KSK

The Van Halen belts - like the Van Kallen belts but louder and with more rocks in. I'll get my coat... Seriously though - thanks folks! Danish - thanks for the reminder about the blog. I'll do that once the next chapter is finished. It follows directly on from 'Beyond Kerbin', so the two together will probably make a single large blog entry. I'll most likely merge some of the other forum chapters too.

This. Plus, for real kerbals, probes are what you build when you can't afford a capsule. This is the Kerbal Space Program, not the High Altitude Camera Club! Umm, also if you want Terran-realistic, there's always sandbox.

Hang in there Seanbur. Let Bill fly the ship and just relax and enjoy the view. The launch can get a little bumpy sure, but it's all pretty peaceful once the engines stop. Besides - you're the scientist - you've seen the data. A whole new world to explore, nice low gravity and some unique geology to study if that colouring is anything to go by. Think of it as the ultimate field trip! - Yeah I'm enjoying this

Patupi - this one's for you... Beyond Kerbin A single shaft of sunlight peeped through a gap in the shutters, illuminating the chin of a kerbal sprawled out fast asleep on his bed. As Kerbol rose into the clear morning sky, the shaft crept upwards until it brushed silently over one large green eyelid, suffusing it with a soft green glow and revealing a faint tracery of blood vessels beneath the skin. The eyelid twitched and then suddenly it snapped open. Jeb blinked and sat bolt upright, automatically checking the time on his alarm clock. His eyes widened and he jumped out of bed, frantically scrabbling around for his clothes. Half past ten! Everyone would have been waiting in the yard for hours! Then, as he reached for his shirt, it occurred to him that it was oddly quiet outside. No mutter of voices, no banging on the warehouse door. Nothing at all in fact, to suggest that a crowd of impatient kerbals was milling around outside. Then it all came back. The failed Mün flight, the beach party... and Genie's parting words reminding everyone not to come into work until the afternoon. Jeb winced as he also remembered his last mug of beer and conversation with Ornie. Going to have to apologise for that, Jeb, he thought to himself, as he swung the shutters open, letting the crisp autumn sunlight flood into the room. Across the road could see the first dusting of frost on the ground. A brittle skim of ice sparkled on the puddles in the road, dazzling him with reflections. Jeb grinned as he took in a deep lungful of chilly air. Plenty of time for a long shower, a good hot breakfast and then maybe a quick stroll to clear the last of the beer fog from his wits before everyone else turned up for work. ----------- Jeb scraped the mud off his boots and sauntered across the warehouse towards the canteen, whistling the tune from the Ballad of the Kerbal 1 and chuckling as be remembered Bob's lyrics from the night before. There was a clattering of mugs and then the rattling of a stuck drawer, followed by a crash and a muttered oath as the drawer popped open, spilling its contents over the floor. Presently though, there was a cheerful burbling noise and the scent of fresh coffee filled the air. Jeb emerged from the canteen clutching a large steaming mug and made his way over to his office. Swiftly he sorted through the pile of rolled up strip charts covering his desk, setting the recordings from the LV-T20 to one side and unrolling the charts for the four LV905s. A quick look was enough to convince him that the 905s were not responsible for the loss of the Muna 1 but they had been running slightly hot before the explosion, which was a problem all by itself. Jeb sipped his coffee as he pored over the charts, rapidly becoming engrossed in the thin squiggles of ink from the telemetry recorders. The last of his coffee had long since gone cold when Jeb straightened up from the strip charts and pushed his notebook to one side. He dug his fists into the small of his back and stretched, grimacing as his spine popped in protest. He rolled his shoulders, mentally reviewing his analysis of the telemetry data and then nodded in satisfaction. He would need to talk things over with the propulsion team but he was reasonably confident that the overheating could be traced back to a problem with the pressurisation valve calibration. The overheating was obviously down to excess propellant flow into the engines and the excess was sufficiently similar for all four engines that a mechanical error seemed unlikely. Jeb made a note to get one of the spare 905s up onto the test stand after lunch and then glanced up at the clock. Perfect, he thought happily. Time to open up for the day and then grab a quick bite to eat before everyone else arrives. As Jeb walked over to the warehouse doors, he thought he could hear voices outside. He smiled to himself. Not even friendly threats from Genie could deter everyone from turning up to work early, he thought. The bolts on the side door were sticking slightly and squealed in protest as he worked them back and forth. Finally, he forced them back with a sudden metallic clack and swung the door open. Jeb's jaw dropped, as the entire Kerbin Interplanetary Society poured around him into the warehouse. “Thought this place was never going to open," somebody called out cheerfully. “Yeah," came the good-natured reply, “Some of us have got a rocket to build today!" “At least the boss has been up long enough to get the coffee on!" called out a third voice, as everyone hurried over to their benches. Jeb closed the door behind him and then fell into step beside Geneney and Ornie. Geneney sniffed the air appreciatively and then looked at Jeb apologetically. “Looks like you were right about taking some time out," he said. "It's been a while since I've seen the gang this eager to get to work." Ornie nodded. "Something we should do more often," he agreed, “and it wouldn't hurt to do a little more to celebrate our successful launches too." Jeb grinned at him. “The launch was perfectly successful," he said, “It was just the flying into space part that didn't go quite to plan. Speaking of which, I think I've figured out the overheating we saw with the 905s. I'd appreciate a second opinion on the numbers though, if you've got a minute?" “Sure," said Ornie, “Gene - could I have a word later? I need to see what our inventory is like for the 905 gimbals." “Whenever you're ready, Ornie, although I think we've got everything you need in stock for the rest of the 905s. I'll be over with the payload team when you need me." As Jeb walked back to his office with Ornie, he flicked a quick sideways glance at his friend. “I think I owe you an apology too, Ornie," he said quietly. Ornie's forehead crinkled. “What on Kerbin for, Jeb?" he asked. Jeb didn't reply for a moment. “For last night," he said eventually, “I have to confess that the details are a touch hazy but I definitely remember the conversation turning more than a little bitter towards the end." Ornie's face cleared. “Oh that," he said, “Don't worry about it, Jeb. Sounded like you'd needed to get that off your chest for quite a while." Jeb nodded gratefully. “I think I did, Ornie - thanks." He pushed open his office door. “Anyway - about those 905s. I'm thinking that we've got a little problem with our test stand is all..." The two kerbals bent their heads over the strip charts littered over Jeb's desk, Ornie tapping his fingers thoughtfully as Jeb flipped open his notebook and started pointing out various underlined numbers. Later that afternoon, Jeb finally made his way back to the canteen for a long overdue lunch. As he rummaged around in the fridge, he could hear the the propulsion team arguing over the LV-T20 telemetry. The canteen televsion was deliberately placed to be visible from behind the kitchen counter and Jeb was able to keep half an eye on the KBS news bulletin as he chopped up left over potatoes and meatcakes and tossed them into a pan. "Meatcake hash and ketchup!" he announced, taking a seat beside Bob. "The recommended lunch of rocket scientists everywhere." The rest of the table were too caught up in conversation to notice. “There's no way it was the bearings!" said Malmy. “No matter which way you look at the turbopump strips, there's just no sign of any wobble at all. I'm telling you - something fell into the fuel manifold and chewed up the blades." Wernher scowled. “Which doesn't explain why everything was working perfectly right up until the loss of vehicle. Besides - there's nothing to 'fall into the fuel manifold'. I suppose one of the slosh baffles might have fallen off but they're far too big to do any harm." Malmy shrugged, “Maybe it got caught on one of the baffles and didn't come loose until the booster pitched over past a certain point. I don't know. All I know is what I'm seeing from the flight recorders and they're just not consistent with impeller flutter." Ornie raised his hands in a placating gesture. “Easy, guys. Wernher - assume for the sake of argument that it was debris in the fuel line that broke the turbopump. What can we do about that? Can we fit a filter over the manifold inlet or something?" Wernher took a bite of his sandwich. “We already do put a filter there. I could redesign it but it's not as easy as you might think. A coarse filter is next to useless but I don't really want to fit anything too fine in case it causes too much of a pressure drop across the inlet. At best that gives us poorer performance...", he swallowed a mouthful of cheese, “and at worst it gives us turbulence and possibly cavitation." All four kerbals winced. “Good safety tip, Wernher," remarked Hando, “lets try not to do that if possible." Ornie nodded. “I'm not sure we have time to redesign the filters for the next launch anyway," he said reluctantly. "We'll need to take a long hard look at the tank design for the Moho 4 but for the Muna 2, I think we'll have to go with what we've got and just make sure to triple check everything." At that moment, the picture on the television screen changed from that of a group of kerbals sitting around a table to a view over a launch site. A news ticker down the left hand side of the screen announced that this was the maiden launch of the Rockomax BA-CA solid rocket booster. Malmy scrambled to his feet and turned up the volume. “... latest generation of solid rocket booster, augmented by additional laterally mounted B1 boosters. For those just joining us now, the second stage is a single B1 solid rocket and the final stage uses clustered 48-7D liquid fueled engines for a precision insertion into kerbostationary orbit." Hando turned back to his lunch. “Kerbostationary orbit huh? Impressive but there's a long way between Kerbin orbit and the Mün." Ornie wasn't so sure. He casually looked around the canteen and, as he expected, Jeb, Lucan and Edsen were all staring intently at the Rockomax spacecraft. Jeb caught his eye and surreptitiously beckoned him over. “Are you thinking what I'm thinking, Ornie?" “I think I probably am, Jeb. And if I'm not, our flight dynamics team almost certainly are." ----------- Danfen and Hanbal stood behind the flight director's chair, eyes flicking between the status indicators on her control board and the orbital tracking screen on the far wall. Nelton briefly considered exercising flight director's privilege and ejecting them both from Mission Control, or at least putting them somewhere where they couldn't breath down her ear. Then she shrugged. She could hardly blame them for wanting to be here, she thought and besides - they might just be useful. Provided that they kept their mouths shut until asked and kept out from under the feet of the rest of the team. "Approaching max Q. B1 thrust profile nominal." Nelton put the two engineers out of her mind. "Thank you, Booster," she said, "Flight Dynamics - status please." "Airframe stresses acceptable, Flight. Ascent trajectory is good. Launch vehicle has passed max Q." Behind her she could sense Danfen relaxing slightly. Hanbal's head was still restlessly swivelling from side to side as he tried to follow all the readouts for the B1s. Nelton rolled her chair to one side to give him a better view over her shoulder. "Thirty seconds to burnout. Decouplers one through four armed." "Copy that, Booster. All systems Go for staging." The pattern of indicator lights on Nelton's control board abruptly shifted and one panel flickered and went out. She leaned forward in her seat. "Lateral booster detach confirmed. Backer status please, Booster?" "BA-CA thrust on profile, Flight." "Thank you, Booster. Guidance?" "We're go, Flight." "Flight Dynamics?" "Altitude 24 kilometres and climbing, Flight. Vehicle attitude is nominal." Hanbal let his breath out explosively. "It worked," he murmured under his breath, "it actually worked." Danfen nudged his arm. "Keep the analysis out of earshot would you," he whispered. Hanbal ducked his head and then turned his attention back to the tracking screen. The stylised rocket depicting Satellite 4 had barely moved, although the altitude and velocity readouts were clicking upwards on schedule. He watched as the projected altitude climbed past 75 kilometres and continued to rise. "Any moment now," he thought. "Approaching MECO, Flight. Decoupler five armed and ready." "Backer shutdown in three...two...one. Decoupler firing." There was a long pause. "Second stage ignition confirmed!" "Thank you, Flight Dynamics. Payload?" Melvey hands shook as he worked his console. "Fairing jettisoned on schedule, Flight. Instrumentation looks good. Bringing propulsion and guidance systems online." Nelton nodded. "Thank you, Payload." A green light lit up on her console. "Flight Dynamics, I have a projected periapsis - please confirm." "Copy that, Flight. Twenty seconds to shutdown. Projected orbit two-forty by one-sixty by plus twelve. Altitude raising burn in thirty-one minutes." Danfen squeezed Hanbal's shoulder. "Time for us to take a break and pass on the good news," he murmured. The two engineers nodded politely to Nelton and made their way quietly out of the room. As soon as the door to Mission Control closed behind them, Hanbal punched the air in triumph. "It worked - it really worked! Tapered propellant loading on the B1s, lateral decouplers - it all went off without a hitch!" Danfen beamed at him. "It really did! Gotta hand it to you - I never actually thought you could throttle down the B1s that far in flight and bring them back up to stable thrust. That was fine work!" Hanbal grinned "Truthfully?" he asked. "I know, I know," laughed Danfen, "neither did you." "Well it all worked on the test stand so I shouldn't have been surprised." Danfen chuckled at the old joke. "True, true. Anyway, we've got a little over an hour before the big test. Just got time to go thank the troops before we point our baby at the Mün! ---------------- The glowing green trace on the tracking screen showed Satellite 4 in an almost perfectly circular orbit around Kerbin, although Nelton knew that was more due to the scale of the display than anything else. A small red circle blinked slowly against the orbital track with a timer display beside it slowly unwinding down to zero. Nelton rubbed her suddenly sweaty palms on the arms of her chair. She leaned forward and tapped her microphone for attention. "All controllers report in for trans-Munar injection. Payload?" Melvey swallowed the lump in his throat. "Go, Flight." "Guidance?" "We're Go, Flight." "Electrics?" "Looking good, Flight." "Flight Dynamics?" "Go for TMI, Flight." Above their heads, the Satellite 4 marker inched its way round the screen. As it passed over the edge of the blinking circle, the red colour shifted to orange and a flashing '22' symbol appeared on Melvey's console. He scanned the propulsion and guidance readouts on his console one last time, crossed his fingers and punched the 'Proceed' button. "Ullage motors are go. 48-7D ignition confirmed." Melvey watched as the readings on his console settled down. "All engines burning," he reported, "vernier firing pattern looks good." "Thank you, Payload. Status report please, Guidance?" "I'm with Payload, Flight. Verniers looking good, spacecraft attitude holding steady and tracking." Everyone in the control room tilted their heads up to watch the flight tracking screen. A dotted elliptical tongue began to protrude out from the solid green line marking the known Satellite 4 orbit. Slowly at first and then faster and faster, the tongue stretched away from Kerbin towards the white circle depicting the Mün. Melvey watched his readouts, finger hovering over the manual shutdown. It wasn't needed. The dotted line flickered as the flight computer updated its trajectory prediction and then snapped into an extremely lopsided figure-eight configuration with the Mün sitting squarely in the smaller of the two loops. “48-7D shutdown confirmed, Flight," said Melvey quietly. “Deploying cameras and orienting vehicle for Kerbin observation programme." “Understood, Payload," said Nelton. “Flight Dynamics - do we have a trajectory confirmation." “One moment, Flight." Lemgan spoke quickly into his microphone, cocking his head as the answer came back through his headset. “Our tracking team report that they have the vehicle. Jerdo's team are having some problems with their antenna which is slowing things down a little. We estimate 5-6 hours for initial fix, another two to three hours after that for confirmation." Nelton grimaced. “Six hundred miles is not enough of a baseline. If we're going to be doing this on a regular basis, Ademone needs to see about getting us another tracking station. Will nine hours give us enough time to work through the midorbit correction?" “Not a problem, Flight. First correction burn was scheduled for ground elapsed time +eighteen hours but we have a reasonable window with our remaining propellant levels. Suggest we delay the burn to GET +twenty-two to give Tracking and Guidance a little more time." “Noted and accepted, Flight Dynamics. Thank you." ----------------- “OK, thanks, Sigbin. Can you send through the next lot of frequency shifts in thirty minutes or so? Yeah I know - chasing down Rockomax isn't the trial run I was expecting either. Huh - I guess. Might as well get the bugs ironed out before we give it another go ourselves. OK, speak to you in thirty. Thanks, Sigbin." Lucan put the phone down and ground the heels of his hands into his eyes. Beside him, Edsen threw his pen down on the table and turned to face Ornie, Jeb and Geneney “Kerbostationary orbit, my cheeks!" Jeb sighed. “You're sure then?" “Positive." Edsen shook his head. “Tracking data isn't good enough to give us a trajectory yet but that spacecraft is going way beyond a stationary orbit. Look." Edsen reached for a sheet of paper and quickly sketched out a diagram. “We've still got a large error space here but I figure their trajectory is somewhere in between this... and this." Jeb scratched his cheek as he looked at the roughed out orbits. “What's the centreline estimate?" he asked. Edsen drew a third line on the diagram. “Munar flyby, 1000 km periapsis. Give or take." “Would that work? For the Prize I mean." Geneney was picking at a piece of loose insulation poking out of the top of Lucan's console. “I'd want to check with Bill first but my best guess is no. Not reliably. The picture quality would be pretty bad from that altitude - hard to prove anything."He studied Edsen's diagram.“And if this is anywhere near to scale, they'd have problems transmitting the data back too." “Well then," said Jeb, “It sounds like they're planning a midcourse correction of some kind. I think we just wait for the next lot of data from Sigbin and Doodlie, try and sharpen up that tracking and see if we can work out what they're up to from there." Ornie looked at him, “So what do we tell everyone in the meantime, Jeb?" he said. Jeb frowned. “We tell them what we know," he said at last, “Better that they get the bad news from us than KBS." ----------------- Melvey was hunched over his console, paging back and forth through the first images from Satellite 4, when he heard the door open and the rest of the team file back into the control room. Nelton took her seat and checked the flight tracking screen. The dotted figure 8 had gone, replaced by a sinuous line that snaked out from Kerbin and curved gently around the Mün before disappearing off the edge of the screen. She tapped her microphone. “A good try for a first attempt," she said, “but not quite what we need. Lemgan - do we have a burn solution for the midcourse correction?" “We do, Flight. Guidance and trajectory teams concur." Lemgan pressed a button on his console. “An eight metre per second burn here..." he pressed another button,“along this vector, should put us back on the nominal flight plan." On the screen, another red circle appeared, with an arrow pointing away along the burn vector. A dotted line curved away from the circle and into the predicted figure-eight path around the Mün. “Very good. Payload - what is the spacecraft status please?" Melvey twisted his chair round to face her. “All instruments deployed, Flight,"he said, “and I have the first images from the Kerbin observation sequence. I think you'll find them interesting." He flicked a switch and one of the large monitors next to the flight tracking screen lit up. There was a clatter as one of the other flight controllers dropped his pen. Not a single one of the other controllers so much as twitched at the noise. Even Nelton sank back into her chair and gazed at the glowing blue and green sphere neatly filling the screen. “It's round!" she whispered. “The colour filters are working well," said Melvey. “but that's not the most interesting part." He brought up another image. “This one was taken just a couple of hours ago. We're a lot further from Kerbin now of course but as you'll note, the image is also a lot noisier." Lemgan peered at the screen.“Is there a problem with the camera?" he asked, “a loose feed causing static or something?" Melvey shook his head. “The camera systems are fine. It's the environment the camera is flying through that's the problem." "Radiation,"said Nelton. Melvey blinked. “Yes. We expected some background radiation of course, mainly charged particles ejected from Kerbol. We also did our best to shield the cameras but there's a limit to the amount of shielding we could use, given the payload mass requirements. As it turns out, this may have been a happy accident."He tapped a key on his console and the images on the monitor began to cycle past in a crude and rather jerky film clip. It took Lemgan a while to work out what he was seeing. “Hang on," he said slowly, “the noise is fluctuating." He jabbed a finger towards the screen. “There! Stop the film there." He swivelled his chair to face Nelton. “Look. Just as noisy as that last still shot but a lot closer to Kerbin too. Melvey - could you move the film on a few frames?" Melvey smiled faintly and tapped at his console. “There!" said Lemgan. “Further out from Kerbin but the noise has dropped away again!" “Like rings," said Nelton wonderingly, “rings of invisible particles wrapped around Kerbin." Melvey coughed. “I imagined them more like belts, myself," he said, “but obviously we don't have enough data to tell." Nelton smiled. “Then that's what we'll call them in our research paper," she said, “The Melvey Radiation Belts!" << Chapter 20 :: Chapter 22>>

Rather than trying to correct your inclination once your in orbit, you could try launching directly into the right (or approximately right) orbit to start with. It'll take more fuel since you can't take full advantage of Kerbin's rotation to help you get to orbit but that should pale into insignificance compared to the amount of fuel you save by not having to make that big an inclination change on-orbit. Caution - this next bit is more speculative. To do this, I think you'll need to: 1. Have your deorbiter on the launch pad and ready to go. 2. Switch to your space junk and locate the ascending and descending nodes on its orbit. 3. Timewarp until the launch site is a few degrees behind either of the nodes. Having the deorbiter sitting on the pad makes this easier as the launch site becomes more visible. Basically you want to time things so that your deorbiter hits that node as it reaches orbit. 4. Switch back to your orbiter. Go to map screen and select the junk as a target to give you a target cue on your nav-ball. 5. Launch and follow that target cue to orbit! 6. Good luck! Incidentally - respect for spending all this effort to deorbit your space junk!

Learned that setting conic draw mode to zero makes fine tuning interplanetary encounters a whole lot easier. Duna 1 will need another slight correction burn a couple of days before it enters Duna's sphere of influence but preliminary modelling indicates that hitting a roughly equatorial orbit at aerobraking altitude should be perfectly doable.

Dammit! Not so much a cliffhanger ending as a Wile E Coyote style 'over the cliff and still running before you realise where you are' ending. Bring on Beagle Flight - Duna!

The Mun may be a harsh mistress but Jeb doesnt see her that way. Lots of other good stuff coming up too - excellent! Will definitely be keeping an eye out for the new threads - maybe as something to enjoy reading on holiday though because that sounds like a load of writing!

Heh - just do a search for 'every sperm is sacred' on your search engine of choice.

I'm sure I read somewhere that the Gemini capsule was more advanced than the Apollo CSM in many ways. The capsule systems were far more modular, so components were much easier to access and swap in and out during assembly and testing (and presumably in flight if required). Whereas the wiring on Apollo was a real cats-cradle that was much harder to work with.

Spot on! That'll do nicely for the Flag of all Kerbin. Thanks very much!

Agreed. Certainly a dramatic start!

That Jebediah. He's not a kerbonaut - he's a very naughty boy! Nice lyrics.

Oops - Bad Bob Great bit of backstory there - and grats on the sticky!

Took me a while to spot this one - but a day with a new Nassault video to watch is *always* a good day.

The digression into ladder tech was great - 'Just a few welded loops as foot steps would do' made me grin. I liked Jeb the Scientist too! As an aside, *thank* you for the idea of delayed science points. I've just started a new career game using 5 points per day, plus additional delays for building spacecraft. In previous games, I've always tended to run into this disconnect between missions around Kerbin and its moons and interplanetary missions. That transition from flights taking a few days at most to flights taking several weeks or months never really sat well with me. I'm hoping that self-imposed delays will fix that by making even basic missions take a while. Also the launch windows for the first few interplanetary flights will likely open up whilst I'm still doing Mun missions, so the whole program will feel that bit more integrated.

640 should be enough for anyone

Save your report data (use the little clipboard icon) and then get your pilot back into the capsule. Your report will be stored in the capsule letting you go on another EVA (to a different biome) and collect a new report. With patience you can get a lot of science just by plopping a pod down on the launchpad: 1. Transmit crew report from the capsule. 2. EVA. Make EVA report and collect sample from launchpad. Return to capsule. 3. EVA. Walk off the launchpad, make EVA report from KSC, collect sample from KSC. Return to capsule. etc. It takes a while but you can walk your kerbal down to the beach and do another EVA report/sample collection from the shallow water (Kerbin's Shores). If you really insist on maxing out your science you could probably do a fourth EVA into deeper water (Kerbin's Waters) and then a 5th by walking far enough west from the KSC that you hit the grasslands or whatever else is there. Once you've taken your final sample and made your last EVA report just Recover your EVAing kerbal and then recover the capsule too. That would probably be enough to unlock all of Tier 1 and Tier 2 techs. Although you'd be quicker doing an actual launch or two. Oh yes - and as I found out last night you can EVA from the capsule in mid-air (just make sure you don't let go) and get some more EVA reports from sub-orbital flights for more science.

Not for me it doesn't but that's just me. The pictures give me a reference but it's the writing that gives me the atmosphere! Going tech-heavy was definitely the right decision - the KASA-speak is very nicely done indeed, as is the general banter between Jeb, Bob and Bill. I'm looking forward to finding out where this 'Mack' nickname came from too! Oh yes - and thanks for the shout-out. I blame Malmie for the duff turbopump though

Hmm, me neither It's exactly what I asked for though so that's no fault of yours! I think it might work better with a slightly thicker central ring and dots rather than circles around the edge. Same size I think, just filled in. Great work though - thanks! If you get a moment, an edit would be lovely but as you said - first in first out, so I appreciate that edits are probably not at the top of the queue.

Yup - this was a robotic probe. I think I mentioned that a couple of chapters back when the KIS were planning the flight and then a bit later in the Rockomax review of KIS capability. Easily missed if you're only reading the story in small chunks but a small edit could be helpful anyway: "I'm seeing some noise on data bus 2," said Lucan, "but the probe telemetry can work off a single bus if anything happens." Something like that, just as a quick reminder. I did hope that the lack of crew was apparent from the general mood of the scene but if my vision of a scene is at odds with how people are reading it, then I need to work on that. Specifically: there's no chatter between the controllers and the pilot and then after the initial 'oh %%£&^' moment when the result of many many 80 hour weeks blows itself into shrapnel, it's all fairly low key. All the conversation is about the rocket - again no mention of a pilot. Then Jeb's plan is to chill out with some beer and come back in the morning. Given that he was up all night worrying about the Moho 3 flight, it seems a bit out of character to be so relaxed about a fatality on the very next flight. But again - if there's a disconnect between how I'm picturing the characters and how they're being read, then I need to work on that. Duxwing - thanks for your other comments. As a quick response: 1-2. Fair enough. 3. Also reasonable, although to use your example 'overcame X' sounds rather matter of fact to me whereas 'kept going despite X' makes X seem like more of a challenge that took a long time to work through. Although simple language - and then adding a bit of detail about X and why it was such a problem - would probably be better. 4. Depends on the keyboard but point taken. 5. I'm going to respectfully disagree on this one. I take your point about a distinct voice adding flavor but I would prefer to move away from the direct parallel between Wernher Kerman and Wernher von Braun and lose the stereotype accent at the same time. Admittedly I could have avoided the whole problem by choosing a different name for the chief engineer! 6. That's very helpful - thanks. Cheers, KSK.

Ahhhh - the Mun. Muse of generations of Kerbal poets and inspiration for some of the most beautiful and moving works of Kerbal literature ever. I can't wait to see what linguistic celebrations it inspires in Jeb and the boys.

That pesky 'real life' thing has a tendency to get in the way. Thanks for the update - we'll still be here when you find the time to post the next chapter!

The Mun is in the sky?

If you're still taking requests for flags, I'd very much like this one if you could make it: Blue background, green circle (as in ring rather than dot) in the centre with 12 smaller green circles (will probably need to be dots) arranged around it. Six thin white bars coming in from the edges and intersecting in the middle, so that each bar bisects a pair of the smaller circles. Don't know how well that will work when reduced to flag size but I'd love to see if it does. Thanks!