You Spin Me Round, Right Round-Mesbin Space Program

[SuperMiiBrother]

Oops.

[aspacecephalopod]

Chapter 10: Kerbmun colony or bust!

 

Spoiler

Several months passed. The crews on the ground on Kerbmun had exploring to do, but were warned against much travel since there was still no way to get home if things went awry. Remotely controlled SSTOS and landers were tested there, with minimally good results. And then the idea of the EVAC Kraken Slayer happened. A truly massive vehicle, it functions as both a hab module and a return-to-orbit/evac system if the kerbals need to get off world. Two brave souls, Jazer and Jenbin, managed to get Slayer 1 into position and landed safely, and Slayer 2 will launch eventually to provide backup.

The rover and crew of Haning, Sigsted, and Learigh (on the outdoor lawn chair) all headed off for KS1. Eventually they get to KS1 and settle into their new home after meeting Jazer and Jenbin. Total Kerbals on Kerbmun: 5 now.

Up next: faster better ISRU! A new module was launched to serve as a combined power source and mining rig, with six wheels for mobility. It features a tiny nuclear reactor and solar panels for power and two large drills feeding a large ISRU. It landed remotely controlled on the far side of the mountains that the colonists have named “overshoot range” due to the large number of spacecraft landing on the wrong side of it. The six classic rover wheels (which are less fussy with KAS connections, hence the use) didn’t give it much speed, but eventually it made its way to KS1 and fueling could commence with the vehicles linked. Things went much faster with the new rig and the Slayer was filled up in less than one sol! Finally, Kerbmun Base is semi-operational.

Up next: KS2 launch and landing, an exploration plane perhaps, and finding out what's up with the Sparrow and Barbossa.

 

 

 

[SuperMiiBrother]

Colonies yay.

[aspacecephalopod]

Chapter 11: The Lucky Kerbmun Thirteen

Spoiler

Time to put more crew on Kerbmun! Claufrey, Sara, Jebdas, Zelcan, Kirfred, and Ribbury launched on KS2, like KS1 but with Even More Boosters. Entry and landing went (shockingly) well for a change, with the crew settling down on the peninsula west of KS1 and the first Kerbmun Base. About 90km separates the two outposts, an easy day's travel by rover or short plane hop.

Learigh set off in the ISRU module for the 90km trek to KS2. The module really doesn’t have that much torque to climb hills with the old style wheels, but it’s way less jittery and jumpy connecting KAS pipes as a result. Still, this 90km drive is about the farthest it’ll ever go… hopefully. Since it was a long drive, Lea stopped frequently to plant travel marker flags and walk around.

While Lea was plodding along slowly, Zelmin and Jerrie launched aboard the Kerbmun Albatross, a large-ish jet plane for exploration of the moon that now housed 11 Kerbals, soon to be 13. The Albatross carries a small rover on its nose for exploration, and should have a very long range between fueling stops. launch, transfer, and atmospheric entry all went very well, but the plane exhibited some minor aerodynamic imbalances with one wing generating more life than the other. Jerrie plans to take a look at the atmospheric sensors and other hardware to see if they affect the lift, and also try flying without the rover.

By this point Learigh had reached the coastal regions of the big peninsula the two KS bases are on. Mesbinites had never actually gone to an ocean, seeing as there weren’t any on Mesbin, so she stopped along the way for samples and a quick swim. The water was acting a bit funky but Lea didn’t know better, having never seen the ocean before! She’ll continue this journey for a few more days… up next, though, time to see what the Sparrow and Barbossa are up to.

 

 

[SuperMiiBrother]

Thirteen tends to be in unlucky number.

 

I’m surprised nothing went wrong!

[aspacecephalopod]

Chapter 12: Mothership Happenings

Spoiler

Any good program needs some workhorse vehicles, so it’s long past time to check in on the Barbossa. Geroly and Mauki reported the Barbossa had some stability issues with the design, and as such might not be suited to longer missions. As such, they departed Kerbmun, and went back to Troymin to refuel. They met up with the Sparrow crew who had been doing some survey work of the little mining moon. Geroly and Mauki transferred over as well, bringing the Sparrow crew to 8. The crew realized that, typical for Mesbin’s violently large gravity well, a stop at Thresomin would be prudent to refuel again, so they headed there before LMO.

The merry crew took their time at Thresomin since no engineer was along to speed up the mining process. But at least there were some stunning views!

The Barbossa and crew boosted down to a 1400km orbit finally, 400 km above the spinning homeworld. There they found… a new station! Nearpoint Station is a large orbital outpost, recently launched, with a crew of eight. With lots of orbital food supply, a giant centrifuge, and everything from ISRU to a reactor to it’s own NTR OMS system, Nearpoint is to be the home for many kerbals as interplanetary crewed missions get put together. The Barbossa will be kept on storage there for missions to the rest of the Mesbin system, but will probably never leave Mesbin SOI. Time to build some new exploration motherships...

 

 

Finally getting things up and running smoothly!

[SuperMiiBrother]

Name suggestion for a mothership: Explorer I

 

I name important missions Explorer (number).

[aspacecephalopod]

On 8/1/2020 at 2:04 PM, SuperMiiBrother said:

Name suggestion for a mothership: Explorer I

 

I name important missions Explorer (number).

Maybe! I kind have a series of names in mind for the next fleet... Though most of my surface vehicles end up being Explorers

Chapter Thirteen: Housekeeping before venturing into the great unknown

Spoiler

Leareigh, FINALLY, made it to KS2, the second large base module situated on the Kerbmun Peninsula. She connected the ISRU up and soon KS2/West Kerbmun Base was good to go!

With that sorted, a new vehicle was mercilessly vaulted in the general direction of Kerbmun. The K/V Ocean Explorer is what it says on the title, a vehicle with long term life support and crew spaces for oceanic exploration on Kerbmun… and another world (hence the name). Any guesses where the first interplanetary mission will be going? It launched, soft landed, and rolled down to the sea by remote control from Mesbin and the Kerbmun colonies. This Ocean Explorer is not a fast boat by any means. Instead it focuses on providing lots and lots of survival equipment including a full greenhouse-while all the kerbs on Kerbmun have a way home, the boat is designed to go somewhere else...

Two kerbs from KS2 base, Sara (e) and Kirfred (s), hopped in the Albatross and flew over to the sea. The new boat should be very useful!

One more vehicle into the breach! This (final kerbmun ship for now, perhaps) is a stationary ocean hab, launched with a crew of four. It got a nice view of Graymun, Kerbmun, and Derbin on the way out. Mesbin looks wild, as always. Entry and landing went well into the bay that separates the two base rockets, and soon the crew was happily out for a swim!

Sara and Kirfred decided to span the 30km gap with the boat, and got it moving towards the base in short order. They were able to get the Ocean explorer up to a reasonably brisk 20 m/s at 2/3rds power and a pitch angle of 15 deg, not bad for such an ungainly boat. After a little while, they had gone the distance and showed up to party with the other kerbals!

Below is the current status of the Kerbmun colonies. One mobile ocean hab for long term studies, one static ocean hab, two giant habs/return vehicles, two rovers and the Albatross plane+micro rover, as well as support equipment and ISRU. Currently, there are four kerbals at KS1 base, seven at KS2 base, and six at Ocean Outpost for 17 total on the moon They are all set! While there will be more Kerbmun exploration and more colonists arriving, it will mostly consist of this hardware for now, as the rest of the kerbals set up to go interplanetary…

https://i.imgur.com/y8KfPEI.png[/img

 

So yep, things are falling (from orbit) into place finally! Those familiar whith Whirligig probably know where the first big mission is going based on using boats...

 

[SuperMiiBrother]

mEsbin hurts mi head. i Dony think I can splell or think rite

[aspacecephalopod]

18 hours ago, SuperMiiBrother said:

mEsbin hurts mi head. i Dony think I can splell or think rite

It's that feeling you get of dizziness after spinning round too many times...

Chapter 14: More fleet mayhem

Spoiler

As each day goes on, the naming and vehicle design becomes more like the *legendary* Traveling Circus...

Time to put together a fleet… for Valyr! This mission will consist of a permanent residence for some kerbals for the first colony outside Mesbin SOI. LOVE, Lander/Outpost for Valyr Exploration (or, Lander, Outpost at Valyr for Eternity) will be a one way trip with a hab module and boat for some brake kerbs. PEACE, the Probe-controlled Explorer And Control Enterprise, also known as ‘the boat’ launched shortly after. Bothe of these ships used extremely old-school stacks of radial SRBs, I kind of love launching from a vacuum homeward to channel the pre-1.0 days. Both would depart at the next transfer window, but Valyr Sat A was sent with extra rush shipping and will arrive at Valyr before these ships and the crew even depart.

But no expedition can be made good without a mothership! Hanfry and Gerly, both pilots, and Dunry, engineer, are tasked with putting the brand new IES (interplanetary exploration ship) Sisko into orbit and giving it a test drive. The Sisko is the first Mesbin ship to use both a large nuclear reactor and additionally a Lithium-burning electric magnetoplasmadynamic engine. And it mines Ore and converts it to Lithium. Magically. Slightly massively overkill, but the kerbs do love some overkill. TWR is low but they’ll never want for dV, for sure-it has over 24 km/s. A giant SRB array vaulted the Sisko to high orbit and the crew started up the reactor to circularize.

The Sisko then headed to a new location to refuel and pick up some crew… Derminmus! A small chocolate mint version of Minmus, it orbits Mesbin’s binary planet Derbin, currently unpopulated and unexplored save for one lander probe. The crew captured at Derbin, got into a polar Derminmus orbit to scan for Ore, and then landed. It was at precisely this point the crew realized they had no Ore storage on board, and wouldn’t be able to mine fuel! Still, the crew piled out for the obligatory press photo for landing on this new world. They tried to taste some surface samples but wouldn’t confirm or deny if it was ice cream.

Luckily for our crew and their ISRU woes, Geroly and Mauki came to the rescue. They were at Troymin with some other crew in the Sparrow and realized it had spare Ore tanks, so they did some field engineering to access it and then set off for Derminmus (where they were already headed since there’s going to be a crew transfer). The Sparrow will look a bit off with one nacelle damaged, but it’s far better than launching another ship to fix the Sisko.

Soon, the crew of 8 in the Sparrow was on their way down to the minty green flats of Derminmus. Mauki, always the one doing improv field engineering, grabbed the requisite Ore tank and carefully attached it to the base of the Sisko, thus messing up the clean lines of the ship but allowing mining to commence. Mauki and Geroly took over command of the Sisko here-they will be leading the first interplanetary crew mission since Geroly seems to be a good luck charm. It’s clear landed on the flats how much smaller the Sisko is than the Sparrow-but you don’t need much of a ship with electrical engines. Scientists Milmal and Mitpont join the crew of the Sisko, and they will probably pick up a few more crew elsewhere before heading out into the great unknown.

Up next: Valyr! Hopefully...

[aspacecephalopod]

Chapter 15: Put the hammer down

Spoiler

Time to go interplanetary! Geroly, Mauki, and the Scientists left Derminmus after a few weeks of exploration. It took a very long time due to being in the outer reaches of Mesbin space, but they eventually rendezvoused with the (somewhat neglected) Rocket Relay Station.

Lizner and Luddun Kerman, who have crewed the station for the past year, are joining forces with the crew of Sisko to make up the Valyr Expedition. Given they survived a year on station without Space Madness, they have signed up to be the first colonists on Valyr, possibly joined by a scientist or two. The relay station, now well proven (and quite useful), is left uncrewed with the centrifuge shut down, but can always be crewed in the future. Meanwhile, the crew of six fires up the greenhouse and centrifuge on Sisko-they’ll need it for the next long leg of the journey.

Meanwhile, Valyr Sat has reached Valyr! It flew by, confirming it was, in fact, a planet and that it did, in fact, have water and many small islands. Think Laythe, but over twice as large with over 2 gee. Super-Laythe, if you will. The sat then did a flyby of Oshan. A very pretty moon, it has an atmosphere that’s fairly blue and looks to have an ice crust as well as rock continents, like Europa but with more rock. Cool, but not an immediate target for the Mesbin Kerbals, as colony worlds are still top priority.

Shortly after arrival of the sat, it was time for the Valyr fleet to depart. LOVE was first up, followed by PEACE a few orbits later. Both of these un-crewed ships used stacks of NTR stages to manage the fairly huge dV to get to their target transfer orbits in a reasonable burn time. The Sisko and crew left a few weeks later from their orbit high above the Mesbin/Derbin system, with neither visible but under the watchful eyes of Kaywell/Limbnell and Gememma. There was much rejoicing as the crew cleared Mesbin SOI a day later, becoming the first kerbs to do so in two millennia! All three ships had some light correction burns in the consecutive weeks, and meanwhile the crews at Mesbin (and Kerbmun, since the KS bases act as large command stations) were busy juggling the fleet of ships. Egad and Reander also had probes en route at the same time, with all departures and corrections taking place over a short period.

Meanwhile… time to see how our friends on Kerbmun are doing. They’ve been busy, remotely controlling plenty of probes along with Nearpoint Station and (the now un-crewed) Rocket Relay station. Older survey probes that are done were deorbited, and interplanetary explorer probes were fine tuned. But exploration of the moon was also happening! Learigh and Jebdas took the Albatross up north along the supercontinent the bases are on, flying over the snow-capped mountains and eventually landing at the base of the mountain range. Rover exploration is underway…

 

 

 

 

[SuperMiiBrother]

I have a headache and mlooky at Nes bin is hurting my jead more

[aspacecephalopod]

Chapter 16: Setting up shop

 

Spoiler

Before getting back to Valyr: Tyepolbyenar Sat A had arrived at, well, that planet while the rest of the fleet was off to Valyr. It sent back high res images of the gas giant’s moons. First, the weird cloudy ocean world of Imterril, superheated beyond Kerbal habitability and with no land and an atmosphere of superheated steam. Then Etrograd, a retrograde orbiting small rock with nice mountains and ridges. Finally, JifGif, a... Not sure what to call it. Definitely a contact binary of some sort. Extremely cool, and a likely mining outpost and base at some point in the future (it has some pretty great views too).

But meanwhile, the relatively short journey of PEACE, LOVE, and the crew in the Sisko went well. They arrived and braked into roughly 45 degree orbits to provide plenty of landing site options. Valyr really is a huge world, and has some fairly stunning islands and oceans. A seaplane will need to be on order for the colonists ASAP!

LOVE and then PEACE dropped into low orbits-Valyr's atmosphere only goes 55km up despite being very dense, so the ships congregated in 60-70km orbits. Geroly brought the Sisko around to dock with LOVE, to allow the colonists to board. Going down to the surface are Lizner, Luddun, and Mitpont. They will be the brave settlers on the first landing here-Lizner and Luddun knew after their stint at the relay station they could handle not going back to that blasted rock known as Mesbin, and Mitpont was indifferent about Mesbin but excited for ocean and island science! All were aware of the risks and lack of immediate return ships available. Goodbyes were said, and the ships undocked.

Showtime! Lizner, as pilot in command of LOVE, kicks away from Sisko and releases the NTR stage to become space junk. They target a northern area with some interesting mountainous islands and begin to deorbit.

Atmospheric entry was very violent, but the ship held together and quickly was on course for the landing zone. The crew held on to their seat belts, hoping all would go well. Lizner pulled the chutes around 1200m and the craft slowed to a reasonable 6 m/s. Splashdown! But things were not all well and good yet. The base slowly began to tip over like the leaning tower of Kisa on Kerbin. Eventually it settled in a fairly inclined attitude-the Mesbin designers hadn’t factored in differing buoyancy in different planetary oceans. The kerbs, once convinced the base was stable, went out for a photo. The first base on another planetary system was sort-of-operational!

Landing PEACE turned out to be much easier. While it undershot the target of Lizner Cove (now named after the colony ship’s pilot), it was able to enter the atmosphere safely, deploy chutes, release the heat shield, and splashdown as planned. It then remotely accelerated up to speed and made its way towards LOVE outpost. This was somewhat slow going at 26 m/s but MJ’s aircraft autopilot steers to boat quite well with the right settings so it made it there in under two Valyr days. Not a small feat since Valyr rotates every three hours.

Eventually, PEACE arrived and the whole crew decided to pile into the new boat, seeing as LOVE was a bit unstable at the moment. Finally settled in at their new home with the base setup!

 

Lots happenning!

Edited August 11, 2020 by aspacecephalopod

[SuperMiiBrother]

Wait...was that one way?

[aspacecephalopod]

4 hours ago, SuperMiiBrother said:

Wait...was that one way?

Sure was! For the three that went down to Valyr at least. Ascent is about the same dV as Eve, which is really surprising to me-based on landing difficulties I thought it might be more. But still tough. I'll probably eventually ship out something if they want to return, but the short term plan (like next few months, real-time) is to just send them more supplies and maybe an aircraft.

[SuperMiiBrother]

1 hour ago, aspacecephalopod said:

Sure was! For the three that went down to Valyr at least. Ascent is about the same dV as Eve, which is really surprising to me-based on landing difficulties I thought it might be more. But still tough. I'll probably eventually ship out something if they want to return, but the short term plan (like next few months, real-time) is to just send them more supplies and maybe an aircraft.

YOU MONSTER, YOU STRANDED THEM

 

Wait...they’re already stranded on Mesbin, Does it count as stranding them if you just move them?

[aspacecephalopod]

1 hour ago, SuperMiiBrother said:

YOU MONSTER, YOU STRANDED THEM

 

Wait...they’re already stranded on Mesbin, Does it count as stranding them if you just move them?

Moved from a big colony with spacecraft construction to a little colony but now they have water and easily available oxygen... seems like an okay tradeoff

[aspacecephalopod]

Chapter 17: Across the Universe

 

Spoiler

On Valyr, exploration was happening! The crew made landfall and Liz noted that the pontoons on PEACE seemed to bend a lot when coming in/out of timewarp. Odd. Parking the hab in the ocean, as designed, resets everything so all is well. PEACE isn’t great as a rover but is acceptable and so the crew eventually made it to a small inland lake about 7km from LOVE’s landing site in Lizner Bay. The crew named the body of water Luddun Lake, and the quite impressive mountain behind it Mitpont Mountain.

Back in orbit, the Sisko had been slowly making burns to kick apo out to a much higher orbit, change planes down to level from the 53 degree orbit used for LOVE’s landing, and start exploring the minor moons of Valyr. Plaph was up first. The two innermost moons of Valyr–Plaph and Denna–are appealing to the kerbs as they could be excellent refueling outposts if the Valyr colony is to expand. Plath turned out to basically be the definition of a space potato, a mere 5km round and with very low gravity. Maybe a captured asteroid. Milmal went out to take a look after the capture burn.

Landing on Plaph was something of a non-event: from the 5km orbit they were in, Geroly killed all velocity and then the ship free fell in the microgravity for an hour or so, follow by a short touchdown burn to kill the whopping 7 m/s of velocity that had accumulated in that time. The crew got out, posed for photos, and took about a day and a half (kerbin days) to explore the place. It’s a small space potato, but has good Ore and great views of Valyr so not a bad place to be. Mauki topped off the Lithium reserves with the classically overpowered ore-lithium converter in the stock+NFT ISRU.

Ejection from Plaph had some minor SOI bugs but a quick F9 fixed that, and soon the Sikso and crew were winging their way over to Denna, a tiny green moon closer to Valyr. Landing there went well as with Plaph, and soon Geroly and Mauki were jet packing along the surface. Another short stay–less than one sol–since this moon isn’t likely to be a future target. But it is a beautiful green and has nice views of Valyr.

Back on Mesbin, the recent gap in launches while missions were in transit had left the crew time to design some new ships! But first, since Nearpoint was to be the hub, the Barbossa old-style mothership was moved away. Actually Eriden (eng) and Valnard (sci) took it down to Statmun and decided to camp out there for the time being, locking down the ship near the north pole of the tiny moon and renaming the ship Atheris Mons Outpost. The ship is landed in a crater-turned out to be the best way to get a secure footing for it in the tenuous gravity. I don’t use LS mods, but like all the crew I have scattered throughout the system, they each have a hab of their own and a greenhouse to stay happy and healthy.

Up next: a new mothership! The IES Dax is of the same class and uses the same drive module as the Sisko, but eschews some of the hab module space and the centrifuge for a single 3.75m habitat stack. This allows for a large “storm shelter” 6-crew hab module with heavy radiation shielding (water, in this case). Since this ship’s planned destinations include Tyepolbynar and Reander, both likely to have strong radiation belts, the tradeoff of artificial gravity was made for a safer radiation shield.

The ship launched with a crew of rookie scientists, and also Bartdon Kerman, who hadn’t gone anywhere in this save game but seemed like a fitting captain. Thanks, old boy. First order of business was a quick stop at Nearpoint to pick up and rotate some crew. Dax crew: Bartdon (sci) captaining, Gia as the lead pilot, Rolo as lead engineer, and two junior scientists: Sigbur and Kacan.

After crewing up, Dax left for Derminmus, which is about to become a very popular location as it seems to be well fit for a small colony. While it takes a fairly huge sum of dV to get out there from low Mesbin orbit, it’s high altitude (both from it’s home planet Derbin, and Derbin’s height from Mesbin) makes leaving to go interplanetary much less costly for dV. Bartdon went out to take a look.

Landing at Derminmus went well, with the crew picking a totally new landing site. It’s a smallish crater that perpetually keeps Derbin on the horizon, has good Ore, a wild set of mountains along the crater rim, and great views all around as well as plenty of flat terrain. Bartdon is happy and makes the call that this will be the site… of a new outpost! The Sparrow and crew are still on Derminmus and head this way as well.

And so the design of a new base system was on. Design requirements dictated a skycrane, with minimum 12km/s carrying a 45 ton payload. And refuel only at Derminmus-not Mesbin orbit as well. No small feat even with Lithium engines. But eventually the kerbals developed this monstrosity; the Mega Saucer! Six midsize magnetoplasmadynamic thrusters, one massive reactor, lots of cooling, and a big ol’ 3.75m docking port. Hopefully, this is the first and only one to be built. It picked up the first base module, a power station/ISRU in low orbit.

A few days later, the Saucer came blasting into the Derbin system near the edge of Mesbin SOI. It soft-landed, then released the hab module and landed next to it. Rolo the engineer went and connected the systems up, then fired up the ISRU to slowly refill the tanks. With the Saucer refueled, it could rocket back to low Mesbin orbit for it’s next assignment-more hab modules for what the crew is calling Dermin City. It'll have 1-4 more modules dropped in, as time allows. Gotta make use of that expensive new saucer skycrane!

 

 

Edited August 12, 2020 by aspacecephalopod

[aspacecephalopod]

Chapter 18: Homeland

Spoiler

On Derminmus, more modules are being flown into place, the saucer sky crane is refueled, and heads back to LMO for another module. I also figure with the kerbs excellent underground construction techniques, these habs serve as entrances to an underground cave they are constructing to have even more space.

Back in the outer reaches of the Valyr system, Geroly, Mauki, and Milmal had reached the smallish (100 or so km) rocky moon of Manoam. They landed and explored for a bit-it looks like the Mun or Graymun a fair bit where they landed.

After Manoam, the crew went to investigate Didd, a tiny sub-sattelite of Manoam (which of course is itself a satellite of Valyr). They didn’t see the <1KM moon on approach, but there was clearly a small asteroid nearby-and then Didd appeared and it became clear that Didd had a moon of its very own! Diddmun is a Class D or E rock orbiting about 1km above the tiny moon. It’s the only moon of a moon of a moon the Kerbals know about.

As the Sisko slowly approached Didd, it became clear there was an interesting surface feature as well. Geroly, always the daredevil, decided to bring the ship in for a landing, despite no real gravity to speak of. Engine off, lithium RCS on, he carefully spanned the 1km gap from Diddmun to the surface of Didd. After what amount to a very slow reverse docking, Geroly hopped out to examine the anomaly. It turned out to be a green monolith (expected), and Geroly hopped on top of it, naturally. What a cool micro-scale moon system! The crew stayed to explore for a few days.

Liftoff from Didd. The crew had now completed all mission objectives for the First Valyr Fleet, so they spun up the centrifuge and plotted a course that would depart in 135d, with a planned arrival in just over a year.

And so the Sisko headed out. Around the same time, Bartdon and crew left Derminmus for Typoball, so both motherships are in transit at present. But work on Dermin City has continued during this time! Lots of work in fact-the city is functionally complete with a Hostel hab module, an ISRU/Power Station, a Mess Hall, and a massive observation tower/storage/relay station towering over the little town. A new flying rover was sent out with more crew as well-Dermin City has 15 inhabitants and could easily house 30 more. Vereny, captain of the Sparrow, has parked it 3km away on the other side of the crater. She looks over the little outpost with delight. While they can’t build ships, it’ll be a home for many adventurous Kerbonauts for years to come, as it’s location far from Mesbin makes mothership landings and interplanetary transfers easy.

 

 

[SuperMiiBrother]

Is the green monolith beaming data to the space center? Is rescue coming now?

[aspacecephalopod]

On 8/15/2020 at 5:16 PM, SuperMiiBrother said:

Is rescue coming now?

Rescue? Never heard of it...

Chapter 19: Typos and Potatoes

Spoiler

A couple quiet Graymunths went by, then the Sisko returned home. Well, not quite home-Geroly and crew plotted a course for Derminmus, as it’s the new hub for interplanetary crew missions. New motherships and specialized fleets will launch from Mesbin, but the explorers have a new home now! They landed in Horizon Crater, parked the Sisko next to Dermin city, refueled, and enjoyed the company of some fellow kerbonauts for the first time in ages.

Around the same time, the Dax and Bartdon came flying into the Tyepolbynar system at a fairly ludicrous speed, since ol’ Barty didn’t want to wait for a transfer window. A whopping 3.4km/s burn closed the velocity gap, and shortly afterwards they performed a flyby of Imterril, which happened to act as a gravity assist to lower the orbit too. What a wild world it is. But they won’t be attempting to get too close-it’s pretty violent with a superheated atmosphere.

Dax and crew headed down from Imterril to JifGif, the innermost moon of Typoball. A cute little contact binary moon, it seemed like it could be an interesting spot for a small base or fueling outpost. However, it became clear that the delta-V requirements to actually get that far down into Typoball’s gravity well were fairly extreme-on the order of 4km/s more than capture. Fine for the Dax and the magnetoplasmadynamic engine, but not great for a colony or fueling station. But the crew wanted to explore it, and find out if it even was landable with such a strange shape.

Jifgif proved to be orbitable (the probe years ago was flyby only and there was some concern given the odd shape). So, the crew tentatively plotted out a landing on the so-called Large Lobe of the moon. However, the strange gravity meant that really weird angles of landing had to be used. So the crew plotted a couple of small hops and eventually set down farther up the Large Lobe. Landings all around proved to be quite difficult, but eventually the crew was able to touch down long enough to refuel, let Bartdon grab some rock samples, and take a group photo!

Eventually, the gang left Jifgif and headed outwards, towards Tannor. Tannor is a smallish moon, but gravity was too high to land, so the crew used this as a chance to kick periapsis a bit. Tannor turned out to be interesting-very bright albedo for sure, but not a target for the Mesbin Space Program.

Up next was Aerious, a veritable space potato. A lumpy oblong rock, it seems to have a spire on the north pole which caught the attention of the crew. So, naturally, they had to go look. Using the now somewhat tried and true Whirligig landing approach of targeting the pole, they descended gently. That polar spire turned out to be even more impressive as they approached. Landing was nominal.

Pilot Gia was first out onto the surface, followed by Kacan and Bartdon. After the usual photo, Kacan decided to go check out the spire up close. She elected not to attempt a KMU landing there, mostly since it looked like stars could be seen through it and so the spire might be dangerous.

After some more exploring and refueling the Dax, Bartdon made the call to skip Etrograd, the last moon on the list, and instead pack up and roll out for home. While Typoball’s moons had provided some stunning views and cool terrain, nothing from this initial expedition had shown signs of life (other than possibly deep in Imterril where no sane kerb would go). And while the potential for an outpost on a smaller moon was there, the dV requirements and rough terrain on the smaller moons made it less than ideal, even with advanced ship technology. So, Dax and crew will hit Mesbin SOI in 210 days, and the kerbals will be turning their sights farther outward in the months and years to come…

 

 

Edited August 17, 2020 by aspacecephalopod

[aspacecephalopod]

Chapter 20: Larklight

A quick update: no real big missions, but a new ship was launched, the NMS Moonlethunter, which took a crew of 2 to go finally investigate the ring of moonlets orbiting Mesbin, mostly in low orbit. This new design was the first Ion Engine vehicle launched from Mesbin, and quickly found several moonlets that might be good candidates for an outpost. But the best, by far, was a Magic Boulder moonlet!

Four modules (Hab, reactor/ISRU, lab and a bunch of small docking ports, and an antenna) later, Larklight Station was complete for now! Habs and lab are on the north hemisphere of the glowing rock, while the nuclear reactor and mining hardware lie on the other side,  for... safety. Fransby is happy about the results! This new outpost can provide much fueling, as well as some stopping points for new ships.

[SuperMiiBrother]

Don’t taunt it!

[Kerminator K-100]

On 7/19/2020 at 7:16 PM, aspacecephalopod said:

How did you get these suits?

[aspacecephalopod]

On 8/22/2020 at 7:01 AM, Kerminator1000 said:

How did you get these suits?

Stock DLC Breaking Ground!