Nivee~

Chapter 3 On the other side of the Curtain The worn down wooden stairs creaked under his feet as Kovos climbed them. Apparently, the kerb who hired him had very simple tastes, which was odd considering his status. He was escorted into the room by heavily guarded kerbs. An old, genial,maybe a little crazy kerbal was sitting on a stylized sofa. "Who are you? Did I call for someone?" The old kerb looked at Kovos inquisitively. "Oh! You seem like a bright child, did I call for you?" "Yes, Grand Citizen. I am Director of ESA, Kovos Kerman. You called for me to discuss about our latest space endeavors." "Ah yes... about the World's First Challenge.. Why did you issue it, young kerb?" "We have beaten KSC at almost every turn ever since the space age began.But the last administration was a great disaster. They beat us, the Glorious East to the Red Planet! Morale and confidence have been at an all time low, nation wide. I want to set things right." "He he he.." The Grand Citizen chuckled. "You are a spirited young kerb. And is this why you pushed for the Eeloo mission?" "Of course, Grand citizen. To restore and maintain our technological supremacy over the west, to regain the lost glory and honor!" "Do you think I am senile?" The old Grand Citizen's voice started losing it's gentle tone. "If you really cared about one-upping KSC, you would have gone for Jool. Much easier to reach, and has a moon that can be colonized. No child, no..you are hiding a lot from me, I don't like that." Kovos let out a loose laugh. "I am fighting for the honor and glory of the Motherland, I have no idea why you don't have faith in me?" "That's because, little kid," The Grand Citizen's voice was no longer that of a genial grandpa's. "Because, boy.. Honor, glory, faith, these are all outdated concepts from the last century.. Greed and power are the only motivations for kerbals in this country, in this age!" "You forgot to add 'fun' to the list." Kovos quipped, smiling ear to ear, all of a sudden. "This is amusing to you?" "Oh, in some ways. I think it's like a game. That way, I don't stress myself out, but still focus on completing the goal." He leaned back on his chair. "I admit, I have a selfish goal in all of this, but the fact that I am doing this for the Motherland, can not be stressed enough." "Then why, why do you shy away from telling us?" "Part of the fun, I guess?" Kovos shrugged. "I know it will leave a bitter taste in your mouth, that one of your sub-ordinates is not following you blindly. But I can tell you this, what I am after, involves lots of mining, lots of resources, that will let our philosophy flourish even in the farthest reaches of the kerbolar system." Both men stared at each other, for what seemed like an eternity. Finally, the Grand Citizen broke the silence. "Oh , you kids and your puny games. Very well, I will indulge you, for the time being. But should you take one step against the Glorious East, the consequences would be.... excruciating.." "Noted~" Kovos nodded. "By your leave, Grand Citizen." "Wait, come again, what was your name?" ".... Queen Mary Ann." Kovos sighed. "Ah yes.. gentlekerbs, please accompany Queen Mary Ann, he would need body guards at such crucial times." The Grand Citizen's genial demeanor returned. The two guards who had ushered Kovos in, escorted him to his vehicle. ****** "Give me a situation report, Engineer!" Kovos barked as soon as he got in the mission control room. "All systems are nominal and ready to go, Director!" "Well, what are we waiting for?" On Kovos' instructions, the rocket engines were ignited and the 'die Macht' rose up on a pillar of flames. The 'die Macht' was the latest iteration of the series of rockets. These side loaded launch vehicles were unusual to look at, and required more complex algorithms to launch, but they had a great track record so far. This version could launch about 50 tons to LKO and tonight it's abilities would be tested to the fullest. After the side boosters gave away, the center core continued to burn, increasing the apoapsis to about 109 kms before it burnt out. The fairing opened up, revealing the contents of the payload. A 53 m/s circularization burn was completed by the payload's own engines. After the Minmus injection burn was scheduled, the ground crew took a break. ****** Unfortunately for Kovos, his day had not yet ended. One of the security guards who had been on his tail since his visit with the Grand citizen knocked on his office door. "Mr. Director, it is time for the press conference."Kovos sighed and made way for the media room where a handful of reporters were waiting for him. "Good evening, everyone. ESA launched a Minmus ISRU plant for acting as a refuelling station and fuel depot for future ESA interplanetary ship. The launch went off without any issues, bar a slight loss of control of the launch vehicle on takeoff. The Minmus injection burn has been scheduled for tomorrow. Any questions?" "Sir, I am Kanakos from Union Daily.What does this mission to Minmus mean for the future of ESA?" "We will be able to acquire fuel cheaply for our future missions, crewed or uncrewed. This will reduce our operational costs in the long run." "Krestana from KNN news. How long until the operational costs break even?" "The next important mission will, all by itself, justify this mission to Minmus." "And would that be the Sarnus mission, Mr. Director?" All heads turned towards the reporter from KNN. "Our sources have confirmed that there would be a crewed mission to Sarnus. More specifically, to Eeloo. How do you wish to respond, Mr. Director?" She asked. "That mission is at planning stage at the moment. It will be sometime before all preparations are complete. We will most likely miss the next launch window. Next question ple.." Before Kovos could finish the media room erupted in chaos as everyone started shouting their questions at the top of their voices. "Mr. Director, why were the media not informed about the mission?" "Is ESA hiding something from the people?" "The nation wants to know..." "QUIET!!!!" Kovos blared on the mic."The ESA is under no obligation to reveal it's internal matters to anyone not affiliated directly to the Grand Citizen's Office. The details about the planning of Sarnus missions would be made public within a week or two, they have been granted approval. Good night everyone." Kovos lumbered backstage with his two 'body-guards'. "That reporter from KNN, find her 'source'! I do not want a mole in our midst, not at this crucial point." ~The End? NAH! You haven't seen anything yet! Editor's Note: All the crafts in this mission have been made by @FleshJeb, who will be making all ESA crafts from now on. His crafts are excellent!

Will The Weeknd perform a rehashed, family friendly version of his hit song 'StarBoy' when the StarShip is first set vertical on the launchpad? I can only hope..

I got Subnautica for free too, and I have died too many times for me to count . I confronted the Reaper Leviathan in a seamoth and jumped off my seat with a yelp. I also found the Ghost Leviathan today! (Yes its as cool as it sounds!) My only complaint is that I don't have a spear or a harpoon of sorts. And there's no Aquaman in that game. I want aquaman....

Woah, this discussion about negative stuff might just become the plotline of a sci-fi novel..

Yeah, Voyage was very realistic and looked feasible, something that might just happen.. Titan is a story of grit and passion where the characters leave everything behind, to pursue the one goal: Reach Titan! The Shuttle's last hurrah! (Although yeah, Steph Bax fumbled the ending a bit ) I did not read the last part... Moonseed felt like a zombie-ish genre book from the book description, and that's a major put-off for me!

Well, but to launch from that cloud city we would need about 10 km/s of delta-V... and for that we would need a very expensive transport system. I mean yeah, we can mine out the hydrogen from the sulphuric acid clouds, and oxygen from CO2 atmosphere, it would still need to be a multistage, and hence, expensive rocket system.. On a side note, there was a novel in Stephen Baxter's NASA trilogy called "Titan" (duh) where they went to Titan on a Space shuttle! I would not give anymore spoilers, its a great book

@FleshJeb Yes, yes I am looking and Thank God you are here! My chapters were stuck because I wanted ESA to have a noticeably different style in my story. So the viewer just needs to take a look at a ship and think "Hey, I wonder what the ESA is up to now...". I will PM you soon with all the details, I am a lil bit busy at the moment.. Thanks

At least its not hypergolic cancer inducing witch brew , Just some good old SOx and COx!

Well, i think of fireworks as miniature SRBs going through RUD. Makes me feel better..

How about adding ion engines for circularizing at Moho? Those gigantor solar panels can drive a lot of engines in Moho's vicinity...

Yeah, guns that can freeze time, and guns that can attract and repel stuff. Stuff like that exists but harpoons don't... The canon explanation for not including weapons is that there was a massacre at a space station, and hence weapons were banned. Well, if you give a guy the ability to freeze time itself, he can massacre stuff with a chair... just saying.. Those are fiercely rejected by the devs and don't make it to the forums.. neither the weapons mod nor the spawning mods.. Sometimes, I feel really blessed that I am a part of the KSP community, where people are so constructive and nice, and devs don't restrict players a lot...

So I got Subnautica for free this Christmas, I was pretty excited about it! When I started crafting, i realized that the only 'weapon' of any sorts was a knife.. I looked around for a mod that could add more weapons, visited the Subnautica forums. AND WOW! I was in for a shock! Apparently the 'weapons/ no weapons' arguement there is worse than the 'mechjeb/no mechjeb' argument on this forum! Any mention of having weapons in the game leads to you being shamed for 'destroying dev's vision' or 'going COD on a survival game' or 'being mentally ill for bringing violence into this beautiful game'. Come on, you don't expect to survive in a hostile alien world with defensive tactics like: 1. That particular species of shark is sensitive to light, make sure you have flares in your inventory! 2. This another shark can be distracted by feeding it fish! One more arguement is that the mobs don't respawn, hence introducing weapons would be disastrous for the gameplay, because it will result in an empty ocean. Well, guess who made the mobs non respawnable? The devs and their virtue signalling! Gosh Dang it! I only want a harpoon, or a spear or something like that! Is that too much to ask? MINECRAFT has a survival mode, and guess what? It has weapons!! And it makes BILLIONS!

I think it looks like the news agency slapped some text on to ISRO's official diagram. But then again ISRO is never good when it comes to graphics design or public relations.

The ESA study assumed a 200 km circular orbit. ISS is at about 400 km orbit. And IIRC there was a proposal to use this orbit to collect LOX for orbital depots. I couldn't find any mentions of altitude where the exhaust velocity of the propellant cant match the atmospheric drag. Well, the tech involved in my assumptions is pretty near future (15-20 years, I guess). What's really needed is the push by the governments and other external factors... which is not happening anytime soon.

Yes, it does. But the momentum (Mass x velocity) of the sat is much more than the *air* atom. Infact, the miniscule drag is the reason why satellites in LEO dont have a long life, unless there's periodic station keeping. Well, think of it this way, the ISS also faces a continuous atmospheric drag, but it only needs periodic reboost. The same with our satellite. It will hang around in LVO, with periodic (if more frequent) reboosts. I suggested the nuclear reactor because the satellite also compresses and liquifies the CO2, before transferring it to the orbital manufacturing station.

Yup... ESA has studied a similar concept in LEO, to collect oxygen, while using Nitrogen as propellant in a 'air-breathing' Hall thruster to make sure perigee doesn't dip too much. This would most probably require a nuclear reactor though.

Oh! I thought you were talking about launching the cargo from the surface. But that's a moot point, we are talking about using the rare atmosphere in LVO to refill our CO2 tanks. Once manufactured in an orbital facility, the cargo would take about 3.5 km/s to launch into Earth intercept, and aerocapture at Earth.

They have been around for a long time, there presence didn't stop us from making further advances in material science to make better materials. Oh! A funny story! Aluminium was at one time considered a precious metal, because its extraction from the ore was so difficult. But once froth floatation method was developed, aluminium could be extracted cheaply, and as a result we now have long range airplanes. Graphene costed 10 times as much as now to make in 2012, cost could fall further with refinement of the manufacturing process. How did you reach that number? I would assume delta v saved would be much more than that, since Venusian atmosphere is at NTP at about 55 kilometers. And from the surface, it would take about 27000 m/s to reach LVO, but that's not the point. My point was to conduct atmospheric passes and scoop in CO2 and transfer it to an orbital manufacturing plant.

Woah woah no ones going to the surface! CO2 can be scooped from the upper atmosphere..

Eh, like i said, it could all just be a dud and a mars mission would still be scifi 20 years later. Doesn't hurt to dream though.. Graphene is terribly expensive to manufacture at 100$/cm2, so a lot of research has not been done yet. But structures will be most likely massive , as it can be used for a Mars orbital tether.

Venus needs less delta v than Mars...

Exactly what I was talking about! And Venus has 3% nitrogen in its atmosphere, but that's more massive than the entirety of nitrogen in Earth's atmosphere! I admit, graphene is still in early stage of research. There are potential applications in aerospace, construction, possibly electronics. Today graphene is synthesized from graphite. But if we are at a point in human history when we are seriously talking about deep space travel, then we would need that ultra strong, ultra light material, in megatons! Earth has only this much of graphite available, and if you want more carbon then Venusian atmosphere has lots of it. A floating industrial complex that would manufacture graphene by siphoning off the CO2 in Venusian atmosphere. That graphene would be used for every major space project at that time. So yeah, folks at outer planets would need lots of graphene, and Venus might just be the planet where the first 'trillionaires' are created. Or it could be all a dud and 50 years later I will be telling sci-fi stories to my grandchildren about colonizing Mars... Its on our Moon. Moon is rich in KREEP elements (Kalium(potassium), Rare Earth Elements and Phosphorus) Just a lil... and we would colonize it first anyways, so we dont want to take away any pre-existing Nitrogen from Mars. Pluto and Triton have a really sparse atmosphere and are TOO far away. Venus is very close in comparison!

Not really, since we are just exploring the Saturnian system. NTRs using methane as propellant would be useful for high energy Hohmann transfer between (The highest delta v requirement would be from Epithemius to Titan about 9000 m/s, but that's assuming all-propulsive methods but you could aerobrake at Titan). There might be issues, but they will be trivial. Even chemical rockets could be used to transport supplies from one Saturnian moon to another. Travel time will be in the order of days, but it won't matter since we will mostly be transferring cargo with the occasional Human.. (And I doubt they will be using Advanced and fast propulsion methods to transport anything but the most crucial cargo.(read: Humans)) Oh? And why shouldn't we? I think it could be a nice trade between Saturn and Venus. Saturn will sell hydrogen to Venus, and buy it's graphene..

Well, Titan is pretty cold. So I would assume all industrial engines utilizing heat will work more efficiently. (More the temperature difference, more is the maximum possible efficiency, look up Carnot Efficiency) Thus, I would assume automated industries will be all the rage at Titan It has a very low gravity, similar to that of our Moon, so we could build a space tether from Titan's surface to orbit, by using graphene ropes. Graphene that we will purchase from Venus! Rocket fuelwill be mined from Titan surface and will be used to explore and colonize the rest of Saturnian moons! Make Saturn the 'Terraforming Center' of the solar system, by scooping up megatons of hydrogen from Saturn's atmosphere and shooting it to Venus, which badly needs the stuff, and using Nitrogen from Titan's atmosphere and flinging it to Mars, which needs tons of this gas if we want the Martian atmosphere to be earthlike In a reality where we are not able to go back on the Moon, this seems pretty unlikely however.. (but Imaginationland is a beautiful place....) EDIT: Oh, and of course, there's the Landauer Limit, that's the theoretical maximum limit for classic computing efficiency. Half the temperature, double the maximum computations for the same amount of energy. In the Saturnian system, if you manage to find a lot of silicon, you could make processors and other stuff and use those computers on the surface of Titan and thus making the largest and the most powerful supercomputer ever built by Mankind. I dunno, maybe upload a super intelligent AI and make Ultron? That would be *cool*

Hmm.. the Indian government sanctioned about 1.4 billion dollars for the 'Gaganyaan' program to send first astronauts from India. But seriously, someone should tell ISRO to ditch the '-yaan' naming scheme! It gets old after a while