Why we lost kerbonauts after a successful mission, in the sense that after we recover them they disappeared from the general pool?

[Pawelk198604]

Why we lost kerbonauts after a successful mission, in the sense that after we recover them they disappeared from the general pool?

[Sequence]

I think they stay allocated to the vessel. Load the recovered design in the VAB and see if they're still in the ship (Kerabls assigned to a ship are removed from the list of available Kerbals). 

[Chilkoot]

The pool is dynamically repopulated, and it "fills back up" when you move some Kerbals to a ship.  Not sure if there's a brief wait period, but your recovered Kerbals will show up again, though they will be in a queue off screen waiting for you to make space in the roster for them.

Edited March 4, 2023 by Chilkoot