Minmus Acres: A Skyscraper on Minmus

[Kieve]

Poor, brave little Gus. At this rate, he's more likely to die of Jeb-induced heart failure than fiery explosions... which for a Kerbal says a lot I think.

[Tw1]

This poor Gus bloke has been having a bit of a hard time. I hope his plan works.

I ou're not alone in setting up towers on Minmus, it's a reasonable form for low gravity worlds - no need for stairs. But I don't think there's been one quite like this.

Plus, the story with it is quite well written.

[Bigbootie]

Very nice and inspiring. I see some real estate development in my future!!

[Yukon0009]

You should make one of those apartment adverts for Minmus Acres...heheh.

[JAD_Interplanetary]

Chapter V: No Substitutions

"I don't like it."

"You can't argue with results, Jeb."

"Just you watch me."

As the current phase of construction neared completion, Jeb, Gene, and Gus were discussing the start of the next phase. At least, they had started out discussing the project. As Gene and Gus listed figures and data from the last few module landings, Jeb finally broke into the conversation about his disdain for the new drone auto-stabilization systems.

"Listen, since the new software updates, fuel consumption on landings is reduced 27%," Gene insisted. "Mean time from de-orbit burn to touchdown is down 41%. And we haven't had a single 'targetting incident'."

"Maybe I'm just getting better," countered Jeb.

"You stepped out of the control room for the last landing," continued Gene. "The module basically landed itself."

"Aw, heck," snapped Jeb, "The dang things keep fightimg me every step of the way. I push, they pull. I spin, they twist. How am I supposed to pilot these things if they won't do what I tell them."

"You weren't supposed to be piloting them at all!" Gus interjected. The comm was silent. Gus waited patiently, then keyed the mic open. "You still there, KSC?"

"Jeb got up and left," a soft voice replied. Gus's hand trembled. Even from forty-six thousand kilometers away, she could still make his heart race.

"Hi Maryenny," he began, but he couldn't think of anything more to add, not anything he wanted to say over a comm channel into a room full of KSC personnel. A moment passed while he collected his thoughts, but the comm beeped open before he could say anything.

"Jeb and Gene are in the hall arguing. I think Wernher is with them now. Before he left, Jeb asked why he was even here if he wasn't needed."

"That's the first good question I've ever heard him ask," replied Gus, irritated.

"He gave up command of an important science mission to Pol for this project," Maryenny insisted.

"Well, he shouldn't have done that," declared Gus. He felt his face flushing, and his heart speeding up as he got angrier. "He brought himself into the mission. The drones can fly just fine without him. They could have been doing that from the start. My autopilots would have worked just fine, except he had them removed. Well, they're back now, and everything is running better for it, no thanks to the great Jebediah Kerman." He slammed to mic down, fuming. The comm was quiet for a long time.

And then...

"You're being selfish Gus. This isn't about you, or Jeb, or anyone. This is a team effort."

"Oh yeah? Then how come I'm the only one up here risking my life?" Gus demanded. The words tumbled out, before he could stop himself. He dropped the mic in shock before he could say anything more. Nothing came over the comm for several minutes.

Gus sat, breathing heavily and staring at the comm. As his heart slowed, his head cleared. He grabbed the mic.

"I'm sorry, Maryenny, I'm so sorry. It's just..." he fumbled for a moment, fighting back angry tears, "it's just, I've been up here alone for months now. Modules coming and going, Jeb's flying, construction delays, supply deliveries, things going wrong all the time. It's crazy. Jeb, Bill, Bob, all those guys, they're used to long missions by themselves. I don't know how they do it."

"I'll tell you how we do it, egghead." Jeb's voice from the comm made Gus drop the mic again. "I don't know what you said before I came in, but my Pappy was the only other kerbal I knew who could make a lady cry like that. And you're not nearly as suave...or handsome."

"Put Maryenny back on," said Gus flatly.

"She's long gone, ran out right past me and Gene. He went to make sure she's okay. I came back in here. We need to talk."

"I don't have anything to say."

"Alright then, I'll talk. You listen."

Gus glared at the comm, but didn't respond.

"You want to know how kerbonauts do it, months, years at a time, sometimes only two or one or no others for company? Cramped quarters? Stale snacks? Stuff busting and breaking all the time, nothing working right? Getting stranded a million million kilometers from home with no fuel? Nothing ever following whatever grand plan guys like you back at KSC have cobbled together?"

Gus turned away, and stared out the window, his cheeks hot.

"We can do it," Jeb continued, calmly but insistently, "because we're not alone. Anyone can strap a booster to their butt and fly into space. And believe me, I have." Gus smiled, despite himself, but kept silent. "What makes what we do a success is that guys like you, and gals like Maryenny, are back at KSC are pulling just as hard as we are. It's all about the mission, egghead, and the mission is all about the team."

"And the cavalier attitude? The arrogance? The glory? What's that all about?" snapped Gus.

"Glory? Sake's alive, egghead! There's plenty of that for everyone. You think those little flags we plant have our names on'em? Those are KSC flags we're littering the system with. Glory enough for everyone."

Gus still didn't agree. "But you're the name everyone knows. You're the one on the front page of the papers, your picture is on the magazine covers."

"Sure, because that's how we get funding for you and the other eggheads to build cool toys. Those reporters love a little swagger, a little machismo. But I'm gonna let you in on a little secret, Gus," Jeb said quietly into the mic. "I know the name, face and family members of every kerbal on every team on every mission I've ever flown. Every. Single. One. From Wernher all the way down to Tedlin the janitor. And after every mission, I thank each and every one involved with getting me home safe. How often do you thank them?"

Gus took a quick mental tally, and realized that, other than the KSC staff he worked with directly on a regular basis, he didn't know many others. He certainly never thanked anyone else after a mission, and couldn't remember seeing his colleagues doing so. Usually a successful mission was followed by champagne and celebration of how much their hard work had paid off. In fact, as he thought about it, Jeb was the only one he ever saw going out of his way to shake hands with the ground crew, or sharing a lunch table and a joke with the interns.

When Gus didn't respond, Jeb continued, "So when you say that you're all alone, that you're 'the only one up there', what you're really saying is you're the only one working hard. That you're carrying the whole mission yourself. And that's darn selfish.

"Gene has hardly left mission control since you left. He says that if you're on call 6 hours a day without breaks, so is he. Your design team has spent so many nights in their workshop, they've set up cots. Since the docking port incident, if the assembly team hasn't put things together one hundred percent to your specifications, they tear it down to the bolts and completely build it again until it's perfect. Did you know Maryenny hand packs all the snacks that we send up to you? If I had a team that worked half as hard for me as this one works for you, I could land on the sun and be home in time for dinner!"

Gus didn't know any of that. "No one ever mentioned..."

"Of course no one mentioned," interrupted Jeb. "Because you're a kerbonaut, now. You're under enough stress just trying to survive. Every tiny thing they take care of down here is one less big thing you have to worry about up there. One more brain cell you have free to remember to close the airlock before taking your EVA helmet off.

"It changes how people think about you. They're not working hard because they expect you or me to be tough. They're working hard because they understand just how fragile we are. They're protecting us from ourselves, so we can do our jobs. Even despite some of the more fantastical ways I've almost gotten myself exploded."

"If all that's true," Gus asked, "why do you insist on rolling back all the work I'm doing to make space exploration safer? Removing the autopilots, taking crazy risks with the modules?"

Jeb chuckled. "Space exploration is never going to be 'safe'. Almost every mission I go on, the safety systems are the first thing to break down. Or worse, they cause something else to break down. Every automated system I've ever had on a mission has either left me stranded, or wouldn't let me take over when it inevitably guessed wrong about a situation.

"If we're going to put kerbals' lives at risk to live in a totally hostile environment, then you bet your butt I'm going to stress test every system and make sure it can handle the worst. 'Cuz if those modules are tough enough to survive my piloting, then they sure won't let down the future residents of Minmus Acres!"

Gus considered that for a long moment before responding. "And you think my automation gets in the way of that?" He paused, and then asked, "Is that why you don't like me?"

Jeb's laugh bellowed out of the comm. "For gosh sake's, egghead, if you think I don't like you, you're not near as smart as I thought." He laughed a few moments more into the comm, before it cut off.

Gus waited for Jeb to keep talking, but nothing more came. He keyed open the comm.

"Jeb?"

Nothing.

"Jeb?" Gus repeated. But the channel was only static.

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[MoridinUK]

Ah man now I have to like the Jock again...

[Redhaze]

Aww man, I feel sorry for Maryenny. I hope she'll be able to join Gus on the next update.

[JAD_Interplanetary]

Ah man now I have to like the Jock again...

I know, right? I hate it when jerks have mostly rational reasons for their jerky behavior.

[Kieve]

Hm. Should have seen that coming.

Did not. Impressed.

/Mordin Solus voice.

[Sampa]

For me, i never let jeb fly the critical phases of a mission. As such, I have a love/hate relationship with him.

[JAD_Interplanetary]

Chapter VI: Under the Rug

The mid-tower connector module looked much larger than he had envisioned as it descended over Minmus Acres. The parallax against the starry background was deceptive, but he knew the module would line up correctly. It had been tested extensively back at KSC, on a test rig built explicitly for the purpose. But this was another moment of truth for the project, and he found himself second-guessing.

Financial backing from Rockomax was starting to thin out. Rocky was still the project's only cheerleader on the company board, and the other directors were looking for any excuse to pull the remaining funding. And now that Jeb was off the project -- reassigned to an important asteroid redirect mission -- even Rocky was starting to have doubts.

But after the connector module was installed, Minmus Acres would finally be ready to accommodate more personnel, and even some permanent residents. The board had agreed to extend funding once that important milestone was reached.

The drones blasted their engines, braking almost to a complete stop at 600 meters. Then they began their descent program, slowly throttling up and down to keep the module on a steady descent velocity. They had successfully performed the fully automated maneuver many times.

Gus watched a graph of the module's descent speed. The throttle wasn't moving in a smooth pattern, as it had for the other modules. Instead, it was stepping between two discrete points. But the descent speed was still within the proper profile, so he kept an eye on it while he scanned other data.

Passing 200 meters, the upward facing lights of the tower clearly illuminated the underside of the module. Gus visually checked the alignment. Each connector had to touch down at exactly the same time and in the correct position in order to form a seal with the columns below. He smiled as he remembered what Jeb had said about the assembly team working so hard to build exactly according to the specs, and Gus resolved to thank them each personally after the module was installed.

He let his eyes wander over the rest of the module. The arms of the module seemed to be shifting slowly back and forth. But all the on board sensors were reading nominal. Gus figured the parallax, and the off-on, off-on of exhaust of the descent engines were playing tricks on his eyes.

He checked in with KSC. "Drone touchdown in 10 minutes, all systems reading green."

"Roger, Minmus Acres, check in again at 30 meters." Maryenny said, flatly. Her voice calmed Gus's nerves a bit, but he knew she was still mad at him for Jeb leaving the project. She had barely spoken to him, except as necessary for the mission. And she had stopped sending him homemade snacks.

He sighed. Once the project was complete, he would go back to Kerbin and make it up to her. He would make it up to everyone, and thank them each personally for their role in the successful mission.

Gus double checked the descent profile graph. It was still normal, but the throttle fluctuation hadn't smoothed out. He glanced back up at the module, and watched it closely.

By the time it reached 75 meters, he couldn't deny it any longer. The module's arms were bouncing.

Not fast, not enough to shake the module apart, but enough that each rebound was imparting a slight upwards momentum. To keep the downward velocity constant against the bounce, the autopilot was killing the engines, then turning them on again on the downward motion, then off again, over and over. The overall descent speed was constant, but the module was not coming in as a rigid piece.

If there had been a living pilot controlling the drones, they would have been easing the throttle slowly up and down, counteracting the bounce. But the drones were assuming that the module was rigid. So they were throttling up and down in discrete steps. And the cycle was self-reinforcing, making the bounce worse over time.

All the color drained from Gus's face.

His hand snapped to the control panel and hovered for a moment over the big red emergency abort button.

Then he withdrew his hand, slowly. He did a quick mental calculation to see how much time he had to make a decision. There were still a few minutes left to call off the landing. But that would most likely mean the end of the project, and all his hard work.

He poured over the rest of the descent data. The center of the module, where the drones were actually attached, was rigid. The middle four docking connectors were perfectly aligned. If they touched down when the arms were on an upswing, the arms would come down together. The middle four ports would dock, then the outer four, instead of all eight together.

It would work, Gus thought. But it all hinged on the center four ports maintaining their current alignment.

The deadline for the abort procedure was coming closer. Gus watched the meters on the altimeter click down.

He almost jumped out of his seat when the comm chirped. "This is KSC, Minmus Acres, do you copy?"

Gus keyed the mic. "Roger KSC."

"30 meter report. How's everything looking?"

A bead of sweat dripped from Gus's forehead, slowly in the light gravity. He watched it drop through the air and splash gently on the control panel.

"Gus, we're approaching the abort limit. Are we go or no-go?" Maryenny demanded.

He licked his lips.

"KSC, we are..." He blinked another bead of sweat from his eyes. "We are...Go." He hadn't realized he had been holding his breath until he let it all rush out of him. "We are go for module touchdown. Repeat, go for touchdown. All systems nominal."

"Copy that, Minmus Acres."

Gus's eyes were glued to the module. A buzzer sounded, letting him know they were now past the point of no return. The module was landing, bounce or no bounce.

And then things went sideways.

The automated alignment system detected a minor horizontal offset in the arm docking connectors, the result of their motion relative to the module's center. Assuming the structure was rigid, the software triggered a small lateral correction thrust. It had happened on dozens of landings before. But the previous modules had actually been completely rigid. This time, it was enough to set the arms waving back and forth, as well as up and down.

"No," whispered Gus.

The module touched down, all four center ports at once, then the two eastern arms. The other two arms came to rest on top of their columns, but they were obviously not connected. The tower columns swayed gently underneath the arms.

A red alarm began flashing.

"Gus, we're getting negative readings down here." It was Gene. "You seeing those?"

Gus looked around in panic, but did his best to keep his voice calm. "I see the warnings, KSC, but touchdown looks good. I'm heading out for inspection, I'll report when I'm up there." He shut off the comm, hurriedly pulled on his EVA suit, then cycled through the airlock.

He performed a quick inspection of the ports that confirmed as locked, then swung around to examine the bad southwest connection. He let out a groan. The magnetic fields docking fields on the arm and the column ports were pushing and pulling at each other, but never lining up.

He jetted around to the access panel and pried it open. He flipped a few toggles, and magnetic field turned off. The column still rocked slowly, but the arm stopped waving. Bracing his feet against the column and grabbing a handhold on the arm, he fired his EVA thrusters forwards. The thrusters attempted to push him away from the column. He strained with the effort of holding on; it felt as though his arm would tear off, but the column slowly swayed into position. When it was just about centered, he pulled and turned a handle inside the access panel.

With a dull "cha-chunk!" the mechanical clamps locked down, securing the arm port to the column port. Gus deactivated his thrusters, breathed out heavily, and flipped the toggle for the magnetic field lock. An indicator light flickered white, then red, then yellow, then green, cycling through its diagnostic checks. The mechanical hard seal light shone steady green. But the magnetic soft seal indicator was flashing red.

"Gus, what's going on? The sensor data disappeared, then came back on, still negative." Gene sounded worried.

"KSC, it looks like a faulty magnetic lock sensor," he said. "We have confirmed hard seal, and the module is holding pressure. I'm going to disable the sensor."

"Standby for instructions, Gus." Gus waited restlessly, and then, "Gus, can you confirm that we have magnetic soft seal as well as mechanical seal." Gus froze, chewing on his lip.

Then he heard himself say, "Confirmed, KSC. Magnetic and hard seal. Looks like only the sensor is faulty."

After a long, tense moment, "Roger that, Gus. Go ahead and disable the sensor. What about that other column?"

"Same problem, KSC."

"Roger. Finish up your inspections. Report back in the morning."

"Copy, KSC. Minmus Acres out."

"KSC out."

Gus let out a deep breath. As far as KSC was concerned, the module was successfully connected. As long as the hard seal held, the tower would remain pressurized, and no one needed to know that the module hadn't landed properly.

Later that evening, Gus poured over his engineering models, trying to figure out exactly what had gone wrong in assembly. The plans clearly showed the internal supports needed to prevent exactly the catastrophe that had occurred with the bouncing arms. He was about to beam an angry message to the assembly team lead, when he had a horrifying thought. He scanned back through the previous messages he had beamed down, until he found the last set of schematics he had sent.

That earlier version was identical to his latest version in every way, with one important exception: the earlier version he had sent did not include the internal support struts that he had added later.

He had forgotten to send the corrected plans.

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So what really happened?

This is a good example of the story and pictures diverging somewhat from reality. The truth is, there were two module connectors.

The first connector module was really shaky. The arms were actually bouncing a lot more than the animated image shows. When it finally touched down, about half the ports weren't connected. No amount of undocking and re-docking seemed to do the trick. So eventually, I had the drones carry it off the Junkyard Hill. Then I went back to the VAB to fix the problem. The solution was a few strategically placed struts inside the central hubs. The new module is what Gus is actually standing on in the final pictures.

And, yes, I use hacked gravity when testing the stuff I build. But I've never used it for a launch or mission.

Anyway, the most complicated bit of construction is now complete. From here on in, it's straight up. Luxury penthouse modules are coming next, followed by an upper observation deck. Oh, and Gus finally gets some company in the next update!

Edited March 7, 2015 by JAD_Interplanetary

[MoridinUK]

Maryenny needs to cut him some slack.. Awesome work!

[Elowiny]

Do you have any height plan ? Like 60 meters ?

[Snarfster]

Can't wait for the next instalment Nice job.

[Kieve]

From a construction perspective, I'm sure everything will be fine.

But story-wise, really hoping this doesn't come back to bite him.

[MoridinUK]

From a construction perspective, I'm sure everything will be fine.

But story-wise, really hoping this doesn't come back to bite him.

Yeah, I'm worried about that...

[JAD_Interplanetary]

Do you have any height plan ? Like 60 meters ?

I don't have a target height in mind, more just an overall aesthetic. Now that the lower phase is complete, I'm pretty much going to keep stacking hab and luxury-hab modules up until I think it looks good. Then the plan is to put an outside observation deck, probably an "executive" luxury suite, then the radio mast and flagpole. I have no idea how tall the final height will be, that's why I keep sending Gus up there after every landing to get a new height records.

[Sampa]

Maryenny needs to cut him some slack.. Awesome work!

Hey, women are hard to get through to, sometimes...I'll bet even female Kerbals!

[JAD_Interplanetary]

Hey, women are hard to get through to, sometimes...I'll bet even female Kerbals!

I think this applies pretty much to all sentient beings, male or female. We all have our own motivations and stubbornness. "We all judge ourselves by our internal motivations, but we judge others by their external actions," is a quote I try to keep in mind.

In this particular instance, Gus hasn't actually apologized to Maryenny for being selfish, he's just planned to do it when he gets home (the apology/excuse he gave was only heard by Jeb.) So from her perspective, he doesn't feel bad at all for being a jerk. I'd probably still be upset at him as well. Heck, if I still had to work with him, I'd probably not be able to keep my professional composure as well as she has.

[Sampa]

Yeah, hence why there should a rule of no falling in love with your coworkers

[JAD_Interplanetary]

That should definitely be rule #1.

[MoridinUK]

If love followed rules all our lives would be a lot simpler to live...

She deserves an apology, sure, but people should try to understand. He was in an intensely stressful situation, one he didn't exactly choose for himself, and one he can't control. His life was in the hands of a kerbal he didn't trust or understand; Jeb. Also she clearly doesn't understand him or know him at all; if she really thinks he doesn't care about his uncharacteristic outburst while he was trying to survive an extreme situation. I had the impression these two were close, even if their true feelings were unspoken, if so she should know he is in agony about it and that conditions aren't exactly conducive to having an open honest conversation. Especially as he clearly has trouble having such conversations even when alone sat on top of the VAB...

EDIT: I'm loving the story though you write well!

Edited March 8, 2015 by MoridinUK

[JAD_Interplanetary]

I blew my twice weekly update schedule. The writing and screenshots caught up with the current state of the project, and I didn't have time the past few days to play KSP and get more done. Hopefully, next week, I'll get in a few solid multi-hour chunks of playtime. Today, though, a short intermezzo update is coming, where we'll meet some new characters and have deep discussions on whether Minmus is made of mint-flavored ice cream (as popular folk-lore tells it) or is, according to cutting-edge science, and different flavor ice cream altogether!

[JAD_Interplanetary]

Intermezzo

"I have it on good authority that cutting-edge science believes it's blue cherry," Caldan insisted.

Enwise scoffed, "'Good authority', huh? Would that authority be the darkside of your own butt?" He chuckled at his cleverness. Cal scowled at him. Barttop just stared worriedly at his cards.

"Draw three," Cal continued, flicking three of his own cards towards the ceiling, letting them drift into the discard pile floating above them.

"Definitely mint," Enwise proclaimed, dealing three new cards from the top of the deck and passing them to Cal. "Everyone knows it's mint." Before Cal could respond, the hatch popped open, and Johnski floated through.

"Four hours to Minmus SOI. Gus says that on our current course, capture burn is about six hours out. Start prepping." The senior engineer's words carried the weight of an order, and the other three abandoned their game. Bart set about collecting the cards, and securing other free-floating items in the sleep pod. The others followed Johnski back through the hatch.

Bart figured that the Cal and Enwise were only joking that Minmus was covered in mint ice cream. But as a second-class technician, and the least experienced member of the team, he didn't want to sound foolish by asking. Besides, if it was going to be any flavor, he'd want it to be sour apple. He smiled to himself as he suddenly imagined Minmus as a huge candied apple on a stick, floating in space.

At the opposite end of the habitat module, first-class technician Enwise brought the dormant engines back online, though the system was mostly automated, and the computer had already run through its diagnostics. Enwise had worked with Gus for years, designing and building these systems. He knew them inside and out. But this was his first time in space, with his own life on the line. So if Johnski told him to double-check the diagnostics, he wasn't going to argue.

In the pod above, the two engineers went over the orbital maneuver checklists with Gus.

"The flight computer will perform the capture burn, and set up the inclination burn window, but you'll need to manually tweak it some," Gus said over the comm. "Aim for plus or minus point-oh-two. Circularize at thirty by thirty."

"Roger," replied Johnski. He turned to Cal and nodded. The engineer nodded back and ran calculations through the flight computer, determining their window for the manual burn. He had also been working with Gus for years, as one of the original members of Gus's module design team. He had complete confidence in the automated piloting systems they had designed together. But Johnski was commander, at least until they touched down on Minmus Acres. Johnski wasn't a bad guy, he was just new to the team, and didn't know the systems like Cal or Enwise. So Cal humored him, and manually ran through the figures.

Cal gave a thumbs up. "Flight plan looks good, boss." He smiled at Johnski.

Johnski smiled back, but inside his head, he wished Cal would stop calling him "boss". Johnski hadn't even wanted command of the mission. Cal certainly had more experience with the systems they would be working with. Mission control had only given command to Johnski because he was the only member of the team who had actually been in space. And when they reached Minmus Acres, Gus would have full command authority. He wondered if Cal would call Gus "boss".

Hours later, the four of them were strapped into their flight seats. A screen overhead counted down to their orbital capture burn.

"Thirty seconds," read off Cal. "So, boss, mint or blue-cherry?"

Johnski pursed his lips, as though in serious contemplation. Finally, he responded, "Everyone knows it's mint, Cal."

"Ah ha!" shouted Enwise, triumphantly. "I told you!"

"I think maybe you're all wr--," started Bart. His words were clipped short as his mouth snapped shut. Their bodies were slammed back against their flight seats as the engines roared to life.

The countdown display overhead flashed "Welcome to Minmus."

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[Elowiny]

How exactly will you get kerbals to inhabit the tower completely? Because there is a LOT of habitation areas.