Disaster on Duna (Part 1) (Book 1 of the "Stranded" Series)

[DarkOwl57]

Part 7

 

The craft's RAPIER engines had finally been turned up to the closed cycle mode, and it was plowing through the upper atmosphere fairly well. Finally, when the craft had finally gotten into orbit, I turned on the Multi-Function-Display on the dashboard and added a maneuver to get us out of the sphere of influence for Kerbin. The map actually projected that we would get a little boost from the Mun, as we would have an encounter with it.

Once we had gotten out, I planned a maneuver that would get us on an encounter with the plane Duna, which would happen in about 1 year. Every time I prepared for the thrust, I came over the intercom and told the crew about it so that they didn't get thrown around inside of the compartment. I also extended the comms devices and the solar panels, making it look awesome from the exterior camera.

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The life inside of the craft got to be fairly regular; Breakfast at around 7-ish (What timezone does space have?????) and lunch/dinner whenever over half of us got hungry. The trips outside the craft were okay; A little shaky at first, but relatively calm. Each day we played games inside the craft like Kernopoly and Kenga, although the lack of gravity made Kenga kind of pointless. Our time in the spacecraft was a long one, but far from boring, as we got daily checks in from our friendly mission control personnel, who told us about what was happening down on planet Kerbin.

[DarkOwl57]

Part 7

The display on the dash showed us getting closer to the big red planet of Duna, and finally I felt the craft give a little lurch as the craft entered the gravity of the planet. I slammed the thrust lever to the maximum position, as we turned to retrograde and began to slow down enough to get into an orbit. The display told me that we would be in a stable 50 km orbit. The next day we would begin our descent down onto the planet. The next day, we would make history.