Forgotten Space Program

[TopHeavy11]

What mod are your fairings from?

[Cydonian Monk]

1 minute ago, TopHeavy11 said:

What mod are your fairings from?

They're either Tantares/LV or Stock. And some of the earlier crafts used the SoundingRockets fairings.

[TopHeavy11]

Just now, Cydonian Monk said:

They're either Tantares/LV or Stock. And some of the earlier crafts used the SoundingRockets fairings.

Like you used on the carbon rockets. I'm not seeing those in my game. what tab are they in?

 

Edited February 27, 2016 by TopHeavy11

[Cydonian Monk]

21 minutes ago, TopHeavy11 said:

Like you used on the carbon rockets. I'm not seeing those in my game. what tab are they in?

 

They're towards the end of the Aero tab. TF-10 Aerodynamic Enclosure and the TF-10 Extended Aerodynamic Enclosure. 

[Cydonian Monk]

Also: A link to my Craft Files on Dropbox. This isn't a direct link to Ships folder inside the save (which I'm not giving out.... ), but is instead a copy of everything I've launched in this campaign to date in a public folder on DropBox. Also includes the subassemblies, though that really only has launch vehicles in it. (I'd say "try not to kill my DropBox bandwidth cap" but if you can do that by downloading text files then DropBox is likely having serious issues.)

I'm not sure how often I'll update the files at that link.... Probably whenever I remember to copy and paste them over.

 

Edit: Also: Post 1000! 

Edited February 27, 2016 by Cydonian Monk
1000.

[TopHeavy11]

Ok. that should work. Tank you!

[Choctofliatrio2.0]

5 hours ago, Cydonian Monk said:

Also: A link to my Craft Files on Dropbox. This isn't a direct link to Ships folder inside the save (which I'm not giving out.... ), but is instead a copy of everything I've launched in this campaign to date in a public folder on DropBox. Also includes the subassemblies, though that really only has launch vehicles in it. (I'd say "try not to kill my DropBox bandwidth cap" but if you can do that by downloading text files then DropBox is likely having serious issues.)

I'm not sure how often I'll update the files at that link.... Probably whenever I remember to copy and paste them over.

 

Edit: Also: Post 1000! 

Congrats on 1000 posts!

So it's only ships you built in this playthrough on Dropbox? None of the stations or anything, right?

[Cydonian Monk]

Just now, Choctofliatrio2.0 said:

Congrats on 1000 posts!

So it's only ships you built in this playthrough on Dropbox? None of the stations or anything, right?

Correct. Most of those very, very old craft files would take more effort to get to work in KSP 1.0 than they're worth, so there's little point in sharing them. Especially considering very few of them would be able to fly in the new aero. (I do [probably] still have most of them, just in a zip file somewhere.)

[Cydonian Monk]

Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Mün

The next step in preparing to send Kerbals to Jool was to prove they could land on an airless body and return safely to orbit. Or, more importantly, to harvest the bounty of science points available to a robotic lander before real, living kerbals were sent to harvest even more. That juicy science currency would then be used to unlock the bits and bobs needed to send kerbals to Jool.

Or something like that.

The Phosphorous 4 was a large lander with a sample return pod on top of it. The lower stage would perform the trans-munar and munar-capture burns as well as land on the surface. Once enough science data was recovered by the probe, the top portion would launch back into orbit and return to Kerbin, reentering to be recovered by ground teams.

 

Somewhat heavier and wider than the previous Phosphorous missions, P-4 needed an LV-06 Cadence to reach orbit. (Though really the LV-06 was overkill.) The launch was not perfect, unlike so many previous ones, and the launch software had to be aborted part way to orbit. (The LV-06 is apparently tragically short on attitude authority. It was able to pitch over to 45 degrees, but after that refused to budge. Again this seems to be a failure of the gimbals on the particular AIES engines the vessel uses.)

The orbital insertion was completed in a "supervised" mode, where ground operators were sending signals directly to the craft. Had it been left on internal controls it would have burned up in the atmosphere... Some revisions were in order for the "launchmath" script as well. (Perhaps the upcoming library rewrite will help.)

 

Once in orbit the remainder of the mission went according to plan. The transfer to The Mün was conducted mere moments after achieving a stable orbit, the craft spreading its solar panels to fly free amongst the stars.

A two-stage munar capture burn was planned, the first burn placing the craft into orbit, the second adjusting its inclination. The target for this mission was the center of the Mün's Left Eye, also known as the NorthWest Crater. The two-step would ensure the P-4 was landing in a zone far from the steep southern walls of the large crater, and would improve the chance of finding a landing zone that was relatively flat.

 

 

The orbital capture burn was completed in the dark, as is only right and proper. The P-4 had more than enough options for staying connected to Kerbin, so the ground operators allowed it to complete the first maneuver before dialing the second into the RT flight computer. 

The plane-change maneuver was also completed without incident.

The deorbit burn was handled by the somewhat rewritten landingcurve script, with a guarantee from the hackerkerbs that landing would be auto-detected. (They'd rigged something to a trans-dimensional status check in lieu of the ability to cleanly and accurately parse data from some of the onboard instruments.) As luck would have it, the burn had the lander targeting a rather large crater inside the NorthWest Crater. 

 

 

To avoid the rim of the crater-in-a-crater, the landing parameters had the lander level off rather a bit higher than the previous Phosphorous missions. More than 1km higher. (Because they obviously had this landing spot planned out in advance, right? Sure they did. Play along with it.) As a result the last kilometer or so of the descent was nearly vertical. 

Mission Control, well out of the loop on this with the probe 100% in control, could only watch the last bits of the landing. The numerous cameras on board the craft were cycled through, but most just watched the navigation camera on the bottom.

 

 

 

Success!

And this time the script agreed, though the kOS machine was still unhappy about something or other.... Grumpy computers always gotta growl, even if they only ever do exactly as they're told. Hmmmph.

The science teams ran their experiments, this time making sure to NOT transmit the back to Kerbin. That's right, ladies and kerbs, this aircraft is going all the way back to where it came from. Please keep your tray tables and seats in their upright positions. Just as soon as the science data was gathered and verified, the launch team went back to their stations and prepped the spacecraft for its return home.

An updated version of the launchmath script was wired up to the P-4. The gradual descent usually employed to avoid the thicker parts of Kerbin's atmosphere would come in handy here for avoiding the upper rim of both the crater the P-4 was resting in and the even higher rim of the NorthWest Crater. 

 

They wasted no time in hitting the big red button.

 

And that's when things started to go... a bit squirrelly. 

It was expected there would be a small bit of damage caused when the upper stage (ascent vehicle) blasted itself free from the lower stage (landing vehicle), but the images shown from the cameras were rather graphic... So graphic that two of the cameras stopped transmitting a few moments after liftoff.

Thankfully the craft was still climbing and its software was still guiding it to orbit.

 

 

A quick inspection of the information feed from the spacecraft showed the cause of its rather explosive departure: One of the cameras had overheated, as apparently did its internal components, resulting in a rather impressive and forceful outgassing of matter.

 

Ancient history now, as the P-4 was well on its way back to Kerbin. The probe reached its target orbit a comfortable 18 minutes after leaving the surface. The controllers were quick to run the numbers for the Münar Escape burn, and dialed them into the RT onboard flight computer once they were ready.

They were targeting a periapsis at Kerbin of around 20km, which would ensure the return pod was captured while not being so steep of a reentry that it burned through all of its ablator. The orbital module would (hopefully) burn up in Kerbin's atmosphere and not contribute to future space debris problems.

The burn to return to Kerbin occurred in the dark, as is only fitting and proper. (Half of the fun things in KSP take place where there's no sunlight. Go figure.)

 

 

Roughly a day later and the Phosphorous 4 was almost back where it started. The orbital service module was detached at an angle to ensure it wouldn't fly back and collide with the return pod, while the pod was commanded to hold retrograde (orbit, accidentally, instead of surface... No Big Deal, right?). 

Once the pod was set, the command was sent for it to retract its antenna, cutting it off from communications but ensuring the antenna would survive reentry. The low-power onboard antenna tucked safely inside the probe core would be enough to reestablish communications once the probe was safely on the ground.

 

The first ground track showed the pod would come down just short of the large impact crater on the far side of Kerbin. Luckily the magic recovery team was already staged there, awaiting pickup. (They'd had a good 6 hours to guess where the pod would land anyway.)

 

 

 

 

The first indication Gene and the rest of Mission Control had that the P-4 had survived was when the recovery team reported the parachute open. The next indication was when the World's First representative burst through the door with three plaques in hand.

 

"Congratulations! You've successfully returned a spacecraft to Kerbin after landing on the Mün. And after orbiting the Mün! And after flying by the Mün!! We're all very proud of you..." Gene had one hand on his headset and the other raised to try to quiet the rep. 

"So it splashed down. I got that." Pause. "No, the bit you said after that." More pause. "Right. Sank. What do you mean it sank?" The pause heard round the world. "So did it come back up? No? How deep is it now?" Yet more pausing, the likes of which were making conversation maternity wards nervous. "Ok, so put some kerbals in frog suits and go down and get it. Too deep? Ok, what about a submersible? What do you mean 'what's a submersible?!' You're the Navy!" 

The World's First rep was very patiently holding the three plaques and attached checks out towards Gene. Eventually he gave up, his arms visibly tiring, and sat them down on top of Gene's station. He then politely excused himself.

"You're in communication with it now? The antenna has extended again? Good, at least that much works." Gene absentmindedly looked down at the three plaques now resting precariously atop his station in the trench. "Ok, keep us posted." Why is returning from a flyby more valuable than returning from munar orbit?

 

 

 

The video feed from the surviving camera continued to broadcast, the scene growing darker and darker until it slipped past the kilometer mark, after which everything went pitch black. It took the better part of an hour to reach bottom, but the Phosphorous 4 eventually found its handful of sand to rest in. One thousand forty eight meters below the waves. Far, far from the reach of the recovery team.

At that depth it might as well still be on the Mün.

Gene was scratching the back of his head when a sudden motion caught his eye. The World's First Rep was standing in front of him again with three plaques and three more reward checks. 

 

"Congratulations! We at the World's First Society would like to congratulate you on having built the first submersible vehicle and for setting three new depth records of 20, 80, uh", the rep paused when Gene's glance turned angry, "two, uh, forty, and..." Gene snatched the three plaques from him and pointed towards the door. "And seven hundred, fifty, and, uh, ok. Ok! I'm leaving."

At least the radio was still working, and the probe appeared to have not gone beyond its 'crush depth', whatever that meant, so the science team was able to transmit the results back to the lab. No more than they would've got had they just left the probe on the Mün, but you tae what you can get.

Even with the "loss" of the return pod the mission was deemed a success. They had proven they could safely land a robot on a foreign body and return part of it back to orbit, and later to Kerbin. That was more than they'd need to do for the upcoming lander tests, so the R&D team was authorized to press forward with their design for the Vall/Bop/Pol lander in addition to the LDAV.

Progress.

 

Navigation: Next Post

Edited December 4, 2016 by Cydonian Monk

[Commander Zoom]

Exploring two frontiers at once!

[TopHeavy11]

Hey, it's not totally lost! You can employ Captain Nemo to go pick it up with the Nautilus!

[Geschosskopf]

9 hours ago, Cydonian Monk said:

Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Mün

....

The video feed from the surviving camera continued to broadcast, the scene growing darker and darker until it slipped past the kilometer mark, after which everything went pitch black. It took the better part of an hour to reach bottom, but the Phosphorous 4 eventually found its handful of sand to rest in. One thousand forty eight meters below the waves. Far, far from the reach of the recovery team.

Yay, gratuitous explosion!  My favorite thing in KSP

Anyway, shame about P-4 sinking.  I've never had that happen, probably because I hit the recovery button too soon.  It's even more of a shame that the various ocean depths and sea floor don't have their own biomes, so you could have snagged some more Science! on the way down.

Somebody should write a mod for that, like the old Custom Biomes that eventually became stock.  Say an epipelagic biome (0-100m, same as existing "ocean" biome), a bathypelagic biome (100-500m), and an abyssopelagic biome (500m+).  Where these biomes intersect the bottom, you could have corresponding surface biomes, so a total of 5 new biomes and a reason for underwater exploration.

[RocketSquid]

Looks like it's time to make some submersibles!

[Cydonian Monk]

As interesting as submarines might or might not be, that's a distraction path I'm not wandering down. Now if we had ocean biomes as suggested.....

Which is an interesting point. Back when biomes were first added (the original Squad ones, not the ones added later by Tanuki Chau), I sent an ABISS probe to each one. There are spots where some of the surface biomes intersect with water biomes, ones I refer to as "wet" versions of each - and they count for extra science points too. Wet Badlands, Wet Deserts, Wet Tundra, etc. So in a way we do have ocean biomes, just not vertically by depth as I would expect them to be.

Edited February 28, 2016 by Cydonian Monk

[TopHeavy11]

Moar?

[Cydonian Monk]

9 minutes ago, TopHeavy11 said:

Moar?

Might be a couple of days. Had a busy weekend, and tonight is already booked up. Weekends in general this month (meaning March...) are busy for me, and I'll be away from civilization entirely for the first weekend in April. (Best way to avoid April Fools Day - disappear into the woods.)

Edited March 1, 2016 by Cydonian Monk
What day is it?

[galaxyguy]

oh I really like this 

[KAL 9000]

Moar Nao!

[Cydonian Monk]

1 minute ago, KAL 9000 said:

Moar Nao!

More Neighborhood Assistance Officers? Not sure the local police department can afford to bring more of them onboard....

Anyway, in the process of moving the first Silicon DSH into a higher orbit so I can launch and add the first bit of its drive section. After that it'll become a Silicon DSV (Deep Space Vehicle) and will be sent to The Mün. Hope to have that launch done tonight, maybe get the shakedown crew onboard too.

We'll see.

[KAL 9000]

25 minutes ago, Cydonian Monk said:

More Neighborhood Assistance Officers? Not sure the local police department can afford to bring more of them onboard....

Anyway, in the process of moving the first Silicon DSH into a higher orbit so I can launch and add the first bit of its drive section. After that it'll become a Silicon DSV (Deep Space Vehicle) and will be sent to The Mün. Hope to have that launch done tonight, maybe get the shakedown crew onboard too.

We'll see.

Sorry, but I like this series a lot!

[Cydonian Monk]

6 hours ago, KAL 9000 said:

Sorry, but I like this series a lot!

No worries.

At the moment the things I'm doing take a loooong time, mostly due to lag, or because I'm fidgeting with options in the VAB. I should have enough for a full update tomorrow evening, and we'll see what I can knock out Saturday morning. Now that the bigger piece of the Silicon DSH is away from Kelgee things move a bit smoother. After that we'll get back to regular updates every other day or so. (At least until the end of the month.)

[Cydonian Monk]

Slow Moves

Work on alternate forms of propulsion was underway in the R&D labs, but so far the interns had only managed to cook a few bags of popcorn. So the decision was made to press ahead with a conventional solution for the Silicon DSH's in-system drive section. This drive would stay behind at Kerbin when the ship left for Jool to be used as a heavy tug, so it wasn't fitted with the radial "drop socket" docking ports that would be used on the final drive. (They were still holding out hope of a science bounty on The Mün helping them to learn how to convert blutonium-power RTGs into some source of impulse.)

At 233.2 tonnes, the Silicon 4 was officially the most massive thing yet launched. The LV-07 Crescendo required a small SRB kick motor to keep its thrust-to-weight ratio above 1.05 at liftoff (bringing it to a healthy TWR of 1.1~), so the design teams opted to leave off any nosecones or payload fairings. ("Nnnn. Ist aerodynamic enough, ja?")

For power, the drive made use of two of the smaller AIES RTGs, which allowed the design to be far more compact than had it needed lots of batteries and solar panels. This prompted a discussion as to what would happen should the launch fail... with mixed conclusions. It was hoped the bluetonium pellets in the AIES RTGs would sink into the ocean in the even of an accident, though there was always the possibility of the rocket crashing on land, as with Silicon 1. Thankfully this was a moot conversation. 

The second stage of the Silicon 4 was rather a bit underpowered, requiring something of a late-launch adjustment to keep it from dropping back underneath 50km. Eventually the flight controllers opted to discard the second stage early, as the "payload" drive section was more than capable of pulling itself out of the atmosphere and into its 300km target orbit alone. 

A later launch would be needed to refuel the Si-4 and the Si-DSV-1. 

 

--

Simultaneous to the launch of the drive section, ground controllers were guiding its counterpart away from Kelgee Station and up to its rendezvous. (Original plans to assemble the entire mess at Kelgee had been scrapped when someone noted the extreme part count that would result in doing so.) Amusingly, the agency was offered a contract just moments after the DSH and its 12 crew seats undocked. 

The Boss at first decided it was best to skip that one. 90 kerbals? Sheesh. Yet after some deliberation it was decided this was just the contract they needed. Reaching 90 kerbals wouldn't be too difficult, and they were using the station anyway, so why not launch a few large, kerbal-dense modules to replace the ones they were using for the Silicon DSHs? Just later, once all this build-out was complete and the missions were underway.

The remote operators allowed the ship to drift free of Kelgee before they opened up the second set of radiators. The burn to move the Si-DSH-1 into its rendezvous orbit took several minutes to complete, mostly because regulation prevented them from conducting a full-throttle burn with the station still in close proximity.

Two days later the two pieces of the soon-to-be Silicon Deep Space Vehicle 1 had arrived at the same place at the same time. The rendezvous was completed by the Si-2's orbital stage, which was then undocked and allowed to float free. Later crews would retrofit it and turn it into a small-mass tug, or perhaps recycle bits of it before casting it back into the atmosphere.

Once the Si-DSH was free-floating, the Si-4 drive section moved in. A hard dock was achieved, and with that the vessel became known as the Silicon Deep Space Vehicle 1, or Si-DSV-1 for short. Its first crew would stitch the drive section and the habitat together using space tape and KAS struts when they arrived.

--

"It wasn't much of a competition, you know," Thomlock remarked while scratching some notes on a printed map of the Joolian System. He slid a ruler across Tylo's orbit and traced a line tangent with that of Vall. "You and me? We were guaranteed spots. You because a communications expert when you're half a trillion steps from home is useful to have nearby. And the whole seniority thing."

Macfred nodded, more curious about what the well aged kerbal was doing to the map than whatever point he was trying to make. "And you?"

"That whole seniority thing again. And because I'm not so easy to kill and seem to be the only kerbal that understands the three disciplines. The competition though...," he paused to spin the compass in a circle, tracing out an orbit around Vall that just touched that of Tylo's, "... the one for a scientist and another for a lander pilot? That was hardly fair. Ten candidates, one excluded because she's already on the Dres mission. Another three because we don't need two Engineers. We all knew the scientists would vote for the most experienced of their lot while the rest dropped out. Which just left the pilots."

"Mmhmm. And?"

"Well, that was always going to be up to me. Sure, there were arguments as to what the tests should be. Should we pit them against life or death situations? Lock four in a room that only has enough air for three? Make sure they work well as a team? Follow orders even when the orders don't make sense? All three of those kids are the same, well, aside from Edsel being male and whatnot. But he hasn't qualified for spaceflight so it came down to comparing a mission that was failed from the start to one that was impossible to fail." Thomlock finished shading in the circle he had drawn around Vall before he looked up at Macfred. "Not fair."

"That's space for you. Now, if you're done drawing on our maps I'd like to get suited up and go to the Mün."

Thomlock gathered his tools and rolled the map up. "Aye aye, cap. Fair or not I'm just happy I'm not stuck in a tiny tin can orbiting the Sun anymore. Though this acronym soup of an element dash one really isn't much of an upgrade."

"Look at it this way," Macfred slapped his chief navigator, helmskerb, and quartermaster on the back, "At least this time you'll have company."

"Sure, unless I decide to chuck the three of you out an airlock and take all the snacks for myself."

--

Nitrogen Transfers

The first crew of the Si-DSV-1 were to congregate at Kelgee Station, their now slightly smaller clubhouse in the sky. To familiarize them with the mission requirements and their ship, the crew of four would take the Si-DSV-1 and its not-yet-launched shuttlecraft to the Mün, land, and conduct other experiments and research. Once that was done they would use the shuttlecraft to return to Kelgee and their Nitrogen capsules to return to Kerbin, where they would be allowed one last vacation before setting off for Jool and its mysterious moons. 

The Crew:

Macfred Kerman
Captain and Commander
Engineer

Macfred established himself early in the agency as a keen radar and radio operator. Skilled at making the most of little, Macfred is an experienced engineer with four missions to his name. The first kerbal in space*, his most recent flight was to upgrade the Magnesium 5 telescope.

Thomlock Kerman
Navigator and Quartermaster
Kerbal

The oldest known kerbal, fourth astronaut, and real first kerbal in space*, Thomlock has more flight time than any kerbal in the known universe. Equally skilled at piloting, astrogation, and engineering, the modern Academy of Kerbal Arts has chosen to only recognize him as a pilot. This will be his third spaceflight.

Agake Kerman
Chief Scientist
Scientist

Second kerbal in space* and the kerbal who first discovered Kelgee Station, Agake has considerable experience as an orbital researcher. Serving as chief scientist of the Jool expedition, this will be her third mission.

Gletrix Kerman
Lander Pilot
Pilot

One of the Aluminium Five, Glextrix was the first pilot to command a fixed-wing aircraft in Kerbin's atmosphere. This will be her second spaceflight mission, and she will be in charge of landing both the LDAV and the lander for the lesser airless moons of Jool.

--

Getting the four of them to Kelgee in the first place turned out to be a bit problematic. Nitrogen TC-13, with Macfred and Thomlock aboard, was launched first. The flight was going perfectly according to plan, with the automated launch routine having successfully jettisoned its four spent boosters.

Macfred was watching the altimeter like a hawk, waiting for that one moment when he had to take care of the only non-automated part of the launch. He keyed his radio to indicate to the flight controllers he was about to press the button. "Coming up on 50km. Preparing to jettison the launch escape system and capsule fairings." 

The response came back quickly from mission control. "Copy that Nitrogen, you are go for LES jettison."

"LES Jettison." It was a tiny button, green, slightly backlit. Sure, there were a few of them in the cabin, and none of them were really labeled, but this one was his button. The big button. The staging button. Every Nitrogen launched to date had had one of these buttons, and they had always blown the payload fairing and ejected the launch escape system.

So Macfred pressed the button.

The ship shuddered and rocked, but didn't deviate from its course. Macfred gave the button a quizzical look. Thomlock calmly looked out his window.

"Whoa, bit of a bump there. Fairings are still on, I don't think that button did what you think that button did kid. Hit it again."

So Macfred hit it again.

He glanced over at his pilot, who was pointing out of his window and was the most animated Macfred had ever seen him. "Hey! Was that the first stage! That thing that just flew past? Wow, kid, you blew it this time!" Sure enough, the remaining bits of the first stage had marched past them, easily outpacing the second stage's weaker motor. The two lower fairing pieces were still partially attached to the ship, making a loud rattling noise as they slapped against the hull.

"Flight, Nitrogen. Be advised we had a large explosion here. Fairing jettison appears to have been miswired, resulting in second stage ignition while the first stage was still attached. First stage is now ahead of us. Please advise."

"Nitrogen, Flight. ATO. Repeat, you are ATO."

"Copy flight, ATO." Macfred decided to let the launch program complete the initial ascent, and the second stage burned out completely before he 'aborted' the launch. Checking the map it looked like they should be able to reach Kelgee in two orbits, the early loss of the first stage having placed them into a lower than desired orbit. He was still busy poring over the maps when Thomlock chuckled and nudged him.

"Hey, if the mission was to get to orbit, and we're aborting to orbit, is it really an abort if we're in orbit?"

Their docking at Kelgee happened at night, as is only right and proper. A quick check-over of the ship once they were at the station showed a small bit of damage from the launch, but the capsule and its heatshield appeared to be intact.

--

Next up were Gletrix and Agake in the Nitrogen TC-14. TC. This was a perfectly normal launch, but the previous launch had shaken up the ground crews so much they forgot they were supposed to launch a TA instead of a TC. TA because they needed another adapter at Kelgee. Baile Speir had three "small APAS" ports, but Kelgee only had two. And both were in use.

Too late to fix that one the bird was in flight. They at least fixed the staging issue that prevented the fairing jettison from taking place before S1CO.

The official guidelines called for aborting the mission if it was missing the required equipment, but with funds running low The Boss decided Agake and Gletrix could just EVA over to the station instead and let the N-TC-14 drift into a lower orbit. Macfred had a better idea.

While the N-TC-14 was still on approach he grabbed his space wrench and went on his own EVA. The Silicon 3 was still docked at the station, and as luck would have it the little ship had an extra junior-sized docking port. So he wrenched it free (making sure to not let any screws or other debris float free from it).

With the docking port in his pack he then jetted in the direction of the approaching Nitrogen. Surely there would be someplace on its orbital module where he could glue this thing on and bolt it down....

He found just the spot he was looking for as the Sun slipped over the limb of Kerbin.

With that crisis resolved, and with Macfred more than proving he was just the type of engineer the Jool mission needed, he hitched a ride in the Nitrogen TC-14's orbital module and directed Gletrix to dock along one of the spaceplane arms at Kelgee's edge. It was a little weird, controlling a ship from an angle it was never designed for, but Gletrix also proved why she was the type of pilot the Jool mission needed.

And with that, all four of the Jool-4 were in space, and awaiting the launch of their shuttlecraft and the ride to their new home.

We'll cover that next time.

 

Navigation: Next Post

Edited December 4, 2016 by Cydonian Monk

[Nukeknockout]

*eats popcorn*

I can't wait to see how Jool goes!

[Angelo Kerman]

Wow, talk about recoveries! Disconcerting to see the lower stage flying past, but at least the crew made it into orbit!

[Nukeknockout]

38 minutes ago, Angel-125 said:

Wow, talk about recoveries! Disconcerting to see the lower stage flying past, but at least the crew made it into orbit!

And that is why we overbuild for the given mission <3 If the rocket can do its job sans lower stage, even if you have to schedule a refueling mission later, it was a good rocket.

Also, I just love that "Messed up the staging" is something that happens to all of us, no matter how much we play xD