Well Doccumented Space Program

[Kuansenhama]

Chapter 16: Project Phoenix Part 1: Kraken Bait

Unfortunately all the careful planning and preparation that chat GPT emphasized went out the window on this project. The one thing I will credit it for is giving a good name for the project. My failures in planning include but not limited to making about 90% of the launches related to this project happen at night so the screenshots aren't nearly as nice, forgetting several science experiments which may need to be added in a follow up mission and doing this whole project spread out over two weeks of IRL time so that I could repeatedly forget what I was doing. Hopefully things still pan out OK.

Phosphorus-1: Phoenix Keel Beam

The phosphorus launcher was one good thing to come out of this program. Its pretty competitive with the other disposable booster designs that I've come up with for this playthrough. The phosphorus uses the prescribed components of our AI overlords to make a "stage and a half" design which I tuned such that the booster liquid fuel tanks run out right as the SRBs burn out. It has proven perfectly capable of ~150 ton payloads to LKO.

Project Phoenix officially begins. Godspeed and and hope that kerbals don't blow up.

Always a sucker for booster seperations.

Phoenix Keel beam arrived in LKO. The idea is that I can dock all the other stuff I need onto it and make one massive ship. Spoiler alert this thing turns out to be kraken bait.

Phosphorus-2: Phoenix Drive Assembly

I would imagine this caused more than a few regulators to turn heads. Why did I need to launch 19 nuclear engines? Yes.

Phosphorus-3: Phoenix Base Solar arrays and utility module

The base modules were sent up two at a time on this slightly janky but also efficient forked upper stage. Each base module fits in a size 3 cargo bay landing pod. I made sure the landing pods had more than enough DV and TWR to land on Duna, did not want to ship an entire base out there and then find out I couldn't land it.

Phosphorus-4: Phoenix Surface Base hub and Lab

Phosphorus-5: Phoenix surface base ISRU and Rover

I triple checked that the rover could decouple from the inside of the cargo bay.

All modules docked.

Deorbited these upper stages.

Phosphorus-6: Phoenix Empty Fuel Bays

This launch turned out to be a complete waste of time and kerbucks. Since these fuel bays were attached with rubber bands (I had intended to strut them in orbit but due to logistical complications (first forgetting the struts, then forgetting that kerbals could not carry parts while using the EVA pack) I was unable to do that. I later wound up de-orbiting all four of these rather than getting the minmus ore miner to fill them up. if I wasn't playing in the spirit of the challenge and using the launch vehicle, I would have built a monolithic spacecraft with more rigidly attached fuel tanks. Ill save that for Jool or Moho.

\

Phosphours-7: Command Module

The command module was one of my favorite designs. But upon docking it I realized this thing was a slideshow (even on my decently beefy gaming pc). It was also kraken bait.

Uhh this didn't happen.

The command module has its own propulsion.

Now all I have to do is fix that crooked fuel bay at 10fps.

Thorium-10: Crew Lander 1

I sent up the landers/return ships and 14-kerbal crew on two thorium rockets. No reason to use a full phosphorus for a payload 1/3 of what its rated for. Sure I didn't use the phosphorus rocket for everything but I felt like I fulfilled the spirit of the challenge by launching most of the hardware.

One lander docked. Can you see bill next to this mammoth?

Thorium-11: Crew Lander 2

Transfering out to minmus. The nuclear drive was hula dancing the whole way there.

Sarah, Kardock and Bill all be like "this is fine"

Bringing in the refueling ship.

And the kraken strikes.

After this I was a bit stumped as to what to do. I had already invested a lot of time and energy into the mission and didn't want to have to scratch everything, but also couldn't. I sat around for a week, played some other games, and generally tried to think about it. Until the "duh" solution finally hit me. I wasn't so much fighting the actual laws of space as I was the space kraken and Kerbal Powerpoint Program. So the following action plan was implemented. 

1.) Ditch the fuel bays. The nuclear tug is already at minmus and therefore doesn't need much DV to transfer to Duna. I'll top off the integrated fuel tanks in the keel beam and drive and call it good.

2.) Split the mission into two ships. Theres no reason it has to be one giant ship. The command module will get an extra fuel tank and make the trip on wolfound power.

Phosphorus-8: Command Module Fuel Bay

This was the only rocket in this program that actually looked somewhat normal.

deorbited these fuel bays on their RCS thrusters.

With just the base modules the nuclear tug transferred to minmus.

With just the Minmus miner, I was able to dock with the nuclear tug (the larger and laggier half of the mission) and fill it up almost all the way in just one trip. The fuel tank was also added to the command module section. Both ships are in orbit of Minmus and ready to ship out when the transfer window arrives. I realized too late that I forgot to take screenshots of the finished command module ship, and don't feel like booting up the game just to get a screenshot but we'll be seeing more of it in part 2 of Project Phoenix.

[Kuansenhama]

Unfortunately I lost both motivation and the save file for this. I might do a sequel series and hopefully accomplish my original goal of landing on every planet.