Humble Beginnings

This is a picture of one of the very first rockets I designed from stock parts. I say, one of, as I didn't think to save all my early attempts. Checking the save date, this was from the first day or two that I owned Kerbal Space Program. I named it Bob. I failed, and failed, and failed some more to get this into orbit back then - only a little over three months ago. I gave up on it thinking it did not have enough thrust to make it to space. Today for fun I put it on the launchpad and hit the space bar. I hit orbit so fast I was amazed. This shows my original ideas weren't all wrong. It also proves practice makes a big difference.

This ship is three stages. The first is the two RT-10 solid boosters one on each side. When they are exhausted and jettisoned the LV-T30 fires, with a tank and a half of fuel (FL-T800 and FL-T400), and establishes an orbit worthy apoapsis with enough speed to coast when the engine is exhausted. With the final stage I circularized and later set a reentry course (Rockomax 48-7S and FL-T200) . I even remembered solar panels proving this was not my very first rocket. The chute brought me safely down into a mountainous rain forest area near the ocean. What once was impossible is now a Sunday drive. Actually its Tuesday but you know what I mean.

In the three months since gaining orbit, I have built many ships that were way more poorly designed than my first humble craft. I'll discuss some of them in upcoming posts. Each failed for different reasons. With some, I made the upper stages too heavy, resulting in wobbly rockets that collapsed and exploded as soon as physics were applied on the launchpad. Often, I did not use proper struts to hold it all together and the craft would rip apart early in the ascent. Sometimes, though more rarely than you might imagine, the launch stage was under powered. Another common mistake occurred when engines, decouplers, or launching clamps, were incorrectly located in the design tree. That last one is a tough one to learn to watch out for but easy to fix.

Once I improved my design skills, I was able to land on Mun and Minmus numerous times, sometimes with tiny rovers. Next I travelled to Duna. Afterwards, Moho. I did not know it was supposed to be really hard so I just did it. Each step of the way it seemed I littered the surface of each with rocket and Kermin parts before a mission accomplished the near impossible of not killing Bill or Jebediah and only left them stranded. This only happened if they had respawned after their last mission. For me, the adventure came in trying to design a vessel that could go and rescue the brave souls. When I succeeded I  would move on to the next. I have to admit though that there is a pretty big junk yard of vehicles on Duna as rescue ships piled up.

After learning and admitting my current limited abilities, I planted an unmanned ship on Eve. I sent an unmanned craft because I haven't figured out how to build a ship with enough power to launch through Eve's atmosphere. Next I sent a vessel to Ike, the moon of Duna, and one to Gilly, the moon of Eve. These were done without needing a rescue mission. That does not mean some early attempts wouldn't have needed rescuing - had they survived, but the important point is science was learned and we grew in our design and planning skills.

Later I sent a lander to Dres. The poor Kerbalnaut almost ran out of Twinkies while I developed a rescue mission. That is when I learned about the canyon. Visible from orbit, it cuts a slit just south of the equator. I had to go there. I had to take a dune buggy ride down into it. So I had to develop a worthy rover. It couldn't be like the tiny ones I had used on Minmus. This one had to be able to take a beating and stay on its wheels. That is when I came up with the rover seen in my banner. I have used the design multiple times. Finally, I have sent a lander and rover to Eloo the big golf ball in the sky.

Soon I will be going to Jool and its five moons. I'll bring back pictures when I do. I will also be discussing some of the missions I have just mentioned and the designs I had to come up with to make them happen.