Alternis Kerbol Travelling Circus -- Episode 34: Over the Hills and Far Away

[B-STRK]

Remembering the past Circuses, I have a feeling BARISing Pathfinder might be responsible for some future canonizations.  Unless all Pathfinder converters overheat to shutdown now instead of overheating to grilling Kerbals as a result of the BBQ incident? (Need to check the changelogs, been away way too long.)

Source: not running BARIS, but that stock warp heating bug's making me see heat warning bars pop up on my cooling towers, I'm not even running many converters on my Munbase (just one right now), and I'm still somewhat worried about what's going under KSP's hood.

[KAL 9000]

On 9/20/2017 at 11:56 AM, Geschosskopf said:

Right.  Jeb wants to go to SPACE.  For the most part, SSTOs can barely reach LKO, which doesn't really count as space, and only get even that far after a disproportionately vast expenditure of time, effort, money, and test pilot lives, especially considering their very limited payloads.  SSTOs are thus seen as a form of punishment.  

Heh

[Geschosskopf]

17 hours ago, B-STRK said:

Remembering the past Circuses, I have a feeling BARISing Pathfinder might be responsible for some future canonizations.  Unless all Pathfinder converters overheat to shutdown now instead of overheating to grilling Kerbals as a result of the BBQ incident? (Need to check the changelogs, been away way too long.)

Source: not running BARIS, but that stock warp heating bug's making me see heat warning bars pop up on my cooling towers, I'm not even running many converters on my Munbase (just one right now), and I'm still somewhat worried about what's going under KSP's hood.

Oh boy, yeah  .  I just re-read the NHTC thread where I had Munbase BBQ...  But @Angel-125 fixed the Pathfinder part of that immediately and for the rest of that game, I had no further heat problems.  Sad to hear that sort of thing is happening again.  But you say it's (yet another) stock problem with 1.3, to go with the inability to undock?  Geez, 1.3's been out several months.  No hotfixes?  Oh well, this is going to be an interesting game.......

The only concern I had going into this was remembering something else from my New Horizons game, where Kerbin is also the moon of a gas giant.  At that time, Kopernicus had an issue with Kerbin being a moon, so that you couldn't leave anything in orbit around Kerbin.  Next time you looked at it, it would either be on a steeply suborbital death dive or be on an escape trajectory out of the gas giant system.  But that's been fixed, as shown by Kerbin MOLE 1 in this game (and now all it's fragments as well) staying in nice steady orbit  

[Cydonian Monk]

1 hour ago, Geschosskopf said:

Geez, 1.3's been out several months.  No hotfixes? 

1.3.1 is the hotfix.... Just served a bit cold.

It’s understandable that a new programming team might take some extra time to fix bugs in unfamiliar code - there’s a bug at work I’ve been trying to wrap my head around for a few months now. I won’t speculate as to how ugly KSP’s code is, and I don’t really want to know (I see enough horrors at work on a daily basis).

Edited September 22, 2017 by Cydonian Monk

[Geschosskopf]

On 9/22/2017 at 11:01 AM, Cydonian Monk said:

It’s understandable that a new programming team might take some extra time to fix bugs in unfamiliar code.....

That sounds only slightly less ominous than learning I slept through the apocalypse.  Which I seem to have done.

EPISODE 7: One Step Beyond

Spoiler

 

By this time, the next Recon Jet (Mk 4) had finished integration .  Mk 1's engine had exploded on starting, Mk 2 had crashed on takeoff, and Mk 3 had sprung serious leaks and skidded off the runway on an oil slick of its own making.  Amazingly, only Silong had died in all of this and now it was Handin's turn again.  Much to everyone's amazement, this incarnation of the beast managed to get airborne without anything important failing, and Handin took the thing on its first official flight some 100km to the SE of KSC, to the Land of Giant Trees, landed safely, and drove around gathering contract Science!  However, at this point, various systems began failing so Mission Control pulled the plug on what was to have been a much longer mission and sent the recovery crew.  The more distant objectives would have to await the Recon Jet Mk 5.

Mission Control had by now accepted a contract to place a satellite in a specific, slightly inclined  orbit around Kerbin, so had to wait a number of days for tide-locked Kebin to rotate very slowly until KSC was under the target orbit's DN.  While watching the map for this to happen, they looked around at the other planets currently so out of reach, and noticed something disturbing.  They had previously spotted a tiny (Class E) moonlet of Jool in a nearly circular orbit well below that of Minmus, and had been tracking it for future reference, but it had unaccountably gone missing.  Now they spotted it in interplanetary space just crossing inside Eve's orbit with a Pe down near Moho and an Ap nearly to Tylo.  What had ejected this asteroid/moonlet from the Jool system?  Some freak alignment of all 4 moons?  Nobody knew, and Mission Control began to worry about the long-term stability of anything left in Jool orbit.

At last the contract probe was done with integration and KSC had moved under its DN, so up when the rocket.  It was built entirely out of tried-and-true parts that had not only much time on the test stand but numerous flights as well, some of which had even been successful.  Despite this, the rocket failed immediately, before even reaching 2000m above the launchpad.  First, the lifter engine exploded.  Luckily, because the lifter stage was intended to circularize the probe as well, the Boffins had fitted it with a self-destruct charge to keep it from littering up LKO, and this now prevented the now-useless tanks from falling back on anything important.  The probe's own engine then took over, simply trying to move the payload to a safe distance away, but the strain of having to work in the atmosphere proved too much for it, and it, too, quickly exploded.  But it had lasted long enough to save the launchpad, the payload crashing several hundred meters downrange.  Unfortunately, not a single part survived the impact to be salvaged.

With the smoke from this rather inauspicious omen still drifting across KSC, the Boffins wheeled out their most ambitious creation yet, the Bop Contract Satellite 1, which was destined for a specific orbit of Bop.  This was the 1st rocket of the Circus to try to reach another world, one step beyond Kerbin.  It was made of essentially the same components as the previous failed launch, just more of them, so had more opportunities to go wrong.  Nobody expected it to reach orbit.  But amazingly, it did, and the only explosion was gratuitous on the separation of the SSTO lifter stage.

Once Mission Control was certain nothing was going to blow up from this staging event, away the probe went on its historic voyage.  As it turns out, Bop is a mere 650m/s and 1.5 hours away from Kerbin so the probe had considerably more fuel than it needed.  Part of that was ignorance of the Alternis Kerbol system, part was redundancy in case of leaks.

Bop ConSat 1 got to Bop before BARIS had a chance to break anything and it duly worked its way into the required orbit, grabbing numerous bits of Science! along the way.  Bop turns out to have a minuscule SOI so Mission Control had to act VERY quickly to set up the capture burn before the probe flew past its Pe.  Bop also has VERY rough terrain, not even being round.  It looks more like the wads of chewed gum under the consoles in Mission Control.

The probe fulfilled 2 separate contracts and accumulated a number of awards from EPIKFAIL, which helped with the Circus' cash flow.

With this accomplished, Mission Control shut down every system, locked down the tanks, and put the probe core to sleep, in hopes of delaying the inevitable breakdowns and leaks.  But before the lights went out, they took some good looks at Bop's intimidating terrain, knowing they now had to land and return from the surface next.  Bop's gravity is only 2.5% that of Kerbin, which should help in some ways but will definitely hurt in others.

However, 2 things had to happen before any Bop landing.  First, Bop is tide-locked to Kerbin so there had to be a relay in Bop orbit.  Second, bop had to be mapped.  To accomplish the 1st task, the Boffins hastily modified the so-far successful Bop ConSat 1 into the Bop Relay Mk 1.  However, it didn't work as well as its now-famous predecessor.  At first it looked as though this would be nothing more than junk in LKO but, to everyone's surprise, the probe's Spark engine still worked, a little, after its malfunction, and managed to get the relay probe on its way.  Whereupon the relay antenna also malfunctioned.  But it still worked, a little, so would have to do.

Getting into orbit at Bop proved to be difficult, however.  The Spark's throttle proved uncooperative so the capture burn ended up being way too long.  Thus, the probe ended up in a prograde orbit when it had entered Bop's SOI going retrograde.  The situation was only salvaged by a quick-thinking Boffin shutting the valve on the oxidizer tank, which is all that kept the probe from power-diving into Bop or shooting off into interplanetary space.  The orbit was then roughed into approximately decent shape by carefully opening and closing this valve a few more times.  That done, everything on the probe was de-energized and hibernated, yet the relay antenna still has a feeble link back to Kerbin from the far side of Bop.

While a mapping probe for Bop was being integrated, there was still the unfinished business of the contract probe for Kerbin, and a repeat version of that was wheeled out.  Continuing the Circus' streaky fortunes of multiple serious staging failures or none at all, this rocket worked perfectly where its predecessor had barely gotten off the pad.

And then the Recon Jet Mk 5 was ready and newly press-ganged pilot Adaid was thrust inside.  His mission was to go several hundred klicks ESE to a collection of 5 locations known as Manley's Spire.  The plane immediately started leaking on engine start but Mission Control was exceedingly tired of dealing with this cursed design so refused to abort.  As long as Adaid had fuel to get there, that was all he needed.  This was expected to be a 1-way flight anyway.  But other than this annoyance, the plane flew quite well and eventually reached the target area.  Which turned out to have exceedingly rough terrain of a confusing yellow shade.

This disorienting ground color made it very hard to determine the slope of the ground to pick a good landing area.  At the last moment, Adaid realized he was about to fly into a rather steep hillside and tried to make a hard emergency turn.  Thus, unfortunately, stalled the plane (this was only its 2nd flight so its handling properties were essentially unknown) and Adaid crashed violently.  The cockpit and Adaid, however, somehow survived.  Adaid was only about 2 klicks (naturally, uphill) from one of the objectives, though, so Mission Control applied shocks to his collar until he set out on foot in the belief the mission required surface samples.  It was only after this grueling trek that Mission Control remembered what the contract really needed was temperature measurements.  So Adaid was left to find his own way home while the Boffins turned their minds to figuring out a better way to complete this contract.

 

Tune in next time for more of the slow spiral into damnation.

Edited September 26, 2017 by Geschosskopf

[KAL 9000]

I did an N-Body simulation of the Alternis Kerbol system (specifically, Jool and its companions): 

-Bop gets ejected into Jool orbit 

-Mun gets ejected into interplanetary space 

-Kerbin crashes into Jool 

Conclusion: We should probably evacuate Kerbin and get to Laythe

Edited September 24, 2017 by KAL 9000

[Geschosskopf]

8 hours ago, KAL 9000 said:

I did an N-Body simulation of the Alternis Kerbol system (specifically, Jool and its companions): .....

Hehehe, but an N-body simulation is inherently unrealistic because Kisaac Newton Kerman and Kalbert Keinstein Kerman showed beyond any doubt that gravity only works between 2 bodies, and then only within discrete spatial limits called SOIs  

Seriously, though, is doing an N-body sim on a KSP system a thing now?  I recall @Cydonian Monk saying he'd done that for his own custom system.  So what do you all use?  Universe Sandbox?  I had the 1st version and it only worked for full-scale, and then only if you were willing to run it at no more minimal time warp, so it really wasn't practical to run systems far into the future to check for long-term stability.  Is the new version any better that way?

But to return to Kisaac and Kalbert, there is nothing more stable in all of KSP than the motions of planets and moons.  They're all on rails, as inevitable in their motions as the Circus's slow spiral into damnation.  Besides, KSP gravity really is 2-body and spatially limited, so any agreement between KSP and N-body sims is pure coincidence.  So the best I can think of is, you make the system full-scale in US just to make sure you're making Kohannes, Kisaac, and Kalbert happy, then rescale it to KSP scale when playing with Kopernicus.  Of course, the new version of US would still require being accurate at high time warp, too, which is something I'm not sure of.

But as to why asteroids are being ejected from Jool in my game, I figure it's because 1) they're so close to Jool to begin with, and 2) KSP's time warp fidelity isn't high for any non-planet thing.  Ships (and asteroids are a type of ship) are "on rails" when outside physics range but even when "on rails" are not immutable---they still have gravity done to them.  So, if a planet and a non-planet, both "on rails", get moved different amounts at different times due to time warp skipping their updates on different schedules, then it's totally believable asteroids near Jool to be ejected.  Since my post above, I've found 2 more Jool moonlets, both of which are now on escape trajectories from the whole solar system.

So I"m of 2 minds about this.,  OT1H, parking orbits inside Minmus aren't safe for sure, and probably not anywhere inside of Kerbin due to the close spacing off the inner moons.  Maybe between Kerbin and Pol, and probably outside Pol (but not too close to the edge of Jool's SOI).  That could possibly be inconvenient, although so far I've seen no reason to believe orbits around Jool's moons have problems.  So not a problem, at least so far.  And OTOH, it appears there's a good chance that putting something into a very low Jool orbit can get it out of solar system, which will probably cause EPIKFAIL to reward me.  Thus, I don't see a downside, other than a violation of the suspension of disbelief.

However, I do plan to go to Laythe soon

 

Edited September 25, 2017 by Geschosskopf

[Cydonian Monk]

1 hour ago, Geschosskopf said:

Seriously, though, is doing an N-body sim on a KSP system a thing now?  I recall @Cydonian Monk saying he'd done that for his own custom system.  So what do you all use?  Universe Sandbox?

I’ve used Universe Sandbox (both versions, though mainly US2), a couple different N-body tools I got from various places on the internet that I can’t remember the names of, and the Principia mod for KSP. Ideally I only care about my system being stable in Principia, as I intend to use that with it. The newer version of Universe Sandbox is better, but any N-body sim will become unstable at a high enough warp thanks to math (or rather lack of samples).

Edited September 25, 2017 by Cydonian Monk

[KAL 9000]

Is it overkill if I programmed my own simulation... 

---

Kerbal News Network: News Happens - Or Not 

"Breaking News: For years, Wonka Kerman's snacks have satisfied the cravings of every Kerbal on the planet, but the inside of his factory remains a mystery. Tonight, that all changes. 

Five sprouts have been selected to tour the billionare snack tycoon's factory, having found silver tickets in their snack boxes. 

We now go live to the Wonka factory..."

[Whirligig Girl]

19 hours ago, KAL 9000 said:

I did an N-Body simulation of the Alternis Kerbol system (specifically, Jool and its companions): 

-Bop gets ejected into Jool orbit 

-Mun gets ejected into interplanetary space 

-Kerbin crashes into Jool 

Conclusion: We should probably evacuate Kerbin and get to Laythe

I actually have Principia compatibility for the mod which moves the orbits to the same stable configuration that Principia uses for the stock Jool moons. (Basically, we break them out of resonance.)

12 hours ago, Geschosskopf said:

But as to why asteroids are being ejected from Jool in my game, I figure it's because 1) they're so close to Jool to begin with, and 2) KSP's time warp fidelity isn't high for any non-planet thing.  Ships (and asteroids are a type of ship) are "on rails" when outside physics range but even when "on rails" are not immutable---they still have gravity done to them.  So, if a planet and a non-planet, both "on rails", get moved different amounts at different times due to time warp skipping their updates on different schedules, then it's totally believable asteroids near Jool to be ejected.  Since my post above, I've found 2 more Jool moonlets, both of which are now on escape trajectories from the whole solar system.

I'm not entirely sure which version of the asteroid spawner is running on your save file, because asteroid changes happen only with new saves. However, if I recall correctly the only asteroids spawning around Jool should be the sub-Minmus moonlets. Rocks might be coming in from near-Jool orbit and then get flung downward on their path through the Jool system. Asteroids near Jool could conceivably be ejected if you're timewarping while they fly by Minmus.

Also i look forward to what you may find when you look for mineral wealth on Bop...

Edited September 25, 2017 by GregroxMun

[Geschosskopf]

11 hours ago, Cydonian Monk said:

I’ve used Universe Sandbox (both versions, though mainly US2), a couple different N-body tools I got from various places on the internet that I can’t remember the names of, and the Principia mod for KSP. Ideally I only care about my system being stable in Principia, as I intend to use that with it. The newer version of Universe Sandbox is better, but any N-body sim will become unstable at a high enough warp thanks to math (or rather lack of samples).

So, in Principia, are the planets still totally on rails or can gravity move them?  IOW, does Principica simply check for future disaster or does it actually happen?

I got into KSP after many years of Orbiter.  As such, I had certain expectations of what the necessary in-game instrumentation should provide to do spaceflight in full-scale, N-body systems.  KSP doesn't even have adequate instrumentation for the much simpler things it does, so I've never even considered trying to do N-body in KSP.  Does Principia have a cure for that?

 

2 hours ago, KAL 9000 said:

We now go live to the Wonka factory..."

Did Wonka learn NOTHING for the recent open house at KSC?!?!?  Of course, disasters at KSC have no effect on the mainstream Kerbal economy, but something similar happening at Wonka's Feed Mill could potentially destroy civilization   I'm surprised a posse of concerned citizens hasn't already... "persuaded".... Wonka from going through with this plan.

 

22 minutes ago, GregroxMun said:

I actually have Principia compatibility for the mod which moves the orbits to the same stable configuration that Principia uses for the stock Jool moons. (Basically, we break them out of resonance.)

I'm not entirely sure which version of the asteroid spawner is running on your save file, because asteroid changes happen only with new saves. However, if I recall correctly the only asteroids spawning around Jool should be the sub-Minmus moonlets. Rocks might be coming in from near-Jool orbit and then get flung downward on their path through the Jool system. Asteroids near Jool could conceivably be ejected if you're timewarping while they fly by Minmus.Also i look forward to what you may find when you look for mineral wealth on Bop...

I started from a fresh install with Alternis Kerbol and have not touched anything having to do with asteroids.  Thus, I have the asteroids from Alternis Kerbol Rejiggered 2.1.1 which I downloaded on 11 Sep 2017 when I started this game.

I don't see Minmus as a suspect in ejecting the Jool moonlets.  I haven't been there yet so can't say for sure, but Minmus' gravity is about  equal to Bop's which I have been to.  Bop's SOI has a radius of only 11km, you move through it almost before you can create a maneuver to capture there, and if you instead just fly by it, there's no significant change in your trajectory.  I imagine it would be about the same for Minmus.  Besides, the moonlets I've seen have started out rather closer to Jool than Minmus, so any warp-caused shift of their circular orbits relative to Jool's centroid would bring part of their orbit closer to Jool before another part got anywhere near Minmus.  Thus, I suspect it's Jool giving them the toss, especially those now leaving the solar system.

Thinking about this more now, I don't see this as a Kopernicus issue, but rather a game engine limitation due to how it does calculations during time warp.  IOW, it's not fixable.  So it might be best to move the moonlets outside of Pol.  I think anything inside of Minmus is going to get ejected sooner rather than later, and probably so will anything in the vicinity of the big trio of Laythe, Mun, and Kerbin.

[Cydonian Monk]

27 minutes ago, Geschosskopf said:

So, in Principia, are the planets still totally on rails or can gravity move them?  IOW, does Principica simply check for future disaster or does it actually happen?

The planets are not on rails, but I’m not sure what would happen if two worlds collided. I’m fairly certain it isn’t going to rebuild meshes and whatnot, so you’d probably end up with a MasterCard logo of a combined planet. 

27 minutes ago, Geschosskopf said:

I got into KSP after many years of Orbiter.  As such, I had certain expectations of what the necessary in-game instrumentation should provide to do spaceflight in full-scale, N-body systems.  KSP doesn't even have adequate instrumentation for the much simpler things it does, so I've never even considered trying to do N-body in KSP.  Does Principia have a cure for that?

Principia does have its own navigation tools and flight planner, though as to what degree they are in relation to Orbiter I can’t say. So far I’ve only ever used it in Earth-Moon spaceflight, and that’s in an older version released for KSP 1.1.3. (I’ve not updated my RSS/RO install in quite some time.)

Understand the mod is still in development, so certain features are incomplete or missing. I still recommend checking it out.

 

[KAL 9000]

1 hour ago, Geschosskopf said:

Did Wonka learn NOTHING for the recent open house at KSC?!?!?  Of course, disasters at KSC have no effect on the mainstream Kerbal economy, but something similar happening at Wonka's Feed Mill could potentially destroy civilization   I'm surprised a posse of concerned citizens hasn't already... "persuaded".... Wonka from going through with this plan.

Kerbal News Network: News Happens - Or Not 

"The Wonka factory lies in ruins tonight after the ill-fated tour. Many Kerbals have taken to rioting in the streets, proclaiming that the cutoff of snacks until the factory is rebuilt signifies the End Times. This reporter is inclined to agree."

*in background* "I'm gonna start looting!" 

"The Gardeners of the four sprouts that were severely injured have filed a massive lawsuit against Wonka Kerman and Wonka Snacks, Inc. Representing them in court is none other than Phoenix Kerman: Ace Attorney. We now go live to Inferior Court..."

[Geschosskopf]

On 9/25/2017 at 11:09 AM, Cydonian Monk said:

The planets are not on rails,...

Principia does have its own navigation tools and flight planner......

I'll have to start paying more attention to this, then   Thanks.

 

On 9/25/2017 at 12:34 PM, KAL 9000 said:

"The Wonka factory lies in ruins tonight........"

"The Gardeners of the four sprouts that were severely injured have filed a massive lawsuit against Wonka..........."

"Just another day in Metropolis," which segues neatly into........

EPISODE 8: Pocketful of Kryptonite

Spoiler

 

As mentioned above, the Boffins observed 2 erstwhile Jool sub-Minmus moonlets being flung from the solar system as a whole.  In other news, several junior Scientists attempted to make fortunes for themselves on the open market with Circus-derived technology.  Coincidentally, the Circus received a shipment of several new sciencemate striker astronauts from the press gang.

It was then time to check off the 2nd requirement of landing on Bop, obtaining a decent map of the place.  To this end, Bop SCANsat Mk 1 was sent there and, rather surprisingly in view of later events, got there without much going wrong.  And it fulfilled its mission in considerably less time than expected, given its Ap was only about 11km and Bop is tide-locked to Kerbin.  But Bop is so small that even at such a low altitude, the probe could see nearly a full hemisphere with its low-res sensors, so it only took about 4 orbits to do the job.  Unfortunately, due to a software glitch, the map itself is unavailable.  Sure, the Science! from making the map was quite useful but when asked to display the full-res version, the SCANsat software said it would only show the sun and Jool.  Bop wasn't on the list.  Numerous Scientist heads rolled.

About this time, Mission Control accepted contracts for doing long-term magnetic surveys of both Kerbin and Bop.  So the Boffins hammered together a suitable probe and put it on a lifter capable of going both places, even if the the "long-term" clause was cause for concern, given the frequency at which ships in space fail.  Regardless, Kerbin MagSat 1 was sent aloft.  Things did not go according to plan.  The tried-and-true "Kiwi" lifter engine kind of exploded on the way up, but at least waited until it was out of the atmosphere.

The "Spark" probe engine proved to be the "Little Engine that Couldn't".  Despite expending all its fuel in hopes of at least putting another relay in Kerbin orbit as redundancy (which was pointless because that antenna also failed), the Kerbin MagSat 1 re-entered and was destroyed.  Several pieces of it sank into the Northern Ocean but the technology to recover them does not exist.

As if to rub salt in the wounds left by the failure of Kerbin MagSat 1, one of the main Kerbin relays started falling apart.  This makes it questionable whether this probe can be de-orbited at all once its relay antenna fails.

The Boffins had heard that sometimes @DMagic's SCANsat software doesn't work until a body's parent body has also been scanned, so they put together an exact copy of the futile Bop SCANsat Mk 1 to scan Kerbin.  Ironically, the rocket-related stuff here worked perfectly, although the software still refused to show the Big Map of Kerbin after scanning it, and Bop still wasn't available, either.  The Boffins are now debating whether attempting to map Jool is even technologically feasible, let alone the answer to these problems.

By this time, the repeat Kerbin MagSat 2 was ready to go and it managed to get into position to fulfill its contract.  Despite the relay and 1 of its 2 direct antennae failing.  It got all its short-term objectives done so it's only a question of whether it can survive another 75 days in space without exploding.

With Kerbin's MagSat taken care of as best as can be, it was time to send a similar probe to Bop for that contract.  Sadly, this was to be a cursed venture.  Bop MagSat 1 completely exploded 11 seconds after launch.

The only happy news at this point was that Kerbin ConSat 1, which somehow was still functional, was contracted to change orbits by a CLASSIFIED agency.  This actually worked, and then the probe was put back into hibernation.

Around this time, Bop MagSat 2 completed integration and was wheeled out for launch.  Its story was pretty much a repeat of Bop MagSat 1's except with different details.  Using the oxidizer valve, Mission Control managed to stop the lifter's burn at the correct Ap despite the lifter engine's stuck throttle.  But Mission Control forgot to circularize at Ap, instead focusing its attention on setting up the transfer to Bop.  By the time Mission Control had finished plotting that, the probe was re-entering and nothing could save it.  This resulted in a purge of both senior Boffins and senior Scientists at Mission Control.

No Kerbals had been to space since the demise of Samner and Dizer.  Thus,, Jack remained the only unpopped Kerbal who'd experienced orbit.  This was unsatisfactory all around.  The Scientists hadn't had anybody to debrief/dissect in 100 days and there were zero artificersmates to repair damage on long-term missions, let alone any sciencemates able to wring the most out of whatever Science! fell in the Circus' lap.  Thus, the Circus decided it needed a training ship, so that pressees could get practical experience to reinforce their chemical and physical indoctrination regimens.  Besides, such a ship might prove useful for tourist contracts.  Thus was born the KB Tourer2 Mk 1, to which Bill and Bob were assigned.  Things did not go well.

Bob was shocked from his seat to go outside and try to fix the lifter engine but to no avail.  He also tried to fix the OMS engine, again without success.  Somewhat disappointingly, he managed to get back inside before reaching the atmosphere.  And surprisingly, staging off the OMS stage didn't break anything else..

Thus, after a short suborbital flight, Bill and Bob returned safely and were whisked away to their debriefing/dissections.

Next up was Bop MagSat 3.  This one started out OK but somewhere between leaving the atmosphere and circularizing into parking orbit prior to transferring to Bop, the probe's "Spark" engine exploded.  This bifurcated the rocket and left the payload to re-enter.  A few fragments survived the crash but this was small consolation.

As Mission Control toiled to bring its new members up to speed, it was pleasantly surprised to get the following message:

This means that wreckage can act as armor for so-far successful spacecraft.  All plans to recover what was left of Bop MagSat 3 were indefinitely postponed.

Then the KB Tourer2 Mk 2 was ready to go.  And guess what?  Bill and Bob, just returned to duty after their debriefing/dissections, were ready to give it another try.

Much to everybody's surprise, however, the KB Tourer2 Mk 2 survived not only launch but lifter separation.  It had been built to get to Bop and back so Mission Control decided to test that capability while the getting was good.  A fly-by of Bop and back to Kerbin can happen in less time than BARIS (known to the lower deck as Big, Angry, Ravenous Ingester of Spacecraft, the non-denominational version of The Kraken) goes between feedings (as I have it set up),, so why not?   Of course, there were dissenting opinions.

Bill and Bob snuck over to Bop while BARIS wasn't looking.

Unfortunately, when KB Tourer2 Mk 2 got to Bop, it was going to impact.  Given that Bop's SOI reaches only to  11km ASL, and Bop's mountains stick up (frequently)) to about 2km ASL, there's not much margin for error.  Especially given that a trip through Bop's SOI on a minimal-dV transfer from Kerbin only takes about 1 minute.  So it was all hands on deck for a maximum emergency burn of the hypergolic OMS engine, which just barely succeeded in clearing the mountaintops.  As a result, Bill and Bob were unable to get EVA reports from "low" Bop orbit, but did get everything else they could.

The radial burn required to avoid lawndarting near Bop's north pole put KB Tourer2 Mk 2 slightly inside of and a bit more above Bop once it left Bop's SOI.   It thus caught up with Bop again and discovered a stock La Grange point, (the preceding link is to appropriate music, not technobable, given that this episode's theme song is probably over by now) where it kept switching in and out of Bop's SOI every half-second without gaining or losing a meter of distance to either Bop or Kerbin.  KB Tourer2 Mk 2 was trapped here for a long time while Mission Control waited for this siege of kinda-sorta expected KSP conniption fits to pass.  But they didn't, and no doubt KB Tourer2 Mk 2 would still be trapped there had it not burned about 100m/s retrograde in small bursts when in Kerbin's rather than Bop's SOI.  Bill and Bob set a record not likely to be surpassed, for doing several hundred fly-bys of Bop.

And so KB Tourer2 Mk 2 eventually came back into Kerbin's atmosphere in working order.  Mission Control ditched the OMS stage by manual decouple rather than staging, then manually triggered the chutes one by 1 as soon as it was safe to do so.  Bill and Bob came down safely in the ocean about at the antipode of KSC so had to tread water a long time before the recovery crew arrived,.  How the recovery crew can go halfway around the planet, pick up a payload, and return without BARIS biting them is still a mystery.

 

 

Tune in next time for more of the slow spiral into damnation.

Edited September 30, 2017 by Geschosskopf

[Angelo Kerman]

Big Angry Ravenous Ingestor of Spacecraft, a.k.a. BARIS the Kraken, I love it!

[Geschosskopf]

On 9/25/2017 at 9:28 PM, Angel-125 said:

Big Angry Ravenous Ingestor of Spacecraft, a.k.a. BARIS the Kraken, I love it!

In my line of work, we're concerned about a thing called BLEVE (Boiling Liquid Expanding Vapor Explosion).  It's what happens (for example) when you get fire impinging on a propane tank for too long.  See this very informative video.  But anyway, amongst the lower deck at the firehouse, BLEVE has 2 other, more to-the-point meanings:  Big Loud Explosion Vaporizes Everything and Blast Levels Everything Very Effectively.  As such, I couldn't help but redefine BARIS along similar lines  

Edited September 28, 2017 by Geschosskopf

[KAL 9000]

NEW CHAPTER

[Dman979]

On 9/26/2017 at 12:00 AM, Geschosskopf said:

In my line of work, we're concerned about a thing called BLEVE (Boiling Liquid Expanding Vapor Explosion).  It's what happens (for example) when you get fire impinging on a propane tank for too long.  See this very informative video.

Looks like the link doesn't work.

[Geschosskopf]

2 minutes ago, Dman979 said:

Looks like the link doesn't work.

Fixed.  Thanks.

[Dman979]

And now that looks like a very Boffin way to launch a rocket!

[Geschosskopf]

1 minute ago, Dman979 said:

And now that looks like a very Boffin way to launch a rocket!

Funny thing about that....  When I first got in this business, the DOT's Emergency Response Guidebook gave the evacuation radius around a large burning propane tank as 1/2 mile.  Shortly thereafter, a group of firemen were 1/2 mile away waiting for a burning propane tanker truck to BLEVE, so they could then go in and put out any remaining fire.  When the truck finally exploded, about 1/2 of it, a piece weighing a number of tons, flew over their heads and landed 1/4 mile behind them.  Thus, the next addition of the ERG increased the radius to 1 mile

Another funny story.  We once responded to a fire in a detached garage.  The door was open and the inside was all 1 big ball of fire.  We were dragging a hose up to the building and my partner dropped the part he was holding.  When he bent down to pick it up again, a 20-lb (BBQ size) propane bottle came rocketing out of the fire.  It didn't fully BLEVE, but was flying due to the pressure of escaping gas, which was of course burning behind it.  Anyway, this went right over his back while he was bent over, took a chunk out of a tree behind him, and then skittered off down the street a ways until it ran out of fuel.  My partner stood up slowly, looked at the damage to the tree, then walked shakily back to the truck and sat on the front bumper.  His knees were shaking too much to work   He was back to normal after an hour or so.

[Dman979]

6 minutes ago, Geschosskopf said:

Another funny story.  We once responded to a fire in a detached garage.  The door was open and the inside was all 1 big ball of fire.  We were dragging a hose up to the building and my partner dropped the part he was holding.  When he bent down to pick it up again, a 20-lb (BBQ size) propane bottle came rocketing out of the fire.  It didn't fully BLEVE, but was flying due to the pressure of escaping gas, which was of course burning behind it.  Anyway, this went right over his back while he was bent over, took a chunk out of a tree behind him, and then skittered off down the street a ways until it ran out of fuel.  My partner stood up slowly, looked at the damage to the tree, then walked shakily back to the truck and sat on the front bumper.  His knees were shaking too much to work   He was back to normal after an hour or so.

There once was a Kerb from Nantucket,
Who put propane in a bucket,
As he lit a fire,
The pressure grew higher,
And the bucket turned into a rocket!

Edited September 28, 2017 by Dman979
Added quote

[Geschosskopf]

EPISODE 9: Twa Corbies

Spoiler

 

(NOTE:  this song is in Scots, an old English-based patois of older languages common in that area back when.  I' ye nae ken the lyrrrrics, 't'is abooot twa sae-called 'crows' atin' ane dead lairrrrrd forrrr whom nae carrre)

Picking up where it left off, the AKTC continued to throw MagSats and Tourer2s onto the waiting spears of Bop.  But against all odds, the Circus somehow started making headway against the tide of malfunctions.  Much to Mission Control's surprise, MagSat Bop Mk 4 actually got there, accomplished its short-term goals, and settled into its designated orbit.  To make things even better, the probe's redundant relay antenna, while crippled, still kinda worked after a fashion.  So now it's just a wait to see if it can go another 119 days without exploding.

No, the above pic  was definitely NOT taken in a sound stage.  Any resemblance to a cardboard cut-out of Kerbin being hung from the antennae of a fake Bop Magsat Mk 4 is coincidental.  The lack of stars is due to black curtains behind the stage the brightness of the sun.  Even a blind sow finds an acorn once in a while.  Such was the case with Bop MagSat Mk 4..  That's the official Circus line and I know better than to disagree.

Then it was time to train another 2 striker sciencemates, Hudlong and Billy-Boford.  Their 1st launch did not go well.

As Billy-Bobford had predicted, no sooner had they healed up from their debriefing/dissections but they were crammed into the KB Toue2 Mk 4, which coincidentally had finished integration just then.  A major leak in the OMS stage during the transfer burn to Bop required them to turn around and abort any Bop encounter, but somehow they survived.  The Scientists noted that the chemical indoctrination of Hudlong was ahead of schedule but found it necessary to raise Billy-Bobford's dosages substantially 

At this point, the Circus noticed that it had 2 more dead Kerbals than it remembered killing.  Somehow, the deaths of Wilnie and Melfurt had gone unnoticed until Y1 D377 despite them having bitten it prior to Silong's unfortunate attempt to take off in the Recon Jet.  Oh well, there's no such thing as bad publicity.  Better late than never.  They probably died in training (a BARIS option) but no notice of anything amiss with Kerbals had popped up.

And so the Hearse rolled out again, and 2 more flags were inserted clumsily into the near arrangement of the other 5.

By this time, the KB Tourer2 Mk 5 was ready and striker artificersmate Jenmon and striker sciencemate Shelbas were ready to go on a trip hopefully to Bop.

Once in LKO, newly promoted AM3 Jenmon managed to patch the leaks in the OMS stage enough to get to Bop and return.

And so the KB Tourer2 Mk 5 flew by Bop and did ALMOST as may extra fly-bies as Bill and Bob on its way out.  Eventually it returned to Kerbin.  Jenmon and Shelbas were soon being debriefed/dissected.  As with Hudlong and Billy-Bobford, this was all in preparation for greater things.

By now, the various activities of the Circus had resulted in the development of 2.5m engines and stuff.  Which basically meant starting all over, because none of the new stuff was at all reliable, even considering the unreliability of the well-tested existing equipment.  The new parts required a long series of test stand firings.  There were many explosions, but noticeably fewer than before.  Perhaps going up the tech tree results in an improvement in quality.

And then it was time to launch the most ambitious Circus scheme yet, a probe lander intended to return home from the surface of Bop.  Given that the Circus had no map of Bop (despite trying various fixes), that getting to Bop at all was iffy, that the Circus had no idea at all of the dV requirements to land and take off from Bop, and that the recently trained and indoctrinated astronauts were intended for other projects, this mission had to be unkerbed.  To Missoin Control's complete surprise, however the entire mission went flawlessly.  Not a single part malfunctioned during the entire duration of the mission.

Landing proved to be very cheap.  The trip from Kerbin to Bop is ~650m/s for the transfer, ~300m/s to capture, and about 75-100m/s to land and take off again.  Not knowing this ahead of time, however, the Boffins had made the rocket to use a "crasher stage" to save as much lander fuel as possible for the return trip. Upon ditching the crasher stage, only the engine exploded, leaving the tank to roll down the steep hillside out from under the actual lander.

The probe landed in Bop's "Boplands".  There is at present no way to tell if there are any other biomes there.

Once again, the weird orbital mechanics in the vicinity of Bop caused the probe to flash many times into and out of Bop's SOI as soon as it left the first time.  Still, it didn't come close to the record set by Bill and Bob.  And eventually, the Bop Probe Lander returned home safely.  This was the 1st mission of the AKTC to go from launch to recovery without a single part malfunctioning.

 

Tune in next time for more of the slow spiral into damnation.

 

 

Edited October 2, 2017 by Geschosskopf

[KAL 9000]

Y'Know, we might want to sacrifice something to BARIS to make the missions go better. 

I'm running out of family members. Any ideas?

[Geschosskopf]

1 hour ago, KAL 9000 said:

Y'Know, we might want to sacrifice something to BARIS to make the missions go better. 

I'm running out of family members. Any ideas?

I'm guessing this is what happened to Wilnie and Melfurt.  If so, their sacrifice was in vain.  Things have not improved. lately.