Can tourists take surface samples if my astronauts can?

[Zamolxes77]

I picked up 2 missions, one to ferry 3 tourists around the Mun, Kerbin and Minmus, and one of them has to land on Minmus. I have another mission that requires to pick up 4 surface samples on Minmus, close together in one spot. I have 1 Science hopper type ship I left in orbit of Minmus, with a lot of sci apparatus on board, but room for only one person, a scientist - preferable.

So my plan is to take my recently built SSTO, fill it up in LKO, then send it on a voyage, Mun 1st, then Minmus. Once there, a tourist will board the science hopper and land, achieving his journey contract and retrieving the surface samples.

One hitch in my plan, everything hinges on: "can a tourist actually take surface samples? ".

I better send Valentina with them too, watch over those crazy tourists and perform 2 landings on Minmus, one with the tourist, one with Valentina. But if I can get away just with 1 landing instead of 2 ...

[Zhetaan]

Tourists cannot even leave the vessel.  You can take them down with you, land with them, and have them pose for pictures by the window, but they can't get out of the ship.

You can, however, split the mission into parts:  I often take a few tourism contracts at once and split the groups into those wishing to go to specific destinations.  If you have someone who only wants to go into Kerbin orbit, then you can take that one on a separate mission and make another seat available on your Mun/Minmus trip.

Edited February 23, 2016 by Zhetaan

[Zamolxes77]

Problem is all 3 of my tourists want 3 objectives each: Mun orbit, Kerbin orbit and Minmus orbit, except one of them, wants a landing on Minmus instead of an orbit, so I kinda have to send them all at once. Makes no sense to split them up and launch multiple missions, when all can be achieved in one trip. Guess I'll have to do two landings on Minmus, Very little dV anyway, my hopper can do 2-4 separate full descents and ascents to orbit, gave it plenty of fuel, 5xFL-T200.

Thanks for your reply.

[Tex_NL]

You might not be able to EVA a tourist but that does not mean they can't move. You CAN transfer them from one pod to another.
Dock your transfer vehicle to a lander, transfer the tourist, undock, land, rendezvous and dock. Then transfer the tourist back. Easy as pi.

[RW-1]

Here's a thought along a similar vein:

If you send a probe or other ship with a holding tank and ore driller, that SHOULD count as getting a surface sample, should it not?

(I don't want semantics, drilled ore not from surface, point here is that you returned dirt, rocks, etc.)

Yes, that could eliminate the actual sending of Kerbals to the other worlds for that purpose, but I'd love to see its inclusion, so that sample return spacecraft could be made stock.

[pincushionman]

44 minutes ago, RW-1 said:

Here's a thought along a similar vein:

If you send a probe or other ship with a holding tank and ore driller, that SHOULD count as getting a surface sample, should it not?…

I don't think that counts. Ore-related contracts are separate from surface sample contracts, and ore isn't even "science" as defined by the game.

It might be possible to add the Kerbals' "collect surface sample" function to the ore drills via a module manager script, though.

[Choctofliatrio2.0]

55 minutes ago, RW-1 said:

Here's a thought along a similar vein:

If you send a probe or other ship with a holding tank and ore driller, that SHOULD count as getting a surface sample, should it not?

(I don't want semantics, drilled ore not from surface, point here is that you returned dirt, rocks, etc.)

Yes, that could eliminate the actual sending of Kerbals to the other worlds for that purpose, but I'd love to see its inclusion, so that sample return spacecraft could be made stock.

I assume sample drills are much, much more precise and refined than ore drills. You'd need a different kind of drill. I know I wouldn't want this giant, heavy drill designed for heavy mining taking delicate samples.

[Fearless Son]

Carefully extracting samples with precision hand drills feels a little too unkerbal.  I always imagined that Kerbals on EVA just look around for a good loose rock or handful of fine regolith and stuff it in a pocket of their space suit.  

Kerbals have yet to solve the engineering hurdles necessary to have more than a single pocket in any one space suit, so they can only carry one sample at a time.  

[cubinator]

2 hours ago, Fearless Son said:

Carefully extracting samples with precision hand drills feels a little too unkerbal.  I always imagined that Kerbals on EVA just look around for a good loose rock or handful of fine regolith and stuff it in a pocket of their space suit.  

Kerbals have yet to solve the engineering hurdles necessary to have more than a single pocket in any one space suit, so they can only carry one sample at a time.  

I always thought of it as them having a plastic K-Zip bag that they put mittenfuls of dirt into. They don't have any pockets, so they have to carry the bag around in their hand, and if they tried to carry more than one they would drop them.

Edited February 23, 2016 by cubinator

[Fearless Son]

4 hours ago, cubinator said:

I always thought of it as them having a plastic K-Zip bag that they put mittenfuls of dirt into. They don't have any pockets, so they have to carry the bag around in their hand, and if they tried to carry more than one they would drop them.

That makes sense.  Maybe they only have the one K-Zip bag per excursion due to some doctrine of only using the absolute minimum necessary because they need to reserve as many spares as possible for motion sickness, command having determined after reviewing many black box recordings of failed flights that vomit on the instrumentation is the leading cause of Unplanned Rapid Disassembly and Uncontrolled Lithobreaking.  

[cubinator]

54 minutes ago, Fearless Son said:

That makes sense.  Maybe they only have the one K-Zip bag per excursion due to some doctrine of only using the absolute minimum necessary because they need to reserve as many spares as possible for motion sickness, command having determined after reviewing many black box recordings of failed flights that vomit on the instrumentation is the leading cause of Unplanned Rapid Disassembly and Uncontrolled Lithobreaking.  

I think it's not about that so much, they have plenty of K-Zips in store. The only problem is they are not exactly designed for space, and they turn yellow and brittle if left out in the sun's radiation too long, so they keep them in the capsule, hence the requirement that they go back inside each time they want a new bag.

[AbacusWizard]

Ahoy and welcome to Abacus Industries Interplanetary Spacelines! Be advised that tourists are NOT authorized to exit the spacecraft at any time. Please keep all hands, feet, and heads inside the command capsule at all times until the vehicle returns to the Space Center. If you wish to take home souvenir pebbles from your destination, do not attempt to gather them yourself; instead, ask a friendly professional scientist to get them for you. Thank you, and enjoy your flight!

[RW-1]

Well then, we need a surface sampler remote drill and storage unit hehehe.

Of course, int he real world we're still waiting for Dry Cereal companies to poackage there wares with zip lock bags, so I don't think it's going to occur soon ....