Finally, to Jool!

After way too much time spent assembling a Jool ship it was finally time to start the countdown to launch.

Here's our Brave crew of 13: Bob, Al and Herlong in the Command Module, Lodfrey, Aldley, Jenwin, and Kenney in the Planetary Party Lounge, Derler, Kellas, and Billy-Bobry piloting the 3 landers, and Milford, Alfrid, and Ading bravely riding on the outside.

Mission control wanted to take the optimal Hohmann Transfer which was 2 years away and would take 4 years to get to Jool. Bob managed to convince them to take an earlier window that was almost as good and got to Jool much faster.

About time to leave, will Jeb come to see them off? Where is Jeb anyway?

Oh yeah, right.

Ignition! The ship has been renamed to be the KSP Spaceman Spiff!

Farewell Kerbin, hopefully at least some of us will make it back...

At least Al is really enjoying himself.

A fairly impressive mid-course correction:

And after a year or so arriving at Jool!

Aerobraking! I have to admit this took a couple of attempts, trying to find a good altitude was tricky.

Done braking! Apoapsis probably way too close to Jool, but got tired of trying to find the right altitude experimentally.

Raising the perapsis a bit. The refueler had left the tanks with uneven amounts of fuel, so everything was moved to the central tank so we wouldn't go out of control with asymmetric burnout.

Done with chemical rockets, time to switch to nuclear:

Time to launch the first lander, now called Discovery. Derler and passenger are heading to Laythe. It was uncertain if we'd be able to undock but with enough RCS we finally broke free.

Laythe transfer burn.

Laythe! Let's see what all the fuss is about!

It took a lot of tries to not land in the ocean, and took way more fuel than expected. Our brave crew may be stuck here, not sure if a rescue is possible.

They waited until morning to raise the flag!