The down side to all-up tests

[UH60guy]

Hey there, I'm new to both KSP (3 days) and the forum, but I thought I'd jump in and share my bonehead mistakes with someone! In the finest tradition of Kerbish rocket science, everything has been an "all up test" along the way. Amazingly, no one has been killed yet. Not wanting to revert or save/load, I wanted to try to save some of my creations from my own mistakes.

The Kerbal engineers quickly mastered getting objects into space and have probes circling both Mun and Minmus. They figured the next logical step was a multi-part space station around Kerbin, to practice both heavy lifting and docking before moving on to interplanetary landings.

I got the first part of the space station with a single pilot on orbit with just a cupola and habitat module. Once reaching orbit, poor Jeb realized that the so-called rocket scientists forgot to install RCS thrusters or an emergency return spacecraft, so he was there for the long haul. He oriented the station to a compass heading for future docking, and with his job now done, moved from the cupola into the habitat to wait for his buddies in solitude.

Wanting to help him out, I modified the design of the station for module 2, now with RCS included. This time, it launched with four intrepid Kerbonauts ready to dock and rescue their buddy- blissfully unaware that they still had no way to get home. On top of that, they only had one docking port so once attached to the first module, there would be no other way to expand the station or dock a supply ship short of abandoning half of the structure.

Once reaching orbit and achieving a clean rendezvous, the Kerbonauts transmitted a string of curses to mission control that I will not repeat here- at what would have been a perfect docking, nothing would clamp. One Kerbonaut went EVA to shine lights on and inspect both spacecraft, and quickly realized the engineers installed both docking ports backwards. Not only was there no way to make the station larger, there was no way for a rescue ship to dock and bring them home. Jeb went EVA from SpaceHab 1 to SpaceHab 2 to join his alleged “rescuers,†both filling the second station to capacity and putting all their eggs into one basket.

Now I have to build a rescue ship for 5 Kerbonauts, and plan for 5 EVAs to transfer crew, but at least I know I don’t need to include any docking ports...

[Landge]

lol! I did the same thing with the Clamp-O-tron Sr. Placed it on my spacestation backwards and couldn't figure out why the magnets wouldn't engage. DOH! As far as your other problem of rescuing your kerbalnauts. Just park your rescue ship close to the space station with it's relative velocity as close to 0 as possible. Then you can EVA each kerbalnaut over to the other ship and bring them home. Hopefully you have a probe body mounted on your spacestation so you can control it without having a pilot onboard. Then you can deorbit and launch another station. If you don't have a probe body you can just abort mission.

Build your rescue ship with a 2 or 3 man capsule and 1 hitchhiker module. Before launch remove one crew member so you can put 1 rescued kerbal in the capsule and the other 4 in the hitchhiker module.

Edited August 7, 2013 by Landge

[UH60guy]

Nope, no probe body! Flew it up there with the Cupola module as the command center. Looks like I'll have two ghost ships right near each other.

I wonder if after the rescue operation I should go the Chinese space program route and send up a kinetic impactor kill vehicle to hide my mistakes from future generations with telescopes? Or maybe something with an engine and a big claw framework on the front to capture (without docking to) the habitats and fire a deorbit burn.

[Landge]

Big claw! I like that idea! Impactor would be cool too but then you have all that debris to deal with. I wouldn't want LKO to become as littered as the area around my base

I started adding probe bodies to most all my manned vehicles a while back so they could be flown unmanned. Just don't forget to add batteries and solar panels or you're back with the same problem as before.