Should Bill Be A Badass Too? (Alternative Title Bill's Folly)

[The Flying Kerbal]

Those Kerbals... honestly, you can't turn your back on them for five seconds without them getting into some mischief.  Take yesterday for example...

It was a quiet weekend round at the KSC, no major missions were active and most of the staff were enjoying the fine weather away from the complex with family and friends.  Not Bill though, he had been locked away in his office for weeks without revealing to anyone what he was up to.  Not being seen by his fellow Kerbals, food left outside his door remaining untouched, not a sound emitting from behind that locked door got them all worried... just what was he up to??

One of the original four, nobody would ever have called Bill a badass, he certainly wasn't Mr. Personality like Jeb who just loves being in the spotlight, images plastered all over the press etc.  Bill was never interested in this and tended to shun the cameras.  So what happened yesterday was totally out of character, resulting in tons of publicity and possible disciplinary procedures being enacted against him.

What he did was this:

"Bill's Folly"

He had been arguing for months that the KSA should look into the possibility of a Single Stage To Orbit (SSTO) launch vehicle, but nobody seemed particularly interested.  They were more than satisfied with the present range of rockets which had been provided by Flying Deathtraps Rocketry and other private contractors.  Bill was adamant though, the cost of launching payloads into space could be drastically cut if a SSTO could be developed which would reenter the atmosphere, be recovered and refurbished, and then reused for further missions.

Realising he was bashing his head against a brick wall, which doesn't really hurt a Kerbal because of its particularly solid skull, he disappeared into his office, and there he stayed!  Most people thought he was just huffing at not getting his way, nobody suspected he was working on something which would see his future in the KSA in jeopardy, and the entire organisation left with egg all over its face.

He had planned it very well, knowing this particular weekend would see few Kerbals about, Bill had secretly gathered together the not inconsiderable amount of materials and components required to build his experimental SSTO.  It had been quietly assembled in a dark and secluded corner of the VAB without drawing anyone's attention, with the help of the small number of fellow SSTO enthusiasts Bill had managed to recruit.  At dawn on Sunday, they secretly assembled at the VAB, opened the doors and started the slow process of rolling their masterpiece  - now named "Bill's Folly" - out to the launchpad.  As it inched towards the final launch position, Bill raced into the changing room to get into his spacesuit.

Strapped into the small capsule on top of his creation, Bill went through the final checklist before launch while his collaborators manning the necessary consoles and control panels in mission control, nervously watched the countdown edge towards zero...

...A bright flash followed an instant later by an earsplitting roar tended to suggest that the countdown might have finally reached 0:00:00, a feeling reinforced as the entire mission control complex shook and vibrated as the shockwave of the engines erupting into life bounced and echoed all over and around the KSC.  "Liftoff", shouted one of Bill's buddies, to be followed almost immediately by "Towweeeer Clearrrrr"!  Even with the noise and violence of the rocket engines directly beneath him, Bill couldn't help but point out that there wasn't in fact a tower to clear, urging everyone in mission control to keep calm and not get overly excited.

"Towweeeer Clearrrrr"!

Even at 2/3 throttle, the seven huge "Reliant" engines rapidly propelled the vehicle skywards, consuming an extortionate amount of fuel in the process.  Struggling to keep the vessel under control, as it reached a speed of 75m/s Bill leaned over in his seat (they hadn't managed to "borrow" proper controls for their clandestine activities) to try to initiate something resembling a gravity turn.  Slowly ever so slowly Bill's Folly started to tilt in a roughly easterly direction, out over the ocean...

"Bill leaned over in his seat..."

As the rocket's velocity rapidly increased, keeping the vehicle on course was proving more and more difficult.  Everyone involved knew that if Bill's Folly's heading should wander even slightly off the prograde marker before its altitude reached 45,000 meters, the whole vessel would instantly go into an unrecoverable flip and Bill would be forced to pull the abort string (remember, no proper controls).  With a supreme effort and not without skills that would have impressed even Jeb, Bill managed to wrestle the vessel into keeping pointing prograde (just!) until it reached the altitude he knew would see the danger of flipping come to an end.  "OK Bill, you should be safe for orbit now" radioed mission control, "Yes, she's much more stable and easy to control now," answered Bill, "fuel slightly lower than expected but within safety margins, electric charge at maximum, cabin pressure holding at 5.5, I am go for orbit!"

"I am go for orbit!"

Watching closely, mission control was tasked with informing Bill when to shutdown the engines once his Ap had reached around 72,000 meters.  "OK Willie, you now need to get your sideways speed up a bit, level off and floor it mate." came the instruction.  "Roger, I will now go horizontal and throttle up  to maximum to increase my lateral velocity." came the reply, and Bill leaned over on the very edge of his seat to tilt the rocket right over towards the horizon.

"...level off mate."

The seven powerful engines effortlessly pushed the Ap. to the 72K mark, and Bill got the message for engine shutdown a very few seconds after "levelling off".  It had proven to be no easy job to keep the speed of the ascent of the Ap under control, and the engines were quiet for only a few seconds before he again was told to reignite them for orbit insertion.  The burn should have lasted four seconds, but Bill overran by about 1/5 of a second and the Ap ended up at well over 100K, although the Pe was at a much more acceptable 72.5K.  As the cheers from mission control came over the radio, Bill couldn't help but break into a loud cheer himself, having finally realised his dream of using a single stage to lift a payload into orbit.

" Bill overran by 1/5 of a second"

Having made orbit, the next procedure was to get back down again.  Bill dipped the fuel tanks (you didn't think he had proper fuel gauges, did you?) and nervously did a quick calculation on a snack wrapper.  "What's your fuel like up there Bill", came a well timed message from the ground.  "Yes, I'm just checking that now", answered Bill.  With the struggle to control Bill's Folly during the flight through the lower atmosphere and now the overrun of the engines as he entered orbit, Bill realised that getting back was going to be marginal at best.  The original plan had been to reduce the Pe to below zero, for a landing as close to the KSC as possible, but now the fuel to do so just wasn't there.  "OK mission control, I am unable to complete the deorbital burn as planned, I will burn off all remaining fuel at Ap. and attempt to reduce my Pe. sufficiently to reenter the atmosphere."

"You could always get out and push Willie".

"To save weight I didn't bring a jetpack for EVA.  I will now begin a manoeuvre to point retrograde in preparation for deorbit burn".

"Jeez mate, you're half an orbit away from Ap, chill out, relax, enjoy yourself up there... have a beer on us".

 Ignoring the suggestion from mission control, Bill engaged the RCS to help align the vessel retrograde in readiness for reentry.  It took only a few seconds before this was complete and the vessel now sped sideways around Kerbin, altitude climbing as Bill's Folly orbited around towards the Ap.

"...the vessel now sped sideways..."

Time went by, and beneath the cheering and celebrating, a note of tension had crept into the communications between Bill's Folly and the KSC.  The fuel situation was now on everyone's mind, it only had to reduce the height of the Pe. by about two thousand meters to insure some kind of landing, but the small amount of fuel left couldn't guarantee even this!

The seconds rolled into minutes and as the time for the burn approached, the celebrations were slowly replaced by quietness, this fuel situation was potentially serious.  Mission control was to give Bill a final countdown to the burn... tensely a voice came over the radio, "Right Bill, engine start in 5... 4... 3... 2... 1... ZERO!"  Suddenly the calm that had encased Bill's Folly since entering orbit was shattered as for less than a second the engines fired off the remaining fuel at fuel throttle.  Almost immediately after starting, they went silent for the last time; "That didn't take long", Bill said tensely over the radio, "what's my Pe?"

"We're just checking that now Bill, standby... "It's all good Bill, your Pe. has dropped to under 40K, we'll stick the kettle on!", said a relief filled voice and Bill could also be heard blowing out a long loud breath over the radio.

"It's all good Bill... we'll stick the kettle on!"

Now came the most dangerous part of the mission, the reentry.  Bill's Folly quickly started to lose altitude as its pilot armed the parachute system.  An emergency procedure could be activated which would jettison the entire booster section from the command module, and now the plan to have a little fuel left to burn a second before landing wasn't possible, it was very much on the cards Bill would be forced to use it.

Plunging down to around 35K and the fiery heat of reentry became visible to Bill as he looked up through the window.  Using the engines as heat shields to absorb the worst of what the atmosphere could throw at the still hypersonic vessel, Bill knew if it should start to deviate off retrograde now, he could be in for a very bad time.  And just then it did start to do just that.  Try as he might, Bill just couldn't stop the vessel slowly swing away from the retrograde vector, and he could find the heat building up in the command module.

"Using the engines as heat shields"

"I can't keep her properly aligned Bill yelled into the radio.  It's looking bad up here, temperature's building and I've no way of keeping her retrograde.  I must have miscalculated somewhere, I knew I shoulda put new batteries in that damned calculator.  It'll take a miracle to get outta this one guys!"  Even as he finished speaking, the sound of something exploding could be heard over the radio, followed two seconds later by another equally as violent.  "Here's goes, she's breaking up... something's exploded... can't tell what.  Wait a minute, this can't be right... hey guys, she's aligning herself back on the retrograde vector.  Cabin temperature dropping, velocity one nine double oh".  But opening the champagne would have been premature, Bill's ordeal wasn't over just yet.  "Mission control, she's wandering off retrograde again.  Temperature building... G Force increasing... time for another miracle...".  More explosions could be heard, but this time no reassuring voice came over the radio at mission control.  "I'm still tracking something", said the radar operator, "she must be still intact."

"Bill, come in Bill... can you hear me buddy?"  Nothing... dead silence answered the message from the KSC.  Long faces full of worry and concern stared at each other as fear gripped everyone in mission control; maybe this sneaky illegal launch wasn't such a clever idea after all?

"Bill can you hear me Bill, waiting for your response..."

"Hello, hello mission control... Bill's Folly here, chute's just deploying in drogue mode, sorry 'bout that, I guess I musta passed out with the G Forces.  I don't know how but I'm still in one piece."

"...chute's just deploying in drogue mode."

With the seven parachutes acting as brakes stopping the returning spaceship from smashing into the ocean at a velocity which would still be close to the speed of sound, Bill noticed it dropping fast until it settled at around 34m/s.  The chutes however had still to fully open, which would reduce the velocity further, the question now was by how much?  With no fuel left in the tank and the last second burn impossible, everything depended on how efficiently those seven pieces of cloth would be able to counter the gravity pulling Bill's Folly inexorably down towards the ocean.

At 500 meters, Bill was subjected to yet more shaking as the parachutes finally opened fully.  Staring intensely at the gauge, Bill willed it to fall below 7m/s, the maximum the engines could withstand before exploding.  Down it tumbled, 15... 14... 13... the deceleration suddenly slowed down significantly, but still the needle in the gauge continued to fall towards the 7.  "Velocity six point two!" roared a voice over the radio at mission control, "Mission successful, it works guys, we have a fully functional SSTO on our hands!"  The cheers echoed around the entire KSC complex, and it took some time for them to realise that Bill - and Bill's Folly - now needed recovering. 

Splashdown was nothing special...

"Velocity six point two!"

It was the explosions during reentry that saved Bill's life.  As Bill's Folly slammed through the atmosphere and started to drift out of alignment, the intense heat blew off two winglets on the bottom of the vessel.  This changed the airflow which pulled the ship back on the retrograde vector.  However this was only temporary, the vessel again started drifting off retrograde, this time in the opposite direction.  Again two more winglets exploded once more changing the airflow and putting the vessel back into the correct attitude, this time permanently.  Bill lost conscience because of the intense G Forces being generated by all the swinging and aerobraking, regaining his senses just in time to see the parachutes deploying in drogue mode.

"Splashdown was nothing special..."

 Unfortunately for Bill and his conspirators, the powers that be were not impressed with his little joyride; they've been suspended on full pay and awaiting an enquiry into their actions.  However I'm told from sources well placed in the KSA that both Gene and Wernher are going to speak up on their behalf and ultimately they'll probably be rewarded for their actions that day.  Wernher has also said he'll take another look at SSTO's as clearly they do offer huge potential although much more development and research would be needed to make them a viable launch system.

 

 

Edited November 7, 2017 by The Flying Kerbal
Spelling Mistakes... :(

[KSK]

Literally steering a rocket by the seat of his pants? Yep - I'd say he's a badS alright! Heck - I can't even balance on a Wii Fit board long enough to play a decent game of Hawt Virtual Snowboarding IV (or whatever it's called). I tip my hat to Bill.

On a serious note - nice story! Really enjoyed your laid back flight controllers.  

[JK_Kerbineer]

On 11/6/2017 at 5:34 PM, The Flying Kerbal said:

the powers that be were not impressed with his little joyride

Jeb must have been a little jealous.