17.9t Mun Orbital Mission

[Torquemadus]

I decided to start a new 0.90 save with the same difficulty settings I used in 0.25.

I make good progress in the early contracts, but I was still a long way from earning enough money to upgrade the launch pad. I wondered whether it might be possible to do a Mun flyby with a rocket small enough to be launched from the starter level launch pad. To do this, I needed the rocket to weigh no more than 18 tonnes.

After getting into orbit with a reasonable amount of fuel left, my next task was to get to the Mun using only the starter level tracking centre.

After entering the Mun's SOI, I still had some fuel remaining, so I decided to go into orbit.

I made a quick visit to the Mission Control bunker to grab the science from space contract.

It looks like I need to upgrade the Astronaut Complex as well.

All I had to do now was get back to Kerbin without knowing what orbit I'd end up in after I left the Mun's SOI.

[FlyingPete]

One thing I've found about the new career mode in this update is that it makes you re-learn forgotten techniques from the old versions, such as planning burns by eye without nodes. You sort of forget that this is how we had to do things previously. For me that puts some challenge into the game. Well done on the Munar flyby!