Alright. MechJeb is again working, yay. Let's get a
proper update done.
We do some high-Kerbal-space science, enter Minmal influence, and gather more science. We get a Mysterious Goo, Material Science, and EVA Report from each, and a Crew Report from Minmal influence. Now to get home. Apoapsis is at 83 megameters and over 16 days away; let's see if we can't return faster. MechJeb says we have a bit over 560 m/s of Δv left. Less than half of our Δv gets us to Kerbin in about half that time, so we do it. Despite being over 46 megameters from Kerbin, we're on a suborbital trajectory.
(In case you care, it took a bit more than four days to get out there.)
I accidentally warp through Kerbin, goddammit, and am out of electric charge. I'm pointing more or less retrograde, so I try burning, but I start spinning. I manage to trim down the orbit some. I briefly get an encounter with...something as I try to reduce periapsis, but it goes away. While screwing around some, I somehow end up switching focus from my craft to the Sun, which...isn't helpful. Eventually, I burn all my fuel, bringing the apoapsis down to eleven megameters. I wait, warping slower so I don't fly through Kerbin again. Eventually, we get there, falling at over three kilometers per second. Naturally, we start getting very hot very fast, which is good because it means I can see the frikkin' spaceship since we naturally landed in the dead of night. We splash down near shore, possibly not to far from KSC. I can't tell because, until I figure out what part of my failed alt-tab sent map view to the Sun, I can't bring it back to figure out where we are.
Our 16-day voyage nets us 250 Science. Time to make some decisions; I'd like to do another mission, but that would involve me making tech decisions, and that's something I'd rather let the Council do.
Available Technologies:
- Advanced Flight Control: Newer, slightly fancier versions of reaction wheels, winglets, plane cockpits, and probes. Also a few neat MechJeb tools. (90 Science)
- Aerodynamics: Airplanes and, if you so desire, air-breathing boosters. (90 Science)
- Electrics: Inline batteries, lights, and most importantly solar panels. (90 Science)
- Fuel Systems: RCS, fuel lines, a little Rockomax engine, a big solid booster. (90 Science)
- General Construction: Launch Stability Enhancers, struts, tri-couplers, and a couple new kinds of decouplers. The only unresearched tech in its tier. (45 Science)
- Heavy Rocketry: Bigger rockets (solid and liquid) and 2.5 meter fuel tanks. (90 Science)
- Landing: Gear bay and struts. (90 Science)
- Space Exploration: Ladders, Mobile Processing Labs, thermometers. (90 Science)
Jeb notes that Fuel Systems, General Construction, and above all Heavy Rocketry would let us build bigger rockets than ever before. Bill points out that solar panels would mean we don't have to worry about losing control like Dudzer did, and also supports airplane development. Bob recommends Aerodynamics, Landing, and then gathering 11 Science for Space Exploration so we can make Science Planes to explore Kerbal biomes. Archibald recommends Electrics and Fuel Systems so we can go on longer voyages. Meleny wants Fuel Systems and Space Exploration, hoping that these make for better spacecraft or whatever.
Director GreatWyrmGold heavily advises Electrics, to avoid snafus like what just happened. He would also like to work on planes to get all the science he can from Kerbin, and wonders if Squad could add an option to gather all available Science from all Kerbal biomes so we don't have to do these silly landbound missions in Kerbal Space Program unless we want to.
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Topic: (KSP LP) Bay12 Space Program: Conical Difficulties (Read 72367 times)