To Infinity* And Beyond!

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This is it, the big boys, we are going *drum roll* interplanetary! Our first craft, the Daring Dres made it into Kerbin orbit with ease; such ease that our lifter section still had a bit of fuel left in it and so it too will be staying in orbit to give us a push out of Kerbin's influence when the time comes for it. I had sent a probe of similar design to Dres before however I wanted to be able to collect all the lovely crew and EVA reports that Dres had to offer. As I was last in the line when they were handing out imagination, The Daring Dres, as well as having an aweful name, looks exactly like my original Dres probe but with a crew pod where the probe core was and some landing legs awkwardly sticking out of the bottom; leading to a rather less impressive design.

I hope you like waiting because it's going to be a long time until your transfer window

Next was the good ship " 'ello Eeloo". It was a multi-stage rocket built in orbit. It had a lander, a science module and a tug section at the front. The idea was that when we got to Eeloo, the three sections would separate: the lander would go to the suface with 1 kerbal, the science module would occupy a low Eeloo with 2 kerbals and the tug would occupy a slightly higher orbit. When the lander was finished and the kerbal had stretched its legs, it would return to orbit and then decouple the capsule which would then dock with the tug and be taken back to kerbin. Alas, however, as it started to depart its long residence around Kerbin, it met with a violent wobble, quickly shaking out of control until the ship disintegrated. The sole survivor of this disaster said in an interview that from his cabin window he could see nothing but a gigantic tenticle gripping the ship however, when he tried to distinguish more detail, the beast, whatever it was, disappeared. We shall call this monster the kraken and we have vowed to avenge the deaths of the two brave adventurers we lost that fateful day.

Our last ship for this instalment was the Duna Dart. Agreed by many to be a work of art it was therefore originally destined to be put on display in the Tate Modern however, some pencil pushing, good for nothing lab coat mentioned that they had spent a lot of money on it and therefore go into space at least once before it was retired. With a mumble of dissent, it was put into orbit, to await its transfer window.

The Duna Dart is love, The Duna Dart is life

Munar Max.

You've seen the Minmus might, you've gasped in awe at the S.T.U.B.B.L.E. space telescope but have you have not lived until you have seen kerbal-kind's very own munar orbiter: Munar Max.

Long have the Kerbals stared at the night sky and, after there attempts to yell at the Mun to get out of the way of their view of the stars had failed, they decide to take the fight to the Mun.

Whilst there, they decided it would be a good opportunity to see what science this annoying neighbour of Kerbin can procure and this is the ship that will get us there:

Look at it, all smug and big in its boots

It is comprised of two sections. The first is a large orbiter with fuel, a lab and a telescope. This was relatively problem free although we did end sending a probe core to dock with it in order to control its SAS. The second section was a lander. Based on the Minmus Might 3, it has all the science experiments available and an extra radial fuel tank. This didn't go so well, after our first attempt to redock with the orbiter, we found that we had the wrong rcs thrusters and therefore could not dock. We ended up sending the lander back to kerbin and took a replacement back with the necessary adjustments.

Munar max lander nonchalantly sitting on the the Munar midlands... nerd

However this replacement also came with its own problem.... Jebediah Kerman. Yes, for some reason Jeb used is position in the space centre to send himself instead of the new pilot to the mun. We ended up having to send a space ferry to switch Jeb with the actual mission commander. This did however come with one advantage: instead of having to transmit the science home, Jeb could just take it to the centre himself, hence getting the maximum science possible. Maybe that was his plan all along....

view from the munar ferry, are you happy now Jeb?

The Munar max. station shall stay and aid with future missions but for now they shall sit and wait for now we can go... extraplanetary!

S.T.U.B.B.L.E

Having ringed Minmus of all its science we returned to the R&D centre to see what we stole from other space centres unlock more parts.

After scratching out our competitors' logos of the new parts spending our science points we built two things: the first will be mentioned at a later date but the second, however, was a small satellite called "the S.T.U.B.B.L.E space telescope" which uses an infrared telescope to generate science and also a magnetometer because it looks cool.

S.T.U.B.B.L.E asked us to capture its good side, ain't she sweet...

 The totally useless thermal rocket on the end

The Minmus Might

After our start up with KSP, we started with our first craft series; The Minmus Might. The first version was based on the Minmus ship Scott Manley used in his "complete career in 2 missions". Ever since I watched that playthrough, It has become my favourite way of progressing through the game.

Minmus Might 1, So experimental we needed somebody stupid enough to do it,

Ludming was that somebody...

The Mark 1 was perhaps the most fiddly craft I have made in a long time. Its worst features was the lack of struts (was not unlocked yet) and lack of radial decouplers.

On his journeys around Minmus, Ludming visited a plethora of biomes, however his idiocity got the better of him and broke his engine on the Lesser flats. Jeb, considering it to be his duty to rescue Ludming, flew the improved Minmus Might (The Minmus Might 2) to Minmus. The Mark 2 was improved in the sense it was more stable and used liquid engines. Jeb successfully landed at Minmus and handed over the keys to Ludming. When he returned to Kerbin, he brought the well awaited science needed to create The Minmus Might 3!

Ludming asking Jeb why he didn't just attach a Stayputnik to the top

The Minmus Might 3 is the pinical of minmus travel, boasting an entire Mk1 lander can and 3 brand new Mystery goo canisters. Now Jeb can scoot around Minmus and collect all the rest of the biomes on Minmus in absolute luxury.

A few shots of The Minmus Might 3. The lander also boasts a probe core for remote control

New Recruits!

Today, we are proud to announce our first new recruits to our space program! These bold men will be bringing kerbal-kind to the edge of space and beyond and, if we meet someone to strap a few extra solid fuel boosters to our ship, beyond! Jebediah Kerman, our new commander, said today "we hope to show the universe what we're made of, and this time it won't be by hurling ourselves towards the ground, no, this time we will be metaphorically showing everyone what we're are made of".

Commander Jebediah will be joined by Squad Leader Bill Kerman and Chief Navigator Bob Kerman.

Bill, Bob and Jebediah Kerman having just recieved their wings at their graduation

Their first missions all though small (seriously, they just orbited the planet -Cheapscate7) will no doubt bring us further to the stars and no doubt get us a bit of sciene on the way.

Jebediah Kerman orbiting Kerbin