(Chapter 16) The Adventures of Sily and Bob/Project Timberwind

[Ultimate Steve]

 

 

 

"Looking through a telescope is like looking at a mirror. You will see the same problems, the same mistakes, but ultimately the same majestic wonder."

-Me

 

Chapter One - The Telescope

Spoiler

"Sily - "

"Is this about me crashing the Adventure?" Sily couldn't help but remember that moment a few weeks ago, how the AC-04 X-1 Aurora "Adventure" had crashed, piloted by her and not-piloted by Bob.

"No - "

"Is this about the time I took Bob to the south pole without asking?" Sily referred to a mission in which she needed to fly a plane, the X-4 Falcon, near the south pole for a survey contract, so she might have gone a bit further than intended.

"No - "

"Or the time I took him to the north pole?" she asked, reaching further back to an earlier survey mission.

"All three of those were related to contracts, we're not mad at you for that."

"Is this about when I placed a bet on how much of the mun base would blow up when the crew had to blow part of it up to attach the old module to the main part?

"No, although that was a tad rude. Sily, this - "

"Is it about the time I snuck a giant confetti cannon triggered by the bay opening onto the Arcadia Resupply Platform?"

"You scared the engineer half to death, but this is - "

"Is this about the time I overshot KSC on the seventh flight of the X-2 Blue Crescent and basically ruined it with saltwater?"

"Sily, that was what, a year ago? Sure, those senators attacked us for it and slashed our spaceplane budget and we had to do an expensive refurb to fix the aircraft, but you'd already given us our money's worth. Six successful missions!"

"Out of a ten flight planned lifetime."

"It's our first reusable spaceplane! Don't go so hard on yourself, Sily!"

"Is this about that time I openly expressed my jealousy of the two kerbonauts who went on a date on the Mun?"

"It was good PR, even though they destroyed the rover. And they broke up three weeks later. But then it was replaced because you and Bob happened..." Sily's face reddened. "...Which is technically against space program policy, but it led to boatloads of PR. As long as you don't do anything crazy, we're not upset with you."

"You sure?"

"Positive. Now, Sily - "

"Is it about the time I took Bob to the Elon Science Rock without asking on the test flight of the X-5 Voyager?"

"SILY! You're being silly! It's not about any of that!"

"So the elephant in the room. This is about the NetStar satellite, isn't it?" Sily and Bob had been tasked with taking the new X-5 Voyager prototype 2 into space to recover a failed communications satellite, NetStar 1 funded by the NetStat corporation, a small satellite firm, hopefully the first of many. The satellite got banged up pretty badly because the klaw wouldn't engage, and she had accidentally opened the cargo bay leading to destruction of the satellite.

"Sily - "

"And then I landed hard and completely totaled the 200,000 fund plane, didn't I? Why didn't you tell me, I've been dreading that for weeks? I thought it was just some scrapes on the nose!"

"SILY! YOU ARE NOT IN TROUBLE!"

"Really?"

"Yes. I'm positive. You are our test pilot. It's your job to fly new aircraft, and with that comes a risk. You have been doing amazing, we don't know what we'd do without you." Sily sat back in her chair, relieved.

"So what is this about, then? Project Timberwind?" The other Kerbal stiffened up slightly, but tried not to show it.

"What's Project Timberwind?"

"I don't know, I found it on a sticky note in the trash can, and a few other places, I'm just wondering what it is."

"I assure you, I have no idea. I'll look into it, though."

"And then there was that Copernicus Heavy that launched completely unannounced in the middle of the night. An entire Copernicus Heavy, imagine that! How?"

"The additional fuel tank for Arkangel Station? A bit embarrassing, everyone forgot to announce it. It's a shame it disintegrated just before reaching orbit."

"No record of the rocket being ordered, either!"

"It was the STA, modified because we needed to free up schedule place."

"Arkangel Station didn't even need another fuel tank! It already has 2, and even those are unnecessary!"

"Sily, let's get to the point. We need you to test fly the X-6."

"The X-6?"

"Yes. The X-6 Darkside 01."

"Funny, it's usually Gene who tells me when I need to fly something. Who are you, anything?"

"Dr. T. Kerman."

"Alright, Mr. T, is Gene sick or something?"

"Nah, Gene is just working on some boring administrative stuff."

"So, the X-6. SSTO? Trainer plane? Survey craft?"

"Neither, experimental engine testbed. We've recently developed a new type of jet engine, powered by a new fuel." That part was true. Dr. T had to bend the truth a bit for the next part. "It's a very efficient fuel, but we do not have a lot of it. It would be unwise to fly for more than ten minutes, you might run out. And you know we trust you, but please - if there is one aircraft that we need recovered intact - "

"Can Bob come?" said Sily, already starting for the door.

"Uh, sure, just don't crash it! The fuel is pretty dangerous!" The door slammed. Dr. T sat back in his chair, hoping Sily didn't screw this one up. The world would attack them if they accidentally blew up a flying nuclear reactor over the continent, which is why they had to involve Sily, the only test pilot the KSC employed. Not that many people at KSC knew about the nuclear turbojet, the second tangible byproduct of Project Timberwind, which even fewer people knew about. This flight, although the pilots didn't know it, would be the fourth mission funded by the top secret Timberwind project. Ironic... Sily searches for information without realizing she is a part of the program.

"So we're in an untested aircraft powered by an untested engine?"

"Yup! Engine spooling up... Wow, it's slow. And heavy, by the looks of it, and the fuel tank appears to be filled with something. It's a pretty small fuel tank, don't you think, Bob?" Dr. T was listening in on the channel. The fuel tanks had been filled with water and a small hole drilled to drain it out, giving the impression of fuel usage when there was none. The fact that the plane could fly indefinitely could not be betrayed to the crew.

"And, we're airborne!"

"You said it, Bob! Wow, this thing has a huge amount of acceleration!" She pulled the stick back, the plane rapidly responded. "And a lot of maneuverability! First thing's first, altitude testing, according to the test pilot's handbook!"

"Hmm," said Bob, "I'll bet it flames out at 25 kilometers."

"I'd say 27. Dr. T did not specify what the engine was optimized for, but we do have 4 intakes."

"Wow, we're how high, and this thing's still burning!" said Bob.

"We're at 60% fuel, we should turn back. Pulling to vertical for altitude run... 34 kilometers. No flameout. Steadily reducing thrust, but no flameout."

"Now that is curious... We're going to hit apogee without flameout. Sure, we only reached 700m/s, but we have a really draggy plane... Imagine what this could do! Fuel is at 40% and we're falling now."

"Odd," said Bob. "I know my engines, and the thrust levels are not doing what they are supposed to... Did he say what kind of engine this was?"

"Just that it was experimental and to not crash it."

"Odd. Have you found anything else out about this Timberwind stuff?"

"No, not really," said Sily as she pitched down to return to base. "Mr. T doesn't know anything about it, and it's just the sticky note and 2 documents, all of which mysteriously disappeared from my office in the middle of the night."

"Maybe it's connected to Senator Rodfred. How he convinced the KSC to cancel the spaceplane-based Mun transfer in favor of using a Galactus instead."

"Because I crashed two planes, including the SSTO that was going to make the trip."

"No, the X-1 was on me," sad Bob, "I had you distracted."

"You did nothing wrong, Bob! It was me who took you there in the first place!"

"No, the KSC sent us there for a contract. Just because we kissed over the ocean doesn't mean it's your fault we ran out of fuel - "

"I shouldn't have kissed you."

"No, it was me that started the kissing."

"No, it was me!"

"No, it was me!"

"And, look at the time, 5% fuel, we're coming in for a landing, let's not get distracted again!"

Dr. T breathed a sigh of relief. The nuclear turbojet had surpassed all expectations - and did not explode. Initially they were worried that it would have incredibly low thrust, but that was not the case. Now, to get Sily and Bob out of the plane before they realized that the fuel gauge was still going down. And to prevent them from noticing the puddle of water forming beneath the plane.

"Not that I didn't want to kiss you or anything..." said Sily somewhat shyly. "It was... just the wrong time."

"Post-flight coffee?"

"Same as always, at the Space Bar? Be there in twenty!"

"Not if we can be there in fifteen!"

"Not so fast, you two," said Dr. T through the microphone. "Due to the experimental nature of the vehicle, we need to do an extended debrief."

"Aww, you're no fun!"

"Be there in infinity, then!"

"You too, Bob!"

===============================================================================================================

First it was the Very Large Radio Telescope detecting a slight interference which appeared to be coming from a distant star. Then it was the Extremely Large Radio Telescope detecting that same interference. Then the Overwhelmingly Large Radio Telescope was built, and began seeing patterns in the static... Nothing large enough to be decoded, if it was anything. It was given little thought, nothing more than annoyance. The Oppressively Colossal Radio Telescope would not be complete for several more years.

But then the crew of Serenity Base picked up the signals from that star while on the far side of Minmus, very faintly on their antenna... The same patterns, slightly clearer, free from the interference of Kerbin's atmosphere. And then those involved began to wonder...

The plans had been going on for years for a space-based radio observatory, it kept getting cancelled and rescheduled over and over again, ballooning into a very expensive project and was dubbed the Very Expensive Space Positioned Elite Radio Observatory (VESPERO) and due to political reasons, would have also included a nuclear reactor, the second and largest ever put into space.

But it never happened, the prototype was mothballed.

However, all of the various space probes en route to the various planets were used, briefly, to form a radio telescope effectively the size of the solar system, but with very low total power and accuracy. The team detected the patterns again, and a small group of perhaps 10 Kerbals tried to decode it. And through the haze, they found convincing evidence of patterns.

Immediately they tried searching for anything that could be digital data sent by extraterrestrials. Some alphabet, an image-like code, binary patterns, math, physics... Anything. The results were inconclusive. They simply needed a more powerful telescope. They found a rich investor and told him everything - but demanded that it be kept a secret. He agreed to help them, and they recruited two dozen more people, including construction workers, launch schedulers, and a few administrative personnel.

They made up a name, Project Timberwind, with a cover story of making wooden windmills.

They secretly bought the old, incomplete VESPERO satellite and added on a crewed segment, bought the Copernicus Heavy Structural Test Article from a museum, and, well...

Stupidly launched it without any cover story. They tried to make one in hindsight, but it wasn't very good. They then recruited a sci-fi writer to write the backstories for them.

Timberwind 1, the Timberwind Space Station, was in a medium Kerbin Orbit. It had to only send data when nobody was looking in order to remain secret, meaning the ground controllers could not use it very much. That is why they needed to get crew up as soon as possible.

But - the little data they could receive from the station was very telling. Obvious patterns. In some form of Binary. Many undecipherable things, but the Timberwind team was nearly certain that the signals were put there on purpose by another species. But for what purpose?

Aliens.

ALIENS.

The Timberwind team decided that it was of utmost importance that they keep this a secret for now. If word got out, the world would panic. They needed to analyze their intentions first. But their intentions did not seem apparent... They were beaming physics at Kerbin. Simple elemental patterns in binary. The periodic table... But with extra elements nobody had ever synthesized. And particles! Strange particles - Ones smaller than electrons, many different Bosons, and another weird thing - a particle with the exact opposite characteristics from any known matter.

What better name than antimatter? Given the basic information about this particle, the Timberwind team designed an instrument that could search for this stuff. They called it a Magnetometer. They paired it with another instrument and built a satellite around it. They called it Timberwind-2, but came up with a better backstory this time.

The public knew this as NetStar 1, the first commercially built communications satellite. They had actually legally bought a launch onboard an Agesis launch vehicle, the oldest the KSC still operated, and the cheapest. It was placed into an elliptical orbit... But, the satellite had its own experimental propulsion system, a new, miniaturized nuclear engine, partially developed using alien technology.

With it, it orbited both moons scanning for the elusive antimatter particle. It was extremely rare, and destroyed itself upon contact with normal matter. The team still wasn't quite sure what antimatter would be useful for, but if the aliens were trying to tell them what it was from light years away, then it was probably important.

They found that the highest concentration of antimatter in the Kerbin system was at the altitude of a medium orbit, in the radiation belts. What they would do with this knowledge, nobody knew. They decided to hire KSC again, this time to recover their satellite under the guise of a failure. This was possible due to their investor's deep pockets.

Unfortunately Sily blew the payload up, scattering the remains of the nuclear engine all over the plains. Fortunately most of it remained contained, but they could not afford another disaster like that.

Next up, in order to find out more, they needed to get two scientists up to Timberwind Station. For this they needed two trained astronauts... So they reached out to the newbies and bribed them heavily to take a two month vacation to Kerlington. Except they were really going to space.

It turns out, annoying Senator Rodfred had been a help, switching the Mun crew transfer to a Galactus mission instead of a spaceplane mission. That meant that three Galactus's had been built, and one used for the mission... The second one was chartered with tourists to Arkangel station, the LKO station. The mission would pay for itself, and was about to be switched to a normal Copernicus instead of a Copernicus Heavy, but there were more bribes, and the Timberwind team managed to sneak an experimental spacecraft into the interstage, which was usually filled with a station module, but in this case was empty. This was called the Timberwind-3 mission.

And there the two scientists stayed for 50 days, analyzing data, collecting alien radio waves, and being exposed to half a dozen different times of radiation.

They returned with a lot of data, a thousand science points worth, give or take. This was fudged into the monthly statement by messing with the numbers of the other four science labs, those on the Mun/Minmus bases and stations. And they wanted to know more. It would be hard to launch their own space probes, so why not slip their magnetometer into the standard part inventory? It could also measure other things, they just needed the data. So they made a big public show of "inventing" the magnetometer and the small nuclear engine, at around the same time ion engines were invented. These technologies were all added to one of the new Venture probes, a public mission. This one would try to orbit Moho.

But I'd guess you don't know whether anything has orbited Moho or not, or whether Kerbals have been to Duna, yet. Well, it's no to both so far, so I guess I owe you an explanation. A history lesson. So buckle up, just wait a bit.

=======================================================================================================

"Hey, Jeb?" asked Sily, with a not-so-small amount of sadness. "How have you been doing? You, too, Val. And Germing. And Nelfield." The flags looked more and more weathered the further left you went. "I just wanted to say... Thank you for being brave. I hope you're happy, wherever you are, if you are anywhere."

"Rest in peace. Have a nice day. And if you have any sort of influence up there... I ask that I may not blow up!" She respectfully bowed to the flags and ran back to her little rover, and drove over to the front of the Spaceplane Hangar.

"Is the X-5 supposed to be doing that?

"Does it all the time, it really likes bouncing."

"Okay, Bill! Is she fueled?"

"Yes, Sily!"

"Are the crewmembers loaded?"

"All ready for two years on Minmus!"

"And how's the launch window?"

"About five minutes from now."

"Then we'd better get going! See you later, Bill!"

"Don't worry, I'll keep my brother safe!"

"I really wish he could come. Unfortunately we've got 15 crew members and tourists, enough for exactly three flights including me, the pilot... But I don't have to breathe down his neck the whole time, I hope!"

"He doesn't see it like that!" he said. "He thinks he's breathing down your neck too much!"

"Tell him I said bye!"

"Will do!" Sily climbed the ladder of the X-2 01 Blue Crescent as Bill disconnected the fueling hose.

"Attention astronauts, this is Sily Kerman, your pilot for today's mission. This will be the eighth mission of the Blue Crescent, and the first after the post-splashdown refurbishment. Should all go well we will be at Arkangel Station within the hour, and in a few days on the way to Minmus aboard the Spectre. Enjoy the flight, don't eat the snacks, barf bags are right in front of you. Any questions?"

"Well, I - "

"IGNITION!"

"How are you feeling, Sily?" asked Gene from the control tower.

"Feels good to be going back into space, Gene! This makes, what, nine?"

"At least, I think we've both lost count! Ever thought about retiring after a bit?"

"Never in a million years!"

 

 

DISCLAIMER:

I was playing my career mode, and based on an experience with Voyage: The Final Warning I decided to install KSP: Interstellar Extended part of the way through. And knowing me, I made up a little storyline in my head about what was happening. I told myself I would not write it because I was already short on time and should focus on my other two stories, and it would interfere with my career. Then I said I'd write it, but only as short updates in the "What did you do in KSP today?" thread. Then I said it would get a thread but it would be only me saying what's going on. Then it would be mostly that. And then I wrote the first chapter and there was none of that.

So what I'm saying is, I have been forced by my brain to write this. I did not want to make this a fully fledged story, and only a small part of each chapter will be done the way the first chapter was done. The rest will be me, not a narrator, ME, updating you on what I've been doing in my career save.

And in addition I might burn out again and not update this for months, like I've done to all my other stories...

And it might never get finished.

So what I'm saying is, don't get your hopes up for much more than a standard career report. Nonetheless, I hope you enjoy.

 

This is a career I started a bit under a year ago and have been playing on and off. I am enforcing progression rules, as in I must send a flyby probe, then an impactor, then an orbiter, then a lander, then a rover, and then I can send a manned mission, but I need relays as well, and I need to build a station and a base for each world, 5 modules each. I called the save "playground" in hopes that I would eventually be able to just fly anywhere and have a base to go to. Towards the end I will not be enforcing crew rotation policies to make it go faster.

The other major rules are that I may only revert or quickload for a glitch or an insanely stupid mistake, I must complete a tier of research before I move to the next tier, and I have to randomly select which tech nodes to research. If I have 550 science and there are 15 available 550 science nodes, I randomly choose a number from 1-15 usually by looking at the seconds display on my watch and research that node.

 

Mod list:

Spoiler

Texture Replacer Replaced

B9 Part Switch

Community Category Kit

Community Resource Pack

Community Tech Tree

Contract Configurator

Contract Packs

Crowdsourced Science

Cryogenic Engines

Deployable Engines

Action Groups Extended

Distant Object Enhancements

Dynamic Battery Storage

EngineLight

Environmental Visual Enhancements

Flight Manager for Reusable Stages

Indicator Lights

Kerbal Attachment System

Kerbal Atomics

Kerbal Engineer Redux

Kerbal Joint Reinforcement

Kerbal Inventory System

Addon Version Checker

Modular Rocket Systems

All of the Near Future stuff I think

Final Frontier

RealPlume

Recovery Controller

Scatterer

SmartParts

SmokeScreen

Space Age

SpaceY Expanded and SpaceY Lifters

Station Parts Expansion

STM Ribbons

Stock Visual Enhancements

Take Command

Kerbal Alarm Clock

Transfer Window Planner

UHD Milky Way

Unmanned Before Manned

KSP Interstellar Extended

Waypoint Manager

WindowShine

 

Former:

Cetera's suits, looked great but added loads to the loading time.

It was originally supposed to be lightly modded but it escalated, although many of those aren't part mods. I'm open to suggestions for more. The save is in 1.3.1 and will remain there. Chapter 2 will focus on how far I am into the career.

Enjoy!

 

Edited March 1, 2020 by Ultimate Steve

[roboslacker]

Neat.

[Kerbalstar]

Very cool @Ultimate Steve! Lots of aliens going around... 

[Ultimate Steve]

"We are not makers of history. We are made by history."

-Martin Luther King, Jr.

Chapter 2 - Making History

Spoiler

So, what exactly has Kerbalkind accomplished so far?

Well, first off, a small government driven society in a medium sized country started a space program. It was taken as a joke, as they were mostly just strapping fireworks together, but one day a rich guy showed up and said "hey, what if we actually try?" And then the government gave a bunch of money to the space program, then seen as a novelty.

The first "real" rockets launched by the Kerbal Space Center were called Amazon, there were 7 of these. The program culminated in a satellite orbiting Kerbin.

Soon after that, the agency delved into two separate programs, and the funding dried up. They looked to contracts for more money, operating more like a company than a government agency. They completed survey work with their first plane, the Winter, and soon after that developed Liquid fueled rockets with the Blaze program, which culminated in moon orbiters.

Senator Danny, one of the chief political figures of the country the KSC was located in, visited the KSC one day and saw two projects for manned spaceflight - the Phoenix program and the Sub program. Phoenix involved capsules, and Sub involved a gliding lander. Since the Senator was a massive supporter of the airline industry and hoped for spinoff technologies, he diverted much of Phoenix's budget into the Sub program, meaning it flew first.

The first mission was piloted by Valentina Kerman, but the cockpit had not been built to specification. It crashed during the landing attempt, and Valentina Kerman, the first Kerbal to enter space, was killed.

However, the Phoenix program managed two orbital missions, both successful. After a mourning period it was deemed time to move on,

The final launch of the Blaze program wrapped up, and from the work done on Blaze, Phoenix, and Amazon spawned the Agesis standardized light lifter.

It had seven solid rockets on the first stage, which fired 3-3-1 in sequence. The second stage was powered by an LV-T45 and was used for more moon probes, satellites, and the first modules of Arkangel Station.

Shown here are the command and habitation modules, as well as Helios 1, a 2-man gliding return vehicle developed as a compromise between the two Senators. Senator Rodfred, in contrast to Senator Danny, favored the plane-based method to space exploration.

Some of the Helios CRV's landed intact.

 

Others, less so.

It was realized that not much more could be done with the puny rockets that they had built. They developed the Archimedes launch vehicle, a two stage design, built with the goal of landing a Kerbals on the Mun and Minmus.

But Archimedes exploded right before liftoff, killing Jebediah, giving a budget boost to the spaceplane side of the program, leading to more survey plane designs. But the rocket side kept going ham - they developed the Explorer series of spacecraft, which used the new Copernicus series of lifters, with numerous variations.

This variation of Copernicus is Copernicus M1-4. M denotes Medium, 1 denotes the size of the boosters, and 4 denotes how many boosters. There are many active configurations, such as:

Light

M1-4

M1-8

M1-12

M2-4

M2-8

M3-2

Heavy (3 cores)

Super Heavy (5 cores)

 

Unfortunately, due to a fault in the experimental capsule, it was out of power and uncontrollable upon reentry. The crew of 2 died. But the program pushed on, rather unwisely. 9 Explorer missions were launched, succeeding in landing on the Mun and Minmus and building up much of both moon stations.

After a while, a Pioneer mission was launched. This was an extension of the Explorer capsules that used a risky hitchhiker pod, giving the whole capsule room for 6. It was only flown once, on a tourist mission. Then, Pioneer gave way to Galactus, another evolution, capable of carrying 8 Kerbals. 7 missions have taken place, to the Mun, Minmus, an asteroid, and even to orbit the sun.

In addition, the rocket side developed the Space Camp system - 16 astronaut candidates would launch into space for 40 days and 3 would be selected to join the program. The reality TV show filmed of this process more than paid for the launch.

Early flights were on a Copernicus vehicle. Later flights were made on an experimental partially reusable vehicle called Odin. Except Odin never managed to land properly so it is being phased out. And it uses Hydrogen, which is hard to work with and very non-dense.

The upper part, the spaceship, would make a vertical landing attempt if it was deemed doable, which massively increased viewership of the series. Nobody has died on a Space Camp so far, but not every ship has come back intact.

During this whole time, however, the aerospace side was making great leaps, but in a different direction - Reusability and cost effectiveness instead of raw power.

The X-1 Aurora was a high speed survey plane, though prone to running out of fuel. Four were built, one has been crashed.

The X-2, however, was an SSTO passenger plane, powered by the experimental RAPIER engines, capable of taking 6 Kerbals to LKO and back. One was built, the Blue Crescent, which had a planned lifetime of 10 missions (WITH NO VESSEL RECOVERY). A mission sticker was added to the plane's back after each mission.

However, the aircraft proved to have very low margins and often resorted to using RCS to do the rendezvous. A fuel deficiency on its 7th flight meant it overshot KSC and landed in the ocean. The X-3 Dodo was tested. And crashed. The X-3 02 Penguin seaplane was sent to refuel it, proving successful. The X-4 was a survey craft called Falcon, long ranged enough to reach a pole and return. The X-5 was a nuclear powered SSTO that was designed to take 10 Kerbals to Minmus. It hasn't done it yet, but it is planned.

The spaceplane division also paid for the launch of the T-01 Spectre orbital transfer ship, which was nuclear powered. The plan was, every so often crews for the Moon bases and stations would be flown from Kerbin to Arkangel station with the Blue Crescent, and the Spectre would take them to the Mun and Minmus.

At some point, an asteroid was brought into Kerbin Orbit, called the Elon Science Rock. It proved to make an excellent tourist destination. At least two Galactus missions were launched to it.

Also at some point, a rover was launched to the Mun base.

As far as interplanetary missions go, fifteen probes have been launched. Venture 1 went to the sun, Venture 2 to fly by Duna, Venture 3 to impact Duna, 4 to fly by Eeloo, 5 to fly by Moho, 6 to fly by Dres, 7 to impact and orbit Eve, 8 to orbit and land on Gilly, 9 to fly by Jool, 10 to impact Eeloo, 11 to impact Moho, 12 to orbit Dres, 13 to orbit Moho, the Porter Solar Probe to hit the Sun, and the Jank Probe XDLOL which might orbit Moho.

Venture 9 around Jool:

Venture 3 around Duna:

Venture 7, no longer in one piece:

Venture 8 shortly before deploying its lander probe:

Venture 9, no longer around Laythe:

Porter Solar Probe at its 2nd out of 3 planned perihelions:

Jank Probe XDLOL launching from Minmus:

Jank Probe XDLOL was a secret project conceived by the second crew of the Minmus base, who used one of the landing stages for the most recent module, a screwdriver, a spare solar panel, and a spare antenna to build something that theoretically had the Delta-V to orbit Moho, but it ran a bit short and might just fly by. Only time will tell!

So, skipping over some minor missions like Rescuer, Easy, Pogo, StarLink, and KerbinSat, that brings us to today.

Arkangel Station, permanent crew of nobody yet:

Resolution Station, currently crew of 4:

Pandora base, crew of 4:

Emperor Station, crew of 2, soon to be 4:

Serenity Base, crew of 3 (soon to be 4):

It was space program tradition to honor the dead by planting a flag around the flagpole, a tradition totally not borrowed from @Geschosskopf. However, the last Kerbal to die was at the beginning of the Explorer program. So much had happened since then, spaceplanes, bases, stations, the rest of Explorer, all of Pioneer and so far, all of Galactus.

...And all of Bob and Sily's relationship (so far).

...And all of Project Timberwind (so far).

All of the astronauts suspected something bad would happen soon, they had gone too long without a tragedy. The only questions were when... And who.

 

 

Edited September 18, 2018 by Ultimate Steve

[roboslacker]

Yay content!

[Ultimate Steve]

Chapter 3 - Space Five Times

"Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste of death but once."

-William Shakespeare

Spoiler

There comes a point in every kerbonaut's career when she must ask herself,

"How did I get here?"

Sily Kerman had trained in the simulators for ages preparing for this mission. She knew the mission profile by heart. And yet she had managed to run out of fuel 500 meters away from the space station. After rendezvousing with just RCS. And due to the lack of a tug, one of two massive fuel tank modules had to be sent to refuel the ship, much to the annoyance of anyone. And the rendezvous had been long - all three crews were supposed to launch that day. It had been almost a day at this point - but after a troubled ascent (and a sleepover in the crew rover) Sily successfully delivered the first 5 Minmus crewmembers to Arkangel Station.

"Alright, you know the drill, just wait and if all goes well I'll be back in a few hours!"

"Thank you, Sily!"

The Blue Crescent landed without trouble, and Bill drove the refueling rover over to top off the (mostly empty) fuel tanks.

He also installed the ninth mission patch in preparation for the ninth launch of the spaceplane, carrying three crewmembers and two tourists.

"Hey, Bob!"

"Welcome back, Sily!"

"It feels like forever since I've seen you!" Sily gave Bob a big hug lasting several seconds.

"Sorry you ran into misfortune," said Bob. "Glad you're here!"

"Bill, how long until she's fueled and crewed?"

"I'll have it done before the launch window. But, Sily? You should get some rest."

"Alright, that's half an hour. Why have rest when you can have coffee? To the Space Bar!"

Half an hour later, at Sunrise, the Blue Crescent took off on its ninth mission to Low Kerbin Orbit, this time with three crew and two tourists.

"Three, Two, One, Ignition!"

The plane had an enormous amount of fuel left this time. But unfortunately that was because Bill had forgotten to fill the RCS tanks. And thus, the station had to dock with the spaceplane, not the other way around. Again, this rendezvous took more than 3 hours and after Sily dropped the crew and tourists off, she had to land in the dark. Again.

"Alright, Bob! more coffee!"

"Roger that!"

"Sily - " said Bill.

"Not now, Bill! We saw what happens when we forget the monopropellant, I dread to think what would happen if we forget the coffee!"

"One of the tourists has a family emergency and has accepted our rain check of another mission at an increased price point," he said.

"Which one?"

"Not important. But I'm asking if you'd like to bring Bob with you." Sily, who had "borrowed" an intern's coffee mug and was taking a sip spit it out and looked at Bob. They both smiled.

Due to a short storm, water had pooled on the runway. The grass sucked it all up, though, so they moved the operation to the grass. Bill had installed the tenth and possibly final mission patch. Originally, Blue Crescent was rated for 10 missions, but due to the refurbishment it was deemed safe-ish for a few more, an additional rating was being considered, if only for the two extra missions to bring the other crews back down. They already had a museum deal, so they were going to try their best to not crash it. If it was one spaceplane with history, it was the Blue Crescent.

This time, the mission went well and Sily docked with fuel to spare - with Bob in the passenger seat! All of the crew were ready to go, and the tourists were herded into the Spectre. A week of reciting the same collection of space facts to clueless millionaires later, the crew arrived at Emperor Station.

There were two Kerbals there, both scientists. One had come with the last crew transfer mission, and one had launched on board one of the last Explorer missions, meaning she had been there for quite some time. They were both quite ready to come home. The crew showed the tourists around for a while, dropped the four new station crew members (2 scientists, a pilot, and an engineer) off and began their descent to Serenity Base.

The descent proceeded according to plan, and the three crew at the base (one from Explorer, two from the last transfer mission) were again happy to see different faces, even if they were clueless millionaires who kept almost breaking things. While the crews were getting settled, and while the Spectre was being refueled by the bases ISRU and a KAS hose, Bob said "Hey, I've been on Kerbin forever, can we go do a quick science hop?" to which the crew said "sure."

Sily and Bob took the lander/science hopper/escape vehicle which still needs a name to the north pole of Minmus.

There they found a strange anomaly in the terrain which was stunningly beautiful (although dangerous). The only thing that could have made the scene better (for them) would be if it was possible to kiss while in spacesuits. And the lander only had one pressurized seat, the other two were EVA chairs. A few hours later, after Bob had done his fair share of science, the two returned to Serenity base to help with the mining and refueling.

And before they knew it, the first return journey of the spaceplane "Blue Crescent" had been completed, marking the end of its tenth mission. It was subsequently re-rated for two more flights just to get the remaining crew and tourists down.

 

 

"Attention, Hill Valley Regional Airport, this is Sily Kerman, we are out of fuel after undershooting the KSC and are requesting emergency permission to land."

"Roger that, Sily. You are clear." After the landing, it was discovered that the airport did not have the right type of fuel that the RAPIERs burned, and some had to be sent over from KSC. It was chosen to use the X-3 02 Penguin, as it had done the same thing, although over water, about a year ago.

Using more KAS pipes, the Blue Crescent was refueled, possibly for the second to last time, and sent across the KSC continent where it landed to considerable fanfare and press attention. Sily stepped out triumphantly with the last crew members and some tourists. 11 successful missions into space under its belt, the Blue Crescent was now *probably* going into retirement after one more flight, most likely to be put on display at the Island Airport, but kept in flight condition in case it was needed.

"KSC, this is Milbart, coming in for a landing in the X-3. We really need a new refueler, this one does not handle well in the slightest, it's only a matter of.. Oh. OH! AAAA-"

Milbart Kerman bailed out of the Penguin a second before it hit the ground in an attempt to escape certain death.

And here's proof the universe has a sense of irony. The cockpit survived, but Milbart did not.

Nevertheless, there were still three unsupervised tourists on Arkangel Station, so although everyone was a wreck, one more mission had to be done. And it was. I can't find any pictures of it. Imgur messes up the order, so this whole thing is probably wrong, but there was another flight.

It is a tradition at the KSC where the most experienced (how long they have been with us) pilot will conduct the flag planting ceremony. This was formerly Milbart, but now it is Elifal. As she watched, Sily couldn't help but wonder... If Elifal and Helski died before her, it would be her turn. She hoped it would never come to that... But the odds were she would die before either one of them. She was the program's most active pilot, she had gone to space five times in the past two weeks.

And she had been one of the returning Minmus crew members, who had been in space for over a year, just wanting to get reacquainted with atmospheric flight. She had been the test pilot before Sily. And now she was gone.

Senator Rodfred, being politically heartless, pointed out that statistically capsule landing was now on par with airplane landing. Two kerbonauts had died during re-entry in a capsule, and two had died on landings in planes. He used this to show that his method of doing things, with traditional rockets, was not necessarily worse than using airplanes. In fact, if you went by mission count, one more plane mission had resulted in a fatality than rocket missions.

 

At this point, a memorial day for fallen astronauts was added to the calendar, it will take place on Day 289 of each year. The cockpit of the Penguin was moved to the island airport with the aid of another modified X-1, which crashed on arrival. But the crew lived this time. So that's alright.

 

 

 

 

 

[roboslacker]

How high did Milbart jump?

[Ultimate Steve]

On 9/20/2018 at 6:55 AM, roboslacker said:

How high did Milbart jump?

Either not high enough or high enough we'll never see her again! Yeah, she's dead. I don't intend to do any storyline necromancing, this is supposed to be a break from serious writing and mainly just me telling you about a career. It would be interesting, though... But I do not intend to have the dead Kerbonauts invade from the afterlife or be saved by aliens or anything. It's tempting, but no.

 

Chapter 4 - An Accidental Nuking or Two

"The sun is the only safe nuclear reactor, situated as it is some ninety-three million miles away."

-Stephanie Mills

Spoiler

"Alright, Sily, remember, your goal is to test the airfame and -"

"Be careful with fuel levels, got it! IGNITION!"

"Wait!" shouted Dr. T. "We predicted it would accelerate extremely - "

"AAAAAA!!!"

"SILY! PULL UP! Aaaaa... Sily? Sily? The X-7 Nightside is going up! Fast! And not steering! Sily, your gears are still down! Sily? SILY?"

"Ugh... Aaaa.rohog... Ah! I must have passed out, Mister T! She's doing 6 G and we're only at mach 2! What are you using to fuel this thing?"

"It's complicated."

"Alright, if you say so, I'm doing an altitude test. Hopefully I won't pass out here!"

"Okay, you can start pulling up now and -"

"I've already done that, though! This thing accelerates like a bullet from a gun! I was pushing 7G for a while! Okay, I'm going up... Odd. No flameout. 55 kilometers... 60... 65..."

"Hey, I'm in space again!"

"Okay, just make sure not to crash the thing."

"I think I have enough fuel to do a speed run on the way back down. Where are the fuel tanks on this thing, anyway?"

"We, uh... Put the fuel in where the monopropellant goes and also inside the engine."

"WOOOHOOO!"

"Wait, you're already doing the speed run?"

"This thing is FAST! Forget "Nightside," let's call it "SHOTGUN!" Approaching 1500m/s, beginning turn to return to -09 w3qurty809AGWAG4G"

"Oh, she passed out again."

"I'm back! Continuing turn andoljwhaetiluh 9i43h9ih6t"

"And again."

"Ugh, I need to make sure I'm not doing that near the ground. Turwuhauh iuhighigwerthiu!"

"Sily, stop passing out!"

 

---5 minutes later---

 

"Alright, I think that was the last one. Coming in to land... Touch-AAAAAAAAAA!!!!" Dr. T's life flashed before his eyes as he watched the X-7 spin around on the runway. If the engine exploded it would damage the reactor leading to very bad things. Fortunately, it didn't crash, and came to a stop just off the side of the runway.

Sily hopped out of the plane and over to Dr. T.

"That was fun! How long until these are ready for use in SSTO planes?"

"Unfortunately we're looking at a very long time. Thank you, Sily."

"When is the next prototype going to be ready?"

"There are currently no near term plans for another prototype, anything is months off."

"Aww!"

==========

Next up on the agenda was the launch of the Prototype Interplanetary Relay 001, co-built by NetStar. Which was true. But there was more. The mission was known as Timberwind 6, which was a space station designed to orbit Minmus and spy on more alien transmissions. But the huge fairing presented some problems.

Fortunately, the amazing piloting skills of an intern who happened to be standing nearby meant that the satellite, and its Copernicus Heavy launch vehicle, managed to land safely.

Shortly thereafter, large fins were hastily welded on and it launched again as Timberwind 6A after ensuring that the nozzles were still okay.

It was deployed into a high Minmus orbit, where it turned on its giant antenna. The station was pretty much a copy of the old VESPERO design that became Timberwind 1, but without the nuclear reactor and with a few experiments bolted on. They had figured out how to make the telescope (that doubled as a relay) fairly strongly. However the relay part didn't live up to its name and it was viewed as a partial failure by the public, but Minmus needed another relay anyways. There were 3 around Minmus now.

Next up was the final planned module of Emperor Station on a Copernicus M2-8. This is thought to be the longest fairing ever used on a Copernicus launch vehicle.

It carried the large Habitation and Viewing module as well as another secret payload carrying two scientist operatives - it was a spacecraft known as Timberwind 7, powered by experimental hall thrusters and solid fuel RCS.

Timberwind-7 separated from the module shortly before final rendezvous and proceeded to klaw itself to Timberwind-6 where the scientists began their planned 200 day science mission.

Unfortunately, for the Emperor Station module, the margins proved to be very slim. Not counting the RCS docking stage, less than 20 meters per second of Delta-V remained at the time of docking.

But the crew REALLY needed this expansion, previously the station had seats for 24 (for a crew of 4) and the new module brought at least 16 more seats (I don't remember how many seats the octo-pod has, but it's more than 4). If Kerbals didn't cost more than half a million funds to hire right now, there would be a larger crew. I'm considering installing Custom Barn Kit so the cost of hiring doesn't exceed the cost of building a Minmus station.

Jank Probe XDLOL approached Moho in an attempt to orbit it. It got SO close!

Unfortunately it just flew by, and was more of a cool way to dispose of a transfer stage than an actual mission. Luckily, Venture 11 arrived a bit over 4 days later and actually orbited Moho, making it the first space probe to do so!

This was also the first probe with a magnetometer to reach another planet. The Timberwind team carefully analyzed the data and found that Moho is essentially useless for finding antimatter, at least compared to Medium Kerbin Orbit.

Next up, the divide between the KSC's Rocket and Spaceplane divisions (backed by their own respective senators) grew as they both debuted their next generation vehicles within a week of each other.

For lack of a better name, this massive lifter was called Jumbo. It was designed for payloads of up to 100 tons but only carried 80 (one large Kerbodyne tank) on its first flight. It cost 300,000 funds, but it was designed to be fully reusable.

The first stage landed, the second stage reached orbit and dropped off its payload, but miscalculated its entry and had to burn all of its fuel trying to correct its landing site, and didn't have enough fuel to land, not that it had managed to reach a landing site.

It was a great concept, but the issue arises that there are no currently planned payloads that need a vehicle this big. Especially seeing as there is only one more base module planned for the Kerbin system, and interplanetary crewed missions aren't due to start until 2 Duna windows from now at the very minimum.

And then there was the X-8 "Robinson" which did not have enough thrust to reach orbit... And had serious stability issues. Despite Sily piloting it, it flipped out and could not pull up fast enough to prevent impact due to control authority and a far forward CoM, which was predicted to be too far back...

And there was the first public nuclear disaster of the program. Three LV-N engines were destroyed, but thankfully the cores were mostly intact and were recovered by submarine later that week. Nobody died. But the public freaked out and money changed hands. The spaceplane department had their budget cut.

A few weeks later, the Mk2 version was rolled out, the X-8A Robinson, which was again not given a proper name. Its goal was to deliver one orange tank to orbit, and had more engines and control authority than its predecessor.

And surprisingly, it worked! With fuel to spare! If you used the fuel from the payload and switched it to all LF, it could go to Minmus and back, maybe with a crew section. And that's without refueling!

The orange tank was de-orbited with the plane and released on a suborbital trajectory to avoid space debris, and although the plane stalled right before the surface of the runway began, it hit the grass ramp and technically landed on the runway.

 

I would like to say that this is a massive accomplishment for me because Mk3 SSTO planes are the bane of my existence, and practical ones are even worse. Also this is stock except for the RCS ports and the 3.75m nose cone in the back, and the modded LV-Ns are less efficient than stock ones, so this thing could be made stock with little effort.

Next up, the Porter Solar Probe burned most of its remaining propellant to reduce its perihelion to below zero. Its next solar pass will be its final solar pass.

After that, it's Jool window time! We sent three things to Jool at during this window, and only one spacecraft has visited Jool so far, a flyby that got roasted in the first 2 kilometers of Laythe's atmosphere. This was the Jool All Moon Explorer Ship, or JAMES, which, as the name implied was a ship designed to explore as many of the Joolian (Julian? A name for a future probe?) moons as possible. It launched on a Copernicus M3-2.

A side note, after I installed KSP: Interstellar Extended, the SpaceY SRBs all turned black instead of white and I have no idea why. Any solutions?

JAMES lacks the antenna to communicate directly with Kerbin, that capability will be supplied by another dedicated orbital relay. In addition to the partially full Viking upper stage, there are 3 Candle RTG rockets powering the actual probe. These were developed through Project Timberwind and incorporated into general technology.

Next up was the Jool Advanced Relay, Extreme Distances, or JARED. It launched on the rarely used Eureka II medium-light booster rocket. It is rarely used because it is pretty redundant. Originally, Copernicus was supposed to be for massive near-Kerbin payloads and not probes, but Copernicus expanded to more than just Light, Medium, and Heavy, and most notably now is capable of using a Viking upper stage, which was Eureka's main selling point, so everything it does can now be done by Copernicus. But we used it, so that's that.

Boasting a massive RA-100 Relay antenna, JARED will insert itself into a very high Polar orbit of Jool, to hopefully provide ample relay capacity for any mission in the near future. I think this one also uses RTG rockets but it's been a while since the launch and the picture is not being helpful.

"And, liftoff of the X-1D Aurora carrying a Fade-II rocket with the Jool Atmospheric Cloud Crasher, or JACK, space probe, the first interplanetary mission launched from an airplane!" said Sily with enthusiasm.

"I'm still a bit nervous," said Bob. "I trust you and your piloting skills, but the Aurora was never designed to carry any substantial payload. Sure, it's done 0.625m drop tanks and could carry a small rocket, but an interplanetary space mission?"

"We had no choice," said Sily. "After the nuclear catastrophe we had to make a compromise with the rocket division in order to maintain funding. Thanks for coming along, Bob!"

"Wouldn't miss this for the world."

As the name implied, the JACK's goal was to impact Jool. It used the new Fade-II booster, which featured no sea level engines, developed by the rocket division. It was very loosely based on the Fade I which had been last used in the days of early Mun probes. There was a lot of concern as to how the Aurora would handle this.

"AAAAAAA!" shouted Bob.

"Control, due to the high center of mass we have flipped and lost a lot of velocity. Nothing is broken.

"Except maybe my pinky."

"Except maybe Bob's pinky, yeah."

"Roger, return to base."

"No way, I'm going to try again!"

"Sily, you're half out of fuel and it was hard to accelerate to where you were. I highly advise that you -"

"You have a point, but I reject it. Onwards!"

The X-1D was very hard to get past mach 1. After that there were a few other velocities it had a hard time passing. And not to mention the offset centers of mass, thrust, and drag due to the orbital class rocket strapped to the back.

"Alright, control, we appear to be peaking at 1100 meters per second. We are at 23 kilometers, almost not rising any more, are we go for launch?"

"Go!"

"GO!"

"Yes."

"Roger."

"Nominal."

"Normal."

"Norminal."

"Go fish."

"Green light over here."

"GOGOGOGOGO!"

"GOOOOOAAAAAALLLLL!!!!"

"Control to Sily, we are go for the launch of the JACK. Fire when ready."

"3! 2! 1! Release!"

The release went off without a hitch, and engine ignition followed about a second later. The prototype Eaglet engine pushed the rocket all the way into orbit, and the escape burn was completed by the second stage.

Which was also the service module, as the probe had no thrusters of its own. It will also rely on the JARED for communications. No tests have been done on the capsule, so we sure hope it survives Jool. But the spaceplane program has now at least secured a funding line to the other senators, even if it is a thin one.

But due to a lack of fuel, the X-1D Aurora (this specific one unnamed) had to ditch in the ocean, and it did so without damage. This led to Sily having flashbacks to her other two ditchings... Maybe she should have turned back after all.

Also FMRS reset Sily and Bob's Experience levels, but that shouldn't be a problem, I can cheat them back or include a probe core on every plane they fly. But for the record Bob was 3 star and Sily was 2 stars, almost at 3.

Eventually a boat came by and sold them some fuel (read: I turned on infinite fuel because I was too lazy to get a refueling plane out there) so they could get the X-1D back to base. Fortunately, the water damage was not as great as expected.

Up next, in the lull between transfer windows, Project Timberwind was busy in full swing. Their observations of the alien radio signals from their Minmus station had revealed a number of new scientific principles. However, curiously, the radio signals had not changed at all from the physics and engineering principles yet. The signals had not even repeated. They had yet to learn anything about these aliens besides the fact that they had a great understanding of physics. It was suspected, however, that not all of the signals were being broadcast in the radio section of the electromagnetic spectrum. Thus, an overly complicated and incredibly expensive infared telescope was built and launched on a Copernicus light with larger fins, again disguised as an advanced communications satellite, NetStar 3. It hadn't been tested and relied on a bunch of assumptions from the alien transmissions.

But apparently it needs liquid helium to work. And I can't get that. Probably because I don't have Interstellar Fuel Switch installed because CKAN was being dumb. Keeps throwing errors, freezing, and has to be shut with task manager. I have installed it manually, and I probably should install TweakScale but I'm too lazy right now.

Anyway, Timberwind-8, the infared telescope, was de-orbited due to the fact that it didn't work, using the cover-up of a failed computer circuit causing the orbital adjustment engine to burn to depletion instead of for a second to circularize the orbit. This didn't sit well with the rocketry division, but since it was the Viking stage that failed, and it was permanently integrated into the satellite, NetStar took the blame.

It was at this point that the millionaire backer supporting the project put his foot down and said that they have a budget of 1 million funds to work with, no more. They would only get more if they discovered enough stuff. All they'd accomplished with the first million was making different variations of things that glowed. And sparking numerous conspiracy theories.

Next up, another new rocket was launched. I forget what it is called, sorry. It's for very light but wide payloads and used the Kiwi engine on the first stage. It was now time for the second Duna transfer window. The first stage of the rocket was the only new part, the second stage was a standard Viking.

This was the Galileo 1 mission, which would attempt the first landing on Duna. As with the Jool armada, it did not have a good enough antenna to directly reach Kerbin, a relay would have to be used.

Next, on a Copernicus M2-4 was the Duna Orbit Return. Apparently you can only have one explore contract for some reason, and we accepted "Orbit Duna and Return" a year or two back. This one is finally going to accomplish that so we can get a worthwhile one. This was the aptly named "Duna Orbit Return."

Next still was the spaceplane department's second mission of the X-1D and Fade II, this time carrying an Ike orbiter. It was successful, including the landing, but some idiot forgot to take pictures. The only iffy part of the mission was separation, we forgot to wait before turning the engine on so we ripped a fin off of the launch vehicle.

And this was the Massive Duna Relay, because we ran out of creative names after the Jool armada. Suggestions are welcome! Seriously, comment with suggestions! I should start a naming suggestions thread. The launch vehicle was a Copernicus Light.

And finally, the spaceplane department had managed to get their funding in order enough for a third X-8 mission, using the same unnamed vehicle as before. As shown the RAPIERS wanted to overheat badly, but they did not explode. Sily was at the controls for this one.

The payload, this time, however, was not an orange tank, it was an Eeloo orbiter probe.

On re-entry, however, the Robinson encountered a problem. Whereas previously the center of mass was too far forward and there wasn't enough control authority, due to unburnt fuel at the back of the craft and too much control authority, the plane disintegrated as Sily tried to slow down with a banking maneuver.

And that was how the Robinson program spread radioactive debris for the second time. This time it was two NERVA engines and a high speed breakup over land, near residential areas.

 

PAUSE

 

This is how it is going to work. I'm going to stop a stopwatch and look at the tenths and hundredths of a second marks, each digit will represent one of the nervas. 1 = The NERVA core is intact and did not cause significant radiation damage or public fear. 5 = The core burst on impact but we cleaned it up fairly easily, but to large public backlash. 0 = atmospheric disintegration, spewing radiation over towns and cities, causing injuries, sickness, and ending the spaceplane program. For the other numbers I'll extrapolate.

Here goes...

59

RIP.

Engine core 1 burst on impact in a field leading to some public backlash but we cleaned it up. Engine core 2 disintegrated in the atmosphere, but the radioactive material remained in easily distinguishable chunks which thankfully did not land in anyone's backyard. The cleanup operation will be costly.

So when I reopen the game I'll subtract a large amount of money and reputation.

 

Anyway, the crew survived and tried to glide as far as they could, but the plane was asymmetric and would not pull above -15 degrees without rolling uncontrollably.

Thus, the emergency chutes were deployed (the first time any emergency chute has ever been used) and the craft landed... Blowing up another NERVA. Because it was localized on the ground, I'll restrict this one between 1 and 5 for damage.

It was a 6, so that rolls over to a 1. So this one is mostly contained.

But, boy, the spaceplane department is having a bad day, the politicians are very against the Robinson's existence. Maybe we'll pour money into safer nuclear rockets, maybe we'll do flight tests with dummy engines to finally get the center of mass problem sorted, or maybe we'll develop an all chemical spaceplane...

 

Funny... My first "successful" Mk3 cargo SSTO has only a 33% success rate at not ending in a nuclear disaster.

 

 

Come back next time for more fake politics!

 

 

 

 

 

Edited September 25, 2018 by Ultimate Steve

[Ultimate Steve]

"Relevant Quote"

"-Relevant Person"

Chapter 5 - Two Voyagers

 

Spoiler

After we discovered cryogenic tank technology (read: Installed Interstellar Fuel Switch and TweakScale) the Timberwind team was able to launch their second infared telescope, this time with a decent amount of Helium. The launch vehicle was a Copernicus light, and the rocket was disguised as the launch vehicle for the NetStar 4 communications satellite.

It was put into a solar orbit with almost the same period as Kerbin, and will encounter Kerbin again in a bit over a year. Unfortunately the Timberwind team cannot figure out how to work their own telescope. It is working, but the "review data" button does nothing. It's generating science but it's not registering.

However they are picking up more alien transmissions, but they are the same transmissions that the two radio telescopes are picking up - physics. Physics too advanced to understand, but still physics. The team was beginning to wonder when the signals would change. Also this launch was about 150,000 funds, meaning that they only had 850,000 more in guaranteed funding. And the satellite actually had to work as a relay so their cover story would hold.

A few days later, the Porter Solar Probe melted.

Funny, before I stopped time warping there were no gauges, but right after I came out of warp the whole thing instantly exploded.

A few days after that, one of the Venture probes impacted Eeloo, but not after sending around 800 science points back to Kerbin. Impact velocity was almost 10 kilometers per second.

The spaceplane team wasted no time in beginning the recertification process following their nuclear disasters. For this test vehicle, there was a forward fuel tank to help adjust the center of mass on the fly, more parachutes, and the nuclear engines had been replaced with inert engines of nearly the same mass. Also four of the mk1 fuselages were replaced with precoolers because I was told they are good for low speeds. The fuel reduction will be seen, and I could do with just 2 precoolers but the symmetry was bugging me.

Also my cockpit IVA seems to be flipped, no idea what is causing that. The pilot was Elifal this time, the secondary test pilot.

The accident investigation committee had several requirements for recertifying the X-8 Robinson:

• Test maneuverability full and empty in the low atmosphere
• Test maneuverability with most of the fuel pumped forward and most of the fuel pumped backward
• Test landing with most of the fuel pumped forward and most of the fuel pumped backward
• Do a test at sustained maximum jet velocity for a reasonable amount of time
• Conduct a test at near re-entry velocities involving braking
• Fix all the problems found in the above tests and fly once testing the modifications
• Design a nuclear engine safer in an emergency

So, the first flight was originally just supposed to be fully laden (but with no payload) atmospheric flight.

But then Elifal did a western speed run with harsh maneuvering at the end, fulfilling the sustained speed requirement. There were turns involved and she did an eastward speed run.

Then she decided to simulate re-entry by accelerating with the RAPIER closed cycle mode.

And accidentally made it into orbit.

 

So, yeah. That happened.

 

Re-entry went well, the ship was now mostly empty, so unladen maneuverability tests could be done. It was determined that maneuvering at a high speed below a certain altitude could easily cause a breakup, as this almost happened. It isn't a center of mass problem (although more rudder would be useful) but more a control authority problem, as in there is too much at that speed. Binding some of the control surfaces to roll only and pitch only should fix the problem.

Landing was attempted going west with the center of mass forward and was successful, but it overran the runway and had to take off again. While in the air turning the fuel was pumped backwards and the plane became very hard to handle, at high speeds it may be impossible, so note to the crew, don't fly with the fuel in the back. Elifal landed in the opposite (correct) direction and managed to stop successfully. Changes to the design will include restricted control surfaces and maybe more air brakes.

So the only real thing we need to do is test the new changes.

Next up, the rocket side of the program wanted to show off a bit, so they got approval for a 650,000 fund mission. 300k of that is the launch vehicle, now renamed to Munwalker, which in theory is reusable, but the VAB cost was 650k. The mission? Go fast. Really really fast.

The 100 ton, 4 stage Farlander 1 probe had around 23 kilometers per second of Delta-V in LKO and aimed to escape the solar system and go far in a short time, sort of like our voyager probes but without gravity assists.

Stage one landed successfully.

Stage two did not.

Stage 1 was 60 tons of chemical fuel providing 1.5 kilometers per second. It would have been a nuclear stage but we ran out of payload fairing volume - liquid hydrogen is not very dense at all. We could have used three of those huge tanks if it weren't for fairing limitations.

Stage two was the nuclear stage powered by 3 experimental nuclear engines. This caused some controversy, this was the Munwalker's second flight and it was already trusted with such a valuable (and nuclear) payload. But this is a double standard, I guess, many spaceplanes have carried nuclear engines on their first flights and a rocket hasn't failed in forever. No, I'm not going to install a failure mod. I like the progress I am making.

Stage three was powered by 3 RTG rockets, with 5 fuel tanks, staged in pairs until the core was left.

And then there was the 7 ion engine stage, providing OVER 9000 meters per second of Delta-V before petering out.

Final velocity? Very fast. Also we have an accidental Jool encounter and we're getting there in less than 100 days, or less than a month in Earth time.

A bit later, the X-5 001 "Voyager" took off, with Bob, Sily, Bill, another pilot, and six tourists aboard. They had chartered a very expensive flight to visit the Elon Science Rock, a small class A asteroid in MKO. They had paid just under 2 million all together, which is a bit strange considering that it's basically just a pop into orbit and back to a tiny rock. But they insisted on paying the full price.

IIRC this is the third flight of the Voyager but I'm not keeping track with patches like I did with the Blue Crescent because that was more hassle than it was worth IMO.

Elon Science Rock, showing the remnant science packages of 2 previous Galactus missions and the nuclear tug that brought it to orbit in the first place (missing solar panels from a Galactus collision). It still has a bunch of fuel left, I could send it to Mun orbit, then Minmus orbit, and probably still have fuel to spare.

Entry was very steep, but the spaceplane handled it surprisingly well.

On the very third flight of the Munwalker (using the same first stage) the next Space Camp vehicle was launched. 14 candidates were on board, but only 3 would be selected to join the program after their 40 days in space were over. Due to lack of fuel, the first stage was not recovered and the ship has little margin - it will not be flown like this again, it cannot be fully reusable without the second stage.

Next up, Bob and Sily took some tourists out in the Voyager. They knew the margins were very slim, but they were trying to make it to Minmus.

They did successfully, but with 1.4 units of monopropellant and no liquid fuel remaining. They hooked up the plane to Serenity Base and showed the tourists around. Three of them had only booked a flyby, so this was a massive bonus for them.

At the base the plane was fully refueled. Interestingly enough, there is enough fuel that you could refeul one and send it basically anywhere, maybe to Duna as a habitation module for a future base. This is being strongly considered. There are a number of competing programs vying for the first manned interplanetary mission but that is at least a year off, maybe 2 or 3 due to window scarcity.

During re-entry at least 3 tourists passed out as there was no attempt to slow down with the engines and the tumbles peaked at 10g. Nothing melted, though.

The plane landed, bringing the fourth mission of the X-5 001 Voyager to a close.

There's also an X-5 002 Pendulum designed to work with KSPIE nuclear engines but I deleted that config file because it was making a permanent plume on the LV-N so it's back to normal now but with only 600 isp instead of 800... I might have to change that. So the Pendulum may not fly again. Maybe that will be the spare that we turn into a base.

Next up was a mission launched with some Timberwind input, but not actually a Timberwind mission. We have just lost contact with the Venture 4 spacecraft which flew by Eeloo a while back, because it is out of range, despite having the largest stock antenna. This mission, the Eleven Terameter Relay, was designed to solve the problem. The actual antenna was 20T, but we scaled it down to a bit over 11T because of fairing space issues. The payload is very large, but not very heavy. We used Munwalker 1A for the mission and it had a lot of margin left over for recovery attempts. Munwalker 1A featured better RCS, a sea level engine for second stage recovery, and a redistribution of fuel making the first stage a bit more powerful and the second stage a bit weaker.

Unfortunately, due to SAS retrograde hold, the booster tipped over and exploded.

The second stage managed to hit the right continent this time, though, so it's doing better! Although 5 of the engines exploded on re-entry and it did not have enough thrust to land. At least some of it survived this time...

If the cost of the stages are equal and we have had four flights with seven stages (1 flight without S2) and the booster costs 300k funds, and only 2 of the recovery attempts have worked, then the rocket is only 29% reusable right now and costs about 213k per launch.

The 11 Terameter relay (by comparison the biggest stock antenna is 100Gm) is going into a solar orbit a bit lower than Dres. It's not there yet but it is already being useful. Previously we weren't able to talk to the Venture 4 probe, and now we have 96% connection!

From all the way out here! If you look closely you can see all the planets. Moho, Eve, Kerbin, Duna, and Jool are obvious, Dres is on the left a bit upwards, and Eeloo is far right and down a bit.

The new version of Space Camp does not have enough thrust or fuel to land propulsively so it had to use parachutes... And it missed the continent, but no matter!

3 new astronauts? Check!

 

No fake politics or storyline really in this one... I'm just enjoying playing the game!

 

 

[Kerbalstar]

Very nice @Ultimate Steve! Really enjoying this! As for names, feel free to steal any of mine!

[Ultimate Steve]

 

Chapter 6

Spoiler

I think I'll stop with most of the storyline elements here. I started this as a career and tired to retrofit a storyline into it when the truth is I'm writing too many things and just want to enjoy the game and share my accomplishments with you.

So, first off!

The mission to the Timberwind Minmus Station was completed. The top secret spacecraft undocked and used its experimental hall thrusters to return to Kerbin.

Several thousand science points were gained from this mission.

Next up was another launch of Fade II on an Aurora, piloted by Sily and not-piloted by Bob. This went a bit smoother than the last Fade II launches.

These are two Eve relays. Not much to say here, they will relay stuff.

The second launch of the Eve window was:

It's been forever since I've seen these screenshots, but this appears to be a large Eve relay/lander using a radioisotope rocket, launching on what I think is an Archimedes 2 with a standard Viking upper stage.

The third launch of the Eve window was the Gilly Tumbleweed, a fairly innovative Gilly rover which bounced around using legs and reaction wheels rather than wheels. This is one of the first versions. The legs kept overstressing, so I used I beams instead.

IIRC the Gilly Tumbleweed launched on a Copernicus Light. I don't have the vehicle configuration memorized any more.

The next mission was Sily testing out the X-9 Corvette, a prototype personal SSTO. I think it was successful. Unfortunately, there isn't much of a business case for partially nuclear powered personal SSTOs... Yet at least. That flight will remain the only for a while, maybe forever, but the prototype will be maintained in case it is needed.

Next, the X-8B "Phoenix" underwent its first major mission - delivering the last module of the Minmus base.

The landing was mostly vertical with a tip over at the end, which smashed the shock cone intake on the front of the Phoenix. Nothing else was damaged, fortunately.

And there we have it, the final module of Serenity Base (I think that's what it's called, it's been forever).

I don't remember if refueling was necessary or not.

I also don't remember if this thing flipped out on re-entry this time or not, but the landing was mostly successful.

One of the eight RAPIER engines exploded in a tailstrike incident. The mission is still considered a success, though.

Farlander 1 kept farlanding.

The Dres Orbiter entered orbit of Dres.

The Viking upper stage completed circularization.

The stage was detached on a suborbital trajectory and left to impact Dres.

We now have a Duna relay in a medium polar orbit.

The Duna Orbit Return enters Duna orbit.

This might have been an Ike orbiter? I don't remember and it's not marked on my progress sheet as orbiting Ike, but that looks like where it is.

It's now time for a rotation of the Mun crew. The four on the base are going to the station, and the four on the station are coming to the base.

Crew transfer complete! The entire 8 crew are halfway through their 2 year mission, IIRC.

The Duna Lander is up next - this will be the first landing on another planet should all go well.

After some flames, the heat shield was detached and the lander fired up its engine.

And then...

If you don't get the joke that means you probably have a life.

In case you were wondering, this is the crowdsourced science mod, which gives clever science reports. 255 is the maximum color level in many computer languages. The joke is that the developer set the color to 255 255 255, which is bright white, the same blinding color as Duna's poles.

The Gilly Tumbleweed burns into an elliptical Eve orbit to encounter Gilly.

The Eve Relay and lander suffers a malfunction during separation.

I'm pretty sure it's just the solar panels left, though. But due to an early separation, not enough fuel remains to place the lander onto an ideal trajectory, IIRC.

Most of it blew up at this point, but a few pieces survived and hit the ground, exploding there.

Meanwhile, Gilly Tumbleweed reaches Gilly, after being released by the relay orbiter, which re-enters orbit.

The tumbling worked, but it was slow compared to just taking rockets.

I messed around with it for a bit, I think I visited all three biomes, and then it fell behind a hill and the sun was setting so I left it. It's not very useful, but it's still operational if I happen to need it, which is unlikely.

"Alright, Sily, you are go for takeoff."

"Roger that, Dr. T. What will be our mission today?"

"They didn't tell you?"

"I prefer to live life on the edge," she said as she ignited the engine. "I notice this is the same extremely high efficiency jet as the last mission."

"True. Today we are going to push it to its limits. This is the X-10 Dawnbringer."

"Sticking with the theme of dark and light, I see."

"Your job is to fly as fast as possible."

"Fuel limits?"

"We have enough fuel to last a long time, don't run the engine longer than a few hours."

"Roger."

"Dawnbringer is airborne!"

"And Sily?"

"Yes?"

"Pushing the engine to its limits brings about significant risk..." Dr. T. Avoided telling Sily about the nuclear material, "But if warning lights start to flash, we installed an abort system which will separate the cockpit from the plane."

"Roger."

"We are supersonic!"

"We have Plasma!"

"Control, what is the highest expected speed?"

"We don't know, Sily."

"Well, I'm in orbit now, so..."

"Can you nose down and re-enter?"

"No, I just passed forty kilometers. I'll catch the atmosphere as I come back around. Hey, do you think this technology could be useful for interplanetary launches? If the spacecraft is aerodynamic enough, you can get into an elliptical atmosphere crossing orbit with just this engine and then use the atmosphere to gain the rest of the velocity needed!"

"Maybe. But we need to focus on getting you down. The engine may have some, well, side effects." While Sily was shielded by a full FL-T400 fuel tank, she amount of radiation she still received would not be good if sustained.

But Sily did not return to Kerbin after her first pass.

She accelerated even faster on her second pass. Despite urging from Dr. T, she accelerated even faster on the third pass.

And then the reactor began to melt down and explode. All of the warning lights in the cockpit turned on, and Sily triggered the abort system.

The reactor broke up and debris was scattered far around Kerbin. A top secret Project Timberwind team was created to find the larger pieces and clean up as much radiation as possible.

But they never found Sily.

"Sily to Kerbin, do you read?"

"Sily to Kerbin. Please respond."

"Sily to Bob. If you can hear me, well... I think I'm on an escape trajectory. I may be orbiting the sun forever now. And I don't know what else to say, but... Goodbye. I love you."

 

But, fortunately, Sily was only barely in Kerbin orbit. Several days later...

She knew she was lucky to be alive. She wondered how much of an uproar it would cause when she returned home... She also wondered if they had held her funeral yet.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Ultimate Steve]

Chapter 7

 

Spoiler

After Sily's return was sorted out, the secret of just how good this engine was was made public. The world was still reacting - some positively, some negatively. The fact that it was nuclear was also released to the public, pretty much without choice. That meant that everyone knew that the reactor blew up, and that the whole thing was direct cycle - spewing radiation around the whole planet.

Sily did earn the Mach 6 ribbon, though, and may very well be the only person ever to do so.

The use of that engine outside of very well understood circumstances was promptly banned,maybe only temporarily, but not before the X-11 Exos was launched.

It was unmanned. It did not have a recovery system, and would be used to test boosting to interplanetary velocities. It would, if all went well, be ejected into interplanetary space.

It reached velocities of over four kilometers per second, and tested a new heat resistant coating - another thing Project Timberwind had been working on. AKA I used ignore max temperature because I wanted to see how fast I could get it to go.

Due to advances in miniaturization technology, a new thing called "TweakScale" was able to be used to make electronic and other components really small. This spacecraft, called the Spryte, massed 101 kilograms and was only 0.6m in each direction - about the size of an Oscar B fuel tank. Its mission was to land on Eeloo.

This was launched using a Fade III launch vehicle, on the X-1 Aurora 1E, which was almost the same as the 1D which had launched the Fade II series. The difference was the size of the rocket carried. The 0.625m profile allowed the carrier plane to reach higher velocities and altitudes before release.

Also the runway detonated on takeoff for some reason. We can add that to the list of things Sily has blown up.

The Fade III first stage was powered by a "Sparkler" liquid engine.

The second stage was a tweakscaled LV-909, and the third stage was an ion transfer stage. Unfortunately, due to the weirdness of burns, the probe did not end up on an Eeloo trajectory but was adjusted to go to Jool instead.

Next up, another launch of the optimistically fully reusable Munwalker 1A rocket, carrying a small Eeloo probe. It featured a huge fairing only as a test for aerodynamic stability, the actual probe, an orbiter and relay, was quite small.

The launch went off without a hitch.

Stage one successfully landed back near the KSC.

After one orbit, stage two landed as well. Unfortunately, all but the center engine, which was a different design, exploded during re-entry. A possible re-engine of the second stage was being looked at. And the Eeloo probe went on its way.

Except it wasn't a tiny Eeloo orbiter and relay. It was Project Timberwind's Eeloo Radio Observatory. In order to pick up signals more accurately from the origin, it needed to be far, far away from the interference of the sun, and have a massive radio shield. And what better candidate than Eeloo? With this mission, they hoped to finally get a clear signal from the star.

The observatory was powered by two nuclear engines fed by mainly a very large spherical fuel tank, and one modular nuclear engine on the second stage.

Another rocket was launched, a prototype hybrid rocket carrying a Dres impactor.

While everything worked fine, it is unlikely that that rocket will launch again. Hybrid technology is expensive, and the old but seldom used Agesis is far cheaper.

Breaking news, Farlander 1 has overtaken Venture 4 as the probe furthest from Kerbol and is travelling more than three times faster than it.

Project Timberwind had another problem. Its rather unsuccessful infrared telescope was scheduled to encounter Kerbin after its approximately year long mission. It had been set into a pass with a low periapsis with the intent of capturing it into Kerbin orbit and doing something with it later. However, shortly after that maneuver, contact was lost. The team would not be able to track it after its pass as its location would have a high degree of uncertainty. The KSC was talking about doing an all sky asteroid survey, and chances are it would discover the telescope. The telescope needed to be destroyed in order to keep the program a secret.

~2 weeks later~

"Sily."

"Dr. T."

"I have a mission for you."

"Oh, sweet! What is it?"

"The X-12."

"X-12? I haven't heard anything about it."

"It's a fairly recent development."

"What is it powered by?"

"Um... An experimental high tech engine."

"What sort?"

"Oh, one of the sorts..."

"What will this mission be accomplishing?"

"That information will be a surprise."

"Ooh, a secret mission!"

"Yes. Sily, tell nobody about this."

"Alright. When do I leave?"

"One hour."

"ONE HOUR? Gee, some advance notice would be great."

"I am sorry, but it must be done now."

"I need to tell - "

"Don't tell anyone."

"Can you promise me I'm not going to end up being lost in space again?"

"..."

==========

"Dr. T, that's a banned engine. The very same engine that nearly killed me a month ago."

"We made it safer."

"And nobody knows about this?"

"Nobody important. Please take the X-12 Vanta into a Low Kerbin Orbit with near zero inclination."

"T, this is a jet. You can't get to orbit on a jet."

"You know the RAPIER?"

"Yes."

"This engine has been modified to function as both a nuclear ramjet and a nuclear thermal rocket, similar to a RAPIER."

"Wow. That's something. Two dangerous nuclear things in the space of one..."

"Alright, I'm here. What next?"

"Wait for three orbits for more instructions."

"Alright." Three orbits passed.

"Sily, we are sending you the orbital inclination for an object. You are to rendezvous with it. You will only get one shot."

"Why will I - Oh. Hyperbolic trajectory. T, I'm really not good with hyperbolic trajectories and nuclear jets, you should know that!"

"I do. Contact me once you have completed the rendezvous."

One and a half orbits later, Sily was on an escape trajectory from Kebrin. She watched as a strange space probe came into view through her window. As she got closer, she noticed solar panels, radiators, and a massive telescope on top.

"T, I'm here."

"Roger. Park about fifty meters away."

"This nuke functions like a jet. It's hard to get exact thrust, but I'll do the best I can. T, that looks like one of those cancelled telescopes!"

"Correct."

"And that looks like a Viking upper stage! Dr. T... This was a secret launch, wasn't it?"

"I can neither confirm nor - "

"It was! Is it a spy satellite?"

"Sily, behind your seat you will find a bundle of explosives." Sily froze.

"Is that a threat?"

"Oh. No. Sorry for sending the wrong message." Sily turned around, and surely enough, there was a bundle of explosives. "You are to EVA, attach the explosives to the object, and detonate them."

"And blow up a secret satellite worth how much?"

"And tell nobody."

"I can't do that!"

"It's defunct. It failed. Its mission was unsuccessful. You need not feel bad."

"But what was its mission?"

"That, uh... Long range mapping of the moons of Jool."

"That's bovine excrement if I've ever heard it!"

"Blow it up. Every second you waste is an extra drop of fuel required to return to Kerbin."

"True."

"Place the explosives and get out of there."

"Roger." Sily pulled out her space rated touch screen device and plugged it into the spacecraft. There, she found several dozen files, mostly corrupt nonsense data.

"Have you placed the explosives yet, Sily?"

"Hold one second, it's being finicky." She noticed a file marked with a very familiar and mysterious name - Timberwind information. Sily's heart jumped. This was a secret Project Timberwind satellite! Onboard was data which would finally tell her what exactly Project Timberwind was! She quickly copied the information over to her device, agonized by how slowly it was transferring.

"Any problems?"

"No. No problems," she said as she attached the explosives.

"Set radius to 10 and timer to a reasonably high value."

"30 seconds, activate!" The bomb started to blink as she rushed back to her spaceplane."

"Thirty? Sily, the shrapnel! You need to get the plane away from the debris!"

"Oh. OH! Can I disarm it?"

"No time! Get out of there!" Sily rapidly entered the cockpit and started up the engine. But before she could move away...

Fortunately, the spacecraft only suffered minor damage, but was running low on fuel. About one day after liftoff, Sily touched down, during a KSC-wide tornado drill.

Also, the Sentinel telescope completed a 4 million fund contract recently. Although this Duna window was going to be probes and maybe manned orbits, a landing may be attempted...

 

 

 

Edited March 3, 2019 by Ultimate Steve

[Ultimate Steve]

Chapter 8

 

Spoiler

This is Vau.

The spaceplane division has gotten a lot of publicity lately. Their fully reusable, if nuclear, devices that carry a dozen travelers to Minmus and back regularly, are quickly making obsolete many other things. While the rocketry division is still leading in payload size (anything larger than 2.5m) and payload mass, they are losing out to the Spaceplane division in the innovation and crew categories. The Generation 3 Galactus capsule was supposed to facilitate far reaching Kerbal exploration, but it had only flown a handful of times, and was fairly expensive. So a radical idea was formed - the Vau capsule. It was designed to be reusable, and relied completely on propulsive landing. There were no parachutes on board at all. It could seat 6. And although it was way too light to launch on a Munwalker, if it did, it would be fully reusable.

Shown here is the prototype, piloted by Sily Kerman for hover and landing tests.

The concept was validated, although the test ended with a somewhat embarrassing tip-over during a ground translation test.

More equipment was added for the first pad abort test, including sepratrons. The acceleration was less than expected, however, and the heat shield needed to be jettisoned for the gear to deploy, and because of mass.

Landing was fiery, but would have been survivable.

Vau Serial Number 3 was another pad abort test.

It went slightly better.

The launch vehicle for the first Munar test flight was dubbed the Titanium I. It ended up being overpowered for the mission, and the vehicle, being expendable, would likely only fly a few times.

This mission was only intended to be a lunar orbit and return mission, but there was enough margin for a full blown landing and then some.

The actual landing was brief, as Vau did not have landing legs.

A big problem was found on re-entry - Vau was aerodynamically unstable. This would be fixed on the next flight.

Heat shield jettison failed a bit, and flew back into the Vau, damaging its landing legs.

And it was a water landing. But other than that, everything succeeded.

Vau SN 5 was built for the in flight abort test. The SRBs had to be enlarged considerably to allow for escape at all situations. This led to a heavier vehicle.

This vehicle was the Titanium II.

The capsule barely escaped from the stack.

Landing was successful, although in water, as was expected.

Somewhat unwisely, the division decided to conduct a launch with six new-ish astronauts to Arkangel Station, which had been abandoned due to the lack of astronauts for a pretty long time.

Unfortunately, the capsule was so draggy that the untested second stage flipped out a few times. As a result, there was not enough fuel to reach orbit.

And somewhat unwisely, the astronauts decided not to abort. They regained control, used all the second stage fuel, and then aborted.

They reached orbit and docked with Arkangel station, with minimal fuel reserves. They would have to refuel at the station if they wanted to land at all. They will be at the station for about a month.

The seventh Vau capsule was a custom one.

It was launched on a Copernicus M2-8, which used 2 sets of 4 solid rocket boosters fired in series.

This Vau capsule (also using the brand new Viking Lite upper stage) was stripped down, designed to be used as a ferry from Mun orbit to the surface. Here you can see a bit of what goes on beneath Vau's fairing.

Docking was successful. The Mun station is running out of docking ports, however, a new node will probably have to be added soon.

Remember the X-9 Corvette? Designed to be a one seat SSTO, for personal use by the ultra rich, it flopped due to the difficulty of flight and the fact that it was nuclear.

The spaceplane division has decided to take another crack at that with the X-13 Mustang.

It is fully nuclear, however, but closed cycle and not open. It's clean and safer than many previous nuclear craft. Like the top secret X-12 Vanta, the X-13 Mustang had a single nuclear engine that functioned as both a ramjet and an actual nuclear engine. Sily was the test pilot for this one as well.

It had a bit more range than anticipated. A Mun flyby was included on the mission. Maybe more is possible, but either way there were still the regulatory hurtles of getting a brand new nuclear craft certified. Many politicians were nervous with spaceships being sold like cars in general. An initial production run of 7 more was considered, but ultimately those plans were cancelled to to regulatory concerns and low interest levels before Sily even landed.

The spacecraft also liked to spin around on landing, not a good selling point. The single X-13 was put into storage. However, various agencies expressed interest in other areas - the idea of a nuclear airliner that did not need to be refueled often was tempting, as was private jet like SSTOs, for business point to point purposes. They would have a few passenger seats, and have a trained pilot, and would be much more practical than sports car like spaceplanes.

A month had passed, and it was now time for the crew of Vau SN 6 to return to Kerbin. They had refueled on the station.

Despite the modifications to the capsule, it was still unstable on re-entry. However, nobody died and nothing was damaged.

And everything past that went alright. Warped to day for visibility:

Finally, a successful landing without damage!

The next Space Camp was launched, and both stages had flown previously.

One big difference on this flight was that the lower stage, in order to conserve fuel, landed on another continent, far away. 

And although I don't have any pictures of the actual craft in orbit, it made it successfully.

 

 

 

 

 

[FleshJeb]

Sily gave me a few heart attacks there.

[Ultimate Steve]

Chapter 9

 

Spoiler

 

Just after Munrise, the X-6CA SN 03 "Pendulum" flew into the air on a secret mission, with a listed cargo of "Habitation module" and nobody on board.

It had been modified since it had last flown, forever ago. There had been three Voyagers built, the first one, "Voyager," the standard crew carrying type, "Voyager" of the same name, modified to work with the nerfed nuclear engines that one of the mods gave us, and the "Pendulum," also modified, although the modifications turned out not to be necessary. As the last time a Voyager flew was forever ago, the spaceplane division wanted to put one to good use. The question was, what was that use going to be?

The Pendulum went to Minmus and landed at the base. It was then observed that smaller versions of the Mk2 habitation module had been placed in its cargo bay. Was this to be a permanent base module or escape ship?

That launch (are spaceplane liftoffs called launches?) was quickly followed by another, that of the X-8B SN 03 "Phoenix" on its third (?) flight, the seventh (?) for the whole program. It carried Sily, a few other KSC astronauts, and a large complement of tourists, including eight in a new passenger module in the cargo bay for a full crew of 17. I think.

The whole purpose of the mission was to make money and to deliver an antenna for the Pendulum. But we forgot the antenna and the base didn't have a suitable one, so we said "Whatevs" and just left Pendulum, still on a top secret mission, to stay at the base.

Interestingly enough, Pendulum's storage slot in the spaceplane hangar was cleaned out completely, as if it would never return.

Shortly later, Phoenix returned to Kerbin, but stalled shortly before landing. The engines couldn't spool up in time, so the emergency parachutes were deployed. The only damage was to the lower rear control surfaces, one RAPIER, the parachutes, and the tourists' sanity. Back to the repair facility Phoenix goes... The X-8 series is having really bad luck with landings.

A short while later, the X-6CA SN-03 Pendulum left Minmus with no destination on record. Amateur observers have tracked it. It remains in the Kerbin system, but nobody knows what it is being used for.

The Timberwind Eeloo Radio Observatory Satellite (Now called TEROS by the Timberwind team) underwent a substantial course correction burn and shed its first stage.

The 11 Terameter Relay (DSN 1) completed its circularization burn, which placed it into a 29Gm orbit around Kerbol. It continues to support the farthest flung space missions.

Meanwhile, the race to put a Kerbal on Duna was heating up. Both the rocket and spaceplane divisions wanted to be first. The first crew was not supposed to be sent until the transfer window after this one, as only one thing had been landed on Duna, but I want to do it now. A collaboration between the two divisions was achieved, and the 6 seat Duna Descent Vehicle was born.

This was an atmospheric landing test. It didn't go too well. It came down too hard and crashed. The main chutes were not used, only the drogues, to simulate Duna's thin atmosphere.

Three or four tests were done, the last of which hopefully had the kinks ironed out.

A concept Duna rover was designed by the spaceplane division and it was used to check out the rocket booster from one of the tests, which somehow survived. The rover performed well, but only up to 2x warp. Landing gear may be added to allow for faster downhill travel at warp.

Next up came something that was incredibly advanced and ambitious. Nobody thought that the rocket division could develop something new so fast after Vau development - Vau had only flown once with crew, not very successfully! While Vau was a step in the right direction, something else was needed to truly reduce the costs of spaceflight - something that, if it worked, would surpass Vau, and maybe even the X series.

Enter the Duna I, AKA Spaceship.

Developed semi secretly across the years under the pretense of being a Space Camp version 2.0, it was so much more. Spaceship had a bit more than half the passenger capacity of Space Camp, but made up for it with capability - It could almost SSTO on its own. With its rocket booster, it could theoretically do a Mun flyby and return to Kerbin, being fully reusable. While it would primarily land propulsively, it could also semipropulsively land with the aid of parachutes, or in an emergency use just parachutes, although it would be a hard landing.

But the Spaceship's main advantage was that it could be refueled in orbit, and could go pretty much anywhere.

Four main variants were planned, with a few subvariants also planned. There was the crew version. A cargo version. A refueler version. And lastly, an ISRU version, which would permanently deploy an ISRU base on a usually one way journey.

AKA I made a Starship/BFR clone because I felt like it.

Its first and second hops went alright.

The third one tipped over but did not break anything.

The fourth mission went suborbital to test the skydiver landing method, which also led to a lot of extra crossrange capability.

Landing was questionable, but it was intact.

The fifth flight was a copy of the fourth, designed to refine landing technique. The main fuel tank section was actually two tanks, so fuel could be shifted around to change the stability of the rocket.

And this time, with barely any fuel remaining, Spaceship SN 01 stuck the landing.

A few days later, Spaceship 01 was given an official name - Spaceship Journey. Its first mission would be to pop into orbit and back to test re-entry.

The ship made it into orbit successfully.

However, due to a miscalculation, the booster did not return to land and splashed down in the ocean, tipping over and being destroyed.

An orbit or two later, the Journey de-orbited, but overshot the KSC. In a test of crossrange capability, it tried to reach the island airport.

As it turns out, the Journey is a fairly good glider.

A KSC plane was dispatched at once to deter any local graffiti artists from painting the rocket.

The next planned mission would test docking, refueling, and high speed re-entry. But that wasn't planned until after the next crew rotation, especially since a new booster needed to be manufactured.

 

 

 

[roboslacker]

The rocket division will win the Duna race, obviously. Spaceplanes are bad for interplanetary operations.

[Ultimate Steve]

Chapter 10

 

Spoiler

The rocketry division had won the bid for the Munar crew transfer. Although it had been planned to increase the crew on both the station and the base to 6, Galactus could only seat 8, but it was chosen because the Mun station was running out of docking ports, and Galactus could carry a docking node just fine. A space tug would have to be built for the Robinson class to maneuver the module into place. Plus I sort of wanted to fly Galactus again.

I wonder what those 8 feel as they realize that this is the closest they will be to Kerbin for 2 years, maybe ever.

And, liftoff of Galactus 8!

Booster separation successful.

Core stage as well. On the way to the Mun now!

Fairing has been deployed, revealing a fairly standard hitchhiker 6 way node. I sort of want to build a station where I name the modules.

There is a 3.75m docking port open on the station, but that was added optimistically. We don't have any 3.75m ships and there aren't currently plans. The only normal sized docking port is on the mobile science carrier, which was used pretty much only once, I think. Galactus docked one of the side ports to the science module, turned around and docked the bottom port of the node to the station, undocked from the node, and then docked to the node using its forward port.

After that round of shuffling, here is Resolution Station:

The Vau derivative lander is now undocking from the station to take the new crew down to the base.

And much to the relief of the crew, everything worked.

As soon as the new crew transferred to the base, there was much celebration. They then set about to refuel the lander.

Well, umm, hehe...

The base has been there for three years. Not once has anyone needed to refuel anything, and not once has anyone thought to test the drills.

They are mounted too low, just like the ones on the identical Minmus base module were. They bounce the whole base up and down. Plus, the radiators are too far away to cool the equipment well.

Luckily, the lander had enough fuel to reach orbit again.

This carried away the four crew members who had spent two years on the surface.

And after more celebration, the eight old crew members handed off the Mun system to the eight new ones.

Let's take stock of what we have on the station:

• Core/Science module
• Engineering Module
• Extended Habitiation Module
• Fuel Tank with upper stage and docking stage still attached
• Extended Utility Module
• Galactus storage module
• Galactus node
• Galactus 8
• Vau Derivative Lander
• Mobile Science Platform
• An Explorer

Interesting... There are only two explorers left in operation and both of them are docked to stations as emergency return vehicles. They have been there for at least two years... I wonder if I'll ever need them.

Galactus 8 went home, delivering the eight astronauts back to their home.

Only 20 science was recovered, from an old experiment that had probably been sitting around for over two years, but the 8 crewmembers earned many ribbons. Learning from last time, nobody was asked to fly a rescue plane mere hours after return.

Wait a second. I don't remember if that was the Minmus transfer or the Mun transfer... But this is a HARDCORE SAVE, and a fairly active one! Discounting glitches, external factors, convenience to a degree, and extremely stupid mistakes that would actually never ever happen, I have not quickloaded and reverted in this save.

That means that we may have made it two years without a fatal accident if that was the Mun transfer! If it was the Minmus transfer, then a year and a half! I expected to have to plant a lot more memorial flags than this.

Space Camp made what is probably its final re-entry.

This time, landing had to be assisted by parachutes. Also, we landed, I think on the wrong side of the mountain range, but aiming is hard, to be fair. *installs trajectories and landing AIM*

*as I'm writing, not as I'm playing. The next several landings are down to my skill.

Next up, another launch of Spaceship SN 01 Journey.

The booster *ALMOST* made it back to land, but due to control difficulty it splashed down in the water and was mostly destroyed.

Journey awaits in orbit...

On a brand new booster, Spaceship SN 02 launched. This is a refueler, christened "Horizon."

The booster featured new control surfaces that helped a little with steering on the way back down, but I would still prefer them to be bigger.

Oh. I forgot to tell you what the mission is! The plan is to refuel the Journey and perform a high speed re-entry test with it.

But that's not going to happen, because I judged the rendezvous wrong and Horizon crashed into Journey.

After the dust has settled, the ships docked anyway. All four solar panels, 2 per ship, have been destroyed. That's fine. What's not fine is that 2 of Journey's control surfaces are also gone. It *can* return to Kerbin, but it would be an uncontrolled re-entry.

Refueling worked, though. Horizon was sent back to Kerbin.

It overshot KSC. It also had a hard time keeping the nose down, as I hadn't moved the control surfaces back on this version, I don't think.

But someone wasn't looking and we destroyed the Horizon as well.

Fun times! Losing two 150,000 fund spaceships in one mission! Luckily we have at least 13 million in the bank.

Undeterred, the rocket team quickly built Spaceship SN 03, also a refueler, with a few changes. It was named Jeffree.

This is a bit infuriating - I was *THIS* close to land.

Jeffree and Journey docked without incident.

Jeffree landed half a continent short, but other than that it went well. I'd consider that a success considering how hard it is to aim non-gliders.

So, we have a mostly fueled Journey that can return to Kerbin but probably shouldn't try. What can we do with it...

Surprise, Pioneer Base! Not a month into your mission and you have an unscheduled base addition! Not that you can use it much. But you can use it as a remote lab or maybe another emergency escape vehicle. We're up to three now! The original lander (forward right), the Vau derivative (on station), and now the Journey!

The rocket division had not commented on whether it was going to use Spaceship for Duna missions or not... But it was thought that it could go to Duna if need be, but it was considered too new and unsafe to do so with crew on the first try by most.

Other than showing off a rover and a descent vehicle, no real public work on the Race to Duna had taken place.

Until...

One day, a Robinson flight was announced with the payload of "SERVICE AND SCIENCE MODULE." A few hours later, that flight left, before many people had the chance to gather. At the controls was Sily. There were a few more crew on board, and maybe there were some tourists to fill the remaining seats, I don't remember.

Not much was said about the payload, but it was given a name.

T-02 VISION

The second KSP Transfer ship, the first being T-01 Spectre which was used for earlier Mun/Minmus crew transfers. The Mun and Minmus wouldn't really need a transfer ship with solar panels that big (unless it was ion or something), or a science lab.

While not officially announced, it was widely believed that the Vision was the spaceplane division's attempt at sending Kerbals to Duna.

The Robinson 003 Phoenix returned to Kerbin that same day.

The brand new Spaceship SN-04 Adventure lifted off, this time with crew. One of them was Bob.

The control surfaces were larger, but they were installed upside-down, and they fought against normal control. It reached land this time, but unfortunately tipped over. Most of it is intact, though.

Adventure reached orbit just fine, and went into a medium orbit to test high speed re-entry, but it couldn't get into a super high orbit so it wasn't really that much faster.

It was fast enough to blow up the solar panels, however, which were just barely exposed to the airflow.

This one also landed half a continent short, but better than a third of a continent short. I don't think that Spaceship would react well to a mountain landing!

Even on normal landings they tip over. The crew is fine, however.

Also, I may have forgot to mention, the Spaceships have parachutes in case of an emergency, unlike Vau.

This probably should have been done before it was launched with crew, but the Adventure underwent a pad abort test. It has a few really large sepratron things in there, giving it a TWR of at least 2, I think. Not great, but better than nothing. Good enough for pad aborts, and a lot of inflight aborts.

Landing was successful. The next test was lifting off again (the ship still had plenty of fuel) and doing a landing with a partial fuel load but no engines. Just chutes.

The landing was a bit hard. The cargo bay contacted the ground. Nothing exploded, though, and the crew would have survived.

One of those "training course" contracts came up. If I take Sily on a Mun flyby, she'll gain a star of experience. This would put her above three stars, and she would probably be our most experienced kerbonaut.

The X-13 was modified and became the X-13A "Charger." The only changes were doubling the fuel, resulting in a longer fuselage, adjusting the control surfaces so it wouldn't spin out on re-entry like the X-13 did (lack of control authority, now all rear control surfaces can do both roll and pitch I think), and moving the wings and gear to compensate for the longer craft and moved center of mass.

The spacecraft performed admirably. The only problem was running out of electricity. There was a nuclear reactor on board, but nothing to generate power from it. It's a large part that I don't want to carry around. The solar panel easily gets stuck behind the craft and permanently in shadow, and there's only the command pod battery, so it's a bit easy to run out of power.

Also, graphics glitch.

Mission accomplished!

About a day later, another mission of the Robinson 003 Phoenix was announced. this time, I don't think Sily was on board, it was all mostly new people. We can't have Sily be our only pilot, can we? She's been doing absolutely everything. If she dies, we have nobody nearly as skilled as her to take over. There's not many missions simpler than taking a proven platform (granted it has had problems on at least half of its flights) into Low Kerbin Orbit, docking a payload, and returning to Kerbin. Okay, there are a few simpler missions, but at least it's not going to Minmus or anything.

The payload for this mission was listed as "COMMAND MODULE AND SPACE TUG."

Although these pictures weren't released to the press, this is what Vision's command module and space tug looked like. If I remember correctly, that space tug is a derivative of the Arcadia Docking Stage, but it might not be, I don't remember.

The ship now has 2 or 3 modules depending on what counts as a module. It is unknown to the public how many modules will be needed.

An attempt was made to do the re-entry gently, with trim, keeping deceleration below a few gees. But it was about to overshoot KSC and it was still going over a kilometer per second, so some late harsh turns were executed, earning the crew several g-force ribbons... Luckily, the tourists (which had signed non-disclosure agreements regarding the payload) didn't pass out. Barely.

The approach and landing speed was much higher than usual.

The parachutes were deployed early, before touchdown, but the Phoenix made it safely home, without any damage.

Hold on a second, how many flights is Phoenix rated for?

1. Atmo test that accidentally became an SSTO
2. Minmus base module
3. Tourist flight to Minmus
4. Vision service/science module
5. Vision command module/space tug

That's 5 flights! I'm pretty sure that makes it the second most flown SSTO ever, after the original Blue Crescent, which was rated for 10 flights but might have made up to 13, I don't remember. I'm going to go ahead and say it's rated for 15  adjusted flights, as it's more advanced (gen 3 SSTO vs gen 1 SSTO) but it also has a lot more delicate technology (RAPIERS, LANTR engines) and occasionally operates with much higher entry velocities than the Blue Crescent did. I say adjusted flights... I mean a LKO flight counts as 1, and a BLKO flight counts as 2. By this logic, assuming the medium-ish orbit that Vision is in counts as low (it should, I think?), Phoenix is at 7 adjusted flights, almost halfway through its lifetime! Of course, its odds of not crashing are low, as both the 001 Robinson and the 002 Phoenix crashed, on their first and third flights, respectively (with no loss of life, but with some radiation spread). If the spacecraft makes it to 15, then it could be donated to a museum, or maybe I'll allow a 5 flight extension.

A Space camp was then launched on the S-04 Adventure. The booster was upgraded with larger, backwards facing control surfaces to aid in landing. However, an unexpected side effect occurred. The control authority of the surfaces on ascent was opposite of normal control, and exceeded the control authority of the engines. The spacecraft began turning , losing control. Mission rules dictated the pilot to abort, and he/she almost did, but managed to wrestle the spacecraft back to its correct orientation.

The booster landed successfully and the space camp was now in orbit, the first space camp using Spaceship.

Venture 13 impacted Dres at high speed.

It also passed less than 23 kilometers from our Dres orbiter! This was *totally* planned to relay data and not just an extremely fortunate coincidence. /s

 

And that's it for now, I guess! That was a lot, and we aren't even caught up to the present yet!

 

 

 

[Ultimate Steve]

Chapter 11

 

Spoiler

Now, this particular mission arc was pretty eventful!

Remember how I said that the Mun mine was unusable? I would have adjusted the drills, but apparently I don't have a KIS drill up there for some reason... I might have accidentally brought it home with the crew on Galactus.

Arcadia Resupply Platform #2 to the rescue!

ARP is a small system fueled by monopropellant that can carry one KIS container to the surface of the Mun or Minmus. It is derived from the Arcadia Docking Stage, a small docking stage for up to medium length 2.5m station modules. It is launched on the Agesis rocket, which used to fly a lot more often. It launched the early modules of Arkangel Station, several early communications satellites, and all of the Helios missions, the first orbital winged return vehicles. It's sort of like Dreamchaser, but smaller (seating for just 2, no cockpit, just a crew cabin) and less advanced.

This mission carried several drills and several radiators.

Arcadia's 7 solid rocket boosters fire in a 3-3-1 sequence, without being jettisoned, for simplicity. It is worth noting that Agesis is the KSP's oldest currently operating vehicle. It predates even Pioneer, Arkangel, and even Archimedes! The only orbital launch systems that came before Agesis were the one-off Blazes and the Fade I's.

Anyway, drills. Agesis's second stage completes much of the TMI burn.

The rest is completed by the ARP.

Coming up on Pioneer Base...

And we have another visual glitch, but ARP-2 (the first one brought something to Minmus a while ago) has landed!

The engineer and pilot (to help with the heavy lifting) got to work.

However, they accidentally blew up one of the batteries while moving a drill around. Fortunately, it was just that battery and not anything more important. It looks a lot worse than it is.

Eventually, they got it working, attached some radiators, and turned their eyes to the base's other main issue: Science!

The science lab hadn't had new experiments in a long time. It was down to under 4 science points per day of research. So, because it was the only thing with science experiments on board, three of the crew boarded the base's unnamed rover.

The rover had been launched just under 3 and a half years ago, and it had only been driven one time, down into the nearby crater to examine the remains of an earlier unmanned rover. Despite the rover's sturdy design, it suffered a lot of damage, blowing up all of the utilities (solar panels, reaction wheels, batteries, etc.) on the right side. I think that rover trip is one of the few places I've used quickload without a valid reason.

The rover's target was the canyons biome 60 kilometers away. I thought "How hard can it be?" and set off.

Five minutes later, I careened over the edge of an unseen crater and managed to land without breaking anything.

After several times of that happening, most of the way to the canyons, tragedy struck: I blew up the left rear solar panel, and the forward left solar panel has been "broken" (hit it too hard, it breaks but doesn't explode) for a while. This means that I have no more solar power.

Fear not, however! The canyons is all downhill from here, and we have fuel cells!

And then, the rover hit the bottom of this hill, not 5 kilometers from its destination, and crashed.

There goes all of the port equipment! The rover is now really dangerous to drive, having only the reaction wheels in the cockpit. It still has the fuel cell, though, maybe we can make it! The crew reached the edge of the canyons biome, found another biome they'd missed, grabbed the science, and turned back. Maybe the fuel cell could get them home.

Nope. Not 10 kilometers into the trip, maybe not even 5, the rover crashed, destroying the materials bay, mystery goo, maybe a headlight, and the fuel cell.

Yup, these guys are stranded 50+ kilometers from the base.

Also, I found out that one of the mods adds an impact detector to the seismometer. It gives you science when it detects nearby impacts. So if it's any consolation, Kathrick, Lemming, and Dihat, your crash got you 150 extra science.

The scientist that had been left at the base dispatched the ARP, as it had two command seats and could bring two of the three Kerbals back and return for the last one.

Unfortunately, little attention was paid to the amount of Delta-V remaining on the ARP. It crashed, taking several extra drills and several extra radiators with it.  At least the engineer on the rover still has her's.

Only slightly deterred, the scientist transferred most of the fuel from the Journey into the base's old lander and hopped to the crew's location.

This time, the hop was successful. The crew all hugged, glad for the rescue. A decision had to be made about the rover - should a solar panel from the lander be bolted on, and the rover be driven home carefully? It was decided no. It would be a risky drive without reaction wheels. Even though it had only been driven twice, the near totaled rover was gutted.

The only parts that remained were the cabin, structural elements, and wheels. More could have been taken, but the crew decided to leave the rover's shell intact for posterity. The science experiments, light, antenna, KIS port, and one fuel tank (the other one rolled away) were taken.

 

This could be the last time Kerbal eyes see this rover. Rest in peace.

Back at base now. The overheating issue is a glitch, I think. I'm not completely sure, but after some warp it went away.

But... The time had come to refuel the lander, and tragedy struck again.

 

There was almost zero ore at the base location. Even with an engineer, fuel output is measured in single units per day. This problem only became apparent now because the drills never needed to be used until now. *Big sigh*

The first base module was launched before refueling had been a concern of the program, and had been placed in a location that was suitable for aesthetics (Kerbin permanently just above the horizon), with the accidental bonus of being close to several biomes. The base was in a terrible spot for fuel.

Luckily, the station had plenty of fuel on board. Plans were drawn up to make the bottom part of Journey into a fuel tanker and the top part into a permanent module, but there aren't enough Kerbals at the base to do all of that heavy lifting. Also, it would need to be tipped over, and maybe separated by mechanical means. So it's probably impractical, and hasn't been done yet, but we can cross our fingers, I guess!

...There are enough Kerbals at the station, I could bring them down on Vau. But due to the way KIS works, I think I have to detach each part individually to detach the top bit, I'm not sure. I might not need all of that fuel capacity, though... I could blow up the top fuel tank with some of the explosives I brought for when I had to combine a standalone module into the main base...

Decisions, decisions! But that's for maybe tomorrow, or maybe in a few days.

Also, having the rover and ARP 2 gone has improved the framerate a bit. The base was getting a bit cluttered.

Also,

Space Camp

Landed successfully! Although ascent was sub-optimal, I think that nothing exploded on this mission!

Except that the contract spawned a tourist with the same name as my astronaut, they merged into an astronaut which the contract made me take on the mission, then the contract despawned her at the end of the mission.

Oh, well, not much I can do about that. I guess she decided to retire!

 

We're caught up to the present now!

 

 

[Ultimate Steve]

Chapter 12

Spoiler

 

The Mun base crew have decided what they are going to do with the Journey! They are going to blow a fuel tank up...

...Use the base's RCS tug to drag the top part into position...

...Attach two of the random landing legs lying around...

...And turn the top section into a massive base module!

In addition, the bottom section has been modified to function as a fuel tanker, but it is unknown if it will work, especially considering how little fuel it has left. I'm going to wait to test it, but it will hopefully work!

Next up, a prototype Duna Descent Vehicle was launched on board a Copernicus Light. The payload was very light, so it was placed in an elliptical orbit for re-entry.

Pretty much everything worked!

Then Spaceship SN 04 Adventure was rolled out again, and launched. The booster tipped over on landing. Imgur killed those pictures though for some reason.

Spaceship Jeffree was launched to refuel the Adventure.

Due to a malfunction, the booster landed a bit far west.

Trajectories has been installed, I'm getting way better at accurate landings because of it. The Adventure burned most of its fuel to enter an elliptical orbit, which actually wasn't that high, and tested higher speed re-entry.

The solar panels, despite having been moved back, exploded again.

But the spacecraft landed safely, and on the runway to boot!

A few days later, Spaceship 05 Rhapsody was rolled out, but on liftoff the top launch clamp failed to detach. After engine cutoff, the launch pad decided to self destruct, but the whole ship managed to detach and land safely a short distance away.

The Rhapsody was the first cargo variant of Spaceship.

Next, the spaceplane division attempted to launch the third module of the Vision in their Robinson class spaceplane, the Phoenix. It spun out on the runway, a very worrying sight, but nothing broke.

A second attempt was made shortly thereafter, and the Phoenix, with its payload listed as FUEL TANK, went into orbit.

The payload was extracted by the Vision's RCS tug, and was attached to the Vision.

Shortly after, the Phoenix re-entered and landed successfully.

Next up, our fleet of three Jool ships has finally arrived! In case you forgot, we have JARED (Jool Advanced Relay, Extreme Distances), JACK (Jool Atmospheric Cloud Krasher) and JAMES (Jool All Moon Explorer Ship). Shown here is Jared entering orbit. It was originally supposed to enter into a polar orbit which would not encounter any moons, but due to the burn lasting longer than planned, its orbit intersects Tylo's, and it does not have enough fuel to correct it. Its days in the Jool system are numbered...

Shown here is James, also entering an orbit, this time equatorial. Its Copernicus upper stage is depleted and the Viking upper stage takes over.

Jack enters an elliptical Jool orbit with a periapsis near Jool's atmosphere.

After an orbit or two, ensuring that Jared was in position, Jack de-orbited and entered Jool's atmosphere. It was originally supposed to jettison the bottom stage, but someone forgot the decoupler. Whatever, antenna occlusion doesn't work in KSP, it will be fine!

A bunch of science is gathered before Jack is sadly crushed by Jool's extreme pressure.

James flies by Laythe, also skimming the atmosphere to gather science from there as well.

A while later, Vall is also flown by.

And the probe is briefly put in an elliptical orbit around Tylo to gather gravity data from above most of the biomes, high and low.

Several thousand science points had been transmitted back. Project Timberwind sneakily borrowed some, and began to finally make sense of a few more of the alien transmissions, which were still being beamed with no sign of stopping. The transmissions also hadn't repeated yet.

After careful analysis of several planetary magnetic fields, it was determined that you could very carefully and slowly extract antimatter from them. The Timberwind A-1 satellite/station was designed to collect small amounts of antimatter in a medium Kerbin orbit. It was launched on a Copernicus M1-4, the same variant that launched most of the Explorer missions.

Unfortunately, the radiator broke off during fairing separation.

Eventually, however, the top secret satellite was inserted into its orbit, and began collecting antimatter. The Timberwind team was enthralled by the fact that their antimatter collection system was working!

...Now what? It's not like they had anything that could use antimatter. They might in the future, though. Some of the team wished to leave it up there, generating antimatter for future missions. The other half wanted to return a sufficient quantity to Kerbin to sell to various research organizations... But there was the danger that it would fall into the hands of various militaries... And if the entry vehicle lost power, boom. Big boom.

After that recent launch clamp failure, the Rhapsody is ready to go again.

Deployed is a relatively simple module... Hmm, I wonder what it could be for...

The Rapsody returned to Kerbin safely.

Next up, a mixed variant, carrying both crew and cargo, was launched. Spaceship 06 was christened Spaceship Salvation, mostly because its job was to fix the strange module, which lacked a bottom docking port and a few other things, while also bring a fuel tank up.

After some mucking around with KIS, this is what we have. The crew then returned to Kerbin, and would not say anything about this strange assembly.

This is the X-14 Condor. It was a prototype Duna Exploration Plane. However, it turned out to be simply too large for the capabilities it offered.

Its successor, the X-15 Andean, was an improvement in many ways. It carried the same amount of science experiments, was more responsive, carried three crew instead of two, and was small enough to launch on currently existing launch vehicles, unlike the massive Condor. The wingspan was still too large for a fairing, but who says the engineers can't get creative... It was small enough to be at least decently manageable with no fairing.

Oh boy. The rocket division got approval for a 1.75 million fund mission, less after stage reusability. It launched under the designation of KSS Modulin. The Spaceplane division were worried that this was the rocket division's Duna ship.

But no! (nothing important exploded) This was a massive ion powered mothership designed to carry crew to the Eve system with pretty spacious accommodations! Unfortunately, due to the fuel margins, stage two of the Munwalker 1A was not recovered.

The Modulin unfurled its massive solar arrays and circularized its orbit. It is uncrewed and will remain so until near the Eve window.

Next, the spaceplane division launched the X-16 "Stark." It was supposed to be a safe-ish nuclear powered business SSTO with seats for five, one dedicated astronaut pilot and four businessmen. On this flight, Sily was at the controls, and the passengers were Bob, a flight scientist, a pilot who had volunteered to learn to fly the Stark, and an investor. If the flight went well, the Stark would enter a limited production run of perhaps 12, which would then be sold to wealthy businessmen, who would have a super fast transport system and a ride into space.

Unfortunately, performance was much lower than anticipated, requiring a long time to get up to speed, and a climb to orbit with way less margin than hoped for. I think it reached orbit, though.

For now, the Stark will remain as one single prototype, but a future version may make it into production someday.

 

 

There's way more, but I need to do something, so enjoy!

 

 

 

 

 

[Ultimate Steve]

So I realize that pretty much nobody reads this any more, but I feel the need to keep a record of this save. I'm way behind on recording stuff, so a lot of it I'll skip over, or only one screenshot if it's a minor mission.

Chapter 13 - BIG Oops.

Spoiler

Before we get to the interesting stuff, one of the Jool probes (It's been months, I forgot their names) landed on Pol and hopped around, landing in all of the biomes, or at least most of them.

The Vau spacecraft won the bid for the Minmus system crew transfer, not so slightly to the annoyance of the spaceplane division, as they had bid the cheaper (in operating cost) and more capable Robinson class spaceplane. However, they were to be paid for the use of the T-01 Spectre spacecraft, a meager amount compared to the Vau launches, but enough to keep them from protesting.

The Vau spacecraft had previously been tested on the Titanium I launch vehicle, but that was way too powerful for Low Kerbin Orbit operations, so the Titanium II was hastily built, an LKO Vau launcher.

The crew would be 12 people. 6 would crew the station and 6 would crew the base. Both crews would launch to Arkangel Station, where the Spectre was docked.

However, the Titanium II was a terribly designed launch vehicle. The crew had to abort due to aerodynamic drag and low power from the second stage.

Using just the engines, as is intended (and the only option for Vau) the crew splashed down safely. Despite this failure, the decision was made to rapidly redesign Titanium II and re-launch the crew shortly.

This time, the launch went much better.

Vau F6 entered LKO and began its rendezvous with Arkangel Station.

Everything was going so well, until the worst disaster the space program has experienced since Explorer 1 (or possibly the X-3 Penguin crash depending on how much a non-spaceflight astronaut fatality counts) occured.

Mere meters from the space station, the space bar was accidentally pressed, activating the solid fueled abort system.

This is the last picture of the intact Arkangel Station.

(the engine plumes are a glitch)

The station was torn into several large chunks and several smaller pieces.

Fortunately, the crew of the Vau were alive and well, if terribly shaken up. I'd imagine that the pilot felt horrible after this happened.

The Vau capsule was also moderately damaged, having lost an engine or two and its docking port, among other things.

The decision was hastily made to proceed with the mission. While the Vau now lacked a docking port, the Spectre had stolen one from the module it had been docked to. Some KAS-ing later, and Vau now had a new (very old) docking port, only used once.

The crew assessed the damage and attempted to regroup what was left of the station. The Vau was dropped off at this segment of the station, and the Spectre wandered around gathering up the larger pieces.

The end result was christened Phoenix Station, as it rose out of the ashes of Arkangel Station.

The Arkangel program managers were not happy with this turn of events, but even they had to admit that due to a shortage of trained astronauts, the station had not been useful for a while. There's only so much you can do with one low Kerbin orbit laboratory. However, that number was now zero.

Either way, the station was undeniably lacking in usefulness. The only reason it wasn't de-orbited was because it was an accessible fuel cache, useful rendezvous point for crews transferring on the Spectre (which was historically twice a year and now once every two years, maybe even four), and it had historic value.

Speaking of historic value, the crew was unable to salvage the historic section of the station, although it was mostly intact.

The capability to return segments to Kerbin arguably existed with Phoenix (the SSTO not the station), but that would require many launches, some KIS work, etc... I may do it just for the historic section, but I haven't gotten around to it yet.

What should have happened was Vau being grounded. However, the launch crews pressed onwards with Vau F7.

The second stage featured additional engines to help with its low TWR.

Docking was thankfully uneventful this time.

The crew proceeded to fly to the Minmus station in the Spectre. Attractions include one of the last two Explorer spacecraft (Right) and an epic viewing module.

The crew then transferred around and went down to the Minmus base.Some refueling might have been done, but I don't remember. After parties, the crew would depart.

Before then, though, a Jool probe (the relay one I think) burned the last of its fuel trying to get its periapsis above Tylo's orbit. It failed at doing so, so the relay is in an unstable orbit. Maybe a replacement will be launched.

Note: The next Jool window was basically right at the same time as the Duna window and right after the Eeloo window, so I was launching a bunch of stuff. I also had to deal with a few other missions so I have yet to launch anything to Jool. I'll try to though.

Then, a Copernicus M1-4 (I think that's the original, actually) launched a Duna Scansat.

The Duna window was split into two. The first half would be earlier than optimal for all of the unmanned stuff, and the crewed missions would depart around the optimal time.

The next launch was a Vau capsule on a Titanium 1 launch vehicle, Vau F8.

It was unmanned, and probably slightly modified from the standard Vau, I'm not sure, I don't remember. Its mission? Land on Duna.

The mission was dubbed Red Vau. Many were trying to figure out where Red Vau fit into the rocket division's manned Duna landing plans, but the most likely answer was "nowhere," or only as a general test for propulsive landings.

8 crew returned from Minmus in the Spectre. Six of them returned to Kerbin on board Vau F7.

In order to ensure that landing would be as light as possible, the launch escape system was fired. Also maybe because they were going to miss land.

Heat shield was jettisoned as was procedure.

However, landing was hard.

Everyone was alive, though. Another nail in the coffin for Vau.

The two pilots on the mission were still on the station, however. A spaceplane was going to come up and rescue them. The rocket division wanted none of that, though, and they couldn't get away publicity wise with another Vau launch failure, and there was no Galactus capsule ready. Spaceship was not scheduled for this, and landing was still very much risky. With a test flight crew, it would be alright, but not with a veteran crew who are about to get back from two years in space... Plus, the cost of a spaceship, while cheap per flight if everything went well, would cost 150,000 if one of the stages failed to land.

In the end, it was decided that the crew would very carefully attempt to land the damaged Vau capsule.

Oddly enough, the landing of the damaged capsule proved to be one of the smoothest of the Vau program.

However, trust in Vau had all but evaporated. Let's see:

F1 pretty much worked.

F2 was the abort test which worked, I think.

F3  barely made orbit and the crew had to steal fuel from the station to get home.

F4 was the lunar lander variant which is working well.

F5 was an aborted launch.

F6 aborted into the space station.

F7 had a hard landing resulting in many components blowing up, maybe being near fatal.

F8 is Red Vau, and inconclusive so far.

 

Every LKO crew mission has had something go wrong with it. Only three missions (1, 2, 4) can be counted as successes, with one pending.

That's an abysmal safety record. It is unlikely that Vau will be used for much else.

"And thus ends the short career of Vau, a fifth generation space capsule," muttered one of the pilots as he breathed his first breath of non recycled air in two years.

(For the curious, Gen 1 was Phoenix (3 programs have taken that name, wow), the one that killed Val, Gen 2 were Archimedes, Fade, and Helios, Gen 3 was Explorer and the short lived Pioneer, Gen 4 was Galactus and Space Camp, and Gen 5 is Spaceship and Vau.)

The next launch was of a Copernicus M3-2.

Its payload was the Duna Exploration Rover, which was sort of developed by both teams, much like the Duna Descent Vehicle. The idea was that both teams would share it when they got to Duna if their landing sites were close enough. One problem that many thought more likely was only one team having boots on Duna. In that case, that team would get the rover.

Hopefully it wouldn't end up like it's Munar counterpart.

In the next few days, any doubts that Spaceship was going to be used for the rocket division's Duna program were squashed.

A new Spaceship, S-07 "Earnest," was launched into a Low Kerbin Orbit.

Its booster landing attempt was the most accurate to date, but unfortunately came in a bit hot, destroying much of the booster and the launch pad. Earnest had to loiter in orbit a few days before the launch pad was speedily repaired.

Next up, good old S-03 "Jeffree" was launched on TWO back to back refueling missions.

The second booster in a row was damaged, but third time's the charm!

Landings are getting much more accurate thanks to the Trajectories mod. Also, somehow Jeffree hasn't crashed yet despite being the third spaceship ever. Congrats, Jeffree! Maybe I'll put you next to the launch pad or runway, next to the X-2, as a museum piece in a bit.

Or maybe I'll launch you on a one way deep space mission.

Oh, sorry, spoiler alert.

Sorry, Jeffree!

Earnest, with its full or near full fuel tank, departed for Duna, partially shocking the press, who thought that this was a cargo version on a high orbit re-entry test. But no, it was the first ever ISRU Spaceship variant, designed to test ISRU on Duna.

Plus, Earnest will be the first Spaceship to attempt a Duna landing, so there is a big chance that this is the last it will see of Kerbin.

The moment you make space probes reusable and give them names, you start getting attached to them...

Next up, there was a launch of an unmanned Duna rover on a Copernicus light with a transfer stage based off of the proven Arcadia platform. If all of the extremely ambitious plans ran into glitches, progress would still be made with this much less radical approach.

The first ever, and only so far Duna landing was probably under 2 tons, maybe even under one ton, and the very next Duna landing may be a giant spaceship. The space program is being super aggressive right now.

The very next launch was an Eve lander, launching on a rarely used Tommy I launch vehicle, which is for abnormally large light payloads that don't need to go very far.

It attached itself to the KSS Modulin, which *might* be rechristened as T-02, meaning that the spaceplane division's ship might be T-03... But whatever at this point.

Now, Vau... Everyone thought it was dead.

But it's not, possibly for the good, possibly for the bad.

This might be its final flight ever, but as it was a rocket division internal division, there was not as much controversy, as it had nothing to do with mutually owned hardware.

Despite a launch involving graphics glitches and a disappearing interstage, it went well and nobody died.

The Vau had been modified to carry science experiments, strange...

At this point, the rocket division, fearing competition from the SD (Spaceplane Divison, I'm not going to type that out much again, likewise RD is Rocket Division), had upgraded what was supposed to be an Eve orbit mission into a Gilly landing mission. Vau was designed for Kerbin and could easily handle Gilly. It was announced to the press that the crew that had just launched would most likely be the first to walk on an alien world.

The Modulin fired up its many ion engines and departed for the Eve system.

There was still debate as to whether Vau would hold up over what was most likely a multi year journey. When the Modulin returned, there would probably be much better vehicles available to return the crew to Kerbin. However, the Vau was going to do what it did best - non atmospheric landing on small worlds.

Kinda sad if you ask me. A crew taxi designed for Low Earth Orbit, and Munar landings, both manned, while designed for reusability, pioneering many technologies, being pretty much only good at landing on glorified asteroids.

Maybe Vau was ahead of its time, maybe Vau was a mistake.

I don't have a comeback for that.

Still... I had to check for this, but this ill fated program had as many launches in the main series as did the Explorer program, widely regarded as one of the most successful manned spaceflight programs ever.

I should use Kronal Vessel Viewer and compare some of these capsules...

Next up, in a near Kerbin science mission (haven't had any of those in a while) Arcadia Resupply Platform 3 was launched to Minmus. It would use artificial impacts and a seismometer to generate hopefully insane amounts of science. The ARP was modified for this task. Arguably the acronym could be kept the same, as Arcadia Research Platform...

The spacecraft, SHERPA (see image for acronym) landed and completed its mission successfully, generating what was indeed insane amounts of science. However, at this point it's only enough for a node or two, as we are deep into the tech tree... Really close to the point where Interstellar starts getting interesting...

Learning from SHERPA, the Spaceplane Division made a last minute addition to their top secret Duna lander, the addition of seismic impactors (decouplers) to boost the science gain.

This was earlier, but I forgot to put it in:

The X-15 Andean, a Duna Exploration Plane (sharing the same dual use agreement as the rover, although strongly biased towards the spaceplane side) was launched on a highly modified Copernicus Light, shuttle style. Not like these guys know what a shuttle is.

The X-6CA Pendulum (modified) which I accidentally called Voyager (it is Voyager class though, so there's that) and accidentally said was leaving for Duna was actually lowering its Kerbin periapsis to take advantage of the Oberth effect. This is it actually leaving for Duna.

The spaceplane division announced their next mission only hours before it launched, as was the usual for this secret ship. The payload was referred to as Z4 as to not reveal that it was a lander.

It was docked successfully.

And then it was landed successfully.

The JAMES landed on Bop, becoming the first probe ever to do so. It went to all of the biomes and again poured in boatloads of science.

Now that the space program had adjusted to the change of pace that was the rapid Duna launch schedule, and had mostly recovered from the Vau shenanigans, they decided to discuss plans for a space station to replace Arkangel. They concluded that the main problem with a new station would be crewing it. With the Eve crew and the expected two Duna crews leaving, there would not be many astronauts left, and those that were left would barely have any downtime before their next missions.

Side note, I think I'm going to start a "leave" building craft and use KAC alarms to mark when Kerbals are ready for their next missions, but only after long term ones, starting with the next moon returns.

Based on the lack of astronauts for the foreseeable future (recruiting was limited to 3 every 40 days from space camp max barring subsidized recruiting, as hiring cost is really expensive now) mission planners judged that what little demand there was for LKO research and tourism could be met by Phoenix station once the appropriate LKO capsules existed (Voyager (the spaceplane) might be good for this, but it can go way farther. Robinson is way too big. I need a new LKO crew ferry spaceplane, and Vau doesn't have a replacement. Spaceship exists but is still considered risky), and once a new science lab and node module was launched. This would require one Copernicus, Spaceship, or Robinson flight.

This meant that the only real unmet demand for an LKO station was refueling.

Luckily, technology had matured, and a class E asteroid was scheduled to fly by Kerbin fairly closely in just a few months...

A Munwalker 1A was used for the launch of the Atlas II. Atlas I was a small asteroid mover which brought the Elon Science Rock into medium Kerbin orbit. While pretty much nothing was similar about the two Atlases besides purpose, it was decided to keep the name going.

Due to the mass of the payload, and the slightly retrograde polar orbit that was used to match the inclination of the asteroid, the second stage had to burn upwards and had more demand than usual. It was decided late into the mission to expend it.

Atlas 2 featured an ISRU unit, four drills, many radiators, and a nuclear reactor hooked up to a power generator and a thermal rocket nozzle for propulsion.

The first stage was recovered.

The Atlas II would now wait a few months for the asteroid to pass by Kerbin.

Next, another top secret spoooooky Timberwind mission! They have been a bit quiet recently...

A substantial amount of antimatter was building up on the A-1 satellite-station. A very overengineered Antimatter Transfer Vehicle (ATV) was launched on board a Copernicus Light.

After docking, the antimatter was transferred into the landing craft successfully. It was de-orbited.

The over engineered landing craft landed very smoothly.

Also, a nuclear reactor powered the whole thing, to keep the antimatter contained and the computers on.

However, the profits attained from selling antimatter on the black market were much lower than anticipated. Combined with the small amount produced, well... Let's just keep it at the fact that the recovered nuclear reactor was worth more than the antimatter was.

The A-1 station would continue making antimatter, as a way to attempt to recoup the cost of launch, but it would seem that Antimatter was not the cash cow that Project Timberwind was looking for. The budget was wearing thin, how long would their investors wait before abandoning the project?

 

That puts me where I was before I picked the save back up a few days ago. I'll cover that in Chapter 14.

 

 

 

[fulgur]

I will read anything if it is written by an artist such as you.

[Ultimate Steve]

On 6/20/2019 at 10:10 AM, fulgur said:

I will read anything if it is written by an artist such as you.

Thank you, that is one of the best compliments I have ever recieved!

But, anything? Even stuff from what was probably (checks date) wow, fourth or fifth grade? Link Removed because of my name. Not that I care too much, just being safe.

"I want to fly it three staged before the year is out"

Sorry to disappoint you buddy, you're still waiting for the proper weather...

Anyway, I took Kronal Vessel Viewer screenshots of most of the important stuff and I have began making vehicle comparisons. Here is the one for the Copernicus family:

Edited July 8, 2019 by Ultimate Steve

[fulgur]

It's better than a lot of The Adventures of Martystu Kerman, everyone's favourite meta-fanfic. (And if you want a meta-meta fanfic... someone should write that.)

(And you might want to remove your full name from that google doc.)

[Ultimate Steve]

26 minutes ago, fulgur said:

And you might want to remove your full name from that google doc.)

I think I will take the link out but at this point I am not concerned about anyo w trying to find out who I am on the internet because it's almost trivially easy at this point. 

[fulgur]

There goes my plan to blackmail you into...

*dramatic pause*

writing more chapters of PI and Voyager . (But seriously, how cool would a ITV with robot parts be?)