The Outer Planets Traveling Circus Episode 28: Superheroes (The End)

[Geschosskopf]

EPISODE 5: A' the Blue Bonnets Are Over the Border

Spoiler

 

Well, first the Boffins decided they might as well tweak the Slate encounters for the SE-1 Relays and TOPERs while they were in a good position for it.  These 2 ships have very good encounters and should be able to capture without much of a burn.  Which is good because, despite being launched several days apart, they're predicted now to arrive at Sarnus at exactly the same time.  Hopefully, floating point errors over the coming couple of years will spread them out somewhat :).

The other 3 ships of SE-1 then did their mid-course tweaks over the next 100 days but none of them could get a pre-Sarnus encounter with Slate to save their souls.  But that turns out to be OK because capturing by thrust alone at Sarnus is in the range of 800-1000m/s, not as hard as Jool, and the ships were all built with this in mind.  Using Slate was always considered langiappe.

Shortly thereafter, it was time to launch another ship to Dres for the mo-nay.  This one will do both an orbital survey and a magnet field survey for lucrative contracts.

The Boffins then decided it was time for a bit of housecleaning.  They had scads of stuff in space they really didn't need---some tracked asteroids in interesting orbits but not interesting enough to actually visit, some ancient probes launched in the 1st few months of the OPTC's operations, and 8 too many flags on Minmus.  The probes had been maintained in hopes of getting easy money on repositioning them but only 1 such contract had ever happened.  Meanwhile, the universe was getting a bit wobbly.  Something had to go.

So al lthe asteroids, all 8 flags, and 6 obsolete probes bit the dust.  The probes were all power-dived into Minmus and Mun.  This resulted in some entertainment.  Some of these probes had been in orbit well over 2 years by this point.

Then it was just warping forward for about 200 days when it was time for the GT-1 Duna 3 Double to leave its parking orbit at Kerbin for its trip to Duna and Ike.  This ship will bring in about $1.5 million assuming all goes well, which is one reason to return it even if the contracts don't care.  It's museum material, nicely small but still significant.

Shortly thereafter, it was time to launch the 2nd Eve Expedition to satisfy several contracts and Eve and Gilly, which would bring in about $750K.  First up was the Eve Probe, which will drop a lander (hopefully) to the surface.  But hopefully NOT a hint of things to come, this rocket was attacked by the Kraken on the launchpad.  The whole thing shook and shimmied and the tail fins went flying and damaged various parts of KSC.

Fortunately, the damage was relatively slight, not even meeting the OPTC's insurance deductible.  So that was about $250K down the drain, but tthe OPTc by then had about $11 million in the bank so no big deal.  This was all odd because I've got @Claw's stock bug fixes, one of which is supposed to cure the launchpad problems.

Howver, the Boffins solved the problem by moving the whole rocket slightly to the north on the launchpad and the next time, all went well.  The 2.5m section of the transfer stage has a bunch of experiments to use in orbit, and then it will deorbit the lander.  The lander is a 2.5m heatshield with 1.25m stuff on it and a parachute.  No legs, no engine, relying entirely on the chute to land safely.

The ship for Gilly was a bit simpler but the same general idea.  The interesting thing about it is that the lander is powered entirely by monopropellant,  Not only the main engines but also some upwards-facing RCS jets to speed the painfully slow landing process up to tolerable levels of agony.

While all this was going on, the OPTC was making money in its sleep by reusing probes alreadly in position.  Both MagSat Minmus and SENTINEL Kerbin kept sucking in the cash.  So by this point in time, the OPTC has about $12 million in the bank.

So here we are, Y3 D408, and all the blue bonnets are truly over the border.  At this moment, the OPTC has at least 1 ship en route simultaneously to Eve, Duna, Dres, Jool, Sarnus, Urlum, and Neidon.  UE-1 and NE-1 will soon be doing their mid-course tweaks, after which the Jool relays will ariive.  After that, it will be just a short 1-year wait until SE-1 starts arriving and things should start getting interesting.  And with so much money on-hand, the OPTC has enough to do some ambitious stuff at Sarnus and Urlum after their 1st expeditions arrive and report back on how things really stand, so warping ahead from this point on should be largely free of distractions.

Tune in next time hopefully for some better stuff. 

 

 

Edited December 22, 2015 by Geschosskopf
added spoiler

[Geschosskopf]

EPISODE 6: I'm Movin' On

Spoiler

 

As ol' George says in the linked tune above, "I'm through with you, too bad you're blue."  Or purple or green as the case may be.  This episode cleared the calendar of essentially everything except the Outer Planets stuff, and by the end the lead ships of the 1st Sarnus Expedition will be rather less than 1 year from the SOI.  Yay

Anyway, the 1st thing on the agenda was the mid-course tweak of the NE-1 Thatmo SCANsat, the very 1st interplanetary ship launched by the OPTC something like 4 years ago.  It's target, Neidon's major moon Thatmo (an analog of Triton) is in a highly inclined and RETROGRADE orbit so the Boffins aimed the probe to capture into a retrograde orbit itself.  Not daring to touch the atmosphere, the probe had been built with plenty of dV but as it turned out, the burn would only need about 450m/s.  Even better, it just so happened that the Ap of the resulting orbit aligned with Thatmo's descending node around Neidon.  The Boffins immediately ran some fiendish experiments on a penal battalion as an offering of thanks to the Kraken, and hoped It would still be in a good mood 19 years hence.

Shortly thereafter, the 1st Urlum Expedition completed its own mid-course tweaks.  Urlum lacks a big moon to brake off of but capturing there really isn't that big a burn.  After the tweaks, Urlum was just barely visible in the far distance.  These ships still have 8-9 years to go..

Then it was time to get to work on what will hopefully be the last missions to the inner solar system.  The 2nd Eve Expeditions 2 shps were arriving about 1 hour apart.

The Eve Surveyor/Lander grabbed all the science it could in both high and low orbits, then did a de-orbit burn and released the ballistic lander probe on a trajectory intended to take it down about 1/4 of the planet from where it burned, starting from 105km altitude.

Eve's atmosphere proved quite hot.  The main body of the probe quickly exploded.

But the probe survived just fine with minimal ablator loss, and scored some very nice payouts.

NOTE:  The lander's antenna was totally inside a closed 1.25m service bay which was itself hidden behind a 2.5m heat shield.  Despite this, perhaps because it had been used transmitting orbital science despite the main body having its own antenna, the lander's antenna would have exploded during the descent without "advanced technology".  So here's another example of heat occlusion not being totally right.

This landing happened while the Gilly lander was heading out to its Ap slightly beyond Gilly's orbit.  Over the course of several weeks, the Gilly lander maneuvered to meet Gilly and began its long, slow, boring descent aided by up-facing RCS thrusters.

Once again, this probe scored big bucks.

The 2nd Eve Expedition also scored about 2500 Science! points, which the Scientists spent on some things that future Outer Planets expeditions might find useful.  The tech tree is now getting pretty close to completely.

With all the time that had passed doing these things, the OPTC checked to see if any theme-appropriate contracts were available.  Nothing yet involved the outer planets, probably because the OPTC hadn't yet gotten there.  Still the OPTC was amused at the conditions of a couple of offers.  The most hilarious was to build a Mun station starting with a new Class E asteroid, not one you already had lying around, which paid less than just capturing such an asteroid in the 1st place

Soon thereafter, the Dres MagSat Surveyor arrived.  Its transfer stage ran dry during the long capture burn and was staged with the usual gratuitous explosions.

This thing scored big on the orbital survey contract and will, after nearly a year in orbit, also cash in on the magnetic survey contract.

Next up was the Grand Tour 1 Duna 3 Double arriving at Duna and Ike.  Easy money .  It's now parked at Duna waiting on the window back to Kerbin, which won't happen until stuff starts arriving at Sarnus.  This is the only thing still going on from Jool inwards :).

And last but not least, the Jool Relays arrived.  Putting up these satellites completed the network which now has plenty of alternate paths around Kerbol and over/under alll the planets.  Relays now exist at Duna, Dres, and Jool, so hopefully stuff at Sarnus can talk clearly, and soon relays at Sarnus will be in place for stuff further out.

After deploying the relay satellites, the Boffins aimed the carrier ship to crash on Jool.  Starting at a 1Mm Ap, they burned the last drops of its fuel to give it a 100km Pe, halfway into the atmosphere.  Then they poured fresh whiskies and sat back to watch what they hoped would be some more gratuitous explosions.

But it was not to be.  The ship had a heat shield but no other protection.  Yet it only reached its highest recorded temperatures at about 167km and not even the notoriously melty LV-Ns got as warm as they had during the transfer burn.

To everybody's surprise, the suicide run continued.  At 125km, the flames were briefly replaced by Mach effects and then the ship rapidly slowed in the thick atmosphere, floating gently downwards at about 180m/s.  It had lost only 14% of its ablator.

The explosion everybody had been eagerly anticipating finally happened at 240m.  No milestone for crashing landing on Jool as there had been at Dres, so the Boffins decided the ship was still technically airborne and that the pressure had killed it, although they closed the F3 diagnostic window before actually reading it.  Still, the ship did score about $350K worth of milestones for going suborbital and atmospheric flight.

All in all, this experiment provided much food for thought.  Perhaps aerocapture is once again possible at Jool without building a ridiculous heat shield.  And if it works there, maybe it would work at the Outer Planets, too.  The Boffins have much simulation to do now.

But anyway, this green-tinted explosion was a fitting end to the build-up for going full-scale Outer Planets.  All that's left to do from Jool inwards is to get the GT-1 home and wait on the eventual payoff of the Dres MagSat.  The OPTC now has over $20 MILLION in the bank, enough to last it quite a while.  And soon the 1st Sarnus Expedition will be arriving.

Tune in next time to see Sarnus up close.  It's been a long wait.  I hope it proves worth it.

 

 

Edited December 24, 2015 by Geschosskopf
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[CAKE99]

Another great episode!

 

6 hours ago, Geschosskopf said:

the lander's antenna would have exploded during the descent without "advanced technology".

Just curious, was that a reference to my graphic novel?

[Geschosskopf]

3 hours ago, CAKE99 said:

Another great episode!

 

Just curious, was that a reference to my graphic novel?

Yup.  I'm a fan :D.  In this case, the "advanced technology" merely involved a brief use of the "ignore maxTemp" cheat.  I mean seriously, there's no way the friggin' antenna should have been bothered, being both behind a heat shield and inside a service bay smaller than the heat shield.  So there was no recourse but cheating, and you're the best cheater I know, so I used your term for it

[Mister Dilsby]

1 hour ago, Geschosskopf said:

 I mean seriously, there's no way the friggin' antenna should have been bothered, being both behind a heat shield and inside a service bay smaller than the heat shield.  

"Cheating to fix poor game design is not cheating at all"-- Bill Kerman, Kerbfleet Corps of Engineers

[Cydonian Monk]

9 minutes ago, Kuzzter said:

"Cheating to fix poor game design is not cheating at all"-- Bill Kerman, Kerbfleet Corps of Engineers

This needs to be engraved over the VAB door.

[Geschosskopf]

13 minutes ago, Cydonian Monk said:

This needs to be engraved over the VAB door.

Along with "Installing basic instrumentation mods to make up for the game's appalling lack of fundamental information and inability to manevuer ships precisely is good and necessary.  Drinking to excess due to the frustration of not installing these mods is bad." --precept of the "Friends of Bill" aka Hydrazenics Anonymous

[Geschosskopf]

EPISODE 7: The Crown and the Ring

Spoiler

 

After so much work and so long a wait, I wanted symphonic theme music that spoke of epic struggles and ultimate triumph involving rings.  Sadly, the theme from the LotR movies totally unenthuses me and I don't like much Wagner.  But fortunately I found a symphonic version of Manowar's "The Crown and the Ring" which I think is a perfect fit.  Enjoy.

Anyway, in the latter half of Year 5 since the Supernova of '105, the 1st 2 ships of the 1st Sarnus Expedition entered the SOI of the ringed planet.  These were the TOPERs bound for the outer, atmospheric moon Tekto, and the Sarnus Relay Carrier bound for a polar orbit at Sarnus itself.  They crossed into Sarnus space about 30 minutes apart, not bad formation flying considering the length of the trip :D.  Shortly before they got there, the Dres MagSat finally finished its survey of Dres for a nice paycheck.

Both of the leading SE-1 units had arranged gravity brakes off Slate, the Sarnus version of Tylo.  But even setting their Pe's down at 20km, the gravity proved to have an insignificant effect on their trajectories.

Because the TOPERs were bound for Tekto at the edge of the system, they needed slightly less of a capture burn, about 800m/s, really no different from doing it at a low Sarnus Pe.

The Sarnus Relays need about 900 to capture into an orbit similar to Slates.  And even though they went nearly polar at Slate in an effort to achieve as high an inclination at Sarnus as possible, they still needed another 1100m/s to get polar at the latter place.

Good thing the Boffins designed the ships with the dV to do all this.  The Boffins totted up the results and decided that gravity braking at Sarnus is more trouble than it's worth and won't be doing it again.  But what about aerocapture?  That question would take a bit longer to answer.

In any case, the TOPERs got the 1st good look at the Sarnus system on their way in towards Slate.

Due to orbital tweaks made at the edge of Sarnus' SOI, the Sarnus Relays were now about 3 hours behind the TOPERs so, fortunately, Mission Control had no difficulties handling their captures.  The TOPERs were actually leaving Slate's SOI as the Sarnus Relays were approaching Pe.

NOTE:  For a long time, the contract/milestone notifications kept repeating stuff from last episode, the Jool flyby and the completion of the Dres magnetic survey.  Fortunately, the rewards for these accmplishments did NOT stack but it was annoying having the same info showing up repeatedly.  So in the following and some other screenshots, the OPTC's Propaganda Officer redacted the redundant stuff.

While the TOPERs would spend several weeks en route to Tekto, the Sarnus Relays had to do some burns quickly upon leaving Slate's SOI.  During the burn to set a 90^ inclination at Sarnus, the Relays' future path cut through Sarnus briefly, triggering a "suborbital flight" milestone.  Also note that you can see Eeloo eclipsing a tiny bit near the top of Sarnus in the left half of the pic.

Soon, the Sarnus Relay carrier was in place and deployed its satellites.  That's Slate in the background.

Once the relay satellites were on their way, the Boffins aimed the carrier ship to crash into Sarnus to study the effects of its atmosphere.  The results were entertaining but sobering.  The Sarnian atmosphere extends to 305km, 50% taller than Jool's.  And it gets hot pretty fast.  The Poodle engine and fuel tank exploded very quickly, but the service bay containing the probe core and RTGs survived all the flames.  However, at that point, the Kraken came into play.  The speedometer on the navball remained at nearly 900m/s all the way down to 100km despite the altitude only decreasing by about 100m/s.  So rather than put the entire universe at risk, Mission Control decided to abandon the remains of the ship to their fate and go on with business.

However, the Boffins at least determined not to try aerocapture at Sarnus.  And with gravity-braking off Slate not working, that leaves nothing but thrust for furture missions.

The PESTs entered Sarnus' SOI at this point.  They set up a burn to capture out a bit beyond their destination, Eeloo.  It takes about 60 days to get from the edge of the SOI to a low Sarnus Pe, so plenty happened in the meantime.

Such as, the TOPERs arrived uneventfully at Tekto.  Capturing there required only about 300m/s without bothering to aerobrake (Tekto's atmosphere is about 100km thick).  Tekto being the main focus for future expeditions, Mission Control was quite interested in what it looked like.  All green with lakes and rivers.  And cold about 17^K in its vicinity.

The PESTs then did their capture burn.  Being the 1st ship to spend any extended time more or less in the plane of the rings, Mission Control was interested to see if anything bad happened there.  But nothing did.

The PESTs did a minor correction burn and were soon closing in on Eeloo.  It then captured uneventuflly.

 

Getting into orbit at both Tekto and Eeloo scored some more milestones.

By this time, the Sarnus Science Probe had arrived.  Its mission was to do fly-bies of all the Sarnian moons.  Thus, it burned into a tight orbit to hit the inmost moon, tiny Hale, first.   Hale is actually inside the rings and inclined so that it passes through them twice each orbit.  Hale's radius is only 6km and it's SOI is only 14km so hitting it was a bit of a challenge but doable with the mousewheel, no need for mod instrumentation.  Strangely, there was no Pe shown on the map so the Boffins eyeballed the approach to avoid the taller lumps.  The Scientists were only able to get high orbit data from Hale  due to low orbit being closer than the Sarnus Science Probe got (although it got DAMNED close) and the instruments still trying to transmit all the original data.  After all, the ship only traveled about 20-25km in Hale's SOI at all.

But the views from Hale are totally spectacular.  The Scientists are convinced that they need a permanent research outpost there (they're always looking for new places to exile under-achieving grad students).

The Sarnus Science Probe then waited a couple orbits and then made a small burn to pass by Orvok, a slightly bigger moon in the outer fringes of the rings.

By this time, SCANsat Sarnus, the 5th and last ship of SE-1, had entered Sarnus' SOI.  Its targets were Eeloo and Tekto for sure, Slate if fuel allowed.  So it set up its capture burn to do Eeloo and was able to hit it on the way back down from Ap.

During the burn to meet Orvok, the Sarnus Science Probe finally exhausted its transfer stage with which it had left Kerbin nearly 4 years before, and continued on using the 5km/s dV in the actual probe.

Orvok is distinctly ovate with the big end tide-locked facing Sarnus.  Othewise, it has few distinguishing features, just a lot of small ridges.

Following the Orvok fly-by, the Sarnus Science Probe set course for Eeloo where the PESTs were waiting in parking orbit.  Once it passed that, on a trajectory calculated to kick it out to Slate, Mission Control ran out of whisky and whiskey, and decided to call it a night.

So now it's about Y6 D50.  The Sarnus Science Probe has amassed about 8000 points, enough to finish the tech tree, with 2 moons still to go.  And the OPTC accumulated another $2 million from contracts and milestones during this episode.  Even now, the Boffins and Scientists are brainstorming what to spend it on.  But much will depend on what SCANsat Sarnus, the PESTs, and the TOPERs discover.

Tune in next time for prospecting on Eeloo and Tekto, sciencing Slate and Tekto, and perhaps some R&D if time permits.

 

 

Edited December 28, 2015 by Geschosskopf
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[Geschosskopf]

EPISODE 8: Will it Go 'Round in Circles?

Spoiler

 

When we last left the Travelling Circust, all of SE-1 had arrived in the system and the Sarnus System Probe was starting to wander around.  SCANsat Sarnus Moons, however, still hadn't reached its Sarnus Pe yet so the PESTs and TOPERs were patiently waiting in parking orbits at Eeloo and Tekto, respectively.  Their landers weren't going down until the Boffins had an idea where to put them.

Before directing their attention back to the Outer Planets, Mission Control browsed recent contract offers and got a good laugh out of this one:

There were, however, a couple of good ones available, such as Explore Jool (handled by the Jool Relays already in place).  Also, there was one to get science from the surface of Slate.  Finally, an Outer Planets contract and the challenge of landing on that high-gravity moon!  So that's been added to SE-2's to-do list.

In other old business, during the excitement of the lead elements of SE-1 arriving, the poor GT-1 Duna 3 Double's departure from Duna got forgotten and nobody noticed until it was 142 days after its window.  So the Boffins rescheduled it over a year in the future

Speaking of Slate, the science probe soon did a fly-by of it and got a gravity assist that flung it out towards Tekto.  The Scientists think Slate once had oceans and you can sure see where they got the idea.  This fly-by was the beginning of a massive juggling act switching attention between the science probe and the SCANsat visiting various moons.

By this time, SCANsat Sarnus Moons was finally nearing its Pe.

As it happened, it appeared that it could catch Eeloo, it's 1st stop, fairly easily after a braking burn at Pe.

But it turned out that Sarnus has the same sort of SOI weirdness going on with its moons as Jool.  In this case, Slate would, without warning on the map, grab the SCANsat near its Ap and catapult it nearly out of Sarnus' SOI.  This would happen even though the SCANsat was outside of Slate's on-paper reach and actually getting further away.  Thus, the probe had to do a substantial burn to stay out of Slate's reach.

But eventually, after spending about 500m/s more than planned, SCANsat Sarnus Moons hooked up with Eeloo and got to work.

Eeloo's ore was concentrated in the Highlands which there are what pass for mountains.  Outside of such areas, there wasn't much to speak of.  But Mission Control spotted a small patch of Highlands on the equator which didn't look that bad from orbit, so decided to check it out with one of the PESTs (which is why they sent out 2 of them).  More on this later.  The SCANsat then went up to higher orbits to map biomes and topography.

The mapping took so long (over 30 days) that the Sarnus System Probe had time to orbit Sarnus to synch up with Tekto and then burn for it.

In due course, the science probe arrived at Tekto for its last planned fly-by.

It was at this point that the Scientists informed the Boffins that they'd modified the probe's magnetometer and multi-spectral imager to work as poorkerb's SCANsat parts.  Because this probe still had about 3500m/s in the tanks and had accomplished its mission, the Scientists wanted the Boffins to have it survey Hale and Orvok, which the Scientists had become fascinated by.  That way, they could get some preliminary data without having to divert the SCANsat.  The Boffins agreed after a bit of grumbling and had the Sarnus System Probe gravity brake off Tekto to set up another braking pass off Slate on its way back into the rings.

These maneuvers worked quite well and soon the Sarnus System Probe was revisiting Hale, this time to enter orbit.

Capturing at Hale, despite coming in from a reasonably similar orbit, required over 700m/s.  And even though the Sarnus System Probe had a TWR at Hale of over 350:1, there was some doubt initially on whether it would be within Hale's tiny SOI long enough to do the burn.  As the burn progressed, nothing happened to the projected orbit.  Then nothing continued to happen.  The probe passed Pe and still no twitch in its path.  Then suddenly, bam!  Captured.

The probe then began a very, VERY long, slow process of snooping around Hale's "tropics" with its Magnetometer at its orbital speed of about 5m/s.  It proved to have insufficient power to run the lash-up biome scanner.  The magnetometer wouldn't give a map display, just read off numbers as it passed over the ground, rather like a surface scanner.  Ore concentrations noted varied between 2-6%, which is sufficient to support a small base, but the terrain is brutal, more veritcal than horizontal.  In any case, the Boffins put some grad students on the job of working with Scientist grad students to come up with a design for a Hale Base.

By this time, SCANsat Sarnus Moons had finally finished mapping Eeloo and PEST 1 detached from its carrier to begin its descent.

The PEST, virtually identical to the PERVs used before the last supernova, had no trouble landing.  On the way down, the chosen spot of Highlands looked rather intimidating but fortunately the Boffins had picked a corner of it that turned out not to be too rough.

The terrain got even better after a short drive and eventually PEST 1 found an acceptably flat area with the highest ore concentration seen on the planet, a full 8%.  So PEST 1 stopped there to mark the spot for the future mining base and the Scientists began fantasizing over the view.

The SCANsat, meanwhile, was waiting a couple more days on a window to fly to Tekto.  It turned out that by waiting until its orbital plane was aligned with Tekto's position in the sky, it could burn there fairly simply without having to waste fuel clmbing down from its polar orbit.

The Sarnus System Probe, meanwhile, had seen all it wanted to of Hale.  It still had plenty of fuel so the Scientists next requested it do another extra assignment at Orvok, which is nice and smooth so might be a better place for a base.  So the probe burned away.  Because escape velocity at Hale is only 16m/s, the probe burned nearly straight up once Orvok was in the correct relative position.

Capturing at Orvok proved much easier than at Hale.  However, the oblong moon proved to be pretty worthless.  The highest ore concentration noted was only 2%, usually rather less..

By this time, SCANsat Sarnus Moons had arrived at Tekto and did its capture burn.  It finally exhausted its transfer stage during this burn, thanks to the 500m/s it had to spend dodging Slate en route to Eeloo.  But hey, gratuitous explosion

Scanning Tekto took just as long as scanning Eeloo.  And Tekto has some problems with Ore.  Most of the solid surface has 2%, the liquid has zero.  There's a tiny patch of 10% at the south pole and that was pretty much it.  But the Boffins finally spotted a tiny place near the equator with 4%, which would have to do.  Meanwhile, the SCANsat set up to move over to Slate.

While the SCANsat waited to leave, the Boffins activated TOPER 1 and sent it down to check out the slim pickings on Tekto.  The TOPER pulled clear of its carrier and used its small wingtip pods to deorbit, then ditched them.

Entering Tekto's atmosphere failed to produce any flames at all.  In fact, it was more like parachuting.  The TOPER barely exceeded 100m/s from 40km on down and just pointed straight down once there, using brakes occasionally to avoid reaching Mach 1, which the Boffins remembered from simulations was about 130m/s at 6km.  Once finally down, the TOPER deployed its brakes again to slow to 12m/s at touchdown.  Then it was a long, bumpy, floaty run to finally stop without nosing over in the low gravity.

Once down, the TOPER engaged the electric motor in its Firespitter nosewheel and taxied around for a while zeroing in on the 4% spot.  This proved to be in quite nice terrain for landing.  Too bad the Ore here is so pathetic.  But it will have to do.

Tekto glows green and makes everything, even objects in space, have a green tinge to them.  None of the instruments aboard TOPER 1 registered any concern over this, though, so it's not radioactive.  Probably.  The colonists will have to find out for themselves.

Today's episode triggered a fair number of milestones to help pay the bills.

So there we are.  It's now about Y6 D200.  SCANsat Sarnus Moons is waiting a few days before moving to Slate which will finish its mission.  If fuel permits, it will then move to Hale to do a better job there.  Orvok would then follow just for the sake of completeness.  With eyes on the ground, the Boffins can now start designing the Eeloo and Tekto components of the 2nd Sarnus Expedition.  PEST 2 and TOPER 2 are being held in reserve.  The GT-1 Duna 3 Doubte is still about 500 days from leaving Duna, 1st Urlum Expedition is still about 6 years out, and the Neidon probe still has over 17 years to go.

Tune in next time for when SE-1 completes its missions and R&D for SE-2 gets going.

 

 

Edited December 31, 2015 by Geschosskopf
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[Sanic]

Surely something as rudimentary as extracting ore from a gas giant is easily possible.  

[Geschosskopf]

2 hours ago, Sanic said:

Surely something as rudimentary as extracting ore from a gas giant is easily possible.  

Well, all gas giants are hard-coded to have zero ore, for starters.  It ain't like Karbonite which can exist in atmospheres.  And tests have shown that you don't want to try landing on Sarnus due to Krakens

[Geschosskopf]

EPISODE 9: Weird Science

Spoiler

 

After spending a LOT of time flying all the ships of SE-1 hither and yon and sometimes back again, the Boffins decided they needed a change of pace.  To this end, they began the long, arduous R&D process for the 2nd Sarnus Expedition, now that they knew the basic design parameters.  It had been years since they'd designed any rockets.

But it had also been about 6 years since any Kerbals had been in space.  In that interval, the Scientists and Boffins had worked together to overcome the long-vexing problem of being able to tell Kerbals apart and remembering which one did what job.  So the Boffins rigged up some IVA Icons and the Scientists developed new Ceteras spacesuits color-coded and symbolically matched to the IVA Icons.  Here is all that being modeled by elite testkerbs at the top secret R&D labs.

The Boffins then decided to work on the Tekto component of SE-2.  Already having exporation jets in position, they next priority was to develop a means of getting Kerbals between the surface and orbit.  Simulations indicated that a conventional lander just wasn't going to work---Tekto's atmosphere made accurate landings virtually impossible, even using the Trajectories technology.  Therefore, the Boffins decided that a spaceplane would be necessary and, after some tinkering, developed the TRASHCAN (Tekto Reentry Aircraft Specially Honed to Carry Astronauts and NOMs).  This can carry up to 6 Kerbals and some emergency supplies should they be necessary.

The TRASHCAN' has the same nuclear thermal jet as already used on the TOPERs.  Simulations show this will get the TRASHCAN to about 200m/s at 13km altitude.  At this point, the LANTERN nuclear engines take over, and they have a TWR over 1.3 in Tekto's weak gravity.  These are more than capable, even with the atmosphere, of achieving orbit (orbital velocity is only about 750m/s) with plenty of fuel both for docking and landing again.

Of course, the TRASHCAN can't fly at all on Kerbin---WAY insufficient thrust.  At best, it can stretch its descent from the end of the runway to about a klick offshore .  Thus, it needed help getting into space.  So the Boffins applied their usual strategy of building a bass-ackwards SSTO rocket using the TRASHCANs as tail feathers.  2 TRASHCANs to have some redundancy and self-rescue ability on the mission.  With both spaceplanes, 2x Nuclear Lightbuld transfer engines, and their 1.75x worth of orange tanks in the transfer stage, the payload for the SSTO rocket was a bit over 167 tons.  This necessitated using the Space-Y 5m rocket parts.  The whole rig on the pad will cost about $921K.

This actually worked on the 1st try, achieving a 100km orbit with a few fumes left in the SSTO tanks.  The Boffins were rather pleased with themselves.

Next, the Boffins turned their attention to the Tekto base that forms the necessary link between the TOPERs and the TRASHCANs.  A precision landing was absolutely necessary to hit the small patch of half-way decent Ore found by TOPER 1, and once again simulations showed that a convention lander didn't have a chance.  What was needed, therefore, was a base that could land like an aircraft and then drive itself on the ground.  Plus, it needed to provide unlimited life support to its crew AND be able to refuel the TRASHCANs. 

This was quite a challenge but eventually the Boffins came up with the BATHMAT (Base, Airborne, To House and Mine At Tekto).  It was built around the new Karibou Rover.  Around this the Boffins built a glider with all the flight parts mounted on hardpoints so they could be detached on the ground, and an engineer aboard could scrap them so that maybe, someday, their component RocketParts could be used to build a ship on Tekto.

Simulations show a particularly unnerving descent profile. basocally pointing straight down until the last moment, slowing down the whole way even without the airbrakes out, trying to get to the ground before reaching stall speed.  Typically the thing is only moving about 35m/s when it pulls out just above the ground and touches down at about 14m/s.

The BATHMAT has a see-through cockpit with fuzzy dice .  Boring, mission-related equipment includes a 2.5m ISRU and 2 large drills, a 1.25m fission reactor to power all that, and the full MKS-Lite suite of inflatable habitat, agricutlure, and power modules.  All-up weight of the BATHMAT itself came to about 27 tons.  And of course it lacks rocket engines of its own so also needed a transfer stage and a way to get off the ground.  So yet another bass-ackwards rocket was born.

The BATHMAT is projected to cost about $450K.  It's 3.5m SSTO rocket can get it to a 100x90km orbit which the transfer stage can even out with no trouble so the Boffins decided this was good enough.

Tune in next time for more R&D and/or more mucking about with the probes at Sarnus.

 

 

Edited January 12, 2016 by Geschosskopf
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[Mister Dilsby]

Never get tired of seeing those bass-ackwards plane lifters. TRASHCAN looks really amazing--I bet with a few more engine bells you could indeed get it off Kerbin, to Tekto and back, but then again we'd miss the glorious spectacle of your boffins dragging a pair of them into space behind several other trashcans (note lowercase) full of boom.

[Geschosskopf]

35 minutes ago, Kuzzter said:

Never get tired of seeing those bass-ackwards plane lifters. TRASHCAN looks really amazing--I bet with a few more engine bells you could indeed get it off Kerbin, to Tekto and back, but then again we'd miss the glorious spectacle of your boffins dragging a pair of them into space behind several other trashcans (note lowercase) full of boom.

A "few" more engine bells?  The TRASHCAN simply doesn't fly at all on Kerbin.,  On Kerbin, it splashes only slightly further out in the water than a rover jumping off the end of the runway with the same speed   It has neither wing area nor thrust to fly on Kerbin where you need one or the other, being designed for an environment where too much of either one is a bad thing.  And the Travelling Circus learned long ago, before it learned to make bass-ackwards rockets, that trying to fly such a thing off the runway was a problem that only half a barrel of whiskey could solve,

The above was my 1st successful Duna plane, way back in 0.21 or so.  It could, with effort, fly a low altitude on Kerbin but could circumnavitage Duna (although it had to dodge tall mountains).  The actual Duna plane is the "small" biplane at the front, the rest is an SSTO lifter stage (using then-current B9 parts, as did the biplane).  The big docking port on the rear end was for orbital docking of the transfer stage which had to be launched separately. But shortly after struggling through getting this pig off the ground, the Biffins learned of bass-ackwards rockets from some forgotten guru (maybe @Bothersome?) who hasn't posted here since back in those days.

What continually amazes me is that despite the post-1.0 aero model, bass-ackwards rockets still work.  And they work with FAR, too, or at least they did the last time I used FAR, which was 1.0.2.   So they can't be fundamentally wrong

 

[Geschosskopf]

EPISODE 10:  I Can Smell the Chemicals

Spoiler

 

Apologies for the music, but get used to it.  I think I've found several more episode themes on this album

Anyway, the Boffins and Scientists continued their epic task of designing the 2nd Sarnus Expedition.  The need now was to do the Eeloo component of the mission.  There, the Travelling Circus plans to establish the main deepspace port for the Sarnus system.  As such, this would be were the Kerbals of SE-2 would first drop anchor before dispersing to the various moons.  But they needed a ship to get them there and back, and thus was born the CRACKHEAD (Cryogenic Refrigerator About Carrying Kerbals Heading to Extremely Arduous Destinations).  This thing is, as the name implies, built around a 10-seat DeepFreeze unit and the necessary plumbing and electrical systems needed to run it.  It also has a service bay with a fuel cell for rapid recharge of the batteries should that prove necessary.

The actual CRACKHEAD part of this ship has a 2.5m docking port on each end.  Launched on the nose of this was the COPROLITE (Crew Orbit Position Relocator of Long Inhabitation for Tekto and Eeloo).  This is a self-propelled Hitchhiker can to move Kerbals between Eeloo and Tekto.  This has a 2.5m port on the stern and a 1.25m port on the bow for flexibility.

All this required the equivalent of 2 orange tanks of liquid fuel plus all the fixed mass, and this in turn made for a big lifter using all the biggest 5m parts.  And because this is carrying 10 Kerbals, the 1st to go to the Outer Planets, and the 1st Kerbals going anywhere in many years, the Emperor and the Travelling Circus wanted that lifter to be special.  So they did it as an SSTO using all the biggest 5m Space-Y parts..

Next, to make the fuel and get the science from Eeloo, the Travelling Circus decided another mobile base was necessary.  By using many of the Karibou components developed for the Tekto BATHMAT but differently arranged and addubg special stuff of its own, the result was the STEAMINGPILE (Self-contained Temporary Environment Allowing Mining In New Glory for Poor Idiots Indigents Immigrants Landing on Eeloo).

The transfer stage of the STEAMINGPILE will be retained in Eeloo orbit as a tug for shoving heavy stuff around later and perhaps to serve as a backup ticket home for at least a few of the crew.

The job of humping fuel up to orbit and eventually bringing the Kerbals back up, too, required a big lander.  To limit the trips needed to refuel CRACKHEAD for the trip home, it needed to lift at least 1 orange tank's worth of fuel and, of course, have room for 4 Kerbals.  This resulted in the FLAKEE (Fuel Lander and Kerbal Extricator for Eeloo).  Even with the cargo fuel tanks empty for the trip out, it still was a ridiculously heavy payload at about 250 tons including the transfer stage.  This required the same huge LFO lifter as CRACKHEAD-COPROLITE, but with the addition of 4x 3.5m SRBs.  The whole thing weighs over 1400 tons on the pad.

To round out the Eeloo package, there was need for some sort of station with at least minimal fuel tankage.  This led to the TOEJAM (Tankage Orbiting Eeloo Just to Administer Missions).  It has 2 of each side docking port and tanks for every type of fuel, although mostly for LF due to that being what the other ships of SE-2 use.

TOEJAM comes equipped with a small LV-N-powered tug just in case.  It's going out with 2 transfer stages, an LFO Rhino for the initial kick out of LKO and then a nuclear lightbulb for the remainder.

So that got the main elements of SE-2 (the Tekto and Eeloo components) done.  This brought up the question of what to do about Hale, which the Scientists were so keen on visiting.  In fact, they wanted to build a base there.  But looking at all that was in SE-2 already, everybody finally decided that a base would have to wait until SE-3.  But CRACKHEAD had room for a 3rd crew so it was decided to send a long-ranged lander to visit both Hale and Orvok.  This became known as HOPELESS (Hale and Orvok Planetoid-Exploring Lander for Extremely Serious Science).  It will do these 2 little moons somewhat Apollo-style, using its transfer stage as a tug to move it around within the Sarnus system.

The lander has a 0.625m port on the bow and a 2.5m on the stern, again for flexibility at TOEJAM.  The lander has rather more fuel than it needs just in case something bad happens to its transfer/tug stage.

And last but not least, Mission Control remembered that the only income lined up for SE-2 so far was a single contracdt for science from the surface of Slate.  To do this, the Boffins whipped up a small, "relatively" cheap probe lander for a 1-way trip.  This is rather easier to do than make a reuseable lander.  That's another task deferred to until SE-3.

So, here's the lineup for the 2nd Sarnus Expedition:

1. Eeloo Component
   • CRACKHEAD-COPROLITE:  10-seat cryogenic troop transport and 4-seat shuttle between Eeloo and Tekto:  $827,349
   • STEAMINGPILE:  3-seat mobile mining/science base with reusable transfer stage/tug:  $724,654
   • FLAKEE:  Fuel and 4-seat personnel lifter/lander:  $837,225
   • TOEJAM:  Minimalist orbital fuel depot and transshipment port with small tug:  $636,274
2. Tekto Component (see Episode 9)
   • BATHMAT:  3-seat air-landed mobile mining/science base:  $441,445
   • TRASHCAN Carrier:  2x 6-seat SSTO spaceplanes with reuseable tug/transfer stage:  $921,356
3. Odds and Sods
   • HOPELESS:  3-seat lander to explore Hale and Bop (EDIT:  Hale-Bop was a comet, Freudian slip)  Orvok:  $385,835
   • Slate Probe Lander:  expendable $303,294

Total pricetag of the 2nd Sarnus Expedition:  $5,077,432, or about 20% of the OPTC's current bank account.  The single contract on Slate will only bring in about 2 million so this is a huge out-of-pocket expense.  But everybody knew it wouldn't come cheap

As to the crew, the current plans are as follows:

• Eeloo Base:  2 artificersmates, 1 sciencemate
• Tekto Base:  1 artificersmate, 2 sciencemates
• Hale and Orvok:  1 airman, 2 sciencemates

Each base needs a permanent crew of 1 artificersmate (to run the ore generator) and 1 sciencemate (to run the life support system), leaving only the 3rd crewmember available for exporation.  On Eeloo, exploration will be by PEST rover so being able to fix flats and repair breakdowns in the field requires a 2nd artificersmate.  But this means less science can be gathered (not like Eeloo is really that interesting anyway).  On Tekto, exploration will be by the TOPER drone airplanes which carry more science, and it's a more interesting place---thus the 2nd sciencemate.  The crew of the Hale/Orvok mission needs an airman to fly the ship and has no on-going life support system.  Besides, the Scientists are the only people interested in those places.

This leaves 1 empty seat in CRACKHEAD and debate about what to do with it is ongoing.  Some say leave it empty in case they capture any Sarnians or get an improbable rescue contract.  Others say send a spare Kerbal just in case.  This will probably be a launch-day decision.

Tune in next time for finishing up SE-1 and getting SE-2 on the road.  There's kind of a rush as the Star Kigma-11 is already showing signs of instability and will probably result in another supernova before too long.

 

 

Edited January 30, 2016 by Geschosskopf
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[Sanic]

Mort must have died halfway through the list

[Geschosskopf]

10 minutes ago, Sanic said:

Mort must have died halfway through the list

My Mort is a very different animal than Kuzzter's.  Half of the money the OPTC runs on (that is, the 2nd 100% of the 200% contract reward setting) comes from the pockets of the Emperor and the highest peers and wealthiest bourgeois, who either invested as heavily as the Emperor as a status thing, or were "strongly encouraged" to do so.  And these major shareholders appoint the bi-partisan (as in Boffin and Scientist) board of directors called Mission Control, who are charged with making reality of the Emperors dreams of exploiting the Outer Planets for the good of all Kerbalkind.  So there's not a real worry about where the money comes from, and not much about where it goes.

In this environment, therefore, my Mort's job is mostly just to observe and document while maintaining vigilance against embezzlement.  He has no power even to make suggestions at board meetings, let alone decisions, and this doesn't bother him because he has no technical expertise whatsoever and knows the OPTC doesn't follow free-market rules.  So he just sits and watches.  At least when things are going well.  But should disaster occur and the major investors are demanding that heads start rolling, it will be Mort's job to show who made the fateful managerial decisions

 

[CAKE99]

This thread has some of the best (if not THE best) ship acronyms on the forums, *applause*

Also can I borrow some for my graphic novel?

[Geschosskopf]

22 minutes ago, CAKE99 said:

This thread has some of the best (if not THE best) ship acronyms on the forums, *applause*

Also can I borrow some for my graphic novel?

Thanks.  Making self-disparaging acronym ship names is my trademark.  I have to do something to liven up my stories because for the most part they're just dry text .  Over the years I've come up with dozens of them, most of which I can only remember by looking back at my old Travelling Circus threads.  Off the top of my head, I remember DUMBASS, DORK, D'OH, DUCTTAPE, JERK, LOSS, LOSER. VACUOUS, PERV, MADNESS, and UTTERMADNESS.  Oh, and my version of "World's Firsts" is officially known as EPIKFAIL (Extravagant Projects Institute of Kerbals Following Absolutely Incorrect Logic).

I don't mind if you make your own acronym from some of the same words I've used.  After all, I don't own the words .  But the actual meaning of my acronyms is usually pretty specific to the particular ship and mission in my game so usually won't fit in other situations.  I mean, unless you actually have Poor Idiots Landing on Eeloo, you'll need some other meaning for STEAMINGPILE....

[Cydonian Monk]

I have this strange vision where EPIKFAIL behaves somewhat like SMERSH..... Spreading disinformation about the achievements of the Emperor's pet space program and wiping out spies from other organizations that are trying to find the truth....

[Geschosskopf]

7 hours ago, Cydonian Monk said:

I have this strange vision where EPIKFAIL behaves somewhat like SMERSH..... Spreading disinformation about the achievements of the Emperor's pet space program and wiping out spies from other organizations that are trying to find the truth....

Well, not all empires are evil and/or oppresive.  For instance, the Glorious Kerbal Space Empire lacks freedom of the press, not because it views that as a bad thing, but simply because the issue has never arisen.  And that's because, apart from the nobility and some high-end bourgeoisie, very few Kerbals are literate.  Kerbal society long ago crossed the fateful threshhold where the ability to understand any writing more sophisticated than symbolic traffic signs, ap-launching icons, and emoticons ceased to have any value to the average Kerbal.

This makes for a wonderfully orderly, productive, and stable society.  Instead of wasting a couple decades in school trying to master the written language, freshly sprouted Kerbals can immediately go to work in sweatshops, contributing to society from the get-go.  By the time they ripen, they are in the habit of doing a hard day's work so keep doing it in whatever trade they then decide to follow.  It's been this way as long as anybody can remember because there's no history to read that says otherwise and nobody to read it if there was.  And as long as they get their beer and realtiy shows (the Kerbal version of bread and circuses), they remain happy and content.

And really, realtiy shows are all that Kerbal TV is capable of making because nobody in broadcasting is capable of writing a script.  Nor can investigative reporters read any documents of the ruling elite that they might dig up.  And even if they could, the doings of the elite are so alien to the life of the kerb-on-the-street that those viewing the news just think the reporter is participating in some weird reality show where the cast makes up bizarre stories to tell for no apparent reason.  After all, Kerbal society is always pretty much the same, what with no written or even much oral history to judge against, so the whole concept of "news" is hard to grasp, let alone believe in.

This, at the bottom line, is why the Travelling Circus must rely on pressgangs to acquire astronauts.  "Space?  What's that?  (Kerbals being troglodytes, most have never even heard of the surface).  Say, have you seen that weird reality show where they make the contestants sit in these ridiculous cramped cans for months, periodically pushing buttons and being slammed around as the can gets shaken?  How big of a loser do you have to be to even apply for that one?  It's pretty boring most of the time, the kerbs just sitting there in silly costumes figiting occasionally, but every once in a while something explodes.  Still, not worth the wait.  I much prefer the one where contestants with no culinary talent try to make restaurant-quality snacks.  It has the best beer commercials."

[Mister Dilsby]

Wow. Kraken forbid my poor starry-eyed kerbs ever cross over to your world--they'll never be able to resist its soul-draining temptations!

[Geschosskopf]

4 hours ago, Kuzzter said:

Wow. Kraken forbid my poor starry-eyed kerbs ever cross over to your world--they'll never be able to resist its soul-draining temptations!

I dunno.  The main difference between our kerbs is that yours are all philosophers while mine never question existing condiitions, let alone existence itself.  This is because to them, the answers are intuitively obvious to the casual observer.  As biological entities, they have to eat.  To get food, they have work, either growing it themselves or doing some paying job.  The harder they work, they more food they can acquire, but the less time they have to eat it, let alone satisfy their less-vital but still necessary biological needs for drink and watching TV, unless they get paid enough to have other Kerbals work for them.  And even if they're still very busy then, they can at least afford tastier snacks, stronger drink, and mobile devices that stream their TV shows on the go, to get more enjoyment out of their limited leisure time.  Achieving this state is the only aspiration of most Kerbals and they can't have others because this is, patently,how the universe works and there's no changing that.  At least as they see it.

Now there are, of course, exceptions.  There are some Kerbals who are unable or unwilling to earn an honest living.  There aren't many of either, thanks to millennia of selective breeding---they either quickly starve to death or are hanged as thieves.  Those that escape these fates are usually swept up by the pressgangs to serve the Empire.   Now, there's plenty of graft and rackets amongst the working kerbs, but mostly this is viewed a second job, a suppliment to their main source of income, all part of the same harsh survival game they all play.

And then there's the Imperial Government.  This is a rather philkerbalist organization, really, its primary goal being to improve the lot of the average kerb, but just in detail, not fundamentally.  After all, it's Kerbal nature to work in a quest for more and better leisure time.  It's just that some kerbals have been so successful at thtis that they no longer have to work at all, but still have too much ingrained work ethic to become complete hedonists, so feel compelled to be doing SOMETHING productive.  Thus, they use their abilities as the last remaining literati to develop new technology for daily use, and this ultimately led them to space, a great source of spin-off consumer goods.

But making the governmet function requires more bodies than the peerage can muster by itself.  And there is no pool of "best and brightest" amongst the general population to draw on because the general population is illiterate.  Besides, the average kerb doesn't see government jobs as honest work so nobody applies for them.  Therefore, the Imperial Government uses something rather like the historical Ottoman ghulam system to fill its ranks.  Non-productive kerbs are captured by pressgangs, evaluated for aptitude, trained and indoctrinated as necessary for their assigned task, put to use, and promoted on merit.  This is where all the Scientists, Boffins, and astronauts come from.  Those who lack the competence for any of these roles become reality TV stars, which is the only form of true welfare system on Kerbin.  After all, they can't do honest work, they can't even do government work, so what else can they do?

Anyway,if one of your ships met one of my ships, I can imagine the conversation going like this:

Your kerb's initial thoughts:  "Hmm, another routine crossover.  I wonder which of us will meet his twin from a parallel universe this time?"

My kerb's initial thoughts:  "Hmm, another ship.  Wasn't in my briefing so isn't part of my job.  I don't want to interfere with its job so I'd better just mind my own business.  Besides, 'KerbCity Choppers' is on."

Your kerb's 1st transmission:  "Ahoy there!  This is KSS Awesum bound to Jool FOR SCIENCE!  Do you, by chance, need rescuing?"

My kerb's reply:  "Hey, turn it down over there!  Your signal's killing my reality TV reception!"

Your kerb:  "Um, er, ........"  (Aside to his shipmates):  "Well, at least he didn't say 'cheese' so he's probably not crazy.  Sooo.... which of us is the biggest reality TV junky?  That's got to be alternate him in that strange ship."  A tense conversation ensues with dark personal secrets revealed.  Eventually, a decision is reached and the designated member of your crew comes to the mic.  Meanwhile, my ship has drifted further away along its course.

Your designated reality TV junky:  "Hey, Other (insert name), this is (insert name).  Whatcha watchin'?"

My kerb:  "Nothing now, thanks to you jamming my signal.  Look, (insert name), I don't know why you feel it necessary to talk to yourself on the radio, but please just shut up and go do your job so I can get back to doing mine.  Conversation ended."

 

Edited January 13, 2016 by Geschosskopf

[Mister Dilsby]

^And you keep trying to tell me you're no writer.

[Geschosskopf]

4 hours ago, Kuzzter said:

^And you keep trying to tell me you're no writer.

I'm not, I'm a firefighter. 

When it comes to fiction, I can do the high-end, world-design stuff (usually with a satirical tinge),.  I can even set up interesting situations as natural outcomes of these worlds.  What I can't do is create and develop engaging characters to live and act in my own worlds and situations.  Or it's the other way around.  I can invent a character I find interesting and, because I know him inside and out, I can have him react entertainingly (at least to me) in given situations.  But I just can't do the full process from either end.  I blame my youth misspent amongst various paper RPGs where there was just this division of labor.  One guy designed the world and created the outline of the situation, everybody else actually told the story by playing their characters.  This created a mental block eternally separating these essential aspects of a complete work of fiction.

Besides, having imagined my Kerbal society, I try to report on it as would a Kerbal from that society.  The masses get direct live feed but think it's all just some unfathomable reality show where the contestants suffer weird, contrived, and bogus indignities for no apparent purpose.  No sense talking down to that level.  Those that actually have an interest, even a stake, in the outcome only care about that outcome, not the Kerbal involved.  After all, the Kerbal wouldn't be a productive member of society if left to his own devices and, if he was actually competent at something, he'd have been made part of the administration, not an expendable, faceless Janissary astronaut sent shot off to be cannonfodder another planet.  Now, if the mission calls for him to return to Kerbin, and if he did an acceptable job on his trip, he might warrant some grudging respect.  Such as to be made NCOIC of the next forelorn hope leaving 2 days later on another 10-year mission.  How can you make an engaging character in these circumstances?