Because we have never been there.

[sturmstiger]

It was just another fine morning at KSC when the KASEA[1] Administrator arrived for work. But today, he found the door of his office blocked by more than a dozen planetary scientists.

"Morning gentlekerbs. What are you doing here on this fine day?"

"We need a mission to Eeloo", said the obvious leader of the group, the most well-known planetary scientist ever lived.

"What?!"

"We need to send a robotic exploration mission to Eeloo during the upcoming Kerbin - Eeloo launch window, 51 days from now. We have made the request at the KASEA Annual Mission Planning Conference earlier this year, AND last year, and have written you about this many times before."

"But they were all rejected! You know as well as I do that all R100[2] class launchers are being used for our Duna Outpost missions, and we have no excess capacity to build any extra R100 core, or for that matter any open slot on Pad B[3] until next year."

"There IS an extra R140, ready for launch 50 days from now."

"But that's reserved for the contingency launch in case the upcoming Duna Outpost SSP[4] launch failed! You people don't want our guys on Duna to miss that Advanced Mobile Lab, or the Deep Core Drill, or all the other experiment equipment, designed by you and your colleagues, do you?"

"But let's say the upcoming launch did not fail - R140 hasn't failed once in the last 17 launches - that particular R140 and that pad slot could then open for other uses, such as an Eeloo mission."

"Err...but even if you have that R140 launch, how could you build your spacecraft for Eeloo in 50 days? And without funding?"

"It's already built. We're going to use Trinity-9."

"But Trinity missions are for the Mun!"

"They are. But from our observations we believe Eeloo is quite similar to the Mun in many key properties, like the surface gravity and deltaV needed during landing. So Trinity spacecrafts would be quite suitable for Eeloo. The design also provides very comprehensive coverage of a planet with an orbiter, an impactor, and a lander - rover, all launched as a single craft. It's got almost every capability we need and is perfect for the first Eeloo mission. So all that's left to do, once you give the permission, is to replace a few Trinity-9 instruments with Eeloo-specific instruments, which we have already built."

"Okay. You gentlekerbs clearly came prepared today. I assume you have also convinced the owner of Trinity missions to give up Trinity-9?"

"Yes, they have. We already had 8 very successful Trinity missions, and dozens of other robotic and crewed missions to the Mun, so delaying or even canceling one Trinity mission isn't going to change very much, compared to what we might learn on a first Eeloo mission. Plus, my colleagues and I in the Trinity Team will be involved in designing this Eeloo mission and controlling the spacecraft, and we are all very excited about that."

"Doesn't Eeloo missions take a huge amount of deltaV? Is R140 capable enough for that? I must remind you that you'll absolutely not be permitted to use the NERVA Interplanetary Tugs. They are all dedicated to Duna Outpost construction until at least end of next year."

"It does take a quite a bit of deltaV - around 3600m/s from LKO to a low orbit around Eeloo for the upcoming transfer window. But Trinity is light - less than 2 tons even after our modifications. Put it on a MCU/S and it will have more than 4500m/s left in the MCU after achieving LKO and another 500m/s in Trinity itself - quite enough even if we made some mistakes with the burns. Oh and these calculations assume Trinity and the MCU sits on just the R100 core - we save you four boosters".

"You do need the extra MCU/S ... but we do have a few of those in the warehouse."

"Because they aren't getting any use since the beginning of the Duna Outpost program."

"How long till it arrives at Eeloo?"

"A year and 8 days after launch, give or take a few days. If things goes well, the rover should run at least 3 months, the lander a year, and the orbiter 2 years. And those are pretty conservative estimates from our experience with Trinity missions on the Mun, as you know."

"Trinity is indeed a pretty good design. Why can't you wait until next year, when Duna Outpost launches start to wind down? Repurposing a launch 50 days from now, from a R140 launch to a R101 launch is going to cause lots of disruptions. And you know very well our Duna Outpost launch schedule is very tight at the moment with little room for delays."

"We've been waiting for years - there won't be another window with such a low deltaV requirement in almost 3 years. This I have mentioned several times before. What I haven't mentioned is that even when that window comes, there's very likely another big manned [was: kerbaled] program going on that makes Pad B unavailable for robotic missions. I heard Duna Outpost Phase 3 is getting popular with the politicians, and even the Laythe Outpost Concept is getting lots of attention after the water sample return mission. So I...we are all worried that we'll never get an Eeloo mission, until they are bored with the soup opera on Duna."

"Hey just be glad we didn't send Jeb & his friends to Duna, or the public may never be bored with Duna Outpost missions. And you really don't want them to be bored, because when they do, 'those boring uncrewed missions' as some Kerbals higher up call them will be first programs they ask KASEA to cut."

"But..."

"But you know what, you gentlekerbs made a pretty convincing case today so you have my support. Afterall, the 'S' in KASEA meant 'science', and I can't make our best scientists unhappy for the next few years. We need to move really quickly for this to work out so let me call a few guys now and let's a have a meeting in ... 2 hours. Okay?"

"Wow. Yes! Sure!"

"Oh, I forgot to ask, what exactly do you expect to find on Eeloo?"

"We don't know. Because we have never been there."

Notes:

[1] Kerbal Aerospace Science & Exploration Agency.

[2] The Modular Expandable Launch Vehicle Family used by KASEA uses a 3 digit naming scheming, in which Digit 1 is the number of 2.5m Medium Liquid Boosters, Digit 2 is the number of 1.5m Light Liquid Boosters, and Digit 3 is the number of VestaVR1 engines in the upper stage. Thus the R011 class (R011 & R011D) are the light ELVs, the R100 class (R100, R101, R102, R120, R122, R140 and R142) are the medium lift ELVs for up to 25 tons to LKO, and R300, R500 & R700 heavy lift ELVs will be available for up to 100 tons to LKO.

[3] Pad B is the launch pad for all R100 class launches.

[4] Science & Service Payload, the generic designation for so Duna Outpost Phase 2 mission payloads which contain mobile labs, scientific instruments, service equipment and extra supplies to Duna surface.

The Trinity spacecraft. From top to bottom: lander, rover (capable to redock with the lander to return samples), impactor and orbiter.

Trinity spacecraft loaded on top of the R011D light ELV for a Trinity Mun mission.

The Duna Outpost Science & Service Payload on top of a R140 medium lift ELV, on Pad B.

[To be continued]

--

I've never been good with writing and English is not my first language, so please bear with me for my first post on "Fan-Works".

Edited July 10, 2013 by sturmstiger
kerbaled to manned as suggested

[deker13]

good job! you did very well with the grammar, with only a few mistakes. P.S. it's not kerbaled, it's manned. kerbaled just doesn't sound right.

[KSK]

Just my opinion but manned doesn't really sound right either if you're talking about kerbals How about 'crewed'?

Looking forward to the next part of this story! As for the writing - your name is a far bigger clue that English might not be your first language If you hadn't added that last comment I honestly wouldn't have noticed.