Stranded Jebediah. A story with Jebediah, rockets, and Mun.

[Lesarthois]

*note : I'm not an English native speaker, so there is probably a lot of mistakes in this text.*

In the early times of the Kerbal Space Program, three brave, and a little stupid, kerbonauts made their way outside the planet's atmosphere. Bill, Bob and Jebediah.

Testing various designs, until finally Jebediah landed on Mun.

But, as the rocket landed, a Landing Strut sank into Munar sand, making the rocket falling, and breaking the engine.

Soon after Bill would land on Minmus and return successfully from it, and Bob get orbiting around the sun and going back as well.

Time passed, Jebediah still stranded.

In the capsule, he would remain sleeping, for years; as Kerbal physiology allow them to hibernate quite easily.

Until a radio signal wake him up; the radio announcing him that a recevery mission was on the way.

Kelbus is a little worried. The rocket shake and wobble around him; plus something is wrong with the recovery mission, but he can't tell what.

Minmus received many expeditions, but none to the Mun. As if nobody wanted to get on it. Except him.

The travel was easy and quite fast. Kelbus never fly a rocket before, but he was doing great.

Hours later, he come around the Mun, getting in orbit to spot where Jebediah was stranded.

Slowing down, jettisoning the lower stage.

The landing almost get catastrophic again, but learning from Jebediah's failure, Kelbus put the RCS on, and everything ended fine.

Jebediah get ready to leave his capsule. Once outside, he can rely only on his spacesuit to survive.

The recovery mission landed far away, meaning he got to walk a long long way.

He walks for hours. He isn't sure of the direction, and his spacesuit radio doesn't work.

Despair and exhaustion make him fall many times.

But he's not a simple Kerbal. He is Jebediah, the first Kerbal on Mun, and he can't give up. He refuses to give up.

And finally, after a long climb on the side of a hill...

His savior is next to the rocket, waiting for him.

This is when Kelbus realise what is wrong with this recovery mission : there is now, on Mun, two people... for a one-seat rocket.

They look at themselves; Kelbus doesn't want to be stranded on Mun, and Jeb refuse to stay any longer on Mun.

Jebediah uses his space lights, blinding Kelbus.

Before he can react, Jebediah pushes Kelbus as hard as he can, making him bouncing against the ladder, falling on the landing strut then on the ground.

Jebediah climb on the ladder. He don't want to think about Kelbus, knocked out on the Mun soil. He want to fly a rocket, in space, going back at home.

He sit on the pilot seat, happy as hell. He retract the ladder and pushes the start engine button. The rocket vibrate and slowly take off, Kelbus still on the ground.

Jeb pushes the throttle up and get into space, to Kerbin. He's happier than when he first took off Kerbin.

His joy rise up as he come closer to Kerbin, the beauty of this little planet revealed to him again after years on a dull grey Munar world.

Landing is easy, as he doesn't have to care about landing the rocket again.

After being recovered, and a month of rest and walk in Kerbal City, he get back to the Space center.

Space call him back; he can't resist it. Plus, he can't let Kelbus stranded on the Mun.

So Jebediah take place in the seat again, and pushes that good old "launch" button again.

I hope you enjoyed this lil story

[Wayfare]

I really like those screenshots of the rockets on a trail of smoke against the dark blue sky - nicely done!

But... Are you launching another one-man rocket? If you want to bring Kelbus *and* Jeb back, you're going to need to build a rocket around a three-man pod. When it's on the launch pad, EVA one of the crew and end his mission while he's out. He'll return safely to the KSC, leaving you with one free seat to pick up the stranded Kerbonaut.

[Lesarthois]

I know this, but thanks for the tip I just launched another mission to another planet after I did this. I don't have any 3-man pod rocket working at the moment

[Wayfare]

So you're saying Jeb launched off on a new adventure and left Kelbus for "later"?

Sounds like typical Jeb to me

[Qumefox]

Welcome to KSP..

[Anachronda]

Did Kelbus walk back to Jeb's rocket so he would have a place to stash his Munar soil samples, or is he just keeping them in his pockets?

[JeanHavoc]

Your lander looks pretty similar to mine and the results of trying to land on Mun ring true for me as well. It took me eleven individual attempts to land, in about 40% of the cases, Jeb actually survived - usually the lander would fall over or it would be destroyed while leaving the capsule intact. I came to learn later that the long/thin lander configuration is hardly the best, but I must say I still felt satisfaction at getting it right anyway. Actually your story makes me wonder once more if its possible to fly the three-man capsule with only two occupants - if not possible now that might be something they could implement in the future. You know back in the days of the Apollo Applications Program they actually had a never-used Skylab-Rescue concept that involved something similar; An Apollo CSM with a two-man crew and extra seats bolted in to ferry the stranded astronauts back, it's a fascinating read if you're interested: Skylab Rescue.

[Lesarthois]

Well you can fly a 3man capsule with one men aboard. You just have to send two of your kerbonauts on EVA while you're on the lauchpad.

And actually, on Mun, on this particulair case, the legs clipped through the ground; this is why I lost my engine, because it made contact with the Mun ground.

I didn't get this bug with latter missions, so.. I dunno what happened really.

This design is successful to me, it's just that you really have to learn how to land properly

My firs trys were like "bam, smashed Kerbal guys on Mun soil" I know people find it harder, but I found that landing on Minmus was way easier, because you have more chances to react if you go down too fast, or have too much horizontal velocity.

And thanks for the link, I'm gonna read that.