Space Race Season 2 - RP-1

[LittleBitMore]

13 hours ago, Ultimate Steve said:

I think @LittleBitMore may have a more updated version somewhere, but probably not up to the present if I remember correctly.

I have an in-depth spreadsheet that goes up to 1959-1960 if I remember correctly. If you want, i could link it here.

 

[Ultimate Steve]

Notebook Space Program - 1976

Triumph, but also delays

Spoiler

January 6.

Arthur Vargas flies the STEVE 04 "Astra" on its first test flight. You're probably wondering where STEVE 03 went. It was cancelled due to problems with the STEVE design. This updated design should fix some of those problems.

The engine has several ignitions, and the ability to throttle, making the craft able to taxi and better alter its course.

An issue was found, though, the engine doesn't gimbal, so control towards the end of the burn is very difficult.

The re-entry was rather intense, as the altitude reached by the Aurora was far higher than earlier STEVEs could manage. 

Due to the far-back center of mass, the landing was bumpy and dangerous, but successful. Modifications will likely be made before its next flight.

"Sergei."

"No."

"Come on, Sergei."

"For the last time, Arthur, NO."

"This is our last chance to complete the contracts."

"No."

"We are the last two astronauts trained for missions."

"Which is why we will wait for the third class to complete training."

"We don't have the time. The contracts will expire."

"Well, maybe the space program shouldn't have been so ambitious."

"Okay, I will concede that, but we had a big string of failures, it was a one-off - "

"Not a one off. Remember the Moon orbiter mission? The Venus orbiter mission? We kept on trying. One of them they barely managed with a barebones probe by SIX HOURS, and one of them they managed to fix only by shooting you around the moon in an untested ship. And remember how, last year, we were going to announce our plan to land men on the moon by - "

"Yes, I have your point."

"And we've ALREADY determined that there will be at least one, likely 2 years of delays to that! It hasn't even been a year since the plans!"

"Look - I know."

"And now we're rushing for another deadline. I've been nearly crushed to death three times in those deathtraps, you'd have to pay me a million dollars to get back into one of those things."

"A million dollars, you say?"

"Arthur..."

"Drop in the bucket compared to the cost of the vehicle."

"My training is going to expire before the mission, and I'm going to retire before I can complete more training."

"You're only a few days off. We've already bribed the record keepers to extend your training by a week. And even if you are concerned with your ability, as if 90 days vs 97 days actually makes a difference, you won't have to do much."

"...If this one explodes, you owe me 10 million."

"Deal."

On January 23, 1976, Nebula 4 launched with astronauts Arthur Vargas and Sergei Lavrov on board. Their mission was to complete an "Orbital flight with 2+ crew and maneuvers" contract, and the 14 days in space contract.

When asked about how his past spaceflight experiences affected his decision to fly on this mission, Sergei Lavrov declined to comment.

This time, the second stage engine successfully lit, propelling Nebula 4 into a low elliptical orbit, as required by the contract.

Lavrov, who had been bracing himself ever since liftoff, now cautiously looked out of his window, waiting for the inevitable announcement that the new life support systems weren't working, or any one of a dozen other options, and that they would need to return to Earth.

But that announcement never came.

Minutes stretched into hours, hours into days. Sergei slowly relaxed, until the point where, on day seven, he woke up enjoying the mission.

The spacecraft underwent a few orbit altering maneuvers.

The life support and power system worked very well, and boiloff was not a tremendous problem.

The days stretched on, blending together, until one day, Sergei woke up on what would be his final day in space.

He realized that this would be his last ever orbital sunset.

The retrorockets fired.

And the sun silently slipped away.

 

Today we honor astronaut Sergei Lavrov, our first ever astronaut to enter orbit, as he goes into retirement.

 

His missions:

1968:

Bansai 2 M2 - Atmospheric

Legend 13A/7B - Suborbital

1969:

Starbright 2 - Orbital, First Manned Orbital Flight

1972:

Starbright 8 - Suborbital, Failure

Starbright 9 - Orbital, First Docking

1975:

Nebula 2 - Suborbital, Failure

I-3 STEVE 02 Compassion F4/F4A. Suborbital.

Nebula 3 - Suborbital, Failure

1976:

Nebula 4 - Orbital

 

 

On February 19, Egg 17 began its final descent towards Mars. The relay stage was separated, and placed on a trajectory that would give a reasonable amount of communications time. Unfortunately, the landing would be in the night.

The probe successfully made it through re-entry without any SAS problems like last time.

The parachute deployed at the right time!

And the landing engines successfully ignited!

Mission control held their breaths.

There was a brief tumble, but the Egg 17 lander successfully touched down on Mars!

It was very close, but we managed to get the science transmitted before the relay flew out of range.

This picture was taken the next morning, well outside of comms range, but it is a good picture and helps show the lander design better.

Next up, on May 12, was a secret mission. It was known publicly only as "NLTF." These are the only public pictures available, as the island was closed to public viewing.

The NSP's recovery fleet were noticed in the ocean several days later. The only other official word on the mission is that it was a success.

The next mission was on August 3. A Crescendo rocket launched the Statnik 16/Journey 1 mission, which would attempt to become the agency's first Lunar rover.

The landing was decent but not ideal, as one of the rover's two solar panels was broken in the landing. However, the other one allowed the rover to function perfectly fine. The rover's top speed was a measly 2m/s, but it allowed us to complete the rover contract, requiring ~7km of driving, in a reasonable-ish amount of time, especially with MechJeb's rover autopilot. The only other issue was the subpar balancing of the rover.

The next launch was Ruiz 4, which would test out new navigation techniques and attempt to fly by Ceres.

There was an engine out on ascent, but nothing the vehicle couldn't handle.

The EDS-H had a flawless burn, for once, and remained attached as a long term test of liquid hydrogen retention.

The next launch, Egg 20, was a Venus Orbiter. Despite being attacked by spikey things, the launch was a complete success, except for the need for a course correction shortly after the escape burn.

Egg 19 will be our second attempt at landing on Venus and will launch early next year. It carries an RTG and as such has a rollout time of longer than a month.

 

Summary:

WE LANDED ON MARS! Nebula didn't explode for once! We launched a few new interplanetary probes, one to Ceres and one To Venus. We launched a new STEVE variant. We also launched a moon rover, although it is very, very slow. Also, a weird top secret mission...

Launches: 6. 6 successes, 0 partial failures, 0 failures! A bit low on the launch count this year, but every single mission was successful, something I don't know if we've ever been about to say about an entire year!

Sergei Lavrov, despite some friction, has grown to appreciate his role in history and in the space program and has stated his intent to voluntarily attend space program outreach programs.

We only have one astronaut left from class 2, Arthur Vargas, who *might* make one more flight next year.

Our third astronaut class is ready for Nebula missions next year.

The lunar rover was successful. For various reasons, lunar surface transportation is getting more research put into it, but in order for it to be of much use, it needs to be much faster than it is currently. A larger rover is tentatively on the cards for 1978 if we have the technology.

Venus/Mars communications networks will not be a priority until we prove we can get our large scanning orbiters/relays into orbit, although we plan to have at least a partial network eventually.

The R&D center has been upgraded another level and we are in the planning stages of building a third launch pad, which will be large enough to support Crescendo. We have also researched the Voyager antenna.

We are going to attempt to launch probes during the Voyager window, although there will be a massive time crunch. Due to the number of RTGs required (at least 6 per probe as found out during preliminary planning) and RTG tech level, the construction will take a long time. We have many ambitious plans for next year, but the Voyager-esque missions, which will be named Iosif after one of our first astronauts Iosif Poulushin, take priority as this window will likely never happen again considering I don't intend to play for another 176 ingame years.

We may build three probes, but due to the other plans for next year, we do not plan on it.

 

Last year I said:

 

We would have had many exciting plans for Nebula ahead. However, as the safety and future of the Nebula program is being called into question, we will not announce these plans until we have some success to build these plans off of.

But - If next year is successful - Expect at least two major announcements.

 

And this year was successful. However, due to the schedule headache that next year will be, we will hold off on one of the announcements until next year.

But we will announce the other thing.

If the Iosif missions do not cause a tremendous schedule crunch, we plan to launch our very first space station early next year.

(An earlier picture, not the final station)

The small station, which can seat 4 in cramped quarters, requires EVA transfer, and is mostly covered in solar panels because of our current power technology situation, is technology demonstrator and is expected to be quickly replaced as technology advances.

Should everything go well, it will be visited by both Nebula 5 and Nebula 6, although it may not get missions beyond that.

We are open to name suggestions, although beware we may not take any of them. As it is a manned program, we aim to either continue the space-based naming scheme (Starbright, Nebula) but we are open to a new naming scheme for the station if a good one is proposed. It, however, must be serious and poetic.

 

I've been saying this a while, but if all goes well, the next major announcement will happen next year.

 

 

 

 

 

[Misguided Kerbal]

How about the Icarus?

Has a nice ring to it.

[Space Nerd]

What's the top secret mission?

(Only tell us if you're ok with that)

[Ultimate Steve]

16 minutes ago, Space Nerd said:

What's the top secret mission?

(Only tell us if you're ok with that)

Well, you could guess! There are some hints in there...

[Space Nerd]

8 hours ago, Ultimate Steve said:

recovery fleet were noticed in the ocean several days later

Lunar sample return?

[Ultimate Steve]

8 minutes ago, Space Nerd said:

Lunar sample return?

No, but actually now that you say it, I probably have the technology... Hmm...

[Space Nerd]

Test of a reusable rocket?

[The Dressian Exploder]

I'm calling it's a test for some lunar landing stuff

[Ultimate Steve]

4 minutes ago, Space Nerd said:

Test of a reusable rocket?

Interesting but also no for a variety of reasons.

Would be interesting, but I probably won't be able to make it worth my time at this point. Surprisingly, actual launches are a pretty small part of my overall expenditures, buildings are waaay worse. I probably haven't had many missions over 100k, average is closer to 50k, and the launch vehicle itself is often less expensive than the payload. Buildings on the other hand, the next tier of VAB is 5 million just for example. Reusability would make sense if there was a larger benefit and a lower time impact on a personal level, but saving perhaps 20k, a drop in the bucket, for first stage reuse via parachutes wouldn't be worth the several minutes per stage it would take in terms of flight time and scene changes and the awkwardness of having to build payloads bottom up (to reuse the stage you have to edit the recovered stage).

The engines are a fairly expensive part of the booster but I would have to replace them Anyway as they don't have the rated burn time for a second mission.

Now, for orbital spaceplanes (likely boosted on a rocket) that might make sense, but if I do that it will be very far off.

2 minutes ago, The Dressian Exploder said:

I'm calling it's a test for some lunar landing stuff

Well, not exactly, but it's definitely related.

[Space Nerd]

1 hour ago, Ultimate Steve said:

Well, not exactly, but it's definitely related.

Ohhh, it's the test of a new capsule for lunar landing!

Am I right?

[KerballingSmasher]

@Ultimate Steve can I suggest the Centauri or the Betelgeuse?

[Ultimate Steve]

Notebook Space Program - 1977

Off we go to the outer planets!

Spoiler

1977 was a fairly busy year. The first thing to launch was Egg 19, a Venus lander. However Imgur is being finicky and this is actually a picture of Egg 20, an orbiter, but don't worry, we'll see Egg 19 later. Egg 19 launched on January 27.

Next up, on February 26, Icarus Station was launched into Low Earth Orbit on board a Crescendo launch vehicle.

As discussed in last year's post, it is a small extremely low tech single module space station which intends to test many key technologies needed for longer stays in space, and also complete the "First space station" and "30 days in space" contract. We wouldn't dare subject our astronauts to more than that, 30 days in that can will be quite a stretch already.

Unfortunately, those solar panels do not sun track, so we are sadly stuck with lower than optimal solar efficiency. 

Somewhere in there, Ruiz 4, our Ceres flyby probe, did a correction maneuver. Also apparently we can store liquid hydrogen for longer than we thought with proper insulation.

On April 19, Nebula 5 launched on a mission to Icarus Station, carrying astronauts Viktoriya Abramova, veteran of one STEVE flight (which she crashed), and Arthur Vargas, veteran of literally everything. This will be the final spaceflight of his career.

Their mission? Spend 30 days on board the station.

It's a lot smaller than it looked in the editor

They were shortly joined by the crew of Nebula 6, launched on April 21, carrying astronauts Gary Reed and Viktoriya Abramova. Yes, this means we have two Viktoriyas on the same mission.

Gotta love the EVA transfer! Totally for looks and not because we don't have the tech for internal transfer yet.

While they slowly went crazy inside that tiny tin can, stuff happened at Venus.

Egg 20, aimed to provide scanning and comms capability, entered an elliptical Venus orbit. However, there was a miscalculation of signal delay, leading to much of the first braking stage going unused. Over the course of several weeks it gradually aerobraked down to optimal altitude.

Egg 19, the lander, also managed to enter orbit. The service stage was left in elliptical orbit to serve as a relay, and the lander, our second attempt at landing on Venus, was released.

So, uh, we pressed the wrong button and jettisoned our airbag instead of deploying it.

Then our new heat resistant Kevlar parachutes (which are adorably tiny!) deployed.

...And quickly melted off. Bad news as those are the most heat resistant chutes we have. Maybe we should try landing at night?

Like its predecessor, Egg 19 crashed into Venus.

We learned stuff from this probe, however. Our next attempt will land at night and we will get the airbag deployment right this time.

Also, there was an RTG on board.

We didn't technically nuke Venus.

But we did dirty-bomb Venus.

Oops.

For some reason the contracts glitched out even though I had completed the requirements so I cheat completed them (the 30 day counter started over). However, after over a month in space, the crews of Nebula 5 and Nebula 6 returned safely to Earth.

Due to the odd allocation of life support in relation to docked vessels, the capsules got dangerously low on some resources.

We also changed the landing rosters of the spacecraft, meaning that Viktoriya Skovaknodova (however you spell that) and Viktoriya Abramova both landed in the same capsule.

It is unknown what we will do with Icarus Station. We anticipate having better technology really soon, and in the face of that it is pretty much obsolete. It does have enough life support on board for another short stay, however.

The landings happened on May 23.

On June 29, the Ruiz 2 space probe flew by the planet Jupiter. If you don't remember, no, the probe is not solar powered. However, 2 RTGs was just barely not enough so we decided to make up the tiny difference with solar panels.

Shortly after Jupiter periapsis, the probe also flew by moon of Europa. This flyby allowed the mission to gather well over 1000 science points total!

I find it interesting how you can tell what parts of Europa we haven't mapped very well yet in real life by how the RSS texture looks.

Come to think of it, I wonder if 1.6.1 has the updated Pluto textures...

And on that day, some primitive ocean-dwelling organism that had found a gap in the ice, looked up into the heavens and saw a rapidly moving glimmering star. She pondered long and hard about what it could be, and waved.

Shortly after Ruiz 2 finished its job, 2 space probes were launched to build on its legacy, potentially the two most important probes of all time.

As outlined last year, Iosif 1 and 2 are my Voyager analogues. They will attempt to fly by all of the outer planets. Iosif 1 was launched on September 14. Shown here is a course correction. Amazingly, there were no engine failures during the entire flight, including in the EDS-H!

The current trajectory is set up for both Jupiter and Saturn, and after the Jupiter flyby the trajectory will be tweaked for Uranus.

The launch of Iosif 2 on September 16 did not go as smoothly. The first stage had a loss of thrust on one engine, although it stayed lit throughout the whole burn and didn't lose isp, I think. The second stage had an engine out. Half of the fairing stayed stuck on. And, the third stage had a navigation error (read: Me alt-tabbing out and forgetting about the rocket) that led to it expending all of its fuel and entering an elliptical orbit. However, in spite of this, the probe completed its escape burn, and will actually arrive at Jupiter (and likely other destinations) weeks before Iosif 1.

This, as you can probably tell, is a new launch vehicle. It is called Presto, originally because of its high TWR. However, we ditched the SRBs, so the name is a bit less appropriate, but it's still okay. It is capable of launching around 5 tons to LEO. The first stage is powered by 2 H-1 engines and the second stage by 4 RL-10s (oof that's an expensive stage). It has been designed to replace Fortissimo (noooo Fortissimo!). Fortissimo, debuting 15 years ago, was an amazing launch vehicle with many firsts under its belt. However, the design has begun to show its age, and its flaws will not go away without a major redesign. It is also *juuust* a bit too small to launch our preferred payloads to the lunar surface or interplanetary space. We designed Presto with fixes to these, and other problems in mind.

First, Presto is designed to be more reliable than its predecessor. Fortissimo, aside from the solid rocket boosters and early AJ-10 second stage, cannot tolerate an engine failure at any point in flight. Presto can't tolerate a first stage failure, but it can tolerate a second stage engine out. It also has fewer stages in general, with Fortissimo arguably having three and a half to orbit (although S1 is usually referred to as the boosters, not to be confused with the actual optional SRBs). Third, it uses more modern engine technology in general. The current RL-10 iteration is kind of dicey, but it will get far more reliable at its next upgrade.

Second, Presto is designed to be quicker and easier to fly than Fortissimo. Aerodynamic flipping was a big problem for Fortissimo with its high side area and relatively low gimbal range. Presto should be a bit better at that, requiring less babysitting. It requires fewer control inputs, has less parts, is more stable under physics warp, has a higher TWR, and a lower burn time than Fortissimo, therefore it will have less personal time burden per launch than Fortissimo. Also, fewer parts, so less lag.

Third, Presto has a higher payload capability than Fortissimo, at 5 tons rather than ~4 tons (upgraded from the first version with 2.5 tons) while still fitting on the same size launch pad. This will allow us more margin on small missions as well as Nebula missions.

Basically, it boils down to user-friendliness, reliability, and quality of life.

Unfortunately, there is a tradeoff. Presto is more expensive than Fortissimo, and takes longer to build. However, this should be insignificant compared to the benefits.

Fortissimo isn't going away just yet, though. Until Presto proves it is reliable enough for manned missions, Fortissimo will still fly Nebula capsules to LEO.

Anyways, as I was saying: The Presto test flight launched on October 30.

It carried a 5 ton dummy payload to Low Earth Orbit, then de-orbited, testing the release mechanism on a suborbital trajectory.

The mission was a complete success!

We are planning on using Presto to complete a lot of the early satellite contracts we skipped over so that we can unlock some of the more lucrative ones.

However, it is kind of overpowered for at least the early ones.

Presenting, Presto S! We basically took a Presto and cut it in half - half of the engines and half of the tank length. It will launch around 2 tons to LEO. The only issue is that I forgot to give the first stage roll control, but the first three are already ordered so I'll fix it later. Not a huge issue.

This mission, which launched on December 4, launched the Halo 8 weather satellite into orbit for a contract.

The second stage also relit several times to test reliability across restarts.

On December 9th, the Ruiz 4 space probe flew by Ceres. There was a course correction months earlier that we didn't show, we may not have had screenshots.

It looks a lot different than I thought it would.

Now that there is enough room in the schedule to breathe, we finished out the year with two suborbital training missions on I-3 STEVE 04 Astra.

First up was Diana Dean, who reached 164 kilometers.

However, she almost didn't make it back to land, as she was gliding slower than anyone has ever gone in the Astra, and was only 9 meters above sea level when she reached land.

Landing Gear black magic still makes it very, very difficult to put down properly. Quickloads were used on every landing of this thing.

On December 21, Alexei Tereschenko flew the Astra on its third flight to an altitude of 182 kilomters. He tried to relight the engine to put him on a better landing trajectory, but the engine failed.

Fortunately, he managed to glide the distance back to Omelek Island.

Instead of landing on land, however, he tested if water landings would be easier than land landings by splashing down just offshore.

The jury is still out, but as we didn't have SAS for this landing and the Astra was never designed for this, sea landing may prove more practical than land landing!

And that's it for 1977!

Unfortunately, Arthur Vargas, veteran of the Legend program, the Starbright program, the Moonlight Sonata program, the STEVE program, the STEVE II program, the Nebula program, and the Icarus program, has retired this year. He will be missed among the astronaut ranks, although he promises to attend launches as often as practical!

There was a Mars window this year, but we completely skipped it to focus on the time consuming Icarus and Iosif programs.

 

 

Summary:

Tiny space station! 4 people spend a month in space! We failed to land on Venus but have two new comms orbiters! Our first flybys of Jupiter, Europa, and Ceres! Presto and Presto S, two brand new 5t and 2t launch vehicles to eventually replace Fortissimo and Forte! Two more STEVE flights!

Launches: 10. 9 successes, 0 partial failures, 1 failure. Considering that the failure was the Venus lander, which was still experimental-ish, I would consider this an extremely successful year!

The large notional 1978 rover has approval to proceed with construction, and will hopefully launch next year. It will likely be called Statnik 17/Journey 2.

Our Venus communications network is scattered and not designed to function as a network, but should be good for everything we'd reasonably want to do there. Mars, on the other hand, we will want to expand coverage there. We still need to scan it, maybe scan Phobos and Deimos, land on Phobos, and land a lander that isn't just the four or five lightest experiments on Mars.

We are saving up for either the next VAB upgrade or the next Astronaut Complex upgrade, both are 5 million.

As you can tell, we went with 2 Iosif probes instead of 3, but both are still successful so far!

 

Next year should be fairly productive. Hopefully I didn't jinx it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Notebook Space Program - For Immediate Release

We choose to go to the Moon!

Spoiler

Adapted from President Kennedy's Moon Speech, severely condensed

 

Spoken by NSP Chief Engineer and Administrator Stephen Peters

 

President Carter, Mr. Vice President, Mr. Statnik, Mrs. Yolkina, Sir Vargas, Mr. Lavrov, scientists, distinguished guests, and ladies and gentlemen:

I am delighted to be here, and I'm particularly delighted to be here on this occasion.

We meet at a building noted for knowledge, at a space center noted for progress, on an island noted for its ambition, and we stand in need of all three, for we meet in an hour of change and challenge, in a decade of hope and fear, in an age of both knowledge and ignorance.

This is a breathtaking pace, and such a pace cannot help but create new ills as it dispels old, new ignorance, new problems, new dangers. Surely the opening vistas of space promise high costs and hardships, as well as high reward.

So it is not surprising that some would have us stay where we are a little longer to rest, to wait. But this city of rockets, this island of Omelek, this organization of scholars was not built by those who waited and rested and wished to look behind them. Gravity was conquered by those who moved forward - And so will much more.

If this capsule history of our progress teaches us anything, it is that man, in his quest for knowledge and progress, is determined and cannot be deterred. The exploration of space will go ahead,  and it is one of the great adventures of all time, and no organization which expects to be the leader in science and technology can expect to stay behind in the race for space.

Those who came before us made certain that Kerlington College rode the first waves of the industrial revolutions, the first waves of modern invention, and the first wave of nuclear power, and this generation does not intend to founder in the backwash of this present age of space. We mean to be a part of it - And if KABOOM wasn't so fast, we'd mean to lead it! But, alas, second will have to do. For the eyes of the world now look into space, to the moon and to the planets beyond, and we have vowed that we shall not see it governed by not just one banner of freedom and peace, but by all of them!

Yet the vows of this planet can only be fulfilled if we, as a planet, not only have firsts, but seconds and thirds!  What use is exploration if we stop after the first time? This island, this community of scholars, we intend to be second. In short, our leadership in science and in industry, our hopes for peace and security, our obligations to ourselves as well as others, all require us to make this effort, to solve these mysteries, to solve them for the good of all men, and to become one of the world's leading space-faring organizations.

There is no strife, no prejudice, no national conflict in outer space as yet. Its hazards are hostile to us all. Its conquest deserves the best of all mankind, and its opportunity for peaceful cooperation many never come again. But why, some say, the moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask why climb the highest mountain? Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic? Why does Kerlington play Wallops?

We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon  before the end of 1981 and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.

It is for these reasons that I regard the decision 36 years ago to shift our efforts in space from low to high gear as among the most important decisions that will be made in the history of Kerlington.

In the last few years, we have seen facilities now being created for the greatest and most complex exploration in Omelek's history. We have felt the ground shake and the air shattered by the regular launches of many a Crescendo booster rocket, many times as powerful as the Fortissimo which launched Sergei Lavrov, generating power equivalent to thousands of automobiles with their accelerators on the floor. We have seen the site where the LR-87 rocket engines are clustered together to make the advanced Crescendo launch vehicle, assembled in this great building we stand in the shadow of.

Within these last 36 years, hundreds of satellites have circled the Earth. Some of them were "made in Omelek" and some by KABOOM, but it matters not the speed of our efforts, but the driving ambition we all have to join into the exclusive league of programs exploring deeper into the uncharted reaches of deep space.

The Iosif spacecraft, now on their way to Jupiter, Saturn, and beyond, are the most intricate instruments in the history of the Notebook Space Program.

Halo satellites are helping our ships at sea to steer a safer course. Some have given us unprecedented warnings of hurricanes and storms, and will do the same for forest fires and icebergs.

We have had our failures, but so have others.

To be sure, we are behind, and will be behind for some time in manned flight. While we may never pull ahead, we shall keep moving forward, joining our KABOOM friends in the continued exploration of deep space.

The growth of our science and education will be enriched by new knowledge of our universe and environment.

The space effort itself, unbelievably still just started, has already created a great number of new companies, and tens of thousands of new jobs. Space and related industries are generating new demands in investment and skilled personnel, and this Island, and this region, will share greatly in this growth. What was once the furthest outpost on the old frontier of the ocean will be the furthest outpost on the new frontier of science and space.

But if I were to say, my fellow citizens, that we shall send to the moon, 240,000 miles away from the control station in Omelek, two giant vehicles, made of new metal alloys, some of which have not yet been invented, capable of standing heat and stresses several times more than have ever been experienced, fitted together with a precision better than the finest watch, carrying all the equipment needed for propulsion, guidance, control, communications, food and survival, on an untried mission, to an unknown celestial body, and then return it safely to earth, re-entering the atmosphere at speeds of over 25,000 miles per hour, causing heat about half that of the temperature of the sun--almost as hot as it is here today--and do all this, and do it right, and do it first before the end of 1981--then we must be bold.

However, I think we're going to do it, and I think that we must pay what needs to be paid. I don't think we ought to waste any money, but I think we ought to do the job. And this will be done within four years. It may be done while some of you are still here at school at Kerlington. It will be done during the term of office of some of the people who sit here on this platform. But it will be done. And it will be done before the end of 1982.

I am delighted that this island is at the forefront of our efforts to put a man on the moon as part of a great effort of Kerlington College.

Here is how we will do it:

We will take our Nebula space vehicle, the pinnacle of our manned spaceflight technology, and we will send it around the Moon using our massive Crescendo launch vehicle and our Hydrogen Earth Departure Stage. This seems like a flight of fancy, but we have already done it!

That secret mission we launched, back in May of last year, was an uncrewed test flight of the Nebula Lunar Mission Profile.

It successfully entered low Lunar orbit, practiced operations, and then returned safely to Earth.

Two more are under construction as we speak - One, to launch in the coming months, as a second uncrewed demonstration of the system, and Two, to launch two astronauts to Lunar orbit!

When the day comes, a Nebula capsule will rendezvous with a lander, like the one shown here, and one astronaut will make the perilous journey down to and back up from the lunar surface.

This lander will be tested out in Low Earth Orbit first, by crew, in the vicinity of our next generation space station, which we plan to launch in the year 1979!

In the coming months, we will launch a massive rover to the surface of the moon. Its mission is not purely robotic, no, it will transport astronauts around on the surface of the Moon, both for scientific operations and in the event of an emergency, either to a backup lander,

*Picture is old, rover has been modified

Or to our first Lunar base, which will be packed with months of life support in case of an event necessitating a rescue mission!

While these efforts, the core of which utilizes under 50 tons of payload in Low Earth Orbit, may seem feeble compared to the massive missions undertaken by KABOOM, fear not, for after this program is completed, we aim to succeed it with far larger vehicles, although that is an announcement for another time.

Many years ago the great British explorer George Mallory, who was to die on Mount Everest, was asked why did he want to climb it. He said, "Because it is there."

Well, space is there, and we're going to climb it, and the moon and the planets are there, and new hopes for knowledge and peace are there. And, therefore, as we set sail we ask God's blessing on the most hazardous and dangerous and greatest adventure on which man has ever embarked.

Thank you.

 

 

 

[KerballingSmasher]

WHAT A SPEECH!

[fulgur]

Hooray! You choose to go to the Moon!
Also, thanks for getting 'Murder Most Foul' by Dylan [about Kennedy's death] stuck in my head...

[Ultimate Steve]

Notebook Space Program - 1978

People in Lunar Orbit!

Spoiler

The first flight of the year was the fourth flight of the Astra Suborbital Testing Vehicle. Viktoriya S. took it up to 166 kilometers in altitude on March 16.

This was another test of water landing, and through analysis (read: number of quickloads required for a survivable landing) we have determined that water landing is a far safer option, especially considering the remarkable bounce characteristics of the Astra's hull.

Next, on March 25, was the Nebula Lunar Test Flight Number Two. This would be the second unmanned test of the system that will carry our astronauts around the moon.

Here you can see the 3 meter heat shield. Unfortunately, the mod set does not have 2.5 meter heat shields, and tweakscale is buggy, so it is going to look odd, but as proven by the first test, it works.

There was debate on whether or not to crew this mission, but after how badly the earlier Nebula flights went, we decided it would be prudent to repeat the test flight, even though nothing went wrong during the first one.

This test flight was successful except for the fact that the landing zone was outside of communications range, so the parachutes could not be deployed. This led to the capsule violently crashing. Due to an earlier experience, I am kind of distrustful of RealChute arming, which is why I didn't do it here. I'll give it another chance soon though.

However, as this is only a problem for uncrewed craft, the go-ahead was given for a crewed mission. This mission was recorded as a partial success.

Astronauts Gary Reed and Stephen Simmons launched on board Nebula LM1 (Lunar Mission 1) on May 10. Shortly after liftoff, one of the Crecendo's main engines lost performance, so it was shut down.

The Crecendo's third stage placed the spacecraft safely in orbit. The EDS-H fired, taking the crew of two to TLI.

EVAs for scientific observations were performed.

At Periapsis, the LOI stage was fired, successfully placing the spacecraft into Low Lunar Orbit.

Much science was done in orbit, and even more staring out of the window. However, after a few orbits, it was time to go home. The last of the LOI stage's fuel was fired, and then the Nebula's service module fired to take the crew home.

The splashdown was successful, making Gary Reed and Stephen Simmons the second and third NSP astronauts to complete a lunar mission.

Next up, on June 7, was flight 5 of the Astra, this time with Alan George on board. After modifications in an attempt to fix the center of mass problems (leading to flips at high altitudes) Alan was able to achieve an altitude of 284 kilometers, far higher than any flight before, and higher than most, if not all, Legend-M flights.

However, Alan lost  control on re-entry, partially due to the high speed, and the Astra disintegrated.

Fortunately, the capsule and parachute survived (attached with the finest of magical spells) and Alan was able to safely parachute to a landing in the ocean.

A replacement was ordered, but the astronauts were getting annoyed. It had been years since they were hired and the suborbital testing program was supposed to be over by long before now. For example, Stephen Simmons, who has completed a flight to Lunar orbit, has not had his suborbital flight yet, although before the Astra accident, he was next in line. The replacement will not be ready until 1979.

Next was the Venus window. As the Venus lander contract's deadline is fast approaching, we sent two landers this time. The first was the Egg 21 Venus Glider, which was the first interplanetary mission to launch on a Presto. It also featured the debut of an upper stage using that one weird AJ-10 config that uses pressure fed hydrolox. Interestingly enough, it seems to not have a TestFlight config at all and is probably 100% reliable. It is a lot less useful than other LH2 engines, though, so I won't abuse the reliability. It is just the one good size fit for this stage.

A glider was chosen as many of the problems we are experiencing with our landers will not occur on gliders.

This launch was on July 26.

Up next were two nearly identical missions, which both launched on Presto-S rockets. Halo 9 was launched on August 7 to complete the first navigation satellite contract (I think), and Halo 10 was launched sometime between August 7 and 22 to complete the first communications satellite contract. Both missions were successful.

Next up, on August 22, was the launch of the Egg 22 Venus lander. This is like the other landers we have sent, but we have made absolute sure that the chutes are Kevlar, and we are going to land on the night side to reduce heat loads. We will also properly operate the airbag this time.

On September 18, Halo 11 was launched, again on a Presto S, identical to the previous launches (except we swap out the various sat payloads in the payload tank for each contract). The mission, to complete an early navigation satellite contract, was successful.

Stephen Simmons, not wanting to wait for the next STEVE to be built, decided to take matters into his own hands. He assembled a team and went to the Air and Space Museum at the Smithsonian, asking to borrow the Legend 13/7 spacecraft on lease. They allowed it for free as the NSP were the original owners, with the explicit condition that it was to be used for display purposes only. It was a priceless antique, after all.

Stephen Simmons would use it for display.

...Of awesomeness.

On December 8, 1978, Stephen Simmons took flight on board the Legend 13E/7F mission, which used a capsule that had flown 6 times from 1955 and a booster that had flown 5 times from 1968. Somehow, the ancient spacecraft still functioned just fine, with the 10 year old RD-101 firing up, boosting the 23 year old capsule to an altitude of 235 kilometers.

Re-entry went smoothly.

And Stephen Simmons landed the vehicle back on the ground, ready to ship back to the museum, no dents whatsoever.

Err, except that one.

Stephen was immediately greeted by an out of breath accountant who was immensely glad that the priceless historical spacecraft hadn't been blown up, as they had forgotten to insure it.

 

Summary:

People around the Moon! Two lander missions to Venus have been launched and are in progress. A few satellite contracts have been completed. A few suborbital manned flights, including the breakup of the Astra and the return of the Legend.

Launches: 10. 8 successes, 1 partial failure, 1 failure. Definitely an okay year as far as reliability goes and a good year for total launches, although many of those were suborbital flights and many were small satellite launches.

The large 1978 lunar rover has been postponed until January of 1979. A delay, but not a major one.

Hopefully the Venus landers work, as we only have one more window after this one.

Literally all of the moon landing contract's advance was used to pay for the astronaut complex upgrade that would allow us to plant flags and complete the contract. We are still saving for the VAB upgrade, but barring catastrophe we should have the money sometime next year.

We are planning on launching a second space station late 1979 or early 1980 to complete longer stays in space and to test out the lunar lander in LEO. We might also complete another mission to Icarus Station. However, the build list is getting rather congested with hardware for various programs and it looks like the problem will get worse next year, so there is lots of room for the order to change.

Only two more astronauts haven't completed a suborbital flight yet, and both will hopefully do that on the next STEVE vehicle next year.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Ultimate Steve]

Notebook Space Program - 1979

AAAAGH DELAYSSSSSSS

Spoiler

The first launch of the year was Statnik 17/Journey 2, which was our attempt at a lunar rover, to be positioned ahead of a future manned mission. The launch was an unknown date in January.

However, while flying by the Moon, it was discovered that the first of the rover's braking stages had not been pressurized and as such the rover ended up stranded in Lunar orbit. Sigh... This mission was supposed to happen last year. Granted, we only missed it by a few days, but grrrrrrrrrrr.

If we ever need 8 man days of life support in lunar orbit, we know where to find it.

On February 6, Halo 12 was launched, a second generation navigation satellite, on board a Presto S. It was successful.

Two days later, on February 8, I-4 STEVE 05 Muse completed its first suborbital flight with astronaut Eugene Baker on board.

The mission was a partial success. Due to control issues, which will be ironed out by editing the vessel, the highest altitude reached was 136km, 4km short of the end of the RO atmosphere. Landing went well, though. The Muse likes to bounce!

Two days  after that, on February 10, the Egg 21 Venus Glider entered the atmosphere of Venus in an attempt to land. There was not enough fuel to slow down into orbit to aerobrake, as had been planned, so the entry was going to be very risky.

Nope, most of it exploded.

To add insult to injury, the heat shield, probe core, and RTG survived and shot right back out of the other side of the atmosphere into solar orbit. Granted the wings have more surface area, but we may not have been to brake into orbit at those altitudes even without heating issues. RIP. We can't even talk to it, it doesn't have an antenna any more.

We still have another lander coming in this window, though.

On February 20, Elvira Pogodina flew the slightly altered Muse spaceplane on its second flight to the record breaking altitude of 300 kilometers, making it, I think, the NSP's highest altitude crewed suborbital flight yet.

Landing was successful, but during the bounces, Elvira reported *gaining* speed. It was chalked up to "angry whales" but there could be something deeper...

Side note: During a scenario which I quickloaded from, upon splashdown the angry whales accelerated the Muse to a few kilometers per second. It promptly disintegrated.

On February 24, the Egg 22 Venus lander entered the atmosphere of Venus. On the way down it successfully completed the Venus Atmospheric Probe contract.

The air bag was deployed correctly, but it led to the probe being unstable. Hopefully the parachute would correct that. Also something is on fire.

Except, the chute, which I double checked was Kevlar, melted again and the lander crashed. Grrrrrrr. Maybe the chute is so small that it is getting overwhelmed due to its small mass? I'll try a larger chute in the future, but, well, the thing is, we only have one more Venus window until the contract expires. We need to get it right or the space program might actually be doomed for real this time.

That's going to delay our manned lunar landing further, as now at least 4 months, likely more, of build time will be dedicated to just Venus hardware instead of Moon hardware.

Grrrrrrrrrrr.

Next up, a mission which we weren't supposed to do, Statnik 19/Journey 4. We skipped 18/3 because it is coming, but launched out of order. The lunar rover contract we accepted for the manned rover will expire before the replacement, so we are sending another small Journey 1 type rover.

We were really close to running out of fuel on the landing, but we stuck it, somehow. The date for the mission went unrecorded.

 

As for a positive note, between the months of March and May ish (probably longer, the SOI is huge), the Iosif 1 and 2 probes completed their flybys of Jupiter, and are now on courses to intercept Saturn!

Not much new science was gained as a Ruiz probe visited here before, but some high biome based stuff was gotten. No moons were flown by, as that would mess with our delicate flyby trajectory.

There were several commsat launches which I'm not going to post pictures of as they are all the same.

May 14 - Halo 13 Weather sat. Success!

June 12 - Halo 14 Comms Test sat. Success!

July 11 - Halo 15 Molniya sat - Failure due to an upper stage RL-10 not re-igniting. The engine angle was not enough to compensate with a single engine. This orbit is fairly energetic, so the sat couldn't make up the difference on its own.

August 12 - Halo 16 Molniya sat 2. Success this time!

This gives the Presto series around 90% reliability, which is really good by our standards, and acceptable for real life 1979 standards, actually.

Next up was Statnik 18/Journey 3, our replacement manned lunar rover, now with properly pressurized tanks! The launch was on October 24.

Descent stages 1 and 2 fire.

And, a successful landing! Let's hope that the first lunar mission will land there before the solar panels completely degrade.

The final launch of the year was the Egg 23 Mars lander, on November 27.

It was the first flight of the next block (I think Block III but might be Block IV) of the Crescendo lifter. However, the fuel mixture on the first stage was off. Bad news, as I've already ordered several like this and it would be a lot of work to change all of them.

The real problem, however, was that the third stage did not ignite.

The EDS tried to make up the difference, but couldn't.

Imagine the surprise of that South African kid who witnessed a Mars lander land in his family's field...

The only reason we accepted the Mars lander contract is because we really needed the advance as we are not doing the greatest financially right now. However, with this failure, we will have to do another mission to finish it. This might interfere with our Moon plans even more.

 

Summary: Suborbital Training, Jupiter Flyby, Lots of Satellites, three Moon Rovers (2 successful), and two failed Venus landings along with a failed Mars lander launch. Lots of delays for various projects.

Launches: 11. 8 successes, 1 partial failure, 3 failures.

We got the VAB upgraded! Next up is R&D, which we are close to maxing out. However, we will likely not have the necessary 4 million funds for a while. The moon landing contract only pays a bit above 2 million...

The Moon program is experiencing considerable troubles. The failure of the first moon rover pushed us back a few months, and the need to repeat the Venus missions will push us back a few more.

We have finally completed the goals for 1978, though, but none of the goals for this year. We stand about a year behind where we are supposed to be.

Fortunately, I anticipated this, and based my notional lunar landing schedule off of a landing in late 1981, giving us a year of margin for the 1982 date. However, we still have three years to slip further and not much margin...

Next year, we will see the final launches of our first satellite spam. This should free up some build time for Moon related stuff.

Next year we also expect to complete one more mission to Icarus Station, and launch our next generation station and some missions to it. I cannot go into the details (spoilers) but this was originally supposed to be done this year, and now it is late next year... grrrr.

I may have to trim some test missions from the plans in order to meet the 1982 deadline.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Ultimate Steve]

Notebook Space Program - 1980

What's that you said about schedule slip?

Spoiler

On February 4, Nebula 7 launched with Alexei Tereshchenko and Diana Dean. Their mission was to spend a bit over two weeks in space and prepare Helios Station for de-orbiting.

For processing reasons, the docking adapter was launched although it was not used on this mission.

After two weeks of science and preparations, the engines on both Nebula 7 and Helios Station were fired to de-orbit the pair.

No pictures were taken of the station during its disintegration, but the Indonesians certainly got quite the light show. RIP Helios Station.

The landing surprised several beachgoers. On the plus side, crew egress went significantly faster than normal.

The landing was on February 20.

The next launch was Golden Halo 1, the first of 3 satellites that would form an early communications network. The exact launch date went unrecorded, sadly.

The mission was a success, though.

Next, two more attempts to land on Venus! The contract was very close to expiring and these vehicles would be our last chance. It was a gamble, but we put all of our eggs (haha) in one basket, sending three nearly identical Venus gliders.

The first was Egg 25, which launched on March 21, countdown day (3/21) on board a Presto. This might be Presto's first interplanetary mission, I don't remember.

The second was the larger Egg Drop multiglider, which launched on a Crescendo, carrying two Venus gliders. It launched on April 5, one day after Golden Halo 2, which launched on the fourth. Golden Halo 3 launched on the 26th, completing the Golden Halo constellation.

On September 21, 1980, Egg 25 approached Venus...

After slowing down as much as possible, the re-entry began.

And this time, it made it through the atmosphere intact!!!

The glider flew around, gathering science, before gently coming in...

...And coming to a gentle stop on its landing skid!

We have finally landed on Venus!!!

The next launch was Olympus Station. It was to be a very ambitious station, aiming to sustain crews for 90 days, test resupply missions and expansion, serve as a testing ground for lunar lander designs, and just in general, not be terrible like Helios Station often was.

Unfortunately, the mission was crippled by the failure of a center engine shortly after liftoff, and Olympus Station, launching on September 21, only just barely made it to orbit by expending all but a bit of its stationkeeping fuel, and a weird orbit at that.

At this point, though, any orbit will do.

Next up was Nebula 8, the second to last launch of Fortissimo ever. Its crew of two, Diana Dean and Alan George, took flight on September 22.

On this mission and Nebula 9, the adapters will be used and attached to Olympus Station.

The docking was successful!

So much room inside compared to Helios!

On September 25, the Egg Drop Multiglider attempted to reach orbit, but due to fuel and attention constraints it only made a very elliptical orbit and one of the gliders was lost.

Also on the 25th, a prototype lunar lander, named Celestia, was launched to Olympus Station on board a Presto for in-space tests and checkouts.

Soon after that, the last surviving glider from the Egg Drop probe attempted to land, but burned up in the atmosphere.

Next, on November 11, 1980, was the last flight of the Fortissimo launch vehicle, lofting Nebula 9 with Eugene Baker and Elvira Pogodina. I have a love-hate relationship with Crescendo. It is untrustworthy, unstable, unreliable, nearly failure intolerant, and a pain, but it has also accomplished so much.

So, to this 18 year old launch vehicle, I say thank you, I love you, and good riddance!

Olympus station looking pretty busy with three spacecraft docked to it.

I forget who did this, but one of the pilots present on the station took the Celestia lander prototype for its planned free-flight.

After that, having pushed duration records further forwards, Diana Dean and Alan George returned to Earth in Nebula 8 on November 23.

On December 20, Iosif 2 flew by Saturn, snapping many wonderful pictures, offering the world an early Christmas present. By now, KABOOM had a dedicated orbiter and had landed on Titan, but the more the merrier.

Beautiful, just beautiful.

I'm not crying, you are.

On December 21, Nebula 9 returned to Earth with Eugene Baker and Elvira Pogodina safely inside. After they left, most of the remaining fuel on the Celestia was used to stabilize the orbit of Olympus Station. Celestia was originally planned to be de-orbited, but due to Olympus's fuel situation, it will remain docked indefinitely as a makeshift service module. A real one may be added at some point, especially as Celestia was never designed for long term use.

The final launch of the year occurred that same day, the Lunar Emergency Base. As outlined in the plan, this base provides enough life support for one person to survive on the lunar surface long enough for a rescue mission to be launched. Its use case is limited, but really, we've already paid for it, may as well launch it even if it only has a 1/10 chance of ever being needed.

The landing happened on December 26.

It wasn't the greatest of landings, but it was a landing nevertheless.

 

Summary: Some satellites, a successful Venus landing, a small emergency Moon base, a new station, and lots of focus on crewed LEO missions.

Launches: 11 if I counted correctly. 9 successes, 1 partial failure, 1 failure.

Still waiting on the money for the research and development upgrade. Will likely come after the first successful Moon landing.

I think we're finally through with the Moon program delays.

Much of next year is nebulous, besides the Iosif 1 Saturn flyby, and the corrections of both Iosif probes for their Uranus flybys. However, one thing is for certain.

 

Viktoriya Skorokhodova and Viktoriya Abramova will embark on a voyage to the moon on board Nebula Lunar M2.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Ultimate Steve]

Notebook Space Program - 1981, Up Until March 11

One Small Step

Spoiler

Approximately February 24, 1981.

The Celestia 1 lander launches from Omelek Island.

After a fairly standard transfer burn, hampered by severe issues with the RL-10 engines, the Celestia 1 limped its way to the Moon.

There, it waited for NLM-2 to arrive.

March 2, the two Viktoriyas blasted off on board Nebula Lunar M2, beginning their journey towards the Moon.

Despite some minor issues, the ascent and transfer phase went remarkably well.

After a brief rendezvous, Viktoria Skorokhodova EVAd over to Celestia 1, leaving Viktoria Abramova to command the Nebula.

Officially, the mission was a test, only to proceed with landing if absolutely everything went right. At the first sign of danger, Viktoriya would abort, leaving the planned "first" landing for the next crew. However, Viktoriya was determined to make it work, problems or not.

Fortunately, the crasher stage did its job well, and Viktoriya carefully piloted the Celestia further down, closer and closer...

Omelek, the Celestia has landed!

"We made it!"

Although she couldn't stay long, Vik S. explored the area around her landing site, gathering samples. However, then, a KABOOM astronaut started doing donuts around the Celestia in his much larger, much more advanced rover. Viktoriya loudly proclaimed "COME ON, LET US AT LEAST HAVE THIS MOMENT!" and the driver backed off, dropping a congratulatory letter from the airlock as he went.

I can't decipher this, but if someone could that would be great.

-An overly emotional me.

I would like to dedicate this mission to the memory of Jen Johnson, a guide and beacon to many, and perhaps the only good math teacher at my high school. If I had to take Calculus under any of the other teachers, I certainly would not have gotten very far. She unexpectedly passed away recently. Godspeed, Jen, you shall be remembered.

After her brief stay on the surface, Vik had to leave to go meet up with the other Vik. After saying her goodbyes to our nearest celestial neighbor, she lit the ascent engines and ascended into the heavens once more.

After a nominal ascent and rendezvous, the duo executed a burn that would return them to Earth.

Unfortunately, about halfway through the burn, they realized that Vik S. had left all of the science in the lander.

Major facepalm.

Too late to go back now, though!

Celestia 1 launch: February 24 ish.

NLM-2 launch: March 2.

Vik S's lunar landing: March 5.

NLM-2 return to Earth: March 11.

And with that, the story of the Notebook Space Program's distant second place finish in the race to the Moon comes to a close.

 

 

Summary:

Launches - 2. 2 successes.

GG

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[LittleBitMore]

Well done!

[Ultimate Steve]

Notebook Space Program - An Interlude

 

Spoiler

"What's next?" asked the aging Grigory Statnik as he watched the NLM-1 disappear over the horizon as the sun set.

"Well, orbital insertion, then TLI, and - " responded Professor Desmond, but was abruptly cut off.

"No, not with this mission... What about the next mission? Don't get me wrong, I'm excited for this, but are we doing much after this?"

"That's a tough question."

"So is all of rocket science."

"Well... We have vague notions of a lifter in the 200 ton lift class evolvable for Moon and Mars missions, but this is late 80s at its absolute best, with the high profile missions almost certainly not coming until at least the 90s."

"Perfect, can't wait!"

"Well... Mister Statnik - "

"Just call me Greg."

"Right. Greg, the space program won't make it that far."

"What?"

"All odds say we're overdue for a crippling blow. We're literally run through a university for Pete's sake, and - "

"That's no excuse."

"Right. I assume you want to know the real reason."

"Yes."

"You can't handle it."

"I handled spaceflight just fine."

"Well..."

"Tell me."

"The OP is going to college. He's an adult now. He already doesn't have much time and motivation for even his most popular stories, and its about to get a whole lot worse. He's about to have a life. Maybe it's fate or destiny or something, but in a few years, if all goes well, he'll be designing spacecraft for real, not in a laggy fantasy world full of lighting glitches and kraken attacks."

"I could have guessed that."

"You... could have?"

"Of course."

"Anyways... There won't be a "next." maybe continuing some minor lunar missions and overseeing the Iosif program to its end, but he won't have the time to get this save to the 90s unless college is a lot less busy than expected. He will never go interplanetary with crew."

"And by that you mean Mars?" asked Statnik.

"Yes. Too much time commitment, especially with the save as laggy as it is."

"Hmm... You see, the engineers thought of something a while back, just as a though experiment."

"What?"

"The easiest, most minimal manned interplanetary landing conceivable."

"Statnik, what is it?"

"It's called Starbright-Venus."

The two went into a nearby residence building to pore over the designs.

"I don't see an ascent vehicle."

"There is none. It's a one way trip down to the surface for one person with 30 days of life support and cooling. The margins are very borderline."

"But it would allow the OP to have done a manned interplanetary mission?"

"Yes, something he wants but would not have the time for otherwise. The only problem is, there's no ethical way to do it."

"True."

"A one way mission into what is basically Hell, cooped up all alone in a capsule for six months."

"Yeah. A dead end it would seem." At that moment, the door burst open, and a space program staff member came in with a wet, shivering, husk of a man.

"Blankets, do you have any blankets? Towels too! Actually towels first. And water!" said the staff member.

"Right away," said Professor Desmond, as he ran for the towels. Statnik helped the man into a chair and started up the fireplace. Desmond came back with all of the fabric he could find and the trio began drying the man off. Desmond again left to get the man a glass of water.

"Good heavens, what happened to you?" asked Grigory Statnik after it was clear that the man was capable of speaking.

"I fell off of a boat."

"And washed up here? In the middle of nowhere?"

"Well, I was going to Australia, but there was a storm, and as I said, I fell off."

"Ah. How long were you adrift? We can get you back on your way as soon as we confirm that you are okay."

"Oh, two days maybe?"

"Not long enough for hunger to have much of an effect."

"I could use more water, though."

"Right, I'm on it."

"What brought you to Australia?" asked Professor Desmond.

"I thought I'd quite like to see a Kangaroo again, then hike through New Zealand before I die." 

"Before you die?"

"Well I've still got months, but now isn't that a long story."

"We have a few minutes. The doctor is on his way, but if we need to airlift you out, the next plane won't be for a while."

"Well, do you really want to hear?"

"Absolutely."

 

The strange man proceeded to weave a tale, wonderful yet tragic, full of adventure, but to be harshly cut off. The man had inherited a fairly substantial sum of money after his parents had sadly died, which he used to travel the world, exploring, and experiencing all he could. He lived life to the fullest, and had stories of heroism, bravery, romance, charity, and far, far more. However, at a certain point, he had run out of places to go and things to see. This was about the same time that he had been diagnosed with a rare untreatable terminal cancer.

 

"I mean, it doesn't bother me too much. I've lived more in just one of my sixty years than many people live in a lifetime. It's a shame, though. I've seen nearly all of what can be seen, done nearly all that can be done. I have a year left in the world, and yet, the year doesn't have much left to fill that year."

"Oh come on, surely there must be something."

"No family, no friends, no loose ends, no adventures left to be had."

"You were going to see the Kangaroos and New Zealand again." The man looked at the ground. "What's wrong?"

"I, uh... It was no coincidence, me being outside in that storm, getting swept off the boat."

"Oh."

"Better way to go than sit around for a year with nothing to do. In retrospect, not my finest moment."

"You'd rather die than see what opportunites would await you in this last year?"

"No. Not any more. I contemplated lots over those two days, but the turning point was when I looked up and saw your rocket ship. Not only did it point me to nearby land, it... instilled a new sense of hope in me. That there might be adventures left to be had."

"Did you ever want to be an astronaut?"

"Yes, of course. But me? An astronaut? Get real. I've seen the right stuff, and I'm certainly not it. But I'd give my left arm to go to space, even if it meant certain fiery doom."

"Do you really mean that?"

"I do not kid around, Mr. Statnik."

 

Grigory Statnik looked at Professor Desmond. Professor Desmond looked at Grigory Statnik. Both of them looked back at the man.

 

"Sir," said Statnik.

"First of all, if you say yes, you can back out at any time at all," interjected Desmond.

"But if, and only if you are interested, well, there is an idea... What's your name?"

"Reed. Jimmy Reed."

"Well, Mr. Reed, we have a proposition for you."

"I'm listening."

 

 

 

Spoiler

Related, Mars One, although quite a dubious program, had over 2700 volunteers. I suspect volunteers for one way space missions in general would not be terribly hard to find, although it would still be morally questionable.

 

 

[Misguided Kerbal]

7 hours ago, Ultimate Steve said:

The OP is going to college. He's an adult now. He already doesn't have much time and motivation for even his most popular stories, and its about to get a whole lot worse. He's about to have a life. Maybe it's fate or destiny or something, but in a few years, if all goes well, he'll be designing spacecraft for real, not in a laggy fantasy world full of lighting glitches and kraken attacks.

Good Luck!

[Ultimate Steve]

Notebook Space Program - 1981, Part 2

Farewell, Mr. Reed

Spoiler

It was in early-mid 1981 that we started looking at what would be Nebula's replacement, at least for LEO operations. The first concept we came up with was a kind of mini-shuttle that could seat three.

We got as far as simulations, but unfortunately we couldn't get it to fly with any degree of stability, and Omelek is such a small target anyway that we would have had to aim for a large landmass like America, Africa, or Asia to have any hope of landing the thing. Ultimately, nothing came of this unnamed project.

On May 17, 1981, Iosif 1 passed by Saturn (periapsis).

Little if any science was gathered, as Iosif 2 had gotten most of the accessible stuff, but we got more neat pictures!

Next, on May 27, we finished the next research and development upgrade! But after that, the next launch wasn't until July 17. On that day, Nebula 10 launched on a Presto launch vehicle. I don't remember if this was the first Nebula-Presto, but it is one of the early ones. On board were Stephen Simmons and Viktoriya S, and their mission was to spend 90 days on board Olympus Station.

Surprisingly, not much went on in this timeframe due to us stockpiling stuff for interplanetary windows.

The capsule splashed down on October 15.

Next up, on October 16, 1981, with a fairing covered in as much lucky blue paint as the engineers could muster, was the groundbreaking and controversial launch of Starbright-Venus 1.

The one way launch of terminally ill cancer patient Jimmy Reed to the surface of Venus.

Select excerpts from the pre-launch press Q&A:

"Mr. Reed, how do you feel about dying alone on the most hellish world in the solar system?"

"Who needs people? And given the choice between dying here alone in a hospital bed and dying alone having become the first person on another planet, well, I think I know which one I'd choose."

"And Mr. Reed, how would you feel if we found out how to cure your cancer once you were already on Venus?"

"Ecstatic, I'd sadly be quite the drive from the nearest hospital, but I'd be so happy for the others that currently suffer from it. I would not wish it on my worst enemy."

"And what if the cancer kills you before Venus does? I'd heard it gets quite painful near the end."

"That is an inflammatory remark - " interjected the current program administrator.

"Cyanide!" cheerfully answered Jimmy.

"A lot of painkillers and medical supplies are onboard the spacecraft, but yes, as a last resort..."

"Are you going to beat KABOOM's manned Mars mission leaving in a few months?"

"Well, it isn't a race, but yes!"

"Jimmy Reed, how do you feel about being in such a cramped capsule for 7 months?"

"First of all, for the first 6 months I have the big hab module, quite a bit larger than Helios Station and a decent fraction of Olympus Station. Second of all, for the last month I can go outside. And lastly, I served on a submarine for three years."

"Mr. Reed, what is your opinion on chocolate pudding?"

"I prefer Vanilla."

"What do you say about the rumors that you intend to use your spacecraft to sabotage the new KABOOM space station?"

"You better watch out!"

"What is your plan to follow planetary protection protocols?"

"Launch before they stop us!"

 

On the ride to the launch pad:

"It's fairly easy to imagine you having second thoughts once you get up there," cautioned Grigory Statnik.

"I wouldn't worry about it," said Jimmy Reed.

"You have every right to call off the launch, and even then, you can call off the trans-Venus ejection burn and return to Earth until just before the end of the burn. After that, unfortunately we can't help you."

"You're so eager to get me to stay," chuckled Jimmy.

"Seeing the Earth from that high, it gives... A new perspective. I know your opinion of the current state of the world, and - "

"What do you mean? I just want to go to another planet, I'm not dissing this one."

"Look. Just know, we are only doing this if you are completely 100% sure you are willing to commit to it. Okay?"

"Yes, I'm sure," said Jimmy nonchalantly.

"Jimmy. Look at me. This is the most controversial thing to happen in the entire world in at least several months. I - "

"Grigory Statnik. Stop worrying. I want to do this. Sure, I'd prefer I didn't die, of course, but my time has come either way. I was ready to die before I saw that rocket fly. I had nothing left to live for. But you, you've given me almost everything I could ask for. A chance to explore a truly new frontier. A new purpose. Fame, too - A place in the history books. I won't be forgotten for as long as civilization exists if this goes right. The only thing missing from that list is love." Jimmy chuckled. "I understand and appreciate your caution, but I don't believe it is needed."

"Roger. Any last minute requests?" Statnik was referring to physical items, as there was still some space left on board (despite his numerous previous requests). Jimmy Reed thought for several moments before answering.

"Try and land me in a spot where I can watch the sunrise."

"I... I'll see what I can do." By now, the astronaut transport vehicle had reached the launch pad and Grigory Statnik was exiting the vehicle.

"Not going to lie, I am going to miss fresh air," he chuckled.

"I wish you all the luck in the worlds, Jimmy."

"As do I, Greg."

A few hours later, Starbright-Venus 1, having been named "Sunrise" by Jimmy Reed, lifted off from Omelek Island, on a journey to another world.

The ascent went perfectly. Jimmy even remarked that it was "less rough than expected." The mission was very, very tight Delta-V wise, so there was minimal waiting in LEO lest the cryogenic fuels boil off.

"Omelek to Sunrise, we are go for TVI. Are you?"

"Jimmy to James - "

"Actually I'm Leonard."

"Really, you sound like James."

"Nope, I'm Leonard."

"You sure?"

"Yes, Jimmy is manning the S1 console today."

"Oh, okay. Well, Leonard, Sunrise is go for TVI."

"But are you?"

"Hell yeah! I'm go, let's light this candle!"

Several minutes passed, and the EDS-H stage burned out.

"Omelek to Sunrise. Negative return in 10 seconds."

"Roger, Omelek."

"5. Last chance."

"Here we go."

"Omelek to Sunrise, Negative Return."

"Roger."

"Godspeed, Jimmy."

"And Godspeed, Earth."

 

==========

 

A small number of days later, Sunrise was in solar orbit and Jimmy Reed gathered a bunch of science, as he was, after all, the first person ever to visit. Now is a decent time to talk about how the ship works.

Sunrise is comprised of two main sections, the descent module and the service module. The service module provides maneuvering thrusters and a little bit of course correction fuel as well as antennas that can reach all the way back to Earth. It also carries a large 4 man crew cabin, used as a habitation module, and ~7-8 months of life support, although only six months would be needed. It's a bit of a pity that he will be in space for 170 something days, just short of the 180 days required for a large contract, but we aren't doing this for money or science, we are doing this so I can say I went manned interplanetary. The service module also housed the solar panels, which would power the spacecraft throughout its long journey.

The habitation part of the service module contains living quarters for Jimmy so he wouldn't be cooped up in that tiny capsule for 6 months on end. This is technically unnecessary, but I'm not that much of a monster to send him in a cramped capsule. It is basically a mini space station, containing everything needed to semi-comfortably survive for a few months.

The descent module would make the descent down to Venus from interplanetary speeds, making it the fastest NSP re-entry yet. The main habitation module is an updated Starbright/Mercury capsule, but with an added crew carrier on top as it has an airlock. Originally the plan was to do this with a Nebula/Gemini capsule, but it just didn't have the heat tolerance. Rudimentary RCS systems were also on board for descent, as were antennas that could connect to Earth through an orbiting Venus relay. An additional suite of science experiments was also carried, as this would be the second ever Venus landing if successful. Inside the crew carrier was an advanced space suit, specifically designed to be able to handle the temperatures and pressures of the surface of Venus.

The most important features on the descent module, however, were the parachutes and the life support systems. The parachutes had been heavily simulated, and the engineers were pretty sure that they would finally be able to survive Venus. There were also Earth return parachutes, but those were largely useless now. The life support system was specifically engineered for Venus and had the most advanced cooling system designed ever. There was a month's worth of oxygen, water, and food on board. However, the capsule's systems needed around 2kW of power to operate, and due to the clouds, Venus was not a great place for solar power. Fuel for the fuel cells would boil off too quickly. And RTGs were far too expensive for the number required. This meant that one months' worth of power for the descent module's systems was supplied completely by massive multi-ton batteries.

There were also ladders.

 

A few days into the mission, Jimmy Reed announced to the world that he was working on an album with the large amount of music equipment he had brought on board.

 

In the meantime, however, the space program pressed onward.

On November 27, the Celestia 2 lander was launched towards the moon in preparation for the NSP's second manned mission to the Moon.

It arrived successfully a few days later.

This next week or two was extremely busy. First up was Nebula Lunar Manned/Mission 3 (NLM-3) with Alexei Tereschchenko and Gary Reed on board. This mission would rendezvous with Celestia 2, which Gary Reed would pilot down to a specific biome attempting to complete a targeted lunar landing contract.

The launch went spectacularly!

However, the next Mars window happened right in the middle of this mission.

With this mission, however, we finally updated our old naming system. Instead of a confusing system based on retired astronauts that resulted in 20+ probes just named "Egg", we now have a system known as "ABC," similar to NASA's Flagship/New Frontiers/Discovery system.

A class missions are the most important, doing something epic and groundbreaking for the first time.

B class missions are still pretty important but have either been done before or are less important or groundbreaking in general.

C class missions are semi-routine missions that are not super groundbreaking and/or have been done before.

With this new system, there would be a prefix of A, B, or C followed by a sequential number, followed by a relevant name, followed by its purpose (sometimes in parentheses), unless its purpose was clearly defined in its name. A fictional example: "C3 Persephone (Lunar Comms Orbiter)".

 

During this Mars window, we launched two missions. The first, shown above, launching on Christmas Day on a Presto launch vehicle. This was called the C1 Egg 26 Mars Lander. This will hopefully be our last mission named Egg (Sorry, Miss Yolkina) and was only named Egg because this lander is a direct or near direct copy of the last Egg lander.

The next launch, on December 26, was the B1 Marshopper. Its goal was fairly ambitious, it would launch on a Crescendo launch vehicle and would attempt to land on and biome hop all around Phobos and Deimos.

In order to accomplish this, it had a (likely) one-off EDS variant designed, powered by the Agena engine with 3 ignitions for main manuevers, and two generic thrusters for minor course corrections (as to not mess up ignitions). The propellant was storable, and it would help greatly with Martian Orbit Insertion.

It was at this point that we discovered that the game doesn't calculate fuel cells in the background, meaning we have to switch back to this craft every day in order to tell the game "hey no we're not actually running out of life support, we just only have a 1 day buffer because the fuel cells make more."

Either way, shortly after Christmas, NLM-3 rendezvoused with Celestia 2, and pilot Gary Reed crossed over.

Unfortunately, due to positioning of the landing site and the orbits of both vehicles, and life support limitations, the landing had to be done during the dark.

On December 30, Gary Reed fearlessly descended towards the Lunar surface...

...And managed to set the lander at an unrecoverable angle. Any of the other 3 sides, it would have been fine, but the ladder was there, so it couldn't fall down to a better angle.

No matter, Gary went EVA anyways and collected the surface samples.

Despite the darkness and odd landing, the mission actually went pretty well.

"Any landing you can walk away from"

Fortunately, even at the odd angle, takeoff was possible.

Gary transferred back over to NLM-3 after 2-3 ish days on the surface, and he and Alexei began their journey back to Earth.

At this point we are in 1982, but since it will tie up this mission nicely, I'll poke a bit into 82.

The return to Earth, which occurred on January 6, 1982, was successful.

And unlike the first lunar landing mission, we remembered to bring back the surface samples this time!

 

Launches - 6. 6 successes, although 3 of them are technically still pending. This number was very surprising to me. I figured maybe I've been lucky, or maybe I'm finally at the tech levels where failures are rare. However, I was wrong. Sometime in there, my game crashed during a simulation and some of the sim rules got merged with the main save's rules. I eventually save-edited it back to normal, but for a significant number of months, TestFlight had inadvertently been disabled. I don't remember when I caught the problem, though.

 

As for the future of this save, I've been playing it a lot recently, probably more than is healthy, and I expect to lose most of that time in just a few short days when I move out, so there is a large chance that I will not play beyond early 1984 (current played to date). I have already gotten farther than expected. HOWEVER, I will still do a "what if" update knowing what I would have known in 1981, assuming I could play indefinitely.

Next year we have plans to launch a Jupiter orbiter. If all goes well, it will fly by all four major moons. The contracts for these milestones are *extremely* lucrative, and will hopefully pay for any major program we may kick off in the mid 80s.

We also plan on the next few years being very active as far as manned LEO activities go. We are now able to crank out Nebulas like crazy, and there *might* be so many flights next year that some astronauts may get to fly twice. Key objectives are completing several "2 man maneuvering" contracts and testing technologies needed for long term habitation at Olympus Station.

Jimmy Reed also lands next year if all goes well.

We also are thinking about a Mercury flyby probe, since our only other Mercury mission accidentally impacted.

 

Long term, however... We do have... Ideas... That would put us substantially ahead of real life.

 

Unrelated, but I ran the numbers, and apparently a single *seat* on Nebula mission costs roughly 278 million 2020 US dollars. Oof. Y'all should go easier on Boeing, 90 million is a steal compared to what I'm paying!

 

 

[Ultimate Steve]

Notebook Space Program - 1982

Independence

Spoiler

On January 20, 1982, the A1 Jupiter Orbiter, Scientific Exploration Platform Heavy (J.O.S.E.P.H.) launched on board a Crescendo launch vehicle. The launch went very well, and the mission is currently scheduled to arrive sometime in mid to late 1984. This is our first A class mission, and rightfully so, as it will gather data from all four of Jupiter's moons and take a look at Jupiter itself. This mission alone may very well net us several million funds, which will be useful for anything we do in the future.

Originally we were going to include a companion Jupiter entry probe, but unfortunately we don't have the mod that gives us the really good heat shields installed. Anything we send with current tech will simply burn up.

Next, on the very next day, January 21, Nebula 11 launched with Viktoriya Abramova and Diana Dean on board to complete a 2-man maneuvering contract.

Success!

"And that, viewers, is what fire does in microgravity."

"Jimmy, stop setting your spaceship on fire for your TV show!"

"And remember, my album drops the day after I land on Venus!"

Next up, on February 4, the Sunrise did a course correction burn. A few days later, on February 8, B1 Marshopper also did a correction burn.

The, on Pi day, March 14, Nebula 12 launched with Eugene Baker and Elvira Pogodina. Their job was to test techniques and technologies related to long term LEO habitation.

Shortly after liftoff, they docked with Olympus Station.

On March 17, they were joined by Hermes 1, a 5 ton resupply craft designed to carry 1 man-year worth of life support to Olympus Station. It launched on a Presto. The test was a smashing success, unloading went well.

April 10, 1982. Jimmy Reed performs science within the sphere of influence of Venus. Conversation was greatly hampered by light speed delay at this point, but there were some (very delayed) conversations.

"Jimmy, there's been an issue with the release of your album."

"Oh?"

"Some edge case legal mumbo jumbo with the US legal system. We're trying to sort it out, but for some reason the current US regulations are a bit... weird... about "made in the USA" albums being made, produced, etc. from outside of the US."

"Hmm. Ok. I think I have a solution."

"Which is?"

"Wait and see."

"You're not filling us with confidence."

"Ok, high Venus science complete."

"One more media question coming in, then we have to transition to full on descent mode. The question is, and we wouldn't ask you something so sensitive, but literally everyone is begging for this question, do you have any regrets about this?"

"Well, three things... One, I should have asked that girl... what was her name... Stacy... I should have asked her to the dance in sophomore year. Two, I should have asked you to make my keyboard small enough so I could take it into the descent module. Three, y'all didn't pack me enough cookies!"

Jimmy Reed, quite late, went EVA one last time, to gather science from Low Space around Venus, and to transfer into the descent module one last time.

"Wow."

After boarding the descent module, he went over final checks one last time, ensuring that the life support had been properly transferred to the descent module, before removing several protective seals and pressing the button that released the service module.

Definitely a planetary protection nightmare.

Ground control had expected to lose contact for a few minutes during re-entry. They would regain comms during the descent. Jimmy would likely have gone unconscious from the force of re-entry, but he would almost certainly be awake enough to pull the parachute lever.

However, upon the entry interface, communication ceased completely.

Minutes passed. Fifteen. Then thirty.

Then an hour.

Two.

It seemed like the Sunrise, and Jimmy Reed, had been lost.

Everyone sat somberly as the leader of the NSP gave a chilling speech to the gathered press mourning the premature loss of Jimmy Reed.

However, right in the middle of the speech, Jimmy's voice came in loud and clear over the radio.

"Jimmy here, y'all forgot to make sure the relay was in the right place!"

Everyone sighed with relief. It had been quite silly to forget about the fact that they couldn't relay data through the service module any more, as it had burned up, but the engineers were ecstatic that everything had worked. After the initial checkouts, the spacecraft appeared healthy. Some early science was gathered, and Jimmy Reed prepared to take his first steps on the surface of Venus - Humanity's first steps on another world.

Jimmy let go of the ladder. Mission control held their breath as they waited for Jimmy's prepared first words.

"I hereby renounce my citizenship of the United States of America. I hereby claim all the lands of this world, save for a 20 kilometer radius around all successful Venus landers to date except for this Sunrise lander, and a 50 kilometer exclusion zone around all crashed nuclear powered landers, in the name of peace, reasonableness, and sanity, in my own name of Jimmy Reed. I henceforth declare the formation of the Venusian Empire, and complete independence from Earth, and declare myself Emperor Reed the First of Venus!"

Everyone in mission control was shocked, to say the least. Someone piped up with "Hey, is he allowed to do that?"

"I present the Emperor's first three decrees. I hereby extend my friendship to all beings residing on planet Earth, and for that matter the rest of the Universe, known and unknown. I hereby declare the first law of Venus to be the unrestricted release of music from any musicians currently residing on Venus to anywhere in the known universe, including specifically all of Earth. And lastly, I declare that Ceres is a planet, and I may denounce those who do not agree!"

"Ceres?"

"And Vesta, too!"

"Vesta??"

"I currently do not recognize sovereignty of many nations across Earth, simply because I do not remember them all, so I'll make this simple. I will trade my recognization of your nation for yours of mine."

After a lot of subsequent investigation, it was determined that Jimmy, or rather, Emperor Reed I, did in fact have the legal authority to do what he was doing. The Outer Space Treaty only prohibited governments from claiming parts of other planets. Individuals could do so perfectly fine, and indeed, many had done so in the past. But unlike any of those people, Jimmy was actually there. The problem is, you're only a country if other countries recognize you. However, becuase of that crucial last few sentences, that would prove not to be a problem.

Nearly instantly, statements of recognition came in from nearly every disputed state in the world, kicking the Venusian Empire up in the ranks of recognition significantly. Then, the Republic of China recognized the Emipre, which led to the Empire recognizing them, which really ticked off the People's Republic of China, and the two bickered back and forth about who would be recognized as the right China, with both Chinas recognizing the Empire to save face.

At that point, a technicality was realized, the OST gave all countries the ownership of anything they launched, so the US technically owned the Sunrise. Emperor Reed proceeded to kindly claim it as his "palace." In order to avoid any legal or technical headaches, the United States gave the Sunrise to the Empire (Keeping the radio system as their embassy), but in order to do that, they had to recognize them. After the USA and the PRC, two major countries, recognized the Venusian Empire, many other countries soon followed within days.

There was a lot of confusion and a lot of "Wait, we can't let him do that!" but really, its not as if anyone could easily go to Venus to enforce anything, and its not as if anyone had the heart to tell the dying Emperor no.

The confusion was quite annoying, but everyone was too busy enjoying the Emperor's album to care much.

Although he had designed an official Venusian Empire flag, the only ones he had on hand were those of the NSP, so he planted that.

He sent many diplomatic gifts in the form of scientific observations to all humankind, and the Empire of Venus often engaged in trade, mainly with the USA, some of the Emperor's time (to do science) for new digital files from Earth, although, really, both parties were going to do that anyways.

And so, the time past. The life support actually drained slower than expected (there was a weird glitch) and Jimmy gained an extra thirteen Earth days over the thirty that had been expected.

And Jimmy Reed got that sunrise he asked for!  A bit hard to see through the clouds, but definitely there.

However, as the date of zero O2 drew near, Jimmy had to set up what would happen to the Venusian Empire after he was gone. He had, in the meantime, written a constitution and 437 laws (and counting), but his end-of-life, future-of-the-Empire decrees, in abbreviated form, can be found here:

 

1. The Venusian Empire will continue on.

2. The Second Venusian Emperor/Empress will be whomever walks on Venus next, provided they swear to (and do) uphold the Venusian ideals of peace, rationality, and sanity, and also swear to (and do) serve the citizens of the Venusian Empire to the best of their ability.

3. Succession, eligibility in general. In order to be defined as eligible for the crown, one must reside both on Venus and within the Venusian Empire, and must swear to (and do) uphold the Venusian ideals of peace, rationality, and sanity, and must also swear to (and do) serve the citizens of the Venusian Empire to the best of their ability. Additional notes about eligibility are enumerated in (8).

4. As for extended succession, upon the death of the Emperor/Empress, their firstborn son/daughter will be crowned Emperor/Empress provided they are eligible as defined in (3), unless they decline the crown. In that case, the next born son/daughter will be given the chance. If all sons/daughters of the former Emperor/Empress are dead, residing outside of the Empire and/or Venus, or decline the crown, or are otherwise ineligible, the chance for eligibility resets one generation back, to the previous previous Emperor/Empress's sons/daughters, which would likely be the brothers/sisters to the previous Emperor/Empress. If no Emperor/Empress is available before the current one, the chance for eligibility passes to the person who set foot on Venus directly after the Emperor/Empress. If they are deceased or decline or are otherwise ineligible, the chance for eligibility passes to whomever set foot on Venus next, et cetera. In the event that nobody is left in the Venusian Empire, (1) (2) - The Venusian Empire will continue on, and the next Emperor/Empress will be the next eligible person to walk on Venus. Edge cases in the succession guidelines will be voted on by the residents of the Venusian Empire. If no residents exist, the agencies responsible for clearing up edge cases in the British royalty's line of succession will assist.

5. Those residing within the Venusian Empire can, at any time, hold a popular vote to remove the current Emperor/Empress with a 50.0% majority. Eligibility will pass on according to (3) (4).

6. Although Reed I took his last name, it is advised that any Emperors/Empresses take their first name or a new name based off of a previous emperor, as everyone taking their last names will result in a lot of Emperors/Empresses named the same.

7. In the event that large-scale colonization of Venus begins, there is a large chance that the concept of an Empire and an all-powerful Emperor/Empress may become impractical and detrimental to those residing within the Venusian Empire. If the number of people residing in the Venusian Empire passes 10,000, a vote will be called. If 50.0% of residents vote in favor, the Empire will be replaced with a new form of government, preferably some form of Democratic Republic, although the details will be determined by the residents. In this case, the royal family and royal line of succession will continue on, but only as a ceremonial entity, with little or no real power. This vote will repeat every time the population multiplies by ten, at 100,000 residents, 1,000,000 residents, et cetera. This vote can also be called at any time, but 86.6% of the residents must vote in favor for the government to be replaced instead.

8. Do not come here seeking primarily fame, power, and/or resources/riches. My mission was one made possible by many unlikely factors, culminating in passable ethics. I do not wish to doom anyone to the same fate as I by providing them a shot at glory, so anyone who comes here primarily seeking fame, power, and/or resources/riches is hereby ineligible for the crown. If you come, come in the name of peace, science, exploration, rationality, sanity, and the betterment of all life. I will not place any eligibility restrictions for this last bit, but I highly advise you do not follow in my footsteps unless technology has significantly advanced to a point where return to Earth is reasonably possible.

9. I hereby grant permission to any and all peaceful, scientific, and exploratory spacecraft to land within and explore our territory without destruction. The owners of the spacecraft will retain ownership. Minor sample collection is allowed, but large scale resource extraction is not allowed unless it is necessary to save lives or to refuel a return spacecraft. Please be very careful with any nuclear material sent to Venus.

10. Oh, by the way, the national anthem is inside the Sunrise descent module. I'm not releasing it, so you're going to have to come here to find out what it is!

 

And then there was the final day. May 23, 1982.

Jimmy Reed chose to venture out to a nearby hill a few kilometers away which he had not been to yet.

It provided a grand, expansive view of the Venusian Surface. Who would have thought that a place so inhospitable and conventionally hell-like could be so beautiful, even in its desolation.

"I hereby declare this peak Mount Courage."

"To the people of Earth, I wish thee well, and despite the controversies surrounding this mission, I thank all who were involved for this opportunity. I'd stay longer, but if I do, it won't be Venus or lack of oxygen that kills me..." he chuckled.

"Anyway, goodbye to all, and Godspeed to... Wha... WHAT THE (#@!&$^(*& IS THAT??????"

There was a loud screech and instantly, all data links with Emperor Jimmy Reed I went dead.

Everyone sat in stunned silence for several seconds before someone asked "Aliens?"

Eventually, a consensus was reached that he was joking to keep us on edge and make us want to go back, and faked an alien kidnapping, likely spending his last half hour laughing hysterically having pulled possibly the greatest prank the solar system has ever seen... But that leaves the question, why would he cut it off that early with more than half an hour of life support left? But still, the possibility of an alien kidnapping couldn't be ruled out. More investigation was needed.

Anyways... I hate to jump right back into this year's operations after such a somber moment, but...

On that very same day, Viktoriya Abramova and Stephen Simmons launched into space on board Nebula 13. Interestingly, this was Viktoriya Abramova's second spaceflight in 5 months. There was one engine failure on ascent, proof that we've managed to fix TestFlight by now.

They met up with Nebula 12 at Olympus Station to test crew rotation operations and also assist with reconfiguring the station for important future operations.

The first thing that the combined crew did was detach the prototype/test version of the Celestia Lander (Sometimes referred to as "Celestia 0") and de-orbit it. It had served for quite a while as a de-facto service module for the station, and now it was far past its expected design life.

Farewell!

Next up, the Hermes 1 resupply vessel was moved to the aft docking port of Olympus Station. It was much better suited for use as a service module. When it wore out, it would simply be replaced with a new Hermes assuming it was still in service.

Next up, one of the Nebulas moved the forward docking adapter to the topside docking port in order to free up the forward docking port for a near future expansion module!

Yay, housekeeping!

On May 26, Hermes 2 was launched, another resupply craft. It wasn't especially needed, but it would be a good idea to keep supply levels significantly over what is required.

Next, on June 5, the Celestia 3 lander was launched to the Moon in preparation for our third manned Lunar landing.

I know this thread is crowded, but these are pretty good pictures.

On June 15, A1 JOSEPH did a course correction, and shortly after, on June 17, Nebula 12 returned to Earth, handing over full control of Olympus Station to the crew of Nebula 13.

Landing was successful!

Next up was the landing of C1/Egg 26, on June 26, 1982.

We were aiming to land in the polar ice cap region, but we missed.

Everything went well until right before we landed.

Oops, too fast.

We still survived long enough to transmit stuff, though.

That same day, June 26, the B2 "Venture" Mercury Flyby Mission launched.

Next up, NLM-4 with Diana Dean and Alan George on June 29, our third manned Lunar landing mission, and potentially our last.

The thing is, the Celestia lander is designed in a way that it requires a pilot. Engineers and scientists can't use SAS, and not taking avionics saves quite a bit of mass. Unfortunately, we only have 3 pilots, and it would be a bit unfair to let one of them go twice.

So, NLM-4 will likely be the last landing mission of the Nebula-Lunar architecture. However, this may not be true, as we have NLM-5 and Celestia 4 already mostly built in case a rescue is needed.

The only off-nominal thing about the launch was an engine out on the second stage. Also, hey, its smiley face island off to the left!

Pilot Diana Dean transferred over to the Celestia 3 lander once in low Lunar orbit.

We aimed for a  biome determined by a contract.

Aaaand, successful landing on July 2!

Diana stayed on the surface for nearly 3 days doing science.

In orbit, Alan George performed a plane change burn to realign closer to the landing site to make ascent easier.

At the end of the mission, due to the fact that we had to switch away, the landing timer reset for some reason, so we ended up cheat-completing the contract because of this unintended behavior. We dedicated the flag to "those we have lost." In the original flag I enumerated three of these people as we have had a fairly tragic time with this thing usually, but the flag went poof so I redid it and it was probably really late so I did it quickly.

Last "flag pose" picture for a long time, maybe forever.

And just like that, my last planned manned Lunar mission in RSS/RO/RP-1 takes off. Hopefully I'll have the time, opportunity, and motivation to come back, and enjoy it.

Diana Dean returns to her crewmate Alan George, and the two flew NLM-4 back to Earth.

But first, B2 Marshopper entered into the orbit of Mars.

And thus, NLM-4 has landed on the ninth of July, ending the series of missions set forth in the NSP flag itself. Again, hopefully we will come back.

Over the next few weeks (some of this happened before the last things even) the Marshopper toured the Mars system.

On an unknown date, it landed on Deimos, making it our second ever Deimos landing and our first planned one!

Unfortunately, well... Due to reckless piloting, an unexpectedly tough transfer and plane change burns, and a variety of other factors, we are running very low on fuel. If we do not biome hop on Deimos, we just might barely be able to make it to Phobos... You know its bad when you can't biome hop on *DEIMOS*. However, we have a Phobos landing contract, and we already have too much science stockpiled because we're waiting on an R&D upgrade. Even though I really wanted to check out the polar spike, I decided to try for Phobos instead.

Unfortunately, the fuel margins were so slim, we had to lithobrake at roughly 20-30m/s. Fast enough that we were worried about bouncing off of Phobos and back into Martian orbit.

The Marshopper crashed into Phobos, and... bounced. And bounced again. And again and again.

During this time, we were able to observe that Phobos is apparently shaped kinda like Minecraft.

Eventually, however, missing a lot of equipment and just barely able to sustain power, the Marshopper came to a rest and gave us quite a bit of science from Phobos, but more importantly completed the Phobos landing contract!

The landing/lithobraking was July 11.

This must be one of the few times anyone has practically and semi-purposefully used lithobraking interplanetarily in RSS.

Next up, on July 31, Nebula 14 launched with Alexei Tereschchenko and Gary Reed on board. The mission was to do another maneuvering mission. They splashed down around a week later, successfully!

Shortly after that, on August 10, Nebula 13 departed Olympus Station, leaving it uncrewed, and also returned to Earth.

Then, on October 2, 1982, Nebula 15 launched with Viktoriya S and Eugene Baker on board. Lots of human spaceflight related things this year, and right now a lot of Nebulas in rapid succession! They completed another LEO mission.

On October 10, the B2 Venture spacecraft flew by the planet Mercury, making it our first completely successful spacecraft to do that ever!

Next up, on October 15, was the "Olympus Station Habitation Integration Test." It was basically an expansion for Olympus Station, which would triple the habitable volume!

A cage-like formation was used to avoid leaving RCS thrusters on the station itself.

Docking was successful!

The spikes attacked again, but on December 3, Alexei Tereschenko and Gary Reed, having flown together earlier in the year on Nebula 14, launched on Nebula 16, and would be attempting to stay on Olympus Station for 6 months, completing that contract and also verifying that the new module, the Olympus Station Habitation Integration Test, was functioning correctly.

I would love to have more astronauts so I don't unfairly fly each of them into space over five times each, but unfortunately due to... reasons... I can't really afford many more at the moment.

Docking was successful! Undocking and descent is scheduled for sometime during May or June 1983.

 

We were going to have another launch this year, the B3 "Sonder" Pluto flyby mission on December 22, but the game ate it for some reason. It probably wouldn't have had enough Delta-V anyway.

 

Summary: Too much to summarize in a few sentences. Lots of Human Spaceflight (One Moon Landing, Venus Landing, lots of LEO, station expansion) and lots of probe stuff too, like Phobos lithobraking and Deimos landing and a Mars landing and a Mercury flyby and AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Launches: 13. 13 successes!

 

As for my plans for next year, its all going to be minor things. More manned LEO stuff, maybe some minor planetary probes, likely some satellite contract spam to try to get closer to the good stuff...

Absolutely nothing big is planned for next year.

Absolutely nothing big.

ABSOLUTELY.

NOTHING.

NOTHING.

 

Notebook Space Program - C.E.I.

 

 

 

 

 

[Ultimate Steve]

Notebook Space Program - 1983

The Crewed Exploration Initiative

Spoiler

Before we get to the epic stuff, the space probe B4 inissaC was launched on January 3. Its mission was to fly by Saturn, because we didn't accept the contract for the Iosif probes as we were worried we wouldn't be able to fly low enough and still encounter Uranus.

Now, with that out of the way...

March 13, 1983. Omelek Island. A thunderous roar is heard as the 73 H-1 engines came to life underneath a brand new, absurdly massive rocket, the Maestoso. This vehicle, designed to carry Over 200 tons to Low Earth Orbit, was the first flight of the Crewed Exploration Initiative, a decade-long program (minimum) with four key goals:

1. Establish a permanent presence in LEO, with a large monolithic station.
2. Establish a sustainable (not necessarily permanent) presence on the Lunar Surface, likely with some sort of base.
3. Perform long term crewed deep space missions, potentially testing artificial gravity, to the orbits of Mars and Venus, with probable crewed landings on Phobos and Deimos.
4. Land the first humans on Mars as early as 1991.

 

While the exact architecture and schedule for these plans is still fairly uncertain, development has been going on for several of the key systems needed for the Initiative to have any hope of working. The first of these systems is the Maestoso launch vehicle, because what's any deep space program without a SHLV?

This test flight utilized our brand new, extremely expensive unlimited pad, and also very expensive tooling and engine unlocks. I wouldn't be surprised if we've spent over 6 million funds on just development.

The mission's goal was mainly to test the first and second stages. Everything above that was a dummy payload with a mass of 200 tons.

Shortly into flight, the stages separated and the 9 J-2 engines fired up. However, one failed to ignite, so the opposite one was switched off.

The 200 ton mass simulator was deployed, but there was also a surprising discovery: The launch vehicle still had loads of fuel in the tanks. Its lift capacity had been miscalculated, and was approximately 50 tons more than expected.

The second test flight will occur about a year from now (yes, they take forever to build) and will be a test of a heavy lunar landing platform and a new EDS-XL transfer stage. It will attempt to land a mass simulator on the Lunar surface.

On March 29, Nebula 18 was launched with Stephen Simmons and Alan George on board. Their goal was to complete another crewed orbit contract. However, they suffered a very rare two engine out during ascent. While mission rules dictated an abort, the skilled astronauts managed to barely scrape by into orbit.

They returned to Earth successfully on April 3.

On June 1, 1983, the crew of Nebula 16 had completed their 6 months stay on board Olympus Station, earning the program another 1 million funds, and returned to Earth.

Next up was the launch of the B5 "Courage" Venus lander, also on June 1. Its goal was to land in an as of yet unexplored biome on Venus. However, since the Venusian Empire was now its own country, this led to a bit of an interesting legal dilemma. While nobody was currently left in the Venusian Empire to enforce anything, it was a good idea to establish a positive precedent for interplanetary diplomatic relations. As the probe would be landing in another country, it contained all the paperwork (etched into metal due to the heat) necessary for standard American regulations, used because the Empire didn't really have regulations in place. The probe also carried a few diplomatic gifts on board.

The launch was a success!

This probe was designed to be our first permanent Venus surface station, a mission designed to operate indefinitely. Most of the parts would never burn up, and the RTGs would last pretty much as long as was needed.

Next up, another round of satellite contract spam!

July something - Halo 10 Comms Test Sat.

July 20 - Halo 11 Tundra Satellite. Accidentally completed a Comms Test Sat contract and didn't reach Tundra orbit. Still a success as the sats are nearly identical and should be interchangeable.

August 3 - Halo 12 Early Weather Sat.

August 4 - Halo 13 Early Nav Sat.

August 12, Nebula 18 launched on another LEO mission with Eugene Baker and Elvira Pogodina on board. This mission went off spectacularly, with the only point of note being that they aimed to land on a small island and got really close.

August 19 - Halo 15 Comms Test Sat, except it went into a Tundra orbit. We basically swapped those two sats with each other because of the contract mix up. All is good now though.

On October 30, B5 Courage entered the orbit of Venus. The date of landing is sadly unknown, but descent went pretty nominally, except for one problem. Our intended antenna couldn't take the heat and burned up. We still have the backup antenna, but it needs to go through a relay and takes more power. Not ideal, but its okay.

The demise of the antenna

And, successful landing inside the Venusian Empire! We swear this isn't a scouting force for an invasion!

Next up was another critical piece of the CEI - the first test flight of our brand new capsule, "Galaxy," on the Allegro launch vehicle. It will come in a LEO variant and a Lunar variant early on, and likely a Deep Space variant later on. It can carry a crew of three with enough life support for around 50 days (I forget the exact number) and will be solar powered, able to operate for a substantially long time. However, the solar panel tech is lagging behind a bit, so we flew the test flight without solar panels, on just battery power. The second flight, which will likely be the first manned flight, will have solar panels on board, but will be able to return to Earth quickly in case they don't work.

The launch vehicle for this mission was new as well, it was called Allegro. It would have launched on a Presto, but the capsule ended up too heavy, unfortunately. The first stage was powered by two NK-33 engines, and the second stage was powered by a single J-2 engine.

The Galaxy Capsule will almost certainly end up being the primary crew vehicle for the CEI, ferrying crews to LEO, around the moon, and to Deep Space Vehicles. We may end up doing some experimenting with a winged crew vehicle with a larger crew capacity for LEO missions, however.

I'm very surprised at how compact this capsule ended up being.

The entire flight went off with no major problems, although the ocean had gone spiky for the landing.

 

Summary: A Venus probe landing, the announcement of the CEI, a probe to Saturn, the debut of two launch vehicles and a new capsule, some sat spam, and several crewed LEO missions.

Launches: 12. 12 successes!!! I finally have good reliability! At least 2 years without a single failure!

 

Now, 1984 will be a pretty decent year if everything goes well.

1984 will likely see the conclusion of the Nebula program. Nebula 19 is scheduled to fly to LEO. Nebula 20 has been built but we don't have a mission for it. We didn't anticipate Galaxy being ready anywhere near this early, so some plans had Nebula being used for as many as 10 more missions. We will likely keep Nebula 20 on hand in case we find a use for it. We will also launch Nebula Lunar M5 into polar orbit for a science mission, but we will not launch Celestia 4 as the two astronauts on the mission are not pilots and will be unable to fly it. We don't have much use for Celestia 4, so we may donate it to a museum or something.

We anticipate a large Mars flotilla next year, I believe 3 ships total. All are more or less based off of the same probe bus. C2 Marco will serve as a modern Mars communication Satellite for future CEI operations, and may actually stay operational for the first manned Mars landing assuming that ever happens. B6 Sentinel will orbit Mars in an low polar orbit and will map the surface in preparation for future landings. Lastly, B7 Marshopper 2 will be a follow-up to the Marshopper mission and will land on at least one of the Martian moons, fully exploring its biomes. If it has enough fuel it will go to the other moon.

In the 1986 window we may also launch C3 Polo, a companion commsat to Marco, and Marshopper 3 if it is needed.

The second Maestoso Test Flight will happen, and potentially the third one, very late in the year, but that will likely be 1985.

We might also start training of a fourth astronaut class next year.

 

Next year will also be very big for planetary arrivals. Iosif 2 will fly by Uranus, and A1 Joseph will orbit Jupiter if all goes well.

 

General CEI timeline (very fluid) (doesn't include Venus windows as I don't know where they are):

1984 - Continued testing of Maestoso, launch of C2 B6 and B7 to Mars, continued testing of Galaxy. Training of new astronaut class begins.

1985 - Maestoso full lunar profile without crew. Potential crew Lunar Landing mission with rover very late in the year. One year space mission on board Olympus Station.

1986 - Maestoso/Galaxy crewed lunar exploration. Possible lunar base. Launch of the monolithic LEO station. Launch of auxiliary missions to Mars including a Mars rover.

1987 - Long term test of Galaxy and habitation module in Lunar Orbit. Permanent LEO presence. Continued Lunar Base Operations. Potential Debut of a smaller launch vehicle between Crescendo and Maestoso as Maestoso may be too big and expensive for simple lunar crew rotations. Plans for Manned Mars landing complete.

1988 - Mars mission assembled in LEO, crew departs for Mars. General ops continue.

1989 - Crew enters orbit of Mars, tests Martian lander in uncrewed tests. Delivers supplies (if necessary) for future manned mission. Crew explores Phobos and Deimos. Potential Venus Orbit mission departs.

1990 - Mars Orbit crew return to Earth. Mars 2 mission assembled in LEO, crew departs for a manned Mars landing and return mission.

1991 - Boots on Mars.

 

Of course, that is contingent on how much free time I have in college and how much of my free time I spend doing actual productive stuff like meeting people, lol.