Wiseman

Some missions are easier than others, as it turns out. Sometimes you'll make a detailed plan with failsafes all along the way, and then it's just handed to you at the start! I guess the value is in making the plan to begin with? In any case, it's the debut of the Mercury Extended service module for a long-duration trip to LEO! Also, it's time for interplanetary transfer windows once again - let's try to orbit Venus!

In this episode, the struggle with re-entry heating is real! We try to return our two CORONA spy satellite film buckets from orbit before sending up the third, which turns out to have been the right move. Then, we make big moves on the next steps for our Mercury Program by introducing the Extended variant before Johnny Flores gets his orbital debut!

Power has become a large concern in our space program. We're getting bigger, better communications transmitters, but they come with power-hungry encoders. This leads to a fight with our avionics and scientific experiments for the trickle of power generated by our (probably too-small) solar panels. Nevertheless, we've got missions to run! We put the first human into orbit, launch another CORONA satellite, and land a probe on the frickin' moon, but every mission is hindered in some way by insufficient energy!

So that vid was actually last Tuesday's episode, so here's the one for today! After launching a probe in the previous episode, it has now flown all the way between Earth and Venus, and is ready for its close-up with the dense little death-ball of a planet! We also suffer YET ANOTHER bonkers mishap with a Tellah rocket launching a Mercury test-flight, and then I attempt a Moon landing profile I saw on the Discord, and it goes... Well, you'll see.

Yup! Lots of new designs opening up, so we'll see plenty of interesting stuff. I'm working on testing a new small-sat launcher, working in a Titan II stack to improve my payload to orbit on the 150t pad, and have very distant dreams of, like, half of a Saturn I for the 350t pad. But first, lemme 360 no-scope this rocket a few times.

As the title implies, we bring a satisfying conclusion to our time with X-Planes with a final flight of my self-designed X-15 by the intrepid Johnny Flores. But more importantly, we're tying a bow on that program because Project Mercury is well underway! Meanwhile, I update RP-1 and RSS yet again with some shiny new textures, and chuck a handful of probes at Mars!

Project Mercury is go! In this episode we talk about the first flights of the Mercury-Redstone, including the adventures of Ham the Chimp. Then, it's back to the Moon! With all that we've learned about Lunar orbital insertion from the first Moonfarer mission, we aim for a more ambitious target: low orbit!

We are go for geostationary orbit! We test a challenging orbit to confirm we can successfully put communications satellites there, and then send Johnny Flores on another thrilling X-15 adventure. Finally, we learn in real-time just how fragile Science Return capsules are, and learn a whole lot about reentry heating! All of this in the service of the upcoming Mercury program! In this episode of "Justin yells at inanimate space probes", we troubleshoot a nearly lost Molniya orbit! We complete another orbital return, but only afterwards do I realize that there's a whole set of missions (and science!) I could have been doing. Finally, we talk a bit about early communications satellites, and the advancements of global networking technology!

In today's episode, I had to spend a lot of time editing down the salt content of my original voiceover. Did you know that launching missions without prior testing can lead to failure? It's true! We take a shot at the first geostationary satellite, do some learning on the job of returning a vessel from high orbit, and dig into the "management" aspect of space program management!

In this episode, we struggle with untested engines as we push for our first return from orbital velocity. Speaking of returning from dangerous altitudes, we also go into a Johnny Flores double-feature! Are my planes less terrifying now after another round of edits? Well, one of the two I'm using isn't even mine, so probably! (Apologies and thanks to Frisbee_Driver from the Discord!)

The title gives it away a little, but in this episode we put our very first satellite into orbit around the Moon! I plan a highly science-rich orbit, and we get to use the awesome power of digital communications to send that science home. We unlocked 1959 Orbital Rocketry, which gives us some desperately needed reliability upgrades (for all that winds up being worth), and then it's on to a sub-orbital X-15 flight... During which I channel the old KSP community manager and pull a 360 no-scope. I think I might need to redesign this plane again.

In mythology, Icarus glued some wings to himself and flew too close to the sun. The wax holding them there melted, and he plummeted into the ocean. I'm not saying that's about to happen to our intrepid test pilot Johnny Flores, but... There are some parallels in this episode! As a bonus, we put up our first sun-synchronous satellite!

In this episode, I immediately eat my own words when I say my AJ10-Early engine is reliable. Spoilers, I guess? But the pace of launches has picked up really dramatically! It's also finally time to see what our new pilot Johnny Flores is up to!

We're just throwing Celes rockets up left and right this episode, with a remarkable success rate compared to real life Thor-Able. (Also, do you folks want me to keep calling rockets by historical names? Or switch to full-on made up names??) Most of my failures are caused by bad planning, but I'm getting better! We're learning a ton as we continue to explore lunar regolith from extremely short range! Also, the first flight of Johnny Flores, a pilot with the most pilot name ever!

We continue to follow the American space race trajectory, right down to a series of failures (both mechanical and in my own planning) that necessitate a re-launch of the mission to impact the moon. What lurks in the darkness of the Moon's surface?! It's regolith, and we're going to investigate it at tremendous velocity!

Iterate, design, test! As my microphone continues to degrade waiting for the new one to arrive, we have a lot of tweaking upgrading to do with our Thor-Able analogue, the Celes. Will new avionics, fixed staging, and a dramatically reduced payload mass actually get us to the moon??

Let's get another flight of the Thor-Able under our belts! There's a lot of science to get and things to unlock, but we're running low on funds. What we need is a big plan to get a ton of both of those things - let's get nuts!

Let's talk design! In this episode, I fly the last Redstone-Aerobee, then spend a ton of time chatting about design choices for our next big rocket. New technology and new parts mean a lot of careful choices and hours of tinkering with my take on the Thor-Able! Also, my sound completely craps out again. A fix for that is on the way...

In this episode, we unlock a few more nodes of satellite-era technology, opening the game up in a big way! I talk through procedural avionics, the pros and cons of the new types of tanks available, and a bunch of other design considerations.

Another momentous (and possibly game-breaking) step into the future: we've migrated to KSP 1.8.1, with the accompanying updates to RSS/RO/RP-1! I spend some time talking through the biggest changes for this version, dreaming about 1956-1957 orbital rocketry tech, and fighting with airplane textures.

Spoiler alert in that episode name, sheesh. It took us 12 entire episodes, which seems like a lot, but in terms of game-time we made it before Sputnik or Explorer 1! In this episode, we loft our first artificial satellite, do a bunch of science, and prepare for a bold new future of space exploration.

In which I prepare for orbit by adding ROKerbalism to my install! (Disclaimer: the RP-1 devs discourage adding it to a live playthrough. Back up your installs, people.) I wrap up our current back of X-Plane contracts, and then begin testing a sub-optimal booster configuration for our first orbit! (I also just realized I composed a thumbnail nearly identical to this one for episode 9. Whoops! I like that shot, okay??)

One of my most easy-breezy successful plane missions is followed up by (spoiler alert) a failure entirely of my own making. Meanwhile, we decide to adhere to the Latin motto "Per Aspera ad Astra", which means "through hardship to the stars", as we embark on our momentous drive towards orbit!

I've really got to give up this whole plane business, it's even harder than I thought! In this episode, we unlock pivotal new technology that drives a wave of new crafts. I talk a bit about the historical Bumper-WAC rocket, and then pretend my shiny new airplane is a bumper car.

A bit of a hectic episode, with lots of short missions to wrap up contracts we've been working on. Also, a new spaceplane is unveiled!