You Will Not Go To Space Today - Post your fails here!

[KarbonX]

Attempted at going to the lovely place of eve and landed smoothly and nicely and kerbals got over 2,000 science from the purple ball. But during liftoff again, which i idiotically attempted and luckily pressed F5, The craft like split in half and my kerbals all ejected in their little seats and the game crashed. I attempted again and the ship was gone. crying i lost all that science. I literally took my PC and just smacked it on the side. IT WORKS SO MUCH BETTER NOW!

[Tw1]

Fllying something absurd, trying to pull up....

Nope.

[macdjord]

... are you trying to build a Final Fantasy airship?

[Tw1]

... are you trying to build a Final Fantasy airship?

...Something like that.

[davidpsummers]

I have an ion powered probe and I'm trying to insert into Laythe orbit. I have done my aerobraking and I now just need to lift up my perapsis so the next pass doesn't drop me out of orbit.

I come around and don't come out of the dark side at my apoapsis (no sun, no ion thrust). But I just have to wait a bit so I'm "OK". But then I come out from behind Laythe and the whole moon is being eclipsed by Jool! And when you are eclipsed by Jool, you are ECLIPSED by Jool!

[Kerbas_ad_astra]

I had one failure that stung really badly because I'd already saved it from near-disaster twice. I was testing a Lunar Orbit Rendezvous technique, with a two-stage lander and separate command module, as a preparation for deep-space missions. Designing the lander was a bit of a challenge as I was also intending to test a rover (the Packrat, from the USI Exploration Pack). I wasn't sure about building it in-situ, so I made it in the VAB and tacked it to the side of the lander. This required me to make an asymmetrical lander, with fuel lines feeding from tanks into a single LV-909.

With our crew of Jeb (because I couldn't make him stay home), Buzz (because who wouldn't send a Kerbal with that name on a Mun mission), and Geofdard (for his low stupidity, and to operate the command pod), the "Kerbal X-Int" was off!

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Because the lander's ascent stage had lots of Round-8 toroidal tanks above and below the crew cabin (to make the ascent stage balanced for RCS rendezvous), they acted like neck vertebrae and flexed like crazy during the Kerbin-escape burn. The spinning was so bad that I just throttled the engine up when it was pointing more-or-less in the right direction and then cut it off again until the next rotation. With that, we managed to struggle our way to the Mun, and then I realized that the delta-V numbers on the lander were looking awfully low. An inspection revealed that, somehow, the fuel lines hadn't stuck properly during the assembly process. So, it was time to put together a rescue mission with some KAS fuel pipe ends to fix it. After learning the hard way that Kerbals couldn't carry more than one thing at a time (and having to chase wayward pipe ends), the repair was complete and the lander was good to go.

In retrospect, one LV-909 was not enough for a lander of that weight -- its Mun TWR was greater than one, but not by much. I rotated the pod so that the lander's wheels were facing down, hoping to perform some kind of non-destructive high-horizontal-speed landing, but our trajectory took us inside a crater, and we smashed into its rim as the ground rose up to meet us.

To add insult to injury, because I had TAC-LS installed, I had to send Geofdard home immediately, so I got to watch him wail inconsolably about the loss of his crewmates. Jeb and Buzz would respawn in time, but their loss was still keenly felt.

---

Of course, I couldn't let my exploration ambitions end there. We would learn from the mistakes of the first Kerbal X-Int test, and we would return to flight!

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Take two, and action! Geofdard was unwilling to go on another moon mission with Jeb and Buzz, so we got Thomson instead. Kerbin escape and mun insertion and landing happened without a hitch. Assembling the Packrat took some doing, as any dropped part would explode (and thus force a reload), but I was furious with myself when I realized that I'd gone all the way to the Mun, bringing a rover and oodles of scientific equipment and no command chairs. I remember thinking, as I was packing everything up in the VAB, "Wow, look at all of this container space I have left over! What else could I possibly want to bring?" Argh!

I also discovered that the ascent-stage engine was a little too crowded by the descent-stage fuel tanks, so I had to reload after a failed takeoff attempt and just fly right into space with the descent stage. Everyone made it home alright, but now there's a flag on the Mun which says "Bring your own command seat!"

[mdkendall]

Thought there might be a problem. Sent Barsel out to investigate.

"Err, guys, when we decouple the lander, won't the decoupler remain stuck to the docking port? How are we going to dock? I think we should have used a separator, not a decoupler."

[FishInferno]

Thought there might be a problem. Sent Barsel out to investigate.

http://i.imgur.com/lHmFR0D.png

"Err, guys, when we decouple the lander, won't the decoupler remain stuck to the docking port? How are we going to dock? I think we should have used a separator, not a decoupler."

right click on the docking port, hen choose "decouple node"

[mdkendall]

right click on the docking port, then choose "decouple node"

Good point well made! Barsel thanks you. I thought I was going to have to send him out there with a hammer and instructions to look the other way while I hacked the save file.

The only reason there is a decoupler there at all (because I did actually know you could decouple docking ports from things that aren't docking ports) is that in the VAB I couldn't figure out how to disable fuel crossfeed across the docking port, and the fuel from the lander was screwing up my calculations for the delta-V of the transfer stage. So I stuck a decoupler in. And then forgot how docking ports work.

[bartekkru99]

Once I flew to Gilly with big ass nuclear powered ship with 9-12 Kerbals, I don't remember how many of them there were. Jeb, Bill and Bob were sent to the surface while the rest was orbiting Eve. Guys on Gilly were having fun, but then I reload quicksave and they froze on the surface, so the others returned without the with some minor complications, they ran out of fuel and I had to use RCS to correct orbit around the sun, but then I ran out of monopropellant and when they got near Kerbin I had to send unmanned mission for them.

But still Jeb and his friends were stuck on Gilly frozen, so I sent one man rescue lander ot grab the with KAS connectors, but strange thing were happening when I was time warping, so there was no hope for them, they crashed into Gilly. Also I forgot to take science from their lander, that exploded from unknow reson after numerous reloadings of quicksave, so I only got crew raportd from rescue guy...

I was really happy when he came back and Jeb, Bill and Bob were already there

[ostrich]

I tried to fly a space shuttle then it underwent rapid unplanned disassembly.

[ShadowZone]

I tried launching my 1677 part cruiser (with launcher >2000 parts). Not a good idea...

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[FlipNascar]

Still a complete nub at KSP, and with baited breath was ecstatic to get my first Munar base. I also decided to make it more efficient by filling all the containers with Kerbals. Of course, there are now 6 Kerbals stuck..er sciencing on the Mun (and the 6 that died when the lander uh didn't crash because of pilot error). On round two (launched an entire new ship rather than load a save), landed, and aptly planted the flag and renamed the base to Pyrrhus. Time to launch the rescue, er I mean Munar shuttle. Back to the drawing board and chalk up a fugly, but functional, ship. I crunch my numbers for delta-v with good error margins. 5,000 for LKO, 1,000 to transfer, 1,200 to land and lift-off, 1,000 to return.

Here's the rescue, er shuttle, landed at Base Pyrrhus...

[Sirrobert]

Thought there might be a problem. Sent Barsel out to investigate.

http://i.imgur.com/lHmFR0D.png

"Err, guys, when we decouple the lander, won't the decoupler remain stuck to the docking port? How are we going to dock? I think we should have used a separator, not a decoupler."

You can actually use a docking port as decoupler in this scenario, and completly skip the decoupler/seperator

[Zargg]

Finally got myself landed on Tylo for the .90 explore Tylo contract. Land with plenty of delta v left over, EVA my guy out, plant flag, take sample, walk back to the lander......and then realize I didn't put a ladder to get back in

[Joshua A.C. Newman]

Step 1: Build Münar lander in prep for Kerbal station-based Mün mission.

Step 2: Important! Neglect struts holding insertion stage rigid when under acceleration.

Step 3: Bend craft in half, exploding nuclear rocket and, hell, the rest of the booster stage while you're at it.

Step 4: Thinking fast, burn that little MEM engine prograde. Stable, circular, but eccentric orbit juuust as you run out of fuel!

Step 5: Set out in space tug to rescue MEM.

Step 6: Realize you forgot to fuel up space tug.

Step 7: This is where you decide to fly back, dock, and fuel up.

Step 8: Omit step 7.

Step 9: In your flusterment, don't think out what that eccentric orbit means when you're going to "encounter" the MEM.

Step 10: Struggle in confusion to match vectors.

Step 11: Literally jump on the couch as the MEM jams by at hundreds of m/s literally three meters off the bow.

Step 12: Realize you're out of fuel.

If you follow these instructions precisely, you will find that you have a great opportunity to rescue your rescue craft!

[Van Disaster]

TWR of 12 obviously not enough to go upwards... lying engineers!

[archnem]

Launched a kerbaled mission to Eve last night. I've always had bad luck with this planet. Got my encounter, set an alarm in KAC, and went about running my space program for the next 150 days or so without thinking about it. Got close to my alarm, jumped to my ship...and wow, I'm going to miss the planet by 376,000 km. I'm guessing floating point rounding errors got me. I'm running TACLS and unfortunately, there's just no way to resupply the ship or get back to Kerbin before they all die. Bonus: ship contains both Bob and Jeb.

Has anyone else completely whiffed like this? Share your stories and make me feel better!

[mckamx]

I usually have problems with my Eve intercepts: I set KAC for about 20 days before the intercept so that I have time for course corrections. My guess is that it is a combination of high speed due to inner planet orbit and deep gravity well for Eve that makes KSP rounding errors worse than normal.

[archnem]

I set KAC for about 20 days before the intercept so that I have time for course corrections.

Oh now you tell me. At least I've pulled off an Eve mission before (tho not a land and return yet). Moho really gives me fits. The closest I've come is a probe whizzing by.

Me: Ok, time to circularize at the periapsis.

KSP: You'll need ~9k dV to do that.

Me: But this handy chart I downloaded says 2200!

KSP: Don't care. You'll notice that chart is way off for Dres, too. 9k dV please.

Me: Well, I'll wave at Moho as I pass then.

[Corw]

Oh now you tell me. At least I've pulled off an Eve mission before (tho not a land and return yet). Moho really gives me fits. The closest I've come is a probe whizzing by.

Me: Ok, time to circularize at the periapsis.

KSP: You'll need ~9k dV to do that.

Me: But this handy chart I downloaded says 2200!

KSP: Don't care. You'll notice that chart is way off for Dres, too. 9k dV please.

Me: Well, I'll wave at Moho as I pass then.

Aerobreak?

[Norpo]

Aerobreak?

Moho has no atmosphere, and nor does Dres. It's annoying.

EDIT: In any case, for Scorched Kerbin (my Moho mission) I started going there the efficient way, less Delta-V required. http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/107411-has-anyone-calculated-the-easy-Moho-transfer

[Guest]

Aerobreak?

On Moho?

Moho is the innermost planet of the Kerbol star system and the Mercury analogue for Kerbal Space Program. It resembles Dres and Eeloo, as it lacks an atmosphere and natural satellites. As of 0.18, it is no longer tidally locked to Kerbol.

[SlyReaper]

The way I usually get to Moho is to get a gravity assist from Eve, then work out an intercept after that. Usually saves a fair chunk of dV compared to going directly from Kerbin.

[archnem]

I have yet to really figure out how to do gravity assists. Every time I try I get slung out in ways that are admittedly cool, but unhelpful.