The Kerbin Appreciation Project - Day 1 Complete!

[cubinator]

THE PROJECT TO COMPLETE A 100% GROUND-BASED CIRCUMNAVIGATION OF THE PLANET KERBIN USING A SINGLE VEHICLE, AND TO GET A SHINY BADGE FOR DOING IT:

NOTE: I have pretty much stopped work on this project due to a bug. You can read about said bug more here. Meanwhile, I have decided to start another Elcano run, this time on the Mun and in a completely bare-bones stock install. You can read the new run here.

I'd like to start off by saying this is going to be an immense project, and I'm not sure I'll actually finish it unless someone is pestering me about it. That's why I'm making this thread. So that you guys can encourage me on my way around the planet. It's also going to be easier if I post a few screenshots at a time for a long time rather than what I did for my last giant mission, the Jool-5 And Then Some project. I'll try to make a bit of a story to go along with it, because stories are more fun than raw mission logs. Especially when the raw mission log goes like:
0d 0h 18m 46s: Drove over hill.
0d 0h 22m 6s:   Braked for quicksave.
0d 0h 45m 0s:   Avoided tree.
etc.

So, here goes nothing:

INTRODUCTION

Kerbalkind had been exploring space for decades. They had visited all the other planets in the system and planted flags. There were stations around Duna, Minmus, and Tylo. Bases on the Mun, Ike, and Gilly. Probes had mapped almost all the bodies. Then, one day, a couple of interns working in the R&D department were looking in the Science Archives for pictures of Kerbin's southern night sky. They looked on every shelf, asked everyone they could. No one knew if there were any such pictures. The interns, Jogy and Kerzy, discussed this strange fact over their lunch break. While they were eating, another Kerbal came running up to them, panting. They recognized him, he had been working in the Science Archives earlier that day. His name was Dereny. He said: "Hi, um, sorry to interrupt, but, you were looking in the Archives earlier, right? For pictures from Kerbin?"

"Yeah, that was us," Jogy replied. "What's wrong?"

"Dr. von Kerman says he wants to talk to you about that."

Kerzy almost spilled her juice hearing that. "Werhner von Kerman wants to see us? Why?"

"We'll see him right after lunch," said Jogy. Both girls could hardly contain their excitement and wonder as Dereny jogged away. "What's so important about us not being able to find something in the Archives? Wouldn't he rather talk to someone who actually knows where to find things?" They finished lunch, and went to Werhner's office.

Kerzy tentatively knocked on the door. "Come in," said Werhner, who was sitting at his desk, drawing something on a sheet of paper. He frowned and crumpled it up. There were several such crumpled sheets, but a few were not crumpled at all and had been set aside. They looked like drawings of a big, complex rover with crew pods on it. "Sit down, make yourselves comfortable," he said.

"So, why do you want to talk to us so badly?" asked Jogy.

"Vell, it haz come to my attention that zere is not a single picture from Kerbin's surface in ze Science Archives. Zis has made us realize zat ve have conquered ze solar system, but zat ve have not at all conquered Kerbin itself. So ze engineering team haz come up vith a rover design, and ve have determined zat it should be able to go to vatever place on ze planet. I have decided zat ze best vay to show ze vorld how amazing Kerbalkind really iz, iz to bring zis rover all the vay around ze planet. I propose zat you, Jogy and Kerzy, take zis craft around ze globe. It vill be ze most perilous journey, but you vill be vorld heroes if you return. Do you accept ze challenge to become ze first Kerbonauts to be true Kerbinauts?

Jogy and Kerzy looked at each other in awe. "You vould have two more crewmates, to help on your journey," said Werhner.

"We're in!" both said at the same time.

PART I

The full crew was: Jogy Kerman, Commander and Pilot. Kerzy Kerman, Primary Engineer. Tedrick Kerman, Secondary Engineer. Dereny Kerman, Scientist. The ship was tested, they were reassured, and it would be able to go over all the terrain they would encounter. They were given a map, with the path they were to take marked in black pen:

 

The ship had 10 all-terrain wheels, an ISRU unit and 2 drills, jets for the inevitable periods of sea travel, solar panels, SAS, batteries, crew cabins, snacks, everything one would need for a long-duration ground-based mission. The journey would be about 5080 kilometers long, and would take about 130 hours of driving time. Finally they were ready to set out. Kerzy went and planted a flag right in front of the Astronaut Complex for all to see. The team would drive around the planet and return to that very flag.

"All right, time to go!" said Jogy. Jogy and Kerzy were in External Command Seats, while the guys stayed in the Mk2 crew pod for the first leg of the journey. They would rotate positions driving over the course of the mission.

Jogy planted a flag on top of this hill, naming it "Farewell Hill" because it was the last glimpse of KSC before they came around in the north. They would travel southwest and around the Kerbal Mountains for the first part of their journey. "Good thing we brought snacks," said Kerzy. Everyone chuckled as Jogy turned the rover down the hill.

SADLY, PROGRESS WAS HALTED DUE TO A BUG. THIS ATTEMPT WILL NO LONGER BE CONTINUED.

Edited February 8, 2016 by cubinator
progress halt announced, link to new run

[Dfthu]

Good luck on your journey! I'm doing my kerbin sea circumnavigation to.

[cubinator]

Just now, Dfthu said:

Good luck on your journey! I'm doing my kerbin sea circumnavigation to.

Thanks, and good luck to you too!

[cubinator]

DAY 1

After a brief rest and systems check on Farewell Hill, the crew set out into the great unknown to the south. Well, it wasn't that unknown...All the rockets ever launched had a view of it. It just wasn't very well explored, just like the rest of the planet. Only they kind of knew what to expect for that area because at least they knew what it looked like. It was mostly gently (occasionally not so gently) hills, and they were basically able to go straight southwest. That would give the most direct pathway around the Kerbal Mountains so they could then make their way westward toward Desert's Arm Channel.

 As the sun set below the horizon, the team had covered almost 80 kilometers from KSC. They wondered how they would measure their progress when they got around to turning around Kerbal Mountains and going north again. Soon it was too dark for the solar panels to generate any energy, so Jogy decided it was time to find a flat spot and settle down for the night. She and Kerzy had been driving for over an hour and a half, after all!

Jogy noticed then that a wheel had broken. "It's not bad, I can fix it," said Kerzy. And indeed, it was an easy fix. By now they had covered over 81 kilometers! Unfortunately, Jogy and Kerzy noticed a design flaw that evening. The ladder to the crew cabin was too high up! It wasn't terribly hard to climb up the wheel to get to it, but still more work than anticpated. 

 

"Tedrick, could you fire up the map computer and see what our path looks like?" asked Jogy.

"Sure, let me just plug in our coordinates," replied Tedrick. He loaded the coordinates into Koogle Kerbin and showed the results.

The path was 87 kilometers long in total! "Wow, you can really go a long ways with this thing!" said Dereny. "And that was only half a day's driving!" The team ate dinner, happy with the thought that they had traversed so much terrain. As they went to rest for the night, each felt quite satisfied with the day's progress.

END OF DAY 1

Edit: I will be posting maps such as the one above, as I have loaded a Kerbin map onto Google Earth. What I've been doing is a few times a day, I go into the .sfs file I'm currently in (in the future I will use info from map view too) to find the exact coordinates of the rover. I put these in as placemarks in Google Earth and name them according to when they were taken. For instance, the one called "Rover Location 12/27 Morning" means that I took the coordinates after I was finished driving this morning. But then I came back later in the afternoon and drove some more. "End of Day 1" is where I stopped for the night after sunset on Kerbin. I try to make things clear enough, and maybe I'll provide a download link to the map with my path when I'm done so you can see exactly where I went.

I also am naming the major formations I encounter on my way. I'll provide a map soon with the features labeled. For instance, the Kerbal Mountains are the mountains just west of KSC, and Desert's Arm Channel is the bottleneck in the ocean that will be the crew's first ocean crossing. 

Edit 2: Provided the labeled version of the Day 1 map.

 

 

Edited December 27, 2015 by cubinator