What did you do in KSP1 today?

[Cuky]

I have sent my biggest rocket ever (and it is still tiny one) to Duna. Inside fairing there is an orbital station for 9 Kerbals that will fulfill 2 contracts: flyby Duna and building orbital station in Duna's orbit. Docked on top is tiny probe that will detach itself once in Duna's orbit and go to Ike to fulfill Explore Ike contract.

After it left Kerbin's SOI it accidentally completed one contract that I had forgot about: orbital station for 8 Kerbals in Sun's orbit

[Reactordrone]

Spied a Mun arch as i was landing a base yesterday so today I sent a crew down to land nearby.

I was pleasantly surprised that you can scale them using the climb button. I think my Kerbal was a little less pleased with falling off on the way back down but he seems none the worse for it.

[Benji]

Had to land on a "notsoflatsurface". The docking ports messed up.

+ The image upload doesn't work...

[Hotaru]

Opened up my sandbox save, having finally finished my Elcano Challenge circumnavigation (which, admittedly, was very satisfying to complete).

Installed mods.

Blew stuff up.

Went to the Mun.

Didn't go to the Mun.

Messed with harpoons.

Orbited a space station around the Mun.

Most importantly, however, wasn't bored!

[problemecium]

A small, but still noteworthy accomplishment - today I successfully launched an orbital surveyor and surveyed an object (Kerbin) for the first time:

It's a shy overdesigned, as it's a prototype for one I plan to bring to Jool. I might drive it over to the Mun and Minmus later.

[Concentric]

Several things over the last few days. First, I picked up a rescuee, Dannand, and put him in MunRod, then sent it to Mun orbit. That took a few orbits to do the transfer, as the thrust was very low for the size. Once MunRod's auxillary tanks were empty in Mun orbit, they were decoupled from the station.

The Mun Lander docked with MunRod, and Dannand landed on Mun, did some science, and planted a flag. MunRod and Dannand have thus far completed a Mun Orbital Station contract, a Plant Flag on Mun contract, a Land on Mun contract, and a Science from Mun Surface contract. Dannand will remain aboard MunRod, landing to plant flags and take readings, until he has used up a majority of the fuel left in the transfer stage, at which point he will leave the fully-fueled station behind, and return home with the capsule on the transfer stage, finally completing his rescue mission.

I also tried my hand at creating a one-man microshuttle. Unfortunately, I currently have to launch it as part of a pair. I attempted to put up a probe at the same time, but it lacked the delta-v to change orbits to the contracted orbit (a later probe was sent to complete the job), and the fuel of the lifter ran out suborbitally. I decoupled the shuttles, and they managed to finish circularising while unfocused. One contained an orbit tourist, and the other was empty.

The tourist was flown home by the probe core in the service bay, landing on the runway properly. The microshuttle is nice, and has air-brake functionality through deploying flaps (and inverted flaps), but it's probably not the most cost-effective method for orbit. I'll develop a bigger shuttle, I think, to manage crewing Stopover, at least until I get turboramjets and can try for a spaceplane.

The empty shuttle flew to Stopover and docked. I later redocked my monopropellant tug between the shuttle and the station, and did some shuffling. Stopover's monopropellant tanks were running dry, and I had a couple of rescue missions, so I sent up a retrieval/fueling mission.

Carrying 510 units of monopropellant, with capacity for two rescuees, and parachutes for the descent, the monopropellant-fueler was a little heavy, and it took me a while to work out a lifter for it. One design had a sudden failure of two of its boosters, but still managed to fly up until it ran out of fuel, still apoapse in atmosphere. The lifter I eventually went with is rather overpowered, but it worked. Once I docked with Stopover, I accidentally staged off a descent pod, so I had the rescuees EVA over to it and use it for their descent instead, leaving the monopropellant-fueler docked.

Finally, I scared Jebadiah Kerman. Apparently, not even he can smile when surviving a jet crash into Kraken's Peril. He got out and did the EVA report and surface sample for the visual surveys contract, then was recovered so he could fly again, this time to get a flight-below crew report to complete that contract. I guess I'm not yet up to landing planes in the mountains...

[Draconiator]

Heading to Mun to refuel an orbital station there (the Kerbal II; The Kerbal I attempted an aerobraking around Duna, and I went too far into the atmosphere, and the Kerbal I was lost, RIP), and then attempt a daring landing on Mun if I have any fuel left in my tanker, which I will record and put here.

[percyPrune]

I am considering branching my career out into resource harvesting so, to try to understand how the various bits work, I had a play around in Sandbox with a mobile drilling and processing rig to tow behind No.3 winch truck.

They are a crack team of engineers and scientists really, but why an I suddenly reminded of the Beverly Hillbillies?

[Mikki]

I assembled my Jool Explorer, after lots of testing and many flights to put this thing together during the last days.

[problemecium]

What I did in KSP today, part 2...

KIDONIA HAS LAUNCHED!!!1!!!!111!!

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Images and captions will be added as the mission progresses, and I also plan to make a thread about it in Mission Reports.

[Jesrad]

I broke the long curse ! I've finally flown a spaceplane to orbit and back, properly, for the first time ever in KSP (and I started playing in v0.16):

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Having no RAPIERs yet, a twin-turbo/twin-spike did it.

I then went to boldly try to do it again in a turbojet/RCS micro spaceplane and failed a dozen times. Too soon ?

[SuperHappySquid]

Today I created a small battle between two sailing ships! Enjoy.

[Red Dwarf]

I'm workin' on something big. After the shocking success of my Lepton spaceplane back in .90, I thought I'd have another go at non-side-mounted cargo spaceplanes. The Muon, a spiritual successor to the Lepton, is shaping up to be a fantastic craft, with great payload capacity, simple flight path, and general prettiness. Still working out the kinks in the design, so expect more soon.

[KSK]

Today I spent some time hanging with Jeb.

We went to the Mün. The spacecraft wasn't anything exceptional and we didn't even land. The flight was a little bit unusual in that our approach to the Mün was a little more inclined than we'd planned for, so a minimal capture burn with a plane change in high orbit before circularising was the name of the game. Nothing particularly challenging.

But that didn't matter. After TMI, I ordered Jeb to flip the spacecraft around so we could get a good view of Kerbin as we began the long coast to the Mün. Jeb, of course, was thrilled to do a little flying (doesn't much matter how small the job is, any time he gets to fire the engines, Jeb's a happy camper) and then he sat back with that faint, relaxed smile and watched Kerbin shrink to an ever-decreasing blue, green sphere against the blackness of space. I like to think that he raised his thumb whilst I wasn't looking (like when I was setting up our MOI burn) and smiled as it covered his entire homeworld.

At no more than x100 time acceleration, the journey took a while. But that was just fine with us. Jeb waved for the camera and I confess, I couldn't help waving back - and then laughing as he did his little two-fisted victory dance in reply. Flying to the Mün never seems to get old for Jeb and even after two years and more of playing KSP, it hasn't really gotten old for me either. Sure, I can find flaws in the game if I care to try but at it's core it lets me participate (albeit vicariously) in something awesome.

You will go to space today folks. Happy launchings.

Edited June 7, 2015 by KSK

[Stratzenblitz75]

Today, I went to Jool:

[Srpadget]

Yesterday I managed to strand one of my scientists in the canyons on the far side of Mun. She got overly-ambitious, and visited one more biome than her ship's fuel could support. (It didn't help that the last suborbital hop into the canyon was badly-aimed and poorly-flown and used FAR too much dV just finding a reasonably flat area of canyon floor to land on.) Wound up with just barely enough fuel to get her ship up out of the canyon and onto the surrounding highlands.

So today I'm mounting a rescue expedition! It's kind of exciting, really--I've been playing for over a year and this is the first time I've ever had to do a rescue for one of my own! This will also be the first time I've sent a Hitchhiker module to Mun surface and back again since The Great Engine Nerf of V1.0, so it's also the virgin flight of a new lander AND a new lifter to put it in LKO.

Why couldn't I just use a repetition of the vehicle that got her there in the first place, you ask? Wellnow, that'd be a mission that COST me Funds, and we can't be having that! So I picked up a rescue-from-Munar-orbit contract and a small orbital station contract, and should make a tidy profit on the whole thing. If the new ship design WORKS, of course....

[TheBrisbyMouse]

Today I created a small battle between two sailing ships! Enjoy.

Want to add this big boy to the mix?

https://www.dropbox.com/s/n87q7cl2gl...ack.craft?dl=0

[SuperHappySquid]

Want to add this big boy to the mix?

https://www.dropbox.com/s/n87q7cl2gl...ack.craft?dl=0

That is certainly a fine vessel, although I fear it would utterly destroy my PC.

[LittleBlueGaming]

I made this:

I'm very happy with it, much better than the crap I usually put up.

[TheBrisbyMouse]

It'll take patience to do anything with it, as the top speed is ~4m/s(probably less with 1.0) and it's got so many parts. Hyperedit will be your friend with this thing.

Edit: Ninja'd

[timsfitz]

Took a large VTOL ship with 15 crew to Dres. Mined a few asteroids, then landed near the canyon. Bob EVA'd down to the bottom and ran out of fuel so I landed the ship in the canyon and rescued him. Left Dres, topped off the tank at an asteroid on the way home and safely returned to Kerbin orbit where a shuttle ferried the crew back to KSC. All in all, a good mission.

[problemecium]

I launched this to clean up orbiting debris, but ironically it left a lot of "debris" from the fairings ^^; Fortunately they're non-persistent, and I ejected them before reaching orbit anyway.

Note to posterity: It seems that the more Klaws on a ship, the slower the game runs - this ended up being a bit of a slideshow launch xP

[sal_vager]

I went to the other KSC.

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[LittleBlueGaming]

I also learned that solar panels inside fairings still work.

[Concentric]

Another Mun Flag mission, this time being somewhat more efficient with Dannand's descent.

Dannand landed in the East Crater, this time. This rescue mission is becoming rather prolonged... probably because he's sticking around until there's less than 90 fuel in the transfer stage for his return. He only lands when I need him to plant a flag, too... but at least he's picking up science from each new location.

Tried something rather ludicrous, looking at my current expenditures for rescue missions. The above was eventually made into something that worked, successfully getting the little shuttle to orbit... but the expense was too much, even with the recovery value of the shuttle taken into account. It turns out that of my currently developed 1.02 solutions to one-man rescue missions, and perhaps even multi-man rescue missions, sending up a pair of shuttles is my most cost-effective option.

I removed the probe from the previous shuttle lifter and added more fuel. After a test launch began to lose control authority, I added an additional AIS, too. The current version of the lifter runs dry when suborbital, but coasts out of the atmosphere. The two shuttles are staged off in the high atmosphere once the fuel of the lifter is out, and I raise the apoapse and periapse of one a little. This allows me to switch to the other, circularise at its apoapse, and still have time to switch back and circularise the first at its new apoapse.

Once the shuttles were in orbit, I set up maneuvers for rescue missions and decided to watch the empty lifter stage fall. The nose-cones on the spacing girders nearly overheated, as did the probe core.

I used the shuttle from Stopover and one of the two I'd just sent up to perform two rescue contracts, and set up a maneuver for another with the last shuttle. Because of all the tourist contracts I've yet to complete (on their way back from Minmus, or waiting at Stopover to go to Minmus), I can no longer receive new contracts until I complete some, despite having a fully upgraded Mission Control. So, of course, two-man shuttles are not yet needed. However, when SixFerry gets back to Stopover with its tourist crew, I'll probably look at sending up a pair of two-man shuttles, and see if that'd be cheaper by the head than my other options for returning four tourists. First, though, I'll need to develop those higher-capacity shuttles.