Long-term Laythe Mission (pic heavy) - ^_^ With Part 45 ^_^

[Brotoro]

Anyway, best of luck getting this show on the road again in 0.25. I really enjoy reading it.

Things are working well enough in 0.25 that I will be continuing in that version.

Ever since I upgraded to 0.23.5, I have been having a problem where the game will hang, usually during a change of scene (shifting to another ship in map view, reverting a flight, or when starting a new design in the VAB, etc.). The program becomes unresponsive and I have to force-quit from it and restart the game. Luckily, it seems to be saving its state properly before going off to never-never land, so everything is where I left it before the hang-up. But the frequent restarts are making the game much less fun to play.

I was hoping that the upgrade from 0.23.5 to 0.25 would eliminate this, but it has not. I don't know if the problem is getting worse, or if I'm just getting weary of all the restarts. I'm pretty sure that it doesn't have anything to do with me upgrading to Mac OS 10.9 (which I did shortly after the upgrade to 0.23.5) because the game freezes were hapening before then (they just hadn't gotten so annoying yet).

[Cydonian Monk]

I've had the same bug and I've been using OS-X 10.9 since release, so I don't think it's that. More often than not I find the hang at scene change is due to hitting 4GBs of RAM allocation/reservation. Older, large save files seem to be mem-leaky, and the autosave that happens at scene load is often enough to push it over the limit, if only temporarilly.

I've also had issues whenever OS-X decides my persistence file needs to be journalled/versioned. Drives the load times through the roof.

Edited October 16, 2014 by Cydonian Monk

[Yellowburn10]

Nice that you've got this going again, and great you're solving most of your problems. Sorry about that game freeze thing, though.

I actually was inspired by you to start writing mission-stories myself, but unfortunately, the save file I was using got corrupted. Now I know the importance of backing up my saves. But luckily you've been able to keep up this one since... wow how long has it been? .18 or something?

[Brotoro]

Yes, since 0.18. I backup regularly, making quicksaves of different names fairly often (which is easier since Alt-F5...I used to rename them by hand in the old days), just in case...and they have proven handy even if there is no disaster, since I can go back and get some screenshots of various things I may have missed at the time.

But sometimes I forget. In those cases, the automatic backups of all changed files that my computer makes every hour have saved my bacon a few times when there was some nasty program crash or bug. Just hop into Time Machine and grab the most recent automatic backup...and I never lose more than an hour's work.

What's Brotoro Up to Today?: Playing with the new Mk2 spaceplane parts. I ran into a strange situation using the Mk2 Bicoupler to put two turbojets on the back of my spaceplane. But one of the engines is gradually losing power as I gain altitude. One of the engines is running at over 200 kN, but the other is only giving me 160 kN. Weird. I'm used to one of them suddenly flaming out first, but I've never seen the gradual power loss like this. All intakes, engines, etc., are symmetrical. I guess I'll scrap this design and try something else.

[r_rolo1]

Brotoro, that is because the intake air is being monopolized by the engine you put out first ( for that behaviour to happen you need to put all the intakes first, then the engines individually ... the flaming out engine is the last one you put in the plane, right ? ) and it only lets the rest to the other, leading to the second engine to go down as it loses intake air ... while the other one is going fine. To avoid that behaviour, put the intakes after the engines ... they will flameout asymmetrically as usual

[Brotoro]

Brotoro, that is because the intake air is being monopolized by the engine you put out first ( for that behaviour to happen you need to put all the intakes first, then the engines individually ... the flaming out engine is the last one you put in the plane, right ? ) and it only lets the rest to the other, leading to the second engine to go down as it loses intake air ... while the other one is going fine. To avoid that behaviour, put the intakes after the engines ... they will flameout asymmetrically as usual

Thank you! Have some kerbal snacks.

I'm pretty sure that I did put the air intakes on after the engines, but I certainly DID put the engines on one at a time...so I suspect that's the mistake that matters. The intakes that I put on were structural intakes on the body, added in symmetrical pairs...and I remember doing it as an afterthought near the end.

In my revised design, I used shock cone intakes and I put the turbojets and shocks cones on in symmetrical pairs...so it worked fine. The engines are wider-spaced apart (unfortunate for when they flameout, so I've learned to be careful at that point in the flight...but it does give a cool looking SR-71 effect).

[r_rolo1]

Actually the engines added one by one is the deciding factor ... the order of placement of the intakes can muck out the issue even further , though , hence my caution

If you want to know more, there is a hugely informative thread about the flow rules of everything in KSP . Check the part in the first post about intake air and the links there for further enlightenment ( really, do so. The OP made a lot of experiments and posted all the results, thus the links to those experiments are very instructive )

Edited October 15, 2014 by r_rolo1

[Brotoro]

Huh. I went back to see if I could get my first Mk2 spaceplane design with the Mk2 Bicoupler to work. I took off the engines, took off the air intakes...and then put new shock cone air intakes on in symmetry (onto parts that had been put on in symmetry) and added turbojets to the bicoupler in symmetry. And I'm still getting uneven power from the turbojets at high altitude.

I think the Mk2 Bicoupler doesn't like me.

[Brotoro]

Long-term Laythe - Part 37

Version Vexations: 0.25

I have switched my old Save Games over to KSP version 0.25. There were some problems, which I have discussed earlier in my KSP Forum thread, but which I'll summarize here because I post these mission reports elsewhere as well.

Above, are some images showing a few problems.

1) SQUAD changed the old SAS part into a tiny sized reaction wheel part. I had this part on a lot of my ships...but a mass find & replace of that part name with the part name of the standard-sized part (the old ASAS part) was easier than I thought it would be.

2) The new small control surface does not attach the same way the old one did; I can edit the Save file contents to fix these positions...but I'll probably just leave them hanging.

3) The Incredible Shrunken Fuel Tank bug happened to some of my planes, but not all of them. After a lot of testing, I posted my results, and forum user Slumpie provided a fix: Details here.

4) The world-crashing bug that occurs when you dock your active ship to an inactive ship using a Claw on the inactive ship is still there. The work-around is to switch ships just before docking occurs.

5) In general, KSP 0.25 is freezing up on me more than ever (a problem that started for me in version 0.23.5, and which saps a lot of the fun out of playing the game because it requires frequent re-starts). I ran into other random serious bugs when a space station wiggled and shook itself apart after an undocking, and one time when wing parts suddenly popped off of a spaceplane Jeb was testing...then the program crashed before Jeb did. But I haven't been able to make these bugs repeatable.

SQUAD seriously needs to do some debugging and optimizing. But enough of this. On with the show!

Back to Bop!

When we last left our brave kerbals of the Jool system, Aldner and Nelemy were ready to head off from Tylo to Bop...and Emilynn and Hellou were ready to leave Vall to also go to Bop. So today is essentially a tutorial about how to maneuver between the Joolian moons.

The first maneuver, plotted below, shows the escape of Aldner and Nelemy from Tylo. It takes a fair bit of delta-V to get away from massive Tylo, and once you get out of its S.O.I. you end up being flung further out than you might like. But the important point here is that the new orbit was adjusted to intersect with Bop's orbit at the Descending Node (on the left...either node would be fine). Kerbal Alarm Clock was used to determine when to transfer...but it doesn't do great when predicting transfers to Bop's elliptical and inclined orbit.

Below, the "Grey Haven Express" nears the end of it 757 m/s burn to escape Tylo.

When the ship reaches the orbit node, it needs to do a plane shift burn. Aldner also included hefty retrograde and radial-inward components to the burn to get an encounter with Bop (at the new node point where the ship's path next intersects Bop's orbit. I guess K.A.C. wasn't too bad at predicting a good transfer time, since the encounter will be about 180 degrees away from where the boys left Tylo. Note that the Precise Node mod now color codes the burn components (with the same colors as the respective handles on the maneuver node). Also, instead of + and - buttons to increment values, it now has +/- buttons that you left-click to increase values and right-click to decrease values.

Combining the components of the plane-shift and encounter-targeting burn gets the job done with 550 m/s of delta-V. Doing the burns separately would be more costly.

The simple retro burn to capture the Grey Haven Express into Bop orbit required another hefty 517 m/s of delta-V because the intersection angle was larger than one would prefer. The apoapsis of the capture orbit was targeted out at 1,000 km to make the upcoming plane-shift burn less expensive.

Nelemy: "Dude, look at that thing! It's so dark and ominous. Not bright like Pol. I remember that from the last time I was here during the Mark Twain PB mission. I was glad at the time that Thompbles was the one who'd be exploring Bop, where I got to land on Pol.

Aldner: "You're not afraid of monsters, are you, Little Buddy?"

Nelemy: "Dude! Don't talk about monsters...it has one! I just don't enjoy horror stuff, Dude."

Once they were in the low gravity field of Bop, maneuvers were much cheaper: 8.9 m/s to plane-shift to equatorial; 6.8 and 3.9 m/s to target an intercept with the Bop Station payload waiting in orbit; and 13.8 m/s to match velocities with the station. Then a simple docking.

Nelemy: "All right, Dude! I'm going to EVA over to the Bop Base Lander and see what kinds of snacks they packed for us!"

Aldner: "You can just use the docking tunnel hatches to transfer over."

Nelemy: "Dude! What? I thought were weren't supposed to use those because of...of...'seal degradation possibly leading to decompression'...or whatever."

Aldner: "Yeah...But we got a new memo saying the connecting hatch system was actually fine all along. The engineer who tests such things apparently used himself as guinea pig...and repeated hypoxia made him forgetful about filing reports."

Nelemy: "Crazy, Dude. Do I need to wear my helmet during transfers?"

Aldner: "You can go through naked, if you want. Just don't eat all the best snacks."

Nelemy: "Cool. I'm off, Dude."

After adding their ship to Bop Station, Aldner rearranged things by separating the two nuclear tugs that had brought them to Bop, and moving them to the bottom of Bop Station. The rear tugs needed to be docked on rotated 30 degrees (instead of the normal 90 degrees used with most double tugs) in order to fit in the tight spacing.

Then Aldner had Nelemy EVA over to the Bop Fido (the game lets me just transfer...but that's just silly when they aren't connected in a reasonable way for transfer) and separate the Fido (plus an empty tank mounted under it). This allowed Aldner to separate their Tylo Station Hab Module and move it over to the strong Senior port. Then Nelemy flipped the Fido over and docked its standard port to the top of the Bop Base Lander.

OK! It was then time to bring Emilynn and Hellou over to Bop. Emilynn's first maneuver was much more efficient than Aldner's...first, because it takes less delta-V to leave Vall...and, second, because her Vall escape trajectory happened to have a Tylo encounter, which could be adjusted to give a gravity assist to send the Vall Ship out to Bop's orbit (adjusted to touch Bop's orbit at the ascending node with Bop set as target), all for a mere 206 m/s of delta-V. Sweet.

Below: The burn to send our heroines on their way to Bop.

Emilynn: "Burn complete. All systems green."

Hellou: "It may just be an ice ball, but Vall was a pretty little world. I'll miss it."

Emilynn: "There's more fun yet to come, Chickadee."

The Vall Ship headed outward from Vall, and then it passed close to Tylo for the gravity assist.

Hellou: "Emi, I'm going to open the hatch to make some observations as we Pass Tylo. Please keep that side of the ship pointed toward the surface."

Emilynn: "Can do, Chickadee. Are you going out?"

Hellou: "No, just pointing equipment out. Depressurized. OK. Ah! What a marvelous rock! I really hope the boys did a good job collecting samples."

When the Vall Ship reached Bop's orbit, Emilynn did a 521 m/s burn that matched the plane of Bop's orbit, and included prograde and radial-inward components to swing the ship out into a slower orbit so that it would encounter Bop when the ship returned to Bop's orbit.

The capture burn to put the Vall Ship into Bop orbit only required 65.3 m/s of delta-V because the intersection was close to tangential.

After the capture burn into a high elliptical orbit around Bop, three small burns (14.3 m/s plane shift; 11.1 intercept targeting; and 16.8 to match velocities) were needed to rendezvous the Vall Ship with Bop Station. The third burn is shown below...done somewhat far from the now-inhabited Bop station to keep the gamma and neutron flux from the operating nukes from unnecessarily radiating the boys. Then Emilynn moved in using RCS.

Emilynn: "Annnnd...docked!"

Aldner: "Nice flying, Hawk. Welcome to Bop Station."

Emilynn: "Thankie, Buzz. I'll get the systems safed, and then Chickadee and I will mosey on over."

Nelemy: "Hey, Dudes...You can use the transfer hatches to come over!"

Hellou: "We know, Nelemy. We read the message from KSC."

Nelemy: "You can even transfer naked!"

Hellou: "...ummm..."

Emilynn: "What have you got in mind, fly-boy?"

Aldner: "Don't mind him. He just says inappropriate things at times."

Nelemy: "Dude! But...no...I mean..."

Aldner: "Nevermind, Little Buddy. Just go back to cataloging the snack supplies."

And the crew had a Welcome To Bop party that couldn't be beat. Nelemy passed out the best snacks, but Hellou was more interested in what hair-care products had been packed onboard. Aldner presented Hellou with her book, safe and sound. Then they all called up Thompbles and Kurt on Laythe so that they could join in the party via comm-link.

After the party, Aldner and Emilynn separated the Vall Ship's tugs and moved them to the rear of the Bop Station stack. Then they prepared to test the integrity of the new combined ship by reducing its orbit from 400 km to 200 km. The nuclear engines of the top two tugs were deactivated (since their nozzles were inline with engine nacelles of the lower tugs).

Aldner: "All hands. Acceleration warning. One minute."

Hellou: "Wait! I've got a bunch of your Tylo sample boxes open. Can the burn wait five minutes?"

Aldner: "OK. We're just dropping our orbit height, so that's fine. Acceleration in five minutes."

Once in the lower orbit, Aldner and Nelemy prepared to take the Bop Fido rover down to the surface. They took care of some final rearranging of Bop Station at that time: Aldner and Nelemy separated the Fido and the Bop Base Lander from the double-tug-adapter so that Emilynn could move the Vall Ship's Hab Module to the Senior docking port there. Then Aldner separated the Bop Base Lander and passed remote control of that module to Emilynn so that she could dock it to the standard port on top of the Vall Hab. And, finally, Aldner and Nelemy moved away in the Fido.

Aldner activated the two 48-7S engines of the Bop Fido, then fired a retro burn to target them for an equatorial landing near 130 degrees West longitude. After the retro burn, the empty X200-8 Fuel Tank was released so that it would crash onto the surface (this tank was no longer needed on the Bop Station ship, and was taking up valuable docking port space, so this was their way of eliminating it without it becoming space debris).

The landing site turned out to be on a slope, but Aldner set the Fido down gently with no problems.

After landing, the Fido had almost 69% of its propellant left. The remaining propellant is enough that the rover could do long distance hops, if desired, and could easily return the boys to orbit if needed. Nelemy got out to plant a flag.

Aldner: "So how's it look out there?"

Nelemy: "Dark and dreary. Like I said, it's spooky city, Dude."

Aldner: "OK. Bop Fido calling Thompbles. We have landed safely. Please register the name of our landing location as Spooky City."

Nelemy: "Dude, that ain't funny."

Thompbles: "Roger, Bop Fido. Your name has been noted. You guys drive carefully now."

Indeed, driving on Bop proved to take some getting used to. The rover has eight ruggedized wheels, since the older wheels I normally use wouldn't be able to get traction in Bop's low gravity. The ruggedized wheels do get some traction, but response is slow...except when you brake: The the wheels grab the ground and try to flip the rover if you have any kind of speed at all. Happily, in Bop's low gravity, you have a fair amount of time to respond, and the reaction wheel torque from the cockpit and lander can are plenty to quickly correct your attitude while in the 'air'.

So the brakes are right out (except under 0.5 m/s, or maybe in very short taps of the B key). To slow down, use reverse (I have my rover controls mapped to the i,j,k,l keys). But the ruggedized wheels can also suddenly snag the ground without warning and try to flip the rover, even with the SAS on (which I highly recommend)...so driving requires one hand on the rover keys, and the other hand ready on the attitude control keys to quickly re-align the rover during unexpected hops.

A speed of 10 m/s is probably a safe maximum speed. It also controls well at 2X physics warp at that speed. Even then, the rover does spend a lot of time "flying" over even small bumps. After a little practice, Aldner and Nelemy seemed to be enjoying themselves immensely.

(The Bop Fido does have RCS installed that is strong enough in Bop's weak gravity to right the rover if it does get flipped, unofficial tests have shown.)

Aldner found some mostly-level ground after a downhill drive of 5.8 kilometers. The boys stopped for some rock samples, and Nelemy found out that dark and spooky as Bop is, it sure is a heck of a lot of fun to fly aound on with your rocket pack.

Nelemy: "Dude, I forgot how much fun low-G worlds are! We've been spending too much time under the heavy hand of gravity."

Aldner: "Good. Fly over there and get some surface samples."

When they started off again, Nelemy decided to ride on top in the Granny Klampett chair. Aldner figured this was fine: Nelemy's impact resistance is probably greater than that of the single-kerbal lander cabin.

As mentioned before, there is a lot of "flying" involved in driving a rover on Bop. What seemed like hair-raising jumps at first became commonplace.

Nelemy: "Dude, you could do a barrel roll during one of these jumps, they're so slow."

Aldner: "Can't do a barrel roll in a vacuum."

Nelemy: "You could if you use your thrusters, Dude."

Aldner: "Hmmm....No. Just, no."

Nelemy: "Dude, transfer control to my command seat. I want to try some jumps."

Aldner: "OK...but no rolls."

Nelemy: "Roger, Dude. No rolls."

Below: Animation of a rather weany leap.

It was amazing how far the rover could "fly"...and without a single blown tire. Driving on Bop was fun.

Aldner: "How's the ride, Nelemy?"

Nelemy: "It's a blast, Dude. But that's one monster of a hill up ahead."

Aldner: "OK. Hey, Cap'n Thompbles...you monitoring the line?"

Thompbles: "Yes, Aldner. Your video feed is kind of choppy. Your high gain antenna can't keep up with all your jinking."

Aldner: "Please register the name Monster Hill for the rise up ahead of our location. We'll see what kind of monsters live there."

Thompbles: "Roger."

Nelemy: "Dude...no monster jokes."

Monster Hill is more like a square plateau formed from four mountains (see map below). Also visible on the map below are the Kraken Site (where the radiographic rover is doing its work) and the Lewis PB Lander (around the horizon) that was landed remotely long ago on Bop after it had been used by Nelemy to land and return from Pol.

Below is one of those unexpected leaps into the 'air' from the tires snagging the ground...for no apparent reason. I took a picture before righting the attitude of the rover. That's a nasty bug you have there, SQUAD.

Below, as the Fido neared the western rim of Monster Hill, another mountain hove into view in the distance.

Aldner: "The map says we're coming to the end of this plateau. You have a better view from up there...what's is like ahead?"

Nelemy: "Just another scary mountain, Dude. Wait..."

Aldner: "Hey, Thompbles, Laythe-BigWig, sir! I'd like to name the next rise ahead Scary Mountain."

Nelemy: "Dude..."

The low point between Monster Hill and Scary Mountain was at about 7,740 meters. Samples were taken...then the boys proceeded up the next rise.

The high point the Fido reached on Scary Mountain was at 11,655 meters (but the boys were sticking close to the equator as they drove west...and there were higher elevations to their left). They had also driven from their starting point at 130 degrees West all the way to 180 degrees...and were now at 175 degrees EAST...and their longitude value would now be decreasing as they continued West.

Aldner: "How does the terrain look ahead, Little Buddy?"

Nelemy: "OK, Dude...There is nothing scary or spooky or anything. Just another giant mountain. So there."

Aldner: "Roger...Giant Mountain it is! I wonder if it has kind of giants that bite kerbal's heads off...or just the kind that stomp on you and squish you flat."

Nelemy: "Dude."

Giant Mountain was pretty steep and rose up to almost 15,000 meters along the rover's path. Ahead, beyond a relatively shallow dip back down to 13,500 meters, was a very wide ridge.

Aldner: "How does the terrain look ahead, Little Buddy?"

Nelemy: "..."

Aldner: "Nelemy?"

Nelemy: "Dude. A ridge. Just a ridge. I'm not going to give you any more ominous names."

Aldner: "Oooo...Ominous Ridge."

Nelemy: "Dude...I'm getting tired of this."

Aldner: "Yeah, me too. I think that's enough driving for now. This saddle here looks like a fairly level area. Let's call Hawk and Hellou down."

Below: an overview of the relatively level shelf between two highlands.

Aldner: "What should we name this place, Nelemy?"

Nelemy: "Dude...something peaceful. Something restful."

Aldner: "Hmmm. How about Sleepy Hollow?"

Nelemy: "Um... Sure, Dude. Thanks."

So Aldner radioed up to Bop Station, and Emilynn and Hellou transferred into the Bop Base Lander, then separated from Bop Station, which was left operating in automatic mode. Emilynn extended the landing legs and activated the six 48-7S engines of the lander.

A retro burn near the day-night terminator dropped the lander in toward Sleepy Hollow.

The landing was easy, and Emilynn set the ship down about 400 meters from the Fido rover.

The landing used only 15.5% of the lander's propellant. This Base Lander is meant to be hopped multiple times to rendezvous with the Fido rover to provide more comfortable living accommodations while exploring the surface by rover.

Aldner drove over toward the lander.

Aldner: "Greetings, ladies. Welcome to Sleepy Hollow."

Hellou: "Sleepy Hollow? Oooo...scary."

Emilynn: "Glad to be here, Buzz. Hey...Buzz...Where are you going?"

Aldner: "Ooops, sorry. Overshooting. It's hard to stop this rover where you want it."

Nelemy: "Dude. What did Hellou mean by 'scary'."

Aldner: "What? Oh...you'll want to get her to tell you the story of the Headless Rider."

Nelemy: "Um...no, I don't think I do, Dude."

So Aldner overshot, and got the rover turned around and headed back...and overshot again.

Emilynn: "Gee, Buzz. You should stay longer on one of your visits."

Aldner: "Laugh now, Hawk. Wait until you try to drive this thing."

Aldner finally got the Fido stopped, and the boys piled out to attend a flag planting ceremony to mark the landing of the fourth and fifth kerbals to set foot upon Bop.

Hellou: "Whoa. It really is hard to walk here."

Nelemy: "Nah, Hellou-dude...it just takes a little practice, then it's FUN. Look! I can jump 12 meters into the air."

Aldner: "No air."

Nelemy: "Whatever, Dude. Hey! Goo containers! Open them up so I can say Hi to the Goos."

Hellou: "We'll only open one here. We'll save the other to expose later."

Nelemy: "Hey, little Goo-dude! How are you today?"

Hellou: "What's it doing?"

Nelemy: "Bouncing up and down between the ends of its container. Goo-dude knows the fun of low-G."

Nelemy also checked that everything in the Science Jr. materials exposure experiment had deployed correctly. Then as long as he was hopping about, he posed for a picture on top of the Base Lander.

The gang spent about a week together at Sleepy Hollow. Aldner drove Hellou around the area on short jaunts to sample the rocks in detail. He also spent some time teaching Emilynn what he and Nelemy had learned about driving the Fido. They all agreed that this was something that Hellou shouldn't attempt, since the quick reflexes of a pilot were important in recovering from the unexpected bounces. But Nelemy did teach Hellou all about the wonders of using a Rocket Pack on a low-G world.

During the long Bop night, Aldner and Hellou told ghost stories.

Hellou: "...and the Mission Controller said, 'Dude! Get out of that spaceship! The radio message is coming from inside your lower hab module!"

Nelemy: "Arrrrggghhh!"

Aldner: "Yeah, that's the way I heard it. I've got another story..."

Nelemy: "Dudes... I'm going out to sleep in the rover."

After that week (about one Bop day...so the sun was well up again in the sky), it was Emilynn and Hellou's turn to continue on to the West in the Fido, while ALdner and Nelemy got to look forward to a little rest and relaxation. I mean...monitoring of the lander's experiments.

Emilynn and Hellou got to tackle Ominous Ridge. After seeing the others driving around in the Fido near Sleepy Hollow, Hellou decided that she preferred to stay inside the cabin where she couldn't see what was going on as Emilynn drove. And the bumps weren't THAT bad, really. But she certainly wanted to be on this leg of the exploration because the giant impact feature ringed with odd white deposits was ahead.

Ominous Ridge topped out at about 15,332 meters along their equatorial path.

As they approached the white area on the map, they came to a rather steep slope on the Western edge of Ominous Ridge. Emilynn decided to take that slope at a maximum speed of 5 m/s. Even a small bump (or invisible ground snag) can threaten to send the rover flying on that slope angle.

Emilynn: "Hey, Chickadee...there's a very dark patch up ahead."

Hellou: "An outcropping of dark rock?"

Emilynn: "I don't think so. Check the video feed on your monitor."

Hellou: "OK. Hm. Yeow! Emi! Do NOT drive over that! Swings wide of it. That looks like one of those spatial anomalies the Physicists get all excited about. But touching one can instantly vaporize you."

Emilynn: "Roger. No touchie. I'll swing in and approach it at an angle so there's no chance of accidentally running into it."

Emilynn: "OK. It almost looks like a torn corner in the landscape...but I think I can see stars in it."

Hellou: "Be careful. What coordinates is it at?"

Emilynn: "We're driving past the corner...according to the nav readouts, it looks like one side is exactly at the equator, and the other side is at...lining up...at 135 degrees East longitude."

Emilynn: "We are well away from that mysterious cleft. This seems to be a relative low point in the whiter area."

Hellou: "Can we stop to camp here? I'm going to want to do a lot of sampling and some digging."

Emilynn: "Roger. Stopping for camp. I could use the break...I don't have another pilot to switch off control to, so I need a rest."

Hellou: "I'll follow Aldner's lead and name this area Wight Valley."

Emilynn: "It's not all that white up close."

Hellou: "That's wight spelled W-I-G-H-T. A wight is a kind of undead monster, or a reanimated dead person in some books that I've read."

Emilynn: "You read some jolly stories allright. Wheels stopped. Go play with your rocks."

That's enough rover driving for one evening, so I'll leave our heroines here. We'll get back to exploring the dark mysteries of Bop another day. Time for some side stories!

Spiffy Space-Plane Parts

Whenever a version of KSP comes out with new parts, I always like to try them out. So I've been doing some of that instead of exploring the Jool system. In the case of version 0.25, the new Mk2 spaceplane parts beckoned to me.

Of particular interest to me was the new Shock Cone Intake. Especially since I read some forum messages that indicated that the Ram Air Intake will eventually be removed from the game, and the shock cone intake is its replacement. I imagine this will be quite the surprise to any kerbal using a BirdDog when the intakes of his plane suddenly have a different shape that he remembers...but they've survived such things before with a minimum of befuddlement. Or maybe I should send out a payload to Laythe containing some upgrade parts that the kerbals on Laythe can install.

The specs for the shock cone intake looked very good. So the boys at KSC decided to test them out by revamping the design of the reusable SSTO Crew Carrier rocket that can carry eight kerbals to orbit. Tests indicated that just six of the new intakes would be enough (replacing 12 of the old intakes), and the tankage was rearranged to make the ship more compact and aerodynamic (see below). The six RAPIER engines are set to manual switching mode in the VAB, and action group 1 toggles the RAPIERS between air-breathing and closed cycle (rocket) mode.

Jebediah Kerman and Dilger Kerman conducted the test flights of the design. The flight profile was similar to that of the older version: The SAS was activated, the RAPIERs were toggled into air-breathing mode, the throttle was set to maximum (the handy Z key max-throttle implementation is great), and a press of the spacebar fired up the RAPIERs. After spool-up, the ship slowly lifted and the leading legs were raised.

At 5,000 meters, Jeb tilted the ship 10 degrees East. At 10,000 meters, the tilt was increased to 20 degrees from vertical...then at 15,000 meters it was pitched to 30 degrees from vertical. By this point that ship's flight path was more than 45 degrees from vertical, just as expected, so that it could be picking up some horizontal velocity. At 20,000 meters the ship was tilted all the way to the current location of the prograde marker (about 25 degrees from horizontal) to get the best amount of air intake for this relatively brief phase before flameout.

Flameout occurred a little over 24,000 meters at over 730 m/s, and the RAPIERs were toggled to closed-cycle mode and the ship was pitched back up to 45 degrees for the rest of the burn. When the apoapsis was over 120 km (the target altitude), the engines were to be cut off. Jeb had a little trouble with the new full-throttle key and accidentally ran the apoapsis up over 140 km before finding the correct cutoff key.

The ship was already pretty high, so drag losses did not cause the apoapsis to drop too much during the coast to apoapsis. At apoapsis, Jeb fired the RAPIERs to raise the periapsis to 90 km...and they were in SPAAAACE.

The image below shows the delta-V stats for the SSTO Crew Carrier 6d after reaching the 144 by 90 km orbit. Almost 800 m/s of delta-V remained...plenty for orbital maneuvers and for return to KSC for a powered landing, which Jeb took care of.

I use these SSTO rockets just as crew transport, but it occurred to me that it could also be used for lifting moderately-small payloads into orbit. The SSTO Cargo Carrier shown below is the result. The cargo in this case is a space station module that masses a little over 6 tons. This payload can be used as a small independent space station...but for this mission it would be lifted to the main Space Station in Kerbin orbit to be added to its structure. The payload has two hab modules, two gigantor solar arrays for power, and an RCS system for stability and orbit control.

The SSTO Crew Carrier uses the same flight profile outlined above for the Crew Carrier version, except that the aerodynamic nose cone is jettisoned after the transition to rocket mode of the RAPIERs. Ooooo! The Sepatrons have been given back the brighter exhaust flame they used to have in the old days. A change in propellant formulation, no doubt.

The Cargo Carrier made it into a 112 by 121 km orbit with 655 m/s of delta-V remaining for subsequent maneuvers.

Below, the Cargo Carrier rendezvoused and docked with the Space Station in it 120 km orbit.

After uncoupling its payload, the drive unit of the Cargo Carrier moved away from the Space Station for return to KSC.

The Cargo Carrier had plenty of fuel for a powered landing at KSC...but it also has eight parachutes that can be used to land the ship if it is short on fuel.

Passenger Pigeon

In addition to those wonderful new shock cone air intakes, there were lots of new Mk2 spaceplane parts to try out. So a 10-kerbal SSTO spaceplane was also built and tested...initially by Jebediah (with his amazing ability to survive any crash...or at least show up later), and later by Ludger Kerman and Bobgan Kerman.

The plane is powered by two turbojet engines and has two shock cone air intakes. I initially tried using a Mk2 Bicoupler to mount the two turbojets on the end of the fuselage, but the engines gave unbalanced power at high altitude when air was getting scarce. I was informed that this was caused by adding the engines one at a time instead of in symmetric pairs (I had indeed added them one at a time), but even when I rebuilt the plane with symmetric attachment of the turbojets and intakes, I STILL got the unbalanced power at high altitudes. I think the Bicoupler doesn't like me. So I went with the double side-pod arrangement shown below.

For propellants, the plane has one Mk2 Liquid Fuel Fuselage Short (300 units liquid fuel), a Mk2 to 1.25m Adapter (135 units fuel, 165 units oxidizer), and two FL-T100 Fuel Tanks in the side pods (45 fuel and 55 oxidizer each). There are fuel lines running in both directions between the fuselage tank and the side pod tanks. The plane incorporates a Mk2 Clamp-O-Tron docking port that includes 75 units of monopropellant as part of the docking unit -- Including the RCS monopropellant in that part is Brilliant!

A cluster of four Rockomax 48-7S engines on the end of the fuselage provides the rocket power for the push to space and orbital maneuvers. Electrical power is supplied by an RTG.

For the prestigious inaugural operational flight, the Passenger Pigeon was slated to carry ten kerbals on a mission to the space station. Ludger and Bobgan Kerman would pilot the spaceplane. Rodgan Kerman was named to command the Space Station, and he would be joined by Dilger Kerman and two raw recruits: Gilwise and Macbo Kerman. In the VIP crew cabin, Jebediah Kerman, Bill Kerman, and Bob Kerman would be riding along, and they would be joined by Kelby Kerman (first kerbal to walk on Duna...and recently returning to astronaut duty after getting a Ph.D. in Extrakerbinal Geology). No pressure here, Ludger and Bobgan...but that's most of the astronaut corps currently on Kerbin (and its three bigwigs) riding on your piloting skills.

With full throttle on the turbojets, the Passenger Pigeon began to lift its nose at 110 ms, and lifted off at 120 m/s speed.

The initial climb was done at a steep angle of around 40 degrees.

Ludger leveled of the rapid climb to a shallow climb at 25,000 meters. He probably should have climbed a little faster there...but it was OK. Above 30,000 meters, the turbojets were still running at full throttle (although their exhausts are dimmed) and the air intake was down to 0.1, but the plane continued to increase speed as it slowly climbed into the thinner air.

The turbojets were still ticking away at full throttle above 33,000 meters at a speed of over 2,190 m/s. The periapsis was over 33 km at this point (the view had already rotated) and the apoapsis was increasing fairly quickly.

With all my previous spaceplanes that had one jet engine, I would keep increasing altitude and decreasing the throttle to re-fire the jet engines after flameouts...But with two engines and the threat of violent yawing during asymmetrical flameouts, I kept this plane below 34,000 meters altitude (above which flameouts could be expected) and allowed the apoapsis to increase. But at the first sign of flameout, action groups were be used to switch on the rocket motors, the plane was pitched up to 45 degrees, and the push the orbit was made. When the apoapsis got to 140 km, the rockets were cut off.

The plane was still pretty low, so occasional bursts of rocket power were used when the apoapsis fell below 120 km (the altitude of the Space Station). In the image below, it looks like the plane has an excess of oxidizer, but that's just because there is more liquid fuel storage on the ship than there is storage for oxidizer. The 185 units of oxidizer shown will burn with 151 units for fuel...so the plane has an excess of about 82 units of liquid fuel.

At apoapsis, Ludger circularized the orbit at around 117 km. At that point the spaceplane had 396 m/s of delta-V for orbital maneuvers...which might be cutting it a bit close for a Space Station rendezvous and a retro-fire to return to KSC. But, the Station has extra fuel, if needed.

Rendezvous was made in the dark of night...but dawn was not too far away, so the crew waited until then to do the docking.

The internal view of the Mk2 cockpit is nice. I particularly like the k-OS fatal error screen. I'm sure that's encouraging for the crew...but I expect that they only use that OS for playing games, so the flight should continue OK.

The Mk2 Clamp-O-Tron docking port was activated, and the plane approached the Station for docking. Sadly, the extended docking port blocks the view of the Lazer Docking Camera...so I had to do the docking the old way, panning the view around by 90 degrees to see if everything was lined up.

Docking was successful. Rodgan, Dilger, Gilwise, and Macbo transferred to the Station (with its spacious new habitat modules). Then the Passenger Pigeon was separated from the Station for return to KSC.

Ludger and Bobgan decided to NOT take on any extra fuel at the Space Station (just to prove that the Passenger Pigeon could do the mission on its own). But during retro fire to return to KSC, the oxidizer was expended with a little bit of delta-V still needed to target the KSC. But no problem...the RCS system still had lots of propellant, and that was used to finish targeting the reentry to KSC.

Below, the wonderful thermal protection coatings of the Mk2 parts easily survive reentry. I don't know how well it would do if one had Deadly Reentry installed.

The plane passed over KSC, and Ludger banked it to the south, then back around to approach runway 27. Some power from the turbojets was needed to keep the plane aloft and make it more maneuverable on approach. Another set of elevons on the back of the wings would probable be useful on this bird. Touchdown occurred at about 62 m/s.

After landing, the four remaining passengers thanked their heroic pilots as they all posed for the historic photo op. The Passenge Pigeon can carry more kerbals for less fuel into orbit than the SSTO Crew Carrier...but I find the Crew Carrier to be easier and quicker to fly.

Next Episode: More exploration of Baffling Bop. And maybe the New Crew arrives in the Joolian system.

[meve12]

Well, you do do a fine plane. I can never seem to make a good looking one.

[meve12]

Say, is Duna or Laythe colonization a possibility in the near future?

[Brotoro]

To colonize a place, you have to live off the land -- plant crops to sustain yourself...and in the case of other planets, exploit the local resources to live, breathe, and work. KSP doesn't give us the tools for that, or even go into it in their scope of game play.

I'm just exploring in detail.

[meve12]

Drat.

...Maybe a modded playthrough?

(grins nervously)

[Geschosskopf]

Another great episode! Congrats on surviving the Supernova of '25 .

[macdjord]

Given Aldner's naming scheme, i expect Bop will end up with a terrain feature named 'Your Finger You Fool'~

[Tw1]

Story of the headless rider? I think I know that one.....

Lots of driving. Testing Jool system equipment of my own right now, your numbers will be useful estimating my own requirements.

[Konnor]

Oh well...

This reference made me sad.

[Jaxal1]

I'm glad the two-nacelle design worked out. Bicouplers do tend to look a bit silly on planes anyway.

Strange they'd have different behavior.

[Rolanvorxariat]

is this dead? or am i just not patient enough because this story is too awesome?

[Dodgey]

It last came out 4 days ago, paitence doesn't even come into effect yet.

[Brotoro]

Long-term Laythe - Part 38

Bopping Around Bop Again

When we last left our plucky kerbals on Bop, Emilynn and Hellou were having a turn driving the Bop Fido rover, heading West from the Base Lander currently parked at Sleepy Hollow. They had stopped to sample the white ejecta at Wight Valley...and as we pick up the story, they are continuing West into the giant impact feature that Hellou has dubbed Goblin Crater.

After the entertainment value of driving on Bop subsided for me, I began to experiment with MechJeb's Rover Autopilot. I had found the autopilot to be of limited usefulness on Laythe, but that was mostly because the old-style rover wheels I was using there could not go straight up steep hills (not enough grip), which the autopilot tries to do...so I had to manually do contour driving instead. And, when going downhill, the autopilot would let my old-style-wheel rover go too fast, since it did not use the brakes for slowing...apparently trying to slow using wheel speed control only.

For my Bop Fido, which uses the much grippier ruggedized wheels, the MechJeb Rover Autopilot works very well. The Fido can climb straight up steep hills, and the wheel speed control can prevent its downhill velocity from running away. The most important feature, however, is the Stability Control check box. When the rover hits those inevitable ground-snag bugs and gets flipped up into the 'air,' the Stability Control quickly gets the rover leveled out for when it lands. That's wonderful.

Below: Emilynn pilots the rover up the rim surrounding Goblin Crater.

Uneven or angled terrain is no problem for the autopilot. And while I am fast enough to quickly compensate for the ground-snag induced flip-outs at 1x or 2x (especially when I'm ready to control the attitude of the rover with my joystick), the autopilot's stability control can handle things at 3x or even 4x physical time warp.

The marker in the right part of the image below reading 27.4 km shows the direction to the Lewis PB Lander (from the Mark Twain PB mission that first explored Pol and Bop over a decade ago). That is Emilynn's driving target.

As the Fido neared the peak of a ridge at over 12,000 meters, Emilynn spotted Vall on the horizon. The kerbals have some nice zoom on the binoculars they use in their cockpits. A map view is also below:

What exactly constitutes the rim of the Goblin Crater feature is difficult to say, because it is so large on such a small, bumpy moon. Perhaps Ominous Ridge is part of the crater rim. Perhaps this ridge they just crossed is the crater rim. It's rather confusing because the white markings are not symmetrically centered on the white markings further west that appear to radiate out from an impact point. Is this white stuff ejecta, or is it places where rock has been scoured away down to a lighter layer by impact blasts? I hope Hellou figures this out, because I'm stymied.

As Emilynn drove further West, Vall rose higher...followed into the sky by Laythe...and then eventually Jool peeked up above the horizon.

After crossing over the ridge, they saw a dark bowl-like feature where the Lewis PB Lander is located. Hellou named this feature Goblin Pit. Possibly it's just a deep part of the floor of Goblin Crater, or maybe it's a later impact feature.

Finally, our heroines reached their stopping point...the Lewis PB Lander. The old Mark Twain PB mission carried two landers. It first stopped at Pol, where then-rookie astronaut Nelemy Kerman landed in the Lewis PB Lander and then returned to the mothership. Then the mothership carried both landers to Bop, where Thompbles Kerman landed by the Kraken with the Clark PB Lander...then returned to the mothership. The Lewis had been brought along to serve as a possible rescue vehicle...but after the Mark Twain left to return to Kerbin, the Lewis PB was landed unmanned on Bop, and then remotely hopped across Bop, ending up in Goblin Pit.

Hellou got out to do a lot of sample collection in Goblin Pit.

Emilynn: "Hey, Chickadee?"

Hellou: "Yes, Emi?"

Emilynn: "When we first drove down into Goblin Pit here, Jool was no longer visible above the horizon. But I can't help but notice that it is above the horizon now. Isn't Bop tidally locked to Jool?"

Hellou: "Yes, Bop is in a 1:1 resonance orbit...and, yes, that would normally mean that Jool would stay in the same place in the sky. But Bop's orbit is quite eccentric, so Jool's position wobbles quite a bit back and forth...and from here, it's sometimes above the horizon and sometimes below."

Emilynn: "Ah, Thankie. As long as nothing spooky is going on. I'm going to call up the boys and have them haul their butts over here now."

Hellou: "Well, I'm sure if you ask them politely like that, they won't be able to resist."

Emilynn: "Fido to Bop Base. Look lively, Buzz. We are ready for you guys to hop on over."

Aldner: "Roger, Hawk. We are getting ready now. When we separated the Materials Exposure Module, it just sort of hopped up and fell back down on top the tank again instead of falling off. Nelemy's outside seeing to removing it."

Emilynn: "How's he going to do that?"

Aldner: "I told him to use his head. So...I suspect he'll head-butt it with his helmet."

*BUMP*

Nelemy: "Ow! ...OK, Dude...the Science Junior module is clear."

Aldner: "Nice job. Now climb in a get strapped down."

It was already night at Sleepy Hollow, but there was still daylight at Goblin Pit for the landing. Aldner lifted off slowly, tilting to the West, until he was sure their trajectory would be high enough to pass over Ominous Ridge. Then he tipped the Lander to horizontal and fired the engines again to stretch the trajectory over to Goblin Pit. A little right-angle tweaking burn was needed to adjust the aim.

Below, the Bop Base Lander approaches Goblin Pit, and Aldner blasts to slow the horizontal motion of the Lander, and then eases it down about 400 meters from the Fido rover.

Aldner used about 16% of the Lander's original fuel load to do the hop.

Aldner: "Your hotel has arrived, ladies. Would you like to drive over for some fine dining? I can get our master chef Nelemy started on it right away."

Hellou: "No. Get master chef Nelemy up in the command module with you so that I can take a proper shower first. After I'm presentable, we'll have dinner. The shower facilities in these rover cabins leave a lot to be desired."

Below: Night at Goblin Pit, with Jool hanging in the West. There were no ghost stories told, at Nelemy's insistance. Nighttime lasts half a week on Bop.

When the sun rose, Nelemy was excited to go check out his old Lewis PB Lander...so Aldner and Nelemy got in the Fido to drive on over to investigate it.

Nelemy: "Dude! Look at this old thing! It really brings back memories!"

Aldner: "I know. It's very similar to the one I used to land on Dres.

Nelemy: "Dude...remember how crappy those landing legs were? They would shimmy and wiggle all over the place on even a moderate slope."

Aldner: "Yeah. Hmmm. Those landing legs don't look all that weak now."

Nelemy: "Umm... Yeah. They seem to be sturdier than I remember. Huh."

Aldner: "Well, memory is a funny thing. Maybe all the parts have vacuum welded after all this time."

Nelemy climbed the ladder and got inside the capsule of the Lewis PB.

Nelemy: "Dude, this is great!"

Aldner: "Yeah...but the accommodations were a bit cramped, as I recall."

Nelemy: "Yeah, Dude. The snack compartments were really small. Hey...the snack compartments are all empty."

Aldner: "Imagine my surprise."

Nelemy: "Wow! The system clock is still running, Dude. Thirteen years, fifty-four days, fourteen hours, and fifty-six minutes!"

Aldner: "How time flies when you're having fun."

Nelemy: "The two side tanks are empty, but the center tanks has over 57 fuel. Monoprop is at 87.5%. I should fly this thing into orbit!"

Aldner: "You should NOT. We have a perfectly good modern lander, plus two lander/habs in orbit that could be used, plus a Fido that has more than enough fuel to reach orbit. We aren't going to need to rely on a 13-year-old ship."

Nelemy: "Dude, you're no fun."

Nelemy did get Aldner to snap a picture of him standing on top of his old lander. (On of the fun things about having an ancient save-game file is that I have 'Easter Eggs' of old equipment laying around all over the Kerbol system.)

Hellou wanted to investigate the central and western areas of the large Goblin Crater feature, so Aldner offered to drive (in order to give Emilynn a break). I tried experimenting with MechJeb's Rover Autopilot's Waypoint feature...but I'm not sure I was using it properly. The green beam points through the central peak of the crater to the low-lying area beyond.

The central highland (possibly a central peak of the large crater feature...but more like a ridge) topped out around 10,580 meters, and then Aldner proceded down the opposite side. I'm sure Hellou insisted on more stops for surface sampling than Nelemy ever did.

The low point in the western part of Goblin Crater was at about 5,770 meters. This is near the center of the small feature of radial white markings. Is it part of the crater floor of the large Goblin Crater feature, or a small impact feature that was formed later?

Aldner and Hellou then continued further West up the far rim of Goblin Crater. The autopilot was acting weird here: I had disabled the Waypoints (I think), but when I set a Heading, the autopilot wanted to head in some other direction. So I just went back to mainually aiming the rover direction.

Up on the far rim, Aldner and Hellou went as far as 78° 37' East longitude into a white area. They did not go all the way to the top of the rim, but this did place the Fido Rover over 151 degrees West of its original landing location. A good drive...but it is a small moon.

Aldner drove the Fido back down toward the northeast a little to get to the whitest patch of ground in the area. Hellou got out to do some extensive surface sampling and digging.

Hellou: "Hey, Aldner... Don't just sit around in that cockpit. Come on out here."

Aldner: "I never miss a chance for a little snooze on the job. But, OK...coming out."

Hellou: "Just look at that vista! A titanic crater formed by a mighty impact almost powerful enough to shatter this moon. The distant towering mountains of the rim. The complex shape of the crater floor. The mysterious surface shading pattern. Such magnificent desolation on an airless world that only one other kerbal had set foot on before we got here. It's beautiful!"

Aldner: "Aww. And you wanted to share this with me?"

Hellou: "No...I need help getting this bulky sample box up into the cabin."

The drive back to Goblin Pit Base was uneventful, but there was a nice view of Tylo making a close pass by Bop when they returned to the Lander.

The crew camped out at Goblin Pit for another week. I used the opportunity to study the motion of Jool in the sky from Goblin Point. The sequence below of Jool rising and reaching its highest point took about two Earth days. When Jool was rising, Bop was passing through the periapsis point of its orbit. It moves fastest there, and its rotation rate can't keep up to make Jool sit in one spot, so Jool drifts eastward across the sky at that time. The fact that this was happening around sunset time at Goblin Pit just depended on where the Jool system was located in its orbit around Kerbol; when Jool is in other parts of its orbit, this wobble will be seen when Kerbol is elsewhere in the sky.

For the next part of the Fido's drive, Aldner and Nelemy were again in the rover while Hellou and Emilynn remained with the Lander Base. Aldner drove north, up into the highlands of Goblin Crater's north rim area.

Again, I had the Rover Autopilot running the show here, but this time a 4x physics warp...and when they hit some ground-snags, the rover did some very impressive acrobatics. Nelemy even got the complete roll he was hoping for at one point. But the Stability Control system always got the vehicle reoriented to land safely every time...because it runs at 4x time warp too.

The highest point found along this northward path was at over 16,400 meters in a white area (and there were even higher heights off to the East of their path here).

Nelemy was getting a bit bored again.

Nelemy: "I spy with my little eye, something beginning with...G."

Aldner: "Ghost?"

Nelemy: "No."

Aldner: "Gobiln?"

Nelemy: "No."

Aldner: "Ghoul?"

Nelemy: "No."

Aldner: "Graveyard?"

Nelemy: "No, Dude! It's nothing scary. It's just 'Ground'. OK...your turn."

Aldner: "I spy with my little eye, something beginning with D."

Nelemy: "Um...Dish? The high gain dish?"

Aldner: "No."

Nelemy: "Um...Dirt?"

Aldner: "No."

Nelemy: "Um...um...It's not something like 'Demon,' is it?"

Aldner: "No."

Nelemy: "I give up."

Aldner: "Depression! Up ahead."

Nelemy: "Lovely, Dude."

The rover seemed to be doing more acrobatic flips on the downslopes at 4x, and I eventually noticed that some of these were being caused by the autopilot briefly hitting the brakes (the brake light would flash...I hadn't noticed it doing that earlier).

As the boys headed further North, the landscape became darker and more ominous... Well, darker, anyway, because of the lower illumination angle of the sunlight at high latitudes. I'm sure Nelemy enjoyed the effect.

After topping another ridge at over 14,270 meters, the rover entered a shallow depression with a relative light object visible on the black landscape.

Aldner: "I spy with my little eye, something beginning with...K!"

Nelemy: "Dude...I see it, and I don't like it."

Aldner: "You don't want to visit the Kraken?"

Nelemy: "No."

Aldner: "You know... That Radiography Rover over there has its food lockers packed with snacks that nobody's been eating yet."

Nelemy: "... Dude. OK...maybe it would be OK to get a little closer. For a while."

Aldner: "Aldner calling Thompbles. Come in, Fearless Leader."

Thompbles: "I read you, Aldner. What can I do for you?"

Aldner: "I just wanted to verify that the X-ray Source Rover has been deactivated."

Thompbles: "Roger. I finished the high-res scans last week. The XRS rover has been safed. Final X-rays confirm that the patient is still dead."

Aldner: "Thank you, Doctor T."

Aldner: "Aldner calling Gobin Pit Base. Come in, Hawk."

Emilynn: "I hear you, Buzz. What's up?"

Aldner: "We have arrived at the Kraken's lair. It hasn't eaten Nelemy yet, so it's probably safe to bring the camping equipment and set up shop."

Emilynn: "Roger, Buzz. We're on our way."

Emilynn boosted the Base Lander North, giving it a good, high lob to be sure to pass over the north rim of Goblin Crater. Very little lateral adjustment was needed.

The initial landing spot of the Base Lander was over 800 meters away from the Kraken, so Emily did a short hop over to place the Lander less that 200 meters away from the Kraken. The big hop to Kraken Depression, followed by the small hop closer to the Kraken, used about 17% of the Lander's initial fuel load. It ended up at an elevation of 13,949 meters.

The X-ray sensor arrays of the Radiography Fido were folded up, and the various rovers were repositioned to provide lighting of the Kraken Corpse from all angles. Then Hellou, Aldner, and Emilyn started examining the Kraken in detail and performing various experiments on the creature. Nelemy refused to touch the thing.

Below, Aldner examines the detached eyeball while Hellou studies the empty eye socket.

Below, Hellou examines the other eye. She certainly seems to be having a fun time doing Kraken SCIENCE!

Nelemy took care of reconfiguring the Radiography Fido. First he opened up the two Goo canisters. The Goo were vibrating wildly...whether from excitement or fear, who can know?

Nelemy then jettisoned the high-mast X-ray detector array, which went tumbling end over end off to the North. The he jettisoned the low X-ray detector array (with the attached Goo canisters), which fell straight down.

Because the low-array module ended up between the right-side rover wheels, Nelemy used the RCS system to boost the Fido up and sideways a little. The Goo canisters were facing the ground, so he used his head again and got a running rocket-pack start to bump into the module and flip it over so that the Goos could get a better look around. Now the team had two Fido rovers for exploring the surface of Bop.

Below, Emilynn examines the Science Probe that Thomples had left by the Kraken on his mission here 13 years ago.

Emilynn: "What do you suppose happened to the other science package Thompbles left here? I've searched the area, and there's no way it's hidden in a crater or anything."

Nelemy: "What? There's supposed to be another one?"

Aldner: "Well, we know Krakens apparently like to eat space hardware. Maybe another Kraken came by here and ate the other probe."

Nelemy: "Dudes... We should leave."

Hellou: "KSC lost the signal from that other probe over ten years ago, so the other Kraken must have left this area long ago. Probably. Maybe."

Aldner: "Unless it comes to vist this spot regularly."

Nelemy: "Dudes...you ain't helping."

But let's leave our four intrepid explorers to their Bop business while we see what else is going on in outer space. Hopefully they'll still be there when we get back.

New Crew: Laythe Landings

Before we get to the New Crew arriving at Laythe, there were some routine midcourse maneuvers to be taken care up (these happened a few weeks ago while the above explorations were going on).

First, a Double-Tug returning to Kerbin needed to do a plane shift burn, and then some tiny tweaks with RCS to target it toward an aerocapture later at Kerbin. Then a few days later, the Mallard seaplane payload enroute to the Jool system needed a plane shift and fine targeting tweaks for its eventual aerocapture at Laythe. And finally, another Double-Tug enroute to Kerbin needed similar maneuvers. Thank goodness for Kerbal Alarm Clock.

And then the New Crew in the Laythe Base 5 ship came falling into the Jool system. I snuck them across the SOI border at 1x so that their targeting for aerocapture at Laythe stayed intact.

Corfrey: "Laythe Base 5 Ship calling Laythe Control."

Thompbles: "Laythe Control here. Thompbles speaking. Welcome to the Jool system."

Corfrey: "Hi, Commander Thompbles. Corfrey Kerman here. We've completed targeting for aerocapture at Laythe. Please confirm our trajectory figures."

Thompbles: "The data link is already established and the numbers look good. Aerocapture target altitude 26.3 kilometers."

The vehicle's trajectory intersected Laythe's orbit at a near-perfect tangent, so the encounter velocity was low and the flames during aerocapture were minimal.

The ship was captured into a high-apoapsis orbit first so that the small adjustment to an equatorial orbit required less fuel. Then a couple aerobraking passes were used to drop the ship into a low orbit. Finally, a prograde burn raised the periapsis out of the atmosphere, and the ship was in an 80 by 120 km orbit that intersected with the orbit of the Laythe Space Station.

Nedmy: "Laythe Control, this is Nedmy Kerman. I have my ship in parking orbit. I'll be coming down first with Corfrey. We'll be taking one of our Hab Module ships to Laythe Station to get a spaceplane for landing."

Thompbles: "Roger, Commander Nedmy. Use Station docking port Tier 2 - 90."

Nedmy: "Roger."

Nedmy Kerman and Corfrey Kerman separated one of the Laythe Transfer Habs and one Tug from the big ship...and then the big ship was moved off to the side so that the Tug could dock to the Hab Module.

Below, the remainder of the big ship as seen out of the control cabin window by Chief Pilot Corfrey Kerman.

Corfrey maneuvered the Hab Ship 1 for a rendezvous with Laythe Station, then docked it to the open docking port assigned to them. This was very laggy...so I'm glad they are soon going to remove one of the spaceplanes from the structure.

Nedmy chose the Raptor RAPIER-powered spaceplane for their descent, and Corfrey transferred to the cockpit while Nedmy transferred to the rear cabin. Then they separated from the Station and moved off to perform reentry maneuvers. Corfrey helped test the Laythe spaceplanes back at Kerbin, so he is very familiar with them.

The retro-burn below was over the night side, but the Raptor was illuminated by the lights of the nearby Space Station. Then we see Jool-rise as the spaceplane passes over Jebediah Island on its descent trajectory.

The Raptor was coming in a little high and a bit South of the Laythe Base area, but Corfrey put the plane into a steep bank and landed without having to use the engines.

Corfrey: "Touchdown."

Kurt: "Welcome to Laythe, Corfrey. Use your rollout to get as close to the Laythe Base 1 module as you can. If necessary, I have a rover that can tow you. If you can, park it with a clear shot for takeoff bearing 135 degrees."

Corfrey: "Hey there Kurt! Long time, no see. The plane is rolling well...I should be able to park it close."

Kurt: "Roger. I'll send the Fido rover over via remote control once you stop. You can use that to drive over to Laythe Base 2."

And, indeed, Corfrey was able to park the Raptor close to the Base 1 module, facing 135° without using any engine push or requiring towing. Corfrey and Nedmy got out of the Raptor to board the Fido that Kurt provided.

Corfrey and Nedmy drove the Fido over to Laythe Base 2 where Thompbles got out to meet them.

Nedmy: "Commander Thompbles, I have arrived to assume command of Laythe Base and Jool System Operations, as per orders of KSC Mission Control."

Thompbles: "Commander Nedmy, I pass command to you. Welcome to Laythe, Ned."

Nedmy: "Good to be here, Thom. And great to see you again after all these years."

Thompbles: "It's a fine operation, Ned. I wish you the best of luck running it. What are your first orders, Commander Nedmy?"

Nedmy: "Continue handling space control for now. Bring my other boys down safely."

Thompbles: "Will do. Let me show you to your Command Module."

Back up in orbit, Merfred Kerman and Rodmy Kerman transferred to Laythe Transfer Hab 2 (or, actually, they just stayed in Hab 2 while Tomster and Henrey Kerman transferred over into the Laythe Base 5 module where Dansen and Lembart were already waiting). Merfred separated the Hab2 Module and one Tug, then Dansen maneuvered the remainder of the ship off to the side via RCS. Then the Tug was docked to the Hab 2 module.

Under Thompbles direction, Merfred maneuvered the Hab 2 off to rendezvous with Laythe Space Station for docking at port Tier 1 - 45.

Man, this docking was painfully laggy. But all went well eventually.

Merfred transferred over to the cockpit of the Ladyhawk spaceplane, while Rodmy transferred to its rear cabin. Then he separated the spaceplane from the Station.

Merfred: "Hmmm. Looks like we have a problem, Rodmy. The four Rockomax 48-7S motors don't seem to want to activate. Check the settings on the engineering panel back there."

Rodmy: "Looks like control 1 is supposed to toggle the turbojet on/off, and control two is supposed to toggle the four rocket motors on/off."

Merfred: "Yep. The turbojet toggle is working, but control 2 is NOT toggling the rocket engines."

Rodmy: "Maybe a different switch? No...the notes here say switch 2. Maybe something got messed up with the control programming when the plane's systems were interfaced with the Station? Can't you manually activate the rocket engines?"

Merfred: "Sure. I'm doing that now. But if we ever want to fly this baby back to orbit, we'll need rapid, simultaneous switching on those engines. This will work for now, but remember that we need to fix the control system sometime on the surface. OK, I'm ready for retro maneuver. Are you all strapped in?"

Rodmy: "All set."

Merfred: "How about Jeannie?"

Rodmy: "Her bottle is safely stowed. Let's burn."

Retro burn was fine, and then Merfred manually deactivated the rocket engines one at a time before entry. Reentry went well, but they were coming in a little short, so Merfred goosed the plane a little with the Turbojet, then landed perfectly.

Merfred: "Allright. Wheels stop. Lined up perfectly at bearing 135, about one third the distance from Base 1 Module that Corfrey managed. Who's the hot pilot now? OK...all systems safed. Let's get out and make some footprints."

Rodmy: "I'm already on the ladder. There's a rover coming."

Merfred: "A welcoming committee! The natives really are friendly."

Kurt: "Greetings, boys. Welcome to our corner of space. All the sand you can eat."

Rodmy: "Hey there, Kurt! Nice to see you again. You know this guy who thinks he's such a hot pilot, right?"

Kurt: "Sure...How's it going, Merf? I see you have your decorative bottle, Rodmy."

Rodmy: "Like always. Um...Merfred knows about Jeannie."

Kurt: "Indeed? Well, boys, how about we spend the night here in Laythe Base 1. It still works great, and it's more private. The rest of your crew's descent has been put off until tomorrow when we'll have better lighting. I'll be ready with this rover to pick them up if something breaks on their Base module...you can ride along."

The next day, Dansen Kerman separated the Laythe Base 5 from the final Tug in preparation of Laythe entry and landing. Dansen was joined in the control module by Lembart Kerman, while the scientist-astronauts Tomster and Henry were below in the Hitchhiker module.

The heat shield and the triple-tug adapter are one unit, so those parts will be deorbited along with the Base and dropped as debris. The three Rockomax X200-8 Fuel Tanks were empty except for the small amount of fuel needed for retro burn in the center tank. Thompbles provided a landing vector that would bring the ship in to the South of the facilities already on the surface, just to be sure the heat shield debris wouldn't hit anything valuable. The retro burn by the four 24-77 engines was perfectly on target.

After the entry flames dissipated, the heat shield assembly was dropped at 7,400 meters.

Two drogue chutes slowed the Base 5 module, and then the eight main parachutes were deployed in reefed condition. The imapct of the heat-shield/triple-tug-adapter unit can be seen in the right image:

The main chutes deployed fully at 500 meters, and the Base floated down at 7.8 m/s, about 800 meters West of the impact point of their heat shield. The four landing legs were deployed to take the brunt of the landing force to protect the wheels...

...but three of the wheels blew on landing, anyway.

None of the wheels were actually damaged, so Dansen Kerman (who had been the first kerbal to land on Laythe, many years ago...and the kerbal whom Dansen Island is named after) somewhat unceremoniously set foot upon the surface of Laythe for a second time...so that he could fix some flat tires.

With the wheels fixed, Dansen retracted the landing legs and started driving the Laythe Base 5 vehicle East along the surface. It handled quite well in the gently rolling land around Fido Bay.

Lembart: "Object ahead. 400 meters."

Dansen: "Looks like our heat shield. Let's see what's left of it."

Lembart: "Wow. Will you look at that. It survived almost completely intact. Just a few of the angled panels exploded."

Dansen: "Those tanks might come in handy. I could use some extra water storage for my greenhouses."

A while later, the Refueling Fido drove up parallel to the Base 5.

Merfred: "Hey, you weenies want to drag? Let's see what that hot rod of yours has got."

Dansen: "Hi, Merfred. No, I don't think it would be a fair race...you've got twice as many wheels as we do."

Kurt: "OK, it looks like you guys are roving fine and don't need any rescuing, so we'll go on ahead to Base 2."

So Merfred gunned the throttle, and he and Kurt and Rodmy zoomed on ahead."

Lembart: "Another object ahead."

Dansen: "Ah. The double-tall GasStation."

Lembart: "For a mostly empty world, there does seem to be a lot of stuff sitting around."

Finally, the Base 5 rover got to the nearly identical Laythe Base 2. Dansen lined up the docking ports in preparation for linking the two Base modules together so that they could share consumables. The two landing legs on one end of Base 2 had to be raised to bring its docking port down a little to the same level.

It took multiple attempts to get the approach just right. And when the bases finally did dock, there was a strange jerk that caused the two far wheels of Base 5 to blow. Huh. The landing legs were lowered to firmly stabilize the modules, and Dansen again got out to fix the wheels.

The crew spent a couple hours unpacking the boxes of supplies that filled most of the open space in the two side hab modules of Base 5 (hauling them out to the two sheds behind the Base). Then they lined up for a group photo of ten kerbals on the surface of Laythe:

Left: Tomster, Henry, Corfrey, and Commander Nedmy. Center: Thompbles and Kurt. Right: Dansen, Lembart, Merfred, and Rodmy.

Then, of course, they had a Welcome To Laythe Party that couldn't be beat.

Next Episode: The Pol Project begins.

Edited October 27, 2014 by Brotoro

[Scotius]

Impressive operation. And you DO have a lot of stuff sitting around Laythe. And Jool system as a whole. And Minmus. And Eve...Dang, that's a lot of stuff

[FlyingPete]

With the amount of stuff you've got on Laythe, it's almost a small town I get the feeling that old lander on Bop might come in handy too.

[Commissioner Tadpole]

I'm disappointed that none of the new crew commented about the lady in the bikini printed in the original base AND in a flag.

I get the feeling that old lander on Bop might come in handy too.

I can see it now... the crew "accidentally" forgets Nelemy on Bop(looking at you, Aldner) and then he has to use that ancient hardware to get to orbit and rendezvous.

Edited October 27, 2014 by Commissioner Tadpole

[macdjord]

I'm disappointed that none of the new crew commented about the lady in the bikini printed in the original base AND in a flag.

They've been out there for several years - in an until-very-recently all-male environment. That's just the sort of necessary adaptation to circumstances that you quietly avoid noticing, out of politeness.