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

[tntristan12]

He could always keep a separate copy of KSP solely for the long-term mission.

[Brotoro]

Long-term Laythe Mission - Part 13

TL;DR version: Aldner explores the northern arc.

Once Nelemy was safely back at Laythe Base, Thompbles gave Aldner the go-ahead to continue his exploration of the islands making up the giant circular feature on the trailing hemisphere of Laythe... but with the request that he be VERY careful, since we no longer have the other BirdDog plane as a rescue option. So any rescue would need to be made by the SSTUBBY rocket...and as far north as Aldner was going, that would be very expensive in fuel.

Below we see the general plan: Follow the northern arc of the giant impact feature, and use the fact that the islands there are very long, so jet fuel can be conserved by covering a lot of the distance by roving. Once Aldner gets to the ring-shaped island, his options for returning will depend on how much fuel he has. If he doesn't have much fuel then, he will have to retrace his route and drive back along the islands again.

Below, Aldner takes the BirdDog north-northeast from his base on Manley Island. He quickly gets the BirdDog up to between 9,000 and 10,000 meters to save on the amount of fuel used (since the plane is more efficient at higher altitudes).

Aldner passes over the chain of small islands northeast of the Manley crater islands. Most are low islands, although the largest one has some higher elevations. If he ends up returning along the arc route, he may have enough fuel left to visit one of these islands.

Far to the north, Aldner arrives at his first target. The long, thin peninsula he was originally aiming for appears to be mostly a ridge with steep sides, so he goes in to a beach area farther along the peninsula, landing easily.

Aldner: "Aldner to base. Are you there, Cap'n T.?"

Thompbles: "I read you, Aldner. How's it going?"

Aldner: "The BirdDog has landed. I would like to name this fine island Greenland, if you please."

Thompbles: "Greenland? Why?"

Aldner: "Marketing, Thompbles old bean. We'll need something to get anyone interested in an island at 60+ degrees North latitude."

Thompbles: "Roger. I'll call it in. How's your fuel?"

Aldner: "Fuel remaining: 218 out of 300 units. I did pretty well on the trip up."

Thompbles: "I copy. Be very careful driving. I don't want to have to send a rescue."

Aldner: "Will do, Cap. BirdDog out."

Below we see the western end of Greenland Island from on high, the rest of the long island extending over the horizon. The arrow marks Aldner's landing location.

Aldner drove back over the small ridge to visit the lake there and perform a buoyancy test...he floated at chin level.

The area along the wide south-facing bay was generally slanted, and had annoying ridges in places, but there are spots that would probably work as base areas.

Around the ridge that forms the eastern arm of the bay rim, and heading inland, Aldner found some flat areas that would be good real estate for a base or possible mining operations. He stopped for samples and stayed the night.

The next day, Aldner came to the rim of the most interesting geological feature of the island...either an impact crater or volcanic caldera. (In fact, I had been driving along at high speed over the better terrain as I approached it...and it was lucky I decided to stop for a quicksave, because just beyond that point the ground fell away precipitously, and I hadn't been paying close attention to what was ahead. It probably wouldn't have caused a problem because the drop was so precipitous that the plane would have become airborne and there would have been plenty of time to adjust and bring it in for a gliding landing, or even fire up the engine if the landing area looked bad. A rover that is also a plane has certain advantages.)

The caldera/crater as seen from high view below, followed by a time-lapse image of the changing lighting conditions over a period of one Laythe day. The "central peak" is more like a central ridge that connects to the north wall.

This is the sort of feature the geologists would be particularly interested in, so Aldner decided to gather samples from the bottom. The north rim was lower, so he drove around that side...but rather than drive down, he just pointed the BirdDog downhill and let it roll until it picked up sufficient speed to glide as the land dropped away. He glided down about half of a kilometer vertically to a landing.

The lowest spot in this half of the caldera/crater was at about 230 meters. Then Aldner drove up the central peak (see below), which was connected by a ridge to the north rim, providing a way out for the rover.

Thompbles: "Laythe Base to BirdDog. Come in, Aldner."

Aldner: "What do you want, Thompbles?"

Thompbles: "Just checking on you. You haven't called in for a while."

Aldner: "Yeah. I've been driving along the north slope of the island, and I've been encountering areas that are steep enough that they appear to never get any sunlight on them at all here at 75 degrees North latitude."

Thompbles: "You should watch out for ice."

Aldner: "Yes, Mom. That's what I'm doing...so I've been kind of distracted. Strangely enough, there doesn't seem to be any ice in the permanently shaded areas. Ah, crap."

Thompbles: "What's wrong?"

Aldner: "Hm. Well, it seems that while I was busy watching the road, I didn't notice the batteries have run down. I'm getting almost no power to the wheels now, and I'm sitting in shadow."

Thompbles: "Um.....I suppose you could use the jet engine on minimum to move the plane...or maybe take off? What angle are you at now?"

Aldner: "Hold on. OK... I can see Jool on the horizon behind me, with some clear sky to the left of it... so this spot will get some sunshine before Kerbol goes behind Jool. I can wait until then for the batteries to recharge. Then I'll see if I can drive ahead to a more open area. But screw it for now...I'm taking a nap."

Thompbles: "Roger. Be sure your brake is set."

Aldner: "Yes, my damn brake is set. Er...sorry, Commander. I'm just a bit grumpy...don't mind me. Thanks for checking in."

Thompbles: "Sure. No problem , Aldner."

Aldner: "OK...I'm going to shut some stuff down and be off for a while. BirdDog out."

Oddly enough, during the wait, the batteries DID slowly recharge, even though Kerbol was completely blocked by a hill... I guess light scattered from the clear sky is enough to give some power to the solar cells? Anyway, Aldner was able to eventually move the BirdDog forward beyond the hill to an area that had a clearer view of the southern sky, then parked for the night. The next day, when the sun was well up (well...as well up as it gets this far north), Aldner noticed that Tylo was passing in front of Bop while both were close to the sun (see below). It wasn't until the event was mostly over before I noticed that if I moved the center of Kerbol just outside the frame of my view, its glare went away and I could get a better picture of the three objects.

Aldner: "BirdDog to Base. Pick up the phone, Fearless Leader."

Nelemy: "Yo, Aldner! What's up, Dude?"

Aldner: "Oh, hey there, Nelemy. Where's Thompbles?"

Nelemy: "Well, he's...adding matter to the recycling system right now. Can I take a message, Dude?"

Aldner: "Nothing urgent. I'm at 77 degrees North, and I can see the small island that's just off the north shore of Greenland. It's not an island after all, but an ice floe. The start of the ice cap must be just over my horizon here. I'm going to head south now, and head around mountain ridge."

Nelemy: "Roger. Be careful, Dude! Those ridge lines can be killers!"

Aldner: "Don't I know it, little buddy. I'll be careful, don't worry."

Nelemy: "OK, Dude. I'll tell Thompbles."

The terrain to the south was quite rough, with some very sharp creases...there was no fast-going through there at all, and the direction of the creases precluded standard contour driving. What a pain.

When Aldner did get around the ridge, he was about 1,800 meters above a bay area ahead...and the slope down was treacherous with ridges...so he decided to glide down instead of driving. A short roll down the steep hillside, and he was airborne after topping the first ridge dropoff. After 1,500 meters of vertical drop gliding, Aldner set the BirdDog down safely. The landing area had low ridges running the 'wrong' way, but by gliding along slowly and carefully, he was able to land on a slight upslope between dips in the terrain. The third picture below is the view back towards the direction he came from of the steep and ridged mountainside Aldner had glided over. Nasty looking terrain. Yes, indeed... a rover that can fly is a very handy thing at times.

Beyond the bay, the terrain got better. The east end of Greenland is a wide, rounded ridge that flattens out as shown below. Aldner took off from a moderate slope there to get to the next island. The distance to the next island wasn't too far...he got the BirdDog up to 9,000 meters, then mostly glided the rest of the way. The western-most end of the island proved to be a steep ridge, so Aldner had to glide beyond that do a sharp bank down to a beach area on the other side.

Aldner: "BirdDog to base. Grab the horn, Big Man."

Thompbles: "Yes, Aldner?"

Aldner: "The peninsula where I was planning to land was singularly uninviting, but I found some nice beachfront property just beyond it. Fuel is at 208...looking pretty good. I would like to name this fine place Ryan Island."

Thompbles: "After Ryan Kerman, who manufactures solar panels?"

Aldner: "That's his game all right. I have a new fondness for my solar panels after getting stuck in the dark for a while."

Thompbles: "I copy."

Aldner: "The look I got at the island makes it seem pretty rough. I'll have to take it slow. BirdDog out."

Thompbles: "Roger, Aldner. You drive real safely now. Laythe base out."

Indeed...as you can see below, the island looks pretty rough (the yellow dot marks Aldner's anding spot). I was getting pretty tired of rovering around by this point, and I considered just punting the mission here. There was more than enough fuel to allow Aldner to fly back to Manley Base after grabbing some samples...two big islands visited...no shame it cutting out early. But, instead, I just put it away for a few days and came back later.

When I did resume the journey, first came a visit to an interesting looking lake for another buoyancy test, where Aldner floated at bottom-of-helmet level:

There wasn't much in the way of inviting locations for setting up a base on the island. The image below shows a sloping beach area along the big curving bay that is the south shore of the island.

The eastern "tail" of the island extends from the long, rounded ridge that is the main bulk of that end of the island, eventually becoming a nice low area. Aldner took off from there, bypassing the long narrow ridge that is an extension of Ryan's tail, then flying over a moderately-sized island at an altitude of 10,500 meters... all on his way to his next stop: the large ring-shaped island that looked a lot more interesting.

The ring-shaped island is not a complete ring...there is a gap on the north side, and there are nice low-lying areas on either side of the gap, suitable for landing. The right side of the island looked lower (as Aldner approached it) so he chose to land on that side (yellow dot on the overview image below).

Aldner: "Aldner calling Base. Greetings, O Keeper of the Records, Monitor of the Radio Frequencies, and Guardian of the Snacks."

Thompbles: "No wonder I'm tired. What can I do for you, Aldner?"

Aldner: "I have arrived. Please log this land mass as Thor Island, named after Thor Kerman, the famous rocket designer."

Thompbles: "You do know that he's insane, right? He's crazier than Jeb sniffing oxidizer, and that's saying a lot."

Aldner: "Now, now. I'm a big fan of his work. As long as I don't have to pilot any of it."

Thompbles: "All right, Aldner. How's your fuel?"

Aldner: "Fuel is at 174 out of 300. I've been moving fuel to the forward tank before each flight, and I've been able to fly higher than 10,000 meters without any sign of pitch instability. I think I'll be able to fly at 11,000 or even 12,000 meters to get even better performance. So I will not need to do Plan A...which I must say makes me happy, because I do not fancy having to drive all the way back along Ryan and Greenland. All that dreary low-sun-angle lighting was getting to me."

Thompbles: "So you think you have enough fuel for Plan B, flying directly back to Manley Base? Because if you come up short and have to ditch your plane in the drink, we have no viable rescue options."

Aldner: "I'm pretty sure. But I think I might go with Plan C instead. I'll let you know after I do some roving and sample collecting here on Thor Island."

Thompbles: "Plan C? OK. Let me know what you decide."

Below: A quick dip in one of the lakes for a buoyancy test. Some day I might figure out WHY kerbals float a slightly different depths in different locations.

Roving on Thor Island was not insane at all. The top of the wide ridge that is the central part of this side of the island has several wide flat areas suitable for inland base operations, especially attractive for those who are fearful of tsunamis. This would also be the optimal location for taking off to fly back to Manley Base if Plan B was to be implemented. But Aldner continued driving south.

Aldner: "BirdDog to Base."

Thompbles: "Laythe Base here. What's up, Aldner?"

Aldner: "I've completed my exploration of Thor Island. I shall now implement Plan C."

Thompbles: "Roger, Plan C. Good luck, Aldner."

Aldner: "Don't need luck, Commander Thompbles, sir. I've got skill."

So Aldner, having driven to the southernmost point of Thor Island, fires up the jet engine and takes to the sky. But instead of heading west to Manley Base....he heads southeast, pushing the BirdDog up to over 10,000 meters of altitude.

Halfway to his target, Aldner looks longingly off to the left, to Milski Island. That's the island where Nelemy had his accident that disabled the BirdDog2...and the BirdDog2 still has over half of its jet fuel onboard. If only the Big Brain squad at the KSC could figure out how to equip planes with a simple hose system to siphon fuel from one plane to another, then Aldner could have zipped on over and had loads of fuel available. But, alas...still no hoses. I keep asking....but still no hoses.

So Aldner flies on, at altitudes of up to 12,000 meters, where the BirdDog cruises along at almost 420 m/s at 1/3 throttle. And his target comes into sight: the equatorial island that was supposed to be the final stop of Nelemy's last exploration mission (before it ended abruptly at Milski Island when he ripped the jet engine off of BirdDog2). Exploring this island was of high priority because it is probably where a second base will be set up on Laythe. And now Aldner will check it out.

As he approached the island, Aldner didn't see any nice beach-front landing sites on this side of the island. There were some possibilities on the far side, but he could not afford to waste fuel looking around...so he brought the BirdDog straight in for a high-elevation landing at an elevation of 1,800 meters where the slope appeared smooth and shallow. Happily, he glided in perfectly. Looking back the way he came, it appeared that the lower lying areas on that side of the island may have slopes that were gentle enough for a landing...but the highland landing worked out well, so no complaints.

Aldner: "Aldner to Base. I am down and safe. 130 fuel remains."

Thompbles: "Roger, Aldner. Good to hear. What are you going to name the island?"

Aldner: "I suspect that Nelemy already had a name picked out that he never got a chance to use. I'd like to let him name it."

Thompbles: "Roger. He's here. I'll put him on."

Nelemy: "Dude! You made it where I didn't...great work! And thanks for letting me name it."

Aldner: "No problem. Name away."

Nelemy: "Sure thing! I was going to name it...Aldner Island...after you, Dude!"

Aldner: "Really?"

Nelemy: "Yeah, man! I named one after Kurt. And Thompbles didn't want one. So I was going to name this one after you."

Aldner: "Well, thanks, little buddy. I appreciate it."

Thompbles: "OK, I copy the name. I guess you should start exploring Aldner, Aldner."

Aldner Island will be useful as a future base location because it lies along the equator, so it would be easily accessible from Laythe Space Station. The equator passes through the southeast part of the island, so Aldner headed there. The image below shows the peninsula that juts off the southeast corner of the island and the sloping land behind it. It all slopes downward, but there are stretches that are moderately level. Afterwards, Aldner drove to the northeast corner of the island to a larger peninsula (located about 4 degrees north) since this was the farthest east point of the island. Aldner's BirdDog no longer had enough fuel to return west to his Manley Base...but it should have enough fuel to go EAST to the main Laythe Base at Fido Bay on Dansen Island. Assuming I had calculated correctly. And assuming that Aldner flies high and fast for efficient fuel use. And, if he DOES come up short and has to ditch the BirdDog in the ocean somewhere off Fido Bay...there IS a rescue option available there: The DogFish rover/boat is stationed offshore with half of its fuel remaining. So, if needed, it could be used to recover Aldner from the ocean and return him to Dansen Island.

So, with the fuel moved to the forward tank for better pitch stability, Aldner took off from the east point of Aldner Island and quickly climbed to 12,000 meters. He had set Laythe Base as his target, so he was able to aim the plane for home via the pink marker on the navball.

About halfway home, Aldner passed over Jebediah Island (with Bill Lake), which he had visited on his first big expedition to other islands..

By the time Fido Bay came into sight, it was clear that the fuel efficiency was better than expected, and there would be no problems at all making it back (and as you can see in the image below, even if he was a bit short, the Gusden Bay area of Dansen Island was even closer than Fido Bay, so he could have landed there and driven the rest of the way home).

A happy Aldner approaches Laythe Base with over 37 units of fuel left. After a routine landing, he refuels the BirdDog at GasStation1. After that refueling, GasStation1 is nearly depleted, with 116 units of fuel left...but GasStation2 still has plenty of fuel on board.

Below, Aldner returns to Laythe Base where Nelemy, Kurt, and Thombles greet him. Then they had a kerbal dinner that couldn't be beat, and partied into the night.

And that's what happened.

What did NOT happen (because it would have made no sense for Aldner to do this), is that Aldner did NOT later use a quicksave from the point where he landed on Aldner Island, and Aldner did not go west to a small island. And Aldner did NOT actually name this island Bsalis Island after Bsalis Kerman the famous designer of VTOL aircraft (although he would have if he'd actually gone there).

And Aldner did NOT fly past the rather impressive cliff that plunges from a height of 285 meters to the sea on one end of Bsalis Island. And Aldner did NOT land on the island and carefully drive his BirdDog to within one plane-length of the precipice.

And having not done any of that, Aldner certainly couldn't have done the Leap of Laythe by rolling over the edge of the cliff, plummeting downward, pulling up, and only then firing up his jet engines. Because he was never actually there. Although he would have done all those things had he been there. I guess it was all a dream.

Here's a map:

[Geschosskopf]

What do they put in Kerbal rations to cause dreams like that?

Glad to see this is continuing. I was worried the Supernova of '21 would wipe this all out.

[The Jedi Master]

How did you deal with save breaking?

[RocketPilot573]

How did you deal with save breaking?

The game has a save file converter. Try it, it really works!

[Brotoro]

How did you deal with save breaking?

I did all this, on and off, during the last couple weeks, still in version 0.20.

I don't know if it will be possible to update my old save game file to 0.21.

[19spacepug]

good story. Part 13 was really good I can not wait for part 14 keep up the good work.

[pedorsf]

Very cool story .Can you give the birdog and the gas station craft files? I think they will be very useful at my base in duna.

[Brotoro]

Very cool story .Can you give the birdog and the gas station craft files? I think they will be very useful at my base in duna.

Jet engines don't work on Duna -- it has no oxygen in its atmosphere.

[bsalis]

Another great installment.

It looked like Aldners dream almost became a nightmare!

Hope you continue though .21... i was able to convert over.

[pedorsf]

ok ;.;

[Sesni]

Ryan island for Ryan The Solar Gamer? Would make sense because those solar panels were REALLY useful there in Greenland. And Greenland because... Well, it's far north.

[Superkalashnikov]

Continue ;.;

[Psycix]

What a read.

Though when you convert the save files, I'd like to see more action than just flying around in the same vehicles all the time. Perhaps they could explore the rest of the Joolian system.

[bsalis]

Continue ;.;

Damn it, when I saw this on page #1 I thought part #14 was posted. But it was just a bump.

[ZelvaCZ]

Continue, please..

Your story is really amazing!

[Javster]

Amazing. Just... Amazing.

[fenderzilla]

Hellou-Its-Scott-Manley (here)

I laughed at this. I actually laughed, not just blew more air out my nose.

[thatsmessedup]

to be honest i didnt read the whole thing but got to the section where you used jool to airobrake...... im kicking myself!

[Brotoro]

Long-term Laythe Mission - Part 14

Vall Venture - Part 1

Vall Venture? Yes, yes... people have been telling me I should explore Vall since I started this series. And I fully expected to be doing so by now since I thought that when Resources were released (which seemed to be imminent back then) I'd probably have to go to Vall to find places to drill for fuel...since the bulk of such resources on Laythe could be under the oceans. But since resources don't look like they'll appear any time soon, I'll just go explore Vall for fun.

But first let's check on the boys on Laythe to see how they're enjoying life in version 0.21.1. We join them as Aldner is preparing to explore some additional islands.

Aldner: "Hey, Thompbles!"

Thompbles: "Yes, Aldner. Is something wrong?"

Aldner: "What the hell is up with the BirdDog's avionics system?? It's acting strange."

Thompbles: "Ah. That's the new SAS software install that KSC uploaded last night. It's supposed to be great."

Aldner: "Well, when I drive around in rover mode, the avionics keeps trying to point me back to my previous heading."

Thompbles: "Hmmm. Yes. It says that the SAS will automatically adjust the heading when you give control stick inputs."

Aldner: "And what about rover direction control inputs? Are those supposed to reset the heading?"

Thompbles: "Umm... Apparently they forgot to allow for that. We can submit a software fix request."

Aldner: "How about we submit a request to downgrade back to the old avionics system?"

Thompbles: "No, they specifically said that's not an option. All computers in the system have been upgraded to the new software and that's what we have to use."

Aldner: "Did they warn us this change was coming and I just missed the memo?"

Thompbles: "Now, now. You know the software boys never announce the actual dates of upgrades ahead of time."

So Aldner took off and flew around a little...

Aldner: "Yo, Thompbles."

Thompbles: "I read you, Aldner."

Aldner: "The BirdDog is acting weird in the air as well. I'm going to have to scrub this mission and do some practicing with the new control system."

Thompbles: "Is it that bad?"

Aldner: "Well, I wouldn't say, 'bad,' ...but you know I've got to be able to put this bird down and take off again in some very limited spaces. I don't think the time to try out a new control system for the first time is when I'm landing on a far off island."

Thompbles: "OK, Aldner. I agree."

Aldner: "You're going to have to approve the extra fuel usage."

Thompbles: "That should be OK. The boys at KSC are just about finished with the next ship they'll be sending to us, and it will include TWO new BirdDogs with GasStations, plus and extra double-capacity GasStation."

Aldner: "Nice to hear, Cap'n. OK, I'm going to fly some touch-and-go's around the island. Aldner out."

Indeed. Let's see the ships that the crew at KSC have been putting together for the next Jool launch window. I really wasn't looking forward to juggling half a dozen ships on the way to Jool again, so I had the brilliant idea to lump the ships together into just two large ships. Much easier to handle, right? What could possibly go wrong?

Below is the first launch in the big construction project. The payload consists of two triple tug adapters. One will be used for the Laythe resupply vehicle. The other will be used for the Vall Expedition vehicle. The launch vehicle is, of course, my standard Reusable Rocket...undoubtedly using boosters and sustainer stage recycled from previous missions. There have been a few minor changes to the Reusable Rocket for version 0.21.1: The RCS system has been removed from the sustainer stage and an SAS unit has been installed to handle torquing the rocket around. This seems to work great. I did leave the RCS quads down at the bottom of the rocket just in case I decide to use RCS (and assuming the payload has RCS fuel to provide). The payload for this flight carries a reusable Refueler Topper, and it needed to provide some extra fuel to the sustainer stage so that the sustainer had enough fuel to deorbit and land on its rocket engine.

Next up is the new, improved Nuclear Tug. I keep upgrading this design in each version of KSP. You may recall that the previous upgraded design featured lots and lots of probe cores to provide extra control torque. But now that Squad has given us SAS units that provide torque, the new tug design just uses one of those. It also uses the Senior docking port for extra structural strength when pushing big payloads...but there is a standard docking port underneath the Senior just in case the tug is needed to haul around something with a standard port (in which case the Senior port must be discarded).

Because the mass of the tug exceeds the usual payload capacity of the Reusable Rocket, the nuclear engines of the tug must assist the sustainer in reaching orbit (because the sustainer has to get into orbit as well, so it can come around and land back at KSC). Don't be overly concerned about the nuclear exhaust washing down the side of the sustainer...these are two fresh nuclear engines that have not yet built up any neutron-activated radioisotopes in the fuel pipes that run through the reactor, so what little radioactivity that comes out of a Nerva-style engine is at its minimum at this point. And we'll have Jeb hose the sustainer down after landing.

The Tug gets left in orbit with its rear drop tank over 64% full, and it uses a little of that fuel to rendezvous and dock with the triple adapters.

In fact, this tug will be the core of the drive section for the Vall Expedition ship, so it grabs one of the two triple adapters (the one with the slightly longer arms) and backs away with it. It then shifts to a slightly different orbit so the two big ships can be assembled outside of each others' lag range.

The next launch is the core tug for the drive section of the ship that will bring more BirdDogs to Laythe. You can never have too many BirdDogs on Laythe. Sorry...night launch...

Once in orbit, the tug docks with the triple adapter to form the core of the drive section of the BirdDog transporter. The tug gets some fuel and monopropellant from the Topper to replace what was used in getting to orbit, so it will have full tanks for the trip to Jool.

And we do it again. Launch a tug. Return the sustainer to KSC. Rendezvous with the BirdDog Drive section. Dock the tug. A little bit crooked? Eh...close enough for kerbal government work.

Lather, rinse, repeat. Another tug launch. This was also a night launch, but the rocket soon reached a altitude where the sunlight could make a nice picture. Dock the tug onto the triple adapter, and the drive section is complete, all built with standard parts.

The refueler Topper gives up all the monopropellant and fuel it can to the tugs, then departs to return to KSC. The Topper was also there to keep the triple adapters steady for docking with the first two tugs. Ah... I keep forgetting to add a MecJeb unit to these Toppers (which I just grab from my collection using subassembly manager), so I targeted this one to KSC manually using only RCS power (it was empty of regular fuel). I dropped it a couple hundred meters offshore...oops.

Next up, boys and girls, is an early morning launch of the Double GasStation. This GasStation has twice the fuel capacity of the standard ones. It does, however, only have two refueling arms instead of the usual three, but I haven't been having difficulty in getting the BirdDogs to dock with at least two ports on the standard station, so I'm hoping two will be sufficient. The station does have double the number of 24-77 engines, so it will be able to "hop" if needed to shift the positions of the refueling arms if there is a problem. The main reason there are only two arms is because I couldn't get three to fit in the limited space the payload will fill on the big ship.

Because the drive section is rather large, the Refueler Topper acts as the tug for getting the Double GasStation into place on the drive section. I gave the Topper an SAS unit to help wrestle around the payload. I performed the rendezvous in the dark, but I waited for sunlight to do the docking (I didn't want to add docking-assist lights to the payloads to keep down the part count of this big ship).

Next comes a standard BirdDog payload with standard GasStation. I'll be able to drop these GasStations in a few select spots on Laythe, making exploration much easier. This new BirdDog is slightly modified...it no longer has an avionics package, since those are useless parts now, and I've shifted the position of the air intakes down a bit to decrease the tendency of the plane to pitch up. But the basic framework was left untouched to make sure all BirdDogs will fit all GasStations. There is no room for a reusable Refueler Topper on a BirdDog payload, so I added three fuel/RCS pods on the refueler arms. The orbital maneuvers were done using the GasStation's six 24-77 engines, which draw fuel/oxidizer from its torroidal gold tanks...and that fuel had to be replaced a couple times with fuel from the three fuel/RCS pods during and after the maneuvers. But the BirdDog was slid very carefully into place, only slightly crooked. But OH NOOOO, the lag. Arrrrgh. OK...so maybe building a big ship is not the way to go. But I didn't think a triple-tug/payload ship would tax my system as badly as it did. Maybe 0.21.1 is laggier than previous versions.

After the docking, all the remaining fuel in the three pods was transferred to the still hungry Tugs in the drive section, and then the pods were popped off. The RCS quads of the pods were used to deorbit them into handy oceans (they are not recovered for re-use, alas).

Once more unto the breach, my friends! A late evening launch of a standard BirdDog payload.

After the last BirdDog was docked in an agonizingly slow ballet, the Tugs were topped off, and then the three pods were jettisoned to head to their watery graves. And the BirdDog carrier was ready to be sent to Laythe.

OK...Now for the Vall ship. Two more tugs are needed for its drive section. With the first one, the sustainer came back and nearly hit the VAB. With the last Tug, the sustainer landed on the raised part of crawlway and almost tipped over.

With those two Tugs docked on, mostly straight, the drive section for the Vall ship is done. The connections between the Tugs may not look strong, but all three payloads that will go on top have nearly the same mass, so its like three Tugs/payloads that happen to be flying along in the same direction, so there is not a lot of stress on the connection.

Now for the Vall payloads. First: Two Fido rovers. These rovers are based upon my Fido KE design, and they each use eight of the older-style medium wheels. I know there are a lot of people who say the ruggedized medium wheels are better than the older ones in every way...but I disagree. I did a lot of "simulation" testing of rovers under Vall conditions with older wheels, newer wheels, and aircraft landing gear in various combinations. It's true that the ruggedized wheels can run up hills like champs, but they also are prone to mysteriously 'snagging' the ground and causing the rover to flip at high speeds. The older wheels do slip and slide more, and take longer to accelerate and slow up, but I did not experience the flipping out problem with them. So, old wheels it is, for me!

Arrgh! Already, with just the center payload, the lag was getting terrible with this ship. I guess it's all those struts and girders and whatnot for two complete rovers and their skycranes. After docking the Fidos in place, the Topper gave some fuel and monopropellant to the Tugs, then headed back to KSC.

The next piece of the puzzle is the Vall Expedition Lander. This lander basically serves as a base for the crew of two on Vall, so it has a two-kerbal lander cabin AND a Hitchhiker module to serve as living quarters and laboratory. I've wrapped the living quarters with six fuel tanks to serve as radiation protection. Unlike our happy campers on Laythe who have a substantial atmosphere to protect them from Jool's radiation belts (however strong they may be), the Vall crew will be spending their time on an airless moon with no such protection. Those four long stacks of Oscar tanks are the four communications satellites that will be placed into high Vall orbit before the lander descends to the surface. They have waaay more fuel than they need, but that was to get the mass of this payload up to the same mass as the main habitat module which will be on the opposite Tug.

And last to go up is the Vall ex. main habitat module that the crew rides in to get to Jool and for the return trip to Kerbin. I figured a 2-kerbal lander pod for the command pod, plus a Hitchhiker module for extra living space would be plenty of room for the two-kerbal crew. And wrapping the habitat module with fuel tanks for shielding against cosmic rays during the trip also seemed like a good idea. And...hey...this is almost exactly like the Lander. So, what the heck... I added some legs and engines and made it into another lander that could be used for some emergency, but which will not be used for that if all goes according to plan. Plus, I added a couple one-kerbal capsules with retro engines in case mission directors decide to send the Vall crew to visit our boys on Laythe after their Vall mission is done (they would need to use the Laythe SSTUBBY SSTO to return to orbit in that situation). It always helps to have contingency plans.

Alas, the perfect record of returning the sustainer stage from all twelve Reusable Rockets used for this project came to an end when the sustainer of this rocket returned to KSC. It landed on the crawlerway tracks and tipped over, exploding its two orange tanks. But the Mainsail and the complete bottom structure, plus most of the top parts such as the probe core and RTG and stage separator survived for re-use.

Oh. So far everything that has been launched has been un-kerballed. The crew will come up later via SSTO rocket when the launch window to Jool approaches. But every time I launched one of the rockets for this construction project that included a capsule, Jebediah tried to sneak on board. Every. damn. time. Annoying as hell. Look, if I wanted a crew on the rocket, I would have ASKED for it. Grrr.

So with the removal of the last Refueler Topper, this amazing lag-fest, the Vall Expedition ship, is fully assembled, fully fueled, and just needs its crew and a launch window to Jool.

Meanwhile, back on Laythe, the boys are having a discussion over supper...

Thompbles: "Hey, did you hear that they finally chose the crew for the Vall expedition?"

Kurt: "Who did they choose?"

Thompbles: "The Mission Scientist is going to be Hellou Kerman."

Aldner: "Really? That's great. It's about time we had a real geologist in the Jool system. All these rocks look the same to me."

Kurt: "Who's going to pilot the mission?"

Thompbles: "They're sending the Hawk."

Aldner: "What? Do you mean Emilynn "Hawk" Kermann??"

Kurt: "Hooo boy!"

Nelemy: "Wait, dudes. Who is this Hawk?"

Kurt: "Nelemy, do you never pay attention? She's been the flight instructor at KSC for years."

Nelemy: "Dude, I already knew how to fly. I'm not one of those Mission Scientists."

Kurt: "Obviously. "

Nelemy: "Is she any good?"

Kurt: "Well, she waxed Aldner's tail in a mock dogfight using the KSC K-38s."

Nelemy: "Dude! No, really?"

Thompbles: "You're not supposed to be using the K-38 planes for dogfights."

Aldner: "Yes, mother. Anyway, I'd just spent a month testing BirdDogs, and was in the habit of not pulling up hard."

Kurt: "Yeah, I'm sure that was it."

Back at KSC, the final rocket of this launch project is on the pad: An SSTO Crew Carrier. On board is...well, Jebediah again, of course, since he always sneaks on board. OK, Jeb, you can pilot the damn SSTO mission. Sheesh. Along with Jeb are the Vall expedition crew members, Hellou "Chickadee" Kerman, Ph.D, and Emilynn "Hawk" Kerman. Also on board are the backup crew members for the Vall mission, Tomster Kerman, Ph.D., and Corfrey Kerman (also acting as Jeb's co-pilot in the capsule). The backup crew members are along to help with final ship checkout and equipment transfer.

Below: Jeb spools up the jet engines, then blasts the Crew Carrier off with a brief burst of rocket thrust. The SSTO climbs on jet engines to 20,000 meters, then switches over to rocket engines for the press to orbit.

Below, Jebediah brings the Crew Carrier in very slowly for docking (well...I assume it was fast for him, but it was an annoying lag fest for me... OK, OK, I'll quit complaining about the lag now. It's my own fault.).

After docking, the crew transferred over to the habitat ship...first Emilynn and Jeb to the control cabin to run the ship system checks, and then Hellou to the crew habitat module.

Emilynn: "How are you doing, Hellou? You're floating along kinda slow."

Hellou: "I'm fine, Emi. I'm just doing this carefully."

Jeb: "Is she going to be all right, Hawk?"

Emilynn: "Oh, sure, Jeb. It took me forever to teach my Chickadee how to fly, but she gets there in the end."

Hellou: "At least I don't drive a rover like I'm a maniac. And it's not polite to talk about people when they are on EVA. Over an open circuit, anyway."

Emilynn: "Roger. You're cleared for landing at Hatch 01."

Hellou: "Don't rush me."

Jeb: "I wish I was heading out with you. I haven't had a deep space mission in years."

Emilynn: "Well, if you quit trying to muscle your way onto every ship that gets put on the launch pad, maybe the boys in mission control would be happier with you."

Jeb: "Hey, somebody has to do the system checks. If they forget to tell me to get out, that's their problem."

Hellou: "OK. I'm at the hatch. Boarding now."

After the system checks and the transfer of equipment, supplies, snacks, hair-care products, and snacks, Jeb, Corfrey, and Tomster transfer back to the SSTO, and Jeb takes them in for a landing at KSC.

To plan the transfer to Jool, I consulted the new Launch Window Planner (http://alexmoon.github.io/ksp/). It gave me a cool plot and lots of data...and a transfer date that agreed with Kerbal Alarm Clock's date within one day.

I sent off the Laythe ship first. As usual, I did the transfer burn in two parts for better efficiency. Below is the initial trajectory plot. Delta-V required was 1904.6 m/s, and after firing up the engines, the burn time showed up as 20 minutes. The ship was stable a 2x physical time acceleration, but too wobbly at 3x. And with the lag rate, the two-part burn took me over 30 minutes. Maybe there is something to be said for sending out multiple smaller ships. All those other trajectories on the plot (from right-to-left) are for a Tug returning from Jool, the new larger mobile base (soon to arrive at Jool), and a second Base/rover pair that I sent out when I had nothing better to send.

I started the burn about 6 minutes from the node, then cut it off after 10 minutes. This put the BirdDog ship in an elliptical orbit going most of the way out to the Mün.

I let the BirdDogs get most of the way out to the Mün, then I sent the Vall ship off on a similar trajectory. Oh. so. painful. Wait...I wasn't going to complain about lag anymore.

After the first halves of the burns, the orbits were as shown below:

When the BirdDog ship came back around toward perigee, I replotted the trajectory to Jool and sent it on its way into deep space with the second half of the burn. When the Hawk and her Chickadee came around, I sent them off as well. The orbits of the ships had started at 110 km, but the periapses got as low as 87 km during the second part of the burn. If you try to do a long burn like this in one go, you might end up with your periapsis dropping down into the atmosphere...and you'd certainly be doing a lot of your burn far from Kerbin where you lose the advantage of the Oberth effect. So two burns is a good method. Below, the second halves of the burns in artsy silhouette.

Below is are the final trajectories for Jool. As you see, they won't reach the descending node until out beyond Dres, so the plane change burns will be small (those are best done far from the sun).

Next episode: Stuff Arrives At Jool: A new bigger mobile base for the boys on Laythe; a secondary base/rover combo that I'm not sure yet where I'll use on Laythe; a Tug returning to Kerbin in a less-than-optimal trajectory, hopefully with enough fuel; and the Vall expedition arrives at Vall. I'm not going to bother with the "send something out in all available launch windows" thing anymore... Sure, it's more realistic, but it's a pain to have all this stuff going back and forth that I have to keep track of. And we've all seen the pretty plot of the coming and going trajectories now... so I'll just be more inefficient and buzz through time like it's going out of style. I'm sure the kerbals sitting on other planets or moons won't mind if I ignore them.

[Scotius]

Yay! Part 14 - what a glorious day I see your interest in Laythe Expedition waned a bit since Aldner finished exploring the islands. Will 0.22 and all the scientific stuff will change that? Do you have any specific plans?

[Brotoro]

It's not so much a lack of interest (although I have had a lack of time lately). It was more a dread of having to handle yet another armada of ships just to get more toys to the Jool system that I can play with. Making a couple bigger ships seemed like a good idea, but then it turned out to takes WEEKS just to get everything assembled because of the huge lag. I'm just lucky I didn't go with my original plan of making one even bigger ship.

I don't have any specific plans for 0.22 because it's not clear what the new science equipment will do. If it gives us interesting information about the planets, that could be cool. But if it's just a tool for unlocking better toys in career mode, I don't know that it will affect what I do much.

[Cydonian Monk]

Are the birddogs giving you as much trouble as my pre-.21 aircraft are giving me? I tried to fly one of my Betas (which was previously very stable and authoritative), and couldn't get off the ground. Same for everything I built previously - unpilotable. I've had to redesign everything.

Glad to see the story continues. (Also: Where did you get the femkerbs from? Did you do the modeling work? Or did I just miss a post in the ocean of the Universe Replacer thread?)

[Captain Sierra]

A word of advice:

So long as you have kerbal alarm clock, there is no such thing as too many ships to a mission. Don't be like me, who packs everything on one to two ships because I don't use alarm clock.

[Captain Sierra]

Are the birddogs giving you as much trouble as my pre-.21 aircraft are giving me? I tried to fly one of my Betas (which was previously very stable and authoritative), and couldn't get off the ground. Same for everything I built previously - unpilotable. I've had to redesign everything.

Glad to see the story continues. (Also: Where did you get the femkerbs from? Did you do the modeling work? Or did I just miss a post in the ocean of the Universe Replacer thread?)

Just toggle torque off (by action group or by right-click). Then set SAS on. If it keeps wanting to hold a heading and you want it to drift, turn SAS off and if it keeps not locking to desired heading, just tap F when you are aiming where you want.

With wings and wheels, torque is not your friend. With massive uncontrollable rockets, torque is your best friend.