EVA securing the Kerbals

[EndOfTheEarth]

With the advent of Science, EVA reports have become an extremely important way of packing as much science as possible into the capsule for the return flight.

However, 7/8 of the EVAs I've attempted result in the Kerbal falling off the ladder. I only do EVAs with the engines OFF, and while either orbiting or landed, as opposed to in atmosphere. I'm reasonably experienced, so I haven't actually lost any kerbals yet, but I'm overprotective of my crews I don't want to lose any of them off-structure in the near future.

In real life space missions, astronauts wear tethers to prevent this sort of mishap, but since there aren't tethers in KSP, are there any design modifications or ship orientations that decrease the odds of a kerbal falling off the ladder the instant it gets out of the capsule?

[Crush]

It became a habit for me to press F immediately after going onto EVA. Sometimes the Kerbal goes right back into the pod, but most of the time it prevents them from floating away.

What you could do is build some kind of cage out of structural parts around the hatch. Unfortunately the most useful parts for this are quite late on the tech tree.

Or place a Kerbal in an external seat during the whole mission. When in a seat, Kerbals can take EVA reports and even transmit them without having to leave it (and even surface samples while driving on a rover, by the way).

Edited October 20, 2013 by Crush