What did you do in KSP1 today?

[allmhuran]

Did science on the Mun.

In a main battle tank.

[mellojoe]

I modded a stock part to be 4x normal size in order to create huge satellite dishes that weren't a million parts. Reduced the overall part count of a project I'm working on by 146 parts. Saved myself from the FPS KILLER that it was becoming.

It was:

It is:

Thats the rockomax plate adapter A02 scaled up 4x its regular size. My first "mod" I've ever actually created, and it was simply learning to edit the .cfg properly.

[Tw1]

Did science on the Mun.

In a main battle tank.

A fellow Sydneysider! Virtual high five!

That was an impressive creation, and a good video as well.

[Immashift]

All images clickable for full size.

Turned the Aeris 3a into an SSTO:

Landed my large kethane SSTO on the mun (yes, on the wheels, no VTOL ).

Tried to land the right hand side of this space train on the mun, and realized 5 seconds before touchdown that I had only put two landing legs on it, which you can clearly see in the image. I wasn't paying attention (curse you symmetry snap).

Edited August 1, 2013 by Immashift

[allmhuran]

I modded a stock part to be 4x normal size in order to create huge satellite dishes that weren't a million parts

That's some damn fine geometry work with the structural plates even if you did end up having to replace them due to part count in the end.

[Kaleb]

I finally brought Jebediah back from his Minmus tour (which had been my first landing). The return trajectory had a Pe around 20-30km to try aerobraking. I wasn't expecting the (non-firing) NERVA to overheat and explode in the atmosphere (I didn't think the reentry affects added heat?). It took out most of the in-space stage along with it, except for the docking port, control core, batteries, and a structural plate. Fortunately, that structural plate must have shielded the actual lander from the explosion and the heat, and the lander survived in tact.

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Edited August 1, 2013 by Kaleb
fix imgur album embedding

[Whackjob]

"Tower, this is KEx3RVR requesting to land."

"Rodger, uh, what sort of aircraft are you?"

"Rover."

"Say again?"

[LameLefty]

Just for grins, and because I had never done it before, I put a satellite into a nearly perfect 350 km polar orbit around Kerbin. Anyone happen to know the equivalent of GSO orbital altitude for Kerbin? I might try a sun-synchronous polar obit next.

[Enigma179]

I downloaded KAS and started my Planetes rubbish disposal project! (thumbs up if you get the reference)

Two winches with electromagnets, and a crew of 2 in my MK1-2 pod (I have ioncross crew support installed so gotta keep as much time on the oxygen as I can), one grabs the magnets and puts them next to the debris, the other hits the magnetize button, do it again with the other, pull 'em into an orbit with a low periapsis, drop the magnet, pull the ship back out!

I've only lost two of my four solar panels to wildly swinging retracting cables, moral of the story is 1. retract solar panels first and 2. get the ones with heavier casing.

EDIT: Also my joolian probe exploded because of my tricouplers in LKO so I think my cleanup crew has a long few days ahead of them...

Edited August 2, 2013 by Enigma179

[Tw1]

Accidentally did a Mun flyby instead of a landing...

Solved the buoyancy issues with my Eve explorer, but the game crashed before I finished the backup ladder system.

Don't want my colonist stuck outside because I forgot not to park on a slope!

Also, it's not reentering nicely. Gotta do something about that.

Edited August 2, 2013 by Tw1

[XoX]

I got my Duna Rover + Skycrane into LKO

[Deadweasel]

I downloaded KAS and started my Planetes rubbish disposal project! (thumbs up if you get the reference)

Two winches with electromagnets, and a crew of 2 in my MK1-2 pod (I have ioncross crew support installed so gotta keep as much time on the oxygen as I can), one grabs the magnets and puts them next to the debris, the other hits the magnetize button, do it again with the other, pull 'em into an orbit with a low periapsis, drop the magnet, pull the ship back out!

I've only lost two of my four solar panels to wildly swinging retracting cables, moral of the story is 1. retract solar panels first and 2. get the ones with heavier casing.

EDIT: Also my joolian probe exploded because of my tricouplers in LKO so I think my cleanup crew has a long few days ahead of them...

"Nankurunaisa!"

[Immashift]

"Tower, this is KEx3RVR requesting to land."

"Roger, uh, what sort of aircraft are you?"

"Rover."

"Say again?"

I looked at the image, went "wut?", looked down, and lol'd. Hard.

Personally I attempted to make a jumbo jet SSTO with the B9 pack...

Yeah... didn't quite work so well.

[Cydonian Monk]

Today Jeb flew to KSC2 and planted a flag. And from that flag grew a mighty tree. A tree that spits fire from its roots and has branches that reach to the very heavens themselves. Two more followed that first tree, and many more will follow them. The very mountains will tremble from the thunder spawned by that solitary flag.

[tntristan12]

Finally got around to creating my own version of the Apollo missions. A clean save meant starting over my exploration of the solar system from scratch, so before I download Kethane and update my existing designs I decided it'd be fun to go back to basics and just to a good ole fashioned Mun landing! I commissioned the Munar Mission Package project, which began with the Mk. I. That didn't turn out so well... For one thing, it couldn't make orbit. For another, the escape system didn't work. I began the Mk. II from the lander and worked my way out.

The lander, which is itself designated Thelanderer Mk IV-a, is a thing of beauty! I decided to go for the double-staged approach: I had the descent stage and the ascent stage. All told, I think she came out looking very much like the real-world LEM. Take a look!

After some brief testing, the launch vehicle quickly took shape. I built and tested an escape tower, which works pretty darn well, and looks shiny. With that, it was time to head to the Mun!

The mission itself went off without a hitch. My manual flying tested the wiggle room of the spacecraft, having been built with Engineer Redux. The margins were solid. A stage was practically dry whenever it was time to dump it, but I never felt pressed for fuel. Future tests with mechjeb revealed that the spacecraft was slightly overengineered, but not by much. Anyway, the spacecraft went up, up, and away. Once in orbit, Trans-Munar Injection put me on a nice free return trajectory. I uncovered the lander and docked the CM with it ever so beautifully.

And then we were there...

I transferred over the crew into the LM, and detached. Our target was a large, equatorial canyon on the far side of the Mun. There would be no radio contact from the site - any messages to Mission Control had to be relayed through the still-orbiting Command Module. If anything went wrong, the crew would be on their own. It was tense, as the ground rose up and the canyon walls towered overhead there was little way of assessing the grade of the land below. At touchdown, the lander tilted at a weird angle but stayed on its feet. The crew got out and celebrated, planting a flag on the site and naming it "Beggar's Canyon."

After the initial celebration, the ground crew set about taking ground samples, assessing the terrain, and taking pictures for the Kerbals back home. Once the command module had made a full orbit of the Mun, Bob and Jebediah piled back into the lander and pressed the big red button to start the ascent stage.

*TSSSSSSSS*

Bob: "What just happened?"

Jeb: "Nothing."

Bob: "Then why aren't we moving?"

Jeb: "Because nothing happened..."

Bob got out to investigate, and noticed something that the engineers, the contractors, the support staff, and the flight crew, and most importantly the omnipotent god who controls their every movement failed to notice...

Somehow, the fuel line connecting the ascent stage's tanks with the engine never got connected... All four of them... With no way to light the ascent stage engine, no spare fuel lines to connect them with, and no prospects for returning home, Bob and Jebediah piled into the lander and waited for rescue. Alone in orbit, Bill headed home to a bittersweet arrival on Kerbin.

Hopefully soon I will have a successful mission report to submit, once they have been safely returned! Hope you enjoyed it.

[tntristan12]

Just for grins, and because I had never done it before, I put a satellite into a nearly perfect 350 km polar orbit around Kerbin. Anyone happen to know the equivalent of GSO orbital altitude for Kerbin? I might try a sun-synchronous polar obit next.

2,868,750 meters (it's on the wiki)

[Immashift]

Made this:

Whether it shall fly or not... I have yet to test. I foresee a bunch of spinning directly after takeoff.

EDIT:

Huh... better than I thought. Confused this actually worked.

Edited August 2, 2013 by Immashift

[capi3101]

Fired up 0.20 last night to continue my search for the NAM. After not one but two Hellrider lander failures (one exploded, one went without the self-righting mechanism and needed it), I got fed up, redesigned my Muad'keeb 6 (my first failed Duna shot rocket) for a one-way trip and delivered three of my crappy little no-name practice rovers. Put on a KER flight computer and found the damn thing (finally) with the first one. Was sure to write down the coordinates. Found out my original two Hellriders got so close it was painful - one was two kilometers away, the other was only 1.5 kilometers off...

That's twice now that my practice rovers have succeeded in their mission when the Hellriders didn't.

Switched to the other rovers I'd brought and tried to use them to upright the Hellriders. Blew both of them up.

Switched back to my first rover and suffered a Kraken attack. Spotaneous UVD.

At least I have the coordinates now, and a working crappy rover delivery rocket...renamed it the Cerberus 7, and copied the craft file over to 0.21. Tonight I'll send one to the vicinity of the NAM, now that I know where to look. The hope is to set up a bullseye for my Apollo-style mission.

[Forgettable]

Yesterday I worked on a couple of crafts for my 100 kerbal to Duna mission. The interplanetary stage has to have enough thrust and delta-V for nearly 200 tons of landers. I think I finally managed it, with a 140 ton core, that has nearly 10,000 vacuum delta-V without the cargo and enough thrust to actually be able to lift off from kerbin. It's powered by 9 NERVAs.

Each 25 kerbal lander weighs 45 tons, I am also including a few single kerbal landers, though I am having difficulty finding a way to put both a docking port and a parachute on it.

Next, I've got to build, test, rebuild, retest, rebuild, an ascent stage to get the lander to orbit.

A rather large assumption that I am making with my big landers is that the atmosphere and a few Mk-16 XL parachutes will eat a significant portion of the velocity on the way down and allow me to save fuel for a hypothetical return. Does anybody have some specific numbers for how much delta-V you need when landing on Duna?

Come to think of it, this will be the first time I will have landed on a body with atmosphere...

Edited August 2, 2013 by Forgettable

[Geschosskopf]

Whether it shall fly or not... I have yet to test. I foresee a bunch of spinning directly after takeoff.

EDIT:

Huh... better than I thought. Confused this actually worked.

The 0.21 SAS system allows you to launch stuff that has no business flying straight, due to either thrust or lift imbalances. It lets you get away with so much, I'm actually waiting for somebody to say that using SAS during launch is cheating

[Sean Mirrsen]

Jeb likes his new space scooter.

Had to conduct a whole another mission to bring it to him, along with a parachute-equipped capsule to live and eventually return planetside with.

[tntristan12]

The 0.21 SAS system allows you to launch stuff that has no business flying straight, due to either thrust or lift imbalances. It lets you get away with so much, I'm actually waiting for somebody to say that using SAS during launch is cheating

I'd tend to agree. However, the SAS is now only doing what it should have done all along - it finally makes use of all the tools at its disposal to make the craft fly straight! Might try building a stock space shuttle later, but I don't think the current SRBs burn long enough.

[annallia]

I built my first successful jet. My previous record was a 3 minute flight getting only 3k in the atmosphere... Mostly due to the rocket engine I attached to it because I was hoping it would be able to break orbit.

New record is 23 minute flight, 19k altitude. Also successfully landed my first jet... Though taking off again didn't go quite as smooth. Had engines mounted under the wings and a small bump in the terrain meant a sudden engine loss on one side...

Jeb likes his new space scooter.

Had to conduct a whole another mission to bring it to him, along with a parachute-equipped capsule to live and eventually return planetside with.

I want to make one now!

Edited August 2, 2013 by annallia

[lammatt]

Built and docked a booster + lander pack for my plane hoping to give it an extra ~4km/s dV so that i can fly it to Duna/Eve and return

Edited August 2, 2013 by lammatt

[Tw1]

Sent Milly Kerman to do a practice run of flying down the Mun's equatorial trench.

The first run went fine, but she crashed the starfighter when trying to land, and try a slower run.

I left her so she could walk it instead, and will pick her up in a few days.

My crew at the Mun's north pole investigated some strange phenomena.

Then, on the way home, they found out that being so near the pole screws the navbal a little. Had to wait until the orbit lined up right in order to do the final burn, or it would've needed more than the delta V available to get home.

Wehrwin still had enough energy to hike up a mountain after landing.

Named it Mt Custard, because he was hungry.

Then, back at KSC, I found an old Eveboat prototype was still sitting on the runway. Took it for a run in Booster Bay. (The part that's actually a bay.)

Sidtrey successfully demonstrated use of the emergency ladder, both exiting and entering while the craft was on an awkward slope.

Jeb and Bob then took a more advanced version out to joint him, and they admired the shiny space center together.

Edited August 2, 2013 by Tw1