I remember, Jeb.

[accrsd]

This thread is for your "true to life" and "campfire" stories about everyone's favorite kerbonaut Jebediah Kerman. A chronicle if you will of his brave exploits that have brought many a space program back from the brink of disasters. Feel free to share tales of when no other pilot would do. When disasters struck dooming the mission and only one kerbal could get the crew back alive! Or tales of when our humble hero took it upon himself to go where no other kerbal was able and made it home.

the only rule with this is to have fun but only include missions where Jebediah was directly involved and came back alive.

My personal Jeb story comes from my first mission in KSP. I haven't been a player of KSP for as long as some of the old hats who remember flying without asas, or even a docking port.. but that didn't stop me from designing the perfect station core. It had everything a kerbal could ask for crew storage, command pod, RCS, you know the likes but there was indeed one problem that was not foreseen at the drawing board, the utter lack of docking ports on the six way adapter. It was quite the embarrassment and some time was taken to debate if the mission should be scrapped or not. Fortunately someone noticed that on the opposite side of the craft was a small clampotron Jr. docking port that had been left on in a previous design phase. A plan was quickly hatched to approach the station with a new six way adapter that had fully useable docking ports. Upon Rendezvous to the station with the new replacement node another dire mistake was noticed, the ship carrying the replacement part had previously jettisoned it's ASAS unit which was in a previous stage. At this time no one in mission control thought it would be possible for a single kerbal to take a severely unbalanced craft and maneuver it in for a docking without any computer automation. That was until Jebediah took the middle seat, He had just returned in the capsule after having gone out to see if there was any way to rejoin the defunct asas unit to the courier ship and had a plan. Since repairs would be impossible because of the bad planning he knew that only he'd only get one shot to achieve docking in a tumbling ship. With only a shimmer of hope that this mission would be successful he carefully edged in, at first trying to use RCS to keep the port in line with it's tiny counter part. Bob meanwhile gave a live readout of monopropellant levels, and as he frantically reminded jeb that they where down to their last few liters the idea hit him. He'd only fire short bursts for translation, disable RCS and rotate with the internal gyros of his three man pod. The bold ploy worked leaving mission control cheering and enough propellant to safely depart the station and bring home Bill Bob and the hero Jeb.

(ps. sorry for any grammatical mistakes i left. Came up with the idea only a few minutes before passing out at my desk. But please do share your own!)

[bogpad]

wouldn't this be better placed somewhere around here?

[Aphox]

wouldn't this be better placed somewhere around here?

Ask and you shall receive.

Welcome to the forums, accrsd, and nice read.

Feels like a fanwork to me. If you have any hard objections to me moving it here, please let me know.

[Tw1]

I think it's better here.

My Jeb's first visit to the Mun.

Jeb didn't make it to the Mun in my first attempts. He then didn't turn up for ages, must have had work to do at his junkyard.

Then, one day, I was testing a plane, and there he was! The test flight went well, then Jeb decided to go for a walk. In flight. The results of this activity taught my space centre that aeroplane EVAs were a bad idea.

Yet he survived the landing somehow, clinging on to the control surfaces. Then, I gave him a job. I had two kerbalnaughts stuck on the moon, so Jeb was given a Z-4 Munar Rescue rocket, that was very much the workhorse of my program back then.

The trip to orbit went pretty normally, and the transfer burn as well. But somewhere between Kerbin and the Mun, Jeb had a little adventure.

It was standard procedure to extend the ladders mid-flight, and make pilots walk down them, to stretch their legs. Jeb took this to the next level. He went all the way down the ladder, and let go.

He then pioneered Jetpacking in space, something no kerbal had been brave, or dumb enough to try before. But against the odds, he ended up back in the pod before too long.

He set the ship down within 2 kilometers of the stranded kerbals, then flew over and greeted them each personally. They were very excited to meet one of the first kermen to go to space. After about a day on the Mun (first time he actually made it). Jeb and the others moved back to his ship. Jeb remained in his favorite one man pod, but still scared the others with his famously manic grin.

The fight back went perfectly, and featured a few more EVA stunts from Jeb, then they landed safely just a kilometer out of KSC.

That's my contribution. Next!

Edited July 22, 2013 by Tw1