The Quarter Tank Challenge

[Vaporo]

Inspired by my wise (and, according to my family, infuriating) driving habit, I bring you The Quarter Tank Challenge.

Mission Control decided that they wanted to send a Kerbal to Laythe. Jeb was stationed on the Mun for the next year, Valentina and Bill were floating in orbit somewhere over Duna, so that only left Bob. Now, Bob is not exactly known as a risk-taker around KSC. For that reason, Mission Control opted not to tell him about the rather... dubious delta-V budget that they had planned out. The launch date came, and Bob was hustled on board before he could ask too many questions.

The rocket launched. As far a Bob could tell, everything was going as planned and... say, wasn't this stage that they're using to circularize supposed to be used only for the interplanetary transfer? He contacted Mission Control about it but they said that this was always the plan and that they were totally not making this mission up as they went.

The transfer window opened and the burn began. Again, everything normal and... Ok, he knew that the Laythe lander wasn't supposed to be used for this part. He again contacted mission control again, but they again wrote it off as being all part of the plan.

Upon arrival at Jool, mission control directed Bob through a Tylo gravity assist, which went off without a hitch. Then they directed him to use the last of the lander's fuel to get an encounter with Laythe.

"But Mission Control, how am I supposed to circularize when I get there?"

"You're going to perform an aerocapture, of course."

"But... this ship wasn't designed for aerocapture!"

"Don't worry about it, Bob. We've got this all figured out."

As you can imagine, Bob was getting pretty nervous by now. His nerves (read: "utter terror") especially showed through when one of the solar panels (and a landing leg and parachute) exploded during the aerocapture. At this point Bob assumed that they would scrap the "landing" portion of the mission. He could dump the lander in orbit and just fly home. He just about screamed when they told him to transfer fuel from the return stage into the lander.

He landed, planted a flag, and returned to orbit, this time with plenty of fuel to spare (which would never have been transferred back to the return stage, had he not reminded Mission Control). The window back to Kerbin opened, and Bob was sent through a convoluted series of gravity assists to minimize the Delta-V he had to use... and he came up short. Monopropellant, LFO, all gone. The only thing left was to get out and push. So that's what Bob did. It took nearly all of his EVA fuel, and he barely had enough left to get back to his pod, but he was on his way home.

After that mission, Bob utterly refused to fly in anything that had a tank that dropped below 1/4 fuel.

So, the challenge is simple: run a normal mission, whatever you want to do so long as you reach orbit, but never allow any of your tanks to drop below 1/4 fuel. Because of the open-ended nature of this challenge, there is no scoring. There is also no reward for completing this challenge, other than your own accomplishment, so I won't check too hard for cheaters. But if you do something obviously against the rules, I won't put you on the list of people who completed the challenge.

Rules:

1. No tank on your vessel may ever drop below 1/4 fuel (excluding seperatrons, so long as you don't use them as propulsion) and must be staged or shut down before reaching 1/4. I'll count stacked tanks and non-asparagus tanks that are connected by fuel lines as a single tank. i.e. Each stage of an asparagus staged rocket counts as one tank, but tanks attached together in a single stage are one tank.

2. Your mission must at least reach orbit.

3. No Hyperedit, Infinite fuel, etc. Keep to the spirit of the challenge.

4. Refueling is Allowed. However, your fuel source may not drop below 1/4 fuel.

5. You may not detach a booster and let it push you.

6. Mods are allowed, so long as they don't add anything that would be overpowered relative to the stock parts (No KSPI).

7. Give some proof of your success via screenshots of your mission, including shots of your tanks' fuel levels at decoupling (MechJeb has a convenient "stage burned mass" feature that can be used to keep track of your fuel levels.)

If you have a question about the rules, just ask and I'll do my best to answer it.

Challenge Completed By:

Vaporo: Simple one-and-done mission to the Mun and back. Could have brought a Kerbal, but forgot.

My mission:

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The Half Tank Subchallenge.

Maybe...

Edited October 18, 2015 by Vaporo

[SpaceplaneAddict]

Can I please has badge?

P.S: will do anyways.

[Vaporo]

Can I please has badge?

P.S: will do anyways.

Might add a badge. I have absolutely no image editing skills, though, so I'd have to learn how to make one.

Edited October 18, 2015 by Vaporo