Gilly Superstation 1

[Quasar]

Contents

1. Meet Gilly Superstation

2. The trip to Eve (+1 Stowaway)

3. Reaching Gilly (and Traumatizing Bob)

4. Visiting Gilly (Orbital Drop Kerbals)

5. Bonus Missions (Scans, Flags and Rescues)

6. Back to Kerbin (with Explosions!)

7: Epilogue: Meet Excalbur (tiny resupply ship)

8: Epilogue 2 (Epilogue Harder)

------

Sequel Mission: Duna Ultrabase 1

------

 

Just had to show this off...

Have you noticed how, as you reach the higher tiers of career mode, your ships inevitably end up looking more and more awesome?

This is my current career mode mission: the contract was to put a 12 Kerbal station carrying 6000 liquid fuel and a research lab into an orbit around Gilly. I call it the Gilly Superstation, because I'm not very good with names. That's it in the middle: the thing that looks like a cross between a station and a giant space shuttle. I'm not sure why I went for that cockpit, but I don't regret it for a moment.

The whole mothership is going to be trying to achieve three other missions while it's there:

* the little Xenon Probe at the very front will be aiming for a specific contract orbit, also around Gilly.
* the winged return module will be bringing 5 of 7 Kerbals home after they've planted a flag on Gilly for experience. The other 2, both scientists, will be staying at Gilly Station 1 to continue their research.
* The Gilly Superstation itself, after achieving the contract, will use some of that spare fuel to put itself into a polar orbit about Gilly and do a surface scan. Further down the track, once work out how mining bases work, Gilly Station 1 will be the primary refueling base for all Eve missions.

I spent about 80% of my funds on this monster, so it had better work. It's got some odd phantom forces coming from the return module and trying to make it pitch gently, but it's quite stable so long as SAS is left on.

Edited June 5, 2016 by Quasar
Added Table of Contents

[Ultimate Steve]

Just sayin, you might have accidentally enabled some trim. Try pressing Alt+X and maybe the phantom torque will stop. What sort of rewards will the contracts give you, compared to how much you spent? I hope everything works out for this mission!

*although, if there is a small problem that you can work around, it makes the mission more satisfying to complete, in my experience.

Good luck!

[Nahim]

On ‎11‎/‎04‎/‎2016 at 6:52 AM, Quasar said:

Have you noticed how, as you reach the higher tiers of career mode, your ships inevitably end up looking more and more awesome?

I guess this is already a law here...

[Quasar]

The mission is underway: burn is complete, we used up the stage 1 interplanetary boosters, and we're onto a transfer trajectory. Goodbye Kerbin!

This is the intrepid crew, seven brave but relatively green Kerbals on their way to Eve... wait a second. Seven?

GODDAMMIT VALENTINA, THE HECK ARE YOU DOING HERE?! YOU'VE ALREADY BEEN TO GILLY!

Well, I guess she's coming along too. Aaaand staying behind with two of the scientists when we leave, since the return module only seats 5. Enjoy your years of loneliness and isolation, Valentina!

-----

[some time later]

Trip was uneventful aside from one or two Kerbals falling into a boredom induced coma. Pretty sure the engines firing will wake 'em up. Commence capture burn.

Stage 2 Interplanetary boosters out of fuel. Detach! We'll be relying on the Whale from here on out.

Capture complete! Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Eve. Oh, and we picked up another contract on the way out here. Who wants to go for a hundred thousand dollar spacewalk?

 

 

[TopHeavy11]

Make a Von-Braun attachment for this monster!

Edit: Do you have some sort of g-force mod installed? Look at some of your Girbals (girl kerbals) mouth edges. *shudders*

Edited April 13, 2016 by TopHeavy11

[Quasar]

11 hours ago, TopHeavy11 said:

Do you have some sort of g-force mod installed? Look at some of your Girbals (girl kerbals) mouth edges. *shudders*

Well it's either g-forces or they *really are that happy* (which makes me wonder what Valentina put in the snacks). 

I'm going to go for the g-force explanation. 22 nuclear engines may have been a little excessive on my part.

On 4/11/2016 at 6:48 AM, Ultimate Steve said:

What sort of rewards will the contracts give you, compared to how much you spent?

Roughly breaking even. The main mission is 1.2 million and the xenon probe is another 250k, (plus 100k for that spacewalk), and I'd guess I've spent somewhere around 1.5 million on launches (I know the interplanetary drive was 480k, but I'm not sure about the rest).

On the other hand, if we also factor in the badly failed misson to Duna before this one, I've very nearly driven myself broke in the last few launches. Between initial assembly, rescue mission and a failed attempt at salvage, I think I burned about 3-4 million dollars. I've been doing Kerbal system missions since then with a re-usable mono-propellant tug to try and get a decent surplus back. It's been fun!

[Quasar]

Okay, here we go! First things first, Bob and Kertrid transmit the results of all the research they did on the way out.

 

 

Then everyone bunkers down for another long wait while we drift back out to our Apoapsis, which will be the best place for maneuveres. The way we came in, we're orbiting in the opposite direction to Gilly. That will need to be rectified.

We're halfway through the burn when Valentina has a brilliant idea to get us more science. And by "brilliant", I of course mean insane and recklessly dangerous.

 

"Hey Bob, how high is Eve's atmosphere?"

"About 90,000 meters I think. Why?"

"Oh, no reason."

 

-----

 

"Hey, Bob! How fast do you think you can reset those instruments on the outside?"

"I dunno. 10, maybe 20 seconds? Why?"

"Eh, just curious."

 

-----

 

"HEY, BOB! ARE YOU DONE OUT THERE YET? BETTER HURRY UP, WE'RE COMING IN PRETTY FAST!"

"Oh Kod let me in! Why would you do this to me?! WHY??!"

"For science."

 

----

 

Okay Valentina, fun's over. How much science did you get us-

Mother of Kraken. If I'd known repeatedly throwing Bob out an airlock while entering an atmosphere could be so profitable, I'd have been doing it every mission. We even dipped into the atmosphere for a moment and got us some Upper Atmosphere measurements! I'm sure the R&D guys will have a field day with this. How're you coping, Bob?

[whimpering]

Excellent! Now, onto the next part of the mission: rendezvous with Gilly.

 

----

 

Well that was anti-climactic. We're here, ladies and gentlemen. Let's hit the brakes.

 

Capture burn.

 

Success! That'll be a million dollars, ma'am. Would you like fries with your superstation?

 

 

----

 

Well that went well! Still got a surface scan to do, a probe to deploy, and a return module to return Kerbals in, but this was fun! And I've got 34 unprocessed experiments in the research lab now at the cost of a teensy bit of extra fuel and some mental scarring! Valentina, you're alright in my book. You're still not coming home though.

[Buckley]

On 4/11/2016 at 4:52 AM, Quasar said:

I spent about 80% of my funds on this monster, so it had better work. 

Quintessential Kerbal logic.  Love it.  That's very much the spirit (and ker-reasoning) of my program at the moment.

Also, Bob's face in the last pic is epic.

[Quasar]

Teaser for next time: THE INVASION BEGINS!

FLY MY PRETTIES! FLYYY!

[TopHeavy11]

What's the orange orbit? Your "supposed to be" orbit?

[Choctofliatrio2.0]

57 minutes ago, TopHeavy11 said:

What's the orange orbit? Your "supposed to be" orbit?

I think he has a contract to put a satellite in that orbit.

[Quasar]

Alright, party break's over. We're here, let's actually do some work.

-----

First things first: deploy the Nose Star 1. It needs to go into a higher orbit to complete the contract specifications.

Firing the Xenon engines prograde. One of the scientists at KSP suggested it might be inadvisable to bathe an occupied station in ionised particles, so we fired him. Enjoy your free tan, guys!

So, now we just have to wait for...

Yeah, aint nobody got time for that. What else do we have to do? How about that surface scan?

Well it wouldn't be very efficient to go up that high now... fine, I guess that means we're doing the visitation straight up. Who wants to go to Gilly? (That was rhetorical. You're all going, except for Valentina, she's already seen it)

"What? But I wanna see Gilly again!"

No, someone has to stay with the station and you've already been.

"But-"

No buts! Send everyone down and settle in for a wait.

"Fine."

 

-----

        

"So, do you know why I've gathered you all here in the airlock?"

"Uh, debriefing for the Gilly mission?"

"Yep! Hey Bob, do you know what the best way to get to Gilly's surface is?"

"Well actually, I've been thinking about this. I figured, if we re-purposed the return module as an improvised lander, we could safely..."

"BWAHAHA NOPE!"

[vents airlock]

 

------

It's entirely possible this entire mission, all that money, all that time, was simply an excuse to drop 7 kerbals from orbit at the same time, space-marine style.

But I'd never admit to it.

...

CRY HAVOK, AND LET SLIP THE KERBALS OF WAR!

-----

Gilly being Gilly, the crew don't so much "rain down" upon the moon as "snow gently". They certainly don't cry havok, although I think Bob might have cried and/or puked a bit. Regardless, it's a fun, safe and slow trip down to the surface, and easy enough to land them all at the same location with around 80% EVA Fuel left over. Could probably have saved even more if I'd been content to let gravity do the work, but what the hey, I got bored.

Hainy plants the first flag (she called dibs on the way down) and everyone gathers around.



Uh... what on Gilly are you doing with your arms over there Henfield? Space cramps? Are those a thing? Bob, tell me if those are a thing. Actually don't, I genuinely don't care.

Everyone, flags out! On my mark... waaaait for it... plant!



Kodammit Danny, yours is facing the wrong way! And Henfield, put your arms down, you look like an idiot!



Okay, next choice: should we explore the surface, or conserve our EVA fuel for the trip back up? We could theoretically cover all of Gilly with our packs, but it's riskier. If anyone was to run out of fuel down here...

Eh, screw it. You only visit a low gravity moon once!



So now we've got Asicca and Hainy making a quick jump west to the Midlands, Kertrid and Danny aiming for the lowlands to the southeast, and Joevey and Henfield (who seems to have overcome his space cramps) jumping northeast for no real reason (they had to go somewhere!). And Bob, without saying a word, went off on his own mission. I wonder where he's off to? Somewhere interesting, I hope.

----- 

Meanwhile...



The Xenon probe is reaching it's apoapsis. Engines on, engines off, and we're done. 

Contract complete, GIVE ME ALL YOUR MONIES!



-----

Meanwhile...

Valentina is bored out of her mind, stuck alone on Superstation 1 while everyone else gets to have fun on Gilly.

... yes, that's boredom. It's gotta be. Do not question.

(we're sure she didn't put anything in the snacks, right? We would have noticed, surely. I swear most people can't hold a grin for that many hours...)

-----

Meanwhile...

...

... there it is. 

Bob arrives at his target, a little piece of history.

A science probe launched many years ago. But not just any science probe: this is the Evesplorer 2, the first extraterrestrial science probe. And next to it, the flag Valentina once left here. He can see her footprints: the first Kerbal footprints ever planted outside the Kerbin system. Small steps for Val. Great leaps for Kerbalkind.

The probe doesn't have much on it: just a thermometer and a barometer, both pretty useless even if Evesplorer 2 hadn't completely failed it's mission. The poor little probe wasn't built with enough battery power to transmit the experiment results back to Kerbin, and had gone dead before sending even half it's data. A dead probe on a dead world.

But still, Bob had to come. He had to stand here, to see the proof of this moment with his own eyes.

Yep, that sounds like Valentina.

Bob lets out a relaxed sigh and settles down for a long wait in the darkness, until the Superstation passes overhead again. It's peaceful here. Relaxing. Nothing to see outside of the little bubble of light around you, and the universe above. No sound but the occasional radio chatter letting you know the situation is nominal.

Right now, in this moment... this is why he joined this mission. This is why he came to space. In this moment, Bob is happy.

... he'll be slightly less happy when he realises he's not certain he has enough EVA fuel left to get back to Gilly Station 1.



Whoops.

-----



Everyone except Bob returns safely to Gilly station 1, having collected surface samples from every biome on the moon. After a few hours watching the sunrise, an exceedingly embarrassed Bob finally works up the nerve to radio his situation in.

Bob has been thinking about this and knows exactly what to do. His earlier idea about using the return module as an improvised lander is the perfect way to safely and efficiently rescue him! He is immensely relieved when Valentina doesn't give him a hard time about getting stranded: as soon as he's done explaining all this, she says "on it!" and hangs up. In fact, she seems really happy to help.

Strangely happy, in fact...

... that...


  
... that's not the return module...



Oh my goodness gracious she's as bad as Jeb...

"Hi Bob!"

"Hello... Valentina..."

"Please stop grinning."

Edited April 18, 2016 by Quasar

[Quasar]

Val, when I told you to stay with the station...

... this isn't what I had in mind. Pretty sure the warranty is void now.

But nothing blew up or fell off, so I guess we're good. You've had your fun, and you even got to visit your old landing site.

Take us up. We're heading north.

One more mission to do here before we settle in for the long wait to the next launch window: the surface scan. Val puts the station into polar orbit.

This uses up the last of the Whale's fuel, and I consider detaching it, but ultimately decide against it. The station doesn't have many more manueveres to do, and when we eventually put a mining base on Gilly, an enormous empty liquid fuel tank could come in handy...

Bob turns on the orbital survey equipment...

Mmm. Look at all that delicious pinkness!

----

So... that's it then. All missions complete. Now we just settle in and wait for the next launch window. Bob and Kertrid retire to the research lab to start pouring over the insane amounts of data we've compiled, and everyone else starts the multi-year long party/boredom coma.

It doesn't take long before we start to see the advantages of having a station in extraterrestrial orbit. A mission to plant a flag on Gilly, completed within an hour of accepting it by Valentina.

-----

Another mission comes in: rescue someone from orbit around Eve. It's a good opportunity to put the return module through it's paces, so Henfield heads on out.

Hayemma Kerman, lost in space, spots a white dot rapidly approaching and receives something inaudible over her busted radio.

"Hi. I'm Hayemma."

"Henfield, ma'am. Pleasure to meet you."

"So, not to be rude or anything, but your ship seems a little... empty? No science, no equipment... did you come all the way out to Eve in this thing just to rescue me?"

"Well, technically yes ma'am. But also no."

"You're being cryptic on purpose"

"Yes ma'am."

"Welcome to Gilly Superstation, ma'am."

"Yeesh. Overcompensating much?"

-----

The rescue was successful. We'll have to leave someone here, but Hayemma is safe on the Superstation until the next launch window. She seems happy.

The return module... well, it did it's job. It's not an easy craft to fly by any means, and it's terrible at docking, but it wasn't designed for that so that's excusable. We should probably look at sending out a small runner to do similar future missions with.

Checking our fuel at the end of the rescue, though, does paint a slightly concerning picture...

Admittedly that's for a rendevous with a ship going in the opposite direction to Gilly, plus the return trip, but it's still a worry. We probably have enough to make it back to Kerbin's SOI when the next launch window comes around, but it might not be enough to stop without aerobraking. Aerobraking... hasn't worked out too well for me in the past.

Luckily, Kerbin's infrastructure has been recently upgraded with an oversized mining base on Minmus, so sending out a retriever won't be difficult or expensive, provided we can make it into Kerbin's SOI in the first place.

Edited April 16, 2016 by Quasar

[Quasar]

The next few years seem to drift by rapidly for the crew of the Gilly Superstation thanks to a combination of Valentina's recreational drugs sunny personality and near-lethal levels of boredom putting them into the usual kerbal hibernation state. While the Kerbin system is a flurry of activity during this same period, especially around Minmus, Gilly and Eve remain much the same as ever.

Eventually however all good things must come to an end, and all boring things too. KSC calls up GSS and lets them know the launch window is about to open. Time for everyone to get on the return module: Hayemma, Henfield, Joevey, Danny and Asicca are on their way home, while Valentina, Bob, Kertrid and Hainy are staying at Gilly (Bob and Kertrid for research purposes, Hainy and Val simply because there was no room aboard the return module).

Bob has one last task to perform, however. He goes down to the Lab, gather's up all gets all the data, and enters the airlock.

Jetting over to the front of the station, he packs as much of it as will fit aboard the return module.

Can't quite fit it all, but that's okay: the remaining 17 experiments will provide enough research data to keep Gilly Superstation occupied for years.

Before they head off Mission Control tells the crew staying at Gilly not to worry: they won't be alone out there for long. A tiny resupply mission, nothing worth making a fuss about, is leaving during this launch window to arrive at around the same time. There might even be enough room on it to rotate the crew out, but don't get your hopes up. It's, like, really tiny.

Bob thinks he can hear someone trying not to laugh in the background as Mission Control says this, but doesn't quite know what to make of that.

The exit maneuvers are plotted, and it's time for half the crew to say goodbye to Gilly Superstation. See you Bob, Val, etc!

In a few minutes, GSS vanishes into the glare of the Sun. Bye Eve! May we meet again someday.

A few hours and a second maneuver node later, the returning crew are outside the Eve system and on their way home.

Midway through the trip, Danny wakes Henfield up from his boredom-induced coma to inform him that they're currently the closest they'll ever be to the resupply ship. Henfield asks how close that is.

About 3 million kilometers. Give or take.

Henfield goes back to sleep.

-----

Hello Kerbin my old friend. How are we doing for fuel?

Yay, we've got heaps! Joevey thinks it's a brilliant idea to try to rendevous with Kerbonational Space Station on the way in, maybe drop off some of this data in the KSS labs before we bring it in to Kerbin.

This goes about as well as can be expected...

Luckily, Joevey's not a complete idiot: he conserved a little RCS for exactly this situation. Nowhere near enough to complete the rendevous, but plenty to deorbit. Besides, it's not like we really wanted to visit KSS and drop off that data. Those grapes were probably sour anyway.

The final burn of the mission is remarkably understated.

Due to some overly cautious clerk at Mission Control (me), it takes 5 or 6 aerobraking passes to actually begin deorbiting. Eventually, however, as the crew watch the sunrise, Asicca notes that this may be the final sunrise they see from space...

... and the final descent begins just as the crew start to get nervous about the possible double meaning of that comment.

-----

"Mission Control, we're seeing some overheating. Nothing major at this point."

"Don't worry about it, Joevey. How's the descent angle?"

"Soft and shallow, Control. I think we're-"

"What was that?! Something exploded!"

"Relax, Joevey. That's normal. Most of our craft exhibit some minor exploding on re-entry. The situation is still nominal."

"Argh! Something else exploded!"

"It's fine, Joevey. The situation is nominal. Just relax and-"

"Everything's exploding! Oh my god, we're all gonna die!"

"You're not going to die! The sims say there's at least an 80% chance some of you will surv-"

"I DON'T WANT TO DIE! I'M TOO GREEN AND TOO PRETTY TO DIE! AAAAAAAAA-"

"Will you please shut up?! I SAID SHUT UP! STOP SCREAMING! SITUATION-"

"-AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-"

"-IS NOMINAL!"

-----

"See? I told you situation was nominal."

"... control, can I ask you not to upload our face cam video to youtube?"

"Sorry, too late."

Congratulations to the crew of the... "Gilly Return Module"? We really should have given this thing a name, shouldn't we. 

Regardless, the mission was a success. Sure we lost those expensive nuclear engines (in hindsight, should have put them on the other side of the craft), but nobody died horribly and everybody gained a load of experience.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go swim in the Science Vault like Scrooge McDuck.

-----

And that's probably a good place to end it.

Admittedly it's not quite over: I'll do a brief epilogue when the supply ship arrives to rotate out the remainder of the crew. But after that I think I'm going to continue my extraterrestrial colonization efforts without the narration and screenshots: they're fun but time-consuming, and KSP is already a time-consuming game.

Edited April 18, 2016 by Quasar

[Commander Zoom]

Just caught up with this thread.  Love it.

(Poor Bob.  Twice, even.)

For the surface EVA(s), I'm hearing:

"Three. Two. One. Drop."

[max_creative]

This is awesome! Biggest non-kerbin station I've ever seen! (Besides @Just Jim's Duna station) will you send more stuff to Gilly superstation and maybe land something on eve? Remember to throw Bob out the airlock again!

[Quasar]

I've got that supply ship I mentioned about 10 days from the Eve planetary system (as of the landing of the Gilly Return Module), so I'll let you know how the rendevous goes. 
         
If I get offered a contract to expand the station I'll take it, but otherwise I'll probably leave it at it's current size and focus instead on other systems. Everything so far has been stock, but I recently downloaded the Planetary Bases mod and I'm keen to try it out.
         
By the way, I recommend Gilly for your first extrakerrestrial station. In addition to being located in the Eve system (which takes less fuel to get to than Duna and has more frequent launch windows to Kerbin), and providing comical amounts of science if you visit all three biomes, jetpacking down to the surface can bring your Kerbals straight up to 3 stars (4 stars if they've also done a flyby of the Mun or Minmus).

Edited April 18, 2016 by Quasar

[max_creative]

Nice! I'm going to Dres though instead of Gilly. And I'm bringing a flotilla of 18 ships with me.

[Quasar]

Epilogue: Meet "Excalibur".
         

         
"Tiny resupply ship," mutters Bob sarcastically, staring out the window at the enormous shadow slowly approaching the station. "Riiiiight."
         
The name is a play on "sword in the stone", since most of it's equipment relates to mining. And yes, I know Excalibur wasn't actually the sword that Arthur pulled from the stone, but the Kerbals don't. Or maybe it was the same sword in their version of the myth. Maybe in their version he was actually the guy who jammed the sword *into* the stone in the first place rather than pulling it out, so the name is even more appropos.
         
Regardless, it's a big ship with a pretentious name. Size comparison:
         

         
The Excalibur includes (front to back):
         
* An Intraplanetary Skip, for local missions in the Eve SOI. Doubles as an RCS tug, which can be used to help us disassemble the non-controllable parts of the Excalibur.
* Small Experiment module: a materials bay, mystery goo and narrow band scanner to be attached to the front of GSS.
* Crew & Cargo Module. In addition to comfortably seating 10 Kerbals for the trip home, the cargo bay contains a tiny RCS probe with a surface scanner and accelerometer. And finally...
* Low Grav Mining Probe. An RCS-powered probe with mini-convert-o-tron, mining drills, and claws to attach it to Gilly's surface rather than landing legs since I don't trust the low gravity.
         
And at the back is the Stingray, the pride of the KSP fleet: the programs first re-usable interplanetary tug. It's designed to be refueled in orbit around Minmus (and in any other location we can get a working refueling base set up), and should significantly reduce colonisation costs. It was actually launched mostly unfueled: while it would probably have been possible to build a launch vehicle for it, it was far cheaper to use a smaller (though still sizable) launch and head straight to minmus for fueling.
         

         
It also brings 5 Kerbals: Thomprick, Panica and Janica, and Jeb and Bill (who weren't originally a part of the mission, stranded as they were on Minmus for the last 15 years without EVA fuel, but managed to flag down the unmanned refueling vessel and catch a lift to the Excalibur)
         
The Excalibur demonstrates just how far KSP has come since the GSS was launched. Not quite far enough to stop us from making stupid mistakes, though...
         
-----
         
"The skip's engine doesn't work! Some idiot forgot the fuel lines!"
         
"The scanner data is useless! We might as well just put the surface probe down there!"
         
"The mining probe's claws won't grab onto Gilly's surface! Didn't anybody test this?"
         
"Nevermind that, the probe doesn't even have any ore tanks! How are we supposed to get the ore into the convertotron?"
         
"Without mining we can't refuel the skip's RCS! it's not even useful as an RCS tug!"
         
"Literally everything is terrible!"
         
"AAAAAAAAAAA-"
         
---
         
Well that all went poorly. 
         
Nevertheless, Valentina, Bob, Hainy and Kertrid are still set to be rotated home aboard the Stingray (after being disassembled we can't really keep calling it the "Excalibur") when the next launch window comes around, and I'm assured it at least is working fine. Plus it still has more than enough fuel to bring them all home, even without the mining probe refueling it. 
         
I think that's a good point to end the story. Let me know what you thought! I may do more mission logs in the future, if people like 'em and I can find the time. If nothing else they apparently encourage me to perform entertaining feats of stupidity.

Edited April 20, 2016 by Quasar

[Choctofliatrio2.0]

I really enjoyed this, and I'd love to see more!

[max_creative]

I have the imagination class interplanetary ship in testing. It's as long as the Excalibur and creates really big explosions. It's launched in 4 pieces Dres II class boosters and weighs at least 300 tons. It has 34 parts and 69 Kerbals. You could bring stuff to Gilly Superstation, but TEST IT FIRST PLEASE!!! And this is awesome! Please don't end it!

Edited April 20, 2016 by max_creative

[superstrijder15]

14 hours ago, Quasar said:

the probe doesn't even have any ore tanks! How are we supposed to get the ore into the convertotron?"

I had litterally that problem with a tourist mission hopping Kerbin-->Mun-->Minmus, but I decided to just edit the tanks full for one time... 

[Quasar]

Epilogue 2: EPILOGUE HARDER.

A few missions later, and we have fixed literally everything forever. We gave the Mining Probe some invasive surgery and jammed an ore tank in the side of it, which as we all know is the correct procedure for repairing non-functional Convert-O-Trons, and then gave it the whale tank that brought GSS out here as a "no longer completely useless day" present. It's now building up a healthy supply of monoprop and liquid fuel.

The station has recieved a new skip which actually works this time (amazing!), and we promptly connected it to the station in the most aesthetically pleasing manner possible.

Hmm... it's possible someone may be able to glide the useless skip to the surface on Eve, which would a) mean we had landed a Kerbal on Eve, and b) mean we had stranded a Kerbal on Eve, probably forever. Which would be a win-win, except Bob already returned home.

I kid, of course! I like Bob, he brings me science and he's already gone back to Kerbin anyway so that plan's out of the question. I'd strand Jeb. Jeb doesn't bring me science. Screw Jeb.

Speaking of Bob, though...

Due to a horrendously inefficient orbital transfer, the Stingray ended up running out of fuel just before circularising around Kerbin. There may have been some screaming over the intercom when we told the crew they were hurtling uncontrollably back out into solar orbit, but Valentina smacked Bob a few times and locked him in the cargo bay, which shut him up.

Luckily, some quick thinking on the part of the unnamed and unmanned refueling vessel that lives on Minmus managed to bring them just enough fuel to circularise and drop in to Minmus, at which point the refueling vessel began cycling between orbit to ground to fill the Stingray back up to maximum

It was thankless and grueling work, but the refueling vessel was simply happy to see people again. It gets lonely on Minmus. Naturally the crew didn't thank it because everyone knows robots don't have feelings. 

After a final rendezvous with the Kerbonational Space Station, Bob, Hainy, Kertrid and Valentina are now safely in Low Kerbin Orbit and will return to Kerbin as soon we send up a shuttle, while the Stingray itself will await our next interplanetary mission.

 

Edited April 30, 2016 by Quasar