UnusualAttitude

For the record, an SSTO spaceplane is almost certainly not possible in RSS with any of the stock engines, or even the mod duel cycle engines by Nertea et al. with the Real Fuel configurations provided by Realism Overhaul. Even the Real Fuel configuration for the B9 Sabre M is simply too puny and heavy to have any hope of reaching orbit. You have to create your own .cfg file for it. Yes, I am a cheaty cheater, but I do imagine my Kerbals having some near(ish) future technology. I did however base my craft's specifications on a real spaceplane project (although it is still far from becoming a reality) the REL Skylon D. It can launch a 15 (not 25) tonne payload to a 200km equatorial orbit from Kourou. I built the airframe, then basically tweaked the engine's thrust-to-weight ratio until it did what Skylon is supposed to do. One difference with my Carderie spaceplane is that it burns methalox rather than the hydrolox that will be used by Skylon to precool the intake air and (I think) cool parts of the airframe during re-entry. Carderie is therefore much heavier than Skylon, and a liquid methane fueled precooler would probably not work in reality. I did try hydrolox initially, but the tanks were simply way too bulky to fit with the cargo-bays and landing gear I had available. Ground clearance of the tail (lacking slanted procedural parts) is also an issue, as well as the hopelessly short stock runway. In short, my attempts to replicate a projected real SSTO design showed me just how ambitious such a thing is. If Skylon is ever to make it to orbit, it will have to be as light as a feather when empty, and its engines will need a godlike TWR. Despite all this handwaving, Carderie was fun to build and is fun to fly. Re-entry is a challenge (and has just got harder in 1.1, so I will need to adapt the design again). Nailing the runway from orbit took a lot of practice, and many hulls were lost before I managed to get it back in one piece. Thanks for reading!

YEAR 7, DAY 286. BARTDON. One down, one to go. Evening. By the time Steledith and I returned from the edge of the antenna-dish crater, Froemone had finished setting up the device that would allow us to listen in for signals. We knew that the Monuments (or whatever blasted silly name Angun had made up for them) had attempted to communicate by means of acoustic signals, and on an airless Moon these could only propagate through the ground. Our equipment was therefore fitted with an extremely sensitive seismometer and an uplink that would beam the data straight back to our ground network on Earth, the whole being powered by a small RTG. No point in switching it on straight away, what with us blundering around and kicking up dust, any faint signal from the crater would be drowned out by the damned noise we were making. Besides, despite having spent more than an hour straining our eyes trying to see across the gap to the mast (peak..? receiver..?), we hadn't spotted anything that looked remotely akin to Angun's description of the artifact he'd discovered on the ocean bed. The data from Vers One clearly showed that something should be there, beneath or on top of that unnaturally tall structure, but there would be no chance of us getting across there or down into the crater itself any time soon. It was simply just too small a target to aim for with a lander and the summit was anything but flat, so unless someone volunteered to be the first Kerbal to go zip-lining on the Moon, we were stumped.* All our hopes now rested on picking up some sort of signal. The flight back to Drygalski was uneventful and Catbeth put us down within a seven-iron's distance from the base. Good job, too. I'm fagged out from all that chasing after Steledith. Incidentally, after her initial enthusiastic outburst back at the crater she has lapsed back into her usual dreamy silence, occasionally muttering complaints about not having her star charts, and something about angular velocities in arc seconds and the difficulties of evaluating the effects of proper motion over such a large timespan. I've no idea what the hell she's on about, and the only point at which she made any sense was when she turned to me and asked a question that seemed entirely off-topic at the time. “How long ago was that mass extinction event Angun was always prattling on and on about, Barty?” Stop calling me... oh, never mind. YEAR 7, DAY 299. BARTDON. After the refueling process was completed, we put Saillac to the test by flying her to the resting place of rover Type G-Three near Theophilus crater, less than ten degrees south of the lunar equator. This pushed our lander to the limits of its range and we weren't be able to loiter there for long due to fuel boil-off. Our investigation of the area was therefore as swift and efficient as it could be with such a team. Froemone was getting good at assembling our equipment, though. And Steledith didn't go charging off into the damned distance this time. In fact we were once again disappointed to find no apparent clues as to the whereabouts of the Monument, if it was there. Only dust, more damned dust, and another large helping of blasted regolith as far as the eye could see. The irony of it all is that can't be buried very deeply, otherwise Vers One would never have detected it in the first place. The damned thing must be less than a metre below the surface, and within spitting distance of our lander. I was tempted to put Froemone to work and have him sift through a few hundred cubic metres of regolith just to be sure. Watching the boy get his hands dirty while I supervised from the safety and relative comfort of the capsule would have only been justice, seeing that he had pilfered all of the fish-paste sandwiches I'd prepared, again. Fortunately for him, we simply didn't have the time. We did take a few minutes to pay our respects to G-Three, though. The old horse had been abandoned by its remote operators on a slope just a few hundred metres away from where Saillac had come down. The rover's lights were still on and its antenna active, powered by the almost endless fire of its radioisotope generator. At a pinch, we could still take control of it from Earth when one of our orbiting probes happened to conveniently pass overhead and act as a relay, although with the signal delay we probably wouldn't make it very far before crashing into something. Catbeth cut in saying that Froemone was done, and started to fret about fuel reserves for the trip back, resulting in an undignified scramble back to our vessel for the trip home. In the end, she'd got herself all in a tizzy for nothing. Despite a few low-fuel warnings and flashing lights that woke me from my nap just a few moments before we landed back at Drygalski, we made down in one piece. Any landing you can walk away from, old gal. And good show, Froe. YEAR 7, DAY 312. BARTDON. Today we blasted off this blasted rock for home. You may be wondering exactly how we intend to return to Earth, eh? Certainly not in that lumbering monster of a lander. Saillac simply took us to low lunar orbit, and then returned to land at Drygalski to be used again in the future. For the rest of the trip back, Omelek had us covered. Although it would be yet another ride on board a ship that was anything but luxurious. A couple of weeks ago, just before we made our second run to Theophilus, a Carderie spaceplane launched carrying the latest supposedly neat idea of Froemone's colleague Mitzon. The damned boy has a small plaque on his desk that reads Less is More, and apparently he is admired for his ruthlessly efficient engineering, allowing him to conjure up solutions to tricky requirements on a tight schedule and a limited budget. However, having flown on some of his inventions, I sometimes feel the urge to make a unannounced visit to his office, toss his plaque in the trash and replace it with a longer one of my own reading Stop Being Lazy, Get Back to Work and Design Something Nice for a Change. I admit that the lunar shuttle Lunegarde had to meet an ambitious set of specifications. It had to conform to the 15-tonne payload limit of our spaceplane. It had to be able to reach low lunar orbit, and refuel by sharing Saillac's load of remaining on-orbit propellant, whilst still leaving enough for the lander to get down safely back at Drygalski. With this frugal amount of fuel, it was also able to return to LEO without resorting to risky and time-consuming aerobraking. Oh, and it had to pack a remote command station to allow the crew to guide Saillac back down to the lunar surface once fuel and crew transfer had taken place. I took these specifications to Mitzon, since I reckoned that Froemone had enough on his plate with Saillac. He was sitting in his office, slouching with his feet on his desk next to that damned plaque of his. He didn't even bat an eyelid when I rattled off this lengthy list of requirements, damn him. In fact, he yawned and said “OK, man. I'll do that this afternoon. Anything else, dude?” And Lunegarde is what we got. Between his afternoon nap and tea-break, Mitzon conjured up a crew capsule strapped to a cryogenic upper stage, slapped on a docking port and called it a day. Efficient, but lazy if you ask me. And this was to be our ride home to Earth. Saillac docked with Lunegarde in low lunar orbit and filled her tanks with precious hydrolox as we made our way through the tunnel from the tiny, cramped crew quarters of the lander to the tight, claustrophobic living space of the lunar shuttle. Catbeth made her way to the remote command station and took control of Saillac to guide the lander back down to Drygalski. Once it was down safely we broke orbit. Shoot! Just three more days and we will be back home. I can't wait to get out of this tin can and hit the driving range. YEAR 7, DAY 315. BARTDON. Shortly before we made our orbital insertion into LEO, Mission Control called to tell us that the listening device at Theophilus crater had been switched on and had started emitting almost immediately. I knew it, damn it! Apparently, we were getting the same type of signal that Angun had decrypted, and Siggy and Neldan were working on applying the deciphers that my late colleague had painstakingly worked on. By the time we were be back on the ground, new data should be available. Once we were in a stable 300 km orbit, Carderie III launched to pluck us out of space. The final part of our journey was the rodeo ride back down to Kourou, flying down out of space on wings. I never quite understood the point of having wings in space but Karanda, who has now taken up the role of Chief Engineer, insists that this is a good idea. It's all about cross-range, she says, and allowing us to land the spaceplane back at one of our launch sites rather than on the wrong continent, or far out into the ocean. That's one of the problems with our huge blasted planet. Chuck a tin of dehydrated bat-paste at it and you're likely to hit something wet, something tall and pointy, or a big empty desert. In the end, my blissful slumber was disturbed by the sharp 4-gee S-turns that our spaceplane performed in order not to overshoot Kourou and splash down somewhere deep out into the Atlantic Ocean. Well actually, 4-gee S-turns I can deal with, but that Catbeth sure has a shrill voice when things start getting hairy. I was looking forward to seeing those new images the Monument is spitting out for us. I'd asked Neldan if he would be so kind as to be waiting out on the apron in the stifling tropical heat with a print-out of the pictures when we rolled in after landing. And there he was, dripping with sweat in the blazing afternoon sun. The gantry crane hauled the crew cabin out of the cargo-bay and deposited us on the tarmac. I slid down the ladder in my haste to reach him. “Bartdon,” he said looking concerned. ”You're not going to like this.” I grabbed the five print-outs from his grasp and riffled through them rapidly, before tossing them over my shoulder with a desperate, heartfelt damn! The Martian Pyramid. The large alien ship orbiting Mars and Earth. The bacteria being infected. The bacteria being infected on Mars and Earth. The very same pictures Angun had originally decrypted from the Pacific Monument. Nothing less, nothing more. At that moment, as I stood in the suffocating heat coming off the runway, the words from the letter he had sent to me from beyond his grave came back to haunt me. For a while, I had managed to entertain the thought that Angun's intention had been honest and genuine, but now they sounded merely cruel and spiteful. I wish you good luck, Bartdon. You're going to need it.

Wow. Definitely worth waiting for. A very powerful chapter.

Hey, that is an awesome idea. Just what I was looking for to go on the Camwise Logs promotional T-shirts!!! On a more serious note, if you are Finnish and English is not your first language, Perfect Tomorrow is a doubly impressive piece of work. Anyone reading this should also check it out (or did I already mention that...?).

Well, that looks interesting. While I am now well-versed in both French cuisine (such as my vendéenne wife's famous mogette bean stew) and the culinary delights of India, I must admit my knowledge of Scandinavian cooking is limited to whatever is served at the IKEA cafeteria, and Lutefisk does not look like the sort of speciality one would spring on the casual unaware shopper looking for a new sofa or mattress. It would seem to be more appropriate for the initiated culinary thrill-seeker, perhaps. However, I do imagine that my Kerbals-from-Earth have a diet that consists mainly of what you might find growing in a cave (the surface being apparently devoid of plant and animal life); fungi, algae, strange sightless fish, perhaps even bats. So they might be used to this sort of thing. Also, imagine you are living in a small capsule, a couple of light-seconds away from the nearest good, hot meal. Even Lutefisk or dehydrated fish-paste might start to look appealing. Is this a local speciality of yours?

Replaced my MEO and Geostationary communications network, launching whole flocks of satellites with a Carderie spaceplane. Upon releasing them one-by-one from the cargo bay, they floated away into space like helium-filled balloons, except with RTGs...

I'm very sorry to hear you're having problems with your connection, and you have nothing to apologize for. In fact, you deserve to be mentioned in despatches for extreme selfless devotion to the mission reports forum. If you like, I will transmit the next episode of The Camwise Logs in SSTV, and then you can pick it up from one of your local radio hams. That would make sense I suppose. But what if they were just hanging out on the Moon, cruisin' around in their saucers and building giant radio telescopes (as one does...). And then, something very bad happened....? Even Bartdon couldn't mess up his putting practice with a hole that size...

That would be the sort of thing I hope I never dream of...

A very impressive series of probe missions. What are the transfer times to Uranus and Pluto? Will your probes be able to capture there?

YEAR 7, DAY 286. BARTDON. Today we head onwards into the unknown. Morning. Froemone headed out early with Catbeth to wrap up Saillac refueling operations and to prepare the lander for our first hop across Luna. Steledith and I hung back at Drygalski, finishing the clean-up we'd had to perform to make sure our little bit of real estate up here on the Moon would be ship-shape for the rest of our stay, as well as future crewed missions to the base. A lot of damned boring routine checks, really. Everything seemed to be still working more or less as we had intended when we'd sent the modules up here in the first place. According to Catbeth, everything was exactly as she and Camwise had left it eighteen months ago. Not that we'd expected to find anything missing, of course. One could hardly imagine alien visitors popping in to visit our base while we'd been away and leaving a note on the table saying “Greetings, new neighbours! Fresh out of sugar so we borrowed a cup. We will drop some off next time we're passing through. Thanks!” Having said that, I can't get rid of the blasted feeling that someone or something is up here with us on the Moon. It's unsettling and will undoubtedly affect my swing if I let it take hold of me. I mean, it's preposterous. That alien saucer thingy had been there for ages, if Camwise's description was to be believed. Surely nothing living could have survived for many thousands of years in such a blighted hostile environment? Surely the ship's reaction to our presence was just an automated response in self-defense, designed to protect it's long-gone former occupants? Realising that we had never asked her for her opinion on the matter, I attempted to put the question to Steledith, who was spending far more time staring out of the window across the ashen landscape than she was running through her share of the checklists. “So, old gal. Have you spotted those blasted alien visitors yet?” Steledith turned from the window and looked around for a moment, as if she wasn't sure I was speaking to her. When she realised that there was no-one else at Drygalski Base I might be talking to, she fixed her dreamy gaze on me for a second before answering, “Aren't we the alien visitors?” “I was thinking more of the occupants of that alien ship we found not far from here...” I attempted to clarify, but already getting the impression that I was fighting a losing battle. “Yes, I understood Barty,” she retorted looking slightly vexed. “And they were here first, you know.” Our awkward attempts at discussion were cut off by a call from Froemone saying that Saillac was ready to fly and that he was on his way to pick us up. Oh, and uhm, would we pack some sandwiches for the trip? Damn it, boy. He'll be asking me to bring the hard boiled sweets for his capsule sickness next, no doubt. Why is it starting to feel like I'm the only responsible adult on this jaunt? Lunch. Froemone was right. Despite being nearly two years old, food from Drygalski is far better than that unspeakable excuse for nourishment we flew in on Saillac. Froemone ate all the dehydrated fish-paste sandwiches I'd been looking forward to though, damn his hide. Afternoon. Pre-flight checks were completed and take-off went smoothly, with everything firing up properly when we asked it to. As soon as we had grabbed some altitude and cleared the peak at the centre of Drygalski crater, Catbeth pitched the lander hard over and started chasing the horizon, hugging the highest points of the Moon's terrain as we swept over the South pole. This gave us a stunning view of the black pits of eternal night that surrounded the pole itself as we sped on towards the rough ground in between Amundsen and Idel'son, with our fingers crossed for a clean landing site. The Earth remained well above the horizon for the duration of the trip, and would still be hanging up there in the sky at our landing site. There was some sort of superficial comfort in being able to keep an eye on our home world, but it was also part of my plan as the listening device we would set up would beam its signal straight back to our deep space network on the ground. The slightest vibration or tremor of the dusty surface would be picked up by the ceaseless vigil of our tracking stations. If something was still going on up here, we would damn well be the first to hear it. After a little more than ten minutes of coasting towards our target in silence, Catbeth flipped Saillac over in a muffled sputter of RCS jets and fired up the engines again to slow us down. Our trajectory steepened as we dropped back towards the cold, choking embrace of the lunar regolith. Catbeth rolled off figures in that calm and professional tone that presumably meant we weren't about to be dashed against the surface at more than a kilometre per second. You can prang this ship as hard as you like, lassie, I found myself thinking, as long as we get to set up our damned equipment first. And then we got close enough to begin to see our target. At least, our pilot could, as well as Steledith who had chosen the seat next to the crew cabin's view-port. The magnetic anomaly I'd traced seemed to be situated in a relatively small crater that appeared to be quite deep. From orbit at least, we couldn't make out the blasted bottom as it was hidden in the shadows. Our goal was to drop down next to it, make a visual inspection of the crater itself, and set up shop wherever the lander settled. A few hundred metres wouldn't make much difference, or so I was informed. “Oh... interesting,” Steledith cut in unexpectedly, as she peered out at the landscape below. Before I could take her up on that one, Catbeth chimed in suggesting that we hold on tight as Saillac began the final burn that would bring us down to the surface. The deceleration was surprisingly sprightly for such an unwieldy vessel and I braced in silence for touch down, although Steledith was muttering something that I couldn't make out over the hum of the engines and the life support system. Saillac contacted the surface with a thump and the engines shut down. Catbeth reported that we were eight hundred metres to the west of the crater rim, and a slight depression in the Moon's terrain separated us from our target. That would be fine. After nearly a week cooped up in the confinement of various small capsules and modules, I could use the exercise. Steledith already had her helmet on and was waiting impatiently at the hatch as if our wretched ship was on fire. The very instant everyone was ready and we vented, she tore open the hatch and was already clambering down the ladder to the surface below. By the time I'd reached the bottom rung myself and turned to see what she was up to, she was loping away across the Moon towards the crater in a determined gait that sprayed small clouds of dust in all directions with every step. “Hold on old gal,” I cried at her rapidly receding back, “Wait for me! Don't go out there alone.” “Hurry up, Barty! This is incredible! They tried to call home...” she called back breathlessly, without breaking her step in the slightest. “What the hell is she on about?” I bellowed at no-one in particular, however Catbeth replied. “There was something down in the target crater... an unusual shape. I didn't get a good look, I was focused on the landing site.” “Damn, double damn, and a big fat blast!” I swore, “Alright, HE. Start setting up that equipment. I'm going after her.” I set out across the surface using the quickest step I could maintain, however I was still not used to the low gravity and could manage only an ungainly shuffle. Meanwhile, Steledith already had a lead of at least a hundred yards and was on the verge of disappearing over a small ridge into the dark hollow ahead of us. The sun was low above the horizon and her figure cast a long shadow with a knife edge typical of the lunar vacuum. Visibility appeared to be poor on the slope that rose above us to the crater's rim. At the rate she was going she would run straight off into an abyss of unknown depths. “Damn you to hell and back, Steledith. Slow down,” I panted. “They tried to contact home, Barty,” she ranted. “Stop calling me Barty,” I muttered. After ten minutes of lumbering at a scorching pace, I had made it half way up the rise in the terrain to the crater's rim and Steledith was nearly at the top. I expected to see her disappear over the edge, never to be seen again when she suddenly skidded to a halt in a puff of regolith and stood there transfixed, contemplating the spectacle before her. “You have to see this,” she managed to gasp between huge gulps of precious air from her backpack. “It's obvious they got stranded here somehow and built this to contact their home world.” I staggered up the final few yards of the slope, lungs searing and light headed from the pure oxygen of my suit, furious at her reckless escapade. “Steledith, you had better explain what the hell you are on ab-” “Oh, I see...”

Impressive work. With phrases such as "Massing a meagre 472 tons," one can tell that you mean business. Looking forward to seeing those rings up close.

Hi there guys, Just dropping by to hopefully brighten up a grim rainy Monday morning (at least where I am) with this new little gem I found in Mission Reports by Creature: Perfect Tomorrow. Normally I would pass on yet another story/report with the classic KSP characters, but this one caught my attention. It has an interesting take on the usual suspects, and some great attention to detail (excerpts from a biography written about the first Kerbals in space, a scientific paper written by Bob...). I'm certainly looking forward to seeing where it goes.

Glad Bob is OK. As for performing interplanetary transfers using the Flea as a solid rocket kicker stage... Just two words: awe some!

Many things have changed since the Upper Paleolithic, for better or for worse. The ice caps have retreated and one can no longer walk from Britain to continental Europe. The aurochs became extinct. The primitive ape-like beings roaming the region where I live went from painting on the walls of caves to building a large city with a million inhabitants (mostly in the past century), and my garden is situated in its suburbs. I would never have expected to see deer anywhere near my home until one summer night at 2 am, I was sitting on the steps of my front door and a deer trotted casually down the street before disappearing into the darkness. My first thought was that I'd had one too many, but I managed to snap a picture (which unfortunately turned out to be too dark and blurry to be worth sharing here). In the Anthropocene, one is also required to possess a licence to hunt. In France, hunting licences are traditionally distributed a little too liberally to red-nosed, trigger-happy individuals who will gladly open up on anything that moves and even on some things that don't. My youth as a mountain biker in the beautiful Lot Valley was spent in fear of this rural militia when the hunting season opened every September. Fortunately, I survived to post on the KSP forums. So, if I wave a pointy stick at a deer nibbling my tomato plants, do you reckon I need a licence? We've been chatting for a few months now. Je pense qu'on peut se tutoyer, non?

Evening all. Today was a most productive day in the long and slow process of bashing things back into shape. After many hours of .cgf file hacking and gnashing of teeth, Carderie v1.1.2 took to the skies for the first time (unless you count the 27 previous attempts that ended in the drink at the end of the runway). The pleasant surprise was that she made it to space first time, albeit with an empty cargo bay. And to my amazement, re-entered without meeting a firey end... ...and landed with Boris-Barboris' excellent Atmospheric Autopilot keeping her rock steady to a gentle touchdown. Not a single gear 'xploded. Plus, things are starting to pay off down my garden. Time for a well earned cold one. Cheers.

Another chapter of awesome stuff. This, in particular. Was this inspired by some quote from a real astronaut, or is it just something from your personal experience playing KSP? Or did you just make it all up? I certainly feel this way when I look back through the screenshots of some of my landings. So many things to keep track of when you're actually flying the mission, never enough time to step back and savour the moment... Guess that's one of the things that makes us go back and do it again, and again... ...and I love Jeb's blunt way of getting his point across. If you stick at this, I predict that this report will have lots and lots of readers, very soon.

Putting certainly might help to pass the time, although they would have to spin up the capsule to get some artificial gravity for Bartdon to practice in. In such a small capsule, he would then have to contend with a huge Coriolis effect that would probably make him dizzy and require him to aim well to one side of his target in order to account for the curved trajectory of the ball. I think golf in space is just a non-starter unless your ship is enormous... However, for practicing bunker shots on the lunar surface, a nine-iron or a sand wedge would be more appropriate. From the author's point of view, Bartdon is certainly less rambly and more to-the-point than Camwise. He allows me to get the story moving forward (see how I got him from his office to Drygalski base in a single episode? Try doing that with Camwise!). But suffer he will, nontheless. When I started this save. However, I believe the first screenshots of Camwise on the Moon were taken with 1/8th resolution textures (that's just how bad things are on my old Mac), so you are forgiven for not recognizing Ven's beautiful textures, as I hope he shall forgive the shortcomings of my graphics card and what they do to his work. I managed to turn things up a bit when Cernin got to Mars, and things will get a little better still when I finally get a 1.1 install up and running. RVE is looking unlikely though, unless I change my computer.

YEAR 7, DAY 283. BARTDON. If you want something done properly, then do it your damned self. Morning. And so here I am, coasting towards the Moon, sitting in the cramped crew quarters of that monstrosity I asked Froemone to design six months ago. And as monstrosities go, I must confess that the boy surpassed himself. Can't recall precisely but the blasted thing must weigh nearly forty-five tonnes fully fueled. In fact, it consists almost entirely of a huge hydrolox fuel tank with a crew capsule and four over-sized landing struts slung underneath. If the tank doesn't collapse into our accommodation when we touch down, it will be a miracle. It has been given some of the most awful nicknames by the boys back at the VAB, the least offensive of which is The Quadropus. But, out of respect for the memory of our Head Engineer, the damned tradition of giving West European names to our vessels has stuck and the official designation of our craft is Saillac. It took one of our largest Prayssac boosters just to get it to LEO, and even with that talented young lass called Catbeth at the controls, it maneuvers with all the grace of a beached whale. But if it does what Froemone says it can, this lander, once refueled at Drygalski, will allow us to visit the two sites on the Moon's surface that I have selected for close scrutiny and monitoring. But three days in this tiny capsule with three other Kerbals has been hell. No place to stretch one's legs, and certainly no room to practice my stroke, which will have gone to the blazes by the time I get back to Earth. Even if you disregard the difficulty and associated risks of waving a club in zero-gee, there's not even enough room in here to swing a nine-iron. At least my crew is a quiet bunch, which is one of the reasons why I chose them. I wouldn't go as far as saying that they are the most intrepid team of Kerbonauts ever to venture into space, with the possible exception of that girl Catbeth who seems to have things under control. She is sharing the cockpit downstairs with Froemone, who I assume won't be talking anyone to death during our trip. He's damned good at what he does, I'll give him that, but he has been almost totally mute and acting a little nervously for the past seventy-two, ever since we rode Carderie up from Kourou to meet Saillac in LEO. The other reason why I chose Froemone for this flight is because it's his ride, and I've always believed that having the chief engineer of a project on board for the maiden flight provides great incentive to get things done properly. If his design is not damned good enough for him, why should it be good enough for us? And sitting across the upper level of the crew capsule from me is the Deputy Investigator of this mission, Steledith. She must have uttered three sentences at most since we left the runway, and only one of those made sense to anyone else. She spends hours on end gazing out of the view-port next to her seat at the stars, just like she did when we went on that two-month harebrained excursion out into solar orbit with Cernin. I'd briefly considered bringing Neldan or Siggy with us, reasoning that I'd rather have those two somewhere where I can keep an eye on them. But there wasn't room for the pair anyway, so Steledith it was. Besides, they say that she's a genius, and that's something that may be useful on this trip. This is our last chance to prove we can make headway and come closer to understanding the mystery of this alien presence in our solar system. Or maybe it's an excuse to show that we're still working on it, just to buy us some time. Lunch. Or at least, something only remotely edible that is supposed to remind us of what the folks back home are tucking into. Taken with Steledith and Froemone, in silence. Afternoon. We're coming up for orbital insertion and Earth is about to disappear behind the limb of the Moon. I've been to Lunar orbit once before and I always hated the moments when we were cut off from mission control. I suppose some part of me always wonders if the Earth will still be there where I left it when we swing back out from the farside. The sight of that blasted blue marble dipping beneath that cold, cratered horizon, is a sobering one. Note to self: order the deployment of a decent communications network covering the blasted Moon ASAP, even if it means canceling the end-of-year gala and everyone's annual bonus. The de-orbit burn and approach to Drygalski went smoothly, and Catbeth got us down in time for tea. She hit the landing site spot-on, putting us down on the ridge that extended northwards from the crater's central peak. The Quadropus had landed, however because Saillac was not equipped with a remote command station, it took bloody ages to get the rovers over to meet us, with the drivers back at Omelek taking care not to blunder into anything with the signal delay. We suited up and Froemone went out first to link up the fuel line to the mining rover. I swear the boy's voice sounded all tearful at being reunited with his previous monstrous design. The transfer, capture and landing burns had used up most of our fuel, so we would have to leave the old pumps and drills running for at least the next forty-eight before we could fly again. But the good news was that the more spacious quarters of Drygalski base awaited our presence. Now it was time for us to perform a tactical retreat, before that nuclear reactor powered up. Besides, I could've murdered a snack. I dropped off Saillac's ladder onto the lunar surface and looked up at the peak to our South, before remembering I'd just taken my first steps on the Moon and I was supposed to feel elated and mutter nonsense about coming here in peace for all Kerbalkind. Damn all that, we came here with a job to do. Arcambal, the rover with the crew cabin, still trailing its rear wheel damaged by Camwise's attempts at stunt driving more than a year ago, interrupted my thoughts and droned up to take us over to the habs. I settled on one of the bunks in the back and relaxed for the first time in days as Froemone drove us the short distance towards the crater peak where the base itself was situated. I began to wonder what state the modules would be in after spending eighteen months unattended, including two freezing polar winters. Not that I really gave a damn, as long as the shower still worked. A few minutes later we had pulled up outside the command station and were standing in front of the main airlock. A weighty silence had fallen upon my crew, and despite the facade of our enthusiasm at reconquering our outpost, I could feel the tension amongst the ranks. Froemone was obviously thinking about his departed colleague, as was Catbeth. This place must drum up some powerful memories for her, poor girl. I cracked open the airlock and went in first with Froemone to power up the hab and bring climate control back on line. It took a good half hour before the temperature and pressure stabilized allowing us to remove our helmets and suits. The atmosphere was still glacial and Catbeth, exhaling mist into the chilly air, was staring at the table in the centre of the living area where a couple of plates and cups had been hastily abandoned prior to her previous departure from Drygalski. “Let's keep a stiff upper lip, lads and lasses!” I attempted to say forcefully, but I must admit that it wasn't very convincing. We've only just got here and I find the place pretty damned creepy when I stop to think about it. In fact, I can't wait to get these two listening devices set up on the lunar surface so that we can get the hell out of here.

Ooops... This smacks of foul play...

The view of Mars from Phobos is the most awe-inspiring thing I've seen in KSP so far. It certainly had Camwise stop what he was doing and pause to reflect on the meaning of life. I'm looking forward to my Kerbals inventing advanced nuclear electric propulsion, fusion, or some such magic to get them out to Saturn, though. I'm sure there will be views out there that will literally be to die for. (yes, this image was brought to you by hyperedit...)

I think it must be, because I've never heard that word before, neither had a bunch of my French colleagues when I asked them this morning. To talk specifically about corrupting a bureaucrat, one would usually use pot de vin (I know, the French fixation on wine...), but I've also occasionally heard the use of the word bakchich which probably came from Persian via Arabic. Well spotted. This leaves me with a conundrum. What bit of a Kerbal do you bite to get his attention, then? Forum-friendly answers only, please....

Oh yes, in that he is grumpy, canny, fussy about procedure, probably part of a huge Old Boy Network, and doesn't see why anyone else should be having a good day if he isn't. He's not a cruel monster though. And fortunately, he's into golf instead of poetry. If you want to see the spark of inspiration that spawned Bartdon, watch this sketch that dates back to the 1980s by Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie. For those of you who have only ever heard of Laurie as Doctor House, prepare to be surprised. Good Idea.

Sort of. Camwise is unavailable at the moment... This report/story is now being told by at least two narrators (both writing in the 1st person). The narrator is, of course, specified at the start of each entry (CAMWISE / BARTDON, maybe others in the future...) but I just wanted to make it totally clear who is talking in each episode. I'm always worried that this story is confusing enough as it is, without making it even harder for you guys with a sneaky change of narrator.... Your thoughts? If this is a bad idea, I can change it back...

Yes, at least according to ScanSat. And so far, ScanSat has been correct in RSS although some anomalies end up being buried beneath the terrain (as in stock, depending on your terrain rendering quality). I hadn't even considered trying that, but if I recall correctly you have to be pretty damn low to see the arches well from orbit. Because Jupiter is so huge and Martel's orbit is eccentric, flyby velocity is insane (can't remember what it is at periapsis but Ganymede's orbital velocity is more than 10km/s, even though it is a million kms from Jupiter). And to cap it all, I'm working with a 50 minute signal delay which means I have to set up the flyby before I enter Ganymede's SOI, with no chance of tweaking it afterwards. So, all in all, a pretty risky maneuver. Having said that, Martel is reaching the end of her useful life, so even if the screenshots are disappointing (it's pretty dark down there), it might be something to try in the name of science.

Yay! All of DMSP's cute contraptions in one place!