Loneliest mission

[Geschosskopf]

What was your loneliest mission in ksp.

Every time I go to Laythe, I establish a Kethane system on Vall to supply the space-based side of the Laythe expedition. I use KAS to make the connections and KAS requires a Kerbal. So I routinely send 1 Kerbal to Vall, where he stays, alone and forgotten, pumping gas for all eternity.

[Special Agent Sigvan]

Sigvan Kerman was stuck on a rather high Sun Orbit.

He's still there...

I deleted the save, but cloned Siggie and company.

[Othuyeg]

Oh and since I highly value my Jebediah, the first thing I did in my latest career mode was to put him into a polar orbit. He has been there since. Safe.

[Guest]

Sent Jeb to the Mun in my career save, with really early tier parts. Bob had to come save him.

I almost never send my kerbals alone. Mostly because the one-seaters are too small.

[Duke23]

That would have to be Bill's Duna mission that deviated from the plan a little... We knew it was a high risk mission but the plan was for him to land on Duna and transmit data back then get into a stable orbit and await the rescue ship to bring him back, with the assistance of the tech gained by his data. Well it turned out he freaked out and burned most of the ascent fuel on the landing approach and didn't have enough to get into orbit.

So his rescue was delayed for three years, not including any time spent traveling to or from Duna in the first place, while more technology and better designs were tested that would allow us to land and return with multiple Kerbals. Jeb headed the rescue mission with the help of a promising young pilot fresh out of training. That was an interesting experience all around. Especially when poor Bill had to walk several km because the rookie underestimated atmospheric drag and couldn't correct it for fear of getting two landers and both Kerbals stranded, as Jeb yelled at both of them from the transfer ship in orbit...

[Alephzorg]

The loneliest mission was Bob's flight to Ike and back.

Testing the then new Long Range Dragon ship (a nuclear engine powered ship), alone in a 3-men command pod, he decided to show Jeb that he too was made of the right stuff. And just like that, a test flight in Kerbin SOI became a mission to Ike. He successfully landed, did a bit of reconnaissance for future missions, and came back years later.

At least he had enough room, alone in that command pod.

[NASAFanboy]

Jebediah Kerman is dead, but not quite dead.

We'll call him brain dead, and he's quite dead by my standards.

He was sent down to Eeloo as a "scout" to prepare the habitats, unload cargo, and get the equipment ready. He finishes his job and plants a flag, and I send down the second lander and ascent vehicle after him, to find him frozen in the t-pose, face down into the dirt. I switch to Jeb, and his controls won't work, all he can do is turn his lights on and off. After a burial service were Bill reads the Kerbal death rites, Bob moved Jebediah to his final resting place at the bottom of a cliff, saluted, then attempted to bury him and left to the ship. The vessel stayed another two days on the Eeloo surface until now-acting Commander Bill ordered liftoff becaus he was creeped out by hallucinations of Jebediah walking in he distance were he was buried, and the crew was creeped out because they felt a cold sensation whenever they explored near Jeb's burial site, so they hightailed it out and left.

I'm not sure if Jebediah was dead. At worst, he was merely paralyzed. Just imagine seeing your teammates bury you and lift off a day later without being able to so anything from being paralyzed and stranded on a cold ice planet.

Needless to say, we aren't going back to Eeloo for a log time.

[Random Tank]

...we aren't going back to Eeloo for a log time

A log time? So time measured on a logarithmic scale? What's the base, base 10, or something else? And what's the variable you're using? I'm interested now...

[HafCoJoe]

I don't know why, but I find that Dres is lonelier than Eeloo. My loneliest mission would have to be the mission I did in the movie in my signature. - A round trip to Dres and to Eeloo. The mission still isn't complete so I guess it's been going on for more than 2 RL months. Gregrod and Thomfal Kerman. All solo missions I do are either mun/minmus runs or are Jeb. And he doesn't care.

Just imagine seeing your teammates bury you and lift off a day later without being able to so anything from being paralyzed and stranded on a cold ice planet...

Okay I bet he would care about that. Creepy indeed...

Edited May 19, 2014 by Avera9eJoe

[KerbMav]

For me it was a out-of-fuel ion hopper with one Kerbal circling Kerbol on an orbit similar to Kerbin's - many years later (time warped to bring him home before .22) he was able to use the tiny amount of monoprop he had left to achive an encounter with Kerbin's atmosphere.

Apart from early career flybys of Mun - due to lack of alternatives - I never send single Kerbals anywhere since then, probes are used to get the necessary science for larger pods mostly.

[Moon Goddess]

My loneliest missions have all been rescue missions.

In one of my early early saves Jeb, Bill and Bob crash landed on Mun. The Pod survived but nothing else. So Susan Kerman took a rescue craft with a hitchhiker out to Mun, all by herself, Now this was early, and I was a horrible pilot, leading to the first crash. So Susan landed some distance away (over 100km been a while don't remember.) I had planned for this eventuality, her lander included, a DEMV Mk2. Sure it's a 2 seater, but she can truck them back in 3 trips. Only I didn't realize the ant didn't have solar panels. It's Batteries died less than half way there. Ok, fine, I'll have the boys walk to her. I switch to their craft in order to EVA.... KRAKEN!!!! The boy's pod falls thru the ground, accelerating thru Mun, thus EVA blocked, by the time it falls out the other side it's at Solar escape velocity. I try an EVA anyways, and it promptly explodes. Susan becomes the loneliest kerbal ever slowly walking back to her craft and returning home, the same loneliness Micheal Collins feared.

Some time later I had another experience in loneliness, though not as sad. My first kerballed Duna mission crash lands. (Ok, so parachutes can't stop something that weighs 30 tons on Duna, check) 2 man mission, so while they had to spend a year on Duna, they had each other. However I sent a single Kerbal to rescue them, the rescue was successful, and they returned as 3, but the trip out there, several months alone, had to be pretty bad.

[corvustech]

My first manned munar landing. A fresh recruit landed alone but due to miscalculation, was on the dark side of the mun and landed on a crater lip. The ship was damaged because of the bad landing surface and teetering. An eva was all it took to tip it over leaving the krewman on the surface alone.

[allmhuran]

In attempting to earn enough science to fill out the entire tech tree in just one launch, I have sent Jeb on ridiculous missions taking him to every planet and moon... except Gilly. Doing this on starting parts means vastly minimizing required delta-v, which in turn means a lot of waiting around for intercepts. The first time I did it, Jeb was on an active mission (ie, not stranded or anything) for 21 years, including landings on Pol, Bop and minmus, but he didn't get to Dres or Eeloo. The second time, which included those plus an extra Mun landing, took 33 years.

[Hannu]

Usually I use 3 man capsule on interplanetary flights, but sometimes I used 1 man pods for Eve trips. Typically visits on surface are short rover investigations, but once my ascent ship went aerodynamically unstable in game update. I used good old construction and when I tried to start ascent I noticed that it is impossible to keep nose towards zenith. Kerbal could save himself by jettisoning most ascent stages but then he had to wait next launch window before rescue ship with more reaction wheels could save him.

[VelocityPolaris]

In career mode, soon after I had researched survivability, I sent Kelton Kerman, a rare BadS, to fly by Duna, do some science, and return using a trusty LV-909. He flew by Duna as planned, but the ol' LV-909 ran out of fuel trying to get him home while in Kerbol orbit. Stranded in Kerbol orbit, Kelton jury-rigged a cryogenic storage unit using the experiment module's laser. He had a closed-loop life support system, but he probably couldn't stay physiologically healthy while he lived out his days in a tin can. We hope that a rescue mission will be possible eventually, but it is very unlikely. Mostly to honor him, every year a portion of the R&D's funds to to designing a rescue ship. It is unlikely, but WE WILL RESCUE HIM. Eventually.

[Epthelyn]

The first mission to Duna on my career save left a Kerbal in orbit; I planned to rescue him later.

41 years (164 Kerbal years) later, he's still there.

Strange really, considering in that time I've rescued Kerbals from the surface and set up a reasonably sized colony there (inhabited by Kerbals who will, no doubt, remain there indefinitely because I can't be bothered to rescue them).

So yeah, alone in a pod for 41 years is pretty lonely.

[syfyguy64]

I landed on the Mun in early career mode, and never left until I maxed everything out... With Intersteller and other mods on...

Poor Jeb, stuck at his lonely perch over the southeastern hemisphere... Tried saving him once, but Billy-bob and Jones didn't do too well on the Landing part.

[Fendleton]

Glitched the game with CLAW units. Ended up trapping Jeb in a time bubble for 55 years.