Pods left over from rescue missions

[Matt77]

What do people do with the leftover pods? I've got quite a few of them cluttering up the place. I can't seem to designate them as scrap, and I only terminate flights that have a Pe inside the atmosphere.

ventually I'm going to build a garbage collector, possibly a drone carrier with as many drones as possible. They'll each have a claw and maybe parachutes.

[Snarfster]

click on the name in the tracking station, change type to debris. Terminating should work unless it is some kind of difficulty setting that I haven't seen before.

Edited January 9, 2016 by Snarfster

[Matt77]

It's a self-imposed rule.  Most of my rockets are designed so everything I jettison falls back down, if possible.  I'll try what you suggested shortly, I think I did once change a pod to scrap but couldn't last time I tried, I thought maybe the Kerbal still needs to be aboard.

[Snarfster]

From the tracking station it should be possible. Good luck.

[monophonic]

5 minutes ago, Matt77 said:

It's a self-imposed rule.  Most of my rockets are designed so everything I jettison falls back down, if possible.  I'll try what you suggested shortly, I think I did once change a pod to scrap but couldn't last time I tried, I thought maybe the Kerbal still needs to be aboard.

I have designated many a command pod as debris with the rescuee hanging on to the hatch. Right click and rename as usual. But it does not work with parts that are not command pods, like the Mk1 Crew Cabin. Those I have only ever managed to redesignate from the tracking station.

[Matt77]

Thanks guys, I've been playing this game since 0.17 I think, and never knew that was a clickable item!  My maps a lot tidier now.

So what do others do with all these pods?  Just terminate them?

[Guest]

You could send a ship around with a Klaw to grab everything and bring it back.  You could make some funds.

[Matt77]

That was my plan, except I'm going to use drones to latch on and de-orbit them.  It'll be a while, I'm still only just starting the 160-science level of the tech tree (my career is slowed down by certain mods).  Just wondered really. 

[swjr-swis]

I treat rescue missions as rescue&salvage and always try to salvage as much hardware as possible, in addition to rescuing the Kerbals. This cleans up the orbits and gives me some additional funds from the recovered parts (although the funds are probably a lie).

I used to do it with cargo-bay equipped rescue craft, but was having less than optimal results. Also, some derelicts are too big to safely capture and return in a cargo bay. So one night I said the hell with it and decided I will just throw reentry capability to the derelicts.

Since then, my standard RescuePod is usually some variation of:

• 3.75m heatshield on one end (the part that will face into the atmosphere at reentry and keep everything else mostly safe from the heating)
• Mk1-2 pod (a safe space for up to three Kerbals to be rescued, the derelict parts aren't always guaranteed to make it through reentry so they can't stay in there)
• probe core (so I can send it up unmanned and use all pod seats for rescue)
• A.G.U./Claw on the other end (since derelicts never seem to have docking ports, for grabbing the derelict and holding on to it through reentry).

Along with that I strap on some battery, extra monoprop, a helping of linear RCS ports, a few advanced canards (airbrakes are too melty), drogues and chutes, and if I feel generous some landing legs for a more comfy lithobreak at the very end of the trip (actually it depends on the weight of the derelict to salvage). Somewhere on there I attach a couple of oscar tanks and Sparks with just enough fuel to make it all dip back into the atmosphere, and it's either enough by itself for a full reentry or it will slowly aerobrake into a return after a couple orbits.

The fully ablator-filled heatshield with the pod and stuff, are usually heavy enough to keep the shield facing the airstream and the to be salvaged derelict trailing. When not, the canards help. Even with 3.75m sized derelicts and the less than optimal angles the Claw sometimes grips a part, the wake of the heatshield protects it enough from overheating. The couple of times it didn't, it was just the derelict that melted and the Kerbals made it down safe in the pod.

All this can usually be fit together in a pretty compact package, which does well in a fairing on top of a simple, recoverable rocket with enough dV to lob it into a rendevouz orbit. Helps me keep the orbits clear as well as add to my ranks.

Would it work in a hard mode career? No. Is it a feasible way to earn some extra funds? Probably also no, even with a fully recoverable lifter stage (fuel used is probably more than the derelict is worth). But it makes me feel good that I salvage, no parts burn up in the atmosphere and pollute it, and it keeps my orbits groomed.

[bewing]

Stuff in orbit is valuable. I have a "space station hub" that has klaws sticking out everywhere. I don't deorbit rescue pods. I gather them up and attach them to my hub. Each one provides: science storage, electric storage, reaction wheels, living space, monopropellant storage, & etc. It's silly to throw that away. You have to be careful to avoid the klaw kraken when doing this, but it's easily doable.

PS. There is an old sci-fi short story by David Brin called "Tank Farm Dynamo" that deals with this topic, for anyone who may be interested in the reality of it all.

 

 

Edited January 9, 2016 by bewing

[tater]

Get the KIS/KAS mods, then use them as the raw materials they are to build something.

[Evanitis]

I'd totally try pushing those to suborbital with the rescue craft's deorbit burn. I'd observe the interaction between the metal surfaces and call it science.

Though I could never be bothered to 'properly' clean the junk I piled up in orbit. The standard boosters and command pods are too numerous and too easy to deal with. Klaw, a few 'chutes. A heatshield if it's on a high orbit.

Though I greatly enjoy to bring down big and heavy objects - outdated crafts, modules even bases that never intended to land. There are contracts for these, so I just park them on LKO until their time comes. Hint for extra fun: klaw some wings on the junk and glide it down.

Edited January 9, 2016 by Evanitis

[katateochi]

8 hours ago, Matt77 said:

ventually I'm going to build a garbage collector, possibly a drone carrier with as many drones as possible. They'll each have a claw and maybe parachutes.

I've always intended to build an "orbital garbage truck", never gotten round to doing it. 

Generally I feel if a space program can't afford to throw a few command pods away (especially when that's all the cost for getting a new astronaut) it's not doing very well! Sometimes I shunt them to a Pe of 20km but that's dV costly, so quite often I leave them.  But whatever I do my rule is when I switch to the pod for the first time, right click, rename and change it's type to debris.

[Guest]

Relics. Sites for future landing crews to visit, stuff for future orbital crews to investigate or dodge.

[numerobis]

I wish they were ships that had run out of fuel, and had a docking port. Then you could just head up and refuel them.

[Alshain]

I gotta say I really hate this addition.  I know it seems more 'realistic' than the previous method (random kerbals in nothing but space suits spawning) but managing the debris is irritating.  It's certainly not hard to do, just annoying to have to do it.  I wish it would automatically flag them as debris when you get the Rescuee out or something.

[AbacusWizard]

I've been using a two-seat harpoon-gun-armed interceptor (using KAS; it could probably be done in stock with the Klaw instead) called the H-Wing to deal with the dozens of debris parts from rescue missions (and the occasional booster stage that doesn't get jettisoned before going to orbit). I rendezvous with the unwanted component, latch onto it with the harpoon, tow it into a suborbital trajectory, detach, turn around, and maneuver the H-Wing back onto a stable orbit, then pick its next target. Works remarkably well, and I've developed quite a knack for fuel-efficient rendezvous planning.

 

I've recently decided, though, that BIG components--like labs and crew quarters--should be left up in orbit for possible future use (KIS means I can build them into larger constructions), on the grounds that getting something heavy up into orbit is so expensive that it'd be a shame to throw it back down for no reason.

[HebaruSan]

18 minutes ago, AbacusWizard said:

I've been using a two-seat harpoon-gun-armed interceptor (using KAS; it could probably be done in stock with the Klaw instead) called the H-Wing to deal with the dozens of debris parts from rescue missions (and the occasional booster stage that doesn't get jettisoned before going to orbit). I rendezvous with the unwanted component, latch onto it with the harpoon, tow it into a suborbital trajectory, detach, turn around, and maneuver the H-Wing back onto a stable orbit, then pick its next target. Works remarkably well, and I've developed quite a knack for fuel-efficient rendezvous planning.

Spoiler

 

 

I've recently decided, though, that BIG components--like labs and crew quarters--should be left up in orbit for possible future use (KIS means I can build them into larger constructions), on the grounds that getting something heavy up into orbit is so expensive that it'd be a shame to throw it back down for no reason.

I can confirm this is workable in stock as well; a 909 with a claw and a dash of fuel is plenty. In the case of spent stages with some remaining fuel, it also offers the fun of deorbiting the stage independent of the reclamation craft by pointing it retrograde, optionally using the claw craft's reaction wheels to induce a spin for stability, and then gunning the engines and detaching. 

6 hours ago, bewing said:

Stuff in orbit is valuable. I have a "space station hub" that has klaws sticking out everywhere. I don't deorbit rescue pods. I gather them up and attach them to my hub. Each one provides: science storage, electric storage, reaction wheels, living space, monopropellant storage, & etc. It's silly to throw that away. You have to be careful to avoid the klaw kraken when doing this, but it's easily doable.

PS. There is an old sci-fi short story by David Brin called "Tank Farm Dynamo" that deals with this topic, for anyone who may be interested in the reality of it all.

Genius! I'm a convert to this for my next career. I doubt a real space program would be quite so quick to adopt junk without inspection or refurbishment, but on the other hand it's neat how this alludes to the "build it in orbit" solution to lowering launch costs that would be necessary for larger-scale projects.

[AlamoVampire]

I took a page from NASA on this and went a ways further. I RP that everything I launch has explosives on it. NASA does this too and I'm certain other agencies as well, they have explosives on rockets for safety reasons, which is the page I took. Where I went was, once a mission has ended, mission control sends a command to activate said explosives. This is how I justify the use of terminate x in tracking center. Just mah two cents lol.