The satisfaction of saving the crew--by grabbing their stricken ship

[Klapaucius]

I'm on my first career after playing sandbox for 3 years.  

I messed up and did not have enough fuel to get the crew back from Minmus. They ran out of gas in very high Kerbin orbit.  I had yet to unlock docking ports, but I did have access to some basic hinges. So, I had this cunning plan.  I built a "grabber. " I flew out and captured the stricken craft, and I was able to push it into a low Kerbin orbit and eventually deorbit it. (The only downside is that timewarp does not work in this case. As soon as you hit the button, the two craft stop interacting with each other and the captured craft just sailed right through the claws.)

It worked well enough, so I then used a modified version for rescue contracts  to deorbit dead ships after rescuing their crews.  I just fired until I got a Periapsis below 70,000, released it and then burned prograde to get my orbit stable again.

I managed to actually get one dead ship landed and back to Kerbin and got the deposit back. I am sure it was not worth in monetarily, but it was certainly the Kerbal thing to do.

 

Capturing the stricken Minmus crew.

 

Capturing and deorbiting an Onion

Capturing and Landing a Mark I

Edited July 13, 2021 by Klapaucius