[Updated September 27th] A Planet Divided: The Story of the Kold War

[civilwargeeky]

Not sure if this is common or not but

for devs sake!

Lost it. That was hilarious

[CalculusWarrior]

It's been a while, but we're back! Expect more regular updates from now on; my schedule has cleared up nicely.

USKK: Several days later.

The large brick walls of Kolus City General Hospital loomed large over Bill.

Following the directions a nurse gave him, he eventually found himself at room 426C. Opening the door, he felt a pang of sympathy for the kerbal lying on the bed, bandages over his eyes. He spoke up.

"Hi Jorfred, it's Bill here, from the Space Program."

As Jorfred turned around in excitement, Bill was relieved to see that the kerbal turned easily, and excitedly. Seeing the kerbal's smile told him far more than a thousand medical files could.

"Bill Kerman? Thank you so much for coming, sir; it's an honour to meet you!"

"It's no trouble at all, I wanted to make sure you were alright. Jeb would have been here too, but he's dealing with matters back at the Space Centre."

"I only wish I could stand up and shake your hand, but the nurse says I shouldn't get out of bed. I'm still healing."

"About that…how are your eyes? I'd heard that you were…" Bill trailed off.

"Don't worry! I can still see. The doctors did good work; I've just got these bandages on my eyes so I don't strain them. Nurse's orders."

"I'm glad your optimism has survived intact. Listen, I'm so sorry about the accident. An investigation is underway at the Space Centre right now, and I can assure you that no more kerbals will be hurt like you. My only regret is that this had to happen to open everyone's eyes to the danger of space travel."

"Don't be sorry; this whole thing was my fault."

Bill was momentarily speechless. "What?"

"I'm so sorry about all this. I shouldn't have gone on the mission…I…I was scared, and thought I would be removed if I'd admitted it. I really wanted to go to space…a-and see Kerbin."

"Listen, Fred..."

Jorfred continued. "And you know what? That view…to see the curve of our planet…it was worth it, Bill. It was so, so worth it."

Bill reached over and touched Jorfred's shoulder, words failing him. Then, the invalid kerbal caught him by surprise.

"Bill, will I still be able to fly? I mean, my kneecap's busted, I punctured a lung, and my vision will never really be the same."

Bill swallowed. This was the part he'd been dreading. Having to tell this young, bright-eyed kerbal the news. (Well, Bill assumed he was bright-eyed at least, as the bandages obscured that region of his face). In a small voice, Bill responded. "No. You'd be ineligible on the knee alone."

"Thanks Bill. I-I guess I just wanted to hear it from you, rather than reading it on a letter, or from some faceless government agent."

Again, Bill said nothing. What could he say?

Ron and Don were overlooking the Space Centre grounds, discussing recent events.

"So, how about that investigation that's been making the rounds? I hear they already got to you. How was it? Any advice?" asked Ron.

"Oh, that. What a pain. It's sort of like a TV interview. They've got a camera and an interviewer asking me all these questions about our training and the rockets. Just answer all their questions and they should be satisfied. I hear they're more interested in the engineers, anyway."

"Who's running this show, again? Seems like a lot of trouble to go through for a few questions. Don't they already know what the problem was, anyway?"

"I think it's Director Jeb. Apparently he wants to make sure that there are no more problems, though I hear Bill was pretty instrumental in getting that pushed through. He's really serious about making sure this space program is safe."

"After poor Jorfred, who'd blame him? How is Fred, by the way?"

"Apparently he's doing really well! He should be out of the hospital by the end of the week."

"That's great news! Is he going to fly the next mission?" Ron asked excitedly; he'd been worried about

"No. I talked to Bill, and he's unfit to fly. I think it's his leg, or maybe his vision. I don't know."

"What? But what about the Space Program? How will we keep up with only three kerbonauts?"

"Apparently Jeb wants to hire more kerbals. We've been needing more, with the two seats in the Uranus. Gotta fill out those backup crews!"

"I guess you're right. Still, it's going to be weird with all of those new faces; I don't think I'll be able to keep track of them all!" Ron was terrible with names.

"Don't worry, there won't be more than three or four newbies that'll make it through the selection process. You'll make do."

"So, what can you tell us about the Uranus I mission, Mr. Danbro?"

The investigation team sat in a small room with the USKK Lead Engineer.

"Well, not all that much, really. It was a normal build, launch, etc. I guess the only difference is that we added some more batteries to the main capsule…oh, and those SRBs we attached at the last minute."

The head investigator leaned forward, removing his glasses as he did so.

"Those SRBs… Can you tell me why they were attached so late?"

"Well, we were thinking that the extra pod on top would be too heavy for the liquid engines to lift. So we strapped on a couple of SRBs and she took off like a charm!"

"I'm looking at the flight data here, and apparently the rocket sustained accelerations of more than 10 g on ascent."

Danbro let out a low whistle. "Gotta love SRBs."

"That kerbal in the hospital would beg to differ. Now, I'm certainly no rocket scientist, but I'd think that adding more engines would be something one would do with plenty of notice, correct?"

"Well, I talked about it with the crew, they said 'sure', so we stuck them on. No paperwork necessary!"

"Wait…Are you telling me you don't fill out the required requisition forms?"

"Ha ha, no way! I usually get an intern to do 'em. Or I just don't complete 'em at all! Nobody minds, as long as the rockets get up there!"

At this, the interviewer paused, speechless.

"Ah…Well…I see. You may go, Danbro."

"Are you sure? Don't you have more questions? I can tell you more about the rocket!"

"No, no. That's quite alright, thank you."

With a slightly confused look, Danbro left the room.

"Fire Danbro."

The head investigator had only one recommendation for Jeb. Sighing, the Director looked up.

"And why would I do that?"

"The kerbal's interview itself is nothing. I interviewed countless engineers and staff, all whom report his behaviour as reckless, dangerous, and more often than not, plain stupid!"

"You can't deny that he gets results. He's made all sorts of things fly!"

"Exactly. He's made things fly which shouldn't fly, and when they decide not to fly again, the kerbals riding in them are going to have a very bad day."

"He's my Lead Engineer! Who will replace him?"

"I don't know, pick any engineer. Even an intern could do a better job than he's been doing."

"And if I decide to ignore your recommendation?"

"Then the Board of Directors will revoke your funding. In their words: 'Dead kerbals aren't profitable.'"

Jeb sat back. "What if I appointed an assistant to Danbro? Promoted an intern, or someone who knew what they were doing, to add a voice of reason to his work? Would the Board be satisfied?"

The investigator paused. "I'll discuss it with them. Why are you so insistent on keeping this kerbal, Jeb?"

"Let's just say that I learned a long time ago that you can't always do things by the book, and having someone who's not afraid to think outside the box on your side is invaluable."

A low chuckle came from the investigator's throat. "And we don't have enough of that with you?" He sighed. "Very well. I'll talk to the Board, and see what we can do. Goodnight Jeb." And he was gone, leaving Jeb alone in his office.

The next day

Jebediah was speaking to the media, who had been anxious for news ever since hearing of the investigation.

"…so ultimately due to a variety of factors, the regrettable Uranus I incident was allowed to happen. Fortunately, we have identified the issues, and are working to rectify them. Unfortunately, the head of our engineering department was responsible for several of these errors."

At this, Danbro stood up and walked over to the microphone.

"What can I say? I'm only kerbal!"

This prompted quite the chuckle from the assembled media. Jeb continued.

"As he has proven to be a substantial asset to the Space Program thus far, I am appointing an assistant to Danbro to assist him with the complicated decisions he must face every day, as well as provide an additional error checking step in the process our rockets undergo before launch. Doodbro, would you please stand up?"

The kerbal sitting next to Danbro rose.

"'sup?" he said, joining Jeb at the microphone.

"Ahem…yes, as you can see, Doodbro is a prime example of the knowledgeable and professional staff we at the USKK Space Centre employ on a daily basis."

"Ah, dude, is this gonna last much longer? I gotta split in about ten." Doodbro asked Jeb, seemingly forgetting that the microphone was still on.

"As I said, knowledgeable and professional," Jeb said, his smile becoming a bit fixed.

Fortunately, Danbro was there to break the awkward moment. A joke, and describing the USKK's next few missions sated the media's appetite soon enough, and the crowd shortly dispersed.

But which none of the three kerbals realized was that something had been born that day. Kerbals, like humans, are brought together by shared experiences, and nearly everyone in the USKK had been watching that broadcast. As such, everyone had seen Danbro respond with: 'I'm only kerbal,' and slowly that quote turned itself into a new catchphrase. Whenever a kerbal screwed up, they'd utter those words, and all around them would share a laugh. As time went on, the phrase shortened itself (as these things do), until it became only one word: kerbal. Used as an adjective, one would call something 'kerbal' if it worked, but not as originally intended, and more times than not, unsafely. Did your tailpipe come off your car? Why bother with a mechanic, just duct tape it back on! That's such a kerbal solution! Even the space program got caught up in the craze; their solutions (like just strapping more boosters to a rocket) were popularized as being 'kerbal' by the general public, bringing even more attention to the program.

Edited September 15, 2014 by CalculusWarrior

[wasmic]

I need MOAR of this. MOAAAAARRR! Loved the two last chapters

[Phazon8058]

Yay you're back! Thanks for another chapter, and thanks for checking out my fleet post on reddit a while back!

[KSK]

Yay - new chapter! And with a nice bit of lore at the end too.

Hopefully Fred can find a slot as a Mission Specialist somewhere down the line, even if he's medically unfit for piloting.

[CalculusWarrior]

The next part of the story is now live! First of all, I'd like to share that this story has received OVER 9000 views! I want to thank everybody who's enjoyed it so far, and hopefully you'll enjoy it into the future; we've got a ways to go!

All I can really say about this episode is that the new KSOS ground vehicles are amazing: prepare to see a lot more of them in the future.

---

CKFN: Launch Day, one week later

---

The massive door of the VAB slowly ground open. Despite not having been used in several months, it rose without complaint, and the fading daylight shone onto Caelus I, completed at last. There had been some renovations since then; the Space Facility was starting to become a major transport hub. No longer were trucks sufficient to carry the rocket parts and fuel from where they were manufactured, but rather newly-built aircraft had been pressed into service; some designs could carry ten times as much and travel twenty times as fast when compared to their wheeled rivals. As such, the Space Facility looked more like an Air Facility, with all the runways and service equipment. However, even with the fancy new additions, the VAB remained untouched, which the engineers grumbled about daily. The rockets they we rebuilding were starting to reach the facility's size constraints, and the fabrication equipment on hand was beginning to become inadequate for the task.Simply adding onto the existing buildings wouldn't solve all Danford's problems though; as the mission planners whined about how far north they were. The USKK's Space Centre was located directly on the equator, meaning landing back at the Centre was a breeze, and missions to locations beyond LKO required no extra delta-v expenditure, unlike the CKFN's situation. Danford put all that out of his mind though, and focused more upon the issues facing him today.

Much to the media's disappointment, Danford had made the decision to launch this rocket without kerbals on board. The engineers had said that more work was needed to be certain that the life support systems were stable. Caelus was sporadically exhibiting a glitch which had resulted in the premature retirement of half a dozen crash test dummies during testing. Since fixing that issue would take at least an additional week, Danford had elected to launch this vessel unkerballed. The engineers still struggled to build probes which lasted long outside the atmosphere, however. While probe shielding had progressed far enough to not fizzle out as soon as it left the atmosphere, the engineers had now hit a power supply issue. The multiple redundant systems and fail safes made the probe stable, but chewed through power at a disturbing rate. Since the spacecraft had no way of recharging its onboard batteries once it had left the launchpad, it would promptly shut down approximately two hours after launch.

Due to this, Caelus I's mission was simple: launch into a highly eccentric orbit, gather data on the deep space environment, then re-enter at high speeds. Ground control would stay in contact with the spacecraft for most of the way until apoapsis, at which time the onboard batteries would run dry, cutting off contact. While some other managers would declare the mission over at this point, Danford's crazy idea was to place the spacecraft on a specific trajectory, then properly orient it so that the ship wouldn't burn up in the atmosphere and survive to a soft landing somewhere in the CKFN. This would provide a lot of excellent extra data about the hazards and phenomena of deep space, and whether the heat shield was sufficiently tough enough to survive a high-speed re-entry. If the CKFN ever hoped to reach the Mun, the engineers needed a lot more data on both of these hazards.

Danford spoke into his headset. "Alright people, we're at tee minus one hour to launch. Get Caelus onto the pad and fueled up!"

---

One hour later

---

The ground crew performed their duties flawlessly, and Caelus I blasted off right on schedule.

"We're getting good readings from the rocket, everything is nominal," one of the Ground Control techs said. Really, with the amount of test-fires and simulations, this rocket was incredibly reliable. Danford would have bet good money on it reaching orbit without a single mishap (and apparently some engineers had been trolling the local bars, doing exactly that)

This was the CKFN's first rocket with more than one engine on the lower stage. As Caelus was found to be too heavy for a single LV-T30 to lift, the decision was made to launch the capsule with two engines, rather than follow the USKK's SRB path. While this extra engine took a bit more work to engineer into the design, its performance more than made up for it. Caelus I flew easily.

However, that extra engine did use up more fuel, and the rocket found itself dropping its lower stage earlier than ships with lighter payloads. There was talk about extending this lower stage, but the rocket's TWR was perfect with this amount of weight, and nobody wanted to screw that up.

The decision had been made to hold off on extending the tank until this mission had flown. So far, the results were promising, as the upper stage carried Caelus above the clouds easily.

Finally, that stage burned out as well, and the time came for Caelus to separate from its lifter. The Ground Control team waited with baited breath as they sent the command; while Caelus had performed well on the ground, its engines had never before been used on an actual rocket. Anything could happen.

Fortunately, that anything was that the engines fired a short burst to move it away from the upper stage, then shut down to coast to apoapsis. The sigh of relief which ran through the control room was quite audible.

Based on the telemetry data, Caelus had left the atmosphere and arrived at apoapsis.

While conventional kerballed missions only require a short burst from the spacecraft's engines to put it into a stable orbit, this mission was neither conventional nor kerballed, so the throttle was increased to full, and the spacecraft raised its orbit to roughly 1 000 kilometres above the surface of Kerbin.

After the spacecraft had confirmed that the burn was complete, the job of Ground Control was to settle in and wait for the ship to arrive.

---

A few hours and several thousand kilometres later...

---

When Caelus reached apoapsis, Danford wasn't even in the control room, as another urgent matter had come up. His presence wasn't required though; the job he had given the technicians was simple: gather the data Caelus collected, make sure it wouldn't hit the ocean nor the USKK when it came down, then orient it retrograde. Hardly even rocket science.

And so the spacecraft responded to their commands, first transmitting the data from the scientific instruments its capsules were filled with, then pointing along a specific vector, and using the last of its fuel in a course correction which would put it in the middle of the CKFN. Finally, it rotated so that the heat shield would impact the atmosphere before the comparatively more fragile command pods.

Finally, the techs sat back and watched as the onboard battery, taxed by the transmissions and commands, finally gave up the ghost and died. All contact with Caelus had been lost. Now, all they could do was wait.

---

---

A recovery helicopter flew through the night. Danford was aboard, along with a full team of technicians. According to telemetry data, Caelus had reentered the atmosphere less than ten minutes ago.

"Pilot! Do you have the capsule on your radar?"

"Y-yessir Mr.Danford, we're heading right towards it!"

"Are you sure? We just ended up chasing a flock of pigeons for longer than I care to admit."

"N-no sir, I'm sure it's the capsule...I've locked onto its transponder signal." Hepointed at the screen, showing a steadily falling dot. Just as Danford looked over at the display, the dot chose that moment to disappear.

"Mother of Harv…" Danford lowered his sunglasses. (nobody except this guy knew why he was wearing them at night) "We have to get there. Now."

"Roger that, sir. We're not more than two kilometres out."

---

The helicopter came to a gentle landing, perching on the on the ground like a large, oddly-shaped bird. Danford immediately leaped out, fearing the worst. Climbing towards the capsule, he let out a gasp. Caelus sat in the middle of a blackened crater in the ground. The capsule itself had been breached; it's internal components lay everywhere. Taking a closer look, Danford wasn't surprised that they'd lost contact; most of the instruments had been wrecked by the impact.

"It's a pity," one of the technicians remarked, drawing level with Danford. "We could have pulled so much more data if the thing actually landed in one piece."

"Don't give up yet, the instruments have already transmitted their data, so you can access that, plus I'm sure you want to see how the materials of the spacecraft reacted to the deep space environment," Danford reassured him.

"That's true. But why did it crash like that? I thought the plan was to soft-land it."

"A very good question. See if you can find the other two parachutes. I only see one that opened, but Caelus had three."

"Three? The ship that launched only had one."

"What? How did we expect to soft-land it then?" Danford exclaimed.

"Somebody said that we'd get more delta-v out of the thing if we left off the side-mounted parachutes, and instead just slowed the capsule at the last second with the engines."

"Didn't they realize that the ship would be uncontrollable by then? Why didn't anyone tell me?"

"I don't know sir, all I know was that's how it happened."

Danford sighed."I suppose we can't do anything about that problem now. Though I'll have avery serious talk to the engineers when we get back. Let's work on salvagingwhat we can of the ship."

And indeed, after gathering the parts together and analyzing the data, the mission was declared to be a success. Improvements were immediately made to Caelus to take into account the deep-space environment and the extra parachutes were reattached, as extra insurance when landing. On top of all that, the engineers got an excellent lesson on communication, via a three-hour rant delivered by Danford describing the many horrible things that would happen if they deviated from the design specifications again without letting him know. All in all, the CKFN space program was in good shape.

Now they just had to do it all over again, this time with kerbals onboard.

Also, as a bonus, enjoy these interesting facts about the making of this episode.

Originally, Caelus was meant to survive its landing mostly intact, but have soaked up too much heat en route, damaging itself while reentering. However, the lack of communication Danford gets annoyed about actually happened to me (well, more that I just forgot to reattach the parachutes), and so I changed the ending to more closely reflect real events. (Plus I was never satisfied with the whole heat dispersion subplot)

Likewise, the name of this episode was originally something different, but Caelus' landing reminded me of the Genesis sample return mission which crash-landed in 2001.

The bug in Kerbtown where old vessels stay on the launchpad reared its ugly head when I was running this mission.

To build a plane which could carry the KSOS helicopter to Caelus' landing site, I went through a number of designs, one being a drone plane which would carry the helicopter 'piggyback' style. Bob insisted on sneaking onto this spacecraft constantly.

As such, I had to leave him behind at the runway.

Another ill-fated design essentially was just a pair of jet engines to strapped to the helicopter, but I forgot to add struts. The result was a fusion of the three most popular methods of powered flight: flapping wings, propellers, and jets:

Anyway, hope you all enjoyed this chapter and the look behind the scenes, stay tuned for the next part of the story soon!

Edited September 15, 2014 by CalculusWarrior

[Tw1]

Congrats on the 9000 thread views! I like that flapping wing craft, that's quite stylish.

Doodbro. Now there's a name...

[CalculusWarrior]

Many thanks! (I'm sure at least 5000 of them are from myself frantically refreshing the page to see if anyone's commented yet) And I use the kerbal random name generator for character names (http://zeblote.com/ksp/namegen.php), so when I saw 'Doodbro' pop up, I just had to include him somehow.

[KSK]

Ahh - the best laid schemes o' kerbals an' capsules gang aft agley.

Grats on the 9,000 views, and thank you for the random kerbal name generator - I've been looking for one of those for ages. No longer will I need to start up random games and go on gonzo recruitment drives in the Astronaut Complex for name inspiration!

[Tw1]

(I'm sure at least 5000 of them are from myself frantically refreshing the page to see if anyone's commented yet)

I know that feel... (hope you're not too disappointed this isn't some new commenter. But, hey it's a bump for the thread.)

I haven't needed to come up with random names so far, but I think I'll keep this in mind.

[CalculusWarrior]

No rocket launches today, but a fair bit of planning. We see the trimphant return of Werhner Von Kerman though!

---

USKK: Two days later

---

Bill walked into Jebediah's plush, wood-trimmed office and sat down with Bob in front of Jeb'sdesk. Once again, they were to discuss the state of the USKK space program.Recalling the intel given to him by the USKK government, he started the meeting off.

"So, it finally happened. The CKFN launched Caelus."

Of course, this was hardly top-secret information. Anyone with a halfway decent antenna could pickup the television signals coming from across the water. Really, the declassification of the CKFN's space program had accomplished more for the covert operations department of the USKK than ten years' worth of surveillance.

"Who did they send up?" asked Jebediah, who, like always, had not read the intel ahead of time. As such, he wasted everyone's time asking questions they ought to have known from the start. Bill sighed.

"As the report stated, this mission was an unkerballed launch. Apparently due to the untested nature of the capsule and new launcher, the risk was considered too high to launch a kerbal."

Bob spoke up."It's a good thing they waited; it gives us more time to launch more ships. We had a mission planned for next week, right?"

"Absolutely,"said Jeb. "The rocket is built, and the capsule is nearly ready! I'd say another three or four days of hard work, and we can launch Uranus II."

"Are you sure that we're ready to launch so soon after Uranus I?" Bill cautioned, always the voice of reason. Somebody had to be.

"Of course! Danbro decided to scale back the SRB thrust, we've flipped the capsule interior around, provided extra cushions for the pilots, what else is needed?"

"I just feel like we aren't giving the engineers enough time to perfect their designs.They're already overworked as it is; we demand new rockets every few weeks."

At this, Bob jumped in. "Nonsense, I was just down in the VAB and they're really starting to hit their stride. Since we always ask for the same rocket, they simply build a bunch of copies of the Uranus launcher,then tweak the SRB thrust for the desired payload,"

"Interesting.Whose idea was this?" Bill asked.

"Doodbro's. Apparently he's quite the talented engineer. Excellent selection, Jeb."

For his credit, Jebediah did not display any external signs of uncertainty. However, Bill had known the kerbal for nearly twenty years now, and by watching Jeb's face carefully, he understood that Jeb was just as surprised as Bill was about Doodbro's competence. As Bill had correctly assumed when first watching the footage of Doodbro's promotion, Jeb had just used the 'engineering assistant' story to confuse the Board, and make sure that the VAB would continue building rockets unabated, unlike the ghost town it would become if Danbro were to be fired.

"That's why I chose him," Jeb said with a smile.

Bob, who hadn't been with Jeb for as long, appeared satisfied with that explanation. Turning his attention away from Jeb, Bob continued.

"Now, the CFKN launched their unmanned version of Caelus (or simply Caelus I) exactly forty-six hours ago. While the USKK still leads in terms of total launches, our first next-gen spacecraft was a high-profile failure. While the mission itself completed successfully, we had an injured kerbal, an internal investigation slowing things down, and the media reporting every story to come out of here that they can find!"

At this, he pulled out a newspaper clipping from his pocket and slid it across the table. Bill unfolded it. "'Space Centre Cafeteria Serves Subpar Snacks'? Really?"

"Really. All of these factors combined means that the public is no longer quite as enthusiastic about the space program as before. Reduced public enthusiasm then means that the Board is unwilling to provide as many funds for the program in the future.As such, we need to build public approval for the program again, and show the CKFN that we are better."

"And how are we going to do that?" asked Bill. This nationalistic space race satisfied the media, but he found that constantly trying to one-up your neighbour often distracted one's self from focusing on the project at hand and why you were even trying to accomplish it in the first place.

"I may have a couple ideas," said Jeb slowly. He picked up his desk phone."Werhner, can you meet us in my office? What? No, you're-- Yes, I-- Okay,thanks. Yes. I said, yes! … Just come on over here,"

A couple minutes later, Werhner Von Kerman walked through the door. "Hellooo!"

"Ah Werhner, you've arrived! Excellent. Now, can you tell Bill and Bob about the new technology you're developing?"

"Ah, of course!Vell, you see, eet all started back vhen I first vatched ze CKFN broadcast. Zey discussed ze issue of power management in ze spacecraft. Zheir ships use batteries to stay acteeve. Now, batteries are very heavy, so I vas thinking ve could generate our power in space, rather zan having to worry about carrying enough to last all ze way through our mission."

"Generate power in space? You don't mean lugging a coal plant (or bac9 forbid, an atomic plant)up there?" Bill was incredulous. "You realize that you'd have to bring a supply of oxygen for the coal to even burn, right?"

"Yes, yes, I know. Ze standart methods of generation do not work vell in space. Besides, our rockets aren't powerful eenough yet!"

"…yet?"

"Er…I've been vorking on some ozzer designs; I can show--"

"Let's keep on track Werhner," Jeb interrupted.

"Right, sorry! Vell, as I vas saying, ve don't have ze capacity to generate a lot of power een space. Fortunately, ve don't need a lot of energy; ve just need to sustain eet for long periods of time. So I thought to myself, vhat on Kerbeen generates a good amount of power, ees reliable, yet light, and vould vork in space?"

Bill wasn't quite sure if it was a rhetorical question or not; Werhner's accent made it difficult to fully understand the kerbal's meaning. Fortunately, Werhner answered it himself, saving Bill from having to think up an entirely new method of power generation.

"Solar power! Ze sun alvays shines in space, and zhere is no clouds to block zem! Eet ees ein perfect system!"

Now that Bill thought about it, solar power would be a very useful method of generating power while in orbit. Panels were relatively light, cheap, yet could still provide enough power to control a probe core, or even a spacecraft's attitude control systems. Bob didn't seem completely convinced though.

"Do you have a model we can attach to a spacecraft? All the solar panels I've seen in my time are much too large to fit on Uranus."

"Ah yes! I do,een fact! I've been vorking on a folding panel vhich vould easily fit on ze side of ze spacecraft. And Bill, your idea of atomic energy ees close to vhat I have planned for my next deesign!"

"Good Squad,you're not actually going to launch a reactor?"

"Noo, nooo, I vill use ze radioacteeve decay of certain elements to run a heat engine,generating steady power even vhen the sun ees behind ze planet!"

Well. That certainly was a much better idea. Bill was impressed; he knew the stories of how smart Werhner was (he'd single-handedly launched Kerbin into this rush for space),but seeing his ideas firsthand was incredible. The kerbal certainly knew his stuff.

"So what do you guys think?" asked Jeb, who had clearly heard these ideas before.

"I can't think of anything wrong with having power generation capabilities onboard our next spacecraft; go ahead and install them on Uranus II," said Bob, who looked impressed with Werhner as well.

Finally, all three kerbals looked at Bill, waiting for him to speak. He still wasn't completely satisfied with the pace at which they were proceeding, but this new technology heartened him. Perhaps the ships could stay in space for longer, and do more research on the effects of space travel on a kerbal.

Bill smiled."Let's do this."

[jandcando]

Lol a fourth dimension! That is VERY Kerbal!

[wasmic]

No rocket launches today, but a fair bit of planning. We see the trimphant return of Werhner Von Kerman though!

The way I read that to myself, it didn't sound like a German accent at all, is that's what you were going for. Otherwise a neat chapter.

[CalculusWarrior]

The way I read that to myself, it didn't sound like a German accent at all, is that's what you were going for. Otherwise a neat chapter.

Honestly, Werhner's accent is all over the place. He may have started off German, but I think his voice is now travelling throughout Europe.

[Phazon8058]

There hasn't been an update in a while, but I'd like to wish you a happy Thanksgiving! I hope your extended family isn't half as irritating as mine. And unfortunately the annual family dinner is being held at my place... Dammit...

[Commissioner Tadpole]

Sorry for the bump, but I have a suggestion:

Have you considered adding a few "satellite" nations? By which, I mean smaller nations that are very heavily allied with either one of the big superpower duo, just like how Mexico and Brazil were to the United States in the real Cold War. They wouldn't serve much of a role, but could be mentioned, possibly shipping rocket parts to one of the main nations, or provide an additional safe landing spot. You could also have an equivalent of Japan in the series, such as of a nation allied with the USKK but located strategically next to the CKFN, thus letting them serve as "spies" for any potential launch by the enemy. Or, if you want to kick it up a notch, have astronauts and other crew members from a nation allied with one of the main two to participate in said big nation's roster, or have this satellite nation cooperate with their 'big bro' with meetings such as the one from the latest chapter, or have a launch of their own, if you really want so.

It's your call, though. I can see why you wouldn't want this, considering how they might steal the spotlight of the main two nations, although they could still be a big concept. Just don't go all agressive if you don't like this.

[CalculusWarrior]

@Tadpole: As mentioned, thanks for the suggestion, and there will be a city-state-devoted story in the future!

@Phazon8058: Thanks for the Thanksgiving good wishes! I must confess that having an extra day off was lovely, and I got to work further on the story!

Speaking of this chapter, I believe it is the longest one yet; brace yourselves.

CKFN: ​Six weeks later.

"Well, at least they added magazines," commented Matdun dryly. Bilvin looked up. Along with the other kerbal, she was sitting in the small white room again, one step removed from finally entering her spacecraft after weeks of preparing for this misison.

Unfortunately, Matdun's words did not satisfy her. "They're all fifteen-year-old technical manuals on the finer points of spacecraft orientation! We didn't even have spacecraft back then! Now, don't get me wrong, I'm a fan of rocket science as much as the next kerbal, but seven hundred pages of spin rates and matrix transformations is not my idea of light reading material. When I get my hands on Danford…"

"You had better wait until after the launch. I don't think he's been sleeping these last few days. He really wants this mission to go well."

"Well, it can't go any worse than the Uranus I, eh?"

Matdun's unamused glare reminded Bilvin that there were indeed some lines that one Should Not Cross.

"At least the kerbal was alright, but apparently he's left the USKK's space program."

"He's left? That leaves them with only three kerbals. Are they going to hire more?"

"Apparently they already have. Just before Uranus III launched, they brought four new recruits into the program. It was glossed over at the time, given what happened during that flight, but I managed to find an article." Matdun pulled a newspaper from a pocket in her flight suit and unfolded it. (Bilvin made a mental note to remember to pack a novel or something for next time) "Let's see…blah blah, fast-paced training, recruitment from several civilian rocketry clubs, oh! They've got pictures."

Desperate for some form of reading material that didn't involve endless lines of text, Bilvin lept out of her chair.

"Hm, they look pretty competent. But I can't imagine that they have the same experience as us veteran kerbonauts, eh?"

"I wouldn't call us veterans yet. This is only your second mission. The USKK definitely has the advantage in their rapid launch cycles."

"Well, we make up for it for all our simulations. I'm so used to that simulator now, I even found a place to store my snacks!"

Matdun stared. "That was you?! Do you know how many simulations I've had to abort because wrappers kept falling out of the overhead compartments?"

"Uh, two?"

"Eleven! How many snacks did you stuff in there? I told Danford to confiscate them all."

"Oh come on, don't be a narc; don't you ever get hungry during a long simulator session?"

Matdun's angry retort was cut short by Danford's disembodied voice. "How's it going in there, you two? The rocket's nearly ready."

"Uh, we had a slight disagreement, but uh... everything's perfectly all right now. We're fine. We're all fine here now, thank you. How are you?"

"I hope Dilbrett came through with the reading material; I told him to put his favourite magazines in there."

"Yep…they're real page turners…" Bilvin responded while eying the massive books laying on the table.

"Anyways, what's the status on the rocket? ETA until boarding?" Matdun asked, matter-of-factly.

"We're just fueling it up now, so you should be able to board in about ten minutes."

"Roger that. We'll be ready." She turned off her microphone, then glared at Bilvin.

"Alright people, sound off. We've got a tight launch window. There's a storm moving in from the northwest, and I don't want to test the structural integrity of Caelus that rigorously just yet." Danford strode through Mission Control, or at least what passed for it. There were a bunch of employee stations set up underneath the little antenna at the Space Facility.

"Communications, go"

"CAPCOM, go"

"Spacecraft systems, go"

And so on, until the moment they'd all been waiting for.

"Five seconds until liftoff!"

"Four"

"Three"

"Two, main engine start!"

"One"

A low rumble engulfed the small room. Even though they'd been doing this for a couple of years now, some techs still didn't make sure their coffee mugs were secure, and some fell over the edges of tables, soaking laps with lukewarm caffeinated beverage.

Even though they had a perfect view of the rocket on the monitors, Danford preferred to look out of the window. He'd found that if he stood in a certain spot, he had an excellent view of the launchpad, and it made him look like he was standing where he could see all the techs and monitor their progress. Caelus II stood upon a column of smoke and steam as it reached for the heavens, a bright orange tongue of flame underneath. The sight always gave him pause. The fact that his group built that magnificent machine to travel beyond the clutches of Kerbin itself was remarkable. He was shortly brought back to reality by the chatter of ground control.

"Rocket has cleared the tower, we're reading perfect separation."

"Attitude holding steady, engines are performing nominally."

"Gee levels holding steady at 1.5g"

"We're hitting max Q in twenty seconds, be advised."

"Begin rollover program"

"I'm getting an anomalous reading from one of the thermometers. Capsule, please confirm."

"That's a negative, Thermo Sensor 2-1-b is reading normally. I will keep an eye on it, though." Matdun responded.

"We've reached 10 km, begin gravity turn. Pitch over by 35 degrees, acknowledge."

Bilvin's cheery voice came through. "Roger that, boss!"

"Thrust curves looking nominal. Throttle down a touch to avoid losing too much delta-v to the atmosphere."

"15 km altitude, pitch down another 20 degrees."

"First stage nearing burnout, prep decoupler."

"Decoupler primed." Matdun was as businesslike as ever.

"I'm reading a loss of thrust caused by burnout. Fire second stage."

"First stage away, and second stage engine ignited on schedule"

"Ignition confirmed. Throttle main engine up, you've cleared the worst of the atmosphere."

---

Danford leaned back. Another flawless launch. While plenty could still go wrong, he felt a little better knowing that the rocket had made it to orbit. Now, the main mission could begin.

---

"Hey, Matdun," came the chirpy voice over the intercom. Matdun did not respond right away, knowing what was coming.

"Matdun"

"Maaaatdun"

She could take it no longer. "WHAT?"

"Got any snacks?"

"Yes, I somehow managed to visit a store on Kerbin, buy some snacks, haul them all the way up here, and not tell you about it in the five minutes since you last asked!"

"So you do have snacks!"

In disgust, Matdun turned off the internal intercom. She normally tolerated Bilvin and her antics, but today's mission was eating into her stores of patience. This capsule would be farther from Kerbin than any kerbal from the CKFN had ever been. Of course, they weren't breaking any records here. Uranus II had already achieved an apoapsis of <can change this>3 000 kilometres, something Caelus couldn't even dare try for. Rather, the goal for this mission was to maintain a stable orbit at this altitude and test the shielding and equipment outside the safety of Low Kerbin Orbit.

She was glad that the kerbals had separate capsules, a holdover from the spacecraft Caelus was a derived from. Otherwise Bilvin may have found herself undergoing an Extra-Vehicular Activity, sans spacesuit.

Otherwise, things had been going well, but the mission was not over yet, and they still had to return. Reentry from these heights was no joke, while certainly less intense than a Munar return would be, it still could mean certain doom for those in the capsule if they didn't manage it correctly. Still, the view was nice. Matdun snapped a couple of pictures of the disk of Kerbin. Those Flat-Kerbin Society nitwits should be up here; the evidence against their case was pretty damning.

The radio crackled into life. "Matdun, we're coming back into radio communication. How are the readings looking?"

"They're all looking nominal; the engineers did good work when building the capsule. We're getting excellent data from the scientific experiments as well."

"Fantastic. If we continue getting results as good as this, we should be able to bring you back down after a couple more orbits. "

"Excellent. Any further orders?"

"Actually, there was. Bilvin was asking if you could inspect the upper right-side compartment."

"For the last time! There are no snacks on my side of the spacecraft!"

She slammed her fist down on the 'off' button violently, accidently jarring open the compartment mentioned.

Matdun sighed as a contingent of snacks floated by her face, ejected from their home in the compartment.

---

"Hey Matdun"

"What now?" She replied through gritted teeth. The fires of reentry were increasing, a dull roar reverberating through the capsule. Bilvin had been mostly silent up to the deorbit burn, but then she had begun pestering Matdun once again. It was Matdun's job to guide the capsule into a safe landing on the Space Facility's grounds, and she didn't want to screw it up. This was the first time any capsule had attempted such a pin-point landing,

"Remember how the first Caelus capsule landed? Don't do that"

"Shut…up…" The capsule hit a pocket of turbulence, starting to spin. Matdun hit the SAS override and corrected this spin. Only 30 000 metres to go…

The spin was back, Matdun's efforts weren't enough to arrest it entirely. Bilvin's voice chirped through the internal intercom.

"Hey, I can see my house from here!"

How the kerbal remained so calm was a mystery to Matdun, who would have been screaming in terror if not for the concentration required to keep the rapidly descending craft on target. The plan was to make a soft landing on the rocket engines back at the Space Facility, and this high in the atmosphere, even small changes to their attitude would result in missing the landing site by many kilometres. She didn't want a repeat of Laytona I, which Bilvin nearly smashed open on a mountainside.

"Bilvin, tell me our current trajectory."

Incredibly, the other kerbal sounded almost bored while reading back the numbers. Matdun made a mental note to ask Danford to send Bilvin on the next long-duration science mission. Preferably past Minmus. Maybe to another planet. Perhaps the Sun? This thought cheered her.

WHUMP. That was a big shock. Reentry was tricky, the smallest pockets of turbulence became huge problems when travelling at twice the speed of sound. She checked the readouts, trying to discern if any damage had been done to the spacecraft. She couldn't see anything, and by the sounds of it, the ship was beginning to enter the lower atmosphere.

Bilvin's voice, finally sounding a bit perturbed, came through the intercom. "Uh, I've got a bit of a problem here"

"What's wrong?"

"I'm getting a 'system failure' warning light. It looks like one of our thrusters is acting up."

"Roger, prepping parachutes for deployment."

"Ah, that's a negative, the auxiliary parachutes have been put out of commission as well. We've only got the ventral chute remaining."

"Oh."

"Remember what I was saying about the first Caelus?"

"Yes, we all know how that turned out." Though her voice projected annoyance, Matdun was actually terrified. Nobody had anticipated both a parachute and engine failure. She'd trained for hours in landing on rockets and landing on parachutes (the latter was infinitely easier, by the way), but had never even considered having to land without either. She wondered if they could bail out of the spacecraft right before impact and hope the shockwave would slow them down.

"Can you transfer full attitude control to me? I have an idea." Bilvin's voice sounded more determined than ever.

"What? There's no way you can operate both systems at once!"

"Trust me."

Under most circumstances, Matdun would certainly have not trusted the young kerbal, and just done the landing herself. However, in this case she didn't feel confident enough to trust herself not to botch the landing. Besides, what's the worst that could happen? They were dead anyway.

"Transferring control. Don't screw this up, Bilvin"

Matdun could just picture the cocky grin the kerbal gave her in response. "What, me? Never."

With the controls in Bilvin's pod, Matdun now had nothing to do. She now understood the other kerbal's restlessness earlier. With no control of this falling metal pod, one did tend to want to make sure everything went well. A sort of 'backseat piloting' if you will. The only thing left to do was watch the altimeter.

At 700 metres above the ground, Bilvin deployed the parachute. Matdun watched it trail out behind the capsule, flutter in the wind, then finally deploy fully. This slowed the capsule down to about 15 metres per second, still too fast for a safe landing. Matdun suspected that the core command pods would survive such an impact, but she certainly did not want to put that suspicion to the test.

250 metres up, the engines fired up. Three of them at least. The fourth, as predicted, sputtered once and with a sad *ka-putt*, died. What is Bilvin doing? She's obviously trying to use both the parachutes and the engines? What is Bilvin's plan?

Then, a horrible screech met Matdun's ears. She realized it was the reaction wheels. They were spinning at grossly overclocked speeds, providing just enough torque to compensate for the missing engine. Obviously, one couldn't run the wheels at such speeds forever, and you'd need to replace them after attempting such a maneuver, but for this landing, they could be spun up much faster than the manufacturer's recommended speed.

Miraculously, the plan worked. Despite only having access to three asymmetrically-placed engines, Bilvin managed to navigate the ship into a landing, only skidding slightly upon touchdown as a reaction wheel failed at the last second.

Matdun let out a breath she didn't realize she was holding, then peered through the small window on the capsule. The first sight she saw was Director Danford, wide-eyed and covered in feathers.

She immediately opened the intercom channel to Bilvin. "Just to be clear, we did land at the Space Facility, and not some sort of alternate dimension, correct?"

"…Yes, why do you--oh. Hi Director!"

Matdun got to work on opening her capsule door, and exited the vehicle. It appeared that Bilvin's skidding maneuver during the last few seconds of flight had put the capsule much closer to the Facility's staff than originally planned. Hence, Danford's closeness to the spacecraft, and surprise. That didn't explain the feathers though.

However, closer inspection of Caelus certainly did. Judging by the remains, the capsule had struck a very unlucky bird during its rapid descent through the atmosphere. That would certainly explain theWHAM they'd heard earlier.Feathers were all over the capsule, and the impact point was right next to the failed engine, as well as the radial parachute control system. Upon closer inspection, its species appeared to be some type of balding eagle.

"Talk about a fowl landing!" Jenfrey punned, which elicited an icy glare from everyone within earshot.

This moment did not last long though, as the team of technicians immediately swarmed the spacecraft, taking pictures, examining impact points, and chattering among themselves. They barely left enough room for Bilvin and Matdun to get clear.

When the two kerbals had exited, Matdun turned to Bilvin. "Thanks for saving us. And…here."

She handed Bilvin the snacks which she'd discovered inside her side of the spacecraft.

Bilvin took them without comment. "No worries, it was the least I could do." Her eyes twinkled. "I look forward to flying with you again!"

Danford (now mostly feather-free) walked up. "Excellent mission, you two! I'm told that we got excellent data from this flight, despite the few quirks which developed. Get back to the simulators, because we've got more missions coming up!"

"Sorry boss, but I've got to take a shower and a nap first," Bilvin said. "But I'll be ready for launch in a couple of hours, don't you worry!"

Matdun estimated that her own nap would last a good deal longer than that, but nevertheless greeted Danford with a smile before heading back to her room. It had been a very long day.

---

Danford had never seen the weekly engineers' meeting so busy. His lead engineer, Dilbrett had 'accidentally' let slip what today's topic would be, and as such it seemed that every engineer in the space program was here. In fact, he didn't recognize many faces; did they even work for the space program?

Nevertheless, he took his seat at the head of the large conference table, Dilbrett on his right.

"Good morning all. Now, as I'm sure you've all heard, today's meeting is going to be a very special one."

The gathered kerbals all hung onto every word of his, some barely daring to breathe.

"We've launched test rockets, we've launched kerbals, we've seen what the conditions outside our atmosphere are like. These have all been steps towards our ultimate goal: the Mun."

At this word, the unKerbinly silence vanished, filled with a dull roar as every kerbal began talking with their neighbors about this news. Danford waited for the commotion to die down, but after a couple minutes the volume had actually increased. So he gently cleared his throat.

No one heard him.

"Ah-hem." He cleared it a little louder.

Again, no response, except perhaps the room got even noisier.

"Okay everyone, settle down, let's get this meeting started."

The room was beginning to descend into chaos, as it seemed that every kerbal there had their own opinion on how the mission should be carried out; some had even begun scribbling out trajectories and delta-v charts on chalkboards.

He was wondering if shouting at them would even make a dent in the noise, when Danford felt a tap on his arm. The words Dilbrett was speaking were inaudible against the din, but what he held in his hand was very clear.

Danford had grabbed it and raised it to his mouth before even wondering, Why did Dilbrett bring a megaphone to the meeting?

"THAT'S ENOUGH. ALL OF YOU, SIT DOWN."

You could hear a pin drop. That's better.

"ALRIGHT, NOW THAT--whoops." He was still speaking through the megaphone.

"Alright, now that we've discussed the target at length, let's start coming up with ideas for missions. I want to hear all of them--but please. One at a time."

---

Three hours later

---

Danford couldn't believe how many ideas there'd been, ranging from extensively-researched missions with every metre per second of delta-v catalogued along the way, to one kerbal's suggestion of getting a 'really, really big SRB'.

"So, I think we've narrowed it down to three mission ideas. There's the Direct Ascent route, the Kerbin Orbit Rendezvous, and the Munar Orbit Rendezvous. Let's hear the pros and cons of each, again."

A heavyset kerbal stood up, about halfway down the table. "For simplicity, you can't go wrong with Direct Ascent. Just one ship flies to the Mun, lands, then returns to Kerbin. No complicated 'docking' required! I don't even think rendezvousing two ships in space is even possible, for Harv's sake."

Dilbrett spoke up. "Have you seen the size of the rocket which would have to lift that? It would be more than double the height of the VAB! Testing the first stage alone would take years."

"Alright then, how about your pet project? Let's hear it."

"As I mentioned, the Kerbin Orbit Rendezvous is a very flexible mission plan, which can retain most, if not all of the simplicity of the Direct Ascent method, yet still be launched aboard smaller, more reasonable rockets. We launch our Munar lander aboard one rocket, then launch the transfer stage immediately afterwards. These two ships link up in orbit, fly to the Mun, the lander flies down, does its stuff, then returns to Kerbin using the transfer stage!"

"We still haven't considered the Munar Orbit Rendezvous yet!" A bespectacled kerbal spoke up from the far end of the table. "We only have to launch one rocket, but the lander and command module are separate ships, allowing us to use a far lighter lander than your other versions! In fact, I've done the math and it comes out to use less fuel in total than either of those two mission plans."

"What about the size of that single rocket? While certainly not a Direct Ascent monstrosity, it's still larger than anything we have the capacity to build," Dilbrett countered.

"Keep It Simple, Stupid!" The first kerbal shot back, quite tactlessly. "Direct Ascent needs only one ship, and only one set of components too! Why on Kerbin would you need duplicate life-support systems on the lander?"

This went on for another two hours, and by the time they had decided on a result, Danford was exhausted.

"Is everyone done?"

A host of sullen glares from two-thirds of the those present was his answer.

"I think everyone's admitted it; Kerbin Orbit Rendezvous is the best option we have, based on the lifting technology available to us. Now, we need to figure out how to accomplish such a mission."

As the table burst into discussion once more, Danford smiled. They had just taken the first step into a larger world. They were going to the Mun, at long last.

Edited October 18, 2014 by CalculusWarrior

[KSK]

"Negative, negative, we've got a snack leak here. Big leak, very dangerous..."

Loved it! I knew this was going to be good at: ""Uh, we had a slight disagreement, but uh... everything's perfectly all right now. We're fine. We're all fine here now, thank you. How are you?" After that, we got snacks, rockets, and derring-do - what more could you ask for? Although you very nearly owed me a new keyboard with:

"Danford couldn't believe how many ideas there'd been, ranging from extensively-researched missions with every metre per second of delta-v catalogued along the way, to one kerbal's suggestion of getting a 'really, really big SRB'."

Great way to start the day - thanks.

[Commissioner Tadpole]

Hey... You said in the beginning of the story that this is the USKK!

[CalculusWarrior]

Hey... You said in the beginning of the story that this is the USKK!

Indeed I did! My apologies, it's been fixed.

[Tw1]

Another great chapter.

Their choice of reading material is interesting. Perhaps the Wernher hypothesis had more following than first thought...

[Engineer of Stuff]

I have a question.

What is the mod that has the little thruster pack on the bottom of the Caelus II ?

[CalculusWarrior]

I have a question.

What is the mod that has the little thruster pack on the bottom of the Caelus II ?

That's no mod; Caelus is 100% stock. The 'thruster pack' is actually four 24-77s covered by the small FL-A5 adapter. The reason that they're not orange is that I'm using the textures from Kerbal Renaissance Compilation on CKFN ships.

[Engineer of Stuff]

Nice design.

Thanks!

[ZoidPool]

When will there be any more on this? I love it!