for you to send it up to the north pole in a couple hours, which we should be reaching shortly." Valentina: "Copy that. Let us know when you get there." Virburry: "Will do. Elcano out." We continued driving north, the sun moving further south as our latitude increased. Pretty soon it was almost directly south of us, and starting to set again. But we were really close to the pole now, and it wasn't much longer before we arrived, sun on the horizon but still in the sky. There was still enough light left to take a few publicity photos, so our cosmonauts hastily planted a flag and posed heroically. Up next: Resupplying and heading south.

And I went ahead and made the mod. Well, the first release, anyways. It's not yet feature complete, but the development thread is here.

Inspired by this thread, I spent the afternoon hammering away at Contract Configurator to create an initial release of a basic contract pack that allows you to use science to train kerbals. Features of this release: Kerbals are trained at a rate of 1 XP for every 5 science and 1000 funds Training requires a higher level kerbal of the same profession to act as an instructor Training must take place on a station or base in the Kerbin system The training station must be equipped with a Science Lab Training occurs faster in orbit of Kerbin, even faster in orbit of the Mun or Minmus, and faster while landed on the Mun or Minmus Training requires a level 3 astronaut complex and a level 2 research and development facility There are two training options at the moment: Individual Basic Training, and Intensive Training Individual Basic Training allows you to train a single kerbal of any profession to advance one level Intensive Training allows you to train a single kerbal of any profession from their current level to level 5. This costs additional science and funds, but takes somewhat less time. If you don't have any high level kerbals for a specific profession, and if you meet a certain prestige requirement, you'll be offered the option of immediately hiring a level 5 instructor for that profession, at a high science and funds cost. Future releases will include: Group Basic Training, to allow you to train multiple kerbals at once (although no group intensive training, for balance reasons) Training time bonuses for having profession specific parts on your training station A much better looking agency flag (hopefully) Configurable rates for science and funds costs Do note that because of the way Contract Configurator works, the science cost is only applied after you complete the training, not before. I'm sure some unscrupulous individual could find a way to exploit this, but that's not really my concern. Edit: Oh, and while it's hopefully obvious, yes, this does require Contract Configurator. I'm running the latest version (1.23.2), so it will definitely work on that. Your delta-v may vary on older versions. Edit 2: Oh, also, please don't submit this to CKAN at the moment. I adore CKAN, I use it extensively myself, but this is still in a very early stage where updating between releases will probably break things a bit, and I don't feel comfortable putting it onto CKAN until it's feature complete. Once it is, I'll do the netKAN PR myself. And here's the download link. And the Github repo. License This mod is released under the Mozilla Public License 2.0. The full text of the license can be found in the Github repo.

@DrLicor In my experience in my most recent career game, the timers on Contract Configurator contracts do continue to run in the background if you switch focus, so hopefully that shouldn't be an issue. The benefit of making it a standalone contract pack is that it's a lite-weight, standalone download with just CC as a dependency.

Hmm, I hadn't thought of using contract configurator for this, but it probably would be the best way to do it. Add a contract that costs X amount of science points, and requires you to have a kerbal assigned to somewhere on Kerbin for X amount of hours. So you stick them in a ship near KSC and come back in a few weeks. Or maybe do the training at a space station in Kerbin orbit (which maybe takes less time to do then just training on Kerbin?). I could probably slap that together in an hour or two this afternoon, since contract configurator is just .cfg patches. Some further thoughts on balance/mechanics: Training should cost science, funds, time, and some effort. You should be able to train more than one Kerbal at a time, but not too many. (So probably between 1 to 6.) Training should be specialization specific. Training should require at least 1 Kerbal of the level being trained to. Training shouldn't require leaving the Kerbin system. Science Cost: 1 XP should cost 5 science points (so leveling a Kerbal from 0 to 5 would cost 320 science points). This should be per Kerbal, possibly with some cost reduction for training more than 1 Kerbal at once. Funds Cost: 1 XP should cost 1000 funds (to represent costs of paying instructors). This should be a flat fee, and doesn't change whether you're training 1 or 6 Kerbals. Time Cost: 1 XP should have a base cost of 30 in-game hours (representing how long it would take to train at a base on Kerbin). This cost should decrease for training in orbit or on the Mun/Minmus. Effort Cost: Training needs to take place in a base or station at Kerbin/Mun/Minmus. Valid training academies should have at least 1 Science Lab. Training time for each specialization could also be decreased for having optional role-specific parts (like cupolas for pilots, resource converters for engineers, science experiments for scientists). The basic contracts you would get would be: Hire a (Flight/Technical/Science) Instructor -- This would be offered only when you don't have any level 5 Kerbals in a specialization, and would let you pay a large upfront cost in funds to hire one. Possibly also only available after landing a Kerbal on the Mun or Minmus? The point of this is basically to make it so that you don't have to fly all the way to Jool and back just to starting training Kerbals (or if you do, so you don't get screwed if your level 5 Kerbals die in an "accident"). Train X (Pilots/Engineers/Scientists) -- This is the basic training contract, and would be offered for training 1 to 6 kerbals of the given specialization to the next level. The cost would be determined base on the level being trained to and the number of Kerbals being trained. You would have the option to train them at any available base/station in the Kerbin system, with the time needed to train them being determined by where the base/station is. Intensive Training for (Kerbal Name) -- This is a special training contract that would let you train 1 Kerbal from their current level to the level of your most experienced Kerbal. Probably costs a little bit more upfront in science/funds, but is slightly faster in terms of time. I'll start working on throwing this together as a contract pack this afternoon.

I already have science reduction in play for the mun and minmus (because I'm running OPM, which takes a pass at all the stock planets to try and keep the addition of OPM biomes from glutting the science too much, with mixed success), and CTT does effectively make tech nods cost more, because of how many more techs there are too unlock. My issue is not with the pace of game progression -- I'm usually around the mid-to-late tech tree by the time I start going interplanetary with kerbals, and how quickly I reach that point is almost entirely down to playstyle. My issue is with what I do after I've gone interplanetary, but still have plenty of science left to gather, and no techs to spend it on. What would be cool, and interesting, and neat, is if you could trade science points for Kerbal XP -- that is, you can spend science to level up individual kerbals, although what the proper exchange rate for it would be, I have no idea. That actually seems like an excellent potential use for science, if any modders out there want to pick that up.

THE JOURNEY (CONTINUED) Part 4b -- E3 to E4 (Unknown Anomaly) (Full album link.) Alright, we're back. After some sleep (and then writing up the previous night's failure), I made a second attempt at Part 4. This time, I was going to stop and quicksave every 50 kilometers, and when I got to within 10 kilometers of the approximate location of the tear, I would slow down to 25 m/s. With these restrictions in mind, the trip took a bit more time and effort than the first attempt, but otherwise went largely the same. We didn't see MR-5 this time, mostly because I had time accelerated a little bit after the end of the last session (so that Zenith Station could do a science transmission in daylight, and so that my screenshots from this session didn't have overlapping timestamps). About 40 minutes into the trip, we spotted the tear in the ground. (It's the very thin black line just below the horizon.) Virburry: "Hey, what's that coming over the horizon?" Patzor: "What's what? You know I can't see from back here." {Brief silence, then the sound of someone gasping.} Virburry: "Oh my god." Patzor: "What? What is it?" Virburry: "There's a hole in the ground that leads to the sky." I very carefully parked the Cricket near the edge of the tear, then considered my options. The tear runs perfectly north/south, and is, by my reckoning, at least 20 kilometers long (although it could easily be much longer). To the north, I couldn't see any perceptible end to it, but to the south, I thought I could make out a place where it rejoined the ground and could be safely crossed. So I decided to head south, then double back towards the waypoint once I was on the other side. Meanwhile, Virburry and Patzor consulted KSC and were instructed in no uncertain terms to NOT get too close to the tear. Who knows what might happen around such weird spatial anomalies? So we drove south until we reached a point where we could continue eastwards. Once across, we continued northeast towards waypoint E4, and the approximate location of the sensor anomaly. Part 4c -- Anomaly Investigations (Full album link.) After a quick break for lunch, I decided to start hunting for the anomaly that I knew was nearby. According to my charts, it was about 5 kilometers south of the waypoint. After a few minutes of driving, I finally spotted it looming up on the horizon, like a big tall thing that looms. Virburry: "Hey, I think I see something on the horizon." Patzor: "Another hole to the sky?" Virburry: "No... it looks like some kind of tower... can't tell the scale from this distance though." Patzor: "What's it look like?" Virburry: "Tall, black, ominous. Obviously artificial... maybe a precursor artifact. Hold on, I'm taking us in to get a closer look." Closer inspection revealed that the anomaly was, in fact, a precursor monolith, just like the one near the Kerbal Space Center. Our intrepid cosmonauts jetpacked up to the top of it for a publicity photo, as is their wont. Then Virburry pushed Patzor off the edge, laughing maniacally as he floated slowly down to the surface. Then she tripped and fell off after him. I parked the rover next to the monolith for the night, which I'm sure won't cause our Kerbal pals any loss of sleep at all. After all, it's just a big dumb obelisk. What's the worst that could happen? Up next: We go to the north pole in search of Santa.

So, one of the issues I've been running into with modded KSP is that I usually end up having more science points than I know what to do with. Even with the much larger and science hungry tech tree provided by CTT, I inevitably find myself finishing the off the tech tree long before I run out of available science, and so it ends up just accumulating uselessly in the late game. There are plenty of mods that add more science experiments and more ways to do science and more places to get science (that's part of the issue, in fact), but I've found very few mods that add anything to spend science on, outside of tech tree mods. So this is me asking if there are any science sinks that I've missed. I'll list the ones I know of already, and add more to the list as people mention them. And if there really is a dearth of science sinks, maybe this will inspire somebody to make more. Non-Tech Tree Mods That Add Ways To Spend/Use Science Points Strategia -- Some strategies have a science point cost to enact. Play Your Way -- Gives reputation and funds as rewards for earning science points. Kerbal Research and Development -- Allows you to spend science to improve researched parts. Contract Pack: Astronaut Training -- (In-development). A contract pack that lets you spend science to level up kerbals.

THE JOURNEY Part 1 -- Minmus Base to E1 (Mayate Crash Site) (Full album of the first leg.) Our valiant explorers waited until dawn to set off, as dawn is the proper time for beginning these kinds of things. The long early morning shadows lend a certain gravitas to publicity photos. Once the sun was at a suitably photogenic angle, Virburry radioed Minmus Base Commander Valentina for permission to begin. Although this is, of course, an officially planned and sanctioned mission, it wouldn't look good if they just took off in the Cricket without saying goodbye. Virburry: "Elcano Expedition to Minmus Base. We've finished our systems checks and are ready to set out." Valentina: "Elcano, this is Base. We're reading your telemetry loud and clear over here, so you've got a greenlight to go anytime now. I can provide a countdown if necessary." Virburry: "Countdown to what? There's no ignition on this thing." Valentina: "It seemed appropriate for the circumstances. But no, you're right, that would be silly. Fly-- er, drive safe." Virburry: "Copy that Base, will be sure to fly-drive safe. See you on the other side." And then they were off! The first waypoint on the trip is a mere 10 kilometers away, and coincides with the location of the crashed Mayate rover. The Mayate is an autonomous light rover that was dropped onto Minmus over a year ago to scout potential locations for the Minmus base. At some point during the construction of the base, it was refitted (using KIS) to carry kerbals so that it could serve as a short-range transport for the base. Then someone (not naming names, but it was totally me), rolled it and got it stuck on its back. Virburry and Patzor are going to head there first to see if it can be righted so that it can drive back to the base. Unfortunately, I underestimated how long it would take to slow down from the top speed of 55 m/s, and overshot the waypoint and the Mayate by over a kilometer. In an effort to slow down more quickly, Virburry performed a hard right turn that started a rollover and sent the Cricket into the air (vacuum?). However, because the gravity on Minmus is so low, and because the SAS torque on the Cricket is so high (provided by two 1.25 meter reaction wheels mounted on the far side of the shadow shield, for exactly this kind of scenario), she was able to reorient the rover in mid-air (mid-vacuum?) so that it landed going in reverse. This maneuver, which had previously only been accidentally performed in simulations, was immediately named the Burry Brake, and classified as absolutely insane. Patzor: "Hey, slow down, we're gonna overshoot." Virburry: "I am slowing down, but, if you'll remember from all your surface samples, we are driving on ICE." Patzor: "Maybe if you increased the friction--" Virburry: "Don't backseat pilot. And hold on, things are about to get spinny." Patzor: "Spin-- whoa! I don't think this is what Val meant when she said to fly-drive safe." Virburry: "No, it's what I meant. Look, see, we're fine. And we stopped." After a short drive back towards the waypoint, the Cricket finally arrived at the Mayate. But before any attempts to tip it back over could be performed, some quick repairs needed to be made to one of the batteries, which had failed due to the DangIt mod. Virburry climbed down onto the surface and, being very careful to keep the frame of the rover between herself and the nuclear reactor, replaced the failed battery. Then she waddled over to the Mayate and used her jetpack to ram it until it tipped right-side-up again. While she was doing this, Patzor got out to collect the data from the science equipment and reset the experiments. Part 2 -- E1 to E2 (Album link.) The next part of the journey entailed traveling north for 50 kilometers, arriving at a gap in a low ridgeline that intersects that flat, functioning as a sort of gateway between the northern body of the flat and the long shallow valley that runs northeast from it. This part of the trip was largely uninteresting, since we were driving almost exclusively over the flats. So I'll just skip to showing you the screenshot of the Cricket at the waypoint. The full album of this leg of the trip is in the link above, if you care. Part 3 -- E2 to E3 (Limelight 5 Second Landing Site) (Album link.) For the next leg of the trip, we turn towards the northeast and head up the bottom of the shallow valley I mentioned earlier. I'm not sure what kind of processes would create a feature like this, but it provides us with a convenient flat area to drive on as we head towards one of our larger goals on this trip: an anomaly in the highlands to the northeast. But first, we're going to stop to visit the second landing site of Limelight 5, the first probe to land on Minmus. Not that there's much to see there, since it didn't leave any debris behind. Because this was a long stretch of uninterrupted flatland, I left the rover running at 2x physical time acceleration after getting it up to speed, and then went and read a book for a while, occasionally checking on the Cricket to see if there was anything interesting happening. There was not. Still, you can see that we're making pretty good time. But now we're about to leave the flats, and things will start getting interesting. Part 4a -- E3 to E4 (Unknown Anomaly) (Full album.) Part 4a? What does that mean? Well, you'll soon find out. The slopes on Minmus are not nearly as steep in 6.4x as they are at normal scale (although my terrain rescale factor of 0.25 might have something to do with that). They are, however, very very long. It took almost 14 minutes of in-game driving to pass behind a ridge and out of view of the flats. You'll notice that I've retracted the high-gain antenna for the moment, to avoid damaging it in case we have another rollover. The backup antenna, safely mounted between the materials bay and the shadow shield, is still deployed and keeping us in contact with Minmus Base via satellite relay. Still, I found that the Cricket handles the slopes quite well, being able to achieve a speed similar to that on the flats, although I would occasionally have to apply the motors a little bit to keep it from slowing down. I was able to tackle the slopes head-on, which meant I was able to take a more direct route towards the next waypoint, although I suspect that once we get into the highlands we might have to start switchbacking on steeper slopes. About 18 minutes into the trip, there was a bit of excitement as the MR-5 relay satellite was spotted passing by overhead. The MR relays are just re-designated Sartre transfer stages -- during the construction of the Minmus base, I realized that the transfer stages: a) have fuel left over after Minmus insertion; b) already have power and communications on them; c) would save me a lot of launches if I just stuck a probe body onto the side and shifted them into polar orbits to act as relays. So I did that, and now have decent and robust coverage all over Minmus. There are eight MRs in orbit, plus Lemonlight 5 (the transfer stage/orbiter from Limelight 5), the Magic 9 and Magic 13 science/survey probes, and of course, Zenith Station. Minmusian space is getting kind of crowded these days. The drive continued uneventfully for another 20 minutes, during which time I finally figured out how to check the BTDT track on my ScanSat maps (you have to use the small map, not the large map or the zoom map). Then DangIt decided to strike again, and the motor on the third right wheel burned out. No worries! I'll just stop and have Virburry repair -- wait, what's that looming up ahead. Oh no. It's a terrain tear. And now we discover the true danger of driving along at 50 m/s on an icy, low-gravity moon. Unable to stop quickly enough, I could only watch in horror and rage as the Cricket hurtled towards its doom at 180 kilometers per hour, being completely shredded and destroyed by this insidious glitch. I immediately reloaded my last quicksave (it's not my fault that the terrain sometimes tears open and devours rovers)... which put me back at waypoint E3, almost 115 kilometers and 40 minutes earlier. Curses. At this point, I decided to end the driving session there. But I'm not giving up yet. Up next: Attempting the trip from E3 to E4 a second time, and hopefully investigating an anomaly.

THE REVEAL So after landing the workshop module, I was finally able to begin construction of the Cricket. I left it to work in the background, then went off to fly a crew rotation for Pinnacle Station (my space station in LKO). 14 days later, I came back and unpacked the completed rover. Behold! The basic chassis is the Common Octo Chassis that I'm using on all my large rovers, constructed out of I-beams and Not-Rockomax Micronodes, although it's been modified with wider front and rear axles to provide greater stability. The nuclear reactor at the back (from Near Future Electrical) is run at a low setting to provide constant power for the wheels, and is cleverly encaged (without part clipping!) inside a hex truss piece from Near Future Construction, which helps protect it from damage in the event of a crash. A couple of structural panels in front of the reactor act as a shadow shield (mostly cosmetic), protecting the crew from radiation. Batteries are mounted underneath the frame, in the gaps between the axle pieces, which helps lower the center of mass. There are two antenna on the Cricket: a high-gain primary antenna mounted on top of the cockpit, and a short-range backup antenna mounted between the materials bay experiment and the shadow shield. There's also a ScanSat BTDT mounted on the cockpit, as well as various pieces of science equipment attached in various places. But enough about the rover, let's meet the crew. On the right is Minmus Base Chief Engineer Virburry Kerman, who will be acting as the commander of this Elcano Expedition. As part of the first Minmus Base crew, she's played a pretty big role in setting everything up and getting things working properly... although she also broke one of the solar panels on the Acerodon (which necessitated removing both the broken panel and the panel opposite it to maintain balance). But there are no solar panels to break here, so everything should be just fine. On the left is Patzor Kerman, who will be acting as the mission scientist. His primary job will be servicing the various experiments aboard the Cricket, and occasionally getting out to take surface samples. Because this is, after all, a science mission. If you're gonna travel around the entirety of a moon in a rover, you might as well as collect as much science as you can along the way, right? Below, you can see our foolhardy brave cosmonauts erecting a flag to mark their starting point (probably while singing the national anthem off-key). Then they clamber inside and start warming up the systems. (Full album of setting up the rover and mucking about with the kerbals.) (Hey, look at these cool displays.) THE ROUTE But enough about those losers, let's talk about our plans. Below is a ScanSat map with my intended route plotted. The image links to an album with additional screenshots of my waypoint route in the orbital map. As you can see, our intended route is a bit circuitous, but that's because there are a couple of places I want to go visit during this trip, and they're a bit out of the way from the direct route. But by hitting both the north and south pole, I will definitely have done a circumnavigation. Among the points I want to visit are the first probe landing spots on Minmus, one of two anomalies that I've detected from orbit, the landing site of the first kerbal on Minmus, and as many biomes as possible. Depending on if time allows, I may also take some detours to visit other "famous" Minmus landmarks, like the site of Brotoro's Minmus base (which is in the same flat as my own base, but further east). This is going to be a pretty scenic trip. Up next: The first leg of the trip.

THE LANDING Insertion at Minmus occurred three (in-game) weeks after launch. Once in Minmusian orbit, I rendezvoused the Cricket with Zenith Station, where the Acerodon skycrane was waiting to take it down to the surface. The Acerodon uses a winch to lower payloads onto the surface, which means that I need to EVA a kerbal to hook up the winch connectors every time I want to attach a new payload. Kimson Kerman ended up getting this job once the Cricket arrived at Zenith Station. Once the Cricket was secured, and after sending the transfer stage off to become another communications relay, the Acerodon began its descent towards the Minmus base. After dropping the Cricket kit onto the surface, Virburry Kerman went on EVA to hook up the Acerodon for refueling and to deploy the DIY Kit. It was at this point that I realized my first mistake. This is the first time I've ever used the Ground Construction mod, and in my naivety, I had assumed that it used Ore directly in construction. No such luck. It needs Material Kits, and while I have the capability to smelt Ore into Material Kits, there's no room to store them on the base. So I needed to send up a new workshop module with plenty of storage space for Material Kits (and any other resources I might need). I didn't extensively screenshot the launch and landing of the Minmus Workshop Module, because its mission profile was essentially identical to the Cricket's. Launch atop a Sartre, rendezvous with Zenith, delivered onto the surface by the Acerodon. And now that it's finally on the surface (three in-game weeks after I landed the Cricket), I can finally begin assembly of the Cricket. (Link to the Imgur album of the landing, with some additional commentary in the captions.) (Compensatory single screenshot because album embeds are broken.) Up next: Finishing assembly, THE REVEAL, and the first leg of the trip.

Some of you might remember that in my last AAR, I promised to do a circumnavigation of Minmus in 6.4x scaleup. Well, that AAR died, and the save is lost, but I've been playing some more KSP again lately, and I've finally reached a point in my current career game where I can attempt a Minmus circumnavigation. Consider this my very belated entry into the Elcano challenge. THE MODS Here's the entirety of my modlist, as pulled from CKAN: I'm also running Simga Dimensions (0.9.3), with the following configuration settings (applied through a mod manager config): @SigmaDimensions { // Base Settings @Resize = 6.4 @Rescale = 6.4 @Atmosphere = 1.285 @dayLengthMultiplier = 1 // Advanced Settings @landscape = 0.25 @geeASLmultiplier = 1 @resizeScatter = 1 @resizeBuildings = 0 @CustomSoISize = 0 @CustomRingSize = 0 @atmoASL = 1 @tempASL = 1 @atmoTopLayer = 1 @atmoVisualEffect = 1 @scanAltitude = 1 } Not all of these mods were used in the construction of the rover, but I'll do my best to point out mod parts when they show up. THE PLAN The rover I intend to use for my circumnavigation attempt is called the Cricket. It has 8 ruggedized wheels, space for two Kerbals, a bunch of science instruments, and is powered by a fission reactor from Near Future. Top speed on level ground is over 55 m/s. Due to its size and shape, I've packed the rover into a DIY Kit from Ground Construction, and will be assembling it in situ at my Minmus base. Once assembled, I'll take two of the base crew on a three hour cruise circumnavigation attempt of Minmus, gathering science along the way. The exact route has not yet been determined, although I intend to visit at least one of the anomalies I can see on my ScanSat maps, as well as the site of my first kerbal landing in this career save. I'll post a waypoint map of the route before driving begins. THE LAUNCH I launched the Cricket (or, rather, the kit which will be used to assemble it) atop a Sartre CRD. Capable of placing 10 tons into Minmus orbit, the Sartre (and its little brother, the Sartre Jr.) is the workhorse of my space program. The CRD variant is a recent design overhaul that standardized the common components of the Sartre and Sartre Jr., and added recovery systems to the boosters and core. (Every Sartre launch costs me about 220,000 funds, plus payload. Of that cost, almost 60% is just the four boosters, so recovering them is a high priority.) Images of the launch and transfer burn below. (Imgur album embeds are apparently broken again, so have this direct link.) (Single image embeds do appear to work, so have this image of the launch as compensation. Full album in the link above.) Up next: Arrival at Minmus, landing, and assembly.

6.4x without some sort of adjustment of ISP and TWR is basically the KSP equivalent of amputating your foot before you go on a hike. Seriously though, SMURFF or Real Fuels (with RL configs or custom 6.4x configs) is basically a requirement for this kind of thing. Otherwise it's harder than RO.