Conquering Whirligig (Chapter 20 - Interplanetary Ballooning)

[FleshJeb]

Fabulous stuff Steve!

On 11/15/2018 at 8:31 AM, GregroxMun said:

It'd be really cool if there was a mod that was sort of a midway between Extraplanetary Launchpads and KAS/KIS rocket building. Instead of shipping rocket parts to Kerbmun, it'd be cool if you could 3D-print rocket parts from "ore" mining. Just the small ones that KAS/KIS lets engineers play with. Shame I haven't the faintest clue about plugin modding!

How about this?

 

[Whirligig Girl]

Psst: in the Gememma system especially, but just in general, turn down ambient light to near zero.

[Whirligig Girl]

Oh no, you're not dead are you?

[Ultimate Steve]

1 minute ago, GregroxMun said:

Oh no, you're not dead are you?

Nah, just took a temporary interest in other things, I'll be back to this project, but I can't say when.

[Ultimate Steve]

Chapter 20 - Interplanetary Ballooning

Spoiler

What I really need to do is move the Kerbmun base again because the temperatures have changed. However I don't really want to do that.

So, let's do a manned expedition to the Tyepolbynar system instead!

The KSS Typo, for the lack of a better name, was partially built a few days ago. The me from today, thinking it was mostly finished, slapped some boosters on it and launched it, resulting in a very barebones core mothership, lacking even solar panels. Or anything more that crew space, fuel, and engines. It's a miracle I remembered the antenna!

I forgot the KAS drill as well. Hopefully we won't need it!

The crew consists of two veterans of the Punk Rockerr mission and four new recruits, mostly because I couldn't be bothered to dock with Faith Station... Although I have doubled my RAM over Christmas, maybe that will help... Also just so you know I'm subsidizing my recruiting with the aid of the debug menu. No way am I paying 600,000 funds for a new astronaut.

Anyway, after a lengthy time warp to the transfer window (we're ignoring time here for the most part) the KSS Typo (which really needs a better name, suggest one, please, I'm serious) launched.

The rare "snowman" conjunction of Kerbmun and Graymun was taken as a good omen.

The boost stage was jettisoned, but the ship wasn't in orbit yet. A very concerning burn had to be done with the nerv stages, given that we were still very close to the surface.

A bit more about the mission - the vehicle consisted of five cores. The central one had three nervs, two outer ones had three nervs, and the other two were just tanks. The whole thing was set up with asparagus staging. The vehicle did not have ISRU, as for this mission I valued time over cost effectiveness (we have like 6.5 million funds right now ish). The vehicle would enter an orbit of Imterril, Typoball's largest moon. There were three landers on the KSS Typo, one for Imterril, one for Jifgif, and one for Etrograd, Tannor, and Aerious. The first two had space for one, the last had space for three... Which was admittedly just because of 2 command seats slapped on at the last minute. The landers would do there job and return to the mothership, which would then come back to Mesbin and transfer its crew to either Faith Station, a Mesbin lander, or the station around Kerbmun, which I have forgotten the name of by now.

The escape burn had to be done over several passes. I wish I had brought more nervs, but Mesbin will be Mesbin... With such fast orbits and high escape velocity requirements (Mesbin actually has higher orbital and escape velocities than Earth) any Mesbin escape burn save for a few would have to be done in multiple passes.

Eventually, however, the Typo broke free. I had forgotten a good enough probe core to use hold maneuver and the ship was off balance, but still, we made it!

Soon we made it to Typoball, and mostly by luck we managed to set up a direct Imterril encounter.

The ship put itself in an elliptical orbit rather than a circular one to conserve fuel, both for itself and for the outbound landers... The inbound lander had plenty of Delta-V as it had been tested beforehand and was known to work.

Imterril. A world that is most likely entirely boiling ocean kept in place by a 180 kilometer 15 atm atmosphere. I'm pretty sure no stock engine would produce any thrust at sea level. But, we have a trick up our sleeves... The not-so-slightly overpowered Hooligan Labs mod. Using balloons, the ascent can be made easier than a normal Kerbin ascent.

This is Dugel Kerman, scientist. He will be the first Kerbal to walk, or rather swim, on Imterril if all goes well. Maybe the only Kerbal ever.

The stack is undocked, the redundant decoupler is fired, and the de-orbit engine lowers the periapsis a bit into the atmosphere, with the intent of aerobraking so that the lander will land on the day side.

It was successful.

Several dozen kilometers above the surface, the lander was temporarily stopped in its descent to gather upper atmospheric data, and possibly to test the concept of massive floating balloon cities... Which were probably impractical, but were very cool. I checked, and AirPark is updated to 1.4.5...

Don't you dare let go, Dugel. It's a very, very long way down... Who knows. Maybe Imterril has sharks.

In fact, that was a mission consideration. Life on Imterril was extremely likely, despite the 300C temperatures and 15ATM pressure, because the whole planet was absolutely covered in water. Granted, the atmospheric results showed no oxygen, but carbon dioxide was decently abundant and who knows if the water has some oxygen content or not. Maybe fish here could breathe carbon dioxide through gills... Maybe there was algae. If sharks were found, the official mission procedure was to get several meters off the "ground" and conduct observations from there. In fact, a fishing rod with a very long line was included in the scientific supplies.

Given the high atmospheric pressure, though... Birds were also probable. Since flight was now several times easier, maybe flying sharks could exist. If that's the case... may the Lord help you, Dugel.

It was at this moment that Dugel realized he could not reach the mystery goo. He would have to deal with it on the surface.

Fortunately, Dugel did not fall off his ladder.

After a very long fall through the atmosphere, the balloon straightened up and prepared to land. First, it jettisoned its heat shield.

And, there we go! Our first steps - or whatever you can call them on a world which probably doesn't have land (@GregroxMun does it have any land at all? I can't tell because of the clouds. One small island might make a cool feature/easter egg).

This one will have to be in 2 parts because it's 11:30 and I should go to bed.

 

Step 20 complete!

 

 

 

 

[Whirligig Girl]

The water goes down like a quarter of the way down the core of the planet! Arguably the super-boiling water is not reason for the lack of life, though it's a good reason to suspect so, but the lack of any mineral nutrients is. There's either no solid rocky surface aside from red-hot-ice, or it's so far down that there is no sunlight to power any life forms. Either way, I'd consider Imterril quite sterile. (Also, very surprised the Kerbal didn't poof, I could have sworn when I tried to EVA a kerbal he did)

[Ultimate Steve]

5 hours ago, GregroxMun said:

The water goes down like a quarter of the way down the core of the planet! Arguably the super-boiling water is not reason for the lack of life, though it's a good reason to suspect so, but the lack of any mineral nutrients is. There's either no solid rocky surface aside from red-hot-ice, or it's so far down that there is no sunlight to power any life forms. Either way, I'd consider Imterril quite sterile. (Also, very surprised the Kerbal didn't poof, I could have sworn when I tried to EVA a kerbal he did)

The suit showed the overheat bar, but only just. It might have been the atmosphere-fixing update.

[Ultimate Steve]

@GregroxMun I just thought of something... Have you turned off contracts for "Plant flag on Imterril?" I'd imagine that would be very difficult, considering there's nothing to plant a flag on!

[Whirligig Girl]

9 hours ago, Ultimate Steve said:

@GregroxMun I just thought of something... Have you turned off contracts for "Plant flag on Imterril?" I'd imagine that would be very difficult, considering there's nothing to plant a flag on!

No I haven't. I'll see about fixing that.

[Whirligig Girl]

oh no you're not dead are you @Ultimate Steve?

[Ultimate Steve]

Just now, GregroxMun said:

oh no you're not dead are you @Ultimate Steve?

I'm not dead, I just temporarily (probably) lost interest in this save. It happens with a lot of things. I'll work on one thing really intensely for a week or two then drop it in favor of something else. I usually come back a few times, though. I'll probably be back to this eventually, but I can't say when.

[Barzon]

@GregroxMun Ultimate Steve is currently organising a community space station  

[The Minmus Derp]

OH WOW! This is amazing!

this is ermagerd

I am now getting this mod! [downloads]

[The Dressian Exploder]

I love this playthrough! The greatest thing would probably be a youtube letsplay on whirligig world tho... (I'm genuinely suprised there isn't one! This is the best planet pack I think I've ever seen!) On another note, I actually downloaded this pack just for the Kaputnik and the better asteroids. If anyone wants just these I trimmed the folders a bit so that it's just those features. Would definitely be using this pack if my kerbals weren't busy laiunching their way from Eden... (Before Kerbin Planet Pack!*)

 

 

*Is it weird or not that I consider this the Dres of Gameslinx's Planet Packs?

[The Minmus Derp]

Hi, Spacenerd Kerman. Maybe i'll make one! who knows? This isn't by gameslinx tho. this is by @GregroxMun, one of the best planet pack makers ever!

[The Dressian Exploder]

I knew that but when I said this I was (Admittedly ambiguously) referring to Before Kerbin, the subject of the footnote.

I find it a little weird that there isn't any kind of youtube content on said planet pack, (excluding 2 vids by myself and Kottabos' mod review) but there is on the others, GPO(Kerbol Rising...ish) After Kerbin (Endurance, hey, both of these are by the beardypenguin!) and Gameslinx himself is doing a little tomfoolery on beyond home... but no before kerbin. 

 

 

P.S I'm transferring to this Planet Pack! YAY! Aaaand making kinda canon with the lore of Gameslinx's Planet Packs and Whirligig, launching Manifest Fate, a precursor to Manifest Destiny (obviously kerbin wasnt a thing then) to the system. Im pretty hyed to be playing this AWESOME!!!!!!1 planet pack (referring to Whirligig this time)

[KerballingSmasher]

54 minutes ago, Spacenerd Kerman said:

I knew that but when I said this I was (Admittedly ambiguously) referring to Before Kerbin, the subject of the footnote.

I find it a little weird that there isn't any kind of youtube content on said planet pack, (excluding 2 vids by myself and Kottabos' mod review) but there is on the others, GPO(Kerbol Rising...ish) After Kerbin (Endurance, hey, both of these are by the beardypenguin!) and Gameslinx himself is doing a little tomfoolery on beyond home... but no before kerbin. 

 

 

P.S I'm transferring to this Planet Pack! YAY! Aaaand making kinda canon with the lore of Gameslinx's Planet Packs and Whirligig, launching Manifest Fate, a precursor to Manifest Destiny (obviously kerbin wasnt a thing then) to the system. Im pretty hyed to be playing this AWESOME!!!!!!1 planet pack (referring to Whirligig this time)

Hey, you watch Endurance too! Closing in on the end of the deries, tho! Then it's on to the next series from the Endurance probe!

[The Dressian Exploder]

Well... I said I was transferring to this series, but I'm having some issues... I can't really get it to work. I've tracked the issue to KopernicusExpansion-Continued,  and I have a bit of a dilemma. I play 1.6.0, but KopernicusExpansionContinued, only has 1.7.0 and above releases, and KopernicusExpansion (not continued) only goes up to 1.4.5... ah. @GregroxMun said that he needed KopernicusExpansionContinued because of certain PQSmods in it. Which ones? I'm gonna have a go at relocating the Continued PQSmods into an older version. *Crosses fingers that it'll work*

Edited May 21, 2019 by Spacenerd Kerman

[The Dressian Exploder]

On 5/21/2019 at 5:08 PM, Spacenerd Kerman said:

Well... I said I was transferring to this series, but I'm having some issues... I can't really get it to work. I've tracked the issue to KopernicusExpansion-Continued,  and I have a bit of a dilemma. I play 1.6.0, but KopernicusExpansionContinued, only has 1.7.0 and above releases, and KopernicusExpansion (not continued) only goes up to 1.4.5... ah. @GregroxMun said that he needed KopernicusExpansionContinued because of certain PQSmods in it. Which ones? I'm gonna have a go at relocating the Continued PQSmods into an older version. *Crosses fingers that it'll work*

Hooray! Everything's working now! After a bit of trickery, everything's been a bit jiggled up but now I have whirligig on my KSP save! Yay!  (also cant wait for breaking ground support when it comes out)

[Solitude Aerospace]

On 5/19/2019 at 4:14 PM, The Dressian Exploder said:

I love this playthrough! The greatest thing would probably be a youtube letsplay on whirligig world tho... (I'm genuinely suprised there isn't one! This is the best planet pack I think I've ever seen!) 

 

 

Mission accepted.