Kasper Kerman and the Moons of Jool [CHAPTER 2: Housekeeping]

[Mad Rocket Scientist]

This is my mission report thread for my Jool-5 challenge attempt.

Here's the launch album:

 

 

 

 

 

Edited March 2, 2016 by Mad Rocket Scientist

[Just Jim]

Wow... that ship is... different... lol... 

You are definitely a mad rocket scientist! 

[Mister Dilsby]

Did you and @Geschosskopf take the same bass-ackwards Joolship design seminar? That thing looks like a hat rack trying to make love to a fire extinguisher. (And I mean that in the nicest, sweetest, Valentines-i-est way, of course )

[Mad Rocket Scientist]

19 hours ago, Just Jim said:

Wow... that ship is... different... lol... 

You are definitely a mad rocket scientist! 

Thanks!

18 hours ago, Kuzzter said:

Did you and @Geschosskopf take the same bass-ackwards Joolship design seminar? That thing looks like a hat rack trying to make love to a fire extinguisher. (And I mean that in the nicest, sweetest, Valentines-i-est way, of course )

It has asparagus staging too!

Anyway, here's a new update:

ETA:
Not in an album, since that's decided not to work today.

See, all the arms with RCS on them launch docked to docking ports that are set up so that it's almost a 2.5 meter payload when it launches.

 

Edited February 15, 2016 by Mad Rocket Scientist

[Geschosskopf]

18 hours ago, Kuzzter said:

Did you and @Geschosskopf take the same bass-ackwards Joolship design seminar?

Minds warped in the same way tend to follow the same convoluted logic curves

8 minutes ago, Mad Rocket Scientist said:

Thanks!

It has asparagus staging too!

Yes, sometimes that's necessary, especially with a bass-ackwards rocket.  But I try to avoid it by using bigger boosters

[Just Jim]

46 minutes ago, Mad Rocket Scientist said:

 

See, all the arms with RCS on them launch docked to docking ports that are set up so that it's almost a 2.5 meter payload when it launches.

 

Wow... right now, undocked to anything, it must be unbelievably nimble... I'm betting you can get it to spin like a gyroscope???

Edited February 15, 2016 by Just Jim

[Mad Rocket Scientist]

57 minutes ago, Just Jim said:

Wow... right now, undocked to anything, it must be unbelievably nimble... I'm betting you can get it to spin like a gyroscope???

It is very nimble, but unfortunately, it didn't work.  I couldn't even dock one large mk3 tank with it.  So I reverted and deorbited it.

[Guest]

I love that LV.

[Mad Rocket Scientist]

Yay!  Only 5 more flights.

♪ Fifty-seven tons and deeper in debt, I owe my soul to the Kerbfleet store...♪ (Thanks to @Kuzzter)

[Mad Rocket Scientist]

Here we see the brave crew, after a pad abort test.  From left to right, Kasper, Kama, and Gwenmie Kerman.

[Mad Rocket Scientist]

Witness the power of my fully fueled and operational mothership!

That's 458 tons and 242 parts of ship.

[Geschosskopf]

On 2/20/2016 at 10:46 PM, Mad Rocket Scientist said:

That's 458 tons and 242 parts of ship.

I hope you have some condemned prisoners you can sacrifice to The Kraken so as to distract It from this tempting morsel

 

[Mad Rocket Scientist]

2 years later...

The Resolution flew forwards on twin columns of fire, or at least, that's what the press release said.  It wasn't as majestic when your options for the 1g burn were standing on the wall or being pulled sideways out of your seat.  Which was why I and my crewmates were crammed in the Kerbin Return Vehicle (KRV) for this burn.  True, it was cramped, but better than a neck sprain.  Anyway, I'm supposed to keep this journal so that the KSP can use it for promotional material.  Obviously, they'll edit it down to something short and positive.  Here's the list of what I'm supposed to put here:

1. Explain, in layman's terms, the design of the mothership
2. Explain the command structure
3. Explain your jobs aboard the ship
4. Explain why this mission is important

Okay, so I'll focus on 4 today. 

The space program was doing great.  The kerballed Duna mission, landing probes on most bodies, the kerballed Moho mission, etc.  But then something happened: people started to take the KSP for granted.  As projects became ever more ambitious, funding stayed the same.  So, this mission was hard to get funding for, but, the idea was, was going to start a new growth in space by having a closer look at potentially habitable moons of Jool.  So, a mission plan was made, and the Resolution was assembled in orbit.  Chosen to crew it were: Kasper Kerman (That's me), an engineer, Kama Kerman, a scientist, and Gwemmie Kerman, a pilot.

Anyway, it looks like the first half of the burn is done, and we're moving over to the nukes. 

Looking at my thermal camera display, the radiators are working fine.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So, what do you think of the story format?  If you like it, I'll continue.

[Geschosskopf]

1 hour ago, Mad Rocket Scientist said:

2 years later...

.....

So, what do you think of the story format?  If you like it, I'll continue.

Well, story format is quite good and the tale is interesting.  And now that you personally are on your way, good luck with wherever you're going.  Given the ever-increasing signal delay between  you and home, I don't expect a timely reply, or even any reply at all.  But seriously, why 2 years between putting the mothership into orbit and sending it on its way?  That's what I, as a taxpayer who bought part of your life support system and who might vote against politicians who favor further funding for KSP, want to know,.  And I notice that this particular point wasn't on your list of things to explain.  So I'm at the crossroads of sending an anti-KSP letter to my congresskerb, or not.  Unless you convince me otherwise.  No pressure 

 

Edited February 25, 2016 by Geschosskopf

[Mad Rocket Scientist]

1 hour ago, Geschosskopf said:

Well, story format is quite good and the tale is interesting.  And now that you personally are on your way, good luck with wherever you're going.  Given the ever-increasing signal delay between  you and home, I don't expect a timely reply, or even any reply at all.  But seriously, why 2 years between putting the mothership into orbit and sending it on its way?  That's what I, as a taxpayer who bought part of your life support system and who might vote against politicians who favor further funding for KSP, want to know,.  And I notice that this particular point wasn't on your list of things to explain.  So I'm at the crossroads of sending an anti-KSP letter to my congresskerb, or not.  Unless you convince me otherwise.  No pressure 

 

Thanks!

About the delay, you'll be glad to hear that I definitely didn't actually load the crew into the vessel and then wait two years.  Definitely not.  No way. 
Anyway, here's two answers to your question:
The serious answer: I always build and launch my craft, then get a transfer window.
The canonical answer: It took two years to build, fuel, and test the Resolution.

[Mister Dilsby]

I like it--continue!

Regarding waiting for transfer windows: yeah, before i had the Kerbfleet thing I always launched and then FF to the window as well. In the early days of the Duna and Eve comics I tried to find useful missions to do while waiting--eventually decided that "useful" does not always mean "comics-worthy" and so am where I am now, which is that I have my Jool ship in orbit (except for the seven eight pieces that still need to dock with it) and it's over 300 days to the window. I'll spend some time doing shakedown testing on Minmus and refueling, but then there's still a wait... so I will likely just "kick down the door" and blast for it on a suboptimal path, knowing that I have enough dV to do so and can always mine for more. Two years tho, that's a lot of extra dV. You did the right thing. 

[Mad Rocket Scientist]

Well, we're about to pass Minmus' orbit, so I'll take this time to talk about what we do every day.  We work on the timezone of the launch site, and have shutters for all of the windows aboard the vessel that we close when it gets dark back at the KSC.  So we're just simulating what it's like back on Kerbin, when we were simulating what it would be like in the Resolution. 

There's two main groups of things that we'll be doing during the transfer: training, science, and housekeeping.

We'll be doing most of our training for landing on the moons during the transfer, and that will take up steadily more time as the journey continues.  Of course, I won't be training to land with a lander, instead I'll help Kama run an impromptu mission control from the Resolution.  I get to be the tech support guy for all the landers.  "Is the engine control computer plugged in?"

For science, we'll be doing stuff like observing planetary bodies with telescopes, far away from any atmosphere.  We'll also be measuring radiation fields, and doing a lot of science on the moons of Jool with local instruments.  I have more to do here, because I keep all the instruments in working order. 

Housekeeping is keeping the Resolution in working order, and has little to do with normal Kerbin housekeeping.  Dusting and most cleaning is accomplished by stopping rotation and turning up the fans for a few hours, then cleaning the filters.  Keeping the technical parts of the Resolution is trickier, and mostly my job.

[Starhawk]

Very fun MRS!

As far as waiting for windows goes, I RP months or years of on-board training missions and ship inspections.

Mind you, that gets to feel a bit unrealistic when I still find major engineering flaws during the voyage.

Keep up the good work.

Happy landings!