KSK

. Glad you liked it - and thanks for the rep!

Great Scott!

Another vote for the launch window planner here. Between that and setting my conic drawing mode to zero, interplanetary flight just got a lot easier. At least it has to anywhere with an atmosphere and an SOI bigger than a small grapefruit. Moho is still.... challenging. Yeah that's a good word for it. Challenging.

OK, I will cheerfully delete this post if it doesn't fit with the rest of the thread but here goes with some lyrics for 'All hail Xacktar - he's really cool', All Hail Xacktar - he is really cool, He watches over us at night, he keeps us safe at school, In our enlightened world there is one golden rule, All hail Xacktar for he is really cool. All hail Xacktar - the forthright and the brave, He beat the Not-Nice Government, our Country he did save, Anyone saying otherwise is a Kraken loving knave, So all hail Xacktar, the forthright and the brave. All hail Xacktar - know his wisdom from afar, Blinding and magnificent, glowing like a star, He keeps us strong, his mighty will, Makes us who we are. All hail Xacktar, know his wisdom from afar. All hail Xacktar - his strength will na'er fade! Shout his name from mountain top, from valley and from glade, Oh blessed are his people, they shall never be afraid. Guided by mighty Xacktar - his strength will na'er fade! All Hail Xacktar - he is really cool, He watches over us at night, he keeps us safe at school, In our enlightened world there is one golden rule, All hail Xacktar for he is really cool!

As I recall, the air is perfectly breathable, its just the pollen and other stuff in it that the kerbals are fatally allergic to after living on filtered shipboard air for generations. So I would guess that over time they will become desensitized and those allergies will become less of a problem. Think hayfever rather than anaphalactic shock.

This is great stuff! Looking forward to the next episode when you find the time. In the meantime, I think 'Fire Goes Down' has replaced 'Firecracker' as the default name for my early sub-orbital rockets.

Yep - I remember my first trip around the Mun in the demo version. Awe inspiring pictures from space - check. View of Kerbinrise from Munar orbit - check. Navigating to and from Munar orbit - check (this was without maneuver nodes so I was pretty happy about that last part!) It was all going so beautifully well until the very last 20 km or so where poor old Jeb, Bill and Bob learned the hard way that it doesn't matter how many times Mission Control mashes the spacebar - if you aint packed the parachutes its not going to help.

Of course - how else do you recharge ion powered probes?

So no pressure then.... Nah - it's OK, I knew what you meant. No real idea about an ETA I'm afraid and I suspect that the amount of time I have for writing is going to tail off a bit in the run up to the festive season. The weekends are starting to look a bit crowded already and if last year is anything to go by, its going to be crunch time at work, which won't give me a lot of time during the week either. But we'll see what happens. I have an outline of the next chapter roughed out, half of the final chapter for Part 2 written and a pretty good idea of what happens (and quite a lot does) between those two points. Slower updates will not mean a forgotten story!

Well you live and learn. I always thought EECOM stood for 'Electrical, Environmental and Communications.' Excellent - today was not a wasted day. Nice way to finish up the chapter, with Bill as a West...... Eastern fan! Which raises an important question - which kerbal is 'The Good', which is 'The Bad' and which is the 'The Ugly'?

Well worth the wait - excellent chapter. Better yet, I couldn't quite remember how it fitted in with 'Slaves to the Kraath (1)' so I took that as the perfect excuse to start again from the beginning.

I think so. It's never quite a single burn because I normally kill my horizontal velocity whilst I'm still a kilometre or so from the surface, switch off the engine briefly to orient myself and then do a vertical descent from there. In principle you could do it in one but you'd need to be a better pilot than me. I don't find it that much harder to balance and it can be helpful for changing your landing site on the fly. Heading onto a crater rim? No problem, just throttle back a bit and overshoot it. Spotted a good landing site on the way in? Again no problem - throttle up and kill your horizontal velocity a bit earlier.

I'm fairly sure I read something similar about the Apollo missions. The sim team reckoned they could take any reasonably intelligent person and teach them to fly to the Moon and back - providing that everything worked. Landing on the Moon was entirely different matter though.

One other thing that might help with the fuel efficiency is to tweak that landing profile a little. I tend to set a periapsis of around 7-8km for my de-orbit burn and then start my landing burn at periapsis, going for a single continuous burn if possible and ideally. zeroing out my horizontal velocity about 1km from the surface, so I'm not burning too much fuel for that last descent. It rarely works out so smoothly but that's what I aim for. I find I don't have to do a lot of maneuvering until I'm down to the last 150m/s or so. At that point its time to throttle back and follow the retrograde marker.

Not just you - docking and rendezvous hasn't gotten old for me yet either. And powered landings still feel epic!

Not my idea I have to confess - I shamelessly borrowed it from Patupi! It does work well though.

I'm doing this in my current career mode game. Two self imposed rules - 1) you can only use 5 science points per game day (so a 90 point tech takes 18 days to research) and 2) shipbuilding takes time. I'm running with 1 day for a sub-orbital craft, 2 for orbital, 4 for cis-Munar and 6 for interplanetary. Add 50% extra for prototypes and deduct 50% if its a probe (both rounded up if need be.) Main gameplay effects: 1. It slows down the tech tree quite a bit, so I'm making much more use of the early parts, for example, ladder free Mun landings (relying on EVA packs to get back up to the capsule hatch.) 2. Planning becomes more of an issue - can I unlock that next tech tree node and still get that Eve probe built on time?! 3. Gives you stuff to do during interplanetary missions and makes your whole space program feel much more integrated. Examples - I just about had the tech to launch a probe to Duna when the first transfer window opened. Whilst the probe was in transit, I was researching more tech and building ships for my Mun landing programme. My first window to Jool opens in a few days time. I'll be about done with the first round of Mun/Minmus landings by then but the long flight to Jool is going to fit in well with the longer time it's now taking to research tech upgrades. Later on, when I get space stations up and running, I'll be timewarping from one event to the next. Research a tech here, run a crew rotation flight there - oh look, that mission to Eeloo is only a couple of days out from a mid-course correction burn - better make sure I don't warp past that. I'm enjoying it so far, although I can see why it wouldn't be for everyone. I should probably also install Kerbal Alarm Clock at some point, rather than keeping a paper logbook.

Ahh that explains it. It was the magnetics stuff that stood out for me, especially the description of the jury-rigged Goo container!

Yes - a bit of storyteller's license there. I wanted to give some idea of the difficulty involved in getting to the Mun but the failures got compressed together a bit rather than have too many chapters describing variations on a theme of 'one party gets reprieve as other party's probe gets lost in space due to technical fault'. CornHuskerKenny - welcome aboard and glad you're enjoying it! OrtwinS - cheers for that. A table looks just the ticket for putting some order into the chapter links.

Absolutely! It's great when a little in-game hiccup can add to the story like that. Jeb's little adventure with the Moho 1 mission in First Flight was also based on an in-game event. Plus Seanbur now has one awesome sea story to tell when he gets back - although probably not whilst Gene is in earshot! Love the way Seanbur is developing as a character and the detail on the way to Minmus. Sounds like you've either studied this personally or you did one heck of a lot of research. Great job either way! I liked the way you worked in the in-game sample report too.

Not sure if KSP really fits into 'Sci-fi', at least not the way its described on the poll. Then again, where else would it go? Don't care either way - my vote is in!

Heh - I couldn't possibly comment In the meantime, if you didn't already spot it, have a quick look at 'Mun or Bust' (hey these urls are really handy - who knew) and the part name for their prototype liquid fuel engine (not the 48-7D). Then extrapolate that last letter a bit...

And done! Does bbcode include tags for putting lists in multiple columns? The link list is going to get a bit unwieldy otherwise. Its fine for now but I may have to rethink the formatting in a few chapters time.

Thanks for the links Ortwin. I'll add them to the OP as requested. I've also updated the blog (go-go post spam), so that's all in one piece now, right up to Far Side. Patupi - yeah that was hard lines for Rockomax. They're not beaten yet though

Next part is up. Far Side “Looks like they're aiming for a free return trajectory." Edsen shook his head. “Makes perfect sense I guess. Why bother with a tricky Munar orbit insertion when you can just swing past, grab your far side pictures and be done with it." Lucan squinted at the screen. “Depends how well you can point your camera I guess," he said, “They're not quite there for a free return but it shouldn't take much of a burn to get them on track. I'll ask Sigbin and Doodlie to keep sending that frequency data - as Sigbin says, we may as well use this as practice for the real thing." “You really think we'll get another shot, Lucan?" “Damn right we will. Jeb's been busting to send something to the Mün ever since the Kerbal 1. We might not win any money for doing it but sure as luffas sit by the sea we'll get another shot." Lucan paused. “And once we're finished with Project Moho, the Mün is probably all we'll be doing for a while, assuming we can find the money. I wouldn't take any bets on going there in a capsule but we'll get all the photos that we can handle." “Thanks, Lucan. That's... comforting." “Oh - and if we really need to pull off another 'first', there's always Minmus." “Hey come off it," said Edsen, “I appreciate the positive attitude but there's positive and then there's crazy." “Run the numbers sometime," said Lucan, “you'd be surprised. It doesn't take that much more delta-v than getting to the Mün - the big problem is getting to the right place at the right time. Anyway - one of us had better head back to the warehouse and let the gang know what's happening." Edsen sighed. “We can talk to an orbiting Moho capsule from here but I can't pick up the phone and call the junkyard? We really need to do something about that." He picked up his notebook. “I'll go - too many hours in this place drives me nuts. Bring you anything back?" “A bag of djan chips would be good. Spicy if you can find them but nothing sweet. A can of smoky sapwood would go down well too." Edsen made a face. “How can you stand that stuff? It tastes like wet ashes to me." Lucan laughed. “It is a bit of an acquired taste. Used to be a speciality of our Grove, so I guess I just grew up with it. Now scoot before I decide to go instead." Edsen shot him a look of mock horror, grabbed his coat and ran for it. It was dark and blustery outside the bunker and he was glad he'd parked so close to the door. By the time he drove up to the warehouse, it was raining hard, the wind driven droplets racing towards him out of the dark and lashing against the windscreen. There were only one or two lights on at the windows but then, Edsen reflected, it was getting pretty late. As he let himself in, he was relieved to see the light still on in Jeb's office, even if it didn't do much more than highlight the looming shadows in the darker corners of the assembly area. His footsteps echoed as he strode across the warehouse floor and Edsen had to remind himself rather forcefully that the half-seen shapes hanging from the ceiling were just the old familiar sections of fuel tank and not anything more sinister. He knocked on the office door and poked his head round the doorframe. Geneney and Jeb looked startled as he came in but then Jeb leapt to his feet to greet him. “Edsen! What news from the bunker?" Edsen blinked in the sudden warmth and sneezed violently. As he shrugged out of his soaking raincoat, Geneney pressed a large mug of hot djeng into his hands, which Edsen sipped at gratefully. “Thanks, Gene. It's not pleasant out there." “Come and take a seat. Is Lucan still out at the bunker?" Edsen nodded. “Still working away. I'll take him some food when I head back over. I don't suppose you have any smoky sapwood do you, Jeb?" Jeb raised his eyebrows. “Now why on Kerbin would I keep that muck around my office. Tastes like wet firework ashes - and trust me, I should know." “I'm sure there's a fascinating story right there," said Geneney dryly. “There's a couple of cans left in the canteen, Edsen. I think Lucan is about the only one that drinks it." Edsen took a gulp of his djeng, greedily inhaling its fragrant steam. He patted his lips dry and carefully put the mug down on the edge of Jeb's desk. Geneney and Jeb looked at him expectantly. “We've got a trajectory plotted for the Rockomax probe. We think they're trying for a free return trajectory but if they are, they'll need to make a midcourse correction burn sometime tomorrow morning." Jeb's eyelids drooped as he worked through the implications. “That makes sense," he said, “one less burn to worry about, although they'd better be sure where they're pointing their cameras if they're only getting one chance to get what they need." “Or they could do what we did and put the probe into a slow spin," said Geneney, “It wouldn't give them as much useful data but it would be something." “True. It won't help them much if their attitude is really cockeyed but if they pull off that course correction that'll be a solved problem anyway. Thanks Edsen - that's good to know." Jeb reached for his own mug. “Looks like the Probodyne Prize has gone then but at least the Muna 2 will be the first probe to orbit the Mün rather than just trundling round it and back to Kerbin." “It's not going to be much of a consolation prize for the team though,"said Geneney. Jeb stared down at the floor. “Yeah, I know, Genie - I know. The money would have come in handy too, no doubt about it." Edsen couldn't help himself. “It would have paid for a phone line between here and the bunker if nothing else." Jeb's head jerked upright. “There is a phone line, or at least there used to be. That explains why you came all the way out here in person then - I did wonder." He frowned. “I'll take a look at that tomorrow. What sort of launch control bunker can talk to an orbiting spacecraft but can't make a simple phone call." Edsen yawned. “Thanks, Jeb. I'd better be heading back there now - Lucan will be getting hungry." Geneney stood up. “I'll go, Edsen - you look dead on your feet. It'll be pointless trying to persuade Lucan to go home but I should at least remind him that there's a folding bed and a heater in the corner of the bunker. That probe isn't going anywhere else tonight." “The couch in here makes a pretty good bed too," said Jeb cheerfully, “and somebody even replaced the spare toothbrush." Edsen's head was drooping on his shoulders. “...know..." he said, “...put it back myself." --------- Lemgan peered through the glass door into the Mission Control room. Most of the flight controllers were already at their stations, a semicircle of green heads poking out above the high backed chairs, headsets clamped firmly over their ears. The viewing area around the edges of the room was packed with kerbals, all leaning against the balcony rail and staring up at the orbital tracking screen. Just inside the doorway, a prominently placed signboard read 'Quiet Please - Mission in Progress'. Outside in the corridor, a shuffling crowd of Rockomax workers were pressed up against the long curved windows, all trying to get the best view they could of the screens. Lemgan squared his shoulders and pushed the door open. Everyone in the viewing area turned to watch as he walked down the steps towards the consoles, took his seat and plugged in his own headset. After satisfying himself that the Satellite 4 position and trajectory were still within expected values, Lemgan set to work, occasionally calling up one of his colleagues on a private loop to consult them on a particular detail of the guidance or propulsion systems. Just as he flipped over the next page of his checklist there was a crackle from the comms system as Nelton's voice cut in on all loops. “Good morning everyone. All controllers report in please." Lemgan listened to the systems reports as they came in one by one. Above his head, the timer on the orbital tracking screen rolled over from 1:00:00 to 0:59:59. “Flight Dynamics?" “We're Go at fifty-eight minutes Flight. Spacecraft is in stellar inertial. Orienting for burn at MC minus forty." Ademone gripped the balcony rail tightly as the clock ticked down. The monitor still showed Kerbin floating in space, although the cloud cover made it difficult to pick out surface details. Sheer distance from Satellite 4 had reduced the atmosphere to nothing more than a thin glowing line, wrapped around the edges of a diminishing disc. Nelton glanced down at her console and gave a guilty start at the comm system settings. As she clicked one of the dials round a notch, there was a soft hissing noise out in the corridor as the public address loop came to life. Lemgan took a deep breath and switched his console to conference mode. “MC minus six. How do you read, Melvey?" “All s..systems go Lemgan. RCS tank pressure is high but acceptable, steady current to all propellant line heaters." “Looks good, Melvey. Orbald?" “RCS controller is Go. Attitude deltas uploaded to guidance system." “Good work, Orbald. Guess we're as ready as we'll ever be." Lemgan put his console back to public mode. “Flight, this is Flight Dynamics. We're Go for reorientation." “Understood, Flight Dynamics. Thank you." “RCS firing in 3...2...1..." Kerbin began a stately drift across the monitor and slowly disappeared off screen. For a long moment, there was nothing to see as Satellite 4 revolved silently agains the backdrop of space. Then, along one edge of the screen, a thin grey crescent appeared and slowly spun into view. Without an atmosphere to wrap it in a diffuse halo of light, the Mün stood out starkly against the blackness. ------------- “That's about what we're seeing too Sigbin. Looks like they had a pretty clean burn. Has Doodlie had any luck decoding their transmissions? No? Pity - it would be nice to get a look at whatever pictures they're sending back. KBS - oh Kerm yes. They'll be all over this. Yeah, don't blame you. We're going to sign off here as well. Thanks Sigbin." Edsen slumped into his chair. “Well that's that then." He looked at Lucan's crumpled clothing and stubbled chin. “At least we were right about the free-return." Lucan stared at him and then flopped down on his bed. “Yep." “I'm going to shut everything down." “Fine." One by one, the displays on Edsen's console flickered and went out. He walked over and switched off Lucan's console at the wall. “C'mon Lucan." The clean salty sea air smelt remarkably good after the enclosed fug of the launch bunker as Edsen switched off the lights and locked the door behind him. The two kerbals climbed into Edsen's car and drove away. -------------- Conversation on the assembly floor was muted and for the most part, limited to strictly technical matters. Even the noise of the engine tests out in the yard didn't seem as loud as usual although, Adelan thought, that was more to do with the thicker blast shields around the test stand than anything else. The lathe beeped, as the turret returned to its index position and the motor switched itself off. Adelan picked up a micrometer and began to check over the newly machined pusher rod. Satisfied that the part was within tolerance, she put it down on the bench with the others and loaded a new billet onto the lathe. Richlin and Ordun walked past pushing a half assembled LV-T20 on it's trolley. “You got those valve heads ready, Adelan?" Ordun called out. “Couple more rods to turn yet," said Adelan, “but valve heads are next on the list." “Cheers, Adelan. Good to see someone looking halfway happy with their work too. I've never seen such a miserable bunch as the tankage team this morning." Richlin swung the trolley round. “Having your Mün rocket go boom will do that," he said equably, “specially when somebody else's Mün rocket is about to make it there in one piece." “Pfff. I'm with Gene. We gave it our best shot - and we got a damn fine party out of it if nothing else. If we'd just come back here, started plugging away at the next rocket - and then got the news about Rockomax today... well I might have been a bit grumpy then. And Kerm's sake, Richlin - it was only a box of electronics that went boom. It could have been Adelan sitting on top of that booster." Adelan rolled her eyes. “Thanks, Ordun." Ordun grinned. “Don't mention it. Besides that's why we have abort systems right?" He pulled out a radio from his pocket. “I don't know about you two but I want to find out what's happening out at the Mün." “....rollers are preparing to put Satellite 4 into a controlled spin before it passes around the far side of the Mün. According to Flight Dynamics officer Lemgan, this will ensure that Satellite 4 can photograph as much of the Mün as possible on its single pass." “This is Leland Kerman at Rockomax Mission Control. The atmosphere here is tense but controlled as Satellite 4 plunges towards the Mün. Payload officer Melvey reports that everything is Go for the spin up maneuver." “And 3..2..1... ignition. Well not ignition precisely as this maneuver will only be using the spacecraft reaction control system. The propellant for the main engines was of course used up nearly three days ago for trans-Munar injection. One of the main screens at Mission Control is showing the view from the onboard cameras and I'm watching the Mün start to spin." “That's odd. Two of the flight controllers are crossing the room to speak to Flight Director Nelton..." “Oh and this doesn't look good. The Mün is spinning faster now and it's starting to slide off the screen. I think we may have a problem here..." “JEB!" Jeb came skidding up to Adelan's workbench. “What...!" Ordun raised a finger to his lips and then pointed at the radio. “This is Leland Kerman at Rockomax Mission Control. The spacecraft is off course in an uncontrolled tumble. We're waiting for an update from the flight control team but at this time it appears that one of the reaction control thrusters is stuck on..." "Above my head, I can see the main orbital tracking screen. The picture has just changed from showing the Mün and Kerbin to showing the Mün only. I think those two dotted lines are possible new trajectories. One of them gets very close to the surface indeed. It looks like the spacecraft will stay in orbit but it may not stay in a high enough orbit to make it safely round..." “And we've just lost contact with the probe. Loss of signal happened a few seconds later than expected and the guidance team are now using that information to measure the spacecraft trajectory more accurately..." “The dotted lines have gone.... and they've been replaced by a single unbroken line. Wait, wait one moment. Flight Dynamics reports that the periapsis, that is the lowest point of approach to the Mün, will be no more than 4 kilometres. If all goes well, Mission Control will re-acquire contact with Satellite 4 in approximately 19 minutes..." The assembly floor was silent as every kerbal in the building gathered round Ordun's radio. "Reaquisition in 2 minutes... This is Leland Kerman at Rockomax, reporting on Satellite 4's flight around the Mun. Earliest reaquisition expected in forty five seconds. Thirty seconds... twenty... acquisition in ten seconds..." “We are now at reacquisition plus two minutes and there is nothing but static on the monitors. The flight controllers have confirmed that there is a sizeable error margin on the reacquisition time but at two minutes and thirty seconds we are running out of margin..." “Reacquisition plus five minutes. Flight Director Nelton is crossing the floor to speak to Ademone Kerman, owner and company manager of Rockomax." Reacquisition plus seven minutes. Flight Director Nelton has just confirmed that the spacecraft is lost. I repeat, Satellite 4 is lost over the far side of the Mün. << Chapter 21:: Chapter 23>>