Rescue Samson Kerman from orbit around Kerbin

[icecat2005]

I have taken the contract of Rescue Samson Kerman from orbit around Kerbin and launched a rocket to rescue him; however, when I got the command module of his didn't have any docking port. I tried to board it but it prevents me from boarding a full command module. How do I return him to Kerbin?

[Nookos]

With rescue mission you need to switch vessel ('[' and ']' keys)once you performed the rendezvous. Get Samson on eva and fly to your rescue ship.

You can also use a claw to grab on to his pod if you want.

[Vegetal]

Switch to his pod using [ or ], then EVA him to your pod. Easy peasy:cool:

[Phil deCube]

I have taken the contract of Rescue Samson Kerman from orbit around Kerbin and launched a rocket to rescue him; however, when I got the command module of his didn't have any docking port. I tried to board it but it prevents me from boarding a full command module. How do I return him to Kerbin?

You need to send a ship with a spare seat. Either send an empty capsule with a probe core for control, or attach another empty capsule below the one with your pilot in it (I assume you are using a Mk1, single crew capsule). Then, as the others said, EVA your rescuee over to the empty capsule.

[Snark]

What the previous posters said: send up a ship with an empty seat, EVA your kerbal across, board, land it.

However, it's worth noting that if you're feeling lazy, you don't actually need a ship to bring your kerbal home. Just EVA him home. This relies on three aspects of the game that IMHO are rather silly:

1. Kerbal EVA packs are ridiculously overpowered-- several hundred m/s of dV.

2. Kerbals are extremely "draggy" relative to their mass, and highly heat-resistant, so they can re-enter from orbit with no problem.

3. Kerbals are very impact-resistant. A kerbal can fall out of the sky and hit Kerbin's surface at terminal velocity, and survive just fine.

...So if you really want to, all you need to do is take your kerbal on EVA, use the EVA thrusters in a retrograde direction just enough to dip into the atmosphere (say, to a periapsis of 45-50 km), and then just wait.

Not saying that I recommend this, it's way less fun than a conventional rescue. Just noting that it can be done.

[Mastikator]

Another option is to use the klaw, it lets you get him and his vessel back. The klaw basically lets you "dock" with anything.

[Padishar]

The klaw basically lets you "dock" with anything.

Including empty points in space when you enter/exit timewarp causing vessel destruction and sometimes corrupting the internal game state so any game that gets saved becomes fatally corrupted.

I would advise not using the claw at all, certainly not for anything seriously ambitious, but if you do then definitely make sure you make regular backups of your save and, when (not if) you do get problems, make sure you quit KSP and restart it before trying to reload an old save.

[Gryphon]

Including empty points in space when you enter/exit timewarp causing vessel destruction and sometimes corrupting the internal game state so any game that gets saved becomes fatally corrupted.

I would advise not using the claw at all, certainly not for anything seriously ambitious, but if you do then definitely make sure you make regular backups of your save and, when (not if) you do get problems, make sure you quit KSP and restart it before trying to reload an old save.

If you are clawing, you probably will also want to look at the Stock Bug Fix Mod, which now has a "ModuleGrappleNodeFix" that might help.

[dawilburn001]

On 7/27/2015 at 11:35 PM, Snark said:

What the previous posters said: send up a ship with an empty seat, EVA your kerbal across, board, land it.

However, it's worth noting that if you're feeling lazy, you don't actually need a ship to bring your kerbal home. Just EVA him home. This relies on three aspects of the game that IMHO are rather silly:

1. Kerbal EVA packs are ridiculously overpowered-- several hundred m/s of dV.

2. Kerbals are extremely "draggy" relative to their mass, and highly heat-resistant, so they can re-enter from orbit with no problem.

3. Kerbals are very impact-resistant. A kerbal can fall out of the sky and hit Kerbin's surface at terminal velocity, and survive just fine.

...So if you really want to, all you need to do is take your kerbal on EVA, use the EVA thrusters in a retrograde direction just enough to dip into the atmosphere (say, to a periapsis of 45-50 km), and then just wait.

Not saying that I recommend this, it's way less fun than a conventional rescue. Just noting that it can be done.

On playstation the kerbals aren't quite so heat resistant just tried this with catastrophic results

[Spricigo]

16 minutes ago, dawilburn001 said:

On playstation the kerbals aren't quite so heat resistant just tried this with catastrophic results

hard to blame @Snarkhis advice is not accurate anymore 5 years later

[bewing]

6 hours ago, dawilburn001 said:

On playstation the kerbals aren't quite so heat resistant just tried this with catastrophic results

If you fly it just right, you can make it just barely work.

[Snark]

10 hours ago, dawilburn001 said:

On playstation the kerbals aren't quite so heat resistant just tried this with catastrophic results

As @Spricigo correctly points out, it's perhaps best not to try to engage with advice that's half a decade old. 

The game has changed tremendously since 2015, including major changes to the reentry-heating physics model.  To help put things into perspective:  just a couple months before I wrote the above advice, there wasn't any reentry heating at all in the game-- it was a brand-new thing at the time I was writing, and they've tweaked it a lot since then.  In particular, at the time I wrote that, it was possible for an EVA kerbal to come all the way from Minmus and slam into atmosphere at over 3000 m/s, even straight down, and have no problems at all.

Now?  ...Not so much. 

Anyway.  Since the person who originally asked this question five years ago has presumably long since found an answer and moved on, locking the thread to prevent further confusion.  If anyone else has questions about reentry heating or anything else, please feel free to open a new thread about it.