The Kethane Travelling Circus 3 -- Episode 20: Luney's Saga

[Geschosskopf]

EPISODE 1: Starting from Scratch

The Supernova of '23 was even worse than that of '22. Not only did it totally destroy the might 24-ship armada en route to Jool (and its crew of 12 expendable presses and 4 not-so-expendable scientists) but it laid utter waste to Kerbin itself. Nearly all the KSP boffins, the subcontractors, and all their accumulated knowledge was wiped out, forcing KSP literally to reinvent the wheel and every other rocket, rover, and airplane part.

Nothing really interesting happened during most of this process, just the usual flurry of suborbital hops, then several landings each on Mun and Minmus. This recovered most of the lost knowledge but there were still several thorny problems to solve, which called for more ambitious solutions. The first of these was Science Station Duna, to test out the new Mobile Lab the boffins had recently researched, for which they created the A-Series Modular And Disposable New Extraplanetary Ship System (MADNESS). This consisted of probe-controlled fuel, tug, lab, and lander modules all docked together in orbit and crewed by Jeb, Bob, and Bill.

Note that the A-Series MADNESS was developed prior to the invention of RTGs and 2.5m probe cores, the lack of which was one of the main reasons for the mission. Anyway, with all this mass, the beast required a 20-minute burn to get off to Duna, making all involved wish they'd added a 2nd tug on the back. But otherwise it performed its mission admirably, transmitting repeatedly from Duna orbit, going to Ike so Jeb could land, and then returning to Kerbin. Once home, Jeb came down in the lander but Johnden had to fly up in with a 3-man pod to recover Bob and Bill, and all remaining data stored in the lab (which wasn't much). By this time, the A-Series had made itself obsolete so the boffins brought it in for a spectacularly explosive landing, allowing a couple of surviving RCS blocks to be put in the Kerbsonian Museum.

While this was going on, Lengel set out with the Eve Flotilla comprised of 5 ships: his Gilly lander, an Eve-orbiting-and-returning probe, and 3 Eve probe landers. Sadly, Lengel was eaten by the Hell Kraken before he even passed Mun so Matby hurriedly launched in the reserve Gilly lander and chased after the probes. All ships arrived close together which made doing all the aerocaptures interesting.

But that all worked out OK and Matby, assisted by downwards-pointed linear RCS thrusters, got safely to and from Gilly. There was then another traffic control crisis when the Eve probe, Matby, and the Duna expedition all arrived back at Kerbin more or less simultaneously, but again things worked out OK and Matby managed to beat Jeb to the ground.

And he probably wished he hadn't, because without even getting to pose for a photo op, he was crammed back in a capsule and sent off on the Sun Skimmer mission, which required 218 days mostly waiting for Kerbin to synch up with him for his return on fuel vapors. Jeb, Bill, and Bob, meanwhile, went on a long celebrity vacation and publicity tour.

While they were gone, the boffins rediscovered SCANsat mapping and kethane technology, and began sending probes hither and yon to FINALLY get the Kethane Travelling Circus going again.

Here we see mapping probes at Moho, 2 at Eve, Kerbin, Mun, Minmus, and Dres (actually, that one's behind the KAC window). Also, 4 probes en route to Jool, 2 for Eeloo, and 1 more for Dres still en route. The reason for the repeat trips is that the early SCANsat models had low-resolution scanners but they earned enough science to develop the hi-res version. Of course, this happened before the early models got all the way out to Jool, but c'est la vie.

And this brings us up to the present, the 341st Day of the 2nd Year since the Supernova of '23. The 3rd incarnation of the KTC is poised in Kerbin orbit, ready to establish a permanent station in Duna orbit. Plus land and return samples from Duna. There are still a few high-tech Kethane and KAS goodies to unlock, after all, and who knows what new technology might become available in the future? Best to have a wad of science in the bank come the day.

This wave will consist of 7 ships (need to delete 1 redundant alarm I see). They incorporate several improvements over previous KTC ventures. To begin with, I put each ship in a different orbit so their ejection times would be more staggered, making getting the show on the road somewhat easier for me .

To begin with, the SCANsat and kethane functions have been put in their own probes. There's really no need to do kethane mapping in polar orbit when you're never going to get it from much off the equator. Besides, the hi-res SCANsat thingy likes 750km-ish orbits while the kethane scanner needs to be low. And the reason why the SCANsat thingy is so huge is 1) so it can do Ike as well, and 2, just to have space to mount all the parts. The boffins discovered that with 4x Gigantors, they can map at 10,000x warp.

Then there's Ike Rig #2. Low and squat to be less tippy than its predecessor. Also, it carries the kethane refinery instead of having that in the mothership. While not as fuel-efficient, this really isn't a problem when operating from Ike. The center section of the ascent stage will also do most of its transfer burn and it's got plenty of fuel for the rest, so no tug needed.

This is the B-Series Madness, complete with RTGs and 2.5m probe cores. The Gigantors are for transmitting in the result of an inability to return the data. Instead of a heavy Duna lander, it's got an attachment for additional station modules. This makes its transfer burn a more tolerable 5-ish minutes. The batteries on the nose are there simply to provide a flat surface to mount RCS on, and were the least useless type of dead weight I could think of. The mission is crewed by Hadfrid, Sidory, and Johnden under the command of Matby. This entire ship is intended to remain in Duna orbit as the core of a permanent science station.

The Duna lander, weighing about 18 tons, is going out separately and unmanned, and will dock with MADNESS Duna upon arrival. It has my usual "Science Pack" of 4 each Jr. Material Bays and 4x Goos, plus 1 each of all the other instruments, including the atmosphere analyzer on top. All instruments are grouped near the hatch for easy data extraction and each bay has a ladder segment for the same purpose. The lander will stay docked with the MADNESS for future use, provided another supermova doesn't happen .

And finally, there's the SHEER (Somebody Has, Eventually, Essentially, to Return) MADNESS. The SHEER MADNESS differs from the regular MADNESS in trading the Hitchhiker for a small de-orbit stage, chutes, and landing legs. It's how the data from this mission is getting home. It will dock with MADNESS at Duna and then somebody will collect all the data from the lander and stash it in here, then maybe get to come home with it. I think the current ability to stash all data in capsules is unintentional and besides, I think it's more role-play to need a specialized thingy for that purpose anyway.

So there you have it, the KTC Mk 3. Hopefully this version will be more resistant to supernovae .

Edited March 17, 2014 by Geschosskopf

[Captain_Party]

And we're back! Wahey!

[Brotoro]

Good luck!

[Logan.Darklighter]

Glad to see you going again!

[Geschosskopf]

EPISODE 2 -- 2nd Duna Expedition Departs

So, the boffins had planned and designed all they could, the launches had all worked, and the pressganged crew of the 2nd Duna Expedition had had a full 68 days in LKO to absorb the lessons of their instructional videos. It was too late to alter the course of events so any last-minute anxieties of the boffins had to be drowned in whiskey. It had all worked before, so it should all work again. Except for 1 thing. This was the 1st time in KSP history that an entirely pressganged crew had ever been put under the command of another pressee. Always before they'd all been equal galley slaves. But Matby had spent nearly all of the 3 years since the Supernova of '23 locked inside 1-man pods at various points between Kerbin and Kerbol, constantly absorbing both overt and subliminal brainwashing messages as well as daily doses of experimental chemicals. As such, he was as institutionalized as the KSP could make him and thus deemed fit to keep the others under control. Anyway, there was nothing to be done about it but burn for Duna.

The 2nd Duna Expedition got off with a real bang provided by the kethane probe for Ike. This used a tiny blue separator between the probe and the ascent stage. When the probe's engine fired to complete the transfer burn, this ring got blown back into the SAS unit on top of the booster, causing a harmless explosion. This cool feature of the design had been known for some time previously from launching kethane probes to other places, and had been retained for entertainment value. In fact, there is a sizeable faction of boffins who want to make this a standard feature of all rockets .

As it happened, the Duna MADNESS was the last of the 7 ships to leave, burning out under full sail just because some boffins are still nostalgic for the pre-RTG days of square-rigged solar panels .

And they're off! As they enter the 1st turn it's the Ike kethane probe in the lead but Ike Rig #2 is close behind, the rest are in a pack and it's Duna MADNESS bringing up the rear. As flotilla launches go, this one was pretty smooth and tight. While I much prefer to have flotillas of modular ships at the destination, getting them on the road is a bit of a chore which I sometimes put off until I can no longer avoid it.

A few hours later, Duna MADNESS, still last in line, escaped the Kerbin system. Hadfrid, Sidory, and Johnden all crowded the portholes for a last look back. Matby, however, only looked forward, out into the interplanetary void, which he now considered, whether due to habit or conditioning, to be his natural environment.

So here's the big picture of everything going on at the moment. The 2nd Duna Expedition's 7 ships join the 7 probes already between Points A and B. In the time since the last post, the 2nd Dres probe has nearly reached its destination. And it got there just before the Duna ships reached their midcourse burns. So I was going to quickly get it orbit and then do the Duna tweaks when I had to go fight a house fire. In fact, the call came between the probe entering Dres' SOI and the capture burn. So, I quickly backed out of the game. When I got back from the fire, I decided I need to get this probe captured before I forgot about.

And having done that, I figured, WTF, I'd just go ahead and fire up its kethane scanner and let that run while I cleaned up and had a late supper. I put this probe in an orbit inclined only 35^ on the theory that I'd never use kethane any further than that off the equator and to make the scanning go faster. When I got back, the scanning of Dres' "tropics" was done and here's the result:

This is the most pathetic kethane distribution I've ever seen. No kethane closer than 14^ to the equator and that only in 1 small patch in the whole "tropical zone". Not much point in the KTC ever going here. I suppose I'll establish an emergency fuel base here but hope to never use it. What a depressing place.

Edited February 23, 2014 by Geschosskopf

[Deathsoul097]

Wow. That is a pretty terrible distribution of kethane right there. Very good mission report though, though the very first post seemed a bit rushed, IMHO.

[Geschosskopf]

Wow. That is a pretty terrible distribution of kethane right there. Very good mission report though, though the very first post seemed a bit rushed, IMHO.

Yeah, I've never before seen it where you didn't have at least 1 kethane field straddling the equator. But it was bound to happen someday I suppose.

I agree, the 1st post was a bit weak, but everything up to this point has just been the usual grind and I'd already written up the most interesting mission separately. Besides, this early era, with celebrity astronauts doing short, flag-planting trips doesn't fit with my main themes of overly complicated kethane projects and KSP really standing for "Kerbin State Prison".

[Geschosskopf]

EPISODE 3 -- 2nd Duna Expedition Arrives

But first, some boring but vital probe reports. Several weeks before the leading ship of the 2nd Duna Expedition completed its trip, the 1st 2 probes for the Jool system arrived. First was the Laythe Probe, mounting the lo-res SCANsat altimetry scanner and the biome/anomaly scanner, and a kethane scanner. This probe was launched before the invention of the hi-res scanner and before the boffins had decided to split the kethane and SCANsat functions, but this actually was a good thing. Due to having its miniscule amount of land area scattered about in tiny islands, doing kethane from polar orbit is actually necessary at Laythe; you really have to cover the entire planet to see where the land and kethane intersect.

Anyway, the Laythe Probe aerobraked around Jool straight into a Laythe encounter, shifted inclination between the 2 to come in under Laythe's south pole, and aerocaptured into an orbit reasonably close to the desired 260km @ 86^ orbit.

And then the scanning began while the boffins watched their screen anxiously. Based on experience at other planets scanned so far, they knew the Supernova of '23 had scrambled the kethane so couldn't rely on old data. They had big plans for Laythe but couldn't work out any of the specifics until they knew what the kethane situation was now. And a few days later, they had their answer.

This is a fairly representative example. As usual, most of Laythe's kethane is totally inaccessible in the deep oceans. But this time, there are actually more islands with some kethane on them. Problem is, in the majority of cases, it's only a small corner of a small island, or the entirety of an extremely tiny island. Where big islands have lots of kethane, naturally they're the most mountainous places on the planet. So the boffins scratched their chins and resolved to consider this long and hard over many drinks at a convenient time. But at the moment, they had other things to worry about.

That was because no sooner had the Laythe Probe finished its job (and transmitted its data for 360 Science) than KethSat Vall burned through Jool's upper atmosphere while Laythe eclipsed Kerbol. It found no useful encounters directly out of aerocapture to an Ap between Vall and Tylo, but a prograde burn near Ap set up a nice Vall encounter after 1 orbit of Jool. This probe had only a kethane scanner (the radar is coming on the next probe in 90-odd days) so went into a 35^ orbit to scan the "tropics". The plan for Vall is to be the fuel station for ships going to, from, and within the Jool system. Because much of Vall is greenish, the boffins hoped they'd find a lot of kethane.

They were not disappointed. Vall's "tropics" turned out to be full of kethane. And while none of it was on the equator, there were several fields within 5-10^ of it, at least partly on relatively level ground. So at least the Vall part of the upcoming Jool mission will be relatively straight-forward. KethSat Vall still has like 4000m/s in the tank so will shortly go scan Tylo and then maybe Bop and/or Pol if fuel permits.

By the time Vall was scanned, the 2nd Duna Expedition was on the home stretch.

Somehow, Duna MADNESS had passed the entire field while KethSat Ike, the early leader, had faded badly down to 2nd-to-last. Ike Rig #2 was still in 2nd place and the rest were still in a big mob, except KethSat Duna had dropped well behind the rest. The interval between the 1st and last ships had grown to nearly a month.

Duna Madness begins its approach to aerocapture with Ike conveniently out of the way. Being first means being fastest, which means the lowest Pe, especially because the desired final orbit was 200km or less.

It turned out Duna MADNESS needed a Pe of about 11km. The A-Series MADNESS of the 1st Duna expedition, with weaker construction and a lander precariously balanced out front, had survived a similar pass so there were few worries even when the faintest hints of fireworks began to form on the extremities. Matby, having previously experienced a harsh 4000m/s aerocapture at Eve, slept through this one, while Hadfrid, Sidory, and Johnden thoroughly enjoyed the experience, or at least wanted to imitate Jeb's usual expression. I'll have to check them all for badas$ness.

Anyway, out the other side, Duna MADNESS circularized into a 150km orbit, pretty much what I wanted from it. It joined in orbit a lo-res SCANsat that was launched in the previous window.

3 days later, Rig #2 arrived. Because it was going to Ike, it aerocaptured at 13km, which put it into an orbit out near Ike. One orbit of Duna later, it phased up and transferred over, where it went into a 900km parking orbit just inside Ike's SOI. There it will wait until KethSat Ike tells it where it needs to go.

A few days later, it was the turn of SCANsat Advanced Duna-Ike. Being rather behind in the race, it was going relatively slowly and needed to end up in a 765km orbit so set its Pe at 13.2km. On the way in through Duna's SOI, it shifted to an 88^ inclination and came in over Duna's north pole.

The Duna Lander arrived next. It rediscovered Aerobrake Canyon, a familiar sight to the original KTC. Aerocapture produced an orbit of about 250km, where it waited until the rest of the gang arrived.

Only a few hours behind the Duna Lander came SHEER MADNESS. It aerocaptured into an orbit of about 400km and also waited there. The 2 KethSats were the last to arrive. That for Ike did a maneuver similar to that of the rig, aerocapturing out to near Ike, synching up, and doing a short transfer over into a 35^ orbit. And finally KethSat Duna arrived well after the others, also going into a 35^ orbit.

So finally, the entire 2nd Duna Expedition was in place, as shown here. Over at Ike are its KethSat and Ike Rig #2. At Duna, the big polar orbit is the hi-res SCANsat, the blue 35^ orbit is the KethSat, the small polar orbit is the old lo-res SCANsat, and around the equator from outside in you have SHEER MADNESS, the Duna Lander, and Duna MADNESS.

Now it was time to assemble the Duna station. First, the Duna lander rendezvoused with Duna MADNESS.

Once in close, the lander proper separated from its tug and both pieces docked separately to Duna MADNESS. The original plan, which I'll eventually implement, was to put them both on opposite sides of the orange tank. But at the last moment, I decided to see if I could back the lander's tug onto the MADNESS tug with their engines interlaced and pointing in opposite directions. Totally useless but interesting, so that's what I did, and it worked. But then I noticed I'd put the lander out of line with the hatches on the lab and hitchhiker so I had to move it to another port. Sadly, this all happened on the dark side of Duna so the pics didn't come out well. But you can see the result in the pics below.

Then it was time to bring in SHEER MADNESS.

Here, SHEER MADNESS is in the foreground and Duna MADNESS, with the lander parts attached, in the background.

What do you get when you mix Duna MADNESS with SHEER MADNESS? I suppose that would be UTTER MADNESS. Sadly, the best meaning I can come up with for that is Uselessly Time-Trashing and Excessively Redundant....

After posing it for the above pic, the sheer size of the thing really sank in, so I had to EVA a Kerbal to tour it.

Here, Matby inspects the lander and verifies in the process that the 1st Duna Expedition had left zero Science floating around in Duna orbit.

So, there we are. There remains the scanning of Duna and Ike for kethane, mapping both in hi-res, refueling things with the Ike Rig, and landing on Duna at least once, maybe twice if the parachutes will work a 2nd time. If they don't, might as well crash the lander anyway .

[Geschosskopf]

EPISODE 4 -- Science at Duna!

When we left the KTC, the 2nd Duna Expedition had several jobs to do. Realistically, finding kethane and mapping the system were the most pressing jobs but Mission Control knew there was no rush to do any of them, it being about 100 days before anything could leave Duna. Naturally, the boffins decided to do the coolest thing first and land on Duna, which was really the point of the whole show anyway. So Matby was told to pick somebody to ride down in the lander. Matby decided Johnden, having already done a quick orbital hop to retrieve Bill and Bob at the end of the 1st Duna Expedition, had more value than cherries Hadfrid and Sidory. In the weeks they'd been orbiting Duna, Hadfrid had annoyed Matby most so that's who got the job and with it a trip home, where Matby hoped he'd be dissected for Science.

Without further ado, Hadfrid was shoved out the hatch and had no choice but to climb into the lander. Then the lander and its tug, already refueled from UTTER MADNESS, cast off.

Once clear of UTTER MADNESS, the 2 parts of the lander reunited and headed down to a 50km orbit, to save as much fuel in the lander's tanks as possible for the ascent later. Then the lander proper separated, moved a short distance away from the tug, and waited for a reasonably flat, Kerbol-lit patch of relatively low ground to swing into place to do the de-orbit burn. As soon as such a place appeared, the engines fired and down it went.

The long, flat, descent profile gave the drogues as much time to work as possible prior to the main chutes opening, although as usual the engines had to burn much of the time before then. Hadfrid, having heard how terrifying Duna landings are and now all alone in the can, lost his prior calm, drooling smile and was on the verge of panic all the way down. Or maybe it was just him tweaking, now that he was away from the experimental chemicals circulating inside the MADNESS.

But all went well, the main chutes somehow not tearing the engine pods off the lander, and Hadfrid landed safely with plenty of fuel to get back.

First order of business once down was Science! Second thing was repacking the chutes. Only then was Hadfrid allowed to set foot on Duna and grab a handful of rocks.

Then it was time to go back up. The cleverly designed lander had so much fuel left that it skipped linking back up with its tug and flew back to the UTTER MADNESS by itself.

Unfortunately, due to concentrating too much on watching the Navyfish Docking Indicator and not looking at what was happening outside, the lander docked perfectly at the wrong port. Again.

Oh well, just more work for Hadfrid, who now had to carry all the Science from the lander to the Mobile Lab of SHEER MADNESS, which would take it back to Kerbin. The first problem encountered was the inability to get the data out of the lander's atmosphere analyzer. Apparently the boffins had never thought this might be necessary. Thus, Johnden and Sidory had to process this through the Duna MADNESS' Mobile Lab and transmit it.

Carrying the data turned out to be a lot of work. Hadfrid could only carry 1 each of the 4 Goos and Material Bays at a time, so that was 1 trip for each set of those. Plus another trip for the instrumentation that COULD be taken. Hadfrid was thankful the boffins, after problems encountered by the 1st Duna Expedition, had decided to add ladders he could cling to while getting the data.

It was dark by the time Hadfrid made his last trip. And he was told to stay in the SHEER MADNESS lab until released back Kerbin.

Then it was time for a bit of housekeeping. Duna Lander 1 was refueled and Johnden and Sidory used the Duna MADNESS lab to clean out and rearm all the goos and bays. The boffins were insistent that the lander go again to gather data while flying. With Hadfrid out of the equation, Matby to choose another victim for the 2nd and rather more dangerous, trip. Would the repacked chutes open correctly this time, especially since that useless Hadfrid had repacked them? Johnden had been lording it over Sidory due to his previous experience and having actually flown with Bill and Bob, and had completely failed to get along with Hadfrid. Thus, Matby thought it would be fitting to send him on this mission and then, if he somehow survived, to have to ride home with Hadfrid. So Johnden was summarily ejected and made his way into the lander and Matby took his place in the Duna MADNESS lab.

All this refueling of the lander had depleted the fuel in the UTTER MADNESS. Both halves had used about 1/3 of their fuel getting to Duna Now one of the big orange tanks was empty and the other was at 73%. So Mission Control decided it was time to see about the kethane situation and fired up the scanner of KethSat Ike.

Things turned out pretty well there with a decent number of fields in the "tropics", several of which actually straddled the equator. So the boffins picked an equatorial patch with a lot in it and on reasonably flat ground, and brought Ike Rig #2 down into a 100km orbit. The chosen spot was on the side facing Duna which at the moment was eclipsing Kerbol, so they had to wait a few orbits to get it in the light, then sent down the rig.

It got down safely, landed smack on the kethane as expected, and promptly went to work.

While it was busy refueling itself, a junior boffin, busy making a fresh pot of coffee, thought to check his almagest for future launch windows and was shocked to discover the next Jool window was only 17 days away. He quickly brought this to the attention of his superiors, who decided they'd just finish up the refueling chore and then put the 2nd Duna Expedition on the back burner while they quickly threw together something for Laythe or Vall or something.

Anyway, as you can see, Ike Rig #2 departs from previous KTC tradition in doing its own refining instead of humping kethane to a refining mothership. Thus, it has only a small kethane tank, just enough to prime the refinery, During operation, the (small size) drills put kethane into this little tank and then the refinery kicks in, converting the kethane into LFO and mono at about the same rate it's coming in. The main advantage of this system is that the rig doesn't have to worry about running out of fuel before delivering kethane to the refining station. But OTOH, it has to move not only the drills but the refinery as well, and it doesn't deliver as much fuel at the station as if it had carried an equal mass of kethane. Also, it has a lot of mono tankage to deliver that finished product as well, for even more extra mass. On the Ike-Duna run, the resulting inefficiency won't ruin the mission so it was a good place to try this method and compare it to previous practice.

Anyway, eventually Ike Rig #2 did all it could and set off for Duna. Being unmanned, this 2nd landing on Ike went unmarked. The boffins were disappointed that Jeb's flag from the 1st Duna Expedition was in a kethane-free zone because they'd hoped to land beside it. Soon, it was once again alone on Ike.

Ike Rig #2 aerocaptured at 15km directly over Hadfrid's recently-planted flag. Sadly, no easy encounters with UTTER MADNESS appeared on the other side so there was nothing for it but to burn into orbit at its 250km Ap and wait to synch up. Which it did after an orbit or 2, and soon Ike Rig #2 was docked with UTTER MADNESS. The rig's center tank was empty but the 4 radial tanks were each still at 85%, so that's 3.4 out of 5 tanks still full when it arrived. Pumping fuel around to refill the center tank (to get back to Ike) and emptying the others means it actually delivered 2.4 full tanks to UTTER MADNESS, a bit less than 1/2 of its total amount of fuel. Still, this was enough to fill the empty orange tank up to 60% and change, meaning 1.33 orange tanks are now full. Given that the SHEER MADNESS only needs about 1/3 a tank to get home, this should be enough to fulfill all remaining mission requirements. If additional requirements come along later, Ike Rig #2 can go get more kethane, with the knowledge it can provide about 60% of an orange tank per trip. The boffins considered this good enough for the Ike-Duna situation but knew it wouldn't work elsewhere with tighter margins.

Mostly to reduce the part count of UTTER MADNESS, the Ike rig was sent back to Ike to wait in a low orbit until needed again. And there things at Duna will sit for bit while the boffins apply the lessons learned to getting a kethane system for Vall off the ground in time for the next window. Meanwhile, Johnden is locked in the lander can, nervously contemplating his upcoming descent on repacked chutes. Will he make it? Tune in next time, or maybe the time after that.

Edited February 4, 2014 by Geschosskopf

[Geschosskopf]

EPISODE 5: Kvetching

With the deadline for the next Jool window fast approaching, the boffins threw themselves into getting something ready. They decided that the previous plan for Jool hadn't paid enough attention to infrastructure so decided that's what they'd concentrate on this time. With the favorable kethane scan of Vall in hand, the boffins decided to build a pipeline in the sky between Vall and Laythe, to have ready for actual mission-type missions in the future. The inefficiencies accepted previously would not cut it this time, and the volume moved had to be much bigger. These objectives led to the creation of the KVETCH Series (Kethane from Vall Exported To Colony Hubs) of vehicles.

The objective of the KVETCH Series is to move a full 16,000-barrel kethane tank from Vall orbit to Laythe orbit, for refining at the destination. From a purely rocketry POV, that's a pretty simple thing to make so that's what the boffins started with.

Here, the KVETCH-00 Kethane Ferry blasts off on its boring orange asparagus lifter. Note the memorial flag to Kraken-bait Lengel in front of the cellblock, er, I mean "astronaut training complex".

Here's the KVETCH-00 itself. Nothing much to it. It's anticipated that, being so light for the return trip to Vall, it should only need refueling there, although of course it can be refueled at Laythe if necessary.

OK, so there's the "pipeline in the sky". Now it needed the orbital refineries for Vall and Laythe to fly between. Again, these were fairly easy projects. All you need is the refining unit itself and the power to run it, and adjacent small input kethane and LFO tanks, the idea being to pump kethane in as fast as it's being used and pump finished product to where it's really need as fast as it's made. Such a thing could be a module for a station or be a small, unmanned station itself. But the things still had to get out there somehow and might need to move around within the system, so the boffins decided to make this unit self-propelled, able to use its transfer fuel tank for output. This thinking led to the development of the KVETCH-01 Orbital Refinery.

The Vall Flotilla has 2 of these, one for Vall and one for Laythe. The one at Vall will be a stand-alone thing, serving as a transshipment point for the kethane bound for Laythe and also refueling the KVETCH-00 Kethane Ferry. It will also refuel any ships passing through the Jool system that aren't bound for Laythe. The one at Laythe will probably end up stuck on whatever station eventually gets built there, to support the space-based side of Laythe operations.

Now attention turned to the rather more difficult problem of getting the kethane up from Vall's surface. Nothing less than filling up the kethane ferry in 1 lift would suffice, which meant lifting rather more than 16,000 barrels of kethane, the extra going to refuel the ferry and also the inefficiency of the refining process. The boffins figured 24,000 was all they could lift at once, 50% more than the ferry can carry. They felt fairly confident this would be sufficient given the ferry wouldn't have completely empty tanks. Still, lifting 24,000 barrels of kethane is no small job, so they really had to hit the bottle, er, I mean put their thinking caps on.

This is a look inside the boffins' lair near the end of the design process. They're using spare 3-man capsules as ballast to simulate the loaded weight of the kethane tanks, which are slightly heavier than the kethane. Even so, the beast has just barely enough delta-V to achieve Vall orbit, although rendezvousing with the Vall refinery might require the refinery coming to it or a tug to move the shuttle. Otherwise, the boffins were rather proud of it. The CoM remains in the same place regardless of fuel state so docking shouldn't be a problem, especially because the docking ports on both ends are relatively unobstructed. All while keeping the overall shape squat for stability on the ground.

Fully loaded, the contraption weighs over 104 tons, 55 tons empty. Either way, it's more than conventional landing gear can support. even if they'd been able to reach the ground from where they'd have to be mounted. Thus, the boffins decided to try this idea they'd heard of somewhere of using box girders as landing gear. Now, this thing will only land empty but the boffins still didn't trust the idea so decided to give the thing a good drop test.

Here's the result. The beast, with ballast attached, was dragged out to the Launchpad and dropped from the guesstimated height of 4 Kerbals. It hit the ground at 6m/s and only some of the ballast fell off, but no damage to the actual vehicle. The boffins considered this a successful result and, with a few final tweaks, approved construction of the KVETCH-02 Vall Shuttle. Now there was the job of getting it off the ground.

Which turned out not to be that big a problem.

Now the problem was, how to get it to Jool. This led to the creation of the KVETCH-03 Shuttle Tug, a 57-ton monstrosity itself. The 8x LVNs were there to keep the transfer burn time down as much as possible. And it could use the same launcher as the shuttle.

So the tug was sent up to rendezvous with the shuttle. It was only as the tug was closing in for docking that the boffins realized they'd never test-fit the 2 together in the VAB to see if the tug would fit between the legs of the shuttle.

But as they got closer together, it became apparent that they'd fit after all, thanks to the wide spread of the legs and the low position of the shuttle's aft docking port.

Eventually, the KVETCH-03 Shuttle Tug linked up with the KVETCH-02 Vall Kethane Shuttle and the assembly made ready to depart. The tug will be available to drag the shuttle to the Vall orbital refinery if need be.

So now, how to get the shuttle loaded? The simple option would be to land the shuttle next to the Vall rig but such precision in landing is not the forte of the KTC. Therefore, the boffins decided, as their predecessors had before, to mount the drills on a rover that could drive to the landed shuttle. As long as the shuttle came down somewhere in the kethane field, all would be well. So, all they had to do was mount the drills and a refinery (to refuel the shuttle) on wheels. Of course, this would require using the KAS system to connect the 2, which is why the shuttle has the standard ports on it and ladders to reach them. But at the last moment, the boffins developed the new KAS pipe system, which hopefully will reduce the risk that was always present with the old cable mechanism.

The result was the KVETCH-04 Vall Rig. It's not that heavy, even loaded, but was built big and wide for stability and to spread the weight over more wheels. Instead of winches, it has boxes full of KAS pipe parts. It also has enough engines both to land itself (on the retractable legs) and get to Vall orbit if need be.

But this roving drilling/refining rig needed a way to get to Jool, and it needed a Kerbal to make the pipe connections, and the Kerbal needed a place to live when not humping pipe. So the boffins combined all these needs into the KVETCH-05 Tug-Hab.

Once it was assembled, a pressganged Kerbal with a modicum of mechanical aptitude was chosen essentially at random and locked into the hitchhiker can. He will be the 1st Kerbal not only on Vall but in the Jool system as a whole. He'll probably also be the last to leave, if he ever does, as his job will last as long as KSP's interest in Laythe. And he'll get no credit or glory for any of it. What was his name again? Oh yeah, Luney, appropriately enough. But hey, he's got gainful employment for life, a hitchhiker all to himself, a company car, and an important part to play in the advancement of Kerbalkind. He should be grateful he's not still living under a bridge.

Anyway, KVETCH-05 linked up with KVETCH-04. The Vall Flotilla was now all set to go with 14 days to spare. While this was less time in LKO than normally allotted for training pressganged Kerbals, the long trip to Jool would compensate. And while Luney had been kvetching all during the ascent, he settled down once in orbit and actually seemed to be enjoying himself. Or maybe that was just the indoctrination starting to take effect.

So there we are. Now that this is done, I'll go back and see if Johnden survives his attempt to land on Duna and maybe finish up mapping the system.

Edited February 6, 2014 by Geschosskopf

[Geschosskopf]

EPISODE 6: More Vall Stuff and Johnden's Adventure

As the boffins were leaving the office after getting the Vall Flotilla into orbit, they were met in the parking lot by the scientists who demanded to know why they were landing not 1 but 2 ships on Vall and not getting any Science out of it. The boffins, knowing it was Happy Hour at their favorite bar and in a hurry to get there, retorted that now that all the rocket parts had been researched, they no longer cared about Science. So the 2 sides clashed in a classic War of the Nerds, hacking and stabbing away with their sliderules. The scientists had numbers on their side (compare the size of the Science Center to the VAB, most of which is empty space) and eventually forced the boffins into a negotiated surrender. The boffins agreed to come up with a Vall science mission using lots of existing designs to get it done quickly. They figured they could still catch the end of Happy Hour that way.

And so the Vall Science Return Lander was born. It's basically a slightly modified version of the Gilly lander strapped atop a small lifter. Unmanned, it will land near Luney's house and do its Science. Luney will then toss in a handful of rocks and whatever disjointed observations he's made of the place, and then it will return to Vall orbit without Luney. In this way, the mission will return everything a manned landing would have without having to send another Kerbal or take Luney away from his vital job of pumping gas.

The boffins then sent up and assembled the pieces of another B-Series MADNESS to get the lander to and from Vall. Because I haven't shown how those pieces launch, here's the story.

This is the B-01 Fuel Module Mk IV and its launcher. Basically, just a way to get a full orange tank with various attached parts into LKO. The Mk IV here differs from the Mk II currently in use at Duna in having 48-7S engines on the tank and trading 2 small side docking ports for 2 large ones, to help eliminate the problem of hitting the wrong port.

And here's the B-02 Tug Module Mk II. Exactly the same as now at Duna.

Despite having many successful launches to its credit, this time the tug's lifter disintegrated shortly after launch and the whole thing smashed down in a spectacular explosion on the runway. The boffins were mystified as to the cause but the destruction did much to improve their mood. And the next time they launched the tug, it worked just fine.

So all 3 parts rendezvoused and created the Vall MADNESS. While it had way more than enough delta-V for the job (and will refuel at Vall to test the KVETCH system anyway), the TWR would have resulted in a transfer burn over 10 minutes, which the boffins utterly refused to countenance, especially given they had all the KVETCH stuff to send out at the same time. Rather than spend the time designing a better transfer vehicle, they just sent up another tug. Which exploded in mid-air shortly after launch. Sadly, it was by now dark at KSC so while the explosion lit up the sky to the gratification of the boffins, photos of the event failed to do it justice so are omitted from this chronicle. Again, the cause was a mystery and again the next launch worked fine.

With the 2nd tug, the Vall MADNESS would only need a 7-minute burn. Better, but not great. The boffins also noted a loss of about 700m/s, something to think about later. But by now they'd done what the scientists had demanded and Happy Hour was nearly over, so that's what it'll be.

Next morning, the hung-over boffins returned to work and returned their attention to Duna. It was now time to sacrifice Johnden to the repacked chutes, er, I mean make a valiant attempt to gather Science from up in Duna's atmosphere. Johnden, who'd been locked in the lander can for several days now dreading the future was now just wanting to get it over with.

And so the lander disconnected and shoved off for its second landing on Duna. It had enough fuel to land without chutes if need be but wouldn't be able to take off again, so as a back-up plan, it was aimed at an equatorial patch of kethane. That way, in the future, it might be possible to land something else nearby to refuel the lander and salvage the data, er, I mean, rescue Johnden.

But to the surprise of the boffins and the intense relief of Johnden, the chutes actually worked. The boffins attributed this to firing the chutes via the action group control the 1st time instead of staging system, and also the 2nd time. See, it wasn't until Hadfrid was making his 1st descent that the boffins realized they'd attached the engine pods with radial decouplers as they'd done for all previous landers, even though this particular lander wasn't going to need them. As such, the boffins had used their lock-out/tag-out system on the staging system.

Everybody was so wrapped up in watching the parachutes that they nearly forgot the whole purpose of this trip: getting Science while airborne. But they remembered just in time, running the last of the instruments just meters above the ground.

Despite landing on (and nearly tipping from) a very steep dune slope, all went well and Johnden got out to grab another handful of rocks. Previous missions had shown that returning 1 surface sample didn't quite get all the available data.

This landing had been at about 2500m so the chutes hadn't had as much time to work, so the lander had burned more fuel. However, the boffins were confident it could reach orbit. Worst case, the Duna Lander Tug, waiting in 50km orbit from Hadfrid's flight, could tow the lander back to UTTER MADNESS. But this contingency plan proved as unnecessary as landing on kethane and the Duna Lander made it back to dock under its own power. Johnden was ecstatic to still be alive and also not marooned on Duna.

And this time the lander hit the correct docking port.

And Johnden also was able to extract the data from the Atmosphere Analyzer, something that had eluded Hadfrid. Now Johnden's ego was even bigger than before, so Matby, already disappointed that Johnden had made it back, was even more glad to soon be rid of him.

Then it was just Johnden making many trips humping data between the lander and the Mobile Lab of SHEER MADNESS. The lighting on UTTER MADNESS, intended to make docking in the dark easier, provided WAY too much glare for this operation so they waited about 1/4 of an orbit to finish the job in the daylight.

Once this task was accomplish, Johnden was locked in the SHEER MADNESS lab with Hadfrid and immediately began boasting of his superior skilz. Meanwhile, the lander was shifted down the length of UTTER MADNESS to the corresponding port on Duna MADNESS, where Matby and Sidory used their lab to rearm all the experiments. Its job is done for the time being but the scientists assure the boffins that someday they'll be able to get even more data by discovering that Duna, like Kerbin, has multiple biomes. And so it, Duna MADNESS, and the kethane operation will remain at Duna for the time being. But meanwhile, it was time to prepare SHEER MADNESS to depart. But no hurries there; still 96 days before it can leave.

In the meantime, the scientists could only drool in anticipation over all the data they'd soon have. If they couldn't get their hands on it yet, they could at least take inventory. They discovered that Hadfrid and Johnden between them had accumulated 34 experiments in the lab with them. This should be a pretty good haul when it finally comes home.

Next time, probably getting the Vall Flotilla headed out and probably some housekeeping with various probes and such.

[Geschosskopf]

Episode 7: Vall Flotilla Departs

With the end of doing science at Duna, the UTTER MADNESS bifurcated into its main pieces, the Duna MADNESS with the lander attached which will stay there indefinitely, and the SHEER MADNESS containing Hadfrid and Johnden, which will head back to Kerbin with all the Science in 90-odd days.

The next thing on the agenda was getting the Vall Flotilla off to Jool, so that's what you get this installment. Not really much to say here. All the ships burned, left Kerbin's SOI, and are en route to do any necessary trajectory tweaks. However, this was a 6-ship flotilla launch, most burns taking about 7 minutes plus 1 of 12 minutes, so I figure it's worth posting some pics for.

The KVETCH-02 Orbital refineries were the 1st to go, one for Laythe and 1 for Vall. Otherwise identical, the Vall refinery has the subtle difference of flying with its solar panels extended for now.

Then the Vall MADNESS Science Return Lander with its double tug stack on the back.

Then Luney in the combined KVETCH-04 Vall Rig and KVETCH-05 Tug/Hab. Luney seemed to enjoy the entire burn, constantly smiling and clapping his hands, only without Jeb's perpetually baked expression.

Then the KVETCH-01 Kethane Ferry, sadly snapped just as it passed into Kerbin's shadow.

And finally the massive KVETCH-02 Vall Kethane Shuttle being pushed by the KVETCH-03 Vall Shuttle Tug. This KSP Public Information Department cleverly flipped this pic over to provide some variety.

And so the Vall Flotilla is on the road after not one of my best efforts. Some serious outliers here. The one that fell short is the Vall MADNESS, which shall shortly correct its problem. The one going long is Luney's boat, which will also have to make a major correction. And the boffins are already pointing fingers as to who is to blame for not giving the thing enough delta-V. It will probably be OK to get into Vall orbit but the expected scenario after that is for Luney's Tug/Hab module to go scrounging fuel from other ships in Vall orbit just to have enough for both parts to land safely. But that's all they have to do. Once everything's on the ground, the kethane will start flowing and all fuel problems will be over.

Other stuff shown here... 2 probes nearly at Eeloo, 2 more probes nearly at Jool. Plus stuff already in place. This includes probes at Laythe and Vall, 2 probes in orbit at Dres, the whole 2nd Duna Expedition, 3 probes on the ground at Eve and 1 in orbit at Gilly, and 1 in orbit at Moho.

Having gotten the Vall Flotilla on the road, the boffins started work on the 1st Laythe Flotilla to get a head start on the next Jool window. Here's a sneak peak at what they're working on. 279 parts worth, probably half of which are struts....

This is called the LOSS (Laythe Observation SSTO Seaplane). Not the most elegant craft but it has some amazing capabilities, which will be expounded on later.

Edited February 8, 2014 by Geschosskopf

[Geschosskopf]

Episode 8: Preparing the 1st Laythe Expedition

The boffins continued refining the design of the LOSS (Laythe Observation SSTO Seaplane). I've used Firespitter since 0.20 and the joints of the pontoon sections have always been questionable, which I've dealt with by strutting them all together and many struts to the rest of the plane. But as noted above, this made the LOSS have 279 parts. So the boffins were determined to cut down on this and eventually came up with a breakthrough.

Apart from the bare minimum needed to stabilize the assembly, the number of struts has been greatly reduced. No more double row of struts along the pontoons, and likewise for the multi-part wings (geez, I miss B9). So the LOSS is down to 200 parts. Still lots of struts along the fuselage but, because it's composed of scads of separate short parts, there's not much getting around that.

For the 1st Laythe Expedition, the LOSS will make at least 3 trips planetside, firing its "Science Bomb" (all experiments on the same action group) each time. The 1st time it will land on or near an island so as to get on land and get that data plus plant the all-important "1st Laythe Landing" flag. The 2nd time it will land in the ocean and stay there. The 3rd time it will just fly low without landing to get atmospheric data. If there proves to be a difference in the atmosphere between flying over land and water, it will make a 4th trip to get whichever one it didn't get the 3rd time. The previously descried KVETCH system will provide the fuel for the multiple trips.

Because the LOSS is the centerpiece of the 1st Laythe Expedition, I'll expound upon it a bit here.

The LOSS carries the full suite of experiments normally carried in a Science Pack lander: 4x Goo, 4x Material Bay, and 1 each of every other instrument. All these parts plus the stuff needed to be an SSTO and seaplane were carefully arranged using RCS Build Aid so the CoM doesn't move as fuel burns. It uses linear RCS thrusters also placed with RCS Build Aid to straddle the constant CoM without introducing undesired rotation. You can see 4 such ports on the wings just outboard of the LFO tanks. It has a small docking port on the nose for refueling and to facilitate data transfer between trips. The wheels in the floats have electric rover-type motors so the LOSS can taxi on electric power, both forwards and backwards, and there are small wheels under the lower wingtips to prevent damage during bad landings. From the LFO tanks outboard, it has a biplane configuration to keep the wingspan short using stock wing parts.

Having spent a great deal of time designing the LOSS, the boffins then worked on getting the thing first off Kerbin and then to Jool. Their initial idea was to attach a transfer tug to the nose docking port, like this:

However, tests showed this wasn't a good idea. The LOSS weighs 21 tons to start with, 16 tons if it flies itself to orbit. The transfer tug was considerably more than that. And the small docking port connecting them proved too weak. In the unlikely event of the assembly surviving the transfer burn from Kerbin, it didn't do well in simulated aerobraking, and 2 such maneuvers were necessary. So this idea was scrapped and the only alternative was to attach a transfer stage on the back more rigidly, and send the whole thing up on a rocket, like this:

Everything from the nukes up weighs 77 tons, yet the 6-barrel asparagus lifter under it is quite capable of getting that to orbit without the transfer stage having to burn. Test launches showed that it flew better with the landing gear extended than retracted.

So this is what will go to Laythe. It could have been done with a lighter transfer stage using fewer engines but that would have meant a longer burn time and the boffins were utterly tired of 10-minute burns. If a shorter burn meant having to develop an 80-ton lifter, so be it. Luckily, that wasn't much of a chore. Anyway, the LOSS will get to Laythe, dock with the Laythe MADNESS, pic up a crewman, refuel, and head on down.

Which brings us to the Laythe MADNESS. As the twin tugs of the Vall MADNESS had demonstrated, the B-Series wasn't really optimized for trips to Jool so the boffins set about tweaking it into the C-Series. The basic mission components were fine, they just needed better ways of getting there. Relying on the KVETCH system to provide fuel for the return trip, it was possible to dispense with each component needing an orange tank. Instead, the modules used big transfer tugs with enough engines to keep the burn times low. Thus, the boffins just designed such a tug and tweaked the essential parts of the modules to incorporate lessons learned.

This is the C-Series Laythe SHEER MADNESS. It consists of the C-02 Recoverable Mobile Lab Module, which is everything from the big docking port forward. That part's the same as B-05 currently at Duna but with less-intense lighting. Below the docking port is the new C-06 Module Tug. Compared to the Duna ships, this weighs rather less due to not having to carry fuel for the return, and that combined with 8 engines makes for considerably shorter burn times.

As at Duna, all the data gathered by the LOSS will get stored in the Mobile Lab here and returned to Kerbin. Along with 2 Kerbals. But which 2?

The C-06 Module Tug goes up on this, for them as are interested. The bigger boosters drop first.

Of course, there has to be a permanent Laythe science station and that's what we have here, Laythe MADNESS. Again, the actual station part is the same as the B-Series at Duna but with dimmer lights. It uses the same transfer tug as the Laythe SHEER MADNESS. Due to the publicity surrounding Laythe as a home away from home for Kerbalkind, the only highly trained kerbalnauts, who at great risk rediscovered most of the lost science, have come out of retirement for the trip. The plan is for each of them to do one trip down the LOSS. But 2 Kerbals must remain at Laythe manning the lab for future expansion. Right now, the idea is for Jeb and Bill, the most famous and reliable of the 3, to come home in the Laythe SHEER MADNESS, leaving Bob and Seangel at Laythe. They'll eventually be rotated out, however.

One of the main tasks of those left behind will be surveying potential sites for future colonies. To help with that, the boffins designed the Laythe Probe Clusterbomb.

Bob's main task will be to compare the hi-res SCANsat data to the kethane scan data and determine which islands, or rather which fractions of islands, are suitable base locations. To this end, he'll have a clip of 6 probe landers to send to candidate sites. These probes do no Science, which for the foreseeable future will have been done by the LOSS. Rather, they're just supposed to provided up-close images of the ground, to see if seaplanes can taxi up the beaches and how level the area is in general.

An additional part of the permanent Laythe MADNESS station will be this docking tree for SSTOs. The LOSS kinda needs something like this due to being big and covered with mondo pontoons.

Because the neither of the main station components will have an orange tank available, and because the LOSS will need multiple refueling, the boffins decided to send an orange tank out as a separate piece. Much of its fuel will be consumed on the trip out but tanking it up is why we have the KVETCH System. The C-Series Fuel Module differs from the B-Series only in dimmer lights.

The C-05 Fuel Module is pushed out to Jool by the C-07 Fuel Tug. It's the least structure upon which to mount enough engines to keep the burntime reasonable.

So that's pretty much it for the 1st Laythe Expedition. Now it just has to wait 100-odd days for the depature window.

[Geschosskopf]

EPISODE 9: Housekeeping and Duna Departure

When we last saw the Kethane Travelling Circus, the Vall Flotilla had just launched, it was 90-odd days before the Duna SHEER MADNESS could come home, and there were a bunch of probes in flight to the outer planets. IOW, there was a stretch of relative downtime ahead. The boffins took advantage to amuse themselves for a few days watching totally impractical and unnecessary SSTOs crash but then decided to get down to the all the necessary chores. And so we get to a lot of unexciting but sadly necessary probe housekeeping.

To start with, the boffins decided to see what more they could get out of KethSat Vall, which had completed its mission and had beaucoup delta-V left. So they sent it to Tylo.

Note the ejection angle for this node is on the retrograde side of Vall. This was necessary to leave the place. While cheaper transfers were seemingly possible from the prograde side, "simulations" showed that Vall quickly caught up and sucked the probe into lithobraking. Only by leaving with a relatively high outwards velocity could the probe escape Vall.

But with this seemingly inefficient but actually survivable trajectory, the probe safely got to Tylo and set to work scanning its tropics for kethane.

This scan was quickly accomplished and proved interesting. All the tropical kethane was on the leading side of tide-locked Tylo, with nothing on the trailing side. This led the scientists to theorize that Tylo's orbit contains free kethane leaking from something else, perhaps green Vall from tidal heating, which is then swept up by Tylo. In any case, there turned out to be a couple of equator-straddling fields, which will perhaps someday be useful for landing on this sinkhole.

With nothing else particularly pressing on the agenda, the boffins then sent the probe to Pol. They really didn't want to skip Bop but did so for 3 reasons. First, the probe had to leave on the retrograde side of Tylo only worse than Vall, with escape putting it out slightly beyond Pol's orbit anyway. Second, Pol required less of a plane change so it was thought better to only have to do the big plane change for Bop once. And finally, there was a legend around KSC that Pol was perhaps the spawn of Daemon Sultan Azathoth, which had to be investigated.

So KethSat Vall eventually arrived at Pol, which gave no immediate signs of being the spawn of Azathoth. However, by the time the probe arrived there, the Eeloo probes were nearing their destination so the boffins had to divert their attention thither.

First to arrive was KethSat Eeloo. The Kethane Travelling Circus has sent many probes towards Eeloo but all have been destroyed en route by various supernovae, so this was the 1st one actually to arrive. The boffins quickly chugged some hastily popped champagne (spiced up with cheap whiskey).

There being several days before the next probe arrived, the boffins then decided to scan Eeloo for kethane. Somewhat to their surprise, they found quite a lot of it in the tropics with several equatorial fields. The boffins made hasty notes about sending an expedition there but they had to deal with other matters.

That's because SCANsat Advanced Eeloo was closing in. It captured into a polar orbit and quickly got to work.

This probe did both multispectral and SAR hi-res altimetry. The multispectral scan turned up nothing but static because Eeloo apparently doesn't yet have biomes, but this info was still worth a fair amount, as was the hi-res map it made shortly thereafter.

No sooner had this been accomplished than SCANsat Advanced Vall burned through Jool's upper atmosphere.

This probe got a Vall encounter after 1 orbit of Jool, raising its Pe out of the atmosphere at Ap.

And then it captured into a polar orbit and started mapping. This is an identical probe to that at Eeloo (and Duna and Ike), with the multi-spectral and hi-res scanners. It just barely had enough time to return a staticky biome map when its sister ship arrived.

SCANsat Advanced Laythe had an encounter with its target without aerobraking at Jool. The boffins decided to go for this, relying on Laythe's atmosphere to slow down, a new thing for the Kethane Travelling Circus

Much to everybody's surprise, this actually worked. A tweak between Jool and Laythe to come in under Laythe's south pole, then aerocapture at 26km, resulted in a 900km-ish Ap, which the probe quickly adjusted into a 757km mapping orbit. Laythe had already been scanned for kethane, biomes, and low-res altimetry so all this probe had to do was the hi-res. It made a pretty map which can now be compared to the kethane map to decide where to send the MIRVs of the Laythe Probe Bomb.

Somewhere in all this jumping around from probe to probe, the Vall Flotilla's various members all made their mid-course tweaks. There is still a fair amount of concern for the KVETCH Tug'/Hab and Mobile Rig combo, especially after its rather large correction burn. But it will certainly be able to capture into at least a Jool orbit and then something can go give it a boost to Vall. In any case, not a critical problem at this point.

The boffins then looked up from their work and discovered that all this mucking about with probes had used all the time before the departure date of the Duna SHEER MADNESS. Only a few hours remained before it was to shove off for home. And so the boffins fired up the communications link to Duna for the 1st time in 90-odd days, to discover about 500 unread messages from the Kerbals there. Given that all these messages were complaints and whines, and because they couldn't do anything about them even if they had cared, the boffins promptly deleted them all without bothering to read any. Instead, they issued orders and ran diagnostics to make sure the Duna SHEER MADNESS was ready to depart.

The boffins were glad to see that neither Hadfrid nor Johnden had escaped and that all 34 experiments were still in storage. Also, none of the fuel had leaked out; the ship still had about 1/2 tank, way more than enough to get home.

And so there was nothing left to do but wait until the planets aligned properly and the Duna SHEER MADNESS came to the right place in its orbit, then burn for home. The scientists could barely restrain themselves at the thought of all the data now heading their way, even it would still be weeks before it arrived. And then, of course, it had to land safely. But neither of these things should present problems.

And so here's the current status on this 214th Day of the 3rd Year since the Supernova of '23. The 3rd incarnation of the Kethane Travelling Circus has now visited everything in the system except Bop. All the mapping and kethane probes have arrived at their destinations, the Vall Flotilla is over 1/2way to Jool, and the Duna SHEER MADNESS is on the way home. In less than 1 month, windows for Duna and Eeloo will come up, and not much after that the 1st Laythe Expedition, currently holding in LKO, will depart.

The boffins are already considering what to do with the upcoming Duna and Eeloo windows. What fiendish plans will they hatch? Tune in next time and see.

[Logan.Darklighter]

Ever watched Mystery Science Theater 3000?

Cause your "Boffins" are acting rather like "The Mads" from MST3K and the various astronaut Kerbals are being treated like Joel/Mike and the Bots.

[Geschosskopf]

Ever watched Mystery Science Theater 3000? Cause your "Boffins" are acting rather like "The Mads" from MST3K and the various astronaut Kerbals are being treated like Joel/Mike and the Bots.

Yup, that was one of my favorite shows. I watch it on Netflix even today. So I do try to add some of the humor from that situation to my posts.

However, my main inspiration for the personnel issues of my space program is the Age of Exploration and Colonization, of Wooden Ships and Iron Men. As KSP is about exploration and colonization, I think this era is the best analog available. All the great voyages of discovery, all the expeditions of conquest and colonization, all the empire-defining naval battles of the era, were done by a horde of faceless, expendable sailors. In those days, no ship left port without expecting to lose anywhere from 25-75% of its crew along the way to work hazards, disease, starvation, enemy action, and desertion, over the course of a multi-year voyage. And there was a rather sobering 5-10% chance that the ship itself would be lost to the perils of the sea. The admirals and generals got peerages, the empires they served got the goods, and the sailors got worked to death while being fed the bare minimum of the cheapest, nastiest food possible to keep them alive just long enough to accomplish their mission. But hey, these sailors were considered the dregs of society so this was fitting treatment for them, and better such scumbags be shipped off around the world where they'd probably die than stay at home doing crime. And thus nobody really complained about press gangs rounding up vagrants.

So, I run my universe like that. Their Lordships Jeb, Bill, and Bob get to do all the cool stuff while all other Kerbals involved are pressganged vagrants about whom nobody cares .

[Geschosskopf]

EPISODE 10: 2nd Duna Flotilla and Stuff

When we last saw the KTC, a launch window for Duna was coming up and the boffins didn't want to let it go by unused. But what did Duna need? A better kethane infrastructure for Ike? Additional station modules for Duna MADNESS? Or a permanent colony on the surface? After much debate, the boffins decided on the latter, as a way of creating a base for future exploration. They'd heard dim legends that their predecessors, back in the original KTC before the Supernova of '22, had had an airplane flying around on Duna and they thought it would be cool to do that, too, eventually.

But first, a base to support it. This would definitely have to be on a kethane field so the 1st thing was to design a kethane system. Because this kethane would be for use on Duna, the whole system could be put on a single vehicle without any need to get back to orbit. So the boffins did some tinkering and eventually came up with this:

This is the SKRAP-01 (System for Kethane Recovery At Planets) Duna Rig. It has 2 small drills and a small refinery, and not much else because it's intended to run only when a customer is attached. To this end, it carries a couple boxes of KAS pipe parts.

A new feature of this design is the kethane-burning generator, which will power the whole system by burning a little of the kethane that's coming in. This is a new toy researched with the Science! accumulated by the various SCANsat probes. It's way lighter than using several Gigantor solar panels. The small solar panels are needed to power 1 drill just long enough to get some kethane in the input tank, after which the generator will take over.

So, the idea is for the Duna Rig to land somewhere and customers come to it. The KAS system needs a Kerbal to make the connections and the Kerbal has to live somewhere, which will probably end up being several miles from the rig. Thus, the Kerbal needs a vehicle to get from his house to his workplace.

And this is that vehicle, the SKRAP-02 Duna Utility Rover. It's just a simple chassis with 2 lawn chairs and 2 boxes of KAS pipe parts and ground pylons. It will land with the 1st skycrane system ever used by the KTC. All previous landers had their engines permanently attached. Anyway, the thing is so light that it could use an LV-T30 for the transfer engine in furtherance of the boffins' goal of minimizing burn times.

Then, of course, the Kerbal needed a place to live. But not just 1 Kerbal. Oh no, far from that. See, the know-nothing politicians, easily swayed by mindless clamoring of the know-less-than-nothing masses, who had been led astray by starry-eyed visionaries unable to visualize the realities of space travel, demanded a full-blown colony. On Duna, of all places. Just to occasionally pump gas. Oh well, the political masters had spoken so the boffins had to obey. So they argued a bit as to how many Kerbals constituted a colony and eventually decided that 8 with room for 16 would satisfy the pols for the time being.

The boffins then set to work designing the necessary hardware. Somebody suggested they land a bunch of modules separately and dock them together on the ground, or just leave them separate in a nascent form of urban sprawl. However, neither idea looked good either on paper or in practice so eventually they decided to launch the whole colony base in 1 piece, and came up with this:

This the GUNK-01 Duna Colony. The basic vehicle can be tweaked to work on any planet and will no doubt soon be adapted for Laythe. It's just 4 Hitchhikers radially mounted to a central rocket. It contains 8 Kerbals led by the intimidating Jengas "Khan" Kerman, who has vowed to conquer Duna or die trying. He previously ran the Kali Kokaine Kartel before his inkarceration. His understudy is Gregnard "Grognard" Kerman, a 20-year veteran guard at Kerbal State Prison recently implicated in trafficking kontraband into the penitentiary in the pay of Jengas. Then there's Camming "Camshaft" Kerman, the appropriately named engineer, who is the actual gas station attendant and only essential Kerbal in the krewe, doing hard time for a DWI vehicular kerbalslaughter. And Ribdun "YO, Yer Ribs Are Done" Kerman, the cook, and his lazy assistant Lofen "the Loafer" Kerman. The colony is rounded out by pressganged vagrants Thomlong, Gusger, and Wehrbald.

The idea is that this thing will plunk down somewhere in the general vicinity of Duna Rig 1 and accomplish nothing unless and until the KTC sends something there in need of fuel. In the meantime, the colonists can stare at the walls of their cans or go outside to stare at the endless, useless, uninhabitable sand of Duna. Meanwhile, the pols will be happy and hopefully stop interfering with boffin business.

A window for Eeloo was also coming up so the boffins decided to send something there, too, while they were in a designing mood. There are no plans currently for anything major at Eeloo but someday it will need a kethane system so they might as well get that going. So they came up with this:

This is the SKRAP-03 Eeloo System. It's like a cross between the rigs at Duna and Ike, in that it lifts the refinery and drills to move product (like at Ike) and runs on a kethane-burning generator (like at Duna). It has 1 of each size docking port so no matter what the boffins send to Eeloo in the future, this should do the trick. Inefficient, but tolerably so. The monstrous tanks needed to move product provide so much delta-V that the beast doesn't need a transfer stage (hopefully). However, that will be cutting it close. Also, it has a glacial acceleration around Kerbin so several senior boffins expect to retire before its transfer burn is complete. But this was acceptable because it'll be going out alone.

Given its great weight loaded, the SKRAP-03 uses I-beams for landing gear, somewhat like the KVETCH-03 Vall Kethane Shuttle. So the boffins gave it a nice fully loaded drop test before approving production. It survived an 8m/s impact with no damage so is considered good enough to land with mostly empty tanks.

All this made for a crowed LKO. There are the 7 ships of the Laythe Flotilla, the 3 of the 2nd Duna Flotilla, the 1 for Eeloo, and several experimental other odds and sods that the boffins have been working on in their spare time.

And after all this, there wasn't much else to do but go on vacation for a few days and then come back and get the 2nd Duna Flotilla on the road. It doesn't qualify to be called the "3rd Duna Expedition" because it's not doing any Science! and won't until more Science! starts growing there.

The GUNK-01 Duna Colony 1 was 1st off, followed by the SKRAP-01 Duna Rig 1. Thanks to serious over-engineering, their burns only lasted a bit over 2 minutes. But the real star was the SKRAP-02 Duna Utility Rover 1 with its conventional rocket, needing only 22 seconds for its burn. In fact, it got off to such a fast start that it passed the other ships before they'd passed Minmus and will probably arrive first by several weeks.

Jengas and the lads took a last look back, enjoying having a view while they can. Once on Duna, they won't be seeing much out their portholes because one points straight down at the dirt and the other is pretty much obstructed by parachutes. But hey, they can always step outside .

So here's the current status of the KTC. The 7 ships of the 1st Laythe Flotilla (the boffins already know there'll be more) will leave in 7 days, the SKRAP-03 Eeloo System will go 4 days later. In 52 days, the Duna SHEER MADNESS will come home with Hadfrid, Johnden, and maybe survive the landing. And shortly thereafter, the 2nd Duna Flotilla will start arriving. Meanwhile, the Vall Flotilla with the KVETCH system will begin arriving in about 111 days. So there's a preview of what's coming up.

Looking at the Tracking Center, in all I've got 45 ships out right now, 7 flags, and zero debris. I suppose I could cull the herd a bit by crashing a few probes that have done their duty but I'll wait until things start going really haywire.

[Brotoro]

It heartwarming to see all those full transfer orbits out to planets beyond Kerbin.

[Geschosskopf]

It heartwarming to see all those full transfer orbits out to planets beyond Kerbin.

Thanks. I enjoy looking at such map views myself. And pretty soon there'll be another loop heading for Jool, too.

[Geschosskopf]

EPISODE 11: 1st Laythe Expedition Departs

A week or so after the events above, it was time for the 1st Laythe Expedition to depart. Whether to call this an "expedition" or a "flotilla" had been a matter of some debate. But Jeb, leader of the show, insisted that because it was for Science! and exploration, it should be an expedition, so that's what it'll be called from now on.

But the 1st ship to burn out technically wasn't part of the 1st Laythe Expedition or Flotilla or whatever. It was, instead, a rescue tanker for the KVETCH Rig/Tug/Hab unit which isn't expected to get further than into Jool orbit. Because the whole KVETCH system, and with it the Laythe Expedition, rely on this unit, there was nothing for it but to send out a tanker to get it the rest of the way. And here it is:

This consists of the standard C-Series fuel module and the tug recently designed for the Laythe MADNESSes. It should do the job handily.

NOTE: This whole wave of launches happened in Kerbin's shadow so not many pics of it are worth showing, as you can see. So instead of spamming them all, I'll just post a few of interest. Such as this one:

This is the SSTO docking tree for the Laythe MADNESS station. Its main interest lies in its transfer stage being propelled by aerospike engines, the 1st time the KTC has used them. This made for a gratifyingly short burn time, and the boffins were delighted with the pretty red glow of the spikes.

And of course, the obligatory burn-out shot of the crewed vehicle under full sail, the Laythe MADNESS. Jeb insisted on this for his own memoirs if nothing else. This is his second ride in such a thing, he (and Bill and Bob) previously having gone out in the old A-Series on the 1st Duna Expedition.

When initially launching this batch of ships, the Boffins had taken special care to space the ships out vertically and horizontally in their parking orbits, so that each could burn without interfering with the others, which is what normally happens. However, as it turned out, Mun was fouling the range come the day of departure, causing the 1st few ships to have fly-by encounters. While this didn't mess up their trajectories, dealing with all the SOI changes totally hosed the carefully arranged burn schedule. So the boffins decided the careful parking orbit arrangement wasn't worth the trouble.

Here the lead ship, the KVETCH Rescue Tanker, completes its 147km Munar fly-by. Normally, at least 1 other ship, maybe 2, would have burned by now, but in this case everything had to wait until this ship was clear of Mun. And then the next one also.

But eventually, all 7 ships of the 1st Laythe Expedition were on the road. This is actually one of my better efforts at flotilla launching. Note how all but the 1st (closest ship left of the blue line) are pretty much on the same path. The 1st one is off due to Mun's interference as noted above. The probe icon left of it is WAY far away, part of the Vall Flotiall I think.

Once everything was out of the Kerbin system and the boffins were plotting course tweaks, photography became more feasible so here are a few shots in better light.

Here's the Science!-gathering part of the expedition, the LOSS SSTO. Actually, this is a bit different than originally launched. Several days before departure, the boffins realized the original didn't have a SCANsat receiver aboard so they brought it down, bolted on the part, and sent it back up again. Only it had a random failure during ascent and was destroyed, so then they set up the spare one, remembering to put the part on .

The obligatory pic of the Laythe MADNESS leaving Kerbin's SOI. Jeb, Bill, and Bob mug for the camera, totally blocking out Seangel.

And finally, the sinister Laythe Probe Bomb with its 6 MIRVs. Nobody really knows what to expect out of this.

Anyway, only 3 days later, it was time for the SKRAP-03 Eeloo System to leave. Thankfully, it was going out alone so its horrifically long burntime of near 14 minutes didn't interfere with anything else. The boffins left to eat lunch while it was burning.

So here's how things stand at the moment. The Duna SHEER MADNESS is on its way home from Duna and will arrive in 40 days. The 3 ships of the 3rd Duna Expedition will arrive between 41-56 days in the future. Being 60-75 days out, the 1st Laythe Expedition will be making its mid-course tweaks. Then the Vall Flotilla will start arriving from 99-120something days out.

In the meantime, I still have the odd planet or moon to finish mapping and scanning, so I'll be doing that first. Boooorrrrrring. So tune in next time for the return of the Duna SHEER MADNESS and its load of scientific loot.

[Geschosskopf]

EPISODE 12: The Great Probe Massacre!

A fair bit happened more or less at once on 2 main topics: probes and Duna. Rather than lump it all into 1 post, I'm splitting it up. This one is all about probes, Duna in the next one.

Anyway, last time the Duna SHEER MADNESS was homeward bound and 40 days out from Kerbin's SOI, so it was a good time to do some boring probe chores. KethSat Vall had just moved from Tylo to Pol so set to work there. During the 8 days it took to scan the tropics for kethane, the moon gave no sign of Azathothian tendencies.

Then the probe moved to Bop. This required waiting 7 days for a transfer window, 3 days for the trip, across, and another 8-day job mapping. It did this moon in polar orbit in an attempt to confirm rumors that Cthulhu had been spotted there before the last supernova.

No sign of Cthulhu but the boffins did notice a strange white spot near the north pole. Also, all this time the boffin's had been noticing a lack of bandwidth when trying to communicate with active missions. While they liked having space full of ships as a monument to their work, they decided all the probes that had outlived their usefulness had to go to clear up communications with more important stuff. Thus, it was decided to deorbit a scad of probes, beginning by sending KethSat Ike down to try to catch a glimpse of the white spot.

However, the probe saw nothing strange on the way down.

And then the Great Probe Massacre began. Next to go was the Laythe Probe, which was done with kethane and had already been replaced by a hi-res SCANsat.

Then they started at the sun and worked their way out. They were going to kill KethSat Moho next but discovered just in time it hadn't ever completed its mission so they skipped it for the time being and turned on the 4 probes at Eve. Low-res SCANsat Eve was no problem.

But Eve Probes 2, 3, and 4 were sitting on the surface. One had transmitted surface dirt data, one was floating in the ocean, and one had transmitted atmospheric data while parachuting. They were just instrument packages lacking even engines. What to do about them?

Fortunately, the boffins had the answer. They decided it was time to "demonstrate the power of this fully operational battle station." Sic transit probes.

Next to go was the obsolete low-res SCANsat at Kerbin. This had detected an anomaly nobody had ever visited so they decided to crash the probe there to see what it was:

Velly intellesting! Now the boffins must send something there to investigate these mysterious ruins.

Also on the chopping block were obsolete SCANsats Mun and Minmus. Only the Minmus probe proved particularly cinematographic.

Then it was the turn of KethSats Duna and Ike, and SCANsat Advanced Duna, which had moved on to Ike. Then KethSat and SCANsat Dres, and finally KethSat and SCANsat Advanced Eeloo, the latter of which is shown here:

Then it was back to KethSat Moho. By this time, it was 14 days until Duna SHEER MADNESS came home and the probe took most of this to scan Moho's tropics. The distribution wasn't too bad, all things considered.

And then, finally, the boffins crashed this probe, too. The only survivors were the SCANsat Advanced probes at Laythe and Vall, which were spared so they could map the rest of the moons. All told, 18 craft were decommissioned, including an experimental crew transfer vehicle in LKO to test its landing characteristics.

It was now only 4 days until Duna SHEER MADNESS arrived so that's where we'll pick up next time.

[Brotoro]

Fortunately, the boffins had the answer. They decided it was time to "demonstrate the power of this fully operational battle station." Sic transit probes.

I have smuggled out the secret plans for that mod… but now I can't find the droid they are hidden in.

[Daddy Cecil]

I have smuggled out the secret plans for that mod… but now I can't find the droid they are hidden in.

Must be shopped.

[Geschosskopf]

EPISODE LUCKY 13: Juggling Arrivals

This one is going to be a bit long. Apologies in advance. But at least there's some excitement.

4 days after the smoke had cleared from the Great Probe Massacre, Duna SHEER MADNESS, carrying 34 experiments and also test subjects Kadfrid and Johnden, duly entered Kerbin's SOI. The scientists could hardly restrain themselves as they eagerly sharpened their..... microscopes.

It quickly became apparent, however, that the boffins would have to divide their attention because the SKRAP Kethane Utility Rover of the 2nd Duna Flotilla was nearing its destination. In fact, the SHEER MADNESS would just barely pass its Pe before the other ship's SOI change.

Fortunately, while the SOI change itself is sort of critical for ensuring the desired orbit, there'd be plenty of time after that, before the SKRAP K-Ute got to its own Pe, to get the SHEER MADNESS wrapped up.

So Duna SHEER MADNESS tweaked its Pe to 35km and aerocaptured into the dawn.

This put it into a 1.4Mm elliptical orbit and it wouldn't get to Ap until just after the SKRAP K-Ute's SOI change.

So then it was time to get the SKRAP K-Ute into Duna's SOI and set a Pe-tweak reminder node at about Ike's orbit......

.....then jump back immediately to Duna SHEER MADNESS as it reached its Ap and tweak its Pe to 100km.

And thus the fancy footwork was accomplished without mishap. Now the boffins had 7 hours to devote to getting Duna SHEER MADNESS on the ground before having to go back to the SKRAP K-Ute. First thing was to circularize at 100km, then wait until KSC rotated into the daylight. At this point, the boffins remembered to make sure the lab section had enough fuel in its little de-orbit stage and some mono to separate, and cast it loose from the main tank and tug assembly.

The Recoverable Lab Module had a docking assembly on the nose and an orbital maneuvering stage on the back. They were attached to the lab itself with inwards-facing decouplers and had Sepratrons to pull themselves clear. The hope was the separation forces would be equal so that they wouldn't screw up the lab's trajectory after it did the de-orbit burn, because the lab wouldn't have a way to fix that later. This was one of the more critical operations of the entire mission and the scientists held their breath.

The separation wasn't as smooth as desired, with both end pieces spiraling off wildly. How far off would this throw the lab module off course? Only one way to find out.

The lab plummeted down over Reentry Mountains and seemed to be good for deflection, but what about range?

Opening the chutes was the final make-or-break point for the mission. Would they hold?

To everybody's relief, especially Hadfrid and Johnden who'd been locked in the lab since their excursions on Duna, the chutes worked fine and soon the lab was resting safely half a mile west of KSC. Not too bad a shot by the standards of the Kethane Travelling Circus. Hadfrid and Johnden were unable open the hatch so couldn't pose for a publicity shot.

And now the payoff for all this work and 34 returned experiments:

1482 points doesn't seem like a lot for 2 landings on Duna, but then again the 1st Duna Expedition had already gotten a about as much for all the orbits and Ike, so I guess this is a reasonable amount for what was left. And what grisly fate awaits Hadfrid and Johnden at the hands of the scientists? Perhaps we'll never know, because now we have to get back to Duna and the SKRAP K-Ute, which was rapidly falling towards its Pe and needed to make a tweak.

The boffins set it for an 11km orbit, their usual altitude for fast-arriving Duna ships. This brought the SKRAP K-Ute into fireworks territory....

.... and gave it an Ap of 700km on the other side. The rover then settled in to a 100km parking orbit to await the arrival of the rest of its flotilla, the next of which is due in about 3 days.

With this ship conveniently parked, the boffins had to decide what to do with the remains of the Duna SHEER MADNESS now in a 100km orbit at Kerbin. It was composed of now-obsolete B-Series MADNESS parts and it would be the same amount of work to send up the new C-Series to replace it as it would be to refuel the old ship. Besides, the Kerbsonian wanted another exhibit, the scientists refusing to give up the returned lab. Thus, the boffins decided to try to land the ship even though it had never been designed for it.

The main orange tank was now just dead weight but without it, the tug module had the thrust and delta-V to pull it off. Maybe. And they didn't want to leave the empty tank in orbit, so first the boffins deorbited the whole thing and then separated the tank to burn up while trying to land the tug. They did the separation before the burn was complete so the parts would come down fairly far apart.

Then the tug came down over Reentry Mountains in a bid to land near KSC, but not right at it in case landing proved impossible.

In an effort to make sure it had fuel at the end, the tug didn't burn much until very low. It had enough TWR, however, for the job and also, surprisingly, way more fuel than needed for the job. It slowed down so much while burning full throttle that it totally obscured itself in smoke just above the ground, which made the finally touchdown rather difficult.

But it managed to land OK on the plateau about 24 clicks west of KSC, where it could be retrieved easily. The Kerbsonian was elated to have an intact tug module that had been to Duna and back, and the boffins were glad to be done for the day. A few of them were somewhat stressed out.

Tune in next time for the arrival of the rest of the 2nd Duna Flotilla.

[Geschosskopf]

I have smuggled out the secret plans for that mod… but now I can't find the droid they are hidden in.

LOL! I wish somebody would make a mod for that .