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

[tater]

Playing Jumbo32 (3.2 scale RSS), FAR/DRE/KIDS/etc.

First manned Mun mission (after tests by the Munar Ranger series of probes). I do it as a Kerbin rendezvous and munar rendezvous mission to to career limitations (plan: launch CM/SM and MEM individually, dock for insertion burn and munar orbit, descend, ascend, re-rendezvous, transfer science, home).

Works great til Jeb is ready to cut loose and land...

My lander was fuel tank under lander can with a center 909, and 4 identical tanks radially attached to the first on decouplers (no engines). Fuel lines to center tank… figured I could dump the saddle tanks on egress, not knowing what a munar landing in 3.2X was like yet.

Everything is great. Try out the new ability to set Jeb to retrograde, and deorbit. Burn a bunch of fuel and get landing set up well. Then the engine stops. ...? Check, center tank out, saddles full. Fuel line are all connected… to the decouplers (was trying to make it look clean and tight). So I have to transfer fuel manually with balance issues. I'm needing to make a long burn, and trying to transfer fuel 1 tank at a time is… non-trivial. The lander tumbles a couple times, and those craters are starting to look BIG. Get velocity low enough I can throttle the 909 low enough I can set Jeb retrograde with RCS running and he can compensate for the bad balance...

Jeb landed, and I moved any remaining fuel to center and 2 opposing tanks, and on takeoff I reset staging to blow the 2 empty tanks first. Wasted so much fuel landing Jeb barely made rendezvous.

[StrandedonEarth]

No pics, but earlier I did the old drop the rocket from the clamps blunder.

I've done that too, but managed to light the engines before the ship broke. However, the launch pad exploded, so it launched in a blaze of glory.

[Bev7787]

Landed mun ship, prepared to head back to Kerbin and hit the spacebar, decoupling the capsule from the engines. Oops

[Captinfannin]

My first Duna landing, using the Duna One, I didn't think to bring parachutes on my lander, so it ran out of fuel and the lander couldn't reach the return ship. Then I sent out to built the Duna Two to correct this, a much more efficient and awesome ship. Everything was great until I got to Duna, when I realized that I didn't put parachutes on my lander.

[zekes]

+1 for design, -99999 for staging.

[Delrey]

I was trying a Kolniya orbit around the sun contact. Launched the ship with about 11000 delta v. A previous mission to collect low solar science took about 5000 dV to drop down.

Moved into a near Kerbin solar orbit. Plane changed at the descending node and dropped my periapsis to the a region close to the desired orbit.

Months later I began circulurization burn. Came up about 140 dV short.

How close have you been to success?

[TheScareCake!]

Oh, when i was going to lko with a new rocket and it went dry when i had apoapsis of 73km and periapsis of 4km...

Had to either decouple the capsule to raise my periapsis or burn.

But i used two separation boosters on my second stage and i saved it!

That was about 10-30dv..

[Brainlord Mesomorph]

I was playing w/ SSTO rockets this weekend.

Was consistently less than 100 m/s short of orbit! no matter how much fuel I added! It just couldn't lift 50 tons!

(was maxing out delta V for the engine)

[Thomas988]

Heh. Reminds me of a good 60's show I love to watch.

Anyways, nearly the exact same thing has happened to me, except when coming to the Mun. It's occured a few times, but one instance I especially remember was quite recent in my career save. I had finally decided to take a contract that asked me to test a turbojet while landed on the Mun (thanks, Gene), and undoubtedly the hardest part of the mission was getting back home. The closest I had gotten and failed left my periapsis a couple million meters above Kerbin, and had I the fuel to burn for another second or two I could've had a successful mission.

[Sovek]

Heh. Reminds me of a good 60's show I love to watch.

I was thinking the same thing, too bad the recent movie wasnt near as good as the actual series.

[Vanamonde]

Couple of threads on the same subject merged. Carry on.

[Alshain]

Staging error today. It was supposed to be an Apollo LEM style return, but I had the decouplers backward and dumped my science and landing legs on the way down along with the transfer stage. At least he survived, might even have enough fuel to get him to orbit again.

[Axelord FTW]

Today's fail is brought to you by muscle memory...

Landed a class A asteroid I was planing on having tour Kerbin a bit but instead of hitting the Space Center button on top, I hit Recover Vessel.

My brother, hearing my high voiced disdain, knew exactly that I had screwed up again in KSP.

Otherwise, I had a contract to test the SABRE engine in orbit so I tried to make a spaceplane and do it that way. Since I don't do space planes often, I decided to hire two brand new recruits for the job, expecting them to die on my early attempts on getting the spaceplane at least air worthy. To my surprise, I didn't crash the plane. I didn't get it in space (so contract is still unfinished) but my point is that I now have two white suit kerbals sitting in their lounge, not being dead. This irks me.

[RCgothic]

Today I went to space, collected a whole load of useful science, and forgot to plant the flag that was the purpose of the trip in the first place.

[RhoSigma]

I... I just don't think i need to say much here...

Edited January 31, 2015 by RhoSigma
corrected post, now showing image, not link

[2001kraft]

That is....just.....lol

[Yukon0009]

[smysha]

I... I just don't think i need to say much here...

http://i.imgur.com/6TAlFEQ.png

LOL

Never thought about using KAS that way.

This is best.

[LordFerret]

Catastrophic failure at 42km ...

[General Rarity]

Whoops. Forgot I had DRE installed.

[RCgothic]

I built a training bus to take six Kerbals to Minmus for a flag planting. It had enough DV to easily escape Kerbin afterwards, so I thought I'd just poke into a solar orbit for the xp and return, never having done so before.

I couldn't get back and my Kerbals died after 50 days when their life support ran out. My last save was in LKO.

[Kip336]

After weeks of building ships capable of bringing 40T Into LKO I tried building a launch vehicle to lift a 2.5t science probe in a 730 km polar Orbit.

20 design attempts later I resorted to a 6%ppayload fraction.

[Sufficient Anonymity]

The worst possible time to rendezvous and dock...

[vitekc45c]

Test flights, they always end with explosions.

[KarmaLarma]

Don't ask.

http://i.imgur.com/lG60z88.png

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

I was testing if separatrons could stop you before you crashed to save the ship, but when I activated them I got this...

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

LAG city.

I love it. It's like a David Attenborough film- "The majestic separatrons lift off in a daunting flock, the first stage of their migration to their breeding ground at the second KSC complete. Not all will make it, however. Many will suffer from CoT issues, and crash into the ground. The flock will, however, persevere."