KSK

Without a fairly fundamental rethink as to how humanity manages its affairs, colonisation of Mars or anywhere else in the solar system is pointless. Taking the same problems that afflict us on Earth, all the way out to Mars is merely postponing the inevitable. Taking them further than Mars postpones it marginally further at ever increasing cost. And what then? When the solar system is used up, when 'growth at all costs' fills up our hard-won living space, what do we do then? Because, barring a major and implausible scientific breakthrough, we aint going to the stars. When the CO2 levels reach their threshold, when the last barrel of oil is siphoned from the ground, humanity might eke out a few more decades on a frozen rustball, wishing it had a home to go back to. That's what colonisation would get us right now. Going to space for exploration, for the pursuit of knowledge and, hopefully, wisdom. That is a noble pursuit. Going to space to run away from our problems on Earth is not. Edit: "Any man who had ever worked in a hardened missile silo would have felt at home in Clavius. Here on the Moon were the same arts and hardware of underground living , and of protection against a hostile environment; but here they had turned to the purposes of peace. After ten thousand years, Man had at last found something as exciting as war. Unfortunately, not all nations had yet realised that fact." - Arthur C. Clarke: 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Robocrabs in spaaaaaace! And on a serious note that was another fun chapter with some really nice descriptive touches. I especially liked Val picking out the various subsystems by sound alone. Oh - and I saw the sneaky The Martian reference - well played.

To be fair, can you imagine the funding bill for a Mars programme? "Cognisant of the grave financial burden which this venture shall place on American taxpayers and wishing to reduce that burden wherever realistically possible, we Congress hereby mandate the following cost saving measures: Section 3(2)(a)(iii) Mars Descent Vehicle (MDV) The crew compartment of the MDV shall comprise a refurbished Apollo capsule. It's flight proven hardware and the Smithsonian needs the extra space anyway. The MDV engines shall comprise single segment solid rocket boosters derived from Shuttle hardware. It worked for SLS, it'll work for this. The primary thermal protection system shall comprise no less than 87.3% reprocessed corn husk. We don't understand why MDV needs a heat shield anyway as it's not like Mars has any air. Plus the good voters of Iowa are supporting this Program and they deserve your reciprocal support."

OK, first things first - I love the concept. I grew up playing Elite and one of the upgrades to your spaceship in that game was a fuel scoop. The idea of real life fuel scoops tickles every sci-fi nerd bone in my body. However, even if we assume @MatterBeam's numbers add up, the practicalities of deploying a large enough scoop to generate useful amounts of propellant per year seem daunting. The few experiments that have been carried out with tethers for example, have been challenging and a tether looks positively straightforward compared to deploying and controlling several hundred square metres of scoop. This also strikes me as a scaling problem waiting to happen. For example, given the size of the structure involved, even small increases in mass per square meter of scoop material are going to add up quickly, to the point where they knock the rest of your calculations out of kilter. We've also got a lot of demanding material requirements here. The scoop needs to be able to withstand intense UV radiation and reactive oxygen species for years at a time whilst remaining very lightweight and being capable of being folded up into a rocket fairing and then smoothly deployed in space. I do also wonder whether this is a solution in search of a problem. Having thousands of tons of scooped propellant on-orbit sounds great but by the time we're generating sufficient traffic in space to need that propellant, I'm thinking the improvements in launch vehicle technology to lift that traffic to orbit are going to make hauling propellant up from Earth a very competitive option to set against a technically finicky atmospheric scoop.

Agreed. The first poll needs more options. The second poll - apart from a serious doubt about a pre 2024 launch I have no sensible opinion on any of the other options. As for the third poll, 'domes' are the only remotely plausible or morally acceptable option for the foreseeable future.

This isn't the place to speculate on the reasons for that and nor do I intend to put words in your mouth. But for what it's worth - I know that feeling well. Good luck getting the mojo back and if it really is time to call it a day with Kerbfleet - well thank you for all the good times and the best of luck with any new endeavors. As for this reader - il aura toujours le fromage Viva la Science! Viva Kerbfleet!

Right - which is why I called it an abort test of sorts, mentioned that I was concerned about debris and specifically pointed out that there was a difference between a recovered capsule and a recovered capsule with live astronauts inside. And I'm aware that the abort tests are milestones in the NASA approved CCDev plan. Amongst many other milestones, which you probably know more about than me but quite a few of which appear to involve the launch abort system. My point was that so far NASA has approved the SuperDraco abort system (contingent on successful testing of course), so, unlike @kerbiloid, presumably doesn't have a problem with the concept. And I can't imagine that something as basic as the acceleration imparted by the system would have escaped their notice.

I have a couple of thoughts on this although admittedly, I don't really know enough to say whether my thoughts are worth much. 1. About riding on the edge of a fireball. Isn't this more or less what the capsule is designed to do on the way back down from space? I don't see why it would necessarily be a problem in the event of an abort. 2. We've already had a live abort test of sorts with CRS-7. General opinion afterwards seemed to be that the capsule might have been recovered if the parachutes had been deployed. There's a big difference between 'recovered' and 'recovered with live astronauts in' of course but CRS-7 does suggest that the capsule is pretty rugged. Which is good because as per point 1 above, I'd be more concerned about debris hitting the capsule than riding the edge of a fireball. 3. For whatever reason, SpaceX have already abandoned the idea of propulsive landing for NASA flights but as far as we know are sticking with their pusher mode LES. To me that suggests that NASA is OK with that plan or at the least, considers the risks of a lower acceleration SuperDraco powered abort to be acceptable. After all, a traditional high-G launch escape system is hardly risk free - it's just better than no escape option.

Alone. In the VAB. Watching the rockets fly away without her.

It'll be one of those new-fangled aerospike thingies.

Nope - www.uspto.gov is the official site if you ever need an insomnia cure. Mind you, their official search tools for looking up patent information aren't much to look at either.

Or just be very, very dead. And glowing. And thus did the world come to fear the one-man atomic zombie apocalypse. Back on topic, that patent is hilariously bad. Fortunately, it appears the USPTO agrees since it was published in 2010 and doesn't seem to have been granted.

We're all overthinking this. What we actually need is just a Really Big Fan, on an Even Bigger Flatbed Truck. A remote controlled one would be best, although we could put a call out for a Really Brave Driver, I suppose. Then we just drive the RBF-EBFT assembly into the eye of the hurricane and have the RBD switch the fan on. Presto - the RBF 'unwinds' the hurricane and calm is restored. For optimum results, make sure the fan is rotating counter to the direction of rotation of the hurricane.

I was going to take a punt on SpaceX squeaking out a technical majority by capturing 51% of the launch market in ten years time but then I had a look at the actual numbers of orbital launches per year. If they can keep up their current growth then I don't think they'll be far off - but that's a very big if. It also assumes that the launch market stays flat and I think SpaceX would be rather disappointed if that happened. I voted for partially reusable, any stage but thinking about it, I reckon @Gaarst is right.

Lovely! Although you know you've watched too many of these when you see the grid fins deploy and think 'yup - those are the new titanium ones', before the commentator manages to get a word in.

Oh absolutely - that's spot on! Although The Age of Fire was something I shamelessly borrowed from @Madrias who was kind enough not to mind! It just seemed like such a good fit for the story for the reasons you've already mentioned. Even if the impending fires of war weren't so obvious at the time I started writing Part IV, it was clear that the Kerm Crisis was going to cause some kind of major upheaval. I thought it was also a nice little nod to Michael Collins' book Carrying the Fire and to Plutarch Kerman's oft quoted: "The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled" If nothing else that seemed especially apt with the advent of the an-Kerm and the opportunities for the kerbals to learn about their past.

Having seen the picture of the X-37B on this thread (not to mention the technicians standing around it), I find it amazing to think that it's all crammed into that little fairing. Really brings home the size of the Falcon 9. I always get a bit of cognitive dissonance with the 'booster on a barge' pictures after a successful recovery. Rationally I know that I'm looking at an immense multi-story metal sculpture with rocket engines on the bottom. But I really don't get that from the pictures - the scale is all wrong somehow.

I'm not sure that was true even in the early days. Schirra flew on Mercury, Gemini and Apollo if I remember rightly and a good number of the Gemini astronauts went on to fly on Apollo missions. I'm not sure what the Soviet rotations looked like or look like. As for the Shuttle era - well take a look at @HebaruSan's table. No shortage of repeat flights there, especially for the pilots. Regarding crew chemistry and selecting for that - I've read that the ethos for Gemini and Apollo was that any astronaut could fly with any other astronaut and standardised training would take care of the rest. Crews didn't have to like each other, provided they could tolerate each other enough to get the job done. And there was plenty of incentive for that given that not getting the job done tended to mean that you never got a chance at another flight. How true that ethos was in practice I don't know, although given the amount of competition and number of high-achieving egos in the early astronaut corps, consistently picking crews that actively liked each other (as opposed to respecting the other's abilities) would have been rather challenging. So you got the occasional team that really gelled - Conrad, Gordon and Bean on Apollo 12, is the one that always leaps to mind for me but you also got some really disparate personalities cooped up in the same capsule. Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins were a pretty good example of that. These days, 'good chemistry' and the ability to get on with your crew is much more a part of being an astronaut, or so I've read. Which doesn't surprise me at all, given that ISS missions are the only flights going and they last for months at a time.

Oh man - if they manage to follow that with a camera...

Good grief but trying to edit forum posts on a mobile device is like trying to do brain surgery wearing mittens. Awkward, messy and something is almost guaranteed to go wrong. Going back to the actual questions - I have no idea. I presume that whatever they use is fairly hefty though if they're planning to have both strap-ons do boostback burns. "And stage and spin and... #NoCarrier."

T+01:30 (ish): Please stage. T+01:31 (ish): Please stage. After main engine start, staging the strap-on boosters is going to be the major pucker factor I'm thinking.

A duck?

Aye cully. Not when Demon Moon is in the sky.

Thanks! Can't claim it all as my work though - I had a lot of help from @Ten Key and @CatastrophicFailure with the editing and polishing and that made a real difference.

Hey folks, Can't remember the last time I posted two updates in such close succession so if you've been away for a while, there's another update to read first. For everyone else - the next chapter is up... Shattered Mama take this badge from me. I can't use it anymore. It's getting dark, too dark to see. Feels like I'm knockin' on heaven's door. - Bob Dylan. ——————— Geysers exploded all around The Shield of Kolus, the enemy gunners coming perilously close to the mark despite her crew’s best efforts at evasion. The forward turrets swung round, returning fire with deafening effect. Dense clouds of cordite smoke wreathed the corvette’s flanks, lit by rippling muzzle flashes as her smaller guns laid down a continuous barrage against the smaller Doreni vessels. Her captain stood impassively on the bridge, issuing orders in a voice loud enough to be heard over the din but never hasty or panicked enough to be called a scream. The younger officers responded in kind, their commander's iron control more than sufficient to stiffen their own spines. “Their reserves have split, ma’am. Shore radar is picking up two flanking squadrons, they think north-south envelopment.” “Very good. Signal Pride to fall back; burning barn retreat. Tenacity will close the door once the Doreni have found the mines. Five and Six squadrons to plug the gap.” “By your orders, Ma’am.” “Radio?” “Ma’am?” “Immediate sitrep for Fleet Commander Gusden. Message begins. Humilisia stands. Reserves committed, Second Fleet engaged but holding.” And Kolus stands, she added silently. We do not abandon our Kerm nor murder those of the Doreni. ——————— Chadlin pinned the newly minted insignia tabs onto the young kerbal’s collar, the chrome steel circles bisected by their horizontal bars, a deliberate echo of the Doreni flags fluttering above the imposing edifice of the Doreni National Guardhouse behind them. Once a heavily fortified corner of the walls surrounding the Doreni capital, the Guardhouse had been a museum for as long as Chadlin could remember. The irony of its hasty repurposing was not lost on him. He shook the new officer’s right hand and pressed a ribbon-bound buff envelope into his left. The sombre faced kerbal stepped back and saluted his President, waited for Chadlin’s return salute and marched briskly off the stage. Chadlin’s eyes tracked him for a moment before snapping back to the next soon-to-be officer marching past the rows of assembled dignitaries towards him. The queue moved forward one space. At its far end, another uniformed kerbal emerged from the Grand Portico and waited, stony-faced, for his commission. ——————— The soldier deposited a last armful of wood by the uprooted tree stump, removed his heavy steel gauze mask and gorget and began stripping off his stained and torn leather jacket. “The armour worked then?” The soldier bit back his first response. “Yes, sir. Blighted tree fought like something from the seven smoking hells but the armour held.” He draped his jacket over the stack of branches, casting a baleful glance at their drooping clusters of leaves and unfastened the canvas belt holding his equally battle-scarred padded trousers up. “And that was a just a young one. Begging the platoon leader’s pardon but taking a big one down is going to need a damn sight more than steel gauze and padding. Myself, I’m thinking a backhoe loader would be a start.” —————— Chadmore surveyed the serried ranks of shivering recruits, all dressed in identical singlets and long shorts despite the weather. He clasped his hands behind his back, tucking his thumbs into the waistband of his own shorts, watching the nearest rows of kerbals coming to ragged attention in response. Preserve me but I never signed up to train cannon fodder. Troop shortage or no blighted troop shortage, I should send half these un-spanked kerblets back to their farms where they can do some good. “Alright, listen up. My name is flight sergeant Chadmore Kerman. You will refer to me as Sergeant.” Chadmore paused. “I’m gonna spare you the rousing patriotic speech about duty and service and the fine traditions of the Kolan border security forces. You already know why you’re here and I know that neither you, me, nor Kolus has time for that grolnisch. Likewise, I’m gonna spare you the shouty sergeant routine because we don’t have time for that grolnisch either.” Chadmore’s eyes bored into the front rank of kerbals. “I have served Kolus in three regionalities, under five different commanders. I have seen kerbals die - some of them by my hand - but you will have noticed that I am not dead. You might want to think about that when I tell you to do something.” He waited for the smirks and nervous laughter, nodding in satisfaction at the utter silence. “We’re all grown kerbs here. I’m not expecting perfection - not straight away. You are here to learn and you will screw up. Absorb the lesson, don’t do it again and that’s all you’ll hear from me. But screw up through gross stupidity, through cowardice or through failure to follow an order given by a superior officer…” Chadmore’s voice turned steely. “I trust I make myself understood?” The response was immediate. “Very good. Let’s get warmed up - it’s cold out here. ——————— Anti-aircraft fire stitched the sky around them. “Kraken 2 calling Joker.” “I copy, Two. Too much noise around the target anyway - remind me to have a word with Recon when we get home. All sections - break off and return to base.” Cal listened to his squadmates confirming their manoeuvres. The corner of his mouth twitched at the droll response from one pilot and the rather more frosty reply from their commander. Gil would have been proud of that one. Once again memory threatened to overwhelm him; the sudden roar of static in his headset and his own panicked shout in reply. Oh-Kerm-oh-Kerm-oh-Kerm! Gil’s down - no chute! No chute! He reached forward and clicked his radio off. Ignoring the rapidly intensifying explosions buffeting his aircraft, Cal tipped the Cloudrunner onto one wing, pulling its nose around to point directly at the onrushing anti-aircraft batteries. Easing into a shallow climb, he flicked open the trigger guard on his flight stick, his other hand resting on the throttle. On his dashboard a light turned from green to a sullen pulsating red. The Cloudrunner leapt forward, pitching down into a screaming dive. Enemy fire punched home in sharp stabbing clangs, ripping open jagged holes in its fuselage. Unperturbed, Cal pulled the trigger and held it down. The cannon under his feet opened up with a roar, far louder than it should have been. Curiously, Cal glanced down through the remains of his cockpit floor, watching the ground hurtling up to meet him. Another shell tore open a wing, shredding cables and other mechanisms beneath. The control stick went slack in his hand as the Cloudrunner teetered on the brink of control before tumbling into a spin. The cannon sprayed shells across the sky, spun on empty for a fraction of a second then shut down, a solid amber light replacing the pulsing red glow on his dashboard. At last, the Firesvarn gunners scattered from the enemy aircraft scything towards them amidst an expanding cloud of flaming debris. Then steel kissed earth in a cataclysmic embrace. The last thing one gunner saw before the fire and darkness enveloped her was the enemy pilot gazing peacefully at her through the bloodied wreckage of his cockpit, a faint half smile still tugging at the corner of his mouth. —————— “Because it’s desertion, sir. That’s why.” “No it’s not. We’re staying exactly where we are. We hold the line - just like we were ordered to do. We just won’t be planting any Kerm seeds on our patch of hilltop - and for damn sure we’re not going to be digging up anyone else’s Kerm either. Not if the stories coming out of Veiid are even half true.” “So what happens if somebody else wants to plant a Kerm on our section of hilltop?” The section leader’s voice stopped carefully short of outright sarcasm. His lieutenant raised his eyebrows. “Why, we ask them nicely to leave and if asking nicely doesn’t work they can speak to Rifle Kerman here. I’m sure they’ll find him to be an eloquent sort.” “Reckon a nice baked tuber would speak louder, sir,” the platoon sergeant said. “For our boys anyway. The Firesvarn seffleks can have a short chat with Rifle Kerman there. The Kolan seffleks too for that matter.” The section leader looked at him in disbelief. “You planning on turning farmer, Sarge?” “You taken cover behind one too many rocks, son? Or were you planning to live off your rations till the end? Besides, we won’t be farming, we’ll be running a forward operations and logistics base, specialising in field consumables.” The lieutenant flashed his sergeant a tight grin of approval. The section leader’s lips thinned. “I’m having no part of this and neither are my squad.” “Are you disobeying my orders, mister?” The lieutenant’s voice was dangerously quiet. “Insubordination and dereliction of duty in the line of fire?” “I take orders from my lawful superior officers,” the section leader said coldly. “Not from a deserter.” The lieutenant’s voice turned bitter. “Those lawful superior officers that sent us halfway up the Bouldertops to die and when that didn’t work, sent us up to the top? No matter how many good kerbals - good comrades - that we lost. And for what? Defending those murderous bjedla trees?” He spat. “That to your lawful superior officers.” The platoon sergeant raised his sidearm. “I’m sorry about this, son.” A single flat crack echoed across the hilltop. —————— “Here you go, boys. Three 905s, a half of T30 and a pint of LV-1 for the driver. Can I get you anything else now?” “That’s all thanks, Jorfurt.” The speaker took a long pull of his 905 and wiped the foam from his lips. Once the landlord was safely out of earshot, he turned back to his companions. “So who’s with me? Head to the hills and find a bit of land we can call our own? Keep ourselves away from the fighting with no Kerm to threaten us neither.” “I’m in. Never figured on becoming a farmer until I went back to the old Grove.” The voice shuddered. “But I never figured on needing to escape from killer Kerm either.” “You’ll need to show me which end of the spade goes in the dirt, but I’m in. Should be a tidy profit in it too, selling Kerm free food. Specially now that import restrictions have gotten so Blighted tight with all the seed checks. The eldest kerbal straightened her poncho collar and looked up at her companions. “Guess you’ll need somebody to tell you what to plant and to go inside when it starts raining. I’m in.” The last kerbal took a sip of his LV-1. “I suppose so,” he said. “World’s moving on and not for the better. I remember when you’d come in here of an evening and find half the KIS at the bar, talking about spaceships and Mun rockets and all that.” He gestured around the room at the quiet knots of drinkers sitting by themselves. “Not any more.” “Nope. Young Jeb got himself to the Mun, we got a lot of fine words from the government and not much else.” The eldest kerbal tapped her glass of T30 stout on the drum-like table in front of them. “I remember when Jeb brought these in for Jorfurt’s birthday present. Made of genuine recycled rocket parts he said. Wonder what happened to to him.” << Chapter 81 Chapter 83>>