Out of Contract

[purpleivan]

With more cash in the bank it was time to get the show back on the road, with preparations for the trip to Tylo.

Val was the first to make it to orbit in the return vehicle. The reason for sending this separately to the lander is to pick up the rendezvous, docking and "started a space station" miletones.

Her launcher went back to the surface...

making it onto the KSC property

Next up was Jeb, riding at the front end of the first of two fuelling vehicles, sent to his old pal, the Tylo lander.

With the launcher detached it was time to head to for that rendezvous.

There it is, home sweet... well, home would be a bit too much I guess, but it will be for Jeb for some time to come.

Once the fuel was transferred, it was time for Jeb to do likewise.

It's a snug fit, but Jeb says he doesn't mind... he's stayed in smaller hotel rooms.

It is a command seat, but at least it's housed in something. This program has a BKTK policy (Be Kind To Kerbals), which bans interplanetary rides in just a chair.

Once the fueler was detached it was soon time to send it home.

KSC dead ahead... once again.

Just short of the KSC, but it has trees for company.

After that it was time for the launcher to make a return.

Dropped it in the rough.

Just one more trip and this prep for the mission to Tylo will complete. This one completes the filling of the Tylo lander's tanks.

Before it to headed for home.

Now Jeb and Val are sitting in orbit, waiting the the transfer window to arrive.

[purpleivan]

Time for Tylo

With the pair of vehicles in orbit it was time to head for Tylo. Well... time to hit warp until the launch window arrived and then head to Tyloe.

First out of the gate was Jeb in the lander.

Followed shortly after by Val at the controls of the return vehicle.

Both craft were sent on a trajectory that allowed for a little Jool system pinball.

Val's vehicle was the first to arrive, about 40 days before Jeb, first sweeping by Laythe...

then Val...

before droping off a stage...

and heading around the back of Jool.

Then it was time to swing by Val...

then Laythe again...

before finally arriving at Tylo.

 

So... what about Jeb, well he eventually made it (better late than never) to Tylo after an encounter with Laythe.

Once burned into orbit it was time to lose the transfer stage and head for the surface.

Burn, burn, burn.

Then drop some tanks.

Then burn some more before finally making it down to the surface.

It's been a while since the last time I took a mission here and the high rate of fall as soon as the engines cuts out certain gets your attention, especially near the surface. No gently dropping down from 20 metres up after bringing your speed down to 0.

With the ship looking in shape, Jeb left his seat, followed by some wiggling through gaps in the parts, then being popped out to the side and finally dropping unceremoniously onto the ground.

But Jeb brushed it off like it was nothing, then checked the ladder that would be essential to his return home.

Yep... it's a ladder.

Then the obligatory flag raising.

Before dashing back to the ship. Val had far greater room for snacks on the return vehicle and Jeb had a hankering for something deep fried and chocolatey.

Just... a... few... more... rungs.

Then outa here.

Once back in orbit things got a little more mundane, with yet another rendezvous to line up.

A rendezvous and docking and space station starting encounter... kerching!

With the two ships docked Jeb wasted no time in once more wiggling out of his seat and...

... spinning around wildly as he flung away at high speed.

Ok... time for a little F9 magic.

Tadda!!!

Disaster averted, it was time to assess the fuel situation, which was... very good.

The remaing fuel in the lander was used to push them up to a 235km orbit

Before letting loose with the nuke to send them on to the last unvisited body in the Jool system.

Bop.

Jeb once again took to the surface (Val wasn't taking any chances on him grabbing the pilot's seat) to pic up the usual goodies.

With those tasks done he bounded back to the ship.

The return vehicle has pretty much fuel tanks and all was looking good, but on the way up from the surface Jeb too a quick check on the engine.

The engine was fine and the vehicle soon headed out of Bop orbit, into one of Jool.

Then just one burn remained... the one home.

Which home... why this one of course.

It was going to be a hot re-entry, with only about 100 Delta-v of fuel remaining, but Val managed to bring the vehicle in to a splashdown intact.

So what has that (not so) little trip done for us. Well it looks like in total it earned about 1 million funds, plus a nice chunk of science.

Enough to complete the tech tree.

I think I need an extra 300,000 - 400,000 funds and with Moho unvisited and Minmus un-docked, un-rendezvoused and un-station started around, things are looking pretty good.

[purpleivan]

Close but no cigar

With Minmus as yet without a docking mission having taken place around it, was the next target for a quick cash grab.

First to head up was Val, courtesy of the venerable Reuso 1. It's only good for about 5 tons to LKO, but that's all that's needed when the payload is a little ship headed for Minmus orbit.

Later the same day Jeb was on his way to orbit, while Val was on hers to Minmus.

Once both were on their way to the minty blob, Val's launcher came back down for a 96.8% refund.

Although they were launched a few hours apart, the Jeb would would reach his orbital insertion burn, only 25 minutes after Val.

So Val hit the brakes first...

... followed by Jeb.

Next step, to bring Val in Minmus Rendo 1 out to Jeb's orbit in number 2.

With the otbit matching burn completed the pair of vehicles were about 80m apart.

But soon they were much closer.

Val decided that she want to go outside and have some fun, quickly followed by Jeb. The two then swapped capsules, but decided to ride back as one docked ship.

With a little gravity assist from the Mun, the pair were on their way home.

Thanks for the push Mun.

Ah, there she is, not long to go now.

Just swing around the backside and...

... back out into orbit.

Due the very limited fuel remaining from the trip, couple with the desire to bring the craft down close to the KSC, to maximise the recovery cash, there followed about 10 passes through atmosphere, to establish a nice low orbit, to make the final descent from.

The grazing passes through the atmosphere done, it was time for that last small burn to take them home.

Ok... not as close as hoped, but at least it should be a >90% recovery.

Chutes out... lots of chutes. Massive overkill really, but wanted to keep symmetry on the vehicles.

With Jeb and Val sefely home, it was time for Jeb's launcher to do likewise.

Another one dropped in the woods behind the KSC, for yet another 97% recovery.

So... what does that do for the scores Bob (he's the official keeper of numbers around here).

Well, with the final upgrade to be made to the Spaceplane Hanger and the Admin building, it's going to need 1,408,000 funds to pay for it. So we're a little of 200k short. So one more trip's needed, but where to go, where to go... Moho or Laythe.

Easy answer... Laythe.The ship for the mission was built a couple of weeks ago and it's sitting in the VAB ready to go and uses my first ever offworld spaceplane.

[purpleivan]

Endgame (Part 1)

After many years, millions of funds and millions of kilometres this is finally it. It's time to declare victory and go home... ok, I'm home already, but you get the idea.

With over 200k funds to grab from a one last big job, all eyes turned to to that little blue dot... Laythe.

First to go was Jeb in the return vehicle.

His launcher parachuting into the ocean, a little East of the KSC later that day.

Then immediately Val launched in the spaceplane that would make the landing on Laythe.

Ah, Reuso 4... we won't see your like again. Not in this career game anyway.

For your dependable (and cheap) lifting services we thank you.

With both ships in orbit it was time to wind down the clock.

Then go, Go, GO!

... to Laythe.

The pair of vehicles arrived about 20 days apart at Jool.

This was Jeb's mess of orbital shenanigans, to get him a cheap orbit, somewhat close to Laythe's.

Hello Tylo, many thanks for the gravity assist (once again).

Jeb decided to go outside to get a good look at the gas giant.

A little while later Tylo gave a helping hand to Val.

Although Val entered the system after Jeb, she's be the first to encounter Laythe.

For a moment I thought this shot was Scatterer having a bad hair day, until I realised it was just Laythe sitting perfectly in the middle of Jool's silhouette.

Then it was time for Val to make her descent into Laythe's atmosphere.

Entry was direct from entry to Laythe's SOI, with not orbit attained before hitting the atmosphere, so things were going to get HOT.

From about 20km or so up this spaceplane feels like the nose of it is filled with lead and the tail with helium. It's just impossible to pull up.

Then suddenly, just a couple of kilometres about the surface the nose suddenly rears up, allowing Val to concider where to land, rather than has she had a good life.

Landing did take a few encounters of the F9 kind, partly because of repeatedly trying to land into an uphill slope, but eventually Val made it down in one piece.

No time to stretch your legs Val... what, you say there's nothing to see, so why bother.

Well at least go and raise that flag.

With the flag ceremonials done with, it was time to take a look a the science instruments and readings.

What do you mean, only scientists can do this from outside the ship... that so... well... annoying. Ok, I'll get back in the cockpit and do it, then send a strongly worded message to Bob.

While standing out on top of the spaceplane, Val noticed something spraying up some kind of vapour just over the horizon and took off downhill to take a look.

For a moment forgetting that this spaceplane thing actually flies and getting some air as she careened downhil.

When she arrived at the source of the vapour, she found it was this thing and decided to walk out to the end of the wing to take a look.

With that bit of excitement over, the only thing to do now was wait.

Wait for Jeb to turn up with her ticket home.

Part 2 to follow tomorrow.

[purpleivan]

Endgame (Part 2)

With Val waiting patiently on the surface, Jeb brought the return vehicle in for an encounter with Laythe.

Fuel was getting pretty low in the stage intended to get to Laythe, so a sip or two was taken from the return stage.

Now we just wait for...

... the heat.

With a periapsis of about 43km on interface, it was hoped to bring in the apoapsis conciderable, maybe to withing 200km or, to minimise fuel usage to circularise.

Getting closer.

How about... 125km. After this Jeb pushed periapsis up to 65km and pulled in the apoapsis to match.

Then it was Jeb's turn to wait...

... look at the view.

Meanwhile on the surface it was Val's turn for some action, lighting up the engines and hitting the throttles.

After a short distance of scortching across the Laythian soil, she lifted the nose and dropped the "skateboard" undercarriage she's landed on.

Then all she had to do was keep the nose at about 20 degrees, aim towards Jool and keep those throttles open.

Soon her AP was outside the atmosphere, meaning it was time to cut the power and coast upward, then to make the circularisation burn. The plane was off by less than 2 degrees, so not much fuel required to fix that.

Once back in space it was time to deploy the solar array again.

Then head for a rendezvous with Jeb in the return vehicle.

Thar she blows!

For some reason the spaceplane liked to wobble around excessively when SAS was used to point in any direction, such as pointing the docking port at the matching one on Jeb's ship.

This meant a little more manouvering around than anticipated and with only the cockpit's 7.5 unit of mono to complete the docking with, there wasn't much to spare.

But no need to worry, Val made contact and after a little wobbling around on the magnets, capture.

With her flying machine having served its purpose, the only thing left for Val to do was to recover the science data from storage.

Big thumbs up from Val... plenty of tasty science bits (and bytes) to bring over to her ride home.

Then Val's bird was released, to orbit endlessly round this little blue marble.

More later in the exciting conclusion of "Escape to the House Mummies"... er no... of "Endgame".

[purpleivan]

Now... the end of "Endgame".

Like all good things, and long things... very long things, this challenge entry was drawing to a close.

With Jeb and Val together in the return vehicle, all they had to do was punch out of Laythe orbit...

... into orbit of Jool.

Before finally burning for home.

Yes, 42k deep into Kerbin's atmospher should be enough to slow this thing down.

Well hello there Kerbin.

Here comes re-entry, line up the marching bands, get the cake out...

... or not.

42km wasn't enough to bring the vehicles' searing passage to a halt.

But we are in orbit now, so let's swing around and try again.

That's more like it, just a few licks of flame around the vehicle to show for what it's endured.

Chutes out and brace for landing.

Nice and soft, even if it did end up on its side.

Both were glad to get their fet back on familiar ground Kerbonaut "fitness training" is often conducted around here. However it's usually nothing more strenuous than a gentle stretch after getting out of the plane, followed by a couple of push ups, before the frenzied opening of chocolate wrappers and oversized chip bags.

Jeb was a little distraught when he couldn't find the stack of golden era Katman comics he'd taken along for the trip and Val said she thought she saw them float through the docking port to here spaceplane before they undock around Laythe.

Actually she'd hidden them in the emergency superhot chillinuts locker, knowing Jeb's dislike of the spicy treats meant he'd probably not search it.

She'll give them to him later, but for now she's amused by Jeb efforts to stop himself hyperventilating, by keeping his helmet on and pumping up the CO2.

Back at the KSC talke at a look at that big steaming pile of... cash.

Surely it's enough to make the last couple of building upgrades a reality.

It is!

In the bright light of day, their glorious new digs is finally upgraded, just in time for it to go into permanent retirement.

But wait... there's still one more task to do.

Bring back one of the heroes of this challenge entry, the last of the mighty Reuso 4's

Dropped neatly in the back yard of the KSC.

Thank you Reuso 4 and you little bretheren, this wouldn't have been possible without you.

And thanks for the extra 100k to the funds total.

Well that's it, the end for this career game. It's been fun doing this, even if it did take quite a bit longer than I anticipated.

Here's some final details on the way this was done.

• No use of the Admin Building, so no funds enhancing strategies.
• No ISRU. It wasn't a conscious descision and I came close to using it on the first, multi moon hopping trip to Jool. But it's fiddly and time consuming (basically I just paid for the extra launch fuel) and couldn't be bothered.
• No long distance trips in an exposed command seat. A bit of a cheaty caveat with "exposed" as the Tylo lander Jeb travelled all the way there in, was just a command seat in a cargo bay. But at least he had some kind of enclosure to while away the time in.
• Reusable launchers and lots of them.

Edited March 29, 2020 by purpleivan