KSK

Well yes I do but it would be a complete from-the-ground-up rethink which I accept is not going to happen at this point in KSP's development. And besides, my idea of a good rethink may or may not jibe with anyone else's. Thinking about, most of what I'm talking about in my last post could be achieved by making Goo and Science Jrs into remotely operated instruments. Think of it as fitting them out with a camera and watching the Goo or materials bay at a distance, rather than needing a crew member on-site. Do that (please tell me this isn't possible right now!) and going interplanetary becomes a viable source of early game science as an alternative to Minmus hopping.

@Hevak Forget realism, forget spaceplanes vs rockets, modded vs stock, or starting crewed vs uncrewed. They've been perennial talking points for years on this forum and I see no signs of them going away. The main problem I have with the tech tree and science system as they stand is that it they offer a very linear gameplay experience. Now that's great for the first two or three Career games, where some guidance and structure is useful but after that it's frankly boring. OK, I've made it to LKO (again). I've farmed as much science from KSC as I can stand, I've grabbed all the EVA reports from orbit (again), stared into the Goo until the Goo stares back into me and hauled a couple of Science Jrs into orbit just because. I've even lobbed a couple of capsules into polar orbit just to grab those extra EVA reports. What do I do now? Well the obvious choice is to head to the Mün or Minmus and go biome hopping. Heck, this is my fourth run-through now - I could mix it up a bit by lobbing an MPL into Minmus orbit and get all my science points in one go. Grab the low-hanging science, clear the tech tree, do what I want. Simples. But I've done all that before. This time, I want to build a nice big space station in LKO. I'll fit it out with an MPL and get my science in slow time, whilst I'm stockpiling funds and building up some infrastructure. I've seen 2001 - I want a logistics hub in orbit and a cis-munar shuttle running between LKO and the Mün. A bit of an overcomplicated solution but hey - Rule of Cool. Plus I've done it the easy way already. Sooo, what do I need to make this happen? That big Rockomax hub would be nice, and those big solar panels. Hmmm - those are both pretty far down the tech tree. Time to scale this back a bit. Lets go for the smaller folding solar panels and I can kludge a station hub together out of a structural fuselage, some spare Clamp-o-Trons and a bunch of radial adaptors. Still need that MPL though. OK, so for that, I'm going to want Specialised Construction at 160 science points, plus whatever else I need to get that far down the tech tree. Also, Advanced Electrics at another 160 science points plus. Oh yeah, and Advanced Exploration for that MPL at (another) 160 science points. Hmm, this is starting to add up a bit. I need to scale this plan waaaay back, or find another way of grabbing some science. *lightbulb moment* I'll go interplanetary! What can I strap onto an interplanetary probe without spending too many science points? I've got this thermometer - that's a good start. I'll just ignore that warranty - insurance company never pays out on those anyway. Better pack a bunch of them to get some readings from deep space though. Hmmm, that barometer isn't too far out of reach. Not much good in space mind, but if I can bodge a lander together... Got me some Goo (ohhh, the Goomanity) - can I use that without sending a kerbal along for the ride? It's a long way to Duna in a Mk1 capsule for poor old Jeb and I'd rather not have my number one pilot go (more) bonkers by the time I can get him home again. Same applies for that handy-dandy Science Jr. So lets take a look at some fancier science instruments. Bah - Tier 7 for the accelerometer - which doesn't work in orbit anyway, so that's a one-shot deal on a lander. Ravioli - sorry Gravioli detector is even worse at Tier 8. So much for this as a source of science points. Back to Minmus it is then. *sigh* What I would like is a tech tree and science system that gives me options. I may have been exaggerating just a touch above and in practice, maybe a quick Mün run might be necessary to bootstrap my interplanetary probe program or my LKO space station (the KSS Hopeless Folly). But I don't see why I need to slog my through quite so much tech tree cruft to get there.

Respectfully disagree. The realism debate aside, your last sentence means that your second sentence would make for a terrible gameplay experience, at least with the current approach to building rockets and especially with the lacklustre aircraft parts you get to start with and the strip of ploughed field you get that somehow masquerades as a runway. Personally, I'd be far happier if aircraft / spaceplanes were removed altogether. I find them a pain to fly (OK that one is entirely my problem), they throw any sort of reasonable gameplay progression straight out the window and I dislike the way that they're effectively the go-to stock solution for getting more than three kerbals at a time to and from orbit. But that's just me and I accept that. However, being forced to monkey around with aircraft before I'm allowed to launch rockets? That would be a sure-fire way of making sure that no copy of KSP ever sneaks onto my hard drive again. Nope - I'm with Veetch and others on this thread. Rejig the tech tree so that players can start with aircraft, uncrewed rockets, or crewed rockets as the mood takes them. Personally I don't have any problem at all with starting crewed - it's not realistic in the sense that it doesn't parallel our own spaceflight development but I see no reason why kerballed spaceflight should reflect human spaceflight anyway. But again, that's just me.

That's helpful - thanks. I think I follow most of the rules but it's good to have them all in one place for reference. One that always bugs me is capitalisation after exclamation or question marks. Very easy to get wrong with any sort of auto-correct switched on and makes your dialogue sound very jerky. "Watch out for the falling booster!" Yelled Bob. Urgh.

I don't know where to start with this because I think our points of view are pretty much poles apart. For openers, we'll ignore the 'PC master race' garbage and the snark at the end. No game is perfect for everyone. True, but if I'm plunking down my money for a game, I expect a game. I don't expect to get an engine and then to be told to build the actual game myself. By analogy, I wouldn't buy a book, expect to get halfway through it and then be told to write the rest myself or cobble something together from this collection of chapters written by random people on the internet. Likewise, if I bought an album, I wouldn't expect to be handed a drum track to play, a 'how to play guitar' book to go with it and be told to go away and finish the rest of the music myself. Unless of course I'm told upfront that there is no game apart from what I make of it. If KSP had been released as Sandbox only, i.e. the game engine and a selection of parts to get you started, that would be absolutely fine. I'd expect to have to mod the heck out of it. But it's not. It's released as a fully fledged game, with Sandbox, Science and Career modes, depending on how much gameplay you want. And if my software does not allow modding, that is, or should be, entirely up to the developers. Perhaps they have a vision for how they want their game to work and be played, and they don't want half a ton of random junk bolted onto it by the 'community'. You might disagree with that attitude but it's their choice. If you don't like it - go make your own game. After all, if you're happy building a game out of mods, surely it's only a small step to writing the whole thing yourself? Oh - and those copyright mad producers? They're the ones paying the upfront costs to get your precious game engine released. You don't like it? Pony up the development costs yourself then.

No way!

Nah - garpaflarping is way too creative for the auto-censor. The only thing that hunk of misbegotten code is good for, is inserting replacement words that stick out even more than the 'offensive' words they're trying to cover up. I mean, who the heck uses 'excrements' in regular conversation. 'Stuff' would be better.

Maybe it's a Mac thing. Scratch that - it is a Mac thing - I've just tried it out in a separate program. Sorry folks.

As always Briansun - you're very welcome and thanks for the appreciation. The next chapter is finally taking shape in my head and I should have a nice chunk of time this weekend to set some of it down. In no particular order, it may feature: a giant leap for kerbalkind, the appearance of a new old character, and a papier-mâché cactus... And on a completely different note, that's an interesting feature of the forum editor I just found. On the off-chance that nobody else is aware: hold down your vowel button and get a nice pop-up list, with hotkeys no less, of that vowel with various accents applied. Rather useful, especially when writing about the Mün.

Interesting. I've been pondering this sort of system on a much larger scale as a plot point in a story I'm writing. So I'll see this crazy and raise you another one - how far could you reasonably scale this up? My guess is - not very - but I'd be curious to see if anyone can throw some numbers at me.

Nooooo! Kerbulans + space madness = ...... cheese torpedoes.

Ahhh, the 80's. When musicians were real musicians and hairdressers were overworked. If you've downloaded Hysteria, then you'll have Rocket to listen to too. Which is definitely the kind of track that the Solpugids or Fire in the Sky should be playing somewhere. 'Take a rocket... we just gotta fly.'

I can cope with another Gumdrop mission, by gum!

Just as long as it doesn't turn into a bogus journey...

I'd be worried that it'll split the playerbase into HAAVs and HAAV-nots.... I'll get my coat.

Thanks! And yeah - I was glad to hear it was a known issue too, rather than anything dumb I was doing.

Also, I've been playing a bit of Leppard on the way to work the last couple of days, including this rather good track. I think you ought to know that I can't help substituting 'Spacekerb!' for 'shotgun' whenever I listen to it now.

Not keen on following links to random polling sites but I am keen to see what's next!

I asked the same question a couple of days ago - see my 'Vertical Text' thread a couple of threads below this one. Long story short, @KasperVld looked into it and: "I've received a (speedy!) answer from IPS regarding this. It's a known issue that will be fixed in their next release."

Flight directors aren't immune either. For example, advising the crew of a jerry-rigged suborbital rocket powered by four homemade SRBs that the lift-off 'might be a little bumpy'.

Never change, Derpy - never change. Although speaking nicely (at a moderate volume) to the nice kerbals with the funny smelling spray cans - is probably a good idea.

If kerbal stats ever become important, I'm betting that the one thing they won't add is an unexpected element. Unless Squad have a change of heart, then that will get rejected for being not fun, in the same way that random part failures have been. Personally I don't think kerbal stats will become important for the foreseeable future and maybe never in stock. The current kerbal experience system is rudimentary and really just an excuse to shoehorn in a bunch of in-game rewards that don't make a lot of sense. The system simply isn't big enough or detailed enough to cram stats into as well. I'll never say never but I think a decent kerbal stats system would need a lot of work and a wholesale rethink of the current xp system. Which doesn't seem very likely to happen although I'll happily chow down on a big slice of humble pie if it does.

"It's not like the other moons are going anywhere. We've got all the time in the world." Uh-oh, lemme count those shadows. One shadows... Two shadows... Three shadows... Four fore shadows...

According to SpaceflightNow, JCSAT 16 goes up on the 14th August, with Amos-6 delayed into September (launch window to be determined), as Streetwind said. I normally find SpaceflightNow to be a reliable source.

Next chapter is up. Prospecting "Good afternoon and welcome to this month's Starseed Special. With me in the studio today are three distinguished guests who have all kindly made time in their busy schedules to bring us the latest Space Program updates and, if we have time, to answer some of the many questions from our audience and from our viewers at home. My guest on the left will be a familiar figure to Engines and Engineers regulars but, as always, it's a privilege to welcome him back to the studio. As chief propulsion engineer for the Rockomax Corporation, he's been instrumental in all their many spaceflight successes including the Muna probes, the Endurance space station and of course, the joint Pioneer Program with the Kerbin Interplanetary Society. Good kerbals, please welcome Hanbal Kerman!" Hanbal smiled at the camera before turning back to the presenter. "It's good to be back, Tom. And as always, thank you for your kind introduction." "My pleasure, Hanbal. Now on my right is a kerbal who will need no introduction. Astronomer, founder of the field of planetary geology, and leader of the Probodyne deep space operations team, please welcome Dunney Kerman to the studio." Tom waited for the applause to die away. "And sitting next to him is Probodyne's Head of cis-Munar operations. She's an accomplished astrophysicist, now turned flight director at the Probodyne Deep Space Operations Centre, and most recently responsible for the highly successful Unity 1 Mün landing and joint mission with Pioneer 5. Good kerbals, I give you Germore Kerman!” Germore looked surprised at the enthusiastic round of applause. Dunney just smiled and leaned back in his chair. Tom looked at his three guests solemnly. "After the tragic events befalling the crewed space program and the unfortunate end to the KDS Stretch test flight, a lot of us here today would be glad for some good news. Dunney - is there anything you can tell us?" "Nothing that will make up for our loss," replied Dunney soberly. "Incidentally, I think I can speak for the whole Kerbin Space Agency when I say that I was particularly moved by the eulogy from Capital News. 'Going on leave amongst the stars' was a beautiful way to describe Ornie's final flight." He blinked, one hand unconsciously reaching for the folded handkerchief in his top pocket. "But to answer your question, yes, we do have some good news, or rather Germore does." Germore glanced at Tom, who nodded back. "Thank you, Dunney," she said quietly, adjusting the microphone at her collar. "On behalf of the Probodyne cis-Munar team, I can confirm that Minmus 1 has arrived at its destination and successfully completed its mission objectives. All four button probes have successfully reached the surface and, as of last night, the instrument packages on all four probes have started up on schedule and are transmitting data." "Well that is good news," said Tom. "But for everyone listening at home, perhaps you could tell us a little more about those uh... button probes?" "Certainly," said Germore. "They're simple, very lightweight probes, really not much more than a radio transmitter and a seismometer on the smallest lander we could build. We're going to need a lot of them for a complete Minmus network so we wanted to be able to send multiple buttons there on a single booster." "Seismometers? Are you looking for earthquakes - or I suppose that should be munquakes - on Minmus, Germore?" Germore smiled. "It does sound a little farfetched when you put it like that, Tom but yes we are. One of the first things we discovered with our original Minmus Explorer probe was that Minmus is actually a captured comet. How it got to Kerbin is a long story - and we're still not quite sure of all the details - but the important thing is that it's still active. It hasn't been in orbit around Kerbin for long enough to lose all its ices and other volatiles and, as we discovered, they're all boiling away still, giving Minmus a very thin atmosphere. Which is why it looks blue from a distance, just like Kerbin's atmosphere." Germore sipped at her water. "Now the problem is that the boiling isn't uniform. Quite the opposite in fact - we've spotted some quite spectacular eruptions from Minmus Explorer." Tom nodded. "So you need an early warning system to spot them before they go off under a crewed lander. Which I suppose brings me on to my next question. Why is the KSA going to Minmus, or even the Mün for that matter? Shouldn't we be spending all our time on Duna?" "Fear not, Tom," said Dunney, "If all goes well, we'll be launching a veritable flotilla of spacecraft to Duna when the next launch window opens. Hope 5 and Hope 6 from Barkton, Hope 7 and 8 from Foxham and we're hoping to launch a pair of communication satellites from the new Doreni launch site too. Launched on Doreni boosters no less - they're not as powerful as an Eve or a Rockomax Type Six - but they'll get a small satellite to Duna and getting the Doreni into the space launch business is going to be vital for Starseed." "That sounds more like it," said Tom, "but why all the probes?" "If you'll excuse this old astronomer ducking a technical question, Tom, I think Hanbal is better placed to answer this one.” "Propellant," said Hanbal succinctly. He leaned forward in his chair. "The biggest question we need to nail down before we can choose a colony ship design is; what engines are we using? Lots of options Tom, some of them better than others and none of them perfect. One thing's for sure though, if we could live off the land, in other words find a way of making propellant out at Duna, it could make everything a lot easier. We'd still have to work out how to make it of course, not to mention figuring out a way of refuelling our colony ships, and neither of those are going to be trivial problems to solve. But not having to lift each and every drop of fuel into orbit from Kerbin is such a huge advantage that we can't afford not to explore that option." Dunney nodded. "And to do that, we need to know what's out there to work with. Minmus Explorer already found water and ammonia, which are both good starting materials for making rocket fuels and, at a pinch, we could use them directly. We know there's a lot of hydrogen on Duna from the Hope 3 and 4 data and our best guess is that it's water ice, although we can't rule out sub-surface ammonia ice either. Hope 5 will be targeting a Dunan polar orbit and tasked with extending and updating our current survey data." Dunney took a sip of water. "Now Ike, on the other hand, we know almost nothing about bar some very tentative observational data from Kerbin. So Hopes 6 through 8 will be carrying out a detailed survey, dropping landers if necessary for a close up look at any interesting sites that we spot from orbit. All the probes will be carrying updated versions of the gamma and x-ray mapping instruments used on the Muna flights. "A real prospectin' mission then," said Tom, putting on an exaggerated Spierkan accent, "Och, you'll be hopin' for rocket fuel in them old plains." He cocked his head, "But how did you plan to use water as a rocket fuel?" Hanbal looked at him. Here goes nothing. "By using a nuclear rocket, Tom." He lifted his hands hastily. "And before we start, you should know that the LV-N programme is being run under strict oversight from the Kerbin Nuclear Standards Agency. I think everyone here can agree that the KNSA is not known for cutting corners with nuclear materials or for having any sense of humour whatsoever when it comes to health and safety. For one, it has already flatly forbidden us from flying nuclear rockets in Kerbin's atmosphere." Tom blinked. "LV-N is the wrong name then," he said weakly. "It can't be a launch vehicle engine if you can't use it till you get to space." Hanbal laughed. "Only on Engines and Engineers, Tom. Only on Engines and Engineers." His face turned serious. "Think of this as another option we can't afford not to explore. Water is a bad example actually - an LV-N running on water wouldn't be much more efficient than an ordinary rocket engine burning hydrogen and oxygen. Not that building one of those would be easy either but at least it wouldn't be radioactive. For a lot of other propellants though, a nuclear engine should be a lot more efficient and the more efficient our engine, the less reaction mass we need to get to Duna and the more actual cargo we can take with us." Hanbal rolled a gulp of water around his suddenly dry mouth. "Like I said, Tom, we're under strict oversight from the KNSA and the colony ships will only be using nuclear propulsion if there's a rock solid case for it and if the risks to crew safety can be made acceptably low." He looked the presenter in the eye. "I'm not going to lie to anyone here - there will be risks. We'll be using a high powered nuclear reactor with as little shielding as possible in order to minimise launch mass. But there are plenty of other risks to consider in a flight to Duna. If nuclear propulsion can offset some of those, then it might even make the overall flight slightly safer. That's a big If, Tom and at the moment I'm not about to promise anything either way. All I can say is that we're looking at all the options for our colony ship designs. Now, I'm happy to answer any questions as best I can but please bear in mind that I'm not a nuclear engineer." ----------- For the fourth time in as many minutes, the pilot checked her heading, altitude and transponder settings. Then, glancing at her copilot, she keyed her microphone. "Wakira ATC, KSA zero-six-zero requesting permission to enter Wakiran airspace." "KSA zero-six-zero, Wakira ATC. Please confirm flight plan and manifest." "KSA zero-six-zero is a Skyway inbound from Barkton at five, bearing two-nine-eight for KSA Site D. Manifest is VIP transport." "KSA zero-six-zero, standby. Please maintain current heading and altitude for visual inspection." "KSA zero-six-zero copies." The pilot toggled her microphone. "For Kerm's sake. Do they really think we're stupid enough to paint the wrong number on the tail. And they'd better be coming in low and slow - the last thing I want is some Wakiran wannabe shaking up my passenger!" Her copilot shrugged. "Reckon it'll take more than a fighter to rattle this passenger. Soon find out anyway - that'll be them on their way now." A glinting arrowhead arced up through the sky towards them, contrail suddenly bursting out behind it. The Wakiran plane swept past them at a discreet distance, before banking sharply onto their heading and taking up a position off their left wing. The copilot craned his neck, trying to catch a glimpse of it out of the cockpit window. "Looks like a Skysprite - they're obviously not too worried about us. Nothing under the wings that I can see, can't spot anything under the nose either from this angle but I'm betting they're rigged with some kind of cannon." "Probably," she grunted, resetting her microphone and scanning her instruments; resisting the instinctive urge to pull away to a safer distance from the unnaturally close aircraft. "KSA zero-six-zero, Wakira ATC. You are cleared for Wakiran airspace, confirm you inbound for KSA Site D. Thank you for your cooperation." "Wakira ATC, KSA zero-six-zero copies. Thank you." The Skysprite peeled away from them, diving out of sight. The little Skyway passenger jet flew on towards the desert, its pilot wiping the sweat from her forehead. ----------- Wernher stacked his notes together and tucked them neatly back into his briefcase on the seat next to him. Seeing the movement, the steward padded quietly over and refilled his coffee cup. He smiled a quick thanks, rubbed the bridge of his nose thoughtfully and checked his watch. Outside his window the gently scalloped cliffs of the Kolan Western Peninsula were just giving way to turquoise coastal waters. To the northwest, hidden by haze and distance, the narrow Jhazi Straits marked the closest point between Kolan and Wakiran territorial waters. Myriad wakes criss-crossed the sea, as the Skyway flew out over deeper waters. Squadrons of smaller boats trailed white v-shaped threads behind them, contrasting with the ropy, forked comet tails of froth churned up by the bigger container ships. Wernher watched a larger formation of vessels steam past underneath him, parallel wakes precisely scored across the azure waves. He sighed. So much for a Wakiran spaceport. They'd never be able to clear a launch corridor through all of that. And given the payloads we'd be launching...He shuddered. Which means we'll need to transport the LV-N cores overland to Barkton which'll just be a different headache. Wernher rubbed his eyes. Fortunately not one that I'll need to deal with directly. He swallowed a mouthful of coffee and pulled the next stack of notes out of his briefcase. Buried in his work, Wernher failed to notice the light go on above his head or the soft chime that accompanied it. The steward cleared his throat more loudly, eyes deliberately fixed on the opposite cabin wall. "I'm sorry sir but we're starting our descent. Please could you refasten your seatbelt and return your table to its stowed position." Wernher gathered up his papers, flipping them face down as he slid them into a buff folder, prominently marked with the Seal of Twelve Pillars and the letters KNSA arranged in a square. "Of course," he answered. "and thank you for letting me know." The steward smiled and went back to his seat. Wernher stared around the little twelve-seater cabin, working the cricks out of his neck before turning to the window again. The Wakiran east coast was just coming into view, a meagre strip of dusty green that rapidly petered out into duns and ochres. From the opposite window, the distant Diamondback mountains stretched across the horizon. The plane banked, revealing a glimpse of habitation strung out along the banks of a convoluted river delta. A labyrinth of jetties and pontoon bridges, decked out in gaudy fabric awnings added to the confusion. Away from the banks, the settlement became a recognisably kerman town, although rather more haphazardly organised than most and with a noticeable lack of greenery. The Skyway rolled wings level and lowered its undercarriage with a rumbling thump. It flew over a main road, dipped over a chain link fence and then, with a dainty flare, touched down neatly on the smaller runway of Balcabar International Airport. Wernher waited patiently until the plane had come to a standstill before gathering his luggage and making his way to to the exit. The cabin door opened and the heat hit him like a wall. A prickle of sweat broke out on Wernher's forehead and, just as quickly, was sucked away by the thirsty sun. The parched air smelled of aviation fuel, flint dust and over-baked stone. Bracing himself, he thanked the steward, hurried down the aircraft steps and made his way to the terminal building. A lone kerbal, dressed in a loose but heavy hooded poncho, waited for him just outside the door. "Wernher? Good to meet you - glad you made it on time. I'm Hading." Hading pushed back his hood and thrust a bottle of water at Wernher. "Here, let me take the bags - you'd better get some of this into you." He whisked Wernher through the airport, past a pair of security stations and into a small but thoroughly air-conditioned off-roader parked in a private car park. "It's a couple of hours to Site D I'm afraid. Feel free to nap on the way - I won't be offended by the lack of conversation and Kerm knows the scenery isn't worth staying up for." Wernher placed his briefcase carefully on the floor between his feet. "I'm fine thank you," he said. "Besides, the flight steward was very...attentive with the coffee - I'm not sure I could sleep yet if I tried." "Fair enough," said Hading, starting the car, "In that case, hail and farewell to Balcabar - city of a thousand mosquitoes - and welcome to the beginning of the middle of nowhere." He drove past the airport gates and pulled out onto the main road, accelerating briskly. Wernher stared at the ribbon of shimmering black asphalt receding into the distance. "A thousand dessicated mosquitoes perhaps," he said. "It gets a lot more muggy down-town," said Hading. "Somebody once told me that Balcabar is a shortening of Bal-cabara in old Kerba. Translates to 'homes on the sand' apparently, which seems a daft name for a town built on a river delta but there you go. Anyway, enough of the local history - did you manage to get through the briefing notes I sent you?" A little more local history might have been nice, Wernher thought. "I finished the last of them on the plane," he answered. "By my reading, your materials test program is going well, you have a shortlist of fuel element designs and reactor configurations drawn up but the fabrication work hasn't started yet?" Hading nodded. "Preliminary materials testing has been done off-site - no sense building a new lab for that in the middle of a desert. So far we've been optimising for reducing propellants, as per your recommendations, but we have started looking at coatings capable of handling water.” "Good," said Wernher. "We won't get much of a specific impulse advantage from water but there's plenty of it out there for refuelling. Assuming we can persuade the KNSA that an LV-N is still required if we're only running it on water." "What else would we use?" asked Hading. "Hypergolics are no good - I'm no rocket engineer but I've been doing some reading too and even I could tell you that the mass fraction would be lousy. Kerosene and liquid oxygen still wouldn't be as good as a water propelled nuke and boil-off on the oxygen would be horrible. I don't even want to think about using liquid hydrogen." "We could use water as a portable hydrogen supply and electrolyse it as required," said Wernher. Hading glanced at him incredulously before turning his attention back to the road. "You can't be serious," he said. "Unless you actual rocket engineers are comfortable with far more points of failure than I would be." "I didn't say it was a good solution," said Wernher mildly, "but it would be a non-nuclear one." "Provided you can hang several net-ball courts worth of photovoltaics off the ship," muttered Hading. "Agreed," said Wernher, "And that's one factor that the design team are looking at very closely. We won't have a final answer until the latest set of Hope probes reach Duna space next year, so in the meantime the KSA are running parallel design programmes for the colony ships and demonstrator programmes for key technologies." "That figures," said Hading. "So far we've only been resourced for a single test stand and one prototype. So you and I will be picking the most likely reactor design and deciding how to turn it into a working nuclear rocket. That's our turn-off up ahead - give me a minute." Wernher caught sight of a signpost just before Hading pulled off onto a side road. Fresh black asphalt abruptly gave way to a broad swathe of hard packed pavement, innumerable heavy gauge tyre tracks just visible against the densely compacted surface. Hading reached for the water bottle wedged into his door tray and downed half of it in a single gulp. "Get some more down you," he advised. "Don't let the cold fool you - it's still drier than an a mallek's temper in here so you need to keep drinking." Wernher nodded and took a swallow from his own bottle. For a while he watched the desert roll past. "I've been thinking about the reactors," he said at last. "Configuration C seems like the best option, especially if we can run a heat exchanger off the secondary coolant channels and use it to drive a generator. The extra electrical power would be helpful." "We can do that with any of the configurations," said Hading glumly. "Figured you'd pick the toughest option though." "It just looked like the highest propellant flow option," said Wernher, "Granted, we'll never be launching anything on an LV-N but a semi-reasonable thrust to weight ratio will make the trajectories a lot easier to work with." "Yeah but higher propellant flow means more cooling and bigger thermal gradients across the core to design around," said Hading. "Not to mention that all that lovely propellant is also going to make a lovely neutron moderator, giving us an interestingly non-linear feedback loop during startup." Wernher grimaced. "What about normal operation." "Shouldn't be too bad once we're at steady state flow," said Hading. "Unless you wanted it to be throttleable too. The control drums will need to be fail-safe of course and we'll build in a thermal cutout. Worst case scenario is that the reactor shuts down before going runaway. Not ideal during a critical manoeuvre but a sight better than having to cope with a nuclear meltdown on the back of your spacecraft. Anyway, these are the sort of trifling small details that we''re here to work out.” "At least the engine design won't be too complicated said Wernher, "No igniters required, single pump..." His voice trailed away thoughtfully. "I'll take your word for it," said Hading. "Good to hear we get some breaks with this thing." Both engineers took another swig of water and lapsed into companionable silence. Kerbol was dipping low in the sky when Hading pulled up outside a heavy steel security gate. Chain link fence stretched out in either direction from the gate, fronted by a double row of large concrete blocks, spaced far enough apart to let a kerbal through but nothing larger. Armed guards patrolled behind the fence. In the distance Wernher saw a handful of blocky, white-painted outbuildings, their roofs glinting in the setting sun. Behind them, an enormous barn-like structure and a gantry crane stood out against the skyline. To his surprise, a ring of floodlight poles surrounded both crane and barn. Hading saw his expression. “Not much to the place at the moment,” he said. “The business end of the test stand is all underground - you can see the loading crane on the horizon there. That architectural masterpiece next to it is where all the construction gear is parked out of the way of any passing sandstorms. Building work tends to happen at night when it’s cooler, hence the floodlights. As for the rest of it, well that’s home sweet home. Welcome to Site D.” << Chapter 65: Chapter 67>>