Everything goes South - Suborbital Rescue in Munar Space

[SmarterThanMe]

(I'm going to recount to you the most daring rescue mission I have ever conducted. I don't have screenshots because, well... If I had time to think about screenshots then I'd have at least one Kerbal splattered against the face of the Mun, probably joined by her colleague and debris from their lander.)

Mission 24 was going to be a routine Mun mission, just like the several that had gone before. The Mun missions involve a fairly standard Lander and a fairly standard Orbiter/Return Vehicle sitting on top of a fairly standard rocket to get them there. The design was good. There was enough spare delta-v everywhere to account for a variety of scenarios, but we'd never had to seriously cut into that budget.

The aim of this particular mission was to perform scientific experiments and survey the Southwest Crater. There were no special requirements for the crew, but I sent an experienced Engineer, Corgard, who had been to the Mun before, to crew the Orbiter while Pilot Shepger, and Scientist Luti would get the honour of completing their first missions to space, and their first visits to the Mun's surface. Corgard was a tried and true engineer. He had put his feet down on the surface of the Mun before, having accompanied the legendary Jeb on one of his jaunts to the Mun.

Shepger was a newbie to the Kerbal Space Program, but was intelligent and sober and came into the space program after a fairly illustrious career as a military pilot. Despite his calm demeanour, he idolised Jebediah, who, in terms of badassery was Shepger's complete opposite. Shepger's prized possession was a folded up photo of him and Jebediah that he had had autographed during training. It never left Shepger's pocket.

Geologist Luti on the other hand was a bit of a wildcard. Devastatingly intelligent, but prone to bouts of fairly extreme silliness. She earned her PhD in geology studying the impact site on Kerbin, but had a reputation for being the life of the party, whether that party was in the academic club, the dive bar halfway down an unnamed highway or the tiny research shack on the central peak of Kerbin's impact crater.

The launch, transfer to the Mun and the various maneuvers to set up for the landing all went without any problems. Inside the orbit of the MunKISat network, they established nominal communications back to mission control and got the go-ahead for the primary part of the mission. After a couple more orbits, the Lander decoupled with Shepger and Luti burning to drop to the surface a short while later. Even the landing was absolutely perfect, with Shepger somehow managing to find a very flat spot close to the crater rim.

"Mission Control, Shepger, we're on the surface. Shutting down engines."

"Good work, guys," came Corgard's encouragement from above.

"Flight here. Yep, good work. Luti, deploy your experimental packages." The voice of Gene, bounced off MunKISat 2, and crackled out of Shepger and Luti's intercoms. "We're going to look over a couple of things on our side, but we don't see a reason why you guys might not want to get ready for EVA. I'll pass you back to Capcom."

After landing, with Kerbol sitting just above the crater rim, Luti could barely contain her excitement enough to punch the buttons deploying the scientific experiments underneath the lander capsule. Another short while later, and Shepger exits the lander first to inspect the landing site and place the flag commemorating their successful Mun landing. A quick check of the engines and the exterior of the Lander and Shepger was calling for Luti to come down to the surface. Luti exploded out of the airlock, jumped down to the surface, completely ignoring the ladder or common sense.

"Calm down, Luti," cautioned Shepger. "Let's just get our work done."

"Calm down, are you kidding? We're on the freaking MUN!"

Despite her excitement, Luti worked efficiently, completing her work, taking observations from the scientific experiments underneath the capsule before spending a good long time taking happy snaps around the Munar surface.

"OK, guys. You've completed your objectives. It's time to get ready to go," Gene's command came the intercom.

Shepger and Luti packed up quickly. Shepger returned to the Lander to begin preparations to depart, while Luti packed away her sample kits and test boxes. Luti then climbed the ladder to stow her work, before returning to the surface to take one last photo of Kerbin in the sky above the moon (observation). On a whim, she ignored what would be normal practice, to climb the ladder, and instead used her EVA pack to boost herself upwards to the airlock door.

Ladders are for chumps, but Luti is not a pilot. She misjudged the handgrips on the door and smacked into the side of the capsule before falling in between the central fuel tank and one of radial engine pods. After a moment trying to free herself, she realised that her leg had become stuck inside the (collider of the) attachment assembly. The clangs and scrapes of Luti smacking herself against parts of the Lander were loud enough to distract Shepger from his work momentarily.

"Everything alright out there, Luti?" He enquired, his finger hovering above the last couple of switches to start warming everything up for the engines to start.

"Err, not really. I seem to be stuck. I'll just be a sec."

"What do you mean... 'stuck'?"

"What's going on over there, guys?" Gene checked into the conversation. "Shepger, we're reading that you still haven't completed your checklist."

"No problem, Mission Control! I'm just getting back into the capsule now," said Luti, no hint of distress in her voice whatsoever.

Shepger shook his head, getting back to the switch-flipping. "You need some help, or are you good?"

"I'm good. I just need to wiggle free."

It was at that moment that everything went wrong. Somehow, in her wriggling around, Luti had managed to set off one of the explosive bolts that had been designed to sever fuel lines and connections between the fuel pod and the Lander in the case of emergency (I tried to use Warp to let Luti slip through the radial decoupler in which Luti was stuck, it didn't work). The effects were very real. Luti was flung in a Northeasterly direction away from the lander, the concussive force broke her leg in a half a dozen places, and Shepger's helmet intercom was suddenly filled with Luti's incoherent, painful screaming.

"Lander, report!" Mission Control called through the intercom. "LANDER? We're seeing malfunctions and a debris cloud near your vehicle."

"Mission Control. We have a Master Alarm. Something has happened to Luti outside the capsule." Shepger's voice was straining to be calm in spite of Luti screaming suit-to-suit directly into his ear.

"Luti, Mission Control, report in. Luti?"

There was no response.

"Luti!" shouted Shepger, trying to get her attention.

"Shepger, Medical is reporting that Luti has suffered some sort of leg injury. We're still figuring out what's happening. We have warning lights all over the place. GUIDO and EECOM say they have pressing concerns about your vehicle. Flight's orders as follows: abort your checklist, prepare for EVA."

"Affirmative, Mission Control."

Shepger put away his clipboard, unclipped himself from his command seat. Something had happened outside. Something catastrophic.

"Shepger? Corgard here, radar on MunKISat 2 says that there's a large object, around 0.7m in length, moving away from your vehicle at high speed. Check your vehicle. You may have lost a chunk of an engine pod."

"Understood, Corgard," said Shepger as he lifted from his seat. He glanced at the vessel status screen as he got up. In amongst all the other flashing lights, he saw that structural integrity was fine; there was no loss of fuel; but there was a flashing alarm on one of the emergency decouplers. "Wait."

Shepger had already floated across the cabin to the EVA station, but turned around once he got there. The screaming in his ear was highly distracting, but he left it aside. At the very least, Luti was alive and breathing. "Corgard, is that debris a radio source? Is it hot?"

"Corgard here, yes and yes. What?"

"Mission Control?"

"Yes, Shepger. We can confirm. Luti has been blown away from your vehicle. Your orders remain to abort your launch checklist, exit and check the integrity of your vehicle."

Shepger turned quickly, kicking off a panel and floating back over to his command seat. Strapping himself into his seat with one hand, he instructed his computer to target the debris with the other. She was in a suborbital trajectory, travelling at high speed to a periapsis of around 48km above the surface before a fatal fall back down.

"No. Negative, Mission Control, I'm going to leave aside the rest of the checklist, launch now and catch her."

"Shepger, permission denied on that suggestion. Check the integrity of your vehicle."

"I'm sorry, Mission Control. I'm committed," Shepger said, flipping switches urgently to cut off Mission Control's influence over the Lander's systems and hand everything over to his manual control in his command seat.

"Corgard here. Shepger, even if your vehicle is intact, you probably don't have the fuel to do whatever you're planning to do."

"Corgard, that's your domain. Get your calculator."

"Shepger, Flight. Luti's status is unknown, she may or not even be able to survive whatever has happened to her. I'm not going to lose two of you. You are ordered to leave your checklist, check yourself and await further orders," Gene's voice cut in.

"Negative, Control."

"Shepger, Flight, don't make me repeat myself,"

But Shepger was too far gone to turn around now, and he could barely even hear Gene's anyway, even if Luti was finally running out of breath. As he frantically moved through the ignition routine, panicked heavy breathing replaced the screaming.

"Good to have you back, Luti. Hold on," last couple of switches. Computer ready. Engines ready. Guidance ready. Plotting for rendezvous.

"Shepger?" Sobbed Luti. "Luti here, I'm... I have no idea... I've done something to my leg. It hurts so much. I'm spinning, and I think I'm about 8km... Above the surface..." Shepger heard a gulp over the intercom. "This is it... I think."

"Hold on Luti, " repeated Shepger, moving automatically through the engine's ignition sequence. "I'm coming."

"Shepger, I'm... You're what? No!"

The Lander's engines ignited and Shepger quickly turned the Lander towards the intercept course. The landing gear retracted automatically as the computer assisted Shepger to catch up with Luti as quickly as possible. As quick as possible, unfortunately, meant meeting her when she was on her way back down towards the surface, approximately 30km up.

"Looks like you have a bit of a headstart on me, Luti."

"Shepger, what are you doing?"

"Getting you back."

"No."

"Drop gear away from your body, and then use your EVA thrusters to stop your spin. Follow your training."

"OK. But..."

"No buts."

"Corgard here. Shepger, you're short on delta-v. You're going to catch her, sure, but you're not going to able to make it back into a good orbit."

"Corgard, Shepger. Not interested."

Corgard sighed audibly over the intercom. This was exactly the sort of foolhardy stupidity that Jeb usually got up to. How did Bill manage to handle it? Shepger was meant to be saner than this.

There was silence for a minute as the Lander and Luti flew towards their individual apoapses and started to fall back down. Shepger was concentrating too hard on finetuning their approach, Luti was still hyperventilating into her intercom, obviously in pain, adn Mission Control was too busy urgently escalating commands for Shepger to come to his senses.

Corgard thought to himself, one problem at a time, even if it makes other problems. "Shepger, Corgard here,"

"Go ahead."

"Pump all your fuel out of pods 2 and 4, and use the emergency jettison systems to lose them."

"I'll lose thrust."

"You'll gain delta-v."

"I won't be able to land without the feet on those pods."

"You're not going to be able to waste fuel landing."

"Number 2's bolts are damaged."

"Do it."

"Understood," Shepger broke the intense glare that he had been giving the targetting computer's display to move through the emergency jettison system.

In seconds, after fuel had been pumped into the central tank, the remaining explosive bolts fired and two of the Lander's four engines flew away. Shepger allowed himself a glance at the doorstep camera which caught Engine Pod 2 spinning through its field of view. A black scorch mark stained the surface of the tank around where the triggered bolt had been, but otherwise the pod was fine. Shepger grunted, and returned his attention to the targetting display.

"Shepger, CAPCOM, Medical has a more complete picture of Luti's injuries."

"Go ahead, Mission Control," Shepger was finally acknowledging their existence again.

"We're pretty certain that she's broken her leg. In several places. It's going to be a very complex injury. There's likely other injuries as well. I'm not sure how her suit has managed to hold together, but she's going to have to check for micro-tears, if she hasn't already. We can't tell what her suit pressure is. Her onboard computer is dead, and we haven't been able to raise her directly."

"Understood, Control."

"Shepger, Flight here. I'm not sure what you intend to do. Heroic, but, it might be pointless," Gene hesitated. "We've woken up Jeb. He thinks you're a legend."

"Great, thanks," said Shepger. Jebediah was his idol, but he didn't have spare time or spare energy to waste on glory at the moment. "I'll talk to Luti, you guys figure out what I need to do after that."

Apoapsis achieved, and the Ground Proximity Warning, Collision, Fuel and Master Alarms all lit up. If he looked out his door now, he'd probably see the white glint of Luti's suit in the sunlight.

"Luti, Shepger. On approach."

"You're crazy, Shepger," said Luti.

"Get your duct tape out,splint your leg and check your suit for microtears that could burst when we move you. I'll be there soon."

"Understood. I think... I think my suit's mostly... Mostly fine. Just... Blacker than usual."

Shepger spent the last couple of minutes lining up his Lander with Luti on his targetting screen, then setting the autopilot to take over. Then he undid his harness, floated over to the EVA panel and dressed quickly. In his head, he did the maths. A minute or so to depessurise the airlock. Open the door, guide Luti to use her EVA thrusters to float over, that's another couple of minutes. Then another minute or so to pressurise the airlock again. And then, smack into the surface of the Mun. Not good.

A solution. He opened the airlock's computer panel and flicked through the manual controls to depressurise the cabin and airlock together. He and Luti wouldn't be able to take their helmets off until they got back to the Orbiter, but at least he could get back to his command seat in time to thrust away from the surface. Problem solved. Suit oxygen, dealing with Luti's leg and long term survival for them both were problems for later.

The outer and inner doors of the airlock open together and Luti floats into view. He uses his HUD and the doorstep camera to give himself a good view of how she's oriented. The doorstep camera also lets him see that she's managed to duct her leg rigid, as well as a couple of spots of duct tape on various parts of her body. Her shredded suit is covered in black scorch marks, but nothing seemed to be venting anywhere, so the inner layers of the suit seemed to hold. She almost seemed like she was in good nick. At least she wasn't spinning any more

"OK, Luti. I can see you."

"Hi," Luti managed to say through gritted teeth, obviously still in pain.

"You're going to have to orient in our direction. I'm at your 10 o'clock."

"Got it."

Inexpertly, with EVA thrust spurting everywhere, Luti turned in the direction of the Lander.

"OK, now thrust forward in my direction."

"Yep."

"Not too fast," Shepger noted, even as he saw the limb of the Mun's surface rear into view.

"Nope. Not too fast." Luti thrusted in his direction, and it was less than a minute before she collided with the airlock's door frame and Shepger helped her clamber inside. He pulled her over to her seat and helped her strap in quickly before returning to his own command seat.

"Mission Control, Corgard? Luti is onboard. We're thrusting.. NOW."

Maybe Mission Control or Corgard said something, but Shepger couldn't really hear inside the headspace he now occupied. He pushed the thrust control as hard as he could and watched the orbital information screen intently. Behind him, he could hear Luti groaning under the forces of the thrust. with 14km to go, he watched the Periapsis reading tick into positive territory and he sighed with relief. A moment later, the engines ran dry. He unfastened his harness and turned towards where Luti was sitting, still breathing heavily and painfully with teardrops all over the inside of her helmet's visor.

"I dropped the camera."

(Seriously, this happened. As I said, too busy trying not to splatter 2 Kerbonauts to take screenshots.)

(Written on the way to and from work, need to proofread.)

Edited November 5, 2015 by SmarterThanMe

[AlextheBodacious]

Good lord this was good. Movie-worthy. I'd give you a +1 but some mod would yell at me about it being taboo in the rules or something.

Isn't Gene capcom though?

Edited November 3, 2015 by AlextheBodacious

[SmarterThanMe]

Isn't Gene capcom though?

Hmmm. I could be wrong, but, my understanding is that Gene is the Flight Director. CAPCOM is Capsule Communications, is usually the only person allowed to communicate with the Astronauts. So, usually, except when he has to shout at someone, Gene (Flight) would be telling CAPCOM to tell the Astronauts what to do.

[Mister Dilsby]

Excellent work--I only wish you had the pictures!

[Scotius]

Very good story It reminded me of one of my first rescues, when a Kerbal was flung from the ladder of an orbiting ship - straight towards the surface of the Mun. It was more than a year ago, but i still remember how my hands shook when i finally stabilised his orbit and had time to actually plan how to get poor fellow back home.

Anyway - consider yourself a recipient of an NOGLB Award.

[SmarterThanMe]

Anyway - consider yourself a recipient of an NOGLB Award.

No one gets left behind?

[Scotius]

That's the one. For some reason i think you get what it is about - we send them out there, and we get them back home.

[SmarterThanMe]

I'm a teacher, so I know NCLB (which is more or less the opposite of what it sounds), so I put two and two together.

I've lost Kerbonauts before. Primarily on Ascent from/Descent to Kerbin. But, where I can do something to save someone, I do it. And damn the consequences. This has sometimes meant that Kerbonauts have had to camp out somewhere with limited supplies until I can get a rescue mission to them.

There have been some comical times, like when I was still figuring out how to land on the Mun, and I wrecked the Lander. Then wrecked the Lander sent to rescue the crew of the first Lander. Got it on the third try, however.

Edited November 4, 2015 by SmarterThanMe

[Mister Dilsby]

I have to admit, I first saw NOGLB and thought, "Hey, what do you have against those folks and not the TQ?" But that made even less sense in this case than it does in context, so I figured it out

[SmarterThanMe]

I have to admit, I first saw NOGLB and thought, "Hey, what do you have against those folks and not the TQ?" But that made even less sense in this case than it does in context, so I figured it out

Too many acronyms... What's TQ?

[Mister Dilsby]

Too many acronyms... What's TQ?

GLBTQ is a common acronym for 'gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, queer'