KSK

What could possibly go wrong ?

Short answer: Yes. but turning that mathematical justification into reality isn't going to happen anytime soon. Long answer cribbed from Wikipedia, Wormholes are allowed within General Relativity (so have a mathematical justification), although processes are known that would create them naturally. For traversable wormholes: Again, negative energy density is apparently OK within quantum field theory, so has a mathematical justification.

Oh this should be good! Intriguing opening and I'm liking the world-building already. Provosts, and hot-rodded steam powered cars.

Good pictures of the Space Centre and the Kapitol building - they help set the mood nicely. I also like the different style of spacecraft used by the two factions. Using a few more paragraphs and not writing everything in bold would make your introduction more readable. Personally, I'm not a big fan of overusing 'K' country names, but that's not such a big deal here since it looks like most of the action is going to be in space rather than between the different countries back on Kerbin. Difficult to say much more until the story starts, but I'll definitely be reading Chapter 1 when you post it. Good luck!

Appreciate it, Jake, but I think I brought this on myself. Cool - I could use a new blowtorch. Just make sure to bring a couple of steaks and plenty of cream, caster sugar, eggs, and vanilla pods for a suitable test sized portion of dessert.

Intriguing start - looking forward to seeing how this goes!

*looks nervous and goes off in search of a pencil sharpener*

At the risk of threadjacking, you might be interested in JakeGrey's The Next Frontier, as posted on these forums. It's also a crossover story and the level of kerbal technology involved seems to be about what you're looking at here. It's an excellent read in its own right, and might provide a bit of inspiration on the kind of spaceflight parts to include in your own story.

Ahhh - today is a good day for story updates. Cheers, Patupi - that's put a smile on my face for the afternoon slog.

Um, yeah - it's been a while hasn't it. There's a decent chunk of material in the pipe though. Of the next four chapters (numbered as per the beginning of this thread), chapter 43 is done, chapter 44 is 80% done (one major scene to write in, plus a couple of bridging parts), chapter 41 is worked out but the actual text is kinda piecemeal at the moment, and I've finally figured out how chapter 42 is going to be structured. Thanks for posting skykooler - and thanks for everyone's continuing patience.

And an abort at T-1:21.

I dunno - you could get some serious hackles on that. Plenty of scope for Dilophosaurus style scariness.

Clever girl... or boy as the case may be.

Rule 1 of reading Crichton novels - if you know anything about the science involved, be prepared to suspend disbelief even more than you normally would. Or at least be prepared to overlook some large logical loopholes. Rule 2 is to suspend any and all business sense you may have. With that said, I still enjoyed Jurassic Park, coming back to it after many many years. My favourite parts are the descriptions of the dinosaurs and the way he conveys the impression that these really are unknown animals, despite all that we've been able to deduce from fossil remains. That, and the 'what were they really like' parts - where the dinosaurs are shown as 'best guess' recreations. If I could tear out all the chaos theory guff, I'd do it without blinking.

That's starting to get crazy close to a Trek style drive if I'm remembering my technobabble correctly. Maybe he should look into a twin dipole arrangement for generating the warp field.

If it's any consolation, you're not the only one. I have a large 'cast and crew' document that helps me keep track. Glad you're still enjoying it!

Ohhh - this is a bit different! A kerbal story that doesn't look like it's going to involve space at all. I'm no good at graphic design but I hope you find someone who is. Looking forward to chapter 1!

Ah - fraid not. The skipped ahead chapter was one I started whilst I was stuck with the upcoming chapter. They'll still get put up in chronological order.

Thanks! My skipped ahead chapter is done, and I'm picking up the next chronological chapter now.

Go, Bob! Decoupler was spelt correctly by the way.

Bleh - consider my expectations for this film well and truly managed. Mind you, it is very, very Crichton. Big bad company develops inexplicable tunnel vision, and does completely boneheaded thing as a result.

I'm not saying you're wrong for all solid fuels, but the aluminium /ammonium perchlorate mix used by the Shuttle SRBs seems to be about balanced, or at best, very slightly fuel rich. From Wikipedia: Back of an envelope calculation, that's an approximately 1:1 molar ratio of aluminium to perchlorate. Assume that ammonium perchlorate decomposes as follows: NH4ClO4 -----> NH4Cl + 2O2. Now for aluminium burning: Al + 3/2 O2 ----> Al2O3 So, there's enough oxidiser in the mix to completely burn all the aluminium, with 25% left over to burn off the polymer binder. I don't have any data on the binder, so I have no idea if that's quite enough, hence my TL: DR guess of balanced, or maybe slightly fuel rich combustion. I think 'lots of fuel is wasted' would be an exaggeration though. Incidentally:

I think so too, but I'm still enjoying this as backstory for the way the game looks right now. Alternatively, if puckers can't build cities, there's no reason kerbals can't - we just haven't got to that point in their history yet.

Looks like there's more folks than you thought assuming their idea is the only one that makes sense. Seriously though - surely defending 'fundamentally flawed' (to you) ideas is all part of 'learning something from conflicting ideas.'

I see what you did there. I'm enjoying this - hope there are more stories to come!