DDE

Chapter 34: Self-Exploration Jeb Kerman circled around the northern “pot”. For Bob Kerman, the mission was going very well. Over the 270-day surface stay, he’d left no stone unturned in a five-mile radius, confirming several ancient rockbeds and gullies. The embedded geology lab spared them from the need to carry the bulk of his samples, now forming a neat pile just outside the airlock. For Bill Kerman, the mission was tolerable. His primary duty had been maintaining the meteorological records as they watched the walls of dust roll by. For Jeb Kerman, the mission was a mess. He was relegated to “housekeeping duties”. The basic scrubbers and the composters worked as advertised, but he didn’t even get around to using locally-produced fertilizer – his crops were failing miserably. He kept staring at the weak shoots in the dim light that penetrated through the transparent roof. Solar irradiance alone was supposed to be sufficient, they’d tested for that. Soil samples and atmospheric conditions matched control tests. Alas, it would remain a mystery until the handful of frozen samples would be examined, probably in between trying to coax any life from Bob’s soil samples. Luckily, the crops were an experiment. The storable rations and CO2 scrubber had picked up all the slack, and it was time to leave. Achilles awaited in orbit. The climb back into the DEV was a lot easier after months outside zero-grav. There was a brief checklist to run, after which Bob briefly caught Bill’s eye. “Any regrets?” “…Nope.” “Come on, what more can we get done in this lifetime?” Jeb laughed from his seat deeper in the craft. “I dunno, Laythe sounds like a nice place to retire,” Bob chuckled. Jeb listened to the pumps whirr in the main stage, and then pulled the handle. The pyrobolts in the mounting ring on the landing platform just as the twin rockets fired, leaving behind the legs, RTGs and an empty container behind along with the base. The landing stage had enough energy left in it to work through much of the lower atmosphere. There, it separated, leaving the tiny ascent stage to press into orbit. After all these months, the Achilles was slightly chilly and reeked of a different kind of plastic. There wasn’t much time to waste, though – orbital alignment was perfect for the ΔV they had to be mostly used up in a fast-tracked return burn. --- “Slava, we need to talk,” a voice announced from the other side of the door, barely pretending to knock. “Come on in,” Dr Kermanov annoyedly beckoned from behind stacks of papers. Linus Kerman, messy-haired as usual, herded in a bespectacled female intern, clad in an oversized sweater, before him. “There’s a high-contrast anomaly south of the Vallis Fortuna LZ,” he announced plainly, “I need you to back me up when I petition Jeb to run a Hornet mission.” “Start from the beginning,” Yaroslav demanded after a sigh. “This intern here spotted an anomalous return on one of our older radar scans. I managed to wake the satellite and scan the area again, repeatedly. The first kicker is that we’re looking at something huge and nearly perfectly flat to be shining back at us like this – much bigger than anything natural, or any of our spent stages. “And the second kicker is that we’ve found what’s left of our hijacked lander. With a few tweaks we’ve been able to resolve an unattributed debris field immediately west of our Giant Flasher. I refuse to consider it an accident.” --- It was useless to petition Gene Kerman at the time, he was really busy with Orion 9. The month-long mission within the Sarnus system was going to be his magnum opus, a showcase of every lesson painfully learnt at Jool. A week before the initial manoeuvre, the probe zipped by Tekto, its final target. The initial braking burn occurred about three ring diameters away from Sarnus. It was aimed for a high elliptical orbit. That orbit was well-aimed. The probe was to sneak up on Slate. Slate was increasingly puzzling. From far away it seemed just another Tylo, but the closer they got, the more bizarre it looked. Magnetic and plasma readings were conflicting – it was supposed to be a dead rock, but there was some weird activity. By then, Gene’s crew had grown accustomed to executing manoeuvres mid-flyby. As Orion left Slate, Gene could not shake the feeling of unexplained dread. The readings were not just conflicting, they were contradictory. Standard atmospheric and geological activity markers were absent, yet the landscape in the images bore evidence of a very active past, and in fact suggested an entire biosphere. It wasn’t just a dead world, it was a fairly recently dead world. Orion pushed onwards with its tour of the larger moons, the next leg bringing it precariously close to the rings. The next stop was Eeloo. That moon was a bit more ordinary, although puzzlingly enough it wasn’t covered in any sort of ice. The scanners showed some highly reflective, powdery, confusing mess of organics on top of silicates. The final manoeuvre brought Orion on intercept course with Tekto. Tekto was much more of a known variable. Sure, discovering an apparently induced magnetosphere was surprising, but even from Kerbin it was plainly apparent that the moon had a thick blanket of organics and hydrocarbons, which the probe promptly sampled with its collectors. The atmosphere was much more transparent to UV and IR sensors, and picked up vast swathes of apparent liquid oceans. --- “MISSION PLAN 23-A AUTHORIZED,” Jeb curtly responded to the forwarded file. The Mission Control team exchanged surprized glances. They expected more requirements, or at least some arguments. Then the teletype came to life. “TELL MUNEMONE TO STOP WEARING SWEATERS TO WORK.” The intern spent the next few seconds dying under the crossfire of stares, until Gene’s barking voice broke the silence, seemingly younger by a few years. “Alright, I want TERRA to start cooling the hydrogen tanks, signal SAT and VAB to begin launch prep!” The twin launches and crew delivery were executed flawlessly. With limited preparation, ISP called upon its veterans – Val, Yaroslav, Raygan. Bringing the slim Mk 3 lander on the designated landing site was quite easy. They could have done even better than that, but wanted to give the Giant Flasher a wide berth. “Got a visual?” Slava asked, unusually nervous. “…Yeah. Couple hundred meters, just as advertised. Shall we?” “Alright, prep jets, fifty meter separation.” “Hornet, Achilles, how copy, over?” “Moderate interference.” “Hornet, CAPCOM, say again?” Gene stammered. “Achilles says they’ve tuned in on our circuits.” “Copy that, maintain discipline on the omni. I think we’ve got eavesdroppers. Establishing Kerbin-Achilles circuit.” “I swear, we’re getting encryption after this,” Jeb muttered. “You’re optimistic,” Gene responded. “What, you didn’t plug the leaks in time?” “No, our friends outside the program got smart. They see the weird readings from Slate, they see an urgent mission, they connect the two, and they start screaming.” “CAPCOM, we’re touching down.” “Hornet, how copy?” Gene asked after two minutes of silence. “CAPCOM, on target, proceeding with the mission, over,” Yaroslav responded before switching to local, “They might as well have sent a poet.” “I am not taking a mallet to this thing,” Val responded, pointing at the flat obsidian obelisk towering before them, “Clearly an artefact.” “Hm, a shaped charge could probably break it.” “Don’t even think about it. We stick to sensors and soil samples.” --- “How bad?” Bill asked as Bob sealed up the hatch to the RV. “Well, we’ve dispersed the SAR and switched the LZ, so we’ve got that,” Jeb responded, “As to the rest, I don’t like where this is going, the public is in a tizzy about our attempts to usher in a Slatean invasion or whatever.” The RV separated from the rest of the Achilles. --- Walt Kerman stood guard at the blast door at the tunnel leading to the causeway. Well, he had actually fetched his lounge chair, so he wasn’t exactly standing. The tunnel was the lynchpin in KSC’s perimeter – the surrounding marshland had been further inundated over the past years, and was a worse approach than trying to swim in from the sea. Thus far, the most the crowd outside seemed to have tried was banging their head on the thick steel plate. Walt’s eyes slowly closed. Then there was noise, and there was heat, and Walt smashed into a wall and tumbled to the ground. Hundreds of boots ground the tarmac past him, frenzied cries of schadenfreude. A single amplified voice cut through the havoc. “Burn everything you see, but spare the Slateans! We will have them interrogated! And dissected! We will learn their secrets! For the glory of Kerbin!” Slipping in and out of consciousness, Walt saw a familiar green face lazily follow the crowd, holding a megaphone, grinning like a madman. A bit over five minutes later the crowd barged into the south-west corner of the R&D facility, setting fire to everything in their path. By then, the staff of the KSC was in complete disarray. The intruders broke down into several groups about a hundred each, and split the Centre into sectors. One of the groups on the right flank rushed straight for the propulsive fluids facility, only for the first ranks to rush back, causing a pileup, as the liquid hydrogen tank let off a giant flame. Over at the primary Mission Control building, another strike group were even more bamboozled by the sight of a kerbal in a spacesuit standing in their way. Finally, one of the nutters decided to try and tackle them, only to receive and Indian Kerman haymaker. Jeb pulled out a Molotkov cocktail from the attacker’s bag, and slashed it across his helmet. He repeated the operation with the other two bottles, and once thoroughly on fire, he rushed the crowd, who were promptly routed. The mob meeting the most resistance was trying to get inside the communications centre. They encountered severe resistance in the form of a chilling glare from Bill Kerman. It is very difficult to maintain interpersonal aggression towards someone who fails to even move an eyebrow at the threat of having their brains bashed in, and eventually the backed off, only for the comms centre to be rocked by explosions. Bill failed to break out of his pose, but in his mind he noted that it sounded like heavy-duty demolition charges, not just a schmuck with a Molotkov. Over in the VAB, Valentina Kerman fought for the preservation of the unique and expensive equipment. The mob outside had no interest in making their way inside and just kept trying to set fire to the exterior – something the water mist fire suppression system easily neutralized. Thus far all they needed was to avoid the mist system sabotage, which is why she was doing the rounds in the basement when she heard screaming. She cut a corner, barely noticing a shadow disappearing up the stairwell while Gus tried to stymie the bleeding from his face. She raced right past him. Twenty floors above, agent Kirrim Kerman dropped the duffel bag and surveyed the floor he’d picked for the demolition charges. Someone was huffing loudly behind him. “Well, hello there, Ms. Kerman,” he said, eliciting an ear-to-ear Kheshire grin, “Your supposed romantic escapades have been making quite the…” Kirrim’s face was smashed hard with a fast-moving object – a reinforced telescoping titanium aluminide flagstaff. However, he barely reeled from that, and the next overhead sweep ended very badly for Valentina, since Kirrim easily grabbed her improvised quarterstaff, and thrust it right in her gut, subduing her effortlessly. At that time, a clueless wrench monkey was wondering past, pretending to be uninvolved, ready to mix in with the mob at the first sign of trouble. And for the first time in forever, he did something noteworthy, and applied the wrench to the back of Kirrim’s head. This time Kirrim half-collapsed. The flagstaff clattered to the floor, and a second later Val heard the unmistakable sound a gun side being racked. And then there was the sound of a gunshot. The standard-issue ISP flag contained a pyrotechnically-driven tungsten dart designed to solidly anchor it in igneous regolith. When pointed appropriately and not pressed against a hard surface, it made a decent musket, and the dart solidly embedded itself in Kirrim’s gun hand. Then, in the best traditions of musketry, the now-empty flagstaff was brought down on him, repeatedly. --- The few remaining fanatics were being quickly expelled by another mob that showed up, this time with light blue-and-yellow armbands and vigorously applied shovel handles. Jeb surveyed the mess from atop the VAB. Much of the facility had been thoroughly torched, including the Academy. “You want the good news, the bad news, or the really bad news?” Gus asked, fresh stitches on his cheek. “In that order.” “Rockomax called.” “Did they get hit?” “No, but they thoroughly disposed of all equipment and documentation anyway.” “Morons. Another two to five years, then?” “Yep, we’ve lost the bulk of tech irreversibly.” “The bad news?” “The tracking station’s archives are gone. And our friend Kirrim had passed through Mission Control and demolished the data room there too. We’ve lost the keys to our entire satellite group.” “So, how much worse can it get?” “Look at the massive placard over there. Some people want a change of leadership at the highest level.” “Oh, no… no… No!”

Implemented as part of some cloud mods. Used to be in the works alongside Gas Giant 2. Trust me, you don't want them to be solid. I accidentally modded 1.0.5 to have solid terrain scatters, and it was ugly for my rovers.

Don't forget the superflares eroding the atmospheres.

Large Relativistic Kinetic Kill Vehicle salvos. It's nearly impossible to conquer other star systems, so prep Exterminatus.

Can confirm by second-hand testimony, the instant fame did not do her character well. She tried to get a free trip with the first Soviet diplomatic mission to South Korea, because preaching, and had to be threatened by taking the matter to CPSU Central Committee.

Europan surface activities are impeded by rad flux, whereas Ganymede has steeper dV requirements.

THIS IS BLASPHEMY! NOBODY LINKED THIS VID YET! A lot of their drives use water as reaction mass. They're using a lot of it irreversibly.

Nah, this trunk already housed unrealistically much.

@Angel-125, problem is, at Duna that Poncho couldn't power one greenhouse during the day. And because I haven't quite caught that in testing, well, I'm lucky I brought a Buckboard of life support supplies instead of a second Poncho.

Chapter 33: The Outer Reaches Munemone Kerman had the most thankless job in the entire space program. Jeb’s crew relied heavily on expendable interns to carry out even relatively important duties. But her job was even worse. After mapping the potential landing sites, they just stockpiled hundreds of miles of magnetic tape with unprocessed high-resolution radar data. And it wasn’t until five years later that they decided to start selling a Munar atlas mapping the whole place with 50 cm resolution. Which meant that the computer they used to compound the data from multiple passes only worked maybe a third of the time; Munemone spent the rest chasing down the requisite technicians or out-of-production spare parts. Reel 2310. Insert, review, load up, run process, extract. Ten minutes total. Reel 2311… she once again glanced at the screen to confirm that it was not blank. She couldn’t do much more. There wasn’t enough data for her to try and match up the passes to each other within any reasonable amount of time. And it wasn’t like the image was easily matched to a regular map – radar reflections are extremely counterintuitive. White areas were slopes and edges, a complete departure from the appearance of objects in the visible spectrum. This time, something caught her eye. Normally she’d get moderate returns from basaltic rock. This particular dataset, however, contained a massive bloom of a signal. This was highly unlikely to be a mere malfunction. In fact, it was too big for a spent Sarnus or Tunguska stage. --- “What activities are planned during the nine-month surface stay?” one of the reporters asked, prompted by Jeb. There was an illusory freedom of access to the in-quarantine pre-launch press conference: all but a handful of vetted journalists would be simply ignored. Internal documentation referred to this as “measures to prevent proliferation of brain cancer”. “The current mission architecture imposes considerable limitations on the range of equipment that can be delivered to the surface,” Jeb began, hoping to obscure the flag-and-footprints nature of the mission with sufficient platitudes, “and we opted against a brief surface excursion followed by moths stuck in orbit waiting for the transfer window. As a result, the lander’s trunk is dedicated entirely to the surface base, and we designed the scientific program around this limitation.” Before anyone could formulate a follow-up question, Jeb pointed at the next person on his own list. “What… what would you consider the largest risk involved?” “Well,” Jeb responded, actually surprized that someone expected a serious analysis of that, “in terms of physical risk, the Duna descent is easily the most dangerous stage. But in terms of availability of abort scenarios, it’s after we get back to the ship in Duna orbit that we end up without backups. While on Duna, we have the chance of becoming self-sufficient in terms of supplies via our biological experiments, and we always have the option of retreating to orbit. En route to Duna, we can scrub the landing, and have both the main propulsion bus and the lander’s engines at our disposal. But once we’re at the point where we need to leave Duna orbit… we won’t last until a replacement return stage is delivered.” Before Jeb could spot the next verified reporter, one of the people in the audience shot to his feet. Jeb’s heart sunk – it was a bottom feeder from the Hourly Mail. Unapologetic and undeterred by the murmurs, the watery-eyed mudraker fired off his question as if it were an accusation: “Can you comment on your sexual harassment policies?” Everyone else was taken aback. The grinning man pulled out an audio recorder, which announced in Valentina’s voice, “I'd love to mate.” There were gasps, and there was chatter. Jeb stood up, and took a step towards the window, and took a swing at the glass. Whatever he had in his hand was enough to reduce the tempered layered glass to dust. In subsequent turmoil, the Hourly Mail reporter accidentally fell out of his chair, face-first. Repeatedly. --- Pyramid was Jeb’s greatest exploit in avoiding having to deal with Kerbodyne. With oversized payloads of up to 45 t needing to go into a high 1000 km staging orbit, one Mainsail was nowhere near enough. But rather than deal with those jerks, Jeb proposed using a cluster of three Mainsail stacks, with another three stacks as detachable boosters. On top was a wide orbital stage with a new JKJSP quad-nozzle motor. Even then, Achilles had to be assembled in four launches. The first launch carried the main propulsion module, complete with the Neptune atomic rocket and the large solar panels needed to keep the refrigeration systems running. The second launch contained two massive supplemental fuel modules, with additional hydrogen surrounding an internal tank of slush oxygen. Both modules mounted automatic docking systems, allowing them to move into position around the main bus. The third launch omitted the side boosters, since the lander was relatively lightweight compared to the whacking huge fuel tanks. The lander would until the final launch to begin rendezvous. The final launch contained the return vehicle, the hab, and Gold Team. For that, a Mainsail sufficed, allowing all of the time-proven safety systems to be used. You couldn’t go wrong with a four-booster Mainsail stack, Jeb thought as the launch went on routinely. The oversized ship was delivered into low orbit before using the Tunguska to intercept the propulsion section. The Achilles was a considerable improvement on its smaller predecessor. The larger motor and much larger tankage gave it enough energy to cart around the lander, and the internal layout of the hab had been perfected, with personal quarters encased into a radiation shelter the size of Vulkan’s entire interior, the return vehicle relegated to its flight station role, and a new commons and science area out back based on Athens. The hab finally clamped onto the bus. Jeb and Bob immediately unbuckled and headed into the hab area, while Bill prepared for EVA. “Capcom, initiate decoupling,” Jeb said while manning the auxiliary control panel in his own personal quarters. “Tank module stage, stand by, detach!” The ship shook slightly. “Propulsion bust stage, stand by, detach!” Bill climbed out the return vehicle and engaged the jets. The side propellant modules needed to be further strapped down manually, which took about ten minutes. He had to be careful with the Kaptron-coated propellant tanks around him. “Starboard aft, complete,” he reported. “Confirmed, stand by for nozzle inspection.” The carbon-carbon bell slid into place. “Confirming.” “Get back in, Marina’s coming in… twenty minutes. The lander arrived, slid into position and docked. Its own ascent stage was jettisoned to reveal the insertion heat shield. Achilles was ready. --- “Comms.” “Check.” “Life support.” “Check.” “Guidance lock.” “Check.” “Pile status.” “Ready to go.” “Feed lines? “Precooled.” “Pumps?” “Spun up, running wet.” “Alright, let’s get this show on the road,” Jeb said, “Begin feed.” “Hydrogen line pressurizing. Oxygen line pressurizing, evaporator engaged.” “Flight, I need your permission for trans-Duna injection.” “Achilles, you’re cleared for departure,” Gene noted after a pause. “Copy that. Brennschluß to 67 seconds, firing in 95 seconds.” The time ticked down. Finally, the engine at the back of the ship sparked to life. And then the supersonic oxygen injectors in the nozzle fired up, and the ship really started going. The auxiliary tank modules allowed a chemically-augmented high-thrust burn while keeping the main bus untapped. In fact, in augmented mode and with the high-expansion nozzle, the new motor was dangerously close to being usable for a Kerbin launch. They spent the week in the storm cellar with the reactor hot for the initial correction burn. Once on a solid intercept trajectory, the mostly-empty fuel modules were ditched. Achilles assumed cruise configuration, with full hydrogen tanks and some lOx in the auxiliary buffer tankage. --- Long-duration interplanetary flights are typically uneventful. The bulk of the tech had been tested on both Vulkan ships, and living conditions had been immensely improved. Bob was kept busy thanks to a magnetometry and plasma array, although his crewmates failed to properly appreciate his attempts to monitor Joolean auroral choruses without using a headset. Months later, Achilles was nearing on Duna. Preparations for orbital insertions involved stoking up the engine once again, and deploying the heat shield. The crew watched the multi-layered donut inflate through the windows of the return vehicle. The supply of lOx was sufficient for the planned correction and insertion manoeuvres, so the first burn was augmented. Then they braced for the deceleration. The free Δv seemed much less attractive now that they faced a prospect of a fiery death if they went too low. The tenuous atmosphere meant a very small margin of error. They retracted everything they could as they crossed the terminator. The ship groaned slightly as it reoriented. Then the vibrations started, and the edges of the shield lit up. Deceleration continued to mount. Jeb watched the artificial horizon. As soon as they began to approach the 20 km mark, where there was a risk of tumbling, he went into barbeque mode, firing roll thrusters as the rest struggled to keep the ship stable. Even as they passed the periapsis, they could see they failed to brake into low orbit. An extra week was spent on a high orbit before another aerobrake. This time, it was more successful. Once the dip was complete, they ditched the shield, and prepared the engine for a final circularization burn. --- Jeb sealed and dogged the overhead hatch, and floated into his seat. The lander undocked, and a brief click of the thrusters sent it clear of the mothership. Half an hour later, the main thrusters initiated the retroburn. Another half-an-hour later the lander approached atmosphere. They had limited margin of error from there. The insulation cork on the bottom of the cargo container would work for the upper atmosphere, but much of the descent was powered, at 75-80% of nominal thrust. This was a classic automated suicide burn, slowing down at a precariously low altitude before descending with a considerable sway. The ground was not particularly even, but good enough, so Jeb green-lit the final descent. “Landing struts compressed. Angle within limits, engine shutdown, deploying ladders. It’s a stay.” Bob squeezed off a brief message in Morse code to avoid clogging up the lander’s low-bandwidth channel, as Jeb and Bill suited up for the lengthy descent down the side of the tall lander. The rusty red soil was unexplainably different from the Mun, and from the ice-concrete mixture on Minmus. The sky was a more vivid shade of butterscotch than on the probe photos. “Yep, it’s a world alright,” Jeb dispensed enormous insight. Bob just grunted under his helmet. “You’re going to help me or what?” Bill asked, having crawled into the cargo compartment. “Nope. Care for a two hundred meter sweep, Bob?” The base layout consisted of seven principal elements. The RTG slugs in the lander’s cargo compartments, along with its radios, were linked to the inflatable camp. The camp proper consisted of an external drill mount and airlock, a laboratory hut, a habitat hut and a pair of greenhouses constituting the Extra planetary Agriculture experiment. Additionally, the base fielded a heliotracker solar array, and a freestanding chemical reactor unit. The crew of Achilles buttoned up for the long stay.

OK, I had to check. Encyclopedia Britannica and everyone else insist that he's a cosmonaut.

Citation needed

*sits up* Source, please. I am sincerely intrigued. Great, so it gets to explode twice.

Ladies and gentlekerbs, I'm sad to report that principal photography has been completed. The two final chapters are forthcoming. If you wish to encounter spoilers, my Steam account is linked in the sig. I am hereby mothballing my backup. It's been a pleasure.

Chapter 32: Under Pressure The Independent Space Program plodded on, slowly but surely. Back in the VAB, Gus was overseeing the construction of a ginormous mounting cradle for the Pyramid. The new E8 Achilles II Duna Expeditionary Complex had been finalized, and work had to be started on a 50 t-class launcher. Ultimately, reusability was out of the question after the hull leak, which allowed use of the same Kerbin Return Vehicle as Vulkan, and the final configuration had the entire craft assembled in Kerbin orbit, lander included, to make the most use out of the nuclear thruster. This called for four launches: the habitat with the crew on-board, a 50 t main propulsion section, a 45 t departure drop tank set, and a 37 t E7 Marina Duna Excursion Vehicle with a trunk carrying the surface base components. A bit closer to the Sun, the second wave of probes approached Eve. The battle-plan for Orpheus probes was quite interesting. It began with a braking burn that left the probe with an eccentric orbit, during which its particle collectors could perform direct sampling of Eve’s exosphere. Then, at the apoapsis one Kerbin day later, it performed a deorbit burn. After that, it dropped the skeet, flipped over, and burned back into orbit exactly three minutes later. The two probes plummeted in relatively close proximity. But while the bus didn’t even brush the atmosphere, the skeet rammed it head-on. Projected deceleration was in the range of 30 g. Avionics were self-contained, relying solely on a gamma-ray backscatter altimeter to execute the flight program. While the initial deceleration would be extremely violent, the subsequent descent of a vehicle with a high ballistic coefficient through a soup-like atmosphere was painfully slow – well over half an hour. It didn’t help that the target area was near the terminator. Only the last minutes needed to be cushioned by the parachute. Back in orbit, the bus slipped out of radio contact, and went about adjusting its orbit with its upper stage and its own engine. The skeet’s landing area moved out of line of sight of Kerbin, and with spotty bounce-backs from the older Orions, contact with the lander was only established a few days afterwards. Luckily, so long as it didn’t crash or melt, its RTG could last for years. The lander only squawked back two days later. Orpheus 2 arrived hours later, and repeated the procedure on the dayside. The second skeet was aimed dead in the middle of the largest ocean, and confirmed that it was lifeless, dense, and mostly acid. Far away beyond the asteroid belt, Orion 6 was approaching a much bigger target. Its aft-pointing imagers, telescopes and radiometers peered at Jool’s inner moons. The flight plan called for using the innermost moon, Laythe, as an anchor for a powered deceleration assist. Gene peered at the aggregate data from the numerous sensors. The plasma wave tripod and the magnetometer detected a colossal magnetic field, and the imagers confirmed plenty of aurorae and were providing initial insight into joolean meteorology. The particle collectors reported a drastic change in the interplanetary medium. But when dealing with data on Laythe, Gene just stared blankly at the sheets. “This is data for Kerbin,” he complained. “No, it’s not,” the intern noted in a shaky voice. “…are you kidding me?” Gene blurted out, looking at the blue marble in the photograph. “Hardly. Atmospheric spectra are rather distinct.” The upcoming close flyby was brief, and the retroburn was going to jam the sensors with the plume. Data feed from the radio and magnetic sensors would be saved on the datatapes. But the wide-angle imagers would still work, peering at the Kerbin-like world beneath. The initial retroburn resulted in an unstable orbit among the greater moons; a quick adjustment yielded another flyby and assist at Tylo, along with a reasonably close approach at Vall. Even with the few available sensors, Laythe was a goldmine. Its magnetic field was quite strong and its interactions with Jool complex; atmosphere appeared moderately breathable – but ammonia was plentiful enough for the probe’s collectors to actually sample it. Gravimetrics and long-range albedo measurements suggested an active geology underneath the anomalously cool planetwide ocean. Tylo was nowhere near as interesting. The sensors failed to detect an active magnetic field or evidence of geological activity. Ultimately, it was a lifeless chunk of metal and rock – massive but boring. Gene’s final decision as to circularize the probe’s orbit in between Laythe and Vall. Halfway between Kerbin and Duna’s orbit, Jeb was reading the messages off the screen. “Idiot,” he noted. “What?” “He settled for a Jool orbit.” Bob simply sighed. “He came into a retrograde orbit. Textbook inbound gravity assist, but he’d have to pay around six k of dee-vee to get into Laythe orbit.” “What’s he got left?” “3k plus the backup thruster.” “…Think he could pull off an inclination reversal manoeuvre?” “Well, he could try and use Tylo to launch the probe into a polar orbit, but that’s just halfway to success.” “I have another thing in mind…” Gene stared at the data relayed from Vulkan. Jeb had a crazy plan. Crazy, but doable. He’d roll with it. The first part of the plan involved returning back to an elliptical orbit in order to convert most of the kinetic energy into potential energy. Orion thus had to swing all the way back to Pol first. There, it would reverse its velocity vector, and dive back towards Laythe. With the opposite approach velocity, the insertion burn was quite acceptable; the dV budget could have been cut by another kilometre per second, but that would have resulted in a two-month manoeuvre. Once the final insertion was complete, the stage was jettisoned. Over the next few days, Gene’s crew could use the small chemical thruster to bring the probe into an optimum orbit for long-term study at their leisure. It was over. A year and a half later, Vulkan returned to Kerbin’s sphere of influence. A brief pulse of the nuclear thruster adjusted its grazing fly-by of the planet. Jeb turned around for a last glance at their home away from home, and floated through the hatch. Bill locked and dogged it, and moved out of the way as Jeb lowered his coach into place. Kerbin’s atmosphere met them with slight jitter. Not willing to overstay their welcome, Jeb pulled the ‘Abort’ handle.

A Gemini flight was originally supposed to test a USAF peroxide jet pack, complete with steel wool spacesuit pants. But even that wouldn't provide the requisite dV. The pack would have to be stripped down, much larger and heavier than an MMU - let alone a Kerbal jetpack. In my own fanfic an EVA from Mun orbit to surface included several KIS supplementary tanks and nitromethane instead of standard H2O2.

Correct, they want a lithium cooling loop. So, it's just like the final version of my old friend, the RD-600.

Not just that, the propellant can be hotter than the reactor itself, which is normally impossible. So unextreme they let universities have them.

http://arc.aiaa.org/doi/10.2514/6.2016-4685 On the Use of a Pulsed Nuclear Thermal Rocket for Interplanetary Travel Basically, they propose using brief bursts of extreme output - the kind that gets 100 Wt reactors to megawatt levels - to boost Isp's, potentially to ion thruster levels, approximately 13800 sec, heating the exhaust beyond core meltdown temperature through neutron flux heat transfer.

Unknown. Thus far they are a "go"; the upper stage may be affected by this haberdashery, but this is merely an inference. Very doubtful. The only place to move from there is Angara 5... which appears to be suffering from much worse issues and is basically a white elephant at this point.

@Carl, it's an easy bar to meet. ClF3's forgotten cousin ClF5 comes to mind. @Streetwind, it's a very potent explosive based on theoretical predictions. I say we shouldn't get our hopes up, and are ought to keep an eye out for research on mono-H.

Someone got greedy. The materials involved are described in the Russian press as "precious metals", and they disappeared without a trace with no effect on the final price-tag. It appears that NPO Energomash is going to try and annihilate the Voronezh plant over this.

@wumpus, Ignitions!'s final pages of the pre-conclusion chapter are dedicated to the 542 sec lithium-fluorine-hydrogen chemical rocket motor.