Spacewrecks, Derelicts and Ghost Ships

[Hobbes Novakoff]

21 hours ago, LordKael said:

Otherwise, you'll be playing Kerbal Space Powerpoint

I laughed too hard at that.

[Geschosskopf]

On 1/30/2016 at 11:25 AM, Laguna said:

I think it was my first manned landing attempt of any kind, and I forgot exactly what happened, but it didn't end well.   I did manage to successfully rescue the pilot, but I've left the (still fully functional) craft on the lonely wastes of Minmus since then.  I'm now toying with the idea of sending a recovery mission there and getting the ship upright enough so it can finally return home, but I don't know...

Suggestion.....   Minmus has such low gravity that the 1.25m reaction wheel, which I see you've got there, will keep the ship upright even on the steepest slope if you turn on SAS.  You can have the ship on a 45^ slope only touching the ground with 1 leg, but it'll be fine :).  So you can probably stand it up with the torque, too, maybe if you retracted the legs?  That often works.  Otherwise, extend them again and hope they kick the ship up off the ground, where the torque really should be enough to get it upright and keep it there when you turn on SAS.

Anyway, I haven't had any major disasters in a long time, and I start from scratch every update so no wreckage accumulates very long anyway.  I suppose the biggest mess I ever created was long ago when I was 1st trying to make SSTO spaceplanes.  This was back when it was actually a lot easier to do than now but I just couldn't do it for the longest time.  Instead, I made a bunch of "Single Stage to Ocean" things.  So many, in fact, that you could almost walk across Boosterbottom Gulf from KSC all the way to MECO Point without getting your feet wet.  I measured success incrementally by landing a few klicks further downrange than the previous attempt, and I recall feeling somewhat proud of myself when one finally came down on MECO Point itself :).  Then the next one made it to orbit and was useless because it had neither docking port nor enough fuel to deorbit .  I believe at that time there were about 30 hulks drifting in the ocean below, most with their pilots still inside.

[Coneshot]

Ill fated Eve lander surrounded by the remains of 3 different rescue craft... 

[AlphaMensae]

46 minutes ago, Geschosskopf said:

Suggestion.....   Minmus has such low gravity that the 1.25m reaction wheel, which I see you've got there, will keep the ship upright even on the steepest slope if you turn on SAS.  You can have the ship on a 45^ slope only touching the ground with 1 leg, but it'll be fine :).  So you can probably stand it up with the torque, too, maybe if you retracted the legs?  That often works.  Otherwise, extend them again and hope they kick the ship up off the ground, where the torque really should be enough to get it upright and keep it there when you turn on SAS.

 

I forget the details now, not sure when it fell over, but I think I must have thought at the time that the situation was hopeless, so a rescue ship was sent.

There's no probe core on the lonely little lander, so I would have to send another pilot if I want to try using the torque to get it upright.

Still, I might leave the site undisturbed as a place for Kerbal Kids Field Trips.

 

[Hotaru]

 

I've got a few in my current career save.

 

Auk XII was the last mission of the original Mun/Minmus program, and the second landing on the Munar far side. The pilot, Julina, reported seeing a UFO while on the surface, which she described as a light appearing to be from a spacecraft making a flyby of the Mun, but which Mission Control was unable to connect to any known ship, probe, asteroid, or debris. When Julina tried to lift off, the Auk toppled over and was mostly destroyed due to a guidance error. The wreckage was later stripped of equipment by the "Michael Palin" rover during its Elcano mission. Julina was rescued by the unmanned Auk XII-B, and later vanished along with Bass Station in Minmus orbit under strange circumstances.

 

 

Nemo Station was the last of the Phase I space stations, and the two expeditions sent to it were the first to depart Kerbin's sphere of influence for deep space. Nemo spent about two years sending back science data, but eventually it became too expensive to keep it supplied with fuel for the constant course corrections required for periodic Kerbin encounters, and it was abandoned after Expedition Nemo-2 departed. It's still out there, empty but fully functional, circling the sun in a little under a Kerbin year. Various plans have been proposed to make use of it, including moving it to a more stable orbit where it could be permanently manned or redirecting it to Duna via a Kerbin gravity assist, but so far none have been attempted.

 

 

Shuttle Belatrix exploded on-orbit during a mission to modify an expendable transfer stage (which was also destroyed). The crew was rescued by a Starlet light shuttle, but when Shuttle Deneb was sent up on a mission to salvage some equipment from Belatrix, it disintegrated a few seconds after takeoff and crashed into the ocean. That crew bailed out safely as well, but now nobody will go anywhere near the wreck of the Belatrix.

[JoeNapalm]

 

Adnard Kerman was one of the great heroes of my original save game, Jeb's greatest rival to be the first to fly a new ship or visit a new moon or planet.

I built a replica TIE fighter, complete with twin ion engines, and Adnard got the tap to be the test pilot.

The TIE obviously couldn't make orbit on just ion engines, so I'd strapped it to the top of a big booster system. Oh, I know what you're thinking, but the lift stage worked grandly...until I hit a big hunk of orbital debris during my orbital burn phase.

Much like Darth Vader, poor Adnard spun off, out of control. Some idiot (no idea who) forgot to link the decoupler to the ABORT button, and with the help of an unfortunate Mun gravity assist, the prototype TIE fighter was tossed into a Kerbol orbit.

The damage took out half the solar arrays and engines on the TIE, otherwise it could have eventually just flown home. Instead, I launched four separate automated rescue vehicles after it. Only one made it all the way to the damaged craft, and that one lacked the DV to make it back into Kerbin's SOI.

Then my save game was corrupted.

I lie awake, some nights, imagining the crippled TIE floating next to the out-of-fuel SERAPHIM IV DSRV, and poor Adnard, running the rescue command module in low power mode so he can watch the one VHS tape of Gilligan's Island they'd put aboard for his planned return trip, licking empty snack wrappers.

Poor Adnard.

 

-Jn-

Edited February 2, 2016 by JoeNapalm

[AlphaMensae]

18 hours ago, Hotaru said:

 

I've got a few in my current career save.

**************

Auk XII was the last mission of the original Mun/Minmus program, and the second landing on the Munar far side. The pilot, Julina, reported seeing a UFO while on the surface, which she described as a light appearing to be from a spacecraft making a flyby of the Mun, but which Mission Control was unable to connect to any known ship, probe, asteroid, or debris. When Julina tried to lift off, the Auk toppled over and was mostly destroyed due to a guidance error. The wreckage was later stripped of equipment by the "Michael Palin" rover during its Elcano mission. Julina was rescued by the unmanned Auk XII-B, and later vanished along with Bass Station in Minmus orbit under strange circumstances.

**************

Nemo Station was the last of the Phase I space stations, and the two expeditions sent to it were the first to depart Kerbin's sphere of influence for deep space. Nemo spent about two years sending back science data, but eventually it became too expensive to keep it supplied with fuel for the constant course corrections required for periodic Kerbin encounters, and it was abandoned after Expedition Nemo-2 departed. It's still out there, empty but fully functional, circling the sun in a little under a Kerbin year. Various plans have been proposed to make use of it, including moving it to a more stable orbit where it could be permanently manned or redirecting it to Duna via a Kerbin gravity assist, but so far none have been attempted.

**************

Shuttle Belatrix exploded on-orbit during a mission to modify an expendable transfer stage (which was also destroyed). The crew was rescued by a Starlet light shuttle, but when Shuttle Deneb was sent up on a mission to salvage some equipment from Belatrix, it disintegrated a few seconds after takeoff and crashed into the ocean. That crew bailed out safely as well, but now nobody will go anywhere near the wreck of the Belatrix.

Those are great, Hotaru, they would fit right in wit some of the shorter stories in the boo (also the Unidentified section from Spacecraft 2000-2100 AD)...and I read that "Nemo Station was the last..." in the style of the Babylon 5 intro.

 

3 hours ago, JoeNapalm said:

I lie awake, some nights, imagining the crippled TIE floating next to the out-of-fuel SERAPHIM IV DSRV, and poor Adnard, running the rescue command module in low power mode so he can watch the one VHS tape of Gilligan's Island they'd put aboard for his planned return trip, licking empty snack wrappers.

Poor Adnard.

 

I take it you weren't using a life support mod, because that would have really upped the level of pathos in poor Adnard's story.

 

[JoeNapalm]

18 hours ago, Laguna said:

I take it you weren't using a life support mod, because that would have really upped the level of pathos in poor Adnard's story.

 

Nah, I have always operated under two assumptions:

1. Kerbals are a race of clones.

2. Kerbals prefer to have things like food, water, and air...but they don't need them. They just enter a hibernation/low-activity mode and can basically last indefinitely.

I've been toying with the idea of installing the Deep Freeze mod, but simply because I think it's cool (the pun is mightier than the sword) and would help alleviate boredom on long trips, once Bob loses all the Skrabble pieces.

 

-Jn-

Edited February 3, 2016 by JoeNapalm

[monophonic]

This thread seems relevant:

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/126972-forgotten-space-program/

The topic comes up when they start investigating the various Things.

[Fearless Son]

Back in one of my previous career saves, I sent Jeb to gather some science from the northern polar region of the Mun.  Unfortunately, I did not account for the rough terrain there and bad lighting conditions that caused me to underestimate my altitude and I could not arrest my downward velocity in time to avoid a catastrophic lithobreaking event.  Jeb survived, after getting the command capsule thrown clear in the resulting impact that scattered lander debris across the irregular surface.  

I sent a rescue craft, and forewarned about the conditions in that area, it was able to successfully land about a kilometer from Jeb's location.  He had a long hike across the rolling regolith but was able to get to the rescue rocket and board, followed by a successful return to Kerbin.  The debris of the previous botched landing attempt remained scattered where they lay as a silent monument to Kerbalkind's endurance.  

Edited February 3, 2016 by Fearless Son

[Randox]

Can't say I have any particularly intact debris knocking around. An abandoned stage here or there, and maybe a few broken pieces knocking around, but for the most part, by a time a ship is in such rough shape that I junk it on location, it's probably already exploded.

 

I also have this terrible habit of decommissioning obsolete designs via meteoric re-entry. I need to cut that out, as I am obviously depriving my Kerbals of valuable abandoned junk to explore.