What did you do in KSP1 today?

[Starman4308]

Sent the first of the new nuclear-propelled landers to the Mun. I checked; the main tank is the same size as a Kerbodyne S3-7200 tank, and when full, it masses... about as much as an empty stock S3-7200. Liquid hydrogen is very low density relative to KSP LF+O (by a factor of approximately 70); it'd be hopeless if Real Fuels didn't drastically lower tank and engine masses. As a result, that physically enormous lander masses just 6.06 tonnes when fully loaded, whereas I'm pretty sure a lander with those dimensions and stock masses would mass around that much without a drop of fuel in the tank.

[Gordon Fecyk]

I got silly and built this:

While I have seen someone on Reddit build one of these, I'm not sure of how functional it was. This thing managed, barely, to push a 2000 t rock out of a collision course with Kerbin. And some jaded critic thought she was slapped together in Kerbal Space Program...

[Francois424]

28 minutes ago, Gordon Fecyk said:

I got silly and built this:

While I have seen someone on Reddit build one of these, I'm not sure of how functional it was. This thing managed, barely, to push a 2000 t rock out of a collision course with Kerbin. And some jaded critic thought she was slapped together in Kerbal Space Program...

Heh, I made one too at some point.  Yours looks better than mine.  Tharsis was such a lovely and fun little game.

 

[CatastrophicFailure]

Messed around some more with my... sigh... spaceplane today.

Try as I might, I just couldn't figure a way to cram 6 comm relays into the cargo bay (due to the probe core & big SAS therein), so I strapped a cargo pod to the back.

As planned, dumping four of the six Whilpashes once their on-board fuel supplies are exhausted, now relying on a Vector for the push to apoapse.

Successful 110 km orbit. Cargo pod is jettisoned and fairings released. It'll now boost itself to KTO.

Shortly after, the six relays detach and disperse. Should have rigged a probe core on the boost stage, now it's just junk in an oblong orbit.

Meanwhile, the still-unnamed spaceplane rendezvoused with that pesky piece of space junk I have to return. Still tumbling badly after the last ill-fated attempt to retrieve it, had to grab it with the cargo bay to hold it still.

 

Then Good Guy Bill hops out, with tools this time, and promptly secures it.

Another uneventful, on-target return to KSC. Hey, I'm getting good at this! The remaining pair of jets is just enough for a brief low-altitude cruise to account for any targeting inaccuracy without bogging the ship down with superfluous weight.

The comm relays spend the next few days sorting themselves out into a properly space keosynchronous network. 

 

[ThatHomelessGuy]

So I have a ton of minimus contracts that have built up in my inbox. This involves deploying 2 satellites, a flyby with returned science, a hefty ore load recovery to Kerbin orbit (1150), and surface science from several locations be taken. Now I intend to be sending this mission completely unmanned and so hidden in the COT marker is a small telemetry unit for landing and one on the front window. I hope to do all but the ore contract in one launch. This vehicle is intended to be remotely controlled and loaded with science modules that will later be removed and stored with KAS/KIS by the crew when they arrive and fit it with life support and other storage much later. This is the rough draft and I have RCS and other things to add moving forward. I'm having trouble upping the DV though beyond what it has and I haven't even loaded it up with science instruments yet. I might just loose some solar panels and a few other pieces but more or less LFO tanks is lowering the DV so I can only assume these engines are at their ISP/mass efficience as far as fuel goes. I'm also trying not to use drop tanks either I would rather try and recover or use everything as per my self imposed rules for this play through.


@CatastrophicFailure I don't think I have ever seen someone so resentful of their spaceplane. Accidental or not.

[Aragosnat]

Another day in Rescue the Kerbal in orbit program:

[AccidentsHappen]

2 hours ago, ThatHomelessGuy said:

So I have a ton of minimus contracts that have built up in my inbox. This involves deploying 2 satellites, a flyby with returned science, a hefty ore load recovery to Kerbin orbit (1150), and surface science from several locations be taken. Now I intend to be sending this mission completely unmanned and so hidden in the COT marker is a small telemetry unit for landing and one on the front window. I hope to do all but the ore contract in one launch. This vehicle is intended to be remotely controlled and loaded with science modules that will later be removed and stored with KAS/KIS by the crew when they arrive and fit it with life support and other storage much later. This is the rough draft and I have RCS and other things to add moving forward. I'm having trouble upping the DV though beyond what it has and I haven't even loaded it up with science instruments yet. I might just loose some solar panels and a few other pieces but more or less LFO tanks is lowering the DV so I can only assume these engines are at their ISP/mass efficience as far as fuel goes. I'm also trying not to use drop tanks either I would rather try and recover or use everything as per my self imposed rules for this play through.


@CatastrophicFailure I don't think I have ever seen someone so resentful of their spaceplane. Accidental or not.

Hey, what mod is the rover from? That looks way cool.

[Kertech]

2 hours ago, AccidentsHappen said:

Hey, what mod is the rover from? That looks way cool.

I believe it's the buffalo rover pack

[cy4n]

During a Minmus mission gone wrong, Ludhat Kerman was stranded on the surface of Minmus with only a faulty rover for company. With a cobbled-together rover-launcher, he was able to escape Minmus orbit, aerobrake to the surface, and EVA right as the rover exploded behind him.

http://imgur.com/a/SuSxH

[Curveball Anders]

Solar Station One is in it's expected orbit, spare commsats still attached.

It's awaiting Spacebus One for crew rotation and some gawkers (and a resupply of snacks).

The latter is en-route but awaiting it's intercept burn in 16 days.

So I lolled over to mission control and they waved a fat 5 gawker mission at me. With 4 of them wanting either Solar fly-by or orbit.

Hmm, with a smaller version of the Spacebus (codename spaceMinibus) I could take those 4, launch and chase down the big bus on solar fly-by, swap gawkers so the fly-by ones could be returned and the orbit ones continued to the station.

Well, minibus is launched, with a planned intercept with the it's bigger sibling in 10d. Leaving 6d for matching speed, docking and messing around, before bigbus must burn for Solar Station.

Hopefully the timing will work, or there will be 4 gawkers in an awkward orbit for some time to come ...

Luckily the contract allows me to let them roast for some years

 

[EpicSpaceTroll139]

I took my B-52 out into the world of physics, and after a quick fix for some loose wing panels, it flew perfectly!

The engines don't seem right... according to my measurements/calculations they should be the right size, but I must have missed something because they look wrong. Ah well.

[CatastrophicFailure]

8 hours ago, ThatHomelessGuy said:

@CatastrophicFailure I don't think I have ever seen someone so resentful of their spaceplane. Accidental or not.

I hate spaceplanes! Hatethem!Hatethem!Hatethem! They're slow and delicate and fiddly and they take sooo looong to get up and down! They just don't have the visceral, verile power of a bazillion pounds of highly flammable fluids meeting all at once and going fwwwoooooooooosharglbarglegarglenasdknfasdjnasjktsakgkaajkgkjsaknskjsadkjalknjkdasfasdfasfsjnjkgyhaxkjagkjahdgfksjagasjkdgkjshgaskjhsduasdhliughasugasgnsagsajcnelaijunepibpipibajsdhfasdjtsjkdadkljasfladhsjkhfajksfaksjfkjgwwwwwwwwwwwwwwaskjtkjsdhakjsdncacjnasldjkhaskjtyhadskjasdkjhcdskjnkjansdlkdsjnajkdhltkjhpop!

And yet.. sometimes... they just sort of... happen. 

[Curveball Anders]

10 minutes ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

I hate spaceplanes! Hatethem!Hatethem!Hatethem! They're slow and delicate and fiddly and they take sooo looong to get up and down! They just don't have the visceral, verile power of a bazillion pounds of highly flammable fluids meeting all at once and going fwwwoooooooooosharglbarglegarglenasdknfasdjnasjktsakgkaajkgkjsaknskjsadkjalknjkdasfasdfasfsjnjkgyhaxkjagkjahdgfksjagasjkdgkjshgaskjhsduasdhliughasugasgnsagsajcnelaijunepibpipibajsdhfasdjtsjkdadkljasfladhsjkhfajksfaksjfkjgwwwwwwwwwwwwwwaskjtkjsdhakjsdncacjnasldjkhaskjtyhadskjasdkjhcdskjnkjansdlkdsjnajkdhltkjhpop!

And yet.. sometimes... they just sort of... happen. 

Is that something you would like to talk about during the next session?

 

[capi3101]

(1.1.3, 1.5 to go)

Yesterday's activities began with the use of the Auk II spaceplane already in LKO for the rescue of Liztha. Given the craft's relative lack of available delta-V, I opted to go for a slow rendezvous approach, allowing Liztha's module to catch up to the plane over a three hour period. During that time, I went ahead and sent the Spamcan 7a craft down to the Münar surface from Next Objective with tourists Mauny and Hanburry aboard, staying down just long enough for them to pick up their portion of the contract before returning them successfully to Next Objective. With the contracts of all eight of Next Objective's passengers (finally) fulfilled, I made the burn to return the craft to Kerbin. 

Once that was done I went back to check on the Auk; my activities had effectively killed the time necessary, so I went ahead and performed the rendezvous, and got Liztha aboard the Auk, then made the burn for a long and slow descent to KSC. I have to say that this was probably one of the most harrowing landings I've done in a long time - I got the timing of the burn a little too correct, regaining control of the craft barely in time to land at KSC 09 on the first pass and not needing the engines at all after the de-orbit burn. Had the craft heading downward at a 40 degree angle for a good portion of the final descent (with airbrakes on, of course). Glad I didn't crash, and that nothing cooked off the plane...

Next I performed another Bill Clinton 7 mission to retrieve a piece of junk from orbit, in this case a spent X200-8 fuel tank. Didn't quite get it in the proper position for the craft's grabber so the heat shield wasn't protecting it completely, but enough of the part was shielded that nothing came close to blowing up. With that done, my focus turned to getting Next Objective into a reasonable orbit, using aerobraking and the craft's remaining fuel to bring it into a 100x120 orbit after just three aerobraking passes. Today I plan on launching another Auk flight to retrieve the craft's passengers. 

The last thing I did was return Niigata to Kerbin from Minmus. The craft's re-entry went much like Kokura's a few days ago, with much of the drive section overheating to detonation, though I was able to mitigate the timing and degree to which the section blew by burning off the section's remaining fuel during re-entry. The command and science sections were retrieved, earning Bob his promotion to a 2-star scientist and bringing back just short of 4000 units of science, which I used to unlock structural and rover parts primarily. At this point, there are only four nodes remaining on my tech tree, all in the 550 point tier (I have the S3-14440 tank, the big engines, the KAS electromagnet and ion propulsion to unlock). I have 450 science so I only need 1,750 sci to round out my tech tree. Another science mission to Mün should do the trick; Minmus is tapped out at this point as planned. Planning for said Mün mission also to commence later today.

In the wake of today's work, I picked up yet another LKO rescue mission and a contract to construct a Mün space station. I may couple this latter contract with the one I picked up earlier for a Kerbin space station, since the Mün one is supposed to have a lab and the Kerbin one is supposed to have a converter, and if it were up to me those would be reversed.

[CatastrophicFailure]

1 hour ago, Curveball Anders said:

Is that something you would like to talk about during the next session?

 

Just what the flarp do you think I've been doing, man??

I don't have a problem, ok?? It's... it's just a phase! I can quit any time I want!

[Sharpy]

The crew of Buffalo-1 - Jeb and Bob - gathered the science from last of Minmus biomes, dusted the engine, took a running jump to save fuel and arrived at Minmus station with years worth of science for the lab.

I hesitate between sending them back to Kerbin and keeping them around on Minmus Station.

Meanwhile Trucky climbed the Kolympus.

They are well past halfway circumnavigating Duna. It doesn't qualify for Elcano, being inclined roughly 45 degrees instead of being equatorial or polar, but I plan to close the circle anyway.

Also, launched three identical Spy Satellites into Minmus, Mun and Kerbin polar orbits.

 

Edited November 11, 2016 by Sharpy

[Brownhair2]

Up until now the MOTHER program has been about versatility. The original plan was to use them to ferry spacecraft around the solar system. After my encounter with Arin, however, I've decided that sometimes a little specialization is necessary.

As such I have made the MTU Sundiver, designed for inner solar system operations! The marketing division tells us the orange paint radiates heat better.

She's got less crew space than the normal MOTHER, but more radiators and way, way more delta-V. Also she doesn't have anywhere near as many solar panels, but when you're that close to the sun you don't need too many.

Now to figure out how to get it to space...

Edited November 11, 2016 by Brownhair2

[Tyko]

On 11/9/2016 at 4:04 PM, SingABrightSong said:

Today I discovered a class-E asteroid...

On an impact trajectory with Kerbin. Seems that my asteroid redirect mission just turned into an asteroid impact avoidance mission...

I diverted a class E planet-killer last week. I had a 12000m/s DV LV-N ship (that's DV before adding the asteroid). After linking up I was left with ~165m/s DV for pushing the rock around. That was enough to push it clear and get it into a stable, highly-eccentric orbit. At least you can launch to the East, that's some small favor. let me know if you want more details about my experience.

[JadeOfMaar]

I don't think I'll be going to space today, but I checked up on a pilot who's observing Catullus from up close...very close, with High Res SVE installed instead of the usual Medium Res. I saw nothing new and impressive (maybe, again, I should have deleted the MM cache). However, deciding to rebuild another particular craft and test it out a trip to Gael's North Pole happened, partially because dealing with deadly pine trees at the end is not part of the plan.

Siecie Kerman is the first to witness snow. Unfortunately she can't come out because the hatch is under the cockpit and there are no ladders.

 

3 hours ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

I hate spaceplanes! Hatethem!Hatethem!Hatethem! They're slow and delicate and fiddly and they take sooo looong to get up and down! They just don't have the visceral, verile power of a bazillion pounds of highly flammable fluids meeting all at once and going fwwwoooooooooosharglbarglegarglenasdknfasdjnasjktsakgkaajkgkjsaknskjsadkjalknjkdasfasdfasfsjnjkgyhaxkjagkjahdgfksjagasjkdgkjshgaskjhsduasdhliughasugasgnsagsajcnelaijunepibpipibajsdhfasdjtsjkdadkljasfladhsjkhfajksfaksjfkjgwwwwwwwwwwwwwwaskjtkjsdhakjsdncacjnasldjkhaskjtyhadskjasdkjhcdskjnkjansdlkdsjnajkdhltkjhpop!

And yet.. sometimes... they just sort of... happen. 

Mark Thrimm has just releasd, or is working on, a SpaceX ITS mod. It has EXACTLY what you're looking for. xD!

[Tyko]

12 hours ago, Aragosnat said:

Another day in Rescue the Kerbal in orbit program:

 

How do they all get into orbit in the first place? Where is this secret black-ops rocket program? 

[The Raging Sandwich]

Mun 4 (The first part of the Mun 4/5 mission. Was supposed to dock together to set the record of the most Kerbals in space in "one" craft. After the Mun 5 disaster, it had to deorbit. It landed behind the west mountain range at the KSC.): Failure

Starbird F.11 (Tami Kerman, a crew of Mun 5, lost control and crashed before her flight the next day. Rosanda Kerman, the second Kerbal in space, replaced her.): Failure

Mun 5 (Rosanda Kerman replaced Tami Kerman making her the first Kerbal to be in space three times. She was flying with Kathzy Kerman, the third Kerbal in space, on her second flight. Upon decoupling with the second stage of the Eve B booster, the spacecraft sudden;y exploded, leaving only the capsule, its fuel, and the OMS rockets. A rescue mission was in order.): Failure

Mun 6 (An attempted rescue mission with an unmanned Mun spacecraft. Due to the effect of the explosion on Mun 5's orbit, Mun 6 did not have enough fuel to successfully rendezvous.): Failure

Rescue 1 (The Kerbal team was in a hurry to build another rescue craft. They built an ultra-light tin can with no docking port and launched it via an Eve B rocket, the second stage being the only source of fuel. The spacecraft successfully rendezvoused with Mun 5 and the two Kerbals went on EVAs to transfer spacecraft. Upon entering, they noticed that an error occurred during launch that would make the parachutes unable to deploy. Upon the failure of Rescue 2, a daring [stupid] plan was made to rendezvous with KerbinLab 1 with the remaining fuel. They successfully entered the lab and waited for a proper rescue mission.): Success

Rescue 2 (An identical spacecraft to Rescue 1. The launch didn't go as planned so more fuel was spent in the second stage attempting to get into orbit. It did not have enough fuel to make it to Rescue 1.): Failure

Mun 7 (Another unmanned Mun spacecraft. It rendezvoused and docked with KerbinLab 1 and the crew entered. It landed back at Kerbin safely, making Kathzy and Rosanda Kerman the Kerbals to spend the most time in space: 60 days. Due to their Gravity-like adventure, they knocked out two of the planned Mun spacecraft missions, test internal crew switching and spending 2 weeks ["Ha, weak!" -Rosanda Kerman] onboard KerbinLab 1.): Success

Messenger 13 (The first attempt of returning a spacecraft from the Mun. Did a circummunar flight and reentered Kerbin's atmosphere and landed.): Success

Discover7 8 (The KSC wanted a challenge. They launched a Discovery 7-derived [see my previous post] with a mining arm and a storage container for holding Munar soil. It landed, took a sample, launched back into Munar orbit, and burned out of the Mun's SOI. The challenge was to attempt to land back at Kerbin WITHOUT parachutes. To save fuel for landing, it did two more flybys of the Mun to periodically lower Kerbin's periapsis. It did that successfully, reentered at Kerbin, and attempted landing. A lot of the fuel was used during reentry, however. It still slowed itself down until it landed, but it landed at nearly 30 meters per second. Most of the spacecraft survived, but of course, the sample container didn't.): Failure

Next flight: Eve A Docking Probe 2 (For the last Mun spacecraft mission. Mun 8 will dock with the probe and the probe will extend the periapsis to the height of the Mun's orbit. It will come back down and test a Munar-rated reentry.)

Mun 4 before reentry

Rosanda Kerman transferring to KerbinLab 1

KerbinLab 1, Rescue 1, and the Mun

Mun 7 undocking from KerbinLab 1

Discovery 8

Discovery 8 falling back to Kerbin

[Brownhair2]

7 minutes ago, The Raging Sandwich said:

Discovery 8

I see you're a fan of bacteriophages

[Martian Emigrant]

2 hours ago, tjt said:

How do they all get into orbit in the first place? Where is this secret black-ops rocket program? 

They are all employees of badly funded startup Cie.

They don't realize that space is "Hard" and they use all their funds just to start. No operation funds left after one launch.

 

ME

Edited November 11, 2016 by Martian Emigrant

[The Raging Sandwich]

50 minutes ago, Brownhair2 said:

I see you're a fan of bacteriophages

Didn't notice that until now! 

[WanderingKid]

Due to xp concerns for my engineers and scientists, the Tour Bus has been taken out for an employee flag planting cruise:

Jeb and Bob were playing in their own space station at the time, but Bill managed to get on the trip!

(Meanwhile, Valentina waits another 12 days so she can transfer crafts at Minmus for a Contract so she can come home).