Everybody and his brother on the Web seem to be building space stations, but I decided I wanted to build a moonbase. Since Minmus is so easy to land on, I decided to put my moonbase there, along with my big collection of Fido hardware. It would also give Gergan Kerman and Cammon Kerman a better place to live (they've been hanging around in the capsule of the Fido K all this time, with some visits to the capsule of the Retriever rocket whenever they needed privacy, I assume. The moonbase was constructed from 4-kerbal hitchhiker containers and fuel tanks to act as 'hallways' connecting the container modules. And then I covered it with all sorts of doo-dads and equipment, since a proper moonbase should keep the astronauts busy doing research. The rocket is shown below, with five mainsail engines. Even then the carrier rocket had to burn all of the fuel in the big central tank to get the ship into orbit. Once in orbit, the fuel from the 'hallway' tanks and upper support tanks of the modules was transferred to the big central tank of the rocket. Then I boosted it off to Minmus.
Below we see the carrier and moonbase after braking into orbit around Minmus. The marker on the surface shows the location of all the Fido hardware, and that's my target. The carrier is controlled by an OCTO probe body... there are no kerbals on board (I included the 3-kerbal capsule because it has good SAS torque to augment the wussy torque of the probe...and the capsule seems to work so much better at adding torque than stacking on lots of plain SAS units does...I don't know why).
My orbit was nearly equatorial, and the Fidos live about 4 degrees north of the equator, so it was easy to plot the retro burn...but one must remember to 'lead' the target by quite a bit to account for Mimus's rotation. The moonbase carrier has four LV-T45 engines, which is way more thrust than you need to land on Minmus (but those motors were needed to get the ship into Kerbin orbit in the first place).
The carrier landed near the Fidos (after a lot of hovering and pushing it around with the linear RCS jets mounted on the sides of the side-tanks). The moonbase is connected to the carrier by a standard separator, which I blew at this point to allow the moonbase to drop to the surface.
Then I lifted the carrier off from the moonbase and moved it a short distance away (it's on the right side of the picture in back). Its central tank is empty and the side tanks are about 1/4 full, so it has plenty of fuel to vamoose from the scene. I'll probably fly it away some day when the amount of equipment at this base gets to be so great that the lagginess of the computer during landings becomes too annoying. All the antennas and doo-dads have been deployed on the moonbase. The moonbase has its own OCTO probe body for control (on North module in the rear here).
Gergan Kerman got out of the Fido K to give scale to the base, standing by West module. The base can support up to 16 kerbals, assuming they are on friendly terms and use the shower facilities often.
Here's Gergan up on the highest point of the moonbase. I'm sure he's checking out the ion-beam experiment equipment, and not just having fun.
When I built the moonbase, the cruciform structure at the top consisting of five FL-T200 tanks and four Modular Girder Segments came first, and then the Hitchhiker containers were added. The hallways were made from FL-T200 tanks that were stuck onto the sides of the containers using the magic of Cubic Octagonal Struts, the the containers were rotated in place.
Gergan hops inside to check out the interior accommodations and grab the best bunk for himself. I included a picture of the kerbal equivalent of Gabrielle Drake in her silver moonbase uniform in there to keep him company.
Nighttime at Minmus Moonbase. There are lights to illuminate the areas outside the hatchways of the four modules, and two high-intensity lights at light illuminate work areas to the northwest and southeast.
Kerbol-rise at Minmus Moonbase. Damn...I wish WE had moon bases.
And here's Gergan Kermin by the East module of the moonbase, but you can still see the front module of the moonbase. *rip* And there is Kerbin, hiding behind the moonbase. Oh! I didn't expect Kerbin!
And as we zoom back from Minmus Moonbase and pan up to a closing shot of The Big Butt, so ends another Kerbal Space Program adventure.
