UH60guy

Gotcha on the T-tail. I'll have to try that out when I get some time at lunch. I didn't even consider that it could be obstructing the exhaust. That might explain why the twin V-tails allowed for thrust, but the current version doesn't. Off topic, but what's hurting the pride the most is that I'm a real life pilot and I can't even get a cartoon aircraft off the ground...

Well, I finally crossed over from rockets and decided to work on an airplane. I'm not trying to get to orbit or anything, I just want to get off the ground. I read several tutorials, but all they really seem to talk about is CG and center of lift placement, or MOAR INTAKES!!!11!. I'm just trying to get something basic off the ground. So far I can't even get off the runway. My plane gets up to about 80 m/s and just veers right and crashes. I thought it was something placed asymmetrically, so I pulled it all off and reattached. Same problem. Reworked my twin tails into a single tail design, and didn't change much else, but now it won't move forward more than about 1 m/s. Again, this is on a small 2-seater plane. Fuel is flowing, brakes are off, it's not using up all its intake air, but it just sits there. I thought it could be the type of intake I used, but it doesn't work with either style attached to the front of the engines (or with the scoops on top). So, I took a couple pictures to see if anyone could point out if there's anything obvious where I'm going wrong on what should in theory be a simple, low part count, stock aircraft for 2 Kerbals. Here it is at full thrust, engines roaring, but not moving (note the large plume behind): Here are a couple shots from the SPH showing my control surfaces, CG, COL, and COT:

Mine's relatively simple, but seems to work so-so. My "Interplanetary Cruise Stage" is basically just a cluster of seven orange tanks with engines, and it gives about a .3 or .4 thrust ratio depending on the payload. The payload sits on top, but wobbles pretty bad. This is probably because I used the medium docking ports and not the large ones, I'll see if the next iteration fixes that. I put a docking port on each tank to aid refueling since it can be slow to maneuver- this way the refuel ship is pretty much lined up to some port or other no matter the orientation. I've made it to Duna with this, about to reach Jool with another. Both should have enough fuel to return to Kerbin orbit and be reusable, I just haven't hit the return window to find out for sure yet. Here's a pic when I tried to chain two mission packages on top: (Note it had the fuel/thrust to take both modules to Jool and return with one of them, but the wobbling caused SMEF (Sudden Massive Existence Failure) in this particular mission.)

Thanks everyone for the input. Sounds like the horizontal velocity is the real challenge to overcome- I could do a VTOL, but dang it... there's just something COOL about landing like a sea plane. I'm still not very good at aircraft design in general, I may have been taking this on too early in my own learning development process. But man, I really want to build that seaplane! Now that nerdboy64 showed it's possible, I've got the renewed sense of purpose.

You sir brought a tear to my eye. That looks awesome! I'll have to apply some of your techniques, and I will approach this with renewed vigor!

Well, I don't have a craft to post (yet?)... I'm testing the waters (ha!) on whether I can get a stock sea plane working. Boats, sure. Floating bases, done. But I still break up every time I try to land something on the water. Has anyone out there had any success with a craft capable of a water landing that survives to take off again? I'm beginning to wonder if all Jeb's Trial and error and error and error and error and error are signs that it's not possible in KSP. Just thought I'd ask around before throwing in the towel. My reasoning: I have a floating base about to land on Laythe, and I'm now planning the recovery mission to get there in a year or so. While I could try to just make the recovery ship have a floating ascent stage just like the original, that means I must make a very precise landing or be forced to have the Kerbals swim for quite a distance. Ideally, I'd like to land a sea plane nearby to ferry Kerbals from the habitat to the return ship. I'm not worried about making orbit in this- just something that can fly and float! I could make do with a boat, but I'd like to explore the islands from the air too.

Best of luck with everything! I fully admit I haven't tried out the calculations myself, but I expect they'd be close. You'd have to be sure to try it on a single stage rocket (staging gets a little more complicated, but doable with the same equation) in a vacuum or in a situation where gravity effects aren't messing with the actual change in velocity measured to keep it simple. I bet launching vertically from Gilly or Minmus would be a perfect test bed as you have no atmospheric drag, gravity is minimal, and a vertical launch would put all the velocity in one direction for the experiment, reducing the amount she would lose to circularizing and pilot inputs. Though, she might be able to explain the difference between predicted and actual as such losses. If nothing else, it should match the delta V values MechJeb predicts for the rocket. As the proud parent of a budding rocket scientist, you might be able to set it up, have her do the one equation, and see "reality" match up with math. I really look forward to hearing more about it- I'm about to be a parent (in a month!) and I'd love to do such things with my kid. Wish this was around when I was younger. If you're really brave for a long term project, you could have her recreate the interior of the space station out of some cardboard boxes or the like, and play the game from inside Might make the EVA experience a fun and imaginative diversion where she could learn about that sort of thing from some NASA footage.

She may be able to do a little math with the project too, such as using the Tsiolkovsky rocket equation. It doesn't need any calculus, just a calculator with the natural log (ln) key and maybe a little counting of parts she installs. She could compare actual (game) vs predicted delta V of a rocket. Delta V = Ve * ln (m0 / m1). Translated/simplified: Change in velocity of the rocket measured at nav ball = exhaust velocity multiplied by the natural log of (inital mass of everything divided by mass without fuel) KSP provides you with ISP for each engine- and you can get the exhaust velocity from the equiation Ve = Isp * gravity

OK, this weekend was spent learning to fly/maneuver the ships before arrival at Jool. With every transfer window that opened while the convoy is headed to Jool (boy, that's taking a long time...), I've sent to each planet probe carriers and a test rover design for a follow-up mission to Jool. Just for fun, I sent a manned capsule to Gilly and Dres as well, though that's more a lesson on launching to rendezvous from another world and EVA than on flying the exact same ship. The rover's since landed successfully on Duna and Eve, where it's performed amazingly well. The parachutes and skycrane give it a real easy landing. Laythe should be no problem, if I can hit a landmass near where the Laythe base splashes down. I'm having some issues with meeting delta V requirements for landing without aerobraking though- I've already smashed two into Moho after running out of gas. Though that may have dire implications for a Tylo rover attempt, I'll still send a fleet of these rovers during the next Jool transfer window. I'll see if I can add another stage to help slow it down in orbit at least. The probes may not be as bad off as I feared. From my probe carrier at Duna, I was able to test out the max thrust allowable on the probes before the torque can no longer maintain control. As long as I keep thrust under the first big notch beside the nav ball- I think that's about 33%- it can fly straight. Ike was an easy target, but I was able to get two probes there, one in equatorial orbit, and one into a polar orbit. Same went with the Eve probes- I was able to get them into polar orbit at Eve, and even transferred to the inclined Gilly in a polar orbit. Plenty of fuel to spare, but I just had to be patient with the thrust. I learned another technique at Moho with the probes. I came screaming into the system, and the launcher was about 300 m/s short of being able to make a capture orbit. I could have launched each probe at that time, but due to the velocities and the difficulty of trying to make orbit with five probes in just a few minutes, I opted for a different approach. I transferred all the fuel from the central probe to the probe launcher, letting the launcher enter an elliptical orbit. That then gave me a stable orbital platform to transfer some fuel back and launch each probe at my leisure. The elliptical capture orbit even made it easier to change inclination and achieve a polar orbit. It's a shame I had to abandon four probes to save the crew of the Event Horizon earlier, but I'm now beginning to think the probe mission at Jool just might work. Finally, onto the lessons learned with the manned landers. The Dres module hasn't arrived yet, but I'm beginning to doubt it has enough fuel to make the return trio. We'll see. I was however, able to land at Gilly with a single crew capsule. Landing was easy, but I quickly learned the importance of putting probe cores on all subcomponents of my ships in the future... After undocking the top portion to land, and making a successful near-zero G EVA on a mountain side (I didn't like Gilly that much!), Shepfrod Kerman had a panicked moment when he went to launch- the main body of the ship, not having a probe core, was identified as debris and would not show up on the map! Thankfully there was not much else in orbit other than a probe, so that was the only piece of debris to be found when the view was zoomed way out. A double click could set it as a target, but not view the orbit. I had to rely on MechJeb to plot the rendezvous instead of doing it myself, but it worked eventually.

Just one bit of food for thought: on your photo page, you said the Normandy flies like a brick and you had to turn gravity off... However, I think that makes it even more realistic- isn't manipulating its mass and gravity effects how it flies in the Mass Effect universe?

Captured! The Nostromo docked the Event Horizon and transferred all fuel aboard. Next, the LLAMA transferred between the cruise stages, and is set up to ride the Nostromo to Jool. MechJeb reports 3151 m/s delta available, but it may be inaccurate due to the new staging setup. However, we now have a fighting chance to make the mission happen at Jool! They just have to make orbit, and everything else should be fine. Mid-course correction in two days, Jool intercept in 195 days. I think I'll count that as both a Kerbol SOI rendezvous and rescue! Edit- maybe I should only count it as a rescue if they reach Jool orbit safely.

Here's the orbital situation. The crippled Event Horizon is on the far right, then the Kobyashi Maru KRASH/return stage), then the Nostromo and Sulaco probe vessels. The other two at left are doomed probe and rover ships en route to Eloo (see earlier posts for how I know they're not going to work on site). We're committing to Plan A. The Nostromo, the closer of the two probe vessels, transferred all the fuel from the probes an abandoned them in Kerbol orbit. Next, the cruise stage made a 1500 m/s burn for intercept. More on the situation as it develops.

I used nose cones for floats on a base (image here: http://i.imgur.com/KcvJxWc.jpg), you may want to try those or the smaller ones underneath some scaffolding beams for a boat. Just be careful that whatever you do that the ladder or seats for Kerbals are close to the water surface (within right click range to board). The way the game is set up, it treats objects that are floating as falling, and Kerbals cannot stand on floating objects. They can climb ladders and board floating modules, just they can't stand. I'm not sure about control stations, but that's what testing is for! There is a mod for that though (sea sickness cure), but I know you're shooting for stock.

Today, when prepping for my midcourse correction halfway to Jool, Jeb found that the central tank holding most of his fuel and an engine had fallen off: Tomorrow we'll learn about abort scenarios and rescue missions...

Kerbin Kerman, having returned from the dead twice (failed LLAMA test and reentry minus spacecraft), took up residence in the tracking center. The powers that be put him on the task of monitoring orbital debris. After a failed rover launch test, where the upper stage exploded in low Kerbin orbit, Mr. Kerman pulled up his map and set the filter to only show debris. He wondered if he would need to put the 80 km orbit off limits for a little while. While munching silently on snacks, he noticed a few crumbs on the DRADIS screen. After brushing most off, one lone dot remained in a strange location outside Duna’s orbit. It turned out it was no snacky cake crumb: it was a piece of debris on an intercept orbit to Jool. Fearing something broke loose from one of the Jool convoy ships, he placed a long distance call to the crew of the Kobyashi Maru flying the return stage. Sonwin: Hello? Kerbin: Um, hey there Sonwin. Is everything OK? Sonwin: Sure, though nothing’s been going on for the past two months. We’re just waiting on our mid-course correction burn in about 20 days. Kerbin: Would you mind running a system check? Sonwin: Sure. All systems appear nominal, fuel is looking good for Jool orbit insertion and Laythe transfer. Why do you ask? Kerbin: No reason! <click> Sonwin: Odd. Pass the snacks, Dergun. He placed another long distance call to the Event Horizon, carrying the Laythe Landing and Ascent Module Assembly (LLAMA): Kerbin: Jeb, come in Jeb. Jeb: (munch, munch) Hi Kerbin. Didn’t I throw you out an airlock during reentry? Kerbin: Never mind that, can you run a systems check before your mid-course correction? I have you still a few weeks out from it, but we want to make sure everything is going well. Jeb: Sure. Staging sequence is set, monopropellant tanks topped off. Parachutes look good from what I can see out the window. Fuel is… wait, fuel looks a little strange. We have about a third remaining but the readout says capacity is 28,080 instead of the design 32,400. That’s odd, I thought the Jool transfer burn went better than that, though Herman was a little heavy-handed on the controls. Operator: You have two minutes remaining on this call. To continue, please deposit $8,500. Kerbin: Piloting shouldn't be the problem, since we're looking at a capacity discrepancy rather than supply level being too low. How do you feel about doing an exterior check? You can set a record for the first deep space EVA. While you’re out there I’ll go look for some quarters. Jeb: Um, OK. Once on EVA, Jeb gave the LLAMA a through inspection. Jeb: Heat shield looks great, all parachutes in place. Lights work well (stop playing with them Herman). Science package intact, power source looks good. I’m moving to the Interplanetary Cruise Stage now. Kerbin: Roger. Jeb: Docking port clamped, lights operational. Fuel mounts look… oh. Kerbin: Oh? Jeb: Kerbin, we’ve had a problem. It looks like the main tank- the central one that they all feed to- has broken free. I don’t see it anywhere. We’re down to two nuclear rockets and four skippers. Kerbin: Uh-oh. That central tank would have been completely full too. How do the others look? Jeb: According to the exterior gauges, the four tanks with the skippers are depleted as was planned during Jool transfer burn. The other two look mostly full. The tank must have broken off sometime after the burn was completed, while we experienced that weird wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey acceleration where time passed really fast. Kerbin: Come on back inside Jeb, we’ll work some options for you. At least now we know what we’re up against. <click> Kerbin hung up the phone and began listing off options, none of them good. What are our resources? Four Kerbals are on the damaged Event Horizon/LLAMA. The LLAMA is intact, but only carries enough fuel to descend from orbit and can barely maneuver when the landing stage is attached. The upper stage is very maneuverable and carries enough fuel for about 3000 m/s delta V, but only carries two crewmembers- using that as an escape pod would mean abandoning Genester and Billy-Bobbery without the possibility of recovery or chancing a long ride holding the ladder. The Event Horizon’s cruise stage carries fuel, but its structure is compromised by an unknown amount. In a converging orbit, we have the Kobyashi Maru with three Kerbals aboard the KRASH vehicle. It has seats for all seven and can manage about 3500 m/s in delta V when separated from the cruise stage. It could rescue everyone, but adjusting for an intercept short of Jool would deplete about 2000 m/s, which makes orbit insertion or rendezvous with one of the refuelers after the rescue tricky. Its cruise stage is in good condition with about 60% fuel, but it is difficult to fly as the rendezvous-er, instead of the usual rendezvous-ee. It was designed to do that, but in Laythe orbit where the changes in velocity would have been a lot easier to manage. I have two probe launchers on the way, but they’re a long way off and will arrive at Jool pretty late. They have a lot of fuel on their cruise stages, but they’re pretty unwieldy to maneuver for an intercept- they take about a minute or so to turn retrograde from prograde. The probes are expendable- orbital testing after mission launch shows their mission is a likely failure- but I can transfer their fuel to the cruise stage before abandoning them to at least help a little.. Plan A: Abandon a probe package and divert a probe ship’s cruise stage to meet the Kobyashi Maru before reaching Jool orbit. That’s an expensive burn and requires some difficult orbital ballet as the ship is unwieldy to maneuver in close proximity. They’re also a lot farther out, so it may not even be possible. But, if it can get there, we would have an intact cruise stage that we could move the LLAMA to, and take all the remaining fuel from the disabled Event Horizon. The LLAMA only carries 80 units of monopropellant, so the transfer between docking ports will need to be extremely precise. If we pull it off, this will allow us to meet the main mission objective. Plan B: Undock the KRASH from the Kobyashi Maru and use it as it was designed- as a crew rescue vehicle. Fly the light and maneuverable vehicle to the LLAMA, but expend most of its fuel getting there. It can refuel from the Event Horizon’s tanks before reaching the Jool orbit burn. Put all the crew onboard and hope to make Jool orbit safely. This will leave the Event Horizon to fly the LLAMA through remote control, but depending how much fuel is transferred to the KRASH, it may not make orbit and cause the mission to fail (but the crew will at least be saved). Plan C: Continue as planned, but park the LLAMA in Jool orbit awaiting refuel to transfer to Laythe. This plan relies on praying to the Lords of Kerbol that the cruise stage holds together during orbit insertion. Aerobraking is probably out of the question, as the structural integrity is a complete unknown. They’d have to wait for the Kobyashi Maru to arrive and refuel, but that was always part of the redundancy built into the plan. We can meet the mission objective this way, but it’s the riskiest option. Kerbin set off to compute some orbits and run the numbers. He'll try to come up with a way to test out the integrity of the Kobyashi Maru as well- though firing the engines for the mid-course correction may put it out of reach of the rescue ships. The tanks are mounted to a thrust plate at the forward end, connected by I-beams. That part's pretty sturdy. He's worried that without the central tank that the side tanks were heavily strutted to present, the whole thing may turn into a wind chime and explode if thrust or rotation is applied. More to follow as the situation develops!

Can I ask how you went about planning the route and the delta v requirements? Did you have to build some huge excel spreadsheet or something to track it all before building?

OK! The mission framework test on Duna is going well. Again- I sent duplicates of my Jool craft to Duna to test them out before they arrive at Jool. Long story short, I am excited about the main mission, and I now have confidence it will succeed. The supporting mission, the Jool moon probes, has a serious design flaw that may cause it to fail. First up, the base: The only change from the LLAMA that I sent to Jool is that I slapped some landing struts on in place of the floats. Since Duna’s atmosphere is thinner, I could use the braking thrusters to find a more interesting spot to land and still have plenty of fuel to break atmo later. I found a huge crater around 15 degrees north, 85 west, and set down there. I used all the lower stage/base fuel and part of the ascent stage fuel on the inclination change, but still had plenty left. It performed exactly as it should, landed with parachute assist, and only needed minimal braking thrusters at the bottom to soften the impact. Bob was pretty proud of his landing. Here he is mugging for the camera after I had him repack all the parachutes: The ascent went pretty well. Although, since I had used most of the fuel in the ascent stage’s lower stage, it separated pretty early and nearly wiped out the base and the two Kerbalnauts left behind. That’s a good lesson for the Laythe landing: I need some horizontal distance before staging! Bob went to check out the debris following the close call. He's so happy to be alive, he hasn't yet noticed that damaged and probably leaking radioactive generator behind him. The ascent stage made orbit perfectly, and docked with the original fuel ship. It was joined later by the KRASH (return vehicle), and all docked in orbit. I’m debating leaving the fuel ship behind as it’s in a good parking orbit around Duna (100 km, 2 degree inclination) that future missions can use it. I’ll probably just top off the KRASH and send just that home at the next window. Here's the ascent stage on its way to orbital rendezvous with the interplanetary cruise stage and KRASH: Now that I think about it- it has fuel and parachutes, and can reach Duna orbit with just this stage- it may be good to leave behind as a rescue vehicle after I top off its fuel tanks. The probe mission fared less well. I didn’t throw any RCS thrusters on the probes (no real need after separation from the probe ship), but I also didn’t include any reaction wheels to give it some more oompf other than the basic probe core. Unfortunately, due to the placement of the RTG, that means it loses directional control after about 2-3 seconds of thrust. I was able to limp one into a 2880 km synchronous orbit (which now I see is the same distance as Ike), but it may be difficult to transfer the others to Ike or into polar orbits. I’ll have to try, since I’ll be tied to flying these once arriving at Jool- except then I’ll have 10 probes and 5 moons to contend with. Since Duna only has one moon, I didn’t send a second probe ship- I slapped together a rover and managed to land it about 10 km from the base. That was the biggest help of anything. It performed flawlessly- it tops out around 22 m/s, it's stable, has two seats, and can keep a steady charge. It linked up with the crew, and they were able to check out an interesting anomalous feature about 35 km from where they landed: http://i.imgur.com/Ao8wNAE.jpg I saw how useful that was, being able to traverse the terrain like that, so I think I’ll design and send a boat to the Laythe colony if everything works out. Unfortunately the rover still needs some work- the skycrane performed well on Duna, but only due to parachutes. When the duplicate I sent to Moho got there, I found problems. I was able to get into a stable orbit, but the rocket placement on the skycrane caused it to spin out of control on landing and impact the surface. When the (again duplicate) probe ship gets there, it may suffer the same fate due to the probes' inability to sustain thrust. If the main ship can brake enough to get the probes into a stable orbit, again, they may be able to limp to the proper inclinations (0, 30, 60, 90, and a spare).

Well, after the main mission’s fleet left for Jool, some other transfer windows opened up. I took this opportunity to send the same probe launcher craft to Duna, Moho, and Eloo. I also sent a version of the LLAMA (with landing struts instead of floats) and the KRASH to Duna to see if I could learn to fly them and how to aerobrake properly before arriving at Jool. First up, I learned the importance of a mid-course correction to fine tune my approach. The LLAMA and cruise stage needed nearly 3000 m/s in delta V upon arrival since I was only skimming the outskirts of the Duna system at about a 20 degree angle to Duna. Thankfully I had the fuel to spare since I was flying something designed for a longer trip, but it took a 20 minute burn to get pointed in the right direction. At least the aerobraking went OK. I immediately went and set up mid-course correction appointments with the Jool fleet so they’ll hopefully come up behind Jool more gradually- or at least closer. Unfortunately that was the only refuel tanker I brought along on the Duna test, so we’ll see if the gas from it, the probe launcher, the ascent stage, and the KRASH can be combined to get everyone home. Next, the probe launcher arrived. I did find one fatal flaw in the design when I launched the first probe- the RTG power sources on the probes were not placed symmetrically. Heck, I probably didn’t need them anyway. However, they’re stuck on there and the rockets can only fire about 5 seconds at a time before going out of control due to the asymmetric center of mass. With some patience at Jool, I might be able to limp them into position to make it work- it’s just going to be a lot of shift-X-shift-X etc. to keep them on target to all the moons. I may reserve the other four probes here at Duna to keep enough fuel on board to use the probe launcher as a backup tanker. It’s already served its purpose as a mission test.

Each ship of the four-ship convoy departed low Kerbin orbit about four hours apart. Next out of the system was the second probe launcher and refueler, the Sulaco. That was followed by the Kobyashi Maru- the cruise stage attached to the Kerbal Return and Summer Home (KRASH) module. This is the piece that is there for the recovery of the lander and makes the return trip to Kerbin. It's commanded by Sonwin Kerman (right seat), with Hendan Kerman as KRASH pilot (left seat). Dergun Kerman is the bartender (bottom seat). Hendan need to work on his piloting skills, and the engineers need to work on their docking clamp stability. The combined vessel rode like a bucking bronco and probably wasted quite a bit of fuel, but it held together and made it to a Jool intercept orbit. Sonwin hasn't said it to the others, but he's worried how it will hold up during aerobraking. Finally, the Event Horizon departed last with the Laythe Landing and Ascent Module Assembly (LLAMA). This is the Laythe surface base and ascent stage that will dock with the KRASH for the return trip. It's commanded by Jebediah Kerman (overall mission commander) with Herman Kerman as the LLAMA pilot. Genester and Billy-Bobbery Kerman will be the poor saps to live in the ocean base until (if?) we get around to retrieving them. Interestingly, though they all departed orbit four hours apart in the above order, my hand-jammed nodes and flopping space ships have them arriving in different times: The Event Horizon will actually arrive first, in 274 days. This works out well since they can try to go Direct to Laythe and get the landing done without the others having to wait on them. Where this could lead to trouble is if it needs a refuel before it can transfer to Laythe. The Kobyashi Maru will arrive in 293 days to be able to pick them up. Unfortunately, both probe vessels, intended to scout the system first, will arrive last. The Nostromo will take 312 days, and the Sulaco takes a year and a day. This means the mission will take some waiting around for a refuel, unless there’s sufficient fuel to be shared between the Kobyashi Maru and the Event Horizon. Now that I’ve launched my first interplanetary mission, I have another opportunity to learn more before it reaches Jool. A Duna window opens in seven days, I may try to fly a something there to test out my aerobraking an landing on another planet closer to home, before I make any big mistakes a year down the road all the way at Jool.

One last top-off of monopropellant in the LLAMA, and it should be all systems go! And the first ship of the convoy, the Nostromo probe launcher and orbital refuel tanker, is underway under 5 of her 7 engines. She's the first iteration of the design, so it's a little underpowered/inefficient and has less fuel than the others, but it should get the job done. And I very quickly saw how fast it was still burning fuel on the Poodle engines- thankfully the other ships have nukes- I had to shut down two more to keep from running out of gas leaving the Kerbin SOI. Edit- the seven poodles were a design choice to get it into orbit. I had a hard time building a launcher for the ICS. I had the central core and stack of seven tanks at the top, and to reduce weight, the first thing I needed to do before launch was run two of the tanks completely out of fuel. Then, the other exposed poodle engines would assist in the early part of the launch, plus the added bonus of reducing the mass I had to put into orbit by dumping fuel on the way up (I planned to top it off in orbit anyway). I later redesigned the interplanetary cruise stage to have just four poodles to dump fuel and launch assist, while the other three engines were nukes. Edit again... Well, that could have gone better. Late in the nearly 20-minute burn, I got a phone call and *thought* I paused, but hadn't. Overshot Jool and was well on my way to earning my solar escape device on my ribbon. Had to F9 and try again. I used all seven engines out of curiosity- I ended up making the transfer orbit with about 1000 m/s more delta V to spare, and had fuel in all tanks. I guess it works out better as a shorter, almost impulse, force rather than the smooth longer burn.

Sudden existance failure. Looks good....... crap. This time! Nope.

I had only been playing KSP for a week and I figured I'd build my first space station. I built a module, added docking ports, and launched it into a 150 km orbit. I then launched another identical one and worked out the rendezvous. This is still before I ever tried any mods such as MechJeb, so it was a proud moment when I got them close for my first ever rendezvous in space. Even prouder when I got the docking ports aligned, and... *bump* hmm, shouldn't this couple? Do I have to magnetize the ports? *bump* *bump* *bump* I sent Jeb out for an EVA inspection. He noticed the docking ports on both identical modules were installed backwards. Furthermore, this was a space station- he had no return vehicle, and no way for a return vehicle to dock to bring him home. (I did eventually rescue with a near-rendezvous and an EVA though)

Shame about the descent crash, but hey, you still got the results, right? Nice work. Have you tried pressing "v" until you're on chase view camera for the descent? That should lock the camera to the probe orientation- so long as MechJeb or SAS can keep it upright, that may make it easier to control the lateral drift. Another thought- what about an intentionally uncrontrolled descent? A "roller" probe? Something like a probe core inside a ball that can take some impact, and just needs a shove over the edge. Obviously I'm armchair quarterbacking ideas when I've never even reached Moho in the first place, but just some thoughts. Way to go though for actualy using science to discover things in the game.

Bilhat (picture above on reentry) and Kerbin are inexplicably back in the astronaut complex, despite Jeb's best efforts to prevent the undead uprising. I mean, he wants to have a safe home to return to after the Jool/Laythe mission, right? Methinks he found some volunteers for a one-way trip during the upcoming Eloo transfer window- but that's a topic for another mission thread down the road. Not sure if I should keep the black memorial stripe on my Kerbin ribbon if the guys keep coming back after being irretreivably lost twice...

It was the only way to prevent the zombie apocalypse. In other news, I messed around with the LLAMA and ended up installing the quantum strut mod so I could keep it stable when docked to the cruise stage on the interplanetary journey. I probably could have gone with a redesign to the large size docking port, but that would entail relaunching the cruise stage and about six fuel transfer missions, so I opted to just replace the LLAMA and do it in one launch. Luckily, I found a design workaround earlier for the floating base part that made it so I could remove the sea sickness cure mod- I basically just removed the work platform and made it so there's a ladder straight from the habitat to the water, and the struts with the floats connect directly to the hitchhiker module. You can kinda see the redesign in the all-up picture a few posts back, but I'll have some better pictures on Laythe I hope. So, down one mod, replaced with another. That's not too bad I think: just quantum struts and MechJeb for the calculations. I wanted to keep the mods as minimal as possible while I learn the ins and outs of KSP, so I think that worked out as a good comprimise for a first long-range mission. Now I'm ready to launch the mission! Just counting down 23 more days until the optimal Jool transfer window opens and I can send the convoy on its way. I just have a few other ships to check in on in that time (a sun diver about to impact and a Mun-Minmus dual rover mission about to transfer between moons) and I should be ready to launch this weekend when I have some time to really sit down and hand jam some transfer nodes.