Cherubiel

I've made a 24 seater plane and I very much got to the limits of the stock contract system. Even with cheating new contracts in, it's hard to fill up the whole thing. Are there mods around that help with custom contracts I can just put in? I also took a look at the tourism+ mod and I am not yet sure if it would be the right thing, since there are some very different missions.

Haha, I haven't thought about KASA revoking the access to their tracking station. It would be pretty hard to make these timed launches and rendezvous then. Although with the money the tourist contracts are bringing in and the low costs of the spaceplane launch (its less than 2k for 75km orbit and back) the spaceport could buy its very own tracking station - if they were willing to part with the cash.

Another Mün flyby trip was planned. The Traveller with Telssa and Elbart at the helm boosted into orbit and closed in to Sternenhafen. It was very obvious that they were a good team on account of how well they got along when they thought we weren't looking. Elbart was the laid-back and thoughtful ying to Telssas enthusiastic and driven karate (or something). Anyway, a flawless docking maneuver happened and the Snubnose took in eight tourists plus provisions. Then it sped off towards a Mün encounter. Mort was right about the name. The plane does have a unfavorable front section. We then noticed that Macner had requested we visit him in the hangar some hours ago. So we got another coffee and then walked over there. Luckily we only interrupted some routine maintenance work. He started explaining that he had some made contact to important people in the aeronautics industry from when he worked with KASA and was offered a good deal on new high performance airplane parts because they thought he still was with them. We immediately told him to throw out whatever lie he needed to, because airplane parts are what we always needed. So he went off to get us cool stuff through good old-fashioned deceit. When we got out, the Traveller was already back, so we shoved in some more tourists and fuel and sent it back into orbit. We didn't have to wait long for Macner to call in. He arranged a delivery to KASA HQ and we only had to intercept it. Which we did quite successfully of course. We knew the way around their facilities blind and deaf. It turned out we got latest generation turbofan engines and quite impressive shock cone intakes coupled with engine precoolers for even more performance within the atmosphere. Our old rocket engines would be exchanged with aerospike engines that ... well, Macner kept talking and we were just nodding along at this point. We would take whatever upgrade we could get. Annoying KASA was a bonus. Our crew was told to upgrade the Persephone right away. Of course we wanted to see a test flight as soon as our pilots were back. Telssa turned out to be more than willing to snatch the maiden flight away from Mortimer for once. She listened to the specs, dragged Elbart into the cockpit and took off. It turned out the intial ascent became quite a bit easier since they went up quite steep, gaining speed all the way and only flattened out 14 km up. The new engines pushed the Persephone higher and faster before the rocket engines had to take over at 20 km above sea level. Even Elbart seemed amazed at that point. We have much more fuel left over, reported Telssa. Indeed they would have more room for maneuvers since their ascent was more efficient than before. We told them to go to Sternenhafen and transfer the leftover fuel to top off its reserves. They met up with the station and docked. All the while Telssa was raving about the upgrades to Mort. He didn't seem to mind that someone else got to be test pilot for once. After transfering fuel and some leg stretching in zero G they noticed a transmission coming in to Sternenhafen. It turned out to be from orbit as well. A female, claminig to be a pilot at KASA, asked for our help. Since this sounded a bit dodgy we tried to get some more information, but we only recieved screaming and explosion noises for a bit and then radio silence. We still recieved a signal from her last position though. We will save her, volunteered Elbart and Telssa seemed for it as well. We had to remind them that they were using the wrong plane for that. But luckily the Traveller was already beeing finished with its upgrades so we sent them down to change over. Another advantage of our planes - they were quickly made ready. In no time our pilots were on intercept course with the unknown pilot. Only after they took off we noticed that Debty was sitting in the passenger compartement. Well, we did promise her a trip to Sternenhafen. When they got closer to the signal, the comm connection to the unknown pilot came back online. She sounded excited and very happy when we informed her that she was about to be picked up. Her name was Daster, she explained, and that she was testing a spaceplane for KASA that developed quite severe problems on the way up that ended in a slight complete disassembly by explosion. When the Traveller got closer, it turned out she was drifting in a spaceplane cockpit designed very much like ours. We were about to be mad about the obvious design theft by KASA, but we do buy these parts stock - so anybody could do the same. Since Daster had her very own jetpack, she just disembarked her wreck and flew over to climb aboard. While she was amazed about our plane and its ability to not only get into space in one piece but its history of doing that countless times already, we followed our tradition of stealing KASAs people away and offered her a position with us. She accepted before she recognized Debty, who had also worked for KASA and who she had met a few times previously. It seemed those guys took horrible care of their people - they did tend to get lost in space and saved by us. Telssa introduced herself and Elbart and started to talk about piloting and planes. It seemed our new gal had also been a pilot for all her life and already did lots of hours with supersonic planes. She will make a great addition to our team we think. The next stop was Sternenhafen, where Debty disembarked with quite some luggage. She was to stay for longer and engage in some space science stuff, which (for whatever reason) was her lifelong dream. Daster was shown around the station, which she hugely enjoyed. When we got the Traveller back down, the Snubnose was not yet on its way back. Since there were always more tourists, we quickly got another fully booked orbital trip to send it back into space. It seemed Telssa and Daster had a talk in the meantime, because the latter was now in the cockpit together with Elbart and Telssa had thrown her feet up in our airport food court. It was nice of her to offer the new pilot her seat, even if that meant she had to suffer through an extra long lunch break. With few words Elbart explained her how everything worked and how the things went with the Traveller. She seemed to pick things up easily and we were already planning her in for future missions. An additional pilot was quite useful, even though our planes were doing the pilot/co-pilot thing. We also wondered a bit about her name. She did say "Daster with an 'a'", but we think she just misspelled 'Duster'. We will never know though (because we won't ask - some people just have a weird name and it's not nice to remind them).

While the Snubnose was drifting towards the Mün, our engineers were hard at work welding together whatever would ultimately fit into the cargo bay of the Persephone. To earn us some more money during construction, Telssa and Elbart made a fully booked trip into orbit with the Traveller- though it seemed the demand for getting a close encounter with another celestial body was much more in demand. They were chatting away with the Mortimer and Mirella on the comms the whole time, eager to hear about the anemities on the new plane, Snubnose. We had added fully reclining seats and besides the improved snack station Macner came up with a coffee machine that worked in zero G. Since we had all these things we advertised first class tickets. It does count, even if there is only one class available. When they came back down, the first part to be added to the station was ready to be delivered (for a much lower cost then what KASA asks for we might add). So Telssa and Elbart hopped out of one plane into the other and took off as the station drifted into the right position for interception. Elbarts exceptional skills on the video game controller made him the first choice to do the unloading. There would be more chances for his lady co-pilot to get a go as well. There better will be, I want to fly these cutesy little things as well, she had to say on that. The new part was a multi coupler with added fuel reserves for the tug and active radiators. Apparently thats needed in space even though its very cold out there - we had checked. Two nearly identical girder sections were added next, for energy production and storage. Our energy source is fully renewable of course. As renewable as a sun can be anyway. Telssa and Elbart were switching for drone control each time and didn't even make a dent into our fuel reserves. In one of the hangar back rooms our gound crew were looking through they had found another fully intact private jet. So they immediately cut it apart to repurpose the comfy passenger comparement. We now had our habitat sections for the station. Even better than the slightly modified caravans we had originally planned to use. The station was really taking shape. We would like to point out here, that an ugly shape is still a shape. While this was going on, the Snubnose was getting in close with the Mün and Mortimer called to inform us to "forget the old distance record". He was getting closer to the Mün than we ever had been. The Persephone made three more trips to add more habitat sections - two of them included ample space for provisions and whatever else Macner had deemed useful for space-living. After we saw how the station turned out, we felt very proud. This was serious stuff we were doing here. Even if it was on the cheap and on parts that we found lying around in dusty storage rooms and behind forgotten doors. The station needed a name now. Maybe Elbart would name it, if we can get him to talk. After the last delivery these two hard working delivery kerbals took a well deserved vacation for a few hours while the Snubnose came back to aerobrake its orbit back into a more circular shape. Mirella did some expert piloting there on the second maneuver - it takes two to safely slow down and the last one always has to be rather precise. Before they caught up to the station, Telssa and Elbart took off in the Traveller and actually made the rendezvous before them. While she did the docking maneuver (slow, precise and resourceful) we heard him say that the station was their "Sternenhafen" now. We had to look it up and decided that it would be a fitting name, even if wou could really not pronounce it (also we didn't know Elbart was from overseas, how exotic). Minutes later the Snubnose turned up at Sternenhafen as well and the eight passengers were transferred through the new and improved walkways. They seemed quite impressed by the change. Our pilots switched as well and we heard some more positive comments. Maybe we should go into the business of renting space real estate. Well, there would surely be safety regulations and restrictions and we would need permits or something. We will stay with the easier flying-busloads-of-people-around-for-money thing for now. This would be the new routine for the Mün flybys from now on. The Traveller also could do the orbital roundtrips while the Snubnose is underway and we will sell more tickets than ever. Debty took the opportunity to confess to us that she had smuggled science equipment into some sections of Sternenhafen and nicely asked if she could go up and play around with it. First we were not sure about it - it was one less ticket sold and nobody pays for science. Then we remembered we could possibly one-up KASA and told her she could join one of the next orbit-and-back flights.

It is very much designed as emergency landing craft for the emerging space station. Its glide ratio isn't the best but it can be touched down slow and soft enough to survive a water landing completely intact.

So Macner called us into the hangar to show off his efforts and also what he was working on. Influenced by our other great planes and supported by Debty, he managed to knock out a way to increase the efficency with our Mün flyby tourist contracts and make us lots of money. To our suprise it was really small and light and we were very happy we invited him into our space program. Our planes - good looking as they were - had apparently been far too large and expensive, if this could get into space and close to the Mün on its own. He then informed us that it couldn't actually go into space. It had to be brought up. We were close to getting out of the hangar and shutting the door on that ridiculous and useless thing, when Debty threw in that due to its low mass, high efficiency engine and aerobreaking on return it could do three Mün flybys on one refuelling run with fuel to spare. That did make us turn back around and listen. She explained, that since we had no rockets, we could do a contract with KASA and pay them to deliver it into orbit. Afterwards we would just keep it up there and transfer the tourists over via our already established space station. We might have fainted slightly when she showed us what they charged for tonnage. We then fainted quite some more when that turned out to be the price per kilogram. Debty then revived us by doing calculations in front of us that showed how quickly we made that money back in fuel savings on our own. The only hitch left was - of course - that we really hated the KASA guys. So we brought the new plane over to their space centre in the middle of the night and dumped it onto their front yard with the delivery instructions and money attached, signed by a fake middle man and company. After we had recieved word of the successfull delivery, we shoved all our pilots into the Traveller and told them to go up to the specified orbit and coordinates. Thats when they started asking questions and we noticed we hadn't actually told them what they were supposed to meet up there. So we just explained that a suprise was waiting for them. The people from KASA seemed to have packaged our plane. It definitely looked more round and bulbuous than before. We pondered on how to unwrap it. Meanwhile Mort was the first one to hop out and get a closer look. There is a button, he said as he already pressed that button. In space one apparantly cannot hear the "poof" of an exploding clamshell fairing. Our guy and gal pilots were sufficently suprised about the new plane and since Mort had done the honours of the unboxing event, he got to name it. The Snubnose. Well, we already had the Levitating Honeybadger. He called over Mirella and volunteered to do the first flight. To get started, he got in and got rid of the rest of the fairing. He then noticed that there was no fuel in the tanks. We explained how much the fuel weighted and how much cheaper it had been that way. Also, we had a space station somewhere around there with loads of fuel. Mort remarked that it would be very difficult to get there without any. Telssa quickly suggested siphoning some fuel from the Traveller into the Snubnose so it could make its rendezvous with the station. So we told them to do just that. After decoupling Telssa and Elbart returned back to us while Mort and Mirella met up and docked with the station. They did complain a bit about the low powered engine but otherwise were very happy about the view from the raised cockpit and seemed all around content. We suspected that they raided the snack cabinets of the Traveller while the fuel transfer was in progress. After the successful engagement we called the Traveller back up with a full load of tourists and a double load of snacks. We had to introduce some sort of crew rotation between bringing tourists up and getting them out into space since it was quite a long trip and we didn't want to overstress our pilots by doing multiple in a row. We made all the tourists climb down the narrow center tube of the station and thought about another expansion. If this was to work out, we would need a much nicer place up there. So we gave our engineers something to do with the rest of the discarded plane parts and leftover construction materials (we also counted them - no new ones).

(Update) After losing - in that order - my computer, all my data and all my free time, I managed to rip some of my files from the clutches of the dead HDD and was suprised to find my game save data intact. I patched together some mods to work with the latest version of KSP and I think I can continue where we left off, since the updates didn't change much about our stuff. For now, at least Mort and Mirella are still able to fly the Traveller

It began with a commercial launch with Mort and Elbart. We were still selling tickets for orbit tours, even if the demand for much farther space flights took over. The guys were absolute pros by now and could probably take off with the Traveller in their sleep. Nonetheless they were highly concentrated and watchful - errors could be not only costly, but fatal. They easily brought their plane up into space and had their eight passengers enjoy the view and the tricks that could be done in zero G in no time. When the airspace was clear, the two gals took Persephone into orbit with another payload to be added to the fuel station. Since this launches had to be timed, the girls had to wait on the runway for a bit, which they didn't seem to mind. We did have snack compartements installed in the cockpits of both of our planes for long flights and they seem to be filled even for the short ones. Up in orbit they met up with the fuel station to expand it further. Since Telssa had watched Elbart control the tugs, it was her pleasure to do the docking. She was a bit overcautious, but did it without a hitch. It then was Mirellas idea to transfer all the excess fuel from the Persephone, since they would only need a bit to do the deorbit burn and subsequent landing. They did keep some more for closing in to the airport in case they over- or undershot though. Telssa told us she liked it up there very much and asked if we were thinking about adding crew comparements to the station soon. We told her we would think about it. Truth is, this already crossed our minds, since we could surely sell bookings for an overnight stay in space - it would be the very first space hotel! You might think this to be either completely crazy or absolutely brilliant. We would like to think it is both. While they were admiring their work, the guys had done another trip and earned us some more money. The girls left with a job well done and the plan to do a refueling trip next so the Traveller could do its first dips into deep space. Macner had a meeting with us after the Persephone was back and suggested some improvements to the deep space capabilities of our planes, since the Traveller was beeing worked on anyway. We once again counted the number of engineers that were around (no new ones) and then gave him the go ahead. A retractable solar panel and several battery banks were added to both planes, which allowed the crew compartement of the Traveller to recieve a major upgrade in flight comfort with an entertainement system and a mini-fridge. While it was still grounded on account of it beeing cut in half and not quite in the process of beeing welded together again, the girls did the refueling run (they also snuck a mini-fridge aboard the Persephone and thought we would not notice it disappearing from the break room - we did, but only because our root beers had been in there). They actually had some fuel left over, which made us plan on adding two more tanks. The cost of the launch, the fuel and the parts was not that high at least. The added long distance price for the Mün flyby ticket sales should more than offset that. The same night the girls came back down, the Traveller would do its big tour. It wasn't because of the launch window, it was because Mort was so eager to fly again. And also the money we got from the ticket sales. Tell the girls we will be breaking their distance record, were Morts words as the engines went up to full thrust. Of course they had no problems with reaching orbit and Elbart had plenty of experience docking to the fuel station so that too was done perfectly. It was very important to show the tourists how professionally we did things. We were sure that this was the reason we sold so many more space tickets than KASA. Also the awesome planes. They didn't have anything that great. They had to take in all of the stored fuel, since the Traveller was heavier than its sister ship and would need more energy to get that far away from Kerbin. Our estimates placed three refueling launches to two Mün flybys. There had to be more cost-saving method. Mort suggested making the Traveller lighter. We wouldn't do that, but he gave us an idea - we could use a plane just for space which would be parked at the station. It could use a more efficient rocket engine and it wouldn't need jet engines at all, making it very light. Of course it wouldn't be able to get up to space by itself, so it would have to be carried up. That we would plan later though, now it was time to launch our guys into deep space. After the acceleration burn they had broken their personal speed records, which Elbart celebrated by fist-bumping his pilot colleague. It would take quite some time to reach the Mün of course. But the passengers would have a most luxurious trip. They could watch movies and have snacks and everything. Mirella and Telssa didn't sit on their thumbs in the meantime and continued expanding the fuel station. They had added a third tank and dumped their excess fuel into the others, before going back down and fetching another. Telssa showed Mirella how to handle the gamecontroller and we allowed them to do some extra rounds with the tug. There was more than enough RCS fuel around, since they were refilling it every time they docked. Mirella remarked that her colleague was right and "this thing really is cute". At last they did a fuel run, topping off the fuel stations tanks. Now there were enough reserves for another two Mün flybys. Telssa asked to do anothother integrity check of the station and we allowed her to buzz about a bit with her jetpack. Which she did. Our guys eventually reached the Mün. They indeed got closer than the gals and too asked for a spacewalk so they could get a better view. Since the passengers were distracted anyway we were fine with it. Mort seems as happy beeing outside as he was on the pilot seat - this must be quite impressive for him. Just a dusty rock, but so beautiful in its cold dark stillness, said Elbart. He must be very impressed as well, since he was actually talking. Our girls came back to the airport in the meantime. They would have to wait for the Traveller to come around and do the next trip, since we only had this one passenger plane. Although now we thought more about that permanent space plane idea. It would make loads of money and probably pay for itself quickly. We had to talk to Macner again and maybe to Debty as well. There was some downtime until the next launch and maybe we could use this.

Very nice! You did maths and everything. It truly is a shame KSP doesn't have some tool to get an ejection and phase angle readout. Even when using a launch window planner to get everything down to the fourth decimal, I have to eyeball the angles. Anyway, keep on moving all that mass.

We put together a plan for some space exploration. Debty, one of the two new hires, put some thought into it and had great ideas. Since she joined we saw her chatting it up with Mirella about some serious sounding science-y stuff like "electromagnetism", "cosmic radiation" and "thermodynamic limits". We had no idea what they were talking about, but listened to their input nonetheless. Macner was a great help too, his space engineering background helped our engineers to come up with a plan to improve our space station. Plus he helped upgrade our cargo spaceplane to recieve some maneuvering thrustes to make docking to our station possible.. All of this together lead to the Persephone beeing fully booked for the forseeable future. So Elbart and Telssa were called for the next launch. Since KASA conveniently forgot to withdraw our access to their tracking station, we could use this to arrange a perfect rendezvous. Elbart took the controller again to steer one of the tugs since their payload was supposed to be added to the station. It was a fuel tank which would supply the Persephone for a planned Mün flyby. Despite Mirella and Debtys ideas, we weren't doing this for science, but for fame. If we showed off our improved capabilities, we would sell even more tickets for our flights. Telssa was quite curious about the whole remote controlling thing, so Elbart showed her how a perfect docking procedure was done. And he really did it perfectly. The space station was expanded to a fuel station and they came back down to the airport. A refill was done and a cargo of science instruments was added to the Persephone. Meanwhile we spotted a disagreement between our pilots, but it turned out to be something else. Elbart was offering Mirella his spot on the plane and our resident scientist Debty was trying to talk her into it. Since it was obvious Mirella wanted to go along to the Mün flyby but was also afraid to mess something up, we reminded her that Telssa was with her and that there was absolutely no chance of failure if the two of them did the mission together. So she (quite happily) gave in and hopped into the Persephones cockpit alongside Telssa. It was a timed launch; they were to meet with the fuel station, refuel and then boost their orbit to meet the Müns. While they were doing the rendezvous maneuver, Mortimer (who told us he was fine with us calling him "Mort") and Elbart earned us some money by taking some more tourists into Kerbins orbit. And some more in a second flght. We are totally on board with earning money of course. In space we could witness some professional docking action, undertaken by our femme pilots Telssa and Mirella. Thanks to the tracking station data they easily plotted a rendezvous course and then used the maneuver engines to dock to the station. After making contact, Telssa did a spacewalk to inspect the station and make sure everything was prepped for their long jurney. Since they were about to leave Kerbin for several days, everything had to work right. None of them were nervous about it. They transferred all of the fuel that was brought up to the station in the last trip, then undocked and did the acceleration burn to boost themselves into meeting the Mün. The Persephone would take quite some time to do its epilleptical orbit. So the Traveller did another trip and came back down long before its sister ship left for deep space. Mort seemed a bit nervous about the deep space mission, so we postponed the next flight and allowed the guys to watch the progress of the Persephone. Elbart too seemed very keen on looking after the girls. But it was worth sitting in front of some screens, because Telssa and Mirella entered an unstable orbit of the Mün some time afterwards and got a wonderful view. Only a small handfull of others had ever come so far. The girls not only got some good observations of the larger of Kerbins satellites, they also took science data from high orbit around it. That was quite a grand moment for us, since we managed to do a flyby of another astronomical body besides Kerbin. Persephone was on a free return trajectory and planned aerobreaking maneuvers would bring her back into a stable Kerbin orbit. Out gals held up well in deep space and flawlessly did the dips into Kerbins atmosphere. It would take three to slow them down enough to enter low Kerbin orbit. Mortimer seemed more tense about it than the girls. Even before they came back down we recieved very lucrative offers about commercial Mün flybys. Finally our resident lady pilots did a deorbit maneuver and a landing at our airport. A phenomenal success! There was no question about the massive increase in ticket sales that would follow still. We would have to upgrade the Traveller with a docking port so it could do a refill in orbit as well. For now Telssa and Mirella would do more missions to further expand our fuel station.

We did listen to him. Out of the hangar rolled a close copy of the Traveller without the passenger compartements and an added cargo bay as well as a docking port. Theoretically it would be able to carry about 2 tons of cargo into orbit. Since it was Elbarts idea, he not only had to do the first flight, but we also gave him the honor of naming it. Telssa volunteered to accompany him and while they were taxied to the runway, a name was announced. Shortly thereafter Persephone took off to her maiden voyage into orbit. Telssa and Elbart both noticed that it didn't feel as light as it should have, even if it behaved perfectly well. The also added there were clunking noises coming from the cargo hold. We really hoped there wasn't some forgotten member of the ground crew in there. Because these guys dont get suits and the Persephone was quickly leaving the atmosphere. We would find out in once in orbit. Once the cargo bay was opened, a tiny vessel floated out. It actually seemed to be two even smaller ships docked together. A quick investigation later it turned out that one of our engineers put it in there. Others of the ground crew identified him as "the new guy" and we checked his credentials again which were far too good so we logically assumed he was a spy for KASA. Suprisingly, we were right, because after a few questions he spilled the beans and explained that these were prototype drone tugs for assembling a space station. They were designing them and he was only checking to see if they fit into the Persephones cargo hold before he would have taken off with them and the spaceplanes blueprints. We were only angry for about a second until we noticed that we had totally stolen some awesome tech from KASA without even noticing! This also explained why there was a docking port on the spaceplane, we had been wondering about that since its introduction. The engineers were ordered to distrust new hires a lot more and we figuratively put down the spy (we actually fired him). Since our pilots were still floating around up there with the tugs we told Telssa to get outside and check them out. She had again already brought her jetpack along "just in case" as she remarked. She described them as "really cute" and stated that they had omni-directional thrusters and remote controlled drone cores. That sounded incredibly high-tech and we were even happier about the find. Only, we couldn't steer them, since they relied on a comm connection to the KASA space center. But we could put some sort of satellite up with a direct link to us and the amateur radio stations who let us use their antennas. Through that we could then patch the signal. We actually didn't have any use for them, but now that they were there, we couldn't just not do anything. So we ordered the Persephone back on the ground and our engineers to devise such a satellite. Elbart and Telssa came down very close to the airport but then overshot it a bit. They easily glided back and landed safely. While the Persephone was rolled back into the hangar, the Traveller waited for the runway to be cleared to take off with Mirella and Mortimer which more and more turned out to be a good team. Of course they also took eight tourists along. While they did their trip, our engineers (we checked them to make sure there weren't any new ones) took one of the discarded pieces of plane fuselage we had lying round, stuffed some electronics in there, added solar cells of the same design as the mini tugs and put a small container with fuel for these omni thrusters on. They also told us that they copied the anti-tumbling system we had in the planes to keep the satellite stable since it didn't have any propulsion and that they had installed docking ports for the tugs and different ones for the cargo plane. When it was finished they fastened it into the cargo bay and gave our pilots an old game controller. Meanwhile we reminded them to take their jetpacks along. Then the Persephone took off again for a nocturnal flight. After arriving in space, both of our pilots now didn't know how to find the tugs again. We also only broadly knew where they were. That information didn't seem of much use to them though, since "somewhere above Kerbin" was deemed "not helpful". Telssa came up with the idea to ping their signal and then follow the blip they gave off. So we told her to do just that and made a note of finding out how to properly track objects in space. Still in the dark, Telssas idea paid off and they recieved a signal suprisingly close. It seemed that they did an incredibly well timed launch just by pure luck. They boosted themselves closer to it and once they got under about 2500 meters, the tugs automatically established a connection to the satellite in the cargo hold. Now the pilots found out what the controller had been for. Elbart began to remotely steer the tugs closer with it. Then he undocked them from each other and to the freshly released satellites docking ports. He turned out to be an absolute pro on the controller. We theorized he had played a lot of videogames and Telssa said she thought the same. Elbart didn't comment but instead did the docking flawlessly and with minimal fuel usage. It seemed we now had a real, actual space station, albeit a very small one. So we told them to get out and do some bragging (and maybe an inspection). While they were floating about - Telssa with quite some enjoyment - we recieved a call that suprised us very much since it was from one of the KASA top officials. They told us in no uncertain terms that they knew about the theft (which gave us a small shock, until we noticed they were only talking about the tugs) and that they were offering to write them off if we did something for them. They knew we had awesome planes and they "kind of lost" two of their people in orbit, so they asked us to go pick them up since they would need much more time to mount a rescue mission. Of course we agreed but then noticed that the Traveller was just accelerating into orbit. So we told Telssa and Elbart to get back down quickly and our engineers to throw together a passenger cabin we could stick into the cargo hold of the Persephone. Quicker than we thought possible the retrofit was done with another piece of unused plane fuselage. KASA let us use their tracking station data to get the location of the two stranded crewmen and the Persephone took off, aiming for the one that was about to go past. The tracking was incredibly helpful and Elbart could easily plot a course to get as close as possible to their first target to pick up. Just after entering Kerbins shadow they met up with a science officer who introduced herself as Debty when she came on board and thanked everyone involved with her rescue. She also explained her adrift colleague, Macner, was an engineer and that it was very irresponsible to have let them fly on their own. Some course corrections and a full orbit later they came close to Macner, again in Kerbins shadow. He sported his own jetpack and boosted over as soon as they came in range. While his headlights illuminated the Persephone, Debty greeted him enthusiastically. Shortly afterwards he joined her in the passenger cabin equally thankful about his timely rescue. They asked if we were planning on landing at the KASA space center, but we told them we had our very own space program with a space station and everything. Debty then asked if we were hiring. After the Persephone touched down, we called KASA and told them we successfully saved their guys from certain death. Then we added that we would keep them. And the tugs too, in any case. Then we quickly hung up.

So we have good news and bad news. The bad news is, we spent everything. Close to it anyway. After bribing new tech out of some aerospace companies (they were suprisingly generous) we got our hands on actual spaceworthy components for planes plus a real flight simulator. Thats why our engineers didn't get to modify an existing airplane but instead had the chance to come up with a completely new design. Our pilots got some time to put their feet up while we stomped out a new spaceplane. Now to the good news: It's freaking awesome! We immediately put it on the runway and gave our guy and gal pilots a chance to take a look and they did a rather thorough inspection - they were literally all over it. It can take up to eight passengers into orbit and is flown by two, so every pilot now has double the chance to get a go. With the next generation turbofan engines it can fly supersonic speeds with ease - at least Mortimer will be thrilled by that. The climb will be considerably faster and the maximum altitude much higher as well. Our engineers outdid themselves we think, the test flight will show if everything holds up to the stats. The naming will be done by one of the crew, which we told them. Telssa quickly reminded everybody that she already named a plane and passed it on to the others and the guys said something about "ladies first". So Mirella, who was a bit embarassed about it, thought about it for a minute. The "Traveller" will be the name of the new spaceplane and it will make us so much money. Mortimer quickly volunteered for a test flight (for real this time) and Elbart won the following stone-leaf-knife tournament. So the guys would be the first ones to bring the Traveller into orbit above Kerbin. Since it was already good to go, the girls left the runway and watched the flight from down here. Thats some suprisingly awesome acceleration, was Mortimers professional opinion. They did a steep climb and still managed to gain more speed. At around 8km height they will stop climbing, go supersonic up to Mach 2 and then go as high as possible. The following rocket-powered ascent and orbital injection was routine and they guys did it with ease, even with the much heavier spaceplane. The engines were KASA rockets too, by the way. They seem to be very reliable and everything, if beeing free alone was not enough reason to get them from these guys. Telssa and Mirella gave a little applause, which made the guys rather proud of themselves. We didn't add anything to that, but reminded them that the engineers did their best to make the plane perform well and fly stable. They stayed up for an orbit, enjoyed the view and munched on the complimentary provisions. Mortimer remarked that the change he was happiest about was the fuel tank section between the cockpit and the passenger compartement. Elbart agreed wordlessly. When it came to deorbiting, they did a perfect descent and aerobraking. With the airport in view, Elbart suggested a sideslip maneuver to shed more speed, which brought them down and close to the runway. The landing went without a hitch and the guys gave a glowing review of the Traveller. Finally we had a seriously futuristic spaceplane to show for. Ticket sales would surely soar and with the much larger passenger capacity we could easily cover the greater demand. After a refill and a thorough inspection we decided to send Mirella to accompany Mortimer, this would allow her to get some more hours while beeing directly supported by the very experienced colleague. Then eight eager tourists were comfotably seated and the Traveller went for its first profitable mission. It went perfectly and they arrived safely back at the airport in the late evening. This was indeed a very lucrative flight and we couldn't wait for the next morning, when Elbart would be joined by Telssa to do a trip with another eight passengers. We then literally couldn't wait and sent them up right away. Elbart had no problems flying the Traveller and Telssa enjoyed beeing back up in space again, even if it was only for a short while. The passengers were happy about the larger compartement they could now float around in and the added snack station was quite popular. There was no question that we would sell more tickets than ever. Right when the sun rose, Mortimer and Mirella did another fully booked flight. Since the Traveller could gain so much speed within the atmosphere there wasn't so much fuel needed for the rockets. Altogether it was not much more expensive to run than Spaceplane Alpha One. Plus, it looks way better. Incredibly after only these few trips our funds were nearly back up to the pre-Traveller level. We were already thinking about aquiring another one. To be really sure about it, we sent them up again right away. After the landing they actually waited in the plane for the refill to do the next trip in direct succession. We are not overworking them, we promise. They are doing that because they want to - we think. Maybe pilots just have a strong urge to move massive machines to ludicrous speeds. Anyway, we were thrown money at by the handfuls and decided to give the engineers another project. It would not exactly be a passenger plane but we also didn't want a single role craft like The Levitating Honeybadger. Since the Traveller did so well, we did tell them to base it on the same design though. Elbarts suggestion was to make it a cargo plane. We might listen to him.

Whats your plan on remaining below the funds limit? I've looked through the challenge info and see no way to do that and not use cheapo landers with external seats. Do post pics of your creations when testing, I'd be interested TACs fuel balancer mod for managing and dumping fuel, fyi.

When the next morning broke, it finally was Elbarts turn to fly the Spaceplane Alpha One. He climbed in, along with two passengers and started the engines. We were totally confident about him in in the pilot seat. He proceeded to mimic Mortimers ascent flawlessly. With the blue sky above him and the rising sun gleaming into the cockpit, he seemed very content. Maybe we should have let him fly a bit sooner, he seems to enjoy it. We hope we won't have to choose sides when him and Mortimer eventually fight about the chance to fly. Welcome up here, Telssa greets him when Spaceplane Alpha One reaches a stable orbit. We leave Elbart and the tourists to their zero-G shenanigans, while we check on her, but she insists on staying some more. So after two orbits, Elbart is the one to do the retro burn. There was only a slight doubt in our mind that he couldn't mimic the landings Mortimer does, but he managed to wipe it away with a pinpoint touchdown right on our airfield. Although it was not quite the usual way around. There was a refill, a change of passengers and a change of pilots. Mirella was now the one to show off her flying skills. Of course she has been a pilot for some time before this, but this plane has got two added rocket engines. Last time we checked, most planes haven't got any rockets at all. There was a slight possibility we were setting a trend here and others would copy our desings, but we were really hoping that wasn't the case. Especially because, if more people stole from KASA, they would notice at some point. Anyway. Mirella took off and did a beautiful ascend right there. She seemed highly commited and in deep concentration. At least she was as silent as Elbart was. Without issues she broke through the higher layers of the atmosphere and blew right into space. The time in orbit she spent extremely quiet, even if the guys she took along had a blast - they had brought a game of darts along and were throwing their straightest shots ever. When time came for the retro burn and descent, Mirella showed some nervousness, but still did the maneuvers without problems. The landing was another story though, because of a steep glide towards the airport she came down rather fast. Then, instead of breaking off and going for another try, she pressed on against our initial suggestions. She did a soft touchdown, but with far too much speed and very far up the runway. So Mirella hit the brakes hard and pushed the plane down, which caused a total lockup. Tense we watched on as Spaceplane Alpha One spun out, overshot the runway and only came to a halt on the grass behind it. We were not happy about this and we planned on having a talk with Mirella about her insistence on landing against our suggestions. Mortimer, meanwhile, had ran onto the runway and was helping her and the passengers out of the plane. That was a bit strange, since we did have ground crew for that. Still, there was another landing planned, so we cleared the runway and figuratively rolled out the carpet for Telssa and The Badger (there was no carpet in reality). All the way down we didn't hear a single expletive from her, but she still didn't seem too happy when the plane came to a final halt. After going through the data the science instruments obtained, we were very disappointed when we compared our numbers to the measurements from the KASA, since they matched up. So we changed our own numbers and sent them to everyone important. Of course, we had totally asked them before borrowing their data, why do you ask? We had also made quite some money from ticket sales so far, so we logically decided to go on a bribing and shopping spree. It would be nice to upgrade Spaceplane Alpha One to carry more passengers. Also it would be nice to have two pilots on board, instead of only having one to pile all the responsibility and workload onto. The supersonic capabilities of the currently used turbofan engines were lacking as well. Maybe we had to change the whole design.

So we decided to upgrade our pilots accomodation. There was an old hotel on the grounds of the airfield into which we poured some of our money to get it renovated and cleaned up (in part done by contractors, but mostly we made our ground crew guys do the work). During the cleanup we found strange backpacks hidden under a pile of old matresses. They turned out to be genuine jetpacks, which sadly didn't work at all. Before we could throw them away we were reminded these might work only in space. So we handed each of our pilot their very own jetpack and Telssa was grinning a bit too much about that. Then we made Mortimer fly more tourists, which he happily did. Then he went another two times, for the heck of it. He barely waited for it to be refuelled when he stuffed another two passengers in and went right up to space again. We get the feeling he really really likes it up there. Maybe its the flying too. In any case, we could absolutely not stop him from going right again before the sun went down, even if it meant another night landing for him. Which he totally aced. Dont be so suprised every time, I have been a pilot for all my life, he wants to let us know. Out engineers meanwhile were working on Scienceplane Alpha One. They cut and welded through the night and were able to present an overhauled vessel in the morning. Thats when we decided to go through with our cunning plan to make Telssa like us again. After a good nights sleep in the renovated hotel she was in best spirits anyway, so we sent her out to the runway (which we had to clear first again - bye Mort) and told her she was allowed to rename Scienceplane Alpha One to whatever she wanted. She seemed to not quite believe us at first, so we had to reassure her, that whatever name she chose was fine. Her asking again if we were really sure about it raised some tiny concerns, but we stayed with our plan. I want it to be The Levitating Honeybadger, she finally says. ... We stayed with our plan. Really, we did. So she boarded ... The Levitating Honeybadger and took off without a hitch. The plane flew perfectly level and stable. When it was time for the circularation, we told her to give it some more speed than usual to get the apoapse up some more. This was the second suprise, because she would be the first one of the pilots to penetrate deep space and go into high orbit over Kerbin. Mainly to show off that we were able to do that, but also to get some measurements from out there and hopefully find out that the KASA messed theirs up. They could claim anything anyway, since they were the first ones and noone could prove it - until now. So, fingers crossed we dig up some dirt. Once in stable orbit, we asked her to leave the plane and test the jetpack. Luckily she brought it along, because we totally forgot to tell her. So she got outside and flew around a bit. Since she was very quiet about it, we had to ask her if everything was fine. She explained that it was "breathtaking" and she really couldn't find any words to say. She did note that Kerbin looked vastly different from outside the plane in just her space suit. She also hugely enjoyed the jetpack and we had to remind her, that she had not brought spare fuel along. Our passengers get much more than just a roundtrip, she states. We agree. While Telssa was marvelling about life, the universe and everything, Mortimer had already landed Spaceplane Alpha One to pick up another two very special passengers. Mirella and Elbart joined him to finally get their own taste of the infinite void surrounding Kerbin. He expertly took off and brought them into orbit. On the way up he gave them pointers on how to not die in a firey explosions. Both of them appreciated his advice and watched him closely. Mirella had many questions, which Mortimer did his best to answer. All in all she seemed interested, but hesistant to fly Spaceplane Alpha One herself. Elbart seemed fine with listening and gave Mort a manly nod of understanding here and there. Telssa, who was back in - we will call it just "The Badger" from now on - also added some advice on top about staying in space for more than a single orbit. Spaceplane Alpha One had to get back eventually (it was not making any money that way), so after they spend some time with floating water bubbles and weightless snacks, Mortimer did the retro burn to reenter the atmosphere and bring them back to the airport. It seemed Mirella and Elbart learned quite a bit from their experience. They would be able to go into space with a bunch of deathly afraid passengers right away. We would have to wait a bit to send them on their first mission though, since Mortimer had found another two lucky tourists he quickly took along for another trip. He then then managed to squeeze in another takeoff and landing before sundown, we are slightly worried.