Kerbal Colonial Authority: A Mesbin Science Playthrough

[Oblate Prince]

[O: Images have been added.]

 

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CHAPTER ONE

"A space program? Absolutely not, Mr. Kerman! We will not approve this frivolous request. As you are no doubt aware, it is hard enough to maintain a pressurized atmosphere and technological society on Mesbin.  We have already mounted your telescopes on the Pioneer prospecting crawlers and granted you far more supercomputer time than you deserve. This is all we can do.  Perhaps one day we will return to space.  But not today.

***

"I propose we start our own Space Program," said Valentina, staring thoughtfully over a microwaved potato "with grain alcohol and exotic dancers.  Really though. We both flew crew shuttles on Tylo, William knows how to operate a KCA autofac, and Robert can provide the grain alcohol. We've got a blueprint for every piece of aerospace technology ever flown."

"But we haven't got an Autofac. Also, I really wish that you would stop calling me William,"  said Bill.

"Actually, I think we might," said Jeb.  "I was speaking to Councilman Mortimer after my . . . eh . . . speech yesterday. He said that there's a working autofac near the abandoned crawler depot near Mount Boom."

"That Mortimer? The general counsel of the KSA? I always thought he was evil. And I definitely didn't think he'd ever dream of doing something illegal."

"Neither did I -- gotta wonder why he agreed to get frozen and shipped out by the KCA.  Anyway, who's up for a five-day drive through hard vacuum, lava, and deadly debris showers?"

"Shotgun!" Yelled Val.

***

After a good deal of fiddling, fussing, and taping, Mesbin's four-kerbal space agency sat around the humming autofac, sipping vile, syrupy energy drinks; the only source of caffeine on Mesbin (fusion power is easy for the KCA but hydroponically grown coffee plants are hard).  The 3d printer chirped happily as it extruded the composite SRB cases; kick stages from the earliest days of the Space Program.  The rocket was a simple, two-stage thing designed to throw a lightweight probe on a suborbital trajectory. 

"What do we call it?"

"The probe?"

"Yeah"

"Dumpster one?"

"Probey McProbeface?"

"Roger?"

"Like Roger the Range Safety Robot? Nah. We don't do range safety here."

"Triangle Man I."

"Yes."

Absolutely."

"Fourthed."

 

 

 

 

Edited August 3, 2020 by Oblate Prince

[Gargamel]

Hey there @Oblate Prince, welcome to the forums!  To insert an image, just right click on it, copy the image location, and then paste the link directly into the post.  The forum will place it where you placed the link.

For other Questions about how the forum works, check out this link, in it you will find another link to a thread which explains in more detail the workings of the forum:

Or you can just go there directly, and your imgur album question is one of the first answered:

 

[SuperMiiBrother]

Why did it repeat itself?

[Oblate Prince]

CHAPTER TWO

A bit hypervelocity shrapnel on Mesbin wasn't going to make any difference. In fact, Jedediah suspected that their first launch had gone completely unnoticed.  Triangle Man I had been a modest success. Although it was little more than a large model rocket covered in thermometers and antennae, it was the highest any kerbal had ever sent anything since the KCAS Longshot crashed on Mesbin (at least on Mesbin, anyway; the KCA was no doubt launching all manner of things into interstellar space from the comfort of Kerbin).

The 3d printer happily chirped, informing Jedediah that the last of four more casings had been completed; mere hours after Triangle Man I collided with Mesbin at several times the speed of sound.

Val and Bob were putting the finishing touches on Triangle Man II.  No clean rooms here. Also, no electronics more complicated than a pocket calculator; just a general purpose micro-controller simple enough to make in a crude circuit printer.  Bill was cheerfully stirring a cauldron of highly explosive resin -- they'd all have to work quickly to fill all four boosters before it set.

If their calculations were correct, Triangle Man II would reach orbit and begin mapping Mesbin's magnetosphere. Briefly. They hadn't made provisions to de-orbit it, but luckily, Low Mesbin Orbit was rather unstable; the satellite might survive a few weeks before its orbit decayed. Or it might be obliterated by space debris. Either way, the onboard batteries only had a few hours of juice. 

 

Edited August 3, 2020 by Oblate Prince

[Oblate Prince]

CHAPTER THREE

Bob sleepily paced the pressurized tent they had pitched in the autofac dome, hot mug of energy drink in hand. While they had done their best to patch up all the holes, everybody agreed that a backup pressurized volume was a good idea.  Everything hurt.  His fingertips were rubbed raw by the glove of his spacesuit.  Yesterday, they had wheeled Triangle Man I and II out onto a flat stretch of sintered regolith road with a pushcart and erected the rockets using a winch.  EVAs were hard enough in microgravity. 

Val, on the other hand, had stayed up all night staring down the autofac and she had a brand new hypergolic upper stage to show for it.  Triangle Man III was already attached.  This one was bulbous and contained its own hypergolic engine.  It carried three pods of purple cave fungus, jokingly referred to by the first astronauts as "mystery goo."  In addition to being a delicious, bioluminescent snack, "mystery goo" responded strongly to vacuum, vibrations, and radiation.  These pods would serve as a cheap substitute for very expensive electronic sensors for monitoring vehicle health.

Their secondary goal was a Statmun flyby.  Triangle Man III didn't have the sophisticated instruments to study Statmun, but it was evident from the surface of Mesbin that it was a useless hunk of iron.  There really wasn't much to study. Still, it was a new world and the flyby would validate the new hypergolic engines.  

Jebediah's new rocket was also much larger than the first two.  Bob wasn't looking forward to pushing it out to the pad.

 

[Oblate Prince]

I've been a bit distracted by my sandbox save -- the next few missions were rendezvous and crew returns but I've been having some nasty bugs involving command seats and spontaneous kerbal explosions and objects in LMO spontaneously disappearing. 

So no mission reports. 

[aspacecephalopod]

Nice! Hopefully the seat bugs resolve themselves, WW has been very reliable for me (pretty much same as stock).

[Oblate Prince]

 

On 8/12/2020 at 9:23 PM, aspacecephalopod said:

Nice! Hopefully the seat bugs resolve themselves, WW has been very reliable for me (pretty much same as stock).

It's really strange.  I can usually load one command seat.  But load two and one or both kerbals explode on launch no matter how far apart I space the seats.  I'll find a way to integrate my sandbox play-through (either as a prequel or as Jeb and Val's brainstorming sessions). 

The LMO bug is documented at least.  The solution is to build bigger rockets -- as much as I'm enjoying using kick stages as SRBs it's not really viable.

 

 

[Kerminator K-100]

This may be a dumb question but what is Mesbin?

[Dat Kerbal Dude]

2 hours ago, Kerminator1000 said:

This may be a dumb question but what is Mesbin?

Mesbin is a planet from this Planet pack made by @GregroxMun.

(and it looks Very weird Mesbin)

[Whirligig Girl]

Quote

Triangle Man I

That Might Be a Reference?

I like it. Clearly you've got your own lore (i.e, KCAS Longshot replacing the U.S.C. Manifest Destiny) so it's an alternate history, and it seems like maybe Longshot's landing was a fair bit more successful than the Manifest Destiny's, with higher technology surviving. In "canon," such as it is, it took 1600 mesbin years (around 500 earth years) to get back to space.

[Oblate Prince]

4 hours ago, GregroxMun said:

That Might Be a Reference?

I like it. Clearly you've got your own lore (i.e, KCAS Longshot replacing the U.S.C. Manifest Destiny) so it's an alternate history, and it seems like maybe Longshot's landing was a fair bit more successful than the Manifest Destiny's, with higher technology surviving. In "canon," such as it is, it took 1600 mesbin years (around 500 earth years) to get back to space.

Yeah, I stuck with your general idea (i.e. trapped on Mesbin with no real way to do space travel) but also wanted to explain how four kerbals magically rolled out three rockets to the pad in one in-game day :p

Particle Man will show up as well, I imagine. Just wait until I unlock some more BDB science experiments!

 

Edited August 15, 2020 by Oblate Prince