Voyage to the red planet (Duna on Kerbalism)

[MacLuky]

Strange, they look okay here. but imgbb.com is having difficulties at the moment.

[Geschosskopf]

On 1/24/2018 at 3:10 PM, MacLuky said:

"This is great! I'll need to confirm in the lab, but it looks like the ice extends meters below the surface." Half an hour later when Harricks words were received by KSC a crowed erupted in joy and applause.

Yay!

 

On 1/24/2018 at 3:43 PM, NCommander said:

Screenshots look like they got eaten by the forums software. Only the Dust Clouds image is showing.

All working for me.

[MacLuky]

Chapter 14: A sparkle in the sky

“T-15 automated capture burn set at a 1 minute and 22 second burn.” The guys at KSC were looking at the data. “Telemetry is looking good.” Gene smiled, “you know, we can be nervous about it, but it has already happened. We are looking at the past.”

The Sparkle probe grazed the atmosphere and completed her atmospheric exit exactly as planned. Almost immediately the relay satellites re-established control and the probe started circularising.

“Correction burn is low on delta-v, the computer is switching to the emergency scenario and dropping this thing in the atmosphere, now lets hope Bills new retro-propulsion system works.” said Gene. “We will know in the next few hours,” replied Bill.

“It’s through the upper atmosphere, we are getting good telemetry,” Bill sounded really happy about his secret project. “Chutes did deploy right on the mark.”

“Hmm, one of the retro rockets is malfunctioning, the landing computer disabled it and its pairing brother on the other side, lets hope we have enough thrust.” Gene looked at the team, which was working franticly to interpret data from half a light hour away.

“Rockets firing, speed is dropping,” everybody was looking at the data streams that poured in. “Touchdown, and … where did my feed go?” Bill looked at is screen. “I lost telemetry, too,” Nav exclaimed. “Signal dead,” Things did not look good. 

“Go over the data again team, what can you tell me?” Gene kept his calm. It didn’t take the team long to figure out that the probe had landed with low enough velocity to survive, but probably toppled over on a steep slope and destroyed its uplink antenna. “It may have dropped into an abyss, but more likely its still okay, but on its side.” Bill and Gene, concurred. “Lets tell the team that they should check it out.”

Granted, the team was reluctant. The detour to investigate the Sparkles crash site would eat several out of their budget, and more importantly: not get them to any new biomes so, no new science.

“Found her, she fell over, but is looking intact. But might slip down the hill” Val was making her report and sending camera data to KSC. She parked in front of it and Naul disembarked to check out the contents of Bills secret package.

“Oh you won’t believe what this contains! I’m gonna love puzzling this together.” Naul smiled and started extracting parts and schematics from the containers.

 
“Its a small drone plane, powered by fission reactor and using the new Xeon powered ion engines.” Naul was quite excited. “Do you think it can reach the highlands?” Harrick came in over the comms. He was still not happy about the detour.

“Reading a TWR of 0.76 and 5347 m/s delta-v, this thing is a potential SSTO!” Harrick and Naul were admiring the plane and observing the ions kick in for the first time.

“Test flight is looking good, we can get her off the ground, but she’s pulling a bit too the left.” The team decided to pull the chute and drive up to the landing location.

“Well there’s your problem, right there, the lower right wing is not aligned properly,” Naul looked annoyed at Harrick who was pointing out her mistake. “You just reset those experiments, while I fix this.” she said.

Since the time to visit additional biomes was short, the team decided they would try to remote pilot the craft to fly above the highlands regions and capture the science data, while flying above it.

“Running a high altitude test, bringing her up to 14 km” Naul was quite happy with the performance. The landing and take-off speed was still ridiculous compared to Kerbin, but with the parachute they could manage a safe landing.

“Wow this data is awesome,” Harrick exclaimed when looking at the samples that were brought back. “We should send her to the south pole crater!” The south pole crater was the only interesting biome that they had not been able to visit. Naul quickly mounted the last Xeon gas canisters to replace the fuel,

Despite all the excitement on the ground, interesting things were also happening 156 km above them.

Meanwhile in orbit the R18 Duna orbiter achieved a perfect alignment with Ike and the team at KSC started the burn that would redirect the oldest of the Duna scan satellites to a new destination.

Hours later it was already mapping the surface of Ike and started magnetic and biome mapping of Dunas companion.

“Are you sure,” Naul said to Valentine, “You do realise that you are sitting on a nuclear reactor?” but even that seemed to make no impression. “As long as the radiator works I should be okay.” she replied.

“She is totally badass,” Harrick exclaimed when he saw Valentia become the first kerbal to fly on Duna.

And so she set-off, made a great flight and set a new altitude record for manned flight on a foreign body. “Even at high altitude she handles well” Valentina later mentioned in her report. “Recommend adding a Sparkle to every manned mission to Duna as emergency SSTO.

 
The Sparkle 4c would make her last soft landing 4km from the rover and Valentina would still be high on endorphins from her flight by the time the team caught up with her. "Thanks Bill, it was amazing," she send over her comms to KSC.

 

[insert_name]

thats a cute plane, must have been a pain to set up with kis though

[Geschosskopf]

Flying on Duna!  My favorite thing  '  Welcome to the club, and kudos for doing it in a very unique way!  A "home-built" aircraft!  Brilliant!

 

 

Edited January 27, 2018 by Geschosskopf

[MacLuky]

Chapter 15 Household chores

The Progress D1 was the final craft in the flotilla that arrived. Its proximity to the relay network woke the probe from its sleep and after more than 300 days KSC regained access to its systems and started running diagnostics and telemetry calculations. Apparently the exit vector had been perfect, because there was no need for course corrections.

After a rather uneventful capture burn the probe ran out of fuel but ended up so close to the Odyssey that the intercept could be done using monopropellant.

From there the automated docking computer aligned the probe and back on the Odyssey Tomoley made sure docking went as expected.

And with hard dock confirmed, supplies and more importantly water reserves were enough to last for at least a year. Tomoly started the harvest in the greenhouse, things were looking very good. But he was feeling lonely, and missed his teammates that had been on the surface for more than 80 days now.

Back on Duna the Atlas 4 had made it back to the safety of Hab 1. The team would rest, run some final experiments and make sure all soil, goo and drill samples were processed and transmitted back to Kerbin, then they would wrap up and start the long journey to the ascent vehicle that was parked 200km to the west and had given some reports of broken panels and parachutes.

 

[Geschosskopf]

2 hours ago, MacLuky said:

But he was feeling lonely, and missed his teammates that had been on the surface for more than 80 days now.

Wow, time flies when you're having fun  Seems like they just got there....

[MacLuky]

Chapter 16 The ride of the Red Dragon

After locking up the affairs in the base, transferring one of the nitrogen filters to the hull and disabling disabling the habitat, the team drove off in the heading of the direction of their ride to orbit. “I can see it in the distance,” Val exclaimed. “Good, that means that its upright,” Naul grinned.

The three of them examined the craft, it seemed so small compared to the regular Soyuz they had all flown back home. “I’ll transfer the samples,” Harrick went about but during his second pass he slipped. “Whaaaaat,” and with that, he plummeted through a solar panel, tore his suit and crashed into the ground. “Quickly, get him in the Dragon before his suit loses pressure,” Valentina said.

“No more EVA’s for you,” Val said to Harrick who was patching his suit. “There are spare suits on the Odyssey,” he replied. “Yeah but I gotta clean up the mess you made of the rover,” Naul replied. It took a bit of juggling, but she managed to rearrange the panels so the Atlas 4 could run on solar power during their absence. That way the fission reactor would be spared for the next team. Naul also transferred goo canisters, material bays and new parachutes to the Dragon, while Valentina parked the rover a small distance away so that the cameras could record their ascent.

“All systems are green, the Odyssey is approaching the marked coordinates in orbit, launching in 3, 2, 1,” Valentina, flipped the switch and the 4 909 type engines ignited right on the mark.

“We’ve got good TWR, data relay is far in the green, nav is looking good.” The rocket team did a good job designing a rocket that was not fully tested on Kerbin. Retracting the gear went down without a glitch.

“I appreciate the fact that they rushed the Dragon in time to be here for us, but the interior could have done with a paint job.” Harrick was making jokes again. “I hear MacLuky Space Solutions has taken over from Cardboard Processor to refurbish the Dragons,” said Naul. “I’ll settle for grey if it gets us home,” said Valentina.

“There’s a ton of fuel in this thing.” Valentina was surprised, with a direct rendez-vous it looked like they wouldn’t need the second stage at all.

“Amazing view, its good to see her again.” The Odyssey was shining in the sunlight when the Dragon completed his rendez-vous. 

From there is was a series of basic manoeuvring bursts that Valentina could do in her sleep. With less than 10 units of LFO the Dragon docked to the side of the Odyssey and after a brief checklist and fuel transfer, 

the hatch was opened and the team was reunited with Tomoly who had kept the Odyssey in tip-top shape. Then it was time for laughter, stories and fresh produce from the greenhouse.

 

[MacLuky]

@Geschosskopf Yes the flying was fun. Really hard to land in one piece, I ended up adding a parachute since there were plenty left on the rover after its descent. I think I could have SSTO but didn't want to try. I could have done more on Duna, but there is only so much red sand that truly differentiates. A base is headed for north pole, I expect a new crew to stay longer.

 

[Geschosskopf]

4 hours ago, MacLuky said:

Spoiler

 

The above is a surprisingly violent, explosion-filled pic for the jovial and care-free mood of the reunited crew    Anyway, good job and good luck on the return journey!

 

3 hours ago, MacLuky said:

@Geschosskopf Yes the flying was fun. Really hard to land in one piece, I ended up adding a parachute since there were plenty left on the rover after its descent. I think I could have SSTO but didn't want to try. I could have done more on Duna, but there is only so much red sand that truly differentiates. A base is headed for north pole, I expect a new crew to stay longer.

That was such a cool Duna plane.  I hope your north pole base will have a plane, too, so the folks there can see the whole place.

[MacLuky]

Yes the separator collided with the first stage. Kerbal fireworks ;-)

[MacLuky]

Chapter 17 The unexpected detour

“Its good to be back and have some fresh krosswords,” said Naul. With still 21 days to their departure window the crew had finally found some downtime. Valentina and Tomoly were enjoying a game of “ko” for which the koogle company back on Kerbin had just developed a world champion AI. Harrick floated in the central structure of the ring, “guys, incoming transmission from KSC, prio 1.” 
“And despite the *crack* long overdue .. *crackle*” the audio came in. “Damn solar flares,” said Naul, “let me tune in a bit better.” suddenly the audio became clear and the printer started at the exact same moment. “Without further ado let me present your mission patches, and we are very sorry we couldn’t get them ready when you left.”

 

“Ehm, could’t they have asked @DiscoSlelge?” said Valentina. “That’s a big mistake, why is Ike on the patch?” said Tomoly.” “and in case you are wondering,” continued the audio transmission, “we’ve done the math and are sending you to an additional expedition on Ike.”

In the next few hours, more and more details poured in. They had to scavenge some parts from the Progress, move the lander to the front and transfer two of the Odysseys monopropellant tanks to the Dragon. It was a good thing that the team had brought an additional materials bay and goo experiment. It was with heavy heart that Tomoly unscrewed the carefully layout science instruments and attached them to empty spots on the Dragon.

“Eh Tomoly, can you check the Progress? I can’t seem to disengage the docking clamp. The system says nothing is docked.” Naul radioed in with a frown on her forehead. This they had not seen since 1.0.5 and that was long, long ago.

“This I can’t fix, better notify KSC, perhaps they can browse the forums for a solution.” Several hours later a large set of instructions got transferred to the repair station of the Odyssey. “You’ve got to be kidding me?” said Naul. Looking at the detailed instructions from @aerowook  aerowook industries. “Next time they should include an emergency release,” Tomoly said. “or we should bring explosives,” smiled Naul who was up to the challenge of going through a zillion lines of code. 

With a soft “clank” the ships separated, and Valentina had already set an escape trajectory to Ike. “Wait for me to get inside,” said Harrick who had finished setting up the last set of experiments. The red giant sunk in the background when Valentina pointed the nose of the Odyssey to the escape vector.

“3-2-1 initiating burn.” Since the latest software upgrade an annoying OLDD dialogue kept popping up, “there’s a dll somewhere that needs to be sent to eternal digital hunting grounds,” said Tomoly while going over the file structure. “It can wait till after the burn,” said Valentina.

The course was laid out perfectly and a small correction burn would put them in an almost equatorial plane. According to KSC a 13km orbit was the lowest they could go. Which would minimise the load on the Dragon for ascent and descent.

The burn happend exactly at the point where Ike would eclipse the sun and the team almost forgot to shut down the engines because of the beautiful view. “People will make postcards of this,” Valentina said. “one day,”

After an uneventful capture, Harrick headed out to collect some more solar data and reset the collectors every time they passed over a new biome. “Looks just like the Mun,” he said, while floating peacefully perpendicular to the Odyssey.

“altitude is really low, I do hope that radar data is within reasonable error margin,” Naul was slightly worried. “I have the feeling I can reach out and touch those mountain tops.” said Tomoly. Harrick was just admiring the view. 

“Heads up team! we can hit only a few biomes based on our current orbit and fuel reserves so lets make sure we land at the right spot.” Valentina had started planning the descent. “Hmm, two biomes here, or perhaps 3 there if we can fly.” she continued. “I’ve got an idea, let me step outside and go over those spare parts containers, I think I have a solution,” said Naul.

[Geschosskopf]

Pretty nifty that you can reconfigure stuff for an unexpected mission  

And kudos on getting that stuck docking port working.  That's the thing that annoys me the most. about the game.

[DiscoSlelge]

I laughed

[MacLuky]

@DiscoSlelge I saw your patches later on, they are so awesome. I'll put in a request for one with the next mission ;-)

@Geschosskopf KIS is great, especially if you make stuff up on the fly. It would be nice if they added something like mirroring.

[NCommander]

KAS/KIS lets you re-enact the Martian in KSP; it's probably one of the single greatest utility mods after KER and KAC.

Was curious if you were going to Ike on this mission. I'm currently looking at building the first Mun base in my kerbalism game, and managed to smash a probe into Minnus (... forgot stock Kerbalism locks out controls when !signal). Interplantary with crew in Kerbalism is ridiculously hard due to both life support+part failures (and Mr. CME). Did you use many high quality parts for say your hab or?

[MacLuky]

No I opted for redundancy, just have a fallback for everything, because you will lose stuff along the way. I am currently designing a ship for Jool with loads of shields habitats, multiple engines and at least 5 generators. But first I must finish this series.

[MacLuky]

Chapter 18 A hike on Ike

“Away team has transferred into the lander KSC, all readouts are green,” Valentina was posting mission updates. The Dragon capsule looked a lot less aerodynamic with all the bits an pieces they had added to it. Tomoly had serious doubt on the stability and balance of the added RCS tanks.

The capsule detached and embarked on a mission it was never created for. The delta-v in the landing system was barely enough to land on Kerbin, now it would have to land and launch the crew back to orbit. “Reaction control, seems okay, perhaps a bit sluggish,” Valentina was trying to figure out if Tomoly had been right.

Once the deorbit started there was no way back. Turned out that the fears were grounded and the capsule started spinning like crazy. Once the team had stabilised, they realised that they could only manoeuvre at 1/8th thust. While Valentina adjusted the thrust limiter, went Harrick over the TWR calculations. “Not good, we will go down alright, but we need more thrust to land safely.” That would mean the RCS system would be engaged during the final stage of descent, eating away their precious supply of monopropellant.

Due to the stress of descent, little photographs were taken, but suffice to say that they landed at 4 m/s but with only 1/3 of the fuel left in the tanks.

After the landing the whole team went out to stretch their legs and pose for the ritual of flag planting for science. Shortly after that Valentina re-entered the capsule, she had spent so much time on the Mun that she couldn’t stand the smell and sight of the dust. “All I can say is that everyone's instant impression of the smell was that of spent gunpowder, not that it was 'metallic' or 'acrid' would the mission report read later on.

Harrick went off to do his science thingy, Tomoly removed all excess material from the Dragon, spent fuel canisters, spare parts, broken solar panels, he was shedding every single ounce. Meanwhile Naul had been working on a pet project. “Toss me solar panel Tomoly,” she said, “No, a working one, its the last bit we will need.”

“Here we are little fellow, now you can take all the time you need to scout this entire moon.” Naul was very happy with the “Dragon’s Pet” as she referred to the little rover she had constructed on the spot. Now they would only need to bring back soil and goo samples.

And so they jet-packed into the sky, for a long, long flight to the next biome. Naul had brought the goo container while Harrick carried the materials bay.

“Stop flying so far ahead,” said Naul, “I have a hard time keeping track of where you are. The two kerbonauts had almost expended their EVA fuel and were looking at a long walk ahead. Every time one of them would travel the other would take a break, the scout ahead would then serve as a marker.

“This is really interesting data.” said Harrick, and with Duna rising over the horizon they decided to plant another flag to serve as reference point for future misisons.

“We really need to go back now!” Naul was cautions because they had ran out of EVA fuel and it would be a long hike back. To speed up the process they extended the distance between them so they could triangulate with more accuracy, and hopefully spend less time. “I’m too tired, just leave me here, so sleepy,” said Harrick and collapsed to the ground.

“No way soldier,” said the familiar voice of Naul, “Take some of my oxygen, your scrubber is not running properly I think.” Indeed that seemed to infuse the older scientist with newfound courage and he got back on his feed and continued onwards. “15 minutes of life-support left.” he muttered.

Tears of joy were shed when they saw the white skin of the Dragon contrast with the grey regolith of Ike. “Man, I am so done hiking, next time I’m gonna build a bigger rover.” said Naul while dragging his friend back to the capsule.

She spent her last hours reconfiguring all excess material and tried to build a little relay out of it, and bigger stabilisers for the rover, but ultimately gave up on that.

Before mounting the capsule, he configured the rover to go in autonomous mode and watched it crawl off into the dark. “Good luck buddy,” she said, “hope you like this rock better than I do.”

Edited January 28, 2018 by MacLuky

[DiscoSlelge]

2 hours ago, MacLuky said:

@DiscoSlelge I saw your patches later on, they are so awesome. I'll put in a request for one with the next mission ;-)

For request, you know the way

[MacLuky]

Chapter 19 Up up and away

“I still don’t like these delta-v numbers.” Valentina was not amused by the data. “I guess we could eat all the food?” Naul looked hungry at the white boxes that contained the fresh produce of the greenhouse. Clearly she was still detoxing from the canned food that they had lived on while on Duna. Tomoly went over the specs again and ditched some of the last science experiments. Even with the food and drinks spent, twilight was approaching and without the power of the sun, the climate control system would not last very long.

“Up up and away we go. This is the best intercept I can get.” Valentina set and she blasted off the surface of Ike, which was now scorched in black residue where the flames had engulfed the discarded materials. It would be a close call.

“Approaching apoasis at 15 km, we are slightly behind the Odyssey. Getting ready to circularise.” Valentina said. The engines were now firing in a more controlled way, not that the team had the illusion that the ISP would improve, but they could not afford a miscalculation. “Umph,” with a jolt the craft stopt accelerating, sending the Kerbals into their seatbelt.

“We didn’t make it, we are at 15x12km, well below the highest mountain peaks.” Harrick was reading the nav panel readout. “Sorry guys, best I could do.” said Valentina. “Not sure how to read the altimetry map.” said Tomoly, “I suggest we get out of here, before we run into a mountain.” Despite their imminent danger, there was a bright side to this, they were catching up with the Odyssey pretty fast. “Getting outside and push won’t help, the suits use the same tank as the main engine, you would just float away.” said Tomoly. “I am logged in the Odysseys main computer, calculating a burn for intercept.”

It only took a couple of meters per second, but the dragon was empty. It took some very precise docking, with triangulated controls to manoeuvre the Odyssey in a direct line with the Dragon. Thanks to Navyfish’s docking indicator they managed to get themselves lined up, and very slowly they moved into a docking position, while the mountain tops seemed to graze the solar panels.

“Locked” screamed Valentina once the Dragon kissed the Odyssey. “Swing her around and burn fast.” their heartbeats could be heard all the way back to Kerbin and it was only when they had reached a safe altitude that they opened the hatch and transferred into the familiar quarters of their spaceship. “I am going to have a serious word with the guys back at KSC on who did the delta-v calculations. They must be thinking some mechanical Jeb is flying this thing.” Valentina said when she floated off to the command module. “Seriously? I don’t think a computer could have gotten this thing into orbit as efficiently as she did,” Naul said to Tomoly who was still trembling from this mission. 

[MacLuky]

Chapter 20 Interlude: next steps

The successes of the Duna mission had given KSC the reputation and funds to start planning the next phase of the Duna exploration. Not to mention the funds. It had been more than a year since the last Saturn class rocket was assembled and the launch was broadcasted live to all of Kerbin when this majestical creation lifted itself from the launchpad.

The payload was much lighter than before and rocket blasted off, well like a rocket. Its solid rocket boosters burned out at a much higher altitude and with a mighty roar the second stage kicked in.

Once orbit was reached the shrouds were shed and the base was reviled. Complete with drills and many convertors it can keep one kerbal alive forever and a larger team for a long, long time.

There is still a bit fuel left in the first stage, that would be used for circularisation, well part of the circularisation.

The third stage proved to be overpowered, so it slung the base on a fast track to Duna, straight for the north pole. By the time it would get there, the Odyssey would be back, I guess that is a story for another time.

[Geschosskopf]

Good job getting back from Ike.  Sounds like a very near-run thing.  And I liked that little home-made rover  

So, who are the poor bastids who'll be exiled to the north pole forever?

[MacLuky]

Ah it was launched empty, I may do a mars one scenario, just to see how long I can make them last, but Valentina has picked up 10% radiation nevertheless, so it may not be that long. Or I take

and give it a ridicules shielding bonus

Also planning a Jool mission but Nerthas new parts are soooo pretty

[Angelo Kerman]

Very fun read! KIS is definitely awesome, I based Pathfinder and Buffalo around it so you could build a base and rover using KIS and with parts printed via OSE Workshop. If Squad ever made another DLC, they'd do well incorporating KIS...

[MacLuky]

Chapter 21 The slingshot home

It was day 360 of the mission, and in the improvised lab Harrick was fussing with the console. “What do you mean you can’t find it,” said Naul. “I dunno, the data seems gone, poof vanished!” These were some frustrated Kerbals. It seemed that their soil samples and goo containers that they had brought back from Duna and mostly Ike had been misplaced. “I’m sure they are here somewhere,” muttered Harrick. “Damn you Kerbalism,” said Naul referring to the supplier of the computer cores, who had apparently messed up the ‘transfer data here’ functionality.

“Guys I don’y know about you, but I am starting the feel homesick, do we really have to wait 20 days for the departure window?” Tomoly looked as if the prolonged presence of the red planet had started to affect his mental health. “Let me do some math,” said Valentina “we have lots of delta-v left and there might be something here to help us.” She quickly went over the numbers and plotted a series of manoeuvre nodes. “Okay, I can’t be sure about the Homhmann transfer, but I get get us out of the Duna system for almost zero delta-v if we strap in now.”

When the trusted engines of the Odyssey kicked in they accelerated the 150 ton vessel while lowering the periapsis to 12 km. “We might scratch a mountain or two, but if I understood the ScanSat map correctly, we should be good.”
 

Before leaving Ike some repairs had to be made on the treadmill, a solar panel and cooling radiator. Nothing serious but these Kerbals liked their ship tidy.

The Odyssey broke orbit of Ike and slung itself around Duna and on the second encounter with Ike it used a gravity assist and the Oberth effect to get kicked out of the Duna system in a really efficient way.

“Wow, I am going to miss this place,” said Naul. “Well, who knows you can be on the next mission, they will need an experienced commander,” smiled Valentina. Harrick was taking the last set of readings from low Ike orbit as they zipped by and finally got an exit vector. “

“Look at them, they were harsh but exotic hosts.” said Naul. “Don’t get nostalgic on me,” said Valentina, I need you to help me calculate a burn for Kerbin. With a little math magic and a bit of time, they came up with a nice course correction. “KSC, we have plotted our course,” reported Valentina while Ike and Duna sunk in the distance.

“It will add 400 d/v to the minimal transfer, but it will get us home in 122 days and we should still have 4000 d/v left for breaking at Kerbin, meaning we don’t need to use the shield.” All systems green, there were no active defects or broken parts and so it happened that at year 3 day 309 time 3:09 the Odysseys engines lit up for a 5 minute burn that would give them an intercept with Kerbin.

Post launch activities concerned of checking supplies, consumption rates, reactor health and a couple of external inspections of critical parts such as the engines. After a thorough medical check the team was cleared for duty though both Valentina and Naul had radiation levels of 10%, Tomoly almost nothing and Harrick stuck at 8%. “For now we would like you two to limit EVA,” radioed KSC.

Harrick was still extremely annoyed that the samples were gone. “Can’t be found on any computer core,” he complained to Tomoly, “Well, when was the last time you saw them?” was the reply. Though it was meant as a joke, it got Harrick thinking, so he did an EVA to check the Dragon, but could find no evidence of data from the outside of the craft.

“But what if,” he thought, and so he boarded the spacecraft, decoupled it, backed away for a few meters and to his astonishment the samples re-emerged for a cabinet. “There you are my little babies,” he cried out in joy. To make sure they would not get lost during the docking, he EVE-ed the data over to the Odyssey and re-docked the Dragon. Not having a lab meant they could not analyse the data on the Odyssey but they could either return it home or upgrade the Odyssey at some point in time.