HSP: Mission complete.

[Hotaru]

@EvilEmotaku @KAL 9000 OPM and Kerbol Origins both have the same problem: they move Eeloo to Sarnus/Sarvin orbit, and I'm after something that doesn't move stock planets. OPM I'm definitely not using for this career save because I'm specifically saving it for the next one (and very much looking forward to it). I like the look of Kerbol Origins though, and I may see if I can revert the changes to Eeloo and install it anyway.

 

1 hour ago, greenTurtle1134 said:

his/her/its

OK, I know this wasn't on purpose but the word "it" is a really, really, really offensive way of referring to someone of indeterminate gender (or especially transgender). The word you probably want is their, which (though grammatically a bit awkward) is the best way we have in English to refer to either a hypothetical person of either gender or a specific person of unknown or ambiguous gender.

And for the record, my pronoun is "her."

 

1 hour ago, greenTurtle1134 said:

no need to add another dozen or so celestials that the program has to visit.

No worries, I actually specifically asked for recommendations for planet packs to install once I've made initial landings on all the stock ones, which is why everyone has suddenly started suggesting them.

[RobFalcon]

It's probably outside the scope for your current playthrough, but I've been watching Kerbol Starsystems a lot recently.  It might be something to consider for a future one!

Once I've finished my current run (which was strongly inspired by yours, if I hadn't mentioned that already), I was thinking of giving KSS a shot.  (Using Roverdude's Alcubierre Drive in conjunction with FTL Drive Continued.)

One question: Where do you intend to place your Kerbals when they retire?  Build a complex there at KSC so they could always sneak onto a ship whenever they get bored advise the new classes?  Or build a resort on the closest thing Kerbin has to a tropical beach? 

Greatly enjoying the missions!  Looking forward to the next post!

[Laythe Squid]

On 3/20/2017 at 11:19 AM, KAL 9000 said:

Planet packs? 

OPM! OPM! OPM! 

(Come on, people! Chant with me!)

OPM! OPM! OPM! OPA!

(I is the chanting!)

[Hotaru]

@RobFalcon KSS (or other interstellar mods) is definitely a possibility. While I'd prefer something that can be reached at sub-light speeds (possibly with Orion drive), I do like the idea of warp as an ultimate endgame goal.

As for retired kerbonauts, well, I had planned to just dismiss them from the Astronaut Complex (I could always edit them back into the save if I wanted them for a photo op or something), but I kind of like your idea of building a "resort" for them on Kerbin. It'd have to be outside physics range of KSC, though. I will think about it.

 

Boring stuff:

Spoiler

I may change my mind about OPM. The reason for this has less to do with the chanting (although I admire your enthusiasm, @KAL 9000 and @Laythe Squid) and more to do with what I plan to use for my next save. I had meant to save OPM for that career, but I'm increasingly tempted to run it in Galileo's Planet Pack instead--I like the idea of exploring a completely unfamiliar system, and the screenshots I've seen so far look amazing--and if I did that I'd have to either do a third one just for OPM or miss out on OPM entirely. I don't really want to do either of those things, seeing as I've been looking forward to exploring OPM for ages now and, frankly, these careers tend to go on for months on end and if I try to plan too many in advance I wonder if I'll ever get to actually do them all.

However, I still don't like that OPM moves Eeloo. I wouldn't mind it starting from scratch but I don't like the idea of having a whole planet move mid-save for no obvious reason. Jool inexplicably sprouting rings was bad enough, but at least that was just cosmetic. So if I do install OPM, I will try to move Eeloo back to its original orbit (which I think wouldn't cross that of Sarnus but I'm not sure), turning it into something like a centaur--possibly an ejected moon of Jool or Sarnus. I may even do this before I finish the stock-footprints-everywhere project--so I can start tossing unkermanned probes out there in advance of kermanned missions.

Also, I'm giving some thought to installing Snacks!, as much to give me an excuse to use Deep Freeze cryonics on longer missions as anything. While I don't like the idea of installing a lethal life-support mod mid-save, I feel like Snacks! will be low-profile enough in terms of gameplay effect to not be too jarring a change.

And lastly, I've installed Kerbal Komets, which, obviously, adds comets to the game. So far only one has been discovered. Because they come in kind of crazy orbits I doubt we'll be visiting one any time soon, but it's nice to have them out there.

TL;DR: OPM, possibly. Snacks, probably. Kerbal Komets, definitely.

 

Daring 4 underway on nuclear power.

 

Daring 4: mission to Eeloo.

Spoiler

The KSC engineers had hoped the Poodle engine would be sufficient for the Daring program, but they weren't at all satisfied with the delta-v margins of the Poodle-powered Daring 3. So they decided to adapt the Daring system to use a new powerplant: the LV-N nuclear thermal rocket.

 

With no oxidizer aboard, Daring 4 is light enough (about 300 tons) to be launched fully-fueled. A Vorpal III rocket puts it in Kerbin orbit along with the crew: mission commander P4 Kerzer, pilot P3 Lodald, chief engineer E3 Deblian, engineer E1 Statha, and scientists S4 Johndo, S3 Kathelyn, and S1 Leeuna.

 

One Brillig IV and two Vorpal I launches send up and assemble the spacecraft's orbital module and landing craft. Unlike Daring 3, Daring 4 will make only a single landing on Eeloo with its six-kerman lander; a two-seat buggy will be used to collect data from nearby biomes.

 

The Daring 4 spacecraft assembled in Kerbin orbit.

 

The seven nuclear rockets push the spacecraft beyond the Second Cosmic Speed and on its way to an encounter with the kerbolar system's most distant known planet in just under two years.

 

Crew rotations.

Spoiler

Defiance 27 (shown, flight crew P1 Asene and E1 Barsen) launched Expedition Persistence 5 to the Munar station (P2 Eiliel, E2 Rotine, S4 Laselle, S2 Ribnard), returning with the previous crew. Defiance 28 (flight crew P2 Virlina and E1 Corrick) brought a new crew (P2 Gilbree, E1 Barsen, S4 Agalinne, S1 Darina) to Kerbin station Immutability. With the new, more comfortable torus stations, the administration is giving some thought to extending the tours again, from two years to three or even four. (OOC: Even with two-year tours and the two old stations decommissioned, I STILL feel like I'm wasting a lot of time on crew rotations.)

 

Starbus Phoebe departed Duna station Permanence for Kerbin; the station was deactivated to await the arrival of the next expedition.

 

The Vorpal III rocket carrying Super Aqualung 11, with fuel for the Duna system, exploded on the launch pad due to the launch clamps being attached incorrectly.

 

The pad was cleaned up, appropriate people were sacked, and another Vorpal III launched Super Aqualung 12.

 

Defiance 29 (flight crew P2 Virlina and P2 Chadgan) launched the next crew of Permanence (P2 Lemlock, E2 Mitrie, S3 Gledia, S2 Tangel) to Starbus Elizabeth in Kerbin orbit; they departed for Duna while the shuttlepod returned to Kerbin.

 

Daring 3 return from Dres.

Spoiler

A year and a half after departing Dres, Daring 3 approached Kerbin. The crew made a final data transmission from the science lab before jettisoning the orbital module; the remaining fuel in the propulsion module was used to slow the spacecraft's approach by about 500 meters per second.

 

In spite of the braking burn, the reentry was the space program's fastest ever of a kermanned mission at nearly 5 kilometers per second; all the crew except for mission commander Geneming blacked out from nearly 12 Gs of deceleration. (OOC: This is why I used the inflatable shield, not the 2.5m solid one. While the 2.5m one would undoubtedly be good enough for reentry from LKO and probably the Mun or Duna, I have no confidence it would be stable enough to protect the spacecraft from reentry heating at 4-5 km/s interplanetary speeds.)

 

The spacecraft survived reentry and parachuted to a safe landing in the highlands of Kerbin. The accounting department reports the mission returned 1,493,285 spacebucks' worth of science, which compared to a total mission cost of 1,857,031 funds represented a loss of 363,746 funds (minus a bit for the recovered command module). However, future nuclear-powered Daring missions will not require four 300,000-fund Super Aqualungs to fuel them up on-orbit, and will be visiting more distant destinations and returning more valuable science; the administration is optimistic that those missions will turn a profit. 

 

 

[DunaRocketeer]

That pad explosion; very reminiscent of the Amos 6 failure with the upper portions falling to the ground. Fortunately KSP pad repairs are much quicker.

That Vorpal III rocket is a real brute. I've never put 300 tons into orbit in one go before...

[greenTurtle1134]

Eeloo does make a much better Enceladus than Pluto, though. Plock-Karen replaces it for your far-out minor body needs. In terms of moving through a save, you could just pretend your Kerbals haven't resolved its orbit yet, and only discovered it recently.

Also, are the Cosmic Speeds an agreed-upon thing? I saw them in @lajoswinkler's Kron series, where he explained them as low orbit, Kerbin escape, Solar escape, and Galactic escape, but I assumed it was just his notation. Did you get it from there, or is it all from some other source?

[lajoswinkler]

3 hours ago, greenTurtle1134 said:

Also, are the Cosmic Speeds an agreed-upon thing? I saw them in @lajoswinkler's Kron series, where he explained them as low orbit, Kerbin escape, Solar escape, and Galactic escape, but I assumed it was just his notation. Did you get it from there, or is it all from some other source?

Those are standard terms, yes. For some reason they aren't used much in USA, but they are valid and a standard outside USA. They date from the time of first serious works in orbital mechanics for practical application. Tsiolkovsky used it, Oberth, etc.

 

(For future reference to those whom might find it useful - it's speed, not velocity, as people sometimes write. Speed is a scalar only and velocity is a combination of speed and direction. Because velocity is never mentioned without direction, term speed is much more prevalent. Laymen usually say velocity when they try to sound serious, but those two terms aren't synonyms and should not be used interchangeably.)

[greenTurtle1134]

Ah yes, upon further investigation I discovered a paper defining them. Certainly a very good convention. I'll use them.

[Hotaru]

@DunaRocketeer Also fortunately, most of the expensive parts of the rocket (i.e. engines) weren't destroyed; in spite of that being a nearly half-million-spacebuck rocket the accident only actually ended up costing about 100,000 funds.

@greenTurtle1134 While I agree that Eeloo is better as an Enceladus analog than a Pluto analog, it's just a little too jarring to have a crew of Kerbals land on it and return apparently without noticing the massive gas giant it was orbiting. I may, however, end up with two of them: OPM-Eeloo (Opeloo?) in Sarnus orbit and Squad-Eeloo (Squeeloo?) in kerbolar orbit. Might see if I can make a new heightmap for Opeloo to make it less suspiciously similar to Squeeloo in that case. 

And yes, I originally learned about the Cosmic Speeds from @lajoswinkler's Kron series (which was, it's worth mentioning, the main inspiration for the Daring program and, by extension, the whole concept of this career). I've always thought they sounded a bit cooler than just saying "Kerbin escape velocity" or whatever (should that also be "escape speed?" It doesn't actually matter much which way you're going, after all). So I've gotten in the habit of using them, especially in the context of the achievement of those speeds as program milestones.

Edited March 24, 2017 by Hotaru

[greenTurtle1134]

2 hours ago, Hotaru said:

a crew of Kerbals land on it and return apparently without noticing the massive gas giant it was orbiting.

Oh, you already sent a mission to it? Then that would explain why you are reluctant to move the thing... just say it was captured or something if you want to. Making two might be a good idea, all small frozen planetoids are around the same anyway.

[NotAgain]

21 hours ago, DunaRocketeer said:

That Vorpal III rocket is a real brute. I've never put 300 tons into orbit in one go before...

Agreed. I've got a launcher capable of it (the Firedance V), but have never actually done it.

[Hotaru]

 

Daring 4 jettisons fuel tanks during its arrival at Eeloo.

 

Crew rotations.

Spoiler

A Vorpal IB rocket launched Hotaru Star Lines Flight 6, a combined crew rotation and tourism flight, aboard an S300 Valiance spacecraft, connecting with Starbus Valerie to the Mun and Minmus. The flight crew was P3 Janbe, P1 Madette, E3 Jochelle, and P1 Jate; also aboard were the next crew for Mun base Constancy (P2 Virlina, E1 Corrick, S3 Alvis, and S1 Jenra) and paying passengers Madella and Tribella.

 

Valerie met rover Brevity II on the surface of the Mun to exchange crews before continuing on to Minmus, where it refueled at the old Endurance I station, and returning to Kerbin orbit to transfer its crew and passengers to HSL-6 for return to Kerbin.

Defiance 30 (flight crew P4 Melxie and P1 Vasya) returned the departing crew of Duna station Permanence to Kerbin, while Defiance 31 (shown landed in the midlands of Minmus, flight crew P3 Janbe and P1 Chadgan) completed scientific surveys of Kerbin, the Mun, and Minmus as well as delivering a new crew (P5 Burmin, E4 Lizdrien, S3 Thomptrey, and S3 Wenmy) to Mun station Persistence.

 

Defiance 31 deposited the data collected from Kerbin and Munar orbit as well as three landings on the surface of Minmus at Kerbin station Immutability.

 

Munar exploration.

Spoiler

After a refueling by unkermanned tanker Aqualung 28, the crew of Mun station Persistence took LC-1 down for a difficult landing in a Munar canyon.

 

They landed safely, collecting the first data and close-up pictures from a previously unknown area of the Munar surface, before returning to the station.

 

Engineer Corrick (right) and scientist Alvis (left) took Mun rover Brevity II on a long expedition to collect science data for Base Constancy and Mun station Persistence.

 

They explored the Mun's north polar regions as well as craters and canyons before returning to Constancy with the collected samples and data.

 

Duna system ops.

Spoiler

While Starbus Phoebe arrived at Duna station Permanence with the new crew, Super Aqualung 12 performed an experimental aerocapture into Duna orbit--the Space Program's first such maneuver--to deliver fuel for Phoebe's return trip to Kerbin as well as future landings on the surface of Duna.

 

The new crew took LC-2 down to explore a crater on the surface of Duna.

 

Daring 4: arrival at Eeloo.

Spoiler

After a nearly two-year outbound journey, Daring 4--unofficially renamed Are We There Yet?--performed a half-hour burn to capture into orbit of Eeloo.

 

After Are We There Yet? safely maneuvered into a 40-kilometer orbit of the icy planet, the crew discovered a problem. The landing craft was about 400 meters per second short of having enough fuel to land on Eeloo and return safely to orbit. No one at KSC is quite sure how this happened; the leading theory is that the engineers who designed it neglected to take into account the extra mass of the buggy during the descent.

The crew, however, were not about to make the trip all the way to Eeloo only to return without landing. The lander had enough fuel to land and then return to a sub-orbital trajectory; they figured out that an EVA jetpack would have enough fuel to return a single Kerbal the rest of the way to orbit. Mission commander Kerzer looked through the records of the crew to pick the best candidate to make the descent.

 

...

brave = 0.947312295
dumb = 0.347938836
badS = True

...

 

So engineer Deblian boards the six-kerman landing craft alone and begins the descent to the surface.

 

Deblian: first kerman on Eeloo!

 

 

[greenTurtle1134]

Now you got there... we eagerly await "back again". Flags and footprints indeed. Will you be able to collect enough science on a single landing to make it worthwhile?

[Hotaru]

@greenTurtle1134 It'll be a while yet before Eeloo gets its second check mark; while Daring 4 took a fast transfer out it'll be taking a slow transfer back, partly to give the lab extra time to process data and partly to allow a gentler reentry to Kerbin. As for getting the most science out of a single landing--that's why we brought a rover.

[rkarmark]

Which mod os those helmets from (eeloo mision) must have missed that one

[Hypercosmic]

I decided to ask Kerbol Origins' thread directly about the possibilities to move stock planets back to their original orbits.

 

I guess you should just delete the Eeloo file.

Edited March 28, 2017 by Hypercosmic

[The White Guardian]

On 20-3-2017 at 8:41 PM, Hotaru said:

and I may see if I can revert the changes to Eeloo and install it anyway.

If you haven't found it yet, it should be in KerbolOrigins/SarvinSystem/Eeloo, delete the file Eeloo.cfg and it should be okay. Looking at the codes this file is only repsonsible for changing Eeloo's orbit and description.

I personaly never altered Eeloo in my mods seeing as two mods already do that, but I did alter Dres once. I'll add a line to the code that ensures that this can be reverted with simply adding a single, empty config file.

[Hypercosmic]

1 hour ago, The White Guardian said:

If you haven't found it yet, it should be in KerbolOrigins/SarvinSystem/Eeloo, delete the file Eeloo.cfg and it should be okay. Looking at the codes this file is only repsonsible for changing Eeloo's orbit and description.

I personaly never altered Eeloo in my mods seeing as two mods already do that, but I did alter Dres once. I'll add a line to the code that ensures that this can be reverted with simply adding a single, empty config file.

In the Kerbol Origins thread, a user replied to me that they successfully removed Eeloo's changes and everything works normally.

[Hotaru]

@rkarmark The helmets (and the helmet lights I've been using for a while now) are from Wearable KIS Props by @Enceos.

@Hypercosmic @The White Guardian Thanks for the advice! At this point I'm leaning more toward OPM than Kerbol Origins but I imagine what works for one will work for the other, and it's good to know reverting Eeloo is an option in both cases. 

[NotAgain]

@Hotaru, I think that a stock jetpack has around 600 m/s of delta V. You should be alright, but Are We There Yet? will probably have to come and fetch her, like the Hermes in the Martian.

[Hotaru]

The seventh kerbonaut class with an Eve Ascent Vehicle test article. Left to right: Gwenlanna, Rodnard, Vertine, Sigemy, Mike, Harfen, Addon, Temy, Deby, Munvan, Virella, Crisdia, Berelle.

 

Daring 4: exploration of Eeloo.

Spoiler

Deblian landed over a hundred kilometers short of the intended site, which would've allowed easy access to several biomes (this is what we get for letting an engineer fly the lander), so after collecting data from the highlands landing site she had to make two long drives to reach the midlands and fragipan regions.

 

Eeloo turned out to have a surprisingly fast rotation period; Deblian had to stop during the roughly 50-kilometer round trip to wait for sunrise.

 

Having collected data and samples from three biomes, Deblian parked the buggy and boarded the lander to return to Are We There Yet? (KSC memo: ship names no longer to end with punctuation marks.)

 

As expected, the lander ran out of fuel about a minute after liftoff. Deblian collected the valuable data and abandoned the lander, which impacted on Eeloo.

 

She then used her jetpack to reach a stable orbit.

 

A few orbits later, Deblian caught up with Are We There Yet? and used the last of her jetpack fuel to match velocity.

 

Unfortunately, Are We There Yet? was not designed for precision maneuvering (to put it mildly). Nonetheless, mission commander Kerzer was able to carefully nudge and rotate the ship near enough for Deblian to grab a ladder on the orbital module and board it.

 

With Deblian and the data she collected safely back aboard, the crew prepared for departure.

 

Its primary mission accomplished, barely, Daring 4 left Eeloo on a four-year transfer back to Kerbin.

 

Daring 5: mission to Moho.

Spoiler

With Daring 4 safely on its way home, a Vorpal III rocket launches the next interplanetary mission, Daring 5. The crew is mission commander P4 Melxie, pilot P3 Hayberta, chief engineer E4 Erithis, engineer E2 Joelin, and scientists S3 Erigee, S2 Valcee, and rookie S0 Rodnard.

 

Several additional launches delivered and assembled the orbital module and landing craft. The engineers weren't sure how severe the heat would be so near to Kerbol, so they put on as many radiators as they could find the space for.

 

To save fuel, Daring 5 ignores the standard launch window completely and instead departs at the Kerbin-Moho descending node. The departure maneuver from Kerbin both lowers the ship's kerbolar periapsis and matches the plane of Moho's orbit; a second maneuver near the sun will put the spacecraft on course to encounter Moho on its second orbit.

 

Also: Defiance 32 (flight crew P4 Janbe and P0 Mike) delivered a new crew (P2 Eiliel, E0 Crisdia, S3 Tambe, S0 Addon) to Kerbin station Immutability, returning with the previous crew.

[Laythe Squid]

Let's not use "its" in this thread ever again. EVER.

[Hotaru]

 

S3 Valcee on EVA from Daring 5 in Moho orbit.

 

Duna system ops.

Spoiler

The crew of station Permanence made another landing in LC-2, this time exploring Duna's midlands.

 

At over 3,000 meters, the midland site was the highest elevation yet visited on Duna. The crew collected data and returned to the station.

 

A few weeks later they departed for Kerbin aboard Starbus Elizabeth, once again leaving the station unkermanned.

 

Meanwhile, Defiance 33 delivered the next crew (P4 Janbe, E2 Rotine, S4 Agalinne, S0 Temy) to Starbus Phoebe, which left for Duna.

 

Daring 5: Moho!

Spoiler

Daring 5 (which the crew have decided to name Curse You, Red Baron!, much to the annoyance of whoever wrote the memo about names ending in punctuation marks after the last mission) arrived at its first kerbolar periapsis a few weeks after its departure from Kerbin. It completed a burn to lower its apoapsis and set it on course to encounter Moho on the next orbit. During the burn, which the KSC engineers expected to be the hottest of the mission, the crew retracted four of the six "triplane" radiators as a test of their performance so near the sun. The engineers concluded that the ship only really needed four and probably could have gotten by with just two; six was almost certainly overkill.

 

About half a year later (and still less than a year since its departure from Kerbin), Daring 5 burned into Moho orbit.

 

Pilot Hayberta and rookie scientist Rodnard boarded the landing craft (which the crew, in keeping with the theme, had by now christened Foiled Again), and started their descent to the surface. Their target was an anomaly discovered several years earlier in the planet's highlands by unkermanned orbiter Sagacity 5.

 

Rodnard: first kerman on Moho!

 

 

PS. @Laythe Squid It was an honest mistake (and resolved to my satisfaction in private). No need to give anybody additional grief about it.

Edited April 1, 2017 by Hotaru

[astroheiko]

Congratulations

A landing on Moho is always a challenge because of the high dV requirements, especially if a Kerbal is ment to land. From Kerbin I have not tried it yet. I was "nearby" (Eve) and had just tried it with my lander/mothership Combo. I have then actually managed to land 3 kerbals and take all biomes with them. But the refueling of the mother ship lasted forever. Never been there again since.

By the way, the pictures are again awesome. Especially those of Duna I like very much. You really have a very fine sense for such things.

 

Greetings

[NotAgain]

On ‎01‎/‎04‎/‎2017 at 9:56 PM, Hotaru said:

which the crew have decided to name Curse You, Red Baron!

Ah, I see you have some highly cultured Kerbals running around your save.