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[SOLDIER First]

Can't you just jump?
Lower gravity, remeber?

[Aseaheru]

The lab wont be entirely useful until we get docking ports. And ladders arent needed on minimus. I think you can reach orbit with a RCS pack there.

[GreatWyrmGold]

The lab wont be entirely useful until we get docking ports.

Can't it work on things in the same spacecraft, even without ports in between?

And ladders arent needed on minimus. I think you can reach orbit with a RCS pack there.

Can't you just jump?
Lower gravity, remeber?

And jumping is so inaccurate. Why go with the simple, clumsy solution when you can have a complex, elegant, engineering-ey solution?

You guys aren't the first geniuses to think to ask that. Read the thread.

Now for the update.

We design a new Minmushot, going to the old "complete redesign" angle. As always, we work backwards. First the Kerbin landing pod:


_{Complete with stuff!}

Next, a pair of adorable little rocket stages for getting off Minmus.


_{What is this "overkill" you speak of? ..."Too heavy to fly," we have heard of.}

Third is the landing stage:


_{Capable of performing no fewer than sixteen science experiments right then and there, the Minmushot III's landing stage is the most powerful laboratory ever built by the KSSP. And one of the largest in the world that hasn't exploded yet. And the best-heated!}

Penultimately, the orbit-to-Minmus rocket stage:


_{Also note the weird phantom dot.}

And finally, the Kerbin-to-orbit stage, with four discardable solid fuel boosters.


_{Is there any other kind?}

We hire a couple volunteers to work in the lab, choosing them based on meeting important mission criteria.


_{"Why yes, I'd LOVE to live in space!"}

The launch starts. The thing begins leaning southwards. Fast.


_{Note to self: Include a "decouple last decoupler" button in future designs.}

We head back and add some stabilizing fins.


_{Twelve of them, because if there's one thing I overdo it's failed attempts at safety! ...Wait, that came out wrong.}

So we launch again. We start leaning...east.

(Note to self: Put happy Bob picture here.)
_{"Excellent. We're starting the gravity turn early, I suppose?"}

Soon, the tilt starts going crazy.


_{"Not optimal."}

I start throttling back, remembering Scott's advice to keep speed below 200 m/s in the lower atmosphere. Sadly, pitch, yaw, and roll are all bonkers.


_{"Ground Control, there is a large orange-and-blue sphere hanging in the air behind my spacecraft! Also I am outside the craft while being inside it! Or something like that!"}

I drop the (empty) solid fuel boosters, but the rocket continues to not maneuver well.

We're basically horizontal, almost out of fuel in our first stage, at 5000 meters, and running out of time to get to dinner and the evening class, so...launch aborted, sorry to cut you short here.

[Aseaheru]

Yes, it will work on the same craft. Good work on getting the experiments to work with all that.

[GreatWyrmGold]

The experiments are all linked to one button (0). What issue is there?

[Aseaheru]

With the lab...

[GreatWyrmGold]

I'm starting to suspect I don't understand the lab...

[Aseaheru]

Well, its good for an orbiter that has a lander landing, returning, transmitting and repeating.

Really though? Its not good for too much. Atleast not for close in work where you can just return fairly quickly.

[BigD145]

The lab can boost research (the two colored bars you see) a tad before beaming or physically shipping back reports and can reset experiments that become inoperable if you beam or take reports from them. It's a big refiner and reseter. It reduces the number of trips needed to fully mine science from a body. It has two best uses: orbital station or land station on a body with atmosphere.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Why with atmosphere?