totm aug 2016 Kerny Kerman's Journal (mission reports from a Kerbal's point of view) [Chapter 87: "Among the growing shadows."]

[Orion Kerman]

On 2017-7-28 at 6:22 PM, Angel-125 said:

I think Bob is Bear Grills in his spare time, he'll just parachute in, live off the land, make a documentary about it, and just nonchalantly say "Hey Jeb" as he shows up.

That would be a great idea for a book:

Bob Grills the fearless explorer. The Kerbal who explores explores the artic, The Kerbal who explores the desert, The Kerbal who explores space.

Chapter one. Bob Grills and his crew came upon Duna as he suddenly realised there out of food. What does he do? He eats the things he doesn't need to land on Duna such as parachutes heat shields and landing legs.

 

That would be an interesting story. However I can't wait for the next chapter from Kerny. And @Angel-125 neither can I decide how Orion Kerman would get to Jeb because Orion was in the book for a chapter.

Edited July 30, 2017 by Orion Kerman

[LtMcMuffin]

11 hours ago, Orion Kerman said:

Chapter one. Bob Grills and his crew came upon Duna as he suddenly realised there out of food. What does he do? He eats the things he doesn't need to land on Duna such as parachutes heat shields and landing legs.

Space the final frontier, these are the voyages of Bob Grills, and his ongoing mission to explore strange new worlds, discover new life and new civilisations and of course, drink his own liquid 

 

[Orion Kerman]

11 hours ago, LtMcMuffin said:

Space the final frontier, these are the voyages of Bob Grills, and his ongoing mission to explore strange new worlds, discover new life and new civilisations and of course, drink his own liquid 

 

Even better!

[adsii1970]

Let's steer the thread back to Kerny, shall we?

[Brent Kerman]

Is there a reason you keep saying Minimus? It is Minmus.

[adsii1970]

2 minutes ago, Brent Kerman said:

Is there a reason you keep saying Minimus? It is Minmus.

Back when I first had the demo, I could have sworn it was Minimus... And that was some time in 2012...

[adsii1970]

On 8/1/2017 at 8:44 PM, Brent Kerman said:

Is there a reason you keep saying Minimus? It is Minmus.

Now this has given me a great opportunity add another stressor to the story. This is going to be great...

[adsii1970]

Plock 30, Y003 
"Lieutenant, make it so..." 
Chapter 47

It is hard to believe that just two days ago we left Kerbin and have already arrived at Minmus. Just two days ago...

"Mission Control, this is the Excursion." Lieutenant Gilti stated with clarity. "Requesting permission to begin orbital adjustment maneuvers."

Within a few seconds, we had our response. "Excursion, this is Mission Control, proceed. when ready, to orbital altitude of 270,000 meters." And with that, the excitement within my crew began. Commander Karloff and Cadet Triy let out exclamations of excitement before heading off to the main propulsion relays. 

"Lieutenant Gilti, bring our main engines back on-line," I was hoping our outcome on this mission would be different than the first time we tried this. 

"Aye, sir," Gilti replied. "Main engines back on-line. Commander Karloff indicates all systems are operating within normal parameters."

"Good, Lieutenant, plot our maneuver point and let's see what this ship's got..." 

"Aye, sir, engaging engines now," Gilti replied. "We should establish our new orbit within -- wait -- seven minutes?!"

Unlike the first Excursion, the only indication of the orbital adjustment were the initial thud as the thrust from the engines began and the constant vibration from the engines under full power. And just as Gilti had read from her computer screen, within seven minutes of engaging the main engines, our new orbit was firmly established.

"Captain," Karloff began, "Engineering ready at your command..." The excitement was evident in his voice. In fact, I think we all shared that same enthusiasm.

Our orders and mission plan had been clear during the last briefing. Once we achieved the first goal - an orbit of 270,000 meters - then after two orbits we were to begin our journey to Minmus. Once we were on a Minmus trajectory, we were to go to full throttle for fifteen minutes, then coast to orbital insertion around Minmus.

"we've completed our first orbit, Captain." Gilti called out. "Awaiting your orders to plot our new trajectory..."

And with that, I gave a command to not only plot our trajectory to Minmus but to begin on that course as soon as we reached the maneuver node. "Aye, sir," was her response. Within five more minutes we would be taking this new vessel out of Kerbin orbit. And again, the only indications of our acceleration was the thud and continual slight vibrations from the main engines. Within a matter of minutes, we were on a trajectory to leave Kerbin orbit. "Sir, we are now reaching our burn point, I'm awaiting your command for full engine burn..."

"Captain, Engineering here... we are ready for further testing of the engines!" Karloff was definitely excited about the redesign. "I don't think we're going to have any of the problems of the last time we tried this..."

"I agree," Gilti added. "We didn't tumble when we changed our orbit--"

"Then let's do this," my own excitement barely restrained. "Lieutenant, make it so." 

There was no thud - but it was obvious our inertia was increased. 

"Captain," Lieutenant Obion called out. "Our current speed is... it can't be... it's... no, this can't be right?!"

"Sir," Gilti began, "our current speed is 2675.5 meters per second, and increasing!"

"Alright," I began. Using the communications port on my station, I signaled to the engineering section of the ship. "Commander Karloff, how are the engines doing?"

"Sir, the engines are doing fine," he began. "Why? what's going on?" And with that, I began to tell him our speed had already exceeded what the simulators indicated our vessel would do. "It's nice to know there's been a mistake that works out in our favor, for once."  And with his observation, I knew he was right. At our current speed it would not take ten days for us to arrive at Minmus, it would only take us two.

"Captain," Gilti asked. "Should we cut our thrust early? We are already surpassing our projected speed. It continues to increase as we continue the burn --"

"Good point," I interjected. "If we continue to gain speed then there's a good chance we will overshoot Minmus... Lieutenant, cut our engines and let's coast for a while."

"Aye, sir. At our current speed, we will need a course adjustment in three hours. We will arrive in the proximity of Minmus in two days!" 

The next few hours were pretty uneventful. The course correction burn went well and for the next day and a half our main task was to become familiar with this vessel. It seems that Dr. Angelo even took the liberties of adding a liquid hydro-oxy botany lab in the new craft design. The ship's scientist, Ensign Hildi, hasn't left the botany lab since the corrective burn. Commander Karloff and Cadet Triy have taken turns being in the engineering section, splitting their duties between ship-wide inspections, monitoring life support, batteries, solar panels, and the engines themselves. Lieutenant Gilti and Lieutenant Obion have also divided the duties of piloting the craft and monitoring communications from Kerbin.

Earlier this morning, while monitoring communications, Lieutenant Obion became excited. "Captain, someone's stole a transport plane from the Space Center!"

"Captain, I can bring up the visuals on the screen," Gilti added, "in fact..." and with the punch of a few buttons, we watched as the transport plane left the KSC runway. "Want me to continue to monitor the situation?" she added. "This is the second time this year someone has stole an aircraft!"

"I can imagine stealing a Knat or even a Koos..." Obion started, "but to steal a K-4? Why a K-4? They're slow, ugly, and --"

"Yes, go ahead and monitor it, Lieutenant." At that point, I had an idea of what they were witnessing. Gene's voice couldn't be heard over the speaker. But it was clear that Bobak, Kuzzter, and even Thompberry were upset about this most recent turn of events.

"Sir," Gilti said. "Bobak has stated Gene has given the order to shoot down the craft. But the normal patrol flights are out either on training missions or long endurance flights to Tulum Station..."

"Wow, Gene wants a plane shot down?" Now it was Karloff who was interested in this turn of events. "I wonder who's flying it? Could Captain Jebediah have snuck back into the base to steal another plane?"

"Lieutenant Gilti, you have the con," I added, trying to excuse myself from this current round of speculation. "If you need me, I will be in my quarters."

"Aye, sir" she added. And with that, I made my way into the corridor, past the botany lab and hub junction, into the row of crew quarters. I will say, I do like Dr. Angelo's design of having a separate set of quarters for the captain. 

Once I was inside, I locked my cabin door and headed over to the monitor console to send a message to Gene. The cabin's light turned from normal illumination to blue, showing a secure link had been established. "Gene, this is Kerny..." I began. When Dr. Angelo redesigned the ship, he included a communications channel that would allow direct communications with mission control. But unlike other communications channels, this was hard-wired to bypass the normal ship's communications. The console had a series of pre-programmed scramble codes to assure that the channel couldn't be monitored by anyone. In fact, Dr. Edmund had requested that Dr. Angelo design this system and make it a part of the ship's standard equipment. 

"I'm here, Captain..." It was clear from Gene's voice that he still had some hard feelings since our last encounter. "You're communication is right on time." And with that, I began to update him on our progress and the most recent images and audio signals coming from Kerbin. He wasn't too surprised to learn that our travel time was quicker than we expected. "Dr. Wernher disagreed with Dr. Angelo about the new engine specifications. We decided to use his ratings of the engines mainly to keep the peace..." and with that, we continued our discussion of the performance of the redesigned Excursion. 

"So, Gene, do you want us to remain in orbit for the additional days allotted for travel that we didn't use?" 

"Once orbit is established, wait a day before you begin the surface exploration missions. Let's finish the surface exploration first, then decide what to with the extra time. Is there anything else, Captain?"

"Yes, Gene." But I could hear the irritation in Gene's voice; I had to ask. "Is there something wrong, Gene? You sound..."

"Kerny, it's minor and was going to address it when you got back--" Gene began. Oh great. I had to ask. I had - to - ask! "But why do you refer to Minmus as Minimus?"

All I could do was sit there in front of the communications panel. "Gene... I..." I began. Wait? It isn't Minimus, but Minmus? I began to ask myself. How could I get the name of that small moon wrong... After all --

"It's a minor thing, as I said, Kerny." Gene interrupted. "Dr. Haywood actually thought it was funny. You know, you fell for one of Jebediah's oldest jokes, right!" Dammit. I had no idea. Looking back, I now remember Jebediah telling us in the Kerbalnaut training program that we'd look like idiots if we misspelled the names of the planets or moons in our official reports. Now I think back to my last few entries of my journal - which are now considered as official logs of my crew and ship missions - and wonder how big of an idiot they think I am. Not only did I misspell the name of the moon, Minmus, but the mission names and landing sites within those reports and logs where Minmus was our objective!

"Dammit, that Jebediah --" was all I could mutter in response to Gene's latest dig. 

"As I said, you fell victim to one of his favorite jokes. And you're not the only one. For nearly a year, he had Doodemonde convinced that Dres is actually the name one of the moons of Sarnus instead of a planet." Gene began laughing again. "And you should have seen the look on his - on your - faces when you both discovered he set you both up! Oh, don't worry. I am sure there are others out there, too!" And with that, Gene began laughing again.

"Well, thank you, Gene." Again, it was all I could mutter. About that time, my communications panel began flashing a small yellow indicator. The command deck was trying to contact me.

"Kerny, I know you have to go, but listen. From now on, just call that small moon Minmus. And you spell that M-I-N-M-U-S. Gene, out!" And if it wasn't bad enough that I've been misspelling Minmus, Gene is never going to let me live it down. Never.

Once the cabin's lighting returned to normal, I pressed the yellow button on the communications panel. "Kerny, here" I responded. 

"Captain, we are getting close to our orbital insertion burn," Gilti replied. And with that, I made my way back to the command deck. 

"Lieutenant, what's our status?" I asked as I climbed into my seat. 

"We are ten minutes away from our maneuver point, Commander Karloff has reported the engines are ready. We still have eighty percent of our liquid fuel and oxy remaining."

Once our main engines were brought back on-line, within a five minute burn, we were able to establish a 27,000-meter orbit. Unlike the other missions we'd taken to Minmus, this was the quickest that an orbit was ever established. 

 

"Captain, we still have sixty percent of our fuel remaining," Gilti added. "I'd never believe it if I hadn't --"

"Yes, Lieutenant," I sincerely added. "This ship is full of surprises. Seems that Dr. Angelo and Dr. Wernher make a great design team." 

The remainder of the day, following Gene's directives, we will be to begin more detailed orbital scans of the surface of Minmus, continue to familiarize ourselves with this new vessel, and to rest before we begin our exploration of the surface in two days.

Gene has left it up to me to set up the four missions to the surface but gave me some mission parameters for each. The first is to go survey one of the sites we previously visited on the Minmus III mission - Site 1. The second and third are to explore the polar regions to determine possible colonization sites. The fourth mission will be a follow-up to whichever site is decided on from the second and third missions. I believe the first mission will be Lieutenant Gilti and Ensign Hildi - our mission's only scientist and doctor. I still have to assign the teams for the other three missions away from the Excursion. Once I have all the assignments made I will announce them to the crew this evening. 

Edited August 6, 2017 by adsii1970

[Casualnaut]

Hmph, people complain about inserting their names, but look at mine!

Casual Kerman?

Casnaut Kerman?

Astrual Kerman?

[Just Jim]

45 minutes ago, adsii1970 said:

"Dammit, that Jebediah --" was all I could mutter in response to Gene's latest dig. 

Too funny!

Note to self: Jeb likes little practical jokes.... I just might have to steal borrow that little tidbit of information down the road... 

[Angelo Kerman]

Secure communications are very important- and HIPPA compliant!

[obney kerman]

Well you did use vectors, what did you expect?

[adsii1970]

42 minutes ago, Angel-125 said:

Secure communications are very important- and HIPPA compliant!

Yup, Good thing Dr. Angelo could accommodate that request, eh? On a side note, I am almost ready to move over to 1.3. I have a few more loose ends to tie up before I make the complete change. I've reduced crashes considerably, but need to update a couple of more mods. the solar lens flares look a bit off right now.

41 minutes ago, obney kerman said:

Well you did use vectors, what did you expect?

Yup... but you have to realize, this is still fairly early in their space program. They are learning by trial and error, and I decided I'd include that - especially when there is a learning curve with some of the mods I use. It makes the story more believable and fun at the same time.

[Thedrelle]

awesome, great job. 

I love the chain of command, and the mission progression stuff. It feels real. 

 

I wonder who stole that plane, and why...

[adsii1970]

27 minutes ago, Thedrelle said:

I love the chain of command, and the mission progression stuff. It feels real.

Thank you, that's what I am trying to go with. In my mind, these Kermen are trying to feel their way through the dark, excuse the space pun there. Since the Great Emergence, they are having to rebuild their culture and figure out who they are. And they have a lot to learn...

32 minutes ago, Thedrelle said:

I wonder who stole that plane, and why...

Hehehe, you'll find out... both, soon..^TM  But for now, the fun is watching the speculation begin...

[Thedrelle]

My guess is that it's Jeb's mysterious brother, Thedre Kerman stealing supplies and materials for Jeb to run his own secret JSP (jeb's space program).

 

(do you like how I surreptitiously added myself to your story there? aren't I clever?)

 

actually I have no clue, though I wouldn't doubt that it involved Jeb in some way.

[Angelo Kerman]

I think it's Bob "Grills" Kerman, taking a bunch of supplies (and possibly a camera crew) to the arctic base. Jeb probably can't last too terribly long out there without food and such. If it looked like he stole the transport, he could go hang out with Jeb and "join" his cause while secretly keeping an eye on him and reporting in...

Edited August 9, 2017 by Angel-125

[KSK]

On 7/27/2017 at 5:53 PM, adsii1970 said:

After the briefing, I decided to go over to the astronomy lab to attend the latest forum being held by Dr. Zarkov.

I imagine this has been picked up before but would that be one Dr Hans Zarkov?

[adsii1970]

3 minutes ago, KSK said:

I imagine this has been picked up before but would that be one Dr Hans Zarkov?

Yup. Was watching late night television a few chapters ago. He's now in two of them... I really loved the character development (and as performed by the actor) in the 1980s version of Flash Gordon...

And who can forget that awesome theme song:

 

[KSK]

"This unprecedented dwarf star - is no cause for alarm..."   

[adsii1970]

2 minutes ago, KSK said:

"This unprecedented dwarf star - is no cause for alarm..."   

Yup, and we all know how that ended...

[KSK]

Ahhh - they don't write them like that any more. And it just had to be 'A Kind of Magic' that popped up next on YouTube. *wipes corner of eye*.

They don't make 'em like Flash Gordon anymore either. Although that's probably because they've learned from experience.  

[adsii1970]

6 minutes ago, KSK said:

Ahhh - they don't write them like that any more. And it just had to be 'A Kind of Magic' that popped up next on YouTube. *wipes corner of eye*.

They don't make 'em like Flash Gordon anymore either. Although that's probably because they've learned from experience.  

But for all the cheesiness of Flash Gordon, it was a FUN movie. And at times, I think that's what a lot of our movies today are missing - the fun...

[adsii1970]

Just to keep you all informed, the first week of coursework is now in the can. 15 more weeks until winter recess! But I already have the screen shots I need for the next chapter. I have some things to do tomorrow morning, but plan to write the next chapter in the afternoon. Here's a teaser image...

Spoiler

What could Gene and Dr. Edmund possibly be talking about? And why is Gene at New Kerbin City rather than at the KSC?

 

[Angelo Kerman]

1 hour ago, adsii1970 said:

Just to keep you all informed, the first week of coursework is now in the can. 15 more weeks until winter recess! But I already have the screen shots I need for the next chapter. I have some things to do tomorrow morning, but plan to write the next chapter in the afternoon. Here's a teaser image...

  Hide contents

What could Gene and Dr. Edmund possibly be talking about? And why is Gene at New Kerbin City rather than at the KSC?

 

Ohhh, you're going to like this then...