Where is your junkyard?

[MinimalMinmus]

I can't stand debris, each times I create some I destroy them.

[eddiew]

On the whole, whichever planet I was last visiting. I've spent the last 7 game years with a science station orbiting Mars, from which I have launched multiple missions to the surface and to its moons. It has two additional landers and one rover, and neither the station nor accessories will be returning home with the crew.

But in general I try to avoid clutter, especially in Earth/Kerbin orbit. My launch stages detach while still sub-orbital, and my transfer stages are dropped onto the destination planet wherever possible. I also keep the max persistent debris setting down at 50 pieces, so after a while it starts to clean itself up  

[peteletroll]

I keep Kerbin system space pretty clean. But I like leaving stuff on the ground, sorta "I was here" tag. And I leave a lot of garbage all over the Kerbol system for the same reason.

[NSEP]

I love Debris, i leave them in orbit/a special location so i can use them latee for other things like refeuling stations.

[Corona688]

My stations accumulate empty stages and useless return craft like noses accumulate hair:

I greatly regret not taking a screenshot of my most messed up station while I had the chance.  It looked like a hedgehog of mainsails...

Edited November 24, 2017 by Corona688

[boccelounge]

As others have said, I don''t generally leave debris, preferring to design stages so that they automatically de-orbit themselves.  Failing that, a small probe core, battery, and 'reserve tank' allow me to manually de-orbit them.  I'm a big fan of using Mun transfer stages that are jettisoned so that they impact Mun directly.

But as far as a "junkyard" I do have a collection of obsolete or simply unwanted craft in Minmus orbit-- typically prototype stations or deep-space crew ships.  I don't want to use them, but I can't bring myself to scrap them, so they go to the Minmus Graveyard.  It's also handy to look back at them from time to time, to recall some design or technique that I'd been toying with in the 'early years.'

EDIT: Ironically, as I was typing the above, I was finishing a burn from Kerbin to Duna.  As soon as I cleared Kerbin's SOI, I released two droptanks that were supposed to be able to course-correct themselves into Ike...  never having tested the design, I now find the engines won't work.  So I've got two useless autonomous fuel tanks as flying formation with the Duna Research Station...

Edited November 25, 2017 by boccelounge
irony

[Corona688]

Are they solids or something?  Get a brave kerbal to spacewalk and they might be able to ignite them.

[boccelounge]

4 minutes ago, Corona688 said:

Are they solids or something?  Get a brave kerbal to spacewalk and they might be able to ignite them.

I've never tried that...  And no, they're just Rockomax 800 tanks with a probe core, tiny Ant (Spider?) engine and tiny amount of fuel.  I literally need a 1.5m/s burn to make them impact Duna, but the engine isn't registering that it has fuel.  The fuel shows in the staging list, but the engines won't ignite.  I fear I may have clipped the engine a little too far into the bottom of the tank.

It was kind of a silly/inefficient idea anyway; I just wanted to build a "saddle truss."  I don't  think we'll be re-visiting that concept.

I might try the spacewalk, but I'm not too proud to Terminate in the tracking station...  Thanks for the idea!

[Corona688]

Get the staging right and you don't even need a probe core for seprotrons.

[magnemoe]

Kebin, you always get some junk in orbit. Note that outside of Mun, stuff are not junk but spare parts using KIS. Value of spare parts increase as distance to Kerbin increases. 

[EljOt]

Jool's atmosphere.

[ave369]

LKO. This is the only way I use LKO. All my working infrastructure tends to be around Minmus, and LKO is used to park derelict and mothballed ships that I might someday need.

[sardia]

On 11/25/2017 at 12:43 PM, magnemoe said:

Kebin, you always get some junk in orbit. Note that outside of Mun, stuff are not junk but spare parts using KIS. Value of spare parts increase as distance to Kerbin increases. 

This. I also use Extraplanetary launchpads to recycle the extra large scrap into new parts. 

[James Kerman]

A while back I went full Kessler and dumped a whole bunch of crap in equatorial LKO.  I never had a collision but the occasional orange tank floating by during docking was a little unnerving.

These days I design to minimize debris.

[ave369]

As for total junk, I tend to delete it. Only mothballed ships are left to orbit, and the Stayputnik 1 gets the honorary exemption from being deleted.

[Ty Tan Tu]

I once had Jed break off one of my solar cells. The weird thing is I could not even see the debris on the surface, but Jeb still managed to tripped over it. It made me laugh. Jeb was smiling too - but I don't sure he realized I was laughing at him not with him. Maybe I was a jerk for laughing at him, but he broke my solar cell.

Do you know how cold it can get on Minmus when your battery runs out during the moon's long nights before the dawn finally arrives? Neither do I, but maybe I could hook up an IoT thermostat to change the temperature in the room to match the temperature in the game... 

[Ty Tan Tu]

1 hour ago, ave369 said:

and the Stayputnik 1 gets the honorary exemption from being deleted.

On March 17, 2018 Vanguard I will have still been in orbit after 60 years. It should stay in orbit for about another 180 years, but with global warming, the upper atmosphere is cooling and dropping a bit, so it could potentially be longer. 

[Tyko]

On 11/19/2017 at 1:36 PM, GoSlash27 said:

Same as DDE, 5th Horseman, and Pthigrivi.
 I design every stage so that it's on a course to impact or burn up somewhere when I'm finished using it. I *hate* leaving debris.
Best,
-Slashy

I'm there too...I've planned my missions to eliminate debris. This has worked well for local Earth and Moon missions (SSRSS 2.5x). I've also been able to do the same on my first Venus and Mars satellites. I usually follow the Apollo model - my Earth escape is handled by my final booster stage and I set the course to impact my target body. Once enroute I detach the booster stage, do a course correction and then enter my target orbit using the next stage. I expect that I'll end up with debris in the future when I start using drop tanks to do high DV missions like those to Mercury or fast transit crewed missions.

Question: if you have debris that's flung into high solar orbits do you still track it or do you eventually delete it? I always keep debris that I may encounter again - say a failed mission in a planetary / moon orbit. I kind of lean towards deleting most things that are in solar orbits because they're never going to be encountered again and it's just taking up memory.

[FlyingPete]

I built and expanded a base once on Minmus in several phases. So there was a load of junk building up nearby. To prevent excessive lag, I used the (claw-equipped) fuel truck to grab the debris and cart it off to a junk heap a few km away from the main base.

[roboslacker]

I created a base on minmus, so the surrounding flats were littered with descent stages, boosters, and RTGs.

[invision]

i try to keep the game clean as possible from junk. i did have a save with 30 or so asteroids in low orbit (70-100k) and a few times one almost smashed into me as i was burning orbit. i had to delete that save because my CPU was not impressed with my shenanigans loading those.

[Fearless Son]

I try to minimize junk left where it could be dangerous.  If I am in orbit of Kerbin, I usually spend a little delta-v going into a suborbital trajectory before detaching my junk and then correcting back to an orbital trajectory, ensuring it either burns up for falls to the ground.  If junk is left on Kerbin's surface, I have it recovered (I imagine collection teams sent out to break it down and recycle what is left.)  If I am transferring to another planet, I set course to impact with it, then loose my junk, then adjust course to an orbital capture.  

I try to avoid having to delete any debris, so the only time there is likely to be debris left over is usually the lower stage of Mun landers who detach them before ascending back to Munar orbit.  If I go to a planet further out, the detached stage is likely to be somewhat functional (like an antenna a small solar panel to provide a relay or transmit science for the sake of future contracts) and so not "debris".  

So the Mun it is!

[ave369]

Why I prefer using LKO is because LKO pretty much sucks as the location of useful infrastructure. Rendezvous maneuvers are costly and time-consuming unless you precisely launch into a specific orbit, and there is little reason to put comm satellites there because LKO is readily serviced by ground-based communications. Many shuttles and SSTOs I can see on KerbalX are meant to launch to LKO, with very little fuel remaining; this is more or less a dead-end unless you are a sniper and aim for the orbit of a fuel depot. Therefore, I prefer all my craft to be Minmus-capable and put all my infrastructure around Minmus, and LKO is reserved for parking derelicts.

[Gardevoir11]

I made a base on minmus, and the junk around that base is used to make a small rocket (with kis).

[RocketSimplicity]

The beach near the KSP in my save is filled with wreckage from a bunch of mallard seaplanes (stock) and my own failed planes and a bunch of rovers parts including struts fill the beach and the sea around the ksc all the way over to KSC island airport.

 

I bet the Kerbal United Nations hates me.