CleanSpace

[P.Lumumba]

I just started a new career (.90) on hard and I'm quite enjoying the challenges it brings when combined with my CleanSpace rules:

Some basic rules for a cleaner space:

• No orbit littering, aka Put your rubbish in the (Ker)bin : Don't leave your spent stages, deserted ships or empty fuel tanks collecting space dust in some random orbit.
  If you're preparing a mission for Minimus, and you decide to jettison a stage midway, that is fine. But your next mission will be collecting the debris.
  
• The same goes for the surface of planets & moons. A rover is only a rover when in use, or ready for use at your base. A rover in the open is a piece of junk.
  I have never been a great base builder, but a junk yard/crash site next to your base might just be acceptable.
  
• No debris collecting (Kerbin surface is ok!) or aborting missions
  

Is anyone else out there trying to keep space as clean as possible ?

What are the rules you set for yourself ?

[lukeoftheaura]

my rules are:

use an SSTO plane for everything if possible

always terminate debris

[JayKay]

I've been trying to design ships so that insertion stages have control cores and enough control and fuel so that they can be deorbited after separation. If I expect to exhaust a stage while approaching a planet or moon, I try to aim the ship towards the planet before separating the stage so that it will impact and then adjust the ship to go into orbit afterwards. This doesn't always work out, though, so there is often debris left from various missions. I leave the debris that's left, though I sometimes think about building a debris collector ship (I just never get around to it...)

[[email protected]]

I keep Kerbin and her moons as clean as possible. All my lifters are just shy of the amount of DV needed to make orbit so they will fall back to Kerbin. All Fairings are discarded before orbital velocity is met, usually upon breaching the top of the atmosphere but before circularizing. The transfer stage must have enough fuel to do the transfer burn, insertion burn, and deorbit burn, but not enough to do the landing. I'll even put retro-boosters on it to make sure it is destroyed on impact. The Lander/ascent stage must be able to reach orbit, transfer, and put me into an aerocapture back at Kerbin. Nothing gets left in space around Kerbin.

I am somewhat less strict when it comes to interplanetary missions, but I can't stand any debris in the Kerbin system.

This habit developed after I suffered two orbital collisions in a save back in .18 or .19 and essentially kesslered my save file and found it unplayable due to the lag.

Edited December 17, 2014 by [email protected]

[katateochi]

I used to be obsessed, to quite serious OCD levels about not leaving any debris in orbit anywhere. I even wrote a short fan story about the catastrophic events that lead to the formation of the "Clean Space Act" (sadly that was before the forum reset so it got lost). But I've decided to take a more relaxed approach for two reasons. 1) I'm bored of doing it that way and the extra lengths it sometimes requires, 2) I've become a little jealous of the stories some people have about near-misses with orbital debris! (I want in on that).

I won't go the other way and go to lengths to leave things in space, but if they happen to be decoupled in orbit then that's where they'll stay. It also opens up later mission possibilities of trying to recover debris and bring it back home for recycling (we gotta at least pretend to be green).

But when I was playing with Clean Space Act rules I didn't allow anything that wasn't an active craft to be left in orbit. Crash sites on planets were allowed to stay because they became little memorials to the fallen Kerbals, but Landers had to be single stage craft and not leave anything behind. Most times I'd design the craft so its ascent stages where dropped before circularizing (keep space clean, to heck with anyone living under the flight path of spent fuel tanks!). When doing transfers I'd burn till I was on a collision course with the target planet and then jettison any spent parts before raising the Pe again (I'll still prob do that now). It was also acceptable to leave a stage in orbit so long as it had a control pod and enough fuel that it could be remote controlled and orbited later.

[MalfunctionM1Ke]

I used to Keep my Space Debris free but since I know that there is a mod to render distant objects so you can see them beyond 2.3-2.5km render distance, i enjoy some flickering Pixels, travelling Overhead like Shooting stars almost.

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/98943-0-25-Distant-Object-Enhancement-bis-v1-4-2-%2811-Dec-2014%29

Dont know if it works for .90

[SorryDave]

For a long time I have been minimizing debris, but I thought it was because of one of my mental disorders. Good to see I am not alone.

[BeastlyBean]

Yeah me too, always terminating

[Madrias]

I've played, for a long time, with "debris return" rules. Sure, crapping boosters, spent stages, nuclear engines, and RTG's everywhere can be amusing when you're running a farce of a space program, but when you're getting serious about it, it's about time to go grab the Klaw and go grab your garbage.

My rule set:

Nuclear Engines cannot be crashed near bases nor returned to Kerbin. They can either be taken to the Scrapyard on Eve or shot into Jool, but no other options.

Debris must be deorbited. Doesn't matter how, where, or with what, but no garbage flying around in space.

Crash site debris will be left alone. Landers that leave pieces behind as reminders are also fine.

Rovers are rovers if they still have a purpose. If it has run out of battery and can't recharge, it's garbage. Go return it to Kerbin.

[Crimson Sunrise]

My rules:

-Change 'Max Persistent Debris' slider to '0'

[Voculus]

I'm the opposite. One something is jettisoned, I don't look back!

[DepletedUraniumPenetrator]

Kerbin already is too empty for my taste, so I don't care about cleaning up. The more stuff flying around, the better. I also like the thrill of a highly polluted LKO, I was never hit by debris, but maybe it will happen some day. I even set off a "Kesslerbomb"on my last save, still not a single hit though. Oh, and max presistent debris set to 5000 (but not even remotely close to ever reach that number)