Most hairbrained rescues?

[KerikBalm]

So now that the rescue contracts don't always have the kerbal in a near perfect circle with zero inclination, at about 100kmx100km... I've had to get a lot more creative with my rescues.

Case 1: Accepted a contract... someone stranded in orbit around kerbin... easy, right? Well, they were out about as far as Mun... hmmm, I have an old sat launched for a contract in a somewhat similar orbit.

* 1st plan- rendevous with the pod, and try to push its PE down to gently aerobrake it to LKO, and then jetpack to circularize.

* stupid probe has a round nose cone, wrecked pod has no electric charge to stop rotation, barely changed orbit, lots of spinning - gave up

* Considered simply jetpacking it the whole way, but didn't want to be left with very little eva prop for the rendevous

* I launched my non-nuclear sat launching SSTO (satpayload swapped for a FL-T800 tank) - had less dV than I anticipated, I got the Apoapsis up to an intercept, but had barely any fuel left. - back to the jetpack plan, My kerbal (who I luckily had already activated with the probe) had to match velocities effectively dropping its PE down to LKO, and clamber aboard the SSTO, which then did a retroburn, and was able to aerobrake and glide (mostly, some remaining liquid fuel was used in the turbos) back to the KSC runway.

Case 2: rescue someone in a high retrograde orbit around Minmus

My minmus lander hadn't arrived yet (was transfering from Mun, 10 days out) I did have a orbital station with some kerbals in it though.

This station was in a polar orbit, and I was jetpacking my kerbals down to the surface to collect surface samples and eva reports... feels exploity

* I figure, well, if I can jetpack to deorbit, and reorbit, I can jetpack from lo orbit to high orbit - plane changes are easy with a high apoapsis.

* I jet pack a kerbal out there, and board the pod (mk2 cockpit in this case, no need to shuffle the kerbals) - refilled eva prop, great!

* jetpacked both kerbals back to the orbiting station.

* I've got a nuclear SSTO inbound carrying a surface base payload (for a contract), it has 1 empty seat... I don't plan on maneuvering it.

-That's right, more jetpacking!

Jetpacking everywhere! I just need to get them into something that can survive reentry....

600 m/s is plenty to work with in Minmus' SOI, and plenty when nearing the edge of kerbin's SOI (well near in dV terms... like out at Mun).

Its fun to do these rendevous and such without maneuver nodes and a nav ball (actually I can set maneuver nodes to help plan, but obviously I can't see the nav ball, nor the dV readout to execute them) using the RCS pack.

But it also seems a bit stupid in another way - why should I need to go out and "escort" them back. It would be much easier if I could just directly take control of them, and have them jetpack to a better orbit.

Why should all the pre-rendevous maneuvering be on my part? why do I want to help someone that can't help theirself?

Anyone else got stories of rescue plans that failed, but were then saved somehow (most likely by jetpacking )

[Randazzo]

This one time, in Kerbal camp (0.90), I got a contract to rescue a kerbal from orbit. So I whipped up a probe core + Mk1 and sent it into orbit, using mechjeb instead of paying attention. Matched planes, set up a transfer, then finally set it to match velocity at closest approach. I was tabbed out to the desktop for most of this.

I tabbed back to the game just in time to see the final stage initiate the velocity matching burn. Unfortunately, Mechjeb was very very precise in setting up the intercept. When the engine fired less than 10 meters off from the Kerbal (and directly aligned to it's position), it shot the poor kerbal off like a cannon and put him into a very steep suborbital path. I did manage to catch up and get him on board, but it was still hilarious to see.

Need a lift? Here's a little rocket exhaust first.

[KatzOhki]

I got a contract last night to rescue (what turned out to be) an empty in-line command pod (the aircraft single seater one). It was my first rescue using the KLAW, but I was like "really? next time can I just buy you a new pod and you can pay me the 6x it cost, ok?" I was a little disappointed the part to recover wasn't more interesting.

[luizopiloto]

still more simple than capturing asteroids... specially the class E ones...

[problemecium]

Lately I've gotten a bit "creative" about rescue schemes due to boredom after rescuing the first few dozen Kerbals.

First I tried EVAing Jeb from one ship to another ship, where he jumped aboard the "wreck" (A hitchhiker container) and rechristened it "Leebella's Station" (after the Kerbal inside). I now use it to store rescuees that show up around the Mun.

Then I tried storing Kerbals aboard my LKO station and using a bunch of Klaws to recover the empty pods for profit.

Most recently I use my "Space Tug Klaw Edition" and "Bolt-on Parachute Module" (A Klaw with radial parachutes) to just stick parachutes on the wrecks and push them down to Kerbin. It works surprisingly well when nothing glitches out xD