Postwar Unified Nation of Kerbania (P.U.N.K.) Kerbanian Space Eploitation Agency

[KerbinLightning]

Welcome to the Kerbanian Space Exploitation Agency (KSEA)

I plan to cover the day by day timeline of the Space Exploration Arm of the Postwar Unified Nation of Kerbania (P.U.N.K) as they turn their sights to the skies.

I have a rather large backstory that I developed. Most posts should be a quick summary of one mission with screenshots and/or an update on industry developments.

I plan to make a post updating each day of Kerbal time on the development in the Kerbal space industry and or the mission progress of any new or ongoing KSEA missions.

First some Housekeeping:

KSP 0.23.5 Career Mode

My somewhat usual host of mods that I am familar with: Deadly Reentry, FAR, MechJeb, Procedural Fairings, Remotetech.

Mods I have installed and may play with if it strikes me, but should also be easily ignored by just not using them at all if I choose:

Kethane, Kerbin Interstellar.

Please give me any input you have as a I go along and if anyone would like to try and help me create a KSEA/PUNK flag I would be ecstatic.

Finally, Disclaimer: I am writing this off the cuff and not making more than one proofreading pass. If I make any grammar or spelling errors. (And by that I mean when, not if.) If you would send me the corrections by PM instead of cluttering up the discussion thread with them it would be greatly appreciated. I'll even give you credit for the corrections/editing if you want.

[KerbinLightning]

The Kerbin Day lasts only 6 hours and a Kerbin year is only 426 Kerbin Days; the average lifespan of a healthy Kerbal precluding all non-disease related deaths is roughly 110 Kerbin years (leaving them with a lifespan of only 32 Human years.) However, due to the low value placed they often place on their short lives and their very focused one track minded intelligence, the actual average life span for Kerbins is only 87 Kerbin years. This is not to say that Kerbins don't value their lives but rather they value knowledge and principles more.

About their intelligence... Kerbins are a wildly intelligent race (mean IQ of 160 threshold for what they consider mental ******ation is 130 and below), however, their intelligence is framed by their short lives. They experience a very rapid mental development but have only a short time to gain wisdom from life experiences. This has lead to a peculiar technological progression as the Kerbins often solve problems the hard way centuries before they discover an elemental solution.

For example the Kerbin's use Maglev rail technology for ground transportation as they have not yet discovered the wheel. They use rocket powered lifting platforms to fly but have yet to understand the concept of lift, and believed that ascending above roughly 50,000m would result in a collision with the "Cosmic Wallpaper" a term that is used to describe the Sun, Stars and Mün. As such the Kerbins occupy a strange distinction in simultaneously being a very technologically advanced yet technologically backward species.

Another large consequence of the Kerbins' extreme intelligence has been difficulty with communication; each child Kerbin often fully invents their own language in infancy as well as learning each of their parent's personal languages, their family language, and one of their country's primary regional languages. This occurs early in the first 12 or so Kerbin years of life after which language learning becomes much more difficult similar to the way it is in humans. Kerbins are still able to learn languages quite well as an adult but the sheer number of languages found on Kerbin and the often huge variation between them causes great difficulties.

The highly segregated nature of Kerbin language led to a great many wars of the history of Kerbinkind. Leading up to the events described here, the Kerbins had found themselves locked in a 130 Kerbin Year (38 Human Year) Kerbinwide War.

The invention of radio communications 42 years into the world had greatly increased the quality of Kerbin communication and started reducing the significant language barrier. By year 122 of the war, as a result of this increased communication and ongoing military conquests, the Kerbins slowly formed into three large superpowers along with a small number of smaller semi-independent countries each of whom had some sort of alliance with one of the superpowers. At this point public interest in the war was beginning to drop and many younger Kerbins hadn't been alive when the war started and had no appreciation for why they should be fighting.

It was at this time around year 129 of the war that a Kerbin by the name of Lippershey Kerman of the Halo (pronounced aah-loe) superpower invented the telescope. (Yes though they had advanced missile technology, computers, and radio communications they missed something as simple as this for that long.) Lippershey, weeks afterwards was using his telescope to demonstrate to a group of Generals how his invention could be of use to spy on enemy movements both in daytime and nighttime settings. When the time came for the night demonstration everything was going well but when one of the Generals was looking through the telescope he was bumped into by one of his aids causing him to point the scope skyward. The General let out a "Waaaaooooowww" as he looked at the far greater number of stars than he was used to seeing and swung the telescope through the sky to rest on the Mün. He excitedly had everyone come look and many exclaims of "Waaaaooooowww" where heard. One General, General Jool Kerman decided to point at a particularly bright star in the sky and was absolutely floored to find it was actually quite green and looked and had swirling shapes over its surface as well as being a discernible round shape and not a single point of light. The meeting was quickly adjourned as the generals rushed to tell the President of their findings.

The President of Halo, Duna Kerman, upon hearing of the telescope and the things that were seen in the sky quickly had several top scientists put on the project of discovering more and appointed Lippershey Kerman to develop a more powerful version of his telescope. After several months and with the help of a more powerful telescope the scientists came to the conclusion that Kerbin was not the center of the universe and that it in fact was circling the Sun along with other "planets" including the one they named Jool after General Jool, and Duna named after President Duna.

As word of these new discoveries leaked to the general public and the other superpowers, demand for telescopes shot through the roof overnight. From small civilian use up to building sized scientific telescopes, every single Kerbin individual, business, and government organization had to have a telescope. The only industry that could produce parts to the tolerance necessary for large telescopes was the defense industry. Telescopes where in such high demand that profit margins on telescopes where 10 times the profit margins on weapons systems. As such, most defense industry companies ceased weapons production altogether to focus on telescope production.

Thus, with political and societal interests focused solely on the heavens and weapons no longer readily available, the Kerbinwide War ended with a whimper as soldiers everywhere either ran out of weapons or where too busy looking through their telescopes to fight in the first place.

Never before had one single discovery so excited every Kerbin in such a universal way. Every Kerbin alive could agree that it seemed their manifest destiny to move out and conquer this new universe they now saw before them. In wake of this public sentiment the remaining nations joined themselves together under a new government the Postwar Unified Nation of Kerbania (P.U.N.K) with the charter that a full 15% of all tax revenue would be devoted solely to space exploitation. The agency within PUNK devoted to this task was the Kerbanian Space Exploitation Agency (KSEA).

[KerbinLightning]

The Players:

KSEA - Government space exploration agency with unprecedented level of funding.

Tier 1 Contractors:

Kerlington Model Rockets and Paper Products Incorporated (Ticker: KMPI) - Kerlington started off as a humble paper products company in the Halo Nation prior to the KerbalWide War. During the War Kerlington was contracted to make Paper Mache mockups of weapons for trade show displays. As their clients became increasingly swamped with demand, Kerlington found that they began to request that Kerlington produce their initial production mockups and eventually their first prototypes of each design. Kerlington soon proved to be able to produce full production models of weapon systems as an alternate production line at less cost than the original contractor. Post KerbalWideWar Kerlington Used their immense cash reserves to hire away some of their former employers best engineers and have established themselves as the leader in manned (Kerbanned?) space flight.

Current Products-

Kerlington serves as the worlds #1 Technology Integrator combining solutions from multiple companies as one cohesive system.

Mk1 Command Pod Blk1- Equipped with a Mk16 Found Lying by the Side of the Road Parachute and an Ionic Protonic Communotron 16, The MK1 BLK1 is the world's premier manned space flight vehicle.

Jebidiah Kerman's Junkyard and Spaceship Products Corporation (Ticker: JUNK) - Founded by Jebediah Kerman the 1st, great grandfather of renowned Kerbonaut Jebidiah Kerman the 4th, Jeb's Junk&Space is the largest spacecraft design corporation on the planet. Established shortly after the beginning of the KWW, Jeb's Junkyard quickly grew to be the largest recycler of aerospace grade metals in (second world power). Following the great Telescope Market Crash , Jeb's Junk bought up the remainders of nearly bankrupt Kilzalot Corp and repurposed their liquid fueled missile technology for spaceflight.

Current Products-

Currently Renowned for their progress in liquid fueled engines, Jeb's Junk is the leader in both liquid fuel engines and liquid fuel tanks. Including such fine products as the LV-T30 engine and the FL-T200 Tank.

Found Lying by the Side of the Road (Ticker: ROAD) - Originally a salvage company of the (3rd superpower) government. FLbtSotR, or FoundLying as they are commonly nicknamed, was taken over in a hostile merger by (Sinister company), in attempt to save themselves from going out of business in a postwar Kerbin. (Sinister Company) took FoundLying as their new corporate identity as the name carried far more goodwill than (sinister company). Thanks to technologies gained from (sinister) in the merge, FoundLying is a world leader in the two contradicting categories of rapid unstoppable ascent and slow and safe descent.

Current Products-

Found Lying is still a leading salvage and recover company gaining 60% of its revenue from salvage.

Found Lying has recently been awarded a huge salvage and recovery contract by KSEA.

Found Lying Produced the RT-10 Solid Fuel Booster and the MK16 Parachute

SubContractors:

Maxo Construction Toys (Ticker: TOYS) - Maxo Construction Toys is a world leader in children's buildable toys. Including brands like Kuplo for toddlers, Klego for 10+, and Kerbinnex for 12+. Maxo's position in the Space industry is a mistake resulting from the attempted purchase of Ticker:LOG Linked Log Industries a producer of children's log cabin building toys. The low level clerk in charge of preparing the paperwork for the purchase mistakenly entered Ticker:LOC , on all the paperwork and no one caught the mistake through 6 layers of review. Logistical Connections a company that had been struggling to post a solid profit, Ticker:LOC, shareholders all voted yes on the merger when presented with their proxy vote as the price per share was 1.8X the current trading price. Maxo's CEO states that the company currently has no plans to divest of Logistical Connections but no longer has sufficient funds to proceed with the acquisition of Linked Log Industries.

Current Products-

Maxo's Logistical Division currently produces a series of structural aluminum spacecraft segments.

Ionic Protonic Electronics (Ticker: ION) - Ionic Protonic is the worldwide leader in radio communication. Ionic Protonic recieves just 0.23% of their revenue from Aerospace application.

Current Products- Ion's offering to the space industry currently consist of the Communotron 16 2,500km antenna.

Bobcat Industries (None - Private Corporation) - A startup founded by Bobcat Kerman, Bobcat looks to corner the market on orbital reentry heat shields and ablative surfacing products. In addition to their standalone shields bobcat also produces the ablative material used by Kerlington on their MK1 Command Pod.

Current Products-

Bobcat is the world's only producer of ablative heat shielding material. Bobcat produces its own electable heat shields as well as providing ablative material to Kerlington.

Mission 1:

Time: Year1,Day1,Hour1

Mission Name: Kercury 0.1

Personnel: Jebidiah Kerman

Capsule: Kerlington Mk1 Block 1

Launch Vehicle: None

Mission Objectives:

Test Mk1 Block1 Capsule on ground.

Test Sample Collection Methods

Test Ability to Transmit Data Using Communotron

Duration: 5m on ground

Objectives: 3x Success

Mission Report:

Launch Pad unavailable as it is still undergoing construction.

Crew report transmitted from module. Battery usage ~90% for one transmission. Future transmissions unlikely to be practical without increased battery capacity or increased transmission efficiency. Surface collection on KSC runway successful.

[KerbinLightning]

Industry Updates

Tier 1 Contractors:

Jebidiah Kerman's Junkyard and Spaceship Products Corporation (Ticker: JUNK) - Following the immense success of their FL-T200 series liquid fuel tank, Jeb's Junk has announced plans to offer two additional designer fuel tank sizes. The FL-T400 and FL-T100 are expected to available for your exploration needs very soon.

Found Lying by the Side of the Road (Ticker: ROAD) - FoundLying has been awarded a classified contract to develop a containment and observation device for some mysterious currently classified substance.

SubContractors:

New Contractor:

One Massive Blast Demolition Enterprises (Ticker: OMB) - One Massive Blast is one of the few top tier weapons manufacturers that have made a smooth and seamless transition into the postwar marketplace. OMB, now produces explosives primarily for civilian construction and demolition projects. OMB has recently been contracted by KSEA to provide explosive rocket stage separation devices. OMB has chosen to brand these as decouplers.

Current Products- OMB currently produces the TR-18A and produces the UP13 under the luxury decoupling brand "99th World"

Mission 2:

Time: Year1,Day3,Hour1

Mission Name: Kercury 0.2

Personnel: Bill Kerman

Capsule: Kerlington Mk1 Block 1

Launch Vehicle: None

Mission Objectives:

Test Mk1 Block1 Capsule on ground.

Test Sample Collection Methods

Test Ability to Transmit Data Using Communotron

Duration: 5m on ground

Objectives: 3x Success

Mission Report:

Mission goes smoothlysimilar to Mission 1. Crew report transmitted from module. Battery usage ~90% for one transmission, Battery availability still looks to be a major issue. Surface collection on KSC Launchpad successful.