The Ramblings of a Poorly Managed Space Program

[Mjp1050]

The Eventful Journey To The Mun

It was one of my missions that began as any other.

The ship barely managed to escape from the grip of the atmosphere, all the while struggling to keep its equatorial orbit. For the target was the Mun, and the goal was to have all eleven Kerbals on board level up to three stars by landing upon it.

And nothing interesting happened until we hit the Mun. Until...

"Hmmm..." I thought. "Could this Landing Guidance doohickey possibly be of any use to me?"

The answer, it turned out, was yes.

Once upon the Mun, I did not hesitate to begin the arduous task of EVA'ing all eleven Kerbals. However, the monotony was broken by a slight flaw in the camera, or perhaps in gravity...

Several minutes later, all eleven Kerbals were safely in the ship, on a trajectory that would exit the Mun's SOI, then into a correction burn that would drop the Periapsis down to 30,000 meters. I noticed a slight problem, however.

FIVE FRICKIN' METERS PER SECOND OF DELTA-V SHORT!! Okay, Mjp1050, calm down. As long as the ship enters the atmosphere, it will slow down. It doesn't have to be 30,000 meters exactly. You've done this before. Let's burn and see where this gets.

Burn, burn, burn for home, with that delta-v...Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, space is but a - ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?!?

PERIAPSIS OF 80 KM!! GAHHHH!!!!! Yeah, you'd better be enjoying this, Donfrid, 'cause after this is done, you're joining Jebediah on the Minmus outpost!

Well, I managed to get an extra 0.1 m/s from decoupling. "But Mjp1050," you might ask, "why don't you use the RCS to give you a boost? You had 75 units of Monopropellent in the earlier pictures."

Well, children, when you're a professional KSP player like me, you often forget to put on RCS thrusters. It's a talent you learn when you're older. We professionals prefer* the 'get out and push' method.

*prefer meaning avoid whenever possible. That's totally an alternate meaning, right?

Not quite there... a bit more... a bit more... Bingo!

WOOHOO! We're home free! You hear that, Donfrod? You'll be banished to Minmus soon enough!

Hah! Soon you'll be stuck on a lump of ice cream where no one can - why is my heat shield overheating?

OUT OF ABALATOR! AHHHH!!! SPIN, KERBALS, SPIN!!!! SPIN FOR YOUR LIVES!!!! 

Okay, Mjp1050, you can breathe now. You can breat-AHHHHHH!!!! I'M COMING IN OVER THE HIGHLANDS!!!!! SLOW DOWN, KERBALS!!!! SLOW DOWN!!!!!!

TWEAK ALL THE PARACHUTES TO DEPLOY AT 5000 METERS!! HURRY, MJP1050, HURRY!!!

DEPLOY, ALREADY!!!!! DEPL-ah, there we go. *exhales*

I'm going to spin, just so I land a tiny bit slower. Oh hey, that halved my velocity. I'll roll with that.

Touchdown!!! I can breath easy again.

Now let's see what I recovered from that. Eh, I'll take the science.

I couldn't aim well with a Kerbal pushing a 9.5 ton spaceship. Don't judge.

What? No one advanced to the next rank? ALL OF YOU LANDED ON THE MUN AND PLANTED FLAGS!!!!! HOW DID YOU NOT LEVEL UP?!?! You know what, I'm done here. 

Mjp1050 out.

Edited July 12, 2016 by Mjp1050