Post your heartwarming moments

[Jeebs24]

I have 2 stations beside a Mün arch where the Kerbonauts are "studying" it. Until KSP has real mission I'm making my own mission.

Sent a 3 man ship to do a crew swap. Dropped off 3 crew members and picked up 2. Was returning to Kerbin but unfortunately I was watching a movie at the same time, got distracted and left the throttle at full for far too long. By the time I noticed I was on a strange trajectory. Tried to get back to Kerbin but ran out of fuel. I ended up on an elliptical orbing (apoapsis ~70km, periapsis ~2,000+km). Never did a rendezvous with an elliptical orbit before. Sent another ship (1 pilot 2 empty seats) to do a rescue. Took a while but manged to rescue stranded crew and everyone returned safe and sound. That rescue was as satisfying as my first Mün landing.

[RedDwarfIV]

http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/forum/showthread.php/20323-KBC-News-24-Polar-Return-Flight-Survives-In-Air-Breakup

I could have ended the flight after the entirety of my tail, including the engines, broke away. However, I decided to put that baby down. It survived the landing.

[Alchemist]

I had a such mission when playing 0.16 on my laptop (on minimal terrain settings with still rather bad lag at some moments)

Here's the story:

Jeb flew a single-manned MLX-4 type lander (a rather overpowered thing despite rather medium size of the entire vehicle for a munar lander) to investigate the southern munolith phenomenon. According to intelligence data the landing site was near 3 deep craters not far from the pole. The initial plan for this mission was to move the lander closer to other craters if the anomaly isn't found in the first one. Unfortunately due to a control glitch (lag ) the landing was a bit too hard and despite the legs held the craft, the engine clipped the ground and broke...

Jeb got out of the damaged lander and flew into the first crater - nothing was found there. Then he used the jetpack to get out and land in the second one - nothing again. Jeb was low on fuel, but decided to go to the third crater. However the pack ran dry even before he got out of the second crater.

- It will be a long walk back, - thought Jeb and went further. He climbed to the edge, walked a bit and rolled down into the last crater.

- Damn! - sweared Jeb, - I can't climb this slope! Seems I'll need to call Bill, let's find a landing place for him!

Soon a satellite in polar orbit flew over this place and Jeb was able to contact the mission control:

- Hi, Bill! I've found an interesting crater. Take a lander and let's investigate it. I'll deploy a beacon for you in a landable place inside it. We'll need a lander down here...

- Is the fearless Jeb in trouble? - answered Bill.

- Well, I've just ran out of jetpack fuel and can't climb out of here.

- OK, let's investigate the thing and then I'll help you to get to your lander.

Jeb continued walking around a flat ground in the middle of the crater when he saw a mysterious shadow on the edge of even deeper pit... And he stepped a bit too far and rolled down there. He still found nothing and lost rather much time until he got back to the higher flat ground.

Several hours later Bill's MLX-4 type lander guided by Jeb's lander's transmitter managed to contact Jeb.

- So, here you are! - called Bill.

- Finally! I was thing what will I die from: life support failure or boredom...

- What's with the terrain?

- It's flat enough where I'm standing. Just don't get too low too early - the edges are steep.

After a minute Bill got almost over Jeb:

- OK, I see the ground. Landing sequence initiated.

- Come here and be care...

Jeb was interrupted by an explosion - Bill broke his engine, too.

- What the kracken! - sweared Bill - What happened with the onboard computer?

- Welcome to the club! - smiled Jeb.

Bill went out of the lander, Jeb quickly got inside to refuel his spacesuit then got out again.

Then they flew to investigate the anomaly, but nothing was found.

- Are you sure it's here? - asked Bill.

- I've seen it's shadow - answered Jeb.

- And where is the thing?

- It's really an anomaly - smiled Jeb.

- OK, let's return to the craft.

They got back to the lander, but the rescue mission was still unfinished...

- I can't help you now - said Bill - this capsule can't bring us both to Kerbin, and the return stage can't even fly to your craft and land there safely. I was hoping to use the lander to fly there, but it's broken...

- You already saved me! - answered Jeb. - Just let me refuel the jetpack one more time.

Jeb refueled his suit and engaged the jetpack. Several dozens of seconds later he was over the edge and flying towards his craft 10 km away from the crater. But soon he realized that the amount of the fuel might be insufficient for getting there safely. He started breaking a bit earlier than was planned and fell on the ground several hundreds meters away from the craft with no more jetpack fuel. Few minutes later Jeb was in his craft and engaged the return stage. Bill engaged his craft's return stage and both kerbals finally headed home

[lowey2002]

Bill volunteered for my first ever EVA but didn't read the users manual before leaving the vehicle. It resulted in him stuck in a highly elliptical and slightly eccentric orbit around Kerbin with no jet pack fuel. At the time it was deemed impossible to retrieve this brave Kerbal, but after perfecting the manual orbital rendezvous maneuver Bob and Jeb highjacked an experimental rocket designed for interplanetary travel and set out to retrieve Bill from limbo. It was a difficult and time consuming manuever but after several dozen control burns they came within range of the stranded kerbalnaught. Since Bill didn't have any EVA fuel it was up to Bob to go EVA and manually nudge Bill towards to craft. After three years in orbit Bill finally made it back to Kerbin and the original team are back together at last.

NB - I took screenshots of the whole thing but can't seem to find them I guess the administrators wanted to cover up their decision to abandon Bill to his fate.