Flieger, grüß' mir die Sonne, grüß' mir die Sterne und grüß' mir den Mond. Dein Leben, das ist ein Schweben, durch die Ferne, die keiner bewohnt! - Hans Albers, F.P.1 antwortet nicht (Adaptation in the 80s: Extrabreit)

Tuesday 16 June 2015

My Kerbal todo-list

A game session with the Kerbal Space Programme with only little action and much contemplation. The mission building has currently no more contracts to offer, so I basically just have to follow through with all projects on my list, the most prominent of them being the Duna landing (for which the transfer window is going to be ready in about 50 days).

With some careful orbital adjustments while on rendez-vous to the Scientia, the Mission Lander can tackle the 2nd mission point, a in-flight temperature scan on Mun at below 9800m altitude. The last mission point requires an in-flight temperature scan above 9800m altitude and will pose no problem whatsoever, once it is in reach of my polar orbit.


 



- checkpoint









My Munbus is slowly getting closer to my "simple" satellite problem in Kerbin orbit. Time is not pressing there. Just annoying is the buggy service bay, causing lots of jittering. After having refueled the satellite, the Munbus will help to fulfil another still open contract, namely to save a Kerbonaut.



 - the Fuel Ship coming close to Minmus (the little blue marker shows where the Scientia 2 had landed)


 








 - the Omniscient also reaches Minmus orbit










The Omniscient has only 900m/s left after reaching low Minmus orbit; I guess that about 500m/s will be needed for the landing and takeoff. Which means I have to reroute the Fuel Ship away from the Scientia 2 so that the Omnsicient receives enough fuel reserves in order to continue into Solar orbit and back to Kerbin. However, I still want to dock the Fuel Ship to the Scientia 2 first:

Checking my currently accumulated science over all, the Scientia 2 has 770 "collectable science" on board (i.e. the data still yields science points once brought back to Kerbin), plus a double data set for the Minmus slopes. Also, the Scientia in Mun orbit has 240 collectable science on board for the Mun poles. Unfortunately, this data is mixed with that from the Mun highlands, which can still be fed to the ship´s mobile lab, but is worth nothing anymore back on Kerbin (I brought this data already back from my first Mun landing). Well, at least no surface data has been in the lab yet, so I can redo the landing exercise later for the lab and bring all current surface data back to Kerbin.

This makes for both ships a sum of ~1000 collectable science points, which I could cash in on Kerbin even before Duna transfer has to start; and still some reserve for the labs remains. Good, this opens many more options, even for the Duna expedition itself, should I still wish to change its setup. Perhaps an improved barge for the Omniscient? Or even a new Omniscient Mk2 with nuclear engines?

So, this makes for the following to do list:
- Fly the Mission Lander remotely from Mun into LKO.
- Refuel Scientia 2 from the Fuel Ship just enough to fly the former into LKO.
- Refuel Omniscient with the remaining fuel from the Fuel Ship, land, launch, get into solar orbit.
- Fly the Fuel Ship back into LKO.
- Fetch the Mission Lander collectable science with the White Goose.
- Fetch the Scientia 2 crew+data with the White Goose.
- Refuel the Scientia 2, supply a new experienced crew and send it back to Minmus.
- (Put the old Mission Lander out of service and send a new lander to Mun, possibly a dual-pod lander)
- Once the Omniscient is back, send a new experienced crew to the Scientia at Mun and relieve the current one.
- Decide what to do with ~1500 science points and possibly adapt Duna expedition plans

Quite a list. I like it! I would have been a shame to miss all of this emerging gameplay if I just had time warped forward to the Duna transfer window, some sessions ago.





- ... and never forget to collect science for processing in the ship´s mobile lab!

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