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Minmus Rescue, Season 2: Kerbal Space Program

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This Season 2 stream on GopherCraft's multiplayer server picks up on the Mun, where Space Bus 3 stands near the tipped-over The Success 2012 XLT. The commentary says another player took Tatiana Kerman off the bus earlier in the week, which frees up seats for the kerbals waiting there. Space Bus 3 brings Magvy Kerman and Aldberry Kerman home to a splashdown. Then a Space Bus with no crew at all heads for Minmus, where three more kerbals are stuck. It lands a few kilometers short, tips over and breaks apart, and the stream ends at the Space Center with the Minmus kerbals still waiting.

Ladder trouble on the Mun

The stream opens with kerbals out on foot beside Space Bus 3, trying to get aboard. The ladder is still folded up, and it turns out somebody inside has to put it out. "Do I have to have a guy inside of there to extend the ladder?" Jumping and grabbing does not work, so the jetpack comes on: "I will try to RCS up and then F." It takes several tries, and the trick turns out to be holding Shift to rise, before the first one gets a grip and climbs in. With the ladder out, Magvy Kerman walks up the rest of the way. "Sweet ladder action!"

Space Bus 3 standing on its landing legs on the dark gray Mun, small kerbals in suits on the ground beneath it, the navball reading Surface 8.6m/s

The commentary finds an upside to losing Tatiana: "I actually have enough room for the other two guys. Because I was going to have to leave one behind." A Surface Sample and an EVA Report from the Mun's Midlands go into the Mk1-2 Command Pod, and Space Bus 3 lifts off with Aldberry and Magvy in the portraits.

Home through the fire

From orbit around the Mun, a burn sends the bus toward Kerbin. Then a time warp goes strange. "I don't really understand what happened there when I sped up and all of a sudden, my whole orbit was all weird." The commentary guesses the bus ran into something that nudged its path. The orbit still ends at Kerbin, so the engines are dropped, the capsule turns retrograde, and it comes in wrapped in flame.

A craft wrapped in a long orange plume of reentry flame above the blue edge of Kerbin's atmosphere, the navball reading Orbit 3041.5m/s

The parachutes open over open water and the capsule splashes down. "We got our three guys back." Back at the Space Center the science counter reads 304.8.

Space Bus 5, no crew

Next comes a headcount in the Tracking Station. The Success 2009 XLT is listed as landed at Minmus, with Seemin Kerman and Wehrdorf Kerman aboard, and the commentary counts one more on the ground: three in all, "still one more than I can put on a single current ship." A viewer suggests letting a computer fly the ship to free up a seat. In the Vehicle Assembly Building, Space Bus 4 gets a probe core and an Advanced Inline Stabilizer for extra steering, and is renamed Space Bus 5. Nobody rides along.

Solid rocket boosters push it off the pad, and the orbit goes a little higher "just to avoid some of our debris fields."

Chasing Minmus

Minmus orbits on a tilt, so the first job is to match it. Several minutes of dragging maneuver nodes around end in "Aha. Minmus encounter." The fuel gets low enough on the transfer burn that a tank switch might be needed, but the bus slows into orbit around Minmus with fuel to spare.

The target is Raysy Kerman, standing on the surface. That patch of ground is rolling into shadow, so the commentary waits for the Sun to come back: "I don't want to land in the darkness." The braking burn drops the bus down, the empty engine section goes, and a viewer suggests pushing the retrograde marker toward the target. It does not close the gap. "It might end up being like three kilometers away, which is still a decent amount."

Over on its side

Space Bus 5 settles upright on its legs on a slight slope.

Space Bus 5 standing upright on its landing legs on the gray-green surface of Minmus under a black starry sky, the navball reading Target 1.2m/s

Then it starts to lean. "Please don't roll." It goes over onto its side. Extending the legs would only tip it further, so the commentary banks it and lights the engines. "Oh no, that's worse."

Space Bus 5 lying on its side on a slope of Minmus, its round tanks and engines pointing sideways against the stars, the navball reading Target 8.6m/s

The bus hops, tumbles and comes apart. The Flight Results read "Outcome: Catastrophic Failure!", with a list of parts that crashed into terrain, the Probodobodyne HECS and the Advanced Inline Stabilizer among them. Raysy Kerman's marker reads 3.4 km from where it came down. "Well, that's good practice, right?"

Where it ends

The stream ends at the Space Center at night, science still at 304.8. Raysy, Seemin and Wehrdorf are still on Minmus with The Success 2009 XLT. "We recovered three guys this episode, and then maybe next time we'll try to figure out how to recover those other guys." Tatiana does not appear in this video.