Horrible flight missions

[Vat]

After some experimentation with heavy launchers I got enough courage up to attempt my first manned Mun landing. That went well, three Kerbals safely landed with plenty of fuel to get home. I was confident enough in the space station launcher I'd developed that I bolted together a small tower of hitch-hiker cans, and another crew of 3 went up in what successfully became a small base with accommodation for 11 Kerbals, around 100 metres from Kerbollo 1's landing site. I forgot to put ladders on, but it's easy enough to jetpack up...

Anyway, with six Kerbals on the Mun, I decide to send one guy home to make sure the Kerbollo package can safely return to Kerbin. It launches easily, and we're on way. Quick game speed acceleration, and....oops, too far - Kerbollo 1 smacks into Kerbin at high speed.

[Hav0c13]

No matter, the ship still has emergency parachutes and in a couple of orbits it should be able to make a landing!

No. The Mun, being the vindictive satellite it is, decides to play chicken with Bill and his fuel deprived vessel. Lacking any method of making a course change, Bill abandons ship and attempts to get into a Mun orbit using his own EVA supplies, despite the memory of Jeb's fate being fresh in his mind. He is utterly unsuccessful in this attempt, and despite frantic flailing impacts the Munar surface at velocities far exceeding the impact tolerance of even a Kerbal.

Murphy's law is such a jerk. That has to be the most hilarious story I've ever read.

[Richter]

I somehow managed to blowup a refueling station I had placed into orbit. Spent a week getting it up and docking it together, took me less than 10min to blow it up

[spacetortoise1]

Back in 0.16 when I was a n00b, I built a GIGANTIC rocket barely using struts or anything, and I kept trying to get it to work. Now it's the laughing stock of any time I launch a huge rocket.

[WillHop]

On one of my many failed Mun missions, I had gotten as far as undocking the lander from the transfer vessel. Due to a staging error (I blame Jeb, personally) I jettisoned most of my fuel and my landing legs about 5km off the surface of the Mun, coming in for a landing.. Lucky for me, the heroic Kerbal somehow managed to land upright on its engine. In an overflow of excitement, he got out of his lander a little too quickly and tipped the whole thing over. The two Kerbals in the transfer vessel laughed at their stricken companion, only to realise they would be conducting the rescue mission. The rest of the mission file is missing, and nobody has seen the three Kerbonauts since they left Kerbin...

I also managed to destroy my space station trying to slow down for a docking. I time warped until I was a little to close i.e clipping through the station, then I un-time warped and everything exploded everywhere. I must have about 200 pieces of debris just from that one station orbiting Kerbin

Edited August 31, 2013 by WillHop

[Deadpangod3]

The kraken returned from the dead in my Kethane space program to destroy my Kethane space station orbiting Minmus, I switch to it to get it ready for my miner to dock with it (I think the station was 134 parts and the miner was more then that, I overdo things a lot ) through tons of lag the miner appeared and came in close, when the station starts wobbling, naturaly I'm not concerned cause it doesn't have much for struts and is almost a km long, then the wobble turns into spinning, faster, faster, and faster, naturaly I'm freaking out now at this point when BOOOM!!! The station explodes into pieces, surprisingly not damaging the miner, afterwards there was a massive debris cloud orbiting minmus! When I hyperedited a new one into orbit (I wasn't in the mood by then to go through launching it again) it was fine, then, IT HAPPENS AGAIN!!!!!!! > then I hyperedited a replica of Danny's planet buster to bop and crashed into the ground as fast as possible, AND IT DOESN'T WORK!!!! I ragequited for a few days after that.

[SkyRender]

got a new horrid mission.

Okay, I do not understand this one. Until today I have had no real issue with docking anything with the help of MechJeb. Today, I launch an interplanetary ship core with no real issues. I get it into a 100 by 100km orbit no sweat. I go to launch the first of 4 cruise stage fuel/nuclear engine components and all hell breaks loose. The thing gets into orbit just fine, I get it into the same 100 by 100 km orbit just fine. As soon as it finishes its final burn to circularize I engage the rendezvous planner and autopilot, it goes to work, matches the inclinations just fine, sets up a Hohmann Transfer just fine, and starts to close for an intercept. The odd and hateful hell is when I get to about 20km out, the targeting sensors come on and show my range and even turn on the target relative velocity indicators like normal. The thing starts to do its burns and what not, and then I see it, my relative speed is not decreasing even with my rockets exhaust pointed right AT my target, its increasing, but, my distance is closing, so I figure, its just a glitch in the display. I get to 500m then 450, then 400 and so on, then it happens. The target suddenly is increasing in distance from me, 450, 500, 1km and so on, then at 5km from me, it suddenly warps to a million or MORE KM ahead of me. I hit the button to get closer and this idiotic dance repeats, this time, I get to about 200m distance then the target whizzes away and I am left with no fuel and a strong desire to cry, because at this point I have spent 2 HOURS trying to dock 1 of 4 modules to a ship.

And this is why, even when they use autopilot for everything, NASA still trains their personnel to be able to perform operations manually. Never let a machine replace your own skills, and never let it give you an excuse to not develop them either. Because as you've discovered, there's always the potential for the machine to mess up in a way that will require a human being to step in and perform in its place.