Cydonian Monk

That's partly because what we think of as a novel has been completely twisted by Epic-length works such as "Harry Potter and the [Titles That Will Be Censored By American Publishers]" and "A Song of Ice and Fire". (Recall that "The Lord of the Rings" is actually six books, all six roughly novel-sized.) Structure and story wise, I'd rate both AL and FSP as being extra-wordy novellas desperately in need of an editor. There's not a novel's worth of plot, per se, but more than a novel's worth of words. Some of that word count is also thrown off a bit by BB Code formatting and image text.

First impressions: It's very well done for what it is and I'm thoroughly enjoying it. I'd like to dig around more in the ship designer, but so far I haven't entirely got that figured out. I, too, really want multiplayer out of this and hope it becomes a thing. I suspect the campaign and AI battles will grow old quickly..... Though I may have a different concept of "quickly" than most. Also: I don't follow directions very well:

Thank you. I remember when I would spend all of my spare time reading through the older mission reports on this forum, and it still feels a bit strange to hear that folks are doing the same to read through what I've posted. More soon! Some thoughts: Structurally, storywise, everything that I've posted to date would constitute what I've been thinking of as Volume 1. "Now the real party could begin" just _feels_ like a good place to end. (Or pause.) Mission accomplished, target achieved, key story points revealed, name said, roll credits, etc. The story isn't over, far from it, but the pieces have been placed, the clocks have run their course, and that first game is on the record sheet. I don't really track things in terms of Chapters, at least not that make sense to you or the story (a "Chapter" to me ends when the text file I'm writing in gets too big to scroll through easilly), but that first Volume ended up as 8 chapters of roughly 10k words each. I'm not sure of the exact word count of Volume 1, but it's well over 85k, placing this first part of the Forgotten Space Program into the double-length novel category. (But still shorter than Ad Lunam, which clocked in at a very-wordy 106,816 words.) Many more words to go. We'll get back to the crew at Laythe and push onwards Into the Unknown in this next Volume. I have a pretty good idea of where I'm going (Great Powers save my computer.....), but as always there'll be surprises thrown at us by the game and by real life. And that Volume starts soon[ish]. Sunday, most likely [or not]. KSP v1.2 is looking really nice......

Abandoned vehicles? I might have one or two here or there.....

I am too. Wish I had unlocked wheels when I launched this mess so I could've send a rover. Though after some recent experiences I suspect that would have resulted in a glitchfest. It was a bit amusing (if frustrating) watching things slide around. Cool. I'm not sure I've unlocked Whiplashes yet, but there might be an Al X-4D that uses them when I do. A text efitor. Once I had everything in one file I did a search and replace for the "type = ..." entries of each of the ship types that were becomimg debris. Ex: "type = Rover" would be replaced by "type = Debris". FWIW I use Notepad++ as a text editor on Windows and vim on Unix. This save file has reached the size where it's starting to cause weird navigation issues with Notepad++, and simply can't be edited by the default aps in Windows/OS-X. I might have to use vim from here on out for any fixes. An update: I'm back from my vacation, which was rather nice (if hot and humid and at times head-cold-y). Got to visit with quite a few old friends, some for the first time in two decades. Also worked in some space junk with a quick trip to Wallops Island (while headed back from an Island I won't bother naming since I just know our lovely forum software will censor it out), and the Udvar Hazy Center, which is always a nice spot. Otherwise, some things are really squirrelly back East, but the folks involved seem to be handling it as well as possible. Of course I come back from vacation to see KSP v1.2 is just around the corner and that KasperVld is leaving.... Apparently we can never get good news without bad news to balance it out. I should have the next mission update sometime this week.

Here ya go: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/75518158/KSP-Mods/BoulderCo/Atmosphere/clouds.cfg Again it's the "stock" EVE textures, and every texture I'm using should be in the most recent pre-release version up on GitHub. [At least I don't think I've changed the textures - I'm on my MacBook now and I can't see the contents of the dds files to confirm (at least not without performing some virtual machine gymnastics).] There are a couple of cases where I'm not using the cubemaps (Jool), but for most cases the new cubemaps work fine for me.

The best speed. Quite possibly the only speed available.

I just took a look at my settings, and they're almost all exactly the same as what ships with EVE these days. One big change I make is to increase the detail scale of the cloud layers, so no repeating textures are visible. I also tweak the layer colors a bit. The rest is thanks to Scatterer, which is using its default settings minus the godrays (which are slightly broken). The config in use while I was taking the photos shown here doesn't include the haze layer or the handful of volcanic plumes (mostly because I haven't fixed my Laythe volcano layer since the texture flipping update). Fair warning: the config I'm using kills map view, which will lag for several seconds while trying to paint everything. I'll drop my clouds config file into a public Dropbox folder and place a link here before I run off on vacation.

Yep. Believe it or not that's a stock effect that is disabled by default. Thank you, but at this time I'll have to politely refuse. There are millions of stories in the endless sky, surely there's one untold that would be better illuminated.

Sulphur Descending The Sulphur 5 LDAV was lined up for its descent burn almost before Gletrix had radioed up about her successful landing. Thomlock had already drawn up several potential targets, and once they knew exactly where their surface rendezvous was they chose the closest and dialed it in. The actual target was a spot just to the East of Gletrix and the Aluminium, but were expecting to fall short (as the projection software didn't take parachutes into account). Thomlock was hoping for a ridge between the ocean and the small lake. Really he was hoping for anything that involved solid land. The burn took place a short time after the Sun rose over the limb of Laythe. A simple burn, conducted at only 1.5th throttle, it was more than enough to forever doom them to Laythe's embrace. Once complete the orbital stage and its poodle engine were discarded and expected to disintegrate entirely in Laythe's atmosphere. Thomlock gave the craft a short push to the left with the RCS, just to make sure the soon-to-be-molten orbital stage didn't fly back to hit them. No reason to risk it. It turned out to be a move they hadn't needed to make, as the orbital stage was several kilometers away before when reached the atmosphere. After such a long time in the void and despite a comparatively short adjustment at the Edge of Infinity, the smack from the atmosphere was just that - a smack that hit their entire body. Unlike the Aluminium, the LDAV wasn't intended to be aerodynamic during its descent. Quite the opposite. And, being somewhat non-symmetrical, the buffeting from the still thin air was rougher than one would expect. It was all Thomlock could do to keep the craft from spinning about its axis. The air at first whistled by and then became an ever-present roar. Occasionally a tremor would rumble through the entire craft, causing things to rattle that had never had the gumption to rattle before. Not really any worse than the other entries and reentries the crew had experienced, and overall shorter. There was less of a transition between the wispy upper atmosphere and the soup of Laythe's thicker air than on Kerbin, meaning the G-forces built up a bit faster and came in thumps rather than gradually. Jeb sounded like he was enjoying every minute of it. Thomlock was still a bit apprehensive about the whole thing, including the kludge of a heatshield Wernher had pieced together. Even in the thin upper atmosphere the air seemed to whistle through it, and when he glanced back through the canopy Thomlock could see streams of plasma leaking through its cracks. Near as he could tell the super-heated streams were missing all the critical systems, which he supposed was all that really mattered. Meanwhile the orbital stage was burning up in fits and explosions some safe distance above them. They had transferred as much fuel and monoprop as they could into the craft back at the Jumble, bringing only what they thought they would need for the descent. Still, what fuels had remained were now burning brightly in the dark sky above. Their two streaks were putting on quite the light show for anyone that might be watching. There was no happy outcome in the event of a failure during descent, as any abort during at landing would strand Gletrix on the surface. The lander itself carried enough food and other supplies to hold out for a few munths, but a hard landing that disabled the ascent engines would result in all four (no, five) of them being stranded on the surface with no hope of rescue. The LDAV design had been well tested before they set out, so all they could really do was relax and hope for the best. Hope for the best as the craft seemingly tried to tear itself apart around them. As it happened, the best was what they got. The flames subsided, the clouds slipped above their windows, and the sandy surface of the moon splayed out below. They were through the storm of fire, and they weren't coming down over water. A second check of the map showed they would land just where expected - on a ridge between the Sagan Sea and some small inward lake. A number of larger bodies of water were visible as giant blue holes in a purplish horizon. Giant blue holes that would need names. All in good time. Once they were through the clouds Thomlock armed the parachutes. He could only hope they had properly guessed the atmospheric density, as too low and the chutes wouldn't catch, too heavy and they might fall short of their target. If they were lucky they wouldn't need to use the ascent engines for a short burn at landing. Anything more than 10 meters per second though and Thomlock had already decided he'd fire them. Better to be a bit short on the ascent (which was well over-engineered already) than a bit short on the landing. The first set of drogues fired off in a loud bang, stopping their freefall and pulling everyone uncomfortably into their seats. The other chutes followed in short order and soon the sky was full of silk. When the chutes had all deployed they were still falling at a brisk 14 m/s. Not much chance of it getting better the closer they got to the ground, so Thomlock armed the decouplers, set off the charges, and ditched the heat shields. They fell to their destructive demise on the dunes below. The ascent engines were now free, and so he brought them online and gave them a quick test fire. A short burst was all it took to bring them down to a safe speed, just the slightest of nudgings. He cut the engines and waited until they were just above the dunes before firing them up again. A small cloud of sand was kicked up and what debris had survived from the heat shields was propelled across the surface. Thankfully they had fallen short of Gletrix and the Aluminium, as their descent would have no doubt hurled heavy and dangerous debris at its thin aircraft hull. Thomlock throttled the engines enough to bring them down to a safe 5 m/s at touchdown. The landing legs creaked under the new found stress, the craft slid a bit down the side of the dune as the legs bit into the sands, and then all went still. By then the parachutes had blown free and disappeared to whatever land it is parachutes disappear to. The Sulphur 5 was down. They had landed safely on Laythe. Now the real party could begin. Navigation: Next Page

That explains why I never got the joke when it first cropped up..... I remember next to nothing of the original StarFox. Most of the 90s are one giant blur.

The Sneeze. I spent many hours in my neighbor's livingroom plonking on the Sneeze, trying to get whatever game we were playing (or trying to play) to work. SimCity is the only game I remember specifically getting to work on it, but I'm sure there were others. Edit: And StarFox. Do a Barrel Roll.

Crazy old space pirate does seem to get around, doesn't he?

Thank you. (edit: really don't know what else to say there.)

Not quite yet, just getting ready for it. Soon though. Very soon. Like, Friday soon. Probably one more update before then.

Which is why things like Mission Reports are never likely to be published beyond where they're posted. Mind that there's not much Squad could do to stop it aside from preventing the use of their specific marks and material. Most of these are fairly generic once the Ks are removed. It would still be obvious that it's a space program of little green men or a vampire love story or the record of a D&D campaign that developed a life of its own, just generic enough to not be sued into oblivion. The latter two of those examples obviously passed closer scrutiny and have gone on to become a [quite frankly terrible] movie and a fairly popular HBO series. And, as mixed media, these mission reports don't make much sense beyond an html (or media-rich) presentation. Pictures really can replace 1,000 words. I suppose I could collect all of it into a handful of pdfs or epubs or something of the sort once it's all said and done. We'll see.

Thanks. I'm very pleased with how Laythe has turned out, appearance-wise. All credit for it goes to Scatterer and EVE. Scatterer alone is worth using if your machine can handle it, even on lower settings. As for EVE.... I'll share my config file one of these days. Pretty sure I'm only using textures that come with it (or in the case of smog layers I'm using a 1-pixel image that's smaller than the config file). Thanks so much. While there are more than a few professional writers here amongst us in the forums (and likely some well known sci-fi names), I'm not one of them. At least not yet. Thanks!

Wings of Fire The day had finally come for the crew of the Jumble of Parts to return to their jumble. The flight of the Calcium 7 probe had proven jets could function properly in Laythe's atmosphere, the mapping satellites had gathered enough data for them to identify a handful of good landing sites, and they were now ready to drop Gletrix and the Aluminium X-4B 10 into the thick atmosphere. They said their (temporary) goodbyes to the crews of the Edge of Infinity, and were making their ways towards the nearest of the station's spokes and their shuttle when Jebediah stopped Macfred to ask a question. "Say, Macdude. You've got an extra seat in your lander, right?" "The Silicon seats 5, yes. Why?" "Well, we've been here for years. Endless years. Trapped in these tin cans. The girls got to land on Duna and Ike, but I've been in space ever since we left Kerbin and, well.... I uh, I need my fix. Something more exciting than just spinning around in this tin can." And so when the Silicon 3 undocked from the Edge of Infinity, it carried five kerbals instead of the four it had brought. It seemed the least Macfred could do to return the hospitality their hosts had shown them. Thomlock was still a bit freaked out by Jebediah (who's presence had yet to be adequately explained in his eyes), but the elder kerbal spent most of the trip back to the Jumble in the shuttle's cockpit. The Jumble was exactly as they'd left it - though it didn't stay that way for long. To land on Laythe, both surface-bound craft would use the lowest-remaining stage of the Sulphur 5 Laythe Descent/Ascent Vehicle to drop to an 80km orbit. Once there the Aluminium 10 would separate and reduce its orbit such that the aircraft was in its desired suborbital trajectory. Afterwards the orbital stage would detach from the aircraft and return to a parking orbit, where it would remain until the Sulphur LDAV returned to orbit. Afterwards it would tug the LDAV back to the Jumble. The crews grabbed their gear (Jeb having brought his with him after saying a quick goodbye to Bill and Bob) and transferred into their respective crafts and seats for the landing. For Gletrix, the chosen pilot of the Aluminium 10, this meant an EVA to the aircraft's cockpit. Once everyone was in place the two craft undocked from the station and connected up for the first descent. The shroud and docking port covering the LDAV's Poodle engine were discarded, the combined craft burned to bring its periapsis to around 80km, and then they were on their way. Another burn half an orbit later captured into their parking orbit, and they readied themselves for the toughest task of the entire mission. As discussed, first up were Gletrix and her ride, the Aluminium X-4B 10 Laythe Exploration Aircraft. The Aluminium X-4B 9 had survived a reentry at Kerbin, so entry into Laythe's much thinner and shallower atmosphere wasn't much of a concern. Yet to say Gletrix wasn't a bit nervous would be lying. Any number of things could go wrong, most of which would be fatal. Enter at too shallow of an angle and you glide well beyond your landing site, possibly as much as half a moon away. Enter at too steep an angle and you burn up and die. Enter at the wrong angle of attack and parts of the craft would burn off and you would die. Take too sharp of a turn at hypersonic speeds and the craft enters into a flat spin, disintegrates, and you die. Lots of things ended with "... and you die" in the "don't do this" part of the flight manual. The failures with the potential for survival of the pilot were the reason the Aluminium was going in first. In the event something went wrong, its pilot could bail out and the LDAV would then pick a new landing site somewhere closer to the Aluminium's failure location. Hopefully not a process that would be needed. Once Gletrix was mentally prepared for the task at hand she undocked from the LDAV, pushed away with the orbital stage's RCS, and then waited for the entry window. A long wait in the dark. Neither right nor proper nor good for the mind. There were two landing sites selected for the Aluminium. The first was the "debris site", located over a large island to the West of the island flown over by the Calcium 7. This location was where the Aluminium 10's debris would crash should the vehicle not survive entry into Laythe's atmosphere. (This first site was also close to a recently detected piece of debris [or "Surface Thing"], which would allow the crew to investigate two potentially morbid sites for the price of one.) The second landing site was the same island on which the Calcium 7 was situated. This allowed Gletrix to glide the Aluminium in from the initial entry vector and land without executing a 180 degree turn or expending (much) fuel to reach the initial landing site. The orbital stage of the Aluminium 10 performed both of its burns flawlessly. The first to reduce the combined craft to its periapsis of 14km, the second to place the orbital stage back into orbit. (Where it will need a new name and designation.... Likely will just become another Chlorine of some number.) Gletrix was unavoidably committed to the landing now that the orbital stage had disconnected. No going back, the only option was to ride it out and hope for the best. And to avoid all the "... and you die" scenarios. The initial part of the Laythe Entry was completely silent as the craft slipped through the very upper layers of the atmosphere. It was there, the atmosphere that is, but barely detectable, much as the data from the Calcium 7 had shown. It wasn't near enough for the wings to bite into, but was sufficient to slowly degrade an orbit or extend her glide. And then suddenly plasma was licking at the Aluminium's wingtips and nose. That was when the radio link to the LDAV cut out. It was expected, but still unnerving for Gletrix. She was now alone, completely alone, and would remain so through the worst of the entry. The flames continued to build, and as planned she started alternating her heading and angle of attack to spread out the heating. Her crewmates were of course watching her entry from several kilometers above and behind, though all they could really see was a streak burning across the sky. Nothing but silence and static on the radio at both ends, and Gletrix could barely hear the static now that the atmosphere was thick enough to roar past her canopy. And then the altimeter started going up again. A skip! Not much of one, and not high enough to fully leave the atmosphere, but a skip was a skip. The Al-10 drifted back upwards into Laythe's upper atmosphere, and the "debris recovery" landing site sailed underneath. The radios linked up again briefly, and then the craft was at the plasma again to burn off a bit more of its underbelly. The first interface had bled off most of the craft's near-orbital velocity, so the second entry was nowhere near as rough on the Al-10 and its pilot. The skip brought the craft's landing projection down somewhere between the two land masses yet closer to the second, controlled-landing site, meaning a glide-out was still possible. Jool slipped over the horizon while Gletrix was holding a high angle of attack, and she was pleasantly surprised to see it when she dropped back into level flight. And then the flames were (mostly) gone, the landing target was in view, and it was on to he landing. Gletrix was happy to find the radio had once again relinked with the LDAV (and one of the other orbiting relays), allowing her to coordinate the landing with Thomlock before they fell over the horizon and out of line-of-sight. (The LDAV would land after its next half orbit.) Gletrix angled the craft down to maintain velocity and spooled up the twin jets. She wasn't planning to use the jets for this first landing, but ti would be nice to have them online in case anything happened. (And potentially for use while braking, in case she needed to stop in a hurry.) Once everything was agreed upon with the LDAV crew and their landing site was dialed in, she banked to the North and started looking for a nice, long, and reasonably flat spot. The further to the North she went the better, as the orbital path of the LDAV and the rotation of the moon would bring them down considerably further North than her entry. The craft was handling well, even at these supersonic speeds. The colors of Laythe were far more striking in person than they had been over the Calcium 7's video feed. The lower atmosphere generally had a sickly yellow tint to it, no doubt due to the moon's volcanic activity. Something of a sulphuric fog. This, combined with the atmosphere's generally blue color lent the moon an aquamarine hue, which pushed into rich purples and violets the further away the horizon. Over head the sky was a familiar cerulean, much like Kerbin. All of the potential landing strips looked just as difficult and rough as the others, so Gletrix decided to take the next that came along. This was the most dangerous part of the entire operation. There was no guarantee the wheels they had carted across three years and millions of kilometers of empty space would still work when coming into contact with the moon's mixed surface. And there was always the chance the sands would collapse under the plane, pulling it into a permanent home much sooner than they liked. Only one way to find out, so she hit the "Extend Gear" button and hoped for the best. The patterns in the dunes were disconcerting, playing with the landing lights as they were. Tiny dunes and patterns worked into the larger drifts of sand and boulders. And then a larger dune ridge rose up towards the Aluminium 10, forcing Gletrix to flare a bit more than she had wanted. (Landing on sand dunes is no way to conduct business with an aircraft, and whoever did it first or suggested it was a good idea deserves a stern talking to.) And then the rear wheels made contact. Squeak-squeak, followed by the sound of sand pelting the underside of the craft. She tapped on the brakes softly, bringing the nose wheel down to get its own taste of sand. She allowed the planes's surface speed to drop to a safer 20m/s as it coasted towards a good stopping place. A few large boulders on the edge of the next dune forced an adjustment to the path, but nothing dangerous appeared once the dune was crested and so the coasting continued. She brought the Al-10 to a stop at a nice spot with a decent view of two lakes, one just over the ridge to the East and one back towards the LDAV's planned landing site. It would make a decent enough spot to gather some quick surface samples for Agake. She locked the brakes in their active position, turned off the jets and their intakes, and extended the ladder. Macfred, Thomlock, Agake and even Jeb radioed down congratulations from the LDAV. Gletrix Kerman was now officially the first kerbal on Laythe. Surface operations will continue in the next update.... Navigation: Next Post

Only if I _really_ mess something up. More likely is a pilot of the Aluminium X-4B aircraft may need to complete a triathlon to get back to the launch vehicle by building a rudimentary bike out of whatever parts survive whatever fate befalls it, followed by a swim and a run.

Glad to see you're getting back to normal. Your "recent unpleasantness" is mind-blowingly vast. Some folks I know in the Baton Rouge and Covington areas have just now resurfaced. Oh, just driving halfway across the country (twice) so I can go into a known disaster area where there may or may not be roads. Probably get to swing a hammer in there somewhere too. (At least the first part of it will be "low-stress" in the DC area, aka: an actual vacation.) And of course work over the last six weeks being five times busier than usual. I was impressed with it, too. Wings would've helped some, but as for easy ways to explore different parts of Laythe (or any oxygen-rich atmosphere), drop-pod jets like that are remarkably versitile. And small. And inexpensive. Only trick for me was to maintain a radio connection. Going forward I'll stick more science stuff on them instead of wasting it on the heatshield bit.

No worries. The exciting stuff (Laythe landing) is right around the corner. As in, the next update! Enjoy what's left of your summer. It won't be back around again for another nine months, and in time never comes back. (Though the soul pulping does eventually subside.)

Yes. It was pronounced dead at Kerbin Memorial Hospital at 1:15 on the 76th day of the 100th year. The attending physician was Jebediah Kerman. Services for the thread will take place this Saturday at 10AM. Condolences may be sent to /dev/null. No, just rather busy, but I will likely have an update in a day or so. And maybe one next week. And then there'll be nothing for two weeks as I'm going on vacation over the two weeks around American Labor[ious] Day. Regular postings will resume somewhere in September.

Rain. I think we've all had enough of these random "hey, surprise!" storms this year. Here in two weeks I'm headed back home (West Virginia) to survey our damage (which doesn't seem to be too bad compared to some), but I _was_ planning to go the Southern route. Guess I'm driving across Tennessee instead. Glad to hear you're afloat and mostly dry. That rainfall map coloring is wild - it gets so bad that it wraps back around to nothing (from white to white). Rain. Guess it's better than nothing.

No Kerbal's Sky Days later and the K-3 had finally arrived at Laythe. Its escape burn had taken place without issue several hours previous, casting it out of Vall's gravity and into the greater pool that is mighty Jool. As expected, running the escape burn with only two engines had kept the heat to a level where the Calcium 7 probe was well protected from the hot plasma. (And no ablator was spent from the entry probe's heatshield.) Its first capture burn at Laythe was equally successful, occurring once more on the far side of the solar system with Jool obscuring the Sun. In the dark, as was only right and proper. This burn brought it into a highly eccentric orbit around Laythe, some 20 degrees out of the Jumble of Part's inclination. Next the K-3 had to match inclination with that of the Jumble and the other two Potassium tugs. This was done with the expectation of a repair crew being sent up to work on it (most likely Macfred and Thomlock or Gletrix, if not the whole crew), and the hope they could at least bring it up to a state where it could limp back to Kerbin. After matching inclination, the K-3 lowered its apoapsis to something near 150km, allowing the Calcium 7 probe to use as little of its fuel as possible to reach its entry orbit. The probe was detached at that point. The Calcium 7's two tiny thrusters then lowered it into an orbit that would allow for safe deployment of the atmospheric entry craft, roughly 80km above the surface. Once in its low orbit, it remained parked until the Jumble of Parts had a clear line-of-sight with the craft. (And a l-o-s that would persist across the bulk of its planned surface operations.) With the stage set, Gletrix moved back to the remote operator console and prepared to fly the Calcium 7 into Laythe's atmosphere. This entry would no doubt fulfill the contract requirements that had originally led to the probe's inclusion in the mission, and hopefully prove atmospheric flight was safe and possible at Laythe. A "landing" site was chosen that was near equatorial, where a large island with several small inland lakes was located. It was unlikely that anything would survive reentry well enough to "land", but if it did they might have the opportunity to inspect it themselves. (Though the landing site for their own mission was as-of-yet unselected, and likely to be in an entirely different location.) The Calcium 7 fired its descent thrusters just as it slipped into sunlight. Once the lander probe was well and truly on its way, the orbiter detached, burned in the opposite direction, and reentered orbit where it would hopefully be useful in the future. [Had I been thinking I would've decoupled the probe's docking port to go with the tug that reentered orbit. Would've been useful for repairing the K-3. Instead it was discarded into the moon. Missed opportunities.....] As expected, the crew lost radio contact with the entry probe as it burned through Laythe's atmosphere. They had fired a few of the science experiments while still in the very upper limits of the atmosphere, and had failed to receive all of the data before the craft's data relay was lost. Eventually the flames abated and the radio link was back. The probe had survived its first test - enter Laythe's atmosphere - now it was time to see if it could fly. The jets would ride down with the "lander" section until the bulk was in the lower atmosphere. They would then run the last of the science experiments, transfer the data to the main probe, and jettison the "lander" to crash into the dunes of Laythe. (What a waste of an RTG!) It was not expected to survive. The jets were brought online at the required test altitude, and were performing flawlessly aside from not producing much in the way of thrust (thanks to the output being blocked by batteries.... and a heatshield... and other such junk. Grumble). Shortly afterwards the spent science package was discarded, the jets throttled to full, and the probe entered into level flight. The "lander" stage descended to its demise, where it would most likely scatter radioactive debris across the surface of this alien moon. The "lander" did not survive. As expected. Gletrix next put the air probe through a series of altitude tests, evaluating how well it could climb, how well the engines behaved at various altitudes, if the air intake was sufficient, recording the amount of foreign objects being injected into the jet system from Laythe's rather hazy atmosphere, etc. In all the craft was performing as well as could be expected. The probe had entered into the atmosphere some 10 degree north of the equator, so Gletrix set her heading on a roughly South-by-SouthEast trajectory. A path that roughly followed the outline of the island her probe was operating over. If anything, the images and video returned during the flight of the Calcium 7's air probe made them all a bit jealous. Laythe was a very attractive moon, if a bit hazy, with pleasing colors and a generally tranquil appearance. So far no active volcanoes had been observed on the surface, though the crew aboard the Edge of Infinity had suggested such were not a rare sight. The air was clearly rich with oxygen, but if the haze and subdued colors were any indication it would not be a good idea for a kerbal to attempt to breathe it in without a facemask. Allowing the air to contact their bare skin might even be too dangerous to risk. This pretty moon and its seductive atmosphere were not to be underestimated. If there were any subsurface volcanoes, as there likely were, then large pockets of carbon dioxide could be stored in the various small lakes and larger bodies of water, waiting to spring out and suffocate any unsuspecting adventurer or their oxygen-breathing aircraft. Still, with views like these, most felt it to be worth the risk. Gletrix continued the SSE flight until something beeped. A new data source? "Hey, that's weird." "Not again. the last time you said that...." "Yeah, yeah. Just check it out. I'm busy flying here." Macfred slipped over to another terminal to look at the data feed and, sure enough, there was something on the very horizon broadcasting what could only be interpreted as a weather report. "Fly over it and try to get a good view. Might just be an old probe." As they approached they received more data, including a control systems data link. Macfred used it to bring the weather station's main communications back online, after which it linked up directly with their various satellites in orbit. Meanwhile Gletrix made a few passes over the strange blip at a few hundred meters above the dunes. "I mean, I can see its shadow on the surface, but that's about all. The cameras on this bird aren't really meant for reading license plates from orbit. Looks like it's at the top of a ridge between two lakes. Has it got a name?" "Yes. IPX-10 Laythe. Doesn't appear to have much in the way of supplies left, but I'm getting a good signal. Main engines unresponsive. Lots of atmospheric data though. Might help in choosing a landing site." By now the Ca-7 aircraft was more than two-thirds of the way through its fuel reserves. Gletrix could keep pressing on until the craft lost its satellite link, causing it to fly aimlessly until it ran out of fuel, or she could bring it down in a controlled manner somewhere nearby. Macfred decided the best spot would be in one of the lakes near this IPX weather station, hopefully still within radio range of their newfound friend. They settled on the lake to the north, a nice, oblong body of water that appeared to be safe and tranquil. Gletrix passed over the lake a couple times while trying to decide how best to approach such a landing. Landing an aircraft that isn't designed to land is a bit trickier than it sounds. Gletrix first instinct was to bring it in low with the engines at an extremely low throttle, reaching a slow splash-down, but without much in the way of control surfaces she had to throttle up to then reorient the craft. The stall speed of such a lifting-body craft was basically anything less than full throttle. After the first approach failed, she decided to just land with the jets pointed upwards, meaning she'd first need to deliberately stall the craft and then _hope_ it would hold an upright orientation as she brought it down into the water. Flipping backwards to cancel the craft's momentum also seemed to work. Now dead in the air, she brought it to an upwards heading, and it was a simple matter of tweaking the throttle to keep the small craft moving in a downwards direction without completely choking the jet intakes. And then it went softly into the water. The performance data from the jets turned red as they were drowned by the lake, and shortly afterwards the craft was there to stay. Gletrix commanded the jets to shut down and disconnected from the control interface, leaving the scant amount of science and performance data to transmit on its own. Succumbing to the motion of the waves the Calcium 7 soon flipped over, sucking water into the air intakes and becoming the newest buoy on the waters of Laythe. No doubt in a few days the craft would either wash ashore where it would likely be broken up by the tides, or would sink as water found its way into the empty fuel tanks. Either way the Calcium 7's mission was now complete. Next step: Landing the Aluminium X-4B 10 and the Sulphur 5 LDAV and its crew. The exploration of Laythe is on. Navigation: Next Post

Thanks to everyone for the kind words. (2000 rep? Wow.) A valid question, and one which would suggest the common point was before, rather than after, Thomlock's launch. Or that there exists a rule that there must always be a Jeb, Bill and Bob. Or perhaps that all three somehow survived (missing crews respawn?). Some things lack valid explanations.