I feel like I just completed a rite of passage

[Whisky Tango Foxtrot]

I'm constantly hearing people's stories about how people launched missions to the Mun that left their Kerbals stranded, either with a damaged craft or without enough fuel to take off or return to Kerbin. However, I always felt left out as my first Mun mission (which was my only land-and-return mission to the Mun; the next ship brought the first parts of a space station with it which became my base for Munar operations from then on) went fairly smoothly and its pilot made it back home without issue and didn't need a rescue.

I got a taste of what those other players went through today, though, as I accepted a "Rescue Kerbal and recover craft" mission, got my Claw ready, picked up the Kerbal in her derelict lander can and then discovered that I was almost completely out of fuel. I had enough to reach a safe orbit, but not nearly enough to reach my station.

Luckily I had a Nuke-tug docked at the station so I got it fuelled up and ready to rescue the rescue mission (although the actual rescue will have to wait for another day,) so there's no major crisis, but there's an odd sense of satisfaction in being able to cross the "bungle a Mun mission leaving a Kerbal stranded" checkbox off my list.

[DrunkenKerbalnaut]

Funny. I very recently encountered similar circumstances. Probably the first in at least a year. Rite of passage? Idk about that. The real rite has to be in fixing it without resorting to quick saves or debug menu. Wether it's self rescue or another lander. Kudos for that. 

My debacle? Valentina's lander ran out of fuel due to some ship-righting shenanigans on the surface, and didn't have enough to even go direct-to-rendezvous with the orbiter. Made her bail out halfway up, and complete the rendezvous with her jet pack. Fun stuff. 

It was kinda perfect, really. I was just about to shut down Munar science ops after that, and wanted a different lander design for Minmus anyways. And Val was tired of the Mun. 

[Mjarf]

We'v all had to literally get out and push at one point, it works if you're patient. I had a similar situation the other day, I timewarped too far during descent to the Mun and Jeb had to bail right before the lander crashed into the surface so he could land with his RCS pack. Luckily the command module survived somehow so he at least didn't have to sleep outside while waiting for a rescue ship. I managed to crash the first rescue ship, luckily it was unmanned, I hate losing any of my little green dudes. The second rescue ship survived the trip though and brought him back home safely.

[Ippo]

35 minutes ago, Mjarf said:

We'v all had to literally get out and push at one point, it works if you're patient.

I was playing with TAC-LS when it happened to me. Jeb's life literally depended on it. Those were some really scary minutes.

[Mjarf]

9 minutes ago, Ippo said:

I was playing with TAC-LS when it happened to me. Jeb's life literally depended on it. Those were some really scary minutes.

I bet that got your heartbeat up quite a bit.

[Ippo]

50 minutes ago, Mjarf said:

I bet that got your heartbeat up quite a bit.

I had all my life support in the service module. I was returning from Minmus, so I was coming in *really* hot (mind you, this was before stock reentry, but of course I also had DRE and it was way less forgiving) and planned to do a couple of passes in the upper atmosphere before completing the reentry. In my final pass, I lowered the periapsis and jettisoned the service module when I entered the atmosphere.

Surprise! I didn't drop deep enough and the capsule bounced off the atmosphere for another pass. And then another one. At the third one, I was sure Jeb was done. I didn't try to push until the third pass, because at that point I was getting really desperate.

TAC-LS lets you survive for 2 hours without EC. I landed 1:50h after the battery had run out.

[worir4]

It always seems to feel good when something goes wrong but then you fix it instead of it just all going right.

I once had a space plane that lost one of its landing gear while in space but i still managed to land it. It was one of the most fun missions i ever did because it had some real tension to it.

[Spacetraindriver]

I had a Gemini like craft in orbit, which I was just testing, so there were no parachutes. But then I passed the point of no return. I had to make a powered decent to safely bring Beala Kerman home. The service module had the poodle so that wasn't much help. All I had was a couple Oscar-Bs and 4 Twitches. I landed with barely any fuel left.

[Mjarf]

I had a close call yesterday when doing a transfer burn from LKO to Duna. I started the burn too early and didn't pay attention to the orbit around Kerbin, then I suddenly noticed that PE had dropped to about 50km, and the craft was entering the atmosphere. Welp, I had to burn radial out at full throttle to get it back out of the atmosphere, luckily the ship had a TWR of more than 1. It had a crew of 5, so it would really suck if it crashed, I really hate losing Kerbals.

[DrunkenKerbalnaut]

5 hours ago, Spacetraindriver said:

I had a Gemini like craft in orbit, which I was just testing, so there were no parachutes. But then I passed the point of no return. I had to make a powered decent to safely bring Beala Kerman home. The service module had the poodle so that wasn't much help. All I had was a couple Oscar-Bs and 4 Twitches. I landed with barely any fuel left.

Powered landings at Kerbin are always a little un-nerving. No matter how capable my lander, the voice in my head is always like "Nah, bro. You dead." You spend so much time using 'chutes to arrest your fall in the early game, it never feels right landing under power. It always surprises me when it works. 

[Aegolius13]

When I stranded my obligatory lunar Kerbal, I sent at least two rescue missions,  each time only to discover after landing that a Kerbal had snuck aboard.   I think one of those also broke down,  resulting in an additional stranded Kerbal.

[Whisky Tango Foxtrot]

Update: The nuke tug was able to rendezvous with the rescue craft and take it back to the station. The contract is still incomplete since I haven't landed the stranded pilot and craft on Kerbin yet, but I already have plans in place to do that.

Really glad to have that rescue craft back. The fuel supplies at Mun Station were getting seriously low, and that craft is also the one I use to dock with the mining installation on the surface to resupply (I detach the claw from its lower docking port and attach a large fuel tank in its place.) There's still another stranded Kerbal on the Mun's surface but that mission can wait until I've made a few fuel runs.

[Jhawk1099]

On 1/3/2017 at 6:19 AM, Mjarf said:

We'v all had to literally get out and push at one point, *snip*

Haha, I had a design for mun orbit rescues and it needed like 20m/s more deltav but I didn't change it because that would cost money. I used the decoupler between the heat shield and the upper stage to give me a small boost on my munar escape then had the recently rescued crew member get out and push with their jet pack to get the periaps above Kerbin to ~25km. It was successful this way 7 times

[Whisky Tango Foxtrot]

Well I attempted that second rescue and managed to screw it up again. This time I took my nuke tug with me from the beginning, intending to use it for the orbital plane change, undock my lander from it to retrieve the Kerbal and craft, then re-dock to return to the station. Unfortunately, I forgot to disable crossfeed on my tug's docking port, meaning that it's NERV engine was pulling equally from its own fuel tank and the lander. When I sent the lander down it still had plenty of oxidizer but it was running seriously low on LiquidFuel, and I didn't notice this until I was already landed (and had already quicksaved after undocking.) I had to get most of my orbital velocity using my RCS thrusters. Luckily, I had just enough monopropellant to get into a circular orbit at about 8km, and my nuke tug is still in a relatively coplanar orbit with the lander, so I should be able to dock it and bring it back to the station.

[Wanderfound]

On 4 January 2017 at 2:28 AM, worir4 said:

It always seems to feel good when something goes wrong but then you fix it instead of it just all going right.

I once had a space plane that lost one of its landing gear while in space but i still managed to land it. It was one of the most fun missions i ever did because it had some real tension to it.

I did a spaceplane mission from IVA only with Raster Prop Monitor cameras mounted in strategic locations to give me some external views on the cabin screens.

I misjudged the reentry a bit, and had to shallow it out much more than I'd intended to avoid getting cooked by DRE. Because of this, I ended up a continent to the east of KSC without enough fuel to make it back. And, unfortunately, the first warning that I'd had of the reentry misjudgement was when the under-nose camera I'd placed for a landing view exploded.

So, I ended up doing a dead-stick landing on a rough hillside with no view but the cockpit windows, which are aimed skywards at the moment of touchdown.

Everybody survived, although we did detonate one of the engines during the post-touchdown roll.

 

 

[TopHeavy11]

This is less of a rite of passage and more of a sign that you...

Can you guess...

NEED MOAR BOOSTERS!

[Fearless Son]

Because this is always appropriate for these situations:

[KamenRiderzero1]

Wouldn't that make him "the Dunatian"?

 

"Dunan"

"Dunaian"

I think we need a nice group discussion on Kerbal adjectives.