The Kethane Travelling Circus Book 1: Duna

[Geschosskopf]

EPISODE 16 -- Back to Airbase Duna

The mission for today was for Samlorf and Obbal to return to Airbase Duna to grab more flags. Mission Control wasn't going to tolerate another washout like the day before. Although this was going to be the longest flight yet for the D'OH, nobody expected anything but tedium and logging the altitudes of the terrain flown over. It turned out, however, to be something of an adventure.

Here we see the starting situation, which brought home just how far from home the D'OH had wandered, what looks like nearly 1/2 way around the planet. Airbase Duna is on the west horizon, the D'OH is near the SE horizon, and up near the northern horizon is the flag on The Face. It sure didn't look that far on the satellite map.

Airbase Duna is on the equator and the D'OH was at 30^ S. On the direct line between them, that lighter colored massif in the center of the pic was an obstacle that had to be dodged, so the plan was to fly 315^ to the equator, then 270^ the rest of the way home. So, with the plan made, Obbal and Samlorf camped out under the D'OH's wings while imaginary instruments spent the night gathering imaginary data on the mysterious anomaly buried nearby.

Next morning as usual, they waited for the sun to rise high enough to get the panels to 50%, then they left with Samlorf flying again. They took nothing but pictures and left nothing but foot- and tire-tracks. Very disappointing . But the site will be visited again, not least because it has the broadest expanse of relatively flat ground so far seen on Duna.

Just as they reached the equator and turned west, however, Obbal and Samlorf felt an unfamiliar vibration in their seats and heard a strange rumbling from the rear fuselage. It took them a minute to realize that this was just the Kethane-burning generator kicking in for the 1st time. Even Mission Control was surprised by this. After all, they were flying west with the nose up, pointing the solar panels right into the morning sun. This of all times was the least likely for the hybrid system to activate.

Then they noticed it wasn't quite as bright as it had been a moment before. Looking over their shoulders, they saw the problem--they were being eclipsed by Ike. They briefly contemplated doglegging around the shadow but decided Ike was small so it wouldn't take long for Kerbol to rise above it, so they kept on 270^. In just a few minutes, Kerbol burst gloriously from behind Ike and the generator shut itself off. The D'OH only burned 3 units of Kethane and the engines hadn't missed a beat. Back on Kerbin, the engineer who'd devised the hybrid system, who'd been worried the whole system might be scrapped on an "improved" D'OH, did cartwheels down the hallway saying "I told you so, I told you so!"

Also note on the pic above the purple line showing the flightpath. See where it crosses a range of red mountains with white tops about 1/2way along the E-W leg? Those mountains provided the next source of drama.

You see, Duna's actually a small planet, something I should have realized when looking at the globe in the 1st pic. The upshot was that despite sputtering along at an average of only about 100m/s, the D'OH was outrunning the rising sun. The solar panel efficiency, which at gotten up to about 80% during the 1st leg, had been steadily ticking down until it was about 45%, less than the approached take-off value, just as they reached the eastern foothills of the mountain range and the ground rose above 3000m, higher than the D'OH's approved landing altitude.

So now it was decision time. One choice was to land and wait on the sun to catch up, which would entail backtracking a fair distance both to find lower ground and to give the D'OH room to climb high enough to clear the mountains on the 2nd try. The other choice was to press on regardless, trusting in the generator to carry the D'OH over the mountains if the sun went down behind them. The risks were of course that the Kethane might run out before crossing the mountains and even if it didn't, there'd still probably be a night landing on the other side.

After some soul-searching, everybody agreed to continue on. The recent experience with the eclipse had greatly increased confidence in the hybrid system and the solar panels were still performing better on Duna than they had on Kerbin, so might last longer than expected anyway.

So on they went. The shadows lengthened below and soon the ground was largely in darkness. And the solar panels dropped to 21% efficiency, not enough to take off on Kerbin but enough here to keep the D'OH flying without need of the generator. Finally, the last of the peaks passed beneath and they knew they'd overcome the 1st problem.

But the light was now almost gone. All eyes now turned to the radar altimeter as it showed the western foothills gradually falling away. The D'OH was still just barely in sunlight but the ground below, shaded by the mountains they'd just crossed, was pitch black. Finally, with only the top half of Kerbol showing over the mountaintops behind them, the radar altimeter said it was safe to land, so down they went. They came all the way down on idle so the generator never did kick in during landing, the RTGs being sufficient for flight controls and lights.

And back on Kerbin, the engineer who'd insisted on putting landing lights on the D'OH jumped up on a desk and started shouting "Who da man?" The lights, angled slightly down, made the landing fairly routine although Samlorf did have to hope that the ground beyond their beams held no hidden surprises. Fortunately, the only excitement was a perfect pass just between several boulders when it was too late to abort.

This leg of the flight had taken 74 minutes. Then they sat on the ground for 79 waiting for Kerbol to catch up with them and, despite the experiences of the mountain-crossing, they waited for 50% panel efficiency again. Samlorf was pretty stressed out so handed the controls over to Obbal for the last leg. This takeoff took a while because the D'OH had stopped facing down a slope, so it had to cross the valley and launch off the upslope across the way. But that's SOP for the D'OH so no surprise there.

With the engines rejoicing in strong sunlight again, it didn't take but about 20 minutes before they spotted the beacon of Airbase Duna about 100km off in the distance. It looked totally lost in the vast desolation of Duna's dune fields. The Kerbals were very glad the homing system on their nav ball actually worked .

They also decided to land at their lander instead of Airbase Duna. They knew it was well-stocked with flags, they didn't need any fuel, and besides, it was a little closer . So they droned along until they were wthin 20km, then started their descent. And once again they'd outrun Kerbol so had to make another night landing.

And it was something of an adventure because they touched down just before a long downslope which Obbal hadn't seen beyond the lights. The D'OH more flew down than rolled down, so they hit a bit harder than they would have liked (5m/s vertical speed) at the bottom, but no harm done--the D"OH was built for such things. Otherwise, it was a very good landing, with the D'OH stopping less than 700m from Duna Lander 1. Anything inside of 2km is considered good for this beast . As Obbal taxied up to the lander, the last rays of Kerbol disappeared behind the crest of a dune so the generator kicked in again and burned 1 more unit of Kethane.

This leg of the flight had taken 40 minutes, for a total of 114 minutes of flying. At an average speed of roughly 100m/s, that's about 684km, or about 1/3 of Duna's 2010km circumference. In all, on this sortie the D'OH had traversed about 109^ of latitude and 47^ of longitude twice each. If flown purely N-S, E-W, that would be 1742km but because of angles taken, the D'OH only traveled about 1452km, or 72% of Duna's circumference. And only burned 4 units of Kethane doing it.

The trip to the 3rd anomaly will add another big chunk but it's at 66^ S. How will that latitude affect the performance of the solar panels? And what about the moutains in the way? It will be a risk trying that trip without refueling the D'OH first but that's why the KTC brought a few spare Kerbals .

Meanwhile, Obbal and Samlorf brushed the dust off their face shields and staggered to the lander to get more flags. As Obbal climbed to his upper bunk, Samlorf paused to watch dawn break above the D'OH for the 3rd time on the same day. For a moment he was quite proud of his accomplishments and the uniqueness of his situation. Then he felt a severe case of jet lag crash down on him, which wasn't helped by Mission Control insisting that the day they'd unexpectedly "saved" by outrunning Kerbol be used immediately to start heading south.

Tune in next time for what I expect to be the somewhat risky trip to the 3rd anomaly. I'm glad I get to sleep between now and then, unlike the Kerbals .

[Tw1]

Back on Kerbin, the engineer who'd devised the hybrid system, who'd been worried the whole system might be scrapped on an "improved" D'OH, did cartwheels down the hallway saying "I told you so, I told you so!"

I want to see a kerbal do a cartwheel now. I imagine it would be more of a rolling headstand...

[Geschosskopf]

I want to see a kerbal do a cartwheel now. I imagine it would be more of a rolling headstand...

Ah, well, um......

See, Kerbals have a type of pyrotechnic called a "cartwheel" that they shoot off in celebrations. It consists of a disk with little rockets around the rim, so it rolls along in a shower of sparks and smoke like the Grand Panjandrum, and then explodes spectacularly. That's what the engineer was doing .

[Brotoro]

Excellent thread! Have some kerbal snacks.

[Geschosskopf]

Excellent thread! Have some kerbal snacks.

Thanks but it don't hold a candle to your Laythe saga .

[el_coyoto]

KSP Weekly brought me here and I read it all in one go.

Awesome job at balancing story-telling and the "engineering" of your mission.

Thanks a lot for your hard work!

[Geschosskopf]

@ El Coyoto:

Merci beaucoup! I didn't know you had coyotes in France. But you know, it doesn't surprise me. In my own lifetime, coyotes have exploded out of their traditional home in the southwestern US into all 50 states, even living in big cities. So they've probably figured out a way to cross the ocean, too .

[el_coyoto]

@ El Coyoto:

Merci beaucoup! I didn't know you had coyotes in France. But you know, it doesn't surprise me. In my own lifetime, coyotes have exploded out of their traditional home in the southwestern US into all 50 states, even living in big cities. So they've probably figured out a way to cross the ocean, too .

LOL

Yeah, some of them flew across the ocean on the back of an Acme Inc. rocket named "USS Chuck JONES"!

Also, your thread got me to finally install Kethane after 2 weeks of messing around with B9 and LLL in KSP on my brand new computer.

And motivated me to try to design a Duna airplane...

[Geschosskopf]

Also, your thread got me to finally install Kethane after 2 weeks of messing around with B9 and LLL in KSP on my brand new computer.

And motivated me to try to design a Duna airplane...

Kethane makes long-term, large-scale missions self-sustaining everywhere they go. If you only go to places with atmospheres, you can also make fuel out of air with the HOME stuff. But either one sure beats having to send massive tankers all over the place, even with the hours it takes to scan for Kethane.

Glad to see you're interested in Duna airplanes. IMHO, that's one of the most difficult things to do in all of KSP. I've issued a challenge to encourage others to give it a try but so far very few have shown interest. Please take a look at the challenge. Basically, the D'OH meets the minimum requirements; the challenge is to do better .

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/50619-Flying-Duna-AGAIN

[Rhyunix]

This is incredible (<--- I just thought for 'bout a minute on what word to describe this as) Don't stop, the circus is awesome!

[OrtwinS]

Please continue.

This thread got me out of lurking and got me back actively playing KSP (as opposed to just reading AARs).

I even installed kethane for the first time

Hell, I even started building and flying planes, and that is something I have never been interested in before (ok, doing science on kerbin also helped, but without your thread I would have probably just made balistic missiles).

Please keep going!

[Geschosskopf]

Thanks for the props. I've been out of town for a while which is why I haven't updated this lately. Now that I'm back, there's 0.22 to worry about. Assuming there's no problem with that, I'll keep the KTC going.

[Geschosskopf]

Well, I'm afraid this version of the KTC is officially dead. This was always a looming threat due to the heavy reliance on scads of mods. What happened was that the 0.22 versions of many of the mods I use incorporate significant changes making them incompatible with old saves, and for some reason the game as a whole tends to barf a lot using the 0.21 versions of the mods in 0.22. So basically, KSP is unplayable for me right now and the only solution is to update the mods, which will wipe out pretty much every ship currently in play.

So, what I'm going to do is start afresh with 0.22. I'll pick up more or less where this version left off, doing the same sort of thing, aiming at Dres and beyond. Stay tuned.

And thanks for all your support and interest in this thread.

[BostLabs]

Excellent mission! Sorry 0.22 borked your save. I'm looking forward to the resumption of the KTC.

Enjoy the Kerbal Snacks.

[illusori]

Sorry for the necro, but for those, like me, who subscribed to this thread and missed it restarting: The Kethane Travelling Circus 2.