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Arizona Cowboy - Jeb's beeline for Duna


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The first days of the new Kerbal Space Agency have been somewhat chaotic. The agency had big plans for a Duna mission, even getting as far as to launch the transfer vehicle to orbit, but problems with flipping rockets, faulty navigation and camera tracking systems, and below-spec mission control hardware threw a pile of wrenches in the work.

Spoiler

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To make matters worse, the Duna lander had been thrown into a Kerbol orbit due to a series of onboard glitches, and only then was it discovered that Bill Kerman had stowed away on board!

Spoiler

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Between solving their launch vehicle problems and planning a rescue mission, the Kerbal Space Agency had their hands full, and the Duna mission was delayed indefinitely.

Jebediah Kerman wouldn't stand for this. He wanted to stand on the surface of the red planet, and he wanted to do it now. Stealing a number of rocket parts and an experimental nuclear engine, Jeb and his personal engineering team threw together the Arizona Cowboy, a makeshift spacecraft with one purpose: Duna or bust!

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Unfortunately, due to an improper gravity turn and insufficient thrust, Jeb didn't quite make orbit and was forced to abort...

After a successful recovery, Jeb was placed in a long quarantine process. Jeb was adamant that this was unnecessary, as he hadn't even reached orbit, but the KSC insisted: he would not be returned to the crew roster until his quarantine was complete.

Meanwhile, the Kerbal Space Agency was busy. They hadn't quite resolved their launch vehicle problems yet, but through a series of workarounds, they managed to launch their own nuclear craft to rescue Bill.

Spoiler

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Jeb, finally released from quarantine, quickly got back to work. His engineering team insisted that the Arizona Cowboy just wasn't up to the task; its thrust and delta-v were just too low to reach Duna reliably, and now that the Kerbal Space Agency had successfully tested their own nuclear engine, why not just wait for their solution? Jeb only had two words in response:

"More boosters."

"More! Boosters!"

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Orbit! At last!

Jeb had launched with no regard for transfer windows however, and he would have to wait in LKO for 180 days before burning for Duna. Sure beats quarantine though.

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Duna injection burn complete! Goodbye, Jeb!

And welcome home, Bill!

Spoiler

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282 days later...

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Prepare for EDL! Jeb burns what little fuel he has left; it's not much.

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Shouldn't the chutes have deployed by now?! Jeb frantically messes with the parachute controls...

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Chutes will not deploy! Ground approaching rapidly! One option left: activate landing thrusters!

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It's not enough! Its not en-

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...

Prepare for EDL! Jeb burns what little fuel he has left; it's not much.

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Chutes deployed!

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The Arizona Cowboy has landed! Seems the landing thrusters were unnecessary after all. Welcome to Duna, Jeb!

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"This is Jebediah Kerman. I have completed the mission objective in honor of our great agency. I will be waiting for your response. Transmission over."

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