My First Space Station

[Qwertyest]

I had no idea how hard docking was until I finally tried it! And it wasn't just the docking, but figuring out how to rendezvous was pretty tricky as well.

But there she is. Complete, refueled (You should see the size of the refueler! Biggest ship I've ever made that can actually get into orbit and is able to deliver over 10k fuel), and ready to journey off into space. I've even built a rather odd-looking Space Shuttle (as docked to my Space Station in the pic) that is capable of crew transfers. It's not exactly a SSTO, as I launch the thing on a rocket, but after docking with the Space Station, it's able to fly back to headquarters and land on the runway ... Sometimes ... Well, it would be able to land on the runway every time if I were a better pilot!

I'll probably test out it's mission capabilities on Mun first. The mission to deploy the lander, land on the surface of the Mun, drive around a bit in the rover, re-attach the rover, and rendezvous the lander with the space station again.

[Richy teh space man]

Nice job, gratz on being able to land a space plane in one piece too.

[DisarmingBaton5]

That plane looks amazing. Good station!

Also, how did you get those orange tanks up? One by one or all at once?

[mellojoe]

GRATS! Thats an epic feat. I have barely got docking, and I'm still learning proper rendezvous techniques. And all my spaceplanes crash in massive explosions. So you, my friend, are doing very well. Keep it up.

[Qwertyest]

Got those orange tanks up all at once. They were pretty much empty once I got the Space Station Core into orbit at about 150km above the surface, which was why I needed a big refueler to replenish them.

The Space Plane has a "fat middle" because that's one of those hitchhiker storage containers, so that it's able to function as a shuttle to take up to 5 kerbals at once back home (the pilot and up to 4 in the container). Although I probably kinda need to figure out a way how to get multiple kerbals into the container while the space shuttle is on the launchpad, on top of the rocket that gets it into orbit. May see if I can build a ladder up the side of the rocket and into the hitchhiker container, so they can climb up it on the launchpad.

[joppiesaus]

Congratcioulations!