Oops... Jebs lost in space

[sledge57]

Well not really lost, actually he's in a nice little orbit around the Mun in his lander.

It started of as a flawless launch to the Mun (I thought), but after settling into a nice round 100k orbit I noticed something missing, Jeb was alone (not as intended) Pilot went Awol, hmmm maybe this what the "courage" stat is for

Oh well I'll send Jeb to the Mun and hopefully dock with command module or get close to CM and EVA to it after visiting the Mun.

Separate Lander from Command Module and..... No fuel in Lander. Somehow the CM used the Landers fuel Not sure what I did wrong there?

So now I either have to EVA back to the CM (boring) or send a rescue mission for Jeb

Ideally I'd like to refuel the Lander, complete the Mun mission and put the AWOL pilot back in the CM and get everyone home.

I'm not sure how to refuel yet or if I can manage this but first I need to check for expiring contracts (career mode).

I spent far too much time fooling around and have no idea how much time I burned doing this.

All said though, I love this game!

[eddiew]

It's often the missions that go wrong that feel best when you finally fix them

Docking ports transfer fuel, btw - that's probably how you burned your lander's by accident ^^ Need to lock the tanks of things that shouldn't be used until they've been separated.

[sledge57]

It's often the missions that go wrong that feel best when you finally fix them

Docking ports transfer fuel, btw - that's probably how you burned your lander's by accident ^^ Need to lock the tanks of things that shouldn't be used until they've been separated.

Thanks, I figured it had to do with the docking port, how do you lock tanks and do you know how to refuel if I send the Auto Club out (Munar Club?)

[Thomas988]

Happens to the best of us!

I've once stranded a crew of three around the mun after a mission went wrong, as well as two others on my first Mun and Minmus mission. No one but Bob, the first Kerbal on the Mun, died.

[Sampa]

almost reminds me of a serious situation that occurred on a simple Mun landing mission. Everything was going well...until I decided to adjust my orbit slightly. I then sent my crew into an orbit around Kerbol itself! And, they had no fuel to get back! Never did fix that...

[thadisjones]

No fuel in Lander. Somehow the CM used the Landers fuel Not sure what I did wrong there?

Docking ports will, by default, pass fuel and other resources automatically (only while docked, obviously). Your lander's tanks were the farthest from your ship's engines, so the lander fuel got burned off first. Some methods for fixing this:

1. If you fabricate your ship and lander in one piece and launch them together, you can turn off fuel consumption for particular tanks in the VAB, by right-clicking on the tank and then using the "play/stop" buttons next to the fuel and oxidizer meters. You can also do this exactly the same way while in game when you want to re-enable fuel consumption on the lander after you undock.

2. When your ship/lander are docked, you can right-click on one of the docking port halves where there will be an option to disable crossflow in either direction. If you don't see this, click on the other half of the dock- the game is inconsistent about which is the "correct" half. Also, this setting probably won't be saved after you switch away from the ship- you'll need to manually re-disable crossflow whenever you switch back to the ship.

3. Make a habit of checking your lander's consumables before undocking it, and filling up anything that may have emptied. I remember once having an empty RCS tank on a probe and realizing this two seconds after undocking it. It took me half an hour to use an EVA kerbal out to push it back to re-dock- then it hit me I could have just used RCS on the mother ship to catch the probe. Yeah that was pretty stupid. Good luck with your problem.

[sledge57]

Thank you for the info. Talk about stupid, Jeb went on a "Walk About" and now is truly "Lost In Space, errr Orbit"

The rescue mission just got tougher, I decided to go the "boring" route and EVA him to the CM. Funny how everything seems to be the same, speed alt etc between the 2 ships but when I went to do my EVA they were now 10k apart.

I thought oh well I can do this...

Apparently not...

My EVA skills seem to be as bad as my "making sure the lander has fuel" and my "all crew members are on board before launch" skills.

It might be a long time before Jeb gets home now...LOL

Any way to grab onto him with another Kerbal or do I need to use the "Klaw" on him?

He might have to just float there for a few years...

He was still smiling last I saw him though

[AbacusWizard]

Heh. My first ever boots-on-the-ground Mun mission landed safely, but turned out to have not *quite* enough fuel to get back into orbit... so I had the pilot abandon ship and use his jetpack to acheive a stable personal orbit while the empty lander crashed. Over the next few days I learned a heck of a lot about precision orbital maneuvers and rendezvous, and finally got a rescue ship close enough for him to grab the ladder.

[Yukon0009]

Thank you for the info. Talk about stupid, Jeb went on a "Walk About" and now is truly "Lost In Space, errr Orbit"

The rescue mission just got tougher, I decided to go the "boring" route and EVA him to the CM. Funny how everything seems to be the same, speed alt etc between the 2 ships but when I went to do my EVA they were now 10k apart.

I thought oh well I can do this...

Apparently not...

My EVA skills seem to be as bad as my "making sure the lander has fuel" and my "all crew members are on board before launch" skills.

It might be a long time before Jeb gets home now...LOL

Any way to grab onto him with another Kerbal or do I need to use the "Klaw" on him?

He might have to just float there for a few years...

He was still smiling last I saw him though

Claws can grab onto kerbals last I checked. Be careful of using the Kerbal as the active vessel, though.

[sledge57]

With all the cool stuff modded into the game where's the tether so you can EVA and still be attached to your ship? Of course a 10k tether would be a little much but you could use dental floss in space, it'd be strong enough, or a big spool of fishing line...LOL

[magnemoe]

Docking ports will, by default, pass fuel and other resources automatically (only while docked, obviously). Your lander's tanks were the farthest from your ship's engines, so the lander fuel got burned off first. Some methods for fixing this:

1. If you fabricate your ship and lander in one piece and launch them together, you can turn off fuel consumption for particular tanks in the VAB, by right-clicking on the tank and then using the "play/stop" buttons next to the fuel and oxidizer meters. You can also do this exactly the same way while in game when you want to re-enable fuel consumption on the lander after you undock.

2. When your ship/lander are docked, you can right-click on one of the docking port halves where there will be an option to disable crossflow in either direction. If you don't see this, click on the other half of the dock- the game is inconsistent about which is the "correct" half. Also, this setting probably won't be saved after you switch away from the ship- you'll need to manually re-disable crossflow whenever you switch back to the ship.

3. Make a habit of checking your lander's consumables before undocking it, and filling up anything that may have emptied. I remember once having an empty RCS tank on a probe and realizing this two seconds after undocking it. It took me half an hour to use an EVA kerbal out to push it back to re-dock- then it hit me I could have just used RCS on the mother ship to catch the probe. Yeah that was pretty stupid. Good luck with your problem.

Am small structural panel below the docking port will disable fuel flow. I use it as default unless the port should draw fuel normally. Problem with disabling crossfeed is that the game forget it from time to time as in not stored in saves.

[AbacusWizard]

With all the cool stuff modded into the game where's the tether so you can EVA and still be attached to your ship?

Have you tried Kerbal Attachment System? It has winches that can extend cable; kerbalnauts on EVA can tether themselves to the end. If the lost kerbalnaut is out of jetpack fuel, you could even try your skill at launching a grappling hook...

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/92514-0-24-2-Kerbal-Attachment-System-%28KAS%29-0-4-8-Fixed-for-0-24-2-x86-x64-%29