Kerbart

As a newbie in KSP I'm doing all those things that are probably boring for others. But I'm having a good time with it! Here's my home-brewn deep space probe. I have them now in orbit of Mun and Minmus, scouting landing locations for a Kerballed landing mission! Initially I thought I'd be cool to build an Apollo styled lander. Thank goodness for a rigorous testing program; initial testing revealed that the landing gear was not long enough to fit the Poodle engine. After learning this (when testing things in orbit) the crew returned safely to Kerbin... My first thought was to use a set of beams to lower the landing gear. That worked in the sense of yes, it gets you below the Poodle exhaust. Then I noticed that some people were using beefier landing struts. Could that icon that looks like a stack of building blocks be those hydraulic struds? By golly, yes! Of course I made the mistake of continuing to use those heavy beams, putting the center of gravity waaaay to high for a lander. Here you can see both implementations, during a docking exercise. For me, docking was a nerve-wrecking experience. It helps (on the nerve-wrecking part) that I didn't know that you had to designate the docking port as the target, all I did was setting the other craft as my (rendezvous) target. Anyway, after about an hour the magic happened. Then, "never again" I used MechJeb only to learn that it takes even longer! So next time I'll rendezvous myself (it's not that hard), line the ships roughly up for docking (that wasn't that hard either) and then let MechJeb do the final part (which is does excellent and quickly. It's the RDV and lining up that is horribly inefficient) Putting a three man lander on the mun is a bit daunting as the pod tends to behave like a hog. So I'm now going for a design with a seperate lander (that's why we have the lander can in the first place). And given the Frankenrocket design that is needed to launch capsule and lander in one vehicle I'm launching them seperately and docking them above Kerbin. But that's for next week...

I'm with the op. Rendesvous wasn't that hard for me (remember that it's basically a lunar intercept in small scale). But docking took me over an hour the first (and only) time!

It is with deep sorrow that I have to inform you that Meldorf Kerman, member of the "red shirt" test pilot team, is no longer with us. When his rocket turned unstable during launch (note to engineering: bigger wings. Or maybe thrust vectoring) there was no need to panic. We would simply ditch the liquid fuel boosters who were equipped with seperatrons for that reason. And even when the remaining rocket exploded in a most spectacular (and I have to admit, satisfying as well) way there was still no reason to panic. We managed to get the command pod unattached. But coming back from 25km altitude takes a long time, so mission control could not resist physical time acceleration. "Do not accelerate through chute deployment, they will be ripped off," Scott Manley warned. But we boldly time accelerated where no Kerbal had time accelerated before, and all was fine. "Do not accelerate through chute opening, they will be ripped off," Scott Manley warned. But we knew better, and the chutes opened just fine. "De not accelerate through landing on the ground," Scott Manley warned. But we knew better, and accelerated straight into the ground. The SAR team hasn't recovered poor Meldorf's body yet, but that is mainly because they haven't reached the bottom of the impact crater yet. We now know *why* you can't accelerate landing the pod.

I'm just starting out. I try to look at what NASA did to set myself goals to gather needed skills. After a series of unmanned probes for getting the whole orbital navigation thing under control (and to prepare for landing an the Mun and Minmus of course!) I now moved on to my "Mercury" program with manned (Kerballed?) flight. Here's a shot of Mercury-4 and Mercury-5 side by side. Bill and Bob (Jebidiah was recovering from a landing in mountainous terrain) then decided for a little EVA and switched seats. Imagine the surprise the recovery crew of Mercury-5 had when it was Bill and not Bob who they encountered!

Completely new Kernoob here! After one weekend without sleep and now knowing the voice of Scott Manley better than that of my wife I've managed to land Jebediah on the Mun and on Minmus and get him back in one piece. I've since then started a bit more structured program advancing from putting unmanned probes in Kerbin orbit into putting them in moon orbits, and I'm now starting my own "mercury" project. In the mean time I'm busy brushing up on my orbital mechanics. It seems a lot easier to figure out things than it was in highschool physics, apparently college was good for something! Happy Kerballing! Bart