Less Haste, More Speed: a Kerbal short story

[jimmymcgoochie]

This wasn’t your typical rocket launch.

Under normal circumstances such things are planned munths in advance, the crews trained exhaustively for the mission and the rocket itself checked and rechecked for any flaws that could result in a mission failure and expensive (but very pretty) fiery explosions.

Not this time: this was a pedal-to-the-metal scramble to stack any parts they could get hold of and get it airborne as fast as possible, Kraken take the consequences. The overtime costs would be astronomical, but that was someone else’s problem.

Someone else in this case meaning eccentric billionaire Jonbald Kerman who at this very moment was sitting on the Mun along with the rest of the crew of his privately funded landing mission, trying to make the space toilet work when tilted on its side and halfway up the wall to boot. Their lander- the Penumbral Sunrise- had toppled on touchdown, a victim of a top-heavy design and a crater wall that was that little bit too steep. Oddly enough, despite this issue, Jonbald was absolutely adamant that they didn’t need a rescue mission, merely a winch or hydraulic piston to right the stricken lander before they flew it back to Kerbin.

Jonbald was either oblivious to the potential dangers of his plan or just trying to handwave them away through sheer force of personality, but in any case the KSC was all hands on deck to build and launch the necessary lander-pointer-upper before the Penumbral Sunrise’s supplies ran out and doomed its crew.

Jeswell was one of many working through the night to get the rescue rocket ready for launch, perched on top of the launch escape tower to check the abort systems were ready.

“Trigger abort key one,” she said into her walkie-talkie.

“Abort key one, on.” Replied Desford in Mission Control.

A green light appeared on the panel in front of Jeswell.

“Abort key one checks out. Safe abort key one and trigger abort key two- in that order! I don’t want to get launched off the top of this thing.”

The light went out.

“Abort key one safe, triggering abort key two… now.”

Another green light on the panel.

“Safe abort jey two, trigger abort key three.”

A third green light followed.

“Abort system test complete, safe abort key three.”

“Abort key three safe.”

The light flickered but didn’t go out.

“I said safe abort key three, Desford.”

“Abort key three is safe and out of the console.”

“Then why is the light still on on this panel?”

“That thing’s been sat in a warehouse somewhere for years gathering dust and you’re wondering why it’s a bit glitchy? Give it a bit of percussive maintenance, that usually fixes these things.”

She gave the recalcitrant panel a hefty thwack with her fist and the offending light went out.

“I think we should report this anyway.”

“For what? A faulty light? Everything looked good on this end, plus by the time we rip all the wiring out and check it they’ll be long dead up there.”

“I don’t know…”

“I don’t like pulling rank, but in this case I’m overriding your concerns. We’re good to go; move on to the solar panel latches.”

“Copy that.” Jeswell was uneasy, but Desford sounded stressed like everyone else and happened to be her manager so now was not the time to argue a lost cause.

****

The launch window opened, the crew of three ready to ride into the sky to save their private sector counterparts. The old Mun lander *should* be able to winch the Penumbral Sunrise back to vertical if it landed in the right place, and if the structure could take the strain, and if any number of other things worked exactly according to the back-of-a-napkin plan.

The launch itself was a dazzling spectacle, the hodgepodge of different launch vehicles somehow holding together as it roared skywards. Everyone in Mission Control and millions worldwide watched with bated breath as the launch progressed.

“We’re through max Q, booster separation in ten seconds.”

“Flight, Booster, I’ve got a pump overspeed in engine three.”

Moments later, engine 3 exploded, torn apart as its turbopump failed. The explosion damaged engines 2 and 4 and caused the solid booster mounted on that side of the rocket to break free at the bottom, wobbling back and forth alarmingly as the two remaining attachment points strained under the load.

“Sitrep!” Shouted Bobak from the Big Chair.

“Booster, engine 3 out, engine 2 hydraulic leak, gimbal auto-locked. Recommend separating solid motors.”

“Guidance, trajectory is deviating.”

“Pilot, requesting manual flight control.”

“Booster, Flight, separate solid motors.”

“Capcom, that’s a negative, Jeb.”

“Booster, solids away.”

The loose booster and its counterpart on the other side were cut loose, racing ahead and away from the struggling rocket.

“Guidance, Flight, go/no-go for orbit?”

“Guidance, we are still go. Suggest dumping RCS propellant from stage 3 once in orbit.”

“Pilot, we’re getting a nasty shimmy up here.”

“Booster, pogo alarm. MechJeb recommends abort.”

“Pilot, real Jeb says proceed. We’ll get up there if I have to get out and push us into orbit.”

“Flight, poll for abort.”

The big screen switched from a ground tracking shot of the rocket to a simple graphic with ABORT in big red letters and three black circles.

“Booster, loss of thrust in engine four, pogo worsening. Recommend abort.”

One circle turned green as the Booster Officer turned his abort key.

“RSO, abort modes four and five are available.”

The Range Safety Officer turned her key and the second circle turned green.

“Guidance, negative. Trajectory is still recoverable.” The Guidance Officer’s key stayed in the safe position.

“Flight, no-go on abort. Find a way to-”

The third circle turned green.

The crew in the capsule felt like their eyes were about to hit the backs of their helmets as the escape tower fired, wrenching the capsule away to safety as strategically placed explosive charges detonated throughout the booster, destroying it completely in a huge shower of fire, smoke and wreckage.

The Guidance Officer stared uncomprehendingly at the panel in front of him, the green abort light lit despite the key clearly still being in the safe position.

****

It wasn’t a lack of food, water or oxygen that killed the crew of the Penumbral Shadow. With no hope of rescue, Jonbald decided that they would just have to push their lander around so it was pointing uphill, use the landing legs to bounce the nose up and then gun the engine at full power to try and clear the crater rim. Despite having no proper equipment to work with, somehow the crew managed to drag the spacecraft around, detach the legs and reattach them ready for “Operation Leapfrog” before strapping themselves in for their only remaining chance of getting home.

The legs functioned perfectly, propelling the spacecraft’s nose up for launch, but when the engine fired it kept on pitching up until it did a backflip and pointed back down at the ground, slamming into the surface at unsurvivable speed. When the nose was bounced up, the entire weight of the lander had been pushed onto the engine at the back, pushing the engine gimbal all the way over to pitch up and jamming it there.

The public inquiry into the failure of the rescue mission uncovered a devastating truth: the faulty panel on the capsule that had caused the entire incident had been wired incorrectly; simply removing the panel would have immediately revealed this mistake, while fixing it would take less than a minute. This led to the development of what became known as the Bobak Doctrine- “less haste, more speed”- that was adopted by a wide variety of organisations and companies worldwide.

A number of KSC employees including Desford were fired for gross misconduct in the wake of the inquiry, while Jeswell quit her job and become a nun with the Order of the Monoliths, crushed by the guilt of knowing that had she followed her instincts and stood up to her boss, those poor souls on the Penumbral Sunrise would probably have made it back alive.

Spoiler

If there are any typos in this then all I can say is I wrote it in about an hour and a half without proofreading, while down with a high fever and symptoms of a cold/flu/covid/other viral infection.