Kerbals in Spaaaaace!

[RCgothic]

Today I successfully completed my Minmus training mission!

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I also managed to go into Solar Space with it and return! I wonder if there's something wrong with my Deadly re-entry though. I came very hot and yet barely used any of the ablative shielding. I even have it set to 'hard'! Surely Mun and Kerbol return missions should be harder than that?

Turned out three of the kerbals hadn't been to the Mun's sphere of influence, so this poorly conceived idea was a way to send those three plus a pilot:

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The rocket broke in half repeatedly at about 20k metres. Remarkably at the octuple-strutted middle of the orange tanks! Luckily I could fly the orbiter it in for a landing each time. Looks pretty though!

So I built a conventional pod for Munar orbit and return. Raised an eyebrow slightly when the centre pod chute detonated before anything else including the un-heatshielded fuel tank, luckily I had four more reserve chutes. But they weren't quite enough and as I got a little distracted during re-entry my pod came in at 8.5m/s for a hard landing. If I'd been paying attention I could have fired the engine for a soft touch down, but at least my kerbals walked away from it.

So I now have two pilots, two engineers and two scientists all at level 3!