High Tech, no Cash

I have never achieved this level in any previous game of Kerbal Space Program. Feels good. However, Squad has the new update to 1.1 in development, so I feel I should keep pushing forward, or I will not make it to Duna in this career game, neither! 

Last session was somehow screwed. Now I find out why: I had turned of the Lander´s reaction wheels and forgotten to turn them back on. I wonder how I managed at all to dock this vessel in last session! Here I undocked it again and sent it off for a rescue contract in low orbit. Very useful to have a small vessel ready in orbit!

The Atomic Kitten finally arrives back from Minmus, with a shitload of science! Since the nuclear engine provides for plenty deltaV, I don´t do aerobraking and make full use of nuclear power! (Besides, aerobraking would have destroyed the solar panels, because I wrongly chose the non-foldable ones.)

The Atomic Kitten is back in Kerbin Orbit and docks at the Transit Terminal.

I want to send up my newOrbiter, but this time, it is proven that those big wings with their low maximum heat allowance are not really suited for space excursions!

After some time on construciton, this newly designed spaceplane gets sent up.

I am pretty proud to state that it works like charm on first time. This screenshot lets me also very proudly realize that my plan of having a Transit Terminal, where atmospheric and non-atmospheric vessels exchange their passengers and cargo, has really worked out!

Shameless promotional screenshot of one of the best designs of mine, I think. Here, the Phoenix is on its trip back down, with all science from Minmus and some rescued Kerbonauts on board.

Re-entry also works like charm. The Phoenix perfectly holds the required angle of attack without so much breaking a sweat. Maybe it is because the Kerbal Space Program is best programmed for small to medium sized vessels.

Also a point landing. I learned now that I better approach too high, because I can always slow down very quickly by pointing the plane almost 90 degree upwards; wings are powerful airbreaks if used as such.

Boom! Science boost with 4100 points! The tech tree is now almost totally open. Like this, I basically do not need to worry about science points anymore and can just focus on the missions I happen to like.

But first, I spend a lot of time toying around with the new, well, toys which I was able to unlock. I do not have enough cash now to really make use of everything, even less to extend both the rocket assembly building and/or the plane assembly building required. This is the only one I just managed to bring out by spending all my cash, then I reloaded to a previeous state.

But I have grander ideas. I need a ground-to-orbit working horse for big payloads. Then the sky will be all open. This  unfortunately is too big for my current finances; I still need liquidity for my other missions and cannot blow everything just to get this out of the building.

Another approach at a flyable spaceplane, but, frankly, it looks totally crappy and it also flys like this.

With this one here, I may be on to something. Its cargo bay is huge, no, it IS basicaclly just a huge cargobay with a cockpit and engines. I am looking forward to use something like this once I have a bit more cash!