We start this episode with 36 science and $847K in funds.
I go through the episode list and take what looks interesting. I'll drop that flag on the Mun and rescue those two poor stranded kerbals in one fell swoop, now that I have the technology to do it.
So, here's the ship I came up with. It's a fairly standard "tourister" on the top end: One pod for the pilot, one passenger compartment for the rescue missions. I've added some legs for landing on the Mun, a SAS module to help turn this unweildy beast in space, and a payload bay with some science, batteries, and mechjeb. I also have a couple active cooling pods, which I've never used before. I'm hoping that they'll let me cool down the ship during aerobraking, and not snap off like twigs in the slightest atmo, like solar panels are wont to do.
Underneath are some big orange tanks, and two different kinds of rockets. All three will fire at the same time. The outer rockets will act as boosters, but also feed fuel to the middle tank to keep it full. That way, when the outer rockets fall off (in high kerbin atmo), I'll have a full orange tank to complete all the rescue missions with. Between the SAS and the bigger wings, this thing should fly smooth as silk during takeoff.
And it does. I let Mechjeb take me up into orbit at 150km (so that I don't have to orbit a million times to line up for a good transfer--also known as "phasing orbits"), and this is the best-flying thing I've made this run-through.
As soon as I'm up in orbit, I switch to map view and select Duming's vessel as my target. Since I've made a rendezvous video already showing how to do it manually, I'll let mechjeb handle these.
Mechjeb spends a few dv matching planes.
And then it does the same basic transfer I did in the video.
Once that's done, it sets up a node to match speeds. At this point, I'm further away than the 250km target distance I set in the autopilot, but I'm close enough for government work, so I abort the auto-pilot to fly kerbals around in space.
I hit the ] (bracket) key to switch to Duming's ship, EVA him, and fly him over to my rescue vessel.
There's only one door on the vessel, so I have to get Jeb out so that Duming can get in. I call this the EVA dance.
Once Duming's in the command pod, I right click it, choose "transfer crew" and move him to the passenger compartment via internal walkways (or somesuch). I then fly Jeb back to the pod door and get him safely inside.
I still have 2275dv in my big lift vehicle, and 2271 in my mun lander, so the remainder of the mission looks pretty good. I have fuel to spare. I let Mechjeb set me up a maneuver node to the Mun, but it always sucks at it, so I pull out the Node Editor to push the values a bit to give me a 140-ish km orbit.
Once I get there, I start to circularize at the 138K periapsis when I realize: I'm orbiting the wrong direction! I'll have to flip a u-turn after circularizing if I'm going to rendezvous with the stranded kerbal, so I immediately change my plans.
Inclination changes are always cheaper the further you are from a gravity well, so I'll just circularize right here, 1.1 million meters up.
Mechjeb's going to take 437 dv to turn myself around. You could do this manually with maneuver nodes, but it wouldn't be as pretty, or as fuel efficient.
Once I've done that, I rendezvous with the ship, same as before. Mechjeb gets me within about 500 meters before I abort the autopilot, switch to Alby's derelict, and do the EVA dance to get all of my kerbals back in the ship.
I still have 300dv worth of fuel in the orange tank, but that's not enough to land with. I could use it to help me land, but dropping parts in the middle of landing really screws with Mechjeb. And I have enough fuel to spare, so I decouple the lifter stage and will use my smaller payload vehicle to perform the rest of the mission.
I set Mechjeb to land me in the East Crater. I've been here before, so I won't get much science. But it's the best equatorial place for me to land, and I don't have a ton of fuel to waste, so that's where I'm heading.
I've cropped and zoomed this pic for you to see it, but it's still kind of dark. We're coming down very close to the Munar Arch, one of the many KSP easter eggs. These kinds of neat things are scattered all around the solar system for you to find.
I set down nice and easy, take Jeb out for a walk, plant a flag, collect what meager science I can, and blast back up to a 50K orbit.
I let Mechjeb plot a course home, but as always, it sucks at it, so I tweak the node a bit.
I come in at a 50K periapsis, which is kind of low, fast, and hot. But the cooling keeps things from overheating and exploding, and happily, they don't snap off. They also provide a ton of extra drag. This lets me get away with 4 aerobraking orbits, instead of the normal 13-15 I have to do before I get captured by the atmo. Nice. They never get above 85% of their capacity, and they don't actually snap off until I'm landing and I'm down to 34km altitutde.
Once they snap off, I immediately burn what remaining fuel I have to slow even further, and then jettison my rockets. But then disaster strikes...
I flip around nose first! Now I'm all aerodynamically shaped, and have no hope of my heat sink acting as a good aerobrake. The only thing I can do is use the weak SAS in the command pod to try to tumble around in atmospher and create drag. I don't have enough control to flip myself back around the right way. Things are looking dicey...
I don't actually slow enough to deploy my drag chutes until I'm 2750 meters above the ground. That's close! But the drag chutes do their job, and slow me enough for the main chute to be deployed. I land on Kerbin's "shores" biome, which I haven't collected any science at yet, so I do a crew report, thermometer reading, and barometer scan once I land.
I end the flight with nearly 1.2 million kerbucks and 91 science.
I have a tourist mission that takes 2 tourists who both want a Munar Orbit. So, rather than ending here, I load the ship back up with tourists for another launch. Because I'm not rescuing anyone, and I'm not burning fuel landing on the Mun and taking off again, I should have enough dv to prevent the near death experience that Jeb just had.
I take off, fly to the Mun, orbit, and come back, same as I just did. But a whole lot faster because I'm not dicking around with rescues and the like. I am able to get back and re-circularize around Kerbin all on my big orange tank, leaving about 300dv in the orange tank and 2200dv in the smaller vehicle to better control my landing.
This time landing is a cakewalk, and I'm able to slow my speed to about 100m/s about 20K up in the atmosphere and pop my chutes. Easy peasey.
After the tourists disembark, I'm left with 1.28 million kerbucks and 94 science. Next episode: To Minmus!