Max-Q: A KSP Mission Report

[TheKrakenHerder]

Hello friends.

After a good few failed attempts (due to my own lack of motivation) and a lot of messing around with mods, I think I'm finally ready to make a long-form mission report about my current KSP save. I hope y'all will have as much fun as I'm having playing it.

A few rules, first off:
-I'm doing this in sandbox, because the idea is to actually have fun

-I only really just had the idea to make this a mission report (in game I'm up to the first crewed Munar landings) and so I do not have screenshots of every mission. Once we catch up to where I actually am ingame there'll be a lot more pictures

-I'm trying to do this in a pretty realistic fashion, e.g. builds must look realistic, gaps between missions, habitation space, ground testing, the works. That being said, I didn't want to use anything like part failure mods or KCT because my install is already bloated as is

Without further ado, please enjoy:

Edited April 23 by TheKrakenHerder

[TheKrakenHerder]

Chapter 1, Part 1: Project Polaris

(Writing this while rewatching The Martian to get me in the mood)

Well, we have to start somewhere.

I kicked off this save with the start of the Kerbal Aeronautics and Space Administration (how original) and the launch of Valiant 1, the first satellite. No pictures, unsurprisingly, but it was basically Explorer I. Just a stick with a thermometer and some antennae. A little while later I launched Valiant 2 and 3 to higher orbits, this time with a BAROMETER!

Next began the Polaris program, basically Mercury, with Polaris 1, 2, and 3. Jeb, Bill and Stedzon Kerman. made short suborbital hops on top of Minerva ballistic missiles and became the first kerbals in space. Again, no pictures due to my own lack of foresight the launchpad cameras being destroyed (sorry  there will be more pictures in the future). 

Polaris 1, 2, and 3 were a complete success (despite a brief scare with the retropack on numero dos), and so I decided to scrap the planned fourth suborbital flight and instead move straight to orbital missions, starting with Val going up on Polaris 4. This I DO have pictures of, albeit only two*.

Val's Polaris-Hermes rocket ascending. I was quite proud of this rocket, especially the Atlas-style skirt.

Val made it through the lethal mildly turbulent ascent on her death chariot Hermes rocket, transmitted her thoughts on the nature of the cosmos (which were promptly inserted into a burn bag), took a few temperature and pressure readings, then fired her retropack after five orbits and came home.

Bathtime for Val Kerman

(that is in fact all the pictures I have from the Polaris program)

After another complete success, I decided to try squeeze a little more performance out of the Hermes in the hopes of getting data from higher orbits. Just small relatively unseen stuff, like outboard fuel tanks surrounding the turbopump, lightening the retropack, y'know. And apparently, I tried my hand at messing with the staging. This had predictable results on Polaris 4, and resulted in Bob getting the 15G ride of his life on the LES tower after a very short mission before landing a few hundred yards from the beach. 

I'd imagine he wasn't too happy with this. Sorry Bob. Back to the drawing board. 

After fixing the staging, Polaris 5 went up with Agary. The non-staging-related improvements juiced the Hermes booster enough to get an apoapsis of over 300 kilometers. She tested out an early SCANsat scanner before coming back again. 

At this stage, however, I was getting a little bored, and there wasn't much else I could do with Polaris. So, I decided that Polaris 6 with Bob again (yay compensation) would be the last mission in the program. Bob lifted off from the Tundra Missile Range on a Hermes. Once he was in orbit, he burned the upgraded Hermes core stage again to increase the apoapsis to higher than ever before. He got some high-above-Kerbin science before coming back down again.

And so ended the Polaris program. Coming up next: Probing the Mun and the Antares capsule!

*Keen eyed readers will notice that these screenshots have been seen before in the What Did You Do in KSP Today thread.

Edited April 23 by TheKrakenHerder

[TheKrakenHerder]

(There is more coming I swear)