Oh my god, we made it to Laythe!

[mellojoe]

I currently have a 3-man crew in a small orbital station around Jool. [related post: HERE] It was a huge milestone for me. The first Kerbals in a successful mission (the first time successful, no rescue missions needed) outside of the Kerbin system. Secondly, I made a 3-man SSTO plane, which is also a milestone. The first time I've made a successful plane with more than one Kerbal.

One plus One = LAYTHE!

Can we build it? Yes we can!

This was going to be my most ambitius project ever. Three simultaneous launches into the same Jool transfer window.

I hooked my SSTO to the same transfer stage I used for my Jool station. I figured the lighter plane would increase the delta-V of the transfer stage enough to allow me to get to Laythe. I was correct.

The plane goes first, carrying the 3 krewman, in order to scout out potential landing sites. We are bringing two hatibat landers and a rover, in order to make comfortable living zones as well as to do real science. We wanted interesting topography as well as enough resources around to be habitible.

I didn't realize how much water was on Laythe and how few landing sites we'd have to choose from. We picked one with enough land mass to be an easy target to coast down with our lander cans as well as a long enough flat zone for the plane to take off and land.

This is actually the 2nd of the two habitat landers approaching Laythe. These two were only seperated by a matter of 4 days. Which, when you are new to juggling crafts, 4 days seems mighty short.

I put the two nearly identical lander cans in nearly identical oribts. To land them, I guestimated the first one. Then the second I just tried to repeat the exact same maneuver. I got them to within 500 meters; final landing on just parachutes.

One of our lander cans has a rover attached. It was extremely top heavy, so by turning off the rear wheels and leaving it in front-whee-drive only, we were able to crawl our way over to the first lander. This was a slow process, topping out at 4m/s for safety.

But we made it. This next image shows the two lander cans in the south and how close we were able to get to the plane's scouted site. Not perfect, but damn close for just eyeballing it. [*note* I have MechJeb installed, but I only use it to manage air intakes on the plane. I do not use it for maneuvers or landing, as I find these to be too fun to miss out on. Plus MechJeb loses some of the organic mistakes that make missions fun.] Ideally, we would have ended up closer to the plane, but this will work just fine.

It was simply a matter of flying our plane and our kerbals over to their new home-away-from-home.

Here you can clearly see the plane, and the two lander habitats. Each pod has room for 7, which keeps plenty of space for our Kerbals to be comfy. The team has agreed to a monthly rotation: one sleeps in one, while the other two share the 2nd. Rotating sleeping quarters as well as trash and cleanup duty.

The middle lander pod actually comes equipped with a rover. This is how we were able to move the two bases close to each other. This rover is fully detachable. We simply undock, drop to our wheels, and drive away.

After driving, we park it underneath, raise the landing gear from the pod, dropping the whole unit right back onto the rover. A little wiggling and they re-dock. Lowering the gear again lifts the rover wheels off the ground and puts the pod back on stable footing.

And, of course, our plane is ever capable to lift-off, orbit, and reach our orbiting Jool base. We had enough fuel in the transfer stage that we've simply left it in orbit around Laythe in order to remain self-sufficient for a long time. Eventually, we'll need to send up a refuelling / resupply vessel. But we already have those from our orbital supply trip.

We are a fully functioning, fully capable, Jool system.

Edited September 24, 2013 by mellojoe

[Monkeh]

Congratz man, you did some good work right there!

[Specialist290]

I'm going to have to steal that "detachable manned rover" idea from you for my own bases.

[The14th]

Congratulations on a successful mission!

I'm still new to the game, and no where near ready for manned missions to Laythe yet.

[mellojoe]

There is a really fun learning curve with the game. You'll go from "oh man, another explosion" to "where ELSE can I fly this ship?" in no time flat. You'll hit a wall where you think the game is over your head, then the next thing you know, you'll have a multi-ship mission to land Kerbals on Laythe.

Thats exactly how it happened for me. I was getting things into orbit, but just barely. And all of a sudden, things clicked. Now, I feel like the only thing holding me back is time. I want to go evrywhere, do everything. But that pesky "real life" thing kicks in.

Keep flying, and keep trying out new things. Baby steps. Get to the Mun. Get to Minmus. Learn to dock in orbit. “Reach low orbit and you’re halfway to anywhere in the Solar System.†~ Robert A Heinlein.