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WHAT GOES UP Table of Contents: PROLOGUE PART ONE: CONSTRUCTION CHAPTER ONE CHAPTER TWO CHAPTER THREE CHAPTER FOUR CHAPTER FIVE CHAPTER SIX CHAPTER SEVEN CHAPTER EIGHT CHAPTER NINE CHAPTER TEN PART TWO: LONG REACH CHAPTER ELEVEN CHAPTER TWELVE CHAPTER THIRTEEN CHAPTER FOURTEEN --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- PROLOGUE For decades status quo for spaceflight has been taking the most complicated, expensive and advanced flying machines ever designed and built, then promptly dumping them in the ocean after their short careers. The result was spaceflight, and space itself, being the sole domain of organizations backed by the governments of superpowers taking the first tentative steps into the cosmic ocean. What they found inspired not only generations of astronomers and artists but also engineers and entrepreneurs ready and willing to innovate on the work of those who came before. What this new generation found was a surprising amount of flexibility in the old axioms of rocketeering. In exchange for penalties to vehicle mass and payload to orbit the basic form of the big dumb booster could be made to not only go up, but come back down and land safely under its own power. In turn fleets of boosters would reduce the per kilo cost of space access in half, potentially more as the technologies matured. Furthermore if paired with a reusable upper stage, the full system could realize the full cost benefits of a reusable SSTO system without taking as significant a hit in payload. Perpetually cash strapped civilian space agencies were intrigued, even excited at the prospect of doing more with the same or even less budgets their respective governments were providing them. But with ongoing concerns (and costs) making a full scale advanced booster development program unpalatable the largest of these agencies pooled their resources into the Central Space Agency Consortium (CSAC), an incubator tasked with fostering these new technologies and techniques and see them to flight. CSAC's first order of business was determining the best method for bringing the dream of a fully reusable booster system to life. An internal development program? Full laisses-faire development by private startups? On the other side of the equation were the needs of the space agencies CSAC was supposed to represent. Commercial satellite launches, deep space exploration, communications and surveillance. All with their own specific set of mission parameters, some in direct opposition to one another. It was in the midst of these deliberations that the first firm to heed the call promised to break the impasse, and set the gears of CSAC bureaucracy into motion. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hey y'all! After my last mission report series in RSS/RO 1.3.1 I ended up taking quite a break from KSP. But now I'm back and flying missions, taking pictures, formulating a story to go with it, and generally being up to my usual reusable rocketeering shenanigans. This is going to be in a 1.7.3 JNSQ install this time, which I've found to be a good balance between the stock game and Realism Overhaul.