CatastrophicFailure

Quite so. And deliberately made not one but two passes through the Van Allen belts to demonstrate that the electronics could take it. It wasn’t all for show, it was verifying that the FH could deliver a sat direct to GSO. I think they said that the upper stage lasted for about 24 hours, whether that’s till the batteries died or it moved out of range I’m not sure.

Have you forgotten poor Cal? It was a year ago, you might have... You're forgetting to factor in the groundspeed of the prevailing wind and its effect on the airspeed of an unladen, mildly hypoxic swallow... I'm fortunate to be basing this all on a game that occasionally delivers some pretty inspiring views...

IIRC, the Saturn V did something like this with engine gimbal, tho that was in case an engine failed. Im still not entirely sure what @Aeroboi is trying to do, here, but I hope to see moar too!

It may be a first operational use of the FH’s ability to deliver the sat direct to GSO. Ie, the sat won’t have to circularize on its own, the FH upper will take care of that then go park itself in a lonely orbit.

All things serve the Beam. But yes, sadly Kyle and his lil’ bro will never get credit for inventing the (short-lived) extreme sport of Landslide Surfing, nor for having the gnarliest wipeout in history, as everyone within a couple thousand kilometers is about to have a lot more on their minds. Been debating for a while where exactly to stick this one, as the next mini-arc will be much lighter than all the drama lately. Turns out I can still write <2000-word mini-novellas.

A Great Shadow shall arise in the East, and the land tremble before it. Upon wicked and righteous shall it fall, and the place where every good thing grows, And Paradise shall be scoured away for the transgressions of kerbs. Chapter 29: When the Mountains Tremble An ice axe rose over the edge, hovered a bare breath, then slammed down, sending little white chips into the air that the howling wind quickly stole away. A moment later, a second axe followed, slipping a bit, a brief fight for purchase before holding fast. The first rose again, inching forward, biting into a meager hunk of glacier that was already old when Kerbaldom was yet young. The other followed, and so the pattern repeated, creeping farther up, until at last a leg swung over the edge, the cramp-ons on its boot biting true. Then a face appeared, mouth wide and gasping for breath, his cheeks bright red with windbite against his otherwise pale skin. Finally the body came, with one last surge of effort rolling over and onto he little plateau of ice. The climber lay there a time, looking half-dead, chest heaving for breath in the thin mountain air. Yet he set his jaw, rolled over once more to the little outcrop of bare rock nearby, and shoved an anchor into it. With strain on his face, he gave it half a dozen solid, if slightly wobbly strikes with the back of an axe. He just managed to clip the carabiner on before he collapsed again. Almost at once the line went taught, testing at first before bearing weight. A new set of axes worked their way over the edge, confidently, moving with purpose. The face that followed was split in a wide grin, though haggard and no less wind bitten. This one seemed to flow onto the plateau, jumping up right away and pumping his fists in the air. “Wooooooo-hoooooo!” Kyle Kerman cried out, and the mountains answered... “Wooooooo-hoooooo!” “Wooooooo-hoooooo!” “Wooooooo-hoooooo!” “Wooooooo-hoooooo!” He gazed back at them a moment, shoulders barely heaving, then looked down, “rock out, little bro! You did it! You climbed the Blabberhorn!” Sam Kerman said nothing, just tried to convince his lungs they were actually breathing. Kyle grinned down at him, stripping off his goggles and unclipping his line, “c’mon, lil’ bro, revel in thine accomplishment, O young and studly one!” Sam raised a trembling thumb. “Woo hoo,” he managed between gasps. He was promptly pulled upward by that hand, his brother half-hugging, half simply holding him up, “check out that view, my dude, told ya it’s worth the price of admission.” Doffing his own goggles, Sam willed his eyes into focus... and what meager breath the mountain had left him, the view took away. “Wowwww...” He turned his head from one horizon to the other, squinting as it passed the late-afternoon sun in the west. Sheer, nearly vertical cliffs stretched out along either side, towering over the pale blue of the ocean nearly a dozen kilometers below. From this height, he could just see the curve of the massive bowl they created. Sam was weak, his entire body felt like a liquid, his lungs burned, and everything hurt... and this wasn’t even the highest peak in the mighty Rim Range. Yet he felt like he could see forever. The air was so clear at this altitude, the snow along the distant ridgelines looked close enough to reach out and touch, he could see individual boulders on the naked mountain flanks too steep for snow, and from above even the clouds seemed crisp and solid. His brother Kyle was right... as he, well, usually was. This was worth the climb. “Check it out, lil’ bro,” Kyle pointed out across the sea, “you can see Mont Bonc rising out of the water shrouded in mist there, and just beyond the horizon— Rim Island. A regular tropical paradise, my dude!” He released his wobbly brother, then clapped him on the shoulder— which nearly drove him straight down into the snow, “I figure we’ll head out there to reee-cuperate after we get down. Port-au-Rincewind, maybe Kokomo Bay, the wahines in their lil’ grass skirts will be lining up around the block to hula with a real mountaineer like you, O mi broski!” Sam finally felt some feeling return to his cheeks, “they... they will?” he huffed. “Tooootally, bro!” Then an icy breeze pulled at his snow pants, and brought with it a chilling thought, “but... that’s part of Gednalna, won’t we have to wear grass skirts too?” Kyle laughed, “only the kerbliest kerbs in Gednalna wear skirts, lil’ bro.” Sam found this confusing, but chalked it up to the thin mountain air. “Now here, check this out, my dude!” Kyle rotated him a quarter turn, “that little thing is over a hundred meters tall!” “Wowww...” Nestled in the valley between two peaks, which seemed a strange place for such a thing, Sam could just make out the dish antenna of a satellite tracking station. From here it looked like a model, something seen in a diorama at a museum. As he watched, a four-engined VTOL transport that was little more than a toy lifted off from a nearby pad and headed out toward the open sea. “And finally, lil’ bro,” Kyle gave him another turn, “the pièce de résistance!” “Wo—“ the half-formed word froze in Sam’s mouth. “There she is, mon frère: Garish, the City of Light. It’s hidden by the ridgeline until you make the summit. Looks a bit different from up here, eh? If you look real close, you can just about make out the Eye-full Tower.” Sam’s lower lip trembled, perhaps seeking a word. Any coherent thought had ceased altogether. The shadow of the mountains reached out to the east as afternoon rapidly moved toward evening, and nestled there in the deepest part of that shadow was a web of light in every hue imaginable. It seemed to stretch out, like an explosion of beauty frozen in time, gossamer strands of red and yellow radiating from a core of rainbow shades that throbbed and pulsed like a heartbeat. And indeed, there in the center, he could see it. A dark tower silhouetted and bathed in the city’s glow, the strands of the web radiating from it like beams of light. An impossible pillar of pure white shot skyward from its apex, as if in that moment it was the axis upon which the whole world turned. Sam was a simple kerb, not taken to such grandiose ideas, yet he thought his heart might break from the beauty of it. But as he watched, the brilliant pillar flickered and winked out. Then a sector of the web went dark. Another followed, and another, as if the shadow were swallowing the light. The darkness stretched out, raced along the gossamer strands leading out from the city, erasing them from existence, streaming in all directions, including— Sam felt his already weak knees begin to quiver. It took him a moment to realize everything was quivering, just before the vibrations knocked him to the ground. “Earthquake!” he screamed. “Be chilled, lil’ bro,” Kyle dropped down to one knee and a hand, “just ride it out. We’re on top of a mountain, that’s the safest place to be in an earthquake. Nothing to fall on us!” Sam crawled forward and embraced the little rock outcrop, clinging to it like a buoy in a stormy sea. He worked his eyes open and shut, trying to focus, trying to convince himself he couldn’t feel the mountain rising and falling in waves. He turned, saw the tracking station. It was thrashing about like a wounded animal, twisting metal squealing in death throws. It seemed to melt and slide down the mountain face. The shaking went on and on. Minutes. Hours. Days. He couldn’t tell anymore. Then a new sound came to him above the rumbling. He looked along the ridgeline, to the farthest edge of the curving rim. Darkness itself was spewing up as if from the very bowels of all the Nine Hells, reaching skyward higher and higher. And coming closer. It took his addled, panicked mind some time to realize what he was seeing. A jet of dust and rock bursting forth from the crest of the mountains, rending the very rock like cloth, and rapidly racing towards him. Sam tried to look away, back to the north, only to see the same dark eruption bearing down the other way. He squeezed tighter to the outcrop as the two rising walls of chaos finally slammed together in the center of the towering peak just to the east, and then— Sound. SOUND! The world became sound, blasting over him like a solid thing, driving burning spikes into his ears— And then all sound ceased. Sam could see the pandemonium rising all around, boulders tossed like pebbles, but the world had gone silent as a dream. He was distantly aware that he was screaming, but couldn’t even hear that. Slowly he turned, and found his brother. Kyle was barely clinging to the edge of the glacier, and for the first time in his life, Sam saw fear in his bother’s eyes. There came a jolt, and the scrap of ice that had clung to the mountain for eons finally surrendered, taking Kyle with it as it descended into the frothing black maelstrom far below. Sam felt another jolt as his harness snapped taught, felt a rib crack, but that seemed faint and unimportant. More out of dumb instinct than anything else, he tried to crawl back up the precipice that his harness was still clipped to, until the entire mountain fell away beneath him, and the shadow swallowed him.

Memories that become legend, legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten... yet all things serve the Beam.

So if someone’s name gets mysteriously changed to something silly and embarrassing, we know who to blame, right?

I’ve seen some pretty impressive things done with the new structural panels, if you can tolerate the minor mass cost.

Be that as it may, you’re not getting off that easy. We few, we happy few, do expect a proper conclusion, Mr. Writer Man. Take all the time you need but the story must be told.

Damn, the visuals on this! SoCal 911 has gotta be lighting up with stupid.

Someone mentioned this is the first RTLS of a Block V, didn’t realize that.

So, hype yet? maybe little hype? Hip?

@RoboRay Love that white Gemini. Why no nose-to-nose docking like the original?

As I recall, the issue is crew supervision. They still need to make time in their schedule to monitor the approach and docking. Not the whole reason for the delay, but I think Musk mentioned it’s contributing. Good thing the rest of it is coming directly home, then.

I’ve heart Planetes, about a space junk cleanup group, is pretty good. Also check out Rocket Girls if you can tolerate subtitles. The premise is a bit absurd (isn’t all anime?) but the tech is surprisingly on-point. Oh, and there’s always the classic Robotech/Macross...

Wonder if this might be the Commercial Crew booster? IIRC they’ve said it was in the pipe even tho it’s now delayed.

I’m inclined to agree. Fan works in general seems mighty quiet these days.

Comcast. Why am I not surprised? Or how about that they’re using the term “narrative” without any shred of irony?

Well, since they won’t be using it for Commercial Crew any time soon...

One small step.

!!!

My personal head cannon on the matter is summed up thus:

One day slip. more possible.