Jeb's Spaceport Part 27: Rescue from the Mun

[HansonKerman]

15 hours ago, roboslacker said:

Sure, go ahead!

[roboslacker]

Well, it's back. In the 3 months since the last update, I've been playing through Fallout New Vegas (Currently on 4th play though), gotten into TF2 and GTA, and had to replace my laptop twice. Also, I got Making History, and no longer have KIS/KAS installed. Because I've kinda forgotten where the plot was, this part, and probably the next part or two will be light on story.

Part 18: Another Mun Landing

Spoiler

The JS-M-03/04 mission was a disgrace. What was planned as a two launch biome hopping mun mission ended up requiring 4 launches for a single biome. The powers that be, who were indirectly funding Jeb's Spaceport, were disappointed, so Jebediah decided to run the mission again, but better.

One of the changes was a new booster for the command module.

The JS-M-06 (looking back on it, it should have been the JS-M-05) made it up with fuel left in the upper stage. The JS-M-4 lander was launched next.

I managed to time the launch right, so the rendezvous procedure began as soon as the lander was in orbit.

The second change to the mission was a set of drop tanks on the JS-M-06. The mechjeb unit was confused by the tanks, so there is more DV than showing up here. The docking was completed, and Catfield burned for the mun.

After entering munar orbit, prograde this time, the other tanks were dropped.

Doodbo and Ribuki then landed in the dark, as is right and proper. Once they landed, Ribuki got out and planted the flag, and did science.

Doodbo thought a bit about trying for Farside Crater, but decided against it. Beauty shot:

After some orbital shenanigans the JS-M-04 lander met up with the JS-M-06 CSM

Doodbo squeezed through the connection, while Ribuki EVA'd over with the science. He then pushed the lander away from the JS-M-06, and got into the capsule.

The return was uneventful

Progress:

[SiriusRocketry]

Glad to see it's back, @roboslacker!

[roboslacker]

I've been working on something.

[roboslacker]

I've got enough content to start writing the next part. It should be up soon

[LordOfTheNorth]

5 hours ago, roboslacker said:

I've got enough content to start writing the next part. It should be up soon

Looking forward to it.

[roboslacker]

Part 19: Assembly Required

Spoiler

Having seen that the current munar program is inadequete, it was decided to take on a differant target. With Minmus out of the question due to the risk of space madness, the next place to go was Duna. One of the facility janitors found a box full of unrealized spaceship designs in a storage room, and Jebediah found one that looked feasable, if they had a rocket capable of launching 100 tons into orbit. They didn't, but the recent munar missions had developed the technology needed for orbital assembly.

The engine was sent up first.

After this, two of the ten ton fuel tanks were sent up. Low TWR on the upper stages forced the lifter to tap into the payload to make it into orbit, so a refueling mission would have to occur after the assembly was completed. The docking took a long time, but enentually happened.

The stack separator between the two tanks was then fired, and the other tank was docked

To try to make the rest of the dockings easier, the command tower was sent up next. Catfield piloted, and field engineer Trilong came to oversee the assembly.

After this, the other 4 tanks were sent up in 2 revised launchers.

Next is sending up the landers and the shuttle, refueling that one tank, and selecting a crew.

[roboslacker]

Part 20: Leaving Kerbin

Spoiler

It was now time to send up the landers.

Yeah, that happened to the first two launches. The next two were basically the same, so I'll only show the second.

The fuel in the maneuver stages was enough to refuel the empty tank.

After the landers, the orbital shuttle was sent up

It was now time to send up the rest of the crew. After some deliberation, it was decided to send 3 pilots, an engineer and a scientist. As Jeb's Spaceport only had 2 pilots, Catfield and Doodbo, it was necessary to find a new pilot. Valentina Kerman, the WWYT test pilot, was eventually selected.

\

The shuttle was docked, and the construction thrusters were decoupled.

Due to imbalanced RCS, it was decided to forgo a docking and EVA over. After thinking it over for a while, Catfield decided to go down with the pod, and not go on the mission. A replacement pilot was soon found, and put on an accelerated training course. 8 weeks later, Catfield took Lodcott up to the Elizabeth.

Catfield chatted with the crew for a bit, then returned to Kerbin.

3 days later, the Elizebeth burned for Duna

After fiddleing around with the fuel levels, the first set of tanks were dropped.

After 3 days, the Elizabeth left Kerbin's SOI. Ribuki ran some expiriments, and Doodbo began planning the correction burn.

 

[SuperMiiBrother]

Dont be like me and run out of fuel during the kerbin return!

 

[roboslacker]

54 minutes ago, SuperMiiBrother said:

Dont be like me and run out of fuel during the kerbin return!

 

I've got more DV than Mechjeb is showing because the central tank is locked down, so I'm not too worried about fuel.

And welcome to the forums, @SuperMiiBrother

Edited October 8, 2018 by roboslacker
Added something

[roboslacker]

The next part is coming soon.

[roboslacker]

Part 21: The Duna Enterprise

After thinking for a bit, I decided to cut some content out of this part, and post a shorter part very soon with the rest.

Spoiler

Around 100 days after leaving Kerbin, the crew of the Elizabeth performed the mid course correction.

During this time the crew was engaged in important research, specifically into combining various tabletop games. Another hundred days or so later, the Elizabeth arrived at Duna.

An attempt was made to get an Ike encounter, but it failed, so the Elizabeth was put into an 180 km orbit, give or take a 20 km or so.

The second pair of tanks were then dropped. Trilong inspected the landers and the shuttle. After a few minutes, she concluded that there was no damage during the transit.

Doodbo, having been with the company for the longest, was in charge of the first landing. Trilong came along to evaluate the lander. And so, Doodbo and Trilong took Lander #4 down to the surface.

And success. Trilong was the first out, and quickly realized that they'd had a bit of a lucky break with the landing.

There was barely 10 cm between the landing engine and the surface. A harder landing could have easily broken the terrier beyond repair. But on the other hand, it wasn't broken, so everything was still fine. Doodbo came out next a few moments later and planted a flag.

After taking a few steps, Doodbo walked back and replanted the flag.

It was now time for Valentina and Ribuki to come down in the Alpha Lander. After receiving a word of caution over the radio from Trilong, they left the Elizabeth. 

As a scientist, Ribuki just had to perform an EVA during the descent.

A bit later, the two heard a snapping sound because they forgot to stow the antennae before the descent. Well, the backup antennae are good enough to communicate with the Elizabeth.

Unfortunately, despite Valentina's best efforts Alpha Lander also landed in the Duna lowlands. Because of this, the science from Lander #4 was transmited back to Kerbin.

 

Progress:

[roboslacker]

Part 22: Back on Kerbin

Spoiler

While the crew of the Elizebeth were exploring Duna, Catfield was testing cars,

"I'm getting too old for this." She thought to herself. She'd passed up the Duna mission because she had been worried about being stranded. Now that the mission had landed her caution had become a joke around the space center. The Aquaticar was nice, though. It handled well, if you knew enough not to flip it. And the aquatic part of the car worked as advertised.

Well, it was time to attempt the AIRS challenge. She began wheeling the Aquaticar into the ocean. It was going well until the Aquaticar went over a ledge right before the ocean. The front wheels shattered on impact, sending the car into a tumble. Everything was breaking. In an attempt to survive, Catfield bailed out of the rover, but this had the opposite effect.

Catfield, first on the Mun, died like most, in a forgettable and insignificant manner. Her death was largely ignored as those who would care were focused on the Duna landings. But progress goes on, and a the Jeb's Spaceport company was in need of new kerbalnauts. So, after large donations from the Babes in Space Foundation, four talented kerbettes were signed on to the program.

From left to right, Jenmal, Jenpont, Urstead, Clauler, and... where'd Jeb come from?

 

[SuperMiiBrother]

(sees chapter name) Well, At least you di-Wait no, Someone just died...

[roboslacker]

Well, I've updated to 1.5. I love the way the new jetpacks look

Part 23: Emergency Takeoff Procedure

Spoiler

After loosing all his snack privileges in a game of chess-roulette-poker-mahjong, mission comander Doodbo began considering leaving Duna before the transfer window back. After an hour, Lodcott found a good transfer back in 15 days. And so, both landing teams began packing up. The Alpha Lander team was disappointing, as they'd hoped to study the magic flag a bit longer.

Being a scientist, Ribuki wanted to hover around for a bit before leaving. Valentina thought that was a great idea, and then this happened.

But there was nothing else to do but try for an orbit anyway.

The Pod ran out of fuel on the way up, so Ribuki got out and pushed while Valentina steered

After getting back in to grab a new tank of fuel, Ribuki realized that he could utilize the K effect using one of the RCS blocks.

But neither of these two methods were good enough, so Ribuki and Valentina had to ditch the pod and jetpack into orbit.

This worked. Normally, being stuck in orbit in an EVA suit is worse than being stuck on Duna in a lander, but the expedition was prepared for just such a situation.

After about a day, Lodcott had rescued both kerbalnauts.

They were then brought back to the Elizebeth, and Lander #4 began its ascent.

...

...

After taking a break, the same thing was done with Lander #4. It's a real shame, because I'd wanted to recover the Lander #4 capsule.

This time, Valentina flew the orbital shuttle. Trilong was recovered after about 4 hours in orbit, and Doodbo was recovered after about 3 days in orbit.

Funny story about that last shot, instead of rendezvousing with the Elizabeth, I accidentally rendezvoused with one of the fuel tanks. But it turned out right in the end.

Once they were all together in the Elizabeth, the members of the First Duna Expedition held a memorial service for Catfield. Nine days later, they left for Kerbin. [I forgot to grab a picture of the departure burn] While the Elizabeth awaited the midcourse correction, a probe was being sent to Eve. Jebediah Sr had wanted to send Jeb to Eve, but calmer minds prevailed, and a rover was sent instead.

To ensure the rover would be able to contact the space center, 4 relays were included in the mission. Because the mission lacked the fuel to enter orbit, the relays would be left in a hyperbolic orbit, limiting the operational time of the mission. The first 2 relays were dropped 10 days before entering the Eve SOI, and the next two were deployed a day before the Eve periapsis. After deploying the all the relays, the rover's periapsis was lowered to strike the atmosphere.

The entry was hot.

The seperatrons were highly angled to avoid exploding the rover

Unfortunately, the main antennae was destroyed by the parachute separation. Fortunately, Jebediah's engineers packed a backup antennae for the purpose of maintaining contact before main antennae deployment. Through this, the rover was able to send back a decent amount of science. Unfortunatly again, this happened after driving around for a bit.

On the bright side, we still got a decent amount of science.

 

[roboslacker]

Part 24: End of Mission

Spoiler

In the great desert, a new vehicle was being tested.

Not much came of it. But after 4 iterations, it worked, sort of.

For the first time in the history of kerbin, a spaceship was recovered intact. Only problem is that it can't get into space, and wouldn't be able to do anything even if it did. The company will stick to rockets for now.

Up in space, the Elizabeth was coming home.

A modified JS-M-06 was rolled out to the launch pad and sent up.

After a year and a half, the members of the first duna expedition were coming home. If they'd waited for the transfer window, it would've been another year before they got back. Some extra fuel from the JS-M-06 was used to put the Elizabeth into a more normal orbit, and then they all came home.

And the science was amazing.

Progress:

Edited October 28, 2018 by roboslacker
changed the number

[roboslacker]

Well, after taking a small break, I'm ready for some more missions. Next target: The one we forget.

[roboslacker]

Part 25: The Next Target

Spoiler

Spaceplane research continues.

Spaceplane destruction continues

Anyway, now that the Elizebeth had returned, it was time for another mission to begin. After looking around a bit, it was discovered that Dres exists. And so, it was the new target. A new mothership was designed, and the drive module was sent up.

The Crew Module was sent up next.

Because 2.5m docking ports hadn't been invented yet, a quad docking system was used instead.

The docking was a sucess with 3 out of 4 ports confirmed to be docked. I'm not sure what went wrong with the 4th port, but it should be fine.

A communication module was sent up next.

After that happened, another communications module was sent up.

The next step is to send up landers and other craft.

I have a 3 kerbal dres mini lander, and I also want to send up an asteroid "Lander" as well as a heavier lander and a transfer craft. There's about a hundred days till the dres launch, and I want to test some of the landers on the mun, and for that purpose I will be refitting the Elizabeth for kerbin system operations.

 

Edited November 30, 2018 by roboslacker

[roboslacker]

Well, the next chapter is about half done, and Jeb will be back in it.

[roboslacker]

Part 26: Elizabeth to the Mun

In which the story resumed. I'd planned rather differant events, but then stuff happened, and I decided to make part 26 shorter than planned.

Spoiler

To test the Dres lander on the Mun, there first needs to be a delivery veichle. Rather than make a new one, Jebediah decided to refit the Elizabeth. After having 6 new fuel tanks fitted to it, the landers were set up.

Two of the mini landers were send up first, along with Jeb and Urstead.

It had been almost 2 years since Jeb had been in space. He'd spent most of those two years inside the All Kerbin MakeHappy Psychiatric  Hospital, but they'd finally released him, and he was back were he belonged, space. Or, as Jebediah the Elder would put it, not on Kerbin.

Anyway, the decouplers were mounted wrong, but everything was fine anyway. The heavy lander was sent up next, and it was discovered that it had no reaction wheels, and insufficient RCS fuel.

After they reached the Elizabeth, engineer Jenpont performed an EVA to bring over the Ship's emergency monoprop canisters.

The heavy lander was docked, and Captain Lodcott charted a course for the Mun.

By shifting around the fuel in the radial tanks, Jenpont was able to counter balance the heavy lander.

The Elizabeth made a very low pass for the insertion burn, and circularized in about a 100 Km orbit. After briefing for the test, Urstead got ready to land on the Mun.

The Mini lander's acceleration was rather slow, so Urstead began burning 5 minutes before the 5km periapsis. She was going rather fast as she approached the Munar surface, but it was nothing to worry about.

But then Urstead realized it was, that there was no way to slow down in time before she reached the ground. Desperatly, she oriented the lander away from retrograde and just away from the munar surface, but it wasn't enough.

Urstead slid to a stop, and remained motionless for a few moments as she processed what had just happened. She was still alive, somehow, but as far as she could see the lander was completely obliterated. If she were a seismometer she would have felt the lander crash into the surface just then, but she was a kerbal. With nothing to do, she climed the crater rim she'd crashed on, slipped, and tumbled down the other side.

She looked around a bit, and decided that this was as good a place as any to be stranded.

 

Edited December 7, 2018 by roboslacker

[SuperMiiBrother]

Oh noes!

All I have is a yellow starburst, If you want that.

[roboslacker]

I had planned to post a new part over the weekend, but I came down with a cold and my brother got a nintendo switch. As a result, I spent most of the weekend either lying in bed or playing breath of the wild. I'll try to get the next part up by thursday.

[roboslacker]

Part 27: Rescue from the Mun

Spoiler

After some though, Captain Lodcott decided how to approach the situation. Jebediah would take the defective heavy lander and rescue Urstead, and Jenpont would go along to help orient the lander. To land in the right area, most of the horizontal velocity would be killed during the deorit burn. The plan worked.

The Lander touched down about 2 Km from Urstead. Jebediah clambered on out, and trotted over the the crater rim.

Urstead flew up to him, and the two spent a few moments staring off into space.

Urstead turned to Jeb, "Do you ever wonder why the Mun has so many sharp edges?"

Jeb thought for a moment about if knives are as cool as rockets, and then answered. "Just the Mun? Have you ever seen some of the mountains on Kerbin?"

"I see what you mean."

"You know Walt?"

"The wierd PR director? I thought he was in jail for counterfeiting."

"He thought it had something to do with what he called 'performance'. Nobody outside the PR cult understood him."

The two then flew back to the Lander, and Urstead had a siezure.

She got better, and walked the rest of the way to the Lander.

The Lander only had two internal seats, so one of them had to sit outside. That made the Lander unbalanced, so two of them had to sit outside. The Lander took off, and rendezvoused with the Elizabeth. With extremely low RCS fuel, a docking was not possible. As such, they had to EVA over.

Captain Lodcott plotted a course for Kerbin and an encounter with the unnamed Dres Mothership.

The Dres ship dwarfed the Elizabeth, through most of it was the drive section's lifter stage. The space chicks transferred over to the Dres ship, the Elizabeth topped its tanks off from the lifter stage, and seperated.

Meanwhile, there was something Jeb had always wanted to try.

By burning all the mini lander's fuel during the deorbit, and using the lander as a heat shield, Jeb was able to fulfill his lifelong fantasy of extreme skydiving.

Jeb draged himself out of the shallow pond and nursed his bruises. "Well, it looked deep enough" he announced to everyone listening. Nobody was listening. Then he found an oddly shaped lake.

Edited December 21, 2018 by roboslacker
It's ready

[SuperMiiBrother]

I'm not even sure if that is a lake...Just call it a large puddle.