Minmus Base

And other Minor Fiddling Around

We still have a lot of time before our various in-progress missions arrive, so why not take a contract to make a minmus base.

We recruited Luny and Gregwell and sent them off on this ridiculously long rocket. I don't think there were any unusual requirements besides wanting room for way more Kerbals than will ever live there.

Made it to Minmus fine, actually with excessive amounts of delta V left over.

Decided to drop the tank for extra maneuverability. Sad to waste the fuel.

Hmmm closer to the surface than I thought

And the tanks survived... momentarily.

You would think I'd have at least 50/50 odds of landing right side up.

Was going to just leave it upside down dead-bug-style, but then we tried to EVA poor Luny and she instantly was crushed/exploded. So we spent a lot of time and managed to get up on the legs. Let's fire up the science lab! Wait... we forgot to bring a scientist???? Noooooooooooooo!

Urgh let's head to the Jool system for a bit to forget our troubles. Let's bring the Vall probe closer and (*slowly*) transmit some data back, fulfilling one contract.

For Bop we actually had a contract to land (we got it later, so the probe was not designed with landing in mind). Let's land it anyway. It went surprisingly well, contract complete.

Now let's check in on Valentina on Gilly. Maybe we should mount a rescue. Load up everyone, after 4 years it's time to start heading home. They had enough fuel to make it back to Eve orbit. Only to find the next launch window for a rescue mission was 2 years away? Should have stayed on the surface.

Well let's see about sending a scientist to Minmus Base. Hey, a contract to expand the base, how hard can that be? Let's send Gerphie and Dudgard, with names like that how can we go wrong? After launching realized that I had removed the science lab to save weight, but the contract called for the addition of an "auxiliary science lab". Oops. Too ~~honest~~ lazy to revert.

Of course the one time I *want* to land on my side is the time we stick the landing.

A shame there aren't "landing ski" parts. We managed to scrape all the RCS and solar panels off while blasting along the surface.

I am not going to admit how long it took to get docked like this. Just getting up on the legs was bad enough, but finally the docking ports looked aligned, but no luck. I eventually gave up and sent Scientist Gerphie over via EVA. Then I made the mistake of trying to open a poorly positioned solar panel (science lab chewing through the electricity) and it managed to force the base parts together into a firm dock.

Enough of that nonsense, let's go back to Jool.

Brought the Laythe probe into a closer orbit and sent some data.

Same at Tylo. Suddenly the solar panels dropped to nothing, despite seemingly still being in the sun. Why? Apparently a Laythe eclipse of the sun. The cosmic ballet goes on.

Let's check up on Robert. Hey, a Kerbin encounter while burning only 400m/s. Let's go for it. Screenshot shows a less successful encounter that wanted 1200m/s (more than we have).

Finally, we have an ill-thought-out contract to plant a flag on Moho. Probably a bad idea, but let's convert our Duna lander to nuclear and send Desktop Kerman out without even an encounter node. What could go wrong? Besides the fact that I forgot we don't need oxidizer for nuclear rockets.

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