You Spin Me Round, Right Round-Mesbin Space Program

[aspacecephalopod]

Extremely relevant music to set the scene

Well the kerbals did it again! Or rather, aspacecephalopod did it again and started a new savegame without finishing some projects in the others   RSS and OPM explorations are still happening, but I thought it would be fun to take a break with something more... spinny. Enter... Mesbin! Where a sorry lot of kerbs have been stuck for ~1700 years, living sadly in battered old underground tunnels. But, they have recreated the space program they once had on other planets, complete with a KSC that features a runway that will have to be used sometime, despite the distinct lack of any way to generate lift here on this spinning ball of rock. In fact, they have developed some very advanced tech along the way (as in, sandbox with a fairly large suite of mods-everything from Laythe Space program and Restock/Restock+ to make things look nice). As such, this won't really be a career but more an adventure into the very cool Kaywell system, looking for fun exploration sites and homes for the kerbs that are more hospitable than Mesbin itself.

Chapter 1: Dead or Alive?

Spoiler

The missions began with orbital SSTO testing which went well... except for final descent. The crew lived to fly another day however! Mesbin is roughly 2300 m/s up and 2300 m/s down, but lack of any sort of reliable suicide burn calculator makes controlling descent surprisingly tricky.

Up next was a 2-stager with lots o' boosters:

This proved not only sufficient for orbit with return fuel, but also to get to the little Statmun hanging a mere 290km above KSC. The crew, Pilot Geroly and Engineer Mauki both took in one of the cooler views I've seen in KSP lately.

Unfortunately, return landing proved to be too much for Geroly to handle with the strange contraption that is the Mesbin II return vehicle. He did his best to save the ship but too much hesitation at higher altitudes burned through the fuel supply and the lander tumbled on final approach, destroying the lander can and killing him. Mauki, as engineer of the ship, was completely crushed and vowed never to forget him, planting a flag in his honor.

Geroly had always looked up to space and was a true hero as the first to land on a moon of Mesbin. But Mesbin's gravity never forgives or forgets to remind shipbuilders that it is Not To Be Trifled With. Hopefully Mauki can build some great ships in his honor and the Kraken will stay away.

 

So there we have it-Geroly's death was a complete accident but much f5/f9 lander testing had already taken place so it's an unfortunate side effect. But there are many kerbs down in the tunnels of Mesbin just waiting to try to find new homes, so the show must go on!

 

 

 

 

Edited July 22, 2020 by aspacecephalopod

[SuperMiiBrother]

Geroly, NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

[aspacecephalopod]

On 7/18/2020 at 3:01 AM, SuperMiiBrother said:

Geroly, NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

It has been 0 days since the last incident... In fact, Mauki insisted the next missions were probes only. No disintegrations today!

Chapter 2: Safety Third

Spoiler

Four near identical probes were launched to check out the rest of Mesbin's moons to see what is most important for Kerbal bases and exploration.

The first one was for Kerbmun. It's very much like Kerbin and will be first up for bases, possibly even before return vehicles can be designed. There are plenty of kerbs waiting to get away from Mesbin after all... Ore reports from the sat look good for setting up aircraft and SSTO's.

Up next was Graymun. It is very mun-like and probably the least interesting target here. The Kerbals don't particularly plan to colonize here, it's not great for a mining site or the like.

Troymin, off the langrange point of Kerbmun, is very interesting. It could provide easy orbital fuel access for Kerbmun and heading further afield, and has good Ore. Plans for a large-ish exploration are already underway!

Thresomin proved tricky to scan-the scanner only works above 12km but the probe couldn't hold any orbit above 10.3km. So any missions will have to scan it with surface scanners, which is easy enough in the microgravity. It will be a decent base of operations for low orbit fueling either way if the Ore is decent.

Derbin got its own ship design, the Derbin Exploder Explorer. It's the first NERV ship of many, with a "lander" probe up front. The kerbals were super interested to see what the surface would be like, unsure how much of what they could see was cloud cover versus surface features. Derbin looks to be much like Eve, with 2.1G surface gravity and 7atm of pressure.

Derbin turned out to have significant cloud cover despite no visual mods, and the surface was a nice shade of dirt. The Huygens style lander did alright, burning the antennas but a direct relay link to the main probe was sufficient.

The kerbs aren't sure at the moment how much more attention Derbin and Derminmus will get, but it's possible exploration will happen there. The atmosphere is mainly helium and CO2, so not breathable, but it could make a nice colony and flying planes in 7 atm and 2 gee sounds very fun. Then again, building an ascent vehicle seems at least Eve-level tricky... Perhaps a colony for some very tough kerbs.

 

Edited July 22, 2020 by aspacecephalopod

[aspacecephalopod]

Started putting together yet another Mesbin low orbit crew ship and put the crew roster together only to find... Geroly! He miraculously returned from the dead and I forgot that the default setting is for missing kerbs to respawn eventually.

Chapter 3: The Start of a Fleet

Spoiler

So Geroly and Mauki tested out another crew ship, considerably smaller and lighter. This one worked much better:

With a crew return vehicle finally up and running, it was time for the first crew mission beyond Statmun. Troymin was selected as the first target of the KSS Barbossa Interplanetary explorer+miner. It launched with a crew of four, and eventually made its way to Troymin.

Geroly found Troymin to be very pleasant. Unfortunately the Barbossa is missing active cooling-major oversight on my part! No mining today, which means the crew is stuck. So an upgrade mission will be needed...

 

Edited July 22, 2020 by aspacecephalopod

[SuperMiiBrother]

Geroly, YEEESSSSSS!!!

[aspacecephalopod]

Chapter 4: Flight of the Sparrow

Spoiler

With the Barbossa stranded on Troymin, a new rescue ship was needed. But rather than design a dedicated rescue mission, the crew on Mesbin decided to use this as an excuse to design, build and launch the IPM Sparrow, the next in a line of bespoke, small-batch, handmade NTR powered exploration vessels, designed for longer missions. Like the Barbossa, it’s a combined mothership, habitat, miner ISRu, and lander in one-and radiators were not forgotten this time, along with spares for Barbossa.

The crew for this mission is six kerbals eager to depart Mesbin and set off into the unknown. Suit BG light colors and roles:
Mitpont, Milmal: sci, green
Triwin, Sanfel: engr, blue
Duster: Chief pilot, red
Vereny: Captain, white

Up first before Troymin was a stop at Graymun to refuel, as well as get some scientific samples and test how well the Sparrow handles as a lander. The Mesbin system takes a ton of maneuvering dV so ISRU stops are frequent and handy, and will probably be how most all of the exploration of the smaller moons happens.

The crew piled out for a photo at Graymun. A fairly standard moon, but a good moon nonetheless and it provided much needed fuel to get to Troymin.

Departure from Graymun. Next up: fixing the Barbossa!

 

 

Edited July 22, 2020 by aspacecephalopod

[SuperMiiBrother]

Try not to die.

...I’ve only just realized how weird Mesbin looks.

Edited July 20, 2020 by SuperMiiBrother

[aspacecephalopod]

3 hours ago, SuperMiiBrother said:

Try not to die.

...I’ve only just realized how weird Mesbin looks.

I'll try... but I guess if not, me the kerbals will be back in 2 hours...

I haven't really posted any shots of the whole planet it seems! Yeah it's WEIRD. And awesome. And really pretty hostile in all ways as far as planets go...

Edited July 20, 2020 by aspacecephalopod

[aspacecephalopod]

Chapter 5: Time to Chill a Bit

Spoiler

After fueling at Graymun, Captain Vereny and crew took the Sparrow to Troymin as planned. Landing went very well in the microgravity.

 

Mauki (blue) then had the task of both linking the ships for mining purposes and adding radiators so that the Barbossa could actually mine and refine without overheating. This involved considerable use of jet packing around to shove the radiators from the top container of the Sparrow down near the base of the Barbossa. Luckily only two radiators were needed to keep the Barbossa’s twin drills and ISRU chilling.

 

Vereny (white) was very happy with the results. KAS and KIS, plus the stock ISRU, go a long way towards making long-term space travel nicer. 1 sol (about 4 kerbin days) later, the crew had fully refueled both ships!

 

 

 

Edited July 22, 2020 by aspacecephalopod

[SuperMiiBrother]

Chill out!

 

Radiators are useful?...

I can’t think of anything to say.

[KerballingSmasher]

11 hours ago, SuperMiiBrother said:

I can’t think of anything to say.

What about... that they're pretty... *nudge nudge* cool...

[SuperMiiBrother]

13 minutes ago, KerballingSmasher said:

What about... that they're pretty... *nudge nudge* cool...

AUUUUUUUUUUUUGHH!!!

[aspacecephalopod]

@KerballingSmasher @SuperMiiBrother I appreciate your appreciation of my terrible pun there
 

Here's the next bit! I'm trying putting everything in spoilers, will see if that makes the thread more readable. (went back and added it to the previous posts too)

Chapter 6: Probes are Easy to Train

Spoiler

TL,DR: Lots of probe mission prep.

Barbossa, with the legendary death-defying Geroly at the helm, left Troymin first, and captured into a high orbit of Kerbmun to make scientific observations for a few weeks. They will search for any signs of life that can be detected from orbit, and Mesbin Space Center is in the process of assembling vehicles to land there.

Next up, probe time again! This time, an interplanetary set of probes. Up first was one destined for the gas giant Typolbyenar- it’ll have plenty of dV and can act as an interplanetary relay and moon Ore scanner. It won’t depart Mesbin for a bit over a year, though.

Then a satellite was launched for Shol, the “Hot Jool” of the system in a low solar orbit. Even with boatloads of dV it may not make it into orbit there, but the kerbals wanted photos of this strange world either way.

Next was Valyr Sat A. Valyr is a “super-kerbin” with high gravity and a thick, possibly breathable atmosphere. Hot on the heels of that launch was Reander Sat A (these are all the exact same long-range design as the Shol Sat), off to that particular very Jovian outer gas giant. Egad Sat A was prepped and launched too, and will eventually depart for that strange vaguely Duna-like planet, with retrograde rotation, ice caps, and a strange moon. Of these three, only Valyr is likely to be used as a colony point in the future, though the Gememma System also has some seriously intriguing worlds to colonize (namely Lowell).

Then came the first ship heading to the third star in the Kaywell System, Gememma. This probe ship has LOTS of dV, to the tune of 19km/s on the pad. It started out based on the other sats but quickly became a monstrosity of its own with a large NTR ‘kicker' stage for the first 5 km/s. Two of these are launched to go explore as much of the Gememma System as possible. There’s lots to see and do there!

The final launch of this mission is the first, of what will probably be several, positively gigantic relays. I have the commnet range modifier at 1.5 but even with that talking to Gememma is tricky. The Gememma sats have large antennas, but this relay will help a lot when it can connect up to them. It uses the newly developed (by installing the mod) JX2 large antenna. This is also to be a crewed station- Lizner and Luddun have the task of being the first kerbals on a long distance station mission. Hopefully they will not be caught in the throes of... SPACE MADNESS!

Several weeks and many apoapsis kick burns later, the station made its way to its final (for now) orbit high over Mesbin and Derbin. They are both very small from here (arrows for clarity). Lizner goes out for a walk while Luddun deploys the four gigantic antennas and spins up the centrifuge. While it's hardly the most cerimonial job, these two are now the farthest kerbs from Mesbin since the crash 1700 years ago!

 

 

Edited July 22, 2020 by aspacecephalopod

[SuperMiiBrother]

Say...they crashed, but where's the rescue mission? It should have arrived by now...Even if they couldn't call for help somekerb would notice their shipment of snacks was late..

[aspacecephalopod]

15 minutes ago, SuperMiiBrother said:

Say...they crashed, but where's the rescue mission? It should have arrived by now...Even if they couldn't call for help somekerb would notice their shipment of snacks was late..

Who? Geroly and crew just were stuck without a way to chill the ISRU and couldn't refuel, but the second big miner ship (Sparrow) fixed that so no one is stuck now.

[SuperMiiBrother]

The Kerbals on Mesbin!

[aspacecephalopod]

Oh, THOSE kerbals. I don't know for sure, but the tale for WW is that Kerbin sent out many interplanetary exploration ships a few millenia ago, and the one heading for the Kaywell system was the one that crashed into Mesbin. Not sure if any of the other colony ships could make it there...

[SuperMiiBrother]

well a few millenia has passed, let's hope rescue comes to pick them up eventually.

[Tangle]

21 hours ago, SuperMiiBrother said:

well a few millenia has passed, let's hope rescue comes to pick them up eventually.

Or they come to Kerbin on their own! I bet they have the resource base in the Kaywell system for it.

[aspacecephalopod]

Chapter 7: Flying? What's that?

Spoiler

With the probes heading out, a limited (and then hopefully less limited) tackling of Kerbmun finally seemed in order. The kerbs had once heard of these ancient things called “wings” and heard thy might be useful in producing a craft with some crossrange landing capability. But no one had ever used wings in this start system, nor were there large scale ways of testing a so-called “aircraft” on Mesbin. (And the narrator wanted to try no testing/hyperedit simulations in this entire savegame). So this is what a vacuum-dwelling society came up with as a winged SSTO for Kerbmun flight. The Kerbmun Ascendor is a tail-sitting rocket SSTO with parachute based rocket slowed vertical landing and wings for stability and crossrange control for a more precise atmospheric entry. The jury is very much still out on whether or not it’ll be able to pull off a landing and return, but Geroly is down to give it a shot! Pilot Rados Kerman flew the Ascendor to orbit, where she awaits retrial by the crew of the Barbossa.

Meanwhile, mission planners have picked out what they think to be the idea LZ on Kerbmun. A large plain with the only high equatorial Ore concentrations, it provides access to mountains and the ocean as well as driving opportunities.

Barbossa managed to get down to the 1500km orbit of Rados and the Kerbmun Ascendor, but doing so took almost the entire sum of dV in the ship. They docked and began to plot and plan the next set of moves to get back up to Kerbmun.

“Getting back up to Kerbmun” actually takes way more dV than one would think, on the order of 5km/s. So, first the crew got some fuel from a large fuel booster launch that will stay in orbit.

Then, they boosted up to Thresomin to refuel, which hadn’t actually been landed on yet. The orbital scanner also wasn’t functional due to orbit height issues, so the crew would be landing blind to Ore resources. Luckily they struck Ore! A party happened and the merry crew refilled the tanks in a few days.

Finally (for now), arrival at Kerbmun. The crew will play around with some burns and/or aerobraking to drop down to an 85km orbit, and then it’s Geroly’s time to try the first winged flight in millennia!

 

 

Edited July 26, 2020 by aspacecephalopod

[SuperMiiBrother]

As War Thunder keeps telling me:

It’s better to fly badly than fall well.

 

not quite sure what it means, but I don’t naturally generate lift.

[aspacecephalopod]

On 7/24/2020 at 2:03 PM, SuperMiiBrother said:

As War Thunder keeps telling me:

It’s better to fly badly than fall well.

 

not quite sure what it means, but I don’t naturally generate lift.

Falling with style > flying

So the one and only Geroly attempted a Kerbmun landing today. Here's how it went!

Chapter 8: All these worlds are yours...

Spoiler

It was time. Geroly gave Mauki a hug, then bravely boarded the untested, questionable SSTO, and detached from the mothership Barbossa. Soon he made his descent burn and said goodbye to the vacuum he’d known for his whole life.

Descent was fast and violent. Geroly was somewhat scared about the solar panels burning off, but otherwise the ship held fast and soon he was flying over land once more. He tried some turns, experimenting with how the plane could maneuver in the atmosphere. It had some control so he tracked north, aiming for as close to equatorial as possible.

Eventually, with speeds below 250 m/s, Geroly made the call to deploy chutes, something that hadn’t been done before on a kerballed flight. It worked though!

Geroly climbed down the ladder, completely forgot the say the speech he’d prepared, and opened his helmet to take a few breaths of air. He quickly felt short of breath but it was clear there was *some* air, so a colony here seems very possible. A success! Now, to get him some equipment and friends down there.

 

Only one flight here, but it's a good one!

Edited July 26, 2020 by aspacecephalopod

[SuperMiiBrother]

Oxygen? Laythe 2.0!

[aspacecephalopod]

On 7/25/2020 at 4:49 AM, SuperMiiBrother said:

Oxygen? Laythe 2.0!

Confirmed! Not enough to breathe without assistance per the WW canon, but certainly enough to make things habitable and possibly run some jet engines.

Chapter 9: Everything's under control, situation normal. We're all fine here now, thank you. How are you?

Spoiler

TL,DR: Throwing things at Kerbmun and seeing what works-not much. Lots goes wrong

A rover was attempted to send to Geroly, but burnt up partially and landed far away with no way to drive. Oops #1. So the Mesbin crew researched the idea of “heat shields” to get things down to the surface in one piece. The next rover made it down successfully, followed by an ISRU module. These rovers may look familiar-they are adapted from “A Bit of Reality” where they were used on the RSS Moon.

Geroly quickly realized he couldn’t make the drills work properly as a Pilot, and Mauki and the crew of the Barbossa couldn’t do anything about it without a lander. Oops #2. So, with great haste, pilot Haning and engineers Sigsted and Leareigh launched on another Kerbmun Lander, with a large SRB+NTR transfer stage. Entry and landing went well, but the crew WAAYYY overshot to target LZ and landed 54km away. Oops #3. This vehicle design is proving to be questionable, but it did take a fuel empty 11 m/s landing like a champ with no damage. Geroly has a new job: get to the crew and their stranded lander. With engineers, refueling should work and they can do a return-to-orbit test at last!

Geroly made the trek in the newly assembled road train to meet the crew. They were able to fuel (although it did take a week with the single drill) despite suspension problems linking the rover, but all went well eventually. The rover did try to shake itself apart, for Oops #4. Then Geroly parted ways with Haning, Sigsted, and Leareigh to go test the SSTO.

The SSTO lifted off! Geroly quickly got the weird spaceplane on course, leveling off and powering on for orbit. Unfortunately despite Geroly’s extensive ability to see the future and try different course adjustments through the power of eff-nine, the plane ended up about 200 m/s short! Oops #5. Geroly, unfazed, hopped out of the plane, fired up his KMU, and pressed onto a 72x144km orbit. Mauki and crew on the Barbossa came to pick him up. All were happy he made it, and clearly a new SSTO design is needed!

 

So yep... lots went wrong in fairly rapid succession. But no one was hurt and quite a bit was learned about flying at Kerbmun (namely, it's a bit tougher than Kerbin). Tune in next time for functional SSTO designs and a base module, hopefully?

[aspacecephalopod]

Chapter 9.5: Binary Suns

A quick update completely unrelated to the misadventures of Kerbmun: the Shol Sat made its flyby. Not much to say (sandbox) but hit the spoiler for some really cool cinematic-style shots of this giant planet and the twin suns up close!

Spoiler