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MacFran KASA Space Program Thread ================================ What this thread is about: I enjoy writing up mission profiles, playing the game beyond simply building, launching and landing crafts. I enjoy building the story around it all as well. It helps to tie everything together and give the game and the experience greater depth. I also enjoy reading good stories about KSP games, seeing well thought out builds that meet the challenge of complexity vs simplicity and effectiveness head on. I hate over-the-top, unrealistic and frivolous designs. I enjoy sharing my designs and getting criticism or comments on them. If you enjoy these kinds of things, then this thread is for you. It is a mish-mash of missions, some of low profile while others of great significance, with stories unfolding in chronological order, the first being the oldest. Although, since I only not too long ago started doing this sort of thing, I cannot go all the way back to the very start of it all. I do my best to maintain a balance between detail and length for both description and screenshots. There will always be at least one or two ''teaser'' screenshots below each post text followed by the rest of the album in the ''reveal hidden content'' dropdown. Enjoy! ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Project Orion - KASA's program with the goal to extend kerbaled exploration to Kerbin's red neighbour When KASA announced its Orion project several years ago, a project with the daunting task of conquering Duna and ultimately seeing footsteps on the surface of the red planet, we new it would usher in a new ear of space flight, just like the Apollo program had when the challenge to set kerbals on the Mun was undertaken. For the first time, kerbals left Kerbin's sphere of influence and set out to another world. First, it was one mission, and then another, and then another, and then another. Not long after the program had started it ended with KASA having successfully flown and landed no fewer than 8 missions to the Mun and no fewer than 16 kerbals had left their mark on its grey powdery surface. Technology had been developed to meet the daunting challenges that lay ahead and with every subsequent flight so our understanding of the challenges, risks and potential rewards involved in space exploration grew ever more. For Orion, new technologies will also have to be developed. Bigger stronger rockets, inflatable habitat, extended life support systems, rovers, safe nuclear power sources are just a glimpse of what the KASA engineers and scientists will have to come up with in order for the conquest of Duna to occur. So far the program has not failed to impress in both its size and costs. Test flights have been performed, tech has been tested out and with it KASA's confidence in its ability to send the first kerbonauts to Duna has grown, as has also the impression left with each subsequent test flight that this is really happening: kerbals are headed to Duna in the not too distant future. The last time Kerbals left Kerbin was on Eagle VIII the last Mun mission where two lucky Kerbonauts left footprints on the Mun's surface for the last time. KASA administrator, Charles Bolden Kerbal has said that "the Orion mission designs are still evolving. Our test flights have confirmed a lot of important design features work as intended, but have also shown that some can be improved, and improve them we will". KASA has been under a lot of pressure from Congress to keep a close eye on mission costs and cost overruns. So far, Orion has been the most expensive single undertaking KASA has ever done. To be fair, it is also the most complex it has ever undertaken. Photo courtesy: KASA