KERBALS INTO SPACE: a .20 - .24 Science Sandbox

[Commander Zoom]

KERBALS INTO SPACE

A History of The My Space Program

INTRODUCTION: DAWN OF THE SPACE AGE

Early scientific rockets were curiousities, hand-built by hobbyists and barely more advanced - or less explosive - than the fireworks and artillery rockets that preceded them. Most were as likely to detonate on the pad or in the workshop as they were to launch, often taking their inventors and any progress in the field with them. It took three exceptional (and, depending on who you ask, insane) kerbals to transform this series of independent efforts into the start of the space program we know today. The first was the brilliant scientist/engineer Wernher von Kerman and his revolutionary designs; the second was the fearless test pilot Jebediah "Jeb" Kerman, who started a junkyard to deal with the pieces of all the experimental planes he crashed and turned it into the first supplier of parts for the fledgling program. And the third, of course, was President John F. Kerman and his famous mandate to put a kerbal on the Mun by the end of the decade (and the associated offer of unlimited government funding for anyone who could make it happen).

Through a long process of trial and error, Wernher refined his first experimental designs (all custom-built by Jeb and his brothers, and later their employees as the company grew) to fly further, faster, and safer. Within a month, he'd reduced the chance of in-flight explosion to less than 50%; in three, he was lobbing inert test masses into adjacent counties. Not all landed in empty countryside; in an early interview, he confessed, "I aim at the stars, but sometimes I hit Kerbin." To reduce the risk of more such incidents, construction of Kerbal Space Center soon began on the shore of what is now known as "Booster Bay."

The first true orbital rocket was ready just in time for the first anniversary of the President's announcement, and Wernher felt confident enough of its success to mount a payload that actually did something. Stayputnik I ("We send it up, you see, and it does not fall back down, at least not right away - it stays put, nicht wahr?") was little more than a radio transmitter and batteries in an aluminum sphere, but it could be seen and more importantly heard by kerbals for days (until the batteries ran out). It was exactly the kind of stunt the KSP needed, and after that there were no more questions whether the government's money was being well spent. (Also, the university electronics club that Wernher hired to build the thing for him immediately incorporated themselves as "Probodobodyne Inc.")

A flurry of satellite launches followed, with many top scientists competing (and in some cases, getting into fistfights) to have their instrument package be the next to be sent into low orbit on one of Wernher and Jeb's rockets. Many startling discoveries were made about "near space" during the next few months. But while Stayputnik had kicked off the Space Age, what the public wanted to know was when the first kerbal was going into space, and who that would be. Among those close to the program, the answer to the second question had never been in doubt.

Krishna: First Kerbals In Space

The design of the first kerbal-rated booster, Orbiter, was nearly as simple as its name: one FL-T800 tank and LV-T30 engine atop three others, with the two stages joined by a tri-coupler (a special new part which Wernher had seen at a trade show and was said to be looking for an excuse to use). This coupler, a product of OMB Demolitions, was one of the few components of those early flights not built in the Kerman brothers' junkyard. Another, ironically, was the crew capsule itself. Jeb had gone to the model-makers at Kerlington Paper Products (already renowned for their meticulously-crafted tiny cardstock buildings, found in architects' offices everywhere) to create first a series of scale models, then a 1:1 mock-up, of exactly the craft he wanted to fly. When he finally presented it to the program engineers, they just shrugged and began fitting it with instrumentation and a parachute. It promptly caught fire during a wiring test, forcing them to quickly rebuild it in steel, aluminum, and other less flammable materials. (Kerlington, having provided the original model and blueprints, retains design credit to this day.)

Unfortunately, the extra weight of the metal capsule was enough to keep Orbiter from reaching orbit; an additional "kick" of delta-V would be necessary. Rather than stretching the rocket by adding another stage, it was decided to add a ring of solid rocket boosters around the base, attached with explosive bolts (also supplied by OMB). There were some mutterings about the wisdom of this, but Jeb dismissed them with his usual confidence, claiming that it would "make the ride more exciting."

"Exciting" was definitely one word for what happened when Krishna 1 roared off the almost-new Pad 1 at KSC on a sunny afternoon. A slight imbalance in the mounting of the SRBs caused the rocket to immediately begin spinning clockwise like a carnival ride. Without the aid of an ASAS or RCS, using only the gyros mounted in the capsule itself, Jeb managed to keep the rocket pointed more or less straight up while the SRBs burned themselves out. Thirty seconds into the flight, they dropped off and Jeb immediately slammed on the next stage's engines at half throttle before the rocket could lose momentum. Once he had it wrestled back around to a heading of 90 degrees, he went to full throttle and began to pitch over in a gravity turn. The rocket, with its ungimbaled engines, became progressively more difficult to control as fuel drained and its center of gravity shifted; after staging (at T + 2 minutes), the upper stage alone proved to be much more manageable. Jeb was able to circularize his orbit and perform several other basic maneuvers.

Krishna 1 completed one full orbit of Kerbin, with an apogee of 102,108 km and a total flight time (launch to splashdown) of just over 41 minutes. They fished Jeb out of the ocean, gave him a medal and paraded him around the country as a hero. Wernher also got a medal, but insisted that he was much too busy for parades; he was hard at work on the next rocket.

Krishna 2 was, in many ways, even more ambitious than the first historic mission. The redesigned upper stage included several new features invented specifically to address the control issues encountered with Krishna 1: an Advanced SAS module and a Reaction Control System with thruster quads both fore and aft. The SRB mountings had been adjusted in hopes of eliminating the unexpected roll. The parachute had also been moved from the tip of the capsule to both sides, to make room for another new invention: a docking port. In theory, this would allow Krishna 2 to attach (and later detach) itself to another spacecraft. That craft was already under construction.

The docking target (again, the engineers never bothered to come up with another name) was a short upper stage for Orbiter with a radio tranceiver to allow for ground control. Like the manned craft, it had several innovations over the cobbled-together Stayputnik, including a pair of extendable solar panels to keep the batteries charged while in orbit; its RCS and ASAS were the same as those aboard Krishna 2. The plan was to launch it one hour earlier and allow Jeb to catch up and rendezvous with it.

Again, reality deviated from the plan. The SRB-induced roll was still present in both launches, despite the best efforts of the engineers; however, the new ASAS was able to counter it (with continuous RCS thrust in the other direction) until the very last seconds of the burn, and then swiftly eliminate it after separation. Jeb was reluctant to engage the ASAS, and did so only after repeated prodding from mission control. He also had more trouble than expected with the rendezvous, which required maneuvers that were often unintuitive, and it was not until almost three hours after launch that Krishna 2 finally matched orbits with the target.

Once the target was in sight, docking was relatively easy; Jeb quickly got the hang of the RCS quads, and the ports locked together on the first try. Jeb immediately followed that accomplishment with another: after a brief suit and helmet check, he depressurized his capsule, opened the hatch, and stepped out to inspect the now-joined craft.

This, the first orbital EVA by a kerbal, was perhaps the most dangerous part of the mission. While Jeb's life-support backpack included a miniature set of RCS thrusters, they had only a tiny fraction of the monopropellant reserves of his parent craft; if he lost control or used up all his fuel before returning to the capsule, he could drift away and be lost - eventually suffocating when his air ran out, or burning up on re-entry, whichever came first. There had been talk of a tether to keep the kerbonaut connected to the spacecraft, but Jeb kept getting tangled up in tests and refused to wear one in flight, preferring (as always) to rely on his own flying skill and courage.

Indeed, Jeb performed very well during his eight-minute EVA, moving out from the combined spacecraft and back, then from one end to the other. The only difficulty came at the end, when he misjudged the distance to the capsule and drifted past it while trying to board. Chuckling and cursing, he stopped himself and came back for a second pass, managing to grab on this time.

After another hour, two more orbits and a few more tests - including transferring fuel from the docking target to refill Krishna 2's tanks - Jeb finally cast off and moved to a safe distance with RCS before making his retro burn. The capsule fell short of the recovery area in Booster Bay, landing several kilometers west of KSC; thanks to the two parachutes, however, there was no damage to it or the contents. Krishna 2 thus qualified for another, inadvertant first: the program's first kerbaled landing on solid ground.

There was serious talk of canceling Krishna 3. The three-kerbal Rama capsule (see below) was undergoing ground tests by this time, and Jeb's above-and-beyond efforts had already accomplished all of the original objectives for this part of the program. On the other hand, some argued, Rama (and the new booster that would carry it) wasn't ready yet; and with the imminent and considerable expansion of the kerbonaut corps, it was necessary to demonstrate to everyone - inside the program as well as outside - that they had more than one qualified pilot. Besides, the rocket had already been built, though not assembled, and the docking target was still up there...

And so Bill Kerman and Krishna 3, "the forgotten Krishna", lifted off Pad 1 in the program's first night launch. Bill was a more careful, by-the-book pilot who kept the ASAS toggled on for most of the flight. He managed to rendezvous with the target in only two orbits, and his successful docking proved that Jeb's accomplishment was reproducible. His splashdown in Booster Bay was on target, with an overshoot of only a few kilometers. "He managed to make it all look almost routine," mission controller Gene Kerman observed.

Edited August 11, 2017 by Commander Zoom
moved images from Photobucket to Imgur

[Commander Zoom]

RETOOLING: RAMA AND ROCKOMAX

Even though the President's speech had only called for sending one kerbal to the Mun and returning them safely to Kerbin, it was decided early on in the program that for maximum safety and redundancy, it would be best to send two or even three kerbonauts along. Not only was three one of the "magic numbers", it was also the practical limit of current engineering - though some scientists were already imagining even larger expeditions, with whole fleets descending upon the Mun - and the point at which most discussions of "but what if something happens to...?" trailed off into absurdity; it was difficult for the planners to imagine a mishap that could incapacitate three kerbals at once without destroying the spacecraft outright.

It was equally clear that there was no way that an Orbiter could carry even one kerbal to the Mun and back, let alone three. (Not if he intended to land, that is; Jeb volunteered to attempt a once-around and free return, just to see if it could be done.) A capsule had been designed that could support three kerbals for the duration of such a mission, but all by itself - without parachutes, crew, or the supplies needed to sustain them - it weighed five times as much as a Krishna pod. The Mun rocket would have to be built on a new and different scale - larger, stronger, heavier and more powerful than anything built so far. And Jeb's junkyard, frankly, was not up to the task of making such parts - especially not with Jeb himself busy with/distracted by kerbonaut training.

Enter Rockomax. The industrial conglomerate had been waiting for such an opportunity since the news of Stayputnik broke. A leading manufacturer of storage silos, large pressure tanks and high-capacity pumps, many of their products could be adapted to the needs of the program with little work or delay. With their cash reserves and profits from other divisions, Rockomax could afford to always be the lowest bidder. Thus, Rockomax became the space program's biggest contractor - and the company that would build most of the Mun rocket - by being there at the right time to fill a need that few others could.

Rama 1 - 3: Advanced Orbital Operations

Even though it was only intended to carry Rama 1 into low Kerbin orbit, the name of the new booster - Munatic, mark 1 - left no doubt as to its ultimate purpose. Taking inspiration from Orbiter, three stages of X200-32 tanks, stacked two high and painted flat white for high visibility and heat management, were grouped around a fourth core stage. Each stage had, at its base, a single giant "Mainsail" engine - Rockomax's trump card, a rocket motor so powerful that it required the purchase of gauges with more zeroes just to measure its thrust. All four of them would fire at the start, to lift Munatic and its payload off the pad, but fuel lines ran from the three outer boosters to the center; once empty, they would drop away, leaving the still fully-fueled core stage to finish the journey into orbit.

The Rama capsule itself was also a mix of the familiar and the revolutionary. First, it was difficult to talk about the capsule (now the "Command Module") separately from its dedicated upper stage, the "Service Module", which provided it with air, water, and electrical power during flight. The service module included ASAS, RCS, and one of Rockomax's small rocket engines, the "Poodle", which was "only" about as powerful as a LT-T30 or the new LV-T45 but built to a shorter, wider form factor, with a larger reaction chamber and smaller bell. Kerbonauts still sat with their backs to the base of the capsule and the thick heat shield, but now the cabin was large enough to fit three of them, with enough room to trade seats if necessary. It was also amply supplied with windows, both forward and to the side, at least for the left and right seaters; ironically, the center seat, mounted below the other two and designated for the mission commander, had no windows at all and required flying by instruments alone. (Jeb protested bitterly about this, but was ignored.) Radial parachutes (three of them, allowing the crew to touch down safely on land or water) and a docking port on the nose (with its own protective cover) were now standard as well.

During a ground test of the capsule with the Rama 1 backup crew - Sidden, Gus, and Kennard Kerman, who would later fly on Rama 3 - the hatch was accidentally locked from outside; it was soon found that the spare key had been lost, requiring a locksmith to be called. As the capsule had not been stocked with snacks for the test, the crew soon grew hungry and began banging on the hatch and hull, demanding to be let out and/or fed. This accident resulted in a delay of several weeks while the hatch was redesigned and other minor changes made to the capsule. Two months after Krishna 3, the new capsule and its service module was finally rated ready to fly; it was mated to the top of a Munatic and the whole thing rolled out onto Pad 1.

At the same time, another craft was being prepared for launch on Pad 2. The ADT (Advanced Docking Target) was also mostly just a scaled-up version of the original; one new feature, however (the multiple docking "hub") was to have considerable influence on the next few missions, and pave the way for permanent installations like Kerbin Station 1.

Rama 1 was the first time that the famous team of Jeb, Bob and Bill all flew in space together. The mission went well, despite Jeb's usual hotdogging and the need to use the service module to give the craft the final push into orbit; rendezvous with the ADT, launched twenty minutes earlier, occurred two hours into the flight. Once they were securely docked, Jeb and his crew settled in to wait.

Rama 2 was launched three days later, as soon as the next Munatic and its crew could be made ready. Jerfry Kerman was commander on this flight, with Almy and Harfrid Kerman as his fellow kerbonauts. They had no trouble making the rendezvous, and Jeb and Jerfry shared a handshake across the docking hub. (The ADT, along with the service modules of the Ramas, contained extra supplies for long-term operations in orbit but no habitable space; that would come later.)

Commander Sidden Kerman and Gus and Kennard Kerman of Rama 3 had to wait another week to launch, while the engineers finished making their first significant change to the Munatic design: the addition of another set of outer boosters, with fuel lines that fed into the original set. This was intended to help Rama 3 reach orbit with full or nearly-full tanks, in anticipation of the next phase of the mission. After launch and another long wait for a good rendezvous, Rama 3 finally docked with its two predecessors and the ADT in a cross formation, with 80% fuel (compared to the 50% of the others). Fuel was transferred from the ADT and the other two service modules to top up Rama 3, which then cast off and initiated the first ever TMI (Trans-Munar Injection) burn.

This was the "once-around" course that had been considered before. The crew of Rama 3 also had no means of landing; their orders were simply to loop around the Mun and return, taking photographs and other measurements while they did. (Indeed, these kerbonauts had been selected for the likelihood that they would follow those orders and not do anything rash, as Jeb might be tempted to in their situation.) It took them eight hours to reach the Mun and eight hours back. They returned with just enough fuel to brake into Kerbin orbit, but not enough for a second rendezvous, so it was decided to have them descend right away. Their tanks ran dry while they were still high in the atmosphere, about to overfly KSC, and they splashed down far out in the ocean.

Jerfry and Rama 2 were the next to cast off and make their deorbit burn. Their maneuver went much better, with a splashdown within sight of the launch complex.

Rama 1, the first up, was the last down and landed even closer, just to the north of KSC.

This left the ADT alone in orbit, with only a few liters of fuel in its tanks. As with the original in the aftermath of Krishna, it was deorbited to keep space tidy and gather data for the scientists as it broke up. It also made a very nice light show from the ground.

Edited August 11, 2017 by Commander Zoom
moved images from Photobucket to Imgur

[Commander Zoom]

Rama 4: Mun or Bust

All of these docking exercises had been performed under the assumption that the munar landing(s) would involve a rendezvous in Kerbin orbit (KOR), Mun orbit (MOR), or both, between Rama and a separate landing craft that would descend to the surface and return. The design team for the latter, however, had yet to produce even a final design, let alone a working model. In its absence, advocates of the "Direct Ascent" approach gained favor within the program; their argument could be summarized as "Rama can already get to the Mun; why not just give it a little more fuel and some legs and let it land?"

The end result - the Munatic mk 3 and the stretched "Rama M" - was a little more complicated than that, but not much. The former now included a full ring of nine strap-on liquid boosters (after the issues with the SRBs on Orbiter, it had been decided to avoid their use on kerbaled flights; these could at least be throttled back in case of emergency) and an extra "transfer" stage that would do the job of actually sending the spacecraft to the Mun. The latter had half again as much fuel, a more powerful radio (with a collapsible dish), landing lights, a telescoping ladder and a set of hydraulic legs that would swing down and extend.

Rama 4 was a spectacular night launch - four Mainsails and nine T-30s, all at full thrust, made sure of that. It was just shy of a year after Stayputnik 1, only two since the President's speech and considerably sooner than that self-imposed deadline. The strap-ons burned half their fuel, transferred the rest inward, and fell away a mere twenty seconds into the flight; the three secondary boosters (throttled back slightly, to avoid overheating or overstressing the rocket) lasted another minute and some seconds, to the start of the gravity turn. The core stage carried the transfer stage and Rama CSM to the very edge of orbit, then was jettisoned to fall somewhere in the middle of the ocean, just as planned. Jeb let the spacecraft coast to apogee before using half of the upper stage's fuel to establish a roughly circular parking orbit in the vicinity of 100 km. It would not remain there for long.

The night launch had been timed to lead almost immediately into a prime window for a TMI. Only twenty minutes after launch, a 90 second burn put Rama 4 on course for the Mun. At T + 27 minutes, after KSC had confirmed their trajectory, Jeb jettisoned the nearly-empty transfer stage and used the service module's RCS to nudge them free of the engine shroud. They were now flying free and heading out of low orbit, where only Sidden, Gus and Kennard had gone before.

After separation, the service module's engine was used (for just a few seconds) to raise Rama 4's periapsis, or closest approach to the Mun, to a safe altitude. The transfer stage, on the other hand, would be allowed to crash right into it. This had been part of the mission plan from early on; not only would it help keep space around Kerbin free of possibly hazardous debris, some scientists thought that "something really cool" might happen when the discarded stage hit the munar surface. Alas, cameras on Rama 4 saw only a small puff of dust and the formation of a new crater, later confirmed by telescopes on Kerbin. (Not until instruments were left on the Mun by this and later missions would the sound of it "ringing like a gong" from such impacts be recorded.)

At T + 6 hours, Jeb fired the engine again to slow Rama 4 into munar orbit, between 85 and 86 km above "sea level". Confirmation was transmitted back and forth before the new orbit carried the spacecraft around the back side of the moon and out of line-of-sight with Kerbin. The crew took plenty of photographs of the surface, adding to those taken by Rama 3. Contact was reestablished with mission control just as the sun "set" behind them.

Considering his options, Jeb decided to go ahead with the primary landing site: the northern part of one of the dark munar maria, just south of the ship's equatorial path. The mood in the capsule was positive as they began to descend, though Bob spent a lot of time peering anxiously at the instruments and out the window as the ground came up. But even he was smiling when, 7 hours and 3 minutes after launch, Rama 4 touched down with a gentle thump. Jeb cut the throttle, looked everything over, and gave KSC the good news:

"Munatic Base here, we made it. We are on the *beeeeeep* Mun, over."

All over Kerbin, kerbals cheered, fainted, hugged each other, and otherwise reacted to the news. Wernher, a smile on his lips, quietly raised a glass to his colleagues and drank.

When the noise died down, Jeb asked for and was quickly granted permission to exit the craft. As the world watched, he made his way carefully down the ladder and then the last few feet to the powdery regolith. Turning, he looked out at what Buzz Kerman would later call "the magnificent desolation"; then, with a mighty whoop, he jumped several times his own height, almost half the distance he'd just covered. Thus, "Hooo! ... That was fun" became the second set of "first words on the Mun" recorded in the history books.

The three kerbonauts spent a half hour outside - planting the flag, taking more photographs and measurements, bouncing around the lander in the low gravity, picking up loose rocks to take back with them and leaving lots of corrugated footprints in the grey soil. When it was time to come back in and prepare for the return, Jeb lingered at the foot of the ladder for a last look around. "So long, Mun. We'll be back real soon."

Rama 4's ascent took it to the west in a low arc, with an initial apoapsis of only a dozen kilometers; with no atmosphere to climb out of or other craft to rendezvous with, the only concern was clearing the highest peaks. A retrograde orbit was chosen, against the Mun's rotation, to clear its sphere of influence as quickly and efficiently as possible. Most of the service module's remaining fuel was expended escaping the Mun's gravity into a return orbit for Kerbin; the rest, as well as some RCS propellant, was used in another course correction burn to fine-tune the approach for re-entry. There would be no chance to pick a landing site - Jeb, Bill and Bob would have to set down wherever their aerobraking maneuver left them.

At T + 13:30 hours, while passing over Kerbin's night side, Bob (now in the center seat, as Jeb had demanded a window for the return) turned the spacecraft to face back along their course; ten minutes later, as the sun rose behind them, he jettisoned the service module. From that point on, the capsule was really being flown by Sir Isaac Kerman.

Rama 4's re-entry was the longest, shallowest, and thus the gentlest recorded in the program; it crossed most of the Eastern Hemisphere before finally splashing down just off the tip of [18° N, 140° E], with a total mission time of 14 hours. Jeb and his crew were soon recovered and (after a short time in quarantine to make sure they hadn't brought anything back besides photos and rock samples) given more parades and more medals.

A replica of the flag and plaque left behind by Rama 4 is on display at KSC. The text engraved on the latter reads: "Here Jebediah, Bill and Bob Kerman first set foot upon the Mun. They came in peace, and curiosity, and reckless enthusiasm."

Rama 5: A Wild Ride

Jerfry, Hardin and Sidden Kerman knew they had a hell of an act to follow, but the crew of Rama 5 resolved not to let the pressure get to them or impair their performance. And in the final analysis, the second munar landing was - except for one case of Sidden's exuberance getting the better of his judgment - as close to a textbook mission as any flown by the program.

Rama 5 was another night launch, but it would make its TMI burn on the daylit opposite side of the planet, over half an orbit away. This maneuver was executed without incident and the ship was soon on its way to the Mun, preceded by its transfer stage. Both the kerbonauts and many at mission control breathed a sigh of relief; no trouble had been expected from the newest addition to the spacecraft, but it was nice to have that confirmed.

That addition was bolted to the side of Rama 5's service module, below the repositioned high-gain antenna: a solar-powered rover, designed to extend the range of the kerbonauts beyond how far they could comfortably walk, hop, or jet about with their limited pack fuel. It had done well in trials in "the sandbox" on Kerbin, and its weight was slight enough that it didn't shift the CSM's center of gravity (much), but the real test would come on the Mun.

The braking burn was also accomplished flawlessly, and Rama 5 settled into low munar orbit.

The primary landing site for the second mission was another dark sea of (mostly) flat lava flows, a quarter of the way around the Mun and as far north of the equator as the first had been south. It was a hard target to miss, requiring only a slight change in the tilt of Rama 5's orbit to reach. Jerfry did his best to encourage his anxious crewmates during the descent.

Rama 5 touched down on solid and level ground shortly after T + 5 hours, 30 minutes. There was some cheering, then most of the home audience switched back to the Sportball game on the other network.

After making sure that the engine was shut down, the craft's footing was secure and nothing had sprung a leak, the crew deployed the rover. In munar gravity, a cart that had fallen straight down on Kerbin sprang outward to land lightly on all four wheels. The brakes automatically engaged, and the rover awaited its first rider.

Again, the commander was the first one down the ladder. Jerfry hopped around a bit before declaring, "Jeb's right, this is fun." The other two kerbonauts soon joined him, and a quick round of Rock-Paper-Scissors (best two out of three) later, Sidden had won the right to drive the rover.

In an effort to keep the rover's weight as low as possible, the operator had not been supplied with a proper seat; instead, he was expected to cling to a set of handholds, controlling it with a few levers for throttle, brakes etc and leaning his body this way and that. Sidden was not deterred, and quickly climbed aboard. He brought the rover around in a slow turn, then aimed it at a large rock near the top of a nearby rise, some 600 meters away. Jerfry expected him to stop there, take a sample and come on back, but Sidden had other ideas. Seeing the ground sloping away before him, he decided on the spot to "see what [the rover] could do."

The next twenty minutes are recorded in the annals of the program as "Sidden's Wild Ride." Among other things, he learned that the rover could reach speeds of over 20 meters/second on a downgrade (and catch considerable "air", if there was any to be had on the Mun) before one or more of the wire wheels collapsed. By the time he picked himself up, dragged himself over to the rover and got the wheels bent back into a vaguely round shape, he was almost nine kilometers away from the lander and, for the first time, beginning to wonder if he had enough oxium to get back. And, just to make matters worse, the lack of an ionosphere to bounce radio signals off of meant that he couldn't even call for help until he was back in line of sight.

He briefly considered abandoning the rover and making his return by jetpack, but the prospect of running out of fuel halfway there and/or plowing faceplate first into the surface at an even more unsafe speed daunted him. Turning the rover around, he headed back up the gentle slope at the best speed the electric motors could muster.

It was a much chastened (and short of breath) Sidden who arrived back at the spacecraft forty minutes later, slumped over the controls. Jerfry and Harfrid leapt aboard and brought the rover to a stop, then dragged him off it and up the ladder. Once they got the cabin repressurized and Sidden's helmet off, he revived and apologized at length. His comrades assured him they were just glad he was all right, though they did extract a promise from him not to do anything like that again. He humbly remained aboard while they finished up a somewhat abbreviated excursion plan.

Rama 5 lifted off from the Mun at T + 8 hours, leaving behind one slightly-banged up rover and another flag but, thankfully, no fallen kerbonauts. (Jerfry and Harfrid had agreed, while back out on the surface, not to inform KSC of what had happened until they were all safely back on Kerbin.) The plaque on the flag gave their names and noted that this proved the first landing was not (entirely) luck. Their TKI burn was, again, practically flawless - it took them straight back along the Mun's orbit and brought them in at nearly the perfect altitude on the first try.

The CSM came in over the Great Western Desert, of which the crew got some great photos with the few film packs they had left before they had to secure the cameras for re-entry. The service module was jettisoned just before reaching the west coast, the capsule streaking across the width of the peninsula as a brilliant daytime meteor before plunging into the waters of Booster Bay like so many first stages and failed launches before. This craft came down much gentler, beneath three parachutes, and splashed down at T + 15 hours and 26 minutes.

The story of "Sidden's Wild Ride" was kept out of the papers for years. When it came up during the post-mission debriefing, there was talk of scrubbing Sidden from the program, until half the kerbonaut corps - Jeb himself first among them - stood up and admitted that in his place, they might well have done the same.

 

Rama 6: Ice Follies

The original mission of the space program had now been technically satisfied twice over, but they weren't done. For one thing, there was still another moon up there that no one had been to yet. Rama 6 was to change that.

A mission to Minmus posed new challenges, but nothing that Rama and the mark 3 Munatic couldn't handle. True, it was a lot farther and at a bit of an inconvenient angle, but the pilots of the program had plenty of experience (though some of them only in simulators, so far) with matching orbits. The really hard part, as one writer had observed, was getting into orbit of Kerbin; after that, you were "halfway to anywhere." And if Minmus was so much smaller than the Mun, that meant it would take less delta-V to land on or take off from - enough to make up for the extra needed to get there.

The biggest question - one that the best telescopes Kerbin had at the time couldn't answer - was what the damn thing was made of. All the astronomers could say for sure, from squinting at it and analyzing its orbit, was that it was lighter, shinier, and greener than Mun rock. Finding that out would be one of Rama 6's primary objectives.

Minmus' weak gravity also meant that a rover like the one carried by Rama 5 would have almost no traction, but some bright boys had a solution for that too. Rather than wheels, Rama 6's rover would have RCS quads, to carry it over the surface like a super jetpack. The basic idea seemed sound, but there was no real way to test it (or train with it) other than in orbit or on Minmus. The kerbonauts would have to figure it out once they got there.

The crew of Rama 6 - Hudwise, Kenkin and Obney Kerman - were selected for being some of the calmest kerbonauts in the whole program. This mission would be longer, in both duration and distance, than any that had come before, and the administrators didn't want to take a chance on anyone cracking or panicking while far from home. The three that were finally picked could all be counted on to "maintain an even strain" in a crisis.

There were no glitches or problems during the launch from Pad 1 - by day, this time - and while the TMI burn was a bit longer (by about 50 m/s), Rama 6 was soon on its way. A little over six hours into the flight, the spacecraft passed the Mun's orbit and the crew officially became the furthest-traveling kerbals to date, a milestone that was acknowledged with smiles and a few laconic jokes. They would not reach their real destination for another day and a half.

Similarly, the crew had to be informed by mission control when they entered Minmus' gravitational influence, as there was little or no indication aboard the craft. Over the next few hours, a small pale green dot in the starfield grew into a lumpy mint green ball. While Kenkin took photographs out the side window, Hudwise set up the burn that would turn their flyby into a wide orbit. After less than a minute at full thrust, Rama 6 became a satellite of Minmus.

Intercepting Minmus during this part of its tilted orbit around Kerbin meant coming in at a high angle, over the poles. Rather than spend precious delta-V adjusting the inclination of their orbit, Hudwise decided to simply tighten it up and look for a good landing spot. There were plenty of nice flat frozen lakes (or regions that looked like frozen lakes) down there, and he could reach them as easily from this orbit as any other. Another pair of braking burns (to lower first the periapsis, then the apoapsis to match) left Rama 6 circling the small moon at a distance of a mere 20 km. Many more photographs were taken at this close range. Finally Hudwise made his selection, and turned the ship around for the next pass.

The sun was already low in Minmus' sky over that region, however, casting the hills and valleys in deep shadow, and by the time the craft came around again the landing site was (just barely) on the night side of the line. Hudwise chose not to abort, but to continue the descent by radar and landing lights. Two bright circles appeared on the flat, glittering surface... then suddenly vanished in a roiling, opaque cloud of steam. Hudwise reacted instantly to his fellows' startled cries, aborting the landing and throttling back up before easing off into a hover at 500 meters. By that time the cloud had mostly dissipated, and Obney was able to observe that while the hot exhaust had melted a shallow crater in the ice, it did not seem to have broken through to liquid (or rock): "Must be frozen solid all the way to the bottom, however deep that is." With fuel, options and daylight all running out fast, the crew elected to put down again a short distance from the original spot. Hudwise had to rely entirely on the radar altimeter for the last dozen meters, cutting the throttle precisely at zero; he waited until the cloud cleared again and he had visual confirmation from the other kerbonauts before informing mission control (at T + 2 days and 24 minutes) that Rama 6 was safely down on Minmus.

The celebration in the capsule was brief, with the crew more focused on getting outside to survey the surroundings and their craft. Kenkin won the toss and was the first down the ladder. "Kinda slippery - watch your step" were the first words, accurate if not very poetic, spoken on Minmus. The other two soon joined him, and found themselves standing in another shallow crater, gleaming in the floodlights, jagged in some places and treacherously smooth and slick in others. A thin layer of ice had refrozen over the landing legs, but it could be and was quickly chipped away with their rock hammers. With that taken care of, Hudwise and Kenkin moved out of the crater to start drilling for core samples while Obney unpacked the rover.

The latter was one of the great disappointments of the mission, if not an outright disaster. In actual use, it proved almost impossible to hold on to the pitching and rolling sled while also working the thruster controls. Obney was thrown off again and again, cursing as he flew through the near-vacuum in slow motion, before finally abandoning the thing where it had come to rest.

Despite this setback, and the added difficulty of working by helmet lights, the crew returned to their craft with the core samples (which were placed in an insulated, refrigerated compartment - i.e., the beverage cooler) at the end of their half hour. At that time, another conference and vote was held to determine whether they should immediately start back for Kerbin, or attempt a short hop and second landing on one of the sunlit plateaus to the west, to take more samples and observations from the highlands. All were in favor of giving the latter a try, with the understanding that another abort would mean the end of the mission.

Rising out of yet another steam-shroud, Rama 6 lifted off and turned westward, clearing the rolling hills with legs and ladder still extended. Hudwise had gotten the hang of flying on Minmus by now, and after just a few minutes of flight time he found a nice flat mesa to set down on with hardly a bump. "And that, gentlemen, is how we do that."

The second EVA went much more smoothly - between the better lighting, more experience moving around on the ice in very low gravity, and no need to bother with a troublesome rover - and many samples were obtained, not only of the ice but also from some exposed boulders. Tired but pleased, the kerbonauts finally climbed back on board and began securing everything for the trip home. Liftoff and the escape burn were performed by the checklist, with little chatter. Three and a half hours later, Rama 6 left Minmus behind (or vice versa) and began the long fall towards Kerbin.

Two days out, two days back. Kenkin, pilot for the return leg, ran the tanks dry with the corridor correction burn and fine-tuned it with the RCS, which still had plenty of fuel. Kerbin swelled in the windows. The spacecraft came in over the broad blue expanse of the Eastern Ocean, dropping the service module just as the Mun rose over the horizon, calling to mind Rama 4's re-entry. This one was much shorter and sharper than that long gentle glide, pressing the crew firmly into their seats as the capsule punched a fiery hole in the atmosphere. But soon the pressure eased, the sheath of flame faded, radio contact was reestablished and the chutes deployed. Rama 6 splashed down in mid-ocean just short of four days and nine hours after blast-off - yet another record for the program.

TO BE CONTINUED...

Edited August 11, 2017 by Commander Zoom
moved images from Photobucket to Imgur

[Commander Zoom]

INTERLUDE: BUILDING INFRASTRUCTURE

The achievements of the space program left most kerbals simultaneously in awe and eager to see what they'd do next. John F. Kerman handily won re-election to another term, his campaign marred only by a bizarre incident in which a lone kerbal ran up and - for reasons that would be speculated about for years - tried to hit him with a pie. But there were still those who complained about the expense of the program, and wanted to know why it should continue, now that its goals had been accomplished. Hadn't kerbals been to both moons, one of them twice? What else was there to do?

The scientists had plenty of ideas, though some were hard to explain to the public. Both the kerbonauts and their bosses were eager to press on and not lose momentum (or funding). But the grand visions of the mission planners faced a stumbling block in the form of a basic and apparently inescapable fact of celestial mechanics: it would take months for transfer windows to open to other planets, and months more for the probes now being designed to travel to those planets and report back. And then months more to design and build craft that could take kerbals there and return them to Kerbin, across distances that made even the just-completed mission to Minmus seem like a walk to the corner store. All of that added up to years. What to do to fill up all of that time?

The answer, as with so many things, would come in three parts. And it would be sold to the public as their past and continued investment in space paying dividends that they could see and enjoy in their everyday lives, as well as an ongoing string of accomplishments to be proud of and keep interest in the program up... a chance for the kerbal race as a whole to slow down a little and catch their breath, before going on.

Kerbin Station 1: An Outpost on the Edge of Space

At first it was just "the Station", with no need to be more specific. The natural extension of the early docking experiments - just on a much, much larger scale - it would serve as an orbiting science lab, a way-station for other spacecraft, and the first long-term settlement in space. It would orbit Kerbin at 150 km, a safe distance higher than the now-customary 100 km orbit for craft coming up from KSC, but still easily reachable from there.

The station's core module was designed and launched first, a long spindle with multi-docking ports at both ends. In between was a two-kerbal control cabin, an "operations center" with room for four more, an ASAS and RCS to keep the station stable, and extra batteries (just in case). Veterans Jeb and Bill got the ferry-flight job as a "milk run", with the result that Jeb was the first official commander.

Next to go up were the power trusses. The program, short on boosters during the early stage of the transition (see next section), elected to launch these relatively light components on a few extra Orbiters that had been ordered and built, then left to rust in Jeb's junkyard when Krishna was cancelled in favor of Rama after only three missions. The original six SRBs were replaced with just three of the new double-length type, making the rocket simpler and easier to fly (if not much safer). The first power mast completed and launched was the central one, with only a few small solar panels and four radiothermal generators (RTGs). Once docked to the core, it provided steady, reliable power even when the station was in Kerbin's shadow.

The other two trusses, with their giant solar panels, were considerably heavier and there were delays in modifying the rocket to carry them; in the meantime, the station's docking and observation modules were launched. The latter had been fitted with a temporary small docking port, in the expectation that a Krishna pod would be on hand to transfer it to its permanent position opposite the former; lacking that, it was left attached to the power mast for now.

When the solar arrays were finally launched, it was on a rocket that (literally) stretched the Orbiter/Krishna design to its limit. The engineers, determined to make what they had work rather than give up and start over, kept adding struts and interstages until they had something that would, in theory, make it into orbit. Hudwise and Kenkin were chosen for these white-knuckle flights (as Jeb was already on the station), and they performed admirably under the pressure; still, it was decided at the highest levels of the program that this was the last time those rockets would be used. (Not that they had any more of them anyway.) The cupola was moved to its proper spot, and the station was now fully powered. Hudwise and Kenkin remained aboard, while Bill and Jeb - the original Krishna kerbonauts - rode their capsules back down. "Just like old times," the latter fondly reminisced.

The pair would be going right back up, joined by regular third-seater Bob Kerman, on the next flight. The payload was two habitation modules on top of a "Rama X"; shortened, simplified and standardized, these were to be the ubiquitous utility craft of the program's next phase. This particular one would remain docked with the station as what program literature called a Crew Return Vehicle (CRV) and almost everyone referred to informally as a "lifeboat"; it would also serve as a "tug", to help position modules, until a dedicated craft was available for that. A second, identical flight carrying two more hab modules was made by Harman, Dunny and Donfrey Kerman, the new official command crew, bringing the long-term capacity of the station to an even dozen. (While the station could hold at least half again that many, it wouldn't be very comfortable or, after a week or two, pleasant-smelling.)

Another Rama X would be coming up with the station's final component, the science module. But that still left the station short one lifeboat for its final crew count. Rather than launching a Rama "bare" (as would be done with future crew-relief flights, carrying three up and three back down), the engineers took this opportunity to send up a little something they'd cobbled together in their off hours: a docking adapter, for connecting the now standard port to its smaller predecessor. (Not that the latter was expected to see much use in the future, but one never knows?) Rather than take up a space on the docking module, it was attached to the top of the mast. Camble, Sidbas and Danke Kerman joined the station crew at this time.

Further delays with the science module and the need to bring Jeb and his crew home (so that they could begin training for their next mission, and stop crowding Harman et al) led to another "hindsight flight". The engineers had been looking at the design of the station's docking module and decided to add an extension to move it further out from the main axis of the station, in the process adding more fuel tanks so that ferry pilots could top up their own. This flight also served as a test of the new autopilot; an empty, unkerbaled Rama X was launched from KSC carrying the extension and, under ground control (which frequently had to step in and take over when the computer got "confused" or stuck in a loop, proving the need for such tests and/or kerbal backup pilots), inserted it between the station and the existing docking module, which was undocked from the core and then redocked. Jeb, Bob and Bill boarded the capsule and rode it home without incident.

The administrators finally had to step in and force the scientists to come to an agreement what had to go on the first science module and what could be left for later updates.  The "final" form was that of a tapered cylinder, capped at both ends with airlocks. Slightly cramped but fully equipped as a shirt-sleeve environment for doing science, it also included a set of small "Sepratron" solid rockets, so that - in the unlikely event of an accident that endangered the rest of the station - it could be quickly jettisoned.

Once this module was put in place by kerbonauts Lofel, Donfel and Joneny Kerman, and their capsule redocked at their hab module, Kerbin Station 1 was finally complete - a fact recognized by the President in a short ceremony broadcast the next day, in which he praised all involved and formally christened the station, declaring that it was "the first of many."

TO BE CONTINUED...

Edited August 11, 2017 by Commander Zoom
moved images from Photobucket to Imgur

[ouion]

awesome keep building and reach duna!

[Commander Zoom]

awesome keep building and reach duna!

It's on the board, but I'm afraid it's not going to happen before .21. I'd just completed a successful round trip in my "simulation" save, and landed the first pieces of my Mun base in the "live" one, when the announcement came down that the next version would break saves. Didn't see much point in continuing after that.

With that said: when .21 does come out, I intend to recreate my current save as quickly as possible (by conversion, (Hyper) editing, cut-and-pasting, and even re-flying missions if necessary) and proceed from there. Just pretend the Mun, etc has always looked that way.

A few other quick notes:

* I'm being intentionally vague with the names of various geographical features (on Kerbin and elsewhere), since (1) people may have their own names for them and (2) as we're about to see again, the geography itself may change now and then.

* I've been converting to .jpg to keep the page loads fast, but if anyone really wants the original .png of a particular shot, let me know and I can toss up a link.

* My kerbals are, in many ways, inspired by the final line of Arthur C. Clarke's classic Rendezvous With Rama (which is also where my mission/craft naming scheme comes from - the Greco/Roman names are so overdone ):

"The Ramans do everything in threes."

EDIT 07/24/13:

AWWWYEAH.

Mun Base 1 is still on the air.

I got lucky, and put down on a part of the mare that was undisturbed, between four of the new craters.

All three landers have their proper crews.

Kerbin Station 1 is still in orbit, with all her crew.

We are go for continuing with .21.

Edited July 24, 2013 by Commander Zoom

[Commander Zoom]

[ In this post, I wondered if there was sufficient interest to continue the ongoing chronicle.  The lack of response indicated otherwise. ]

[ Now that this save is finally being retired, this thread is being slightly repurposed.  The remaining posts will serve as a conclusion, summary, and/or central repository for all information and links regarding my most ambitious and longest running program to date. ]

Edited December 23, 2015 by Commander Zoom

[Commander Zoom]

Well.  It's finally over.

After nearly three Earth years (with some long gaps when I was busy and/or distracted with other things), ten Kerbin years, and four updates (and at least two format conversions) before I finally called a version freeze so I could finish without anything else breaking... I'm finished.  The expedition to Jool has returned safely, as has the second expedition to Duna; I still have some kerbonauts out there, in bases and stations on or orbiting two planets and several moons, but it's time to finally wrap this game up, tie a bow around it, and start fresh.

Before this, I'd never left Kerbin's SOI; even though I'd been playing for years, since before Kerbin had moons, I'd never been beyond them.  Call it a combination of other interests (see "distractions", above) and waiting for certain features, like docking, to become stock.  I saw people with colorful ribbons in their signatures and envied their accomplishments, their interplanetary adventures and their space stations and satellite networks, their Grand Tours and traveling circuses and so on.  And so I decided, back in January of 2013, that I was finally going to get serious about my space program.

You can read about the start of my effort in the first few posts on this thread.  But this time, instead of being satisfied with orbital flights and a handful of jaunts to the moon(s) and back, I kept going.  I started putting things in orbit to stay - first around Kerbin, then its moons.  And then, for the first time ever, sending probes to distant worlds.  More probes would follow, and eventually, kerbals.

Most of the stuff around and near Kerbin was done during the first half of 2013, including the space station and the beginnings of the Mun base.  By July, I was working on the design for the first of my interplanetary motherships and figured I had enough material "in the can" to start posting here.  Then version .21 hit, and despite misgivings, my save converted over just fine.  I started building my Mun base in earnest, as well as a transfer station in munar orbit to catch components and ferry them down to the surface.  The pilot and "strut monkey" assigned to the Mun shuttle soon logged more actual flight hours than anyone in the program, including the more famous "orange suits."

Mid-2013 also brought some sad news from outside KSP.  The full story can be found in the sub-thread "Long Distance Call"; suffice to say, I was now determined to put a kerbal on Duna by the end of the year.

Version .22 came along in October, and with it the first version of career mode (later renamed to "Science Sandbox", as only R&D was implemented, not budgets or building the KSC).  With some careful editing of the persistence file, I was able to convert my existing sandbox save to this new mode, because I wanted at least some of the experience of doing Science (with no "that won't work" messages) while continuing my program.  By November, I was finally ready to start sending out my interplanetary probes - the "Janet" series, after Schoolhouse Rock's "Interplanet Janet" - singly, in pairs (for Eve/Gilly and Duna/Ike), and for Jool and its moons, all five on one rocket.  All were orbiters, using the then-popular ISA mapping mod.  Later, I would edit them in place to swap in the low-res SCANsat antenna.

At the end of November, with one month left to go on my self-imposed deadline, I'd finalized the design of the first Veda stack - Brahma command/habitat module, Vishnu service module, Shiva engine module - and sent it to Duna and back in the "simulators".  Version .23 came out on December 17, and with it the Mobile Lab; this was quickly built into one of the other two ships that would be sent along to the red planet (everything in threes, remember?) and broken up for parts on arrival.  Everything was launched and assembled on the 22nd and 23rd, and on Christmas Eve, I sent the First Duna Expedition on its way.  Thanks to the magic of time acceleration, they would arrive late on Christmas Day (after I'd spent the first part wrangling Janets into orbits around the Joolian moons).  Actually landing would have to wait until the 26th, after I'd fired off the mini-rovers attached to Vishnu's sides like limpets... but land they did, just before midnight my time.  And Tre Kerman was, for me, the first kerbal on Duna. 

With that promise kept, the rest of 2013 was spent bringing down the Duna rover next to the hab and lander, adjusting the Janets' orbits for better mapping, etc.  The start of the new year saw a kerbal landing on Ike, some additions to the Mun base, and the space station finally getting a proper science (lab) module.  Then KSP would be put away again, until the spring, when the Duna crew took their rover on some very long drives - halfway around the planet (and back) and to both poles.  June saw the launch of an even bigger mission to Jool - three ships and three tankers, plus a couple of small "afterthought" rockets trailing in their wake, with some useful items I'd thought of too late - as well as improvements in imaging technology (SCANsat) and thus a new set of probes, sent in pairs to (almost) every planet and moon in the system... and then, in July, version .24 brought money into the equation.  Once again I was able to convert my save (to the aforementioned "Science" mode) and update my mods, but it was becoming clear that it was only a matter of time before an update broke my game for good.

Still I pressed on, hitting all the biomes and anomalies on the Mun and Minmus for maximum Science (putting another small station in Minmus orbit in the process), then trying my hand at asteroid intercepts.  I managed to capture a fine pair of class Ds and wrestle them both into an 500km equatorial orbit of Kerbin, bringing them together and (this is the crazy part) trying to connect them.  It worked, sort of, but the connection was never as rigid as I wanted, even with a whole forest of KAS struts; KSP physics just don't work that way.  Still, I had to try.

Version .25 came out in October 2014, and as I feared, changed too many important things, including parts used in in-flight craft.  Rather than try to fix it, I called a version freeze at .24.2 and carried on in another (non-Steam) directory.  I'd finish out the Jool mission, then wrap things up and start again with whatever version was then current.

Asteroid wrangling lost its appeal toward the end of the year (in part because I realized that because of the constant spawns, I could never be "done"), and I went back to focusing on my kerbaled missions - making mid-course corrections for the ships bound for Jool, and then preparing a mission to Eve.  The latter was thoroughly documented, in order to qualify for the "Eve Rocks" challenge, and featured a permanent orbital outpost (staffed by two kerbals, with provisions for more) as well as a one-kerbal lander.  A similar station would be sent to Duna along with the imminent Second Expedition.

The First Expedition made the most of their remaining time on Duna, driving all the way around just to make it official, before returning to the orbiting Veda 1 and burning for home in mid-February.  Veda 2 was on its way to Jool, and Veda 3 - last of the trio - was taking shape in the VAB.  Due to tweaks and revisions along the way, seeing what worked and what didn't, none of the three interplanetary vessels were alike; Veda 2 and 3 had centrifuges built by different contractors (PorkJet and RoverDude), while Veda 1 had no centrifuge at all and a much different engine module which clustered its four LV-Ns together rather than putting them on outriggers.  (The latter configuration proved much easier to launch, stack... pretty much everything, really.)  The first and the last would cross paths, somewhere in the endless night, in March.  

But first, there was the small matter of getting two kerbals to Eve, assembling a station in her orbit, and landing one in that seductive purple hell - and then (this is the important part) getting him safely back into orbit.  This task, plus a side trip to Gilly, occupied the rest of February.

March 2015 marked two significant achievements for the program, but one - the triumphant return of the First Duna Expedition - eclipsed the other, the long-awaited arrival of a Janet at lonely Eeloo, in the eyes of the public.  Still, it made the scientists happy, and me too.  I could officially say, "I've been everywhere."

Second Duna arrived in mid-April and landed without much fuss, requiring only a short hop (using the same lander, refueled and with chutes repacked) to deliver an additional hab module to the base site.  This, plus inflatable greenhouses and living/work spaces by USI, would make their stay on the red planet more comfortable.  I didn't do as much with them as I did with the previous expedition, but they did get to drive to the top of (and name) some mountains, and visit that unmissable tourist attraction, the Face.  Meanwhile, the ladies of Duna Station (okay, no female kerbonauts in .24, but if Brotoro could do it, I could pretend) made a return visit to Ike and tried out the PackRat rover; it worked okay, but flipped constantly.  At least it was almost as easy to set upright again.

All of that carried me through May and June, and then it was July... or Jool-y, maybe.  Ships started arriving, making the harrowing passage through the upper atmosphere and swinging out to rendezvous above Laythe.  First was the core of what would become Laythe Station, then Veda 2 itself, and then the 'misc' ship carrying the Laythe lander and other pieces.  In the midst of all of this, and popping off probes, I got a reminder that it was time to dispatch the tiny uppermost stage of the Eve lander - now repurposed as a sample return capsule - for Kerbin.  Then it was back to the jolly green giant and its ocean moon.  Exciting times!  Assembly of Laythe Station (in the first of many configurations over its life) was finally finished on the morning of the 4th, and I took a well-deserved rest.

A month later, in August, I came back to Laythe.  First were the rovers for its few spots of solid ground (and one more probe aimed to splash down in the seas); I even managed to land two on the ice caps.  When one found a likely-looking beach, I sent down the lander - another first for Jeb.  They spent a day and a night on the surface before lifting off and docking with the station again.  About this time, I was starting to have concerns about my fuel margin; looking at what was left after sending all of this hardware out here, I wasn't sure I had enough to visit all the other moons and get the boys home safe.  (And this was .24, so I couldn't make more.)  At one point, I thought I'd have to use the return fuel to complete the mission, and launch another set of tankers at the next transfer window from Kerbin.  But that turned out to not be necessary after all, for a couple of reasons...

Figuring I'd use the fuel I had now and worry about it later, I sent two of the other kerbonauts out to Vall and Tylo, and then perhaps (with in-flight refueling) to Bop and Pol.  The Vall landing (in September-October) went fine; then several things happened which I hadn't planned for.  First, while I'd tested the Laythe lander (again, in the "simulator"), I'd just assumed that the Bug-series lander/shuttle could make a safe landing on Tylo and return, perhaps with the use of a spare "orange Jumbo" tank as a crasher stage and fuel source for the descent.  But my attempts to soft-land a rover showed me what I was dealing with, and a quick round of "sims" with every combination of lander and tank I had on hand convinced me there was just no way: nothing I'd brought had enough fuel and/or TWR.  Tylo had beaten me.  I'd need to return with a purpose-built craft (not that I was going to).

Giving up on Tylo, they moved on to Bop... and found you-know-what.  (Just a few days before Halloween!)  And there the story took a sharp turn in my head, because I figured that it was enough to drive both of them slightly insane - things kerbals were not meant to know, and all that.  So much for my optimistic tale of conquering space!  They took off and rushed back to Laythe (in part because I'd realized it was actually a lot easier to go back there, refuel, and then make an entirely separate burn for Pol rather than get there direct from Bop; inclined orbits are a pain).  My unflappable pilot had to ditch an empty (and technically superfluous, but still expensive!) Vishnu in order to complete the aerocapture safely, and the scientist was a good candidate for a rubber room.  None of this was according to plan, but once the idea got in there, I couldn't shake it.  I blame all the other stories where things go horribly wrong on these long missions, usually near Jool.

Skipping forward to December 2015.  The return fuel is (finally) almost here, I've run the numbers again and I do have enough (barely) to send Jeb and a plus-one out to Pol to tick off that box before going home.  (Not landing on Tylo saved a lot.)  So they do that, and come back.  And then I decide that the poor crazy scientist should go out the airlock.  Without a suit.  (Major bummer all around, but that's where the story wanted to go.)  So I send him out on EVA, terminate the flight, and... I see he's back at KSC, on the roster, ready to fly.  What the hell?  I am now thoroughly weirded out.  Quick rewrite: he was wearing a suit.  And then, he just vanished.  They'll find out when they get home... which will be sooner rather than later, because Jeb has had enough and as soon as Veda 2 is filled up, he's taking the (not perfectly optimal, but close enough) return window and getting out of there with his (remaining) people.

Which brings us to the present.  I've spent the last few days bringing both Second Duna and First Jool home, shuttling their crews down to the surface and leaving all three Vedas in orbit.  If this save was continuing, they'd be used again; as it stands, they make nice museum pieces (and lessons for next time).  Same for the satellites, the stations, the bases... and of course, the flags.

The save will be archived, backed up, along with the game itself and all the mods I've used.  If I ever need or want to, I can reopen and revisit it.  But for now, I have albums full of screenshots, my memories... and this thread.

I don't know what I'll do in 1.05, 1.1 and beyond; by most accounts, it's an almost entirely new game.  I'll have to (re)learn a lot, including all of career mode.  I don't know if I'll ever find the time and interest to undertake anything so ambitious again.  But whatever may happen, I'm glad and I'm proud that I did - and I thank everyone who inspired and encouraged me along the way.  And thank you, for reading this.

 

 

  

 

 

 

Imgur Albums:

Krishna and Rama - First Flights

 

Rama - To the Mun(s)

 

Kerbin Station 1 - An Outpost on the Edge of Space

 

Janet - Never Been a Planet That They Haven't Seen

 

Duna 1 - Heading Out

 

Duna 2 - Arrival

 

Duna 3 - Descent

 

Duna 4 - Ike / Enigma

 

Duna 5 - Pole to Pole

 

Duna 6 - Odyssey

 

Duna 7 - The Voyage Home

 

Eve Rocks 1 - Some Assembly Required

 

Eve Rocks 2 - Give Us a Kiss, Luv

 

Eve Rocks 3 - There and Back Again

 

Eve Rocks 4 - Bouncy Castle 

 

Eve Rocks 5 - Message in a Bottle

 

 

Jool - Watch This Space

 

Edited August 11, 2017 by Commander Zoom
moved images from Photobucket to Imgur

[Wallygator]

Wow! Nice recap and a heck of a lot of dedication!!! Well done sir, very well done indeed!!!

[Geschosskopf]

Holy crap.  I remember this from when it was new.  Congrats on keeping it going so long and getting the loose ends tidied up.

[DMSP]

This seems cool, I'll be keeping an eye on it.

[GDJ]

Good read. It was a little dry at first, but it sped right along.

All-in-all, I enjoyed reading it, and I agree with the others, a job well done!

[Commander Zoom]

Thanks.  I was initially going for the typical NASA-documentary sort of tone, but I fear that resulted in what is now called by many (including myself) "YAML" - Yet Another Mission Log.  I'm still trying to decide the theme or focus of my next game, assuming I end up documenting it.

I do still have the Jool Expedition pics to post, and a final wrap-up of the program as it stands when I suspended this game... but other things are once again taking up my time and attention.  Still, I promise to return to finish this properly.