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< welcome back, ~jumblesale >
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you have mail!

>

oh god.

> kmail

K M A I L
=========
subject                    | from
1) your recent performance | admin@ksp.gov.kb
2) report                  | coroner@ksp.gov.kb
3) RE: FW: re: Re: plums   | endorphant@tilde.town

> 1

oh god.

K M A I L
=========
from:    admin@ksp.gov.kb
subject: your recent performance

~jumblesale,

congratulations on the display yesterday!

we were all very impressed by the lights, colours and sounds.

looking forward to seeing what other missions you have planned.

love
- admin x

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>

huh. I guess the kerbals are a lot more sanguine about death than we are.

> n

from:    coroner@ksp.gov.kb
subject: report

subject:        ~alilja
cause of death: explosions

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> d

message deleted

K M A I L
=========
subject                  | from
1) RE: FW: re: Re: plums | endorphant@tilde.town

> 1

from:    endorphant@tilde.town
subject: RE: FW: re: Re: plums

THIS IS JUST TO SAY

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

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> D

message very deleted

goddamnit endorphant

sunrise at the space centre

we're not in too bad a situation. we're one crew member down but we fulfilled a bunch of contracts on the last flight. the lack of science was disappointing but there are other ways we can collect it. the first order of business though is going to be to recruit a scientist.

we've got 413,762 space bucks and our next hire will cost 103,600 so it makes sense not to lose too many of these guys. there's some diversity requirements in the kerbal union which means that the recruit's specialisation is tied to their name. when I asked the hr department for the algorithm which decides this they sent me back a 500 page document about how to identify inappropriate touching behaviour in the canteen so I still have no idea how it's determined.

anyway I put a few names by them and eventually hit on our next recruit:

~theanalyst

their name is kind of perfect for our first scientist and their page is pretty ok too. the weird contradiction of "it works ..unless you are seeing this message!" feels pretty suitable for the space project. the high stupidity will definitely be a boon when we propose future missions to them.

our mission for today is going to be getting cheap science without any of the risks which led to the performance yesterday. the nice thing about the space centre is they have no knowledge of any part of the planet, even the parts that the space centre has been constructed on. we're going to help them out with that today.

first thing we do is pay to get the construction crews in and do a bit of work on the crew accommodation. included in that is a free seminar about having the confidence to leave the craft and take a look around outside. apparently it was a little long-winded but now our crew are full of excitement for doing ground-based science which is going to be a massive help in the next part of our scheme.

accommodation before

accommodation after

we also wire some funds to the r&d labs so that they can get to work on manufacturing the science jr. this pod contains a bunch of different materials from the lower layers of the crust of Kerbin. exposing them to different environments should give some insight into how different materials will function in space and on other planets.

purchasing the science jr.

we slap together a really basic craft for doing our science experiments.

rundas I

this is the Rundas I - named for the Hittite god of hunt and good fortune. since we're going to be hunting science and could do with some good fortune it seems like an apropos name. alright ~theanalyst let's get out there and do some science.

our suite of science tests consists of the following:

  1. observe mystery goo
  2. observe materials bay
  3. crew report from inside the craft
  4. crew report from outside the craft

materials bay

yeah I got that feeling.

eva report

it's actually one of the least precarious situations I've put a kerbal in in the last two days.

science returns

we recover the cost of the craft and the science labs start to dissect the findings. there's no rest for ~theanalyst though as they're immediately required on the runway.

on the runway

we put the craft down and run through the same tests.

runway report

with all the basic tests done I want to see what happens when we introduce some of these instruments to the sea around the space centre. the Rundas has a flea rocket engine which gets separated before landing which should be enough to launch the rocket east into the sea. from there we'll run the tests, then bring ~theanalyst home for tea and some cake.

ok let's try and make this one a success. the pre-flight checks are of course extremely important.

  1. staging - looks good
  2. SAS - not available on this flight, ~theanalyst shouldn't have too many problems steering the thing into the massive ocean though

everything looks good, let's fire up the flea.

blastoff

the craft is surprisingly difficult to turn. I guess there's so much thrust coming from the flea that the reaction wheels in the command module can't help much with the turn. ~theanalyst wrestles with the controls and gets it away from over the space centre though.

over the sea

it looks like we've got just enough turn to put this down over the sea. the flea burns out and leaves us to follow our trajectory down. the parachute and rocket separation are set to the same stage so that they deploy at the same time.

separation

the craft drops carefully into the sea.

splashdown

yeah! zero fatalities. we run the suite of tests and ~theanalyst hops out onto the top of the craft to await pickup from the Kerbal rowboat fleet.

surfing

~theanalyst arrives back at the space centre only to find another Rundas craft sat on the launchpad. it's going to be a long day.

blastoff north

the craft lands in a pastoral meadow just north of the space centre. ~theanalyst disembarks to inspect the materials bay and check the landing site.

checking the materials bay

all of these launches result in enough science to tackle any of the first few contracts. we're down to only 194,000 space bucks so things are a little tight at the space centre and we'll definitely want to do some of the more expensive contracts to get some money in.

available contracts

I leave the decision to the town.

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