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

[ammonia_ocean]

After weeks of testing, KSC had finally developed a suitable craft, creatively named "Manned Munar Lander III", with the glorious mission of... landing a manned (Kerbaled?) vehicle on the Mün. For the position of crewing the one-man lander, no other options presented themselves but distinguished Kerbanaut Raybin Kerman, commander of three space-station resupply missions and consequently the most experienced pilot in Kerbin history. He followed flawlessly in the path of münar flyby pilot Chad Kerman, plugging data collected by his predecessor into the state-of-the-art MechJeb autopilot system in order to perform a smooth orbital transfer. (Yeah, it was kind of pointless automating a münar flight, but I had never done it before and I just wanted to see what would happen.) Entering into a smooth, flawless equatorial orbit with almost a full Rockomax Jumbo-64 fuel tank and Mainsail engine aboard the service module, he paused for a moment to enjoy the view.

Command told him to stop messing around, ditch the service module (still with a couple km/s of delta-V aboard), and perform his deorbit burn. He obediently did so, and landed perfectly (read: danced his ship around a cosmic game of spin-the-bottle until he managed to extend his lander legs the right way) after a few minor hiccups (read: crashes and reloaded quicksaves). With light feet, he danced atop the dusty, space-kissed regolith of the virgin münar surface, took vital data samples for the science techs back at KSC, and reascended his vehicle's ladder. That was when he noticed the fuel gauge.

That worthless, bulky service module with its thousands of liters of fuel, now nothing more than a fresh crater on the pitted münar surface, was looking pretty important right then.

After a few more weeks (three-ish hours of gameplay) and many frantic reassurances to Raybin, a better-designed three-man rescue craft (incorporating the novel innovations of radial-mount engines) was sitting on the launchpad. Naturally, one Kerbal had to get out to provide space for the newcomer, and Lunfel Kerman happily volunteered for the job. He leaped joyously out of the 80-meter rocket to his death on the concrete launchpad below.

Minor technical difficulties aside, the Munar Rescue Vehicle was landing smoothly with the aid of MechJeb data gathered by Raybin on his own manual landing. It touched down, Raybin got out of his ship to meet the rescue crew, and...

...well, hope he likes long-distance running. (I didn't think to use his EVA pack on the first try, and I wasn't confident enough in my flying abilities to try "hopping" either vehicle. By the time I had accidentally reloaded the quicksave from the MRV's initial landing halfway through, started the journey again, skidded Raybin on his face for 5km using his personal RCS, and walked the rest of the way, I had spent two two-and-a-half hour sessions just watching a Kerbanaut waddle across endless grayish hills. Luckily I managed to keep him walking in the KSP window while I surfed the Web in Firefox, but it was still ridiculous.)

Fortunately, the rest of the flight was much less eventful. After a Minmus flyby and EVA, the MRV reentered Kerbin and splashed down safely. Sadly, it was too late for Raybin. He had been driven mad, partly by isolation on the Mün, partly by having to run a 10k in an EVA suit, and partly by spending almost a month crammed in a capsule with fellow Kerbanauts Alan and Lanfel. Upon landing, he wrenched the hatch open, laughing maniacally, and greeted the recovery teams by ripping off the capsule's AR202 MechJeb module and balancing it on his head.

(...yeah, I don't know either.)

[Rage097]

I had been landing rovers on Duna and Eve and decided to take a step back and put someone on the Mun. first attempt left me stranded with no fuel. My second attempt worked excedingly well, until i was on my way back to Kerbin. Somehow I time warped a little too much and collided with the planet. That's not all: The lander also collided with a orbiting satilite on the way. Now i have to deal with that much more debris.

[CatastrophicFailure]

The Mün hates me. I can put a fahrting base on Minmus but the MÜn has been kicking my arse since day one. I mean literally, in my first hour with KSP trying the landing scenario, just happened to land near an arch and thought I'd check it out.

"Hey this Kerbal can fly!"

"Hey this Kerbal can slide!"

"Hey this Kerbal's.... not moving...?"

Four attempts later (one crew plowed into the regolith at three digit mps, one just disappeared, one crew rescued from münar orbit) my rescue mission finally returns the crew of the fourth failed mission.

Tried again and I still managed to hit the space bar & stage by mistake Immediately after landing. Fortunately the return stage didn't go anywhere so I was able to send Jeb up a hill for a quick photo before everyone got the heck off that cursed rock before anything else went wrong

First Moho lander/orbiter didn't go so well either. The lander got some wonderful views before it whizzed past the planet with its engine uselessly burning, off into solar orbit. The orbiter got some nice hi res maps just before slamming into the surface at about 4 klicks per second.

)

ROFL that is classic!

[Fuzzy Dunlop]

Look at my plane, my plane is amazing

WAIT WHAT?

Well, schucks....

[Fredonia]

Using a modified NovaPunch Thor/Odin Mun rocket(more struts for stability) I had a normal liftoff and all that. Everything up until fairing and LES separation. The initial separation was fine, but I noticed that the fairings were going ahead of me. I didn't think this was a problem until I started my circularization burn and one of the the fairing pieces came back and smacked the side of the command pod, tearing off a solar panel box and separating the command pod from the service module and the rest of the rocket. I entered into an uncontrollable spin as the command pod wouldn't come off the rocket right away. Once I torqued it off, I spun even faster. I turned on SAS and the pod abruptly righted itself for reentry. From there, it was a normal descent.

While the mission was a totally embarrassing failure, the Kerbals survived to launch another day.

Through it all, I only maxed my G's out at 8.6...not too bad.

[KinkyFerrets]

Accelerated into a fuel tank I had jettisoned 3 orbits prior

[zekes]

This is my big "OH MOTHER OF JEBEDIAH WHERE NOT GOING TO SPACE TODAY" moment...

A 960 ton ship ripping apart, the only launch failure of a Tripper in 40+ launches...

Edited May 15, 2013 by zekes

[swifthands]

Built a carefully designed rocket, proper asparagus staging, every bit of weight was taken into account for maximum T\W ratio and efficiency at every step.

the plan was to perform a mining operation with a kethane fuel depot orbiting duna.

i constructed the space station that is supposed to act as the fuel depot.

sent 4 lander missions to dock with the station before starting the runs up and down from duna to stock the station kethane tanks.

after all was done and ready to begin the actual work,

i undocked one of the 4 already lined and ready landers from the station, carefully performing the ascent and watching how my marvel of design that is my lander, performs everything perfectly.

drogue chute deployed,

slowing down to final breaking burn and touchdown,

a perfect landing, solar panels deployed, kethane tanks open and ready.

deploying the kethane drill.

drill deploys upward towards the sky........

[zekes]

Built a carefully designed rocket, proper asparagus staging, every bit of weight was taken into account for maximum T\W ratio and efficiency at every step.

the plan was to perform a mining operation with a kethane fuel depot orbiting duna.

i constructed the space station that is supposed to act as the fuel depot.

sent 4 lander missions to dock with the station before starting the runs up and down from duna to stock the station kethane tanks.

after all was done and ready to begin the actual work,

i undocked one of the 4 already lined and ready landers from the station, carefully performing the ascent and watching how my marvel of design that is my lander, performs everything perfectly.

drogue chute deployed,

slowing down to final breaking burn and touchdown,

a perfect landing, solar panels deployed, kethane tanks open and ready.

deploying the kethane drill.

drill deploys upward towards the sky........

Land upside down.

[Felsmak]

So I decided to try and build an SSTO.

It failed miserably and I ran out of fuel long before even leaving the atmosphere, but I managed to glide towards the airstrip island and perform an emergency landing on the hill. The craft was severely damaged in the process and it lost both engines and one wing, but Jeb still survived against all odds.

[Feldynn]

From a week or two back when I had the KSP demo and had some Wile E. Coyote staging issues..

I think the parachute deployed during the launch, spun the rocket around and snapped bits off. Fortunately the landing gear worked and I got to see one of the engines blowing smoke rings at me

... don't recall if this was a staging issue or just an undocumented Kerbal design feature .

[RoboRay]

My SSTO spaceplane did make it to space!

I just overshot on the reentry, coming in so far downrange that I decided to set down on the auxiliary landing field out in Booster Bay instead of flying back to KSC.

Don't worry, that will buff right out!

[Felsmak]

Accidentally pressing EVA instead of IVA while flying a plane.

[ammonia_ocean]

Kerbals sometimes respond to these crashes with a joy that seems almost sadistic.

[Jarod645]

This is a problem that seems to plague me whenever I try to launch a KISS Fuel Module using my Exodus launcher. (Sorry about the gigantic pics, too lazy to crop them.)

Everything starts out fine, with a successful liftoff...

The SRBs separate flawlessly...

Then comes the separation of the second lifter stage...

Hey! Where'd the final lifter stage go?

That puny "poodle" engine on the orbital adjustment stage can't get us into orbit from here. Gentlemen, you will not be going to space today...

Thankfully, I have a plan to deal with this. The boosters are sticking together via struts meant to increase stability, but that causes the mass to crash into the central booster. To remedy this, I'll place the boosters as low on the final booster as I can, minimizing the chance of impact. I'll try it this weekend.weekend.

[TelluriumCrystal]

Well. At least they survived...

[zekes]

-snip-

Well. At least they survived...

Nailed it.

[Malachai]

My first Mun base was set up. I drove my T4NKR (yes, that's its name) up to fill the ol' storage tanks, and physics lost its mind and decided everything needed to go kerflooey at near improbable velocities. Fine. So I set up ANOTHER base, a little closer to the drilling site. Still a solid 15 minutes away. It's night on the Mun, so I'm having trouble judging distances. I brake too late, crash into my fill tanks, and flip them over. I quickload, restart my journey, and swear I won't let that happen again. Fifteen minutes later....

Well, at least the fill tanks are ok...

[Commander Zoom]

Just now, due to a mistake in staging order, I managed to jettison my mini-rover on the way to the Mun. Thank Jeb for quicksaves...

[katateochi]

After several good tests something went horribly wrong. The accident investigation found that a slight change to the payload resulted a single strut being left out and the payload fell sideways, so it was certainly not going to space, the rest of the LV however seems to be going somewhere.

[Reavermyst]

first attempt at lifting the escape pod module up up to the Station at LKO

Welp, least those escape pods work!

[Extemporary]

When your prototypes are crashing because they hit the wreckage of other prototypes, you may want to rethink your testing strategy. I have at least five of these things littered around the KSC; they're more of a menace than my space junk.

[ShachonianX]

I decided to launch my Griffin rocket to dock with my Orion space station. Thanks to the whole rocket rotating very fast, the suborbital ark was messed up, and it took forever until it was too late to fix the trajectory. I then timewarped to make the ascent and descent faster, but I timewarped to quickly and crashed into Kerbin.

[Reavermyst]

I'd show a picture, but I accidentally hit End Flight instead of Space Center on a station that took me DAYS to build on my schedule.

[ShachonianX]

Don't ask.

I attempted to bring a mobile research base to the Kerbals (one is Bob) in my small rover. When pressing the brakes, it did a flip and broke in half. Sadly, no explosions made the failure feel worse. The three Kerbals who piloted the base are currently outside of it, next to the rover that has Bill in it.

EDIT: Seems like images are being stupid for me. (You can see them now)

Edited May 16, 2013 by ShachonianX