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TheSaint

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  1. Also fun fact: The M113s have now been replaced with surplus MRAPs. MRAP Rolls Through Pad Evacuation Runs
  2. Thanks. Still moving forward. Experimenting with a combined crew rotation and resupply right now, seeing if that will streamline logistics in the future. Next documented event after that should be the return of the first Duna mission. Edit: Actually, I think Sarnus Explorer may arrive before that. Not sure, don't have the game in front of me at the moment.
  3. If I bought my wife a bouquet of roses at $3 each she would beat me to death with them. We do Valentine's Day the week after, because everything is cheaper. (We used to do it the day after, but all the restaurants and flower shops caught on to that.) Marry well, gentlemen....
  4. Y4 D169-175 - First Duna Landing Fresh off of the triumph of the Jool Explorer mission, we now turn to Duna. For the past nine months the crew of Draco have been (mostly) patiently awaiting their arrival at The Rust World. Now that day has finally come. Year 4, Day 169, Draco enters Duna's SOI. The crew now gets to work. They stop and lock the spin habitat, then they perform a couple of small burns to bring Draco's inclination down and lower her periapsis to 100 kilometers. Then they wait with giddy anticipation as she falls down the well to Duna. ---------- Four days later now, Day 173. Draco has reached its destination. The crew has stowed their ship for burn and strapped in to their seats on the command deck. As the ship approaches periapsis, Commander Krueger gives the order and Draco begins its braking burn. Five minutes later, Draco has settled into its initial orbit. Cheers erupt in Mission Control as the crew of Draco have made history once again! But, the work isn't done yet. The KSA management team has selected a landing site, based on the data provided by the Duna rovers. However, at this point the selected landing site has just passed into night time. So we will wait until local daybreak to perform landing operations. Which is fine. Draco must perform a couple of minor burns to fully circularize its orbit and bring its inclination down to match that of the landing site, and those will take time. The crew can also use this time to perform some scientific observations of Duna as well. ---------- Well, it is now Day 175. The landing site is now in full daylight and Draco is completely settled in its orbit. The crew has made all of the necessary preparations on the base hab module and lander. Everything is ready. Let's go make history! First up, we will be landing the habitat module. If the hab doesn't land successfully then this will alter our plans for the kerballed landing. The crew finalize their preps in the hab, then close the hatches. As Draco approaches the entry point, Commander Krueger undocks the hab and backs Draco away from it. As Commander Krueger continues to guide Draco, Command Pilot Kline takes over guidance of the hab. As it reaches its burn point, Kline activates its engines. And just less than a minute later they turn off and the burn is successful! The hab is on its way through a long, wide entry through Duna's atmosphere to the landing site. Because most of the entry is through the thin upper reaches of Duna's atmosphere, the hab experiences a very slow deceleration and almost no heating due to atmospheric friction, thus eliminating the need for a heat shield. As the hab slows and enters the lower reaches of the atmosphere, Kline deploys its parachutes to slow its descent even further. Then, as it reaches about 3,000 meters above ground, the parachutes fully deploy and Kline jettisons the propulsion package. A few seconds later, Kline deploys the rover. As soon as it is deployed, it releases its parachutes, ensuring that it will come to a soft landing close to the hab's landing site. Now that the rover is clear, Kline deploys the hab's landing gear. And now all that is left is to wait for the hab to settle gently to the landing site. And, touchdown. As you can see, the rover touched down about eighty meters away. Kline commands the hab to deploy its solar panels. And now it is ready and waiting for the crew of Draco. One last task, he orders the rover to jettison its landing package. Since that is mildy hazardous, lets get that out of the way now before the lander and crew are on the ground. But it crashes some distance away without incident. So the hardware for Duna Base has been successfully landed. All that we need now is a crew! Draco passes around Duna once again. On this orbit, the crew makes their preparations for landing. They stow and secure Draco, which will remain unkerballed in orbit for their entire stay on the surface of Duna. Then they climb into their seats in the lander, Olympus, and close the hatches. Commander Krueger takes the controls of Olympus and undocks her from Draco. As they approach their entry burn, Krueger turns Olympus retrograde. He then burns for entry. Olympus follows a very similar entry profile as the hab did: long and wide through the upper atmosphere. Very little heating and no plasma is observed. Finally, as they approach the landing site, Krueger ignites the engines. And he brings Olympus in for a touchdown just 300 meters away from the hab. Which is impressive. But we need to be closer. In order to save weight, the lander is designed to use the batteries in the hab to power its propellant storage cooling during the Dunatian night, so they need to be connected via cabling. That means the lander needs to be no more than 30 meters from the hab. Krueger fires up the engines again and hovers the lander closer to the hab. And, now finally, they are finished. They safe the lander's engines. And it's time. Krueger does the honors. He exits the lander's airlock and starts his way down the ladder. Everyone in Mission Control is holding their breath. And his feet touch the red soil. Rolando Krueger is the first kerbal to walk on another planet! The crowd goes wild! Krueger performs his first duty: Planting the flag. What an amazing accomplishment. He takes his contingency sample, then begins to explore the surface. Kline continues to secure Olympus, deploying its solar panels and antennae, then he and the other kerbonauts join Krueger on the surface. Chief Engineer Kirkpatrick goes over to the hab and connects it to Olympus. Once Kruger has finished his surface duties, he enters the hab and begins prepping it for their stay. In the meantime, Kline hikes over to the rover, Syrtis. He drives the rover over to the hab, where Kirkpatrick is waiting with a connector. Once their initial surface activities are completed, the entire crew join Krueger in the hab. Duna Base has been established. Back in orbit, Draco is waiting quietly for their return. Observations from the Duna Explorer orbiters and Draco have indicated that there is a dust storm moving into their area, so they must stay in the hab for the next couple of hours. But once that has passed, they will begin their exploration of Duna. Their return window is in 550 days, so they will have plenty of time.
  5. I don't think I ever told this story on this forum. So, back in the mid-70s, my dad's best friend, Joe, was in the market for an RV. He kept checking the Penny Saver, finally found an ad for one that seemed like a good deal to him. He called the guy up, and he drove it over to Joe's house. It turned out that the guy who was selling the RV was James Doohan. But, the punchline is: Joe was a 60-something retired war vet. He didn't watch Star Trek, he watched Gunsmoke. He didn't know James Doohan from Cain. But while they were talking about the RV, they figured out that both of them had gone ashore on D-Day. So they sat down in the back of the RV and swapped war stories for four hours. We were talking to Joe about it afterwards, and he's all, "You won't believe who I bought this camper from! That Scotty guy off that crazy show. He was in the war!" Collateral damage of growing up in Southern California.
  6. Went to see Dune: Part Two today. Totally worth seeing on the big screen. Although, you can tell they had a hard time squeezing 900 pages into two movies. There were a lot of parts where it was like, "So, this is super important to the plot, but we don't have a lot of time to show it. So, here it is. Now, let's move on." The Director's Cut is going to be like a mini-series.
  7. Realistic Atmospheres adds a thin atmosphere to Tylo. Are you sure? Aerobraking is much softer than lithobraking....
  8. Y3 D325-Y4 D169 - Jool Explorer So, hot on the heels of the departure of Draco, we have another historical event taking place: The arrival of Jool Explorer at the Jool System! If you recall, Jool Explorer was launched all the way back in the middle of Year 1, almost two and a half years ago! Heck, that was all the way back when Jerry here was an intern! Ha ha! What's that, Jerry? You're still an intern? Oh. Well. Talk to KR about that. In any case, as Jool Explorer is approaching its goal, this is a good time to review its mission objectives: Minimum Objectives (If we don't accomplish at least this much, we'll wind up sitting in front of a Kongressional hearing.) One flyby of Jool One flyby of Laythe Primary Objectives (These are the objectives that the probe has been designed to achieve.) Two flybys of Jool Two flybys of each of Jool's large moons: Laythe, Vall, and Tylo Deploy one atmospheric probe on Jool and one on Laythe Secondary Objectives (Once the Primary Objectives have been completed, if the probe has any capability left, we will attempt to accomplish these additional objectives.) Flybys of Jool's minor moons: Bop and Pol Additional flybys of Jool and its large moons. So, this morning, Jool Explorer crossed over into Jool's SOI. Our first task is to adjust its trajectory coming in to the Jool system. The folks over in Orbital Dynamics have worked up a plan for us that will let us use a gravity assist at Laythe to capture Jool Explorer into the system rather than burning fuel, which will help extend the life of our propellant load. If you're unfamiliar with the concept of gravity assists...well, go ask the guys in Orbital Dynamics. There's a reason I'm in management. This maneuver will also check off our first minimum objective with a flyby of Laythe. So Jool Explorer burns at the very edge of the Jool system to set up its capture maneuver. However, as we all know, the Jool system is huge. It's going to be almost sixty days before the Laythe flyby. So, back to work, everyone. We'll get back to this in a couple months. ---------- Well, here we are back with Jool Explorer on Day 384. The Science team has been hard at work over the last several weeks getting preliminary readings from the experiments on board Jool Explorer, and they've already been releasing some stunning photography. Today is the day we discover if our burn two months ago was good. Jool Explorer is rapidly approaching Laythe. And, so far, it appears that we are right down the middle of the slot. Science has all of their instruments and cameras ready to go for our first flyby. We'll be passing about 140 kilometers away from the surface. And we have our first successful flyby! Flight just got back and let me know that their numbers indicate that Jool Explorer has successfully captured into an elliptical orbit around Jool. Excellent work! So now Orbital Dynamics is getting to work on plotting the next burn, which should be at JEs first apoapsis in a couple of days. ---------- Day 387 now, and Jool Explorer is getting set to burn at its Jool apoapsis. This burn will set us up for releasing our first atmospheric probe into the atmosphere of Jool. The burn was successful, so Jool Explorer is now on a sub-orbital trajectory for Jool. We'll get back to it in a couple of days for the probe separation and burn. ---------- And now we're back on Day 389. Jool Explorer is about an hour away from entry to Jool's atmosphere, which we obviously would like to avoid. So, first up, we trigger the separation of the Jool Atmospheric Probe. Then Jool Explorer immediately turns and burns to increase its periapsis above Jool's atmosphere. This would not be the time for an engine failure. <nervous laugh> But, thank goodness, that burn was successful. Now we can turn our attention back to the atmospheric probe. This is an important milestone of the mission, so obviously we hope that the periapsis was set to the correct height to ensure proper entry. <glances nervously over at the Orbital Dynamics folks sweating in the corner> The probe enters the atmosphere and is almost immediately enveloped in plasma, entering radio blackout. It's a long five minutes. But eventually, radio contact is restored. The probe survived atmospheric entry! It immediately begins radioing back data from its instruments. When it reaches about 200 kilometers below entry, its parachute deploys. It continues to sink deeper into the Joolian atmosphere, sending back pressure, temperature, and spectrographic data as it goes. However, although the probe is tough, it is not indestructible, and the Joolian atmosphere is unforgiving. Finally, after sinking an amazing 500 kilometers into Jool's clouds, the probe stops transmitting. That was an incredible outcome, and I'm sure the Science team will be parsing through that data stream for a long time. Meanwhile, Jool Explorer's instruments have not been idle, and they have recorded their data from their first flyby of Jool, meeting our second minimum mission objective. So, we have met the minimum mission requirements! Now JE is headed back up to its apoapsis above Jool, and OD will be plotting our next move. ---------- Back at periapsis on Day 393, and Jool Explorer is burning prograde this time to set up another flyby of Laythe. This is a pretty major burn, but it will set us up for the release of the Laythe Atmospheric Probe, which is a major milestone of the mission. So the fuel expenditure is justified. See you back in five days for the flyby. ---------- Back now on Day 398. Jool Explorer is approaching Laythe once again, this time on a suborbital trajectory. An hour away from entry, the atmospheric probe is released. Jool Explorer immediately burns to raise its Laythe periapsis...and its Jool periapsis? Or so the OD guys tell me. I don't get it either. I just keep pressing the "I Believe" button. In any case, Jool Explorer is safe now and recording data from its second Laythe flyby. Meanwhile the atmospheric probe is burning its way through Laythe's atmosphere and we're all holding our breath. The probe hurtles tantalizingly over a couple of major land masses... ...deploys its parachute... ...and settles into the ocean. That's fine. The probe floats. We'll probably get better data from Laythe's liquid water than we would from dry land anyway. In any case, another successful probe deployment, and a second Laythe flyby checked off of our primary mission objectives. Jool Explorer passes out of Laythe's SOI and then sweeps down to its Jool periapsis. The probe's orbit is very low now. The good news is that this gets us a very close flyby of Jool, which marks our second flyby of Jool itself and makes the Science team very happy. However, the low orbit will make it very difficult to perform flybys of the other Joolian moons. We could just burn to raise our orbit, but the Orbital Dynamics wiz kids have a better plan. They want to use another Laythe flyby to raise the probe's orbit with a gravity assist. So, here we are now, just a couple of hours out of Laythe's SOI, and we're burning at Jool periapsis to set up another Laythe flyby. I guess we'll see how that turns out in a couple of days. ---------- Well, Day 400 now, and Jool Explorer is swinging by Laythe again. After the flyby, Flight confirms that the gravity assist has raised Jool Explorer's orbit by a considerable amount. And Science has collected their data from Jool Explorer's third Laythe flyby. So now JE is back on its way to Jool apoapsis and we're setting our sights on the rest of the moons. ---------- Four days later now, Day 404, and we're back at Jool apoapsis. Orbital Dynamics has another burn scheduled that should set Jool Explorer up for its first Tylo flyby. Exciting! ---------- In other news: As Jool Explorer is coasting down Jool's gravity well, Draco reaches its mid-course correction burn on Day 406. The crew of Draco have been following the progress of Jool Explorer with great interest. (Because, let's face it, they don't have much else to do.) As they look out their windows and see Jool as a sparkling green gem in the sky, the Kerbol System doesn't seem so large after all.... ---------- Three days later, Jool Explorer is approaching Tylo for the first time. The probe swings by in a close pass and collects its data. It then exits Tylo's SOI and carries on. The next day, 410, Jool Explorer is back at Jool apoapsis. Orbital Dynamics assures me that a small burn here will set it up for another flyby of Tylo in a week or so. ---------- Day 419. We're back for our second Tylo flyby. This, unfortunately, is a more distant flyby. Science is disappointed. But OD assures me that there is a method to their madness. After Jool Explorer has exited Tylo's SOI, the probe burns again. And this burn sets it up for its first flyby of Vall next week. As an aside: Once this burn was completed, Flight sent me a notice letting me know that Jool Explorer has reached 50% of its initial fuel load. Good to know. ---------- It's Day 425 now, and we're excited that we're passing through our first Vall flyby! Science has all of their data, so Jool Explorer is just going to keep coasting for now. ---------- It's Year 4 Day 4 now. Happy New Year, everybody, hope you all had a good holiday. Jool Explorer is approaching Jool periapsis, and OD has a burn planned that will bring it back for its second flyby of Vall. That went well, Flight tells me everything is in order. It's a long haul back to Vall, but we'll see you back in a couple of weeks. ---------- Okay, Day 24, and Jool Explorer is flying by Vall for the second time. So, for everyone who hasn't been keeping score, this means that Jool Explorer has successfully deployed both atmospheric probes, and completed two flybys of Jool and all three of its major moons. This means that Jool Explorer has successfully completed its primary mission objectives! Since we still have almost 50% of our fuel load remaining, we've given the go ahead to start into the secondary mission objectives. Orbital Dynamics should be getting us some flight path options for those any day now. Right? <Orbital Dynamics guys look startled for a second, then run back to their offices.> ---------- Day 27. Jool Explorer is back at Jool apoapsis today. And Orbital Dynamics has given us a flight path that is...ambitious. The plan is this: Jool Explorer is going to make a minor burn at apoapsis today that will put it on a course to flyby Vall. It will get a gravity assist from Vall that will put it on a course to flyby Tylo. It will get yet another gravity assist from Tylo that will put it on a course to flyby Bop. I am pounding that "I Believe" button today. So Jool Explorer makes its burn. ---------- Day 28, we have our third flyby of Vall... ---------- Three days later, we have our third close flyby of Jool... ---------- Four days after that, on Day 35, we fly by Tylo for a third time... And after we exit Tylo SOI...well, I'll be damned. We will need a course correction burn, but not a major one. I guess that worked. Good job, folks. ---------- Now on Day 40 we have our course correction burn for Bop. We're right on target. Things move even slower here in the outer reaches of the Jool system. See you all back in two weeks. ---------- It's Day 54 and... Heerree'ss Bop! Science is very excited, although all it appears to be is a captured asteroid. Jool manages to look small from out here. So our next target in the extended mission is Pol. Unfortunately, there are no large moons out here to provide gravity assists. So we will just have to burn for it. Orbital Dynamics is working on a plan for that. ---------- So, did I mention that things move slowly out here? It is now Day 131, two and a half months since we left Bop, and we have finally reached the burn for Pol. Now we have to wait more than two weeks for the flyby. All for just another captured asteroid. <yawn> And Flight has just informed me that this burn brings Jool Explorer below 25% of its initial fuel load. ---------- So, it's Day 148 and we're getting the first pictures and data back from the Pol flyby... ...aanndd...that is not just another captured asteroid. I will be very curious to see what Science has to say about that one. ---------- So, after the Pol flyby we have some hard decisions to make concerning Jool Explorer. The probe has accomplished all of its primary mission objectives, and all of its secondary objectives. It has roughly 22% of its initial fuel load remaining. It is in the outer limits of the Jool system, with no gravity assist targets available, so any destination we pick for it will require a large expenditure of fuel. And there is a possibility that if the probe is allowed to orbit uncontrolled in the Jool system it may crash into Laythe, possibly contaminating its surface with the radioactive contents of the probe's radiothermal generators. So KSP management have decided that the probe should use its remaining fuel to achieve a controlled disposal in the atmosphere of Jool. Day 155, a week after the Pol flyby, Jool Explorer performs its final burn. ---------- Two weeks later, Day 169. Jool Explorer is a couple of hours out from entry now. Still sending back data. The probe is hurtling towards Jool's atmosphere at over 9,000 meters per second. This is the closest it has ever come to Jool, still getting good data on the planet. And as the probe enters the outer limits of the atmosphere...end of transmission. What a mission! Atmospheric probes deployed on Jool and Laythe! Four flybys of Jool, three flybys of Laythe, Tylo, and Vall, and flybys of Bop and Pol! A staggering amount of data! We'll be turning our attention to Draco and Duna here in just another week, but after this it will be hard not to be imagining what a kerballed Jool mission would look like. Eh?
  9. Well, back before WWII, bolt-action rifles were prevalent too. We don't use those anymore either. There's a reason why Jack Weaver kicked everyone else's asses in the Leatherslap matches. My dad shot duelist or cup-and-saucer his whole life. And he went to the NRA state matches back in the 60s. That was how I learned to shoot handguns when I was a kid. When I started shooting with my LAPD buddy in the 90s he was all, "Dude, what the hell?" He taught me Weaver stance, and it was like night and day. (Now my buddy I go shooting with is all, "Weaver is old school, old man. You need to learn isosceles!" But I'm a bit old to start undoing 30 years of muscle memory. When I start wearing body armor I'll start worrying about isosceles stance. LOL) And, see, in my mind, having to rely on a brace of flintlock pistols across my chest makes dual wielding even less appealing. If the idea behind dual wielding is to use my abundance of ammunition to my advantage against a greater number of opponents, then drawing two six-shot revolvers and firing both makes a bit of sense, especially if I've trained to shoot with my off hand. But if all I have is four or five shots from four or five single-shot pistols (which may or may not actually fire when the trigger is pulled), that is not what I would call an abundance of ammunition. I really need to make every shot count. Remember, "You can't miss fast enough to win." We have some of that. (Not that exact one, but some uranium ore.) Wife bought it on Amazon for an experiment in physics class at the homeschool co-op a couple of years ago. It's not as exciting as you think it is.
  10. I don't know if the pizza place is any good, but my buddy swears by The Haunted Hamburger. I've never been.
  11. I've been rereading a lot lately. I just finished rereading a ton of Neal Stephenson. I read The Baroque Cycle, then Cryptonomicon, then Reamde, then Fall, or Dodge in Hell. It took, two years, I think? I referred to it as, "The Saga of Enoch Root". IYKYK. Going back now and rereading The Gap Cycle by Stephen R. Donaldson. I haven't read it since he finished it, which is 28 years now. Figured I would dust it off again. I've got a ton of new Tim Powers that I've bought for my wife that I haven't read, probably move on to those next.
  12. IRL? You don't. Dual wielding is a Hollywood myth. Nobody trains to shoot two firearms at the same time. As you pointed out, it makes it completely impossible to reload without simply dropping one of the weapons. And it's impossible to properly aim two firearms at the same time, so the only thing you can do is aim by impact or by muscle memory, both of which are much less accurate than aiming properly with the sights. And your most accurate grip on a firearm is always going to be one using two hands, such as the Weaver grip. So unless you're just trying to look cool while turning money into noise, there's no point in dual wielding. Use one gun at a time, and make every round count.
  13. I concur, they are both worth seeing. But it's a seven hour round trip drive to the Canyon, six hours round trip to Meteor Crater. That's a lot of driving. If you want to drive to a geological destination, Sedona is a bit more doable. That's about four hours round trip. It's not the Canyon, but it's very pretty. Red Rock State Park is awesome to hike around in. There are some great four-wheel trails there, but I doubt you're renting a 4x4. Just don't go on a Pink Jeep tour. Those guys are jerks.
  14. Yeah. We live about an hour-and-a-half away from Phoenix. Was sitting here on the couch with the wife racking our brains trying to think of things to do there last night, couldn't think of anything. There's a bunch of stuff to do if you're a kid. But as far as cool stuff to see if you're an adult we were just drawing a blank. You could go shoot at Scottsdale Gun Club, I suppose. They rent everything, including full auto. That could be fun. Never been, but I hear it's nice. There's a zillion golf courses, if you feel like spoiling a perfectly good walk. There's an indoor aquarium out on the res, but you can see those anywhere. Now, if you want restaurant recommendations in Phoenix I can chew your ear off.
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