Part 4 Bob was back at it with the science after his demonstration, helping to develop all kinds of useful things for future launches. His temporary glory after the first successful launch was fading, so he was motivated to continue proving himself, this time by developing a new kind of engine, one that ran on liquid fuel, an idea he got at the party after his mission, where a party trick involving flaming shots inspired him. He also thought to make the engines throttleable, "just like a faucet", as opposed to the solid fuel engines that once you light them you just have to hope for the best. One day there was an announcement from Mission Control: "Administration says that legally we cannot call ourselves a space program without actually going to space" With those words looming, the people of the not-legally-space-center set out to leave the atmosphere. Luckily a test pilot had already been selected, Jebediah "Jeb" Kerman, if only because he won a bet with Administration (and no-one else was willing to do it). The new design created to achieve this used a lot of the newly developed technology coming out of Research and Development, as well as some goo borrowed from Deddly Design, as a favour to Bill, whose calculations suggested that it would increase the vehicle's acceleration by just over 160% once in the higher atmosphere. Stage separation, success! The liquid courage/fuel works! Things got a little hot during re-entry, but using the leftover fuel Jeb managed to slow his decent enough that no damage was sustained. Once he was safely recovered, the Kerbin World-Firsts Record-Keeping Society rewarded him with the title of "Badass", and Deddly-Ascent with "Actually Space Program" This was a turning point for the Space Center, as contracts started piling up in Mission Control, everything from taking VIPs on trips, to testing parts for manufacturers. The future seems bright for the joint effort, or is that just an afterimage from staring at boosters too long? I guess we'll see.
