Do you repurpose upper stages (and how)?

[Quantum Jim]

I'm creating a rather large stock space station in KSP. I really love it, I did it in the previous version, but this time I'm focusing on keeping part count down and learning from my previous mistakes. As a consequence, I got pretty good and building boosters and upper stages. After delivering a module, I usually deorbit the upper stage, but I saved a few of them in lower orbits for later. They have enough fuel and RCS to be used for some other mission. What have use used your upper stages for, besides their original purpose? I wonder what some good creative ideas are for using them.

[Motokid600]

I refuel my upper stages and use them for interplanetary ejection burns.

[animalcross]

Right now no. I'm planning on using them for boost's to my Min colony when Kethane Fuel @ LKO takes off.

[Dunbaratu]

Engines are heavy. Even if most of the fuel is spent, leaving the engines in orbit and then docking up with them later means you don't have to carry your interplanetary engine with you when you launch from the surface. You can design a craft who's topmost stage (the one that will leave Kerbin's sphere of influence) is missing its engine entirely (so you don't have to lift that weight up there), and then dock it with the engine debris that's already up there and use that as its engine.

Of course, this requires planning for it in advance such that your top stages are attached with docking rings instead of exploding separators, so they can be re-attached to something else.

[Merinsan]

I always use them as fireworks for the Kerbals on Kerbin!

I've also been building stations, and one trick I use, to keep parts down, is add a docking assistant: an RCS tank, docking port, probe, RTGs and RCS blocks. They are make docking very hard (unbalanced RCS), but these things are useful for helping with docking and rearranging the station, so I often keep them around.

[ThePsuedoMonkey]

I send them back to KSC and pretend they get reused.

[Zeroignite]

Upper stages? I make sure to drop them before raising my periapsis above the surface of Kerbin, or else slap on enough seperatrons to make 'em deorbit. I like my LKO nice and clean.

[BossSquirrelz]

Upper stages make great target practice

[oktupol]

Once I launched a refueler to a station, and I was able to rendezvouz and dock it without dumping the upper stage (orange tank + Mainsail). Although the ship was meant to be deorbited after emtying its tanks, i left it there as an extra fuel tank and engine for the station.

[magnemoe]

One of my tricks in KSP is to add boosters to large transfer stages so they act as upper stages, drop the booster engines before circulating and refuel in orbit.

And yes I usually add an Kas connector to upper stages I suspect will arrive in orbit with usable fuel.

[SargeRho]

I usually have a docking port, remote control thingy and solar pannels on my upper stage, and leave them there, for the off chance I might need them later.

[CaptRobau]

Its called 0 debris mode for me.

[Skorpychan]

Mine get repurposed as debris.

You see, if I drag fuel up there, I am going to bloody well use it. The same with a few tons of engine. They mostly end up suborbital, but lately, I've had them ending up in LKO for my interplanetary missions. I COULD tow them into a solar orbit, but that'd be hauling ten tons of crap I don't need and can't use again.

Once I get the hang of orbital rendezvous, I swear I'm going to clear it all up with an armoured tug.

[MockKnizzle]

I re-purpose them as fireworks over KSC.

[King Arthur]

The only orbits I try to keep debris-free are those orbits used by my space stations, otherwise I just leave all my spent ascent stages in whatever LKO parking orbit I enter into. Currently breaking 100+ flying debris and going up at an astronomical rate.

[SunJumper]

I use them to impact celestial bodies.

[Unistrut]

I found that my big lifter could, depending on it's cargo, make it into orbit with it's two side tanks still attached, so I slapped some probe cores and docking ports on the side and turned the next launch into a fuel depot. Added an RTG and some crew modules later.

Yes, that did mean that one incautious press of the space bar would cause my station to blow itself apart, but hey, welcome to KSP.

[Ralathon]

I found that my big lifter could, depending on it's cargo, make it into orbit with it's two side tanks still attached, so I slapped some probe cores and docking ports on the side and turned the next launch into a fuel depot. Added an RTG and some crew modules later.

~snip~

Yes, that did mean that one incautious press of the space bar would cause my station to blow itself apart, but hey, welcome to KSP.

Alt+L is your friend. Locks staging.

[TMS]

Wet Workshops: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/35611-WIP-v0-1-Wet-Workshops-Live-inside-your-fuel-tanksâ„¢

[Unistrut]

Alt+L is your friend. Locks staging.

Only if you remember to turn it on, and it doesn't always stay turned on between reloads and vessel changes.

[Dunbaratu]

Only if you remember to turn it on, and it doesn't always stay turned on between reloads and vessel changes.

Yeah Alt-L is untrustworthy. I've tested it a few times by hitting Alt-L and then hitting spacebar afterward, and every time I tried it decoupled the next stage anyway, so I just don't use it anymore.

[Dunbaratu]

In principle I like the idea of keeping Kerbin orbit debris free, but I'm annoyed that in practical terms it's impossible unless I never build any rockets that need to strut connections between the upper orbital stages. The problem is that if you have struts connecting two parts of a craft that decouple, although the struts do break so the decoupling works, they don't just break off from one of the two halves, they break off from BOTH, leaving a bit of strut debris. Now, if the only place you strut is on the lower stages that fall back down, then that's not a problem. But if you have to strut together upper stages that don't fall back down, for example you're doing an Apollo style mission and your lander and command module need to be separable, then all those little bits of strut debris stick around. I've got hundreds of bits of debris around and all of them are little nubs of struts. (If you have, say, 6-way symmetrical strutting and break them off, you made six separate bits of debris right there.). I don't want to set debris to zero, because I *LIKE* the idea of having to deal with minimizing debris like stages and tanks, but having to deal with the fact that struts become debris, and struts are impossible to do without because the parts wobble too much without them, feels like that's not my fault.

[Superfluous J]

I toss an OKTO2, and a docking port on every stage that I think might need decoupled in orbit. Assuming I leave them with fuel (which is easier to do when you know you'll collect them some day) I use Kerbal Alarm Clock to set a closest approach with the nearest refueling station, and then when the time comes I can dock and either unload the fuel or keep the stage for use later.

And before you ask, my first presence on ANY world - moon or planet - is a refueling station.

[TMS]

I've got hundreds of bits of debris around and all of them are little nubs of struts. (If you have, say, 6-way symmetrical strutting and break them off, you made six separate bits of debris right there.). I don't want to set debris to zero, because I *LIKE* the idea of having to deal with minimizing debris like stages and tanks, but having to deal with the fact that struts become debris, and struts are impossible to do without because the parts wobble too much without them, feels like that's not my fault.

Broken struts don't become debris.

They leave "scars" (or "nubs" as you call them), which is annoying from a part count point of view, but the actual strut does not become trackable debris.

[Dunbaratu]

Broken struts don't become debris.

They leave "scars" (or "nubs" as you call them), which is annoying from a part count point of view, but the actual strut does not become trackable debris.

I wish that was true but it's not. Observe these screenshots:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=169658752

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=169659567

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=169659615

Here's a relevant example taken from the save file. Note that it's a debris vessel containing ONLY a strut and nothing else. My save has many of these. I can switch to them in the Tracking Station.

		VESSEL
		{
			pid = 2d4130b299c241508b93f4f98d2547ca
			name = Mun Goer 11 Debris
			type = Debris
			sit = ORBITING
			landed = False
			landedAt = 
			splashed = False
			met = 3982.39184041321
			lct = 85786812.3125162
			root = 0
			lat = -0.658813079901887
			lon = 108.747547071118
			alt = 138544.959881233
			hgt = -1
			nrm = 0.9004264,0.4326085,0.04563023
			rot = 0.4730048,-0.5035616,0.5304846,0.491201
			CoM = 0,0,0
			stg = 0
			prst = False
			ref = 0
			cPch = 0
			cHdg = 0
			cMod = -1
			ORBIT
			{
				SMA = 1101729.06506562
				ECC = 0.367577347283327
				INC = 1.0012453474191
				LPE = 183.286812689452
				LAN = 264.181807114909
				MNA = 0.234916951893357
				EPH = 85786890.9299516
				REF = 1
				OBJ = 1
			}
			PART
			{
				name = strutConnector
				uid = 567817880
				mid = 2941269206
				parent = 0
				position = 0,0,0
				rotation = 0,0,0,1
				mirror = 1,1,1
				istg = 0
				dstg = 0
				sqor = -1
				sidx = -1
				attm = 1
				srfN = None, -1
				mass = 0.05
				temp = -40.19031
				expt = 0
				state = 0
				connected = False
				attached = False
				flag = dunbaratu/Flags/kspflag
				rTrf = strutConnector
				EVENTS
				{
				}
				ACTIONS
				{
				}
			}
			ACTIONGROUPS
			{
				Stage = False, 85786794.2325199
				Gear = True, 0
				Light = False, 0
				RCS = False, 0
				SAS = False, 85786782.6525224
				Brakes = False, 0
				Abort = False, 0
				Custom01 = False, 0
				Custom02 = False, 0
				Custom03 = False, 0
				Custom04 = False, 0
				Custom05 = False, 0
				Custom06 = False, 0
				Custom07 = False, 0
				Custom08 = False, 0
				Custom09 = False, 0
				Custom10 = False, 0
			}
		}