Takin' It Easy: Episode 5 -- Science! at Eve and Duna

[Geschosskopf]

EPISODE 1: Early Days

Since 0.25 came out, I've been playing a new career game. Because I'm utterly sick and tired of grinding out the tech tree, I decided this time to take advantage of 2 key new features of 0.25--difficulty settings and strategies--to make this all a lot less painful and repetitive. So, I chose Easy Mode, which gives 200% funds and science, although I did make it so buildings are destructable and Kerbals have permadeath (gotta have those ). Then, once I had enough in the bank to cover the set-up costs, I picked 2 strategies to further me along. One of them converted 30% of my Rep to Science!, the other converted 20% of my rep to cash. The idea was to avoid having to totally pillage Mun and Minmus for the umpteenth time, and to avoid repetition, while still having fun. And IMHO the above settings succeeded brilliantly. This so far has been the most enjoyable career I've played in a long time.

The fun was mosly provided by using the Fine Print and DMagic Orbital Science mods that both provide all sorts of very interesting contracts. These work out quite well IMHO, being well-suited to your current tech and financial positions. As a result, most of this game so far has been just doing contracts without me haivng to think up stuff do. I'm glad to see this because I hear Fine Print will become stock in the next update.

Besides the above mods, I also have SXT as my main "parts" mod, plus of course Karbonite and most of the other USI mods. I'm not using NEAR or FAR this time because, after much consideration, I've decided that imposing Earth-like atmospheres on KSP planets is absolutley the LEAST realistic option of all those available, physically impossible in that universe. However, I still build rockets like the atmosphere matters to some extent. I also toyed with the idea of using TAC Life Support just so I coiuld have self-sufficient MKS bases, but after some experimentation with the current incarnations, I decided that mod has gone off the rails and is way more trouble than it's worth. That being the case, I've reverted to my original headcannon of asserting that Kerbals hibernate most of the time so don't really need much life support (human-based systems also being absolutely the LEAST realistic option). And I'm using Antenna Range, plus various types of instrumentation (MJ, KAC, TAC Fuel Balancer, RCS Build Aid, Trajectories, etc.).

Anyway, on with the show....

---------------------------------------------------------------

Even with the game set up to speed the progress of Science! and to get rich quick, I still started with nothing. So there were the usual early missions of reaching LKO. But after that, I had the 1st 2 or 3 rows of the tech tree open, the contracts kicked in, and things started getting more interesting. The 1st noteworthy mission was to do an aerial survey of 5 points on the map near the southern cape of KSC's continent. At this point, I just barely had any airplane tech at all. And it looked like this:

This plane was mostly built with SXT parts (engine, 0.625m fuel tank, and cockpit). I hadn't yet invented the wheel but I did have some inflatable airbags from the USI Survivability Pack so I used them as landing gear, also with the idea they might be useful if the plane had to ditch for lack of fuel. It was a struggle to get this off the ground but it did manage it in about 1/2 the runway .

And this was the route. There were actually 2 contracts involved here, each with 3 points, although they shared 1 point so there were only 5 in total. In the pic above, the plane has already hit the 1st waypoint (red circle) and is right over the 2nd. The plane returned home with about 1/8 fuel remaining and landed safely, although the batteries and lights on the bottom got scraped off.

After this, I did several contracts to put probes into specific orbits at Kerbin, Mun, and Minmus. This actually started to clutter up the system but they paid well in cash and science. Here's a typical example (I forget where it was going):

I also had a contract to put a simple station in LKO.

After this, I had the contract to Explore Mun and with the 2.5m rocket parts already unlocked, I decided I'd send 3 Kerbals to do it right. My theory was that rep only seems to accumulate when you have Kerbals involved, so I figured 3 Kerbals would bring more rep than just 1. At least they'd all get experience, which I've heard is supposed to increase rep somehow. Not that I cared about my rep for itself, but because I had the strategies converting it to cash and Science! So here's my 1st Mun Lander in this game, a much more sophisticated and cool vehicle than what I've sent in the past in more grindy games .

And it got to Mun and back no problems, carrying Jeb, Bill, and Bob.

This has, so far, turned out to be my ONLY crewed Mun mission. Thank the Dark Gods, it hasn't been necessary to go again just to grind out Science! Yay for easy difficulty and strategies! .

By now I'd gotten a lot more airplane parts unlocked so could do aerial survey contracts that required higher altitudes. I picked 2 such contracts, 1 for 3 points out to sea west of the KSC continent and the other with 3 points in the vicinity of Airbase Island. And I built a turobjet-powered spy plane for the job:

Havne't done any more of that type of contract since. Instead, I was already working on Duna and Ike. In fact, my 1st Duna contract was to do a survey of Ike's magnetic field using DMagic instruments. And this had to be done VERY quickly. Fortunately, the current version of MJ now has a porkchop plot so you can easily go interplanetary whenever you want and pick your travel time, provided you're willing to spend the delta-V. Which I was because it was a fat contract, so the simple little probe screamed out heading that way. But then I realized I needed to be able to talk to it, so I had to create a Deep Space Satellite Relay Network.

With Antenna Range, this can be a pretty simple affair. What I did was put up 2 identical satellites in polar molniya orbits. They have Aps at 82Mm, just inside the edge of Kerbin's SOI, and Pes of 125km, so they spend most of their time far off Kerbin's orbtial plane. One goes nearly straight up, the other nearly straight down, and they're nearly 180^ out of phase so when one is at Ap, the other is at Pe. However, most of the time, both are far away. The probes have 2 dish antennae each and look like this:

The network itself looks like this (also showing 2 probes bound for the Duna system. The SCANsat is something I'm doing on my own initiative so has no deadline. Thus, it waited for the normal transfer window instead of leaving at the same time as the mag survey probe.

About this time, I decided I'd better get on with the Explore Minmus contract that had been gathering dust on my desk for a while. This involved sending the same ship that had done the MUn landing, modified only by replacing the solar panels with the RTGs I now had available. Again, Jeb, Bill, and Bob all made the trip.

As it turned out, I ended up sending a 2nd crewed lander to Minmus. While Jeb, Bill, and Bob were still en route, an interesting contract came up to investigate an anomaly on Minmus with various DMagic instruments under various conditions, so I recruited a new Kerbal with maximum bravery and stupidity both (name of Shelbry) to give it a try. He had very simplified lander with just the instruments needed for the mission, not bothering with pillaging the new biome he'd land in.

This mission turned out to be much trickier in practice than it seemed on paper. Certain of the instruments had to be used in flight over the target area, others on the ground right at it. And while most of the instruments just had to be in the general vicinity, the Anomaly Scan instrument had to be dead-nuts on. Plus it had to be on the ground.

All this was complicated by the Minmus Monolith being about 1.5km up in space the last few versions. Plus, it was on the dark side of Minmus at the time, plus the ground there is the Slopes biome. Thus, doing very short hops and trying to VTOL along to get the Anomaly Scanner close enough to make it happy nearly led to disaster several times. The incredibly brave, increadibly stupid Kerbal would have kept at it, however, until he either died in the attempt or ran out of fuel, had not Mission Control suddenly remembered that, thanks to KAS technology, the instrument could be backpacked around. So after 1 last hop that go within 1km of the spot directly under the hovering monolity, Mission Control ordered a halt and Shelbry dismounted the instrument and started hiking the hills with it.

This looked rather comical, partly due to the typical low-gravity antics, but mostly because the Anomaly Scanner has a small, spinning dish on it. This was right between Shelbry's shoulder blades so made him look like a clockwork Kerbal . Anyway, he eventually got close enough and completed the mission.

Shelbry also visited the site of Jeb, Bill, and Bob's landing to grab 1 data set they'd forgotten when they'd been there, then came home safely. Shortly thereafter, I got a contract to survey the magnetic field of Minmus, same sort of deal as the probe already en route to Duna. This contract requires getting into a very eccentric, very inclined orbit, using a couple of DMagic instruments at both Ap and Pe, and maintaining that orbit for a long time (in this case, 30 days). You can get the instrument science all on the 1st orbit but the contract won't complete for however long it takes. This required a fairly simple problem that looks like this. The Ike probe looks pretty much the same.

And finally, there was a contract to build a base on Minmus. This needed a docking port, an antenna, a source of power, a science lab, and housing for 8 Kerbals. Not a technical issue by this point (only the last row of the tree and a few less-important lower nodes remained). But it paid big in cash and science so naturally I did it. Who knows? I might end up using it myself at some point, so I gave it a few extra features out of my own pocket just in case .

Tune in very shortly for another episode .

Edited November 10, 2014 by Geschosskopf

[Geschosskopf]

EPISODE 2: Finishing the Tech Tree

See, I told you it wouldn't be long before another episode.

So now there were 2 probes en route to Duna and the magnetic survey probe doing its time at Minmus. While waiting for these eggs to hatch, the KTC naturally had to do a few things to stave off boredom and also to cogitate what grand, doomed project it would attempt this time around.. One of these side projects was to put a science lab station in Minmus orbit, not really a challenge but the payoff was irrestable. Again, it was a bit fancier than necessary in case I decide to foreclose on the mortgage and use it myself someday.

The next chore was to rendezvous with a Class A asteroid and get some Science! from an array of different instruments. This was something of a rush job and the only Class A asteroid in the neighborhood was going to pass through the Kerbin system highly inclined and retrograde at the distance of Minmus, with which it would have an encounter on its way out. So the KTC cobbled together a small, cheap ship to go give the thing a look. The asteroid required a bit of finagling to rendezvous with.

But it all worked out and Jeb got to name the rock after himself. There was some thought of bringing it home or make it crash into Minmus, but because nobody was paying for that this time, the KTC decided to let it go to see if it would ever rendezvous with Kerbin again.

Also, there was another contract to build a Mun base, which was put in the East Farside Crater.

At this point, the hard-hearted bastards running the KTC decided finally to accept the task of rescuing some hapless Kerbal from orbit. Not because they cared at all about him (they'd been ignoring this contract for a long time already), but to test out the new USI DERP lifeboat pod. This is an inflatable pod with a built-in RCS-burning motor and parachute, which can be radially attached to a ship to provide a way to get down in a hurry if needed. So the KTC built a small rocket, stuck one of these on top, and went after the stranded Kerbal. The idea was to get the Kerbal in the lifeboat and send him down that way, while the rest of the rocket landed under probe control to save money. Amazingly, this all worked pretty well, and the DERP might be featured on other ships in the future.

Then everybody took a week off while the Ike Magnetic Surveyor finished its trip to Duna. Upon arrival, the plan was to aerocapture with an Ap crossing Ike's orbit. A new technology called the Trajectories Mod had been developed to reduce the need for repeated "simulations" (F5, tweak Pe, try it, F9, tweak Pe, repeat) of aerocaptures. While this had proven its worth already in enabling landing nearer to KSC than the usual standards of the KTC were up to, this was going to be its first real test. The boffins carefully tweaked the inbound probe's Pe until the predicted results after the atmospheric pass showed what they wanted, and gave it a try.

And sure enough, it worked as advertised and the probe came out of Duna's atmosphere...

...exactly on the predicted path! I LOVE THIS MOD!

The way this mod works, the red part is where you're in the atmosphere and the white part is what that will do to you. As you can see above, the probe isn't quite out of the atmosphere yet so its orbit isn't quite on the white line, but it was by the time the probe got to the end of the red. This mod also shows where you'll hit the ground on re-entry, a great help in spot landings, and works with stock, FAR, and NEAR atmospheres.

Anyway, the Ike Magnetic Surveyor encountered Ike after 1 orbit of Duna, tweaked its path to get into an 80^ inclined orbit, and captured into the requred eccentricity. Then it ran its instruments high and low, and now all that remains is to sit there for 53 more days to complete the contract.

However, the science it sent back, plus the completion of the Minmus Magnetic Survey (which finally happened just as the Ike probe was entering the Duna system) provided enough Science! to finish out the tech tree. And the KTC by now had over $9 MILLION in the bank, enough to fund some really ambitious projects . If only I could think of something to spend this money on....

Still, the completion of the tech tree called for a change in KTC strategy. Science! no longer mattered so the initial strategies that converted 1/2 of reputation into cash and Science! had to go. Cash was still important and rep was, too. So, the KTC switched to strategies that converted 50% of Science! to reputation and 30% to cash, keeping a small nestegg of 20% Science! in case of additions to the tech tree in the future. At this point, the KTC's reputation is a bit over 500 and the best contracts it gets are 2 stars, so the hope is to build up rep to get some 3-star contracts while remaining filthy rich.

Still, some of these 2-star contracts are pretty cool at this point. For instance, the KTC just accepted one to get some Science! at and just above Duna's north pole. For this mission, the boffins designed a strange little rover. A simple lander would have been sufficient but the KTC has never been to Duna's north pole so decided to send a rover to give it a good look.

The contract requires using a Goo, a thermometer, and a barometer in flight over the pole, then use the Bio-Drill and Laser Sensor on the ground there. And only DMagic parts can be used, not the stock ones of the same type. And the only DMagic Goo, thermometer, and barometer are in Universal Storage wedges, while the drill and laser are not. So the boffins mounted the wedges like headlight eyebrows

Tne new MJ porkchop plotter made it easy to send this thing off immediately (for 1300m/s) instead of having to wait for the usual window. It went off in this snazzy little lifter mostly made of SXT parts and using the new, light-weight version of the Poodle as the transfer engine.

One of the fruits of finishing off the tech tree was the acquisition of the TAC Self-Destruct mechanism. This can be tied into staging to annihilate your spent boosters rather than leaving them cluttering up LKO .

Note there are also some attached to the fairing and transfer stage to keep Duna's orbit clean, too. TAC Self-Destruct is my favoritest mod ever, even better than Trajectories and KAC. Not only is it great for removing trash (and making launches more entertaining), but you can also use KAS to have EVA Kerbals attach demo charges to anything you don't want any more, including other Kerbals

So, here's how things stand now (about Y1D80):

Kerbin and its moons are cluttered up with probes, bases, and stations all built for contract. The Ike Magnetic Surveyor is serving out its term in Ike orbit, SCANsat Duna is approaching its destination, the Duna Polar Rover is just getting underway, and Jeb's asteroid has just left the Kerbin system en route to parts unknown. The KTC has a lot of money in the bank and is considering various options for spending it. Tune in next time when maybe we'll get into using some Karbonite finally .

Edited November 3, 2014 by Geschosskopf

[Geschosskopf]

EPISODE 3: Off to Dres and Eve

When we left the KTC, they were celebrating having finished re-inventing everything again and that they had $9M in the bank, and wondering what they would do with it all. But before they could put their plans into operation, SCANsat Duna finally arrived at its target. And once again, the new Trajectories technology showed its worth in allowing 1-shot capturing into the desired orbit. More or less. The post-aerobrake path prediction doesn't show an Ap altitude so you have to eyeball that, but the KTC has been to Duna so many times that this is no problem.

In the background, you can see the Ike Magnetic Surveyor still going round and round serving out its time on station.

No matter how many times the KTC has been to Duna,, they still like its appearance more than most places. Probably because it reminds the boffins of the pool table in the break room, with Duna being #13 and Ike being #8 .

So SCANsat Duna set to work, using the Karbonite scanner, then the biome scanner, and finally the high-res radar, each of which works best at a different altitude. This made the whole job take over a week and before it was over, it was time to spend some money. The boffins had decided that this time they would sended a crewed expedition to Dres just to be different. This expedition consisted of 2 ships, SCANsat Dres and a lander packing all the scientific instruments. Here's the SCANsat on the pad.

Under the fairing it's just the standard girder studded with instruments on a probe core on a rocket big enough (hopefully) for the job. The single-stage lifter is SXT.

The lander was a more complicated affair and required a rather big rocket, including an SXT 5m Soviet N1-style lower stage.

One of the more recent inventions was the TAC Self-Destruct charge, which eliminates spent boosters in a gratifying explosiong. So many people angst over space junk and recovering the money spent on boosters, but I've never cared about either. So I might as well blow up my boosters to get 1 final use out of them .

The lander itself looked like this. It consisted of a cupola, a Universal Storage ring full of Science! parts, some DMagic Science! parts stuck on the outside, and a 2-seat SXT version of the Hitchhiker, all powered by 2 LV-Ns. The nukes would land on Dres, take off again, and return to Kerbin, where the 2 big RealChutes would bring it safely to the ground. All this is sitting atop a 3.5m LFO transfer stage powered by an SXT upper stage engine very useful for such things and also heavy landers.

Sheldrin Kerbin, he of the maximum bravery and stupidity who did the perilous Minmus anomaly mission, was selected to fly it. He'll be by himself for a couple of years, the extra space in the 2-seat "Half-Hiker" being assumed to be his DVD collection.

Meanwhile, SCANsat Duna continued its mission. Besides doing all the mapping, it also snagged Science! from its magnetometer and RPWS sensor.

Eventually, it finished with Duna and got moved over to Ike to repeat the process. Instead of burning nearly 1000m/s to get equaltorial, then transfer, then get back equatorial at Ike, the boffins figured a way to lob the probe over the top and divebomb Ike. This cost only about 240m/s, plus a bit more to get the inclination and altitude at Ike.

All went according to plan and SCANsat Duna changed its name to SCANsat Ike.

While mapping Ike, the Ike Magnetic Surveyor finally served out its term, completing the last step of its contract. Thanks to the change of strategies implemented by the KTC while the mission was in progress, this contract completion paid way more than originally bargained for, both in cash and rep .

And before the job at Ike was done, it was time to send off the Eve flotilla which had been waiting in LKO for some time. This consisted of 5 ships of 2 types, all probes. 3 of the probes would land on Eve and looked like this:

1 probe will land on the dirt, 1 in the ocean, and 1 will sample data while hanging on its parachute. Each has all the Science! worth transmitting at least once.

The other 2 probes were SCANsats, 1 for Eve and 1 for Gilly. Pretty much standard things.

Sending this flotilla on its way used the new porkchop plot feature of MJ. This made the whole process a LOT less hectic. While keeping the same transfer delta-V plus or minus less than 5m/s, picking slightly different spots on the porkchop allows spacing the burns out by a few hours or even a day or 2. Thus, no more overlapping KAC alarms, in either doing the burns or when the flotilla leaves Kerbin's SOI. However, this will naturally increase the spacing of arrivals at the target. However, so far this hasn't been by so much as to cause inconvenience waiting on arrivals. Also, in the case of Eve, flotillas launched the old way, as close together as possible, arrived almost too close together. While I've never had 2 ships need to aerobrake there simultaneously, it's always been a near-run thing so some increased arrival spacing is welcome there. We'll soon see how that works out.

Anyway, it's now Day 160 of Year 1 since the Supernova of '25. Despite this flurry of launches, the new strategies converted the Science! gained by SCANsat Duna and the Ike Magnetic Surveyor into a profit over nearly $2M, and nearly doubled the KTC's previously rather mediocre reputation. The situation now looks like this:

The window for Jool is coming up soon and will see another batch of probes sent thither. In a couple of weeks, the Eve Flotilla will do its mid-course corrections, shortly followed by a window for Eeloo, for which there are some grandiose plans in work. Not long thereafter, the Duna Polar Rover will land and the Dres ships will arrive sometime early in Year 2.

Tune in next time for whatever ends up happening .

[Geschosskopf]

EPISODE 4: Off to Jool and Eeloo, and the MAD SCRAMBLE at Eve, Duna, and Kerbin

When last we left the KTC, a Jool launch window was fast approaching. So what they did was send 3 SCANsat probes to the system, each with hopefully enough fuel to do 2 targets. Nothing really special about these ships except they looked reasonably cool on the pad.

Soon after these launched, the 5 ships of the Eve Flotilla did their mid-course burns and then it was time to launch to Eeloo. Why Eeloo? Because a new spectrometer at the KSC observatory had recently noted the signature of an unknown material in the lower Kerbol atmosphere, which caused a search for it elsewhere in the system and Eeloo was the only other place noted. All sorts of wild theories about the properties of this new material, called Karborundum, had been going around the labs and the only way to settle the arguments once and for all was to find some and do tests on it. The surface of Eeloo being rather more accessible than the lower atmosphere of Kerbol, the boffins decided to send some probes out there, and thus the Eeloo Flotilla was born.

This consisted of another large SCANsat rocket nearly idential to those just sent to Jool, plus 2 more rockets carrying probe rovers, which looked like this:

The boffins took the opportunity of these launches to show off their growing expertise with TAC Self-Destruct modules .

The Eeloo Sniffer rivers themeselves looked as shown below. Karborundum never having shown up on any previous SCANsat missions, the boffins had to make a special instrument to detect it, and this unfortunately has a very short range. Thus, the need to drive over the surface for who knows how far? So 2 rovers will land far apart on Eeloo and drive in different directions looking for the stuff. When (if) they find any, they have a drill to collect it and tanks to put it in, then some instruments to run some tests on it. Then the boffins will know what the stuff is good for.

The transfer stage is SXT, including the 2.5m nuke on the back. At Eeloo, the rover will land on the radial engines, detach them, and set off on its quest.

And being as Eeloo has no atmosphere, there was no further need of the fairing on SCANsat Eeloo, so it ditched that to save a bit of weight on the trip, and so you can see what it looks like naked. The 3 Jool SCANsats are similar except they don't have the nose dish antenna, which will be used at Eeloo as a communications relay.

So at this point, Day 187 of Year 1 after the Supernova of '25, the KTC had 1 ship en route to Duna, 5 ships en route to Eve, 2 ships en route to Dres, and 3 ships en route to Eeloo. Note that things are about to get interesting with the arrival of the Duna Polar Rover mixed in with the arrival of the Eve Flotilla. But also note that the Eve Flotilla's arrivals are nicely spread out over a couple of (24-hr) days thanks to the Porkchop Plot. And then the 3 Jool ships needed their mid-course burns shortly after the arrival of the Eve Flotilla. Still, it looked like plenty of time between things so the boffins weren't too concerned.

They should have been. The ensuing week became known as the Mad Scramble in the lore of the KTC, a tale told by the few survivors to frighten new boffin recruits.

It all began innocently enough when SCANsat Eve entered Eve's SOI and tweaked its path to come in under the south pole at the desired 88^ inclination.

SCANsat Eve had enough time to get itself into the desired 252km orbit and start scanning but then something the boffins had ealier set in motion came back to bite them. Long ago, the KTC had agreed to a contract to gather Science! from a Class C asteroid, but in the rush of recent events it had been forgotten. Now default was looming but fortunately the boffins spotted a Class C that would pass conveniently near Kerbin so they quickly slapped together a rocket to go look at it. Unfortunately, this was happening during the arrival of the Eve Flotilla.

Still, nothing for it but to dive in. The boffins noted a new feature of MJ (or just noticed something that had been there for a whle) that allows launching to match the plane of a target object. Quickly figuring out how to use this, they shot Merlin, another Kerbal chosen for very high bravery and stupidity scores, up in the Asteroid Sniffer Mk 2 with it.

And then they got Merlin set up to intercept the passing rock.

No sooner was Merlin on his way than the 1st of the lander probes for Eve entered the SOI and tweaked itself to aerocapture into a low orbit. SCANsat Eve meanwhile continued running the 1st of its mapping chores in the background.

But before this probe could aerocapture, attention had to switch back to Duna where the Polar Rover needed some final trajectory tweaks prior to aerocapture.

By this point the 2nd Eve probe lander was entering the SOI and needed some attention.

No sonner had this happened then Merlin caught up with hsi asteroid, maneuvered up close, and began doing his Science! "in space near a Class C asteroid". One of the instruments specified by this contract was the DMagic Soil Moisture Sensor, which is the big antenna sticking out the top of the ship here.

Merlin then grappled the rock and did some more Science!, including using lasers to burn off some of its surface.

Mission accomplished, Merlin plotted a course for home to start when the asteroid reached its Pe. So there he sat for an hour or so, allowing the boffins to switch back to other irons in the fire.

By now the 2nd Eve probe lander was about to aerocapture so the boffins had to deal with that next.

They were able to get it captured and its Pe up out of the murk into a stable parking orbit before having to deal with something else.

Then it was time for Merlin to come home. He cast off from the asteroid, now named "Merlin's Rock", and burned retrograde.

Merlin also managed to capture into a safe parking orbit before anything else came up.

And then it was back to Duna for the aerocapture of the Polar Rover. This was one of the lowest, fastest aerocapture passes in KTC history so go way more flames than is usual in the thin Duna air.

The Duna Polar Rover successfully captured into a safe parking orbit in its turn, thereby reducing the number of ships still to be dealt with. Note Ike in the background with SCANsat Ike (nee Duna) and the Ike Magnetic Surveyor. Once things settle down a bit, the latter will attempt to move to Duna for a similar contract job there. But there's no rush on that so the boffins didn't dare mess with it at this time .

Then it was time to deal with SCANsat Gilly, just then entering Eve's SOI. It needed a nonaggressive aerocapture pass to leave its Ap out near Gilly's orbit.

Then the 3rd Eve probe lander aerocaptured. Pretty fireworks but sadly on the dark side of Eve, as were all ships in this flotilla.

And next, after its own aerocapture, SCANsat Gilly raised its Pe out of the atmosphere and then set up to match planes with Gilly.

By which time it was possible to bring the 3rd Eve probe into a low, circular orbit from which it will land, rather than park it in an elliptical orbit like the other 2.

Note above that the boffins had noticed some duplicate alarms on the list, and alarms remaining for ships that were known to be in safe parking orbits. So the boffins deleted the excess alarms and the list started to look a lot more manageable.

The last bit of the Mad Scramble involved doing the mid-course burns for the 3 Jool ships while finishing things up at Eve and Kerbin. Those burns being totally without interest, your Humble Narrator has refrained from including them here. But anyway, the Mad Scramble was now pretty much over. Only SCANsat Gilly had yet to reach its final position but it would be days before that happened, due to its slow speed out in the vicinity of Gilly, so the surviving boffins could now set about tying up loose ends. First, they put the other 2 Eve lander probes into their final orbits at 150km.

Then they turned Merlin's radio back on and heard him complaining about being stuck in a parking orbit the last couple of days. So they aimed to bring him down in the ocean to avoid the chance of his precious Science! rolling to destruction down a mountain.

Once Merlin was done with hsi deorbit burn, he punched the button to stage his engines off and nothing happened. It seems that in the rush to get him on his way, the boffins had forgotten to install a decoupler between the pod/Scinece! stuff and the fuel tank. And the chutes were only rated for the pod/Science! assembly, not the whole rocket. Things looked pretty bleak for Merlin and, even worse, for all the Science! he was returning instead of having transmitted, the loss of which would fail the contract. Several boffins died of strokes right there while others began composing their death haikus in preparation for ritual suicide.

However, the chutes proved capable of slowing the rocket down a lot, not quite enough for a safe landing but enough that the LV-Ns could handle the rest at the last moment. And thus all the precious Science1 was saved and Merlin, too, for what that's worth.

Merlin's haul gave the KTC's bank account a healthy shot in the arm. All the launches of rather large rockets at the beginning of this post had brought the balance down slightly below $10M but the money from this asteroid contract got it well above $11M again. And pretty soon, more money will flood in from the Eve Flotilla and the Duna Polar Rover.

But the surviving boffins had had enough for the time being. The Mad Scramble had killed about 1/2 the staff and left the rest bruised, bloody, and exhausted. It would be some time before they had to do anything again so they all trooped off to their favorite pub.

Tune in next time for adventures on Duna and Eve.

[Geschosskopf]

EPISODE 5: Science! at Eve and Duna

After the dust had settled from the recent Mad Scramble, the surviving boffins staggered back to work with severe hangovers and began to reap the fruits of their labors in the form of Science! and associated contracts at Eve and Duna. SCANsat Gilly was still between hither and yon slowly cruising toward its rendezvous so in the meantime the boffins decided to get the Eve probe landers down. There were 3 of these, unimaginatively named Sea, Air, and Land. The 1st to go down was Eve Probe Land, aimed at what appeared to be a relatively low, smooth, flat area.

Each of the Eve probe landers had chutes but those were mostly because they made a nice aerodynamic nosecone for launching on Kerbin. Nothing really needs a chute to land on Eve. The air is so thick that, despite the nearly 2x gravity, nothing reaches ground level going more than about 60m/s, so slow that pretty much a rocket of any TWR (even less than 1 on Eve) and a few hundred m/s delta-V, can make for a gentle landing.

Eve Probe Land gently floated down on what turned out to be a low, nearly smooth field of dunes. It then deployed all its instruments and transmitted its Science! back home. Among the instruments carried by the Eve probes were a couple of windmill-looking things. 1 was a weather station (not really, just pretending), the other was one of the lash-up short-range Karbonit/Karborundum sensors such as recently sent to Eeloo. Throughout KTC history, no Karbonite has ever showed up on orbital scans so this was an attempt to find some on the spot, as well as the mysterious Karborundum, which couldn't be seen from space due to Eve's thick atmosphere. But neither substance registered at this location.

Next to go down was Eve Probe Sea, aimed at a large lake/inland sea. Reentries at Eve are very different from Kerbin. You enter the atmosphere from orbit and pretty much drop straight down from there with hardly any horizontal travel.

Eve Probe Sea came down perfectly and bobbed in what was apparently liquid manganese. It did its normal science and also failed to find any Karbonite or Karborundum.

Finally, down came Eve Probe Air, which did its Science! while hanging from its parachute at fairly high altitude. It was aimed to come down about halfway between the other 2 probes, beside the crater you can see in the middle distance here.

On the way down through the air, it detected Karbonite. Then once on the ground, it picked up huges amounts of Karborundum. The boffins were overjoyed at this 1st direct measurement of Karborundum at its source, proving it really did exist. Sadly, the probe lacked any instruments to study it directly because nobody really thought the stuff would be here. Still, the location data might prove useful in the future. This probe came down on fairly high ground next to a crater, whereas the others were on low ground and in the sea. Perhaps more Korborundum can be found in similar locations?

The boffins then turned their attention to Duna. As it happened, at this time the orbital plane of the Ike Magnetic Surveyor was more or less alined with Duna so it was a good time to try moving it there for another magnetic survey.

This operation went smoothly with plenty of delta-V to spare, and after a few minor tweaks the Duna Magnetic Surveyor (nee Ike) was in an orbit meeting its contractual requirements.

It then settled in to monitor Duna's magnetic field for the next 75 days.

By this time, SCANsat Gilly had finally arrived on station and had begun its job of scanning the moon for resources while mapping its biomes and terrain.

The boffins also remembered that SCANsat Eve had a few more Science! instruments up its sleave so ran those tests, too. Here, SCANsat Eve deploys its soil moisture sensor and RPWS.

With these preliminaries out of the way, it was time for the main event--getting the Duna Polar Rover down. The contract was to gather surface data from the "North Pole" as well as some other data from the upper atmosphere on the way down. "North Pole" could be interpretted 2 ways. There is a North Pole biome (I'm using Custom Biomes), and there's the physical north pole. The KTC decided to try for the physical north pole just to be sure of satisfying the contract because it was now too late to send another ship to do the job right. So the Duna Polar Rover was aimed at the flattest-looking patch of ground closest to the physical north pole, which was at 88^ N.

Note that Duna's atmosphere is so thin that it really doesn't change a ballistic trajectory enouigh to notice.

The rover came down still in its fairing in case that was needed for heat shielding, but no flames ensued. Again, note the Poodle engine that was used as the transfer stage. This is definitely a viable option in 0.25 now that the engine weighs much less than before.

Once slowed sufficiently, the Duna Polar Rover ditched its fairing and transfer stage, switched control to its attached MJ unit to get its navball oriented correctly, and finished the descent on its radial engines. After this rather tense sequence of events, the boffins fired off the Science! it needed to do high in the atmosphere.

Then the boffins used the onboard cameras to look at the terrain below. Duna's geographical north pole seems to be marked by a huge mountain at the junction of several converging ridges, valleys, and ley lines. Fortunately, the boffins had picked what appeared to be the best available place, on what now revealed itself to be a plateau just short of the peak.

The Duna Polar Rover landed safely on the legs attached to its radial tanks, then jettisoned the whole radial assemblies, which then exploded with TAC Self-Destruct charges, leaving the rover free to go about its business.

Once the smoke had cleared and the boffins had gotten tired of watching slow-motion replays of the explosions (about 1/2 hour later), the Duna Polar Rover turned north and started heading for the big spiky mountain on the north pole. The boffins named this mountain "Orthanc", which in Old Kerbish means "anomalous isolated polar mountain at the intersection of converging ridges and valleys".

At the start of the journey, the terrain was reasonably gentle. However, the boffins discovered that the rover had great difficulty steering on the icecap. In fact, steering with the wheels was totally ineffective--the rover just slid on in the same direction on the slick ice. Brake response was also understated although throttle worked just fine. However, the boffins discovered they could easily maneuver the rover via its ample supply of torgue (I have rover controls on KP4, KP6, KP8, KP5).

As the Duna Polar Rover neared its destination, the terrain became rougher but fortunately, a ley line seemed to lead to a valley in the converging ridges, which hopefully would take the rover to its destination.

The valley, however, proved to be a ledge on the shoulder of a deep chasm between it and the next ridge to the right. Fortunately, the ridge that had been blocking the way to the left died out at just this point so the Duna Polar Rover could detour to where the remains of the left ridge blocked the chasm and created a narrow bridge to the foot of Orthanc.

The shoulder the rover was on pinched out after a while, requiring the rover to contour-drive on the slope of the much-reduced left ridge. Due to the slick ice, this required crabbing uphill somewhat to counter the slide down into the chasm. In this area, the Duna Polar Rover came across a mysterious dark spot on the ground. What could it be? The boffins managed to stop the rover nearyby so they could observe this phenomenon for a while. It didn't take long to notice the dark spot moved across the ground over time, in the same way as the rover's shadow, and in fact the dark spot looked just like a shadow. But what could be casting this shadow? It had the same general shape as the boulders passed along the way but this boulder must be high up in the air. Could it be the long-lost "Magic Boulder" moved to Duna?

The boffins immediatley started looking through observational data from both SCANsat and Magnetic Surveyor probes. Using their 3D computer model of Duna, they backtracked from the rover's position along the line of sight to Kerbol hoping to catch a glimpse of whatever was casting the shadow by the rover. And they discovered another mystery. The line of sight took them through the ridge to the right of the rover, and on its other side they saw many more such disembodied boulder shadows. The shadow by the rover seemed to be coming from a boulder on the flank of a peak in the ridge behind the right-hand ridge (as viewed from the rover), sparkling in the sunlight and circled in the pick below. This shadow was being projected through a gap in the right-hand ridge, allowing it to reach the ground at the rover. Meanwhile, the other shadows on the far side of the ridges seemed to be coming from boulders strewn across the icecap to sunward.

The boffins were quite puzzled by this. If the boulders could cast shadows, why couldn't the ridges they sat on? Surely the Duna Polar Rover should be sitting in the shade of the right-hand ridge instead of enjoying sunlight with the sun below its local horizon? Ah, but this was all icecaps. Apparently Kerbol can shine straight through mountains of ice but the boulders, being actual rock, are opaque! Anyway, that's their theory and they're stickin' to it!

It was now not far to the foot of Orthanc, and the Duna Polar Rover soon arrived there and could go no further. The flank of Orthanc rose up sheer right beside the rover and ridges and immense canyons fanned out in all direction. The rover had reached 89^ 54' 02" North. It could have gone another dozen or 2 meters but this was the last good place to park.

So the boffins fired off the Core Drill and Laser on the rover and completed the contract, to the great satisfaction of the accountants.

All the Science! at Eve and Duna had brought in a very healthy profit and the KTC could now count nearly $16M in the bank. Even more grandiose projects were now possible .

Feeling very smug, the boffins took a few moments to enjoy the awe-inspiring vista they had discovered. The Magnetic Surveyor took this above-oblique shot of the Duna Polar Rover as it came by its periapsis.

The Magnetic Surveyor then snapped this shot as it climbed away to the south, when Ike was lined up with Orthanc. The topography at Duna's north pole is qute fascinating. Note the thick, stratified layers of dark and light ice to the left of the view compared to what appear to be the tire tracks of an ungodly huge rover to the right. Also note that the Duna Polar Rover is poised on the brink of what appears to be one of the tallest cliffs so far known in the Kerbol system.

Hmmm..... The rover's mission was complete. It was on top of a huge cliff. The temptation to have the rover do a "Thelma and Louise" was almost overwhelming. The boffins spent a boisterous half hour arguing about it, hurling staplers and 3-hole punches at each over over the ramparts of their cubicals. Eventually, however, the Head Boffin ruled that, enjoyable as a "Thelma and Louise" ending to the mission would be, the rover might still be useful should any future geolocial team be sent to investigate the polar strata and giant tire tracks, so it would not be driven off the cliff.

This did not, however, stop the disappointed junior boffins from running a computer simulation of such an event, the better to arrange it should the Head Boffin ever reverse his decision.

http://youtu.be/EpaC6_8cG5E

Tune in next time for when the KTC figures out what to do next.

Edited November 10, 2014 by Geschosskopf
typos

[Tw1]

Liquid manganese? That's a new thought on Eve's ocean. A quick wolfram check suggests it would still be solid in Evian conditions, but maybe it's dissolved in all the other stuff...

Eve and Duna make such interesting contrasts. Those mountains look pretty dramatic, I'll have to schedule a landing somewhere near there myself some time. Though that is weird with the shadows. I recall seeing a similar thing near the Mun's south pole, though most of those ones were floating.

[Geschosskopf]

Liquid manganese? That's a new thought on Eve's ocean. A quick wolfram check suggests it would still be solid in Evian conditions, but maybe it's dissolved in all the other stuff...

Quite likely the latter. Manganese, or at least manganate compounds, are quite soluable. Potassium permanganate easily liquifies at ground level on Earth and I've used it many times to stain wood, especially maple, as it really brings out the grain. This was an old-school method of Amercian frontiersmen for finishing the stocks of their Kentucky rifiles. I've used it tbat way myself, plus on guitar necks and ash baseball bats, and also to add fake age to replica wooden objects like copies of Indian war clubs. Good stuff .

Eve and Duna make such interesting contrasts. Those mountains look pretty dramatic, I'll have to schedule a landing somewhere near there myself some time. Though that is weird with the shadows. I recall seeing a similar thing near the Mun's south pole, though most of those ones were floating.

If you go to Duna's north pole, land between about 45^ and 90^ west of the longitude of Ike's average position because that's by far the best approach to Orthanc. As in traversable by rovers and giving you the highest cliff to jump off. I lucked into that by picking my spot from the map view zoomed in as much as I could, looking for a reasonably flat area close to the pole. But the map view doesn't begin to show the complexity of the terrain there (at least with high detail) so I had no idea of what I was getting into.

The shadows are quite weird up there. The terrain itself casts no shadows except on itself at short distances, but not at long. Scatter and ships cast shadows however far it takes onto the 1st piece of terrain encountered by the line of sight, even if that terrain itself casts no distant shadow. With high terrain detail, I saw no floating boulders.

[dbmorpher]

Hah! I wish NASA had the budget for driving rovers off cliffs.

[Specialist290]

So far I'm liking what I'm seeing

I'm going to have to try out this Trajectories mod myself some day. I remember helping out with testing a similar plugin several months back (when I actually had the motivation and free time ), though that one never quite did get released publicly.

[Geschosskopf]

Hah! I wish NASA had the budget for driving rovers off cliffs.

Oh, they've got enough money for that. The real problem is that NASA has even easier difficulty settings than I'm using here. They don't play with a transmission cap on Science! so they keep on milking their rovers until the wheels fall off. Total gamey exploit .

So far I'm liking what I'm seeing

Thank you, sir! I try to do serious (or at least semi-serious) stuff in a non-serious way to amuse myself and hope others find it mildly entertaining as well.