The Kethane Travelling Circus 2, Episode 6: Off to JOOL!

[Geschosskopf]

EPISODE 1: Probe Spam

And then there was the Supernova of '22. The boffins at KSC were among the few to survive, thanks to the deep bunkers honeycombing the facility to protect against exploding rockets. They eventually managed to build expedient levers and such to get the blast doors back open, and when they finally climbed out, there was hardly anything left of KSC. So for the next week they bulldozed all the wreckage into a big pile behind the rebuilt VAB and designated it as the new R&D facility, the main purpose of which was to try to salvage anything useful from the wreckage. Then, once they got the new Mission Control facility up and running at a slightly different location, they attempted to regain contact with the KTC. And heard nothing but static. Of like 20 ships and 8 Kerbals, and countless spent boosters scattered from Kerbin to Jool, nothing showed on radar and nothing answered the radio.

So the boffins decided to send out probes to either regain contact with the KTC or at least figure out what had happened to it. And, as is usual in the KSP, if they were going to do something, they were going to overdo it. So, instead of just following the trail of the KTC, they decided to send a probe to every body in the Kerbol system to map and scan for Kethane. This would eliminate the never version of the KTC from having to lug such probes around, which had always annoyed everybody involved.

But this presented a problem. Most of KSP's subcontractors had been devastated as well. The major firm of KW Rocketry had suffered a severe blow so a new lifter contract had to be concluded with Nova-Punch. There were many other new faces in the crowd, some of which are still being sorted out and organized. Needless to say, the entire space program and all supporting industries will take some time to recover. But the probes had to get out quickly so the boffins did the best they could with what was available. And here's what they came up with:

Here, the new light Nova-Punch lifter, powered by aerospikes, launches one of the probes. As with previous practice, the main tank stack gets the payload into LKO (which makes the math for the payload easier). But since the supernova had cleared all the previous spent boosters from LKO, the boffins had no intention of cluttering it up again so a new feature is the probe core, which uses the last of the fuel to deorbit the lifter stack.

The probes look like this. Powered by experimental argon-burning VASIMR engines and toting a nuclear reactor, they have 12500m/s in the tank but pathetically low thrust. All to carry the Kethane scanner the new, experimental SCANsat mapping sensor. While still in pre-production form, it offers many significant improvements over the now-defunct ISA product, not least of which is the ability to use multiple probes at the same or different planets that map automatically in the background without having to be babysat. YAY! On the down side, however, it turns out you can't make argon out of Kethane (at least not yet) but these probes are considered expendable so no big deal.

So, after a bunch of launches, I had 7 probes in LKO. Here you see the last booster as well beginning its descent to destruction.

As you can see form the KAC window, the Moho probe was the 1st to depart. Given this was the 1st interplanetary trip for the system, this was an appropriately hard test. As usual Moho was difficult to hit and I only managed to get a very bad encounter, like this:

The reason this is bad is because the probe crossed Moho's orbit at a large angle, meaning a very high relative velocity. How high? This high:

6600m/s and a burn time of 32 minutes, given the weak thrust of the probe. Which was actually longer than the time the probe would be in Moho's SOI. Despite burning retrograde from the moment it entered the SOI, the probe's blue line didn't even begin to bend around into an orbit. The burn started so far away nobody could even see Moho in Kerbol's glare until about 10 minutes into the burn.

Here, you can just barely see Moho beginning to loom out of the glare directly above and nearly as big as Kerbol.

Anyway, the probe had burned about 2500m/s to get here and did in fact burn about 7000m/s more in this failed attempt to get captured. Thus, it about 3000m/s left in the tank as it left Moho's SOI. But all these argon ions had not been spewed in vain. It put the probe into an orbit about the same as Moho but slightly off-center and thus phased up for another encounter after not quite a full circle of Kerbol.

And after this, it was no big deal getting into a nice polar mapping orbit at Moho. At this point, however, the boffins became aware that Moho doesn't rotate enough to notice, which made it take a LOOONG time for the probe to map it all. It also required several major inclination changes, but the probe managed them all and still has like 1200m/s in the tank despite all the hardships of the trip. VASIMR engines are cool .

The next probe to arrive at its destination was at Duna, in hopes of finding something left of the KTC. But the vast flotilla that had been orbiting in the system was no more, and total polar mapping of both Duna and Ike showed nothing on the ground, either. The sensors did detect the faint odor of kraken dung, however.

The probe that did this, which not only got out here, went polar at Duna, back to equatorial to move to Ike, then polar at Ike, still has like 9000m/s in the tank. Again, VASIMR engines rock (provided you don't mind doing 32-minute burns sometimes).

By this point, however, Mission Control was beginning to feel a bit overwhelmed by what it had set in motion.

Here you see the probes for Eeloo, Dres, and Eve, plus 2 for Jool, still en route with those at Moho and Duna already in place. This was WAY more of a pain to manage than a flotilla of equal size going to the same destination. With just 1 destination, you do the same things for every ship in batches, with the ships spaced out enough not to interrupt each other. With this multi-destination diaspora, however, I'd be in the middle of doing a mid-course correction for 1 ship when the launch window for another came up, or be doing a capture burn when a mid-course correction came up, and so on. It was VERY nice that the new SCANsat works when you're not looking at it. But a fair amount of argon was spent in excess of the minimum necessary due to deadlines passing while I was flying another ship.

Anyway, while saddened at the loss of all the hardware of the KTC, the boffins were reenergized by their makeshift accomplishments in this swarm of probes. Even now they're beginning to pour over the data streams in search of inspiration for the next incarnation of the KTC. Where will it go? What will it do? I don't have a clue just yet. Stay tuned.

Edited November 26, 2013 by Geschosskopf

[OrtwinS]

Great way to mask version incompatibility :

"There was a Supernova close by, everything went *poof*.":D

I was about to suggest SCANsat to you, then I saw those now so familiar big rectangles

[Geschosskopf]

Well, I don't mind starting over. KSP is an early alpha, not even a beta, and so are all the mods I'm totally addicted to. I therefore have no expectation that anything I do will last more than a couple of months of realtime before something breaks it. But that's part of the fun. It's a contest to see how crazy I can go in the time available. Besides, I always have "engineer's remorse" shortly after sending something beyond recall so am always in the market for a good excuse to start over anyway

[Geschosskopf]

EPISODE 1 CONTINUED: More Probe Spam

Today, the probes arrived for Eve and Dres. Pretty boring and probably not necessary but it had to be done just to totally spam the system.

Eve and Gilly

The transfer from Kerbin was straightforward. Upon entering Eve's SOI, the probe shifted its Pe under the south pole to come out in the desired polar orbit after aerocapture. Aerocapture required dipping down to 65km, resulting in some pretty fireworks.

Note that the shock cones for the VASIMR engine exhaust are showing flames even though the engines aren't running. This is a slight issue with these engines: sometimes the shock cones cast shadows, too. But that's OK, these engines rock .

It was difficult to get into a good orbit for Kethane at Eve. Basically, the best I could do was 50% coverage, every other hex. Then it was time to move to the real target, Gilly. Getting there from an Eve polar orbit was an interesting challenge in navigation. The way I did it was first to increase my Eve orbit into a circle about as wide as the minor axis of Gilly's egg-shaped orbit. Then I matched the plane of my orbit to Gilly's eccentricity. This gave me a circular orbit slightly overlapping the Eve end of Gilly's orbit. Then I stretched my Ap out to make my orbit egg-shaped, too, and fiddled around until I got an encounter out near the Ap. I did this because I remembered the experience of the Moho probe. I knew I had little thrust and Gilly's got a tiny SOI, so I wanted as little relative speed as possible. Here's the final stage of this maneuver, where I've got the Gilly encounter.

This all worked like a charm and I started mapping Gilly. This was SLLLLOOOWWWW because your orbital velocity out there is like 15m/s at the most gametime-efficient altitude. But I had a month before I had to mess with another probe so I opted for a higher orbit where I could warp at 1000x. This caused no problem with the Kethane because I was only moving like 11m/s out there, so wasn't covering much ground anyway. This resulted in an interesting scan pattern, with the map looking like Celtic knot decoration and the Kethane tracks on Gilly looking like a ball of string.

So, mission accomplished and still about 1/2 a tank of argon left despite some really radical inclination changes while mapping Eve. Now what? Well, Gilly has like no gravity so, inspired by whatever probe it was that landed on an asteroid, I decided I'd land, too. And like the real mission, I'd never considered landing the probe until now, so of course this had never been tested. No landing gear and top-heavy. I hadn't even put struts onto the engines. But I managed it.

'

Dres

Dres is one of my favorite places. Not because it's particularly interesting but because in the mythology of my KSP universe, Dres was the apprentice of the great smithgod Kerbin, and assisted in the latter's creation of the universe by adding the Sacred Strut across the sky to hold the heavens together. As such, Dres is the God of Spacetape, a patron of Kerbalnauts and boffins.

A day or 2 after this, the Dres probe arrived. Despite having a very gentle merging angle at the encounter and only needing a 4-minute retro burn to capture in a 9-hour SOI window, I thought I was going to blow right by anyway. The blue line refused to even twitch until I was 3/4 through the burn, but then looped around quickly. Again, I was coming in under the south pole to capture directly into a polar orbit. With these VASIMRs, saving delta-V really isn't a priority but I've got habits .

Whereas Moho, Eve, and Gilly had all proven challenging to map, Dres was as easy as Mun. Totally routine finished in about 3 game days. So again I had a lot of fuel left with nothing to use it on, so I figured why not try to land on Dres, too. Maybe, despite their pathetic thrust, the VASIMRs could pull it off and the flimsy probe wouldn't collapse under its own weight or fall over. So I gave this a try, too, and sure enough, it worked, and even landed in a place with a good view of Dres' Sacred Strut in the background .

But this is probably about the limit for landing one of these probes. I had to burn at about 2/3 throttle the whole way down to keep my speed from getting too high for the weak thrust to stop at the bottom. The thing has enough TWR for the job but it doesn't apply it very fast so has a long "stopping distance". But no problem, I had plenty of fuel. If I wasn't in a hurry to get all the mapping done, I could probably have done the whole system with just 2 or 3 of these probes, but that wouldn't have been extravagant enough for me .

Tune in next time for probing the Jool system, which is going to be the main target of this incarnation of the KTC. Already the boffins are hard at work on an airplane for Laythe, a lander for Tylo, and various Kethane-related things to keep them running. And the pressgangs are polishing their belaying pins and staking out likely hunting grounds .

[OrtwinS]

Dres' sacret strut?

Is there a Kerbal Mythology thread somewhere? Or are you making it up as you go? (I find it very fitting, including 'Kerbin' as a Smith ->creation & creativity, Kerbal nature)

[Captain_Party]

ITS BACK!!! But But seriously. Great to see this back up and running.

[Geschosskopf]

Is there a Kerbal Mythology thread somewhere? Or are you making it up as you go? (I find it very fitting, including 'Kerbin' as a Smith ->creation & creativity, Kerbal nature)

There was a thread in the general forum some months ago asking where the names of the planets came from, so lots of people posted their versions of Kerbal mythology. (Pokes around with the search function....) Ah yes, here it is:

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/38213-IF-our-planets-are-named-after-gods?highlight=planet+names

My mythology is spelled out in post #12 on page 2.

ITS BACK!!! But But seriously. Great to see this back up and running.

Thanks . I hope to be able to do something interesting in the Jool system. Much depends on the Kethane distribution there and I'm expecting there to be few if any islands that line up with Kethane fields on Laythe. If that happens, things will get very complicated. But that's why I'm sending probes first.

[Geschosskopf]

EPISODE 1 CONTINUED: More Probe Spam -- LAYTHE

In due course, the Jool 1 probe arrived. It was heading for an encounter just above Jool's atmosphere which, if left to itself, would have resulted in a Kerbol-escape trajectory.

This was sorely tempting and the boffins crunched a lot of numbers to see if they could do Jool's moons with only 1 probe. In the end, they decided they could but it would be too much bother so they reluctantly started running simulations (as in F5/F9) for aerocapture. Jool aerocaptures are a doddle compared to places like Duna and (I was soon to discover) Laythe. Anyway, 115km did the trick and made pretty fireworks.

The boffins picked this altitude because it put the Ap out between Vall and Laythe. This is my usual way of getting to a moon upon entering a new system, putting my Ap out beyond its orbit. That way, when burning prograde at Ap, the probe's orbit would sweep all across Laythe's orbit, making encounters possible. As it happened, Laythe was in a place when the probe arrived that such an encounter developed very eary, needing only 234m/s. While this encounter was at a nasty, steep angle, the ability to aerobrake at Laythe made this a non-issue.

So, the probe headed toward Laythe, sliding its Pe under the south pole while en route, and then it was time to "simulate" the aerocapture. Did I mention that Laythe is VERY picky about your Pe altutidue? The boffins discovered that a range of only a couple of kilometers makes the difference between not capturing at all and lithobraking. Finally, after almost despairing, they got a good result from 23.5km and again got pretty fireworks.

I'm using a bigger, non-cropped version of this as my desktop now, replacing one of the D'OH at The Face .

However, Laythe proved very cooperative in mapping, the probe tracking right on the edge of its previous path and finishing the job in about 3 Laythe days without needing any orbit tweaks. All the while, the boffins couldn't tear their eyes from the Kethane map slowly building on their screens. What would it look like? There'd been all sorts of speculation that Laythe might have only submerged Kethane so the X Labs had been trying one crazy scheme after another in an attempt to exploit it if necessary. But fortunately for all concerned, the Kethane Gods smiled and the map didn't look so bad. It could have been better but it could have been a LOT worse.

So now that the boffins knew what they had to work with, planning the Laythe colony could finally begin in earnest. The immediately bulldozed all the outlandish underwater Kethane drills to the corner of the VAB, sharpened their sliderules, and got to work on the best way to use what they could get off the land.

Meanwhile, the probe shut down its mapping gear in preparation for the move to Vall. But that's a story for another day, and I promise it'll just be a footnote even then. Enough of probes. It's time to get the show on the road!

[1D-1()T]

Nice to see this back up and running. I think I too will have do do some stuff in the Jool system, all I've really sent there so far is probes.

[Geschosskopf]

Nice to see this back up and running. I think I too will have do do some stuff in the Jool system, all I've really sent there so far is probes.

And nice to see you again. That patch looks good on you .

I'm thinking of moving to Jool. It's a scale model of the whole Kerbol system but everything's easier to get to and it looks prettier. Why live way out there in the sticks at Kerbin? Besides, when Kerbol goes red giant and eats Kerbin, and all the Kerbals flee, I'll make a fortune in the real estate market because I'll have glommed up all the choice land before they get there .

[Geschosskopf]

EPISODE 1 CONTINUED: More Probe Spam -- Vall and Tylo

Meanwhile, the probe shut down its mapping gear in preparation for the move to Vall. But that's a story for another day, and I promise it'll just be a footnote even then. Enough of probes. It's time to get the show on the road!

Well, I lied. I have to report on probe stuff again. Sorry. I'll try to keep it short.

See, mostly the boffins have been hard at work designing and testing the ships for the KTC proper, which has been taking a lot of time. They've got the Laythe stuff pretty much ready to go and are now working on stuff for the other moons. But some of this required info on other moons so there was nothing for it but to keep on following the Jool 1 probe.

Jool 1 was last seen preparing to leave Laythe. It next moved to Vall, came in under the south pole, mapped it and scanned for Kethane, and the boffins took careful notes. Vall might end up being a handy Kethane source ships going to and from the future Laythe colony. But what really caught the boffin's eye was an anomaly in the southern hemisphere. Thus, after the probe had transferred to and mapped Tylo, the boffins decided it should return to Vall and take a close look at the anomaly. The Jool 2 probe is due to arrive in about 20 days and will do Pol and Bop, so Jool 1's mission was complete. It had enough fuel for 1 more trip; it would have had more but for pilot err--ER, experiments with different methods of transferring between moons used up about 1500m/s.

What the boffins decided to do was land Jool 1 at the Vall anomaly. Vall is rather heftier than Dres, which the an identical probe was barely able to land on, so Jool 1 was expected to crash. However, until that point it would be able to transmit information which might be of value in shaping the expedition.

So down wen the probe. While still at about 20km, the boffins could see something on the surface, obviously rather large. As the probe got lower, the anomaly's features could be distinguished:

The boffins couldn't believe their eyes. It was obviously an artificial structure. But they only got a brief glimpse before the probe smashed down right in the middle of it.

There was stunned silence in Mission Control for a while. Then somebody mentioned that if they'd known there were such things to be found, they wouldn't have crashed a nuclear reactor into it. Egad! What if they'd contaminated it? Or damaged it from the impact and explosions? There were many worried looks.

But then the probe's computer rebooted and the data stream returned. Much to their relief, the boffins saw that the main core of the probe had survived intact, including the fission reactor. Only one engine had exploded, the other had just broken off. Other than the kinetic energy of impact, the anomaly had only been sprayed with a small amount of argon, an inert gas. Probably no real harm done. And what was left of the probe was now transmitting a close-up picture of the place, as seen from ground level while lying on its side.

So now the Vall part of the expedition is being significantly expanded. Instead of just a simply lander and perhaps a Kethane rig, now it needs a full-blown science mission to study the bizarre and inexplicable structure. And probably some means of removing the debris of the Jool 1 probe from the immediate area.

Geez, this is getting complicated. The Jool expedition was already going to be 15-16 ships. Now it's going to be a few more. Damn probes.

[Geschosskopf]

EPISODE 2: Vall Spam

Based on the information obtained by probes Jool 1 and Jool 2, the boffins have been extremely busy the last few weeks steadily hammering the Kethane Travelling Circus together. The 1st order of business was to secure a fuel source in the Jool system. The original plan was to use Pol as the main Kethane source for ships travelling to, from, and within the Jool system. This was the standard Kethane strategy that had been successful at Minmus and Ike, using the lowest available gravity. However, Jool 2's information on Pol (to be discussed later--I'm SICK of probes) showed it to be unsuited for this purpose. It was just too far from the main action down at Laythe to be economically viable.

Thus, the boffins had to look elsewhere and decided the only option was Vall. Vall's got plenty of Kethane and lots of reasonably flat areas to get it from. However, it's got fairly substantial gravity, nearly as much as Duna. This necessitated a more complex exploitation strategy. Instead of the drilling rig itself humping lots of Kethane to the orbital refinery, all the heavy parts would stay on the ground and a separate, dedicated tanker would shuttle the Kethane in smaller batches. But this meant the tanker and drilling rig had to get together frequently and precision landings are not something the KTC is known for. Thus, it was decided that the tanker would land wherever within the Kethane field and the rig would come to it on wheels. So after much tinkering and cursing, the boffins rolled out the following:

This is Kethlab Jool, which will go into a convenient orbit around Vall and serve as the main fuel station. In the 1st pic, it's shown atop the standard Nova-Punch 5m heavy lifter developed for this project. In the 2nd pic, a close-up once in orbit. Its main tank serves as its own transfer tug using the in-line N-P big NERVA on the bottom. It's totally nuclear-powered to avoid the flaky and weak sunlight at Jool, the juice coming from the small-size Near Future fission reactors amidships with their cooling radiators open. The large spheres are big Xenon tanks, the purpose of which will be revealed in the next installment.

This is the Vall Mobile Rig. It doesn't need a big Kethane tank because the idea is, it will be hooked via KAS to the Kethane Shuttle while drilling so the Kethane will go right into it. This pair of small drills are also powered by a small Near Future reactor on top. This one has a transfer stage instead of a reusable tug because it will probably have to make a fair-size inclination change once at Vall, which would take the tug pretty much out of business anyway. Thus, the idea is to use the transfer stage for the deorbit burn and a Soviet-style "crasher stage". This thing isn't going anywhere else although it does have the ability on its own rockets to hop to a new Kethane field if need be.

And here's the Kethane Shuttle and its separately launched transfer tug. The flotilla has 2 of these assemblies. The shuttle carries 8000 barrels of Kethane, half the load of the previous Ike Rig, which is why there'll be 2 of them. The standard transfer tug on the back has its N-P small NERVAs engines on outriggers and docking ports on each end should there every bee a need to use 2 of them to push something. I'll have about 6 of these things in the Jool system when all's said and done.

To round out the Kethane side of the expedition, there's the VHS (Vall Housing System) with its own little tug included in the same launch. You might have noticed that the Mobile Rig and Kethane Shuttles use KAS, so somebody's got to be on Vall pumping gas. Forever. Which is why the KTC uses unpaid, uneducated, pressganged bums for most of its crew requirements. 2 such Kerbals will live in this can. But at least it's got Direct KTV and Kinternet so they can always be getting new games from Kteam. Too bad they won't be able to upgrade their gaming systems though .

And then there's this, the Vall Science Rover complete with tug. This little jewel will be used by 2 highly educated, non-expendable xenoarchaeologists to help study the "Stonehenge" thingy. While these scientists will ride out with the rest of the crew to save hassle, they'll be going home in this once they've learned all they can. The vehicle's got goos, a Jr. Bay, all the sensors in the arsenal, and also some KAS grapples to help in excavation and in removal of the wreckage of the Jool 1 probe from the artifact. But the part I think the coolest is the spotlights on each end. These are mounted on Infernal Robotics Rototrons with 360^ traverse. 1 is angled slightly up, the other slightly down. With these, the scientists should be able to see what they're doing reasonably well.

And finally, as a side note, you see here the new policy of the KTC: bombing Kerbin with spent ascent stages. As is the usual practice, each lifter is non-asparagus, consisting of a central tank core and SRBs. The SRBs land on or near KSC and the central tank has enough smash to circularize the orbit with a little left over. The new thing, however, is that these new N-P lifters have probe cores so they can use the remaining fuel to deorbit themselves. The KTC considers recycling to be political BS, doesn't give a damn about Kessler Syndrome, and is in general as environmentally unfriendly as can be, often deliberately so. HOWEVER, LKO is a small place and the Jool Expedition will involve nearly 30 launches (if you've been keeping track, there's 8 just for Vall). While nothing's going to run into anything (probably), there'll be so many mission payloads up there waiting on the same window that it'll be hard enough to find the right one without doubling their number by leaving spent boosters up there. Hence the de-orbits. Besides, it's cool to watch the boosters explode on impact, and the N-P engines are pretty solid and often survive so there's still plenty of spacejunk, it's just on the ground now .

[1D-1()T]

30 LAUNCHES!

You have more determination than I do. I would probably get about five modules into LKO, and then decide to just wing it to Jool.

This has the potential to be an epic, so good work!

[Geschosskopf]

30 LAUNCHES!

Well, the KTC's motto is, "Anything worth doing is worth over-doing" .

All the above were just testing so the numbers could change before I do it for real, but the current count looks like this:

• Laythe: 18 launches to make 13 ships (to be displayed next episode)
  
• Vall: 8 launches to make 6 ships
  
• Tylo: 2 launches to make 1 ship
  
• Bop: 1 launch
  
• Pol: 1 launch
  
• Jool: 1 launch
  

That's only 29 launches and I want a nice, round 30 so I'll have to toss in something else as lagniappe. I think I've already got enough redundancy for the critical stuff so this probably will be something from the "nice to have" list, or something moved up from the as yet only vaguely outlined 2nd wave.

[1D-1()T]

That's 31 launches, if you don't mind me saying.

18 + 8 + 2 +1 +1 +1 = 31

[Geschosskopf]

That's 31 launches, if you don't mind me saying.

18 + 8 + 2 +1 +1 +1 = 31

I blame sleep-deprivation. Not only due to this project but also work. I've been dealing with a really crappy situation the last couple days. Literally. The sewer backed up and flooded the firehouse

[Brotoro]

Over 16 ships to Jool at once? I cower at the thought...but hail to thee, brave explorer.

[Geschosskopf]

Thanks Bro. Your yarns have set the bar quite high. I can never exceed them so I have to do something like this to come close to equaling .

And anyway, there was a guy last month saying he'd send 25 or so ships at once.

[Geschosskopf]

EPISODE 3: Laythe Spam

Laythe, of course, has always been the primary objective of the KTC, what with its breathable atmosphere and all. So now that the Kethane mapping was done there and the in-system fuel station at Vall planned out, attention turned to the colonization of Laythe. The Laythe 1st Wave will thoroughly explore, survey, science the place, plus gain experience operating there, to lay the groundwork for future colonial expansion. So, how best to do that?

Actually, the boffins have been working on Laythe gizmos for a LONG time so had many prototypes to choose from. They took one of the best, added the newly developed science parts to it, tweaked it to compensate, and created this:

This is the LOSER (Laythe Observation Seaplane, Expedient Rover). It has seats for 4 Kerbals and carries every instrument known to science, plus mapping equipment. It's fully amphibious, able to operate on both land and sea, and the wheels in the floats can steer and taxi it up a 45^ slope even in Kerbin's gravity. 4 of these will be deployed to Lathe in this wave. They get out there on the nuclear transfer and deorbit stage launched with the plane, which will be jettisoned to crash on Laythe. But all the Joolean moons are already awash in nasty radiation from Jool's magnetoshere so a little more won't be noticeable, especially because the engines will almost certainly land in the ocean. Water is one of the main shielding components of nuclear reactors (it doesn't just cool, it absorbs radiation) so all should be well.

Of course, the LOSER has no ability to return to space. It's part of as permanent a colony as can be in a universe of periodic supernovae .

Having designed a capable airplane for Laythe, the boffins turned their attention to getting it off the ground. Given the experience with the D'OH,, they weren't sure it would work on a rocket, especially with the pontoons on it. However, it came as a happy surprise that it actually worked just fine atop a standard light lifter.

Each LOSER will be assigned to its own airbase, like this:

The 4 of these will drop on land-based Kethane deposits, chosen to spread the LOSERs out as much as possible. They have Kethane drills and refineries, plus housing for the LOSER crews. The plan is to taxi the LOSER up next to it and refuel with KAS. These things are not intended to move again after they land and have insufficient delta-V to return to space. The rocket tanks are as big as they are firstly in case last-minute panic burns are needed to hit small islands, and secondly to store enough to refuel thirsty LOSERs without having to drill up another batch in the process.

Each airbase needs its own separately launched standard tug as shown in the Vall Flotilla.

Unfortunately, the land-based Kethane is concentrated in the western hemisphere and there is still no way to get the submerged deposits. But the whole planet needs to be explored this wave so to fill the gaps to the east, the boffins developed the Fuel Float, each of which contains enough jetfuel to totally refuel a LOSER twice. Obviously, this is only a temporary solution because these can only be replaced by sending out more from Kerbin, but needs must. 2 of these will go with the 1st Wave and held in reserve in very high orbit to be dropped into the ocean where needed. This is one of the reasons for making the LOSERs seaplanes.

The Fuel Float has 6 KAS systems so hopefully 1 will be within reach no matter which side the LOSER approaches from or which end up the Fuel Float ends up in the water. The transfer/deorbit stage uses chemical rockets just to be different.

Despite the simple concept, however, testing showed the Fuel Float is not easy to use. Extreme care has to be taken in all phases of the operation or serious disasters can occur. It appears that the LOSER and Fuel Float are mortal enemies that seek to destroy each other if given half a chance. The boffins therefore hope that the LOSERs will have sufficient endurance that the Fuel Floats prove unnecessary.

So that's the basic mission equipment. Now to the crew. The Laythe 1st Wave will have 16 hands aboard, as follows:

• 8 LOSER crewmen
  
• 2 squadron leaders (commander and deputy)
  
• 2 Vall gas station attendants
  
• 4 scientists
  

Before dispersing to their various destinations within the system, they'll all ride out together in this:

This is Jool Station, which will go into orbit around Laythe. There it will be able to monitor events, coordinate activities, and do scicene stuff. It will also act as a crew transfer hub for future mission, hence all the docking ports. Note that 1 of them is one of the untrustworthy smaller size. Why? Well, perhaps just in case for the future, perhaps for something to be revealed later.

And note it has more of the mysterious xenon tanks. Because ....

... the JERK (Jool Excursion Rig for Kerbals) burns xenon. Its purpose is to move 4 Kerbals (in lawn chairs) and a large docking port around between Jool's various moons. All the Kerbals will start at Laythe. While 10 will stay there, 4 need to go to Vall and 2 need to get to Tylo, Bop, and Pol. Hence the mission needed a personnel transport and this is what the boffins came up with. It has 4 of the large Near Future ion engines, power for which is provided by 2 mid-size fission reactors. It could have been done with just 2 engines and 1 reactor but the TWR would have made the already painfully long burn times unplayable. But it gets great fuel mileage and the large docking port acts as a heatshield during aerobraking for the Kerbals seated immediately behind it. And despite being so long, it only weighs like 6 tons, so can be shoved out to Jool with another chemical transfer stage using 48-7S engines, again just to be different. 2 JERKs will also go with the 1st wave.

So, 4 LOSERS, 4 Airbases, 4 tugs for the airbases, 2 Fuel Floats, Jool Station, its tug, and 2 JERKS. 20 launches to assemble the 13 ships of the Laythe Flotilla. Plus whatever it was for Vall. Tune in next time for the mixed bag of things I'm calling the "Outer Flotilla", destined for Tylo, Bop, and Pol.

[Tw1]

LOSER and JERK....

You choose such optimistic names.

[The Destroyer]

I love it!

[Geschosskopf]

LOSER and JERK....

You choose such optimistic names.

Well, that's just an artifact of translation. See, in the original Old Kerbish*, the names are also acronyms, the glyphs of which spell out words that sound a lot more auspicious in Old Kerbish. There are no direct English equivalents for these words, however, because they are alien things unique to Kerbin and Kerbal mythology. Besides, attempting to translate the acronyms alone wouldn't make them acronyms in English. So, what I did was translate the words within the original acronyms, for which there are direct English counterparts. It's one of the strange coincidences of the Universe that translating the interior words of an Old Kerbish acronym into English also results in an ancronym, but usually one where the meaning of the acronym itself is completely reversed .

* Old Kerbish: an ancient language now only employed in legal documents and scientific papers. Few Kerbal lawyers and engineers actually take classes in Old Kerbish, and in any case Old Kerbish lacks terms for modern inventions like pretty much everything to do with rocketry. However, custom demands they use it so they make a total hash out of it and thus have great difficulty composing even inter-office memos, let alone writing assembly instructions that the guys on the production floor can read. This alone explains much of the carnage for which Kerbal engineering is famous. But on the plus side, the same difficulties in communications have totally gummed up the court system, so that all lawsuits stemming from said carnage are dismissed due to being moot, all the parties, the judge, the lawyers, and the jurors having died of old age centuries before the cases ever come to trial.

[Scotius]

Thank you Geschosskopf for such enlightening explanation how kerbal judicial systems works. Now it became my headcanon, explaining why my (and i assume many other) space program is still allowed to launch hundreds and thousands of tons of burning metal into the sky. Only to have it come right back as a hailstorm of fiery apocalypse

[Tw1]

Well, that's just an artifact of translation. -snip- It's one of the strange coincidences of the Universe that translating the interior words of an Old Kerbish acronym into English also results in an ancronym, but usually one where the meaning of the acronym itself is completely reversed .

.

Ah. Now that makes perfect sense. I wonder if that reversal aspect has anything to do with why Kerbal speech sounds like Spanish in reverse.

It's a strange business, language exchange across universes.

I wonder if use of Old kerbish would extend to politics. It would make sense of a political decision in a story of my own. (I mean, really, Eve's totally fine to visit...)

Though I know at least some communication is done VIA telephone, a recent invention in my kerboverse.

Edited November 19, 2013 by Tw1

[Geschosskopf]

I wonder if use of Old kerbish would extend to politics. It would make sense of a political decision in a story of my own. (I mean, really, Eve's totally fine to visit...)

Though I know at least some communication is done VIA telephone, a recent invention in my kerboverse.

Well, if the politicians were discussing a scientific matter on the phone, they probably holding copies of the relevant scientific papers, which naturally would have been written in Old Kerbish. And if Kerbal politicians are mostly lawyers like ours, then they would have used Old Kerbish themselves. Of course, Old Kerbish, being analogous to Latin here, naturally has separate modern dialects and vocabularies for the legal, scientific, and religious vocations........