Back at the Mun, Valentina was in low orbit, having completed the ascent from her mission to the eastern crater. She took a well deserved nap and had some snacks while the mission command crew back at KSC busied themselves saving a few more kerbals from orbit to add to the crew.
Then it was time to rendezvous with the science capsule ship to offload the data and to do some orbital dancing to sort out refuelling, clean up the science equipment etc. as usual.
Another batch of science findings was sent back to Kerbin and recovered successfully.
I was still a bit short of funds to upgrade the R&D center and I really wanted that 500-point science cap removed, so it was time to take a look at the commercial side of things and look for a good cash job to top up the coffers.
I found a mission where they wanted us to test a big late-tech rocket in sun orbit. Well, that’s pretty easy, isn’t it…especially as the “run test” option doesn’t require you to have any fuel left. All I needed to do was to assemble a simple second stage with sufficient delta-V to escape Kerbin’s SOI and not run our of battery before getting there.
I used the 12-ton launch vehicle to haul the test bed to orbit and sent it on it’s merry way.
…and that did the trick! Money in the bank…time to upgrade our back-of-garage sweatshop research operation to something more shiny! Look at that! Pretty fancy. We have a water tower, a dome cinema and everything.
Back at the Mun, we were considering doing another trip to the surface, however the reality was, most of the equatorial orbit is of the “midlands” biome, which Valentina already landed at…so we’d get diminished returns for a fairly large fuel expenditure.
We also picked up a stranded kerbal rescue mission on Mun orbit and saved a pilot kerbal called Lemdo.
The delta-V on the science capsule vehicle was starting to run low after that, so it was decided that the third science capsule be filled with whatever EVA and crew reports we could easily pull together in orbit, rather than doing another Mun landing.
Bob and Lemdo did a bunch of EVAs, trying to catch as many biomes as possible and loaded them to the science pod together with the leftover landing science before firing it back to Kerbin.
The probe came in pretty hot, as I pushed the periapsis down a bit on this one, I think it was 14kms…the ablator shield held but the battery blew up because of the referred heat! Luckily the probe core lasted and I could fire the parachutes with the small reserve of electric charge in the core.
The science capsule vehicle had now expended all its probes and it was time to get rid of it. I emptied it of almost all fuel and decoupled it retrograde on a low Mun orbit. The remaining fuel was used to lower the periapsis for a collision course with the Mun and a controlled crash was completed.
I was considering bringing Valentina, Bob and Lemdo back to Kerbin at this point. Have a shower, eat a sandwich that’s not in paste format, that kind of thing. But then again, that would require arranging a return vehicle over to the Mun…a tedious affair that would not advance the cause of the kerbals.
Hmm, what’s this transfer window planner function?
Hey Valentina, fancy a 4-day nap and a trip to Minmus after that? You’ve got the delta-V to spare in the lander?
She groaned and cut off the comm line, which I took as acceptance. The transfer from Mun to Minmus requires very little delta-V when timed right, which is handy.
Valentina had seemed grumpy at first but in the end she was pretty happy about the Minmus trip once the minty celestial body was in sight.
She sent back a bunch of reports from orbit and proceeded to land at the Lesser Flats.
Soil gathering at Minmus always seem to take way longer than they should - we suspect it’s because the kerbals keep eating the samples, thinking it is mint ice cream.
Once Valentina was safely landed at the Lesser Flats, Bob and Lemdo proceeded to wrap up the Mun orbit mission before heading over to Minmus also. They docked at the Mun orbital station and scavenged all usable fuel from its tanks.
After that, it was time to leave the old station behind. I considered deorbiting the station, however the skies above Mun are now otherwise clear and the station does house an active comms relay, which may come in handy at times, so for now we shall leave it there.
Bob and Lemdo captured a high elliptical orbit over Minmus, then circularised to 20km and established communications with Valentina down on the surface.
I’m pretty keen go head out of Kerbin’s SOI…I know that I could farm all the tech in the game easily enough from Minmus, but in a way it would be nice to leave some nice unlock achievements until we’ve been a bit further afield. It’ll be a compromise between wanting the best ship for longer expeditions and wanting to get out there, as playing on Minmus is pleasant but not very exciting.
