Need some advice getting back from LKO...

[Fearless Son]

7 hours ago, Dispatcher said:

Less on topic:  I would love to see the Marathon in the Kerbol system.    While I've never played Minecraft, these guys used it to eventually "build the Marathon" in Mars' orbit:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIof4Cp3-cakENfeGfWc8qALxAfxQ7K-i

Oh, that is awesome.  I may have to watch through that entire series some time.  

 

6 hours ago, Jart said:

Pod >service bay (chutes stowed inside)< Crew cabin  Fuel & engine or heat shield

open the pod bay doors late in your descent when things start to wobble a bit for a bit of drag and stability

That is actually what I use those storage bays for the most.  I just neglected to put them on this design because I am still in the early game, still have a tier one VAB, and thus still have a limit of thirty parts per rocket.  Part of the reason I was doing these rescue missions is to raise enough capital to upgrade it.  

 

3 hours ago, Aragosnat said:

While I use SAS sparingly as well. That 250 happens to be plenty for re-entry on Kerbin. Most I have used was 100-150 electricity and that is without solar panels and just a probe core with the double seater as that was just from me playing around with the craft a lot. Thing is if you can get the speed down to 1400 m/s or less with the engine taking the brunt. You can then safely turn around and use the craft parts for lift up. Most of the time when SAS in use if you are following the retrograde? marker in. You should be using 0.24 to 0.29 electricity about and if you kept the solar panels on and are in the day light. Then you will never have to worry about energy usage anywas. So go use SAS like no tommorow. =^.^=

I also like to make sure that the craft I use that only go to Low Kerbin Orbit have plenty of batteries, if only to give them plenty of electricity for reentry orientation, where my solar panels might not be positioned to give me much input (either being retracted an inactive or being fixed but facing away from prograde which means that they only work if the sun is behind me.)  

[flatbear]

the only solution is a rescue mission.  I usually stack the one man pods on top of each other

[Fearless Son]

11 hours ago, flatbear said:

the only solution is a rescue mission.  I usually stack the one man pods on top of each other

Ultimately, that is what I had to do.  

Sending the original craft back proved unworkable after many save-scummed attempts. So I had to break down and build another rescue craft, this time completely uncrewed but with the same crew capacity.  Since I was operating under the same maximum number of part limits, I was forced to cut down on some of the redundancy I had built into the design of the original, with a lower fuel capacity once in orbit which narrowed my margin for error considerably.  

But I did it, got to within half a kilometer of the other rescue vehicle.  With no more fuel in the other rescue vehicle (I used its fuel to make the final push of the rendezvous so the second vehicle had enough fuel to control where I deorbited) I spacewalked all three Kerbals across from one to the other while technically in Kerbin's upper atmosphere, which was a little hairy, especially as there was only one hatch in the single-seat cockpit so I had to do a bit of a "dance" to get all three of them in with Val in the pilot's seat.  

Anyway, I managed to de-orbit with it.  Note the fewer solar panels, fewer parachutes, nose-fins to help keep it retrograde, and heatshield: