Charting the Unknown (Chapter 4, Sorry for the Wait!)

[Daeridanii]

It has been a long time since Kerbalkind invented the boat. It has been a slightly shorter, but still long time since Kerbalkind invented the airplane. But today, Kerbalkind sets it's sights on new horizons, to chart unknown lands, to boldly go... okay, I'll skip the dramatic part. I decided to finally make a little Kerbal mission report series. Each chapter (installment?) will be told from the point of view of a specific one of the Orange Suits. In addition, all spacecraft outside of Kerbin's atmosphere must only have screenshots from EVA or from inside the spacecraft. No more floating cameras. So, enjoy, everyone. 

Oh, and the pictures have been edited so they look like they were taken on plastic toasters. Which might be realistic, considering Kerbals. 

Any feedback is appreciated.

 

CHAPTER 1 - Pg 1

CHAPTER 2 - Pg 1

CHAPTER 3 - Pg 1

CHAPTER 4 (Making Orbit) - Pg 1

 

MODS: ( I might add more later. )

Ven's Stock Revamp

Uncharted Lands

Time Control

Interstellar Fuel Switch

EvePlus (From Xen's Planet Collection)

Sun to Kerbol

Community ResourcePack

Texture Replacer (With Vaporo's Blue Galaxy Skybox and Scart91's Texture Pack)

 

CHAPTER ONE: BILL

This is the known universe. One star, seven planets and a comet. Now, we didn't get this picture from a camera in space, but our fancy tracking station computers conjured it up for us. Although, admittedly, those computers could use a small update. 

We'd like to visit them all one day, but that day won't be today. Rather, we have our eyes set on a closer target: Kerbin's third moon, Dres. It's quite interesting, in fact. Many of our top scientists believe that it could greatly increase our knowledge of how the Kerbin system came to be. While there are some groups that claim it is "a wet, discarded mop" and "a clone of the Mun," several charitable organizations such as the Dres Awareness Society have revealed its true nature. In fact, had it not been there, Kerbin would have been bombarded by many more asteroids and may not have survived its early millions of years. By getting a better understanding of Dres, we could uncover why Kerbin has life, why Kerbin exists, and many more exciting questions. Why not go to the Mun, you say? Well, we want to go there too, but it is geologically dead, and nowhere near as interesting. This picture was taken by the ground-based Ridiculously Large and Inadequately Named Telescope, which is quite large and inadequately named. 

However, to get there, we need to get to space, and for that, we need to get rockets. One of the science interns found "flea barrels" lying by the side of the road, as well as a few pieces of metal. That intern, Bob Kerman, was promoted to field science. Bob wasn't too excited about that, but he agreed after much bribery with small rocket toys. And so the first true rocket was launched - the Mark I. Not the most colorful of names, but Jeb seemed to enjoy it. In fact, I don't think I've ever seen Jeb frown, or look sad or tired at all.

I took this picture on an old C-15 antique camera that my grandkerb used to film the first air flight. It only seemed fitting to use it for the inaugural flight of the the Mark I. However, during the launch, there was a freak parachute deployment. Darn fleas must've been chewing on the electronics.

I didn't take this picture, it was probably a spectator with a drone thingy. It's quite blurry, but it looks like Jeb's capsule is being engulfed by the flea barrel's flame. Even Gene put down his cup of koffee when he saw this. The crowd lowered their heads. Suddenly, a static roar erupted from the speakers. It was Jeb, very much alive. Fortunately, the smoke was caused by the flea barrel spinning around, rather than exploding. And the parachute worked, which was reassuring, if we could get it to deploy at the right time.

This was the best picture we could get of Jeb's capsule returning to Kerbin. Rather blurry, even considering my engineering expertise. The landing was a success, and while the crowd was screaming in terror, Jeb was happily performing SCIENCE, advancing the knowledge of Kerbalkind dramatically.

Bill Kerman

 

CHAPTER TWO: JEB

Well, Bill has been probably telling you about my near-death experience. Ha! It was fun! There was all that smoke swirling everywhere, and there was SCIENCE, and now I get to fly a bigger rocket... yeah! Bigger rocket, and Wernher told me it could go to space - that's 80 kilometers! I thought I should bring Bob to do better SCIENCE, but all we had was a Kerb-Kan, which is like an oversized kardine container with pillows. I might think of using some of my junkyard parts in these rockets. 

Bob took a picture with his camera inside the Kerb-Kan. The engine exhaust did some interference thingy with the camera that made it look fuzzy, but I don't really care; I'm a pilot, not a scientist. You'd think that there would be windows on the inside if there are on the outside, but there aren't. This definitely warrants further investigation.

And then, we went to SPACE! Isn't that so cool - and look, Kerbin is actually round. Of course, I already knew that, but to see it from SPACE is just so EXCITING, and CAPITALS AND CAPITALS, ETC. The "mystery goo" apparently reacts strangely to space. It becomes brittle and clumps into a ball, so it might make some strange candy if you were to market it. Of course it might be toxic, so I suppose you shouldn't eat it.

We reentered through the atmosphere, which is very shiny if you slam into it at a kilometer per second. VERY SHINY. I thought that we would have another parachute failure, but these "drogue" chutes are very interesting. They are smaller than regular parachutes, but slow you down more. Wernher mentioned something about how slathering them with mystery goo altered their aerodynamic properties, but I'm not sure if the laws of physics permit that. Again, I'm not a scientist.

The picture is actually in COLOR! Isn't that exciting. New breakthroughs in technology are happening almost daily now. I suspect we'll go to Dres soon. Signing off, Jebediah Kerman.

Edited July 6, 2016 by Daeridanii

[max_creative]

Yay! Dres! 

Jeb flying around in circles with a parachute and RT-5 doing SCIENCE! Like nothing is happening is really funny! 

Also, I'm a member of the Dres awareness society!

[Daeridanii]

CHAPTER 3: VALENTINA

Well, the Kerbal Records Society, or something like that, want us to go to orbit. They define it, and I quote, "Throwing yourself at the ground and missing." Well, I didn't have much of a choice, did I. That would be amazing! Wernher made a very large rocket, which was supposed to work correctly. However, it didn't - there was a structural failure with the decouplers, resulting in the bottom half of it exploding once the second stage was ignited.

I snapped a picture of the destroyed stage falling back to Kerbin. Judging from its trajectory, it might land right in the pool - or maybe on top of Mortimer. That would be unfortunate, wouldn't it. 

However, Wernher's famous goo-chutes worked, at least. I'm not really sure if I trust that kerb, but you have to admit he's brilliant. His ego could use a bit of trimming, though. He blamed the structural failure on ME! 

Ah, there it is. Dres - the source of all this hype around the space center. Personally, I don't see what's so special about it; it's not any worse than the other planets or moons, it just doesn't seem too exciting. But then, I don't know that much about it. I wonder if there will be kinosaurs there. That would definitely make it interesting.

Well, let's get back to the action. Wernher designed a second, supposedly safer rocket. While the interns called it a "glorified arrow with a barrel o' boom on it," it performed admirably. The second stage was a bit wobbly, but that was solved by trimming the gimbal on the engine. I didn't get to orbit, but I did get to perform the first spacewalk.

I took this picture with one of those little cameras that you find in the pods every once in a while. It started floating off, and Kerbol's radiation severly distorted the photo, as it was outside the protection of the capsule. Still, I was the first Kerbal to breathe the vacuum of space... wait, no I didn't breathe it. I definitely didn't breathe it. Then I would be dead, and that would be bad. Oh, no, I'm going to be late. See ya, Val.

[spacebrick3]

Where did she get the picture from if the camera floated away?

[Daeridanii]

4 hours ago, spacebrick3 said:

Where did she get the picture from if the camera floated away?

 

On 6/11/2016 at 5:22 PM, Daeridanii said:

It started floating off

It didn't escape, it started to get away. Val retrieved it.

[Daeridanii]

Hello, everyone! I am not dead (which is good!) Spoiler is at the bottom with both the story of why it took me so long and an apology to you all. But, back to CHAPTER FOUR - JEBEDIAH - MAKING ORBIT.

Well, here we go! Val is going to be so jealous when she finds out that I was the first Kerb to make orbit! Sure, it was terrifying at first, because it's kind of like falling forever, which isn't a good feeling. Sure, I'm not afraid of heights - why else would I join the Space Program, but the sickening feeling of dread knowing that if you run out of fuel, you'll be stuck in space until you can no longer photosynthesize... Of course, that dread and terror is far surpassed by the amount of excitement and fame and fortune... I'm getting ahead of myself, I think. Wernher designed a very shiny new rocket - the design was incredible. There was a minor problem - the second stage started to flip over halfway through its fuel. Fortunately, the Thump Barrels^TM were more than enough to get it up to space before that happened. 

Orbit - there it is. The first picture from another world - the world of space. You can't really say that you've been to space until you achieve orbit, I think. If you don't, then you just visit - you haven't really experienced it. I was tempted to open the hatch and take a spacewalk, but after seeing the effects of the radiation on the KerbCam that Val took up, Gene decided that it would not only be safer, but also cheaper to not go EVA (see spoiler at bottom). Still, the view was incredible. It makes you rethink all of these boundaries that Kerbals set up. I think the space program really is a unifying force for all of Kerbalkind. If all Kerbs could see what I have seen, the world would be a better place. I'm sure of it. But then, I'm not much of a philosopher, or a scientist.

Reentry went well, apart from the fact that the knuckleheads running the science department (not implying Squad are knuckleheads, life happened, and I'm trying to work it into the story) forgot to authorize the EVA, and I couldn't remotely access the SCIENCE! It burned up on reentry, so they just got my official report from space. Linus and his team were a little disappointed, but they seemed to forgive me. I have a feeling that I will be smothered with scientific equipment on my next mission - maybe I'll be flying some beat-up plane looking for contracts. Also, the recovery team was a bit annoyed that I landed on the other side of Kerbin. Hey, when you're stuck in a glorified kardine can flying through space, you don't have that much control over where you'll land. Dres looks farther off now, but we'll get there in a while. The science guys did some research on expanding our fuel options (who knew that you need science to make a bigger tank? I mean, it's just a big cylinder with flashing lights and stuff). However, SCIENCE from space is beginning to provide diminishing returns, so perhaps Minmus would be a good stop on our way to Dres and beyond. Oh, and on the topic of going beyond, the science guys think they've found a moon of Laythe. They're calling it Tylo for now, so I suppose they've finally gotten over the notion that Laythe is double-wide. Signing off from the Quarantine Room, Jeb Kerman.

 

Spoiler

Okay, so the reason I haven't posted a new chapter in 25 days is that my computer broke - badly. I thought it would be a repair, it required a replacement, so I got a new computer altogether.  That took a few weeks, and I lost all my data on it, so I patched together roughly the amount of funds and amount of science I had beforehand. That's why Jeb couldn't EVA (I forgot to upgrade the Astronaut Complex.) Sorry for both the bump and the doublepost. I wasn't expecting to have been gone that long.  New chapters should be posted a lot more regularly.