have you ever had to get out and push?

[crasher925]

so i was watching Scott Manley's Kerbal Spaceships are Serious Business and one of the episodes reminded me of the time i ran out of fuel just short of entering the atmosphere so i did what any true kerbal would do... i got out and pushed!

so about 30 minutes and 25 EVAs later i managed to get my periapse down to about 35km

 

so my question to you is: have you ever had to get out and push?

[anachronicus]

Well, I attempted to get out and push.  I've never really mastered the EVA controls, so each time is fraught with anxiety, panic, over-compensating, and general chaos.

I got the capsule back into a re-entry, but poor Jeb was unable to join it. 

[cantab]

Of course.

I try not to do more than one or maybe two EVA tanks worth of pushing per Kerbal though. Beyond that it crosses the line from legitimate emergency propulsion to loophole abuse.

Much more common has been bailing out and jetpacking. A bare Kerbal gets about 600 m/s of delta-V by himself, usually plenty to finish an ascent when the lander runs out of fuel and then be picked up by the orbiter, but much less delta-V when pushing something. (I usually do have a separate lander and orbiter, like Apollo, rather than doing a direct ascent mission.)

[Guest]

Yep.  I actually gave up and reentered Jeb in his EVA suit.  He actually survived...

[samstarman5]

You didn't have to go down to 35km.  Anything about 55-50km would have done the trick faster, even if it required another trip around or two.

[AbacusWizard]

The first time I successfully landed on Mun, I was pretty low on fuel but tried launching again anyway, figuring that if I could at least get into a stable munar orbit, I could send a rescue ship later... but I soon realized I wasn't going to get anywhere near orbital velocity. I had the pilot get out and push at apoapsis but it quickly became clear that the weak thrust wouldn't speed up the lander fast enough to achieve orbit before it crashed.

I made a drastic decision: hop back in the cockpit to refuel the jetpack one more time, extend the antenna and transmit all science (I didn't know kerbalnauts could take data out of the cockpit at the time), abandon ship, and use the jetpack to at least get the poor pilot into a stable orbit.

It worked, but the poor fellow ended up using nearly all of his jetpack fuel circularizing. Over the next few days I built a rescue ship COVERED in ladders, did some research on orbital maneuvering, and got REALLY good at rendezvous!

[cantab]

24 minutes ago, samstarman5 said:

You didn't have to go down to 35km.  Anything about 55-50km would have done the trick faster, even if it required another trip around or two.

Or twenty ... and that's when it gets old fast. I've been there, it sacked.

9 minutes ago, AbacusWizard said:

Over the next few days I built a rescue ship COVERED in ladders

I did that the first time I needed to rescue a Kerbal too Didn't trust my total-novice EVA skills.

[Speeding Mullet]

I came back from my first (and rather large) mission to Moho using the good old get out and push method!

SM

[Gojira1000]

My very first Mun return I learned how to run the EVA controls - by pushing. It was terrifying.

[AlamoVampire]

If you dont get out and push, then are you really playing KSP? But seriously tho, yup.

[kBob]

I'm so paranoid about running low on dV that I usually pack way more propellant than I need (even when using dV calculations)  , so no I haven't had to do this even though I finally mastered EVA movement ( @anachronicus: by remapping the default keys to where I wasn't always hitting the wrong key, and doing just quick tap thrusts, less is more ).

[Kristobal]

2 hours ago, AbacusWizard said:

It worked, but the poor fellow ended up using nearly all of his jetpack fuel circularizing. Over the next few days I built a rescue ship COVERED in ladders, did some research on orbital maneuvering, and got REALLY good at rendezvous!

I've done the exact same thing, except instead of using up nearly all his fuel, the poor little guy completely ran out! I was surprised I was able to get up so close 

[Corona688]

I've done so a couple times before, but aren't sure I could do it any more.  The EVA controls are so *twitchy* now and you can't ever tell when a kerbal is going to reorient himself.

[Stratoroc]

most of my early career minmus missions involve pushing for a deorbit burn

[Madrias]

More times than I care to count.  Usually when I've expended all of my rocket fuel and all of my monopropellant, and thereby have to push the capsule back home.  Usually results in leaving trash in orbit that I have to pick up later.

[samstarman5]

I did do the get out and push thing, and I did stick with it for about five runs. But after the fifth run and almost not managing to get into the pod before running out of EVA fuel, I just turned on infinite fuel and finished it that way, writing it off as me just fast forwarding the whole affair.  I do try to balance using cheat mode by wasting funds on a mission or the like.  It's not something I proudly do.

But if you don't at least try Get Out and Push at least once, you haven't actually lived the whole KSP experience.

Edited June 15, 2016 by samstarman5

[The Aziz]

I tried, but it was so inefficient in my short time before descent back to surface so I gave up, left the lander and made orbit on EVA. I didn't need that can anyway.

[AbacusWizard]

5 hours ago, cantab said:

I did that the first time I needed to rescue a Kerbal too Didn't trust my total-novice EVA skills.

In this case the "rescue craft covered in ladders" thing wasn't because of lack of skill--it was because of lack of EVA propellant! I had to maneuver the ship close enough to him that he could just reach out and grab on.

[AbacusWizard]

Also, all this "Get Out and Push" stuff reminds me of the excellent board game Galaxy Trucker (which is itself very kerbally, in that it involves cartoony little astronauts building rockets out of spare parts that tend to go wrong in hilarious ways): one of the alien crew members you can get is an "engine expert" who grants +2 to the speed of your ship, but only if you already have at least one working engine--the rulebook specifically justifies this requirement by saying "he's not going to get out and push"!

(The other available alien crew member is a "weapons expert" who grants +2 to your ship's firepower, but only if you already have at least one working cannon--"he's not going to get out and bite the enemy.")

[Overland]

Havent had many push scenarios.

What ive had is (more oftern than not) not applying handbrake when getting out of a train..unwisely still at idle to plant a flag and have her roll away on idle voltages,

just enough to turn any slight microscopic change in terrain into 72 tons of rolling train with her driver not in the cab.. Sure she stops when physics cut out but those few 100 metres can be fatal to a landtrain.

Especially backwards..

PUSH scenario!

The ideal of wedging a kerbal against the front wheel of a locomotive or rear wagon and running.. In the hopes that itd be enough to stop

 

Problem with trains spanning multiple versions of ksp is...this works in some versions more than others..

Reducing the kerbal to being rollingpinned under a locomotive and 4 wagons..turning to dust at random..

One day ill make a KOS script to sound an alarm if the trains stopped and brake not applied

[RocketBlam]

I've done it once. I just love the fact that this game so thoroughly models physics that it actually works.

[pandaman]

I tried once on a Duna ascent...

Two Kerbals in command chairs returning to orbit on a lightweight lander failed to circularise before the fuel ran out.  AHA! Thought I, 'loads of people have done this get out and push trick, how hard can it be?' - it turned out it was a bit too hard for me at the time.

The poor pusher couldn't get in position to push squarely so he kept losing 'grip' and sliding off to one side, so he frantically reset the parachutes before failing miserably to climb back into his seat before touching the atmosphere, but he was at least able to reach 'stable' 42x140 orbit on his jetpack.  His companion also landed safely back on the surface thanks to the repacked chutes.  Both crew were rescued not too long after as they were part of a multi ship Duna exploration mission with spare capacity for just such occasions.

[Kevin Kyle]

oh ya, got out and pushed a couple times early on in my learning experiences, got real good at EVA. Yes, I was successful but I had to do it over several orbits. My biggest fear was landing on the side of a tall steep mountain after all that pushing, fortunately, that didnt happen. I make sure the tank has fuel before I leave the house now.

[Mjarf]

12 hours ago, AbacusWizard said:

The first time I successfully landed on Mun, I was pretty low on fuel but tried launching again anyway, figuring that if I could at least get into a stable munar orbit, I could send a rescue ship later... but I soon realized I wasn't going to get anywhere near orbital velocity. I had the pilot get out and push at apoapsis but it quickly became clear that the weak thrust wouldn't speed up the lander fast enough to achieve orbit before it crashed.

I made a drastic decision: hop back in the cockpit to refuel the jetpack one more time, extend the antenna and transmit all science (I didn't know kerbalnauts could take data out of the cockpit at the time), abandon ship, and use the jetpack to at least get the poor pilot into a stable orbit.

It worked, but the poor fellow ended up using nearly all of his jetpack fuel circularizing. Over the next few days I built a rescue ship COVERED in ladders, did some research on orbital maneuvering, and got REALLY good at rendezvous!

That actually sounds like a lot of fun. Things get a lot more interesting when you have to improvise and "MacGyver" a solution to the problem. I have also had to send jeb out to push, I think we've all been there and done that.

[Cairol]

I once had to use the last ounce of Monopropellant to get a de-orbit trajectory for Kerbin. But until now I never had to have a Kerbal push.
If I underestimated my fuel demand, the remaining needed d/v was way too high to push it, except from that one occasion.