kerboknaut

Constructed another iteration on an interplanetary vessel, this time capable of landing on Eve. (Though it took a few tries ...) Landing on Eve feels like landing in water. It doesn't help that most of the ground is also actual water, and aiming for a particular landing spot is tricky. Maybe it would be helpful to have some wings next time?

Val stopped by mission control to see what was on the ol' bulletin board. Rescue Nedrim and his scrap from the surface of the Mun? That sounds interesting. She thought about it, how would that even work? Come down from above, or land and try and get it from the side? Would she need to refuel? What was in this scrap that made it so important to bring back? Just a mark-2 cockpit? And who was this Nedrim? Val looked at his photo in the contract. So innocent, she thought. She had spent her share of years stranded in deep space, and knew intimately the feeling of helplessness he must be facing. Val grabbed the contract off the board with one hand, and clutching her coffee cup in the other, marched over the the VAB to give some orders to the engineers. Val was tired of sending small, minimal rescue pods for stranded Kerbals. If she was stranded in deep space, would she want to fly home in a cramped soda can with a couple other smelly Kerbals who haven't bathed in years? She told the engineers to bring out the Mk-3 passenger cabin. Nedrim, she resolved, was coming home - in style. Serious Business's stockpile of smaller solid fuel boosters were nearing their expiration date, so it seemed like a good opportunity to use them up. Nedrim watched their re-entry comfortably from the spacious passenger cabin, sipping on a hot cocoa. Nice to be home, he thought as the craft glided towards the ground a few kilometers away from the space center. At the KSP, a convoy of unmarked vans pulled in as Nedrim's scrap was being unloaded. Some expressionless kerbals got out and, without even asking for permission, began to disassemble the scrap and load it into their vans. One of them handed Val a briefcase full of cash, and without saying a word they were gone. Nedrim seemed as bewildered as anyone. "So I guess I work for you now?" "Guess so," said Val.

Valentina has been refining the process at Serious Business for building and launching unnecessarily large and complicated things. Unnecessary redundancy, Val proclaims in one of her impromptu speeches around the space center, becomes necessary when failure at every stage in the process is one of the key signs that things are going according to plan. Step 1: Test rover, make sure you know how to change a tire Step 2: Launch slowly Step 3: In fact, do everything slowly Step 4: Bring her down somewhere flat to refuel Step 5: Zero in on the destination: New Kerbin Step 5: Have Jeb show off the new toys: 3x Repair drones for the engineers Multiple docking ports on the patio for existing vehicles: 3x Science/ reconnaissance rovers:

A science module was delivered to the Minmus Skylab along with a few Kerbals. Only three Kerbals fit in the return pod, so Jeb had everyone draw straws. While they were distracted, he took the return pod for himself and set a course for Kerbin. Science isn't going to research itself, he thought as he cruised away, zeroing out the volume on his radio.

The fuel tank core of the Minmus Skylab arrived in Minmus orbit today, along with a return pod and a lander for surface missions. Eventually this will serve as a conduit between the mining activity on the surface and planned missions to send a base to Gilly. More modules will be arriving shortly. The main booster that brought it was able to disconnect and de-orbit, leaving it completely full.

Valentina returned from a long interplanetary journey to find her previous space agency had been taken over by a budget space tourism conglomerate. During the merge, they threw out her favorite coffee mug. She could never forgive them for that. Val, Bob, Fred, and Jeb decided it was time to start fresh. They took out a small loan, hired a handful of nerds, and called up a few favors - and before long, Serious Business was born. After a few short trips around Kerbin to gather some basic scientific data, it was time to go to the Mun. Nothing could possibly go wrong, Val assured Bob as the eight Ant engines hot-glued to their fuel tank fuselage puffed and wheezed below them. This was the moment they had been training for. As their orbital velocity slowly declined, the craters below them came into sharper focus. One way or another, Val thought, she was going to get a piece of that Mun and bring it back to Kerbin.

Tried making an entry for the 'big boned' category ... and rockets are allowed, so I foolishly thought this will be simple, what could go wrong? It turns out everything, and pretty much immediately. I tried adding many more struts but it didn't get very far. Fortunately everyone made it home ok, just with some bruised egos.

Started a new game to see how far I could get without upgrading any buildings, accepting any contracts, and only using the runway instead of the launchpad. I have never really built a functional plane before so this was a bit of a challenge. The first two flights I think were just rockets launched from the launchpad. After that it was just sub-18 ton/30 part planes down the bumpy runway ... and I made it to the point that I was actually unlocking a fair bit of research, and built a few planes that can travel to different kerbin biomes. I was trying to think of how to make this into some kind of challenge but I'm not sure yet what the goal is or how many restrictions there should be.

It turns out Bill never left on Interplanetary 2 after all and has been at the space center this whole time. Special Agent Phodun told him to tag along on her next mission, she needed an engineer to refuel the Humming-BRD. The BRD was not quite what most engineers at Experiential Knowledge's had in mind when they set out to build space ships, but the parameters were delivered by a very serious looking Kerbal in a suit with a briefcase. He said he was with the government, and not much else. Come to think of it, maybe someone should have asked him more questions, like, "which government?" Their next mission, the government-Kerbal explained, would be commanded by special agent Phodun, who was recently rescued from Munar orbit and now employed there. Anyone who worked on the BRD knew what it was capable of. Not everyone was comfortable with it, but they were pinky-sworn to secrecy, so there wasn't anything they could do but keep coming to work and hope for the best. Phodun and Bill launched, dropped the auxiliary tanks, circularized into a low orbit and headed for the Mun. Bill was starting to get suspicious that the BRD didn't have any scientific instruments or spare seats on board. Whatever they were doing, it wasn't a rescue mission or for, you know, science stuff. When they made it into Mun orbit, instead of heading for the surface Phodun fired the engines anti-normal and then prograde at their apoapsis. Though he wasn't a pilot, Bill had been on enough missions to know they were performing an interception ... but of what? As the vessel came into view, Phodun finally opened up. This wasn't anything nefarious, she explained. The goal of a recent mission was to rescue and recover two Kerbals and drop off of a Mun patio. Someplace nice for the engineers to hang out while they took a break from mining. Several problems arose on that mission, though. First, the patio touched down on the wrong side of the Mun, making it rather difficult for the miners to access. Next, the delivery and rescue module remaining in space soon ran out of electric charge and was rendered useless. That module, she explained, contained important, really cutting edge technology and super secret information that the government was not happy to just leave in space for anyone to find. The way she said that word - 'the government' - was funny, Bill thought. Something about it just didn't sound right ... "You know what BRD stands for, right?" asked Phodun. "Um ... Big Random Doohicky?" guessed Bill. "Close." Phodun's eyes were locked in front of her, completely glazed over in intense concentration. "Bloweyuppy-Rocket-Deliverer." Bill heard a pop near the front of the BRD and watched through the window as a capsule oriented itself towards the module and fired its engines. A moment before it impacted, the front burst apart, releasing a salvo of I-beams and separatrons. When the dust settled, all they could see were large pieces of debris floating away, and the separatrons winking out in the distance and slowly drifting towards the Munar surface. "That'll do." Muttered Phodun. "Time to refuel. Ready, rock-guy?" She fired her engines retrograde, one cluster-missile firmly affixed to her ship's nose. Bill sat quietly and gazed out the window. What the Kerb am I involved in, he thought.

Testing out a new deployable probe system for destinations with an atmosphere, probably not as harsh as Eve, but enough to drop a small probe with a parachute in. Maybe Duna first, as we have a science station there on Ike so a mission could double as a supply run. Currently it is held in the Stegosaurous, a plane that can go so fast it explodes, if it wants to. Essentially I want to fit as many probes that will survive a landing and transmit science in a Mk-3 cargo bay as is reasonable, and have them be safely deployable. Like, things shouldn't blow up when they detach. Maybe that is too much to ask for. Finally got the probes to work, but the Stegosaurous 'sploded when I tried to land it on Kerbin's North Pole. More tweaking is necessary, and maybe more parachutes.

Sent a base to minmus with a couple of ion-drive probes to rove around. Now I just need to send a second module with an ore tank I forgot so it can actually make fuel, and probably a couple extra tanks of xenon because the rovers work quite well in Minmus's gravity. They're just a little twitchy but nothing a quick-fingered Kerbal can't handle. Fully fueled each comes with over 4.4k delta-V so plenty to visit several biomes before it needs to return.

If you are pointing retrograde for the entire burn but the ground is still moving, that sounds like when I forget to switch the velocity indicator from orbit to surface. Not sure if this is the issue, but if you click on the 'orbit' above the navball and switch to 'surface' the retrograde direction will change slightly to be relative to the moving surface, and your should hit the ground straight on.

Sent a probe cluster to Eve to land on some biomes. The first two broke up partially on entry. For the third I figured out I needed to deploy the aerobrakes much later, like under 1000 m/s, to avoid explosive complications. Science sent back successfully. Although I'm not sure what to do with it once I've unlocked the whole research tree ... Also nuclear engines are quite slow and probably not worth it I've decided. And in the one that landed mostly intact, the atmospheric fluid spectro-meter thingy was under water, which seems to make it inoperable. Oh well! Successful journey. Meanwhile Val and the crew are waiting 15 years for their next maneuver to Dres.

Nearly fifteen years after their first visit to the Duna system, our heroes have returned in a far more capable albeit quite laggy vessel. This is their story. *** Once Interplanetary 2 arrived at Duna, Valentina maneuvered it into a low Ike orbit. She still had roughly 1500 delta-V remaining, plenty to manage a slow and easy landing. First things first, she instructed Jeb to release one of the survey probes and adjust its trajectory 90 degrees into a polar orbit. Jeb didn't know how he felt about being put in charge of the probe array. It was something to do, at least, but he thought it was strange he was never really consulted about the decision. As he undocked the survey probe and fired up the engines, he realized the fuel tank was already nearly empty. Nobody had disabled the fuel crossfeed through the coupling, so the probe fuel tanks had been drained in the escape from Kerbin. When the main vessel went to refuel on Minmus, it left the probes in space, so their tanks were never filled up. The ship was drifting away now, and the probe didn't come with any RCS capabilities. Jeb managed to direct it back into the docking port with just the engines, being very ginger with the throttle. After refueling, the probe was launched again and easily achieved its orbit. He had to admit he felt a little proud deploying the scanner and uploading the resource overlay to the flight console. Val undocked the science module and probe array and carefully coupled them together. Zelgun and Fredbles looked out the cupola as as the mothership performed a retrograde burn into the mountains below. There was a wide bright pink area on the resource overlay on top of what looked like a range of hills. Surely, Val thought, that big area around the top would be flat enough to land on. Once they were below 1000 m it was clear this was not the case, but fuel was running low and they would need to stick the landing. After a couple of bounces they came to a rest and were able to stay upright. Bob mumbled something about how they had plenty of fuel for a slow landing, yet they still nearly all died from coming down on terrain. Val was quiet after that. The crew set about collecting science and refueling the tanks. After two full Ike days they were ready to head back to orbit. When they reconnected to the modules in orbit Val ordered the tanks in the main vessel be emptied into the probe array and science module, then led her crew back to the surface to refuel a second time. It was safer to be topped up, she thought, than not. Also the crew was practicing. Each ascent and descent felt sharper, more on-point. Like performing drills at the academy, she thought. It was all about repetition, attention to detail, and never being satisfied that that you are close enough. And they were going to need the practice sooner than any of them realized. After two ascents and descents on Ike, Val made a heading for Duna. She popped out of Ike's orbit on the wrong side so there was a steep descent from high in Duna's orbit into the mid-atmosphere. Nothing in her flight manifest mentioned that Duna had an atmosphere. She scribbled in the margins that it starts at 50k meters, so it is important to stay above that if you want to stay in orbit. Outside, a backup solar array was shorn off by whistling aerodynamic forces as the orbital velocity indicator topped 1000 m/s. Bob seemed displeased. The ship made it out of the atmosphere intact, ten minutes later Val switched on the nukes until the problem was corrected. Science module and probes secured in orbit, the crew descended into Duna's atmosphere again. The tanks were heavy on liquid fuel and light on oxidizer, so the nukes stayed on pretty much the whole way down. Val switched on the poodles periodically and then the vectors as they reached 1000 m altitude. The crater she chose to land on, the Midland Sea, was deep and flat enough for an easy touchdown. In the distance, she saw the mouth of a canyon. Bob climbed out of the cockpit to begin collecting samples. As soon as he closed the hatch, they heard a clear *Thud* *Crash* *Thump*. *Ouch!* "Plenty of gravity here," called Bob on the radio. He planted a flag and collected some rocks from the ground near the ship. Returning to the hatch required leaning constantly on his RCS. "We really could use a ladder next time" he remarked to anyone who was listening. Refueling the ship took a full day, but soon the crew was ready again to depart. On the ascent IP2 did a backflip in the atmosphere at around 6000 meters. Val flipped on the Vector engines to regain control when the nose was pointing roughly prograde again, and before long they were reunited with their companions in orbit. Most of their oxidizer they had just refilled was spent escaping Duna, though, so they were due for another pit stop at Ike before they could do anything else. Before that, Val decided to send an ion-drive probe back to Kerbin with the results of the thirty or so experiments they had collected. She radioed Bill to tell him to prepare the data and told Jeb to get the probe ready. Data stored securely in the probe, Jeb fired the decoupler, which it was attached with instead of docking port to save weight. When decoupled, however, there was a collision with a probe below that triggered a large explosion, destroying one of the communications relays and tearing off half of the solar panels on the ion probe. Jeb ran some diagnostics on it when the dust settled, and reported that with the missing panels the probe was lighter than before and still had enough electrical power to run the engine full-throttle. Sometimes, Jeb joked, an explosion is an upgrade. His joviality didn't last long, though, when he realized the probe was missing an antenna. Was that lost in the explosion? Bill inspected the three remaining probes in the cluster. Nope, just bad design. Disappointed, they recovered the data in the probe and sent it out empty, just to see how far it might get with only the built-in 5k antenna. Surprisingly, it still had a very faint connection by the time it left Duna's orbit. The crew had a new instruction from Kerbin. Mission command decided Ike was an ideal spot to leave the science module for further research. Fredbles and Zelgun were excited, they liked Ike. Who doesn't like Ike? Pilots in the cabin of IP2 were asked if anyone wanted to stay behind with the scientists and command the station and make sure the scientists didn't get too distracted. Tamara volunteered, and since nobody else seemed to want to do it, that settled it. The research station included two landers each with a pair of external command seats. Fully fueled, they had about 1300 m/s of delta-V, plenty to descend from a 350 m/s orbit and return. With the fuel in the station available also, the kerboknauts left at Ike should have supplies for at least three or four trips to the surface to gather data before they will need to be resupplied. The sun rose over Ike's rocky horizon as Interplanetary 2 descended to the surface for a third and final time. Once they were full again, Val thought, all she needed to do was figure out where they are going next, and how to get there, and eventually, how they were going to get home. No need to worry about that now, though, she thought. Just take it one planet at a time.

Interplanetary 2 completed its final test before departing Kerbin orbit. It made it to Minmus, left the science module and probe array in orbit, and landed on the surface. Refueling went smoothly, and while it was waiting a rescue party went out to bring back a a kerboknaut, Tim, stranded 46 km away. The larger rover with two seats was detached and sent out first, but a new problem was quickly discovered that the engines, attached to the aerodynamic nose cones, didn't seem to work and thus the craft could only be powered by the monopropellant tanks. Additionally it was discovered that detaching and landing the craft, which is affixed upside-down when IP2 is landed, is quite difficult especially without breaking the critically important cooling arrays extended below. So the larger landed was left on the surface, hopefully to be replaced one day. One of the two mini rovers was sent out instead, unmanned, to rescue Tim. *** Tim had begun to wonder if anyone would come for him. His Lander had hit the surface near Minmus's north pole and completely disintegrated, leaving only the Mk-2 lander can intact. When he regained consciousness after the crash he climbed out and stepped gingerly into the twilight, he appreciated the feeling of walking in low gravity, especially after sustaining more than a couple of bruises. He looked up at the stars, and the dusty hills around him. In the distance, maybe to the south, there was a mountain. The slope was imposing even from so far away. He never dreamed this tiny, far moon's surface would be so large and rugged, looking at it from Kerbin it always looked so small and flat. Most of the photographs sent back from earlier missions were to the flats, expansive areas of no terrain, simple to land on. Come to think of it, he wondered if he had forgotten to switch his altitude indicator to terrain mode when he was coming in for the landing ... He sat there for a week, or a day, it was hard to tell. Time moved so slowly, but he could see Kerbin Spinning on the horizon like a little blue and green marble. Somewhere, days were passing with their usual regularity. He picked up a pebble and tossed it, then watched it sail triumphantly away. Suddenly the silence was broken by a distant 'puff' coming from somewhere above the mountain. A moment later, another one, then another. Slowly the noises came closer, until he could make out the source of it: a tiny craft was hurtling towards the surface and attempting to slow down. Every puff would shake it wildly. A second before it smashed into a nearby slope a loud force of air slowed it down, blowing up a large cloud of green dust, then it plopped into the dirt and flipped over. He looked around. There was nothing around him, and as far as he knew nobody else on the planet. Out of other ideas, he walked over to the craft about 100 meters away. There was a single seat, a small donut fuel tank, a haphazard collection of RCS thrusters and 'Ant' engines, a couple of lights, a cheap antenna, and some sort of guidance system. "Hey" a voice crackled over a headset attached to the seat. "Anyone there? Can you hear me? Tim?" Tim picked up the mic, "Mhm," he reported. "Alright, get in. We're getting you out of here." This seemed fairly reasonable, so Tim gently flipped the craft over and climbed into the seat. The voice was back, "just sit there, you don't have to do anything. We're going to pilot this thing remotely. I'm Val, by the way. Valentina, but call me Val." "Mmk" replied Tim. The craft lurched violently upwards and into the the air. As there was no air it really felt like Tim was immediately thrown off the surface and accelerating into space. Which, technically, he was. The craft accelerated for fifteen seconds or so up and towards the mountain before the engines cut out. He drifted there, in the quiet, and for a moment could really take in all the beauty around him. After a while Val came back on the radio. "So this is kind of awkward," there was a pause. "You have some monopropellant in your suit, right? You might need to use that." Tim experienced a sudden rush of adrenaline and his eyeballs nearly bulged out of his head. "It looks like the rover is out of fuel. Your trajectory will take you pretty close to our ship, you are a couple of degrees west right now, but all you'll need to do is slow yourself down. See you soon!" Tim looked out at the mountain passing below him. In the distance, there was a long ridge, and just beyond that he could start to make out one of the flats. He slowly climbed out of the seat and pushed the empty rover away. If he closed his eyes, he felt like he was just on a routine space walk. He turned on his RCS pack and activated the SAS option in his wrist console. He opened his eyes again, and in the distance maybe 10 km away saw what must be the rescue vehicle. It was coming closer, but so was the ground. He glanced at his groundspeed indicator. 136 m/s. He took a deep breath. No big deal, he thought, he was merely rushing towards the barren rocky surface of a moon 46 million meters away from home at nearly 500 kilometers per hour. After twenty seconds of leaning heavily on the RCS, his harness was digging badly into his legs and armpits, but the ground was moving at a much more reasonable 25 meters per second. After several more long puffs he landed, his tanks a little less than a third full, a few hundred meters away from the ship. Its hull was impressive, a Mk-3 body flanked by two Mk-2 cockpits. An engine cluster wrapped around two large drills that were spitting chunks of dirt and rock around the base of the ship. Looming above an ISRU unit whined, pumping ore up and fuel throughout the craft like a beating heart. In the radio in his helmet, he heard Val again. "Hey, you landed! Great. One more thing I need you to do before you come inside." "Mm." Mumbled Tim in a low tone. "It's pretty easy." Val continued. "You just need to plant a flag. The plaque can say anything." "Anything?" Asked Tim. "Yep, this contract doesn't specify anything in particular, so just have it say anything." Interplanetary 2 finished refueling in a few hours. It blasted off with Valentina, Bob, Bill, Jebediah, Tim, and some twenty other kerboknauts on board to rejoin its modules in orbit. Once back together, Valentina isolated herself in the viewing cuppola with her maps and mission paperwork. It was the only place on the crowded craft she felt like could get some privacy. She studied the contracts she was supposed to fulfill, the positions of the various planets relative to Kerbin, the fuel each would require to reach, the probability of successfully reaching a spot she could refuel before running out of fuel; the parameters were beginning to feel overwhelming. Tim settled into the spacious passenger cabin. Roughly half the seats were empty, so he picked a window seat near the back with an empty row. He put his EVA suit in the overhead compartment and settled into the cozy seat. He was so happy to be going home. *ding* "Hello, this is your pilot speaking" *ding* The chatter in the cabin dropped immediately. *ding* "For our first destination we will be travelling to Duna. Enjoy the journey!" *ding* As the craft powered up its nuclear engines, Tim's sense of warmth was replaced with the cold hard realization that his rescue vessel was not in fact a rescue mission for him, but that his rescue was a side quest in a much longer journey that was departing then and there, with him on board. Now it made sense, the grim resolve in the eyes of his fellow passengers. Out of ideas, he reached for the in-flight catalog and began to browse. Interplanetary 2 drifted just outside of Minmus' SOI. On the rocky surface below, waving slowly in the solar wind, a flag was planted next to a plaque that read, ominously, "Going home, thanks Val :)". In the distance above, a twinkle from eight nuclear engines firing up appeared, then slowly faded away.

Some of the Kerbals at Experiential Knowledge are hard at work developing something new and top secret. Let's just say there are some older satellites that are due for replacement, with extreme prejudice. Val and Bill were brought back from the asteroid mining station and sent back up with a new science module for the upcoming expedition which should now be ready to make its first trip / final test to Minmus.

Launched Interplanetary 2 into orbit and ran some tests on it. I screwed up the docking ports for the various little flying rovers it has, so they wouldn't actually detach when decoupled. Glad Jeb ran the tests before it left Kerbin's orbit, but mission planners were frustrated at wasting over 1,000,000 credits on the original launch that won't be used. At least, it might come in handy for running errands around Kerbin and the Mun. The docking port issue was fixed and the craft re-launched. I also launched and connected an array of probes that will be carried on its nose, and maybe left in orbit when it goes to refuel. There are 12 probes in total, 4 surface scanners, 4 communications relays, and 4 ion-drive probes that can return to kerbin with science throughout the journey. The main craft, the probe array, and a yet to be constructed science module and a permanent surface outpost will compose the whole package. The main craft also includes two micro aerial rovers and one small lander. Everyone is going, mostly accommodated in the spacious Mk-3 passenger cabin. Where are they going? Everywhere, and anywhere. At least, that is the hope. After one near-failed mission to Ike this seems like an appropriate next step.

When our heroes were last seen, Bill was steering Experiential Knowledge's largest vehicle launched into space, a new asteroid mining and refueling station, into a high polar orbit where Valentina and Erdorf waited with the 2,000 ton asteroid and their nuclear tug. Bill had plenty of fuel in his tanks, but the asteroid was quite a ways away and the mining rig took a lot of oomph to push. It was going to be close. By the time the rig's orbit was almost in line with the asteroid, it was still three hundred km distant and drifting away at about 25 m/s. Bill was out of fuel, and the monopropellent reserves weren't enough to push the giant rig much at all. So much for proper planning. There wasn't enough time to send another refueling vessel up, and the mission planners were more interested in working on the next project than draining their strategic reserves on refueling trips for every mission. Luckily Valentina was on the job, and quick thinking as always, she switched her ISRU unit on the tug to make only mono, and then told Erdorf to fill up the one (structural) fuel tank she had with that capacity. With 200 units of mono and a medium tank of ore, Valentina and Erdorf undocked from the asteroid and headed towards the stranded mining station nearby. Bill and the two scientists were happy to see the tug arrive a few minutes later. Bill and Val reminisced about the trip to Ike several years ago when they were both young Kerboknauts. Val was fresh out of the academy, and was hired by Experiential Knowledge on their founding. Bill was another of the four original Kerboknauts, and was recruited from a remote polar mining operation. They told him he was hired because they thought he would be used to the loneliness of space, having spent his formidable years pretty much totally alone on Kerbin. He never told anyone, but it wasn't the same. It was hard to explain, but up in space, he just felt so much farther away from home. For a minute he thought about sharing this thought with Val, who he might consider his closest, heck, only friend. She was right there! All he had to do was open his mouth ... his couldn't remember his throat ever feeling that dry before. "Hey you're pretty quiet up there!" he heard from the science facility. "Tired of talking to our guests already?" "He likes talking to us more" "No he doesn't he hasn't said anything to us this whole trip" "I head him fart yesterday" "Well that's not talking is it genuis" the arguing continued. "Well, looks like you're topped off" Val radioed. "See you on the flip side?" "Yup" croaked Bill. "See you then, er - See you there ... I mean, sounds good." Bill kicked himself as the tug pulled away. "He's probably playing hard to get" "He's an engineer - he learns from rocks" "And they give him the orange shirt?" Bill wished they had soundproofed the science facility a little better when they build the mining rig. 'Biggest ship ever sent to space, and he can still hear everything those idiots say' he muttered to himself. "What was that?" "Did he just talk?" The mining rig brought with 3200 units of full liquid fuel tanks, so all Bill needed to do was convert the ore to oxidizer. This done, he set a course for the asteroid with the roughly 200 m/s of delta-V at his disposal. This was more than enough to make it there. Once the rig made contact with the asteroid it was quick work to grab it and begin harvesting. A little while later Valentina and Erdorf pulled up in the tug. "Mind if we wait here?" Bill heard on the radio. "It's easier to pass the time with some company." Bill felt a rare warmth inside. "Sure," he said. "Sounds great." Meanwhile on Kerbin, the scientists and engineers at base were getting busy working on something big. A tension had been building across Experiential Knowledge's growing home base facilities. There was a lot of the universe to see, and they had discovered all of the parts they thought they would need to travel to anywhere in it. But not quite just anywhere. This was a bit ambitious, and they knew it. Ambition was a part of the culture, though. It was frowned upon if you weren't an ambitious Kerbal, from the way you dressed to what you ate to what sort of mission you proposed. And the last proposal to reach the board was the culmination of this culture, an idea so ridiculous it would either crush the entire agency or immortalize it, and forever bring Kerbinkind to the next level. At least, that's the way it was paraphrased to the board, who were unanimously appalled by the idea. "They can't be serious" "We will all be drug through the streets" "This is absurd" "I never imagined it would come this far" The board agreed it would be impossible to say no, and it was given the green light. After that meeting, none of them would sleep well for a long, long time. Two shuttles were launched from EK's Kerbin launchpad, each controlled by a remote guidance unit and with room for six Kerboknauts. Rescue contracts had been piling up a bit, and Kerboknauts deployed to missions across the system would be brought back home. As the rescue ships arrived back on Kerbin, the Kerboknauts were greeted by a looming structure in the Vehicle Assembly Building and lots of chatter around the offices. It didn't take them too long to figure out that they were almost all going to be on that ship, Interplanetary 2. *Next time:*

After Experiential Knowledge's last fiasco, where Valentina and three other Kerbals were stranded at Ike for an uncomfortably long time, the engineers have decided interplanetary missions will be much easier in the future with a proper refueling station set up high over Kerbin. This will be the team's first attempt to capture and mine an asteroid, and they were excited about the prospect. An asteroid mining station was constructed and parked in low Kerbin orbit, equipped with three large drills, and ISRU converter, several varieties of large fuel tanks, four large solar arrays, a science research station and a large communications relay. After several recent probes were lost to dead reception, the engineers in charge of planning missions were resolved to park as many large communications relays in various orbits as possible to try to reduce such unexpected losses of control in the future. Bill, now the most experienced space engineer, who had so far mined the Mun, Kerbin, and Ike, was put in command of the mining station and the two scientists aboard. It was his first command, and one of the largest vessels launched so far into orbit. He felt proud, piloting the massive craft to a stable orbit 100 km above Kerbin. "Yeah, but isn't the autopilot doing most of the work?" chimed one of the scientists. Bill pretended he didn't hear that. A separate vessel to actually tug the asteroid into orbit was constructed and launched shortly after. Powered by nine nuclear engines, its nose was designed to grab and mine the asteroid for fuel as it pushes it. A Mark-II cargo bay holds the ISRU unit and other equipment needed for the operation. Valentina was put in command of the tug and is accompanied by Erdorf, a mid-level engineer in charge of operating the drills and cracking the occasional joke if things get tense. This was going to be a simple mission. Locate the asteroid, tug it in, hit it with the miner, and bring the Kerbals home. What could go wrong? Valentina and Erdorf launched without incident and set a course for what seemed like the nearest unknown object. They launched out of Kerbin's orbit and set their nuclear engines and nearly 7,000 m/s of delta-V to work. The problem quickly became apparent that they had no idea where they were going or how to locate the particular asteroid they were after. Eventually they appeared to be relatively close on the map, but the asteroid was no where in sight. Their fuel reserves were running low, and Valentina made the decision to return to Kerbin orbit before it was too late. After some research the engineers at Experiential Knowledge realized they needed to "track object" in the tracking station for the asteroid's trajectory to appear in the Kerboknaut's mission computer. This realization set the mission back a bit, as a new refueling vessel would need to be constructed and rendevouz with Valentina's tug before the asteroid could be met. According to the engineers, it was still 38 days away and would pass between Kerbin and the Mun. They set to work. The refueling vehicle was heavy, and needed several stages of droppable fuel tanks, six Clydesdale boosters, and many, many struts. Somehow, it made it to orbit and docked with Valentina's tug. The refueling process was somewhat slow, selecting all twenty-four liquid fuel tanks in the tug and one-by-one emptying the tanks in the refueling vehicle. After twenty minutes or so, the tug was refuelled and ready to meet the asteroid, which was now only five days away. As Valentina was filling out some routine mission paperwork during the process she accidentally activated the engines on both vessels for a moment. They spun a but but the whole thing held together. Holding back flashbacks to refueling on Ike, she reminded herself to always deactivate the engines in such a situation just in case something gets bumped! The refueling vessel had a large communications relay attached and was left in orbit as a communications satellite after refueling the tug. "That's not space junk" the lead engineer explained to the board, "that's our latest satellite." This phrase would go on to become an important marketing slogan for the program. Tanks full, Valentina pulled some fancy maneuvering and hit the asteroid about 45 degrees before its periapsis, plenty of time to bring it into a steady Kerbin orbit. The problem quickly became apparent that this asteroid would be mined and empty in almost no time. Indeed, withe the drill deployed the entire 24 ton asteroid was empty before the tug's tanks were full. This would not do. She undocked her tug and left the empty asteroid in orbit over Kerbin. She sent a message to the scientists back at the base: Find her a bigger asteroid. Though they were not used to being spoken to by a female Kerbal, let alone one with authority, the scientists went to work anyways and located a huge, class E asteroid 100 days out of Kerbin's influence. The trajectory was uploaded to Valentina's computer. Game on. Valentina and Erdorf set their trajectory and waited until the asteroid was close enough to perform a rendevouz. Once in sight, they were both impressed with the size of what they had come across. 2,000 tons of rock, and over 1700 tons of usable resources floated delicately in front of them. After only a dozen or so attempts to grab it close to the center of mass, the drills, solar panels and radiators were deployed and the asteroid was gently nudged into its Kerbin orbit. Still, the mining station will need to be brought to the Asteroid's orbit and the Kerbals will need to find their way home somehow. Nevertheless, a bottle of sparkly green wine was opened at Experiential Knowledge's headquarters to celebrate this historic accomplishment. In low Kerbin Orbit, Clauski wondered if he had been forgotten about. He spent his days puttering around Interplanetary 1, imaging he was commander of a mission to the farthest reaches of the solar system. He would land on planets that haven't even been discovered yet, and bring back all of the knowledge about the universe they contain. "Kommander Clauski" he muttered to himself as he patrolled the bridge, looking carefully for dust, dreaming about the future.

Four Kerbals set out nearly four years ago in Experiential Knowledge's latest engineering catastrophe/masterpiece, Interplanetary 1. This nuclear-powered interplanetary craft was designed to be able to refill itself as it came to various low-gravity ore-rich moons. It came equipped with a full ISRU unit and lander with drill and ore tank to return to orbit. Led by Kommander Valentina, Kerboknauts Bob and Bill piled into the craft and Clauski the back-up pilot came for the extra experience. The brave adventurers escaped from Kerbin's orbit and set out for Duna. It was a fairly long trip there but they took turns playing cards in the passenger cabin, quizzing each other on their mission protocols, and dreaming of what life was like back home. The ship made it to Duna but not in the most efficient manner, and the tanks were running very low by the time it had settled into a low orbit of the single moon, Ike. Apparently the ship left with just enough fuel to make it to the destination, now it was time to prove the miner-lander could indeed refill it for the return trip. Bill waited until it looked like there was a somewhat flat, sunlit crater below and decoupled the miner-lander. He left with about 1000 delta-V and needed to land and return to the interplanetary ship on a near-400 m/s trajectory. This seemed doable to Bill who, admittedly, had never actually done that sort of thing before. How hard could it be? What Bill or the engineers back at the space station didn't factor in was that when the miner-lander filled up with ore, well, ore is heavy and that will require more fuel to get the craft to orbit than it would empty. Bill saw his delta-v indicator shrinking as the tank filled up and cut the drills after they were only about a third full. He had 400 m/s of delta-V left to get back to the station, travelling nearly 400 m/s about 10 km above his head. This was going to be tricky. He waited until he just saw the glimmer of Interplanetary 1's solar panels emerge over the rocky horizon and bottomed out the throttle. Without a pilot on board there was no stability assistance for the ascent. This, Bill knew, was how another engineer on the Mun never made it home, trying to steer a mining rig without the stability-assistance a pilot can provide. The miner-lander was nimble, however, and soon enough it was within range of the mothership for the Valentina to assist remotely. The main trouble was that Bill was entirely out of fuel, and he had undershot the mothership by about 25 km. He was on a trajectory headed back for Ike's rocky, unforgiving surface. It was looking pretty hopeless. Unless ... Bill had an idea. He powered up the RCS thrusters and pointed the lander in the rough direction of Interplanetary 1. Maybe this was pointless, but it was the last thing left to try. 250 units of monopropellent, used sparingly, was barely enough to get back to the mothership with the 100 units of ore from the surface. Disaster, it seemed, was averted, and the ore could be processed for fuel for the return voyage. It quickly became apparent that 100 units of ore was not nearly enough to resupply even the miner-lander's fuel or monopropellent tanks, let alone Interplanetary 1's liquid fuel tanks. They were stranded, there was nothing left for them to do. When word of the situation reached Experiential Knowledge's space station mission command, they set to work immediately designing a rescue vessel. This craft would need to be able to deliver fuel for a return trip, be able to connect to Interplanetary 1, and be able to take all of that to low Ike orbit. No small feat. They redesigned the original craft with more fuel, and included some presents the stranded Kerboknauts might enjoy: an improved miner-lander with an integrated ISRU to top up the fuel tanks for the return trip, and a small probe with a surface scanner to assist in identifying the best craters for mining. The craft made it to the stranded ship on Ike and docked successfully, though the two interplanetary craft docked nose-to-nose with junior docking ports tested the limits of that docking port's performance. Valentina and Clauski commiserated that they were not warned at the academy that they would find themselves on the other side of the solar system piloting a ship that handled like a wet noodle, hoping the harmonic oscillations didn't rip them apart. Valentina took the opportunity to exercise her authority over the mission and immediately set a course for Kerbin, taking the improved (and unused) miner-lander, a nearly full tank of fuel, and all of the Kerbals who set out with her. The return voyage was un-eventful, though considerably more tense around the card-table than it was on the way out. Returning to Kerbin's orbit today, Interplanetary 1 nearly docked with a station in low Kerbin orbit but ran out of fuel a few kilometers away. A landing vehicle was sent to retrieve the Kerboknauts, the data they collected, and finish the docking process for the mothership. Clauski remained in orbit to look after Interplanetary 1, which he wasn't too thrilled about, but that's what you get when you are the only one without an orange shirt. Valentina presented the over 2,100 science data to the researchers at Experiential Knowledge's laboratories. They were somewhat disappointed. "Only one sample of Ike's surface?" was the response from the chief researcher. Yeah. Only one sample from THE SURFACE OF FREAKING IKE, thought Valentina.