Flight to Laythe

[Cavscout74]

After reading a few of the great mission reports & stories on here, I decided to try telling the story of my career mission to Laythe.  I hope you all enjoy this first chapter. 

Spoiler

Present Day -

"By the Kraken, that was a long flight.  Good thing the seats fold down in the passenger cabin." 

Jeb looked back from the controls of the Pumera-Laythe at Kelrik Kerman, senior engineer & his companion for the last several years.  Finally, they were in orbit of Laythe & ready to rendezvous with the Laythe science station to rejoin the rest of the team.  Once they were all squeezed in, there was one more leg – down to Lancer-Laythe base, and the first footsteps on Laythe.

While Jeb was thinking about the rendezvous, Kelrik looked over the readouts from the ground station again.  Automated systems all reported fully functional.  It had already mined enough ore to fill its own tanks, so there shouldn’t be any issues getting the Pumera refueled once they were on the ground.  It may take a while – Lancers were bare bones ground facilities designed to give minimal lodging & refueling capability in remote locations.  Kel didn’t relish the idea of the six of them being stuck in Lancer-Laythe for the next 4 years waiting on a recovery mission.  At least there was also the Sagan Sea floating base, if it landed intact two days from now.  The idea of dropping the massive floating base – with attached pontoon boat no less – through Laythe’s atmosphere, and hitting the water without destroying major components sent a shiver down Kel’s spine.  He knew it was possible – he’d run the numbers himself – but it was still an amazing feat with plenty of opportunities for the Kraken to rear its head.

Despite the long journey, Kel was glad he had been chosen to ride with Jeb on the Pumera.  The new spaceplane design was a thing of beauty and other than a quick spacewalk to jettison the ferry tanks after they were empty, the trip was really just a long, scenic vacation.  Considering all the rescues, station construction and practice flights leading up to the Jool mission, he appreciated the break.  The only downside was his wife was assigned to the crew transfer vehicle with Val.  Somebody at KSC had made that decision despite multiple protests.  At least they were all close enough to maintain comms during the flight.

The one thing that still nagged at Kelrik was the choice of a Jool mission on this scale so soon.  They didn’t have lander or even orbital probes in position around all the moons yet.  In fact, nothing had arrived when the crewed mission launched.  And what a mission – nearly 80% of the program's budget was spent on the launches.  Two surface bases, an orbital science station, the crew transfer vehicle, communication & survey satellites, two separate probe landers and not one but two spaceplanes – a Xerosere-Laythe Amphibian was also arriving in about a month, being pushed backwards the whole way by a nuclear tug.  Not to mention additional comm and survey sats for the other moons & Jool itself.  The intent was to send mining rigs to Vall, Bop or Pol at the next window once they’d been properly surveyed & the best option  chosen.

But Kel knew something must be going on that the KSC leadership wasn’t sharing.  While Eve may be a hard target to plant a flag on, Moho was more than feasible.  Duna still didn’t have any ground bases, and the second crewed Duna mission was already on its way back home.  Certainly Jool - and Laythe in particular - were very appealing, but the rush was unusual.  The first set of probes to Jool weren’t even half-way there when the manned missions launched - unlike the first missions to both moons & Duna.  They could well have gotten here to find conditions totally unsuitable, with only the orbital station for support until the return window.  Yet they went – so many flights going to Jool, the tracking display looked like there was a tear in space from the volume of white orbital tracks.  Still, back to the business at hand.

“Jeb, looks like you’re going to need to burn 112.4 m/s to match velocity with the station.”

“Thanks, I’ve got it programmed in.  Just a few minutes now.”

The minutes ticked down till Jeb fired the Rapiers to match velocity.  They didn’t have much oxidizer left, but the station was too close to the exhaust to safely fire the NERV.  After a few seconds, silence returned to the Pumera, then the radio crackled to life:

“Okay boys, we’re all suiting up to EVA over to you.”

Jeb smiled as he replied, “Come on, Laythe is waiting for us.”

One by one, the rest of the team EVA’d to the waiting spaceplane, leaving Lisa to tend to the station & continue research on data gathered so far.  Once they were all in, Kel repressurized the cabin & opened the door to see his wife floating on the other side, grinning ear to ear.

To be continued...

 

 

Edited April 17, 2018 by Cavscout74

[Kerbalstar]

Very nice! Good writing and story @Cavscout74!

[Cavscout74]

Thanks for the compliment.  I was enjoying writing it, but I'm on pause right now due to me getting fed up with bugs in the latest version of KSP.   I'm currently back enjoying my 1.3.1 hard career right now till we get a working version of KSP again.   Besides loading slower, running slower, fairings that don't actually do their job (the floating base was a HUGE pain to launch), & docking ports that won't connect, the last time I played the career for this story, my RCS decided to quit working while trying to dock with Laythe station.  Twice.

[obney kerman]

3 hours ago, Cavscout74 said:

Thanks for the compliment.  I was enjoying writing it, but I'm on pause right now due to me getting fed up with bugs in the latest version of KSP.   I'm currently back enjoying my 1.3.1 hard career right now till we get a working version of KSP again.   Besides loading slower, running slower, fairings that don't actually do their job (the floating base was a HUGE pain to launch), & docking ports that won't connect, the last time I played the career for this story, my RCS decided to quit working while trying to dock with Laythe station.  Twice.

I hear you. My game refuses to load ships other than the active one, which includes kerbals... I can't EVA anymore...

Edited April 23, 2018 by obney kerman
TO, NOT OT!