Mission Slot 704

[Kaizen]

Mission Slot 704: The history of Kerbal missions.

May 17 1957 (our time: May 14, 1381)

The kerbal was bored...he had nothing to do and he had destroyed the bottle rocket store...with the store's bottle rockets.

He was going to buy a book to read when he saw something in the sky.

"What is that...?" he thought.

The thing was getting closer and closer to the ground. It had something that looked like blue-purple fire coming out of it.

He realized it was going to crash, stepped back as it hit the ground with a small explosion.

The kerbal walked over to it. There was writing on the three parts of the ship "LV-T4 Model 3" "FL-T50 Model 1" and "Manned Command Pod Mk1v2" He checked there was noone dead in the pod. There was noone there. There was also a small piston in the pod "Backup Fuel"

He then realized something. This five-meter-tall thing wasn't alien technology...it was a space rocket!

This rocket, the XJ-T3000, was made by the Galactic Empire in 4222 BC (our time: 16888 BC), which had collapsed after a rebellion 1,500 years ago.

He realized it could be repaired. He took it to his house and started working on it.

May 28 1957 (our time: May 18, 1381).

The ship was ready to launch. He had learned how to make fuel, if in small amounts, and fix the damaged parts. Through this he had also experimented and made his own ship, the J1, which was a small unmanned ship using a replica LV-T4 and his own special fuel tank.

He was going to present this to the Kerbal Science Commission.

May 29 1957 (our time: May 18, 1381 (later))

"Hello, Alec" the manager said. "What have you got to present?"

"This. It crashed a couple of weeks ago and I fixed it and made a small unmanned variant, for safety."

"Why not manned?"

"I am working on a parachute; if there is no parachute, the ship is unsafe in the event of an emergency."

"Ok."

"This is the J1."

"J1?"

The manager looked surprised.

"It's a space rocket, in theory. I have tested it, it has reached 6,000 meters and landed safely."

"So with further development, the ship could reach, say, Jool, theoretically?"

"Yes."

"I'm sold. Give me a demo..."

Alec explained the tech of the ship and how to make parts and fuel.

"Here it is."

He lifted the small, two-metre-high J1 onto it's pad.

"It launches off this pad and lands roughly near it, about a 20 m accuracy."

"How does it launch and fly?"

"You send the command to launch with this little control panel here. You type "launch-rocket" and the rocket will initate pre-launch proceedings. Type "launch-rocket-actual" and it will launch. You tell it to change direction, etc. I'm working on a autopilot setting."

"Great, can I see it fly?"

"Totally."

He typed in the commands and the rocket flew off.

"How do you know where it is?"

"You see this map and those numbers? The map is where the rocket is. The numbers are the altitude. You can lower or raise the rocket controls..."

Kerbals started appearing in their hundreds and news reporters started to arrive after people heard the rocket take off.

"Here, have the manual..."

He handed him one of the two copies of the manual. There were thousands of Kerbals around now.

"OK...7,000 meters, lets land..."

He expertly piloted the controls until the ship was landed a couple of meters away from it's pad.

"Semi-reusable, you get the engine and the pod back. The fuel tank can't be reused."

"Oh. I need a couple of seconds to think about the proposal..."

The manager exclaimed a couple of seconds later "Your proposal is accepted! Let the Space Age begin!"

Tens of thousands of Kerbals were here now. ,

"I've made 8 J1s. Here's technical information and info to make your own rocket."

Alec and the manager moved the three J1s into the office, the one that had already flew first.

The manager then put a ring around the J1s. "Don't want them to get damaged by the crowd."

Alec replied "Yep."

Alec cut the rope and thousands streamed in. News cameras were everywhere taking pictures of the J1s. Some news programmes were airing to television early.

Jun 7 1957 (our time: May 30, 1381)

By June 7th, news of the J1s reached the Maxina Central Government, and were met with excitement. On June 15, the Kerbal Space Development Association was created with a K$5 million (U$$ 7.5 million, UK£ 6.5 million) per year budget.

Oct 31 1957 (our time: July 11, 1381)

By now, the formatory years of the Space Age had started. Alec in partnership with the KSA created the J2 rocket, which had an autopilot option and could fly up to 21,000 meters. The KSDA had created the X-1 rocket, which wasn't quite as successful as the J2, reaching only 14,000 meters, but still went higher than the highest J1 flight (8,500 meters). J2s were selling in the hundreds to eager Kerbals who wanted to create their own rocket and launch it. These J2s, being piloted by inexperienced pilots, had a setting that could only be turned off once you had done 3 successful landings: autoland. If the J2 was going to crash, it would take away from user control and land itself. Only 2 J2s crashed because of this.

The J2 had a more powerful LV-T7 engine, and the rocket community created the J2-3, J2.5 and J2X, more powerful variants of the J2.

May 4 1958 (our time: September 6, 1381)

By now, Alec and the KSA had perfected their J2 design, creating the J3 and the manned J3-M. The KSDA had created the X-2, with a prototype solid-fuel booster, the T30. J3s were sold as kits, as J2s, but also as fully assembled rockets. The highest J3 flight was a modified J3, the J3-T, reaching 48,341 meters. The normal J3 reached 41,214 meters.

May 18 1958 (our time: September 11, 1381)

von Neumann at the KSDA was talking with some of his other colleagues when he had a idea.

"Why don't we, for Project XS-1, use pulse engines?"

"What's a pulse engine?", Yoko, one of the colleagues, replied.

"A engine that is like our current liquid engines, but it can be turned off during flight, instead of having a minimum thrust of 20, 30, 40%. And it can use more than one tank."

Another colleague, Ishihara, replied.

"And, why don't we develop a smaller engine, and then stack the small engine on top of the larger ones, so we can activate the small engine in space, and then get more longevity out of the rocket?"

"Yeah...Would management agree though?"

"Make them watch the first launch."

So the eight colleagues developed in secret the XS-1, which they also surmised could be sold in kit form to compete with the then-under development J4, which only reached space after four months of release.

Mar 31 1959 (our time: Feb 22, 1382)

The XS1 prototype was complete. Ishihara looked at it

"So much work...finally complete..."

"Let's ring the upper management."

They invited their upper management to a party and announced their project.

Management were angry, then surprised, then excited.

"Today...you will see XS1 launched. We plan to develop a orbit-capable XS1 in the very near future."

The XS1 had a LV-703 engine and FL-T100 as its first stage and a LV-Z10 engine (a derivative of the LV-T10) and 2x prototype FL-T200s as its second stage. It could be manned or unmanned.

The XS1 had so much power when it lifted off that it caused a few dozen civilan Kerbals to arrive, despite the distance being over 800 m from the nearest street.

One of the upper management exclaimed "We need to build a space centre..."

Within about five minutes, hundreds of kerbals had arrived from the neighbouring city.

Alec arrived, the J1-4 creator, and walked in.

Yoko said "Hey Alec, what are you doing here?"

Alec said "To congratulate you guys on reaching space before us."

"What...?"

Yoko checked the altimeter. "72,194m. Second stage on 81% fuel. First stage disconnected at 58,444m. Estimated distance: 214,813m. "

Yoko shouted. The crowd went insane, screaming and shouting.

Alec said "Is that reusable completely?"

Yoko replied "Only the top stage. The bottom stage, everything apart from the fuel tanks and decouplers."

Alec said "You could get that thing into orbit..."

Yoko replied "We are going to do that next launch."

Alec replied "Oh..."

The crowd was bigger than the J1 one. Near the front, three teenage Kerbals stood, with their huge bottle rocket that failed a lot.

"Damn." one of them went.

"I know what job I'm getting."

Their names? Jebediah, Bill and Bob.

Edited October 16, 2016 by Kaizen
Fixes

[Kaizen]

chapter 2 coming soon, i have other projects aswell