Kerbal Aerospace

[Kerminator K-100]

After deciding to get rid of my last 3 mission report threads I then decided to make a new one! Why do I do this to myself? But this time using Kerbalism! Why do I do this to myself?

Kerbal Aerospace

Rules:

No reverting

Quicksaves and quickloads are allowed

Full difficulty Kerbalism

Career mode

Normal mode settings

Mod list:

Flag:

Goals:

1. Not change the mod list (a big problem of mine that leads to major bugs)
2. Land on every planet and moon.
3. Have bases on every planet and moon.
4. Try not to kill the Kerbals.
5. Try not to abandon this thread.

 

[Kerminator K-100]

Day 1 - Risky Science

After a day of playing, I realized that Kerbalism isn't that bad for small missions. It may get worse in the future but for now I don't have to worry about food, water, O2 or part failures.

The first flight was the incredibly risky "Grab and go" science missions on the launchpad. Jeb was brave enough to volunteer and even decided to launch the first rocket. He managed to get the closest landing, but the KSC staff have decided to wait until KA has reached orbit before awarding records.

The only thing hard to get used to is Kerbalism's science collection. I have had to watch and rewatch the tutorials.

After Jeb, Val took a ride in the Large Hopper and flew all the way to another continent. Jeb was upset that she broke his records for speed, distance, and altitude, but he got a change to reclaim his title.

After riding the Mucho Hoppo to the edge of space, Jeb managed to catch a stunning sunset.

One more mission remained and Jeb managed to draw the straw for O-1, Kerbal Aerospace's first orbital mission. After accepting a contract to cross the radiation belts, Jeb set out for space. Sadly the photographer's camera refused to take pictures and we have no pictures of Jeb's historic first.

Jeb set out but due to the fact that KA hadn't researched large fins or nosecones, Jeb had a lot of difficulty turning. The ship would only turn to the north and no amount of button smashing could turn it east. After reaching a rather high apoapsis or 130 km, Jeb managed to eyeball the circulation burn and reached a 124x130km polar orbit. After swinging through both radiation belts, one orbit, and a very close call with the batteries, Jeb returned home over the dessert airfield. 

[Kerminator K-100]

After a brief ceremony, Jeb was presented with a set of Astronaut wings, created by @adsii1970. (You can get your own here.)

As well as a ribbon to put on his dress uniform. (Created by kerbaltek.com)

Edited October 7, 2020 by Kerminator1000

[Kerminator K-100]

Today on Kerbal Aerospace:

Well many days have passed since I posted stuff. So here is the quick run down of all our missions so far.

Orbiter -2

Val took a turn this time and tested the fuel cells. She had the first space EVA scheduled too.

What actually happened.

She orbited without a problem, stealing the terrier engine from the experimental team. We had gotten a contract to send a terrier into an escape trajectory but as we don't have the engine unlocked yet, I decided to use it for a few orbital missions first. 

The fuel cells worried me because the fuel flow refused to show a flow to them and the resource panel wouldn't factor in the electricity production . But I decided to go ahead and take the risk.

Spoiler alert, it failed. The fuel cells refused to run and no power was being generated. 

Val's EVA went perfectly. Except for the fact that I had drained the MP from the capsule and Val had none to use. She managed to make a desperate grab for the ladder and avoided floating away forever.

With the remaining power dwindling to nothing, Val made an emergency decent into the ocean.

Also the camera malfunctioned and I didn't get any pictures. (Read: I forgot to get pictures)

 

Escapee Probe

After being badgered by the R&D department to do their contract, I finally sent a probe on an escape trajectory. 

I employed the classic noob move of go straight up and managed to pull it off. 

With a ton of difficulty.

The stayputnik has no SAS so I had to constantly battle other impulses, and my overzealous moves. But I managed to hold a steady-ish course and almost had sent it on escape when the fuel ran out. Using a strange magic called the cheat menu, I was able to give it the extra 43 m/s of Delta-v needed for escape.

The power stayed on long enough for Kerbal Aerospace to get rough measurements of Kerbin's radiation belts and to beam back a few pictures. At which point the intern assigned to collecting the pictures "accidentally" poured coffee on them and threw them out. It was later discovered that he was working for an enemy space program.

The Orbiter -3

Jeb strapped in again to properly test the fuel cells. I had done some research and discovered that Kerbalism changes the fuel cells to use Oxygen and Hydrogen, not Oxidizer and LF.

Whoops.

After an uneventful launch, Jeb made it to space. I tested the fuel cells and found that they worked perfectly. So after setting the automatic system, I timewarped around for an hour, collecting all the mystery goo and material bay science from LKO. Then Jeb collected the EVA report that Val had forgot, and set the engine to burn for space high above Kerbin. One annoying thing about Kerbalism is the fact that the Inner Radiation Belt (IRB) starts where high space starts. Jeb quickly grabbed all the science, and as he was leaving high space to reenter, I realized I had forgotten an EVA report. 

Jeb quickly powered up the engine and raised the apoapsis. The EVA report went fine, and Jeb ended up collecting 2% of a fatal dose of radiation on EVA.

But when I went to fire the engine to return, this happened:

"Engine Failure" 

Jeb leaped out of the airlock and managed to jury rig a quick fix. Enough burn time left to send him home.

After a standard reentry, Jeb discovered that his 10 minute jaunt through the IRB had given him 6% of a fatal dose of radiation.

Orbiter -4

This one was to be a test of the two person capsule.

The launch went simply enough until I decoupled the bottom stage from the top. The craft immediately began spinning and the mission had to abort. The spin was determined to be the lack of control over the second stage.

[Kerminator K-100]

The kerbals continued their aerospace program and now I have a few missions to share with you guys.

Escape 2.0

The successor to the Escape probe, this one carried a skipper engine on an escape trajectory and managed to reach interplanetary space in a few days.

The probe managed to transmit this picture to the KSC:

R-1 (Rendezvous 1)

While I wait for enough science to go to the Mun or to do some Kerbin scanning, I took a contract to dock two craft.

Jeb took the first mission. In order to save weight on the rocket, the scrubber was taken out <--*IMPORTANT*. A fairly standard launch profile was completed, the only unusual thing was that it was way more efficient than my usual launches.

R-2

Val was to take this historic mission, which featured a two person capsule, so that KA could get the crew transfer reward to. Unfortunately the capsules weren't lined up very well and I had to time warp a day and a half before launching.

Then the problems happened. First the rocket went into an uncontrollable spin that could only be stopped by jettisoning the SRBs. Then as Val limped her way to orbit there was a strange message. 

"Jeb is feeling strangely lightheaded." Val aborted her mission and I switched to Jeb as soon as she was safe. Turned out, Jeb had CO2 poisoning. The rocket rapidly aborted as the CO2 level ticked upward at 1% every few seconds. As I didn't have time to pick a good landing site, Jeb came down in a mountain range. 

Only by setting the parachute to deploy at 5000 m was I able to avoid crashing into a mountain. Unfortunately, I was way to high now and it took several minutes to land.

The CO2 got so high that Jeb almost passed out, which would have been fatal. SO he had to climb out of the capsule and cling to the ladder for 3 minutes while the capsule drifted downward.

Jeb was rescued and a valuable lesson was learned, don't take out the d*** scrubber.

As R-2 had been aborted, I decided to retry it. This time with a scrubber.

Val managed to orbit perfectly and is now sitting in orbit, scrubber humming away, waiting for Jeb.

Edited October 22, 2020 by Kerminator1000