Cydonian Monk

The hardest thing? Caring enough about Dres to send anything there at all.

Perhaps? Are you about to eat lunch in NorthWest Houston? Though I don't talk to myself much nor have split personalities, so this would be a new kind of mental break for me.

I hit the same thing back when I first tried to read it in college. Got hung up on some section in the middle and didn't come back to it until earlier this year. (So I guess this is more of a reread of R and a first reading of G and B?) There are some parts of KSR's style that just don't work, and some P.O.V. characters I just don't like reading. I could read Arkaday and Nadia sections all day. Or Coyote. Or even Art. Nirgal? Maya? Michael? Frank? Not so much. (I can say the same about ASoIaF/GoT and GRRM's style too, as some of his characters are downright miserable reads.) I'm curious if 30 years of experience has helped smooth out those particular issues in KSR's writing.

Wow... You could replace most of the narration of that video with the Turboencabulator script and still have the same video. Aside from quoting performance numbers, that air pressure forming a synthetic bell graphic, and saying how much it cost for them to go nowhere, the video really doesn't say much.

Not yet, but it's coming up on my list very shortly. The RGB Mars re-read is first (I'm ~halfway through Green), followed by Cixin Liu's The Dark Forest and then maybe Aurora (assuming the next Song of Ice and Fire book hasn't been released before then.... ha ha). And then probably Seveneves, also mentioned by that Gizmodo article. (Though Seveneves may move up the list if I get burned out on KSR.) I've never really been a huge fan of most far-future "hard" sci-fi, as hard (at least in my mind) is generally defined as operating within the models of physics as we understand it now. I have serious doubts our understanding of such will be anywhere near the same 1000 years down the road. Or even 100 years. Aurora looks different though as it appears to be far in the future just with (presumably) ancient hardware. Plus it's KSR. And it may or may not be "hard" science fiction.

I've definitely seen that, though I'll usually catch that particular scenario. I'm starting to think the offset gizmo tool is clearing actions group symmetry at times too, though I don't have any real proof. More often than not its only missing on solar panels, which generally don't matter anyway. (I bind all of them to 0 by default, but the menu works just as well.)

That's only, what, ~3000m/s of ∆v for the first plane change? Surely most MMUs have that in the pack. (With an error of +/- 2990m/s, of course.) It really isn't a bad movie, but it's also not much of a movie story-wise. It's does have its issues. Very pretty to watch for the most part, especially so in IMAX. (It's far less impressive at home.) When I saw it in the theater I spent more time looking over the HST and the particulars of the Atlantis' cargo bay than I did the "movie" parts of the movie. (And I'm still amused that the accompaniment music for the Space Shuttle scene is identified on the Soundtrack as "Atlantis" instead of the name the shuttle was changed to for the movie.) And besides, it's got Ed Harris in it hiding somewhere down in Mission Control.

Yep. Somebody go sell that to Squad. Or something like what Solar Impulse 2 has, with the 800* or so tiny propellers on the wing. * Estimate may be off by two orders of magnitude.

Good to know about that subassembly action group bug. Explains some of the weirdness I've seen, though that more often manifests as symmetry parts losing the action groups on everything except the original part. (I tend to just edit the craft in a quicksave file when I discover it, though I might start using AG-X (AG-E?). Already use it for RSS.)

I'm still disappointed this isn't a Kerbal version of Blue Man Group.....

We really need a simple electric propeller in stock. Not so much for Kerbin, but for exploring Eve, Duna, Laythe and Jool. Just one part, doesn't need to be huge.

Today I posted the final update for Year 4 of my Kanawha Space Program. Final missions from KSP v1.0.2 and the first several of KSP v1.0.4, meaning lots of fun with heat. Probes! Fires! Explosions! Crashes! Jebediah looking worried! And now it's onward to Year 5 and all the big projects!

Kanawha Space Program Year 4 Update 4 - Probing Upgrades The first two thirds of the fourth year may have been spent sending kerbals around Kerbin and its moons, but the last third was all about the probes. Ok, there were some planes too, but it was mostly about the probes. Speaking of which: Two that launched back in Year 3 finally reached their destinations. Redbud 1 arrived at Duna on the 140th day of the year while Holly 1 arrived at Eve on the 166th day. Redbud 1, as you may recall, suffered severe damage at launch and lost its deployable solar panels. There was some concern that the remaining panels would be insufficient to keep it powered at Duna, but those fears appear to have been unfounded. Care had to be taken to keep the backup panels angled towards the Sun, but otherwise the power situation was within mission tolerances. The Redbud 1 did not initially complete its capture at Duna and instead first entered orbit around Ike. This provided the science team with valuable data and a few close-up photographs from which they could choose a landing site for Ike missions launched during the next Duna transfer window. Once its tasks at Ike were complete the small Redbud 1 moved to its final survey orbit around Duna. Meanwhile out at Eve the Holly 1 was fast becoming the star of the science team's probe missions. Returning very crisp photos of Eve and its thick purplish-pink atmosphere, the probe also returned valuable atmosphere and temperature readings. It was not able to reach Gilly from its orbit, so there was still a bit to be desired. The success of the two small probes spurred tremendous interest in more such missions. There was even talk of sending a crewed mission out to both Duna and Eve as early as the next transfer window. Wernher had doubts they could concoct a comfortable ship in only two years, but he had some ideas. Meanwhile back at the ranch, the geniuses in the science lab used the science points from the two probes to unlock the Holy Gravioli Detector. This magical device had proven vastly superior to other methods of science gathering, and the team was anxious to send a few into orbit. Orbit of the Sun, orbit of Moho, orbit of Jool. Any old orbit should work. Capable of detecting biomes just from their gravioli patterns, these little blue boxes would very nearly sponge-up all a planet's science. And so began the Great Gravioli Bonanza. Before they could fire off them into the deep cosmos they would first need to test them at home. Poplar 5 and 6 were prepped, launched, and placed into both low and high polar orbits of Kerbin. With that out of the way and the scientific merits of the device proven, the Maple 10 and 11 were sent off to low and high Münar orbits. Likewise, Dogwoods 6 and 7 were sent to Minmus. Science raiding underway! Hickory Slippery Sumac Next in the line of interplanetary probes was the Hickory 1 to Moho. This tiny craft was launched atop one of the largest launch vehicles from the previous year, the Robin. Moho, being so deep in Kerbol's gravity well, is not an easy target to slow down to. Copious amounts of propellant are needed to throw at the void in the [vain] hope it will slow you down enough to not miss this tiny rock. Hickory 1 wasn't so lucky. Short more than 400m/s of ÃŽâ€v, the Hickory 1 had to resign itself to a fly-by instead. Once the shortfall became obvious, the burn was cancelled to retain fuel for future maneuvering opportunities. There's a (slim) chance that future encounters with Moho may allow for an eventual gravity capture. (Or perhaps even lithobraking.) Hickory 1 was also the first attempt at using small metal fins to dissipate heat from the spaceship. Overheating had been observed on a few previous probes, and so far the R&D department had yet to deliver a foolproof way of getting rid of the excess. Wernher had theorized that these small metal fins once used to guide their sounding rockets might be enough to act as space radiators, and so a quartet of them were placed on the Hickory 1. The results were largely inconclusive, with the fins obviously heating up, but unknown if from external sources or internal convection. The other planet of interest early in Year 4 was Dres. Long thought to be home to the Kerbal version of Hades, Dres had intentionally been avoided by most every self respecting space program ever. There were many who believed that simply observing the small rock was enough to drive a kerbal insane. And so, when it came time to select a name for the Dres probe, all of the good trees were somehow missing from the list. Only the lowly Sumac, least favored of all shrubs, was considered foul enough to give its name to an obviously doomed probe. To appease the miners and other industrialists an ore scanner was included on the probe. Many suspected Dres might be home to a vast wealth of such ores and minerals, though none wanted to go find them in person. Robots would be enough, but before robots could be sent they needed to know what was there. The Sumac 1 would not arrive until late in the fifth year, assuming it arrived at all. We'll come back to it later. Staring at the Sun Two more Oak probes were sent into interplanetary space in Year 4: The Oak 4, placed into orbit just above Kerbin's, and the Oak 5, which was to enter Low Solar Orbit. Both included the latest in science equipment, with Oak 5 boasting a pair of Goo canisters. Year 4 also saw the arrival of Oak 3, launched the previous year, in its orbit above Duna's. As mentioned, Oak 4 included a series of science instruments, such as the newly developed Gravioli detector, and an experiment to measure the atmospheric loss of Kerbin due to the solar wind (which was really just a PresMat Barometer, but that detail was left out of the briefing). It also carried with it a few cameras, just to keep the kerbal media happy. It would arrive at its new Apoapsis a little more than half a year after it launched. (The probe would have been placed in Kerbin-Sun L2, if such a thing existed.) Oak 5 was the far more interesting child. Packed with as much ÃŽâ€v as the crews could find, this was to be the first probe to dive deep into the Sun's outer atmosphere. (AKA: Low Solar Orbit.) It was launched atop the recently developed all-Solid LV-06-S Vireo launch vehicle. The complete stack provided well over 18,000m/s of ÃŽâ€v - more than enough to land on the Moon. Er, ah, more than enough to bring its final orbit under that of Moho's with a periapsis inside Low Solar Orbit. To save even more of the precious Delda of the Vee, the Oak 5 was launched directly upwards just before sunset. No gravity turn, just straight up. It escaped Kerbin without ever achieving a stable orbit. The Oak 5 also included the latest fad in drive technology - an Ion engine. It was this peculiar electric-powered drive that would allow the tiny craft to reach into the shallow depths of the Solar System and pluck out the warm, gooey science from the Sun's beating heart. Mmmm. Science. Scheduled to arrive on day 297 of the 4th year, a date which fell after the adoption of both KSP v1.0.3 and KSP v1.0.4, the Oak 5 would prove to be a true test of the new heat mechanics. The final bit of business before I moved on to the new version was the launch of three Geostationary CommSats: The GKO-G2 series. These are more for show than any real practical use, at least until KSP v1.1 hits. Featuring two sets of omnidirectional phased antenna arrays for uplink and two directional dishes for downlink to Kerbin, network crosstalk, or direct communication with a vessel in Low Orbit, these three satellites are expected to be the workhorses of the program over the next several years. End of Kerbal Space Program version 1.0.2. KSP v1.0.3 And then Kerbal Space Program v1.0.3 happened. I played that for a day, landing a 100% Stock Apollo 11 recreation on the Mün (to update my long out of date Steam photos more than for any practical reason). I was rather pleased with how my Saturn V turned out, but that mission has nothing to do with this save so I'll stop here. A few photos of it in this spoiler box if you're interested: End of Kerbal Space Program version 1.0.3. KSP v1.0.4 And then the very next day Kerbal Space Program v1.0.4 happened. And there was much rejoicing. Back to where we left off.... The low-orbit capture of Oak 5 was one of the first things I did in this new version, and heat proved to be quite the problem. As it turns out the small fins I was experimenting with as radiators did more harm than good, and rapidly overheated and exploded once in Low Solar Orbit. A few other bits boiled off, but thankfully nothing important science-wise. The capture burn was completed, though the Oak 5's apoapsis was kept well above Low Solar Orbit in the hopes it would be enough to help the little molten ball of metal cool off. There was some considerable concern that the Xenon tank would explode, but that proved to not be the case. It did serve as quite the heat sink though. Clearly some experimentation with radiators was in order. Hot Town, Summer at the Station Reports from Piquemetami 2 indicated things might be getting a little bit hot. Lindra was blaming Bob's peculiar materials experiments for generating the waste heat, but Bob wasn't so sure. Engineers had considered heat while developing the station and had thankfully pre-installed pipes for use by future radiators, but first they would need to build and test said radiators. They would also need to learn how to fly again. The aerodynamics changes introduced when the universe shifted into its 1.0.4 version meant that things which had once flown well were now not flying so hot, or were flying too hot. Three test craft were prepared: The Chirps 22 through 24. These craft served two purposes: To experiment with launch profiles to find the ones that worked best, and to test the small radiators for use in future spacecraft. Simple crafts launched by the old Wren launcher, each of these had the same amount of fuel. The mass of the craft was calculated once reaching orbit and the remaining ∆v was derived from that. The craft with the best ascent and the most remaining ∆v would win a prize at the end. (All ∆v was calculated using the vacuum Isp of the engines in question, which is my usual standard. Once you're above 12km the sea-level Isp is useless anyway.) The ascent of the Chirp 22 was a bit on the hot side, with it causing considerable shock heating. It reached orbit using on 3563m/s of vacuum ∆v. The Chirp 23 took a slightly higher ascent to avoid the bulk of the "whiney, plasmatic atmosphere" (though still encountered some angry air) and reached orbit having used 3612m/s of vacuum ∆v. The Chirp 24 didn't bother to turn in its data, and conceded defeat to the previous two launches. Once in orbit the three craft extended their solar panels and attempted to find the mysterious dangerous heat. Having determined the best ascents and tested the base-model radiators, the R&D crews felt confident enough to send up their radiator solution for Piquemetami 2 and Pequoni 1. First, since the Piq-2 was the only currently inhabited space station, the Piquemetami-2E was prepped for launch. The Piq-2E was also launched atop the new all-solid Vireo launch vehicle, though the final stage used to rendezvous with the station was liquid-fuelled. Featuring a small bot and two small radiator nodes, the idea was to install the two new nodes at the end of two of the station's four solar array arms. The launch and installation went exactly according to the nominal. Bob was reportedly very pleased with the reduced temperatures aboard the station. With the Piquemetami 2 upgrade out of the way, next came the radiators for Pequoni 1 Mün station. Peq-1D, mostly identical to the Piq-2E, was also a completely successful mission. Surely conditions at the station would be much more favorable to the next crews to stop over there. Aero is the New Aero Returning to Kerbin was the next major riddle the R&D kiddos needed to solve. The aerodynamics changes meant that parachutes and reentries in general were now somewhat problematic. The agency had three tourist contracts coming due for flight soon, and needed to find a quick solution to the problem. And so the Chirp 25, 26 and 27 were prepared to test the new parachute systems. The Chirp 25 showed that straight up and down flights were no longer possible without loss of vehicle and crew. Chirp 26 was launched into a much less steep suborbital trajectory, but was still unable to slow enough inside the atmosphere to prevent the parachutes from being destroyed by heat and/or aerodynamic forces. Chirp 27 included a new invention: radial drogue chutes. This solved the immediate issue of how to make suborbital spaceflight survivable, but the increased cost was making many question if the simpler, 1-kerbal suborbital tourist contracts would even cover their costs. With the equipment tests having been completed and the craft requalified to carry kerbals, the three tourist flights were pressed forwards. First came the Exploration 17 O3, which docked successfully with Piquemetami 1. The craft's single occupant remained there for one day before returning. That was followed by the Adventure 18 SO3, which successfully reentered and splashed down offshore from Kerbal Space Center. Finally, the Exploration 19 O3 also docked with the Piquemetami 1, spending one full day in orbit at the old mooring point. The Tourist Test Program had proven spaceflight was once again safe for kerbals. The science crew at Piquemetami 2 decided to wait until the simulations had proven that their now outdated craft, which lacked drogue parachutes, could safely reenter and land provided their angle of interface with the atmosphere was sufficiently shallow. Besides, their tour wasn't up until early in the fifth year. Jool and the Finite Beyond Two very important transfer windows came up at the end of the fourth year: Jool and Eeloo. At first there were only going to be two probes launched; one for Eeloo and one for Jool, but the construction crews were able to push out three more for the three major moons of Jool. There's not really much to say or show about these five probes, Beech 1 to Eeloo, Sycamore 1 to Jool, Elm 1 to Laythe, Willow 1 to Tylo, and the Walnut 1 to Vall, so we'll leave them be for a couple years until they arrive. Feeling the Air The aero changes with 1.0.4 meant the kerbals would need to learn how to fly again. Even back in 1.0.2 the air had begun to turn lethal, as evidenced by Jeb's accident in an early version of the R-2 research jet with flight Feather 11. While returning to KSC following an attempt at setting an altitude record, the air intakes on the craft overheated to the point of exploding. The backup intake was enough to provide oxygen to the new TurboRamJet engine, allowing Jeb to limp back to the runway, but there were a few nervous minutes between the explosion and when Jeb taxied to a stop next to the other junk sitting outside the spaceplane hanger. Temperature tests during the Feather 12 had shown similar heating issues, so the R-2 design was sidelined for a short spell until the aircraft designers could develop a new way to kill Jeb. The Feather 12 did manage to set a new altitude record however, with the craft reaching an oxygen-starved height of 28.6km. Jeb took the opportunity to land at the old abandoned runway, visiting a few old friends of his while there. The Feather 13, conducted after the universe-shifting event of the 1.0.4, featured a slightly updated version of the R-2 test jet. Same goal as before: break the altitude record for a fixed-wing aircraft. While Jeb was only able to reach 27km on his test flight, the craft performed well. Well enough that he could blast past the newly upgraded tower at supersonic speeds. The grounds crew billed Jeb for the cleanup costs. For the next flight, the engineers decided to try an alternate approach. The plan was to build a craft that could power its way out of the atmosphere using air-breathing engines and then achieve orbit with a small orbital motor once above the thicker parts of the atmosphere. Such was the design of the R-3 research jet, which featured a pair of TurboRamJets (or whatever their new name is) and a single LV-909 for orbital operations. The designers were perhaps a bit too optimistic, or were perhaps familiar with a few out-dated methods of building SSTO spaceplanes, as the R-3 wasn't able to breach 22km. And then, while descending back to the runway at KSC, the cockpit of the R-3 randomly exploded due to overheating. No warning, no plasma, no chance to save Jebediah. And then the universe crashed. Crashed to the mighty desktop the universe runs on. And the R-3 was sitting back on the runway, Jebediah anxious to take off and test his new toy. He was a bit disappointed when he couldn't pull above 22km, and had completed his turn and was descending back to KSC when one of the engines flamed out without warning, kicking the aircraft into a flat spin. Try as he might, there was nothing Jebediah could do to regain control of the aircraft. Some pilots might have been watching the altimeter, nervously awaiting their fate as they fought with the craft, attempting to get it to nose down into the airstream, but not Jebediah. He was going to recover control of this aircraft or die in the attempt. Down, down from the spinning skies he fell, silvery death pirouetting about on its scythe. No, Jebediah Kerman would never abandon a craft if he thought he could still regain control of it. The universe was his to control, his to mold. No aircraft could beat him. None would dare. Which is why the designers built an auto-ejection system into their research jets. They knew at some point one of their pilots would fight a flawed design of theirs and refuse to admit defeat. And so, as the spinning craft dropped below 8km, Sallee Kerman, an otherwise unremarkable kerbal who had drawn the task of monitoring the test flight of the R-3, pressed a small red button on her console and gained the eternal enmity of one Jebediah Kerman. At first Jeb didn't notice. Sure, the stick had gone slack and the controls become sloppy, but he just thought he had broken something. He glanced up into the sky and caught sight of an aircraft spinning out of control, which he thought an odd coincidence until he noticed it was missing its cockpit. The shock of the parachutes almost pulled him out of his seat, and then he knew for sure. And that's when he started swearing. The recovery team, salty sailors each, learned more than a few new words that day. Go North, Young Kerbal With Jeb sidelined following his accident, the task of testing a new transport aircraft fell to the junior pilots. First up was Urcella and the Feather 15. No TurboRamScramJets this time around, instead just a boring, slow, big transport jet. Designed to ferry kerbals to the far North, the designers were uncertain of a few of the transports key features and needed a quick test flight. The T-01 Transport, nicknamed the Vulture by the pilots, featured a passenger capacity of 8 plus 1 for the pilot, and was capable of traveling a full third of the way around the planet on a single tank of fuel. Possible a full halfway if you pushed the jet and were at the golden altitude of 7700m. Urcella's flight was just a quick out and back though. An out and back that revealed a few small issues with the craft that would need to be handled before it was pressed into service. And so was born the T-01a. Confident in the craft's sturdiness and well increased range, mission designers allowed Edlu to take it out for a full spin. Destination: NP-TAS. This location 20km south of the North Pole would shortly become home to the "North Pole Transfer Air Station." Since it had been proven that aircraft were not able to operate at Kerbin's poles (on account of there being no oxygen in the near-absolute-zero atmosphere at the poles), the science division would instead build a runway to the South and use a rover to transport crews to the research station they were planning to build at the North Pole. Edlu's flight would serve as the first scouting mission for finding the best flight plans to the North. The T-01a Vulture, with its operating ceiling of about 8km, would need to avoid the large mountain ranges and high altitude to make travel to and from the North Pole safe. On his flight North Edlu found a pass through one range, but also noted that a short jog to the East along the shoreline just after takeoff would avoid the mountain range entirely. And then, some 90 minutes later, Edlu landed 20 kilometers South of Jeb's "North Pole" flag, and planted his own flag. "Future site of the North Pole Transfer Air Station. Coming: Year 5." Kanawha Space Program Year 4 In Review Launches and Missions [table=width: 100%, class: grid, align: left] [tr] [td=width: 200]Mission ID[/td] [td=width: 50]KSSTS[/td] [td=width: 100]Crew[/td] [td=width: 200]Launch Vehicle[/td] [td]Remarks[/td] [/tr] [tr][td]Dogwood 3[/td] [td]4-001[/td] [td][/td] [td]Tanager[/td] [td]Minmjs lander probe.[/td][/tr] [tr][td]Maple 8[/td] [td]4-002[/td] [td][/td] [td]Tanager[/td] [td]Mün lander probe, crash landed.[/td][/tr] [tr][td]Oak 4[/td] [td]4-003[/td] [td][/td] [td]Finch[/td] [td]Solar science above Kerbin orbit.[/td][/tr] [tr][td]Dogwood 4[/td] [td]4-004[/td] [td][/td] [td]Tanager[/td] [td]Minmus lander probe.[/td][/tr] [tr][td]Maple 9[/td] [td]4-005[/td] [td][/td] [td]Tanager[/td] [td]Mün lander probe, launch issues.[/td][/tr] [tr][td]Feather 08[/td] [td][/td] [td]Svetlana[/td] [td]R-1[/td] [td]Flight to Bobak's Plain.[/td][/tr] [tr][td]Scratch 01[/td] [td][/td] [td]Jeb[/td] [td]XR-01A[/td] [td]Rover test.[/td][/tr] [tr][td]Feather 09[/td] [td][/td]V-009 [td]Jeb[/td] [td]R-1[/td] [td]Flight to KSC-2.[/td][/tr] [tr][td]Scratch 02[/td] [td][/td] [td]Jermin, Mind[/td] [td]XR-02[/td] [td]Rover test.[/td][/tr] [tr][td]Scratch 03[/td] [td][/td] [td]Bill, Rama[/td] [td]XR-02A[/td] [td]Rover test.[/td][/tr] [tr][td]Feather 10[/td] [td][/td] [td]Jeb[/td] [td]R-1[/td] [td]Crashed atop mountain.[/td][/tr] [tr][td]Tokebeloke 1[/td][td]4-006[/td] [td]Val, Bob, Bill[/td] [td]Robin[/td] [td]First Minmus landing.[/td][/tr] [tr][td]Dogwood 5[/td] [td]4-007[/td] [td][/td] [td]Bluejay[/td] [td]Rover landed on Minmus.[/td][/tr] [tr][td]Tokebeloke 2[/td][td]4-008[/td] [td]Jeb, Grazy, Rama[/td] [td]Robin[/td] [td]Launch Failure. Crew rescued.[/td][/tr] [tr][td]Keninsheka 4[/td][td]4-009[/td] [td]Svetlana, Bob, Lindra[/td] [td]Robin[/td] [td]Piq-2 crew rotation.[/td][/tr] [tr][td]Poplar 5[/td] [td]4-010[/td] [td][/td] [td]Sparrow[/td] [td]Kerbin polar orbit probe.[/td][/tr] [tr][td]Poplar 6[/td] [td]4-011[/td] [td][/td] [td]Sparrow[/td] [td]Kerbin polar orbit probe.[/td][/tr] [tr][td]Tokebeloke 3[/td][td]4-012[/td] [td]Jeb, Grazy, Rama[/td] [td]Robin[/td] [td]Second Minmus landing.[/td][/tr] [tr][td]Maple 10[/td] [td]4-013[/td] [td][/td] [td]Tanager[/td] [td]Mün polar orbit probe.[/td][/tr] [tr][td]Maple 11[/td] [td]4-014[/td] [td][/td] [td]Tanager[/td] [td]Mün polar orbit probe.[/td][/tr] [tr][td]Dogwood 6[/td] [td]4-015[/td] [td][/td] [td]Vireo[/td] [td]Minmus polar orbit probe.[/td][/tr] [tr][td]Dogwood 7[/td] [td]4-016[/td] [td][/td] [td]Vireo[/td] [td]Minmus polar orbit probe.[/td][/tr] [tr][td]Hickory 1[/td] [td]4-017[/td] [td][/td] [td]Robin[/td] [td]Moho probe, failed capture.[/td][/tr] [tr][td]Sumac 1[/td] [td]4-018[/td] [td][/td] [td]Robin[/td] [td]Dres probe.[/td][/tr] [tr][td]Feather 11[/td] [td][/td] [td]Jeb[/td] [td]R-2[/td] [td]Air intakes exploded.[/td][/tr] [tr][td]Tiskelwah 6[/td][td]4-019[/td] [td]Edlu, Hereny, Jermin[/td] [td]Cardinal[/td] [td]Mün landing, universe rending.[/td][/tr] [tr][td]Feather 12[/td] [td][/td] [td]Jeb[/td] [td]R-2[/td] [td]Altitude record of 28,608m.[/td][/tr] [tr][td]Oak 5[/td] [td]4-020[/td] [td][/td] [td]Vireo[/td] [td]Low solar orbit probe. Partially exploded.[/td][/tr] [tr][td]Maple 12[/td] [td]4-021[/td] [td][/td] [td]Bluejay[/td] [td]Mün rover.[/td][/tr] [tr][td]Tiskelwah 7[/td][td]4-022[/td] [td]Urcella, Ribzor, Bill[/td] [td]Cardinal[/td] [td]Mün landing at anomaly crater.[/td][/tr] [tr][td]GKO-G2-D[/td] [td]4-023[/td] [td][/td] [td]Robin[/td] [td]GKO commsat.[/td][/tr] [tr][td]GKO-G2-E[/td] [td]4-024[/td] [td][/td] [td]Robin[/td] [td]GKO commsat.[/td][/tr] [tr][td]GKO-G2-F[/td] [td]4-025[/td] [td][/td] [td]Robin[/td] [td]GKO commsat.[/td][/tr] [tr][td]Chirp 22[/td] [td]4-026[/td] [td][/td] [td]Wren[/td] [td]Radiator and launch testing.[/td][/tr] [tr][td]Chirp 23[/td] [td]4-027[/td] [td][/td] [td]Wren[/td] [td]Radiator and launch testing.[/td][/tr] [tr][td]Chirp 24[/td] [td]4-028[/td] [td][/td] [td]Wren[/td] [td]Radiator and launch testing.[/td][/tr] [tr][td]Beech 1[/td] [td]4-029[/td] [td][/td] [td]Robin[/td] [td]Eeloo probe.[/td][/tr] [tr][td]Sycamore 1[/td] [td]4-030[/td] [td][/td] [td]Robin[/td] [td]Jool probe.[/td][/tr] [tr][td]Elm 1[/td] [td]4-031[/td] [td][/td] [td]Bluejay[/td] [td]Laythe probe.[/td][/tr] [tr][td]Willow 1[/td] [td]4-032[/td] [td][/td] [td]Bluejay[/td] [td]Tylo probe.[/td][/tr] [tr][td]Walnut 1[/td] [td]4-033[/td] [td][/td] [td]Bluejay[/td] [td]Vall probe.[/td][/tr] [tr][td]Piquemetami 2-E[/td][td]4-035[/td][td][/td] [td]Vireo[/td] [td]Radiators for station.[/td][/tr] [tr][td]Pequoni 1-D[/td][td]4-036[/td] [td][/td] [td]Vireo[/td] [td]Radiators for station.[/td][/tr] [tr][td]Maple 13[/td] [td]4-037[/td] [td][/td] [td]Robin[/td] [td]Recovery of Device NQXQ.[/td][/tr] [tr][td]Chirp 25[/td] [td][/td] [td][/td] [td]Wren[/td] [td]Tourist craft test. Parachute failure.[/td][/tr] [tr][td]Chirp 26[/td] [td][/td] [td][/td] [td]Wren[/td] [td]Tourist craft test. Parachute failure.[/td][/tr] [tr][td]Chirp 27[/td] [td][/td] [td][/td] [td]Wren[/td] [td]Drogue chute test.[/td][/tr] [tr][td]Exploration 17 O3[/td][td]4-038[/td][td]Dancie[/td] [td]Finch[/td] [td]Tourist orbital.[/td][/tr] [tr][td]Adventure 18 SO3[/td][td][/td] [td]Wenline, Hansen[/td] [td]Wren[/td] [td]Tourist.[/td][/tr] [tr][td]Exploration 19 O3[/td][td]4-039[/td][td]Seeley, Janayne[/td] [td]Finch[/td] [td]Tourist orbital.[/td][/tr] [tr][td]Feather 13[/td] [td][/td] [td]Jeb[/td] [td]R-2[/td] [td]Test flight.[/td][/tr] [tr][td]Feather 14[/td] [td][/td] [td]Jeb[/td] [td]R-3[/td] [td]Test flight, flat spin, craft lost.[/td][/tr] [tr][td]Feather 15[/td] [td][/td] [td]Urcella[/td] [td]T-01[/td] [td]Transport test.[/td][/tr] [tr][td]Feather 16[/td] [td][/td] [td]Edlu[/td] [td]T-01A[/td] [td]Transport flight to NP-TAS.[/td][/tr] [/table] Failed Missions and Issues of Note Maple 8 - Crashed into surface during Münar descent. Maple 9 - Severe control issues during ascent led to redesign of Tanager launch vehicle. Feather 10 - Crashed atop mountain Jeb's Folly. Jeb's fault. Tokebeloke 1 - Failed to complete aerocapture at Kerbin on first two attempts. Tokebeloke 2 - Craft disintegrated during ascent; Crew recovered safely thanks to launch escape system. Tokebeloke 3 - Failed to complete aerocapture at Kerbin on first attempt; skipped. Hickory 1 - Insufficient reaction mass to complete capture at Moho. Maple 10 - Severe power shortages due to design oversight. Feather 11 - Excessive speed caused air intakes to overheat and explode. Tiskelwah 6 - Encounter with Maple 4 probe destroyed universe, exterminating all known life. Space/time anomaly led to eventual recovery yet unexplained loss of Maple 4 probe. Oak 5 - Serious overheating issues while in Low Solar Orbit led to exploding parts. Tiskelwah 7 - Rover from Maple 12 destroyed in incident involving Bill and Ribzor Kerman. Chirp 22 - Encountered severe plasma during ascent, resulting in fairing overheat. Chirp 25 - Parachute failure due to shallow reentry resulting in destruction of craft. Chirp 26 - Parachute failure due to shallow reentry resulting in destruction of craft. Feather 14 - Space/time anomaly caused craft to enter flat spin, allowing pilot to eject safely. Unexplained. Missions In-Progress Sumac 1 - Outbound to Dres. Beech 1 - Enroute to Eeloo. Sycamore 1 - Cruising to Jool. Elm 1 - Rolling to Laythe. Willow 1 - On the Low Road to Tylo. Walnut 1 - Rising to Vall. Keninsheka 4 - Crew for Piquemetami 2: Svetlana, Bob, Lindra. Crew Roster Jebediah Kerman, Pilot. 8 Flights. Valentina Kerman, Pilot. 1 Flight. Bill Kerman, Engineer. 2 Flights. Bob Kerman, Scientist. 2 Flights. On Piq-2. Grazy Kerman, Scientist. 2 Flights. Svetlana Kerman, Pilot. 2 Flights. On Piq-2. Lindra Kerman, Scientist. 1 Flight. On Piq-2. Ribzor Kerman, Scientist. 1 Flight. Jermin Kerman, Engineer. 1 Flight. Rama Kerman, Engineer. 2 Flights. Urcella Kerman, Pilot. 2 Flights. Mind Kerman, . Edlu Kerman, Pilot. 2 Flights. Eriemma Kerman, . Roster Kerman, . Hereny Kerman, Scientist. 1 Flight. Daselle Kerman, Scientist. Elley Kerman, Scientist. Ersen Kerman, Scientist. Active Launch Vehicles [table=class: grid, align: left] [tr] [td=width: 200]Launch Vehicle[/td] [td=width: 100]Lift-Off Payload Mass[/td] [td=width: 100]Orbital Payload Mass[/td] [td=width: 100]Attempts[/td] [td=width: 100]Successes[/td] [/tr] [tr][td]LV-01 Wren[/td] [td]6t[/td][td]190kg[/td] [td]7[/td][td]7[/td][/tr] [tr][td]LV-02 Sparrow[/td] [td]3.8t[/td][td]770kg[/td] [td]2[/td][td]2[/td][/tr] [tr][td]LV-04 Tanager[/td] [td]11t[/td][td]2t[/td] [td]6[/td][td]5[/td][/tr] [tr][td]LV-05 Finch[/td] [td]8.9t[/td][td]3.2t[/td] [td]3[/td][td]3[/td][/tr] [tr][td]LV-06-S Vireo[/td] [td]25t[/td][td]4.4t[/td] [td]5[/td][td]5[/td][/tr] [tr][td]LV-21 Bluejay[/td] [td]25.5t[/td][td]5.4t[/td] [td]5[/td][td]5[/td][/tr] [tr][td]LV-22 Robin[/td] [td]47t[/td][td]17.1t[/td] [td]12[/td][td]11[/td][/tr] [tr][td]LV-23 Cardinal[/td] [td]43.0t[/td][td]43.6t[/td] [td]2[/td][td]2[/td][/tr] [/table]

Yes, but it doesn't work for me when I'm in force-opengl mode. Doesn't detect that as a game. Otherwise it's great. I'm not sure it buys me anything more than OBS, but I'll try it here and there in the future.

Yes. There are a few different keys that affect the lock and the logon screen, though they're not very well documented. The results on Google can explain it better than me, but most of the customization settings are in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Personalization or HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\System. Example: You can completely disable the image background of the logon screen by setting HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\System\DisableLogonBackgroundImage to a non-zero value, which forces it to a flat color. That color can be changed by setting another key in the same place that I forget the exact name of. The programs that allow you to customize the lock screen background are really just changing registry values. [edit: There's no space between win and dows in the key name.... I don't know what's up with the forum software wanting to break it there.] I've noticed my PC sometime refuses to stay shut down when I shut it down from the Start menu. A third of the time it will stay turned off for a few seconds and then boot up again. Never seems to be an issue when I shut it down from the lock screen specifically, so I'm not sure what's up there. Very odd bug.

No humans? Can land anywhere? If it's a stationary lander I'd absolutely target someplace that's lush - to look for life. Even the rainforest is ok here, provided you can punch through the canopy and still survive. If it's a rover I'd land on the edge of any desert on the largest connected landmass, meaning Africa-Europe-Asia. Probably somewhere near large vegetation areas and away from extreme mountains and deep rivers, maybe in the far Southern Sahara or near the upper Tigris/Euphrates. Maybe the Eastern Gobi. Then you can [hopefully] drive wherever you need. Having driven across both uncut grass and open sand (and having forded a river or three) - I'll take sand any day. If I want to get back into orbit - I'd land on some other rock instead.

How would I react? Well, #1 is obvious. "Life" is not unique to Earth, we just haven't yet proven to the contrary. No surprise from me there, though I'd question if it was due to contamination from the current or previous probes. (Much as I'm questioning some of Philae's findings on 67P after it splattered itself across the comet's surface.) #s2/3/4? First I'd be angry that the scientific community sat on this information for 18 months so they could get all their papers written and reviewed for the journals. Then I'd be angry that the message itself is somehow protected by copyright and hasn't yet been released. Then I'd be angry that somebody leaked it on day one but only the National Enquirer picked it up. Mostly just angry that we don't life in some sort of hacker ethos utopia where all information is free. How would society as a whole react? Well, #1 wouldn't change much. Many wouldn't notice. #2 would be written off as noise after having been puffed up by the hyperactive news media for a few hours. #3 is where things would get interesting. This is where you'd see a few repeats of Heaven's Gate; some of the heavy geocentric religions would freak out. Most would adapt, many would forever question. By and large it wouldn't change life on Earth unless it included blueprints. (Such a message is more likely to be as banal as your average Facebook post anyway. The intergalactic equivalent of cat pictures. Or food pictures. Or cat food pictures. Or all three at the same time.) #4 would go to the highest bidder at Sotheby's and then we'd never see it again. Many would write it off as the most expensive fraud ever.

And then you discover somebody included all these timezones into your OS, but inverted half of them because the original programmer intended for them to be offsets from local while every subsequent programmer thought they were offsets from UTC, and that EEST is suddenly somewhere in the mid Atlantic. And then you wonder why people think it's odd that you're drinking from a flask at one in the afternoon......

Timekeeping? Well, the second is a somewhat well defined measure of time, though getting an exact value of it can be tough. Coordinating the second with whatever other power we're talking to would be a first step. Probably one of the first-year Computer Science projects would be writing a routine to convert between SquishyHumanTime and BlargTime, much like we now write Roman Julian to Gregorian programs. Telling what "year" it is would be more difficult. Even in the western world we have many common timescales, one measured from 1AD (AD/BC or ACE/BCE), one measured in time "Before Present" in which present is defined as January 1st, 1950 (BP). And then there's the only timescale that matters - the Unix Epoch - seconds ellapsed since 00:00:00 January 1st, 1970. You could throw in Macintosh Time too, but that's largely irrelevant now that Mac is Unix. And that's only dealing with Western European calendars. "Years" and days and whatnot in the far future would probably be replaced by some multiple of seconds, perhaps in powers of 2 or 10s. That's assuming we don't kill each other while squabbling over our different calendars first.

Thanks! As for the reentry heat at Earth scale - I think it's still a bit glitchy (with random things instantly exploding at ~90km, for example), but beyond that I don't really know enough fluid dynamics or thermodynamics to have a good feel for what's right and what might be wrong. It _seems_ to be a good model, and the craft that I've used to reenter behave as one would expect. Aerodynamically they feel right, but that has more to do with FAR than the heating system.

Today I landed a semi-autonomous robot lander on the Moon in my RSS/RO install: A Journey to the Moon. It might have even worked....

Random RSS Ramblings of a Mad Monk A Journey to the Moon The Early Attempts Most of my adventures in RSS have been more of the kind I posted previously - picking a random real-world craft and trying to replicate it using procedural parts and the available engines. I've dabbled here and there with building communication networks and sending "kerbals" to orbit, but generally have spent more time dabbling in rocket and spacecraft engineering than in exploration. My few early attempts at sending a spacecraft to the Moon mostly met with failure before reaching Earth Orbit. My first success at reaching the Moon was last July in KSP v0.23.5. An unnamed craft, likely some variant of Alpha or Beta (my test names are far less original than I usually admit), was launched from the Mid Atlantic Regional Spaceport on the DelMarVa peninsula. The launch vehicle was a strange beast of a craft that from my screenshots appears to have been largely cryogenic. (The distinct lack of notes related to this project is rather out of character for me.) Regardless, this monster that was little more than a giant tank of hydrogen became the first to enter Lunar orbit. The second craft to successfully reach the Moon was a somewhat more conventional design. Launched later the same day from Cape Canaveral, the "Lunar Comms-A" was adapted from my then-standard geostationary communications satellite. Its Mk5 launch vehicle was likewise a slightly heavier variant of my usual geostationary launch vehicle. The plan was to place a couple of these in Lunar orbit in preparation for a surface landing. That surface landing never came and the Lunar program was abandoned. In time the world forgot. If You Believe.... Fast forward to July of this year and KSP v1.0.4. While I was playing around with the various parts packs to find what I want to use long-term, I decided to pull up the FASA Apollo and take it for a spin. My first launch was less than stellar and fell more than 600m/s short of the Lunar transfer burn. I completed the TLI using the command module's supply of fuel, thinking I might just be able to complete the capture at the Moon and land. Not only was I wrong, but the poor kerbals riding along on the short Apollo died when their craft exploded due to an overheat bug or a part that hadn't been updated to the proper heat values. (I think it was the floats.) The next attempt was far more successful. Caranna and Ermore Kerman became the first to land on the Moon following a launch form Earth. When asked by reporters whether the two brave kerbals and their friend in orbit, Dunbart, had been returned to Earth, the press secretary Pleaded the 5th. ... They Put a Bot on the Moon Landing kerbals on the Moon is so easy that it's almost cheating. Landing an automated probe is another thing entirely, and that was to be the next goal of my resurrected Lunar program. First up: The Vandal Probes. Making use of the recently developed "Gargantua" 4 meter launch vehicle, these probes usually involved a combination of orbiter and lander. The Gargantua, developed for placing large communications satellites into Geostationary Earth Orbit, consists of three principal stages. The first stage, fueled by KeroLox, uses a pair of RD-146 engines. All subsequent stages are HydroLox, making use of two cryogenic engines: the LR-87 and the NK-33. Further, four hard points are available for the use of strap-on solid boosters. The majority of these launches occurred at night, as this game is starting at day 0 in year 1, and the most favorable inclinations for Lunar launches in the Winter of 1951 happen to be at night. All Vandal launches have taken place at Brownsville, TX. Vandal 1, seen here launching at sunset, successfully reached both Lunar orbit and the surface of the Moon. Unfortunately its speed at contact with the surface was unfavorable for its survival. Or the survival of any of its constituent atoms for that matter. The orbiter it left behind, however, has been tremendously useful to subsequent missions. Vandal 2 exploded shortly after reaching orbit due to the part-clipping overheat bug and was otherwise unremarkable. The landing attempt by Vandal 1 made it rather clear that I needed a more sophisticated method for landing autonomous craft than maneuver nodes and RemoteTech's cranky flight computer. So I finally bit the bullet and installed kOS. To get my bearings with this strange new scripting language I launched a small toy satellite, once again returning to the Brazilian VLS. The LEO-Comms A "VLS-kOS" was poked, prodded and spun around like a top as I felt my way around kOS and its internals. Its job complete, the small test sat was dropped back into the atmosphere and disposed of with fire. Changes were made to the Vandal landers to correct the overheat bugs encountered on both the Vandal 2 and Vandal 3. Vandal 4 saw a change in the standard pattern with the orbiter having been replaced by a primary descent stage. Unfortunately, the fuel not burned off from the lander during what would have been the bulk of its descent left it too heavy to land at the end of its descent, and the Vandal 4 met its end at over 90m/s. A few quick revisions to the lander and the Vandal 5 was ready for its attempt at Lunar glory. It merely added its matter to the ancient dust. Vandal 6 decided to explode multiple times shortly after launch, so Vandal 7 became the next revision of the project. This time the lander had more than enough thrust to properly complete the descent, though it still lacked engines capable of being throttled. The Vandal 7 also saw a return to the orbiter-lander combination. The Vandal 7 was to be the last of these probes, though it crashed more times than I care to think about. Unlike previous failures, each taking the better part of two hours to reach their failure point, this mission was not going to fail. Working from a quicksave in Lunar orbit, the landing software and process was iterated, updated and revised. Each revision and test from that savepoint taking 20 minutes to reach their final outcome. Yet eventually the goal was accomplished: Soft Lunar Touchdown. The exact definitions of "soft" and "touchdown" being a bit open for interpretation. On what was to be the final attempt of the weekend, the lander exhausted its onboard fuel just a short distance above the surface. The bouncing and rolling that followed didn't break any major pieces of the craft off, so it's good enough for me. Sure, it's a bit dinged up with only one solar panel still working, but it's on the Moon. With that milestone "completed", my RSS/RO exploration project can move into its next phase: Mars. Though I might spend a few more days perfecting my automated Moon landing script before I fling something off to good old Ares. It's a bit rough around the edges, but for the craft I was using it worked well enough. I've included it below for the curious. Probably a good bit of stuff I'm doing backwards or being wasteful about, but I'll rethink the algorithms over sometime when my air conditioner isn't a giant sheet of useless snow and ice. declare Stationary to 0. rcs on. sas off. lock steering to (-1) * ship:velocity:surface. wait 5. set ship:control:mainthrottle to 1. set ship:control:fore to 1. until 0 { if Stationary > 0 { if 1 > alt:radar { print "Landing Detected". break. } if -2 < ship:verticalspeed { set ship:control:mainthrottle to 0. set ship:control:fore to 0. } else if 2000 < alt:radar { if -100 > ship:verticalspeed { set ship:control:fore to 1. set ship:control:mainthrottle to 1. } } else if 500 < alt:radar { if -50 > ship:verticalspeed { set ship:control:fore to 1. set ship:control:mainthrottle to 1. } } else if 100 < alt:radar { if -3 > ship:verticalspeed { set ship:control:fore to 1. } if -5 > ship:verticalspeed { set ship:control:mainthrottle to 1. } } } else { if 2 > ship:surfacespeed { set Stationary to 1. } if 100 > ship:surfacespeed { set ship:control:fore to 0. } } lock steering to (-1) * ship:velocity:surface. } set ship:control:mainthrottle to 0. set ship:control:fore to 0. unlock steering. rcs off. print "Landed. Lat: " + ship:latitude + " Lon: " + ship:longitude + " Alt: " + ship:altitude. Cheers.

Kanawha Space Program Year 4 Update 3 - Aim for the Mün... Crash in a Crater And so we go back to the Mün to spread around experience points for our crews and to visit another one of the mysterious anomalies. Quite a wide variety of anomalies in fact, ranging from game glitches to easter eggs. This is the last part of Year 4 that was run entirely in KSP v1.0.2, so soon we'll be dealing with heat and radiators and all the fun stuff that v1.0.4 brought with it. Maple 8 and 9 - More Proof Required Much like Minmus, the ore survey satellites that had been placed in orbit of the Mün were showing several concentrations or ore and other items, both on the surface and a short distance under the regolith. The Mineral Reclamation Division, anxious to get started with its mining, pushed Wernher and the science team for a pair of landers to test the two highest concentrations of ore so far discovered by the ResSats. Maple 8 and 9 were both effectively clones of the Dogwood 3 and 4, even to the point of being launched atop the same rocket. Unfortunately these two were not as successful as their Minmus-bound cousins. The radar on Maple 8 was malfunctioning, meaning it came down at much too high of a rate of speed. The impact destroyed the ore sampler, the main engines and several other pieces of key equipment on the small craft. Meanwhile the Maple 9 experienced significant issues during ascent from Kerbin. Further review of the launch led to the eventual retirement of this variant of the Tanager launch vehicle. It was still able to complete its mission and returned valuable data on the ore concentrations of the Mün. (and unlike other probes, it continues to transmit valuable science data from the surface to this day. Tiskelwah 6 - The Heaviest of Mün Landings The missions to Minmus had finally returned enough science to unlock the larger orange, insulated tanks needed to make the heavy Mün landings possible. The creation of a new launch vehicle capable of lofting the larger mass into orbit was always the limiting factor to the return to the nearby world. A factor which had now been removed, thanks to the LV-23 Cardinal. Able to drop 43 tonnes of payload into low-Kerbin orbit, the Cardinal and its 4 Skipper engines was to be the new workhorse of the space program. Not only would this behemoth unlock access to the Mün, it would also enable the construction of larger space stations and vehicles for interplanetary travel. Duna and Eve were now well within reach. Yet they first needed to return tot he Mün before they could take any steps out into the greater universe. Rocks needed collecting. EVAs needed observing. Science needed a doing. And the LV-23 would make all of those things possible. The first mission chosen for this new breed of Tiskelwah flights was to visit the Maple 4 lander on the dark side of the Mün. Several theories had developed for why it and its sibling the Maple 6 had simply vanished, but none were certain of the absolute cause. And so Edlu, Hereny and Jermin Kerman strapped into their Tiskelwah capsule and prepared for the journey to the far side of the Mün. The Tiskelwah 6 was a Type B Münar landing, meaning it utilized a heavy, 3-kerbal direct ascent module instead of the older single-kerbal "Toyota Corolla" style lander. To accomplish this the craft used three stages once in orbit of Kerbin. The third stage (following the first two stages of the LV-23 Cardinal) performed the Münar transfer burn, the Münar capture burn, and the first stages of the Münar descent burn. The fourth stage, which had roughly 400m/s of ∆v, would perform the final landing. The fifth stage would be used for ascent and the return to Kerbin. The crew spent a couple of orbits performing science tasks and recording observations (with the usual amount of hanging off of ladders) before they set up for the final descent to Maple 4's landing site. The final bits of fuel were burned off from the transfer stage, the fourth stage fired up and discarded the large empty fuel tank, and the landing equipment was deployed. The Münar descent was underway! And that descent was going splendidly until they were within 2.5km of the final landing site. That's when the universe collapsed. It was barely noticeable at first, more of a strange sensation than anything concrete. The clocks seemed to change, communications started to falter. They watched the surface of the Mün approach no different than one would expcet, and were even able to catch a glimpse of the third stage impacting and exploding. Except that it took longer to explode than made sense. And the clocks, which were still somehow sync'd to Kerbin's, showed the descent taking longer, and longer, and longer. Days. Münths. Years. The closer to the surface and the Maple 4 they got, the longer it would take to land. To them only five minutes had passed. Or was it five years? To those back on Kerbin? And then the Tiskelwah 6 would explode, the three kerbals would be sucked out into the void, and just as suddenly they would be back at the point where the third stage was being jettisoned, early in the descent. Edlu, Hereny and Jermin were all three very aware of these strange repeats. Tortured souls, cursed to forever repeat the same descent. That jarring crash. The explosion. The surface, rushing up much too fast. Repeated forever. Back in the capsule. Early descent. Until something changed. Boom. Surface. Until that factor that was causing the universe to implode was removed. Capsule. And then the Maple 4 disappeared from their radar. Edlu must have sounded insane when he asked Mission Control what day it was. As far as those on Kerbin knew, no time had passed between when they had jettisoned the third stage and their last transmission. For Edlu, Hereny and Jermin? Hereny later estimated (based on the stretched-out clock readings during their descent) that seven years of their life had passed, though none felt any older. The Tiskelwah 6 stretched out its legs and reached for the Mün. The engine burned, just as it was supposed to, and the small craft slowed. Edlu sat them down gently onto the surface of the Mün, kicking up a small cloud in the process. The contact light went on. The engine cut. The craft bounced softly as the legs settled into the soft münar dust. The Elk had finally landed. The Maple 4 was nowhere to be found. No debris. No crater. No wreckage. Nothing. This detail the crew reported back to Kerbin with glee, but the details of their descent they chose to keep to themselves. Each had seen how Jebediah had been blacklisted following his reports of mysterious black objects, and none wanted to be removed from flight. If there was something weird going on, then surely others would see it and come to them. If not? Then best to not admit they were crazy. [in terms of what happened - I don't know. I spent most of a week digging through the persistence file to try to find the issue with the Maple 4 and the Maple 6. In the end I had to delete both. Oddly, both crafts worked fine when loaded into another persistence file, but when kept in the main file? Voodoo. There weren't any shared UIDs/PIDs/GUIDs, so I have no clue what was up with the two.] The rest of the trip went by in a blink. They collected their samples, loaded up the capsule, set all the switches and pushed all the buttons and then POW!, something cracked loudly and the ascent stage burned them towards orbit. As they had planned to do some seven years prior, or rather 2 days prior, the Tiskelwah 6 ascent rendezvoused and docked with the Pequoni 1. The station had been idle and empty now for more than a year, so they would need to restock a few supplies from their rations and boost it into a slightly more circular orbit. And maybe sweep up the cobwebs left behind by the Mün spiders. The crew spent a few hours there, relaxing and taking a nap for the first time in a decade, and catching up on all the news they missed. As it turned out absolutely nothing had happened on Kerbin while they were away, aside from some crew of three kerbonauts landing on the Mün that most of the planet was talking about. With any luck they may get to meet them! And then suddenly they were screaming through the atmosphere of Kerbin, the Mün far behind them. The departure from Pequoni 1 and the burn back to Kerbin had all passed in the link of an eye. Unlike the aerocaptures experienced by the craft returning from Minmus, the Tiskelwah 6 had no issues. One and done. And down. And safely back home after all those many years. Or days. Or hours. Or minutes. None of them were exactly sure. Maple 12 - A Rover for the Mün With the fantastic success of the Dogwood rover on Minmus it was decided to push forward and send one to the Mün. The Maple 12 did feature some minor tweaks (to prevent the "shot out of a cannon" deployment issue), but was otherwise identical to the Dogwood 5. Taking advantage of a rare nighttime launch window, the Maple 12 was sent up under cover of darkness. (Actually I just wanted to launch something at night since it'd been awhile.) The ascent and transfer to the Mün were completely nominal, with a nominal landing and the usual round of nominals and coffee. There was a bit of juggling to avoid a steep landing site, but eventually the lander and the shipping container mounted underneath it landed down softly in the regolith near Anomaly Crater. The stage was set for Tiskelwah 7. Tiskelwah 7 - This Time it's Bill's Fault.... The second launch of the LV-23 Cardinal went as perfectly as the first launch. Urcella, Ribzor and Bill Kerman were riding atop it, taking the Tiskelwah 7 and all its science gear to the Mün. Another Type-B mission, the equipment stack was exactly identical to the previous flight. The previous mission had more than doubled the number of Kerbals who had landed on the Mün, from 2 to 5, this would only bump the number to 8. Still, Bill was happy to be the eighth. They'd need an engineer to properly test the new rover awaiting them at Anomaly Crater, especially if Bill was going to need it to drive all the way to his secret destination. The landing was apparently a bit rough, leaving Urcella cursing and swearing under her breath. The landing site near the Maple 12 rover was rugged and steep, and required a good bit of hunting to find a spot that wasn't on a 10º slope. Bill was oblivious to the whole operation, trying to think of an excuse to keep Ribzor from accompanying him all the way to the end of the planned rover trip. Bob had been adamant about Bill going to the mysterious black block alone, reminding him repeatedly that the rover had only been sent to Anomaly Crater for his use. (Though Bob had also complained that he couldn't get Jeb assigned to this mission because of some union rule called "fair pilot rotation," and he seemed annoyed at having to bring Bill in on their little secret operation.) He had thought about stranding Ribzor somewhere out in the wrong direction, but the suit radios and trackers would prevent that. Then he wondered what would happen if he tossed him out of the ship before they even got the Mün, but decided somebody might notice. Could he trap him in a landslide of some sort? No, that seemed silly. Break his oxygen lines so he'd pass out while they were at the anomaly site? No, he didn't want to kill the poor kid. By the time he had decided on a course of action they had landed on the Mün, planted their flags, and he and Ribzor were well on their way towards Anomaly Crater. Bill figured it out just as they crested the crater rim and started working down the rather precarious and slippery slope. It was foolproof. And if, no, when it worked, Ribzor would have no choice but to return to the lander and let him continue the mission alone. Yes, it would absolutely work. "Hey Ribzor, let's stop here and take some surface samples." "What?" Ribzor, the trained geologist and planetologist that he was, looked curiously around the top of the crater. "There's nothing here that's any different than back at the landing site. Same ejecta, same strata. No, we'll see more interesting things the further we get into the crater." Ok, so perhaps Bill could wait. And sure enough, a half kilometer or so down the edge Ribzor decided to jump off and play in the rocks. Now was his chance. He thought about it for a split second, and then jumped off to join him. Bill, playing the absent minded fool, had deliberately forgotten to set the parking brake. Just to make sure it would work he kicked the rover and waddled over to where the mission scientist was looking over two small rocks. Ribzor looked up as he approached. "Bill! The rover!" Bill looked at him with deliberate ignorance, then turned back to see the rover tumbling down the side of the crater. "Oh." Tumbling, not rolling. Ribzor fired off on his jetpack and sped after it while Bill gave chase on foot. Neither of them were able to catch up, and eventually had to admit defeat. And that's when it exploded. It hadn't occurred to Bill is that his "plan" would also destroy the rover. No one had every accused Bill of being a particularly smart engineer. The wreckage was a good bit down the side of the crater but well within reach of the two kerbals. After a short inspection Bill sent Ribzor back to the ship to let Urcella know their status. He would stick around and see if he could fix the rover. His plan had worked after all. In his official report Bill blamed the loss of the rover on the front brakes having been disabled at the factory. The scandal and drawn out investigation this caused led to a massive recall on Kerbin and eventually bankrupted a small car manufacturer, and led to the retirement of the small "rover in a service bay" concept. Of course this "plan" also left Bill without a ride to inspect Bob's anomaly. He checked his jetpack and ran a few quick numbers, finding he had more than enough jetpack fuel to get down into the crater, but nowhere near enough to get back out. Could he walk the 18 or more kilometers back to the ship? Hmm. Too late to worry about that now. He looked back to make sure Ribzor was out of sight and then jetted off into the crater. Hopefully they wouldn't come looking for him. Finding Bob's monolith was no walk in the park either. Bill had the exact coordinates for where to look, but nothing was jumping out at him. The description Bob had provided made him think he'd see a giant black slab standing upright in the middle of the crater. Instead, when he finally found it, the monolith was mostly buried beneath the fines and dust at the bottom. When he finally stopped to look at the monolith he was impressed. The perfectly tapered sides. The absolutely black material. The strange way it reflected light. The cold feeling it had through his gloves. He spent some time looking for imperfections and found none. He scratched at the regolith to try and excavate it, but decided it was futile without heavy equipment. He planted a flag, looked back to the south where Urcella and Ribzor were hopefully waiting for him, and used the last of his jetpack fuel to fly over to the lower slopes of the crater's rim. Bill had a long walk ahead of him. He arrived back at the Tiskelwah 7 lander more than eight hours later. Urcella was nearly in a panic, having jetted out to the rover crash site herself and finding it abandoned. She had been in contact with mission control the entire time, and was trying to get permission to take off in the lander and look for Bill. Nightfall was fast approaching on the Mün, and more than a few were concerned that no kerbal could survive in the tremendous cold of the Münar darkness. Yet Bill was back, and all was now right with the world. To make up for his extended absence he handed Ribzor a collection of samples from the bottom of the crater. Samples which Ribzor would have rather gathered himself, but was happy to have nonetheless. And so, far past due for their return to Kerbin, Bill, Ribzor and Urcella blasted away from the southern rim of Anomaly Crater and sped off into the night. There would be no stop at Pequoni 1. They would not pass Go. They would not collect 200 Roots. And so, a day later the reentry capsule of the Tiskelwah 7 splashed down in the waters between the desert continent and KSC. Bill graduated to Level 2. The science data returned was relatively valuable. The flag they had planted on the Mün satisfied another well paying contract. And Bob had another flag with another tracking device planted near another of his strange anomalies. In all it was a rather successful mission.

Soon! (I hope.) I've landed kerbals on the Moon recently and plan to do a short write-up about my RSS moonshots over the last several releases. I've been spending most of my RSS time exploring various parts mods and fidgeting with the install so I can get it to work on both Windows and OS-X, which aside from the 8k textures I'm using on Windows has gone well enough. For now, here's a short (~45s) video I shot while building out the communications network in my current RSS save:

What's Ablate's orbit exactly? 650Mm? I've noticed that operating much below Moho's orbit is really tough with the latest heat changes, and the only two probes I've sent to "Low Kerbol Orbit" (~1Mm) have both had things explode. Those were all before radiators were a thing, though I don't think the folding-type radiators would've helped in my case (too heavy). And of course the non-folding radiators only pull heat away from the part they're connected to. Mad props if you manage to send kerbals there and they don't melt.