ARC: Kerbalnaut Recovery Rocket [HARD]

[BustedEarLobes]

ARC asks if you could please take a few moments to commemorate the death of Neil Armstrong

Hello, and welcome to the third mission of the new ARC company! If you wish to play the first mission, click the company logo in my signature!

Info: ARC (Aerospace and Rocket Corporation) is a company aimed at research and development for Kerbal kind.

Backround:

We've went through hundreds of resumes to pick the best pilot to test fly our rockets. Perhaps the worst mistake we've ever made was hiring Jebediah Kerman. During a flight, Jeb got a little bored and thought it was a good idea to see if he could deorbit his spacecraft by pushing it! To our surprise, after about 1 hour, he successfully put the spacecraft in a sub-orbital trajectory. However, when the final stretch came, his jetpack was stuck in the forward position. This built Jeb's (Not the spacecraft which is headed for Kerbin) orbit back up again into a 100km orbit until it finally ran out of fuel. Now, poor Jeb is stuck in the cold, depths of space and is in need of a rescue! Find a way to build a ship to retrieve the stranded Kerbalnaut and return him back to Kerbin safely.

This mission can only be played with stock parts!

* = Post Image

Instructions:

WARNING: Backup your original persistence file before you install the new one!

Setup:] Download and unpack the persistence file to your saves folder

1:] Develop a stock only rocket that can retrieve a helpless Kerbalnaut

3*:] Launch the rocket and intercept Jeb

4*:] Retrieve Jeb by any means

5*:] Return both the rescue crew and Jeb safely to Kerbin

Awards are below

Awards:

(In order of first to last)

Head ARC Rocket Scientist = Bluejayek [be the first person to retrieve Jeb and his rescue crew safely to Kerbin]

Master ARC Rocket Scientist = erkle64 [be the second person to retrieve Jeb and his rescue crew safely to Kerbin]

Biggest Failure Award = Not Claimed[Have the most convincing failure of them all (Always Subject To Change)]

Edited August 29, 2012 by BustedEarLobes

[Bluejayek]

This was a tough challenge. Talk about precision rendezvous. As you can see in the albumn below, I first attempted to recover him by rendezvousing nearby and pushing him back with another kerbin. However, this failed terribly as whenever their helmets bumped both would get knocked senseless for a time, so Jeb ended up floating 300m away.

The way that worked ended up being a 0.5m/s or less collission course with jeb, where he would grab on to one of the many ladders when the ship got close enough.

Album link will be added shortly.

This challenge would be a lot easier if they let kerbonauts grab onto things like other kerbonauts!

I claim head ARC Rocket Scientist. As long as it doesn't come with administrative duties.

PS: +1 rep for this amusing challenge

http://imgur.com/a/Fn7BH#0

Edited August 26, 2012 by Bluejayek
Album link added

[BustedEarLobes]

This was a tough challenge. Talk about precision rendezvous. As you can see in the albumn below, I first attempted to recover him by rendezvousing nearby and pushing him back with another kerbin. However, this failed terribly as whenever their helmets bumped both would get knocked senseless for a time, so Jeb ended up floating 300m away.

The way that worked ended up being a 0.5m/s or less collission course with jeb, where he would grab on to one of the many ladders when the ship got close enough.

Album link will be added shortly.

This challenge would be a lot easier if they let kerbonauts grab onto things like other kerbonauts!

I claim head ARC Rocket Scientist. As long as it doesn't come with administrative duties.

PS: +1 rep for this amusing challenge

http://imgur.com/a/Fn7BH#0

I am very impressed that you managed to finish it so fast. It was a fantastic idea to have the whole rocket covered with ladders. Also, as for being the new Head ARC Rocket Scientist, you don't have any duties except to brag about how much cooler you are than everyone else .

Ps: I had no idea reps existed until now. + 1 rep for completing the mission

Edited August 27, 2012 by BustedEarLobes

[Bluejayek]

It was a fantastic idea to have the whole rocket covered with ladders.

I had even more ladders on the ship at first, it really was coating every surface. However, it appeared that I had too many parts on my ship and the physics ground to a screeching halt, so I had to cut back

Continue making the fun challenges!

[erkle64]

Here's my attempt, it took 12 game hours to sync up the orbit.

Holy... it's 12:22am, must've been a good challenge.

Edited August 28, 2012 by erkle64

[Bluejayek]

How did you get jeb up to the cockpit? I don't see any laders leading up there off the bottom of the engines, nor cross ladders to go around your rocket.

Either way, basket of ladders is neat idea

[erkle64]

How did you get jeb up to the cockpit? I don't see any laders leading up there off the bottom of the engines, nor cross ladders to go around your rocket.

I got Jeb to let go, pitched the ship and grabbed a ladder on the other side. I then did the same but with roll to move him to the correct ladder.

I was meaning to add RCS but I launched a test flight and got distracted.

[BustedEarLobes]

Here's my attempt, it took 12 game hours to sync up the orbit.

Holy... it's 12:22am, must've been a good challenge.

Very good. Glad that you liked the challenge! Just updated you into the awards now. Nice ship design by the way.

[Pyotor Gagarin]

I tried using only the one ladder on my 3-person moon lander. Bad idea. I managed to knock Jeb out multiple times while trying to drift toward him at the right angle. Very impressive guys. I'll have to try again soon.

[Pyotor Gagarin]

I like the idea of covering the whole ship with ladders, but I wanted to try to come up with something different. Here's what I tried:

Apparently, when you switch flights, objects re-spawn with a random orientation. This attempt, therefore, was doomed.

I wanted to eliminate flight-switching altogether, so I tried adapting my debris grabber to function as a "personnel recovery basket".

Jeb was able to float through the legs of the grabber system with little or no collision detection. This attempt was also doomed.

At any rate, thanks(and +1) to BustedEarLobes for a genuinely interesting challenge:)

[Nao]

I wanted to try minimalistic challenge, but Jeb was complaining all the time that my ship is not cool enough and the ladder is slippery and what not, so he didn't get down.

at least i managed to get a grab two times without a mechjeb, or any RCS. There were six ladders but as it turned out only two were useful.

The big SBR sucks but look cool, and jeb would not like uncool rescue rocket.

It turns out autosaving and making pictures disconnects him from the ladder, also when thrust is applied he slowly slips away.

I'll try again tonight with a lander-leg grabber/prison aka comfy triangle and post results. Hopefully I'll get Third award!

Oh and mission time on pics is quite long since i watched whole TSM vs mMe (LoL NA nationals) match while in orbit

[Nao]

Welp, here's the full attempt ...

I'm really proud of that one, just one burn at Pe and half an orbit later i was 550m away. Calculations was made by Eye and intuition.

[spoiler=annnnd Bad End ]

He was doing mach 2 here at 10km altitude. What a boss!

It turns out Jeb has a much more different drag and even on full power in craft or full climb speed on ladder with Jeb i couldn't keep him connected in atmosphere.

To make my life harder Jeb wanted to explore nearby space like 5 times during that flight, due to autosaves, random disconnects and my bad ladder skills. Still it was fun chasing him around.

While mission was a failure , the craft was tested to perform a powered landing with a parachute, it was sadly lost due to me taking pictures with Jeb on his descent

I'll probably try it again since i saw a EVA Landing from space on a winged craft, but thats it for today.