Northstar1989

Oh, and another award... The Boulet Award:

Meet my new 40-ton cargo (40.27 tons, to be precise) Learning from my last cargo haul, this time I'm moving it as a paradrop. The fuel load is partial because if it was full, the whole thing would weigh nearly 60 tons instead of close to 40 (if I were setting up operations at the island runway, I would start off by sending over a larger, partially-empty tank anyways). The probe core is there solely to deploy the 'chutes. I examined the rules carefully, and there was no rule against probe cores- only against having them control the helicopter itself instead of a pilot. In real life, drops are rigged all the time so the chutes are deployed as soon as they are released- unfortunately, KAS offers no means of doing this without attaching the winch in "docked" mode- which messes up the view by centering it on a calculated Center of Mass *BETWEEN* the 'copter and the cargo, making the 'copter impossible to see and *very* difficult to fly... (and the variation of cockpit I used in the HELO has no internals- meaning I get the default view of the inside of an opaque metal box, so flying from the internal isn't an option either) I'm posting this now so I can hear any objections right away- but I don't appreciate any. This is a perfectly legit strategy, and saves me another hour of tedious, manual flying only to possibly drop the tank a bit too hard again (although this one is a bit less fragile- the tank itself can sustain over 100 m/s on the bottom piece, and 12 m/s on the top connector. The RTG's can only take 7 m/s, but I will consider it a successful drop unless the top connector breaks- as the cargo still weighs over 40 tons without the RTG's- which I need for a night paradrop...)

Taking off for a return flight to the KSC for the finish on the Bell Ranger Award. I don't know if you can see them clearly in the dusk light, but there are two Kerbals left behind at the island runway (so long, suckers!) Except, because I was bored and impatient after that run on the Kolonchnko Award, and I didn't want to land in darkness; I decided to make the Eggington Award on the way back too... I actually hit over 150 m/s in that Eggington run. And YES, the copter *IS* still gaining altitude at that angle of attack on maximum Cargo Throttle... (GIMME THAT AWARD!) And here I am, having just landed safely at the KSC after the Eggington and Bell Ranger Awards: Regards, Northstar

Also, how in the heck am I supposed to strap a 40-ton payload on the bottom of the thing with a decoupler? (and if I could- would that count as making modifications to the copter, since I would need to put it in the place of the KAS winch?) I tried starting with a payload already attached to the KAS winch in lock-mode (as good as a decoupler) initially, and the copter bugged out, exploded, and flew 150 meters up in the air from the force, in that order...

I believe, right now, you have me remembering it as a boring and extremely, painfully tedious manual flight. And no, MechJeb *DOESN'T* make it any easier. There's really no difference between setting angle of attack to 20 degrees with MechJEb ASAS, and waiting and holding the W key hard for 60 minutes (that's how long my 30-minute game time flight took, with FPS-slowdown). Except that one way I get Carpal Tunnel, and the other way I get to snack on a piece of fruit I've been dying to pull out of the fridge... I already know exactly how to pilot these things- it only takes a minute or two to learn. The only problem is that if I get bored/tired enough, I make stupid mistakes (like coming down too hard near the runway with the cargo) *BECAUSE* I'm bored/tired. That's precisely why in REAL LIFE, they use autopilots for long, slow flights- because otherwise the human pilots will get bored, and eventually mess up. It's not like I can walk away too long from it on MechJeb, anyways. It's not perfect, and it still sometimes screws up. The most it lets me do is grab something from the fridge, or maybe (if I want to risk it) take a super-quick shower... Stop ruining my fun, and let me use MechJeb. It doesn't make the challenge any easier- it's not fair to impose YOUR style of play on other players. Regards, Northstar

Almost there... And NOOOO! The helicopter came down a bit too quickly on the final landing (10 m/s), and the (extremely fragile) fuel tank exploded! The copter itself touched down perfectly fine though (except for the inch, which either came off when the tank exploded or with the legs clipping into the ground- I can't tell) So, I'm at least halfway to the Bell Ranger Award (the return flight should be a cake-walk). And I more than proved capability for the Kolenchenko Award. Any chance I could get that one- or am I going to be made to do it all over again? (in that case GIVE ME MECHJEB OR GIVE ME DEATH! Hey, I'm from Boston ) Regards, Northstar

What about the HELO Model A? That was the one I really wanted on the Leaderboard right now- it already made 4 of the awards... (Precision, Eggington, and both the altitude challenges) About the desire for MechJeb on the cargo run- I should explain: I'm not using physics warp, because I'm afraid it would probably break the KAS winch (which is very close to breaking with that cargo load), and I'm also experiencing VERY low FPS due to ocean-lag (surprisingly, the helicopter itself is no laggier than the Model A- probably because there is no lift to simulate anywhere on it) Regards, Northstar

ARGHHH! This thing is moving at an average of between 42 and 45 m/s, and it keeps trying to tip the copter's nose up back into the level position! Why can't I just use MechJeb? This is taking forever! CORRECTION: It appears if I let off the "W" key, it stabilizes at between 10 and 12 degrees below the horizon with stock ASAS on. But it only moves at between 38 and 40 m/s then- so I'd really prefer just to hold a greater angle automaticall with Mechjeb ASAS! Regards, Northstar

Actually, the HELO B is so powerful that it can carry the cargo at about 800m altitude on Hover Throttle. I've been sticking with that mode because it means that any increment in the throttle represents less of a tug on the cargo. I've had a LOT of problems with the winch pulling off the body of the helicopter itself (it's clearly not very firmly attached- maybe I should have used a radial attachment node and a stack winch for the better attachment...) The steel cable itself seems a lot less likely to break than the attachment of the winch and your helicopter... I'm currently crossing the ocean with the cargo slung below, having finally gotten it off the Launchpad... Looks kind of like one of those military choppers carrying a huge payload (like a Humvee), except that the copter is about 4 times as large- and the cargo is a bunch of fuel... Regards, Northstar

I decided to build it bigger, for heavy lifting stability, and so I present: the HELO (High-Electricity Large Ornithopter) Model B: I also present completion of the Precision Landing Challenge- the one I was most worried about with a craft of this size: Also, I'm up to my old tricks again. This time, my new victim, errr, I mean volunteer, is Gusbrett Kerman: Unfortunately, dropping from above still didn't work. The HELO B is incredibly stable (more so than the HELO A)- and can easily stay within range while in hover mode for Gusbrett to reach the ladder- but hover mode only apparently works when the craft is actively selected, and the stock ASAS isn't good enough to keep the craft steady for long anyways (*cough* MechJeb, please)- so there's no way to have the pilot basically keep the craft relatively steady while another Kerbal climbs a ladder- which is entirely unrealistic... I ended up having to land- something I was avoiding due to the legs clipping into the ground and often causing me to lose the radial winch on the bottom as a result- which has relatively little clearance (a rather annoying bug- but not a design flaw- there *IS* clearance when the legs don't sink a couple meters into the ground...). Regards, Northstar

I plugged the HELO: A in, and gave it my best shot: But after at least 16 or 17 tries, and a few too many scenes that looked like this: I decided there was simply no feasible way to lift a 40-ton payload with that chopper. It's simply too light, and doesn't have enough SAS force. So, I've decided to throw in the towel on the HELO: A, since I'm going for the Da Vinci prize, and it's impossible with that chopper. In the meantime, please enter me on the scoreboard with my HELO: A entry. You can always update it later if I do better with my next chopper.... Regards, Northstar

The cargo, after several attempts at ladder design until I found one my Kerbal could actually get on top of... (apparently, the Kerbals need another ladder on the horizontal surface in order to make a right angle onto a ledge from the top of a ladder) Of course, all that effort *might* have been avoided if I had been allowed to use MechJeb's ASAS when I was trying to simply winch the Kerbal on top of the cargo... Regards, Northstar

Phillie Kerman volunteered for winch-duty this time, after seeing how scared Shelsey looked after the test-run. But after a 5 minutes of floating around near the cargo to no avail, all decided: $%#! this, we're adding a ladder: By the way, Fengist, you cannot IMAGINE how much I am hating you right now for disallowing MechJeb in most maneuvers. Do you have any *IDEA* how hard it is to line up a 4-rotor chopper over a fuel tank a fifth the size of the helipad, and hold it steady there long enough to lower a Kerbal onto it by winch, without Mechjeb to set PRECISE heading relative to the horizon that won't wobble all around like the stock ASAS? (even a couple degrees off sends the 'chopper flying off at 5-10 m/s horizontally) This isn't high-speed jet flying. There's no inherent thrill to doing it manually. It's not FUN to try and make maneuvers that precise without the aid of a real autopilot... (they certainly don't in real-life, believe it or not: autopilot trimming-adjustment is ALWAYS used to aid maneuvers like winch-drops... That's basically what the the MechJeb ASAS is on Surface Mode... a trimming tool.) Regards, Northstar

The Light Munar Explorer lifted off successfully, this time without any unplanned dis-assembly issues on the edge of the atmosphere, like in Bill's "nightmare", and is on its way to the Mun- where the plan is to put it in a polar orbit, so that it can make multiple drops of the lander module to collect soil samples and such form various different biomes (until the lander runs out of fuel- I didn't include any way to refuel it. That's partially because having Kerbals on ladders disables time-acceleration, and I'm fairly confident I would get fed up with the long wait-times for repeated rendezvous by the time it runs out of fuel... Also, the Minmus Spacedock continues on its journey to Minmus to refuel the Raven, and possibly deploy a small Minmus base and some resource-survey satellites to locate deposits of Ore and Kethane (I also need to set up some similar satellites around the Mun- before deciding on a base location) after I send some RocketParts tankers to restock it... The Minmus Spacedock will be making an adjustment burn after about a third of a day (9 hours) of game time from the current moment (and perhaps real-life time too, as I might take a break from the game before then). I might or might not provide you guys with screenshots of that- so don't be disappointed if I don't upload anything on it to this thread... Regards, Northstar

Starved for an ingenious way to get a Kerbal on top of the 40-ton cargo I made to hook up the KAS port without having to add ladders in 2x symmetry (so the Center of Mass remains in the right place) and re-design the whole thing, as well as increase the part-count, I had this brilliant idea. Here it is during a test-run- prepare to crack up laughing: "Shelsey, you get down there!" "Suspended by nothing but the winch, boss?" "It holds 40 tons of cargo, it'll certainly hold you!" I'll be transporting the cargo out to the island soon. Regards, Northstar EDIT: You know, this also would have been a pretty cool way to reduce the weight necessary to transport 6 Kerbals to the KSCII (and thus increase the TWR and maximum speed- saving time). Instead of designing a 6-man copter, I should have just designed a 5-man copter, and suspended the 6th Kerbal below on the winch needed anyways for the cargo transports... Or, I could have strapped him in a lawnchair to the 10-ton cargo itself... EDIT #2: If the hatch bug with the front cockpit continues to bother me, this is also an innovative way to unload 6 Kerbals without needing to install Crew Manifest so they can move internally between compartments freely... Just stick two extra Kerbals on top of the 10-ton cargo, in two lawnchairs in 2x symmetry (which 0.2 tons could also count as part of the cargo weight- though the 0.9t weight of the Kerbals themselves clearly wouldn't count...), and then I won't need to disembark the pilot/co-pilot.

Sheesh! It takes a lot of effort just to get a 40-ton cargo spawned! I had to throw launch clamps and a detachable probe core (probe cores aren't allowed for the challenge, right?) on the thing just to get it to spawn on the Launchpad! If I launched it without the launch clamps, it did some sort of weird trampoline thing several hundred meters into the air shortly after spawning on the Launchpad! If I launched it without the probe core, well, I had no way to detach the launch clamps. All just to get what you see here... I built an SAS unit into the top of the cargo. Mostly just because it was the only thing I could find that weighed exactly 0.29 tons (the extra weight needed on top of the fuel tank and KAS port to make the total exactly 40 tons), and I didn't want to carry a pound extra of cargo. If the thing flies steady without it, I'll manually disable the reaction wheel when I hook it up to the chopper (without a command module, I have no way of doing it before)- so it's just a big dumb cargo load... Regards, Northstar

Two more updates on what I've accomplished in the past couple days since posting... First of all, the Minmus Spacedock (previously called the 'Early Spacedock') made its transfer to Minmus where it will refuel the Raven. Expect to see the Raven finally depart for Duna soon: Second, and much more relevant to this thread, I stuck the 'Hornet' on top of *YET ANOTHER* rocket I've decided to send to Duna, this time sending over a supply of Lithium and Nearfuture mod ArgonGas (I think I'm up to at least 12 vessels en-route now... Eight of them, including this one, are giant rockets in the more than half-megaton range.) It will be making a try for this challenge too, so consider it the start of a fourth parallel challenge run (after the Eagle Mk2, the Blackhawk Mk6, and the Raven Mk2) Regards, Northstar P.S. Let's see. For those of you who are interested, so far, my vessels en-route to Duna: Duna Heavy Equipment Deployment Platform (0.5+ megaton vessel) Duna Crew Module (0.5+ megaton vessel) Duna Science Module (0.5+ megaton vessel) Eagle Mk2 Transfer Stage (0.5+ megaton vessel) Nuclear Orion Parts Tanker (0.5+ megaton vessel) Heavy LiquidFuel Tanker #1 (0.5+ megaton vessel) Heavy LiquidFuel Tanker #2 (0.5+ megaton vessel) Duna Supplemental Equipment Vehicle (this vessel, 0.5+ megaton) Argon Probe #1 (en-route to Jool- using Duna for a gravity-assist) Argon Probe #2 (en-route to Sentar, Eeloo, or Dres- using Duna for a gravity-assist) Duna Magsat (actually a re-purposed damaged Minmus probe for scanning the magnetosphere- which only *might* make a successful capture) Valkyrie Crew Recovery Vehicle/ Space-Taxi and, of course, the Blackhawk Mk6

Completing the Boulet Award (this is at the top of an unsustainable climb- I could definitely do higher, but I think this is more than good enough...) And the Church Award by over 1000 meters: And the Eggington Award- not sure on this one whether m velocity vector was allowed to be below the horizon- so I took two screenshots of the HELO near top speed. The last image in the album is of my safely slowing down to a more reasonable speed: Interestingly, the HELO Model A doesn't come close to the top speed of my earlier drone helicopter the 'Hornet' (around 240 m/s- akthough it can also safely fly at similarly large pitch differences relative to the horizon at 3000m instead of 8000m, thanks to its much higher SAS force relative to the lift from the tiny wings mounting the rotors...), even though its TWR is higher. Not for the challenge by any means, but here's an image of the Hornet in what's actually level flight in terms of altitude. At least 95% of its thrust is coming from the rotors- the small rocket nozzle at the back, despite its long flame trail, only produces 0.4 kN of thrust (but at an ISP of over 1000- using a KSP-I thermal rocket nozzle with a 0.625 meter Thorium reactor. Very low mass ejection, but at very high speeds- hence the very long flame trail...) For those curious, the 'Hornet' was actually designed for the "Flying Duna" challenge (http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/50619-Flying-Duna-AGAIN) and to support my long-term colonization efforts on Duna. A helicopter is nigh-worthless for me on Kerbin thanks to the extreme water-lag I typically experience (making helicopters unusably slow thanks to FPS drop) except maybe to haul materials into the mountains to the west of the KSC to build a mountain launchpad someday... But on Duna, where the terrain is much rougher, and there are no oceans to lag my computer to death, a helicopter is much more useful... That's half the reason I'm sticking to nuclear helicopters with very high TWR for this challenge, actually- whatever lessons I learn in flying such helicopters here will serve me well on Duna- where even a nuclear-electric like this can barely maintain 5000 or 6000m... (any actual designs I utilize there will have passenger capacity for 4 or less, and a drone core though- it's actually lighter to control an aircraft with a drone core and have a separate dedicated lightweight crew compartment than to control it with a cockpit... On planes I utilize cockpits because they add more length to the fuselage and aren't subject to shutting down if the electricity fails, but with electric helicopters, that's less useful...) Regards, Northstar

So, the first challenge I attempted was the island runway... Another day, another dollar- wait WHAT? The stupid thing still has some serious landing problems in my inexperienced hands- mostly related to my doing a poor job of hovering near the ground, and bouncing the landing legs against the ground- leading to the thing rolling over far enough to bounce one of the helicopter rotors against the terrain and break it. From there, I'm just lucky if all the other rotors don't hit the ground and break off as well (like near the VAB helipad)... I'd spread the legs further apart, to better protect it from bouncing at least, but that would make precision landings like on the VAB helipad difficult at best, and I want that darn da Vinci prize! Thankfully, the legs didn't clip into the ground this time (Noooooo- they just bounced off it like it was made of rubber...) Well, at least I got some Science from it (what, what? I've already been here like 100 times when this save was still in 0.22 and 0.21...) Regards, Northstar

The lag is still around in 0.23, and I still experience the same thing here. I took to building my space stations at a higher altitude just so I wouldn't have Kerbin taking up as much of my field of view... The problem is definitely the oceans, though. The Mun, Minmus, Duna, Jool- all work like a charm; I can easily run them on high graphics even on my aging laptop with a memory leak. Kerbin and (especially) Eve- it's nearly unplayable much of the time... Interestingly, the lag on Kerbin is a BIG part of the reason why I'm building a Duna colony to launch all my future ships from- although I don't mention it as a motivation on my Mission Reports thread: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/57509-Kerbin-and-Beyond-a-Maturing-Space-Program I'd like to colonize Eve, but I wouldn't DREAM of it with the current lag there- for whatever reason it's 5x worse than on Kerbin. I'm considering the water fix- but the invisible portions of the ocean could be a major problem for me when flying low over the ocean... Regards, Northstar

VICTORY! Strangely, the HELO's landing legs sank into the Helipad a little, and the Kerbals in the Odin command pod weren't able to exit (if this happens again at the KSCII, you'll have to allow me to count the challenge anyways. That's a LONG flight just to be unable to count the challenge just because the craft clipped into the ground a little... The HELO holds exactly 6 Kerbals, including the pilot/co-pilot) The passengers were able to exit, however. More sub-challenges coming up next. Oh, and if I figure out some way to make the Navball not flip upside-down if I flip the cockpit hatch-up, you'll have to allow me to still count it as the same craft. After all, the only reason I didn't build it that way in the first place is because the Navball flips. You would think Kerbals would still be able to calibrate a Navball correctly no matter which way the cockpit hatch was facing, right? Regards, Northstar

I present the HELO (High-Electricity Large Onithopter) Model A, the last helicopter you'll ever need Featuring eight (8!) electric helicopter rotors, a multi-ton reactor system, and a maximum TWR greater than 7 on the runway (over 11 with "Cargo Throttle" activated- I hope you guys were using it for your challenges too), she's a real beauty... Unfortunately, the HELO is also only my third helicopter ever, so I'm not that experienced in landing in tight spaces- especially without using MechJeb ASAS (you might see the icon on the side, but I won't use her except for circumnavigation, per the rules- though I strongly object to manually holding an angle of attack for a half-hour or so just to get to KSC II. The stock ASAS just doesn't cut it for really long distances- as it can't auto-adjust with the curvature of the planet like MechJeb's ASAS...), which allows me to precisely set an angle of attack and roll, say 1-degree and 5-degrees... Landing of the helipad is HARD! If it wasn't, this wouldn't have happened (technically she's landed, and nobody was hurt, but I don't think this counts...) I'll be posting on meeting the various challenges soon. The hardest one with this craft and my skill-set should be the 40-ton lift, I think- because the HELO's SAS-force is rather limited... (and if I placed the KAS winch even slightly off from the Center of Mass, it'll exert a LOT of torque on such a light craft... The whole thing weighs only 8.629 tons- more than 1/4th of that being reactor weight, and 1/2 being in rotors...) all the others should be a breeze. Regards, Northstar

Bill Kerman sat in the cockpit of the Light Munar Explorer, preparing for a fresh mission to the Mun. In his months on the Kerbal Space Agency astronaut rotation, it had been several since he could remember any Munar launches like this. So, as the countdown ended, and the engines throttled up, he was excited. He was going to set foot on the Mun! He thought how jealous the Kerbals would be back home... The Light Munar Explorer climbed steadily, and soon began its gravity turn, and Bill settled back into his seat, waiting for the G forces to let up as the rocket finished its burn. But suddenly, there was trouble. Bill heard a loud *SCREACH* sound, and suddenly felt himself experiencing weightlessness except for a slight tendency of his limbs to be pulled towards the vessel walls. Quickly looking out the window, Bill didn't have to wait long to see what had happened. The command pod was rapidly spinning about its axis, and the upper stage had suddenly separated into several pieces. The rocket engine that had been propelling him shot off into the distance, with its fuel tank still attached... What's more, their main parachute had detached with the tiny exposed lunar lander! (based on earlier designs for a "Lunar Escape System") In a hurry, Bill and the other Kerbals tightened their space suits, and hurried out the escape hatch- not trusting their lives to the two tiny radial parachutes still attached to the command module. Soon, Bill and the Kerbals were jetting towards their only hope using their EVA packs- the lander itself, which still had a functional engine and control system from appearances. A simple detachment of the main parachute from the rear would free up the engine for orbital circularization (neither Bill nor the other Kerbals trusted it to remain attached at deployment by nothing but a tiny 0.625 meter decoupler. Further, the ladder/descent platform combinations were designed for G-forces the opposite direction from the parachute- even the initial drogue deployment would likely send them hurtling off during re-entry, assuming the heat didn't kill them...) However, minutes later, it become apparent that only Lury Kerman was on course, and would make it to the lander before re-entry. And then, much to his horror, Bill heard him radio that he had run out of jetpack fuel just before managing to get close enough to grip onto the ladder... Bill screamed into his commlink to vent anger, but he knew it would be no use. He and the rest of the Kerbals would be plummeting to their deaths... Suddenly, Bill woke up in a cold sweat, only to discover it had all just been a dream. Glancing at the clock to his side, he discovered the Light Munar Explorer's launch was still a few hours away. "Better get to the KSC and get suited up", Bill thought. A couple hours later, Bill was informed that the launch would be delayed several hours for re-fitting of the vehicle. Apparently simulations had revealed a structural weakness in the attachment of the upper stage to its engine and the stage below that would be likely to cause rapid unplanned disassembly. The engineers would be replacing the connection with a stronger decoupler, and expected the new design would hold up just fine... "What a prophetic dream" Bill thought... OOC: Technically, this mission actually happened as described in Bill's dream. But attempts to re-load the quicksave I thought I had taken just before disboarding the first Kerbal from the capsule (I actually did this in case I burned the Kerbals' jetpacks in the wrong direction, being unable to aim in anything but 45-degree increments due to the unrealistic limitations of the keyboard controls after all, or at least my lack of understanding on how to reconfigure the controls to allow me to re-orient the Kerbals in any direction other than parallel to the horizon... I had forgotten about the radial parachutes, however- so on reload I probably would have noticed them, and only had to burn the Kerbal in the 1-man service module to the lander instead of trying for 3 at once from the Odin...) revealed that the last SUCCESSFUL quicksave- in which I held F9 long enough- was on the launchpad at the KSC before launch... The whole structural failure appears to have resulted from using a wimpy 2.5 meter mechanical decoupler instead of a standard Rockomax version, in order to save weight. The 2.5 meter mechanical decouplers are lighter than their explosive counterparts, but can't sustain nearly as many G-forces before failures like this tend to occur... The design worked fine until fuel weight dipped low enough that the acceleration at full throttle became too high- causing rapid unplanned disassembly, exaggerated greatly by the centripetal force of the rapid spin it induced. I've had similar failures much earlier in my KSP career, in previous saves- but never nearly lost a Kerbal to them before- saved only by a quicksave like this... (technically, the radial parachutes could have easily saved the 3 of them in the Odin command capsule, and with only one to focus on I could have easily gotten the last Kerbal to the lander by EVA- which had more than enough fuel to *quickly* make it to the nearest space station...) Regardless, I've redesigned the vessel with a lighter payload (crew capacity reduced from 4 to 3, mainly) and stronger decoupler, so I don't expect this to happen again. Oh, and I gave the tiny lander even more fuel and some scientific instruments (the antenna will stay with the Odin command pod, as I won't be able to transmit-spam anymore in 0.23, which I've had installed for some time now but not yet used the science system in... I'll still be using an antennna, as I'm not sure exactly how many experiments I can store in a command pod for return from different biomes...)- although the last one Mechjeb's KErbal Engineer functionality was telling me it had a frankly insane Delta-V of 10,000 m/s, so if that was ANYWHERE close to accurate, I'm sure the extra fuel is entirely unnecessary... (The extra fuel is actually mostly for stability/control reasons- by stretching the tank upwards, to compensate for the lander otherwise becoming bottom-heavy if I detach the lander with only a partial fuel load..) (The redesigned upper stage.) For those of you wondering why I'm doing this, I'm doing it for the Science Points, frankly. I've never landed any Kerbals on several of the Mun's biomes, including the Munar poles, and I hope to accumulate some more Science towards fusion reactors (and the greatly improved thrust and electrical generation opportunities they offer, not to mention the reduced radiation hazard- from a roleplaying perspective) this way... Regards, Northstar

I have NO IDEA how you managed to power eight electrics with two medium NearFuture reactors. Even a much more powerful KSP-Interstellar 0.625 m reactor (750 EC/s with adequate radiator mass) can barely power 4 of the 50 kN electric propellers (normally used in planes- but work fine in helis- just they produce less thrust, but use less power) on 1.5x thrust ("Cargo Mode") on my most recent helicopter design (I'd post it here, but it was a drone control module with Kerbal passengers- forcing me to design a new manned heli instead...) I'll have an entry to this challenge soon. Probably tomorrow at the latest. Regards, Northstar

OOC: This is going to be a long post, but stick with it guys (I've also added some dialogue to spice things up). I've got quite a few things going on or planned in my Kerbal Space Agency missions right now... Maller Kerman gazed out the window and sighed. There was a certain subtle beauty about the slow rotation of the station about its axis that he could never seem to capture, no matter how often he got out on EVA and took pictures of it... After a short spacewalk to reactivate the ship's nuclear reactor (that still wasn't half as short as he hoped- Maller shuddered at all the radiation he must have been exposed to over those two minutes so high in space above the Mun), Maller had hurried back to the science module he had taken up residence in and strapped himself in for a nearly equally long burn that slammed him back unexpectedly hard against his seat (those scientists at Mission Control managed to get a bit more power out of the reactor- and Maller wasn't entirely happy with the results...) as the Minmus Station made its transfer out of Munar orbit and towards its new permanent position around its namesake... "This thing could easily serve as an interplanetary vessel", Maller thought. "Good thing those buffoons at Mission Control haven't figured it out yet." Soon, Maller and the rest of the crew returned to their routine- reading, exercising, and even reading the occasional e-mail from home: all waiting out their journey to Minmus orbit, and the equally monotonous routine being stationed there would entail. OOC: It looks like KSP-Interstellar re-balanced the fission reactors and thermal rocket nozzles a bit since I last gave the Early Spacedock's engines a try. Their thrust is now a solid 500 kN, and their ISP a full 1000 on LFO Mode! (even higher in LiquidFuel-only mode: and in either the 3.75 meter variants beat out stock NERVA's by a long shot...) Additionally, the WasteHeat code seems to have been fixed- its radiators now dissipate at a reasonable rate again, seemingly capable of keeping the Early Spacedock's reactors in check at a reasonable WasteHeat level (the code seemed to be broken before- heat dissipation was not increasing with increasing WasteHeat levels). as such, I see no reason not to re-tool the thing as an interplanetary "Mothership" after all- the main qualm I had with the thing before was the poor performance of its engines and radiators, and both seem to be fixed. The part count is higher than ideal for a permanent space station where I'll have to repeatedly have to put up with the resultant docking lag, but quite reasonable for a mobile spacecraft- as most of the extra parts in some way improve the stability of the craft during burns... (it's actually one of the most stable space ships I've ever built by far...) Plus, I can haul it out to Jool and use it to build a set of outposts somewhere like Laythe without the need for a tanker, a tug, or any kind of additional supply vessels... All it needs is for me to top off its fuel tanks and equip it with a moderate load of RocketParts before departure- the ship can be recycled and replaced with a smaller non-mobile spacedock when additional parts are needed for the colony... Northstar Kerman, meanwhile, sat back in his office chair. "A little stiff", he though "But it's important to maintain focus and discipline." Since the beginning of the Duna colonization effort, Northstar had to admit he had gotten a little carried away with side-projects. A helicopter here, a fuel tanker there- he had even toyed with the idea of setting up an additional launch facility amid the peaks of the mountains to the west of the Kerbal Space Center to reduce the fuel requirements and raise the payload fractions when getting rockets to orbit, a project which would required a lot of heavy airlifting and careful base design. His latest mission, though, could be called less of a distraction. Perhaps even useful. After weeks of launching interplanetary spaceplanes (when rockets and specialized planes without ascent systems would be faster, have higher cargo capacity, and be easier ways of accomplishing their designated tasks), Mission Control had actually realized something USEFUL they could send for the future colonists at Duna... Lithium. And lots of it. Some low-pressure Argon tanks built for use with pulsed inductive thrusters too. But most importantly several tons of Lithium. Northstar had no idea whether the colonist might eventually be able to locate local supplies of Lithium on Duna. But he knew it wouldn't be easy. With more than enough to worry about setting up a functional mining infrastructure and fuel production systems, he knew the last thing they needed to be worrying about was digging some hard to find alkali metals out of the ground. Hard science fiction writers has written about some planets called "Earth" and "Mars", and he knew there, at least Lithium was a lot easier to come by on Earth then Mars- the more Kerbin-like planet of the two. Something about the higher concentration of lighter elements on the more Kerbin-like planet came to memory... Northstar also remembered recently overhearing a conversation between two engineers mentioning something about the high utility of Lithium for plasma thrusters if they could ever get a powerful enough Microwave Transmission system in operation around Duna... Come to think of it, thoguht Northstar, they also mentioned something about using it to breed Tritium for the fusion reactors they were sure were only a few months or years away... Regardless, Northstar had work to do. And Eugene Kerman had just walked in the door. "Eugene, good to see you again. I thought you had retired. What such a great man to my humble office?" "Don't be too self-deprecating" came Eugene's reply. "I've heard you've been doing some pretty innovate stuff here of late. Bigger rockets than we ever launched in my day. an entire armada of ships to Duna these past few weeks. And did I hear correctly something about developing a helicopter that could even fly on Duna?" "Oh, that" said Northstar. "I thought such a practical man as yourself wouldn't approve," Northstar paused a moment in thought. "I mean, what's the point of building something like that when we've already sent off two spaceplanes, a standard plane, and enough supplies to send an entire giant colony ship back this way if the colonists wanted or something happened to wipe us out here?" "You know the answer to that" said Eugene. "Why are you even asking me? Feeling hard on yourself of late?" Northstar was a little taken aback by this response. "Why would we need a craft type that travels at a fraction of the speed of a plane, has a much smaller lifting capacity, and is absolutely incapable of making it into space?" "Don't play dumb with me young man" said Eugene, serious now. "How many orbital cargo or passenger drops do you know of that land exactly on-target, especially when relying mostly on parachutes to conserve fuel and only aided by a tiny rocket engine whose fuel is mostly for last-minute deceleration?" Northstar genuinely considered this a moment, but Eugene didn't leave him long to think. "Well?" "But why would we need a helicopter for that? Wouldn't a plane be faster?" Eugene was actually a little bit irritate now. "You remember the days when our space program spent most of its time flying around in the atmosphere back here on Kerbin, don't you?" demanded Eugene. "Do you remember how HARD it was to try and land our planes on the sides of mountaintops? Do you remember how many Kerbals we stranded in damaged jet planes up there trying?" Northstar was starting to see his point, but said nothing... "And do you remember the last topographical map you looked at of Duna? Most of the place is mountains!" Norsttar silently nodded in agreement. "A plane's great for when you want to get somewhere really fast- but most unguided orbital drops are bound to land somewhere in the midst of a mountain range there- the sizes of which make Kerbin's peaks look like foothills!" Northstar waited patiently for Eugene to finish. "The only way we're going to ever retrieve 90% of the stuff we drop there is with rovers or something that can take off vertically. And a 'copter is much faster and can simply fly above slopes that a rover couldn't even DREAM of tackling without the aid of a grappling hook." Northstar nodded again. "NOW do you see why we need helicopters on Duna? Otherwise, our giant colony supply ships are going to end up seeding nothing but a really dense scattering of pretty monuments across the mountaintops of Duna for our planes to circle around searching vain for a decent place to land, once they finally unpack the drop-pods from the construction ship you sent up there." "How did you know about my plans for getting the supplies down to the surface?" Northstar asked, surprised. "I told nobody about that but my engineers." "The ears have walls around here these days young man" came Eugene's reply, the twinkling of his eyes a sharp contrast to the magnificent gray of his aging scalp. "It's a good idea if you ask me- you risk too much trying to land one of the interstellar heavier ships directly on the planetary surface. If the engines fail, the parachutes don't deploy, or one of those simply hits the ground a bit too hard on impact; you're not going to have a colony on Duna anymore- you're going to have the biggest and most expensive rescue mission you've ever heard of, the end of your career, and the most magnificent fireball you've ever seen." "True. I've always said, don't put all your eggs in one basket." "-or your Kerbals in one lander" Eugene interrupted. "Which reminds me of the time one of our landers ran out of fuel on the way back up from the Mun, and both the crew members had to bail out an EVA it. Do you remember the poor Kerbal who ended up burning too far off-course when they finally pulled him out of his suit not long after his oxygen ran out? He was blue in the face- and they say he was never quite as bright of wit again after that, if you know what I mean..." "Enough reminiscing Eugene" said Northstar, very matter-of-fact. "So what are we going to do to get the poor Kerbals back if re-assigning the Minmus Spacedock to Laythe (after refueling the Raven) goes wrong? If you have eyes and ears in the walls, you must have heard of this one, or seen something of my plans?" "Now hold on a second there young man" said Eugene. "I said I hear things- I didn't say I'd seen any of your blueprints. What makes you think I even have the slightest idea what your 'Minmus Sapcedock' even looks like?" "Come on, old man" insisted Northstar. "I know you've heard about this one. You even took part in drawing up the early plans for this particular spacedock personally, before handing off the mission to younger men like myself." "You're correct indeed, green one" said Eugene. "Tell me, did they keep my idea for the radial fuel tank attachments near the engines? I imagine that would have been a sight of beauty to look at if it ever made it to space..." "We did indeed- Maller Kerman tells me it takes his breath away to see them serenely spinning about the craft every time he gets far enough away from the vessel on spacewalks... But you didn't answer my question- how could I possibly rescue to Kerbals if things go wrong?" "You couldn't" answered Eugene. "But don't worry, they're Kerbals, they can handle a little risk... Besides, they've got more than enough metal making up the body of that thing. Unless the craft completely gets torn apart during the aerocapture with Jool, they should have more than enough metal there to fashion a few lifeboats out of any debris if the craft breaks, and make it down to Laythe's surface. As long as they remember to grab a few days of Kerbal snacks, and save some of the oxygen, they can go into that deep hibernation we've trained all our Kerbonauts for- and they'll be fine until help arrives in a year or two." Northstar pondered this. "You're right- I get far too cautious sometimes these days. I'll make sure to remind the Kerbonauts that they'll be just like the brave Munar explorers of old- off to explore new frontiers. I'm sure they'll understand" "You know as well as I do that whole 'new frontier' stuff is just a load of wishy-washy that does about as much to help Kerbalkind as a Kerbonaut who can't pilot. The truth is we're not accomplishing anything if we can't set up some kind of long-term presence outside of the bounds of our planet. But you go on feeding them that stuff, and I'm sure they'll eat it right out of your hand..." "Right" muttered Northstar to himself. "Should've known the head of a space program that sent up a permanent fuel depot before it set its first footsteps on the Mun would be a huge cynic..." Then, aloud "Alright Eugene, it was great talking to you, but I've got orbital maneuvers to direct. I'll catch you on the flip side old man, here, let my assistant buy you a cup of coffee", and with that, Northstar opened the office door and ushered over his able assistant. "Buy this man a cup of our strongest stuff- he looks like he's tired. And make sure to listen to all hist stories even if they bore you." And with that, the elderly and glaringly-youthful Kerbal strode out of his office together, leaving Northstar to his thoughts... OOC: I know it was SUPER long, but I hope you guys enjoyed this latest update. By the way, here are the promised pictures of the Lithium/Argon supply ship, with the 'Hornet' helicopter coupled to the front. I call her, the "Duna Supplemental Equipment Vehicle." I hope you guys enjoy the screenshots! Regards, Northstar