Outer Space Ventures: a minuscule (a very SMALL) career.

[Whirligig Girl]

Outer Space Ventures - A Very Small Career.

Somewhere in a little pocket universe, there is a little pocket universe, and in that pocket universe's pocket universe, there's a little blue planet, and on that blue planet are a people who, like all peoples who can see the night sky, dream of traveling beyond it.

 

Prologue - The Scapegoat

Spoiler

10 Years Ago
before the war

"This is The Scapegoat, asking permission to liftoff."
"Dessert, Scapegoat, you are clear for takeoff. Good luck, Valentina."
"Thank you, comrade!"

"Orienting east, now accelerating."

"Speed maintaining at... 180, 182 meters per second. Beginning first dive."

"Speed at 230 meters per second. Pitching up."

"How's the Scapegoat holding together, Val?"
"Oh, it's a fine machine. I love all the shakes you get out of it when you get to near top speed."

"Firing booster rocket 1"

"And we've maxed out at 3800 meters. I'm gonna dive again. I know we can get this thing above at least 7, maybe 10 klicks."
"Halfway to space."
"Exactly."
"Scapegoat, be advised you are moving beyond range. We're recommending you turn back before..."
"Valentina, recording log. Now travelling about a hundred fifty meters above sea level and falling, trying to pick up some speed. Looks like we're at 290... 300... 299..."

"According to my navigational charts I'm somewhere over the United Towns of Kerbin. They'll get a good show if they're above ground today!"

"Rising, up beyond 3K. Engines have flamed out."

"aaand... come on... 4694 on this pass. Curses. Alright, I'm gonna turn around now. No point in getting stranded in UTK territory."

Unbeknownst to Valentina, the Scapegoat was flying over the UTK's military base. Observing an aircraft travelling much higher, and much faster, than anything seen before, was scary enough. But hearing the transmissions of a communist coming from it was even scarier.

Already, as Valentina turned around to fly back to Dessert, the UTK military was drawing plans to invade, and get to the bottom of this new potential threat.
The result was a new maximum altitude and maximum speed both held by Valentina Kerman, in the Kerbin World Records books, and a war that cost thousands of lives and destroyed vital infrastructure across this tiny little world.

Prologue 2

Spoiler

Several months ago
After the New Union

The smartly dressed man walked up to the flaming automobile wreck, and after the team had pulled Jebediah out of the wreck and gave the man a thumbs up, he approached. "So what do you say, Jeb Kerman?"

"Hold on, let me just get this straight. You want me, a racecar driver--who just crashed by the way--to fly your missiles for you?" Jebediah said, taking off his charred helmet and brushing off his jumpsuit.

"You have quick reflexes, you can handle high gee forces, and you're used to being packed into a tiny vehicle with a bulky helmet obscuring your view. You're just what Outer Space Ventures needs." The suited man said, and he gestured to the helmet.

"Ah, yep. Uh huh. What about all-a them rug flyers you had popping and twirling around up there during the war. I'm sure a few of them are still around," Jeb said, looking concertedly at the sky.

"Times have changed. The OSV is a civilian agency, Jeb, and you're popular. Fighter pilots, well, they just aren't."

"I see."

Jebediah stood there, quietly considering.
 

"I'll let you decide over the weekend. I'll need to know your decision before the end of the minth."
 

Jeb nodded, and the smartly dressed man handed him his contact card: Gus V. Kerman, Chief of Operations, Outer Space Ventures. Phone Code OSV-092A Ext. JSK3.

---

"Well obviously you said yes, right!?" Cormon said, over dinner.

"Cormon, I honestly haven't seen any evidence that these OSV people aren't full of mulch. I mean come on! Space travel? Going to the Moon? It's like something outta your little sister's magazines," Jebediah said.

"Dad. I know for a fact that you love chasing records. You were neck and neck with Isatrid for landspeed record before the war."

"And what I know for a fact is that I don't trust the government!" Jeb said. "When your father left to join the war effort, I read his letters, and saw how they treated him as expendable. All those rug flyers were. I'm not gonna be just some mystery goo for them to experiment on."

Cormon sat with that and thought for a moment. "It's a different government now, Dad. A people's government." Cormon said.

"I know that's what they keep saying, but..." Jebediah trailed off.

"Dad, what I just don't get is, why is flying up in a rocket so much different from driving those cars into eachother at high speed."

"We put a lot of engineering into building these race cars so they're safe, so they don't crash, and when they do crash, no one gets hurt, and when they do get hurt, they don't die, and when they do die, there's a thorough investigation of how it happened. What the racetrack has that the government doesn't, is an institutional culture of safety. We're here to entertain, not to kill, after all. Plus, all the stunts we do for promos, they're thoroughly researched in advance so we can make the proper modifications to the car."

"Then maybe you need to take one of your engineers down to the complex to see what their idea of safety is."

Jebediah's eyes lit up, and he looked up from his plate, a little surprised. "That's a great idea, kid."

 

----

The next morning, Jebediah arrived at the Spaceport.

"Ah! Jebediah Kerman. Glad you could make it," Said a man dressed in overalls and a yellow hard-hat. Jebediah almost didn't recognize him at first, except by his stubble.

"Ah, Gus, hello," Jeb said, faking a polite smile. "Allow me to introduce my, erm, crew. Here's Bill Kerman, an engineer, and I hope you don't mind I brought my son Cormon."

"Hi!" Cormon said.

Bill shook Gus' hand.

"Welcome to our Vehicle Assembly Building. This is one of the most voluminous surface buildings in the world, capable of housing truly enormous rockets... well, eventually, anyway. Let me show you what we're currently working on," Gus said, glancing back and forth between the 'crew', and then he lead them to the center of the assembly hall, where some large components had been piled up.

"We're in the early checkout steps on some of the hardware that's just arrived. A two-step rocket, and a kick-stage that we intend to launch the first crewed rocket."

"It's an interesting... pile," Jeb said. "Do you mind if I have Bill shadow some of your engineers, see how they do things?"

Gus thought for a moment. Perhaps it'd be a breach of security, but if it got Jebediah onboard... "Sure thing," Gus said. Bill nodded and went to talk to some of the engineers.

"So this is the cabin?" Jeb said, staring at the black conical section on the top of the wider rocket booster.

"Correct. It's a Mark One Pressure Vessel designed by Kerlington, which used to be a papermill before the war if you can believe it--"

"It's not... made of paper, is it?" Jebediah said. "Oh no, no, it's steel and aluminum," Gus said. He gestured to an engineer, and the engineer brought over a ladder on wheels. "I want to show you the inside. You'll like this."

Jebediah and Gus climbed up the ladder to a platform, and Gus opened the hatch. "It has an advanced instrumentation setup, using gyroscopes to accurately keep track of angle and position. But the actual steering is manual. For the first few flights we don't expect to need much steering, but when we start the orbital flights it will be vital."

"I don't see a window," Jeb said. "A win- a window?" Gus said. "You don't think I'm just gonna climb into a coffin and fly up into space and not at least get to see what it looks like up there, do ya?" Jeb said.

"Huh, well, we didn't exactly think of that."

"See, now that is just the kind of unsafe--" Jeb started.

Gus interrupted. "Jebediah. We value your feedback immensely. We're absolutely willing to make modifications to the spacecraft to fit your needs. At the end of the day it will be your ship."

Jebediah was surprised. "Hmm. Alright. Well let's start with the window. But let's also take a look at the chair. It'll give me a bunch of eyeballs down acceleration as-is, and..."

Jebediah, Bill, and Gus continued their discussion. At the end of the day, Jebediah and Bill ended up most impressed, and they both ended up taking jobs at the Spaceport. And no one was as excited about the future as Cormon.

Chapter 1 - Hopper flights 1 through 8. (You know. Basic Flea Stuff.)

Spoiler

TODAY

The first launch of the Outer Space Ventures

An unmanned test flight of the Hopper test vehicle, Hopper-1, lifts off from the pad at the New Union Spaceport. It, like the first few Hoppers which will follow it, is dramatically short-fueled in order to prevent it attaining dangerous vertical speeds which would prevent the parachute from functioning.

It reaches a maximum altitude of 1,259 meters before falling back down. The first crewed Hopper flight, Hopper-2, will reach the same height, but with Jebediah Kerman onboard.

It touches down a few meters west of the launchpad, carried away slightly by coriolis forces, or perhaps simple wind.

Although this vehicle was a vital initial test, due to being uncrewed, no Kerbin Science Goals could be carried out. The mystery goo modules were left empty.

-------------------

Jebediah Kerman stands on the launchpad, posing with his rocket: Hopper-2. This is already among the largest rockets ever fired, although most of the rocket is empty.

"Any words before your big flight, Jeb?" A reporter asked him.
"Well ah, if I had any to say, I think I'd wait until the big one arrives," he said, and he winked, like this.

Hopper-2 blasts off. Jebediah immediately experiences the acceleration of 5 Gees. Thankfully they're eyeballs-in, and so he doesn't pass out. Almost as soon as it began, it was over, and he felt a comparatively gentle eyeballs-out acceleration, before a few moments... of free fall.

"Hah! This is better than skydiving!" Jeb called out.

when the acceleration bottomed out and he felt positive weight again, he waited for a few moments, and deployed the parachute.

He rested his head back, his heart racing faster than one of his cars! Cars can really accelerate, but riding an explosion up into the sky was a lot more like a continuous crash than a drag race.

The rocket touched down right on the slightly singed and sooty circle of grass where the previous Hopper had landed, and after a few moments, recovery crews helped Jebediah out of the capsule, and the capsule was recovered for analysis.

recovered footage of Jebediah during the flight.

-----

Not to get too routine, the next flight, Hopper-3, would be a risky one. The RT-5 kick rocket has been brought up to more than a third of its full capacity, and though the thrust has been reduced even further to prevent gee force damage, the maximum speed attainable of 300 or so meters per second is above the safe range for parachutes. The spacecraft will be steered into the ocean to keep it from reaching too high a vertical speed to slow down in time.

Maximum speed during the burn was 180 m/s, and engine cutoff was at 1581 meters, already smashing the previous crewed rocket flight altitude record.

The rocket continues to soar upwards

Jeb is calm, and reports the situation in his capsule.

Maximum altitude recorded was 3290 meters. Not quite 1/4th of the way to space. At apokee, the parachute is deployed, though it gets tangled up and drags behind the capsule, which faces forward into the wind.

As drag increases, Jeb is able to use the reaction wheels to smoothly tilt the rocket around, so that the forces will not be too strong when the parachutes fully deploy.

Despite the parachute, Jebediah is gaining speed as Hopper-3 falls through the sparse air in this part of the atmosphere.
he reaches nearly 180 meters per second before the parachute fully deploys at 500 meters!

It's several dozen minutes before the recovery boat arrives to collect Jebediah and it's not until morning that the vehicle is fished out of the sea and dragged back to the Spaceport.

--------

Hopper-4 arrives several days later. Don't let the window fool you--it's another uncrewed test flight. This time the rocket has been fully fueled, and will fly straight up and down again. The Spaceport is not allowing visitors due to a risk of falling debris.

the uncrewed capsule has broken 4 kilometers and its motor is still burning.
the motor runs out of fuel at 8,240 meters, with a velocity of 532 m/s

Tracking station reports the capsule has entered space. it is now 20 kilometers and rising at 330 m/s.

If a Kerbal were onboard, they would have just broken every speed record and altitude record on the books, but a kerbal was not onboard, and test missiles fired during the war have travelled higher and faster, with one rumored to have reached escape velocity.
31,803 meter apokee. the rocket is now several kilometers away from the spaceport on the ground track too, despite having launched directly upwards.
Coming down at 10 kilometers, atmospheric drag has not yet tilted the capsule into the airstream. It is travelling at 500 m/s, much higher than the parachute deploy limit. It remains to be seen if it will slow down enough.
at 5 km, the rocket has tilted into the windstream.
Although the rocket did register a deceleration force of less than 1 G, it continued to accelerate throughout the entire descent, until telemetry was lost. Recovery teams are now being dispatched to investigate the crash site. Speed at loss of signal was 621 m/s.
Lesson learned: the atmosphere doesn't have a whole lot of braking power.

The countryside onto which the rocket crashed, some 25 km away from the Spaceport.

-----------------------

Hopper-5 is the first of the Block-II Hoppers, and is another uncrewed test. This time, the rocket is again fully fueled, but a pyrotechnic decoupler has been added, in hopes of making the capsule light enough to land on its own. Fins have been added for stability as well, since Hopper-5 will be launched at an angle in hopes that it merely land in the sea.

We have a severe anomaly

Luckily this one was not piloted.

-------------------

Hopper-6 is nearly identical to Hopper-5, except that it is set up to have 100% thrust, preventing it from tipping over so fast, and since there are no gee-force concerns with the uncrewed test.

this one absolutely shoots off the launchpad.

After four seconds it's already at 300 meters per second and 630 meters high
At engine cutoff it is travelling 721 meters per second and is at 3.7 kilometers.

Although drag and gravity is already slowing it down dramatically. Since drag increases with the square of the velocity, it should be no surprise that deceleration forces are higher, although they are less than 1/10th g and falling as the rocket leaves the atmosphere.

Capsule separation and automatic parachute armed, in space.

Without the gravity losses from the lower thrust, even with extra weight for the decoupler and wings, Hopper-6 reaches an Apokee of 62,042 meters, or nearly twice that of Hopper-5. It has nearly enough energy to reach orbit, it's just going the wrong direction.

As it hits the atmosphere, it is traveling at 621 meters per second and speeding up. It seems unlikely that 10 kilometers of thin air and 4 kilometers of thick air will be enough to slow it to parachute deployment speeds.

at 3 kilometers, gee forces soar.

gee forces max out at 13.5G at about 2-1.5 kilometers.
but it could only slow to 262 meters per second, before it crashed.

----------

In the mission control center, each launch failure mixes of Jeb's feelings even farther. That could have been him, he feels, but each failed test makes him safer, as it gives the Outer Space Ventures critical knowledge of, well, what not to do.

The flight planners and engineers know that a more horizontal flight would be safer, as it gives the thick part of the atmosphere more time to slow the ship to safe speeds, but the best way to have an accurate test of a horizontal flight, at least of the kind that would replicate coming down from orbit, would be a piloted mission.

Jebediah, in part out of a sense of duty, and in part because he's tired of letting empty white boxes have all the fun, suggests that the next test flight be piloted.

"Absolutely not," says a voice.

"Who are you?" Jebediah said.

"Call me Bob. Listen, we simply do not have all the data we need. We need a set of uncrewed flight profiles for all angles from 10 to 60 degrees before we can even think about putting a man on a full-power Hopper."

Bob dropped a stapled-together document onto Wernher von Kerman's desk. It was pages upon pages of graphs with red lines scribbled over them, with all of the places where data from the previous flight that did not match predictions was indicated.

"Our safety officer, Robert K," Wernher says in his slightly unfamiliar dialect.

"Good man," Jebediah said. "We need people like you to tell us when we're going too far."

Wernher raised his brow. "That said," Jebediah continued, "we also need people like me to tell us when we're not going far enough. Now each of those amazing missiles we've been dropping from the skies could have had a brand new speed record, or altitude record, heck, I could have been to space yesterday."

"You?" Wernher said. "I think it's important to remember that despite your important skills, and your, ahem, celebrity status, this program is bigger than you."

"Come on, Doc," Jebediah said.

"I will not be forwarding your request to the administrator, I'm afraid. We can't afford to lose even a single Kerbal life."

Jebediah sank. "Yeah. It was worth a shot."

------

Walking out of Dr. von Kerman's office, Jebediah struck up a conversation with Bob.

"So, Safety officer Bob. What were you doing before you joined the Ventures?"

"Well, before the New Union, I was in a crummy job in Hall Street."

"Eugh," Jeb said.

"Well, astronomy's a competitive field, and I had to pay the bills somehow, and that's just the kind of computational work they need in finances."

"I see," Jeb said. "So you're an astronomer?"

"In another life," Bob joked, "although I am eyeing the new Spaceport Observatory with interest."

"Still a scientist at heart."

"Well you know, Gus told me I put the 'science' back in 'rocket science.' Though I think he was making fun of me for being so thorough."

"Ah well, you know how Gus is," Jeb said. He reached the cosmonaut office, which was where Bob's office was anyway. "Hey, Bob."

"Yeah?"

"Me and Bill are going into the town to get some drinks tonight and catch the race on the television. Why don't you come with us?"

"Sure!" Bob said. "Just let me know when and where..."

 

--------------

It's a brand new day, and Hopper-7 has been brought out to the firing pad.

Hopper-7 will launch at a very low angle (looks like, i dunno, 30 degrees? 35?) to gather more aerodynamics and parachute data. If there is a successful recovery, it is likely that Jebediah will be allowed his most dangerous flight yet.

It shoots off away from the Spaceport

gee force maxes out at 11.7 during acceleration. Speed at cutoff is 730 m/s and altitude is only 775 meters
the capsule separates, and eventually turns around retrograde. It's slowing down, but still rising.

maximum altitude is 3855 meters, and horizontal velocity is 317 m/s and falling fast
we confirm parachute deployment! Speed is roughly 270 m/s and falling.

it will take some time to recover the capsule using its beacon, as it is far from the Spaceport's tracking station.

-----------------

Jebediah's newest ship, the Hopper-8, is ready. It has a full-thrust steerable rocket motor, a thermometer experiment, and two emergency braking motors to hopefully aid in slowing down for a safe parachute deployment.

Jeb is ready.

At cutoff, Jebediah is already travelling higher than he had intended. The prograde indicator is at about 45 or 50 degrees. He is at 2386 meters, and 594 m/s.

Jebediah has now broken the Kerbal altitude record of 4.7 kilometers set years ago by Valentina Kerman, and continues to smash it every second.

Jebediah is officially in the "upper atmosphere," and is recording valuable temperature data with the termometer.

A chorus of cheers erupts from mission control as the telemetry reports Hopper-8 is above 14 kilometers.

Jebediah Kerman has just become the world's first cosmonaut. He has been sent hurtling upward into space, on a potentially very dangerous trajectory.
"As the spacecraft is tumbling around I, I'm getting glimpses through the window of Kerbin from space, and people. It's so tiny. I feel like I could walk around the whole thing in a few days. Have we really spent the past hundred or so years in petty squabbles over borders and territory and property lines? From up here I gotta tell you that all I'm seeing is one big round field, and a big round pool surrounding it, and that's it."

"Oh, I nearly got carried away," Jeb reports, as he feels the ship's rotation change. "My maximum altitude reading was 23,611 meters, I didn't get a reading of horizontal velocity at apokee, and I'm now at 12 km and 480 meters per second. Let's just hope that little speech of mine won't end up on my tombstone."

Jeb detaches the booster, but waits to fire the retrothrusters.

Jebediah fires the sepratrons and just as they finish burning, he's slowed to 319 meters per second, and the parachute deploys.

and Jebediah falls peacefully into the sea.

And splashdown. Jebediah looks forward to his rescue, and unpacks a snack from the recovery supplies while he waits.

 

GAME SETTINGS

Spoiler

pending. i don't remember them off the top of my head and KSP isn't open. It's mostly a lot of hard mode stuff except I allow reverts and quicksaves. Kerbals don't respawn. Kerbals and parts deal with G-forces. The CommNet ground stations are disabled, and antenna range is set to 0.2.

MODLIST

Spoiler

Sigma Dimensions

• This doesn't work perfectly at this scale. I had to patch a bug involving PQS quads levitating, a fix which only might be working properly. I also have to manually un-bury the Space Center using KittopiaTech each time I launch the game by setting repositionRadiusOffset to -10. My MM patch to do this seems to have failed, despite running on the FINAL pass.
• Rescale = 0.1
• Resize = 0.1
• Atmosphere = 0.2 (Space is at 14 kilometers)
• Day Length = (0.1)^0.5 = 0.31623 (Proportional to 1/10th of real world timescales. Self-consistent Kronometer calendar is pending.)
  • The "correct" rotation period scale is one proportional to orbital periods. Orbital periods, orbital velocity, and delta-v requirements scale with the square root of the rescale factor, although atmospheric drag losses occupy a greater proportion of the delta-v requirements.
• Landscape = 2 (atmospheric pressure at a given location should be preserved)

ReStock & ReStock Plus for high-quality part artwork. (The version of the capsule without windows in Chapter 1 was photoshopped, FYI)

ScanSat, DMagic Orbital Sciences for some additional science experiments.

Waterfall & Waterfall Restock for better engine plumes, though there's none for solids so you don't really get to see that so far.

Near Future Technologies. I think I have everything except for Aero. These are mostly here because I basically treat them as stock and forgot to uninstall them, but even with the low tech early game these will still come in handy.

SystemHeat, Kerbal Atomics, CryoEngines, Heat Control--and CryoEngines patches for NFLV and ReStock. These are mostly here because I basically treat them as stock.

ConformalDecals

Scatterer (custom atmosphere configs--Sigma Dimensions does not make the proper visual changes to Scatterer at the moment.)

Parallax for better terrain textures.

PlanetShine, DistantObjectEnhancement

Bluedog Design Bureau, but with everything except for Science experiments, Probes, Gemini, and Mercury removed. Gem & Mercury stuff may not be used. BDB was added recently, and as of writing hasn't been used.

NeptuneCam to make use of the cameras in BDB.

 

This is a career mode game that I've been posting in the mission reports section of my Discord server. My server has a long-standing tradition of fairly narrative-heavy mission reports, both with the stock solar system and with planet mods. So I figured, you know what would be funny? And then I started playing this game. The contents of this first post were originally posted on 2022 June 15.

Edited July 10, 2022 by GregroxMun

[Whirligig Girl]

------

Chapter 2: In Dessert.

Spoiler

Valentina Kerman was tired and groggy. It was the early morning in her town, and she was out of tea. She sat down at the table near the window of her small, hot apartment. She turned on her radio set to listen to the news.

"We now return to the news, brought to you by viewers like you. Thank you."

A tram trundled past Valentina's window, and she turned up the volume on the radio.

"The New Union's Outer Space Ventures have now made an incredible advancement..."

Valentina was barely paying attention. She was still tired.

"...On this day, former racecar driver and one-time land-speed record holder, and now three-time rocket pilot Jebediah Kerman has not only broken, but shattered multiple records. Not just his own speed record, but altitude. Outer Space Ventures claims that Jebediah Kerman, piloting the Hopper-8 rocket, has flown to a height of nearly twenty six kilometers, above the atmosphere of the planet Kerbin, and more than six times higher than former altitude record holder Valentina Kerman."

Valentina's eyes shot open and she stood up. That couldn't be right. What? She must have misheard.

The news broadcast continued. "Outer Space Ventures says this record is just the beginning, and that the technology and techniques used to propel Jebediah into space will be used in the future, to transmit radio signals across the planet, to map weather patterns and geology, and some day to land Kerbals on the surface of the Mun and the other planets. However, says one Walt Kerman of the OSV PR department, that technology is still years away."

It was true. While Valentina was at home, waiting for the Dessert test group to re-form so she could continue her work developing and testing spaceplanes, New Union was out there actually doing the work, and someone out there had actually gone into outer space without her.

Valentina felt bittersweet. It was certainly a remarkable advancement, and at least it was the New Union, rather than the former United Towns, who had made it, but she felt left behind in the dust.

That flight, all those years ago, that one mistake she made which caught her the altitude record but cost thousands of lives in the aftermath... she was told it wasn't her fault, that just because she had accidentally poked the bear didn't excuse the militant colonialism of the United Towns. She had been reassured (by her therapist and by the governments of both Dessert and the New Union) that despite the general public's calls to the contrary, Scapegoat's flight wasn't what really started the war, that it had been inevitable. But that altitude record had never seemed less "worth it" than it did today.

The next day, Valentina was still upset. She was walking home from her work at the factory, and everywhere she looked the world seemed to be rubbing the space program in Valentina's face. Newspaper racks showed the headlines about the space program, a shop played a song about rocketships, and a little kid was running around with a toy spaceship. She walked up to her apartment complex and stepped inside the dark, cold room. She was just about to pour herself a tall glass of grape juice, when she heard a knock at the door. She answered the door. Behind the door was a young kerbal who was wearing a Kerbal Postal Service uniform. "Hello ma'am, I've got a letter for you." He said. Valentina nodded and took the letter. It was addressed to her from Outer Space Ventures.

"If it's another death threat, those go in my PO box," Valentina said.

"Ma'am?" The mailkerbal said.

"Nevermind. Here," She said, and she took the letter and closed the door. She opened the envelope.

Quote

Valentina Kerman,
You know, all the news sources kept talking about how we broke 'your' record. Sometimes I wonder if they expected if anyone broke the altitude record again, there'd be another war, haha. Everyone's heard about you and everyone who grew up in the Towns thought you and the Scapegoat were monstrous and evil. But well, after all the media attention, me and Bob Kerman got to doing some digging and we found out that you're actually incredible. Your design work on the Scapegoat is, as my buddy Bill says, spectacular. You are a real badass.

So why the damned hell are you working middle management at a screw factory? Under my recommendation, Administrator Muna Kerman is offering high-level jobs at OSV to former Dessert Test Group engineers. I want you to come see us. Attached is a two-way train ticket to the Spaceport.
Your fan in the sky, Jebediah Kerman.

Valentina almost teared up.

Perhaps, Valentina recognized, there was a bit of anger. How dare they take away her record from her and then ask for her help. How dare they pity her like that. How dare they rub her failure in her face like that. But she knew, of course, that this was nonsense. For the first time in years, Valentina had the opportunity to work on a space project. If she couldn't go to space, at least she would be able to help get others up there.

She began packing.

Chapter 3: Hopper-9

Spoiler

Some weeks later, Jebediah was lying in a bed, with a bad headache and an elevated leg. He'd slipped and fallen from the roof of his house while trying to catch his dog. His daughter found him, got help from her brother, and he drove him to the hospital.

"Well. So much for Hopper-9," Jeb said, when Bill and Gus came to visit.

"We could postpone the launch until you're healed up," Gus said.

"That would be a real shame. Last time I got hurt this bad it was many Minths before I could get back in a race car," Jeb said. "And from the way the Doc was talking it seems like I'll be grounded for some time."

"There is another option," Bill said. Gus eyed Bill suspiciously.

"What, I don't suppose you want to go up?" Gus joked.

"Hah! Some day. But ah, no. We could get Valentina up there," Bill said.

"Out of the question," Gus said.

"Oh come on Gus she's a great Rug Flyer. You've seen her in the simulations," Bill said.

"Hopper-9 isn't a 'rug,' it's a--"

"A spaceship she helped build with her own two hands," Jeb said. "It's a great idea."

"We can't put the woman who started the war in a spaceship on international television! Can you imagine the conversation I'll have to have with Walt?"

"You're acting like she's a war criminal, Gus," Bill said.

"Well, you know what Administrator Muna said, right? Absolutely no war criminals," Gus said.

"Come on Gus, she's not a war criminal. She's one of us! An explorer! An engineer! Gay!"

"Jeb!" Bill hissed.

"Sorry, uh, none of us are gay. That's just the morphine talking."

"Kraken, Jeb, everyone knows you're bi it was your whole brand, your racecar was literally red purple and blue," Gus said.

"Gus, it's either postpone Hopper-9 and the whole space program indefinitely, or actually start putting us cosmonaut trainees inside some real capsules, and I can guarantee you the only one of us who is ready to go today is Valentina," Bill said.

"Fine. I'll bring it up at the meeting," Gus said.

"Oh, uh, Jeb, we brought you this," Bill said. He handed Jeb a large card, onto which all the engineers on Hopper-9 had scribbled their signatures and well wishes.

"Thanks, Bill, it's great. But don't you put all of their jobs at risk by making them wait for me to 'get better,' alright?"

--------

Valentina Kerman hasn't been in a flying machine in more than 10 years. But she's very glad to be back in one now.

Hopper-9 has an extra set of braking thrusters and a mystery goo containment capsule for performing biological experiments in the space environment. Hopefully the parachute won't just yank the mystery goo container off.

Valentina pitches over almost immediately, hoping for a shallower trajectory than Jebediah's. But, of course, not so shallow she doesn't get to space.

At cutoff she's travelling 511 m/s and at an altitude of 1862 meters. This is notably both lower, and slower than Hopper-8.

Valentina has now broken her personal best altitude but is losing speed fast.

At around 4 km she is only going 446 m/s, and most of that is sideways.
Valentina breaks protocol and stages the booster early. Then she activates one of the braking thrusters.

She's now travelling over 100 m/s faster
And it was just barely enough. She has reached space travelling 487 m/s, and is nearly levelling out.
Valentina finally relaxes, knowing that she's finally gotten to space. This is a moment she'd dreamed about for decades, and though she was doing it in a rocket powered hopper, instead of a spaceplane, she's euphoric. She lets herself enjoy the freefall for a moment, and watches as her pen floats around the cabin, before grabbing it to take some notes.
She takes the controls and swivels the capsule around to take a good look at Kerbin. With Mun rising on the horizon, the view is truly special.

Her apokee is just 15,579 meters. Her horizontal velocity is plenty high, at 469 m/s.
Kerbin's limb darkens into the atmospheric haze ahead, and Valentina is in awe at the ethereal beauty of it.

She's now heading into that duller haze.

around 4 km, she starts to slow.

She's taking risks again. she should have fired her retro thrusters by now, but instead she keeps pushing it, trying to test if the atmosphere will be enough
It barely is. Her view goes dark--she's gone into the night.

This might be one of the most beautiful descents I've ever seen. The belt of Eve--the shadow of Kerbin cast upon its own atmosphere, is much more striking with an atmosphere so tall as this. And then there's the Mun behind it... spectacular.

Hopper-9 splashes down.

------------------------

 

Outer Space Ventures looks to the Mun:

Spoiler

Outer Space Ventures has been criticized by some for taking things too slow: incrementally testing variants on the same test rocket over and over again, rarely undertaking any crewed flights. Though the experts know that the reason for this is safety--both for the crew who have got to fly on these missions, and for the poor sons of guns who live near the Spaceport--that hasn't stopped some pessimistic members of the public from losing interest, despite the continual successes in crewed spaceflight.

Administrator Muna Kerman has cleared for release to the general public, a documentary about a study done by OSV engineers for a Mun rocket that could be built with only modern hardware and infrastructure. In this artist's interpretation, we see an unaerodynamic stack of rocket boosters and small motors. Walt Kerman presented the plans, and clarified to audiences that this is not a real mission, but a theoretical study. The vehicle utilizes only solid fuel rockets, which are currently very well understood, and is simple enough to be realized with current infrastructure limitations, however, one engineer he interviewed pointed out the many challenges in actually flying the rocket. For one, OSV currently lacks an adequate long-distance tracking station, so the rocket would have to make corrections with a very limited number of opportunities. And for another, the actual landing burn would have to be done with great precision so as not to crash into the Mun, or fly away from it and back into deep space. Walt agreed that indeed, an actual landing mission would probably not look too much like this, but that future plans are an area of active research at Outer Space Ventures.

I did in fact fly this mission in a test save. It works, but getting the landing right is extremely difficult, so I deemed it too risky to attempt 'for real.'

.Chapter 4: Hopper-10 & 11.

Spoiler

And yet, despite the documentary, it seemed that all focus was on Valentina Kerman. Talk shows opined about her, some of which called her and by extention the OSV a disgrace, and urged the public to pull support. Others were more fair, and brought up how tensions between the United Towns and Dessert were high enough anyway to make an invasion inevitable. Many newspapers, radio shows, and television programs reached out to OSV to see if Valentina would be interested in an interview. But since no publication would promise to keep the subject matter strictly related to spaceflight, and to avoid discussion of the war, she denied the requests.

Walt Kerman wasn't pleased with this, so he asked if he could interview Valentina about her work in Dessert and her spaceflight, without the war, so it could be part of the documentary being prepared on the Hopper program. Valentina agreed, and audiences would find that Valentina was a charismatic, enthusiastic presenter on her subject of expertise.

Walt: Can you tell us, and excuse me, we have a model here, if you would like, can you tell us more about how the Scapegoat worked?

Val: Yes. Well, this is a fine model, where did it come from?

Walt: It's a Kerlington brand model kit from the, ah, war machines line.

Val: Oh. Of course.

Walt: As you've said, the Scapegoat was a research craft, but as I'm sure you're aware that has been misinterpreted many times.

Val: Well, the Scapegoat uses an experimental propulsion system called a jet engine, which is sort of like a rocket, right? It takes in air and fuel, and spits it out at high speed as reaction mass...
...

Walt: Now, how would you describe your first spaceflight?

Val: [Pause]. Magical. There's this ethereal quality to the atmosphere that you don't get sitting down under it. It's like this, this halo around Kerbin that protects us, lets us breathe. I think it was the atmosphere that I noticed the most on the flight. Since I was in freefall this time, I actually got to take a good look all around, which I could never do in the Scapegoat.

Walt: Interesting. We know Jebediah noticed the land and sea, so between the two of you I think that just about covers it, huh?

Val: I worry, sometimes, too. Ever since my flight. There's really just not a whole lot of air down here, you know? And for the last few hundred years we've been pumping it full of pollutants.

Walt: It seems hard to believe that something as big as the entire world could ever look 'small.'

Val: Okay, Walt? Small... far away. [Laughs]. But seriously, I think from down here we all overestimate how big this place is.
After the documentary aired, Valentina started getting her first fan mail that wasn't death threats. With Jebediah still in the hospital, she would be the one to first orbit Kerbin.

------------------------

Hopper-10 is a test launch for the first multi-stage rocket vehicle (unless you count the capsule's retrothrusters on Hopper-8 and 9 as a separate stage, which would technically be appropriate)
This launch vehicle has significant delta-v to reach orbit around Kerbin, but without a pilot it will be heading in the wrong direction. Valentina wanted to go ahead and pilot this one anyway, but as it includes a Mite kick stage, which has never been fired before, her plan was vetoed.

The first stage has no throttle limit--it needs to push the second stage, which has a low TWR, high and fast to prevent it from falling back down. This wouldn't be as much of a concern during an orbital piloted flight as the horizontal velocity would compensate for the low acceleration.

(seriously the Mite literally has lower thrust than the Sepratron)

Stage separation. Sepratrons give it an extra kick

At cutoff of the SRB and all three of its sepratrons, Hopper-10 is travelling 679 meters per second nearly straight up at an altitude of 27,930 meters. Orbital velocity around Kerbin is only 768 m/s, and without the gravity losses due to flying straight up, it's reasonable to expect the spacecraft would be in orbit had it been piloted.
The spacecraft fires its retrothrusters to accelerate further.

Final velocity at 44 km is 952 meters per second, and so Hopper-10 is the first object confirmed to have entered escape velocity from the Kerbin system.
A somewhat terrifying prospect--it would be that easy to simply fly off into space forever.

------------------
It's a new day, and with Hopper-10 receeding, now a distant memory (well, a very recent memory, it's just really far away now), Valentina prepares to be lifted into Hopper-11, to become the first Kerbal to enter orbit around Kerbin. To become a small moon all to herself.

Blastoff. Valentina is shoved back into her seat.

She tilts over almost immediately

The second stage ignites, slowly pushing her higher and faster. This burn is much, much slower, though it will end up imparting a similar amount of delta-v to the first stage.

She's just over halfway to space at Sepratron set 1 burnout, travelling at 8.3 km and 414 m/s.

As she keeps accelerating, she points the capsule toward the horizon, to build more horizontal speed without gaining too much altitude. Valentina is probably more conservative about gaining altitude than Jebediah, for some reason.

At SECO she's travelling 575 meters per second and at an altitude of 12 kilometers. She has more than 200 meters per second of delta-v in the next two sepratrons.

Valentina is now in space, for the second time.
She maxes out at 16 kilometers.
and fires the sepratron
Her velocity isn't quite high enough with just one sepratron, though it was close. Her next sepratron will be especially powerful. She considers wasting fuel to prevent her orbit from becoming too elongated, but in the worst case scenario she can use the retrothrusters on the capsule to abort.

in the end she lets her perfectionist nature take control, and spins the capsule up rapidly to waste fuel after circular velocity is achieved

"I'm dizzy as a whirligig up here fellas but I'm up here in one piece, and almost exactly at circular velocity, maybe a little higher. Valentina Kerman reporting from Low Kerbin Orbit!"

Cheers erupt in mission control, and Jebediah smiles at the radio in his bedroom.

"I'll be darned," Valentina says, watching as the blinding white Sun begins to get extincted by the atmosphere. "That is just... special."

Hopper-11 is in the dark.

Valentina is now far beyond the Spaceport's tracking station, but she keeps reporting in the blind to anyone who might be listening.

"Over the dark side of the planet, if I turn my cabin lights off, I can see the lights from the towns and villages. It looks like there's even a camp fire in the forest. Our influence on this planet is certainly visible from up here."

Valentina tilts her spacecraft up away from the Sun. With the cabin lights off, her eyes begin to adjust, and she can see the Milky Way.

"You know, on the ground, even in the mountains far away from city lights, the Milky Way is usually only visible clearly near the zenith. The most stars are always overhead. Up here outside of the atmosphere, there are no light domes, no hazy horizon of secondarily and tertiarily scattered sunlight. So it's the clearest night sky you've ever seen. Seeing stars stretch from horizon to horizon with almost no interruption, it's incredible. Some time someone should bring binoculars up here."

Her stargazing is eventually interrupted by a yellowish-white glow shining into her cockpit. She's about to see sunrise again. The night was incredibly brief.

A noisy, choppy signal came through on the radio. "Dessert Airbase to Hopper-11, do you read?"

"Alexei? Is that you?" Valentina said.

"We brought some of the group together, you know, the retirees who couldn't make it to the NU."

A chorus of old men and women greeting Valentina in her native language sounded off.

"Thank you very much!"

"Somehow I knew you'd do it, even after the war," Alexei said. "Though I never thought it'd be like this."

"Neither did I!" Valentina said.

"I hope you'll come back and visit the old Test Group geezers some time. We're all very proud of you."

"We have to give the radio controls back to Traffic Control now, but we're keeping you in our thoughts, and Sergei is up on the roof with a telescope , ah, futily trying to spot you after he heard reports that people in the west saw a bright light come by."

"Thank you, again, and we must speak again soon!"

...

"...read, repeat, Hopper-11 do you read? Repeat, Hopper-11 do you read? Repeat,"

"Hopper-11, Spaceport, I read you."

"Welcome back to this side of the planet. We've been getting reports across the world of your radio signals being picked up and your rocket being sighted in the dark. No problems?"

"No problems," Valentina agreed. "I've had some truly amazing views, and I'm looking forward to seeing the Spaceport from all the way up here."

"We're working on an orbit solution for you so we can compute your return trajectory. As planned, we're still recommending you stay up for another two orbits, unless there is a problem."

"Acknowledged."

"Hopper-11, Spaceport. I see you."

"That's just about the most conspicuous structure on the planet," Valentina said.

"Taking a wide angle shot now."

"And switching to the long focal length lens... gotchya!"

"There's the old airbase," Valentina said, "the vile thing."

"Spaceport to Hopper-11, we only have scientific equipment there now."

"Of course."

"I'm going out over the ocean again."

"You have just completed the fastest circumnavigation in history. At T+14 minutes and 33 seconds, you have gone directly overhead the Spaceport launchpad."

"Here's to another expedient circumnavigation or two."
Just after the second orbit, the Mun started to go in front of the Sun, allowing Valentina to view an orbital solar eclipse... and its effect upon Kerbin.

If the first few sunrises and sunsets weren't amazing enough... this view absolutely blew Valentina away. She reported to whomever would listen on the ground (and her record tapes) just what she was seeing.

On the final orbit, eyes and telescopes are on the sky, awaiting actual visual contact with Hopper-11. After it goes overhead, the bright white booster shines brightly enough to easily see, and Bob Kerman and the other astronomers, and several members of the general public, get to their telescopes.

Their telescopes, which are mounted with equatorial mounts to cancel out Kerbin's rotation, are set into overdrive, to track Hopper-1 across the sky. Most are here for a visual inspection only, and most are indeed content without using their telescopes and binoculars.

But Bob Kerman is using an astrograph, and with a carefully aligned guidescope, he manages to take a photo

He won't know whether he's actually got it until he develops the film later.
After her next sunrise, Valentina prepares to deorbit

She slows down to 510 m/s. This will be fairly steep, but it should be somewhat comparable to the suborbital Hopper flights.

OSV has already made arrangements with the Barrier Reef Coast Guard to send recovery boats into the area.

Again, at 4 kilometers, atmospheric drag deceleration hits 1 G, and the ship slows down from nearly 600 m/s

Valentina now feels crushed into her seat, but she can see strange flickering white clouds out her window--a mystery for another time.

at 2 kilometers, just as the parachute becomes safe to deploy, she fires the braking thrusters, and the parachute.

She's nearly in the middle of nowhere. but not quite.

(She lands only within a kilometer or two of where the orbit prediction suggested she would--the horizontal velocity only slows when the parachute fully opens, haha)

And splashdown on another successful mission, and Kerbin's temporary third moon returns to its surface. New satellites will be following, however.

 

Tech Tree Unlocks:

Spoiler

At last it is time to spend some a dem science points. We now have liquid fuel rockets to try out, and more structural/utility parts.

The tech tree has been modified to provide access to small rocket parts earlier.

Chapter 5: Hopper-11, 12, 13; Groundskeeper, Automaton 1 & 2.

Spoiler

Hopper flights are nearing their close as a new generation, a much more powerful one, of space hardware is being introduced. Liquid fuel rockets are more efficient, more versatile, more reusable... but much more complicated and expensive.

Hopper-12 is a short unpiloted test flight to test hardware for Hopper-13, a second orbital flight and Jebediah Kerman's return to the space program.

Hopper-12 carries a dummy payload on its nose; all this test flight will do is ensure the compact parachute will deploy properly after the test payload is decoupled.

Hopper-12 jettisons its booster and nosecone.

and then jettisons its dummy payload, revealing the compressed parachute

it tumbles around

deploys its parachute

And falls back down to a safe landing.

-----------------

Just after Jebediah returned from bed rest.

Bill, Valentina, and Jebediah eyed the new rocket with suspicion and eagerness.

"Liquid fueled rocket. The Mk1-H 'Torch' will provide up to 1.58 G acceleration, but importantly, it can be throttled, as well as shut off and relit indefinitely," Gus explained.

"Amazing," Valentina said. "It's like a jet engine, but more powerful."

"And it'll work in space," Gus continued.

"What's it for?" Jebediah asked.

"It's called the Groundskeeper. It's designed for test flights around the Spaceport campus. We're hard at work building a new simulator for it, as it will require a lot of skill before it's ready to fly."

"Powered takeoff and landing, huh?" Valentina said, smiling.

"It can be recovered with parachutes, but manual landing will be preferred. Groundskeeper will be the first reusable piloted rocket. And that means that, aside from static firing tests, its first flight will have to be piloted."

"Fantastic," Jebediah said.

 

-----------------

A few days later, Hopper-13 is on the pad, and Jebediah is modelling the MkII orange space suit, which will be suitable for extravehicular activities in the future.

The rocket will be the first flight test of a liquid fuel rocket in orbit. A tiny "Ant" engine and a fuel tank has been mounted to the top of the Mk1 Capsule.

Jebediah is having a lot of fun with his wild ride

stage separation

Jeb keeps calm

Jebediah's ship isn't going as high or fast as Valentina's was, due to the heavy payload, however if all goes to plan it won't need to, as the rocket pack up top should be capable of inserting into orbit.

Near the edge of space, the nosecone is no longer needed, so it is jettisoned

so too is the solid rocket kick stage

THUD

and we have a recontact event.

"Spaceport, I'm not sure, but I think I just rammed the ship right back into its own nosecone."

"Roger that, we're looking at the telemetry to see if we can determine whether the motor's been damaged. Be prepared to abort to surface."

"FYI, I'm at higher than circular velocity and travelling too high," Jebediah says. "I'd really like an orbit solution before I consider aborting."

"Affirmative. We read you at 38 kilometers and... five eighty e..."

The signal went noisy, and then went to static.

"Blast. I'm on my own," Jebediah said.

After some time to consider, he decided he would increase speed at apoapsis. He checked his slide rule, and it told him what circular velocity would be for different altitudes. He watched the vertical velocity gauge, waiting for it to zero out, preparing to increase speed.

"Hopper-13 to anyone. I'm tilting around to point retrograde, since my retro-pack is on the front, and... oh my god."

Jebediah could now see the entire world through his window.

"Looks like my apoapsis will be at uh... 71 kilometers. Firing for circular velocity now."

Just a teensy little bit of eyeballs-out acceleration. This might be the 'slowest' rocket yet.

"I am now at circular velocity, with 118 meters per second of delta-v left in the propellant tank." Jebediah wrote this down as he said it.

He also took a moment to report his view out the window. "It's very ROUND!" he wrote, and he underlined 'round' three times.
Jebediah snapped another picture of the planet as it turned to a crescent.

"Look at the glint of light on the ocean, there," Jeb whispered.

Nearly 30 minutes after launch, during which time Jebediah reported his observations of Kerbin and did a few of the zero gee experiments he brought with him, he made contact with the Spaceport again.

"Spaceport, I'm in a nearly circular orbit with an altitude of about 76 or 77 kilometers by 71 kilometers and travelling 506 meters per second."

"That is considerably higher than expected."

"It'll be a good interim test of reentry from higher orbits though, won't it?"

"We're coming up with a plan to lower your orbit, but there are some concerns about propellant reserves."

"Why don't I just come down all the way from up here? Hell, it'll be a good test to see how increasing reentry speeds affects decelleration."

"We'll get back to you on that."

"The aerodynamics people like your idea, Jeb. They want you do deorbit, but just enough to put your perikee in the atmosphere. they want to test something called 'aerobraking,' to see if you can lower your orbit by passing through the atmosphere, without slowing down so much you land."

Jebediah spends several relatively slow orbits in space, before both the Spaceport and Hopper-13 are in the proper spot.

(It is frustratingly unclear what Hopper-13's perikee is, because at some point KSP removed that information from the T1 tracking station. so i'm just kinda guessing.)

The crafts has slowed to 412 meters per second and has only 18 meters per second left in the tanks. The only way that those last few drops of fuel could come in handy is if, after another orbit, it turns out the periapsis was way too high.
The world's beginning to look a whole awful lot bigger now. What happens next is a mystery. Hopper-13 might fly off into space with almost no difference in its trajectory. Or it might slow down to a much more circular orbit. Or it might slow down so much that the spacecraft ends up hitting the ground. One interesting possibility is it could slow just enough to keep the spacecraft in orbit within the atmosphere, spiraling inward.

In the atmosphere, speed is 722 m/s.
Jeb feels about half a gee aerodynamic deceleration, and is now under 6 kilometers, dropping, and travelling at 740 m/s. The orbit is still above circular velocity, but won't be for long
Hopper-13's periapsis was probably around 5 or 6 kilometers to begin with, but by now it is below the surface. The spacecraft will land.

Jebediah hits the button to jettison the retro-pack.

With the much much shallower reentry profile than usual, Hopper-13 doesn't even come close to needing its solid retro motors to slow down before parachute deployment, so Jeb opts not to subject himself to needlessly high acceleration, and deploys the parachute manually.

The ground always seems to approach so fast before the parachute opens fully.

As the parachute opens, Jeb pulls 9 Gees.

so much for avoiding high gee forces
this area looks kinda interesting.

Jeb gets a lovely daytime view of the Mun as he lands.

Jebediah opens the hatch and steps out. He's a little weak after spending a few hours in zero gravity. just a little. He's discovered by local farmers before the recovery team, but they're friendly enough, and were very interested to hear Jebediah's stories of racecars and spaceships over supper while the recovery teams travelled.

despite the minor hiccup on ascent, the new "ant" liquid fuel engine performed just beautifully.

----------------

"Groundskeeper 1 you are go for pre-flight experiment calibration."

"Calibration is complete, ready for takeoff."

"Groundskeeper you are clear for takeoff."

"currently trying to maintain a hover..."

"coming down for a landing outside MC."

"Uh, Jeb, we never evacuated--"

"Too late, I don't think I have enough fuel to land anywhere else."

A load roar is heard on the line... "You're coming down at a good speed."

"Groundskeeper 1 has landed."

"We copy you down, although we gathered that when the roar stopped and the windows didn't shatter."

"Running experiment calibration again. Hey you know this thing is a real joy to drive; it's nice having control of the throttle, although I kept telling the engineers I'd rather it be a pedal instead of a lever."

"Now I'm gonna try and hop over the sidewalk to the Aircraft Hangar side, but i'm gonna come down on parachutes."
"ooohhh I think I can get it on the roof, actually, this fuel is taking me further than I thought it would."

Groundskeeper runs out of fuel while hovering on its final descent, so Jeb fires the engine at full throttle to get enough air to use the parachute...

"AAAARGHUHH!"
The rocket creaks and the roof of the hangar cracks as Groundskeeper bounces at 20 meters per second, before settling down on the roof.

Groundskeeper ended up needing to be fished off the roof with a crane.

-------------

A new spacecraft with deceptively high technology is rolled out to the pad. It contains a processor which allows it to run scientific experiments and transmit their data back to the ground station. It is also capable of steering, although that functionality can't be used as there's nothing to steer with. The rocket is spin stabilized.
This is Automaton-1, a magnetic field environment explorer. It will shoot straight up and transmit information about Kerbin's magnetic field before either escaping into deep space or falling back to the planet.

unfortunately despite the spin stabilization it tumbles

it doesn't even reach 3 kilometers, before it smashes into the ocean

------

Automaton-2 has fins.

automaton 2 still tumbles. it may not be an aerodynamic instability, but due to an instability in the axis of rotation

the spin will make interpreting the magnetometer readings more difficult, but not impossible.

Its maximum height was 78 km, and it now begins falling down to the surface
one must hope someone in Dessert will accept a gift of pulverized metal

contact with the probe is lost, presumably due to the antennae snapping off in the windstream.

...
A woman heard the sound of creaking metal, a thud, and a boing, and just barely managed to catch out her window what appeared to be an enormous metal pogo stick bouncing up, tumbling, and hitting the ground.

The woman didn't understand what she had found. She was afraid it was a bomb, somehow left behind from the war, and so she called the fire department. They in turn found the recovery instructions inside the probe casing, and returned it to Outer Space Ventures. OSV provided the woman with a generous finder's fee and a brief explanation of what the object was and an apology for scaring her.

Who knew magnetometer booms were so sturdy.

Chapter 6: Mystery 1 & 2

Spoiler

Outer Space Ventures administrator Muna Kerman has now announced a new directive, to send a spacecraft on a flyby of the Mun and return pictures of its far side. It will be the most ambitious mission yet.

Mystery 1 will not be going to the Mun. It is an uncrewed test vehicle for the Mystery 2 rocket which, if all goes well, will be going to the Mun.

We have liftoff of Mystery 1, which will lay the groundwork for a future exploration of the Mun and planets!

Mystery 1 utilizes a Probodobodyne Stayputnik probe core which has replaced the pilot. But there's still lots of things probes can't do. Most pressingly, for Muna's new directive, is their inability to take photographs. Technically they could press the trigger and mission controlers could ensure it was aimed in the right direction, but then it would need to be recovered or transmitted somehow. This rocket is not equipped with a parachute, as the probe core is too heavy to include both.
The first stage cuts off, and Mystery-1 coasts to apokee.

This ascent was actually kind of like a normal KSP ascent, for a change.
Booster separation.

We lost contact with the vehicle... which means we have lost control...
that was while firing the second stage, by the way

the spacecraft was tumbling, but in a roughly circular orbit, as the orbit had been nearly circular when contact was lost anyway.
We therefore now know two things:
1) the spacecraft has too much delta-v in its second stage
2) further probe missions will require a relay network.

Unfortunately, relay satellites aren't an option at the moment as we have no way of generating power in space.
The spacecraft has now been reoriented prograde to test fire its liquid fuel rocket stage, a "Pug" engine.

(Crewed relay stations might be an option, but it's early days yet!)

The spacecraft has fired to escape velocity.
10 hours after launch, the rocket has escaped the Kerbin sphere of influence, and can conduct materials science and mystery goo observations in interplanetary space

Mystery 1 turned out to have overperformed. The two launch stages were overpowered, and that's simply because the Outer Space Ventures still doesn't know what the delta-v to orbit actually is. It depends greatly upon ascent profile. However, even the upper stage overperformed. It took some investigation to discover why (out of character: it's because of my math error, but the following error is just as plausible), and it turned out that the Pug engine is considerably more efficient than previously expected.

(I had calculated the mun transfer delta-v for full scale rather than toy scale, which necessitated a small redesign to keep the vehicle's margins tight.)

Mystery 2 has been delayed significantly and will be replaced with Mystery 3, while Mystery 2 will be another test flight of the rocket. Mystery 2 ran its materials science experiment in low orbit, however transmitting the results back home rather than recovering the materials means the data isn't especially helpful.

Rather than leave Mystery 2 in orbit to eventually crash onto someone's head, a command is sent to deorbit the rocket into the sea.

It slows down to only 238 meters per second--a crawl.
and it unceremoniously splashes down into the ocean just north of the island airfield.

 

Edited July 10, 2022 by GregroxMun