Sciuris

Wow, I'm surprised that's so high on your priority list. My purchase choices for Tech 8 were very different (I got the solar panels third, the RTG sixth, and the life support pods will be ninth). I really enjoy reading these reports, and I've learned a few things about ship design from seeing your thought process. I'm looking forward to see how you get through this tier!

The third option is to use the Rockomax HubMax to build an array, which is what I did on any mission requiring more than four panels on top as in your design. Assembling the array in orbit (necessary if you don't want to exploit the vanilla aerodynamics model) is kind of a pain, but the two missions for which I did it were the most fun I've had so far.

Ah, it'll be interesting to see how this choice will affect your progression. I've always cleared out one tech level before going on to another, so I'm curious whether this will make things easier or harder.

Don't forget the Mun biomes as well. Of course, you don't need anything more for the Mun landing, so you might as well go ahead with that. Just remember that you can perform and store multiple crew reports in the command module, so pick those up while you are orbiting Kerbin and the Mun. If the mission lands safely, you should start Tech 7 with an insane amount of science!

I enjoyed reading these reports. It's interesting to see how someone else chooses to progress through the BTSM tech tree. One thing I noticed is that you don't mention anywhere about picking up crew reports from low orbit. They are biome-sensitive, and so worth a considerable chunk of science all-together. If you missed them, then it's impressive that you were able to progress fine regardless. Good luck with the Mun landing!