Help! Jeb and Bill are stranded!

[llegar]

HELP! Jeb & Bill are stranded! Return them to Kerbin safely!

Bill's Situation

Bill was on a mission to explore Minmus, but he isn't such a great pilot and crash landed his platform on the surface. He has two escape vehicles with plenty of fuel, but in typical Kerbal fashion, the vehicles were tragically launched without landing gear, parachutes or even a command pod. Just a command seat loosely bolted to the side of a fuel tank.

After the crash landing on Minmus, Bill is not courageous enough to attempt landing one of these things on Kerbin without some instruction.

Jeb's Situation

Jeb was on a science mission in low Kerbin orbit when things went wrong with his ship. He managed to save the science in the command pod and dock with a nearby orbiting dive bar (The Space Bar). But he's all out of fuel and can't launch to return the science to the Low-Kerbin-Orbit science ring.

The Mission (Should you choose to accept it):

Design a ship (manned or unmanned) that docks with the command module currently attached to The Space Bar. Retrieve Jeb and the docked command module.

Fly the command module and Jeb to The Science Ring in low-Kerbin-orbit and dock with it to unload the science onboard.

Take Jeb from The Science Ring and land him near Bill's crash site on Minmus.

Board the parachute-less, command pod-less rockets on Minmus and return to Jeb to Kerbin (safely). Then Bill.

Completion criteria:

• Launch vehicle successfully docks with command pod attached to The Space Bar.
  
• Command Pod attached to The Space Bar is docked with (or connected to something docked with) The Science Ring. Jeb may fly to Minmus directly on a separate ship or go to The Science Ring first.
  
• Jeb safely arrives on Minmus
  
• Jeb and Bill each pilot one of the "escape" pods.
  
• Jeb lands on Kerbin before Bill. Both land alive.
  

Determining winners:

Fastest in-game time to have ALL Kerbals safely alive on Kerbin.

Files:

• The Saved Game (persistent.sfs): http://ge.tt/8hiMlGG1/v/1
  
• Overview: http://i.imgur.com/86oedmP.jpg
  
• Bill's Crash Site: http://i.imgur.com/eSlBCg1.jpg
  
• The Space Bar (with Jeb hanging out):http://i.imgur.com/pwJrSCE.jpg
  
• The Science Ring: http://i.imgur.com/P2K4jZm.jpg
  

Installation instructions:

1. Go to your "Kerbal Space Program\Saves" directory.
   
2. Create a folder named "Space Race"
   
3. Copy the persistent.sfs file into the folder.
   
4. Load KSP, resume the saved game called "The Space Race".
   

Mods:

Stock except for purely informational mods (ie. mods that give you dV or orbital information for example).

No mods that upgrade/change the stock parts, fly for you, upgrade maneuver nodes, or anything else. Keep it clean.

Additional information:

• The Space Bar is in an eccentric Kerbin-sychronous orbit, but NOT Kerbin-stationary orbit (it was a westerly launch).
  
• The Science Ring is in an approximate 200km easterly equatorial circular orbit around Kerbin.
  
• The kerbalistic escape pods from Minmus are certainly landable safely on Kerbin. Watch your fuel though.
  

Good luck!

Edited January 26, 2014 by llegar

[MajorThomas]

Lovely...no takers yet?

[jacobgong]

good challenges have a, well, good challenge and consistent scoring criteria, not lengthy story that nobody cares about.

The challenge here is confusing and doesn't seem to be much of a challenge, more like a generic MMO go to talk this NPC that NPC quest.