Breaking News from Dres Mission!

[Vanamonde]

Spokesman: Morning all. Allow me to introduce myself. I am Wehrzon Kerman, recently appointed spokesman for the Kerbal Space Program, here to give you our first briefing of the 22nd era of spaceflight. The subject of today's briefing is the mission of KSP-12 Dres Revelation. It began with the thrilling night launch of the interplanetary vessel itself, with intrepid space legend Jebediah Kerman at the controls--

A reporter: I'm going to stop you right there. Wasn't Jebediah Kerman killed while attempting to land an experimental aircraft last week?

Wehrzon: Oh yes, twice, but he keeps showing up for work anyway.

The reporter: ?!

Wehrzon: Look guy. To go higher in orbit you speed up, but once you get there, you're going slower than you started out. Deal with that kind of nonsense all day, and after a while semi-dead pilots don't seem so odd anymore. Anyway, the launch went perfectly and Dres Revelation was soon orbiting on station.

But attaining orbit consumes a great deal of fuel, so the first order of business was several refuelling flights by robotankers.

The normally routine matter of docking at the ship's rear fuelling port was rendered more interesting when it turned out that some idiot had reversed the up/down RCS control programming.

But our experienced operators were able to complete the mission anyway, and soon we proceeded to docking the Mk100b Planetology Platform as the first piece of mission payload.

This docking was made more difficult when it turned out the same idiot had forgotten to fix the up/down RCS control problem discovered during the tanker flights.

A reporter: So was that guy fired for screwing up twice?

Wehrzon: Well, he's the program director, so, no. Besides, he's pretty good at some things, such as taking the lander

and parking it between the engine nacelles.

Another reporter: But not everyone in your organization is so competent, are they? What about rumors that you got over-confident during rendezvous with the first rover,

and it passed within 40 meters of the ship while travelling at a closing speed of 187m/s?

Wehrzon: I can confirm that this happened.

That reporter: Did you catch any pictures of that? Because that would be really cool.

Wehrzon: Seeing as we realized there was a problem when the rover entered the ship's 2.25km rendering radius and at that speed it passed the ship 12 seconds later, no, we were too busy panicking.

The first reporter again: And was that rover pilot fired?

Wehrzon: Well, no, because--

First reporter: -- he's the program director.

Wehrzon: That's correct. Yes? You in the back, with your hand up.

Second reporter: Why did every rendezvous during the embarkation phase seem to take place in Kerbin's shadow: a situation scientifically proven to cause forum members to pitch hissyfits about dark screenshots?

Wehrzon: That matter is under investigation. So the mission was ready to sally forth!

Until we remembered that we would have to haul the whole lander back from Dres in order to retrieve full value of the scientific instruments and surface sample, so the lander we had on there was rubbish and we'd have to replace it.

A reporter: Why couldn't you merely move those samples from the lander to the ship?

Wehrzon: Kerbal science has not yet mastered the intricacies of moving dirt from one cabin to another.

Smart-looking reporter smoking a pipe: This is true, gentlekerbs. I wrote an article about this matter for Scientific Kerbal. Research into soil relocation technology continues, but for the moment, has stalled.

The reporter from before him: Isn't that, well, kind of stupid and weird?

Smart-looking reporter smoking a pipe again: Yes, but it's not unprecedented. Remember how we flew crewed missions to the moons for months before we figured out how to put doors on the capsules, so all the crews could do was look out the windows for a while and then come home?

Other reporters: Yeah.

Pipe guy: It's like that.

Second reporter: [Turns back to Wehrzon] Before it was attached to the mission ship, why wasn't this flaw in the lander design caught by your meticulous mission planning?

All: Hahahaha!

Pipe guy: Droll! Droll!

Second reporter: But seriously now, isn't that a pretty serious and expensive goof?

Wehrzon: Yes, but--

Second reporter: --he's the program director.

Wehrzon: Indeed. So what to do with the old lander? It can't be remotely piloted, so we'd have to either leave it as a space junk potential hazard to navigation, or have a living crewman recklessly risk life and limb attempting to de-orbit and splashdown a ship not equipped to land on Kerbin.

One reporter or another: You sent a dude, didn't you?

Wehrzon: Brave Dudmond Kerman volunteered for the dangerous and exciting job of seeing if the vacuum lander could land on Kerbin!

Some reporter: And could it?

Wehrzon: Let us all raise a toast to the memory of noble Dudmond.

47th reporter: So your impatience and lack of planning cost a life.

Wehrzon: Yep.

47th reporter: I don't suppose the rest of the ship outfitting went smoothly?

Wehrzon: Oh, heck no. I myself was once accidentally launched on what was supposed to be an unmanned test of the replacement lander.

47th reporter: How did that happen?

Wehrzon: They forgot to tell me to get out before they hit the launch button.

47th reporter, who is really on a roll now: But you survived, obviously.

Wehrzon: Yes. I was either luckier or more skillful than noble Dudmond.

47th reporter: Luckier.

All reporters: [murmers of assent and rhubarb]

Wehrzon: At any rate, 10 hours after its launch, the ship was now fuelled, crewed, laden with a payload of a small planetology station, 4 scientific satellites, 2 roborovers, the (replacement) lander, and an orbital science module, and ready to sally forth! For reals this time!

Reporters: Oooh! Aaah!

Tune in next time (whenever I get around to it) for the next thrilling chapter of... some guy's mission report!

Edited November 10, 2013 by Vanamonde

[Specialist290]

A reporter: I'm going to stop you right there. Wasn't Jebediah Kerman killed while attempting to land an experimental aircraft last week?

Wehrzon: Oh yes, twice, but he keeps showing up for work anyway.

The reporter: ?!

This docking was made more difficult when it turned out the same idiot had forgotten to fix the up/down RCS control problem discovered during the tanker flights.

A reporter: So was that guy fired for screwing up twice?

Wehrzon: Well, he's the program director, so, no.

I laughed

Hoping to see more soon!

[Lohan2008]

Let us all raise a toast to the memory of noble Dudmond.

[Kialar]

Thank you, Vanamonde. Thanks, had a whale reading that.

[Scotius]

That was a good read So much truth and, well...Kerbal way of dealing with space stuff there.

[Tw1]

Nicely done! Will be tuning in next time to see whatever you do next.

[katateochi]

awesome! I love the matter of fact way that you explain the odd things that happen. I laughed so hard at the bit where Wehrzon was accidentally launched on the replacement lander!!

I glad your doing another "breaking news" series, the previous ones where great. Looking forward to the next report.

[Geschosskopf]

I got quite a few chuckles reading that. Most Kerbal

[ProfessorJeb]

This was good! Waiting another one!

[Brotoro]

Droll! Droll!

[AndrewBCrisp]

Bwahahahahah!

My sides are hurting now, but it was worth it. Subscribed.

[Vanamonde]

Wehrzon:

Skipping ahead 80 days--

A reporter (who cares which one?):

Wait, what? Wasn't the ship ready for launch already?

Wehrzon:

Yes, but we had to wait for a Dres transit window.

Reporter:

So the crew sat in orbit with nothing to do for 80 days, consuming mission supplies? Why didn't you time the preparation launches to coincide with the transit window?

Wehrzon:

Well, we weren't entirely sure we were going to Dres yet. If another interesting destination presented itself first, we'd have painted a new name on the side of Dres Revelation and gone there instead.

Reporters:

[Look at each other in disbelief]

Wehrzon:

But finally the heavens aligned, and the mighty 315.1 ton, 403 part mission fired its main drive engines, leaping in an instant to an acceleration of 0.1Gs!

A reporter:

There's a discrepancy in the mission itinerary you handed out. The duration for the transit burn is listed as 15 minutes, but the start and end times of the burn are almost an hour apart.

Wehrzon:

No offense, but this is only mysterious to someone unfamiliar with the technicalities of space flight. You see, an affect called "time dilation" can cause observers in different frames of reference to experience the passage of time at different rates. This affect becomes evident at speeds near that of light, or very deep in intense gravity fields, and on spaceships with many parts. And with Dres Revelation running at 403 parts, time was passing on the ship at roughly 1/4th the rate measured by clocks in the outside world. Hence the seeming discrepancy on the mission itinerary. We spaceflight experts call this affect "lag."

At any rate, the interplanetary transit required one significant and one minor mid-course corrections,

and after 163 days en route, Dres Revelation arrived at that mysterious, distant world!

The orbital insertion burn was fairly lengthy, because of course Dres has no atmosphere in which we could aerobrake. But the ship soon settled into a stable orbit. Which is when things got freaky.

A reporter:

Excuse me. Did you say, "freaky"?

Wehrzon:

Yes, and you can quote me on that. First, the ship began to rotate to the left, even though no forces were acting upon it. We began launching the mission satellites to test this phenomenon, but it afflicted the probes as well,

though we were able to wrestle those onto their trajectories. Turning back to the ship itself, we tried various means of finding the source of this rotation and stopping it, including temporarily transfering all control back to KSC, which measure has fixed similar problems in the past. But when we transfered control back to the ship, we found that it was at rest with respect to the planet.

Reporter:

wut

Wehrzon:

wut indeed. Between one instant and the next, the massive Dres Revelation had come to an absolute stop, shedding untold millions of whatever units momentum is measured in. Gentlekerbs, it seems we will have to reconsider the work of Sir Isaac Kerton, James Clerk Maxman, and other giants, because in that moment high above exotic Dres, energy and momentum were destroyed!

Reporters:

[Riotous consternation!]

Wehrzon:

Anyhoo, it was a simple matter to run the ship up to 10m/s again, thus re-establishing orbit.

A reporter:

Didn't you stop to puzzle out the cause of this anomalous loss of velocity?

Wehrzon:

No, we had a mission to complete. For the moment, we're going with the working theory that this particular spot near Dres is inhabited by gremlins.

A reporter:

And what about the sourceless rotation? Did you resolve that peril?

Wehrzon:

Ah, turned out we'd bumped a joystick, and you know how hard it is to set the deadzones on the twist axis of those pesky things. So somebody gave it a smack and the rotations stopped. There were some reddish-green faces at mission control when we figured that one out!

Now that the mission was back on track, we fired up the orbital science module and began taking readings in Dres space,

and resumed launching the payload of sub-missions. First went the two robo-rover deployers.

The second rover landed near and sought out the exact north rotational pole of Dres.

But that place turned out to be boring as spit,

so we drove right away again.

The rover operation here was pains-taking work, because of the difficulty of motoring over a monochromatic landscape in permanent twilight. Can you tell that this rover is approaching a sudden change in slope?

Neither could our operator.

So down to one rover.

Moving on, the Mk100b Planetology Platform was launched and assumed a low, 30km orbit from which to begin long-term study of Dres.

More about it later. And then the busy and fun part of the mission: the surface excursion! Highlander, the mission's surface module, cast off with two science adventurers aboard (snapshot of the mothership taken by the lander pilot, seconds after undocking),

and began beaming back priceless telemetry as it set course for the world below!

Tune in some time soon for the next enthralling chapter of... some guy's mission report!

Edited November 12, 2013 by Vanamonde

[koshelenkovv]

Why do people make such ugly wide flat rovers?

To prevent flipping?

Just make it usual car-like and you will be able to flip it back with Kerbal.

Or add one reaction wheel (only 0.3 ton) and it will be able to flip back itself.

[Geschosskopf]

@ Vanamonde:

Hilarious . Keep it up!

@ koshelenkovv:

Or, you could mount the wheels on Rototrons so if you flipped over, you could just rotate the wheels 180^ and keep on driving .

[Specialist290]

And the second chapter is just as entertaining as the first. Nicely done

[Commander Zoom]

Curse it, I can't give you any more rep right now!

[katateochi]

Great stuff again!

That momentum anomaly around Dres sounds really strange. Even stranger that it just effected the main ship and not the probes. major wtf!?

[Vanamonde]

Wehrzon:

So Highlander was descending toward the surface of Dres, taking and transmitting instrument readings all the way, when instrument operator Bob Kerman decided that they needed an EVA report while "flying over Dres" to complete the data collection. He exited the hatch, whereupon something, possibly the RCS thruster above the door, knocked him loose. He was falling at 20m/s toward the surface of Dres, less than 2000 meters below!

Fortunately, Bob is an experienced spacewalker and was able to RCS back to the ship, but it made for a tense few moments of the kind of life-or-death drama that helps spice up mission reports.

A reporter:

What caused this blow that knocked him loose?

Wehrzon:

That's a headscratcher alright, because that part of the lander design has been used on many prior flights without any such trouble. We are looking into it. Anyway, upon discovering that his near-death EVA report was merely a "space near Dres" of the sort he could have recorded safely from orbit, Bill commented, "Whatever. Can I do it again? Can I?" Bill changed his underwear, and Highlander proceeded to a touchdown on the highlands of Dres.

The boys began the intensive series of scientific experiments for which the lander had been equipped, and started transmitting this data back here to Kerbin. They transmitted. And transmitted. And transmitted. For 3 local days. The lander only had the one RTG, which, in the past, had always been sufficient for flight, but it seems we seriously underestimated the power drain of transmitting so much data, and much of that time was spent merely waiting for the lander's power supply to replenish. But the boys were not bored. Nobody gets tired of jumping in light gravity, and scaring each other with horror stories by the eerie light of the lander's floods.

Eventually, however, the extensive experimental program was completed, soil samples were stored, and reports filed. It was time to begin the journey home. There would be a stop along the way, though. Highlander awaited a rendezvous window, and then launched to meet Dres Observation Platform 1. (That's the new name of the Mk100b dispatched earlier.)

Reporter:

What's all that mess?

Wehrzon:

Orbital tracks for the 2 polar and 2 tropical satellites, the ship, the (surviving) rover on the surface, the flag the guys just left, some stuff around another planet in the background, and of course the lander and the station. Dres is a busy place now! Anyway, the thing is, Bob Kerman was all alone on DOP1, and would be there for some months or years, and needed company and help operating the station. And so Highlander was scheduled to stop by on the way home and drop off Bill.

For some reason, this was the scariest part of the mission for Bill.

Or perhaps he was just sad about the diminished potential for lethal danger on station-duty. But before long he was safely inside, and at the window to wave goodbye to the departing Highlander and its pilot, Barfan Kerman.

Then it was up to Barfan to arrange one final rendezvous, to return Highlander and the surface excursion samples and data to Dres Revelation. That didn't go so well.

Reporter:

Do tell.

Wehrzon:

Barfan is a qualified rendezvous pilot, but Dres Revelation was in a rather inclined, highly elliptical orbit, and most importantly, he couldn't set out at any old time, and would have to wait for orbital mechanics to bring the lander and ship near each other. The best launch opportunity he could find was less than optimal, and then it was a tedious matter of burn after burn to bring the vessels together. After a full day of trajectory tinkering, Barfan got aggravated and tried a novel approach. Recalling that bizarre incident from earlier in the mission, he waited for apoapsis and then brought the lander to a dead stop, and waited for the ship to catch up.

Reporter:

That worked?

Wehrzon:

Oh yes. Dres' gravity is pretty wimpy to begin with, and the ships were quite high on top of that, so the lander just kind of floated there like a soap bubble. Highlander was only falling at 3.5m/s by the time Dres Revelation closed the distance. Then from that proximity it was a relatively simple matter to plot a final intercept.

Smart-looking reporter with a pipe (remember him?):

That all sounds needlessly sloppy and complex. Couldn't you have done the math to plot an efficient intercept, and then waited for a proper window?

Wehrzon:

Have you no poetry in your soul? Besides, that might have required calculus, possibly polar coordinates, who knows, maybe even "radians," whatever the heck those are. No. We couldn't risk it. So Barfan winged it, and (eventually) succeeded.

At long last, all the mission's science payload was safely aboard, the mission objectives had been completed, and it only remained to bring the ship home with its priceless hoard of scientific data.

Tune in (whenever) for the last scintillating chapter of... some guy's mission report!

Edited November 14, 2013 by Vanamonde

[Commander Zoom]

"We're replacing you all with Probodobynes! Muahahaha!"

Oh noes, not that! *shudder*

[katateochi]

that might have required calculus, possibly polar coordinates, who knows, maybe even "radians," ....We couldn't risk it.

I lol'd!! yeah maths, it has no place in rocketry! I also try to avoid using it, it's always better to pack a couple extra fuel tanks and leave the calculator back home.

Looking forward to the next update, I hope they make it home in the right number of pieces!

[Vanamonde]

Wehrzon:

So the mission was ready for the homeward leg of the journey. Now, there are more efficient ways to do it, but it can be difficult to plot an interplanetary transfer from inclined and elliptical orbits, so the first order of business was to circularize the orbit of Dres Revelation and match planes with the ecliptic. After a brief wait of a few days for a launch window, the ship fired up its mighty drive engines once more,

and nailed the return trajectory,

though the ship did make two minor burns to fine-tune the approach to Kerbin.

Four months later, with the snacks all long since consumed and the guys thoroughly sick of the season 5 set of How I Met Your Progenitor by Unspecified Means, it was a welcome sight to find the homeworld growing in the windows.

And yes, even old spacehands like Jebediah and Barfan still must pause to marvel at the beauty of spaceflight, from time to time.

The aerobraking manuever, while routine in its performance and successful in its outcome, was nevertheless accompanied by the usual exciting fireworks.

Jebediah was especially proud of having plotted an aerobrake which dropped the major axis of the orbit spot on the ecliptic,

leaving an equatorial plane matching and circularizing burns to be simple matters.

Then it was time for the real payoff of the mission: bringing the science home! The Mk103 Vacuum Instrument Package undocked and de-orbited itself on RCS.

There were some tense moments indeed when bad luck brought the module down in a mountain range,

but then compensating good luck settled the module safely between peaks.

Reporter:

Do I recall correctly that Dres has no atmosphere?

Wehrzon:

That is correct.

The same reporter:

Then may I ask why the "vacuum instrument package" carries a barometer?

Wehrzon:

We were hoping you wouldn't notice that. [sighs.] See, we meant to put a Gravmax gravity meter on there, but they're both little blue boxes of the same size and shape...

Moving on, the crew then left Dres Revelation on autonomous control. The ship rests in a 200km orbit, waiting to be refuelled and sent out again. But the flight crew for this mission relocated to Highlander and bid their travelling home of the preceding 421 days a fond farewell as they departed for Kerbin.

Jebediah was once more pleased to use the last of the lander's fuel to bring the ship down just under 30kms from KSC,

so that it took mere moments for the SAR plane to pinpoint their landing spot,

and it was a relatively short jaunt for the Crew Recovery Vehicle

to pick the boys up.

Second reporter:

I've heard an odd tale that on the way out to the landing site you only passed tufts of grass,

but moments later while coming back along the same path, you found yourself driving among fully-grown trees.

Is this true, and if so, can you explain it?

Wehrzon:

Yes and no, respectively.

Second reporter:

And a follow up, if I may. Why does the CRV have that goofy-looking spar with the two additional wheels sticking out front?

Wehrzon:

We found that without those, the stupid thing absolutely frikking insists on flipping over on its face when the brakes are applied.

And now, I am pleased to present to you the heroic flight team of the Dres Revelation mission; Jebediah and Barfan Kerman!

[Applause, applause. Then:]

Another reporter:

The We Have No Cities Times is claiming it has evidence that this final photo op has been staged, but the reports are conflicted. Firstly, is it true that even though one Kerbal looks exactly like another so nobody would have known the difference, you really did take that CRV rover on a one-hour roundtrip to pick up the crew from the lander, just so that the individuals our readers will be seeing in this picture really would be Jebediah, Barfan, and Wehrzon?

Wehrzon:

That is an inaccurate report. I first built and tested the CRV, which took about half an hour, and then it crashed three times on the way there and back (hence the front wheel spar), so that I actually spent not 1 hour but about 4 hours making sure that the individuals in that picture really would be who we claim they are.

That third reporter:

What is wrong with you?

Wehrzon:

Well, that's a subject for another time. But I must admit that there has been a bit of harmless trickery invovled in this photo op after all.

That reporter:

How so?

Wehrzon:

For one thing, we made you all stand here overnight so that the sunlight would be coming from a favorable direction for the picture.

Some reporter:

Is that why we've been here for 10 hours?

Wehrzon:

Affirmative. And of course the official photo neglects to record how we had to keep standing Jebediah and Barfan up again, because every time we came out of time warp, standing on those stairs would cause them to be flung up in the air and fall in a comical sprawl.

Reporters:

Yeah, that's not very dignified. We'll leave that out of our accounts.

Wehrzon:

Well, thank you all for coming--

Smart-looking reporter with the pipe:

Pardon me, but you said the science was the most important part of the mission, and yet you are trying to call this press conference to a close without discussing the specifics. You have explained how the mission went to lengths not just to transmit data back, but to physically return the orbital science module and Dres lander. Why are you now trying to skip over that?

Wehrzon:

Well, see, that was all somewhat anticlimactic. The mission did net 2354 points! That's pretty impressive, isn't it?

A reporter:

Yes! And what will those points be spent upon?

Wehrzon:

Well, nothing, actually. We've already discovered everything there is to know, and invented everything that can be invented. In fact, we did that before Dres Revelation set out. The tech tree has been picked clean of fruit.

Pipe reporter:

But as for the mission at hand... What was anticlimactic about it?

Wehrzon:

When all was said and done, almost all of this mission's points came from transmissions. Bringing the orbital module back was only worth an additional

69.6 points (though that would have been more if it had had a gravity meter instead of a barometer), and retrieving the lander with its surface sample only added

149.4 points.

Pipe reporter:

And the desire for that surface sample was your primary reason for replacing the lander? In the manuever which cost the life of Dudmond Kerman? And you're trying to skip over the fact that the soil sample was only worth 15.7 points? To avoid having to admit that you killed Dudmond for less than 16 additional science? On a mission which was entirely moot in scientific terms to begin with?

Wehrzon:

That's about the size of it, yeah. But to distract you from that, here's some surplus spaceflight porn pics from the mission! [He flings handfuls of photos at the reporters as he runs away, yelling:] This concludes today's press conference! See you all next time!

The flung pics follow:

Edited November 17, 2013 by Vanamonde

[Geschosskopf]

LOL! An appropriate conclusion to a great mission. Thanks and ENCORE!

[AndrewBCrisp]

Oh yes, very well done! I'll be snickering for the rest of the day now.

[katateochi]

Great job Vanamonde! That's been an excellent read. I hope there will be more "breaking news" from your space program in the future.

[Vanamonde]

Thank you for the kind words, folks. I do enjoy writing these, and the really fun part is that I don't have to make anything up; I just record the weird, cool, and amusing stuff that really does happen in this game, though I do like to come up with silly explanations for them.