What was your most humbling moment in KSP

[Higgs]

As the title suggests, what was YOUR most humbling moment in KSP?

For me, it was not some mistake I made, but something I saw. While, I know it is just a game, it was still humbling to see the "sun" come up on my first orbital sunrise. It made me stop to think, there are real men and women, right now, doing this for a living, risking everything they have, everything they ARE who get to see this same sight, but for real, 16 times, each and every single day while at work. I felt so small, yet so proud to even be playing in their shadows.

[Las-pen]

1st time I got to space

1st time I landed on Mün

1st time I landed on Duna

1st time installing Astronomers Visual Pack

[theend3r]

After I uninstalled MJ after a long time usage

[Vahal]

As the title suggests, what was YOUR most humbling moment in KSP?

For me, it was not some mistake I made, but something I saw. While, I know it is just a game, it was still humbling to see the "sun" come up on my first orbital sunrise. It made me stop to think, there are real men and women, right now, doing this for a living, risking everything they have, everything they ARE who get to see this same sight, but for real, 16 times, each and every single day while at work. I felt so small, yet so proud to even be playing in their shadows.

I know what you mean

Everytime I see a sunrise, I just stop playing for several seconds and just watch

[Cirocco]

1st landing on the Mun

Every time I do a transfer between celestial bodies without going to the mapscreen and watch the EMT counter go into the month-year range, realising that in real life it would take even longer and be a million times more difficult to achieve.

Just yesterday: did a mun mission, aimed for two objectives: 1) put a science sat in a polar orbit to transmit back data when a contract requests it and 2) plant a flag and come back to Kerbin. Only when I decoupled the sattelite in Mun orbit did I realise that I forgot communication equipment on both the lander as the sattelite as well as parachutes on the lander.... Quite the facepalm moment considering I've been playing for like a year...

Thankfully I always bring spare delta-V, so Jeb had enough fuel for a powered landing on Kerbin. The sattelite was sent on an intentional crash course with Mun, I'll have to send up another one soon

[montyben101]

Yeah the sunrises are good but squad need to fix the sun shining THROUGH the planet

[mythic_fci]

5 words: sunrises and my first docking.

[chuangatronic]

My most humbling experience was losing Jeb with my large Duna base in interplanetary orbit for several years... That rescue and refuel really showed me how hard KSP is.

[Frank_G]

My first landing on Duna...

Link to the full mission is in my signature, if there is interest.

[benzman]

My most humbling moments occur when I scan the forums and see the incredibly complex craft that some people make. I almost burst into tears at my own inadequacy.

[Xavven]

My most humbling moment was failing my first landing attempt on Tylo. I was pretty smug about my previous accomplishments in KSP at the time, and thought I would have no problem whatsoever.

"A bigger moon? Psh! I'll pack some extra delta-v on this design. Keep the command module warm for me, will ya? I'll be back in 15 minutes." ...Only to have my ego destroyed by not having enough TWR on my Tylo lander. CRAAAAASH ---- BOOM!

But the best part was coming back with a new design and sticking that landing. AW YEAH! And then I couldn't retrieve my science data because I forgot to put ladders up to the instruments. Facepalm...

Good times!

[[email protected]]

I'd say mine was way waaaay back in like .18 or .19. I was launching a series of huge ships into orbit and building ridiculous uber-landers. I didn't have a care in the world, not for efficiency, littering, part count, or just about anything else. That was until one of my largest and newest designs was on its way up to orbit and at about 90km 2/3 of the rocket was instantly vaporized by colliding with a an enormous spent stage on a highly inclined orbit. A mere hour later while performing some crew transfers at my enormous 1 FPS mega-station there was a...disaster. One of the large spent stages from previous lifts hit the station in the dead center and blew it into about 600 pieces. It was fantastic, and horrifying, and lagged the game into oblivion.

I had to delete the save and start over. Not so much from the Kessler syndrome, but because the game lagged so bad....I have henceforth always run very clean space programs, no waste is permitted to be left in orbit of any celestial body except Kerbol.

[Leszek]

When I saw the title of the OP, I was thinking about my worst mistakes. But after reading a few posts...

The firs time in KSP that I sent something into interplanetary space. Far enough out that it was just me the sun and the stars. It felt so lonely.

Strange that a game can make you think about such things.

For my most humbling mistake, I went all the way to interplanetary space to get science. Executed the burn to come back. Entered Kerban SOI made adjustments. A day later I realized I forgot to do the science while out of the SOI. It was too late and I didn't have the DV so I just did high above Kerban science (for the 3rd time) for a few points. Got out recovered the science and continued on to my aerobraking at home. I set the alarm in KAC and did some quick local missions. On one of these I realized my spacecraft was already several days past Kerbal on its way out. KAC defaults to the SOI change and it normally picks what I want so much I forgot to set it to Periapsis. So I thought well that is OK, I can do my high above sun science after all. Got all the way out there and realized I already removed the science from the experiments. Ultimately returned ok, 33 days late and a few hundred science points short. Good thing I don't use TAC life support.

Edited October 13, 2014 by Leszek
Decided to add worst mistake mission afterall.

[spaceman1999]

Way back in .16 (I know i'm old) I got my first Munar intercept and had originally planned a landing but once in the Mun's SOI I realized I had very little fuel left. I then sat for ~1 hour and watched the sun come up over the Mun... I survived landing on Kerbin once again and stopped playing for about a week.

[SkyHook]

Back in 0.19, I completed my first interplanetary return mission for Kerbals. The mission was a failure, but returning from Duna and seeing Kerbin for the first time since was incredibly humbling. Here's the shot as I snapped it:

[federicoaa]

When I got to land to the mun in the demo, after that I closed the program and bought the game

[Tex]

I think that my most humbling moment came not after the first time I achieved orbit or landed on the Mun or whatever, it came when I had my first eclipse experience.

I was doing some tests on some sort of spacecraft (what it was and what it was for has long since escaped me), and, as I was doing some orbits around Kerbin, I noticed that I suddenly stopped gaining electricity. I thought this was odd, because the panels were oriented correctly and I was on the day side of Kerbin... So I went and right-clicked on the panels, and it said "Blocked by Mun."

Wut...

I looked towards the Sun and saw a beautiful Munar eclipse... it was the most perfect moment I think I've had in a while, and each time I see the eclipse now I think back to that moment. It was cool to see such a phenomenon in KSP!

[FleetAdmiralJ]

Probably my first time trying to go to Moho, and I took nowhere near enough fuel and just flew by without hardly making a dent. Really showed me just how hard it can be to properly stop a probe at a planet, given that the only planets I had been to at that point were Duna and Eve, where I could aerobrake

[ArmchairGravy]

Landing my first spaceplane. And when I say landing I mean scattering it across a large area.

[Chrisd857]

When I got to land to the mun in the demo, after that I closed the program and bought the game

When I managed to land on the Mun and return safely to Kerbin in the demo. (and this was 0.13.3 aka winglets for landing legs) I didn't buy right away, but it wasn't too long after.

[Bluelogic32]

When I found out what delta v and twr were. I made the small rocket I'd ever built and made it all the way out to jool without cheating. It was amazing.

[SkyRender]

Step 1: Build the most massive, mind-crushingly huge rocket you can manage.

Step 2: Put it on the pad.

Step 3: Zoom out until you can see from orbit.

It's generally less humbling if your rocket is proceeding to explode on the pad as you do this, but surprisingly not by a huge amount.

[astropapi1]

Rather than describing it, I'll post some screenshots:

First mission to Ike.

First time going to Jool.

My first time sending a manned mission outside of Kerbin's SOI. I had just realized how small my ship actually was.

And here's that same mission leaving Kerbin. I actually got nervous as I watched Kerbin drift away. There's a sense of security when being in LKO, you know, that just thrusting a little will bring you back home... well, you don't get that when heading right into interplanetary space.

I think this little fellow was heading for Duna.

Oh, and then there's this. Think about the fact that everything you just saw took place within what appears in this picture.

[psyper]

most of mine are similar to these - first successful launch where the rocket didn't disintegrate on the pad at the first stage, first time in space, first sunrise, first eclipse etc.

recently though:

I've had my first ssto in to space - launched late at night and reached the jets flight ceiling just as the sun come up - watching the ssto glow in sunlight on a clear crisp morning as I switched to nukes was amazing.

First and only encounter with another planet. One of my old saves I finally got a launch window for duna (I'm one of those people who don't timewarp a lot and generally play around between mum, minmus and kerbin until a transfer window comes up). I sent out a 7 ship armada to duna and ike to set up a mining colony. When they finally left kerbal's soi I focused on the crew ship to see if I could see any of the others markers- although they were in a tight formation on the map screen they were hundreds of km away from each other - it was just a small crew, the sun and the stars - couldn't even see kerbin or duna. actually felt very alone and very small. Finally landing on duna was such a complicated procedure it took me a full day to get there successfully from duna orbit - it was exhilarating to finally land - and I have astronomers pack installed so when I when in the first rover mission I got stuck in a dust storm and had to gun it back to base and just sat in iva view watching the dust roll in - I could actually hear the dust hitting the hab even though the sound wasn't being generated it was that immersive.

having a lander in a very low mun orbit and just zooming out so its a tiny craft against the huge craters of mun rolling by

Creating a huge minmus base (this thing was big!) and then zooming out and realising how small it is against the hills and valleys of minmus and how much land there is out there to explore.

[Grimfilth]

My most humbling moment in KSP:

Building a pyramid sized rocket consuming all of Kerbins fuel, planning a interplanetary visit to Jool and back. Perfect gravity assist and throttle full open with the most immense engines, looking at my trajectory on the map.... Man, space is mind-boggingly big, not even halfway there.