DBP - Duna Bothering Program

[Mikki]

*** DBP ***
"DUNA BOTHERING PROGRAM"
 or
Debby goes nuts with fifty Kerbonauts...



Part one

Mikki`s Careergame visualized, puns included.
Beware, bad grammar and scandinavian humor ahead.
May contain highly fictional stuff.

"...Maybe my best and dumbest mission ever..."
 

(Mods; MM, AsteroidDay, EVE, Scatterer, DistantObject, NFT, KIS, KAS, KerbalAtomics, USI MKS, KourageousTourists, Tweakscale, KER, HeatControl, TransferWindowPlanner, KSP 1.2.x)

Main goal of my current career is to return to Duna with about fifty (50 yeah!) Kerbals, establish a orbital logistics hub and then land on Duna, find a nice place with ressources and more important, a excellent landscape for my brave sla employees to have a break, with nice habitats and all the rage.  

The savegame is quite old, started in KSP 0.9 and allmost all my Kerbals survived the painf funny exercises.

Currently it is Kerbal year 30 36, and i hired alot of rookies to fill all the empty seats in my new Duna colonisation fleet, there is even a female tourist within the partyboat, Debby Kerman will do her best to enslave entertain the others while they work and she spends a hell-a-good time. Debby has a personal watchkerb, so she can`t mess up the whole shebang and blowup important stuff which would lead to a total loss of my Kerbal crewmembers...

                                                        

"Debby Kerman, tourist with a KIS crate full of bubblyzine, a boombox, and a smile. She actually funded this crazy mission, the amount of 14,000,000 Kerbal Funds to be more accurate, so no one will errm... disagree when she gets uncomfy out there and starts to freak out. We must carry this burden, and we are glad to have such a nice Kerbal with us." - DBP official (which doesn`t want to be named here.)    
                               
                                

                                                                       
                                                                        
 

Debby Kerman in front of the Kerbonautcenter, waiting for the DBP managers, who will serve her selflessly... Her luggage is pretty heavy.
Her statement for funding was as following:

"I wish to drink a bottle bubbly in a lawnchair, on a nice location on Duna, watching Ike eclipsing Kerbol. I don`t care how those kerbonauts accomplish my desire but i don`t care anyway about nothing. Cheers!"

DBP Managers still argue about how they can remove Debby`s helmet when she`s ready. Might get tricky.

(Silly pic got lost in time)

Meanwhile...

I have my main equipment allready in Kerbin orbit, alot of tedius work in the SPH and VAB is finished and i can make the final pusher assemblys for the Duna transfer, the next nice launchwindow is in year 31 37, its very soon and i will only depict the most impressive launches, you will see why, the vessels are rather complex and inspired by a certain NASA study with some additions from my crazy engineerstaff, blame them, not me. 

Well, for the beginning i will just add two more pics of the involved assemblys, during launch and orbit insertion, the nuclear pusher from the header above and a colony carrierframe made of NFT parts. The funny bubbles on the header vessel are in fact Roverdudes floaties, they make perfect aerobraking ballutes... 
 

...and a rather complex thing, but the content is amazing...

Okay, thank you for your attention, happy new Year y`all!

Here you see some launchvehicles, the largest, stripped down for lesser loads:

Spoiler

In this spoiler 4 of 6 transfervessels and other equipment, the surfacehabitats:

Spoiler

In this one the nuclear pushers:

Spoiler

Here all the landers and a rover:

Spoiler

(There is a handfull of other small stuff around, but not so important by now...)

Well, here a pic from the situation in orbit, final assemblys are performed between 300 and 1000 km altitude, the modular nuclear pushers need to be cooled (LH2 boiloff), therefore each one has his own small nuclear reactor attached, but this isn`t sufficient and they depend on the solararrays from the transfervessels while the tanks are full.
(I really still enjoy the maneuvering, never used mechjeb since i play KSP.)
There will be a crowd of five to seven transfervessels, 50 Kerbals is a goal to keep... And it is careerplay, after leaving Kerbin orbit there will be no excuse for stuff that didn`t got mentioned during construction and testing...
The pushers have quite plenty dV, i try to keep the partcount around 200-250 parts max. per assembly, so all goes flush and nicely.

However, the vessels serve multiple purposes, with least parts possible, no shenanigans, anything is tight and little redundancy, except they meet finally in Duna orbit for a large orbital hub construction. I may rip some parts off then with KIS.



There is also a lumpy rock called Ike, which i like alot, will see what my Kerbals do when they get bored, i could send some of them down to his surface for further contemplation about boredom...

The logistics module is very likely to perform a brachistochrone aerobraked Duna encounter, we slapped lots of floati errm... ballutes to it, and a 10 meter stock heatshield in front save lots of reactionmass. This can bleed off a 1000dV in one dip!
The recon for ressources will take some time before sending the roverdroppod to the desired place. After deciding the landingzone, the first MKS Habitat will make it`s way down. Thats the plan however.

...Meanwhile the last crewtransport is buildt and crew is also hired, Yeah! 50 (+1, Debby Kerman) Kerbals!

                 

All the Vessels are in orbit, last pusher is on his way to the DUNA CREW transfervessel, total fleetsize is six large ships:

Edited February 12, 2017 by Mikki
Editing in progress... Price tag8D, mods

[Mikki]

Part two

Duna transfer/ encounter
 

Debby Kerman is on her way to Duna, 50 willing and selfless Kerbonauts subdued themse subscribed to do anything within their force to make her happy.
The logisticsmodule went ahead, followed by another aerocapture capable vessel, containing most of the crew and mission critical rig for the orbital survey of Duna, the remaining four equipment carriers made up for a more efficient trajectory few days later, in a separation of one Kerbin day each.

Commander to missioncontrol:  "Debby Kermans boombox is plugged to the ships electric wire and sucks alot EC, playing relentlessly Kerbal popmusic all day long..."

Missioncontrol: "... ...You should be grateful."


Launchimpressions, not all vessels depicted for convenience:

Spoiler

My DBP management is also very glad to have @Kerbarts elaborate "Rover in a box" system with the mission, for further examination i post the link to his spacecraft exchange thread:http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/154814-yay-wheels-now-with-craft-file/

And to show the excellent quality of his craft a picture of the current state at Kerbin departure, the craft in question is on top of the crewmodule, his main task will be bothering loitering around on Ike. Thank you very much Kerbart!




And it looks like Debby Kermans Daddy ordered in the last minute a sophisticated All-Stock RTG powered twin propeller Duna plane, this is obviously a very rare and hard to find craft from a fellow forummember, all honor belongs to @_Rade, his "Dunasoar" will make exploring the vast deserts of Duna a pleasure!
Link to his spacecraft exchange thread:http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/154762-dunasoar/



After a major callback due to wingloadissues a second plane was launched, revised according to @_Rades advise, the DBP takes now full responsibility for the use of this excellent plane, the engineers in duty signed their testimoni test documentations...

Okay, coasting was very boring, so we entered Duna system with the logisticsmodule ahead, we decided to make a high inclinated entry, Ike was in the way and there was no other way around him.
The aerocapture worked out as intended, altitude at lowest point above surface around 27,500 meters, glad the vessel didn`t flip or other ugly misshaps occured... We ended up in a low Duna orbit of about 105 x 110 km, which looks reasonable for further examination of the surface for retirement ressources.

The crew observes the vast desert, looking for unusual landmarks and occasional duststorms.
An old satellite from a earlyer mission detected some anomalies, the kerbonauts are wondering if lowering its orbit would give more details, to be continued...

Logisticsmodule aerocapture in tundra orbit, equatorial final orbit:

Spoiler

Other vessels drop into Duna orbit, the Carrier, Dunasoar, and the DDAV:

Spoiler

Getting quite crowded here, hard to spin the maneuverclock between all those trajectories, but still anything works well... Duansoar is very tight on dV budget, guess there must a refuelingaction be done soon, or i drag it down with the claw tug and a free pusher... slowly...



And finally, the rest of the fleet, the Truckpodrig, another Crewvessel (with @Kerbarts ultimate weapon minirover), and the Miniring-transferhabitat, in a deep aerocapture... obviously loosing small parts, but nothing to worry about now... The time for worries is coming for sure.

Spoiler

All Kerbals in Duna orbit, known problems so far:

- Dunasoar lacks fuel, needs support to lower its orbit.
- Stuff got lost due to aeroforces but minor problem, spare antennas are packed with KIS.
- No decision about landingsite until now, area must be ruled out by further observation.
- Debby Kerman and her new girlfriends party on 24/7, bubblyzine bottles floating everywhere.
- Commander Bobby Kerman has not been seen for weeks, might have disembarked somewhere.
- New Commander... .. see two lines above.

The rest of the mission is fine.   

 

Edited January 14, 2017 by Mikki
sorry, busy8D

[_Rade]

I'm glad I could help with the mission, I'll be watching to see how the mission turns out.

Hopefully you can find some good uses for the plane.

[Mikki]

3 minutes ago, _Rade said:

I'm glad I could help with the mission, I'll be watching to see how the mission turns out.

Hopefully you can find some good uses for the plane.

Sure, big fun for me, i will call your expertise how to install the struts to the engines, if possible at all! Cheers!

[_Rade]

Everything on the plane that needs struts is already autostruted. Only place that could use the struts is that octagonal strut that holds the engines. If you can strut it to the fairing that is attached to it that might help.

Maybe you'll just have better luck with the engines than I did.

I'm gonna go and modify the plane to get rid of the octagonal strut, should have known using that on the engine is a bad idea.

[Mikki]

1 hour ago, _Rade said:

...I'm gonna go and modify the plane to get rid of the octagonal strut, should have known using that on the engine is a bad idea.

The launchwindow to Duna is still open in my mission, i could send a refurbished version still, no problem. If i have two of your planes on Duna, the better! No hurry, i will progress in the evening (europe), if you don`t have time to put a craftfile up, don`t worry, i can still look into it myself... Thank you!

Edited January 12, 2017 by Mikki
typo8D

[_Rade]

I've updated both versions of the plane and I did a little bit of testing and they seem to work fine.

One thing that I've noticed is that left engine seems to spin just slightly faster than the right one. Not sure yet whats causing it, but it shouldn't cause much trouble in flight.

[Thedrelle]

very interesting, nice vehicles! looking forward to seeing Debby's demise mission!

[Mikki]

24 minutes ago, _Rade said:

I've updated both versions of the plane and I did a little bit of testing and they seem to work fine.

One thing that I've noticed is that left engine seems to spin just slightly faster than the right one. Not sure yet whats causing it, but it shouldn't cause much trouble in flight.

I think i got enough strength now, i strutted the girder to the fairingbase behind invisibly. and two funny fins above, for more awesomness!

Edited January 12, 2017 by Mikki
typo8D

[Mikki]

25 minutes ago, Thedrelle said:

very interesting, nice vehicles! looking forward to seeing Debby's demise mission!

Glad you like my insane Duna Botteling Bothering Program... 

[Mikki]

Part three

Landingsite reconnaissence, logisticshub construction and Dunasoar salvage

Logisticshub reassembly, first steps:

Spoiler

...Missioncontrol and some more serious Kerbonauts assemble the logisticshub, the nuclear pushers have been dettached and their orbits lowered for a few kilometers...
M.I.A. Commander Bobby Kerman had a good nap at the rear end of the largest nuclear pusher, though he wondered how hot it could get inside @RoverDudes minibarbeque minipod... I`m pretty sure he won`t forget where he`s got that sunburn from. @Nertea might be interested to merchandise his engines aswell to wellness-studios.

                               

Bobby Kerman looks well done, he will return to the orbital logisticshub by the next occasion, i guess he needs a bottle bubblyzine...

Dunasoar was able to intercept the logisticshub with only a bucket full of propellent left, the plane got tugged to a dockingport, the most annoying docking maneuver untill now... but at last it snapped.
DBP management is waiting for Commander Bobby Kermans return, to make sure anything on board the lunatic logisticshub stays in shape and order...
Partynoises from the commandmodule resonate violently throughout the whole vessel, and engineers at the KSC worry about the structural integrity.

Dunasoar salvage:

Spoiler

And last but not least, Commander Bobby Kerman docked to the logisticshub...
 

Spoiler

                                                                       

Bobby immediatly began to review the surfacedata, preparing crewmembers and the Dunasoar service engineers (hi @_Rade ), for descent to Dunas beautyfull wastelands...
He marked some points of interests on the charts, viable for a safe Dunasoar landing and takeoff.
Tensions are getting higher in the partydepartment... and the music louder and louder.
Pilot of this mission will be ruled out by horseshoethrowing in the danceroom, empty bottles are in ample supply.

Things went quite well, but several things are not that good:

-Duna has lots of duststorms, limited visuals from orbit
-Kerbals dislike the idea to work
-Bobby Kerman has lost significant amounts of his cognitive biomass in his topmost limb, due to excess radiation exposure while napping
-No one knows this 
-Dunasoar refuses to be refueled, fuelflows checked, cause still unknown
-More KIS crates with "Debby Kerman" written on them have been discovered, party is unlikely to stop in foreseeable time
-Bubblyzine bottles float in space around the logistics hub, untreated Kesslersyndrome

                                    


The rest of the mission looks fine

Edited January 15, 2017 by Mikki
serious editing trouble, 8D

[Mikki]

Part four

Horseshoethrowing, Dunasoar descent and reconflight, Ikebug deploy, Drobpod preparations in orbit
 

Bobby Kerman to crew: "Ready?"
Crew: "Yeeeaaaaahhhhh!!!!"

Valentina, Summer, Juli and Dotty Kerman gathered most points in the horseshoelottery, so they where chosen to fly the Dunasoar, good choice, the plane is very complicated and fragile, DBP missioncontrol is reliefed the chances for desas success have risen significantly having females in charge.
Bill Kerman attached a auxiliary KIS fuelline over the failed section of the hub, so Dunasoar has been fueled up a bit, although fuellevels don`t show any change . Bill found moar bottles of fresh bubbly, he grabbed them all.
Descent and decoupling boosters was successfull, Valentina ripped off a small antenna but this isn`t a serious problem, another one is still working at the tailelevon. She went for a first safe-procedure landing without engaging the RTG engines, wise decision, the plane has excellent gliding properties, it has shown that no propulsion is needed for a safe touchdown at lowest elevations. Flag was planted and the mandatory bottle bubbly guzz depleted.

Bill Kerman fixing the fuelflow:

Dunasoar descent:

Spoiler

Valentina and the girls over Duna in a wonderfull stockplane:




And while the Kerbals have a fun, other important things happen further up, Ikebug is on his mission to Ike, details of its secret task are unknown untill now, only @Kerbart knows the true capabilitys of this perfect piece of state-of-the-art rover delivery system. Temperature readings of the landingszone have successfully been submitted, science points are pocketed. DBP managers are glad that at least one missionmember is guaranteed ready for duty and operates as intended. Thanks Kerbart!

Ikebugs primary objective: loitering around and defending the box.




Landing Ikebug in his box:

Spoiler

Back on Duna, Valentina landed the Dunasoar, Bobby calls her on the comm:

"Valentina, do you copy?"
"Yes Bobby, loud and clear, what`s the matter?"
"Hurry get out, watch northwest, 20 degrees, incoming, moving northeast rapidly... what do you see?"
"Okay, i`m allready out on the wing, checking the structure... hold on... ..."
"...Val?"
"...Bobby, what is that?"
"I ask you..."


 
"...What???"
"Don`t tell me you can see that by naked eye..."
"Is that a pusher on crashcourse? Which one? Please, not the big one, it`s our hometicket!... Bobby!... Bobby?"
"Calm down Valentina, i ask you what you see..."

Bobby clicks on the screen in front of him, enlarging the IR image from the aft surveillance camera:

"...i send you a picture, well, two pics. Make sure your butt is thightly strapped to the seat..."

Spoiler

                

A rather secret conversation begins between Valentina and Bobby:

Spoiler

"You`re kidding me..."
"...i wish i would."
"What`s that speck in the second picture?"
"...eerm... just a moment... its called `Ike-BBP-E`, E-class asteroid some 2800 metric tons, Ike catched it some years ago on occasion, merryly prograde orbiting." 
"Oh... that is... this is... uhh..."
"It moves ridicilous fast, changes directions and velocitys as if it`s made out of..."
"...made out of what?"
"...out of illusion."
"Okay, i... i really think the party is over now."
"It`s currently surfing Dunas upper atmosphere at 50000 meters, maybe hiding in the hotter edgezone. The second picture is from Ikebugs boxcamera, errm... twenty minutes ago."
"Sure. I don`t believe this. Must be electronic noise, a bizarre hardwarefail."
"And the thing you`ve seen above right now?"
"...I didn`t see anything..."
"...Okay..." 
 

Bobby and Enemy listened carefull to Valentinas words. Enemy Kerman to Bobby:

Spoiler

"Looks like its still here, same shape, same behaviour. We should simply ignore it. The radiation peaks from its surface are random and it can only move in one direction, turns suddenly around by unknown will."
"Where is it the most?"
"We know its ... `favourite` place, it hovers commonly upright for weeks or months on a certain ridge on Ike, topend facing Duna like a... ...we really don`t know what it is."
"It `hovers above a ridge`, okay, this is nothing we know, it defies all known laws of physics. This is crazy."
"Yupp, this is obviously not possible. DBP missioncontrol advice is to ignore, no attempt for investigation, even in scary situation. The thing is very likely a fully autonomous probe, it is very unlikely that it takes action against anything we know. A artificial object with this size and properties is considered a `advanced entity`, with unfathomable objectives. It exists, we exist, end of debate. We have a good picture from its idling location..."


 

Shortly after this meeting Bobby gave a brief announcement to the crew:

"Hi all, we proceed as planned, back to work."

Leathy Kerman dettaches the Truck-entrypod from the transfervessel, the rest of the crew will deliver the LFO tank to the logisticshub and release the nuclearpusher to a lower parkingorbit... target area is Valentinas landingsite at the western edge of the grand bassin, Valentina and the girls need support...

Truckpod powered landing near Dunasoar:

Spoiler

Valentina and Leathy meet in a dense duststorm, a bottle bubbly is likely to be opened... Leathy has spare parts for the Dunasoar, a upgrade is to be evaluated with Juli, depends on her opinion finally.
"...Any other news?" asked Val while she embarked the truck.
"...Something unexpected is going on, i told the guys `Don`t mess it up, i look at you, Jebediah and Enemy`..."
"...You know about it..."
Leathy cheers.

Edited January 24, 2017 by Mikki
8O, oh, bad typo, sorry..., spaces

[_Rade]

Did you check it the fuel flow is enabled on the structural pylons. That might be preventing the fuel transfer.

[Kerbart]

I'm glad to see that the "Magic Box" is living up to its expectations!

 

[_Rade]

It's great to see that the plane is working and that the landing went without problems. Have fun flying around Duna.

If I find some time to play the career I'm definitely gonna send one to grab all science on Duna.

 

nice logo btw.

[Mikki]

Part 5

Another reconflight of Dunasoar, logisticshub extension, colony drop preparation.
Kerbals continue to party.

Summer joins Leathy in the truck while Valentina, Dotty and Juli take off for a short hop towards the high mountainrange at the north edge of the grand bassin... Valentina has simulated some landing techniques with Dunasoar, now she is pretty confident about what she is doing, this airplane is the most delicate construction she ever flew, definetly.
Juli reduced the brakeforce on the front landinggear to 25% each and gave Valentina advice to perform a slightly powered touchdown at around 40m/s for highest safety. This worked out excellently, DBP management is glad all Kerbals are still alive and partying.

Dunasoar near the mountains, final approach:



Summer observes the end of a eclipse, the moonshadow moving westwards:



Some impressions of the flight, during the eclipse:

Spoiler

At the same time in orbit, the logisticshub gets extended, more Kerbals join the party and some spare parts in a giant KIS container and a crewvehicle where attached. The USI ranger modules are moved to a lower orbit, a major landfall is in sight, Kerbals are thinking about in which one the first Duna-party should happen, probably in a expandable greenhousesection, we will see...

Multiple boomboxes have now been installed in the logisticshub, music is playing at max volume and Kerbals are floating through the new station in chaotic manner, missioncontrol gave up any intension organizing the crowd, hoping for a glimpse of reason in the expedition crews heads.

Newest partygame is golf, from one end of the station to another.
Actual leader: Jebediah Kerman, hole in one.
Partydrink of the day: bubbly on the rocks.






Images from logisticshub extension, and a sitrep from map view:

Spoiler

Mission is looking very good by now, some things to think about:

- More Kerbals, more party
- More party, more fun
- More fun is good for morale
- Dunasoar flies and lands excellent @_Rade
- Dunatruck is a excellent vehicle
- Logisticshub has more than 400 parts, still running smooth, excellent
- Bubblyzine in ample supply
- Golfclubs are a much desired object for Kerbals
- Ikebug is alive, no strange sightings @Kerbart

Edited January 25, 2017 by Mikki
he 8D

[_Rade]

It's good to see that the mission is progressing nicely.

Did you find any good locations to land the base, because finding nice flat ground on Duna is mission impossible.

[Mikki]

1 hour ago, _Rade said:

It's good to see that the mission is progressing nicely.

Did you find any good locations to land the base, because finding nice flat ground on Duna is mission impossible.

There is no flat area in equator region, sadly. But in a earlyer mission i spotted a rather large even plane on the southern icecap, between 80°- 70° lattitude, i am tempted to land your Dunasoar there this weekend... you should be able to spot the place from map view if you have a vessel on the surface somewhere. Its the only flat place i know large nough to land nicely.  I will mark the spot when i get there on screenshot... Cheers!

Edited January 25, 2017 by Mikki

[Mikki]

Part six

Colony drop and random discussions about this and that,
Jebediah brings Debby safe to solid Duna ground


During the reconstruction and extension of the orbital logistics hub, parts of the crew are being ferried over to the Droppod carrier, embarking the Ranger pods and one after another descending to the surface. Two ferries are in charge for this job, LFO is in ample supply at the logistics hub, a large tank has arrived meanwhile. Debby Kerman is rather nervous about the fact that she will be soon on Dunas surface, jumping around like nuts in the reddish dusty soil. Jebediah Kerman is in charge of delivering the precious her safely in one of the MKS Ranger modules to her destiny destination, his comment on the fact of being the most important pilot for the BDP management got rather ironic:

"What? Me shall pilot this eggshaped piece of cheapest spacejunk? Hoorrrraaayyyyy!"




Kerbals eagerly board the ferries and move over to the carrier, some impressions in the spoiler below:
 

Spoiler

The logistics hub gets more upgrades and additional fueltanks delivered... Kerbals are glad to discover more crates with bubblyzine, party goes on as usual, loud music, dancing and occasional golf sessions make a happy crew and happy management... Rumours about nudity and loud singing haven`t been confirmed by now.




Additional stuff and extension:
 

Spoiler

Kerbals descend to the surface and target the Duna rover, some precise landings have been performed and thanks to the miniwheels on the ranger modules all the components meet up in the desired location...


 

More pics from the colony drop and the assembly:
 

Spoiler

And finally Debby Kerman arrived on Duna...!!!



After landing and attaching the last module, Willo Kerman plants a flag, witnessed by Lemmon Kerman. They keep a small talk about weird things.

- "What do you think about the `Tube`, Willo?"
- "I really don`t know much about it. Time will tell."
- "I heard rumours about Ikebug, are we going to visit the ridge on Ike?"
- "... Probably..."
- "... Hm..."



Sooo, mission looks excellent, not much to care about...

Spoiler

Edited March 13, 2017 by Mikki
fixed missing pic