The last moments of my Duna colony pioneers.

[Themohawkninja]

When Kerbalkind decided that they wanted to colonize Duna, they constructed a large scouting ship to carry small one-manned pods to go to the surface, investigate the basic physical qualities of the planet and it's atmosphere, and... ultimately... place a flag with a tiny IR transponder to designate where the colony should be created before returning to their orbiting ship, the Scarlet Viper.

The craft was built, it's crew boarded, and it was sent off. Here is the Scarlet Viper before the manned scouting probes were docked, and the ship sent off.

Jebediah, who was piloting the craft, succeeded in getting to Duna, and put the closest approach at ~10 km to begin it's most dangerous task... the aerobraking maneuver. He then turned off the hull lights, retracted the solar panels, let go of the controls, and let Duna's atmosphere do the rest.

At this point, deep inside the thin atmosphere, Jeb re-checked his course, and found that his periapsis had dropped to ~9 km. Fearing the worst, he could only smile in ecstasy at the sheer excitement. The Scarlet Viper's velocity decreased more and more, and soon he found that he would never escape the atmosphere. The Scarlet Viper, and it's three intrepid Kerbals would meet their maker on this strange new world.

[astropapi1]

Aw.

Next time you do it go for a ~15 km periapsis

[Bioman222]

On the bright side, you got to see the most beautiful explosion ever.

But still, my salutations to the crew

[The Error]

...and tune in next week for the story of the Indestructible Jebâ„¢, now trapped on Duna?