Moonkricket Space Agency and interplanetary tourism center

[Just Jim]

Real quick: My name is Jim, and I signed up a couple days ago. Was told this is the place to show off screenshots...lol... and I've got quite a few I would love to share. I've been playing since 0.9, but started a new career when 1.0 was released, and I've gotten way beyond anything I thought.....

... but it all starts with a girl named Val T. Kerman, who wanted to go into space more than anything.

From the first day she was hired, Val was getting into trouble

But senior astronauts Jeb, Bob, & Bill knew she was something special, and she was soon promoted to gathering science on and around the space center.

And after that she began taking tourists on sub-orbital trips. (This was before 1.0.4 came out)

Having made a lot of money on tourists, the space center was able to fund manned missions to the Mun and Minmus

And launch large survey satellites

But then came a contract for a large Mun base... which I will continue in a reply so this doesn't get too long.

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Chapter 2: Munbase Tereshkova

The contract for the Munbase was huge, and many designs were considered before one of the biggest was chosen

But how does one put a monster like this into orbit? Conventional rockets just turned into giant exploding bobble-heads. And the only thing that came close to working was a skycrane, originally intended for landing.

Then a junior engineer asked "Why not just build a huge skycrane???"

And after many test launches, the Tarantula Skycrane system was born

And sunrise the next morning was launched

The biggest issue turned out not to be fuel, but overheating, and after 1.0.4 came out I had to add a bunch of radiators to keep it from exploding. But in the end, it got to the Mun in one piece, and landing was easier than I expected.

the problem came when I staged the last skycrane, and they went off course and exploded just a few feet over the base

But luckily they missed, and Munbase Tereshkova as brought online

To be continued...

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Chapter 3: Space Station Cristoforetti

Encouraged by the success of the Munbase, the engineers began experimenting with different designs, including a potential seabase

And they launched, Cristoforetti Station, our first heavy space station.

And began experimenting with different shuttle designs

But then 1.0.4 was released, and parts of my space stations started blowing up. But did my engineers quit? Absolutely NOT!!! They evacuated everyone off the station and launched Station Cristoforetti-B

To be continued...

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Chapter 4: Let There Be Landers

So after all the issues brought up by version 1.0.4 were resolved, the center landed a colony base on Minmus

And the engineers began working on specialized landers for the Mun and Minmus. the first were the ore-miners, the workhorse of the fleet. These are meant to mine ore, process it into fuel, and re-fuel the space stations. Their success means never having to send up fuel from Kerbin again!

And eventually a much larger version was designed, the Super-heavy ore-grinder, or SHOG

After that came tourist landers, meant to ferry tourists from a space station to the surface of the Mun or Minmus and back safely. Not the prettiest of my ships, but very easy to land and dock.

And finally the Advanced Science Lander, which found something amazing on it's maiden test flight

And wile all this is going on, Jeb, Bill, & Bob ran off to fetch a nearby class-A asteroid to play with

But now the space center is silent and deep in thought... we have just received contract offers to explore Duna & Ike

To be continued...

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Chapter 5: Duna

So in one hectic day, the center launched a station bound for Ike, a colony base for Duna, and 2 survey platforms, lead by Val in a modified Oreship

Landing on Duna turned out to be much smoother than expected

But while this was going on, Val discovered a weird, creepy black area while landing on Ike

Val named this area Kraken's Swamp, and planted a flag so our scientists can explore this further, and headed back to meet up with the space station

But new orders have come in. The Worlds First Agency wants Val to return and land on Kerbin with that ship! This could get hairy... it's got 20 parachutes, but those were meant for Duna, not Kerbin.

So this is the end of my report for now. Will Val be able to land an Oreship on Kerbin and not turn into toast??? Will Jeb, Bill and Bob be able to turn an asteroid into a space telescope???

Stay tuned... this saga is far, far from over....

[yorshee]

I really like your craft designs! They're unique and have a lot of character.

[Dman979]

I love how you're basically reusing you craft designs. It makes missions a lot simpler, right?

[Wallygator]

Excellent 1970's throwback designs! I really like your style, keep going!!!

Short and succinct descriptions, a bit of humor... It's great !

Rep to you.

[RandomRyan]

So complex.... So Kerbal.

srsly this designs are Kerbal-ish!

Launch the Rep Rocket! TARGET: Just Jim

[Just Jim]

Oh wow... thank you all! I am so glad y'all are getting what I'm trying to do! But your not going back quite far enough... lol. My lander designs were inspired by.... wait for it.....

Godzilla vs. Monster Zero! 1965

hehehe

I'm 52, and I still love old sci-fi and monster movies, and this was on a couple weeks ago, so I recorded it. And when I was watching that beautifully campy old-school rocket land on Planet-X, I thought to myself, you should build something like that in KSP.

The Oreship came first. I didn't know what to expect, except I didn't expect it to go this far. But it turned out to be a lovely ship to fly, and the widened base makes all of them very stable to land, even on shallow slopes. And the Mk1 inline cockpit IVA view makes them all super easy to dock.

So thanks again for the nice comments... I'll post the next chapter as soon as it happens... lol.

[Wallygator]

ha! I knew it!

Destroy All Monsters!!!!!

Kindred spirit here.

[Just Jim]

ha! I knew it!

Destroy All Monsters!!!!!

Kindred spirit here.

Ahhahahahaha Yup! that one is my all time favorite, other than the first Godzilla.

I love old Sci-Fi... many of the old classics are so Kerbal in so many ways....

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Oh real quick... I forgot to mention in my original post. I'm not using any mods other than chatteterererer... lol... and Asteroid day. No MechJeb or Engineer or any of that. I find them way more confusing to use than just doing the math in my head and hoping nothing explodes

[Just Jim]

Chapter 6: The Sentinel

While Val's waiting for a good window to set up a maneuver home, things back at Kerbin have been busy. After testing a couple designs, we've launched out first Sentinel IR telescope:

The Engineers were a little concerned parts might come flying off during the launch, but by keeping the speed under 300m'/s until she was out of the soup, everything survived. She is now on course for her permanent assignment in orbit of the Sun.

In the meantime, the Langertrix Shuttle moved in to rescue the stranded capsule crew. The capsule had no liquid fuel, but did have a bit of RCS fuel left, so by carefully maneuvering the Langertrix over her, Jeb was able to use one last RCS thrust to attach the claw to the shuttle and transfer the crew safely, then return to Cristoferotti Station. And at the KSC, a VIP lander (complete with 4 VIP tourists) was dispatched to the station to take them back to Kerbin

After reviewing the data, our specialists tell us it was a near miracle Jeb and the crew were able to return with the asteroid. The capsule was terribly under powered and under fueled, and only Jeb's decision to not try and maneuver straight to Kerbin, but instead delicately tweak their orbit, wait a year and let themselves fall back into Kerbin's SOI naturally, gave them enough fuel to slow down into any sort of Kerbin orbit.

But all is well, Jeb, Bill, & Bob are back after a year.... time to re-group and plan our next move...

Edited August 4, 2015 by Just Jim

[Mister Dilsby]

Great stuff! Mecha King Ghidra fan over here, one of these days Kerbfleet will have to launch some kind of kaiju homage

[Geschosskopf]

Some impressivley creative stuff here. Me likes

[Just Jim]

Chapter 7: Jeb to the rescue

It must have been a horrible explosion... Jeb wasn't three feet in the door of Mission Control when he was told there were 4 Kerbals strewn about in orbit in different parts of the wreck that needed to be rescued.

But the good news was the engineers had a new, experimental rescue vehicle for him.... The Rescue Raptor:

Not sure what to expect, Jeb had all sorts of fun, and within a few hours had rescued all four stranded Kerbals and returned them to Cristoforetti Station to await the next shuttle back to the surface.

[Crystal_Mace]

Great to see the whole grand venture in one place...

[Just Jim]

So much has happened... but I'm not sure how to continue this with 1.1 just on the horizon. I don't know if career games will continue to play, and even if they do, would it be better to start over with the new contract system???

But I also hate leaving a story half finished...

I'm vexed... lol...