KSK

Next chapter is up. Diplomacy “Nine...eight...ignition sequence start." Hanbal sensed rather than saw the sudden flare from the test stand. Eyes fixed on his console, he watched the precisely scripted sequence of telltales and pressure gauges spring to life. Outside, the light blossomed into a fierce orange glare that sent shadows dancing and flickering around the corners of the room. Pressures looking good. Come on baby, come on. The orange glare dimmed briefly then rapidly intensified into a searing yellow-white fury. The window edges cast knife-edged shadows over Hanbal's head. Heavy ear defenders protected him from the worst of the noise but they couldn't wholly blot out the awesome, staccato thunder that threatened to blow reinforced glass over his console. He barely heard the last seconds of the countdown. “Two...one...and zero. Engine running! Full thrust!" Hanbal held his breath. Come on, come on, come... One of the pressure gauges flickered, held, then spiked wildly, setting off a cascade of warning lights and shutdown indicators. He slapped his hand down on the prominent - and extremely sturdy - manual shutdown button, just as the noise from the explosion rolled over the bunker. Hanbal pounded on the button with his fist, shoved his chair back from the console and stalked out of the room. Outside, all that remained of the SK2-C were twin fans of dirt, debris and twisted splinters of metal gouged across the prairie. ----------------- “Ten percent, ten percent...throttle up. Smooth transition. Flow rates good." Ornie checked his engine status indicators. “I see them. Descent engine at full thrust. Throttle control in auto-one." He glanced over the rest of the control panel, sighed and took a swig of coffee. “You've got as much chance as any of them," said Wernher softly Ornie set his mug down on the control panel where it rested neatly in the gap left by a missing gauge. “I know," he said. “One in twelve ain't bad odds either." He stared at the test stand. “Still reckon I'd want the crasher stage for my landing though. Use a proper high thrust engine for the brakin' burn an' a proper low thrust engine for the landin' rather than trying to cram them together into one piece. No disrespect intended." “None taken," Wernher said equably, “Since you well know that I agreed with you and Bob at the beginning. Jeb's right about those Muna photographs though. They're just not good enough to pick out a smooth landing site, however long Neling spends poring over them with a magnifying glass. Even if they were, I wouldn't take large bets on being able to hit that site reliably." Ornie looked at him wearily. “I know, I know. And Gene's right too - stagin' anything that close to the Mün is just adding its own lot of problems to a busy checklist. I'd just feel a lot happier if we weren't resting the Munar landing on a design that we borrowed from an old lawn sprinkler." He glanced at the engine indicators. “It wasn't even the latest model sprinkler for Kerm's sake!" Wernher's mouth twitched. “It doesn't sound very promising when you put it like that," he conceded, “and I certainly wouldn't want to build anything bigger than the 909 around a conical impingement injector." He gestured at the roaring test stand behind its blast shields and shrugged. “But it does work." “So far," said Ornie. There was a long silence. “OK, coming up to pitch-over. Throttling down in three...two...one..." The engine noise dropped to merely very loud, rather than deafening. Wernher stayed tactfully silent as he watched his deputy's hands reaching for non-existent switches and buttons, unfocused eyes staring past the test stand at a private vista. “Auto-one holding, good radar return, delta-H nominal," Ornie murmured to himself. He shook his head, deliberately resting his hands on the edge of the console with a small, embarrassed grin. “Sorry, boss - kilometres away." “Nearly four hundred thousand kilometres I make it," Wernher said gently. “About that," said Ornie. He reached for the engine controls. “Ready for the abort to orbit test?" Wernher nodded. Ornie threw a switch. “Throttle to manual..." He jammed a lever forward and the engine responded with a willing bellow. Wernher watched the simulated propellant level readouts drop to zero and right on cue, the engine coughed and fell silent. “Ascent engine armed...abort stage...ignition." Wernher raised his eyebrows at Ornie's astonished look. Ornie opened his mouth to speak, thought better of it and then burst out laughing. “I tell you what, boss - let's scrounge some simulator time once the Booth Crew have 'em set up properly - and get this piloting stuff out of both our systems." “Better not get it too far out in case you end up being picked," said Wernher checking his watch. “Speaking of which, Jeb should have found that wastepaper basket by now. And I don't care whether you're picked or not - I'm still going to want a hand stripping down that engine afterwards." ----------------- Jeb unfolded the piece of paper and looked up at the assembled - and impatiently waiting - Kerbin Interplanetary Society. "I'll do this the traditional way round," he announced. "The bad news is that Genie's just lost one of his best Guidance controllers for Pioneer 2. The good news is that she's gonna be right up there, running the guidance systems in person. Congratulations, Neling!" Geneney glanced at Bob. A flicker of disappointment crossed the other kerbal's features, as he watched Jeb dip his hand into the drift of paper slips at the bottom of his wastepaper basket and drew out two neatly folded squares. "The first crewmember for Pioneer 3 is...Seanan. And for Pioneer 4, I give you...Malmy." Seanan blinked shyly at the rest of the capsule and life support team. "Guess somebody else is going to be doing the evaporator redesign," he murmured. “Good timing there, Malm!" Ornie called out. “We've got your descent engine all shined up for you!" Jeb grinned. “We're gonna need more of those lawn sprinklers." he said cheerfully. “Gene and I have been talking with Ademone and it seems that Rockomax are in for a couple more flights than we thought!" Bob sucked his breath in sharply. Geneney crossed his fingers silently behind his back. The babble of excited voices rose to a clamour as Jeb lifted his hands for silence. “So if you lot'll let me get a word in edgeways, we've got another three kerbonauts to pick!" The clamour subsided to a buzzing anticipation as Jeb's hand dropped towards the basket. “The first crewmember for Pioneer 5 is...Lucan! And for Pioneer 6 it's gonna be..." Jeb unfolded the small square of paper and smiled. Geneney saw his friend relax minutely and uncrossed his fingers. “Bob." The warehouse exploded. Bill grabbed the younger kerbal round the waist and hugged him, much to Bob's astonishment and the astonishment of everyone else around them. The jostling, raucous crowd of well-wishers parted to let Geneney, Wernher and Lucan through. Jeb clenched his fist exultantly under the table. Beaming, he lifted the basket high over his head and rattled it for attention. “And last - but hopefully not for long - the first crewmember for Pioneer 7 is..." Jeb's eyes narrowed fractionally. What in the..." He glanced up and saw Geneney staring steadily back at him. Oh. He dipped his head respectfully and cleared his throat. “is Bill! We'll have a bottle of '78 citrus waiting for you when you get back, old friend!" Jeb gathered up the remaining paper slips and stacked them on the table in front of him. The clamour of enthusiastic voices died away, replaced by a steady ripping of paper as he methodically tore a sheet of paper into twelve pieces. “Like Gene said right at the start,"he said quietly, “we we need experience for these flights so we're picking commanders from all the kerbonauts who have already flown." Jeb gathered the ragged slips of paper together and laid them down in a second, much smaller stack. “Twelve slips for twelve pilots," he said. “You all know who you are, we all know who you are and I'm betting that I could walk out of here, speak to any two kerbals on Barkton high street and they would know who you are." Jeb paused. “So none of you have anything to prove. You, more than anyone, know the risks and if you decide that the Mün is a risk too far - well I for one wouldn't blame you." Jeb pointed at the smaller stack of paper on the table. “So I'm gonna ask you all to get in line and sign one of those. If anyone doesn't want to go, all they need to do is write "no" on their paper. Once we're done, I'm gonna burn all the slips so that nobody - me included - will ever know if you chose not to go or if you were just unlucky." Jeb dropped his name into the basket and joined the rest of the crowd. Everyone watched solemnly as, one by one, eleven kerbonauts approached the table, wrote something on one of the slips and dropped it into Jeb's basket. Finally, it was Wilford's turn. He thought for a moment, nodded resolutely and wrote a single, short word on his paper. “Thank you everybody." Jeb shook the basket vigorously, closed his eyes and pulled out the first slip. His eyebrows rose as he read it. “Don't remember signing my name in block capitals. Whoever wrote this - I appreciate the sentiment but..." Jeb drew another name from the basket and his eyebrows climbed past his hairline. “Ohhh-kay. Looks like we've got a sudden outbreak of Jebs on our hands. He cleared his throat. “This is...generous of everyone but I'm just gonna keep drawing these till I find a real name." Wilford glanced surreptitiously at his fellow pilots. Ornie's shoulders were shaking, Ribory had her hand over her mouth and the rest were unsuccessfully to keep a straight face. He raised his hand. “Uh, boss. I don't think you're going to find anything but Jebs in there." Ornie's guffaw startled a pair of roosting swifts from the upper reaches of the warehouse roof. He cuffed Richlin on the shoulder. “You too?" Richlin's face cracked into a broad grin. “Yup. You, me and everyone else by the looks of it!" Stubbornly, amidst mounting laughter, Jeb pulled one slip of paper after another out of the basket. For a long minute he stared at twelve copies of his name in twelve different scripts, before lifting his head to face the eleven kerbonauts. “I don't get it." Wernher sighed. “For a smart kerbal you can be amazingly dense at times, Jeb," he said. He gave the kerbonauts a lopsided grin. “OK folks - if you think we're building three Mün rockets for this dunce to fly, I suggest you think again. Which flight did you want to send him on?" “I can't speak for the rest of 'em," said Ornie, “but Pioneer 4 was the one I had in mind." Richlin and Wilford nodded vigorously. The other kerbonauts murmured their assent. Wernher looked slightly taken aback. “Pioneer 4. The first..." “Landing attempt?" Ornie interrupted. “Yep - sounds about right."He turned to face a flabbergasted Jeb. “Close your mouth, son, or you'll be catchin' flies as my mother used to say. You see boss, everyone builds 'em and everyone flies 'em is a fine system - couldn't ask for a better one if y'askin me - but there's one thing you're forgetting. Someone had to start building them before anyone could fly 'em." Ornie looked Jeb squarely in the eye."I'm remembering me and Richlin sharing a beer with six crazy characters who'd just finished sinking most everything they had in the world into their first halfway proper rocket." Ornie jabbed a thumb over his shoulder at Bill, Bob and Lucan. “And I'm mighty glad to see them finally getting their chance to fly a real one! But even back then one especially crazy character was jabbering on about landing on the Mün - seems only right that he should get the first chance to do just that." Jeb's jaw hung open. “I...I don't know what to say," he mumbled hoarsely. “And that's another first right there," added Geneney, rolling his eyes. "More likely you're just gonna be flying another lander around Kerbin for a week, Jeb. If you ask really, really nicely, I might trust you to dock it too." Jeb summoned up a feeble grin. "Suits me, Gene." The grin faded, replaced by a familiar determined expression. "But if I do get the chance, I won't let you down. Anyway - enough of me - we've got another two commanders to pick!" ----------------- The lingering smell of charred paper followed the rest of the Kerbin Interplanetary Society out of the warehouse door. Jeb stared at the guttering flames in the bottom of his wastepaper basket, rolling a tiny, tightly wound tube of paper between his fingers. Good decision, Gene - nobody's gonna be concentrating on precision work after all that. Afternoon on the beach is the best plan. He sighed, unrolled the tube and read it again: Bob > Lucan > Bill > Geneney Calzer and Neling, Ribory and Bob. Couldn't ask for better Munar crews if we'd picked them by hand, old friend. Not to mention Malmy. But if we do find a way to launch another set of Pioneers, you'll get to fly one of them - I promise you that. Jeb touched the curl of paper to the fire and watched silently as it burned. ----------------- "Well they did say we couldn't miss it," Tommal commented. Sherfel watched the oversized signboard roll past. "No," she agreed. "Big enough to make the marketing team blush. Except maybe for Hadcott - I don't think that kerbal has any shame. Relax, Tom - this road looks too new to have any lumps or bumps in it." Tommal's eyes flicked back and forth to the road surface. “Probably," he agreed, "but after driving all this way I'd be grumpy if we broke anything with only three kilometres to go." “With the amount of padding James wrapped them in?" said Sherfel. “We could have dropped them in by parachute and they'd have been fine." Tommal shrugged. “Even so. Hey - that's more like it!" He pointed through the windscreen. “Will you look at the size of that thing!" Sherfel stared at the giant radio telescope on the hillside, before lowering her gaze to the main administration building surrounded by its carefully maintained grounds and clusters of outbuildings. Antennas twinkled in the sunlight and as they drove closer she could make out dozens of kerbals bustling from building to building. They pulled up at a set of bollards that blocked their way and Tommal wound down the window to confer with a serious looking kerbal in a gleaming white booth. The smell of fresh paint drifted through the open window. “Good afternoon. Tommal Kerman from the Rockomax Corporation - we were told you'd be expecting us?" The security guard consulted a clipboard.“Special delivery for Probodyne?" Tommal nodded. “That's right." “Carry on past the main car park, sir. Probodyne is the second unit on the left - you won't miss it."The guard thumbed a button on the booth wall and the bollards sank smoothly into the road. “Thank you." Tommal wound up his window and cautiously drove forward over their steel rimmed sockets. I think we could have found our way here without any help Sherfel thought to herself. The Probodyne buildings had quite obviously been built to the same design as the other outbuildings - and it was equally obvious that Probodyne had outgrown them some time ago. A row of large temporary cabins surrounded the largest building on two sides, each with a bundle of cables snaking out of one wall. The cables plugged into yellow and black striped .junction boxes, ruler-straight lines of earth marking the buried cables that linked them to the central building. A huge steel scaffold stood between two of the smaller buildings. Fully ten metres high and twice as long, it towered over a surreal concrete sculpture of plateaus, steps and angled ramps. Spindly frameworks of different designs, adorned with varying numbers of articulated legs, hung underneath. Tommal's eyes lit up. "There it is! Or the engineering model anyway." A giant four-legged metal beetle squatted on a bed of sand and gravel in front of the scaffold. Antennas and clusters of sensors protruded from its matt grey carapace and a long jointed proboscis sniffed at the ground in front of it. The yellow-hatted kerbal standing next to it hurried over to greet them. "Hi - I'm Sidbo! You must be from Rockomax? Come on in and meet the team!" Tommal and Sherfel followed the enthusiastically chattering Sidbo towards the main building. "We thought we'd be trying the Hope probes out at Duna first but the transfer windows didn't work so we built them for a Laythe mission instead. Nothing like aiming high, right? The flight profile isn't what we'd hoped for either - not enough delta-V for the perturbation at Jool and orbital insertion at Laythe - not with an off-the-shelf launcher. Which is why we needed you to make a thicker heatshield for the aeroshell because this baby will be coming in hot! Shame about the orbiter but we should still get some good data on the fly-by. Anyway, here we are." Two kerbals were waiting for them in the foyer. Cartoon bedecked partition walls divided the sides of the room into open cubicles stuffed with computer screens, electronic test stands and other equipment that Sherfel couldn't begin to recognise. The central space was strewn with sack chairs and low tables, each overflowing with catalogues, scientific journals and other technical publications. Framed papers from various journals decorated the far wall, including a poster sized article from Astronomical Proceedings. Sherfel's eyebrows rose as she read the title: "Composition and dynamics of the Minmusian atmosphere?" "Preliminary dynamics naturally," said the taller of the two kerbals, "although from the spectroscopy data, I’d venture to suggest that the composition is a settled question." He rubbed his hands together, "We're rather hoping to write a follow up on the Laythian atmosphere in a year or so, if all my clever colleagues manage to butter up their computers the right way! I'm Dunney by the way and this is Jernie." Sherfel smiled. "I know, Professor. It's a privilege to meet you." Dunney waved his hand. "Did you all hear that? A privilege no less and this from a Mün voyaging kerbonaut! Our good friends at Rockomax must be going up in the world if they can afford to employ couriers such as these." Sherfel laughed. "We were heading to Barkton in any case, Professor - it was the least we could do." "That's Dunney if you please - and they're surely not sending you to the Mün again?" “No, it's Tom's turn this time," Sherfel answered, gesturing at her colleague. “I'm just sneaking in a visit to a couple of friends before helping out with the simulations." "Pioneer 2 is only going to Kerbin orbit anyway," said Tommas, "Flight testing the Munar lander, squeezing any problems out of the vehicle assembly sequence, that kind of thing." He turned to a wide eyed Sidbo and smiled. =“We're not the ones going to Jool and Duna." "An excellent point, " said Dunney. "Why don't we go and unload the heat shields that our distinguished guests have so kindly brought us and then we can do the guided tour if they have time." "We can make time," said Tommas, "I don't know about Sherfel but I'm itching to get a closer look at that Laythe lander you've got outside!" --------- "Geneney! Jeb!" Jeb spun on his heel to see a pair of smartly dressed kerbals crossing the road behind him. He frowned. "Nelton? Ademone? What on Kerbin are you doing here?" Ademone raised her eyebrows. "It's good to see you too, Jeb. Hello, Geneney - has the good Director summoned you too?" "Summoned is a good word for it," said Geneney equably. "I don't suppose you have any idea what this is all about?" Ademone shook her head. "No. Although it's obviously more significant than we thought if yourself and Jebediah are here as well." Nelton's scowl matched Jeb's. "It had better be," she said. "There are many, many things I could usefully be doing right now and almost none of them involve sitting in a meeting room." Geneney held the door open for everyone. "It would have been nice to say hello to Sherf and Tommal before we left, " he agreed. "Do you think they've invited anybody else?" "Just the four of you, Geneney." Lodan stepped forward, hand extended in greeting. "If you could come this way please - we have a lot to discuss and I don't intend to take up more of your valuable time than I can help." Geneney looked around approvingly at the plainly painted corridor and minimalist, institutional green carpet tiles. Briskly, Lodan led them up an echoing, white stairwell, along another, equally austere, section of corridor and stopped outside his office door. Geneney squinted at the small, brass nameplate fixed to one corner, catching a glimpse of neat black lettering before being ushered inside. The welcoming aromas of fresh coffee and hot snacks greeted them. Geneney sniffed appreciatively. "Doreni Blue, Director?" Lodan looked at him in surprise. "Indeed. I have lemon, anise or bru..." He saw the hastily masked expression on Geneney's face. "Ahh. Black, I presume?" Geneney nodded and poured himself a cup. "Mountain spring water shouldn't need lemon to make it drinkable," he said, "and I wouldn't dare sully your Doreni porcelain anyway." He closed his eyes and raised the cup to his mouth, inhaling the bitter, slightly spicy steam before taking a tiny sip and blissfully rolling the hot black liquid around his mouth. His eyes snapped open to find Jeb, Nelton and Ademone staring at him dumbfounded. “Superb. If you go anywhere near this with the anise, Jeb, you're walking home. It'd be like drinking one of Jorfurt's brews with ice." Geneney looked at Lodan, who was looking slightly taken aback. “How on Kerbin did you move the cups without disturbing the glaze?" Lodan smiled faintly. “Boiled raf husk," he said, “The only thing I could find that was soft, odourless and resilient enough. Even then, I didnÃ't risk transporting them until the road was finished - but perhaps we should discuss this later." He gestured at the chairs set around the fireplace. “I propose a working lunch. Please help yourselves to refreshment and we'll make a start." Lodan waited until everybody had filled their plates before tapping the table for attention. “I'll get straight to the point," he said. “Under Special Order 41 of the Council of Twelve Pillars, the Kerbin Space Agency will be tasked with overseeing a far-reaching expansion of all spaceflight activities. Under Special Order 42, the Director of the Kerbin Space Agency has been granted requisition powers on any necessary resources or personnel to enable that expansion." There was silence as everyone absorbed Lodan's matter-of-fact announcement. Then Ademone saw Jeb's face darken and hastily stepped in. “Two Special Orders together is...unusual," she said carefully. Beside her, Geneney nodded agreement. “In fact," she continued, “I'm not sure if I've ever heard of such a thing before. Would you care to explain, Director?" Across the table, Nelton winced but Lodan was either oblivious to Ademone's tone of voice or choosing to ignore it. “Certainly. I trust you will all remember the Capital News bulletin the evening before the Pioneer 1 launch?" Four heads nodded slowly. “Nothing about that story was remotely new. In fact - for reasons I'll come on to - the link between Kerm and Blight had been known for some time..." --------- “My understanding is that the Council are still debating the necessity for Part 3 and that a significant minority is still hoping for a result from the Berelgan. But if we are ordered to go ahead, then we'll have whatever resources and funding we need. Which is cold comfort since we will not have anything like the time we need. Nevertheless, as failure will manifestly not be an option either, we will all do what we must." Lodan rolled up his maps and nodded politely at Ademone. =“Does that answer your question?" Jeb shook his head in disbelief. “Well thank the Kerm for Ambassador Jerfun! Or were the great-and-wise Council actually planning to tell the rest of us mere kerbals about any of this?" He glanced at Geneney. “Better check the fine print on this one, Gene, because I'm betting that's gonna stink too." “The Council," Lodan said evenly, “were planning to do exactly the right thing. Evaluate the evidence, make a plan and implement it. All that... idiot Ambassador has managed to achieve is to stir up a global panic and make everyone's job far harder than it needed to be." “And what a wonderful idea that turned out to be!" retorted Jeb, “Even if the Council had managed to keep everything quiet until they had a plan - which was never going to happen - did they seriously expect everyone to meekly follow their plan and not to panic?" Lodan's eyelid twitched. "Of course not," he said, “only the rational majority. And better that than an irrational, uninformed majority clamouring for answers that nobody could give!" “And still can't!" said Jeb, “I don't suppose it occurred to anyone to ask the 'uninformed majority' or their ideas?" He snorted. “Of course not. So all that patronising prevarication has got us exactly nowhere." "With respect," said Lodan tightly, “the Council has sought opinion from all over Kerbin. The foremost experts on Kerm..." The expression on Jeb's face brought him up short. “Experts," said Jeb sardonically, “don't cope well with challenges to their expertise." He leaned forward. “The Institute was so stuffed full of experts that it could barely move. Exactly one of them had the vision to see past the inside of his own head - and he's just flown back from the Mün in a spacecraft that he designed and built himself!" Jeb jabbed a finger at Lodan. “Go ask the "experts"about your precious Part 3 - I guarantee that none of them will give you answer worth half a..." “Which is why there's a conspicuous lack of Institute staff here today," snapped Lodan. “In case you hadn't noticed!" He leaned forward and knocked JebÃ's finger to one side. “So why don't you sit down, shut up and saw that chip off your shoulder before it tips you over!" “So what do you think, Ademone?" asked Geneney quietly. Ademone shrugged. “Part 1 is a stop-gap and Part 3 is desperation. I think we'd better hope for some answers from the Berelgan." Geneney nodded. “Likewise. But if they don't - or can't - find them?" “Then Part 3 will be the least worst option," said Ademone heavily. “Although I'm not convinced that the Council knows quite what it's asking for." Jeb and Lodan scowled at each other before pointedly sitting back in their seats and turning to face the others. Geneney reached for a djan and crunched it thoughtfully. “What about those requisition powers?" he said at last "Will your Board go for that?" “A Special Order wouldn't give them much choice," Ademone pointed out, “But they would certainly question the need for such a drastic measure when a perfectly ordinary subcontract might have the same effect." She looked at Lodan. “Is there any particular reason why the KSA feels the need to have quite that level of oversight?" Lodan gripped the edge of the table. “Because," he said, “Part 3 is too big for the KSA to risk having its subcontractors indulge in such pointlessly dangerous stunts as sending prototype crewed spacecraft around the Mün. I had hoped that Rockomax could temper that kind of foolishness from the KIS but apparently not." Lodan glared at Ademone. “For Kerm's sake - what were you thinking?! Strand those kerbonauts around the Mün and all the public enthusiasm for your space program would have vanished like Spierkan mist." Geneney shot Jeb a warning look. "We didn't though, did we. Strand them I mean. And thanks to KBS News, our public support is running at an all time high." He spread his hands. "It was a calculated risk, Director but one that all three kerbonauts and both mission control teams were willing to take. "Small risks too, compared to anything we'll need to take for Part 3," said Nelton soberly. "Real-time flight control teams will work for Munar missions and Minmus missions but for anything further afield, the crew will effectively be on their own for most of the flight." Lodan absorbed her words unblinkingly. "For now," added Geneney, "we have a sequence of test flights planned intended to minimise the risks of the eventual Munar landing." He ticked off the flights on his fingers. "Pioneer 2 - Kerbin orbit test of the complete Pioneer spacecraft, lander included. Pioneer 3 - full flight test up to Munar descent orbit including emergency abort options. If - and only if - we complete our test objectives for both flights, then we make the first landing attempt with Pioneer 4." "And which lucky kerbonaut gets to fly that," muttered Lodan. "Jondun, Malmy and Jeb," answered Geneney. He held up a finger. "And before we go any further, Director, you should know that the eleven other candidates for the commander's seat all independently voted to give the flight to Jeb. You might want to think about that for a moment." "Jondun is one of our most experienced test pilots, " said Ademone quietly, "and my Head of Propulsion has been very impressed with Malmy throughout the lander development program." "We know the risks, Director," said Geneney, "so let us take them for you. If our Munar program is successful then you can present Part 3 as not only feasible but inevitable. And if we fail then the KSA stays clear of any public backlash. Frankly, Director, the very last thing I would do right now is exercise Special Order 42." Lodan looked at him thoughtfully. "I'm waiting for the other Mün boot to drop, Geneney. What does the KIS expect to get in return?" "Independence," said Geneney frankly. "All or nothing, Director. If the KSA is going to requisition us, it requisitions us the way we are." "And keeps the meddling government out of Jebediah's hair," said Lodan dryly. "Even if they are bankrolling his dreams." "Exactly," said Geneney unperturbed, "We get to dream and the KSA gets half of their crewed spaceflight division at a stroke. If I could make a bold suggestion, Director, I would also venture that Rockomax's crewed program, would make an eminently sensible and highly complementary second half, under a similar arrangement." He smiled. "Much as it would pain Wernher to admit it, Rockomax are the premier space engineering company on Kerbin at this time, particularly for heavy lift. They have the experience, the facilities and the organisational structures already in place..." "So why fix what isn't broken," interrupted Jeb. Lodan favoured him with a wintry smile. "Indeed. In which case, why do I also need the KIS?" "Because we're not broken either," said Geneney, "And we work well with Rockomax. On our own we managed to compete with them - we launched a satellite and Rockomax launched a bigger one. We launched a kerbal into space, Rockomax launched two at once. Rockomax sent a probe to the Mün but we put one into Munar orbit. And so on." Geneney paused. “But working together we sent kerbals to the Mün." "And much as it pains me to admit it," said Ademone, "I think the KSA would be... ill advised to break up a media friendly team of volunteers with such an obvious track record. Even if they also managed to turn one of our best kerbonauts into a drilling fool." Nelton grinned at Geneney and Jeb's suddenly bewildered expressions. "The heat shields for Hope 1 and Hope 2," she told Lodan. "For various reasons the fabrication team was short staffed, so James volunteered to help. Made a fine job of them too but got a reputation for being happiest when he was drilling out defective cells." Geneney laughed. "I'll be sure to let Ribory know," he said, "She'll be delighted to hear it." He turned to a stony-faced Lodan. “We all build them - we all fly them. It's our motto, Director and it's also the literal truth. When Sherfel and James were training for the Pioneer 1 flight, they had the good grace to go along with it. Sherfel ended up coordinating our multi-site training simulations, James ended up building sizeable pieces of the heat shields for Pioneer 2." Geneney sipped his coffee. “Every single one of our kerbonauts - and every single member of their flight control teams, myself and Jeb included - had a part to play in building and designing their spacecraft. More importantly, they had a part to play in building their colleagues' and more often than not, their friends' spacecraft. It's taken us years to build that kind of teamwork and team spirit, Director and I hope you'll agree that both would be significant assets to a space agency tasked with meeting a very large challenge in a very short time." In reply, Lodan walked over to his desk and picked up the phone. "Tomass, could you hold my calls please. Yes, for the rest of the afternoon. Please convey my apologies to Dunney and ask him if he would be so kind as to reschedule to tomorrow morning. Thank you." He poured himself another coffee and sat down at the table. “Very well. My phone is at your disposal, good kerbals. Please make any calls you need to, take a break if you require one and then make yourselves comfortable. I think it's time to talk details." << Chapter 46: Chapter 48>>

I've been playing games since the days of my trusty ZX Spectrum. KSP isn't my favourite game of all time - I doubt I could pick one absolute favourite game - but it's definitely in my top ten.

16 is absolutely true. I routinely make a blood sacrifice to the Kraken before launching a spaceplane. Usually, the pilot makes an impromptu 2nd blood sacrifice after launching the spaceplane.

No problem - hope you find a fix!

You've probably tried this already but I find that rocking the craft under your control with SAS on can help. Sometimes it takes a while for the two craft to stick even if the docking ports are in contact.

No need to save her vessel - she can retrieve the science data from her capsule whilst on EVA (right click on capsule, take data). So you can just rendezvous with your rescue craft and have her carry the science across. Good luck!

A strange game - the only way to win is not to play. But where would be the fun in that. Totally sympathise with the plight of recently acquired FAS though.

Nope. Even if there was some mechanism for your molecules to stick together (so you can conserve momentum), their energy has to go somewhere. In most cases the molecules will simply bounce off each other. In some cases, I suppose two water molecules might form an (unstable) transient excited state, which then decays to give your two molecules (and their kinetic energy) back.

No idea what the fallacy of infinite resonance is... If the cup was open to the environment, the water would evaporate and the cup would cool down. The water molecules in the cup have a distribution of kinetic energies - a small percentage have enough energy to escape from the liquid, taking their energy with them. This is how sweating works - the evaporating sweat draws energy from you in order to keep evaporating and so cools you down. However, this only works if the molecules can physically escape. In your closed system, there'll be an equilibrium set up between the water in the cup and the water vapour in the container but there'll be no net loss of energy from the liquid and therefore no temperature change.

It's cool but thanks for checking - it's appreciated. Nice AAR by the way! KerbMav - me neither, and I'm finding the 'escalation' plot thread quite challenging to write for that very reason. Taking the story in this direction definitely wasn't something I did lightly. BurningLegion - you're more than welcome and thanks for the kind words! Looking forward to reading your fanfic whenever you decide to release it - and 'better' is always in the eye of the reader, so I fully expect there'll be plenty of people here that prefer your work to mine. Incidentally, First Flight pretty much is my experience, apart from one other short fanfic for another game. I know exactly what you mean about the Apollo Program! I mean, I always thought it was awesome but the more I've read up on it as research for various bits of First Flight, the more incredible I've found it. Like yourself, I've also found that KSP makes a pretty sobering comparison, although it's been fantastic for giving me a qualitative feel for the Apollo flight plans. Even fairly small stuff like knowing what's involved in circularising an orbit has made a huge difference. Next chapter is ticking along nicely after an abandoned first chunk which sounded good in my head but really didn't translate well onto paper. I'm taking a day off on Monday and basically plan to find a cafe somewhere, take my tablet and keyboard and spend the day writing.

It's a bit dark but I liked the composition enough to want to share it. This is the Munar Observatory in high polar orbit. With two Hitchhiker modules and a lab, it's intended for a crew of four. The green lights in the foreground are the power supply for the primary comms array. The main scanner systems are at the far end. The two docking ports allow limited expansion and the two mini docking ports will eventually be occupied by small one-kerbal Munar Scout Vehicles (basically an RCS powered command seat) for orbital science missions and surface excursions.

I haven't really tried any restaurant grade recipes (read, fiddly presentation) but otherwise, gimme a recipe book and I'm good to go. Me and my wife both work fairly long hours (definitely by the time you factor in commuting), so tend to cook in bulk at the weekend and freeze portions for reheating during the week. Can't beat home-made microwave meals. Currently very much into my slow cooker (crockpot) - this afternoon's experiment is Thai style crystal chicken soup. Tomorrow is a double portion of a new favourite - Malaysian style beef and aubergine (eggplant) curry. My 'dessert to impress' is profiteroles - choux pastry is bloke cooking at its finest. No need for subtlety - just whack it together and beat with a spoon until it looks about right.

Fantastic! Is this precession? I have to confess that the Wikipedia article is a definite case of 'yes - I know what some of those words are.'

Thanks. At the risk of trying to sound 'nobler than thou', the final choice will probably be up to my folks. Both my paternal grandparents passed away recently and left specific instructions not to have a funeral, which affected me more than I thought it would. So yeah, if my folks want to have something to bury... I gather that donating your whole body means that it needs to be preserved asap after death, so it gets taken away pretty quick.

Just playing around...

I think the camera shake is purely for dramatic effect. It's an exaggerated visualisation of the forces acting on your spacecraft - it doesn't cause those forces. And there's an option to reduce it or switch it off completely.

Two options, not sure which I want yet. I'll either donate my entire body for medical research and teaching, or donate the parts that are still useful and request that the rest is buried in a cardboard coffin and a tree planted over the top.

Wikipedia has a decent looking summary of this. It seems that high tensile polymers such as ultra high molecular weight polyethylene (Spectra) will do the job. Granted, spinning out thousands of kilometres of plastic isn't at all trivial but it beats the heck out of doing the same thing with any kind of composite.

That is one sweet design! Looks great and I love the way you built the equipment bay into the nose.

I do feel for the OP's pain. Why, last night I tried to build an infiniglider. I couldn't get the stupid thing to work at all. So, to cheer myself up, I thought I'd build a Kraken drive powered lifter. Which sat on the launchpad going nowhere. So having posted the obligatory complaint, I'm now going to delete KSP from my hard drive because I can't stand the way 1.02 is stifling my creativity any more. Curse you Squad - curse you to heck.

Plenty of wing profiles are still viable. This thread is about a similar question and includes plenty of screenshots of very different spaceplanes.

Interesting - I haven't seen those sort of contracts yet and I'm only a couple of upgrades (VAB, SPH and uh the Strategy building) from a maxed out space centre. I wonder if it has more to do with your tech progression? Regardless, thanks for the interesting notes on early use of Strategies. Not something I've been doing since I was kinda underwhelmed by running Funds to Science, which put me off early game tweaks to Strategies. Looks like a rethink may be in order.

Great post! Nice selection of examples too, ranging from 'yeah that looks OK under any aerodynamics' to 'good to see that kerbal contraptions can still fly'.

I think it's going to be extremely challenging but I don't think you're wasting your time. I've built a rocket plane to do some of the Kerbin survey missions (since I couldn't get up to 18,000m with the basic jet engine), which was capable of getting out of the atmosphere. Getting to orbit would be a whole different thing though.

I can fly my planes without SAS now. It still helps to have that auto-trim ability but that's all it feels like now, rather than something I absolutely need in order to make the plane flyable at all. Plus I can switch SAS on and fly at x4 physics warp without careering all over the sky. As far as rockets go, I'm loving being able to fly proper gravity turns. Not dropping spent SRBs all over KSC makes me happy.