Realistic Space Program: Career Done Very Differently!

[BagelRabbit]

Hello everyone! My name is UpsilonAerospace (you may know me).

Today, I'm going to start a long, painful, grindy trek towards the conquest of space! This mission report will likely stretch into the dozens of pages, take months to complete, and be (to put it nicely) more interesting at some times than others. I'm not sure why I'm doing it, but I'm doing it anyway. And you can follow along.

Realistic Space Program: Career Done Very Differently!

A Kerbal Space Program Experiment

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The goal of this project is to create an accurate representation of a space program. I'll try to 'hack' career mode to properly represent a real-life space center. While I won't try for accurate replicas of various space missions, I'll nonetheless play the game as if it was real life. I'll try to keep my Kerbals as safe as possible, and I'll follow a 'logical' progression of steps that nonetheless never happens in the average career game.

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So, what does this mean?

• I'll start off with a "rover" that uses command pod torque and use it to drive around the KSC. I'll also have a Kerbal walk around the space center, collecting information (Science) about the various parts of our Tier-1 launchpad and buildings. After all, how can we launch things from the space center if we haven't even seen the buildings up close?
  
• This will (hopefully) eventually give enough Science to unlock a Stayputnik. I can then build some unmanned planes to test aerodynamics around the KSC - and hopefully give me funds for setting altitude and distance records. (I don't think that ground exploration will give me any funds, but at least the overall cost of this is very low.)
  
• I can then build a manned plane... and test it with a Stayputnik before flying a Kerbal. I'll likely use some of these planes to survey the immediate area. By this time, I'll likely have some rudimentary science experiments that I can run in the various biomes surrounding the KSC: the Grasslands, Shores, and Sea.
  
• Finally, I'll begin to build unmanned rockets and flying them into suborbital space. I'll do my best to return the rockets in one piece: after all, it's dangerous to drop pieces on the space center! I'll build a craft with an empty capsule and fly it successfully twice before putting a Kerbal on it.
  
• After this, this space program will begin to look a bit more typical, with some exceptions. I won't fly an untested design with a Kerbal on it. I'll try not to drop any parts without a parachute, especially if they're falling onto a land mass. I won't do part-test contracts with manned craft. If my Kerbals are flying for more than a week, I'll provide multiple pods per Kerbal for a bit of stretching room. If I strand a Kerbal, I'll have to rescue him as soon as possible. If a Kerbal dies, I'll have to fix the problem and then test the rocket unmanned to make sure a Kerbal would survive. I'll try to rotate Kerbals, especially after difficult or record-setting flights. In short, I'll try to be as safe and responsible as possible.
  

Yep, this is going to be a long adventure.

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I'll try to post YouTube videos, photos, written dialogue, and other forms of 'mixed media' to make the experience worth watching. I have a feeling that this will take about as long as Scott Manley's Interstellar Quest... I sincerely hope not.

Anyway, please let me know what you think! I'll probably have the first installment up tomorrow.

Thanks for checking this out! Wish me luck.

-Upsilon

[Whirligig Girl]

This is going to be... interesting. Make sure you use large amounts of timewarp between vessel construction and science unlocks!

[Tex]

Nice! Sounds interesting. I'll be sure to check in from time to time!

[anachronicus]

Now this is exactly the sort of insanity that I applaud! Count me interested. Good luck!

[Drew Kerman]

I've been doing this for over a year and it's been fun. These kinds of constraints do indeed add a good amount of challenge to the game. Good luck with your grind, mine is probably going to last years if I can manage to keep it up. Look forward to seeing how you go about things, especially since you're doing career and I couldn't be bothered to deal with finances getting in the way - there's more than enough missions to run just to collect science alone to keep things busy for me.