Jebediah trapped in a box!

[Oafman]

As we all know, Jeb gets into plenty of scrapes. But this latest one might well be his last.

During his illustrious career, I've had to rescue him from the surface of the Mun. I had to rescue him from a 3-week EVA orbit around the Mun. He spent 9 years in orbit high around the sun after running out of fuel returning from Duna, before I could get a rescue mission out to him.

After all that interplanetary drama, Jeb's latest pickle is much more mundane. I have an ark in orbit around Kerbin, preparing to go to Eve. Right in the middle of it is a Hitchhiker storage container, and it appears that I carelessly put a ladder on top of the crew hatch.

Last night Jeb courageously entered the box with no problem, and a little later (having F5'd) I tried to get him to exit, only to find that the hatch is blocked, and he can't EVA!

He's part of a huge structure which I can't see any way of landing. And i can't think how to remove the ladder in space. I thought of attaching a grapple and trying to pull it off, but that seems like a long shot.

Do any of you experienced space program administrators have any ingenious suggestions?

[LordFjord]

The KAS mod might help you out.

You can send a rescue team where a Kerbal could remove the ladder on EVA (and place it somewhere else).

As a stock KSP solution, you could try to break it off. Unfortunately, the hitchhiker module has a very low impact resistance, so I guess that wont work.

Especially as it is lower than the ladder's, so you could break the wrong thing.

It would have been such a nice and very Kerbal solution to shoot Jeb free with a space cannon.

[FREEFALL1984]

you should build something capable of landing the arc, then post a video.

[RW-1]

Design a grapple ship, grab from opposite end, deliver it back to Kerbin and drop from 10-20M, ladder should break and hopefully the container will be ok (Experiment with the right height), and then roll it if needed and Jeb can exit?

You have nothing to lose at the moment giving it a shot.

[tutrakan4e]

Get some space probes with the Claw and attach some parachutes to the container. Then de-orbit. This is what I would do.

Answer to your question: Same thing happened to me on my Uno-Dos-Dres mission. I couldn't get my kerbals out of the science lab. Turned out you had to press left clik

[Claw]

If you are going to go through the trouble of delivering it to Kerbin, then there is no need to drop it and break off the ladder. Just recover it.

If you have more than 1 capsule, there is also a mod (crew manifest, I think) that allows kerbals to transfer between modules of the same ship without going EVA.

Edited May 7, 2014 by Claw

[MarkyJ279]

I had a similar problem the other day with a MKII lander can but I found a suitably kerbal solution.

Torpedoes away!

I sent up a ship with a re-entry module (basically a boatload of RCS and parachutes with a claw) and a couple of detachable liquid fuel boosters with probe bodies and RCS. Stood off about 1km from the tapped can and after a few tests (science is fun! and explosive...) I was able to launch both torpedoes into the target ship on either side of the can, snag the can and the few remaining parts still attached to it from the debris field, deorbit the whole thing and land with the parachutes.

I regret losing the mothership but the rescue mission was worth it

[Oafman]

Thank you all for your thoughts and suggestions.

Design a grapple ship, grab from opposite end, deliver it back to Kerbin and drop from 10-20M, ladder should break and hopefully the container will be ok (Experiment with the right height), and then roll it if needed and Jeb can exit?

You have nothing to lose at the moment giving it a shot.

Well, I would have to reassemble the ark, relaunching the main body and doing at least one refueling run, so a couple of hours work a least. It's an interesting idea, but the grapple ship would need to be stupidly big.

The KAS mod might help you out.

You can send a rescue team where a Kerbal could remove the ladder on EVA (and place it somewhere else).

As a stock KSP solution, you could try to break it off. Unfortunately, the hitchhiker module has a very low impact resistance, so I guess that wont work.

Especially as it is lower than the ladder's, so you could break the wrong thing.

It would have been such a nice and very Kerbal solution to shoot Jeb free with a space cannon.

I just got KAS, but need ~500 science to unlock the utility stuff - toolboxes etc. I suppose I could send some probes out to distant places and pick up the points pretty easily, then refocus on the Eve mission. But I've spent ages assembling this mission and i'm keen to crack on.

I know you can erect struts etc with KAS, but I didn't realise you can actually remove (and add?) parts of ships.

you should build something capable of landing the arc, then post a video.

It's an orange fuel tank, a mainsail, a science lab, 2 LVT30s with 4 x FLT800 tanks, and a bunch of bits and pieces. I'm sure it could be done, but it would need something pretty serious, and I'm not sure I have the tech for it. (and I'm almost certain I dont have the know how). Maybe I'll give it a go though....

If you have more than 1 capsule, there is also a mod (crew manifest, I think) that allows kerbals to transfer between modules of the same ship without going EVA.

Ah, well, this is the easy option, which I might have to go with (so i can get back to the mission very soon). Although, seems like a slightly boring way to get out of this in comparison to many of the suggestions...!

Get some space probes with the Claw and attach some parachutes to the container. Then de-orbit. This is what I would do.

And hope the container breaks away from the rest of the structure during re-entry? Or just attach enough parachutes for the whole thing?!

[Oafman]

I had a similar problem the other day with a MKII lander can but I found a suitably kerbal solution.

Torpedoes away!

I sent up a ship with a re-entry module (basically a boatload of RCS and parachutes with a claw) and a couple of detachable liquid fuel boosters with probe bodies and RCS. Stood off about 1km from the tapped can and after a few tests (science is fun! and explosive...) I was able to launch both torpedoes into the target ship on either side of the can, snag the can and the few remaining parts still attached to it from the debris field, deorbit the whole thing and land with the parachutes.

I regret losing the mothership but the rescue mission was worth it

Yeah, part of me definitely wants the solution to involve a big explosion, with Jeb heroically riding his little container out through the flames...

[Sirrobert]

Well you could always try to use Wack-a-Kerbal to destroy the ladder, but it's not very likely to keep the hitch hiker instact

[Oafman]

OK, well, I'm slightly ashamed to admit that I took the easy option. Installed Crew manifest, and just moved him into the lab. Thanks Claw for the idea.

I would have had a crack at some of the more exciting suggestions here, but I really want to take this thing, with all its probes and landers, to Eve before I start any more projects.

What is Whack-a-Kerbal? This sounds entertaining. It's a mod I assume?

[Sirrobert]

Wack-a-Kerbal is a function that you can open from the debug menu (alt+F12)

You can use it to shoot balls at whatever you are pointing the mouse at.

Very usefull if you get frustrated with a rocket and want to blow it up, but don't want to spend the time needed to crash it (or if it's already landed)

[Pecan]

Sarbian is, I think, maintaining Crew Manifest but a newer and more complete option is Ship Manifest, which also allows transfer of all the other ship's stores (fuel, etc.). It's too late for your problem of course but it may have made it more 'interesting' - Ship Manifest supports Connected Living Space so Jeb wouldn't have been able to 'just' get out, he'd need a route by which to get out.