It was all part of a plan... that i just made up

[InterCity]

Hello, guys.

Have you ever had a KSP accident, that turned out into a victory, or lead you to a brilliant idea?

Two days ago, I was trying to return from eve, but i found out I don't have enough delta-v. So I circularized instead, and made the lander a core of an eve-orbit refuel station. Working on it, power module attached recently.

[WillHop]

A lot of my early Mun landers turned in to permanent Mun bases due to sudden and unplanned departure of certain parts of the vessel. Obviously caused by external factors and not my failure to land

[Capt. Hunt]

I had a "duna exploration vessel" that became a "Kerbin Orbital Research Station" because I miscalculated the flexibility of the docking ports and it couldn't safely fire the rockets long enough for the transfer burn. And I have several "mun bases" that either were "liberated from their descent/ascent engine during lithobreaking" or didn't have enough delta-V for the return trip.

Edited April 27, 2014 by Capt. Hunt

[moeggz]

I once crashed my lander on the Mun due to me receiving a badly timed text message from a girl I was interested in. Lover boy that I am, I stopped playing KSP and wrote out my reply. In the process I left poor Jeb to fall to the Mun like a rock and he, uh, "lithobraked" harder than was intended. When I finally returned to the game I was distraught (I had yet to learn how to quick save.) I took Jeb on an EVA, and what do you know, the ship moved! I had lost my landing gear but by using Jeb like a ramming bull (his skull is so thick I'm sure he's fine )I was able to position the ship in a way that I could take off. I had heard the whole "get out and push" line about KSP before, but I didn't know that it was real, for both in space and on the surface. O.o Fun times indeed.

[chrise6102]

I've managed to return stuff to Kerbin orbit but not had enough fuel to get them below the atmosphere. They get left in orbit but usually have docking ports somewhere so I made a space station out of a couple of them! Ended up with a really weird orbit though :-S

[cantab]

One of the tests of my Von Braun launcher would probably count. The launch went awry, I don't recall how, and I decided to just screw making orbit and burn straight up. It was only a dummy payload after all. Then I thought on a whim I'd see if I could get the interstage into orbit from the high apoapsis. Said interstage is the big RGU, big ASAS, some RCS, and some science gear. Sure enough, it made a nice elliptical orbit, which I then used for some gravity measurements. Partly helped by .23.5's bunch of massless parts, the thing has about 800 m/s of delta-V, so it's a really nice "extra" for the rocket.

[pauix]

My Voyager-I probe (on an escape trajectory out of Kerbol) was intended to land at Jool, but I got distracted by someone knocking at my door and forgot to turn the engines off or pause the game.

[Liowen]

You mean like tipping over on majority of your early Mun landings,yet still able to get home safe and sound. I love those "happy accidents", although I call them successes.

[Pecan]

Can't say that I've had any serendipity where things have worked out better than I planned, apart from not having to hit (much of) the reserve fuel. Sometimes I've changed destination because of a 'lucky' encounter that was more interesting than the intended target but mostly the 'interesting' times have come from when I got it all wrong but managed to recover enough that it was still a 'useful' mission.

[ArmchairGravy]

I had a mission to Dres turn into my first manned Jool return when I was able to get my drive module orbited with the inner onion-ring of boosters still on it. Refueled the boosters, headed out to Jool and sent a separate mission to Dres.

[Mitchz95]

It started out as a simple Vall landing and return mission. Unfortunately, I discovered during the transfer to Jool that my lander didn't have enough delta-v. Fortunately, I'd brought a science lab and three Kerbals (along with a hilariously overbuilt transfer stage) so i decided to do a grand tour of the Jool system instead. I got data from flybys of all five moons and even managed to squeeze in a quick Bop landing.

I ran out of fuel during the transfer back to Kerbin, but I managed to RCS myself into a gravity assist with Duna that will slow my orbit enough that i can get a refuelling mission to it.

[Mipe]

"Just as planned."

After rocket tipped over at 200m and impaled itself into the KSC.

[Jas1126]

I was experimenting with heavy lander's/launchers around a week ago and came up with a design that was far more efficient than I could have hoped for. It was able to hit all of minmus' biome's in a single trip. I was even able to use the remaining fuel and do a high/low orbital science gain of the Mun on the way back to Kerbin. I've been improving upon it since. Very happy with the results. Far from perfected but these things take time.

[aleis]

On my first attempt at a Mun landing I missed the intercept but found myself lined up almost perfect with a minmus encounter. .... so my first space landing happened on Minmus...With a perfect landing and return.

Guess the guys in the pilot seat really wanted a snow cone.

[Guest]

Has your mission ever failed? and then on that 1 fateful moment... Your mission is a success!

Leave your replies below!

[sanoj688]

Uh.. you don't have an example?

[Guest]

Example: Generic Spaceship explodes Crew returns to Kerbin alive somehow`

[Grumman]

A lander probe fell over on the Mun. Fortunately it was aiming uphill, and I was able to use the hill as a launch rail to get back to orbit.

[InterCity]

If I'm not mistaken, i've posted similar thread like two days ago...

[Char0093]

My 3rd Mission to the Mun.Coming down for Landing,I botched my approach and smacked the side of crater Rim,Detaching my landing stage.With onlythe fuel and engine of the Return stage,I decieded a landing to be impossible,and prepped for Burn back to circular to meet with my Transfer stage.When I saw it In my Flight path,the only thing that could make this landing possible.

The Armstrong Memorial.a Place I had never seen before lie in my path.and with it my landing site.I began to Burn,Slowing my horizontal speed and trying to keep my vertical near Zero.I had to come in and lean on it to land,my only hope.

I closed in to about 700 meters to it,still coming in at about 5 m/s Horizontal.Facing upwards,I hit it,at about 6,breaking off my Batteries,but leaving me intact.I slid down the side,and used a minor amount of fuel to rest myself on the ground,leaning my craft against the Memorial.

Landing Successful.no further damage.I never planted a flag.Just looked at it,cried a bit,and took off.I returned the the Transfer Stage and returned to Kerbin.

To this day I'm grateful that SQUAD paid their respects to a great man..It forever remains my favorite place on the Mun.My First Kethane Base was a Kilometer away from it.And I visit at least once a new Save.

[Drew Kerman]

I once lifted a satellite into an orbit 4.4Mm x 80km high and thought I was screwed until I realized I could just dip the periapsis a bit into the atmosphere and aerobrake to save fuel and still reach my intended 779km x 779km orbit

[Vanamonde]

New thread on inadvertent success merged into the existing thread on inadvertent success. Please proceed.

[Rowsdower]

That moment when accidentally pressing spacebar twice doesn't do the damage you think it would.

[samstarman5]

You mean like tipping over on majority of your early Mun landings,yet still able to get home safe and sound. I love those "happy accidents", although I call them successes.

http://i59.tinypic.com/448qs.png

I can always hear the screech of the metal whenever I attempt to salvage that situation, but it never stops me from trying.

[Madrias]

Managed to still deliver my Eve plane even though I double-staged with my interplanetary drive active. Turns out I only had 500 units of fuel left in that stage and the Mainsail burned it all up. It put me on course to intercept with one of my refueling stations, so I docked, grabbed a big orange fuel can, and ran the distance from Kerbin's SOI to Eve on the Linear Aerospikes. Descended into Eve's atmosphere and ignited my KSP Interstellar Tech. Thermal Turbojet and cruised to a safe landing upon which I knocked the engine off. First winged Eve base, but they've got a fusion power plant onboard that thing so I'm not too worried. The docking ports are both still there, there's plenty of power, and I'll get around to sending a true lander there at some point with some friends, more snacks, and a better place to stay that the MK1 Cockpit that Dunlorf happily hopped into. (maxed Courage, and only halfway up the stupidity bar. Brave pilot smiled the whole way, even when the engine fell off... Both times.)