Kimera Industries

That's why I love Excel. It makes you feel like a real space agency. Yes, I am a certified Microsoft Office Specialist and that's what I use it for.

Probe fixing or kerbal rescuing wouldn't make sense this far out if the planets are newly discovered. Since they're so hard to get to in the first place, the contracts should encourage initial exploration. Maybe one that asks you to fly by all the moons of a planet at least once? (Or more than once, why not) That would encourage flagship missions like Galileo, Cassini, Uranus Orbiter, Neptune Odyssey, etc. Those big missions are one of my favorite parts about the outer planets.

Until I can get my computer out of storage, (the real limit here is not having room to put it in the place we're staying at for now) there won't be any missions, but I hope the pure-text posts can keep things going. I love doing this thread, I'm glad the forums are still here for me to share it.

I made a pipe cleaner model of New Horizons yesterday. It does indeed look like Bill Cipher.

Is this like a JWST-style sunshield or something else?

What mod is that biome map?

Pavel handed the photographic plates to his companion Kronid with trembling fingers. He pointed to a single dot that moved relative to the background stars. Kronid studied the images before giving Pavel a serious look. "Do you think... our theories..." "We were right. At least one more." Pavel smiled nervously. The excitement of the discovery had not yet worn off. "There could be more..." Kronid's mind ran wild with speculation. "Let's get back to the telescope. We have work to do." <><><> Vasily Kerman looked up from his sandwich to the kerbal that had entered his office. Based on the owl-chick appearance of his hair and the number-covered paper plastered to his forearms, the kerbal was a mathematician. It was odd for one to show up at the director of the space program's door. "Um, Matvey Kerman, um, sir." Matvey shuffled his feet. Vasily looked through the open door into the hallway and saw an easel holding diagrams. He raised an eyebrow. "Um, you said it would be okay if I came in during lunch, um, sir." Matvey was studying the floor now. "I did? Oh dear." Vasily had probably absentmindedly said yes to get him to go away while he was preoccupied. Korolev 10 had been tricky to hush up. Well, whether he wanted to or not, he had promised this kerbal a visit, and he needed something to take his mind away from his job for a moment. Vasily sighed. "What is it you want to show me?" "I- made a little presentation-" Matvey stepped into the hallway and dragged his easel into the office. Vasily noted with dismay the number of posters resting on it. Matvey looked about to speak, but Vasily interjected. "Which department do you work in? Does it have to be me that sees this?" "Um, astrodynamics, sir, and-" "You can drop the 'sir.'" "Um, okay. I figured that if I wanted to give this proposal a shot, I'd have to go straight to the top. It would be drowned in red tape otherwise." "This had better be good, then. You may go on." He knew that scientists often went to great lengths to see a project through. "Okay. So, you've heard of Pavel and Kronid, right?" "The astronomers?" The ones who discovered-" "The sixth planet, yes." Matvey was glad the director knew this much. Vasily counted in his head. "Isn't that Jool?" "Dres doesn't count. Astronomers are thinking of calling it a 'dwarf' planet-" "Is that relevant to the presentation?" "Um, no. Back to Pavel and Kronid, what they haven't published yet is the seventh planet, and possibly the eighth." Vasily nearly choked on his sandwich. "Whff-whuh-" "As soon as I heard about the first one, I visited them personally for more information. I knew them in college, and they had this theory about the outer solar system. Wobbles in Jool's orbit that could be explained by the presence of other large objects. They, ah, gave me the inside scoop, so to speak." Matvey spoke with barely contained excitement. Vasily was quiet now. Matvey had a big idea, he could tell. "Of course, my main interest was in calculating their orbits, to plan missions to each of them. But I discovered something, um, interesting." He began using the diagrams on the easel. The first one showed a map of the kerbolar system, zoomed out to show the new planets in their current position. It looked hand-drawn. "Gravity assists were mathematically proven about a decade ago. I was calculating an assist from Jool to the sixth planet and I wondered where a spacecraft would go from there. That's when I realized-" He dramatically pulled off the first poster to show the second. It was the same map from before, but with a line drawn through it, starting at Kerbin and bending as it passed the orbit of a planet, from Jool to the seventh one. Matvey looked at Vasily expectantly. Vasily gestured for him to explain. "I have named it- 'The Grand Tour!'" Vasily kept staring blankly at Matvel. He soon caught on. "Oh! Right, uh, it uses the gravity assist from the previous planet to take it to the next one. It takes you on a tour, hence the name, through each of the planets from Jool to the last one discovered so far. We're really lucky, because the planets only align like this about every couple centuries!" Vasily was catching up, but the astrodynamicist had skipped a few key points. "So... when do they next align like this?" "That's why we're so lucky, the optimal launch window is in just three years-" It took a few minutes for the sandwich to be fully wiped up. When his desk was clean, Vasily took a deep breath and said, "Is there a... less optimal launch window that would buy us more time? And for that matter, what makes this 'Grand Tour' of yours worth it, anyway?" Matvey revealed the next poster. "This- is a map of trajectories for probes sent to each new planet individually, as well as the travel time, fuel requirements, and so on. As you can see, it would take decades longer and would require multiple, big launches. Um, that means expensive. The price tag does sort of pale in comparison to what I have in mind... though it would let us depart at a later date..." Vasily had wisely given up on the sandwich. Matvey was clearly crazy, but you had to be to calculate orbits all day. His big idea had been well-researched and thought-out. His bigger idea was likely plausible as well. "Another of my college friends recently did some personal research on a crewed mission to Duna and came up with good data for an interplanetary ship... another just published a feasibility report on mining Minmus... then there's the almost mystical research department investigating the Sakharov drive... and a year ago Pavel and Kronid published a paper on a 'telescope in space,' which they believe could find planets around other stars..." Matvey fell silent. He showed the corresponding posters instead of continuing his speech. Vasily studied each diagram in silence. He saw the potential and had only a few questions. "This thruster, it could get us there faster? We could launch at a later date with it?" "Late seventies or early eighties, depending on the ship's fuel capacity." "And the ship could be built in a decade?" "If we acted fast to build a large base on Minmus. We were planning on one anyway." "And it would get funding because of the space race-" "We could mine Minmus for money, too," Matvey added. "-That too, and our technology would be centuries ahead of the Americans if a fraction of that money went into R&D..." The director was quiet again. For a few minutes, he was deep in thought, more excited than he'd been about his job in a long time. "Planets around other stars?" he queried. "Coincidentally, the path a spacecraft would follow once its Grand Tour was over would take it close to the nearest star, with a little course correction." Vasily considered the implications of this statement. It was unthinkable. And yet, someone had thought of it. "You're crazy, Matvey," he finally said. Seeing Matvey's anxiety at his statement, he added, "Which is why I'm putting you in charge of the project." <><><> PROJECT ZEPHYR

I have discovered something rather interesting about this mod: If you compare a map of the real solar system with the map in the OP, Jool, Sarkin, and Elross roughly match the orbits of Jupiter, Saturn, and Neptune. The interesting thing is that the dwarf planets lie in the proportional orbit of Uranus. Perhaps a planet once existed there, and was torn apart or kicked out by the gravitational influence of a chaotic early solar system or rogue planet... or was intentionally destroyed. You could work that into the science reports (read: lore) of the mod.

You can call me a selenographer because I'm drawing a map of the Moon, by hand. An hour of craning my neck and freezing my hands off got me a rough sketch of the seas. Progress!

The Covenant get the Ark of the Covenant, which melts the faces off of all who view it in full waxy 80's special effects glory. @RedAl1en1 wins! Rock-paper-scissors-shoot, anything you want to do!

Good to hear. I'm not very good at this astronomy thing because most of what I know about space is more directly related to space exploration. Seeing things from Earth is not something I know a ton about. You could say I'm an amateur-amateur astronomer. Recently read up on the Uranus Orbiter and Probe proposal as part of my learning about Voyager 2's flybys of the ice giants. Considering the naming patterns of the first two flagship missions to the outer planets (Galileo and Cassini), I wouldn't be surprised if UOP is named Herschel.

Tycho Magnetic Anomaly 1? I'll try and look for it, but my telescope really isn't that great and the light pollution here is awful. Lot of towns right next to each other in a smoggy valley. I do have plans to drive to a light-free BLM area on the next new moon (TIL: apparently two new moons in one month are called a black moon.) Maybe I can see more than one moon of Saturn.

Unfortunately I cannot play KSP right now, and it could be months before I can, so until then, I'll just quote the Voyager spacecraft: *sad beep*

I tracked Titan orbiting Saturn for a week in my telescope (think of it as baby's first scope.) It was highly dependent on absolutely clear skies and the porch light being off, so I haven't seen it ever since these winter clouds settled in. My moon counter is now at six: Moon, Io, Europa, Ganymede, Callisto, Titan. Surface feature counter is at 5: Venus phases, Mars ice caps (I think? With a lot of eye squinting one side looked whiter) Jupiter equatorial belt, Saturn's rings, and don't forget the Moon's craters. Not counting its seas because those are technically extremely large, lava-filled craters.

Cool! I had a very similar idea recently and decided to do it in KSP. (Alternate Cassini with two detachable probes)

I don't mean to necropost, but my next big mission is an alternate reality Cassini, (Cassini-Huygens-Bonestell) would it count for this thread?

Amen to that. I got myself into the mindset that each mission had to spectacularly outdo the last. My first and so far only Jool mission was a Jool 5. That's a wee bit overkill.

The rocket is only two pieces, and the Huygens probe itself is rather chunky. I actually plan to slim it down soon, removing lots of unneeded parts. I put the tiny rocket on because I had room, I guess. The probe also has a tiny sampler arm, as well as a camera mounted on a small boom. I built the whole spacecraft shortly after reading Stephen Baxter's Titan, which features the Cassini mission. (Brief summary: potential signs of life detected by Huygens probe inspire crewed mission to Titan. It was published in 1997, the year of Cassini's launch.) I made it without any real rhyme or reason, but over time and as I've improved it I've built lore around it. Since you've got me going, I'll give you the whole spiel: The spacecraft is Cassini, but from a reality other than our own. In this one, Cassini is built more capable and stronger, as well as with a highly advanced Huygens lander and a small detachable probe (more on that later). In this alternate universe, Cassini arrives at Saturn in the 2010s. In order to make the mission work funding-wise, the Curiosity rover is delayed to 2020, taking the place of Perseverance, and various other missions are cancelled. (This is actually a theme Baxter explores in his book Voyage: humans make it to Mars in the eighties, but all other missions are canceled to allocate funding for the project, meaning our knowledge of even Mars itself is rudimentary.) Bonestell: Cassini's full name is Cassini-Huygens-Bonestell. Bonestell is a small probe which is detached first, and orbits partially within the Phoebe ring around Saturn. A tiny RTG keeps it going, and it also generates electricity from the statically charged particles orbiting Saturn. Its primary purpose is as a backup relay for Huygens. It's named after a sci-fi painter who has a very famous painting, Saturn as seen from Titan, 1944, which is startlingly accurate (disregarding Titan, the inaccurate depiction is understandable given knowledge known at the time.) I got the idea from Giotto, an ESA spacecraft that studied Halley's Comet and is named after a painter who painted the comet. Huygens: Huygens lands on Titan, but the firmware issues in the real Cassini exist in the alternate Cassini as well. However, in the alternate timeline, these issues are never detected and Cassini is unable to listen to any of Huygens' transmissions. Only the small probe and the DSN record its signal as it is transmitted. Fortunately, the Huygens lander, built by an advanced ESA, has a backup in case the signal is lost but the lander still functions: the sample-return rocket. It has room for three small surface samples collected by the sample arm. If the lander's batteries survive for as long as intended and the takeoff proceeds nominally, the rocket's rudimentary computer will have a copy of all data recorded by the lander during its descent until the time of the rocket's separation from the lander. Even if the rocket fails in its rendezvous with Cassini, it will have transmitted all the recorded data to a now-fixed and ready-to-listen Cassini. The rocket successfully lifts off from Titan, and skipping Titan orbit heads strait into Saturn orbit, where Cassini can fine-tune a rendezvous. The rocket is then picked up by a small robotic arm, docked, refueled, and attached to another stage. The added stage kicks it out of Saturn orbit with help from gravity assists, and the original stage is saved for course corrections. Numerous gravity assists are used to slow it down for its arrival at Earth. The sample canisters are the most sterilized objects ever produced, and along with the sample arm are designed to hold liquid as well, in case Huygens landed in a methane lake. (It didn't. Titan's lakes are at its poles.) Afterlife Phase: Cassini is now on its own (Bonestell didn't last long). It makes plentiful observations of Saturn and its moons, just like the real Cassini. Its mission at Saturn lasts longer, however, before it enters its Grand Finale phase. Like the real thing, this means several close passes between the planet and its rings, before plummeting into Saturn to prevent contaminating Saturn's moons that could hold life. What is most unexpected, however, is that Cassini survives the dip into Saturn's atmosphere, chalked up to inaccurate estimations of its density and distribution, as well as a seconds-too-short (by accident) deorbit burn. The new "Afterlife" phase of the mission begins, as the engineers make use of what's left of the spacecraft's systems. It's not much: a small camera designed to take selfies of the spacecraft itself (hidden behind the HGA during the brief reentry), various science instruments shielded by the bus, and a crippled propulsion system. The short mission extension will last for three or four orbits, and will be used to observe Enceladus, which is the only moon readily accessible in Cassini's now-shortened orbit. Or, however long the spacecraft lasts. In its final weeks, it suffers a catastrophic propulsion system explosion, assorted equipment failures, and all while using what battery power it has left after the RTGs were destroyed. But the discoveries it makes at Enceladus change the course of human history forever... I've toyed with using this as the basis for a novella or short story, but the only concrete plans I have would be to make a forum mission report about my KSP replica of it. Oof, I hope this monolith of text isn't too off-topic for this thread, but it's kinda relevant, I guess. Lore for my Lego MOCs is half the reason I build them.

After the recent forums incident made me reevaluate my priorities for KSP, and since I've been learning a ton about missions to the outer planets (Cassini is now my favorite spacecraft, and Saturn my favorite planet, for partially unrelated reasons) in any new saves I will place a much higher priority on unkerbaled exploration, with missions like Pioneer and Voyager.

Any way to make it not do that, or would it be too hard?

I aced my math test, KSA is looking like the most promising spaceflight sandbox game yet, and the KSP forums are back. Things are looking up

From Unit 663, a moon of the planet Storage, several artifacts have been excavated from the moon's unusual cardboard regolith. Left to right: Blacktron 2 modified ship, Blacktron 2 (mostly recreated) ship, Psyche spacecraft MOC, Cassini-inspired MOC (has 2 detachable probes, and the Huygens lander has a sample-return rocket), and a general rocket of my own design.

I can't tell from the OP, does this replace the stock system or move it to another location? Asking because I want to have both at once with this system as a future destination.

@TwoCalories Since Kerbalsaurus did not judge the last two entries, I judged them myself and my entry is in response to his. It's up to you to judge them.

Yesterday I got up at 5:30 to see the Starship Flight 5. This is history being made! A rocket got grabbed out of the air! Plus, something else I got to see that got a little overshadowed by the awesome booster: we got live feed from a spacecraft, going through reentry, continuously until landing. Every book, news article, or movie I've seen dealing with reentry has had to explain communications blackout from the plasma ions. We now have a communications network powerful enough to break that 'rule.' If I were in charge, I wouldn't have even thought of trying to circumvent it. I would have accepted it as a 'given.' SpaceX is pushing the envelope in all directions and I like how it's expanding. I watched Europa Clipper live. I eventually had to turn off the live chat because people were going "wait the boosters are all being expended" every three seconds and someone would explain for the nth time that yes, all the boosters are being expended because Jupiter is very far away. I even waited around for the spacecraft to detach from the upper stage and for the acquisition of signal. I had a lot of free time. Also, I made my first edit of Wikipedia! Check out the section on the Saturn encounter on the Pioneer 11 page.