My first necessary Mun rescue - 3-5 days of life support

[G'th]

So, one of my Mun landings has gone, awry. The crew survived to their landing site but both engines of the lander have been lost, as has power generation. Right now my two Kerbals have life support that will last them at least 3 days, at which point they'll have to take their chances with the ascent stage, which is already low on power.

Question is, using a (FASA) Saturn V outfitted with a remote controlled LM but without any satellite networks (been too lazy to set them up), could I get a landing to them in time? Funnily enough I've never actually paid attention to how long a trip to the Mun takes, so I'm not 100% on it. And then theres teh whole issue of controlling the LM on descent. If I'm lucky I might be able to use teh CSM to control the LM by proxy, but that'll be tricky with the limited overhead time.

UPDATE: Determined to survive, Kasie spotted an bit of debris in the distance and threw caution to the wind and went to investigate. Lo and behold, one of the RTGs survived the crash. So, the LM can now be used as shelter.

And, naturally, here's a picture of Errick and Kasie stranded in the East Crater:

Edited June 4, 2015 by G'th

[Orbital Vagabond]

3-5 Kerbal days (6 hrs) or Earth days (24 hr days). If it's the former, it's gonna be tight. And if Remotetech is an issue, then send a manned mission.

[G'th]

Not 100% sure which its set to, though I think its Kerbal days. But I was able to stretch out life support to a solid 5 day minimum depending on how long they'll survive without Food.

Its likely that I'm going to have to design a new LM to get them out of there. I watched the CSM orbit a couple times and at best I'll get 5-7 minutes of control on an unmanned LM, as mission control will be likely be facing away from the mun by the time it arrives.

Update:

Going to have to leap a bit forward with my designs. Pulling out the ALCOR pod to be piloted by Jeb. Going to be a lot of rendezvous' though. Not only is Jeb going to have to rendezvous with the mission CSM, but he'll also have to rendezvous with his own CSM so he can return home. Thankfully, I like overengineering and absurd safety margins on my non-premade ships.

Edited June 4, 2015 by G'th

[FancyMouse]

I put 2 days supply for Mun round trip, and 20 days for Minmus - both cases are just taking off right after landing (gathering science & planting flags are like negligible)

[G'th]

I put 2 days supply for Mun round trip, and 20 days for Minmus - both cases are just taking off right after landing (gathering science & planting flags are like negligible)

I typically don't spend much time on the surface either, hence why I have so little loaded.

But funnily enough, what will be my Apollo 13 will in fact be a rescue mission for 12.

[FancyMouse]

If you're using the same contract pack as mine - I think that's one of the bugs in there. Landing back on Kerbin is one of the objective, but somehow you can complete the parameter before even reaching Mun...

[Capt. Hunt]

I see they both have EVA-X packs (assuming those are the basic US packs and not some other mod using the same model), with those they should have enough delta-V to self rescue. So you won't have to worry about a lander, you should even have the delta-v to make it to Kerbin if you wanted to.

[G'th]

Possible, but my KSP-Fu is not quite up to that level lol. That and I've never actually attempted a rescue so this was a cool experience.

But! Rescue is successful. Manage to land the rescue LM just shy of 300m from the crash site. Kerbals are in route now.

I got ABSURDLY lucky with the TMI. It put me into just the right orbit that would cross over the crash site just as I was ready to descend.

[Sharpy]

BTW, unless kerbal biology is vastly different than human, food is the least of your worries. An average, lightly-built human can survive over a month without food, around a week without water (without reusing urine) and only the air is a limited resource (though with liquid oxygen, only CO2 removal filters become an issue of a scarce resource.) Oh, and the matter of thermoregulation, I guess balancing freezing in the shadows and frying in the sunlight would be an issue.