What is something you did that was last minute

[322997am]

So what is something you did that was last minute like decoupling something in a different place or dividing to make a pit stop somewhere unplanned. For me it's probably the decision to waste all my mono propellant and dock with my space station while flying to minmus to put down a mobile base. I did that because I didn't have the fuel to get to minmus so I decided to go to the station and waste my mono prop because the station had 1000+ of it so I could refuel both fuel and mono propellant.

[Commander Zoom]

Sent out my Jool mission, consisting of three ships and three tankers carrying the return fuel for the one that was coming back... and then two more little rockets with stuff I'd forgotten / thought of only after putting the first three together.

[Triop]

What is something you did that was last minute ?

Going to the toilet during a mission ?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Francois424]

I was testing my Minmus rover like there was no tomorrow.  Then noticed I was rolling around 70m/s (small plan wheels) and heading on a 35% slope.  I held my finger on "H" and before you know it I was in Minmus orbit !

Not like I planned it, but I figured, why not.   I know I have an awesome rover for 1.1... assuming wheels keep the same rigidity vs speed vs suspension.

[luizopiloto]

Last minute reaction to counter a malfunction... you know... that bug when cargo bays sometimes stow control surfaces... my spaceplane started to get unstable during reentry, then I realized the left elevon was locked and was not in neutral position. I had to trim the plane and change the profile to make it stable... after that when I was close to land on KSC, w/o the flaps to make it fly slow, I transfered crew to the escape pod, released the shields and placed my finger above backspace untill the thing touched the runway...I didn't had to eject the crew... the thing was at 140m/s and rolled the runway down smoothly until full stop...

[syfyguy64]

Suicide.

[DunaRocketeer]

Unlocked a new science instrumement (gravioli detector). I thought 'great, this'll give a big boost to my upcoming Mun mission.' Did I attach said instrument before launching? Nope! Sent a quick shuttle flight to attach it and off I went.

[nosirrbro]

I would probably say go to Laythe on a Jool flyby mission that had WAYYY to much delta V. I am very lucky I added on those parachutes for redundancy xD

[Dizzle]

My return flight from Duna was using four nuclear engines, and I didn't really like the idea of jettisoning them at Kerbin. When I was almost back home, I realized that I forgot to put a heatshield on the capsule. Now I had to come up with an alternative. I saw that there was an encounter with the Mun if I didn't go straight for the atmosphere, and there was plenty of dV left, so I ended up parking the Duna vehicle there instead.

[wissx]

Getting another controller

[WinkAllKerb'']

took a breath

Edited December 27, 2015 by WinkAllKerb''

[Snark]

This one's a bit old (it's from 0.90, before reentry heat was a thing), but is still one of my favorite KSP experiences:

I had an Eve land-and-return mission, and it had nearly arrived at Eve when I had a facepalm moment: I realized that I didn't send my kerbalnaut any way to get home.  That is, I had this big mean ol' lander that would do the job to land on Eve and then return to low Eve orbit, but then didn't have any more fuel to get home.  I had originally been planning to send a separate interplanetary crew-return vehicle, but then stupidly forgot about it.

I only had eight days (that's eight Kerbin days, i.e. 48 hours) until it would arrive.  I decided to make it a point of honor that the kerbalnaut would have his return vehicle waiting for him when he arrived at Eve.

So I built a ship with the most insane dV I've ever done in KSP, basically an ion engine with oodles and oodles of xenon drop tanks.  Pre-1.0, reentry wasn't dangerous, so I figured just burn for Eve hell-for-leather and arrive super-fast, then aerobrake to orbit.

So I ended up going from Kerbin to Eve in 48 hours.  Was going several dozen kilometers per second when I hit Eve's atmosphere.  It was... dramatic.

Edited December 28, 2015 by Snark

[Hysterrics]

It was time for my first Duna mission. I was using my highly successful rocket that has just enough DeltaV with very little room for error to go to go there. Seriously. The rocket was meant to be my first Mun rocket with a lot of room for error. This was this rocket's stretch. This is the farthest it would go, on a good day. It took my landing stage just to get to orbit. So while I was descending into the Atmosphere, I was burning off the last of my fuel with the parachute open. It was working great, until I ran out of fuel. At that point I was sure my Duna mission would surely fail and my Kerbals would be killed to death. I sat and hoped that the chutes would do something magical and slow the velocity to where I could just survive it. I had already kicked up the deployment altitude to it's max. If you don't know, chutes may be amazing on other planets, but not Duna. Nope. Duna hates chutes. They'll get you there, but you better hope you have some powered decent to go along with them chutes, or you won't be returning to space today. Of course, during building the rocket I took into account everything, except I overlooked one thing. I brought a chute. A single chute. That's not going to cut it. So I sat that, sure I was going to die. Then I had a stroke of brilliance. Ditch the landing stage! That will reduce the overall mass of the craft that the chute had to pull. There I was, glaring into the velocity meter dropping, dropping, dropping, drop- OH SHI-

So as it turns out, despite by efforts of ditching the landing stage, the ground would still be very muchbelow me, and it would be even more below me as time passed. Another thing I overlooked. But hey! I survived! Maybe it's the heatshield that broke my fall. I'm sure it was rough on the Kerbals, they nearly died.

So I got out and planet a good ol' flag. I only returned to that planet once. But that time everything fell perfectly into plan. Just enough DeltaV, none wasted. The landing sequence has become standard. Which meant that the last second service and landing module ditching was normal, no "OH SHI-" moments.

And that's my first mission to Duna.

Edited December 28, 2015 by Sequinox