Tourists are the pioneers of Kerbal society

[ArchGaden]

In my career game the main driving force is the incompetent rival space agency that keeps stranding their astronauts. At one moment I had four poor fellas in LKO waiting for deliverance.

These have been the most lucrative contracts for me. My current goto rescue craft launches 4 rescue boats into LKO with about 1400 d/v each. Those can reach most stranded-in-orbit astronauts in for Kerbin, Mun, and Minmus. As I get better parts, I work up better systems for bulk kerbal retrieval.

[wossname]

I'm still waiting for the contract that goes something like...

"Jettison annoying d-bag hipster tourist into the cold, dark void while in high Jool orbit for +1,000,000 funds and 4000 science."

[Wesreidau]

Hitchikers Tourists are a great way to mitigate costs on your space flights. If you've got a contract for science from the Mun and another to take a tourist for a mun flyby... make it a two-fer! And if Billy-Bob wants to orbit and you need to launch a refueling depot, what's a Mk1 pod on top of an orange juice can?

[H2O.]

"Jettison annoying d-bag hipster tourist into the cold, dark void while in high Jool orbit for +1,000,000 funds and 4000 science."

I'm laughing so hard it hurts

[Eric S]

The price seems a little low, though. I'm seeing one tourist offering about 100,000 spacebucks to take him along on a Mun landing. I'm not sure if I could get him to the Mun that cheap... I'm thinking the best way to handle tourists is to take them (several at a time, if possible) along on missions I'm planning to run anyway.

Have you changed the difficulty settings? I'm usually getting more than that for tourists that don't even need to land on the moon, just get into a suborbital path there. It takes less than 30 m/s delta-v to go from a 20km circular orbit to a suborbital path then back to the 20km circular orbit. I took one tourist on my first Munar orbiter and got over 700 science, XP for Jeb and Bob, and almost 100K funds profit, and that was with a seriously overbuilt craft that cost 60K because I used 2.5m parts instead of stacking 1.25m parts.

And I've got another 7 tourists that want the same or similar flights plus two more that I haven't accepted yet. At this rate, as long as I don't start getting tourists that want to go somewhere else, I could do a one-tourist-to-one-biome plan and suck the Mun dry in all biomes and make a whole lot of funds. :-)

[Kuu Lightwing]

You don't even need to upgrade. The limit only counts if you want to hire someone. If you rescue them, you get them on your roster regardless of the limit.

Looks like it also affects crew respawn if you use it. I lost Bob and two more guys when I crashed a station halfway to orbit, and since they listed as KIA, they are not coming back...

[AbacusWizard]

Combining contracts definitely seems like the way to go. I'm currently in the process of taking two tourists to the surface of Minmus, rescuing three kerbalnauts stranded in Minmus orbit, and putting the same spacebus--er, uh, I mean three space stations--in orbit around Kerbin, Minmus, and Mun... all with one souped-up hitchhiker can towed by a simple atomic tug, faster than you can say "double billing."