KSK

No - but I just borrowed Pete Conrad's words for my first Minmus landing. "That might have been a small one for Jeb but it was a long one for me!"

Next chapter is up... Beached The launch bunker was warm, stuffy and smelled of the sharp ozone tang of overheated electronics and the earthier scent of overheated kerbal. Geneney stifled a yawn as he listened to the background hum of the bunker equipment and the clicking of buttons as the flight control team worked their consoles. He idly watched as one of the overhead display monitors switched from a view of the departing rocket to a view over the grandstands and was gratified to see that they were still full to bursting, with a great throng of kerbals sitting on the grass between the stands and the safety fence. Even after half a dozen launches from the Barkton Space Centre, it seemed that the local appetite for spaceflight was unabated. “Starting pitch and roll program," Bill called out, jolting Geneney's attention back to the launch. He swiftly checked the repeater displays on his console. “Pitch and roll is in. Booster is looking good. Systems report please, Wernher." Wernher scanned his readouts. “905s are running a little hot," he said, “but within expected parameters. LV-T20 is nominal." “Understood, Wernher. Keep an eye on the 905s - we may need to throttle back the second stage a little as a precaution. Flight Dynamics - how will that affect our transfer window?" Lucan looked up from his console. “Shouldn't make any difference, Flight," he said, “We've figured in three orbits for systems checkout and platform alignment. Even if we're a bit late getting to our parking orbit, we should still have plenty of time to get set up for the burn." “Thank you, Lucan. How's the trajectory looking, Bill?" “We're, Go Flight. Booster is through point of maximum pressure." The telemetry screens flickered briefly and then fuzzed into static. Geneney frowned. “Looks like the main data cable has come loose. That shouldn't be able to happen at this stage in the ascent." Lucan tapped at his console. “Something could have jolted it at max Q, Gene,"he said, “Switching to auxiliary channel." Bill cleared his throat. “I don't think that's going to help much," he said quietly, “Gene - take a look at the crowd." Geneney glanced over at the monitor and stiffened in surprise. Hundreds of kerbals were on their feet, staring out to sea with a slack jawed expression. With a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach, he patched in the audio loop from the commentary box. “There is still no official word from Mission Control but that's an awfully bright light out there. If that was a problem with the first stage then hopefully it happened close enough to staging that Mission Control can salvage the flight." Lucan's forlorn voice sounded loudly in the sudden silence. “No signal from the auxiliary channels either, Flight. I think we just lost the spacecraft." Geneney buried his head in his hands. Across the room, Wernher worked furiously at his console before giving up and throwing himself back into his seat. Lucan and Bill just stared blankly at the static filling their displays. After a moment, Lucan broke the strained silence. “So what do we do now, Flight?" he said tentatively. Geneney blearily lifted his head and peered across the room, blinking hard to bring everything back into focus. Before he could say anything, a voice spoke up from the doorway. “Well I don't know about you, Lucan but I'm going to borrow Ornie's truck and head over to Jorfurt's to pick up a couple of casks." Everyone turned to stare at Jeb who was leaning casually against the bunker door. Geneney shot him an angry glare. “Dammit, Jeb - this is hardly the time for a party!" “Actually,“ said Jeb, “I think this is exactly the time for a party." He cocked an eyebrow at Geneney. “Or have you forgotten how we ended up solving most of the problems with the Kerbal 1?" There was a squeaking of wheels on concrete as Wernher rolled his chair around the corner of his console. “Jeb does have a point," he said, “After all - we're not exactly in a hurry to retrieve the rocket. Whatever's left of it is probably in little tiny pieces scattered over a square kilometre or two of the Great Tranquil Sea. We might be able to work something out from the telemetry but speaking personally, that telemetry is going to make a lot more sense after a couple of mugs of Jorfurt's latest and a good long sleep." Geneney stared at him and then dismissively shrugged his shoulders. “Whatever you say, Jeb. I doubt that anyone else will go for it though." There was a rare hint of steel in Jeb's voice. “Not my problem, Genie," he replied, “I'm leaving it to you to persuade them. And if all else fails, I'll chase every last one of them out of the warehouse and lock the door." The steel disappeared as Jeb sagged against the doorframe, massaging his temples. “Besides," he said, “I know I'm bushed, so I hate to think how everyone else is feeling right now. If we start putting another rocket together in this state, we're more likely to burn the place down than anything else." Geneney threw up his hands. “You're probably right," he said grudgingly. Jeb looked at him wearily. “Thanks, Genie. I'd better go speak to Leland and let him know what happened - and what we plan to do about it. He's bound to ask anyway." He glanced around the bunker. “I'll meet everyone back at the warehouse in an hour or so." ------------ Jeb's shoulders were slumped as he walked towards the main warehouse and vehicle assembly building. The press interview had gone fairly well all things considered and he thought that he had been reasonably optimistic without sounding too forced. However, no amount of quietly confident replies to Leland's questions could disguise the fact that their first attempt at a Munar flight hadn't even made it into low Kerbin orbit. Time to put on the public face, Jeb, he thought to himself, as he squared his shoulders, forced the scowl off his face and opened the warehouse door. Inside, the atmosphere was unsurprisingly gloomy, with despondent kerbals standing around in small groups. He spotted Geneney in one corner and dipped his head briefly. Geneney caught his eye and nodded back, before stepping out into the middle of the warehouse floor. “There's no good way of saying this, people, so I'll get right to the point. Today was a setback." Jeb shut the door quietly behind him and went over to sit down beside Bill and Bob. “But it's a setback we can overcome. We know the Moho booster works, we know it will be enough for what we have in mind and I have absolutely no doubt that we can work out what went wrong, fix it and then put today behind us." The babble of voices died away. Geneney bowed his head in acknowledgement and then straightened up with a determined expression on his face. “I can tell you right now that this is not going to be a finger pointing exercise. We all build them, we all fly them and when they go wrong - well we all share that too. I've seen what comes out of our workshops - each and every kerbal here does good work and I know that nobody but nobody wanted that flight to fail." “And I can also tell you right now that I am proud to be standing here today!" Geneney noticed the confused looks from around the room and the corner of his mouth briefly twitched upwards as he continued. “I am proud to be working with a team that has overcome impossible obstacles and a shoestring budget to do things that have never been done before. A team that can build an honest-to-Kerm rocket ship, by hand, from the raw metal upwards - and then put the son-of-a-gronnek into orbit!" Geneney jabbed himself in the chest for emphasis. “Forget what I said about doing good work - you people are doing awesome work!" Geneney was startled to realise that his fists were clenched and his voice was cracking. He paused, striving for a lighter tone. “For now though, I think we all deserve a break. I know I've been putting the hours in over the last couple of weeks but I've never yet managed to be the first in or the last out of this warehouse. I'm not going to name any names but I'm pretty sure that at least two of you have been spending your nights sleeping under a workbench for most of the last week! Jeb's still looking for his spare toothbrush by the way so if someone could put it back that would be good." There was a patter of rather forced laughter. Most of the kerbals standing around Geneney began to look more enthusiastic, although some were muttering worriedly to their neighbours. Geneney raised a hand as the muttered comments began to swell into a general grumble. “I know that taking a break isn't what some of you want to hear but trust me on this one. I can't tell you how often we ended up banging our heads against some problem with the Kerbal 1 and just getting nowhere. We usually found that the best way to solve that problem was to take a couple of days off, maybe work on some other part for a bit and then come back to it with a clear head." “So I tell you what we're going to do. We're going to kick back, spend some time on the beach, maybe have a few drinks. I'd promise you a fireworks display but Jeb gets... excitable around fireworks so I think we'll give those a miss. Then we're going to come back in here tomorrow afternoon, we're going to work through this little problem and then we're going to put the next rocket right smack into orbit around the Mün!" Jeb nodded in satisfaction as the sullen muttering faded into cheerful chatter. He sprang to his feet. “Sounds good to me, Genie! Ornie - I'm going to need a lift down to Jorfurt's to pick up a couple of casks and other suitable refreshment. You're our resident barbecue expert, so grab a couple of volunteers and figure out what you need for the catering. Bob - you're in charge of music. Everyone else - we're gonna need plenty of firewood, something to sit on and a table or two to put the food on. And if anyone has any games they want to bring along, then feel free!" ------------- The junkyard gates swung open and a motley array of vehicles trundled out. Ornie's truck led the way, indicators flashing as it turned right on its way to Barkton town centre. It was followed by a handful of cars, each crammed full of eager kerbals. Finally, with a rumbling of engines, two motorcycles rolled through the gates, ridden by Wilford and Camrie with Seelan and Lodan sitting bolt upright behind them. Lodan hopped off to close the gates, before leaping back on behind Wilford. With a roar, the two bikes raced away, heeling over sharply as they swung round the corner and rode away down towards the beach. By the time Ornie's truck pulled up on the edge of the sand, a firepit had already been dug out and a large heap of driftwood piled up inside. A semicircle of stones were carefully laid out on one side of the pit to form the beginnings of a makeshift barbecue grill. Two tables stood ready by the firepit and assorted chairs, old tyres and large rocks were scattered in a loose circle around the heap of wood. Ornie noticed Bob's guitar resting jauntily against one of the chairs. Half a dozen kerbals stood around chatting, watching the others marking out a large circle in the damp sand further down the beach. Jeb scrambled out of the front seat, slamming the door closed behind him. No sooner had he made his way round to the back of the truck than all six kerbals were running up to help unload it. Ornie retrieved his trolley from the back seat and was busy setting it up, when he heard a loud clunk. “Hey!" shouted Jeb, “This isn't a keg of Wakira Special you two are thumping about! If you can't take better care of one of Jorfurt's brews you're not going to be drinking any of it later." Ornie appeared round the side of the truck, carrying his trolley in one hand. Calzer and Tomcas had propped up two planks against the back and were cheerfully rolling a keg down them. He raised his eyebrows at the impromptu ramp and then very pointedly, pressed a button on the tailgate. With a wheeze of hydraulics, the tail lift slowly unfolded and lowered itself to the ground. Calzer and Tomcas looked appropriately sheepish as Jeb scowled at them. “You two can carry this down to the beach - and just be happy that Genie didn't catch you mistreating the beer." As Jeb stood by the heap of driftwood, he could hear the swishing of knives and other assorted cooking implements as Roncott and Lowise busied themselves making vegetable skewers, spiced meatcakes and other delicacies for the barbecue. Wilford and Camrie were helping after a fashion but as far as he could tell, were actually spending more time regaling the others with tales of their flights into space. Calzer and Tomcas were setting up the trestles for the beer kegs and Jeb was inwardly amused to see the extreme care with which they lifted the first keg into place. Across the beach, the rest of the team appeared to playing some kind of game. From what Jeb could see, it appeared to involve standing in front of a stick whilst someone threw a ball at you and then clouting the ball away as hard as you could using a wooden bat. Beyond that it was all vaguely confusing, although judging from the level of noise and general excitement, everyone seemed to be having fun. “Ornie," he asked plaintively, “could you please tell me what on Kerbin they are doing down there?" Ornie grinned. “Looks like Richlin is teaching them shepherdball," he said. “Or the simple version of it anyway." “Shepherdball?" “Sure. Very popular on the Wakira coast. Me and Richlin used to spend a fair amount of time on the air show circuit around there and learning to play shepherdball was practically mandatory. A good hard packed runway makes a surprisingly good batting surface at a pinch." Ornie gazed reflectively at the players in the distance.“I never was much good at it myself but Richlin was a fair old spin bowler back in the day." “You do realise that I don't have the slightest idea what you're talking about don't you?" said Jeb. Across the beach, he heard a distant thwack and a roar went up as the ball sailed high over the heads of the hapless kerbals attempting to catch it. Beside him, Ornie launched into an enthusiastic lecture on the basics of shepherdball. By the time he reached the finer points of the different bowling styles, Jeb had a rather glazed expression on his face. “Anyway, spin, seam, swing - it's all about getting the ball to move around in mid-air. Quite a nice exercise in applied aerodynamics actually - I reckon Bill would get the idea pretty quickly!" Jeb looked bemused. “Well once Bill's got the idea, you can both try explaining it all to me again," he said. Then he brightened up. “Anyway, forget aerodynamics - it's time for a quick exercise in pyrodynamics! Time to get the fire going before those shepherders, shepherds - what the Kerm do you call a shepherdball player anyway - get back here." Ornie laughed. “Plenty of time yet," he said. “By my count they're only about half way through the second innings." The driftwood was bone dry and presently Jeb had built up the fire into a cheerful roaring blaze. By the time the first shepherdball players started making their way up the beach, Ornie had raked out a bed of embers into the barbecue pit and was squatting by the grill, sauce bottle close at hand and intently watching the first few sizzling meatcakes as they started to brown. As he trickled a generous portion of sticky brown sauce over them, noses began to twitch all around the fire as the sweetly spicy aroma rose into the evening air. On the other side of the fire, Jeb was standing behind the kegs, cheerfully serving drinks and taking the occasional healthy swig from his own mug. For a long while there was nothing to hear but the crackling of the fire, the sizzling of the coals under the barbecue and the contented sounds of hungry kerbals steadily working their way through Roncott, Lowise and Ornie's cooking. As everyone began to put their plates to one side, Jeb topped up everyone's drink and then turned to Bob with a grin. “You weren't planning to just sit and look at that guitar all evening were you, Bobcat?" Bob popped the last fragment of chargrilled mushroom into his mouth and stifled a belch. “Now that you mention it, Jeb," he said solemnly, “I have been working on a song or two for just such an occasion." He rubbed his fingers in the sand to scrub off the grease and then picked up the guitar leaning against his seat. He strummed it briskly, head tipped to one side as he listened for any out of tune strings and then satisfied, climbed unsteadily to his feet. “My friends," he said, “I give you - the Ballad of the Kerbal 1." Bob slowly began to pick out a familiar melody and as the conversations around the fire gradually petered out, he began to sing along; “At first I was afraid. I was petrified... Thought we would never make it back, if we let Jebediah drive." There was a roar of laughter as Jeb leapt to his feet and sketched a bow. “And so I spent oh so many nights, thinking what could all go wrong. But I got onboard - and I brought parachutes along..." The tempo of the music began to speed up. Everyone around the fire began to clap along in time as Bob's fingers danced over the strings. “And now we're back! From the edge of space. I rode shotgun on the launch with my friend Bill in the far left place. We saw the Müun. We saw the stars. And we even made it home without too many scars!" By now Bob had one foot up on his seat as he enthusiastically strummed away. “Oh yeah we're back. From the edge of space! We soared across the sky - and you should have seen Jeb's face. We saw the Mün. We saw the stars. Even if the capsule seat, got imprinted on my..." At that point, Bob's chair collapsed and he tumbled over onto the sand, guitar waving in the air. Jeb darted forward to help his friend and did his best to keep a straight face as he saw Geneney surreptitiously moving his foot back out of the way. As kerbal after kerbal called out with requests for their favourite songs, Ornie was surprised to see Jeb looking rather misty eyed. "Are you OK there, Jeb?" he asked quietly. "I'm fine, Ornie. Bob's song just brought it all back is all. Blame it on the beer." Jeb stared into the dwindling flames of the bonfire. "But yeah - that's pretty much what it was like. We climbed into that capsule, knowing that it was our last shot and hoping to Kerm that we hadn't forgotten anything vital." Jeb gave him a wry look. "Almost everyone had written off those 'crazy interplanetary characters' by then and we really were down to the bottom of the parts bin." Ornie had the grace to look embarrassed but Jeb waved away his half formed apologies. "No need to apologise," he said gruffly, "You were far from the last - and we'd been called far worse by then anyway. Besides, even after the Kerbal 1, I'm not sure what we'd have done without you and Richlin on the team. We wouldn't be planning our fourth orbital flight, that's for certain." Jeb smiled grimly, "Fourth orbital flight... that'll be sticking in the craw of those fardling 'experts' at the Institute." He snorted. "Except that most of them will just be telling everyone how they knew it was a good idea all along." Jeb looked down at his mug and shook his head. "Think I'm going to warn Jorfurt to stop serving this one at least an hour before closing time. Never known one of his brews to hit me like this." He winced as Bob tried for a top note and didn't quite make it. "Anyway, no need to eat that old soup again. What Genie said this afternoon back at the warehouse - I couldn't have put it better myself." Ornie glanced over at Jeb and saw the familiar determined look back on his face. "And I still havn't forgotten what I said to Genie about scouting for landing sites either. We're going to the Mün with the next flight, Ornie - but going there with probes is just the start!" ------- With thanks to Jake for introducing me to shepherdball and Sir Nahme for letting me borrow his signature file for the Ballad of the Kerbal 1. << Chapter 19 :: Chapter 21>>

Loving it so far. I'm having fun with the science and I'm enjoying having to make the most of a reduced part set at the start. I'm probably more of a roleplayer anyway when it comes to KSP, so starting small and working through the tech tree fits my play style very well! I've already seen some interesting posts about the tech tree with different people taking different routes through the tree to suit their own building styles.

I like that! For now it's just roleplaying - 'I'm going to have a big orbiting station with science modules dotted over it because I can.' Once career mode develops a bit further though, having a nice orbital science facility for rent could be a good way of earning money or reputation for your space program. Likewise, solar power sats or huge Whackjobian orbital hotels with room for dozens of kerbals at a time. This is just the beginning - I'm sure there will be concrete reasons for building orbital facilities as the game develops.

Got a bit distracted last night lobbing Mystery Goo into sub-orbital space. I think the writing for the next chapter is about 75% done but there's also a fair bit of re-working to do before I post it. When that happens largely depends on how busy this weekend ends up being. Cheers, KSK.

With apologies to Dr Seuss.. There's a Jeb going to bed and the bed of a Jeb. Is the boomiest bed in the world it is said. He makes it from SRBs he builds in his shed...

It's not terribly original but I use KBS News as my fictional news station, as a small tribute to CBS News. Likewise, Leland Kerman is a tribute to a certain well known anchorman.

Interesting. Looks like most of my early career mode craft are going to be festooned with separatrons to deorbit all the spent stages. Either that or I get a bit smarter with mission planning!

Actually, Kerbals read and write in Wingdings. However, Squad have thoughtfully translated them into something more accessible to Terrans

Heh - probably just me then. Probably time to dial that stiff upper lip back a notch or two Thanks for the feedback though and glad you're enjoying the story!

Nope - but that's a good thing! I also like the way you're switching between the present day with Kaos and the past, using his memories of Jeb's story.

I bet ATC are going to be surprised - and I'd love to be a fly on the wall for the debriefing. The look on Jeb's boss's face is going to be priceless As for the formatting - I know some other folks that have been having problems with paragraph indenting so don't worry about it. I tend to just put a blank line between paragraphs - it might not be the neatest way of doing things but its fairly readable.

It looks like you're going to have problems with tail strike with the size of those engines, which might explain what you're seeing. Nose comes up, tail goes down, engines hit runway.... boom. If you can, move the wings back slightly to compensate. If that moves your centre of lift too far back, try adding canards to your nose.

Also, for posting pictures on the forums, you might want to upload them to an image sharing site first (Imgur works for me) and then link to the shared image from your forum post.

F1 and F2. One toggles the user interface on and off, the other takes screenshots. Can't remember which way round that works off the top of my head. Screenshots are saved into their own folder in your KSP folder - I forget the file format but any decent image viewer should work fine. Not quite sure what you mean by orbital axis but the Mun is in an equatorial orbit around Kerbin, so if your craft is also in an equatorial orbit you should be good to go. It doesn't need to be perfect either, a couple of degrees either side should work, although you may end up in quite an inclined orbit around the Mun.

Just a quick question to those folks using tugs - how do you balance out your RCS to cope with tug or tug+cargo? I've thought about using them but could never quite see how it would work.

Thanks - and happy to shout-out or linkback in response to comments! And there we have it. It looks even better as my profile picture.

Love the mugs and mission patches - "Kerman, Kerman, Kerman" just made me smile! Also my Latin isnt so hot but that looks something like 'to the stars without reloading' on the Kerbal 2 patch? Which reminds me - would you mind if I used the Kerbal 1 mission patch as my avatar? I've got a bit of a soft spot for that particular vessel.

That tends to work the other way around in that impurities lower melting point. It's why you put salt on the roads in winter - salty water can't freeze even in the low winter temperatures and so remains liquid rather than turning to ice. This only works up to a point of course. </pedant>

Warriorbulb - thanks for that. Glad you're still enjoying the story! Brody_Peffley - you've got me smiling right back. I certainly enjoyed the detour into kerbal family life - good to know it worked for you too.

Constructive criticism is always helpful and you didn't come across as arrogant to me. Thanks for the rules and suggestions too. Adverbs are an interesting one. I have to admit that I tend to use them in the way that sounds most natural to me rather than by any particular rule or rule of thumb. For example 'Meleny chuckled softly' (my version) sounds more natural to me than 'Meleny softly chuckled' (your version). I'd definitely be interested in talking this over in more detail but if you don't mind, I'd prefer to take that conversation off-thread. For lists - I thought that's pretty much what I was already doing? Or are the Oxford commas sneaking in there too? Probably best if I pick a style and stick with it. Regarding the last three points, I try to stick by those but they certainly bear repeating particularly 'showing not telling.' Something to work on for sure, although if you don't mind me saying, I think your version went a little too far in the opposite direction for that particular scene. Gerselle and Meleny are good friends but that's it as far as those particular kerbals are concerned Perhaps it's just the straight-laced Brit in me but I felt that things were starting to get distinctly steamy in your re-telling! Unless it was exaggerated for effect of course. As far as the first chapter goes - yeah that was originally written as a standalone piece complete with its own little epilogue in Jeb's junkyard, so the style might not match the rest of the story. In the consolidated version of First Flight, the first chapter is re-cast as a prologue, which helps but yes - the opening lines (mainsails and Mun rovers) might need re-working a bit. Anyhow, thanks for taking the time to comment and especially for taking the time to re-write a section of the story to illustrate your points. Cheers, KSK.

First off - nice job for a first cinematic! I've never tried making one myself and don't have any feel for what's involved - so take my comments accordingly! That said, could you put in the dialogue as subtitles rather than cutting away to a text screen each time? It works quite well to set the mood but breaks the immersion after that. Also, as Lohan said - running a spellchecker over the script would be good too

Foxtrot, Uniform, Bravo, Alpha, Romeo comes close but yours is punchier.

I see what you did there.

It's possible that I'm also missing something but don't your solar arrays automatically track the sun as you orbit? I'm assuming your power station is orbiting Kerbin! Although if I remember correctly, Kerbol, Kerbin and the Mun are all in the same orbital plane, so using the Mun as a target might help to orient your station.