My very first flight to the Mun

[How2FoldSoup]

and boy is it exciting.

I will start this out by saying this is my first post on the forums and I only (finally) bought ksp last week and I am LOVING it. I felt I had to share my current mission to the mun because I hope that others will find it as hilarious as I do. Now I've read a fair bit about KSP and previously have experience with orbital mechanics due to simulators(Orbiter) and being a physics major helps some too. However when it comes to the Delta V I've heard so much about I have not yet payed too much attention to it.

Now off from my slight background on to the mission. I had been testing my new asparagus lifter earlier this weekend and after easily reaching orbit with all payloads I decided it was time for a shot at the moon. So I sped off to the VAB to create an Apollo style orbiter and lander. If I figure out how to post pictures(or one of you kind souls informs me) I will post pictures of my lifter and my orbiter/lander if requested for it's a funny tale.

T-minus 3, 2 ,1 Liftoff.

The launch goes as planned and at 10,000m I begin my gravity turn west. I am under the impression that East could be better but I wanted to slingshot myself to come up behind the muns orbit because I would not be fighting it's gravity but just slowing it down. I may be wrong but that was my thought process. I got lucky that the mun was in perfect position and instead of positioning myself into orbit as soon as I hit my Aps I burned straight to the mun.

Now for an interjection - My lifter has 6 asparagus style boosters attached to the main rocket. As soon as I had an Aps of about ~100k I cut the engines was conveniently only 5% into my main rocket's fuel after the boosters had been discarded. With the mun insertion burn I had burned as long as I possibly could. Incidentally within 10m/s of the burn time I had run out of fuel. "Good enough", said our brave co-pilot Jeb. During the flight I repositioned my lander to the docking point on top of our capsule.

Now for the mun burn to stabilize an orbit. I created the maneuver and time came and went. Low and behold I for the first time was in mun orbit..and mashed F5. At this point I noticed that I had about 1/4 of my total fuel left which I wonder if it will be enough to get back without the lander. However I'm not to this point yet...I've got to land on the mun first! Jeb and Bill were selected to be the lucky kerbins to land on the moon. So I get in a generous orbit of 15km above the mun and begin my ascent down to the mun. unfortunately I was only able to slow down to about 250 m/s before I ran out of fuel on my first descent....smash and explode. Lucky for Jeb I knew to quicksave beforehand because I don't trust myself.

Multiple attempts(and failures) later I have come to a conclusion. That tiny fuel tank for one of those small engines is not enough to deorbit and land a lander. Woops. Being as stubborn as I am I opt for a new tactic. I transfered all extra RCS fuel into the lander(It had one of those mini 100 fuel tanks) for RCS and one of those 50 fuel for liquid fuel tanks.

So with the new tactic in hand I went to try it out for real. With the combined force of my main thruster at 10% thrust and my RCS thruster I was able to start slowing down just barely enough. As I began to slow down I saw that I was coming to an edge of a crater that I had no choice to try to land in. I slowed down to about 15 m/s and 15m above the surface and at that moment the unthinkable(I actually should have expected it) happened. I ran out of fuel. So for that last split second I watched as my lander crashed into the mun's surface. I actually cried out in dismay...but when the smoke cleared something miraculous had happened...there was my lander can sliding down the slope of the crater. The landing gear, engine, and fuel tank I had below the can was destroyed but the can survived. So I had done it. I have landed on the Mun.

As it is now I'm trying to decide whether to attempt to orbit Jeb and Bill with their jetpacks and get back into the orbiter and try for a last ditch apollo 13 style mission home...or just send a revised rescue craft with more fuel.

Thank you for reading!

[DuarteRios]

Try sending another craft ,Kerbals can't reach orbit with the jetpacks. Oh and one thing: when you return to Kerbin lower the periapsis to 20-30 km so that the G-force won't go higher than 6.

[How2FoldSoup]

Right-on. Alright it looks like I'll be sending a rescue orbiter. I've been thinking about the design of it in class today and I can't decide on a particular one. I was thinking of sending a capsule + 2man lander can and launch with 2 kerbins so there is space to bring back jeb bill and bob. The only problem that remains is I can't deorbit with that landing can because those poor souls will burn up. So my (current) plan is to make a 5man orbiter and put them in orbit around kerbin(after the mun rescue). I'll deorbit the pod and get 3 of them home and then launch another capsule with only 1 kerbin in it. It will rendezvous with the can and the remaining 2 will enter the capsule and return to kerbin. Is there any more efficient way to do this sort of rescue mission or is this the best case scenario?

Also I need to redesign a lander to pick up jeb and bill as well....Any tips for designing one? Obviously I will add more fuel but should I use one of those larger main engines or go for multiple smaller side engines...or some combination.

Thanks for your help!

[Galane]

The way KSP is currently, you can do a reentry with pretty much anything and the only bit that'll burn are solar panels you've left extended.

Try this for a lander. Stack as you see fit.

Clampotron

Rockomax Brand Adapter

Mk2 Lander Can

RC-L01 Remote Guidance Unit

Advanced S.A.S. Module, Large (you want this near the center of mass for best use of the reaction wheels)

FL-R1 RCS Fuel Tank (or some of the radial mount tanks if you figure you can get by with less fuel)

Rockomax X200-16 Fuel Tank

Rockomax "Poodle" Liquid Engine

You'll also need RCS thrusters, landing legs, batteries, two or three OX STAT solar panels (they survive atmospheric entry due to being surface mounted) and ladders to be able to climb up to the lander can.

Parachutes? Optional! Such a lander is capable of landing on Kerbin. Some people have flown the like from the Mun to Kerbin, starting with a full tank. Make sure you have something in Mun orbit with extra fuel to dock with and move fuel from.

With such a lander you can push it out to the Mun, land and recover your stranded Kerbals without risking more Kerbals going to get them.

Here's my manned version in my first (and so far only) successful Mun landing. Third try after one complete miss and one high speed hit. It very co-incidentally looks a lot like the lander in the Mun Orbit tutorial, which I've never played. The parts selection is just what I came up with over many test flights, starting with an unmanned design with no crew space.

Of course there are many ways to build landers with various numbers of stages, and parachutes if you insist on trusting the lives of your crews to some flimsy fabric instead of the solid thrust of hot rocket exhaust.

Some more of my KSP stuff, but not the failures, oh the many, many failures... http://www.flickr.com/photos/27748767@N08/sets/72157635319720861/

[How2FoldSoup]

I took your advice and modeled a lander after yours. I brought back the three earlier today Thank you very much for your help! It seems I've run into another problem. I decided I wanted to set up a space station for refueling purposes but I'm having trouble designing a lifter. I have one that should do the job but currently the base stage isn't firing it's rockets. I can't figure out what the problem is. The upper stages will fire and shoots me about 2500m high but the entire base of my lifter is useless. Any ideas? Thanks!

Edit: It seems as though I can active engines manually but not with the spacebar. I'm positive the bottom stage is setup correctly and I cannot for the life of me figure out the problem.

Edit2: Okay I fixed it somehow but now it seems fuel is draining from my asparagus unevenly. I triple checked the fuel lines and that doesn't seem to be the problem so I have no idea.

Edited September 13, 2013 by How2FoldSoup