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Ad Lunam - Final Update 2015-05-31


Cydonian Monk

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I've seen that, too. It's a (SPOILERS BELOW!)

Kraken-something class ship that can hold 90something Kerbals.

(SPOILER END)

Anyhow, are you going to do something special for this next update?? After all, it is .90.0. 90 is 65 more than 25.

Edited by ElJugador
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Anyhow, are you going to do something special for this next update?? After all, it is .90.0. 90 is 65 more than 25.

I've got something in mind, but the update dropped about a week too early. Given the issues with struts and fuel lines I'm going to go ahead a finish what I've got started in 0.90 instead of 0.25, as I don't want to have to do it 3 times. (Even with a particularly ugly RSS/KSCSwitcher bug that doesn't provide itself an obvious fix. Yet we'll get to that when I get to it, and the RSS team might get to it first anyway. They know their code better than I do. May even be my own fault, though I didn't change the code so much as make it stand-alone.)

What I won't get to are the 0.90 features, at least until I'm done with what I had planned to do in 0.25. Then we'll have some fun. ;)

Edited by Cydonian Monk
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Ad Lunam - Departures

Year 76, day 403 - Surface of the Mün

19th Kerbal Space Agency

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Anny jetted to the top of the Arch and wobble-walked over to where Herhat was standing. Herhat was leaning over the edge cautiously, looking down at their landing site several hundred below. "Hey, Herhat. Nice view from up here huh?"

"Yeah! He leaned back carefully and pointed behind them to the smaller crater. "There's flat space over in the middle of that crater, which lends itself to being a good place to build a base. And the pass over here" he pointed to the East "would give us easier access to the large East Crater. This could be the best spot on the Mün."

"Well, that's something for you ing-gah-neers to dream up. I just fly. Speaking of which, it's time we get going."

"Awww. Already?"

"Don't worry dude, we'll be back here soon enough. But if we wait any longer we'll miss our window. If Enlan has to orbit again it would make it impossible for a daytime reentry at KSC. And I don't particularly want to land in the desert."

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Anny and Herhat floated down to their lander, took a few extra surface sample souvenirs to give to their friends back home, then locked up the hatch for the ascent. Anny was just getting the engine primed when the Hawk's command module crept over the horizon and into radio range.

"You two ready to come home yet?"

"Never!" Anny looked back to make sure Herhat was strapped in. He seemed to have relaxed after the landing, so Anny decided not to mention how difficult the ascent would be with them sitting this close to the Arch. "Herhat seems to think we should start a base down here, but we'd run out of snacks before we got very far. Anything you want us to grab at the Mün store before we launch? Some dusty cheese perhaps?"

"No, we're good here. See you in a few."

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The ascent was more difficult than planned. First, there was the giant Arch to avoid. Then, just to the west are two very tall crater rims, preventing launching upwards and turning directly to the horizon. The Arch was avoided by leaning to the south. The first crater rim was missed by a scant dozen meters, and the second by only a couple hundred. The Grand Arch might be an attractive site for a base, but the retrograde ascent left much to be desired.

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The rendezvous occurred just at the edge of sunset, and Anny was glad the engineers on Kerbin decided to include a spotlight on the lander. Just a minute later and they would have been docking in the pitch black nothingness. They transferred all their rocks and samples over to the command module, moved the monoprop too, and set about returning home.

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Yet another successful Mün landing.


Year 76, day 403 - Gene's Office, Cape Kerbin

19th Kerbal Space Agency

"Heck of a show your boys put on today Gene." Following Anny, Herhat and Enlan's departure from the Mün, Gene, Wernher, Senator Robert Kerman and one of his aides had retreated to Gene's office. "And that old wreck they found? Mighty fine sight. Should drum up some reeeal support from those crazy archeologist and history types."

"The day's not over yet, Senator. Still have to get them safely back to Kerbin. And then it's right back to the hustle. Hawk 2 should be ready in a little under two Münths time." That would give them ideal lighting at the next set of coordinates. As ideal as could be asked so close to the south pole.

"About that. Gene, I was talking with Von Kerman here about our plans. This Hawk rocket is mighty impressive. Looks like it could lift a whole mountain out of a pile of gunk without breaking a sweat. Perfect for the Duna mission."

Gene glanced back and forth quickly between Wernher and the Senator. "What Duna mission?"

"The one Wernher has all cooked up. Seeing as we've been to the Mün now, and seeing how these rebels are taking aim at the Red Planet, we thought it best to accelerate the Osprey program. Get it ready to go so it's ready when we go."

Wernher nodded, then pushed his glasses back up. "We think we've devised a configuration that will allow the Osprey to be launched by three Hawks. We can assemble all the pieces at the Falconaerie, which will itself be launched atop a fourth Hawk. Planning to build four more of these somewhat ironically makes them all less expensive...."

Gene interrupted. "Why would we divert a Hawk we have ready for the next Mün landing for some ship that isn't under construction yet?" Gene pointed at Wernher "And what's this talk of the Falconaerie? I haven't even approved that yet!"

"We've already started training the crews for the Falconaerie. It's construction is inevitable...."

"If we've got the money for it!"

"Boys," the Senator put his hands up and stopped both of them. "Look, I'm sure you can get the logistics all wrankled out. All I can say is, if you set to work on this Osprey first, and put the Mün nonsense aside until next year sometime, then we'll gladly cover the costs. Both for the Osprey and your little Falcon pet project. We don't want a bunch of ungrateful lawless rebels beating us to Duna, now do we?"


Munlit Silence Science Module Launch

Year 76 day 414 - Lake Fortunate

Rebel "18th" Space Agency

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One last major piece to add to the Munlit Silence before the crew arrives: The science module. The science payload for the first Gauss Program mission consists of three landers and a small satellite. The satellite itself forms the armature for the three landers, and will likely be deorbited once the landings are complete.

The landers will be remotely operated by crews aboard the Munlit Silence as it passes through the Jool system, avoiding the sizable delays due to network propagation and speed-of-light communication limitations. All three landers are intended for Laythe, and will target three different locations on the planet. Locations that will have to be chosen once the Munlit Silence is close enough to the moon to make observations of its surface.

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Launching and rendezvousing with craft in an inclined orbit has become second nature by this point, and this launch was no exception. Once rendezvoused with the Munlit Silence, the upper stage of the science package was jettisoned, and the payload moved in on RCS alone. Now, all we need is a crew. (And a communications satellite... more on that in a bit.)


Year 76 day 417 - Lake Fortunate

Rebel "18th" Space Agency

It wasn't a big crowd, but it was an important one. Every active kerbonaut and every member of the grounds and engineering crews that weren't busy had gathered at the flag behind the Astronaut Complex. Milzer looked around those gathered, the crew of the Munlit Silence in the center, Jeb, Bill and Bob to the left, and all those Milzer would be taking with him to Duna flanking the lot of them. He stepped forward and spoke as loud as he could.

"Thanks for coming. Today we're here to send our friends off for Jool. To say goodbye for what may be the longest journey of their lives. Jebediah has told us that in days of old, the commander of a mission would plant a flag before they left, and reclaim it once they had safely returned to Kerbin. Today we renew the old in more ways than one."

Shepgee walked forward and drove a flag into the well-tended turf. An unfamiliar flag unfurled and revealed itself to the assembly.

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Milzer continued. "There was once an organization dedicated only to the discovery of the unknown. A society of heroes that flew no flags but its own, honored no kings, and was tasked with the unimpeded exploration of our planet. Kerbals from all lands were welcome to join in their goal, and together they uncovered the many mysteries of Kerbin. This was not their flag."

"Later, with all corners of our tiny planet found and mapped, this company of heroes turned their eyes upwards and took to the stars. Many wonders and mysteries awaited, but their greatest challenge would be here on Kerbin. Interference from the government following The War and the Unification led to their eventual demise. And yet this was not their flag."

"We may launch from the beaches of the Free States, the sands and steppes of the Commonwealth, or from the mountains and badlands of the League of Eight. Yet we are not an extension of those nations. We are those who explore, we are those who uncover what is hidden. And this is our flag."

"For this we have both Haloly and Jebediah to thank. Jebediah, who provided a flag from the old heroes society. Haloly, who updated it to show the endless recursion of time. From this day forward we fly only this flag." [Flagception]

"Yet let's not forget why we're here. Before us is the brave crew of the Munlit Silence, the first expedition of the Gauss Program. Tomorrow they leave on the longest trip we've yet attempted, on a ship as yet untested. These are our new heroes and our new explorers. So let's bid them a fond farewell, and send them off with a party they'll never forget!"

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The crew gathered for a series of mission photos, and the press office (still in their hazmat suits) selected the above. Presenting the crew of Munlit Silence for the Gauss 1 mission to Jool, from left to right: Hudrim, Laning, Dean, Neilny, Lodbles, Shepgee, Shepdas, Haloly, Sheptrey, Sigsey, Podzon, and Loald Kerman.


Hydra Shuttle Launch

Year 76 day 418 - Lake Fortunate

Rebel "18th" Space Agency

Shepgee checked his carry-on bag one last time. He tended to travel light, but it would be hard to turn back if he forgot something this time. Clothes? Check. Six years worth of toothbrushes? Check. Ear plugs for when Haloly would start on one of his long-winded and oft-repeated tales of bravado and impossible odds? Check. Special Agent Kirrim novels? Check. Even a new one that had yet to be published, smuggled to him by Ian Kerman himself in true spy fashion.

He wondered for a moment what Haloly himself was packing, then decided he didn't want to know. Probably lots of stinky cheese. He zipped up the bag, slung it over his shoulder, and made his way to the tunnel. Milzer and Meldo were waiting for him.

"M&M, old buddies! Seems we can never be in the same place for very long, doesn't it?"

"No, Shep. Guess not." Milzer shook Shepgee's hand and patted him on the shoulder, Meldo gave him his characteristic wave.

"I'm leaving the two of you in charge around here until we get back, ok? Or until Gene and Wernher show up. If something happens..."

Meldo interrupted. "Nothing is going to happen, Shep. We'll all be fine."

"I wish I was as confident, Meldo. Anyway, if something happens, tell everyone to go for the Coalition lands. They were building a spaceport too, and I'm sure they'd welcome a group of highly trained and experienced space kerbals with open arms. Probably even let you fly if you ask nicely." Easier to do now that the Coalition had joined the League in their rebellion. The Unified Government was quickly becoming a misnomer. "Say hi to Duna for me, ok? First time we'll go someplace new and I won't be along for the ride."

"Of course dude. Don't get too close to the jolly green giant. I hear he has bad breath."

Milzer and Meldo walked with Shepgee to the end of the tunnel, where a cart was waiting to take him the rest of the way to the Hydra. The Hydra Shuttle was no small thing, and was waiting quietly on the launchpad, condensation glistening in the predawn air. Shepgee tossed his bag on the cart and turned back to say his final goodbyes. Then he was off.

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Shepgee rode the elevator to the top of the tower [missing, as I was still playing on the Mac at this point and didn't have the RAM for such frivolities as FASA launch clamps], walking alone to the open hatch where the last of the grounds crews were waiting. There was only a single entry point for the Hydra, the primary crew access hatch. From there one had to climb into their cabin and into their seat. Nothing too difficult for an acrobatic species such as the kerbals.

Shepgee stowed his bag in the beside-head compartment, sat down into his chair and strapped in for the ascent. There were only twelve of them going up, less than a third of the Hydra's capacity, so each of them had their own row and window seat. Shepgee glanced back to find Loald asleep. He couldn't blame him, having to wake up at Oh-dark-thirty just to prepare for the launch. "The ship sets the time," Milzer had said, "not us. Were it up to me we'd all be launching from the equator into zero degree orbits. Maybe then we'd get some sleep."

He barely noticed the launch. The Hydra was designed for regular passenger transport to space, and Jebediah and his crews had built in a slick suspension system to lessen the shock of liftoff. Even the roar of the mighty Alnair Launch Vehicle was deadened by insulation. Really a top-notch craft, this Hydra. Shepgee could hardly believe it had been siting in a junk yard for twenty years or more. Just more proof of how much they'd lost.

Somewhere over the lake the six Tantares boosters separated from the ALV core and the dull roar became an empty quietness. Shepgee was watching the sunlight creep over the mountains, painting their tops with the blessed light of Kerbol. It was the last time he'd see such a sight for more than half a decade.

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And before he knew it, they were in orbit.

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The Hydra launch had been timed perfectly, as they didn't want to leave the crews in orbit for a long time waiting to catch up to their target. Loald had managed to sleep through the entire ascent, awaking only when the Hydra fired its thrusters to match speeds with the Munlit Silence. So far the trip had been automated, but this last step would require the hands of a kerbal: docking. Shepgee made his way down from his seat to the crew compartment, glancing out of the window to catch a view of the Munlit Silence. Somehow it seemed smaller than the Hydra.

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He strapped into the pilot's seat and brought the RCS system online. Lots of shiny doodads and slick flat screens lit up, each with a different camera view. Shepgee would have preferred a window and a targeting sight to all this technowizardry, but figured Jeb knew best when it came to advanced controls. This was a considerable step up from Jeb's usual quality, such a series of old ropes tied to a pulley at the bottom of the capsule that usually opened the parachute but occasionally only opened the hatch. Shepgee oriented the Hydra to align with a docking port on one of the Munlit Silence's arms. Nothing to do now but wait until the Hydra had drifted into position.

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The Hydra had been designed to dock directly with a specially-aligned set of three docking ports. Such an arrangement would allow the shuttle's 24 passengers to disembark much faster. No such triple-docking ring existed on the Munlit Silence, so Shepgee chose one of the three ports at random to control from. He fired up the incredibly bright spotlights, cancelled his lateral motion, and pushed the Hydra forward with a quick jet of RCS. A soft welcoming chime sounded to indicate his distance from the target. He couldn't help but think he was flying technology hundreds of years more advanced than the simple lander he had used to touch down on the Mün.

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A soft bump and they were docked up with the Munlit Silence: Their home for the next six years. That was when Shepgee decided the Hydra really was the larger of the two craft. A shame they couldn't take it to Jool instead.

They spent the next several orbits getting the crew and all their possessions transferred into the Silence. Once they were sure they had everything, Shepgee remotely piloted the Hydra into a station keeping orbit a safe distance away. It would remain there until they were certain the Silence was ship-shape, after which it would transition into a higher orbit for later recovery.

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Transfers done, Shepgee moved to his cabin. With such limited space on board the Silence they were each arranged three to a cabin. He had the good fortune of sharing his with Haloly and Neilny, which didn't present many opportunities for peace and quiet on the long trip. He settled into his chair, pulled the new Agent Kirrim novel from his bag, and wondered how Blofeld Kerman and his minions would try to destroy Kerbin this time.


Towed-Antenna Array Launch

Year 77 day 1 - Lake Fortunate

Rebel "18th" Space Agency

I thought I was done with the launches for the Munlit Silence, then I started thinking about the mechanics of a space vessel that is always rotating. The intent for ships like the Silence is to rotate the entire vessel about the Z-axis, creating a scant amount of centrifugal "artificial gravity". This reduces complexity by not needing to keep the rotational part attached to the static part of the ship through the use of a collar or bearings, and removes the obvious issue of getting between the two parts. It also reduces physical stress on the entire body. The one downside comes from things that need to stay pointed in a specific direction, such as antennas or solar arrays. I resolved the power issue by using only OX-STAT panels or a small amount of RTGs, but I needed another solution for the communications issue.

Submarines and other seafaring vessels make use of something called a Towed Sonar Array. This allows the sonar to be distant enough from the main vessel that noise pollution from said vessel is easier to cancel out. I decided a similar solution would work for my centrifugal ships. Minus the kilometers-long tow cable, of course.

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The Towed Antenna Array was launched atop an LV-01 Anaximander, the oldest and most-used launch vehicle in my arsenal. Designed to be autonomous, the TAA features its own Reaction Control System, has two long-range Communicatron 88-88 dishes, and four omnidirectional C-16s for relay with the Silence. An integrated RTG allows for operation anywhere, though with its low power it prevents continuous high-bandwidth communications. So no streaming from KerbTube and no online MünCraft for Shepgee and Co. while out at Jool.

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Not by accident, the drive section of the Munlit Silence features a Jr.-sized Docking Port nestled up between the NTRs. Not the most comfortable place to dock, and probably a bit warm during burns, but it'll suffice for something simple like the antenna array. While in transit, the array will undock and distance itself from the ship anyway, so the close-confines of the Silence's backend aren't much of a concern. Still a bit unnerving.

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And now, finally, the Munlit Silence is all kitted-out and ready to go.


Falconaerie Launch

Year 77 day 4 - Cape Kerbal

19th Kerbal Space Agency

Meanwhile, back on the other side of Kerbin, Gene and Wernher were getting ready to launch their first real space station. Yet another Hawk, this time with a large and bulky payload that will never go beyond Low-Kerbin Orbit.

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The ascent was easy despite the station's length. The single Hawk was more than enough to place it into a station orbit, and there wasn't much in the way of excess wobbling. Struts really help in that department.

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Designed specifically as a home for the small 2-kerbal Falcon craft (thus the name), the Falconaerie features four Jr.-sized docking ports, accommodations for eight kerbals, a detachable lab, and two regular-sized docking ports on each end of that station. Expansion nodes in the middle will allow the inclusion of a large solar array once those are unlocked in the 19th's tech tree.

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But what's a station without a crew?


Falcon 3 Launch

Year 77 day 10 - Cape Kerbal

19th Kerbal Space Agency

Dudry and Lanlock were selected as the first crew for the Falconaerie. Dudry, as he was to be the commander for the upcoming Duna mission, which would be assembled at the Falconaerie. Lanlock, because rookies need to fly too. Yet another perfect launch for what is fast becoming one of my favorite small US-styled crafts.

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Every now and then KSP is nice and a rendezvous occurs on the daylight side. (No, really, I'd like to think I planned all these encounters, but I usually just take what's given.) Dudry is pretty much an old-hat at docking by now, so he took over from the IVA and brought them in to one of the ports on the back of the station.

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The one downside of using Jr.-sized docking ports is crews have to EVA over to the station. I'd change it if I thought they minded, but they generally seem to enjoy EVA. And weightlessness. And being stranded in space.

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Falcon 4 Launch

Year 77 day 12 - Cape Kerbal

19th Kerbal Space Agency

Two days later and the next Falcon was ready for the next crew. This time Geneble and Enlan took the honors. Enlan because his Hawk 2 landing was scrapped, leading to his transfer to the Osprey, Geneble because rookies need to fly too. Yet another daytime launch, yet another beautiful ascent.

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This time the rendezvous occurred on the night side, with docking taking place just at sunrise. The station suddenly jumped out of the shadows, backlit by the sun and its rays refracting through Kerbin's atmosphere. That gave me quite a shock, as I hadn't thought I was as close to the station as I actually was. Near-disaster averted.

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These two got to dock at the front of that station, completing the docking and the EVA with no issues at all. That left the station as below, looking like some sort of giant space-hammer, ready to strike at its foes and pound the forthcoming Osprey into shape. Or something like that.

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Munlit Silence / Gauss 1 Departure Burn

Year 77 day 35 - Low Kerbin Orbit

Rebel "18th" Space Agency

Shepgee and Haloly were both in the central core of the Silence for its burn for Jool. Haloly was busy checking the orbital calculations one last time, Shepgee was keeping the ship aligned on their departure vector. They were burning from a high enough orbit that they would be able to complete the departure burn in one go without intercepting Kerbin's atmosphere, and the Silence had more than enough muscle to complete it in a short enough time.

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Shepgee watched the Mün drift past the cabin window as he was aligning the ship for the burn. He contemplated the beauty of the scene, their vessel floating in the silent void around Kerbin, lit by the soft light of the Mün. "Do you think we'll find anything as interesting and beautiful as our own Mün when we're out at Jool?"

Haloly, engrossed in verifying his calculations, answered without looking up. "If we do, it better have cheese. I'm still disappointed about the Mün's distinct lack of cheese."

The navigation system blared at him. Not the soft, reassuring notes of the Hydra, but instead a harsh, cheaply-built buzzer. He looked over to Haloly, who gave him a confident nod, watched as the last seconds ticked down, then gently pushed the throttle forward. The ship started to creak as the four Nuclear-Thermal Rockets came online, producing nearly a half-G of acceleration.

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"Glad we didn't try this with the ship rotating!" Haloly shook his head and acted like he hadn't heard him. The vibrations and noise in the cabin were bad, but not that bad. If the ship could survive twelve more minutes of it, then they'd be well on their way for Jool.

"We're going to have one small course correction, somewhere out beyond the asteroid belt."

"How bad?"

"Ehhnnn." Haloly shrugged. "I've seen worse. The burn Thabit made to align with Moho was in the same ballpark. Nothing we can't handle." Haloly took the opportunity to unstrap and walk over to Shepgee. Twelve minutes of half-G was the most they'd feel for several years. The best the rotation of the Silence could achieve was a little over a tenth of a G. Enough to make things fall, not enough to be completely comfortable. Haloly handed his notepad to Shepgee. "We've even got enough delta-V to complete a capture at Jool, possibly Laythe."

"Enough to make it home afterwards?"

"Assuming we leave the landers and the rest of the science package in the Jool System, yes. I may have over-engineered our drive section a little bit."

Their burn lasted through the night, the main engines cutting out just as they escaped into the daylight. Haloly made some quick calculations and decided he was happy with it. "Time to get this thing spinning. You want to do the honors?"

Shepgee shook his head. "Nope. This whole thing was your idea. Have at it." He unstrapped and floated over to the ladders for the starboard side of the ship. "I'll make sure everyone is still strapped in and ready." Shepgee had barely finished climbing up the ladder before Haloly fired the rotational RCS thrusters. Up suddenly became down. He dropped into the starboard common room, finding four kerbals trying to stand in the weird rotation. Neilny seemed to be having a particular amount of fun, bounding about like a superkerb. Shepgee smiled, climbed back up into the connecting tube, and went into his cabin.

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He spent some time there, watching Kerbin and the Mün slink away in the spinning darkness. He thought how simple and serene Kerbin looked as it twisted away. None of the wars or squabbles or fights were apparent from up here. He thought of something Lem had told him once. How kerbals were not naturally violent, and had instead brought violence back with them from the heavens as a form of penance for their sin of leaving Kerbin.

And yet of all Shepgee had seen in space, none of it had been violent. Silence, beauty, harmony, and the simple yet cold laws of physics were available in abundance. Space was peaceful to him, the emptiness of the void a reminder that even nothingness can be beautiful. If the violence found in the hearts of kerbals was something they brought from space, Shepgee had seen nothing of it.

Yet There was a certain loneliness to the sight of Kerbin slinking away. Every kerbal he had ever known was down there, on that small dot receding into the inky black darkness. All except the twelve of them, bound for the distant reaches of Jool. If something went wrong, there was nothing any of the several billion kerbals below could do to help. If there was some violent entity out amongst the dust and the void, they would have to face it alone. They were at the mercy of physics and its cold, harsh judgments now, slipping silently through the nothingness that filled everything.

He was glad to be among friends.

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End Kerbal Space Program "Alpha" 0.25

Edited by Cydonian Monk
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Have you officially been able to get your save file working with .90 yet?

This save? For the most part, yes. I still have two ships with fuel lines that I probably won't fix, one of them the Munlit Silence, the other the Hydra. The Hydra will be coming in to land soon, and the Silence can manage. It'll probably see an update to its drive section once it makes it back around to Kerbin anyway.

Still having issues with the "Can't click on the Tracking Station when using Real Solar System" thing, but that seems to be a known issue now. (It feels like the hitbox for the tracking station and other afflicted buildings aren't being moved along with the rest of the KSC PQSCity.) So I'll have to fight around that for a bit, or I might just make a quick plugin that sends me to the Tracking Station if I hit a certain key ('m' comes to mind). Otherwise my other mods all either recompiled well, or have been updated to fix the new things (unlockables!) or lack of old things (SPH!) in 0.90. (Oh, and the Timewarp Rotation Fix, which I need to figure out how the new SAS/RSAS stuff works before that'll get fixed. Unless its maintainer reemerges and fixes it first.)

My old "Unity" (0.18.3 Demo up through Null Cycles) save? Not a chance. It at least loads now (after I delete all the kerbals - that's been the case since 0.24), and seems to have a few other bugs. And about 3,000 fuel lines. So, yeah. Not really upset over that anyway, since I just keep it around as a museum.

Edited by Cydonian Monk
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A Kerbal Holiday: An Inter-Release Interlude

Deruki remembered. It was many years ago and he was still a very young kerbal, but he remembered. He had been in the far north of the Desert Continent with the rest of his class on an extended field trip. They stopped to relax one afternoon when a loud roar engulfed them. Frightened and scared most huddled and hid, but only Deruki watched as a mighty beast leapt over the hills and into the sky atop a column of fire.

His teacher, Sensei Bo, had told him what the fire was, how it carried many kerbal into the void beyond the sky. Deruki was hooked at once. Yet that was the last such sight he had seen, for rockets never launched from the Forgotten Islands, so southern and so remote.

So it was to his great surprise when he awoke late one night to the sound of that roar of the remembered beast. He rushed to the window, threw on some clothes, and sprinted out into the cold night. There, atop a magical launchpad on the edge of town, stood a mighty seven-legged beast, dimly lit in the cool evening light. Around it danced his Sensei Bo, hair and clothes burned, hopping about and screaming "It worked! It worked! Ha ha! It worked!"

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When Deruki asked him where he had found the beast, Sensei Bo started waving around a thick book, smoke trails spiraling off into the night air from its still smoldering pages. "It came in the post! Mail-order rocket parts! Who knew?! Ha ha!" Quite mad, that sensei of his.

They climbed to the top of the mighty beast, where a small door opened and Jeysef, the local repairkerb emerged. Sensei Bo handed them both helmets, led them inside, and helped them strap in. "If anything breaks, Jaysef will fix it. Here!" he tossed the catalog on Deruki's lap. "In case you need to order something. They deliver! Ha ha!"

"Wait! What do I do?"

"You go up aways, go sideways aways, and then don't come down. Easy!" He slammed the hatch shut only to open it again a few moments later. "I almost forgot! Play this when you reach space! And good luck!"

Deruki looked at the tape. 'Holiday Mix Vol 1'. He slipped it inside his suit just as the beast roared to life and shot off into the night. Deruki was scared as they climbed as he could hear part of the mighty beast falling off and disappearing into the night. He tried to ask Jeysef, but could hear nothing over the roar.

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And then everything went quiet. The burned book his sensei had given him started to float upwards. Deruki unstrapped and did the same. Sweet, blissful freefall.

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Jeysef turned to him and said "We carry a special room behind us. A 'Space Dojo' your crazy teacher called it." So he spun their little craft around, docked up and they both went inside. Inside, where it was all deocrated with various snacks floting about. Inside, where a radio and a tape player awaited. Deruki jabbed the tape in and pressed "play".


ISC-A2-01 Launch - Southern Space Center

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Lodrigh and Newwin were awaiting liftoff in one the ISC's new Yarbrough-A2 crew shuttles when they first heard the music. A well known holiday tune about Spiders on Duna. Newwin listened for a few minutes then keyed the microphone. "Hey uh, ground, are you getting this music too?"

"Affirmative, A2. We've located the source. Rogue broadcast from a ship in a 45° orbit. Incidentally, flight has just altered your mission profile. You are instructed to locate the source of the transm..." The ground controller went silent as the music switched to a voice message.

"Dojo Ichi and Sensei Bo invite you to a holiday party in the skies! Ha ha! No RSVP required, just drop in any old time! Bring your favorite snacks and join in on the fun!" The music returned shortly after, some unknown kerbal singing a catchy tune about an octopus holding eight candles.

Newwin looked at Lodrigh and raised an eyebrow. "Is this guy for real?" Lodrigh laughed.

"Ground, A2 actual. Request permission to attend a, uh, 'Holiday party in the skies?', over."

"Permission granted, A2. Flight advises caution, as usual."

"Somehow I don't think this is what we had in mind when we built a new space center."

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Deruki wasn't sure at first what he was hearing, and then Jeysef handed him the radio. "It's your ship, little one." Deruki listened for a minute at the static, then heard the voice again.

"ISC-A2-01 calling unknown vessel. We are 20 meters above and behind you and moving in to dock." The line went silent and Deruki was about to answer when they continued. "This is the party, right?"

20141224_ksp0354_a2.jpg

A few minutes later and Newwin and Lodrigh were aboard. "Hey, we brought snacks! Delicacies form the Southern Coalition!" They looked around for a bit, took in the surroundings, then Newwin looked right at Deruki. "Where's the tree, dude?"

"Tree?"

"Yeah! Can't have a party without a tree! Hey, you've got a catalog, right? Let's order one!"


Tree Launch - Cape Kerbal

Gene and Carl were already talking about the broadcast when Wernher came running into his office. "Did you see the order that just came in? For that very big tree-like thing with the green and the red and the..." and Wernher was out of breath.

"Wernher, come on in why don't you." Gene motioned towards an open chair. "Of course we did. Kind of hard to miss it. Carl here has some ideas."

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An impossibly short time later they had a craft on the pad all fueled up and ready to go. It had taken one of the largest rockets they'd yet built, with a peculiar set of accessory boosters. They had to ignore little things like air resistance and proper fairings, but hey - this was a high-priority job! The tree rose gently at first, lights and cables tinkling and clinking in the wind.

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They watched as the tree and its thousand lights flew off and to the NorthEast, only turning away once it had disappeared from sight. "You know Wernher, it's amazing what a few hundred struts can do."

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"Hey! Look! The tree's here!" Lodrigh and Newwin both seemed to be the happiest kerbals in the world to Deruki, always grinning from ear to missing ear. Newwin darted across their small "Space Dojo" and made his way back into their A2. "I'll go out and sign for it, bring it over to you guys. See you in a bit!"

20141224_ksp0361_tree.jpg

Newwin came bounding back in just as soon as Deruki had docked the Fuji and the Dojo up with the tree. "Hey! Why don't we invite some more friends! Hand me the radio there, I know some folks!"


Tantares Launch - Lake Fortunate

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"Tell me why we're doing this again?" Milzer really wasn't in the best of moods, and it had taken all the energy Meldo could muster to force him onto the Tantares.

"Because you need to get out of that control room! That beast of a starship will build itself and doesn't need you lording over every detail. Besides, I know these dudes. They're cool!"

"Hmm."

Milzer's mood improved the instant they saw the station. "Wow! Look at all the lights!"

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They wandered through the makeshift station's hub and down into the Space Dojo, introducing themselves, sharing snacks, drinking a bit much. The tiny space station was getting a bit crowded by then. Then somebody else saw the catalog. "Say, why don't we order one of those new super-jumbo rooms?"


Party Room Launch - Cape Kerbal

"They want a what now?" Wernher was clearly confused, flipping through his copy of the catalog quickly to find the large parts the order was referencing. "I don't hink I have heard of such a part."

"That new Mark-3 with the 16 seats, right? Except kitted out for a party. Extra snacks even. I tell ya, Wernher, with the last two days worth of sales we might just break even."

"Ah! Here it is!" He put the catalog down and started reading from it intently. "Except the insides are filled with blackness. Nothing at all. What a strange place for a party." He shrugged. "Oh well, it's what they want, ja?"

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"Hey, those guys really are fast!" Milzer was half hanging out of the orbital module of their Tantares, watching the lights play on the new Party Module as it docked up. "We oughtta have them build some of our stuff!"

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Meldo pulled him pack inside and closed the hatch. "Hey, why don't we invite those two dudes that landed at Shepgee's Arch?"

"Oooh. And Jeb, too! Or is he too old for parties like this?"

"Pfft. Jeb's never too old!"


Falcon Launch - Cape Kerbal

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Anny slammed the throttle forward and hit the ignition. A holiday party in the sky? What could be better? He smiled over at Herhat, who already looked like he'd had a bit too much eggnog. "Hey! I thought you inggahneer types could slam that stuff down? Isn't there some scale for solving problems based on it?"

Herhat just shook his head, holding his hands over the front of his helmet, turning increasing more green. "I'm fine" he tried to say.

"Yeah, sure ya are. How about you let me do the flying though, 'k?"


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The station was really rocking now, with a good eight kerbals on board. Then suddenly everyone heard another ship dock. All eyes watched the hatch expectantly, waiting for Jeb or one of the B's to come bounding down the docking tube. Instead they were greeted by the gaping wide mouth of Haloly.

"Cheeeeeeeese!!!"

Milzer and Meldo were in shock, doubly so when Shepgee came smiling in after him. All he could do was shrug. "He heard there was cheese. Turned the ship right around, said Jool can wait. Nothing I could really do to stop him." He made the rounds, introducing himself to the new faces, the strange faces, and all the odd spacecraft docked outside.

"Say, where's Jeb?"


"Bob, for the last time, just leave it! Bill is waiting in the ship already!"

"But I want to take a picture of everybody! Post it to KerbBook!" Bob was throwing things all over the place. Books, papers, clothes, you name it, all to find his phone. After a few minutes of searching something started to ring in his fightsuit pocket. "Yeah?"

"It's Jeb. You phone is in your hand. Now lets go!"

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Bob was asleep already by the time they made orbit, phone floating casually out of his hand. Bill was about to hide it inside of the control panel when he caught sight of the station. "Whoa. Jeb, you gotta come up here and see this."

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"See! It's just like I told Bob! Only one spot left!" He shook his head and slipped back down to his seat. "Ok, bring us in Bill. I'll grab the snacks and gifts."

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"Ho! Ho! Ho!" Jeb came barreling down into the party room with a bag of gifts slung over his shoulder. He made the rounds, apologized for being so late, and then handed out gifts at random to everyone. Some got spare batteries, others an extra LV-909. When he came to Deruki he grinned, winked, and gave him two packages.

"Why two?"

"One for you, one for your Sensei. Tell Bobbo I said hi." Jeb started to turn away, but stopped. "Oh, and don't lose the catalog!"

He yanked the fake white beard off his chin, tossed it into a cabinet marked "geckos," and jumped upwards for the hatch. "Ok boys, time to light the star!" That made everyone smile. Everyone except Bill and Bob, who both groaned in unison.

"Why us?"

"Yeah, why not let three others go, Jeb?"

"Bah! C'mon, ya old fogies! Suit up! No Kerbal tree is complete without the Kerbal Trinity atop it!"

Bob made his way first, working cautiously through the girders and struts.

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Bill followed soon after, playing about with the lights and the fluff.

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Jeb jetted forward, fearless and brave, and let nothing get in his way.

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They each took their seats at the top of the tree. Jeb fly in front of Bill and gave him a mocking wave. "Bill, you almost look like you're enjoying this."

"Just get in your seat, showoff, so they can take the picture and let us go home."

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"Wait, somebody is taking pictures of us? Who?"

"Not somebody Bob, but someThing. Didn't you know this was a party for the Kraken? All those nicely wrapped presents under the tree, just waiting to be torn into?"

"Really?" Bob's eyes grew wide. For a moment he was certain he saw something inky and black in the dark sky.

"Relax Bob, Jeb's pulling your leg. Right Jeb?"

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"Right?"

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Jeb turned to the two and said with a smile, "Wouldn't it be cool if..."

"NO!"


Deruki awoke in his room, back safe and sound in his quiet Forgotten Islands. It was a happy dream, one that was fading quickly. That almost made him sad, until something in his room caught his eye. A book, lightly singed, with bright bright letters on the cover.

A voice once strong seemed to whisper and fade off into the morning air. "And don't lose the catalog!" Deruki smiled and grinned, his mind filling with grand ideas.


Merry Christmas! Happy Holidays! Jumping Jebmas! Festivus Whateverus! I wish you all a happy and safe holiday, whatever you observe (even if you only observe the reduction in traffic and the bit of extra silence), and hope you've enjoyed this strange and silly little story. Thanks for reading along this far, and I'll see you next year!

(PS - Is anyone interested in the craft file of the tree?)

(PPS - I'll probably proof-read this again in the morning. Sometimes English fails me after long days of C and makefiles.)

Edited by Cydonian Monk
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So uhhh... was that canon?

Ho, ho, no. Nope. Not really. Maybe. Sorta. Ok, no. ;) Besides - that's an 800 part tree I'd rather not have in my main save. It's hard enough to keep KSP from randomly deleting craft, no need to almost double the file size to give the kraken more inspiration.

Edited by Cydonian Monk
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Kerbal Space Program 0.90.0

Ad Lunam - Some Assembly Required


Year 77 day 47 - Lake Fortunate Research Facility

Rebel "18th" Space Agency

Milzer and Meldo had been at it for days. Every design they tried for launching Haloly's big new ship had ultimately proved impossible. Parts were either too wide for the fairings they had, or too heavy for the available launch vehicles. And there was the issue of the fuel tank for the ship's drive section.

"Look, Meldo, even if we had these Kerbodyne lifters we still can't get these components to orbit. They're just too big to be feasible. And we can't afford to build some exotic orbital construction yard."

"Ok, so what about these new guys out of the ISC? SpaceY? They've got some heavy-lifters that should be able to handle the larger pieces."

"Have we ever heard back from them?"

"Well, they sent us a catalog. Here." Meldo slid a thick, blue, slick-printed book across the table to Milzer. "Big parts, high power engines. Really expensive, though." Milzer started flipping through the catalog.

"Yeah, that's the problem here. Funds. Roots. The Silence wasn't exactly cheap, and sure, we've got a bit put away, but nowhere near enough to cover..." he tossed the catalog back across the table, "this."

"Ok, so let's take on a bunch of contracts." Meldo jumped up and walked over to the contract pile, grabbing the first several off of the top. "Here's one that offers more than a hundred-thousand advance for building a station around Moho."

"Moho? How would we even do that in the year we have before we leave?"

"We don't have to. The contract doesn't expire for another 49 years. We'll probably be long dead before anybody ever comes to collect on it!"

"I don't know, M." Milzer glanced through the papers Meldo had handed him. "Some of these we could do now. Return science data from Minums? Monier 2 should be able to do that. Science data from the Mün? We could launch another probe." He kept flipping through the pages. "I see what you mean, though. Enough advances on these and we can finance this thing. Here's another one that's good for 40 years: Build a station in an inclined Solar orbit."

"Hey." Meldo held up a strange contract that had already been stamped as 'accepted.' Who agreed to plant a flag on Eve?"

"Somebody really optimistic. Probably Haloly." Milzer thought for a while. "Ok, give me an exact cost for this Duna expedition and I'll see about finding the funds."

"And the Kerbodyne tanks?"

Milzer smiled. "A little bird told me Gene has a present for us."


Beta Get Ready

And we're back, and this time in KSP 0.90.0. The transition to Beta hasn't been without small headaches, but all in all has gone well. The biggest problem I ran into was with KSCSwitcher in RSS, which now has a work-around that almost works... only crashes occasionally. (The code that repaints the terrain has a pretty big memory leak that I've not tried to track down.) As a result the first batch of things I did in the new release were all from the traditional Kerbal Space Center, and thus part of the 19th KSA.

Regarding the dual saves: I've merged both persistence files together, adding up Funds and Science and copying all the ships from the 19th to the main save. Both had unlocked most of the same tech nodes (and mostly everything up to the top tiers), and I'm at the point where every craft I launch will need to be copied over. So I decided to just save myself the headache and play from the same save again. This means contracts and funds are now shared, as well as tech tree unlocks, but oh well. I'm assuming from here on out the two programs have the same tech-level, though parts restrictions are still in place.

I've lost a few satellites to failed / nerfed reaction wheels, one of them being the Towed Antenna Array for the Munlit Silence. I also decided to leave the fuel lines broken, and those two issues will be resolved in-story. Costs of using overly-advanced tech, if you will. Nothing can be done about the Silence now anyway, and upgrades for will have to wait until it's back home... in six years. It's a bit like using DangIt!, just with the stock game causing things to break instead.

Crew assignments weren't too far off from what I had guessed or had written them into, so I'm going to leave everyone where they are. Pretty much what you'd expect from random chance. Some statistics: Of the 29 crew members of the 18th (old) program, 12 saw a change in employment, most of those being raw recruits that were unassigned anyway. Notables were Milzer and Neilny, who are both now scientists. (At least Shepgee and Haloly stayed the same.) Meanwhile, of the 10 crew members of the 19th (new) program, 8 saw a change. Notably: Anny is now a BadS scientist and no longer a BadS pilot, Herhat is no longer a very timid Ing-gah-neer and has become a very timid Pilot (irony). Dudry has become an Engineer. Other changes are noted above in the second post.

I've reinstalled a bunch of mods I was using in the past: DMagic Science, SCANsat, a few other smaller ones; basically everything except the mods that require Module Manager. I'm also experimenting with Space-Y, as will be covered below, and some other detail and flair mods, many of which you won't see for another couple of updates.

Meanwhile, most of this update is dedicated to assembling the ships for the two large Duna missions, so let's just dive right in.


Falconaerie Solar Array Launch

Year 77 day 49 - Cape Kerbal

19th Kerbal Space Agency

Launch Vehicle: Custom A2

Height: 36.4m

Liftoff Mass: 80.4t

Cost: 71,069 Roots

The final major components planned for the Falconaerie are two large solar array armatures. These were needed before work could proceed on constructing the Osprey to ensure crews would have enough power to complete the fitting-out of the craft. Wrestling a giant tuning fork into orbit isn't always an easy thing, so I gave it a bit larger of a launch vehicle than it really needed.

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Rendezvousing with the Falconaerie was incredibly easy, considering all the other weird orbits I've launched into lately. The launch was well timed and the payload was on-station just a short while later, ready for one of the crews to take remote control of its builder-bot and finish the installation.

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Which of course started at sunset. Half of KSP happens in the dark, usually the interesting half.

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Darkness doesn't make for interesting screenshots though, so I skipped around until sunrise. Here's the construction bot moving the first of the arrays in for installation on the central core of the station.

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A quick trip out to grab the other arm and the bot was back.

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Once the last of the solar arrays were installed the bot was parked and the arrays were extended. Now we're in business! Meanwhile the orbital stage that brought our giant tuning fork was deorbited, and recovered somewhere off the coast of KSC.

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Osprey Core Launch

Year 77 day 63 - Cape Kerbal

19th Kerbal Space Agency

Launch Vehicle: Hawk

Height: 51.7m

Liftoff Mass: 350.8t

Cost: 217,743 Roots

This was originally intended to be two launches, with the Core Stage and the Lab Module launched independently. Once I looked at the payload mass it only made sense to double them up and launch them atop a Hawk. And unlike some later launches it didn't look all that peculiar. (Sometimes I wish I had FAR to keep me honest.... I should probably be careful what I wish for.)

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A perfectly routine launch, following an ascent profile similar to the Hawk 1 mission to the Mün. The Osprey is to be the main expedition vehicle for the 19th KSA's similarly-named Duna mission. It has a long-duration crew capacity of 5, with an absolute capacity of 11, with room for 2 more riding uncomfortably in the lab and 3 more in the lander. The lab itself is intended to be a permanent installation at Duna, and will be left behind with the lander when the crew returns to Kerbin, so it's not advised to use them for crew transport.

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Another quick rendezvous. The orbital stage was jettisoned and deorbited once the craft was within the "no-wake" zone of the station. Or would it be a "no-splash" zone in space? Meanwhile the Osprey aligned itself for docking. One of the crews would complete the final docking remotely.

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Docking these two modules to the Falconaerie was a simple two step process. Initially I brought it in directly, docking to the laboratory end of the station from one end of the Osprey. That allowed the crews to conduct supply transfers and get things "situated." Or possibly I just forgot. Forgot that such an arrangement wouldn't allow me to dock the mission payload to the Osprey, so I undocked it, spun it around, and docked to the station using one of the Osprey Lab module's radial docking ports. Less shuffling on future launches that way.

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Duna Heavy Lander Launch

Year 77 day 78 - Cape Kerbal

19th Kerbal Space Agency

Launch Vehicle: Ptolemy

Height: 36.6m

Liftoff Mass: 157.0t

Cost: 96,928 Roots

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If you're going to Duna you might as well land there. The lander being carted along by the Osprey mission is a modest-sized, three-kerbal lander, fully reusable assuming you repack the chutes. Also along for the ride is the solar array harness for the Duna Lab module. It fit the mass requirements of this launch vehicle better than later with the rest of the solar array.

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Most of this flight occurred in the dark, with the rendezvous just after sunrise. The lander will stay sealed up until the entire package is delivered to Duna, so it gets docked to the closed-off end of the Osprey Lab module where the Science Jr blocks the otherwise unimpeded flow of crew-accessible modules. The power harness was docked between the two, where it will remain indefinitely.

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Two more pieces to go!


Osprey Drive Section Launch

Year 77 day 92 - Cape Kerbal

19th Kerbal Space Agency

Launch Vehicle: Hawk

Height: 44.8m

Liftoff Mass: 367.4t

Cost: 205,303 Roots

20141224_ksp0707_osprey.jpg

The drive section of the Osprey is rather modest, and exactly enough to get the entire package to Duna and return the crew safely back to Kerbin. This is no Jool tug here, and would probably be better suited for in-system work than this interplanetary business. For now it's just another heavy payload launched atop a Hawk. Gene and Wernher would have preferred this to be the Hawk 3 mission to the far side of the Mün, but when the tab is being picked up by the government you don't have much room for complaint.

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The launch again went perfectly according to plan (dang it!, I miss DangIt!), the first stage and fairing dropping away without issue and the orbital stage carrying the heavy drive to orbit.

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The orbital stage tagged along with the drive section the entire way to the station, and was used to refuel the Heavy Lander and the waiting Falcons. Once spent it was backed away using RCS and deorbited. It was later recovered after completing a powered landing somewhere west of KSC.

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One more piece!


Osprey Lab Solar Array Launch

Year 77 day 101 - Cape Kerbal

19th Kerbal Space Agency

Launch Vehicle: Custom A3

Height: 39.6m

Liftoff Mass: 88.6t

Cost: 87,644 Roots

The final component of the Osprey Duna Mission is the Solar Array for the Osprey Lab module. Unlike the solar arrays for the Falconaerie, these would need to remain stowed away until the Lab is in the Duna system. As such they required a slightly heavier construction.

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That also means an assembly bot needs to be sent along for the ride to the red planet. And since it's being dragged the whole way to Duna I wanted to use a smaller bot. Initial rendezvous was, of course, right at nightfall.

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Here we are, following installation of the first solar armature, and off to grab the second from the harness. (Which was busy drifting away.) The bot returned a few minutes later with the second armature.

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With the armatures packed for their trip to Duna, the construction bot moved back to the standard Clampotron Jr port I put at the end of all of my nuclear tugs. One of these days something will explode in there and ruin an otherwise good ship.

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Nothing left now but to send up the crews. And wait more than a year for the transfer window. What to do for the next year.... Hmm.


Year 77 day 103 - Gene's Office, Cape Kerbal

19th Kerbal Space Agency

"Fantastic job getting Big Bird together for us, Gene. Fine work done on a fine timeline." Gene had the Senator on speakerphone so Wernher and Carl could listen in. "Sorry I couldn't be there in person to watch the final two launches."

"Thanks. I expect we'll have two more crew rotations to the Falconaerie before the ship is fully fitted-out." Gene looked up at Wernher and continued. "And of course we'll get back to work on the Mün Program. We still have the Hawk 2 payload siting in a dark corner of the VAB, and we expect to take delivery on two more launch vehicles from Kerbodyne in the next couple münths."

"About that." The line went quiet for a moment, only the regular background static still audible. "Gene, we've got another project we'd like your boys to work on. Something that needs to take precedence over the Mün Program. An odd little thing the military has been working on and needs some help with, whether they know it or not."

"Senator, quite frankly we're a civilian outfit here. We have neither the security measures nor the desire to work with military payloads."

"You'd do well to remember who pays the bills, son." They could hear someone clacking away on a typewriter in the background now. "Gene, we need you to put aside this Mün nonsense for the sake of the people of Kerbin. It's not something we can afford with half the planet in open rebellion."

"Yet we can afford a Duna mission?"

"Can't afford not to! Look, Gene, if you don't want your crews handling military payloads, so be it. They can provide their own people. But I'm having the orders drawn up now to transfer this project to you and the KSA. We need you, Gene. Major Danbus Kerman will fill you in on the details when he arrives. You should listen to what he says." At that, the Senator hung up.

Gene shook his head. "I don't like this."

"Gene, the military getting involved is never a good sign, even though it can make for a lucrative deal." Carl started pacing at the far end of the office. "I don't like this either."

Wernher spoke up. "Hmm. It is not absolutely a bad thing. My first exposure to rocketry was with the military during The War. That was where the K2 and later the Bumper came from, if you remember. And from that has sprung the Hawk and many other mighty birds."

"Oh, we remember Wernher. That was a long time ago, too. A long, long, long time ago. And you were quite a different kerbal." Gene let his eyes drift to something outside, lost deep in thought. "Wernher?"

"Yes?"

"Go ahead and prep the Hawk 2. But do it quietly. I'll find a crew for it, some kerbals we can trust. We need to see whatever it is our handlers want to keep hidden. For now we'll play along with this new project, whatever it is."


Monier 4 Mün Launch

Year 77 day 102 - Lake Fortunate

Rebel "18th" Space Agency

Launch Vehicle: Anaximander

Height: 18.1m

Liftoff Mass: 14.3t

Cost: 22,965.0 Roots

Meanwhile, M&M were up to no good with the rest of the rebels. Conducting science missions, revealing the secrets of the universe, all those other contentious and rebellious things.

20141226_ksp0126_monier4.jpg

Today's launch was just a quick shot to complete a few outstanding contracts at the Mün, one being the rather basic "Explore the Mün". Some time back something deleted all of my contracts (probably me), so I still had some of those early and simple ones sitting around only partially completed. This mission netted over 100,000 Roots just by entering Mün orbit. Cha-ching!

20141226_ksp0133_monier4.jpg

Monier 4 is just a tiny little probe, and capable of being launched atop an equally tiny Anaximander. It'll stay in a highly eccentric Münar orbit to milk any of those "Science Data from Mün" missions that crop up in the future. The gift that keeps on giving!

A short while later the engineering teams knocked out a few more old contracts using a static test fire stand at the launchpad. One of which involved firing off a structural pylon while landed. More roots!

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Kraken's Harvest Core Launch

Year 77 day 104 - Lake Fortunate

Rebel "18th" Space Agency

Launch Vehicle: Psycho Heavy

Height: 48.9m

Liftoff Mass: 446.5t

Cost: 310,547 Roots

And now we're down to the big launches. The really big launches. The ones where the fairings (or lack there of) make me cringe. And where the launchpad itself weeps and moans. And explodes for no reason at all. Physics loads, launchpad explodes. Makes sense.

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Calling bug, I reverted, time and time again. And eventually decided to move the spacecraft upwards by a half dozen meters. Because that should obviously fix everything, right? Reminds me of the old launch tower that used to clip into ships....

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Anyway....

The core of the Kraken's Harvest was a considerably larger module before I trimmed back the arms. Even then I couldn't fit it cleanly into a fairing. (Not that I didn't try. And in my mind those girders would be retracted until the ship reaches orbit, so it really does fit.) If I build another ship like this I'm probably going to "find a better way" to assemble it in orbit. Perhaps KAS? Who knows. Kerbal structural engineering is a discipline that lives in its own weird, twisted universe.

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The main stages for most of the Kraken's Harvest launches are SpaceY 5-meter parts. Nothing smaller could put these giants into orbit. This was a simple launch, and all I needed to do was get to orbit. Any orbit. I had timed this first launch deliberately - I didn't want to repeat the issues that crept into the Munlit Silence's construction where launches were increasingly at night. So for the Kraken's Harvest all of the launch windows would fall in the daytime.

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I made a small mistake on the orbital stage of the first few launches and used a Rockomax engine instead of the SpaceY F1 that I had planned for. Oops. Not sure how that occurred, probably by using the wrong subassembly, but it was corrected once I discovered it.


Kraken's Harvest Drive Launch

Year 77 day 119 - Lake Fortunate

Rebel "18th" Space Agency

Launch Vehicle: Psycho Heavy

Height: 64.8m

Liftoff Mass: 1189.9t

Cost: 534,402 Roots

And so with the core stage safely in orbit we turn back to the drive section. I'm stubborn. Launching the drive section fully fueled would save me from an onslaught of refueling launches. Unfortunately it is also frickin' massive. I'll need to check my older launch records, but I think this might be the single heaviest thing I've ever launched legitimately.

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And it certainly felt massive. Just watching the fuel burn away at insane and previously unheard of rates gave me an appreciation for just how big this thing was.

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The SRBs and the two stages of the Psycho Heavy launch vehicle were more than enough to get the drive to orbit. Incidentally, the Kerbodyne tanks were recovered from the first stage of the Hawk launched by Gene with the Osprey Core. So while the Osprey Core was continuing skyward, the Hawk's first stage was descending into the arms of the rebels.

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A covert operation, filling the void spaces in the tanks with inflatable bags to keep them from sinking, some parachutes, and a bit of excess fuel to allow it to land on the flame. It was also tough getting the League's navy in the right place at the right time. (With its proximity to Jebediah's Junkyard, it's likely he had a hand in the recovery too.) Luckily the spent stage didn't explode after it was jettisoned. Salvage rights. :)

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The upper parts of the tank suffered some damage when the stage fell over into the water, but thankfully not to any of the parts the kerbals at Lake Fortunate need. Now that I think about it, perhaps this is where they got those Rockomax engines for the upper stages....

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Operationally, the drive stage is fairly useless without the core stage. It's severely lacking in attitude authority, relying on the reaction wheels in the core during normal flight. So instead of docking with the core, the core docked with it. It was tumbling slightly, making for a difficult docking. Nothing quite as bad as Interstellar though.

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With the easy parts done we move on to the really nerve-wranglingly-painful parts of this construction project: Arms with 4 docking ports each. Enjoy this brief Zen-like moment of silence and beauty before we wander off into that insanity. Breathe in. Breathe out. Relax.

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Kraken's Harvest Arms A-B Launch

Year 77 day 126 - Lake Fortunate

Rebel "18th" Space Agency

Launch Vehicle: Psycho Heavy

Height: 55.7m

Liftoff Mass: 446.9t

Cost: 301,559 Roots

20141226_ksp0211_kh.jpg

This was the first of the three large arm module launches. This fairing is a big joke, but eh. Only so much you can do. Future craft of this style will probably use interchangeable Habitation units, being constructed instead as more of a skeleton ship. But I'll talk about that in a few IRL months should we make it that far. These arms are light enough that the first stage of the Psycho Heavy takes them most of the way to orbit. Here we are just past 32km where the fairings auto-eject (or, where I slap the space bar).

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At this point it's not even worth mentioning the rendezvous. Yep, it happened. Yep, I've done this about 1000 times now. Yep, it was in the dark. Docking the arms to the core was both easy and difficult. Easy, because I added ample RCS ports to them. Difficult, because they had to be lined up 100% perfectly. Here's the construction tug for Arms A-B extracting Arm A from the cradle.

20141226_ksp0243_kh.jpg

The small docking port on the top of the armature is there to act as a keying device. It will be pulled into place by the opposite small port on the superstructure of the core stage, making sure the arm is locked in at 0 degrees. Worked like a charm. Yes, "Dr. Al the Kiddie's Pal", I do still remember my introductory Mechanical Engineering almost two decades later. Can I get some extra credit? ;)

20141226_ksp0248_kh.jpg

Here's the construction bot coming back with the second arm. These construction bots were designed for two-use only, so it'll stay docked up here until the other four arms are installed. I could have reused the same one, but I wasn't sure how much reshuffling I might need to do on the arms.

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Ok, so maybe that wasn't so tough. Yet. Progress so far:

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Kraken's Harvest Arms C-D Launch

Year 77 day 128 - Lake Fortunate

Rebel "18th" Space Agency

Launch Vehicle: Psycho Heavy

Height: 55.7m

Liftoff Mass: 446.9t

Cost: 301,559 Roots

Another day, another heavy launch.

20141226_ksp0265_kh.jpg

The first two arms docked up well enough, so I decided to send up the C&D units without any changes.

This is where the issues started, namely that some of the arms would "lock in" at weird angles thanks to the locking key. (Ok, so maybe it wasn't the perfect solution I thought it was). The arm would dock to the key and an adjacent arm, instead of to the core of the ship, resulting in a slight angle. Also at issue was the occasional odd docking where the key wouldn't hit squarely. It's not obvious from this picture, but I spent most of the dwell time wrestling to get Arm C installed. Eventually I just saved it and came back the next IRL day.

20141227_ksp0286_kh.jpg

In retrospect I suspect these issues were caused because I was installing the arms radially around from the first, instead of staggered. Had I installed, say, A, C, and E first, they would have locked in place as desired. Later installation of B, D, and F would dock primarily with their neighbors, creating the desired continuous ring with minimal warpage on the arms themselves. Hindsight is 20/20 they say. Here's Arm D coming in for docking.

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The progress after Arm D:

20141227_ksp0292_kh.jpg


Kraken's Harvest Arms E-F Launch

Year 77 day 141 - Lake Fortunate

Rebel "18th" Space Agency

Launch Vehicle: Psycho Heavy

Height: 55.7m

Liftoff Mass: 446.9t

Cost: 301,559 Roots

Another day, another heavy launch.

20141227_ksp0297_kh.jpg

This is where things started to get really hairy, though I was able to pound most of the arms into alignment. Here's Arm E coming in for installation.

20141227_ksp0314_kh.jpg

Now you may be wondering what tools I'm using to do all of this, so here's a screenshot with the HUD still visible. My primary tool is actually the Stock Navball. I use the DPAI to get the alignment right, but once we're headed towards the target port, I use the directional and the target prograde markers to make sure I'm drifting in the right direction. That's how I learned to dock, and it's the main reason I prefer DPAI over the docking plugin that puts the markers on the navball. (Sorry about the downsampling on this one, I know it makes the text hard to read. I play at 2048x1152 most of the time, even when I'm playing on the Mac.)

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And here's the last piece of the puzzle, Arm F. Feel free to return to that place of Zen, all the wrangling and wrestling complete. Breathe in. Breathe out. Relax. Good.

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With everything in place, the universe gave the ship a quick shake (4x Physics Warp FTW!) and all the Clampotrons worked their magic and docked up. Even if they weren't correctly aligned.

Habitation ring complete:

20141227_ksp0338_kh.jpg


Kraken's Harvest Lab Module Launch

Year 77 day 150 - Lake Fortunate

Rebel "18th" Space Agency

Launch Vehicle: Cantemir

Height: 31.8m

Liftoff Mass: 123.1t

Cost: 120,503 Roots

Another day, another heavy launch.

20141227_ksp0509_kh.jpg

Not quite as heavy this time though, as the Lab Module was lofted to the heavens by an older Cantemir launch vehicle. I'm wondering how these will look once OrionKerman finishes recreating and splitting up his HGR pack. Or if they'll even exist.

20141227_ksp0513_kh.jpg

The lab module is another semi-permanent station, and will be left behind in the Duna system along with the landers. Power for it is provided by RTGs, so no solar arrays are necessary. It features a hitchhiker can for long-duration inhabitation by two members of the science team, and is a fully autonomous facility. As such it moved in to dock with the "shoving platform" at the front of the Kraken's Harvest.

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Here's the lab on final approach.

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And with that, the as-originally-intended Long-Duration Rotational Spaceship LDRS-02 "Kraken's Harvest" is complete. Now to send up the rest of the mission payload and consumables.


Duna Dusters and Resupply Launch

Year 77 day 153 - Lake Fortunate

Rebel "18th" Space Agency

Launch Vehicle: ALV-SuperHeavy

Height: 46.6m

Liftoff Mass: 251.7t

Cost: 194,871 Roots

Another day, another you get the idea.

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It took me a while to settle on a design for the Duna landers. I had originally wanted to send along 4, 2-kerbals landers, but just couldn't make the math work. These landers needed to be able to make it to and from the surface totally on flames (in case repacking the chutes doesn't work for some reason), and also need to have enough range to reach Ike from a 100km orbit around Duna.

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The Dusters can do all of that and a bit more. I had originally built them using the Tantares capsule, until I realized the crews wouldn't have any room for their EVA suits. Something that's kind of needed on Duna and Ike. So I rebuilt them to be 100% stock. Also along for the ride was some excess fuel, to top off the KH's depleted reserves. The fuel tanker docked up along the ring while the Dusters docked ahead of the lab. Meanwhile the three construction bots had all stacked up on the same port.

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Towed Antenna Array Launch

Year 77 day 157 - Lake Fortunate

Rebel "18th" Space Agency

Launch Vehicle: Anaximander

Height: 19.3m

Liftoff Mass: 15.6t

Cost: 23,799 Roots

20141228_ksp0631_taa.jpg

0.90.0 necessitated a change to the Towed Antenna Array, as the probe core its using no longer features any reaction wheels. Hmm. Small change to add the now-tiny SAS unit to the stack, and to clean up a bit using the new clipping tools. Like before, this antenna array was shoved up the backside of the drive section to a place where the Sun literally was not shining (only Kerbin). Inadvertently extending the two 88-88 antennas would make for a rather uncomfortable nuclear accident.

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So now we've got all the hardware up there. What about the crews?


Hydra 1 Return

Year 77 day 157 - Low Kerbin Orbit

Rebel "18th" Space Agency

Last bit of business for today is to bring the Hydra back to Lake Fortunate so we can process it and get it prepped for crew transfer... in another year or so. It's not been half a year since we launched the Munlit Silence, so naturally that means we get to land in the dark. Yay.

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Keeping the Hydra facing retrograde for the reentry involves both parachutes and a slow, steady burn. It's just a tad bit unbalanced for flight. Naturally this happened at night, so... dark pictures. I'll admit I tried this landing three times, the first time coming down across the lake, the second time coming down somewhere well short (inside a new crater on one of those nice backdrop mountains). Third time's a charm, right?

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Not exactly. Brought it down (safely) in the lake just beyond the space center. A little bit of water shouldn't hurt, right? Either way, it allowed me to recover several-tens-of-thousands worth of Roots and call this reusable crew shuttle "Reusable."


Year 77 day 158 - Lake Fortunate Vehicle Assembly Building

Rebel "18th" Space Agency

Milzer, Meldo, Jeb and a few of the other grounds crew were all gathered around the Hydra Shuttle, which was busy dripping slightly-acidic lake water all over the floor of the VAB. Jeb had his head shoved inside one of the shuttle's LV-909s when M&M started prodding him for a damage report.

"Gotta admit I'm a bit disappointed you put my baby down in the drink, but I don't think there's any damage I can't fix. Just need to drain it out and hope this lake crud hasn't eaten through anything important."

"So you'll have it ready next year when we need it?"

Jeb slid down off of the engine, a deluge of lake sludge following him to the floor. "Sure! Besides, I've got two more of the things just sitting around collecting rust back at the junkyard. And I'll want to have it in top shape for the next launch anyway since I'm coming with you."

Milzer put his hand up. "Wait. Who said anything about you coming with us?"

"C'mon, Mildew. I know you and Melba here are short on crews, even to the point of inviting those crazy rookies from the islands. I even heard you were inviting a couple kerbals from the old CCHR, right?" Jeb grabbed a wrench and opened another valve, causing slimy water to start spilling out of the RCS ports. "Besides, last crew I saw off to Duna never came back. I'd kinda like to know what happened."

Meldo elbowed Milzer. "M, if Jeb comes then so will Bill and Bob. We could use an extra Engineer. And, Bob, too. I guess."

Milzer thought about it. "Ok, sure. We've got a year still, and the ship seats 96 at full capacity, so there's more than enough room for Jeb and the Bs and plenty of time to pack supplies for them. And a few extra false teeth." Jeb smiled, laughed, smiled some more, slapped Milzer on the back, then went back to draining the lake water out of the Hydra.

Milzer turned back to Meldo, motioning him to the exit, trying to avoid the rapidly growing puddle of dark green sludge gathering on the VAB floor. "Ok, so we've got a year until the Duna transfer window? What do we do until then?"

"Contracts, dude! Contracts!"


Here's a quick grab of the VAB-stats for the Kraken's Harvest. KSP seems to disagree with KER about how much mass we're talking about, but everything else checks out. I suspect KER is incorrectly subtracting mass from some of the "physics-less" parts, or that KSP is incorrectly adding said mass. It's my understanding that not all of those parts are massless and instead add a generic mass at the CoM of the vessel, though I'm not sure how the game would decide which are which.

These numbers are for the full Duna / Diophantus mission stack, and the ∆v goes up considerably once the landers and lab are ditched.

20141230_ksp0722_khstats.jpg

Next Time: We see just how long it takes for a 256t ship to burn for Duna using only 8 LV-Ns. Maybe.

Edited by Cydonian Monk
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You are a madman and an inspiration. I love your designs, right down to the little details.

Thanks! I'm amazed at some of the finer points folks pick up on (from both text and screenshots), and always happy to have an audience. :)

So the rebels are going to beat the government to Duna?

Or the other way around?

I'm not sure yet. While there are some loose story elements that are kinda set in stone, something like who exactly gets to Duna first really comes down to the vagaries of the KSP engine and the cold equations of simple physics. I know who's going to /burn/ for Duna first, but actually get there first? We'll see. ;)

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This moment of Reflection brought to you by Shepgee Kerman and a Beta release of Texture Replacer, featuring built-in "real" reflections. The Munlit Silence has now passed beyond the orbit of Duna, making it the furthest out any of my Kerbals have ventured since the Jool Jester mission in March of 2014.

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Edited by Cydonian Monk
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What mod did you use to get Lake Fortunate and can I please have the config for it?

Certainly! I'm using RealSolarSystem to swap launch sites, as detailed in this post: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/89277-Ad-Lunam-Updated-2015-01-01?p=1599899&viewfull=1#post1599899

The launchsite config is located in this file: http://0div0.org/files/LaunchSites.cfg Just drop that into the RealSolarSystem folder, make the other config changes as detailed in the post I linked to, and it will mostly work. RSS is having some issues with moving launchsites in 0.90.0, so you will want to check the forum thread for it. For starters: LaunchSites are not retained across game loads, and must be reselected every time you open the save. Also, there's a nasty memory leak somewhere, perhaps from my config or perhaps from RSS, that causes the game to crash after 10 or 20 trips to/from the space center. Not sure what's up there. Disclaimer: If my config changes cause RSS to be (more) unstable, ask me first before you go and bother the RSS team, as it's likely something I've broken and may have already fixed.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Ad Lunam - WildFire

Dojo Ichi / Orenji-1 Launch

Year 77 day 45 - Forgotten Islands Space-O-Plex

Forgotten Space Program

Launch Vehicle: Cantemir

Height: 28.4

Liftoff Mass: 119.2

Cost: 192,371

While the Kerbal Space Agency and the "Rebels" were busy building their ships for Duna, a couple new contenders taking their first steps into the void. Word had leaked out that yes, indeed there were kerbals in space, and yes, access to that mystical land beyond the sky was open to everyone. Everyone with willpower and deep pockets, that is.

For the Forgotten Islanders, the idea had come to Deruki in a dream: They could buy rocket parts from the suppliers in other countries and have them shipped to them. It was an idea his Sensei Bo had run with at once, and in no time at all Bo's Dojo had been turned into a makeshift spacecenter; the factory where he assembled his world-famous "WaddleKerb" tape decks converted to a vehicle assembly building. Deruki's already mad Sensei Bo had gone completely space crazy.

Getting the rocket parts was a bit tricker. They called every supplier they could find: Rockomax. C7. Kerlington. Kerbodyne. All had responded the same: "There were no such things as rockets and spaceships." "There had never been a space programme." "No kerbals had ever ventured beyond the sky." "Please hold for the next available operator." Yet Deruki and his Sensei Bo knew better. Bo himself had once danced around The Mün, long ago in the years before he moved to the far south. So when they finally found suppliers who admitted to selling rockets and, yes, were willing to ship, Bo and Deruki were quite ready. The Orenji-01 was assembled in record time. (Easy to set records when you're building your first rocket, no?)

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Deruki and his co-pilot Jeysef had spent countless hours training in the arcade, and were both equally qualified to face Xur and the Ko-Dan Armada. That is to say: they knew nothing of flying real spaceships. When Deruki had asked his Sensei for advice, Bo's instructions were even more cryptic: "Go up aways, go sideways aways, and don't come down. Ha ha!"

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That advice had worked like a charm. The capsule for Deruki and Jeysef's ride into orbit was one of the new Tantares Fujis, little more than a frisbee with a lid on it, though it included a large ball like thing which the two would live in for several days while in orbit - the Dojo Ichi. They would later be joined by two other kerbonauts from the far side of the planet, crew Sensei Bo had invited himself. Deruki spent countless hours just floating outside, watching and waiting for their guests' arrival.

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ISC-A2-01 Launch

Year 77 day 47 - Southern Space Center

Space Program of the ISC

Launch Vehicle: Custom A2

Height: 29.5

Liftoff Mass: 64.8

Cost: 45,567

Meanwhile, the Independent Southern Coalition (ISC) had finished building their own space center, yet another copy of KSC. Construction of the Southern Space Center began at roughly the same time as Lake Fortunate, but pressure from the Unified Government had forced them to proceed slowly and eventually terminate the project. None of that mattered now that the ISC had left the Unified Government and was in open rebellion, so they quickly finished construction and set about preparing for their first launch.

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The A2 was a relatively new capsule from Yarbrough Aerospace, and still in development. Intended for use as an automated crew transfer vehicle, the A2 would allow the ISC to ferry crews to a station they were planning for Low-Kerbin Orbit. This first launch was to be a simple test flight, at least until an offer from Sensei Bo changed their minds. Perhaps they would like to join up to build a station together? Who could say no to Bo?

20141221_ksp0130_A2.jpg

Lodrigh and Newwin served as the first crew for the A2 Flight Test, and got to put the little craft through its paces, including a rendezvous with the Dojo in its 45 degree inclination orbit. Newwin wasn't quite sure what to make of all the shiny buttons on the middle console, and spent most of the first orbit just staring at them blankly. Had he been paying more attention the "rendezvous" wouldn't have almost resulted in the A2 crashing into the Dojo Ichi. (A few tense moments there.)

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Near-accident averted, the two ships docked up and set about conducting the first friendly collaboration in Kerbin orbit in many decades. Both crews reentered safely and landed near their respective space centers after a few Münths. The "Space Dojo" was left in orbit, hopefully to serve as the first component in a new space station.

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Thabit 3 Launch

Year 77 day 158 - Lake Fortunate

Rebel "18th" Space Agency

Launch Vehicle: Zagoskin

Height: 20.6m

Liftoff Mass: 49t

Cost: 55,911

The Planetary Sciences division of our "Rebel" space agency had been without a working probe for quite some time, so when an RPWS and Gravity Wave experiment contract appeared for Kerbin they jumped at the task. (I rather prefer these long-duration science contracts of DMagic's to the stock one-shot-and-you're-done science system.)

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Thabit 3 was a relatively simple probe, though the cost of launching it ($55k) ate into a large chunk of what the contract provided. Once on-station it was able to take initial high and low orbit RPWS and other scans, and started sending back data to the science teams on Kerbin.

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Monier 5 Launch

Year 77 day 162 - Lake Fortunate

Rebel "18th" Space Agency

Launch Vehicle: Zagoskin

Height: 27.1m

Liftoff Mass: 55.3t

Cost: 58,911

A similar RPWS contract soon followed for Minmus, so a second copy of the Thabit 3 was manufactured. Named Monier 5, it was assigned to the moon-sciences subteam of Planetary Sciences. (Because Minmus, as a moon, is neither a planet nor a star.) This one required a transstage to reach Minmus, eating another 3,000 Roots from the contract.

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The Monier 5 was able to complete the initial RPWS contracts after entering into a highly elliptical Minmus polar orbit. Soon after it began sending back regular data packets, and should complete its primary mission in 140 days.

20141228_ksp0719_monier5.jpg


It was around here that I encountered my first major bug of 0.90.0, though in retrospect I suppose it might also be the bug that killed my old "19th" save file. I had used the SpaceY heavy launcher parts for the Kraken's Harvest, and I had considered using parts of it for the next mission, so I had left the mod installed. Except then a new "Mostly Stock" fervor caught hold of me, and I decided to start cutting out as many mods as possible. The Kraken's Harvest was in orbit, and I don't really see myself launching another craft like that soon, so SpaceY was one of the mods I deleted.

And then I went back to work for three days, went through the gunfire, fireworks and revelry of New Year's Eve, and didn't come back to KSP until 2015. So on a groggy New Year's afternoon as I crawled out of whatever counted as a bed the previous night, I fired up KSP and discovered the save was borked. It would load, but then it would NRE itself to death and the UI would lock up. First thought was that I'd screwed up the crew histories, as I'd spent some time on the Saturday after Christmas rebuilding the experience sheets of my crews from my records. So I spent some time digging through previous versions of the save on Dropbox to find one from before I started that change. No improvement.

So I started cutting.

Two hours later I found the culprit. In the 2 weeks or so that I had SpaceY installed, a contract had spawned using SpaceY as the agent. Now, I'm not honestly sure if NecroBones added the agents config or if I did, as I went on an agent-adding spree once I learned you could filter parts by Manufacturer in the VAB. That's not the issue though - this contract, added by the system, ignored by me, no longer had an entity assigned to it. That caused KSP to freak out, and in such a way that it wouldn't even properly log why it was freaking out.

Yay.

That's a problem. I can live without the parts filtering, especially since I can assign custom filters, so I'm now flat out deleting any agents configs I find in the mods I install. I also scrubbed the save file of any other offending agents. I often remove parts mods when I'm not using them - that's the primary reason I hold to my 100% stock rule for permanent ships - so having the save die from a missing Agent is... annoying, to say the least. Oddly this doesn't seem to affect the contracts the DMagic plugin adds. I'm now wondering if this is a Squad or a FinePrint bug, and how long it's been around.

In related news, I took this opportunity to swap out the Tantares/ALV fuel tank on the Munlit Silence for a Rockomax BigOrangeTank using a text editor (vim). Beale was in the middle of reworking those ALV parts, and it violates my own 100% stock rule for permanent ships anyway. Plus, it might be several IRL Months before I get back to the Silence or before it returns to Kerbin, and I wouldn't want to keep using an old version of Tantares for that long.

Now back to our regularly irregular launches....


Project ORTHO - Eagle-1 Launch

Year 77 day 71 - Cape Kerbal

19th Kerbal Space Agency

Launch Vehicle: S/EFT-1

Orbiter: ORTHO-1 "Wanderer"

Height: 37.8

Liftoff Mass: 509.8

Cost: 282,679

"You know Gene, there is some irony in the fact that we built the Falconaerie to host Falcons, and yet today we send an Eagle. Perhaps we should rename it something simple. Such as Aerie."

"Wernher, you're positively a bottomless well of creativity when it comes to naming things." Gene spun around from his station to glare at his chief designer, who had spent the last half hour hovering over his shoulder. Today Wernher was little more than a spectator.

"Thank y..."

"That wasn't a compliment. Anyway, this launch has me nervous."

"All launches make you nervous my friend. What is the worst that can happen?"

"Well for starters the crew could throttle up to 100% at liftoff and blast backwards into the VAB. We happen to be sitting right next door. I'd also be a bit more comfortable if the only kerbal that seems to know anything about this bird wasn't the one who is actually flying it."

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Eagle was the code name Wernher had chosen for the Project ORTHO launches, and today was the first launch of this recently transferred operation. Project ORTHO - the military jargon-ism for Orbital Retrieval and Transport of Heavy Objects - was until now a top-secret program run by Major Danbus Kerman. The same kerbal who was piloting it.

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It was a program that fell in Gene's lap from out of nowhere. The design of the craft was well and truly alien from everything else they had flown to date, and all to serve a singular purpose - snatching satellites from orbit. When Gene asked exactly which satellites, he was always met with the same response. "Sorry Sir, that's classified." The ship was reconfigured as a crew transport when the military realized there was a particular dearth of satellites to nab, with some allowances for transporting things to and from orbit. To date only one orbiter had been constructed - Wanderer - though Danbus had hinted two more were on order.

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For today's flight Major Danbus was the logical choice as pilot, being the only kerbal with any experience on the strange craft. Gene would have preferred to send it up with just a crew of two to shake out any bugs, but Danbus insisted it had already been flown and was certified as safe for flying eight. Gene asked how many flights. "Sorry Sir, that's classified." Even the names of the military's kerbonauts were kept secret. All except for the rather curious case of Major Danbus.

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The single most dangerous part of the ascent was the SRB jettison. Time it incorrectly and the craft would tumble out of control from the uneven thrust. Jettison too early and the SRBs would pierce the large tank of rocket fuel they were riding on. Jettison at the wrong pitch, and they could easily wipe out the wings of the orbiter. Everything went according to plan and Wanderer pressed onwards to space.

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The main engines of the orbiter were progressively throttled back as the fuel in the external fuel tank was burned through. Once fully depleted, nearly 8 minutes later, Wanderer decoupled and backed away from the tank with a simple push from the RCS.

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Today's mission was a routine crew ferry operation to The Falconaerie. Four new crew up, four old crew down. Along for the ride was another of Gene's pilots, Nelfen, who was instructed to watch and record everything Danbus did. Also along for the ride was a docking adapter, which was to be installed at the habitation end of the Falconaerie. No longer would crews need to EVA to enter the station. Without a robotic arm, the orbiter had to undock from the adapter, pull away and reorient, and then come back to dock the slightly-tumbling adapter to the dorsal docking port.

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Docking with the station was a slow process, in large part due to the presence of the Osprey Duna ship. It also didn't help that initial rendezvous was right at sunset.

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Wanderer spent a couple days at the station, with Danbus and Nelfen performing a series of spacecraft health checks for Gene and the other ground controllers. That also gave the other crews time to complete their transfer and conduct a few other experiments.

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With all tasks completed and the crews swapped out, the Wanderer pushed away from the Falconaerie and began its long descent back to KSC.

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Initial testing of these Shuttles showed a tendency at reentry to overshoot their targets, moreso than is usual with my spaceplanes. And yet coming in too shallow was a good way to be introduced to the K2 mountain range. With all that in mind, and the nimble yet brick-like nature of the orbiter, I designed my landing program to overshoot KSC, turn, and land at 270°. As is only right and proper with such things. "Flying around a giant imaginary cylinder," as it was described in one of the flight manuals.

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Sadly, 2300m/s at such a shallow angle is not enough to cause the new wing parts to glow. So we'll just have to admire the plasmatic air instead.

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As advertised, Wanderer flew well overhead of KSC. Staying airborne in a glider the size of the Shuttle requires a combination of steep dives and slow turns to keep the airspeed up. Dives in excess of 30° are not unheard of, though the usual descent profile is closer to 20°. Even in stock aerodynamics a craft such as this will happily stall and fall out of the sky or go into an unrecoverable flat spin.

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Coming in to land at less than 70m/s is also a good way to have the craft pitch up violently and flip end over end due to aerodynamics that I failed at in college. So landing requires a bit of a final suicide drop to gain airspeed followed by the pitch up and touchdown. In other words - it flies like the real thing. Which is good, as I can draw from a much older and much more practiced skillset for landing it.

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And this trip on one of the most complicated 100% stock vessels I've ever spent 18 months building has a happy ending. First crew of the Wanderer, from left to right: Lanlock, Geneble, Enlan, Danbus, Nelfen, and Dudry Kerman.

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Archimedes 5 Launch

Year 77 day - Lake Fortunate

Rebel "18th" Space Agency

Launch Vehicle: Anuchin

Height: 32.7

Liftoff Mass: 115.6

Cost: 95,223

Time to go back to the Mün! Gersted and Billy-Bobford were assinged to the Archimedes 5, a simple 2-kerbal mission to the Mün using a Duster. Taking a bunch of unblooded raw recruits to Duna is probably a bad idea, so Milzer and Meldo created this simple training program. It also serves as a fight test for the new Dusters. It's be a shame to fly all the way out to Duna only to find they don't do something right.

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It's not as complete, capable, nor as Apollo-like as the first 4 Archimedes launches, but it's going to The Mün so it gets to bear the name.

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Small, cheap, and agile, the Dusters make for a good general purpose lander. Not quite the "Toyota Corolla" of KSP as they seat 2, so perhaps these are instead the Camrys. The landing site for this mission wasn't anything specific, just a simple "choose a spot and land." With that kind of flexibility they didn't even bother with their inclination, and put the Archimedes into a highly inclined Münar orbit.

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The transstage was used to complete the deorbit burn and was jettisoned a short distance above the regolith. Surprisingly most of it survived impact.

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And down! Archimedes 5 has landed!

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Gersted and Billy-Bobford made their way out into the dust to do the usual Mün-landing stuff. Gersted was in a bit more of a hurry than Billy-Bobford, and even planted the flag before they were both out of the lander. Billy-Bobford wasn't too bothered though, and kept grinning through the whole thing. I can only imagine his internal monologue going something like: "Heya, slow down bucko! What's the rush?" But in space, no one can hear you complain.

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There were still a few outstanding contracts for the Mün, such as plant a flag, so this mission managed to net a little bit of cash to work with, too. Score! Here's the crew photo for the mission, Gersted on the left and Billy-Bobford on the right. Or is it the other way around?

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And of course they made their way over to the debris of the transstage to take a look. This thing was remarkably well preserved for the distance it fell. The slight tumble caused by the decoupling meant the stage landed on the decoupler itself, which seems to have absorbed most of the impact. Too bad I can't recycle this!

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All good things must come to an end, and shortly afterwards our two new kerbal recruits climbed back aboard and burned for the void. Again, not being too picky with orbits here, so they just burned prograde and made for the first transfer window back to Kerbin.

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The idea of docking the Archimedes 5 up with the Kraken's Harvest was explored, but ultimately scrapped due to a severe lack of fuel. Instead they targeted a landing site just north of Lake Fortunate.

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And adjusted the trajectory to bring them down in the lake instead. Or maybe I just forgot to account for the aerodynamic flight capabilities of the craft. No worries, crew recovered safely! Two new Level-1 Kerbonauts ready for the mission to Duna!

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This update is running a bit long already, the rest of this week is busy, this weekend is packed, and I'm still a bit run-down from fighting a winter bug and some insomnia. So let's split this update in two and call it here (maybe I'll get some sleep?). Next time we'll run one more of these training missions, do a few other things, get the crews up to their respective Duna ships, and then maybe MAYBE we'll make the burn for Duna. Maybe.


Bonus Content

The "1970s Rockwell Delivery Van," otherwise known as the "Space Shuttle" is available on KerbalX: http://www.kerbalx.com/crafts/687

With some more info over on reddit where I first shared it: http://www.reddit.com/2qn2h7/

And of course a bit more over in our Google+ Community (assuming you can find it with the terrible search G+ uses). More photos (same as those shared on reddit) are available at imgur: http://imgur.com/a/XCJvs#LOghdaF

And an updated "current" craft file from my website that allows for a crew of 8 and has a bit more polish applied (boosters don't have parachutes in this version though): Eagle-Crew.craft

Windows 8 hates me, or at least hates that I play KSP, and wants me to go back to OS-X. If I could afford the money and the space for one of those new 5k iMacs I might oblige it (though I'd rather just keep the money and have the free space instead).

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And finally, the Kraken's Harvest keeps living up to its name. So far it has clipped the launchpad three times, all while in orbit. The little cloud of smoke next to the engines? That's not from Kerbin's atmosphere. Yippee.

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Until next time, sleep well.

Edited by Cydonian Monk
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Oh god, not the hitting the space center from orbit bug, that one split a whole station in half for me. Just another reason to keep quicksaves and reloads on.

Almost seems to be an epidemic in 0.90. The "randomly exploding launchpad" is also a good reason to keep quicksaves and reverts turned on.

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I was able to keep that one down by putting my ships on very highly mounted launch stability enhancers, which helps prevent it, but looks kinda ugly.

Aye. That tends to be the only fix I've found to the few craft that are persistent about it. Or at least shifting up by a meter or so.

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