Forgotten Space Program

[KAL 9000]

What will they find around Jool? Will Thomlock or Macfred have a 2001-esque anomaly experience? Two things are for sure: The plot thickens, and the FPS drops! 

[Cydonian Monk]

Departures

The day had finally come for the Jool flotilla to leave Kerbin. Every kerbal involved with the program that wasn't actively needed for the escape burn was crammed into the observation gallery behind mission control. Those who couldn't find a seat were standing, those that couldn't stand were down the hall watching on closed-circuit television. In space the four kerbonauts at Kelgee, the three in high Münar orbit, the two at Pequoni 1 in low Mün orbit, and Sieta at the relocated Baile Speir were all watching or listening as they were able. Elsewhere the major television networks were all providing round-the-clock coverage. This was an event impossible to miss. 

All three Potassium stacks had been parked in their roughly 80km orbits for some munths now, their twenty four combined NERVAs idled and waiting. The flight controllers worked through each, extending the auxiliary radiators that would keep the NERVAs and their reactors cooled between burns, spooling up the reactors in the engines themselves, verifying the nuclear elements were heating as expected. Finally they completed each ship's readiness check with a very short test burn. All three and all twenty four checked out.

The plan was to conduct the escape burns from Kerbin in two batches. The first would push the craft into a two-day orbit, just missing the Mün at apoapsis. Two days later the three craft would perform the remainder of their escape burns, achieving release from Kerbin and an intercept with Jool some three years distant. After any correction burns were completed following the escape burn, the NERVAs and their reactors would be deactivated, remaining cold until the mid-course correction some year and a bit in the future.

The three burns would be performed in numerical order by tug, K-1 then K-2 then K-3, placing each of the Potassiums and their payloads into a slightly higher orbit so as to spread out the final departure burns. 

Jool being an outward planet, the escape burns had to occur at night, on the dark side of Kerbin. 

As was only fitting and proper. 

The "Jumble of Parts" burn was the shortest of the three, (or was planned to be). And at a thrust to weight ratio of 0.24, it provided nearly 8 minutes of noticeable acceleration for the crew. This and the second burn would be the last time these four kerbals would experience anything resembling gravity for at least three years. Only Thomlock knew what to expect.

The Potassium 2 (not shown) aborted its burn part of the way through after excessive deviation from the intended vector was observed. The payload stack was bending, despite the extra strutting installed by Macfred, resulting in uneven distribution of RCS burns which led the entire ship off course. The ground controllers got the stack back under control and finished the burn, but having missed out on the more efficient low-orbit burn the apoapsis of the K-2 was well below that of the K-1, meaning the K-2 would perform its final escape burn before the K-1. 

 

The first of the Potassium 3's burns completed without issue. And so with the first burns complete, and the next set not due for two days, the crew of the Jumble of Parts took a long nap and everyone at the space center went home to relax. 

--

 

Two days later and they were back at it again. With its aborted first burn, the Potassium 2 arrived first and had a little bit extra remaining ∆v to work through. A total escape burn of 1104m/s, to be precise. The escape was charted by the kerbals on the ground, the new settings wired up to the RT2 flight computer, and the ship set about slowly realigning itself to the escape vector. 

Some eight minutes after it started, the Potassium 2's burn was complete, a Jool intercept was announced to a cheering Mission Control, and the date and position of the required mid-course correction were known. 

 

The Jumble of Parts was hot on the heels of the K-2, and its escape vector had indeed been wired up to them while the K-2 was burning through its propellent. Thomlock and Macfred double checked the math, set the heading and brought the ship about. Their burn started a scant 2 minutes after the Potassium 2 completed its own, their eight nuclear-heated engines spewing neutron radiation and propellent mass backwards, pushing them away from home.

With a final thrust to weight ratio nearing one half G, the escape burn proved to be rather pleasant. It was nearly enough to make moving around the cabin dangerous, as Gletrix discovered to the tune of a small bruise. Thomlock was camped out in the station's cockpit, just in case something went wrong, while the other three rode out the remainder of the nine minute escape burn in the station's main habitat.

And then the ship's engines cut out, the four were back in microgravity, and all manner of junk started floating around the cabin once more. Kerbin, just a thin crescent, was slipping away into the darkness. Before long it was no larger than the Mün. By then it was time for the K-3's escape burn.

 

Despite having been kicked into a higher orbit (and thus expended the most of the three for its first burn), the Potassium 3 required the longest burn and the slightly more ∆v to escape Kerbin than the other two. This was likely due to a less efficient encounter with Jool and the longer burn meaning less of the ∆v was spent while closer to Kerbin. (But what else could you do?) Ten minutes and twenty seconds for the final burn. Ten minutes and twenty seconds until the last of the three was free of Kerbin and bound for Jool.

And then there they were. Two hundred days until their mid-course alignment burns. Three years and a eighty days, give or take, until they all three reached Jool. It's a long road through the nothingness of space. And Kerbin growing ever small.

--

"Kerbin is so very tiny now. It's been slipping slowly away for the last several hours, and now looks to be the size of Minmus. If one views Minmus from the surface of Kerbin, that is." Macfred was giving a quick run down of their current status over the radio, the rest of the crew in the cabin with him chiming in as appropriate. This would be a daily routine for the next three years, as the always thirsty Kerbin news media wanted their updates for the evening news.

"Gotta tell ya kid, it's a far better sight this time than when I last saw it." Thomlock had been the focus of the news reports lately, the only kerbal so far known to have gone beyond Kerbin's influence. And now he was returning. "At least I've got some leg room this time around."

"Yeah, we're lucky to have this nice, large common area." Much better than being crammed into the tiny individual cabins for the entire three year trip out to Jool, he thought to himself. "Meanwhile we're all excited for the transition. Agake and Gletrix are glued to the instrumentation panel, both watching for the telltale signs that..."

"That's it!" Gletrix interjected as the navball spun wildly to orient about a new axis. "We're orbiting the Sun!"

"Hang on..." Agake checked a couple of her science instruments to see what response they returned. "Yep, In Space High over the Sun. We're there!" She then disappeared into the lab, eager to pull readings from all of the ship's various science bits and science bobs. Thomlock was still casually watching Kerbin slip away into the endless void, Gletrix joining him at the window.

"As you folks back on Kerbin can no doubt tell, we've officially slipped out of your influence." Macfred let the radio stay silent for several seconds, waiting for those back on Kerbin to respond. They weren't very far from home yet, less than two tenths of a second, but the radio delay was noticeable. And it would only grow worse.

Sure enough a message from The Boss arrived a few seconds later. "We copy, Jumble of Parts, and show you in Solar Orbit. Congratulations. Hang on...." A pause while a rustling noise indicated something was clearly going on in the background. "The World's First rep just came bounding in with a plaque honoring you four, though due to Thomlock's previous escapades they advised there will be no reward check. No worries though, as VacCo presented us with a very nice check for completing a station building contract in Solar Orbit."

"Station building? That seems a bit, dishonest. Do they know their station is headed for Jool?"

"Do you think anybody doesn't know? Contract never said it had to stay in Solar orbit. Anyway, we'll have a better idea of your midcourse correction in a few days, and will radio up the-...." The radio connection dropped with Kerbin while The Boss was mid-sentence. Macfred looked up at Thomlock, who had glanced back at the unexpected silence and shrugged.

"Kerbin, Jumble of Parts. Over."

Macfred checked the radio terminal. No contact. 

"Kerbin, Jumble of Parts. Over."

He pulled a few wires loose and reconnected them. Still just the background static.

"Kerbin, Jumble of Parts. Not receiving your signal, please respond. Over."

Macfred spent the next several hours checking the ship's radio equipment. He hadn't had much need to practice his trade lately, and would've preferred the entire trip pass without field radio repair. No such luck. The other two ships in their flotilla were the only things responding to signals, meaning their own gear was working, but nothing back on Kerbin was talking to them. And it wasn't just their high-gain antennas, as both of the same on the other two ships were failing to connect with the Kerbin satellite network. 

The situation didn't change in the munths that followed. Silence. Static. More silence. They couldn't turn back, not without abandoning the mission, so they just pushed on. More than likely the issue was some equipment failure on Kerbin, Macfred kept telling himself. And so the daily mission updates continued to be radioed to Kerbin, transmitted in the blind for anyone who might be listening. (Surely Sieta was listening... she heard everything. Right?) 

And so, every day they would start their transmission, hoping for a response before they sent the daily news and science results.

"Kerbin, Jumble of Parts. Over."

Nothing.

"Kerbin, Jumble of Parts. Please respond. Over."

Nothing.

 

----

End Kerbal Space Program Version 1.0.5.

 

Navigation: Next Post

Edited December 4, 2016 by Cydonian Monk

[AviosAdku]

Oh no ... It's happening again.
Hopefully this means we get to see (at last) what happened the last time

Anyway, thank you for this story, like the other's I've been following, it's unique and intriguing, particularly with a twist like that.

As for the ejection burn, it reminded me of when I sent my heavy DSV into deep space, with a TWR of 0.18 and a high energy trajectory it's the only sane option.

Edited July 5, 2016 by AkuAerospace
Removed "sign off"

[Angelo Kerman]

They've lost radio contact!

As is only right and proper.

[DMSP]

Awesome ships, seeing all three Potassiums in one chapter really shows how brilliant you are at this game.

And loss of radio contact. Time to wonder that happened....

It was totally an apocalyptic asteroid impact 100%

[cubinator]

*the suspense intensifies*

[Kerbart]

Makes you wonder what happened! The first time I used RT it was a bit of a surprise when my communotron 88-88 didn't connect. The beam is so narrow that pointing it to "Kerbin" is simply not accurate enough to be picked up by the communication satellites—you need more distance for that. I wonder if something similar is happening.

Or total apocalypse at Kerbin, of course.

[cubinator]

Could The Boss have anything to do with this? Or could it be that darned Dr. Mann Hallock screwing with them?

[Geschosskopf]

14 hours ago, Cydonian Monk said:

"Do you think anybody doesn't know? Contract never said it had to stay in Solar orbit. Anyway, we'll have a better idea of your midcourse correction in a few days, and will radio up the-...." The radio connection dropped with Kerbin while The Boss was mid-sentence. Macfred looked up at Thomlock, who had glanced back at the unexpected silence and shrugged.

Hmm, as nobody seems to have heard the characteristic clank of a shovel hitting a skull, I suppose that's not what happened and we can rule out the Mad Mun Pirate taking direct, personal revenge for some real or imagined event involving The Boss' shady past.  And the last pic of the reawakened communications network showed it to have too many redundancies for any few dozen individual failures to even be noticed for months, let alone cause months of silence.  Had World's First staged a coup to get all their money back, or terrorists struck, they'd no doubt have claimed responsibility in a way the Jool mission could hear.

However, Sieta has been trying to merge with the communications network for some time now, has been talking to ghosts more than is healthy even for a medium, and recently moved her base for reasons undisclosed but which obviously furthered her personal agenda.  She could, therefore, possibly have become the single chokepoint through with all data has to pass.  And for whatever reason, she has decided not to let that happen between the Jool flotilla and Kerbin.  After all, nobody will take her claim of being Space Voodoo Queen of Pirate Radio seriously unless she can demonstrate she really does rule the airwaves.  However, surely folks on Kerbin would have appeased her within the several months that communications have been out.  Unless she's just inconsolable.

But whatever happened, I strongly suspect that Sieta is at the heart of if.  And perhaps the Mad Mun Pirate is in cahoots with her, or rammed Memory of Tomorrow into  Baile Speir, (I still wonder what that name means) and folks back home have been left with a decapitated network they can't easily fix.  Or maybe it's all the hungry ghosts (preta, 餓鬼) taking their revenge on the living.....  I like ghost stories.

[insert_name]

frankly I think the comms loss was due to the update midflight

[Cydonian Monk]

Welcome to June. It was fun being the pinned thread for a month, even if I didn't end up getting as much done in May as I originally intended. Now I'll really never be able to find my thread again.  

 

18 hours ago, AkuAerospace said:

Thank you for this story, like the other's I've been following, it's unique and intriguing, particularly with a twist like that.

17 hours ago, DMSP said:

Awesome ships, seeing all three Potassiums in one chapter really shows how brilliant you are at this game.

Thank you all for the compliments, as always. Hopefully this continues to be as much fun to read as it is to play through and/or write.  

 

18 hours ago, AkuAerospace said:

Oh no ... It's happening again.
Hopefully this means we get to see (at last) what happened the last time

There's an angle to this that I was tempted to take, where the story progresses only from the point of view of the Jool-bound crew..... In which case it might be seven in-game years before they'd make it back to Kerbin to find out what happened. As tempted as I am to follow that path, I think the other path is more interesting, especially game-play wise. 

 

17 hours ago, DMSP said:

It was totally an apocalyptic asteroid impact 100%

5 hours ago, cubinator said:

Could The Boss have anything to do with this? Or could it be that darned Dr. Mann Hallock screwing with them?

8 hours ago, Kerbart said:

Makes you wonder what happened! ... Or total apocalypse at Kerbin, of course.

4 hours ago, Geschosskopf said:

But whatever happened, I strongly suspect that Sieta is at the heart of if.  And perhaps the Mad Mun Pirate is in cahoots with her, ....  Or maybe it's all the hungry ghosts (preta, 餓鬼) taking their revenge on the living.....  I like ghost stories.

2 hours ago, insert_name said:

frankly I think the comms loss was due to the update midflight

To all of the above: Possibly.... Possibly none of the above, possibly all of the above. Answers in time*, time in riddles. *(Some of those answers hopefully coming in a day or two.)

 

3 hours ago, Geschosskopf said:

Had World's First staged a coup to get all their money back....

That will no doubt happen at some point, much like the Iron Bank in the ASoIaF books are looking to get their money back by financing pretenders to the Iron Throne. It's safe to assume the World's Firsters have caught on to the fact that half of their awards were presented to the wrong parties (they've admitted as much) and several decades too late. Once the space accountants get involved with the space lawyers somebody will have to pay their pipers lest all the little kerbalings get whistled off to Minmus.

4 hours ago, Geschosskopf said:

Sieta ... recently moved her base for reasons undisclosed but which obviously furthered her personal agenda.

Sirens need a rock. A Queen needs a throne. The ghosts made her do it. Or perhaps the whims of the Queen of Space are not to be questioned?

[Geschosskopf]

2 minutes ago, Cydonian Monk said:

Now I'll really never be able to find my thread again.  

So now we see where the thread title really came from

 

2 minutes ago, Cydonian Monk said:

That will no doubt happen at some point, much like the Iron Bank in the ASoIaF books are looking to get their money back by financing pretenders to the Iron Throne. It's safe to assume the World's Firsters have caught on to the fact that half of their awards were presented to the wrong parties (they've admitted as much) and several decades too late. Once the space accountants get involved with the space lawyers somebody will have to pay their pipers lest all the little kerbalings get whistled off to Minmus.

But The Boss will see this coming and will have prepared defenses.  Such as suddenly producing documentation that he personally earned all the awards so far given, so no harm, no foul.  But that probably won't work once the World's Firsters have the bit in their teeth, and they will die in heaps on the the barbed wire in front of the entrenched machineguns encircling KSC

 

2 minutes ago, Cydonian Monk said:

Sirens need a rock. A Queen needs a throne. The ghosts made her do it. Or perhaps the whims of the Queen of Space are not to be questioned?

Certainly Sieta can make the Kraken Himself spend His evenings at home with her instead of running amok as was His wont before Sieta took over His life.  But with folks like Sieta, domestic tranquility is the least of their goals.

[DaMachinator]

1 hour ago, Cydonian Monk said:

Welcome to June. It was fun being the pinned thread for a month, even if I didn't end up getting as much done in May as I originally intended. Now I'll really never be able to find my thread again.

Apart from the small blue underlined text containing a hyperlink in your signature.

[monophonic]

5 hours ago, Cydonian Monk said:

That will no doubt happen at some point, much like the Iron Bank in the ASoIaF books are looking to get their money back by financing pretenders to the Iron Throne. It's safe to assume the World's Firsters have caught on to the fact that half of their awards were presented to the wrong parties (they've admitted as much) and several decades too late. Once the space accountants get involved with the space lawyers somebody will have to pay their pipers lest all the little kerbalings get whistled off to Minmus.

Or Jool, perhaps? The space program has crumbled to bankruptcy every time the World's Firsters have checked their archives and issued chargebacks on all the wrongly re-awarded awards? I think I am starting to understand...

[TheKosanianMethod]

This is now the first thing I check when I come onto the forums.It's inspired me to perhaps start playing career again. I started a save when I first got 1.0.5, and spent half an hour on it. I spend most of my time in sandbox making fighters.

[Cydonian Monk]

3 hours ago, TheKosanianMethod said:

This is now the first thing I check when I come onto the forums.It's inspired me to perhaps start playing career again. I started a save when I first got 1.0.5, and spent half an hour on it. I spend most of my time in sandbox making fighters.

Nothing wrong with sandbox, especially if that's what you enjoy. Honestly I find the stock career mode stuff strangely balanced, overly grindy and often not fun, one of the reasons I use the Engineering Tech Tree. I'd much prefer the game's career mode be more like the Buzz Aldrin games, but hey - it is what it is. 

[OrbitalBuzzsaw]

Moar?

[Cydonian Monk]

Just now, OrbitalBuzzsaw said:

Moar?

Soon. Ish. 

Working through some off-camera stuff that's still in 1.0.5 and totally not dragging my feet hoping 1.1.3 happens soon... ish.....

[Geschosskopf]

14 minutes ago, Cydonian Monk said:

Soon. Ish. 

Working through some off-camera stuff that's still in 1.0.5 and totally not dragging my feet hoping 1.1.3 happens soon... ish.....

I'm glad that's your only problem.  I've been worried you were trying to devolve your ears and jawbone back into gills.

Edited June 3, 2016 by Geschosskopf

[Cydonian Monk]

5 minutes ago, Geschosskopf said:

I'm glad that's your only problem.  I've been worried you were trying to devolve your ears and jawbone back into gills.

Knock on particle board [closest thing to wood I can see in my office], the only flooding I've had this round was in our parking lot at work, and only ~4 inches at that. Still dealing with a bit longer than normal commute, and seriously considering buying a kayak. Or retractable pontoons to strap on the side of my car. 

Folks seem to forget Houston is a swamp. The frogs certainly haven't. Chirping like mad these days. 

[Just Jim]

5 minutes ago, Cydonian Monk said:

Knock on particle board [closest thing to wood I can see in my office], the only flooding I've had this round was in our parking lot at work, and only ~4 inches at that. Still dealing with a bit longer than normal commute, and seriously considering buying a kayak. Or retractable pontoons to strap on the side of my car. 

Folks seem to forget Houston is a swamp. The frogs certainly haven't. Chirping like mad these days. 

I hear ya!!!  I was savagely attacked myself by an evil, blood sucking, Florida tree frog just a couple days ago... little bugger jumped nearly three feet and landed smack dab on my shoulder... startled the heck out of me... hehehe    

Stay safe and dry, my friend!

 

[Geschosskopf]

12 minutes ago, Cydonian Monk said:

Knock on particle board [closest thing to wood I can see in my office], the only flooding I've had this round was in our parking lot at work, and only ~4 inches at that. Still dealing with a bit longer than normal commute, and seriously considering buying a kayak. Or retractable pontoons to strap on the side of my car. 

Folks seem to forget Houston is a swamp. The frogs certainly haven't. Chirping like mad these days. 

I can recommend a good utility yakanoe.  I got the Beach from Oru Kayak a couple weeks ago and totally love it.  So now I own 3 yaks, all for different purposes.  I love them all, but for your situation the Beach might best.  You can carry several of them in the back of a Prius, run over jagged submerged objects or run hard ashore with no worries, and carry a fair amount of beer hydration and equipment within easy reach, plus it's quite comfortable inside during our summers.  You can even stand up in it if that's you're thing.

And I love to hear frogs.  It means that many fewer skeeters.  Where I live, normally we hear them 10 months of the year but this time they refused to shut up during January and February.

Edited June 3, 2016 by Geschosskopf

[DaMachinator]

For a moment, you had me scared this was over, @Cydonian Monk. 

Glad to see I was wrong. 

[Cydonian Monk]

5 minutes ago, DaMachinator said:

For a moment, you had me scared this was over, @Cydonian Monk. 

Glad to see I was wrong. 

Oh what a cruel place that would be to end.  

[DaMachinator]

9 minutes ago, Cydonian Monk said:

Oh what a cruel place that would be to end.  

Very cruel indeed.