POS-1 Primitive Orbital Station. El Cheapo training station for El Cheapo space programs.

[Goddess Bhavani]

Once upon a time in Mortimer Kerman's office:

"Whoa, whoa, whoa! How big did you say the KSS is? We can't afford to build that! Ah but wait, the service module is based on an old Russian space station core right? Let's just use that simple, rugged, proletarian design instead."

Primitive Orbital Station POS-1

The Primitive Orbital Station is, as the name implies, a low tech, low cost, long duration space habitation project developed by yours truly, a fat cat deigned to eat and sleep 24 hours a day, occasionally taking a break to meow at passing owners. No amount of time is wasted on aesthetics, it is a functional, durable, working kosmonaut's orbital survey platform inspired by early Russian Almaz and Salyut space stations.

It was used as a training station for high speed orbital interception, 2.5m class spacecraft docking, and EVA component assembly using Kerbal Inventory System (good thing you can pack the KIS manual into the in-game inventory!).

This space station is memorable in that it almost ended in disaster from the get-go, as a poorly designed crew transfer vehicle with a detachable science / command module left its crew transport section drifting in space with no power and no secondary pilot controls. The doomed kosmonauts within screamed their lungs out as they started to tumble in a slow-motion washing machine, but no one could hear them as it was, duh, space!

Just then, the ever useful Bill, resident space engineer, swooped in to the rescue stomping the crew module into submission until Valentina aligned the massive bulk of the POS-1 station towards its docking port and rammed her home with all the flair of Italian soccer.

Panic barely averted, the crew settled in to their new home while the Kongress-1 supply tanker conducted a high speed orbital interception bringing crucial fuel and supplies for a 2 months' stay in space. It was a high speed orbital interception as I forgot to pack solar panels on the unmanned ship!

The Kongress arrived way ahead of schedule as a result, and positioned itself at an improvized soft-dock unloading bay while Bill once again made himself useful with manual labour, pulling out 600kg of life support snacks from his backpack like the unsheathing of Excalibur.

Once unloaded, the KIS cargo canister was attached to the command module of POS-1 for permanent storage use, and the Kongress 1 supply tanker de-orbited.

The station was intended to use the (now empty and gutted) crew transfer vehicle's Poodle engine to boost POS-1 into a Munar gravity assist trajectory out of Kerbin SOI in order to conduct visual observations in interplanetary space, but due to the release of KSP 1.0.3, the station will be mothballed until Kerbal Inventory System is updated. The rest of the ship is 100% genuine stock parts and KIS is not essential for its functionality.

"Happiness is having a 1.25m service bay to oneself." - Bill Kerman

Edited June 23, 2015 by pandoras kitten

[Rune]

Once upon a time in Mortimer Kerman's office:

"Whoa, whoa, whoa! How big did you say the KSS is? We can't afford to build that! Ah but wait, the service module is based on an old Russian space station core right? Let's just use that simple, rugged, proletarian design instead."

Primitive Orbital Station POS-1

The Primitive Orbital Station is, as the name implies, a low tech, low cost, long duration space habitation project developed by yours truly, a fat cat deigned to eat and sleep 24 hours a day, occasionally taking a break to meow at passing owners. No amount of time is wasted on aesthetics, it is a functional, durable, working kosmonaut's orbital survey platform inspired by early Russian Almaz and Salyut space stations.

It was used as a training station for high speed orbital interception, 2.5m class spacecraft docking, and EVA component assembly using Kerbal Inventory System (good thing you can pack the KIS manual into the in-game inventory!).

http://i.imgur.com/2jSPwTQ.jpg

This space station is memorable in that it almost ended in disaster from the get-go, as a poorly designed crew transfer vehicle with a detachable science / command module left its crew transport section drifting in space with no power and no secondary pilot controls. The doomed kosmonauts within screamed their lungs out as they started to tumble in a slow-motion washing machine, but no one could hear them as it was, duh, space!

Just then, the ever useful Bill, resident space engineer, swooped in to the rescue stomping the crew module into submission until Valentina aligned the massive bulk of the POS-1 station towards its docking port and rammed her home with all the flair of Italian soccer.

Panic barely averted, the crew settled in to their new home while the Kongress-1 supply tanker conducted a high speed orbital interception bringing crucial fuel and supplies for a 2 months' stay in space. It was a high speed orbital interception as I forgot to pack solar panels on the unmanned ship!

http://i.imgur.com/aFi1K4s.jpg

The Kongress arrived way ahead of schedule as a result, and positioned itself at an improvized soft-dock unloading bay while Bill once again made himself useful with manual labour, pulling out 600kg of life support snacks from his backpack like the unsheathing of Excalibur.

Once unloaded, the KIS cargo canister was attached to the command module of POS-1 for permanent storage use, and the Kongress 1 supply tanker de-orbited.

The station was intended to use the (now empty and gutted) crew transfer vehicle's Poodle engine to boost POS-1 into a Munar gravity assist trajectory out of Kerbin SOI in order to conduct visual observations in interplanetary space, but due to the release of KSP 1.0.3, the station will be mothballed until Kerbal Inventory System is updated. The rest of the ship is 100% genuine stock parts and KIS is not essential for its functionality.

http://i.imgur.com/ee9mdp3.jpg

"Happiness is having a 1.25m service bay to oneself." - Bill Kerman

Hum. It looks similar to what I whipped up in my career save (ok, I had no memorable failures, and in fact used it extensively as a base for a junk deorbiter, and based it on the small ports since I rushed it), but yeah, simple is sometimes good. The thing I was gong to tell you, actually, is that I also use KAS and KIS, and they both work fine in 1.03.

In fact I just used them to put some chutes on the old expansion module form mine, and deorbited it to recover some funds. No junk left in space, especially if it's valuable junk! The lab module, though, is still churning data hooked up to a much more massive wheel station. Said station is also waiting for my first, and last, science mothership to process the Munar data, and when that's done, those 5k of science will mostly wait in the bank, because I only need 1.5k to clear the rest of the tree. Look how dinky and small those early career designs look compared with the new behemoths.

Rune. The inexorable march of progress is far outpacing the scientists!

[EdusacconBR]

Look how dinky and small those early career designs look compared with the new behemoths.

http://i.imgur.com/ZwlBLor.png

Are those SRBs?

[Zucal]

Are those SRBs?

Yes. People use them because they make great structural parts because they are long and inflexible, so you can use one booster instead of 10 structural fuselages and such. Besides, you can empty the fuel out of them so they can't fire.

[Rune]

Yes. People use them because they make great structural parts because they are long and inflexible, so you can use one booster instead of 10 structural fuselages and such. Besides, you can empty the fuel out of them so they can't fire.

Yup, structurally speaking, they are a godsend. Strong and light (when emptied), they save tons of parts and connections. That station would have never flown otherwise... the ring has the consistency of rubber, and bridging the diameter with few connections is tricky.

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Rune. It makes a great aerodynamic stabilizer, though.

[Goddess Bhavani]

Hum. It looks similar to what I whipped up in my career save (ok, I had no memorable failures, and in fact used it extensively as a base for a junk deorbiter, and based it on the small ports since I rushed it), but yeah, simple is sometimes good. The thing I was gong to tell you, actually, is that I also use KAS and KIS, and they both work fine in 1.03.

In fact I just used them to put some chutes on the old expansion module form mine, and deorbited it to recover some funds. No junk left in space, especially if it's valuable junk! The lab module, though, is still churning data hooked up to a much more massive wheel station. Said station is also waiting for my first, and last, science mothership to process the Munar data, and when that's done, those 5k of science will mostly wait in the bank, because I only need 1.5k to clear the rest of the tree. Look how dinky and small those early career designs look compared with the new behemoths.

Rune. The inexorable march of progress is far outpacing the scientists!

Thanks for confirming that 1.0.3 doesn't break KIS/KAS! With 1.0.4 fixing the craft loading issue, it looks like I can get back to business (in space at least) so long as Kerbal Engineer and the quintessential Alarm Clock also plays along fine.

As others have commented I find the use of empty SRBs as structural parts most intriguing. Somehow when I think of SRBs as structure, I am tempted to construct some Greek pillars out of them!