Six Years of Apollo 11 in Kerbal Space Program

[Cydonian Monk]

2013: First of Many on the Mün

Six years ago (July of 2013) I sent three kerbals on a not really all that dangerous mission to the Mün. Their goal was to recreate the Apollo 11 landing, using only the parts and skills available to them in the base Kerbal Space Program game. I myself had only been playing the game for two months, so the survival of these three kerbals was not an absolute guarantee. The details of this mission were lost when Google+ shut down earlier this year, but a select few of the images (and some very low-res gifs) have survived. This mission was a complete success, and all three kerbals returned safely to the surface of Kerbin.

The landing site was an oft-reused location, within walking distance of the Armstrong Memorial. They were not the first kerbals to land there. (Hmmm......)

 

2015: The First "Real" Moon Landing

Four years ago (July of 2015) I still had a kinda-working Real Solar System / Realism Overhaul install, and decided to fly the real deal. Three more kerbals were enlisted and shot off for Earth's nearest neighbor atop a not great but not terrible very large rocket (the upper half of which was mostly well-balanced FASA parts). This mission was somewhat less successful than its real life counterpart and my previous kerbal-sized landings. The Eagle landed on target (that target being somewhere on the Moon). It later successfully took off from the surface and rendezvoused with the Columbia. Unfortunately the craft and crew were lost to an overzealous Deadly Reentry at the very outer edges of Earth's Atmosphere.

 

2019: Six Years or Fifty Years? Why not both?

This year (July of 2019) I wasn't originally going to fly a reenactment. Life is still super busy, and, well, it's _just_ landing on the Mün. Then I realized I had never really used the new DLC parts from Making History, and decided to sit down and see if I could build a halfway decent Saturn V and Apollo lander mission using the new parts. For the most part I'm pleased with the results. While my first first few attempts and tests met with failure, I eventually put together a working craft and mission plan. (Some annoyingly persistent old bugs such as "stowed parts can't be used even after you've blown the fairings which they were stowed in", an interesting new bug where water had zero buoyancy, and the ever present phantom Unity wobbles did all they could to doom the mission.) I first ran a dry-run Apollo 10 test flight, after which I felt I had a craft ready to carry a crew of three to Kerbin's currently nearest neighbor.

Jebediah, Bill, and Bob were fired off into the expanse with the goal of landing at the Neil Armstrong Memorial. That mission follows.

The launch and transfer to the Mün went exactly according to plan. Retrieval of the Munar Excursion Module was rather more difficult than I had hoped, in part because neither the MEM nor the transfer stage had anything in the way of reaction wheels. (The MEM is fully monoprop, with the reaction wheels on its tiny probe core disabled.) Eventually I got it all lined up and snicked. It would also have been nice if the "petals" which covered the real LEM could be recreated using Stock+DLC parts without too much fuss in KSP. I _suppose_ that could be simulated using the new robotics parts, but then you lose the drag-shielding from the fairings. So it is what it is.

With the MEM extracted, all the crew could do for the next several hours was spin slowly as they spit-roasted their way to the Mün.

(Click here for above screenshot at full 2048x1152 resolution)

(Click here for above screenshot at full 2048x1152 resolution)

The timing of this flight was peculiar. Instead of the usual "Earth Rise" type of view, we get this thin-limn view. Had I waited to land until the surface lighting was correct for the artifact at the landing site, Kerbin would have been even darker, and mostly eclipsing the Mün during the mission. Anyway, after entering orbit, Jebediah and Bill loaded into the Eagle, detached from the Columbia, and made their way to the surface. Jeb was certainly happy to be along for the ride.

"Tranquility Base here, the Eagle has landed. No, wait, we bounced. Ok, now we've landed. Maybe. Wait, now we're tipping. Oh, springs. Uh, hang on."

I forgot to tweak the suspension settings, resulting in a few curious and bouncy moments on the surface. Eventually the wobbling stopped when Jeb got out and kicked the lander. Bill followed him, shaking his head. The customary flag was planted, then the two made their way around the site to pay their respects to Neil and all the other Apollo crews.

With all the wandering around on the surface done, it was time to pack their bags, climb back into the Eagle, and meet up with Bob in the Columbia. 

This docking was also a bit on the difficult side, as the Eagle had less than 1 unit of monoprop remaining when the rendezvous was made. Columbia had to jet out and dock with them before the SAS in the Eagle burned up the last of their monoprop.... which didn't happen. So Bob had to move in and dock to a slightly tumbling Eagle. Not the easiest docking ever, but this is a fairly tiny craft. And worst case? The crews could have EVA'd and ditched the lander without docking. Less than half an orbit later they ditched the Eagle anyway and made their burn to return home to Kerbin.

The reentry target (the bay next to the space center) was missed by 8 kilometers. Maybe I'm just out of practice with milk run returns from the Mün, or maybe I was half a meter too shallow on the aerocapture. Who knows. Thankfully this version of the Apollo command module doesn't explode if it lands on solid ground... or go crashing through the water like it didn't exist and exploding on the bottom of the ocean after the parachutes cut at the surface because they splashed down... or whatever that weird bug was. The important thing is everyone survived. Even Jeb. (Though his new habit of staring at the Sun might become problematic)

Mission Accomplished!

Edited July 18, 2019 by Cydonian Monk

[Tw1]

Six years, how things have changed...

[Geschosskopf]

A nice story and an admirable ritual you have going on here.  I like rituals.  There's magic in them.  Sadly, I'm out of likes today.

[Cydonian Monk]

1 hour ago, Geschosskopf said:

A nice story...

Thanks!

1 hour ago, Geschosskopf said:

....and an admirable ritual you have going on here.  I like rituals.  There's magic in them. 

Ritual... ritual....... rite... u.... all........... Maybe that explains what was going on here:

Ph'nglui mglw'nafh something R'lyeh something something wgah'nagl fhtagn.....