jimmymcgoochie

3400m/s is an average value- you can do better if you fly a really efficient trajectory- and is based on vacuum delta-V; rocket engines have to fight against the atmosphere so their efficiency (and by extension their delta-V) is reduced, as well as their overall thrust. You can switch between surface and vacuum ISP by clicking the little delta-V icon in the bottom right of the screen when in the VAB (or SPH) editor; use surface level for your first stage so you can see the overall thrust to weight ratio (TWR) and make sure it’s above 1 or you’re going nowhere, and vacuum delta-V for everything else as you’ll probably be high enough that the atmosphere isn’t a problem efficiency-wise at that point. Most booster engines e.g. the Mainsail are built for heavy lifting, with high thrust and a small difference in ISP in atmosphere or vacuum, but low overall ISP and high mass; in contrast a vacuum-optimised engine like the Poodle has low thrust and performs poorly in atmosphere, but has excellent ISP in space meaning you’ll get very misleading numbers for vacuum engines if you have the setting set to display surface level values.

There are a few things that might be going on here- No signal. Launching from most sites all you'll get is UHF (and VHF, but that's worse in every way) so you should always include a UHF antenna somewhere on every launch, even if that's on the launch rocket's own avionics rather than the payload. Check the indicator on the top left of the screen- if it's yellow then you don't have a signal and will have limited control, if it's green then you're connected and this isn't the problem. You simply don't have anything on the rocket that can provide control. There are no magic reaction wheels in RO/RP-1 so you'll need engine gimbals to steer during a launch (using aerodynamic control surfaces isn't recommended) and RCS to control your attitude when in space- make sure you set the RCS thrusters to use the right propellant and remember to activate them via staging; reaction wheels do exist, but they're incredibly weak compared to stock KSP and will barely be enough for a small probe, never mind with a big, heavy booster attached. Pictures would really help with this, or a video if you can.

With the Venus window out of the way and a few weeks until the Mars window opens, there's just enough time to launch a crewed mission to LEO for science and profit: A rather unremarkable 13 days in space later the crew return to the surface; newbie Dan got an EVA for some bonus pushing back retirement time. A successful flight all round, filling the time nicely until the Mars transfer window opens. The crawlerways are tailed right back to the VAB as five rockets all roll out to their launchpads- Blue Pawn, Blue Queen, Blue King, Blue Knight Mars and Orange Island, all destined for the Red Planet and all related to the big sample return mission in one way or another- Blue Knight will map Mars to find the biomes for sampling while the other four have some form of sample collection or transport role. Launch montage! Mars fleet away! A few course corrections will be required in about five months' time, with most of the missions arriving in about 11 months. Now that I've got that out the way, there's a bit of time to fix up my relay network- one of the three Super Relays (for the Grey Kebab imaging sats) was completely out of position and had actually been overtaken by its trailing counterpart; a quick burn into a resonant orbit and two days later it was back where it belonged. This time round I fixed all the orbital periods to within 0.1 seconds per 28 hour orbit, so they should stay put this time. I also discovered that the stupid Kebabs weren't even running their imaging experiments due to a failure of Kerbalism's automation system, so I'll need to keep an eye on them. Next up, the third of three Yellow Croissants to complete the photography experiments for the postcards and fridge magnets in the KSC gift shop for SCIENCE!TM Three Kerbals, three different EVA suits, no idea why... Half way through this mission, White Galileo interrupted as it approached Mercury. Despite the design theoretically having enough delta-V to land on Mercury when it left the VAB, it's clearly incapable of doing so now. Future attempts will probably require even more fuel and a pared-back science payload to have even a chance of landing. And now back to our regularly scheduled viewing. And yes, switching to White Galileo broke the orbital flight contract so I had to cheat it complete after staying in orbit for the required time. After some consideration, I've made some minor modifications to the Yellow Croissant to give it a bit more endurance while reducing the launch costs- upgraded TL5 solar panels, TL8 near-earth avionics that can be turned off to replace the deep space versions used before, larger stores of food for the crew and hydrolox for the fuel cells and slightly smaller tanks on the launch rocket; it had nearly 400m/s left in the second stage when reaching its target orbit and over 1km/s in the service module. The new Yellow Croissant Mk2 will do nicely for completing these double orbital flight contracts, assuming I can get crews trained for them. Full album: https://imgur.com/a/retOCVO Coming up next time: I need to finalise the design for Moon Base v2 and figure out how to get it there, as well as designing a lander that can be sent out to the Yellow Profiterole lunar space station to await a crew- I see no reason not to combine a visit to the station with a visit to the base.

I’ve seen green monoliths not be ‘discovered’ even when I had a Kerbal standing on top of them. It might just be a game glitch, or you might not have anything left to unlock in the tech tree.

Depending on the size of the probe, a small piston with a weight of some kind on the end might work- attach it to a hinge to make it lie along the probe's axis when not in use then rotate hinge and extend cylinder. Or just use KSP's magic reaction wheels instead and pretend there's a despin device there.

Dispatched two missions to Venus- orbiter/lander duo and a scanning satellite- followed by five to Mars- another scanner, a sample collection rover, a sample return lander, another sample gatherer to get samples from Phobos and Deimos and yet another probe to collect those samples up and take them back to Earth. Due to the inclinations of Earth, Mars and the Moon each launch was a day after the next so that the planes were aligned, so the launchpad teams were kept busy for almost a week during the Mars transfer window. With that lot out of the way, I can focus on doing more crewed missions; just as soon as I capture this probe into orbit of Mercury. This may take a while...

Oh. Oh dear... You didn’t read the fine print of that uber-camera experiment, did you? That thing generates almost 30kB of data per second. That’s around 230kb/s. You need TL5 S-band relays (TL5 S-band is for some strange reason the fastest transmitting level of S-band) to handle that bandwidth, or even X-band, plus pointing the dishes at the imagers and vice versa to make that work. Running it on a puny UHF omni will take literally centuries to send the data back.

An important test happened as the prototype Yellow Pain-au-chocolat (lunar-rated Apollo block 3) managed to fly into orbit atop a White Stratus launcher and complete a lunar transfer without using any fuel from its own service module: OK, so 4km/s is probably immense overkill for just reaching orbit of the Moon and then coming back, but I'd rather have too much fuel than not enough. A few contract sat launches later, Blue Knight Venus was launched to perform multiple scans of Venus. Or rather, it was supposed to- it turned out the second stage engine was off-centre, meaning asymmetric thrust that the gimbal could only just cancel out when it was full of fuel and even RCS couldn't control after it burnt some off. Refitting that proved to be a real pain as the most recent RP-1 doesn't have configs for the original SCANsat parts, only the shiny new ones (which are all much further along in the tech tree); cue a hacky hack to copy and paste the configs from an older version of RP-1 into this one so I could actually save the trivial edits in KCT- there was nowhere near enough time to build a new one even if I had unlocked all the necessary new-style parts. After all that, Blue Bungalow got to launch first: A souped-up Orange Mug rover stuck on top of the orbiter half of Orange Canyon (now with MOAR SCIENCE!!TM), this mission has a few contracts to fulfil and plenty of time to do so; definitely worth waiting for the scanning to complete first to find a good landing site for the rover. And speaking of scanning: A minor course correction on the edge of Venus' SOI will set it up for a completely circular and perfectly polar orbit, allowing much scanning to occur; the biome and SAR scanners want to be much higher and won't work particularly well, but the radar scanner only works up to 500km and Venus' rotation rate is so slow anyway that there's no chance of any gaps in the scans. There are A LOT of rockets waiting for their chance to launch- four for the Martian sample return mission, two more Yellow Croissant crewed LEO flights, orbiters for various outer planets, the Mars version of the Blue Knight, and more than a few contract sats that I built in bulk just to keep the build queues going and will launch as soon as contracts drop for them. In other news, the six newest astronauts completed their latest mission training and are now available for the next two crewed LEO flights; the rest of my astronauts are busy doing Apollo proficiency training so they can join in the fun, as I have no plans for any further Gemini launches. Full album: https://imgur.com/a/pTDur3s Coming up next time: A crewed mission in LEO, a probe mission arrives at Mercury and maybe, just maybe, the first of several launches towards Mars.

@Wizard Kerbal: Tina is 9 in Chapter 1, 15 (and a half, ish) in chapters 2 and 3 and 17 from chapter 8 onwards; on a regime-related note, a Kerbal pregnancy lasts 9 months munths, or more accurately around 40 weeks, as for humans (though a Kerbin day is 12 rather than 24 hours so it’s half as long in terms of seconds). I refer you to the source: https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/113974-whispers-of-the-kraken-epilogue-revelations-of-the-kraken/ (It’s the second in a trilogy so best to start with the first one; they’re well worth the read, though the third is only partly finished (and unclear when or even if it will be continued again ). While you’re at it, read this too: https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/30718-first-flight-epilogue-and-last-thoughts/ - First Flight and the Kraken trilogy were a big inspiration for me to start writing Audacity and I highly recommend both; honourable mention for Emiko Station too, and there are many more KSP-based stories out there for you to fill the time between my glacially slow updates here (). Most of those will be listed here: https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/59234-the-fan-works-library/, but a quick trawl through the fan works section of the forums could turn up a hidden gem or two.

Check your ambient lighting settings (or use the minimum ambient lighting mod), if it’s set too low then things end up really dark. I’ve seen people saying that they’ve had terrain lighting issues with Kerbal-scale RSS mods (is KSRSS the same as SSRSS?) so this may be related to that; try asking in the mod’s forum thread.

Get yourself a code editor (VSCode is free and will do the job) and open up the GameData folder in that editor, then do a global search for one of the new node names to track down where it’s coming from. Alternatively, copy your entire KSP install and start removing mods from the copy until the ugly tech tree goes away, that should narrow down what mods are involved- but judging by the unusually long list of mods, this will take quite some time. This process is much easier with CKAN as it will prevent you from deleting mod dependencies accidentally and you can save the installed mods and reinstall them with a few quick clicks when you’re done, then remove any culprits you find to be causing the issue.

Log files please, they should say exactly what’s going on. Here’s how to find them and what to do with them: There should also be logs for Kopernicus inside KSP/Logs, they’ll be useful to have as well. Did you download the game through Steam, and if so are you trying to mod the copy of KSP that Steam controls? This is a bad idea- copy KSP and paste it somewhere else then put your mods in that copy, that way Steam can’t jump in and break anything.

@Wisemanthat looked a lot like one of my Moon landings- the only difference is that I didn’t run out of fuel but trying to intercept a target in a different plane by burning suborbital isn’t a particularly good way of doing it, so I’ve stuck with the more traditional method since then- get into orbit, then intercept; much cheaper in delta-V and far less stress!

What exactly are you asking? Comparing stock KSP to RSS/RO/RP-1 is like comparing Mariokart to Gran Turismo- the basic principles (driving as fast as possible round a racing circuit) are the same, but one’s simplified to make it more accessible and fun whereas the other is dedicated to being as realistic as possible. I’ve played stock KSP with and without the DLCs and RO/RP-1 (and also both Mariokart and Gran Turismo) and they’re very different in how you approach them: the stock game has a lot more leeway and margin for error and you can easily send a crewed mission out to Duna with forty Kerbals aboard and bring them back without really having to plan it in any great detail, but trying to design a crewed Mars ship has been a slow and laborious process even with a crew of just three or four.

I use it in my 1.11.1 RO/RP-1 game, it makes the screenshots look even better when re-entering from lunar return velocity (>10km/s!) and with the remnants of the service module exploding all around because I decoupled it too late.

To my knowledge there’s no way of flying more than one craft at the same time especially in the atmosphere and outside of physics range (2.5km), so unless you’re going to loft your payload into a very high suborbital trajectory then land the booster before the payload starts falling back into the atmosphere you’re going to need mods for this. You might want to look at FMRS, which allows you to fly the payload into orbit then rewind time and fly the booster down as well while the upper stage goes on its merry way; alternatively there’s Stage Recovery which can simulate a powered landing (or more commonly, landing with parachutes) for all your boosters and is very configurable to make it more or less rewarding depending on your personal preference e.g. putting a maximum percentage limit on how much you can get refunded for each part. If you want to routinely fly reusable boosters then I suggest you use KSTS to just fly the launch once with a dummy payload (ore is good as it’s heavy and dense), record it with KSTS and then re-use that recorded profile for future ‘launches’- it’ll calculate the costs of parts and fuel to make the booster rocket, subtracting anything that was recovered (working with both SR and FMRS as well as SSTOs) and can transport crew and resources to existing craft or even build a new vessel in orbit by carrying the equivalent mass into space and having a space station with engineers on board act as an orbital shipyard- very handy for those monstrous motherships that would collapse under their own weight on the launchpad.

I just re-re-read First Flight, so if you see anything that looks oddly familiar... The cafe scene was a pretty late addition, it just didn’t flow well when they arrived, ate and left again in a few paragraphs; glad you liked it!

I think the formatting got a bit mangled again when I pasted this chapter in, or maybe that's just how the forum formats text now? This chapter was getting a bit too long for my liking (almost hit 10,000 words) so I've cut what was the last part of this chapter and put that at the start of the next one instead; this means that the BIG REVEAL will have to wait, but (I hope) it'll be worth it. Chapter 15- Bah, politics! A stunned silence followed this bombshell announcement. Gene, Natalia and Dr Davlos were all staring at Dilgas in disbelief, while he looked back, clearly enjoying the effect that his surprise announcement had had on them. “You’re not, though.” Natalia broke the impasse. “Not what?” “Married to her.” “I believe this marriage certificate with our names on it rather invalidates your point, young miss.” Dilgas replied, holding out his hand for an aide to pass over another brown envelope with the aforesaid certificate inside. “I believe the divorce certificate with your names on it rather invalidates your point.” You pompous, arrogant, smug, patronising, violent, abusive, misogynistic sociopath, she added in her head, accompanying each word with an imagined punch in the face. This wasn’t the reply Dilgas had expected, judging by his reaction, but he recovered quickly. “And where is this certificate? Perhaps you would be kind enough to show it to the group?” “It’s on the website, look it up yourself. In the meantime, you can take that worthless piece of paper,” she jabbed a finger at the court order, “and shove it up your Arstotzka.” Dilgas stared; the GSS agents gaped; Davlos made little squeaking noises, as if he was trying to speak but his voice wasn’t working. “Doctor,” Dilgas turned to Davlos, much to the latter’s discomfort, “by the powers granted to me by this court order, you will ensure that these two-“ he made a contemptuous gesture at Gene and Nat- “are not allowed in the same room as Valentina-“ “Doctor Davlos,” Nat interrupted and continued talking over him, “by the powers granted to me by the legally enforceable power of attorney signed by Valentina herself, you will ensure that this man-“ she aimed an equally contemptuous scowl back at Dilgas, “is not allowed in the same building as Valentina-“ “-no dissemination of information-“ “-escorted to the nearest exit-“ “-deported with extreme prejudice-“ “-refuse to disclose any details-“ “Enough!” Davlos interrupted them both, which surprised everyone (most of all Davlos himself). “I’m a doctor, not a lawyer! You’ll have to take this up with the hospital’s legal team.” “Believe me, I will,” said Dilgas, then he turned to Nat. “And I hope you’re ready to have your Arstotzka handed to you on a plate.” He matched her scowl with his infuriating smug grin, then turned to leave. “Don’t you have an election to rig first?” Nat sniped after him. He turned back, the smugness never wavering, but has he approached she noticed the simmering anger in his eyes. “I hope you’re planning a trip to Eeloo in the near future,” he said to Gene, pointedly ignoring Nat entirely, “because by the time my legal team is finished, neither of you will be allowed any closer to Valentina. I suggest you call for a cab; you won’t be here for much longer.” Dilgas turned to leave. “Huuurk.” And walked face-first into a fountain of vomit. Sasha beamed at her handiwork; Jeanette barely kept a straight face; Martin didn’t even try. “Bullseye! Nice work kiddo! Please tell me someone got that on camera.” The GSS agents hurriedly bundled Dilgas into the waiting elevator before any more pukey projectiles made an appearance, pursued by laughter and leaving a faint smell of baby sick in their wake. “That was a very foolish thing to do.” Gene said to Nat once the doors had closed. “He clearly came here looking for a fight, and you just gave him one on a silver platter.” Nat was defiant. “Oh, ВЯЕZНЙЕVS ТФЕИДILS ДИD ВЕLLУ-ВЦТТФЙ FLЦFГ on him! If he wants a fight, he’ll get one.” “Language!” Jeanette scolded her. “There are children present!” Sasha was too busy trying to put her entire left foot into her mouth to notice. “This is exactly what I was afraid of,” said Davlos. “As soon as he gets a new jacket, he’ll be in front of the cameras making another stupid speech; within the hour thousands of his supporters will be swarming the hospital from all directions. If he wins, you’ll never see Val again; if he loses, he only has to step in front of a camera again and an angry mob will break down the doors, ransack the entire hospital looking for you then chase you off the helipad, with or without an aircraft waiting to pick you up, and you’ll never see Val again.” “Could we move her? Get her out of here without anyone noticing and away to somewhere safer?” Gene asked Davlos. “Only if you don’t mind killing her in the process. You’d need an entire ICU on the back of a truck to even consider it, and she’d probably never make it from here to there anyway.” “And what about us?” Jeanette asked angrily. “Or are you planning to use our daughter as a sacrificial lamb to buy you enough time to save yourselves?” “They wouldn’t hurt her, would they?” Asked Natalia. “If we were dealing with sane, rational people, then no, but if an angry mob comes charging through the main entrance, all bets are off; remember Tripansk?” Gene, Martin and Jeanette all remembered Tripansk all too well: in the last days of the Great Crisis that had culminated in the Unification, previously peaceful pro- and anti-Union protests suddenly boiled over into widespread violence that convulsed the city for days; cars and buildings were set alight, paramedics and firefighters refused to enter the city for fear of being attacked by the rampaging mobs while the police force fought valiantly to clear a path for the vast crowds of people stumbling out of the city, most leaving all their worldly possessions behind. Hundreds died, thousands were injured and the damages ran into the tens of billions. “Then we have to set the narrative instead of letting Dilgas do it.” Said Natalia. “We need to beat him, and we need everyone to see it happening. If he tries anything shady, the whole world has to know about it.” “How do we do that?” “We pull all of Val’s records- all her medical records from the Space Centre’s archives, everything we can get locally from before she joined the Space Program, all the legal documents with her name on them that we can possibly find. We can use that to not only prove that the court order is invalid but also show that he shouldn’t be let anywhere near her. Which he shouldn’t.” “Why not?” Davlos asked, retreating as Natalia advanced towards him. “Why not? Because he tried to kill her, that’s why not!” “Nat, you need to take a minute and calm down,” Gene intervened, trying to save Davlos who by now was cowering in a corner. “You were there, Gene! You know what he did to her!” “Yes, I do, and believe me I don’t like this situation any more than you do, but going down there and yelling at people like this will only make things worse.” It took considerable effort for Gene to keep his voice calm. “Go outside, take a walk, get some fresh air; in the meantime I’ll get the whole Program’s legal department on this and spread the word up through the Unity Government- they’ll be queueing up to join the fight when they hear what he’s trying to do here. Please, let me handle this, Nat.” They could all see the internal battle Nat was fighting with herself, and to their relief Gene’s advice won out. Nat let out a sigh that seemed to come all the way up from her feet, letting some of the tension out of her body with it and the anger and fear that had been boiling over receded to merely simmering on the back burner. “Don’t let him take her, Gene.” “I won’t,” he reassured her. She headed towards the lifts, trying to ignore the little voice in her head screaming at her not to leave Val’s side, pushed the button and almost leapt into the lift when it arrived. She was surprised when Martin joined her, now carrying Sasha in a baby carrier on his chest. “Buy you breakfast?” He said as the doors closed. Nat was about to decline the offer when her stomach rumbled very loudly and reminded her that she hadn’t eaten since lunchtime yesterday. “OK. Free hospital food is still free food.” “I didn’t mean from here- there’s a place I used to go to on the other side of the park does the most amazing maple-glazed bacon bagels, and I’m pretty sure I saw it was still there when we were driving in yesterday.” “You lived here?” “Born and raised, went to a school about half a mile south of here. I’m hoping a nice long walk outside will get this little one to have a nice long nap and get over the jet lag, so that maybe I can get over the leg lag too without being woken up every hour the entire night.” The lift lurched into what little motion it could muster. “Maple-glazed bacon bagels sound amazing, but unfortunately Kerbo Kidney-kicker here won’t let me eat meat.” “Kerbo-? Ohhhh, right. Not to worry, the same place does the best triple-cooked djan chips in the country, and let me tell you, you haven’t lived until you’ve tried triple-cooked djan chips, smothered in cheese and dusted with pepper and spices.” “I don’t know what that is, but I want some. No, I need some.” Nat was salivating at the mere thought of all that cheesy, spicy goodness. “Iyaaaa!” Sasha beamed at Nat, who couldn’t help but smile back. “Oh, now you’re all smiles, now there are other people around,” Martin grumbled. “Just keep your distance from those little fingers, though: having your eyes grabbed and nearly put in her mouth is not a pleasant experience!” Nat backed out of grabbing range just in time and was convinced Sasha gave her a dirty look as she did. Martin suddenly got a glazed look in his eyes. “Huh. Last time I was in this hospital, Tina was about this old but barely half her size. Strange how I can’t remember what I went upstairs for, but I can remember that day like it was yesterday- the doctor’s name, the borderline creepy smiling animals on the wallpaper of the waiting room, even meeting an old friend from school; strange coincidence, she went on to become a lawyer, last I heard she was somewhere around here dealing with custody disputes and things like that. Can’t remember her name though, which is unfortunate.” The lift stopped at level 5. “Matsen! That’s it- Matsen O’Kerman.” “Sorry, what?” Martin turned and did a double-take: sitting in a wheelchair was none other than Matsen O’Kerman herself, wearing a hospital gown and with an IV bag hanging on a stand attached to the wheelchair. A moment later she recognised him as well. “Martin!” “What are you doing here?” They both asked at the same time. “Ladies first.” “Age before beauty.” “Iyaaaaa!” Sasha interrupted them both, giving Matsen a big smile. “Hiya to you too!” Matsen leaned forwards but winced and sat back again. “Ooh, don’t do that. So is this surprise daughter or surprise granddaughter?” “Tina hates it when people ask that. No, this one’s ours.” Matsen’s eyes flicked over to Nat, then returned to Martin with an accusatory scowl. “Don’t tell me you and Jeanette-“ Both Martin and Nat were immediately at opposite sides of the lift. “Oh, no-“ “We’re not-“ “I’m just kidding. Or maybe it’s the painkillers, I can’t really tell; everything’s been a bit fuzzy since I woke up.” “What happened to you?” “Appendix burst.” “Again? I thought you had that removed when we were in school?” “I did. It grew back.” “They can do that?” Natalia looked a little bit queasy at the thought. The doors nearly closed between them, but Martin blocked it with his foot and they re-opened; Matsen wheeled herself in before they could close again and they restarted their achingly slow progress towards ground level. “So why are you here, and why were you talking about me in an eerily prescient way?” Natalia answered. “We were talking about lawyers because that despicable creature that people here call their Governor is trying to-“ “Dilgas? What’s he doing now? And where do I sign up to kick his saggy green backside?” “He’s trying to take control over Valentina’s medical care based on a lie.” “Valentina, the astronaut? I thought she was in space?” “Haven’t you seen the news?” “I remember almost nothing from the last twenty-four hours. What exactly happened?” “Dauntless was destroyed.” “Dauntless, as in the Dynawing shuttle Dauntless? How did that happen?” “We don’t know yet. All that matters to me is Val’s barely clinging on up there and that raging sociopath is trying to steal control over her medical care by telling blatant lies to get a judge to sign a court order. I’m going down to see the hospital’s legal team to make sure his phony court order doesn’t get enforced and to try and set up some kind of appeal or hearing or something.” “If he has a court order, I doubt there’s anything that the hospital can do to help you.” “But it’s completely and outrageously untrue! It would take five minutes of internet searching to prove that!” “You still need to prove that in a formal legal session, and with the election happening tomorrow no judge in the country will ever agree to hold that hearing- at least not one who isn’t overtly biased one way or the other. If you’re lucky, you might be able to persuade someone to file an injunction temporarily halting the court order until a hearing takes place, but they’d probably appoint someone to make the decisions on Val’s behalf and bar both you and Dilgas from going near her.” “That’s absurd!” Nat fumed. “Val signed that power of attorney agreement precisely to prevent something like this happening. This whole thing stinks.” “Dilgas is involved- you didn’t really expect it to come out smelling like roses?” Sasha added her own thoughts on the subject of things that didn’t smell of roses, which in the confined space they were currently occupying was enough to make their eyes water. “You know what- I’m going to find that certificate right now.” Nat took her phone out her pocket and started tapping away, grumbling about the slow wi-fi under her breath but keeping it uncharacteristically free of profanities. “Maybe you should call Judge Jonton; he’d have it all sorted out by tea-time.” Martin suggested as the lift finally juddered to a halt on the ground floor. “I don’t exactly have him on speed dial, and unless you’re going to use your psychic powers to have Judge Jonton appear right outside the doors-“ “I think he already has,” said Judge Jonton, standing right outside the doors and looking mildly bemused. Then the smell hit him and he took a step back with a grimace. “That’s her.” An unwelcome voice came from behind him as Dilgas, flanked by the same GSS agents and followed by a phalanx of sharp-suited lawyers, approached across the hospital’s main entrance hall. Jonton’s eyes flicked around the lift, widened slightly when they settled on Natalia, then rolled upwards as he muttered “I should have stayed in bed…” so that only those in the lift could hear him before turning back towards Dilgas. “As I just explained to you, at great length and in great detail, there are no shortcuts in the legal process, even for you. Especially for you. You can’t challenge her objection to your court order when she hasn’t formally objected to it yet, nor can you force a hearing on the subject without giving her time in advance to prepare her case- and for you to prepare yours too.” “There’s no need for any of that,” said Dilgas, giving Nat a very unpleasant smile. “I’ll make things nice and simple for you: either you publicly renounce whatever spurious claim you’re peddling and promise to leave Estovus and never come back, or I will use every means at my disposal as Governor to-“ “Stop talking.” One of Dilgas’ lawyers interrupted him. Unused to being cut off mid-sentence, he turned towards her with a slightly dazed expression. “What?” “You were about to threaten to use your powers as an elected official against a member of the public for your personal legal advantage.” “So what?” “It’s completely illegal, that’s what! Had you finished that sentence, you could have been arrested, charged with abuse of power and intimidation, barred from the election and maybe even ended up in prison.” “Do us all a favour and let him finish!” someone shouted in the background, which got a few cheers from the bystanders watching this dispute play out in the very public setting of a hospital entrance hall. “Hypothetically, if someone did file an objection, how long would it take to get a hearing?” Matsen asked Jonton. “For a decision as urgent as this, it would probably be at least a week before a hearing could be scheduled.” “A week!?” Dilgas was dismayed. “Can’t you see the urgency of this situation?” “You can’t build a proper legal case faster than that. It takes time to do the research, find the evidence you need and then prepare for the hearing itself.” “Got it!” Nat shouted, holding her phone out triumphantly. “Got what?” Nat handed Jonton her phone. “One divorce certificate, formally dissolving the marriage of one Dilgas Leslie Kerman and one Valentina Anastasia Kerman, dated over four years ago.” “That’s not true.” Caught on the back foot, Dilgas fell back on his usual strategy- going on the attack. “That’s a total lie. Blatantly untrue, total fiction.” “It’s on the UDA- the Unified Digital Archives; you could have looked that up yourself.” “She’s right,” said Jonton. “As a matter of fact, you should have done that before you applied for that court order in the first place. At best, this is negligent and the court order can be declared void; at worst, you deliberately misled a judge in a legal session- which is a criminal offence.” “This is an outrage! You can’t unilaterally end a marriage just like that!” Dilgas tried to snap his fingers for emphasis, but failed miserably. “Actually, you can- under Section 14 of the Kerman Rights Act of 1153SR, a marriage between two people who have been separated for at least eight years can be ended by either party without the consent of the other. The law stipulates that reasonable efforts should be made to contact the other party to offer them a chance to object, consent or negotiate, but if no objection is received within the 120 day time limit then the divorce can be completed unilaterally.” Jonton was in his element. “If I call up the official inquiries hotline and give them this reference number, and they come back with the same details that are on this screen,” he held up the phone, “and confirm that the supporting evidence submitted with the application is in order, I will strike down your court order right here, right now. In effect, I will be saying that you lied to a court official: just think for a moment what effect that would have on your poll ratings, the day before the election.” “So to sum up,” said Nat, giving Dilgas a look of almost savage glee, “as I said earlier, you can take that useless piece of paper and shove it up your-“ Dilgas lost his temper. “Arrest her!” “What?” “Who?” “Why?” “ARREST HER!” He bellowed at his squad of GSS agents, who didn’t budge. “We can’t arrest people just because you say so,” one of them replied. “Fine, I’ll do it myself!” He pushed them out the way, barged past Jonton and advanced on Nat, who stood her ground fearlessly. “I’m placing you under arrest for...” “For what exactly?” “Fraud!” “What fraud? That was entirely Val’s doing, I had no part in it whatsoever.” She could almost see the wheels spinning in Dilgas’ mind. “Insurance fraud!” “What?” “This whole thing is an elaborate scheme for you to cash in on fraudulent life insurance policies in Valentina’s name.” “That’s so obviously made up, it hurts.” Martin interjected. “And you are?” “The deputy senior underwriting officer for the third-largest insurance provider in the world.” “Ha! So you’re conveniently on hand so soon after the accident to grease the wheels and take your cut of the payouts.” “Astronauts are almost uninsurable. The Space Program has to get six different companies to collectively underwrite all their policies to spread the risk to an acceptable level; it would be literally impossible for anyone to get a policy in Val’s name. And for the record, the reason I’m here is because my teenaged daughter is upstairs in a medically induced coma, fighting for her life, because she flew into space and saved Val’s life.” Those last three words struck like hammer blows and Dilgas took an involuntary step backwards when he saw the cold fury in Martin’s eyes. “Hold on a minute.” Jonton rejoined the conversation, looking intently at the phone screen. “These dates don’t add up.” “Which dates? You mean the divorce is invalid and I was right the whole time?” The smugness returned to Dilgas’ voice and face in moments. “No, I mean the date of this birth certificate I just found in the UDA for a Valentina Anastasia Kerman, dated 19-02-1139SR.” “And?” “And, the marriage certificate here is dated 13-01-1153SE, meaning Valentina was thirteen at the time.” “And?” Dilgas’ lawyers had already realised where this was going and were frantically whispering to each other. “And, Section 17 of the Kerman Rights Act explicitly set the minimum age at which you can get married at sixteen. This Act went into force on 13-07-1153SE, exactly eleven days before the date on this marriage certificate. Meaning-“ A deafening howl suddenly filled the air as the fire alarms went off. Reacting instantly, the GSS agents formed a protective circle around Dilgas and hurriedly rushed him towards the nearest exit, ploughing through the throng of people also heading for the doors, bundling him into a waiting car before filling the other cars in the motorcade and racing away with the sounds of roaring engines and whooping sirens in their wake. “How convenient…” muttered Jonton as the evacuation began. They followed the crowd to the exits, pouring out into the street and immediately running into the crowds of protesters outside to create a swirling mass of confused people. Dilgas’ lawyers had mysteriously disappeared, vanishing in the crowd like candyfloss into a puddle; Matsen was immediately shivering as a biting cold wind howled through the buildings; Nat was on edge, constantly looking out for a potential attack; Jonton was studiously ignoring the young couple ahead who were trying to take a selfie with him in the background; Sasha was having the time of her life, smiling and waving at all these strange new people who invariably smiled and waved back. “So can we have him arrested now?” Asked Nat with an excited note in her voice. “Just imagine how it’d look to have him thrown out of this election by a rule that he made up to try and cheat it.” “Unfortunately, no. What you can do is file a report with the EBI, who will investigate the case and then prepare a report for the Prosecution Service to consider bringing charges against him as soon as they can, or for the local government to use as the basis for another vote to remove him from office; though they’ve already tried that five times and every time the vote has been entirely along partisan lines, so they never reached the three-quarters majority required. If he loses the election, you’ll be joining a very long queue of people trying to convict him of all manner of wrongdoings, but if he wins, you’ll need to wait another five years; or he’ll just pre-emptively pardon himself for everything to avoid prosecution.” “So a criminal can pardon himself for his own crimes? Seems legit.” “Guess who introduced it. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some phone calls to make. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if you heard from the Department of Justice by the end of the day to say that a certain court order had been annulled.” Jonton smiled at their reactions before disappearing into the crowd. “In the meantime,” said Matsen, “I suggest you call your lawyer back home and get them to send over that power of attorney certificate Val signed, so that if he comes back you’re ready to face him head-on.” “You really think he’d come back after what just happened?” “Any rational person wouldn’t, but think about this: of all the places Dilgas could be, the day before the election that decides if he remains Governor or not, he came here; either he thinks there’s some significant political gain to be had from this whole escapade, or else he considers this to be more important than re-election, which is probably even more worrying.” Nat’s stomach growled again, audible even over the noise of the crowd. “OK, OK, I’ll get some breakfast now, quiet down,” she said, looking down at her midriff. “I thoroughly concur with your assessment. Sorry to run off so soon, but I’m guessing you’ll be sticking around for a while so how about we catch up over a coffee this afternoon? It’s been lovely to see you again Matsen.” Martin said, offering his hand which Matsen shook. “You too Martin, and I’ll take you up on that coffee- if you’re paying.” “Just be careful not to put your second appendix on the shelf beside the first one or you’ll wake up one morning with a dozen little appendices wriggling across the floor.” “You think I have it pickled in a jar?” Matsen asked, amused. “Sure- what’s the point in having an obscure organ removed if not to keep it in a jar and get rid of unwelcome houseguests by showing it off to them.” Matsen burst out laughing, then winced again. “Don’t make me laugh, it hurts.” She thought for a moment. “You know, you never did tell me this little lady’s name.” “Sasha. Say bye-bye, Sasha.” “Iyaaaaa!” “Close enough.” Martin and Nat headed off through the crowd and within minutes were walking through a leafy park, surrounded by well-tended flowerbeds and the sound of birdsong. It was an idyllic place, the hustle and bustle of the city muted behind high hedgerows, and despite normally having no time for such frivolities as chirpy birds and pretty flowers Nat could feel that coiled lump of tension in her chest slowly start to loosen up and dissipate. Sasha found the whole experience utterly fascinating and yet infuriating at the same time, all those sights and sounds and smells kept tantalisingly out of reach (and out of her mouth). Nat was initially sceptical of the rather run-down little café that Martin led her to, sandwiched between a bookshop and an office block, and once inside her opinion didn’t improve much as she took in the dilapidated furnishings and faded paintwork. And then she took a bite of triple-cooked djan chip, and her mouth exploded into riotous celebration at the cheesy, spicy deliciousness. Martin smiled in amusement as he watched her demolish an entire bowl almost without pausing for breath, then had to defend his own bowl from pilfering fingers. “See? I told you they were good,” Martin said as Nat licked her fingers clean. “Good? They’re amazing! Why haven’t I heard of these before?” “It’s just one of life’s big mysteries. How does something like this remain an obscure delicacy, but making a “pizza” using a big slice of cauliflower as the base become a worldwide phenomenon?” “I think I’ll just stick to cheesy djan chips, thanks. Val would love these.” Nat’s smile faded and she looked down at the battered ring on her finger. “A couple of weeks ago we were picking out curtains for the new nursery room and arguing about whether you should put tea into milk or milk into tea. She was going to retire from spaceflight after this mission and stay at home with us for a while, but now… it all seems so pointless.” She started subconsciously twirling the bent and battered ring around her finger. “I tried to talk her out of flying this mission- she wasn’t even supposed to be on it but she talked Gene into letting her fly one last time before she hung up her helmet for good.” She looked up guiltily. “Sorry, you have enough to worry about without me dumping all my problems on you as well.” “Don’t be- sounds like you needed to get some things off your chest.” They sat in silence for a while, then Martin had an idea. “I know what’ll make you feel better.” He scooped Sasha out of her carrier and plonked her down on the table in front of Nat. “Take your finger, put it in your mouth like so, and-“ he demonstrated, producing a loud popping noise that made Sasha giggle. A pop from Nat was enough to set her off in that infectious laughter only babies can produce and they spent several minutes trying, with very little success, to keep popping; it was very hard to do while laughing, but Sasha was in hysterics and didn’t care in the slightest if they actually made the noise or not. “You’re absolutely right- I feel much better now,” Nat said, wiping the tears from her eyes. “Thanks.” “Don’t thank me,” Martin replied. “Then thank you, Sasha.” Sasha gave her a big grin, showing off both of her teeth, then let out a cute little yawn. Bellies full and spirits lifted, they meandered back through the park towards the hospital, Sasha’s eyes slowly drooping until gravity finally triumphed and she began snoring in an endearingly cute way. “Once more into the breach…” Martin sighed as the approached the hospital’s entrance, still crowded with protesters, news crews and various nosy people wondering what the fuss was about. Their hearts sank when they saw people pointing at them- then shot up again when hundreds- no, thousands- of people began applauding and cheering them. The crowd parted in front of them and a phalanx of riot police formed up like an honour guard to escort them through and into the building. As usual, Sasha slept through the whole thing. They were greeted at the reception by Matsen and Jonton, both grinning broadly. “What’s going on?” Martin asked. “Haven’t you heard?” Matsen interpreted their puzzled looks to mean they had not. “The Estovus Bureau of Investigations has begun formally investigating Dilgas for all manner of illegal deeds. Everything that happened here earlier was livestreamed by at least three people, and it turns out having your past crimes publicly revealed by TV’s Judge Jonton is a pretty good way of crashing your poll ratings- he’s down by over a third since this morning and it looks like his chances of re-election are dwindling to nothing.” “And while we’re on the topic of good news- you’ll be glad to hear that a certain court order has been annulled due to overwhelming evidence against the original claim.” Jonton added. “Just like that?” Nat couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “Just like that. If Dilgas has any sense, he’ll drop out of the election and co-operate with the investigation to try and get a reduced sentence; but more realistically, he’ll fight tooth and nail against it, send SHOUTY ALL-CAPS MESSAGES on social media, try to fire anyone who’s involved with the investigation to slow it down and generally do everything he can to weasel his way out of trouble. But as far as you and Val are concerned, you’re home free.” For once, Nat was speechless. “Arnold just resigned!” Someone shouted and a round of applause broke out. “Who’s Arnold?” Martin asked. “The judge who signed that court order in the first place. Not surprising, really, he would have been removed from the Supreme Court anyway.” Nat suddenly grabbed Jonton and hugged him tightly, something he clearly wasn’t expecting, but he recovered quickly and returned the embrace. She gave Matsen a slightly awkward sideways hug to avoid hurting her before heading for the stairs with Martin and Sasha in tow. Martin started to say something but stopped himself. “What?” Nat asked. “Just a bad pun.” “I like bad puns; please, continue.” “I was going to say something like, ‘you were getting really stressed out about all this legal drama, but in the end it was a walk in the park’.” And then they reached the second floor, spotted a TV with a breaking news bulletin, and their jaws dropped. *** Upstairs in the ICU, Gene was pacing restlessly in an attempt to avoid falling asleep again from a combination of emotional exhaustion and jet lag. It took him a few seconds to realise that the tinny buzzing noise he was hearing was his phone ringing. “Hello?” Bobak’s voice came through, echoing slightly as if he was in a conference room using a speaker phone. “We’ve found the launch site.” Gene was immediately wide awake. “Where?” “Looks like a disused airbase out in the drylands two hundred kilometres west of Carter station. Turns out an old ballistic missile detection satellite actually spotted the launch, but forty years in space has worn down the solar panels so badly that it had to wait nearly a whole day to charge up its batteries before sending the report. There are teams on their way to the site now, but it’s probably two days too late to find anything useful. Judging by when the debris field was first reported by the crew, it was probably over that launch site when it got hit; for all we know they brought along some telescopes and watched it happen right over their heads.” “Wouldn’t Carter station have seen the launch at that range?” “One of the rocket refurbishing contractors got in touch to say that they’re missing a launch rocket that was in their storage area waiting to be refitted. The rocket’s a Papillon­-class by Luciole Space Systems- small, light, fits in a single shipping container if you pack it right. A small rocket like that, flying a standard gravity turn, wouldn’t show much of a signature; Carter wouldn’t have been able to spot it even if they were looking, and their dish was pointed the other way to pick up the signal from the Blue Horizons probe out at Lindor.” “What about Nye and Harvester stations? It would have flown right over them.” “We think we know the answer to that too. Some leisure sailboats off the Estovus coast found floating debris with a Luciole logo on it, as well as what we believe is radar reflective paint. Something as small as the second stage on a Papillon with stealth paint, coasting with its engine off? The ground station wouldn’t have a clue.” Stealth paint… “Once it’s in space, orbiting retrograde and coming directly at Dauntless, all it would need to do is throw a lot of shrapnel around- ball bearings, nuts and bolts, anything small enough that the FOD radar would have a hard time getting returns off it but heavy enough to go through the meteor shields- and we’ve got a potential Kessler syndrome on our hands.” The full enormity of what had happened hit home. Stealing a booster and shooting it at an orbiting vessel was one thing, but stealth painting a booster so that radar couldn’t see it coming, and leaving debris in orbit to not only hamper any rescue attempt but to effectively ground all future space launches at least until the end of the year… It was nothing short of a declaration of war against the Space Program. Had they targeted the Zenith Space Station, or Trailblazer when it was still parked in orbit of Kerbin, it would have completely shut down all space launches for years or even decades. If there could be a silver lining to any of this, it was that nearly all of the debris from both Dauntless and the KST would have been knocked out of orbit along with anything that had collided with either spacecraft, and most of what was left would fall out of the sky fairly quickly as the Mun’s gravity nudged them with each orbit until atmospheric friction inexorably dragged them to destruction. “Tell Walt to release all this information to the press, immediately. Whoever did this tried very hard to make it look like an accident; we need to make sure everyone knows it was deliberate murder.” “Will do, boss,” Walt’s voice came over the call, followed by the scraping of a chair and the opening and shutting of a door. “We’ve also located the Dauntless’ crash site, on an island off the Burdari coast about two hundred kilometres north of McAuliffe.” Bobak continued. Burdar… Of all the places it could have been, why, oh why, oh why!?!?, did it have to be Burdar; or the Democratic Kingdom of Glorious Righteous and Blessed People’s Burdarian Republic of Burdar And Affiliated Nations, to use the name that they insisted everyone else should use (or the Burnana Republic as everyone actually called it). They were a spectacularly insular and isolated nation, not because they wanted to be (far from it- they were very keen to share their ‘joyously and righteously glorious’ socio-econo-political system with the rest of the world, as the unfortunate neighbouring states on their shared northern continent had soon discovered) but because some ninety years earlier Supreme Blessed Leader Pete, Knight of Righteousness, Scion of the Kerm, Hero of the Glorious Kingdom Republic, had gotten blind drunk on his ceremonial palace-barge, fallen overboard and been sucked into the propellers; this led to a total moratorium on all forms of motorised device- cars, boats, planes, tanks, yo-yos, even cuckoo clocks were not spared in the purge- that had persisted to this day, simply because the current Supreme Blessed Leader Arlo was too busy gambolling around the gardens of his palace, stark naked but wearing a tea-cosy on his head, making the occasional baa-ing noise and nibbling the odd cabbage leaf to rescind it. Being an island nation surrounded by substantial bodies of open ocean, this was something of a hindrance for them getting anywhere without mechanical power, though they also liked to think that the reverse was also true and that the ocean protected them from the plotting, scheming world who was always rumoured to be preparing an invasion; this was of course utter nonsense- the rest of the world simply didn’t care enough to bother invading and didn’t particularly like the idea of sending in jets and tanks to fight dirt-poor peasants armed with little more than pointy sticks and badly translated insults. Dropping a wrecked Dynawing on their territory would be a political headache for the highest levels of the Unity government, who would be all too happy to drop the unenviable task of travelling out there and sweet-talking the upper echelons of Burdari society, offering many profuse apologies and presenting a variety of gifts as compensation for the grievous insult to Burdari sovereignty, straight into Gene’s lap. “…by a deep sea trawler last night-“ Bobak was still talking and Gene had to drag his focus back on topic. “Sorry, say that again?” “We’ve got confirmation on Firebird’s nuclear engines. The crew on a trawler spotted them floating in the ocean and tried to pull it out the water but nearly capsized themselves with the weight. A team of radiation specialists flew out by helicopter at first light this morning and are keeping an eye on it, but so far no radiation leaks have been detected- looks like the emergency protocol worked exactly as designed- and we have a floating crane and a cargo ship on their way out to recover them to land so they can be fully checked over.” “That’s a relief; the last thing we need right now is radioactive contamination on top of everything else.” One item crossed off Gene’s very long mental list of problems. “What about the rest of the debris?” “We’ve had hundreds of reports of debris spotted in the sky, most of it burning up before it got to ground level, but we’re expecting most of Dauntless’ thermal tiles to survive re-entry and fall to the surface relatively intact, with a small but significant risk of debris landing on someone or something on the ground. The models we’ve run so far suggest that most of those should have already come down by now and the rest by the end of the week.” Gene glanced up, stared in horrified fascination, then cut Bobak off mid-sentence with “I’ll call you back.” Drawn inexorably to the TV in the corner, he approached and turned the volume up to hear the breaking news report. The news anchor was clearly surprised by the news he was reading but managed to keep his voice and face neutral. “Sources in Romana’s campaign team have strongly refuted the allegations against her, telling our reporter that all campaign finances are meticulously documented and independently audited. They have also released a statement saying that ‘the despicable and cowardly actions by Dilgas and his appointed cronies to illegally steal this election will not be tolerated, and all avenues of legal action will be explored and exhausted to thwart this heinous crime against all Estovans and the entire world beyond’. This statement also urges supporters to continue to cast their votes for Romana tomorrow, by writing in her name if it has been removed from the ballots, and calls for supporters of other candidates to unite behind her to ensure that this outrageous scheme will not succeed. A short time ago, Dilgas’ campaign also released a statement warning that any votes for an illegitimate candidate would not be counted and would be considered spoiled ballots, as well as condemning ‘the rampant hypocrisy of calling a political opponent corrupt whilst siphoning donations to a charitable foundation to fuel a political campaign’.” Gene continued to listen to the report with growing dread. “We cross now to our reporter Kerny, who is outside Northill Hospital. Kerny, what’s the situation over there?” It was hard to hear the on-scene reporter over the sound of many angry people. “Well, Stan, the mood here has turned decidedly darker since this announcement was made. There have already been scuffles between different groups of protesters and the hospital has had to close its doors to emergency patients after a group armed with baseball bats and other makeshift weapons tried to force their way inside through the ambulance bay. There’s still no official word from the Space Program regarding the condition of veteran astronaut Valentina or her rookie rescuer Martina and so far hospital staff have remained tight-lipped, though they have confirmed that the aircraft seen landing on the helipad late last night were carrying Yeager Space Complex’s reserves of O-negative blood as well as a number of staff who had volunteered to donate more to make up a shortfall in the hospital’s own blood bank. There’s still no official word on the stand-off between Dilgas, TV’s Judge Jonton and-” Without warning a group of protesters surged forwards, charging down their opponents and instigating a huge fistfight. Kerny and his cameraman beat a hasty retreat as the violence spread and the feed cut back abruptly to the news studio and a visibly worried Stan. “That was Kerny Kerman reporting from Northill Hospital.” “Can you believe this?!” Natalia almost shouted as she entered the room. “That slimy, cheating…” She cut herself off with some effort. “No. I’m not wasting my breath on him any more; he doesn’t deserve it.” “You actually think this is Dilgas’ doing?” Davlos asked as he joined them. Gene gave him a scathing look. “He turns up here and tries to steal control of Val’s care, but instead manages to completely destroy his own election campaign and tank his poll numbers, then magically within the hour a massive scandal strikes his political adversary, ruling her out of the election by a rule that he created just for that purpose and effectively guaranteeing that he’ll win, and you think that’s just a coincidence?” “Well…” “You said it yourself- he can’t stand losing. Considering what happened today, is it really such a stretch to think that he’d fabricate evidence of a crime to effectively guarantee re-election and avoid getting arrested and thrown in jail for the rest of his life?” “I should have known it wouldn’t be that easy.” Nat said, her voice laden with bitter disappointment. “It never is, when the psycho ex shows up and tries to force their way back in. I should have known!” That last word was unexpectedly loud, making everyone jump and startling Sasha awake, blinking in confusion. “Why are you blaming yourself again? None of this is your fault.” Gene tried to reassure her, but she was having none of it. “You don’t get it. I spent half of my adult life bouncing from one toxic relationship to the next; since I’ve known Val I’ve had three exes showing up unannounced and trying to cause trouble, and every time Val was there to back me up and chase them off. Every time. And now that it’s my turn to do the same for her, how do I repay her? By sticking my oar in and making everything worse! Barring some kind of miracle, he’s going to get re-elected, and how long do you think it’ll take before he comes back here, flanked by stooges and sycophants, to try again? Because I’m pretty sure it’s less time than it’ll take for Val to wake up, if…” She couldn’t finish the sentence. For a moment it looked like she was about to start venting her feelings on the furniture again, but the urge was fleeting. “I won’t let him take her.” There was an ominous edge in her voice, one that made everyone move back slightly. “No matter what else happens, I will not let him take her.” Davlos scurried out of her way as she marched towards Val’s room, leaving a tense silence behind. Chapter 16

I took a few days away from this game to stave off burnout (just endlessly designing stuff and simulating it isn't particularly fun) and to focus on my other KSP project (link in my signature ), but now I'm back with... more designing and simulating? Airbags, airbrakes and a parachute weren't enough to slow this thing down, so instead I ditched the first two and just went for a MASSIVE parachute made of carbon fibre- which is rather ludicrously OP since it can take a silly amount of heat and physical load without breaking. So it lands on Mars OK, but you might notice the very full fuel tanks and the ~5km/s of delta-V. That's because this thing is designed not only to land on Mars, but to fly back into orbit again. This is the Mars component of the sample return mission and it's more than capable of flying back into orbit with fuel to spare for rendezvousing and docking with the return craft. A quick test, sticking it on top of a Blue Bishop and swapping the expensive fluorine Agena for a cheap and reliable kerolox RD-58, showed that it could make it to Mars quite easily, using the booster's second stage for the transfer burn and the RD-58 for capturing, deorbiting and braking: As good as all that is, the lander can only land in one biome and so return one sample. That's simply not enough- and since the lander has ample fuel to spare for more samples, why not send a rover to get more? This rover has the capacity for up to 8 surface samples, plus a plethora of other science experiments which should keep it busy for years to come. The little klaw on the front is at just the right height to grab the sample return lander's main fuel tank so the samples can be transferred, and the rover can self-drive using Bon Voyage to make those days-long trips between biomes pass a little quicker. This little rover is light enough that an Orange Terrain-class rocket can throw it at Mars, with a little cruise stage on the decoupler just below its heatshield to course correct, Perseverance-style, before descending to the surface directly from a hyperbolic trajectory. With most of the major hardware now in place, it was time to throw another ten million(!) funds into KCT points and bump both VAB and R&D up to the next thousand: At last, a real launch of something that isn't a boring contract sat! And it's a doozy- Yellow Profiterole, the Big Gemini-based lunar space station, which had a minor hiccup during the launch when one of the F-1A engines failed to ignite; fast reactions and slow game speed meant I could stop MechJeb from releasing the clamps, restart the engine and send it skywards a few seconds later. To the Moon! I forgot to get a picture when it was in orbit, but it's now in a 55x55km orbit in the plane of the Moon's orbit around Earth and should be easily accessible by craft arriving from Earth and by landers from the surface. I then deorbited the transfer stage, which wasn't easy as the avionics went a bit funky and the engines didn't light despite many attempts, but unfortunately the deployed science site didn't even register the impact. That could just be because it's on the wrong side of the Moon and has no communications link to Earth, or it might just be because deployed science and Real Antennas don't play nicely together with my bodged-together hacky patch; the Moon base I'm preparing will answer that question one way or the other as it has a second deployed science setup on board to be deployed on the Moon's near side. Full album: https://imgur.com/a/qTQb1EG Coming up next time: I need a lunar Apollo craft to send crew out to that shiny new station; I could do it with a Gemini but all the crews I have available are trained for Apollo and the rest are training for Apollo until early 1963. I might also make a space station in LEO and send up a crew for a long duration test- a year in orbit should be informative for building a crewed Mars ship.

Do you still have the original save file, which you haven't tried to open in 1.11.2? Try opening that in KSP 1.8.1 and if it doesn't load, your save is probably corrupted. Go into KSP/saves/your save/backups, grab the most recent backup file and copy+paste it into KSP/saves/your save; rename the current persistent.sfs save file something else (e.g. persistent1.sfs), then rename your backup file persistent.sfs; this will make KSP open the backup file when you try to load the save. If that loads correctly you'll have your save game back, though you'll likely lose a little bit of progress from after the point where the backup was made; if it still doesn't load, it might be your KSP 1.11.2 is corrupted in some way- first, copy your save files somewhere outside of the KSP folder tree, then uninstall and reinstall KSP completely, then add your saves back in and try to load them.

Most likely an error with that part has caused the game to stop loading, but we'll need the log files to be sure. Here's where to look: What version of KSP are you using? If it was a modded part, I'd suggest removing that part and trying again, but a stock Squad-made part shouldn't cause that; you might have a corrupted copy of KSP, so try redownloading it or verifying the game files through Steam if you got it there. Also- don't try RSS/RO/RP-1 on KSP 1.11. Just don't. I did, so now I tell everyone else not to- it's more hassle than it's worth; stick to 1.10 especially since RSS, RO and RP-1 all got updated to fully work with KSP 1.10 a couple of weeks ago.

Using the words ‘nuclear rockets’ and ‘critical mass’ in the same sentence...

@WisemanI don’t get a plume on the ROEngines LMDE either, probably a bad configuration somewhere. Also- one small stepping stone to a Moon base? And now you know why you should never put your ladders down to end at your landing legs (here be krakens...) That sparkly effect is due to TUFX- I saw huge flashes of white light around Phobos which looked exactly like what you had in the same place, but they disappeared when I turned the TUFX profile off.

There’s a pretty big difference between orbiting Earth at 150km, just above the atmosphere’s edge, and orbiting Earth at 150Mm, half way out to the Moon. Space low and high are different because you’ll get considerably different readings on many scientific instruments- mass spectrometers, magnetometers, Geiger counters etc.- if you’re close to a planet/moon than if you’re much further away. The exact delineation is going to be a bit arbitrary because in reality there are gradients instead of sharply defined lines, but it’s a reasonable compromise to make. Adding more altitude “biomes” would just mean the science gains would need turned down to balance it out; not that the science balance is particularly good as it is since you can complete the tech tree without going anywhere beyond low Kerbin orbit...

Both should be expanded a bit, just having a launchpad/runway in the middle of nowhere doesn’t make much sense. I greatly prefer the versions of these (and other) sites that JNSQ provides via Kerbal Konstructs as they have buildings and other infrastructure that you’d expect from a proper rocket launch site.