Kerbin's Gone Kablooey! What about the astronauts?

[Borkless]

Just what it sounds like. If kerbin were to be rendered inhabitable, how would your kerbals survive using just hardware already off-planet?

Me? Mine would die. After .21 dropped, I spent all my time prepping for sturmtiger's Duna Permanent Outpost Mission Architecture challange and haven't got a single bird in the air in my main save.

[FlamedSteak]

Pre-.21 I had a small mun base of 4 habitation pods and 6 Kerbals.

Post .21 the only thing I have in space is garbage. So everyone is dead.

[Jacob01]

I guess one could go to the Mun and sit in a left over buggy.

[Hikaru]

Hmm. Depends greatly on wether or not stuff orbiting kerbin is destroyed too. I've got a space station with fuel and various supplies in orbit, as well as multiple unmanned tugs. Around gilly (moon of eve) right now I've got a kethane miner I've been doing experiments with. So, all together that's about five different spacecraft, which combined results in ... five kerbals. At least if the ones in orbit of kerbin were still alive, the ones around eve would have somebody to talk to; there's just enough room for everyone to fit in the station if they disembark. And with the kethane mining if they're careful they've got infinite supplies.

[dharak1]

MY Minmus colony has around 16 people and my Mun one has around 7 that's 23 in the Kerbin system. I made sure to leave plenty of repurposeable debris around meaning that on the ground i have 23 kerbals ready to meet up around the Mun on station alpha and regroup to send missions to gather debris and reuse them. 30 kerbals alive altogether.

[damny]

Do you mean uninhabitable like the moon? I guess they'd just stay, then. The pilots wear space suits anyway and the engineers seem to have a neverending supply of capsules they can live in.

If it's any worse than the moon I guess they'd go to the moon, since that's something most of my vehicles (mostly spaceplanes) can reach. There's an existing base there, and if there is advance warning they could send up some more base modules too.

The biggest problem would be the downfall of their space based culture, since I don't use mods. They'll run out of fuel and they won't have launchpads. Maybe they can shift to an electric rover racing based culture.

[XenonSpark]

I have a decent-sized station in LKO, with a capacity for 10 kerbals (it only has 3 on-board currently though). Other than that, the only thing I have in space since the last update is a bunch of satellites and probes.

[SpaceSphereOfDeath]

I have 2 stations in LKO, combined they can hold 21 kerbals, plus my mun base brings that up to 33. Then I've got a few interplanetary missions that can easily be converted into stations, thus my total number is about 45 kerbals. And since I've got an unmanned kethane base, they won't run out of supply's.

[Whatshtisthis]

Haven't been going to orbit since 0.19...

The only thing I have in orbit now is an O'Neill Cylinder, has about 10 hitchhiker modules, so I guess, at least 40 kerbals will be saved.

[Tw1]

That would be a problem. I currently only have two kerbals off kerbin, in a lander on the far side of the Mun.

Perhaps if some others are lucky, they can leave the planet quickly, and go sit around the flags that mark the sites for components of my planned base...

[Scarecrow88]

Pre 0.21 I had stations around Duna, Mun, Minmus and two around Kerbin, with bases on Mun and Minmus. Not sure what the total crew capacity was, but it was quite a few. Post 0.21 I have nothing,

[aNewHope]

I have a small fuel outpost at Minimus, and a fully equipped Duna Base in LKO. 4 Kerbonauts could go to Duna and be fine, but supplying the Minimus station (Charybdis) with oxygen (I'm using Ioncross - crew support) should be quite a challenge.

[Joe Shmoe]

The only Kerbonauts I currently have away are in a space station in low kerbin orbit (17 to be exact!). I was planning to bring them down to start a new station tomorrow. So, had Kerbin exploded tomorrow... they'd all be dead! o_0

[A Fat Pokemon]

In my normal 0.21 save, I landed 48 kerbals in one craft on the Mun, then switched to a 'hardcore' save.. I have a single kerbal in orbit around the Mun in an EVA seat on a tower.

[alacrity]

My inventory of off world kit before 21.1 was extensive as I was practicing for the Perm Duna challenge.

2 stations around Kerbal (spindle and halo), the Overlord station around Tycho, Argo in orbit around Duna, Olympus Muns station landed on Mun with 3 rovers and a kethane lab, and a a relaunch vehikle. I had comm probes around all the Jool moons, Minus and Mun, Ike and along with Kerbal, Duna and Jool.

total kerbals in space was 14, not exactly a huge number, but with enough time for launches before the apocalypse I could house around 28 on all the platforms. not exactly a genetic pool you could swim in but survivable I think.

Alacrity

[katateochi]

Since 0.21 I started using the Ioncross life support mod, so survival in space is limited to oxygen supplies. Got a 20 man station but the crew and life support module (CO2 recycler) are not up there yet, just Jeb and Bill who've been constructing it, so they'd have a fair bit of oxygen left in the various crew sections to share.

If there was time to launch before kermageddon, the station at a pinch could hold 32 but a bunch would be living in sections without life support and which are basically connecting trusses, it would be cramped and I think tempers might wear thin.

Also got a small kethane mining outpost on Mun that has two guys (my least courageous and most stupid kerbals!) but again oxygen supplies will eventually run thin.

The rest of the population would be left clinging to comms satellites, so its looking pretty bleak if Kerbin was destroyed. Dependence on the home world is still there, not yet fully sustainable in space, but that is the goal.

[annallia]

Pre 0.21 they could go pretty much wherever they wanted. Stay in Kerbin orbit? No problem, I had 3 space stations up there which could host a total of 34 kerbals between them. Go to Mun? Well not much room but I did have a base there as well, another 5 kerbals I think (cant remember how many were already there, only room for 7) Minmus had a large base on it, could host another 20.

Eve only had small bases on it that could host 8 kerbals (4 each, 200km apart) but it also had a mini station in orbit that could host another 11. Laythe had bases all over the place, some might require a bit of a swim to get to but could host easilly another 100 or so kerbals (I was going for colonization there...). Jool has a station in the process of being built around it, was meant to be a research station but those labs which were made out of converted hitchhiker pods could easily go to living quarters. Duna has a small fuel station in orbit, its a relic but still functional, additionally there is a few small outposts on the surface that have been abandoned.

Everyone else either has a waystation (hitchiker + fuel tank) in orbit or a small lander (hitchhiker only) on the surface so can house some kerbals.

Post 0.21 my kerbals are pretty much screwed One save has a station they can go to and thats about it. The other save (I only use for playing with Kethane till I decide to keep it) has no station yet though if they can manage to get to Duna there is a small kethane refinery in operation on the southern pole, at least that is where it is now the whole thing was large rovers so they can move around.

[T-Pilot395]

Got a station up in LKO with a couple-o-kerbals. Let's see...

3 in the pod, 1 in teh crewtank...

4 Kerbals.

If they had an advance warning they could be shuttled to fill the remaining 3 seats onboard the station and maybe use the abandoned Mini-Lander on the Mun. The Mini-Lander has some fuel in it.

[Bekiekutmoar]

Hmmm, let's see ... I've got a small space-station in LKO currently manned by 2 Kerbals, and furthermore a bunch of unmanned rovers and probes on the Mun and Minmus. Available engines outside Kerbin atmosphere aren't very efficient (Poodle, LV-909) but I've got some partially drained unmanned fuel-tanks in orbit around Kerbin and the Mun. I could potentially reach and perhaps even land on Duna and Eve, but it would most likely a one-way trip.

[1of6Billion]

2 Kerbals, out of fuel, moving at 130.000 m/s *away* from Kerbol.

[CorruptDB]

Well, I have about 10 kerbonauts in orbit right now but if the planet kersploded I think the race is done for because I don't have any kerbettes in orbit.

[Cac121]

If LKO survives I have a station (5 capacity, 1 there now) with a one man SSTO (~1000 m/s DV), 7 man rescue craft (10 m/s DV), and the Main Space Tug (5 Crew, ~5000 m/s DV) all ships unmanned. Outside of LKO I have 2 1-kerbal landers (one Duna, one Ike) that are unmanned and docked in low Duna Orbit. So if it happened today that one guy could go anywhere, but he has no bases anywhere. Hmm I guess my next mission needs to be an "emergency colony module" that I can send to Duna or Laythe if something like this were to happen

[Nemesis24]

I've got a station around Minimus with 2 ships docked...around 8 kerbals there. There is a small base on the Mun with 3 Kerbals. Some random solar orbit ships put me around 34. There's a multistage ship in a extremely far orbit around Eeloo, with 15 kerbals there. Then I've got to add in anyone I've forgotten to the coldness of space in ships I never use. I'd say maybe 55 Kerbals in all would survive. And the hundred something ships that I've staged in Kerbin orbit but have yet to do anything with would be completely lost and everyone would die a fiery death.

[annallia]

In my current career they would all be dead. No off world assets for them to live off of and limited tech to put anything together (assuming they had a little advanced warning.)

Current Sandbox they would fair slightly better. I have a station in 500km (+/- 10ish) orbit capable of holding 40 some odd kerbals + orbital construction. A munar base that can be relocated to almost anywhere (kethane refinery) Laythe might be a stretch in one go but they could planet hop though I think it would be best to continue with its current mission which is feeding the station kethane to convert to rocket parts. I have a small station in orbit of duna with limited orbital construction capabilities, there is however a kethane refinery in orbit as well as a shuttle to bounce between duna and the station carrying kethane, or ike if I tapped duna. Duna station currently holds up to 9 kerbals, plan on expanding it to 21.

Laythe has a station core in orbit but unmanned. It is essentially a floating probe core, girder segments, batteries, and antenna array, its power is most likely out but it has a few docking ports, a ship with solar panels or a generator could power it up.

[Taki117]

I currently have a space station in orbit around Kerbin (sandbox, but I will get it up in Career when I unlock all the parts) that can hold 8 kerbals. 4 male and 4 female. They will be the seed of the next generation. Sadly depending on how long it would take said event to occur, they might not get there. (Thanks to the invention of the probe core the station sits unmanned)