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A Minmus for the rest of us
Nov. 17th, 2013 04:02 pmKerbin has two moons. One, the Mun, I've landed on multiple times and while I'm still trying to perfect it, it's not super challenging. The other is much farther out, in a slanted and eccentric orbit, and is called Minmus. I just landed Jeb and his pals there.
I had a plan for a nice lander. I built a few and tossed them at the Mun; they look like this. The idea is that my old lander designs tended to fall over on landing, because they were too narrow. This thing, which I've been calling the Cricket, can land on very slanted ground and not fall down. The problem is that rockets carrying them are top-heavy and wobbly, and it's hard to launch one (although the lander handles well once it's in space). So, after trying for two hours yesterday, I eventually decided to throw up the lander on one rocket, the ascent stage center part on another, and an orbital maneuvering rocket on a third (not visible here, it's still in orbit). This Minmus lander was to be the ascent stage, but I decided to go ahead and throw it at Minmus without a lander to get a closer look, sort of a flyby. Then, once I got there, I had plenty of fuel left so I decided to land. Then I realized that that lander is total overkill because Minmus has such low gravity.
I had a plan for a nice lander. I built a few and tossed them at the Mun; they look like this. The idea is that my old lander designs tended to fall over on landing, because they were too narrow. This thing, which I've been calling the Cricket, can land on very slanted ground and not fall down. The problem is that rockets carrying them are top-heavy and wobbly, and it's hard to launch one (although the lander handles well once it's in space). So, after trying for two hours yesterday, I eventually decided to throw up the lander on one rocket, the ascent stage center part on another, and an orbital maneuvering rocket on a third (not visible here, it's still in orbit). This Minmus lander was to be the ascent stage, but I decided to go ahead and throw it at Minmus without a lander to get a closer look, sort of a flyby. Then, once I got there, I had plenty of fuel left so I decided to land. Then I realized that that lander is total overkill because Minmus has such low gravity.
