Blue Skies Down

Default Corp. history is filled with many fails. It started very simply when Default finally got a very small station into a stable orbit (An MK1 cockpit with a crew quarters attached and a spent rocket which meant no return flight) The station had a small crew of 4, one of them being Jeb himself, which would become the normal crew size for all future missions. Governments of Kerbin took note of this tremendous occasion and granted the top minds and the more funding than any other space organization. Default Corp first task was to get the Mun and fast. After a brief testing period, the first mission was sent headed by aspiring Pilot Jebbart Kerman. Jebbart, along with the 3 other crewmembers (2 scintists and 1 engineer) would be the first to land on the Mun. A non-moving base was built and that was to be the Kerbals permanent residence until others would arrive. The flight was going according to plan, until Jebbart fell asleep behind the wheel. The first base touched down hard and the entire crew perished. Default Corp was scolded for the incident, but they already had the funding, so they launched a second mission with the same base but a different 4 Kerbal crew. Upon nearing the Mun surface it was revealed by the pilot that he had never landed a ship before in his life, much to the dismay of the crew. The second mission was also a complete disaster with the crew dying on impact. Again in trouble, Default Corp began to get desperate and decided that the third times the charm when it comes to these sort of things. Another base was constructed and a new 4 Kerbal crew selected in a fast time span. The pilot of this new crew happened to be Jebbarts son (Jebbart Sr.) who seemed to have tested well in the simulations. But unfortunately for him and the rest of the crew, the simulations all had him landing on a brightly lit Kerbin, which was leagues different than the landing requirement on the current mission, not to mention the engineers back on Kerbin forgot to install landing lights making an already hard task for a green crew impossible on the dark side of the Mun. Jebbart Sr. panicked at the last minute sending the craft into the Mun surface crew quarters down. 4 missions in and things were looking very bleak indeed. Default Corp was given one last chance by the world organization to land on the Mun or lose funding. And after adding lights, and a few new rockets to the design, Default scientists and engineers guaranteed a safe landing. Hours before the launch, the pilot of the mission crawled inside to make one last system check to make sure everything would go smoothly, but on the way to his seat he accidentally hit the launch control sending the ship into space. With no parachutes to speak of and no escape pods, he carried out the mission single handedly. After a long very tense period of waiting the base landed on the Muns surface (harder than desired but he made it) Default was heralded as tech geniuses and was ordered to repeat this step and build a colony on the Mun. Taking the new challenge head on, Default scientists and engineers went to work on a Rover Base system, knowing full well that 2 permanent bases randomly crashed next to each other would not look as cool. They ended up developing the Ulysses RV. The RV was capable of holding the same crew size as the permanent bases but could drive to its destination when landed so accuracy of where to land was no longer an issue. The RV also had a science Bay and a bunch of state of the art monitoring instruments to find out everything they could about the Mun. The ship was built from scratch to hold the new base, which meant that a lot of design decisions were forgotten about during the time it took to develop and test the new Rover. The first mission with the Rover ended up with no landing lights, which led the ship to hit the side of a crater and explode. First mission with a new crew and again was a failure. Nations began to see a pattern and funding began getting pulled. But, still unabated, Default looked past the failure with a firm belief and a statement to the press that it had been just an engineering mistake and that it would never happen again. A sixth mission to the Mun was approved, it was to be the second Rover mission. Jebbart Sr.s son (Jebbart Jr.) stepped forward this time and volunteered as pilot/driver, looking to bring honour to his failed family name. Jebbart Jr. landed perfectly, with minimal damage to the rovers wheels which was quickly patched by the engineer on board. But there was a problem, the engineers had once again forgot to add lights, this time headlights for the RV, and the mission had them landing on the dark side of the Mun again. After a brief argument with the Ground Control on whether or not to proceed, Jebbart Jr. received orders from the higher ups to make it to the permanent base at all costs. Loyal to the end, Jebbart Jr. and his Rover and crew were sent careening into a crater after Jebbart Jr failed to notice it in front of them. The incident and loss of life was blamed on Jebbart Jr himself, leading to a ban on Jebbarts entire family for their history of failures with the company. The next 2 Rover landings went off without a hitch, to the relief of the stranded pilot and Default Corp itself, hoping that the successful landings were enough to keep funding. But it wasn't meant to be, and eventually funding was pulled from Default except for their home country, who demanded that one last mission be undertaken to save the crew (mainly Jeb) of the first space station in orbit. An Orbital Rescue Vehicle (O.R.V) was created and launched with only a computer system controlled by Default Corp on the ground. The launch went fine but the craft had been steered the wrong way so that the orbit of the station and the the ORVs orbit were reversed, on top of that there wasn't enough fuel on the ORV to reverse the orbit direction. Never one to back down from a challenge, Default Corp matched the stations orbit as best they could and got as close as they could for a pass that someone with a EVA could reach. inside the space station, the crew drew straws to see who would risk the attempt on the first pass. One of the 2 scientists got the shortest one. The ORV came close and he flew towards it, he made it over and reported his success, cheering on his friend to be the next one to fly over. The other scientist agreed and got on his spacesuit. He nimbly climbed out and waited for the ORV to approach. As it got closer he got a little antsy and set out way early, when he arrived at the meet spot the craft was still a little ways out. Little did he know that the craft had increased in speed dramatically since the first pass and no longer was it just smoothly floating through space but rocketing towards him. He panicked and tried to dodge but before his pack could start he slammed into the crew quarters on the ORV, killing both him and his fellow scientist and absolutely destroying he ORV. Jeb and the engineer were now trapped on the space station. Jeb radiod Ground Control on possible options but all he heard was them being fired left and right and packing up their desks. It was then that Jeb had an idea. No one had tried it before and with no way of getting back home this was his last option. Jeb ordered the engineer to jump and try to survive reentry in their spacesuits. The engineer called him crazy but they eventually jumped together, pointing thier EVA packs at Kerbin. Jeb and the engineer hit the reentry heat, the engineer burnt up leaving only Jeb left. His fuel gone and nothing left to do Jeb accepted his fate as he drew nearer to he ground. But he landed and bounced. Skidding to a stop, Jeb could hardly believe he made it. He had lived through the last Default Corp Failure. Default Corp was my first ever game in Kerbal, riddled with so many mistakes, every one pushing me to develop further on every launch. I easily consider the entire Default Corp save to be my biggest failure in KSP. I have put this all in the past now though and have not lost a single Kerbal afterwords and have had very successful rescue missions for those stranded out in the great beyond.