How close have you come to failure? Me: 7 units of RCS fuel left

[MattJL]

(Warning: Picture heavy).

After completing my first (non demo) run to the Mun in .19, I realized that my lander design didn't leave anything on the surface. A normal person (i.e., anyone but me) would think that a good thing, but in my infinite wisdom, I threw together a "CubeSat" - a Probodobodyne QBE with fixed solar panels on five sides - that I could drop onto the surface as a permanent monument.

The second lunar flight, equipped with this new "thing", didn't go too well. Sure, I landed just fine, but somehow I confused the decoupler that connected the capsule to the lander and the decoupler that connected the CubeSat to the lander.

So this happened.

Jeb was rather stuck, to say the least. Naturally, I mounted an unmanned rescue mission. After some minor problems (namely accidentally ending the flight), I succeeded in landing close to Jeb and his decidedly broken spacecraft. This marked the first and only time I've landed at night.

Close, however, is a relative term. As I didn't want to risk wasting propellant or the rescue craft, I made Jeb walk the whole eight kilometers.

Almost there...

And then it vanished. Switching to orbital view, I noticed that the Kraken had hurled Jeb's ticket home through the Mun at a good clip. So ended rescue mission #1.

With Jeb out of fuel and my lack of time to just sit at my computer holding down "W" for a few hours, I decided that the next vehicle would have wheels. I don't have any good pictures of it save for this one, but note how low the wheels were. This became a problem.

Barely five minutes after landing, the thing rolled over and exploded. This ended rescue mission #2.

I went for a re-design, naturally, and came up with an eight wheeled mess of girders, beams, and struts that turned out to be remarkably stable. This, finally, reached Jeb.

After a total of four days in space, most of that time spent on the surface of the Mun, Jebediah Kerman splashed down about half a world away from KSC.

I leave no Kerbal behind.

As a bonus, I got to see this rather pretty alignment of the Mun, Kerbin, and Kerbol.

Edited June 30, 2013 by MattJL
I still can't figure out pictures.

[Sick]

Docking refuelling pod to my high Kerbin orbit station. Ran out of RCS about 20m away from it still rotating a bit, drifted towards it and slapped docking ports exactly in place kicking station 36km out of its orbit.

[Gargamel]

Trying to dock a lander to my space station, I had plenty of RCS to land, but I didnt realize how much was used in the initial launch and docking phases. Was able to dock with under 3 units (.5 in each tank) of RCS left.

[0x7be]

Have just landed fuel shuttle in Minimus.

As it should be filled on surface and ferry fuel to my Minimus orbital refuelling outpost I always try to land with almost zero fuel left.

This time MechJeb reported that I had only fuel for 28 m/s of delta-v left

[RocketPilot573]

I was landing a Refueling Tanker on Minmus and it only had like 10 liquid fuel left. That pretty amazing due to the size of the vessel.

Even with Atomic Engines it could burn the remaining fuel in like two seconds.

[0x7be]

I was landing a Refueling Tanker on Minmus and it only had like 10 liquid fuel left. That pretty amazing due to the size of the vessel.

Even with Atomic Engines it could burn the remaining fuel in like two seconds.

Everything is relative I had more fuel in terms of absolute quantity (liters), but I do not use atomic engines, so my Shuttle had less than 1 second of burn time for it's engine.

[Legendary Emu]

During my first Mun landing after I bought the game, I realized I may not have enough fuel to get my precious Kerbals safely back to Kerbin. For some reason, I stored 8 Oscar B's and Toroidal tanks onto the side of the lander. Once I landed on the ground, I had quite a bit less then half fuel left in my main tanks and I kind of panicked. I turned off some backup mini radial engines because they used too much fuel (I also hate their sound) and lifted off, transferring fuel to the main tanks on the way. Miraculously, I had enough fuel to not only get into orbit, but also do the transfer. By the end of the whole ordeal I had little more than 1 unit of fuel and I was safely on Kerbin.