DAL59

This was earlier in the film. They were just getting near it to go to the water planet. Yes, it was a terrible decision, but they did want to save Dr. Miller.

Neither disaster shut down the program though. The program was only canceled years later due to money and aging hardware.

They slingshotted around a neutron star, remember?

And then they are out of fuel once in orbit...

Why? It actually makes sense. The movie states they still have GPS, so there are still occasional satellite launches. Its disguising the ssto as a normal launch. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/only-60-years-of-farming-left-if-soil-degradation-continues/ they did not know that when they started out. They assumed they were going to go back through the wormhole.

FMRS stands for flight manager for reusable stages. When you separate your lower stage, it creates a time travel point. Then, you continue to fly your upper stage. Once in orbit, you can time travel back to when the booster separates, and land the booster. Once it is landed, you jump forward in time to the main mission.

They have an actual contract though. They didn't launch earlier because they were waiting on the Dragon to be built.

Columbus did not have communication or clean water. Mars is much harder than anything we've ever done, but remember, we went to the moon with 1960s computers. We can definitely manage a Mars mission today.

There can't possibly be 183,000 members, right?

Umm... they'll be considerably more comfortable than artic/antartic explorers. Plus, they have communication with Earth. Trials on Earth, like the simulation report I posted, prove that psychology is not that much of a problem. Remember, nobody is being forced to go to Mars. The ISS has proven for the past 20 years that 6 months of zero gee is survivable, especially since they only have to acclimatize to 40% gravity. Gravity is not an issue, and even if it was, could be easily solved by tethering the habitat to the Trans mars injection stage and spinning.

Use FRMS!

Patchwork P2 if you know about the invisible ink, don't tell everyone! A cone shaped ship, 5 miles long, appeared above the star. “After ten million years, this long lost weapon will finally see use. The Empire will be unstoppable-” The captain was cut off as a missile rammed into the ship. nicoll-dyson beam -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Encyclopedia Galactica Planet Asrotuyopejadert Update: 9,998,035.340 Known other names: Dawn(local) Physical characteristics: Gravity- .78 Air pressure- .66 Star- M0, low flare activity Day length- 7 days Year length- 7 days Native life- Algae and moss Terraforming- None System- No other planets or moons. Societal: Tech level- Equivalent to 1980s. Knowledge of computers, DNA, airplanes. No space travel. Energy is generated exclusively through tidal turbines. Battery technology suboptimal. Population- 160 million. Steady. Type 1 humans. Politics: Only one nation, Dawn Kingdom, on only habitable continent. Ruled by a hereditary monarchy, with districts controlled by elected officials. Anomalies: None. Threat level: None. Inhabitants are quite friendly and most live good lives. Artifacts: One Dictionary, lost. History: Settled 9000 years ago. No surviving records of initial colony. Lapsed into stone age for 5000 years, after which the Dawn Kingdom has ruled and technology has slowly progressed. Awareness: Dawn has been visited every few centuries, only by scientific ships. No hostile interactions. Significance: Dawn is in a relatively peaceful region of space, and is stable. Ideal place to start Project Alliance. Also, presence of a Dictionary indicates that an original colonization hopper was still around just 9 millennia ago. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Now I was in a prison cell with Ix and the rest of the team. I was still dizzy from the explosion. “Whats going on?” I asked Pamela. “I wished I knew. Project Ascent wasn’t illegal, just secret. And who’s that guy?” she replied, pointing at Ix, who was still unconscious. “That’s Ix. He is an al- he wanted to join the team.” Pamela stood up and yelled out through the bars of the cell, “I demand a reason for my arrest, as is my right under section 2 of the criminal code!” Then King Kyopel himself walked in front of the cell. Pamela opened her mouth in shock, then bowed. “Don’t worry. You’ve probably committed no crime. I’m actually quite impressed with your Project Ascent. I’ll give you funding. Anyway, we saw a ship appear in orbit, and then enter the atmosphere. It was big enough to see its shape through our telescopes. If you have been to the museum of alien interactions, you would have seen the Warnings of the Yolopla, from 31 millennia ago? That was a hostile vessel. We had to bomb where it landed. You were unfortunately also there. We had to assume you were a hostile alien. As the warehouse contained equipment we had not seen before, we had to assume it was aliens and arrested all of those who worked there. We’ve confirmed our records and you will all be released. I’m very sorry. However, we did capture the plane. In it we found fingerprints- that match his,” he explained, pointing at Ix. “He is from space, but he is not a hostile. He’s human. His tech is just a few decades ahead of us.” Ix moaned, awoke, and sat up. “Yes, I’m human. I came in a vessel from another species. I came here after being pursued by them. It broke down and I had to land. There is another ship in orbit. A human one. Maybe one day I can return to it. But for now, I can help you improve your technology. I’m also researcher, and I’ve gathered encyclopedias from a dozen worlds.” After a long pause, the king replied, “Hmm. I think I believe you. It's best not to judge too soon. We’ll scan your genes, and then you’ll be free to go. From what we’ve seen of your tablet and aircraft, you have a lot to tell us.” One earth year later “Boosters!” “Go!” “First stage!” “Go!” “Guidance!” “Go!” “Control fins!” “Go!” “Second stage!” “Go!” “Surgeon!” “Go!” “Ozzy, Ix, Kumbukani, are you go?” “Yes, Pamela!” I said, from a crackly radio 2 miles from the improved, government funded VAB and the mission control room next to it. “Wait!” yelled someone in the control room. “What’s going on?” I asked. “I just discovered something incredibly unlikely. We need to delay the launch. They’re going to hit the asteroid moonlet!” Ix grabbed the radio from me and spoke into it, “Don’t worry! We won’t hit it! I knew about it in advance. That’s why I picked this exact launch time.” I thought for a second. Ix had let me read the Encyclopedia entry for Dawn. His entry said we had no moon. I assumed he was just ignoring moonlets. But what if- it wasn’t a random asteroid. What if- it was a ship! “Ten-nine-eight-seven-six-five-four-ignition-three-two-one-and liftoff of the Ascent M1!” Eight solid rocket boosters and one hydrazine powered engine careened the rocket into the air. Within ten seconds, there was the characteristic vibrations as we approached and then broke the speed of sound. Then the acceleration slowed as the SRBs decoupled leaving just the center stage which climbed through the stratosphere. Then there was half a second of relief, but then the second stage ignited, pushing the apoapsis beyond the atmosphere. Then it separated. The capsule was alone, and it was now in space. “This is Ascent to Mission Control. Situation is nominal. I’m getting the camera. Camera on. Are you receiving video?” Kumbukani asked, aiming it out here window. I was in the middle seat, so I had to stretch forward to get a glimpse of the bright, unflitered red light of the sun. “Roger that, we are receiving video. Look at that view!” “Yeah. The capsule is rotating at about 1.5 rpm, so you should be able to see Dawn in a few moments.” Ix was looking out his window, at a dot that I knew was the moonlet. Then it grew much, much brighter. I noticed he had smuggled his tablet aboard. He reached up to his control panel and flipped off the radio. “What are you doing?” I demanded. “Leaving.” Kumbukani turned to face us and she asked, “Apoapsis in 3 minutes- what’s going on?” “Nothing.” I lied. “My camera isn’t relaying footage any more.” “Thats unfortunate. We should bring a spare on the next mission.” 3 minutes passed, as we stared out the windows. Kumbukani looked so happy. Ignorance is bliss. “Mission control, apoapsis reached!” she reported. Silence. “What’s going on?” “Uh...you might want to look out the other window.” Right next to us was the ‘moonlet’. It was a ship, gleaming white, about 40 feet long. In the front was a disk, 15 feet thick and 20 long. The disk was elongated and curved, so it was only 10 feet wide, and gleamed in the sunlight. Behind the disk was a torus, about 20 feet in diameter, connected to the back of the disk via 4 pipes. Stretching backwards from the disk was a truss, 20 feet long. It ended in another, identical torus, and a conical device with radiators sticking out of it. Docked to the forward part of the truss were two spaceplanes, which were yellow, and shaped like obtuse triangles. The back part of the rectangular truss had 12 spherical fuel tanks. The vessel rotated, and a door in the underside of the disk opened slowly. We were falling in unison, towards the atmosphere below. Our capsule entered the doors and they closed. There was absolute darkness. Then the external air guage began to go up. “Ix! You must be behind this! I demand to be returned to Dawn!” shouted Kumbukani. “This is for a very important cause,” he stated calmly, “We must hurry before this ship- let’s call it the Uniter- enters the atmosphere. It is not equipped for reentry.” The airlock door was on his side. He flipped off the safety, and opened it, then unbuckled and pushed himself into the darkness. Then harsh lights came on. I saw a rope go outside Kumbukani’s window, and then the capsule moved slowly for a few seconds. I climbed out as well. He had tethered down the capsule to the aft floor of the airlock. The airlock was shaped like a quarter of a cylinder, with curved doors. He pushed of the aft floor and drifted through the air to the other side, where he disappeared through a hatch. “Follow me!” he shouted, “You need to get strapped in!” I should probably have demanded information, but I had to trust him. We awkwardly also moved to the hatch, into a room where the floor and walls were covered in containers. That room also had a hatch, this time on the “ceiling” which led to the upper deck. The upper deck was split in two via a bulkhead with a door in it. The forward part was the bridge, which tapered quickly to a point. Ix was already strapped down in an acceleration couch, flipping switches. Behind him were two rows of two. We both strapped in. “Ozzy, I think I know what this ship is,” Kumbukani whispered, “I read a theoretical physics paper that claimed a ship with these toruses-” “It's called an alcubierre drive. It lets you go faster then light. The toruses expand space behind you and contract space in front of you, using very thin negative energy bubbles. It takes a lot of power though. The fission reactor has lost a bunch of power over the decades- sorry, earth decades- so we’ll only manage about 500c. Igniting engines now!” We were pressed into our seats with about 2 gravities of force. “We don’t have enough fuel to get back into orbit, so I’m just burning upwards to get time for the drive to build up!” We waited until the engine stopped. “Okay, I better teach you guys how to use the drive,” Ix said, “My left console controls it. You flip this switch to transfer power to the casmir plates, then once the estimated speed readout here reaches you desired number, you press this to start the computer calculating your field geometry. The faster you want to go, the longer you need to calculate. We’ll only need a few seconds.” An indicator light blinked green. “Okay, we are just going to do a quick test flight. Now, grab the throttle, and...” The stars outside the window moved. With a tiny jerking motion, they moved. About one degree. And then again. And then again. Quicker and quicker, the stars distorted. Then there was a flash of light. The distortion shifted, the stars swirling in inexorable patterns. The stars were all blue, and then they disappeared. There was a flash of blue light again, and the stars reappeared, distorted as before, but no longer moving. “Light speed reached. Hopefully the windows filtered out all those blue-shifted x-rays. Turning off field- now!” The stars twisted erratically. “Is that supposed to be happening?!” yelled Kumbukani. “No!” yelled Ix, “So much time in space, the computer must have been damaged by the radiation.” Then the window turned solid white and then the sky went back to normal. “Okay, we’re about 5 million miles from Dawn.” “I demand we return to Dawn immediately!” She was searching her pockets for anything that could be used as a weapon. We had better “Yeah,” I agreed, “Go back now and we won’t try to punish you or anything.” “I wish I could, but right now, we can’t form a field. I’m getting something on radar!” A giant cone appeared in front of them. One moment there was nothing, and then there was the ship. “The other thing is that the computer messed up the field. It got big enough that the distortion of light could be seen from 50 light years away.” “But wouldn’t the distorted light spread at lightspeed? It would take years!” “One of the quickest lessons you learn out in the patchwork: There’s always someone watching nearby. Probably a couple million probes in this system, some with FTL communication. Jumping back to Dawn… now!” There was a distortion of light, and then the planet filled their entire view. “We’re back in orbit. Enabling radio-” I looked out the window, and watched the red sun set as we orbited. Then I knew something was wrong. There were bright dots, dozens of them, above the haze of air beneath us. And below, red rings of fire spread across the ice, sea, and land. “No! Look! Dawn is burning! Everything is gone!” homeworld reference The lights, which must have been ships, then blinked out of existence. Then the huge cone appeared beside them. “This ship is different from the ones that destroyed Dawn,” informed Ix, looking at the computer. The cone slowly rotated until it's back faced the ship. It had four unusual engines, each a hundred feet in diameter, shaped like trapezoids. In the center of them, a square door dilated open. Then we were thrust back into their seats, and the ship’s hull groaned. Then we blacked out.

Plot twist: Aliens are not okay with that device. I decided to write something quickly "by the seat of my pants": PATCHWORK P1 The spaceplane landed next to the warehouse. I watched as Ix stepped out. He looked a little odd, with his long nose and small ears, but nothing was amiss. I paused for a moment, and realized he must be some government test pilot. “Sir, do you need any help?” I asked. I would have liked to keep Project Ascent a secret from him. And everyone else, too. “I’m 17. You run the only program that can save me.” “What?” “Can I speak to your manager?” “There’s only 38 of us, and right now, I’m the only one here. Except Clara. She should be back from the store in a few minutes. Wait… do you want to join the project? What skills do you have? Where did you get that aircraft?” I was quite puzzled. “My name is Ix.” He pulled out a thin metal object and an odd looking pen and began to write. I noticed a glow coming from the metal object. “Is that a computer! How is it so thin?” “You’ll have stuff like that in a few decades, at most. Anyway, where can I get a car?” “A what?” “Oh, you might have another word for them here. Like, a small transport vehicle?” Maybe he was from Icewards. But he didn’t look like it. “Oh, here we call them saheruhs. Clara has a...car. When she comes back she’ll be happy to take you somewhere.” “Where’s the nearest library?” “Kind of far. 50 miles away. Too far for her...car.” I said. Who was this guy and what did he want? He seemed surprised and scribbled a note on his tablet, “After that, I will pay a significant amount in exchange for transportation into suborbital space.” “How did you know about the project?” “Balloons with cameras on them.” “It won’t be ready for a century. Or so my boss, Pamela, claims. It might even be three. We’ve done the half scale booster tests, and the full scale first stage test, but that’s it. We still need to test full scale boosters, separation, second stage, unmanned test launches-” I explained. How much money could this kid have? “I have some skills. I can help.” “Okay. Come to the warehouse at the beginning of next year-” “Next year!” “You’re not going to wait 130 hours?” “Oh yeah. So when you said centuries you were being literal.” “Yes. Building a rocket takes time,” I explained, annoyed, “And if you think we can hurry up with your help, then I’m the crown prince!” “So… who is the prince here, actually?” “Who are you?” I yelled. I stormed over to his plane. I noticed tiling on the undersides of the wings. I ran my hand under them. Ceramic. A heatshield. “Your not from Dawn Kingdom,” I said, grabbing my wireless phone from my belt, “Your an alien. Today’s my lucky day.” “Wait! I’m human! You can sequence my DNA!” “Okay. Then tell me who you are now.” “I’m Ix. You know relativity, right? When you travel close to lightspeed, time slows down?” “Sure. We discovered that years ago. It's useless.” “Wrong. I spent the last 10 million years- about 500 million of your short years- ” “Your homeworld wasn’t locked by tides, I assume.” “True. Also, since our languages are so similar, I assume you have an indestructible Dictionary? You know you are colonists, right?” “Yep. Been here for 9,000 years. The last time we had visitors was- 165 years ago. The dictionary was a revered, practically religious text. I suppose the point was to maintain compatible languages across the galaxy. You know, people have been talking of searching the sea for the original. Might make huge strides in material sciences.” “So anyway, for 10 million of my years, I zipped back and forth between two binary black holes for what felt like just a couple months, getting faster and faster, then slowing down. The cruise to get to the holes took millennia, but I was frozen. You see, I left Earth, my homeworld, with many others, but never settled down, always choosing the maximum time frozen, the fastest relativistic ship. Eventually, my stocks were worth a truly ludicrous amount of money, and I bought my own ship and started to stop sleeping and explore. So I spent the past two years exploring new planets. The galaxy is a terrible mess. No one controls as much as a thousandth of the whole. Every dystopia and utopia imaginable exists, and levels of technology vary from hunter gatherers to clarketech. It's a patchwork.” I struggled to take it all in. We knew there was a larger galaxy, but never spent to much time on astronomy. We used high-altitude balloons for message relays, not satellites. “Who’s clarke?” “A writer from my homeworld. He said that sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. There are societies, devices, and even individuals who could destroy your planet effortlessly. Be careful out there. Your capsule will hold three, correct?” “Yes-” “Good. It would be dangerous to go alone. Anyway, I’ll camp out on in the woods until next year, get employment, and then once the rocket’s done, I’ll leave. There’s a ship in orbit that’ll match speeds, then we can jump aboard. Take this.” He handed me a wristband. “An encrypted radio. Press it with 3 fingers to talk to me.” “Okay. My name is Ozzymontez Traves. You can call me Ozzy. I’m 17 of your years, if my math is right. How many different aliens have you seen?” “None. There are no known intelligent aliens. Humans have evolved naturally over the past 10 million years, but also artificially, some with no physical bodies anymore. Species have been uplifted, or outright synthesized, and long since forgotten their origins. There are practical aliens, but not technical ones.” “One more question,” I started. I had nearly a million. “What do you want? What is your goal?” “I have three goals. I want to make an encyclopedia that encompasses all the knowledge of the galaxy, and lists all the planets, histories, technologies, and so on. To borrow a term from an old book, an Encyclopedia Galactica.” “Surely you aren’t the first to try.” “Of course not, and I’ve copied many a previous attempt into the encyclopedia. It is a compendium of compendiums of compendiums. Using electron spin storage, I can fit all the info into this tablet. Though I have a backup copy inside my body.” I always knew I would be important- being on the first rocket team. Now I had the chance to do something unimaginable. To gather science from endless worlds… how could I refuse? “A noble goal. Wait- you said you’d pay for a spot on the capsule. Do you promise to pay for me? I hate to say this, but I will not let that rocket launch without me.” “I’ll buy you a seat. You seem to be thoughtful,” he sighed. “What was your other goal?” “To unite the galaxy under one nation.” “Ambitious much?” “And goal three: to investigate… an anomaly.” “What do you mean?” “Remember how I said there were no aliens? That’s not completely true...” An explosion shattered the air.

Thought title refereed to freeman dyson. I thought you had a new idea for a dyson sphere...

Wait, can't you just get a bottle of propane, a hollow cylinder of metal, and a spark producer? Yeah, this is a ripoff.

but not the coriolis effect

Very impressive, but... 80 years. The score is based on time.

https://www.universetoday.com/128011/moonbase-2022-10-billion-says-nasa/

The ISS is overly expensive, old, and unneeded, especially by 2025. Remember, Bigelow Aerospace is quietly building a much cheaper station in 2020. Remember, it costs 150 billion, versus the 10 billion estimate for a moon base.

yes

Its free.

Orbiter has better graphics, and principia, RO, RSS, mechjeb, FAR, and rpm built in.

There are more mods for orbiter than for ksp.

Ah, you haven't heard of Orbiter 2010...

Congratulations to @Matt Lowne for completing this challenge!