[Writing] Birth of KSS

[Alchemist]

Jebediah, Bill and Bob entered the Mission Control building.

'Today we start a new grandiose project... ' Chief Engineer started his speech.

'Tenth time this week,' thought Bill.

'We are going to establish a large base in Kerbin orbit - Kerbal Space Station!'

'Weren\'t there couple more attempts before?' wondered Bob.

'Three projects last month and at lest ten total. Nothing reached the orbit,' answered Bill.

'And you will bring it there!' - the Chief Engineer pointed to the three Kerbonauts.

'YES!!!' Jeb was really excited.

'Can\'t this be done by unmanned crafts?' asked Bill hoping for something safer.

'After all these crashes because remote controlled crafts lost contact or autopilot did some stupid things like detaching the satellites during ascent, we can trust this project only to experienced crew like you,' answered the Engineer.

'As if I could do this better,' thought Bob.

'They barely can get a satellite up and want us to get a station there...' Bill didn\'t like the idea.

'This will be lot of fun,' smiled Jeb.

***

A large station was rolled out of the VAB. There were rumors that the parts come from at least 6 or 8 different manufacturers.

That was just a test on the pad, there was even no launch vehicle, but the pod with the crew was installed. In the moment the crawler released the station it fell apart destroying half of the modules. The escape tower pulled the pod up and crashed into the launch pad tower. The pod fell back on what remained of the station and damaged half of it.

'Can a test on the pad be cooler?' asked Jeb.

The workers collected the remaining modules and took them back to the VAB. Half an hour later the reassembled station with some more struts was standing on the pad again.

'At least it didn\'t fell apart,' said Bob.

'It doesn\'t guarantees that it will survive the launch,' Bill wasn\'t so optimistic.

'So boring...' murmured Jeb and pressed the abort button. The escape tower crashed into launch tower again, the pod fell on the station and destroyed half of it.

'That\'s better!' smiled Jeb.

'What was that?' asked shocked Bob.

'Again...' gasped Bill.

***

While the station was fixed and prepared for the launch, the primary crew was offered another mission. They boarded a powerful rocket and started preparing for launch.

'What is this part? It has no part type icon? And here are two more,' asked Bob.

'I think I saw something new on the rocket. There was something written about power,' answered Bill.

'A powercell? let\'s try activating one!' said Jeb and pressed a button. A satellite detached fell on a booster, deployed solar panels, tipped over and crashed in the pad damaging one of the wiglets.

'At least now we know what was that and what we were supposed to do,' said Bill looking out of the window.

'SL-18.52, this is mission control, what happened?' a voice came from the communicator.

'Nothing special,' answered Jeb and pressed the launch button. The rocked started tilting, but Jeb managed to make it fly straight.

'That\'s not for long', said Bill estimating how balanced the rocket is.

At 10 km Jeb finally lost control and pressed the booster separation button. 6 liquid stacks started their flight along the craft, but 2 of them crashed into the remaining satellites, destroying most of the orbital craft.

'Cool fireworks!' said Jeb looking at the remaining boosters.

'At least the pod and the chute aren\'t damaged. What were you thinking about when launching an unbalanced rocket?' asked Bill and pressed the chute deploy button.

'Remember the Shuttle last week?' answered Jeb.

'And why didn\'t they install the escape tower?' asked Bob.

'Wasn\'t this emergency separation the best way to do this?' replied Jeb.

'Better look there - they are rolling the station out again,' said Bill.

'Without us?' Jeb wasn\'t happy.

***

As they splashed down the engines of the rocket on the pad ignited. But nothing happened.

'I knew this type of the rocket isn\'t powerful enough for so large station,' said Bill.

'I wouldn\'t just stay there', said Jeb. This very moment the boosters separated and destroyed the station. The escape tower pulled the pod to the ocean and detached... by destroying the chute. The pod splashed down and sunk.

'That\'s cooler,' said Jeb.

'If you want to do this yourself, do it without us', Bill replied.

'Why are you so boring?' wondered Jeb.

***

The next morning a new rocket with the station was standing on the pad.

'Don\'t mess this again or we won\'t send the recovery craft!' said the Chief Engineer.

'Okay...' Jeb wasn\'t happy with this.

'I\'ll control the staging this time,' said Bill.

'Then press ignition and let\'s go!'

'Thirteen engines, will they bring us luck?' stated Bob as the rocked leaved the pad.

'CECO,' said Bob 30 seconds later.

'There shouldn\'t be CECO. That engine is the third stage!' answered Bill. 'Who messed the fuel flow?'

'Why did they mess it without my help?' asked Jeb.

'Yes, the lines are reversed! And here\'s stage 2 cutoff,' said Bill and called the mission control: 'KSC, this is KSS. The fuel lines are reversed, we can\'t reach the orbit this way!'

'Roger that. We\'ll fix the reserve craft. You are free to abort the mission.'

'Roger that,' replied Bill, disabling the first stage and separating the return vehicle.

'Boring. Why didn\'t you make some boom of it?' asked Jeb.

'If you want to make a boom, do it without us'

***

When they returned to the control center there was report from the next station crew:

'KSC, this is KSS. We are in orbit.'

'Hurray!'

'But we have a problem.'

'What really?'

'We used all the RCS fuel to stabilize the orbit. The station is almost uncontrollable'

'The next craft will deliver the fuel. You can proceed with the experiments'

'The station has no power'

'How?'

'We accidentally deployed the solar panels in the atmosphere and they fell off.'

'Okay, return to Kerbin'

'We can\'t, we spent the return vehicle\'s RCS, too.'

'What about the life support? does anything work?'

'Couple little solar panels for the life support survived, so it still works.'

'Okay we are building a module that will deliver the fuel and the panels. The help is coming.'

'Jeb, that\'s not funny. What are your smiling at,' asked Bill.

'Guess who will fly that rescue craft!' answered Jeb.

[GabrielG.A.B.Fonseca]

Haha! Very good alchemist! You\'ve made a very nice story, and i loved the reference to PowerTech\'s PowerSat. Good work!

[Spearka]

oh, they accidentally the solar panels and they all died