Do you use abort systems to save your Kerbals?

[EiEiO]

I use abort systems to save my Kerbals if a rocket explodes. I've only ever had to actually use an abort system once on an actual mission, and that was an unmanned test. I also have reserve parachutes if the main ones break upon fully opening.

Edit: I just had to abort a few minutes ago when my rocket tipped upside down...

Edited August 20, 2013 by EiEiO

[Aphox]

I usually forget the abort button even exists. I've only used it once to test an escape tower.

Most of the time, if something is going to go wrong, it happens as soon as I press space and there isn't enough time to even think about aborting. Just gotta sit back and watch the fireworks.

[EiEiO]

Yeah. 90 percent of the time I don't have enough time to react and press backspace... LOL

[rryy]

I only really make them to "look cool" or on replica craft. Most of my manned launches don't have it because most of my launch "failures" would be caused by me messing around, not from the rocket breaking. The best thing they are good for is an excuse to blow up your rocket over and over again.

[LameLefty]

Yes. One of the last things I do before a crewed launch is to make sure the Abort action group is setup the way I want: kill all engines in all stages, stage the crew compartment away from the upper stage, activate any landing lights and landing legs, and activate chutes.

[regex]

I usually don't bother, especially now that we have a "revert" function. I can just fix any issues and relaunch.

[leax256]

no, the way i design my craft doesn't allow for abort features

[NASI Director]

This reminded me of how the community has been treating the Kerbals since .21.

"No Jeb, you're going in that safe rocket because now we actually have proper record keeping."

[RoboRay]

My manned vehicles almost always have abort options.

[Skorpychan]

I try to. I forget to, though, and often just 'abort to VAB'.

If I do abort things properly, will I eventually end up with piles of debris downrange from KSC?

[Immortalis Vexx]

I have a failproof abort system that is used for every craft. I call it, "The Impact Crater." Sadly the few manned missions that make use of the abort system rarely survive but my crack team of engineers present this data to the public saying, "The abort system is over 98% effective!"

Seriously though.. Every manned mission has a parachute and docking port. If something during launch renders this inoperable, see note above on abort system

[bigdad84]

Yes! Anything manned that goes up, has an escape tower. Have yet to lose a Kerbal during a launch.

[nettcod]

I always add an abort system. Except when I don't.

[Tiron]

Mostly on untested designs. Much like on the Apollo missions, you really only need a dedicated escape system for a relatively short period near launch. And in my experience, even then mostly only on relatively untried designs.

Apollo had five main abort modes:

Mode 1: Launch Escape Tower. Used from the pad until about 30 seconds after second stage ignition (somewhere above 30km), at which point the LET is jettisoned. 3 Altitude Variations mostly having to do with getting the CM in the correct attitude.

Mode 2: Service Module Escape. Used from when the LET is jettisoned until they get high enough for Mode 3. Uses the Service Module's engine to clear the rocket, then proceeds to splashdown.

Mode 3: Contingency Orbit Insertion. Once high enough, the S-II is simply jettisoned early, the S-IVB and Service Module are used to place the Command Module in orbit, with no possibility of a Lunar Mission.

S-IVB to Orbit: Mode 3 variation where only the S-IVB is needed to get the CSM to Orbit. Still no possibility of going to the Moon.

Mode 4: CSM To Orbit: If the S-IVB fails, the CSM is used to place the Command Module in orbit, again with no possibility of going to the Moon.

I've used variations on all of them at some point or another, although I consider Mode 3 and Mode 4 to be basically the same thing: Drop the damaged/malfunctioning stages and keep going.

I generally find that an actual LET is only really neccessary during the relatively early phases of the launch, but even then mostly only if you have SRBs. A failure with the SRBs still firing is much more dangerous than any other type, because they have a disturbing habit of surviving the stack breakup and going flying all over the place (many of them into the stack, there's a marked tendency for them to curve inwards if they get loose.) They're REALLY fast when separated from the stack, so an EXTREMELY powerful LET is needed to have any chance of outrunning them (and even then it may not quite, but it still helps avoid them.) I made one design that used 16 sepatrons for a three man pod, and it STILL couldn't quite outrun the large SRBs (the small ones have a MUCH higher TWR and are EVEN FASTER!) Just make sure to set up a jettison action group for it. Helpful tip: Jettison the LET only after starting your gravity turn. I've yet to have one fired straight up come down on a rocket, but it's ALWAYS close, so it's just a matter of time.

In the absence of SRBs, a failure is likely to only result in damage to part of the rocket, which makes simply jettisoning the damaged bits and using whatever's left to get to safety quite viable. The main thing you have to watch here is TWR: If the lower stages are still firing, and your upper stage's TWR is less than the lower stage is providing, the upper stage will be held in place by the greater acceleration from the lower stage. This means you need to cut throttle before jettisoning it, or if that's not possible...well, you're stuck for a bit, so watch that.

Mechjeb's 'PANIC!' button on the translatron module (which I've yet to find another use for) is exceedingly excellent for pulling a Mode 2 style abort. When you hit it, it cuts throttle and nigh instantaneously stages to the last stage with an engine. FAR faster than it can be done by hand. (It somehow sequentially fires them all in a fraction of a second, without the normal wait time between stagings.) It then activates an Autopilot which aims straight upward at full throttle for some seconds, and then activates the landing autopilot in 'Land Wherever' mode. This entire sequence takes only a few seconds, and I cannot recall an instance where it failed to save the pod when it was actually able to function. Loose SRBs taking out the upper stage are pretty much the only reason it's ever failed, in my experience.

Edited August 20, 2013 by Tiron

[Felsmak]

I built one for my crew taxi and it's actually my first ship to have one.

Like most people I don't usually bother and just hit revert flight whenever something goes wrong, but this one is meant to be showcased in mission reports that involve crew trasfers, so I wanted it to look somewhat realistic.

[Beeman]

I kind of hope that career mode limits the revert flight option in some way so that abort procedures would actually become a necessity or...at least, something you'll want to be thinking about when designing your rockets.

As of yet, however, I've never even tried to build an abort system. I don't even know how it works or what happens when you hit the abort button. I should probably experiment with that some >_>

[roosterr]

I had to, it was a KOSHA mandate, and now its costing our program a fortune. The money we put into safety systems, we get from other areas, like fuel refinement and material downgrades.

Kerbals used to be a dime a dozen; replaceable. Now that these little dudes are preparing for "Career's" at our complex, we have to make it appear as if we care. The Kerbin population at large is now starting to take notice of these "hero's", and this is what drives interest and investment capital. So now we have to protect Hero's for the good of the population or else the funding is at risk.

As one of our first selected Kerbalnauts put it: "No Buck Kerman = no bucks"

[katateochi]

In principle yes, but other more important things come first!! I don't know about you guys, but I'm always about 5 actions groups (or more) short of having enough, so sometimes (quite often actually) abort will get re-purposed for some other action. For example in my current craft which is a heavy cargo lander, half the action groups are taken up with controls for B9 VTOL engines as the front and rear engines can be adjusted to account for differently balanced loads/fuel levels during landing. The few remaining groups are also taken up with other functions so the brakes action group toggles the cargo bay doors and abort toggles a bunch of Q-struts which secure the cargo. There was a heated meeting at kerbal HQ about this and in the end it was decided that having a switch to easily toggle all Qstruts rather than manually clicking on each one was more important than crew safety. The same meeting also concluded that parachutes where an unnecessary burden on the part count of this craft so they've also been removed.

[Brapness]

All of my planes and SSTO designs have an abort feature due to the number that crash, unfortunately the design isn't particularly effective on the runway, which is where I crash most often. But to be honest 90% of the planes I put in the air never land (for a huge variety of reasons, but mainly because I'm an awful pilot), those Kerbals only survive because of the abort feature.

My manned rockets always have a parachute and if it's not a dedicated lander, a decoupler for the manned module as well. I don't remember the last time I lost a Kerbal on a rocket launch. As for my unmanned rockets, I just let them explode in a spectacular fashion.

[Anton P. Nym]

SSTOs, I use them all the time. (Even put one series of them up on the Spacecraft Exchange, given how well they worked after far-too-extensive testing...)

On rockets, though, I haven't; I probably should, though.

-- Steve

[Geschosskopf]

I never use an escape tower. If the rocket RUDs anywhere short of orbit, I just hit the spacebar as many times as needed to separate the capsule, then pop the chutes and an appropriate moment, which is usually immediately.

But that was back in the days when I used capsules for short hops to Mun and Minmus. These days, everything's interplanetary with indefinite duration, so the crew goes up in Hitchhikers that are firmly bolted and strutted to other parts of the orbitally assembled ship, so it doesn't wobble. I don't put parachutes on anything unless it's going to land somewhere with an atmosphere, and such landers are usually launched separate from the crew and docked up in orbit, and aren't big enough to hold everybody anyway.

I suppose that in the unlikely event one of my interplanetary missions ever comes back, I'll have to rig up something landable to go up and fetch the crew. But my Kerbals all signed up for a career in space, so that's what I give them . I mean, I only bother with taking Kerbals at all because they have 3 unique abilities. They can fix flat tires, they can repack parachutes, and they can pump gas with KAS. IOW, they're menial laborers earing minimum wage. Everything else, especially all the technical science stuff, is done by robots that I don't have to pay at all.

So, whenever I need more gas station attendants on another world, I round up a few high school drop-outs, make sure they know which direction to turn lug nuts when changing tires, and shoot them off to space. Even if they have to wait years between customers, they at least are holding a steady job, have a permanent address, aren't on the public dole, and are contributing, in a very small way, to the furtherance of Kerbal civilization. That's more than they'd be doing at home, so it's a win-win situation .

So in short, no. I don't use the abort function, and usually make no provision at all for Kerbals to return even to LKO, let alone get back on the ground there .

[magnemoe]

Mostly I use well tested launchers for crew, 1,3 or 7 man ones, they are designed to do powered landings on landing legs, either ssto or two stages, their abort system consist of decople pod and parachutes.

Prefer to launch large one of an kind mothership and station unmanned for safety reasons.

For something like an mun rocket I would use an escape system and did then I did them.

[nerdboy64]

I used it once on an Apollo replica to drop the boosters and fire the escape tower, thinking I would never have to use it. Spoiler alert: I was wrong. The booster was too big and fell apart shortly after launching. I hit the abort button and blasted off to safety. I took a screenshot of the event:

That's about the only time I've use it, but it certainly came in handy.

[Mr_Duke]

If the floor counts as an abort system, then yes...yes indeed

[SargeRho]

All my crewed spacecraft have escape systems, which remain on as long as there's a mainsail on the rocket.