Mission 4: Bursted's Mun Checker

GOAL: Land on the Mun. Check it out.
OUTCOME: Landed on the Mun 3 times, just for good measure.
NOTES: There's a lot of science floating around out there. We will need to plan for MORE SCIENCE in the future! And more struts.

MISSION LOG

After some head scratching, we realized something that seems obvious in retrospect. If we could fly to the Mun with one rocket, doesn't it stand to reason that if we use four rockets (at once), we should be able to land on it and then come home? Well, that's exwhat we plan to do in this mission.

Since Bursted did such a good job on the last mission, we decided to give him the wheel on this one, too. Naturally, he named the ship after himself, because he's an egotistical son of a bitch. But still, we don't pay him, so we'll consider this naming gift as compensation. Presenting: BURSTED'S MUN CHECKER!

Over-engineered to CHECK THE MUN. For things.

The launch went beautifully. With as wobbly as our last rocket was, we have started investigating a new technology called "struts". The idea is, if we attach two parts of the rocket to one another, they probably won't flap around like a scarf in the breeze. It seemed to work.

PREPARE YOUR BODY FOR SCIENCE!

We also used some "fins" which, our engineers tell us, are used to point the rocket in the right direction. Less fun, but more efficient, I suppose. The ship pretty easily made it into orbit, with quite a lot of fuel to spare. Looked like we were going to make it!

BURN THAT PROGRADE!

Pretty soon, Bursted had the rocket on a collision course perfect trajectory to arrive at the Mun with a fairly low periapsis. All we had to do from there was wait for him to arrive.

Not so fast, Mun.

He found a nice-looking giant crater and steered his way toward it.

STOP. Crater time.

By the time Bursted arrived, he had so damn much fuel left that he still had his transfer stage attached to his lander. Fortunately we thought ahead and put an extra set of landing gear on that stage, just in case. Bursted was just going to have to land a significantly taller craft than originally planned.

GET IT TOGETHER, BURSTED.

It turned out the landing gear was the same length as the engines, so Bursted MIGHT have used the engines as landing gear. Good thing we... uh... yeah I got nothing.

SUCCESS.

Bursted slapped a flag down to mark our future colonization spot and posed for our first picture from another celestial body.

I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT CHEESE IS.

After doing some science, Bursted realized that with this much fuel in the lander, he could probably make another trip to a different part of the Mun. Hey, WHY NOT?

ONWARD AND UPWARD and then sideways and back down.

This looks like a nice 20 degree incline to land on!

LANDING #2: NAILED IT.

Bursted found a nice spot just east of the crater he first landed in and did a crapload of science there. But then he realized that he still had WAY too much fuel in the lander. TIME FOR SPOT NUMBER 3!

Now THIS is a lander.

Bursted remembered some weird-looking twin craters that he spotted on the way in. Why not check those out?

Always wanted to land on twins.

At this point, Bursted had just enough fuel that he should be able to return to Kerbin (and slow himself down enough to not burn up in the atmosphere). So he finished up his science and brought all the data into the capsule. Hey, no need to lug all this science equipment back to Kerbin!

That's a lot of science. If this ship crashes... Fuck.

Upon burning to exit the Mun's sphere of influence, Bursted got a bit excited and pre-emptively decoupled the outer engines of the lander while they were still burning at full throttle. There were a few explosions, but nobody got hurt in the end.

You look concerned, Bursted. Is something... AMISS?

HEADIN' HOME!

 After one trip around Kerbin for some aerobraking, Bursted was finally ready to land.

And, as is his custom, Bursted landed in the mountains again.

MOON.

With all the science we got from this mission, we're going to have to up the ante next time around. How about... Oh, I don't know... How about a Minmus space station? There's tons of science to acquire on Minmus, and we'll need a BASE OF OPERATIONS!

SCIENCE, BITCHES!

Once we wrap up our Minmus Science Expedition (next mission), we should have all the KNOWLEDGE we'll need to be able to start colonizing things. Starting with THAT DAMNED MUN.