Kerbinian Earth Return Mars Intercept Transfer

August 15th, 1963; Baikonur Kosmodrone.

“Welcome everyone to this press conference, especially to our dear Minster of Information and Truth”, Gene began the conference, pointing to the official government delegation at the stage.

“First I would like to introduce today’s topic, that Kerbinia is in no way behind on the space race. As we saw a few days ago, the Illyriens have sent a ship to Mars, and are there first. Let me iterate that we got the the Moon first, and got to another planet, namely Venus, first”.

“In fact, when looking at the Illyrien craft Dawnthreader, it is very similar to our Discoverer craft, the Discoverer seems to be a bit larger on crew space, and only have a heat-shield for its re-entry pod. In fact, in half a year, an updated Discoverer will leave on an extended journey to visit both Venus and Mars in the same trip before returning to Earth”.

“The Discoverer missions are not our Mars programme though, to give you an overview of this, I would like to welcome Wernher to the stage to present our KERMIT programme, which is also already under construction for the next Mars launch window”.

As Gene turns to the side, Wernher enters the stage and takes the podium, going straight to his presentation immediately, “The Kerbinian Earth Return Mars Intercept Transfer vehicle is the Kerbinian Mars transit system starting from the next launch window to Mars”.

KERMIT vessel

“What you see here is the main ship intended for the planned regular schedule, and yes, the plan is regular. The long-term plan is to have two KERMIT vessels cycling between Earth and Mars, providing crew transfer windows every transfer window”.

“The first KERMIT vessel do have an added feature in the form of an emergency escape-pod, but otherwise future flights are intended to propulsive capture back into Earth orbit where a pod will be sent up to change crews. This pod adds a substantial weight, as it is not only designed to be able to re-enter Earths atmosphere at full speed, but is also designed to separate and manoeuvrer earlier, to allow a failing KERMIT-1 to not enter the atmosphere at all, but be ejected away”.

 

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“This also necessitates a larger than usual fuel resupply vessel in Mars orbit, which we’re handling by using a sister-ship to the KERMIT, delivering a large fuel load and also returning. Future refuelling will likely be handled by a disposable refueller also aerobraking at Mars – but the drive section of the initial refueller will be re-used for the KERMIT-2”.

“Speaking of re-use, the KERMITs are rated for up to 10 return trips, before the drive-section has to be replaced. The main section does not have a currently expected end of life, but will be evaluated on an ongoing basis”.

“With 3 advanced nuclear engines, and a full 10 of our new and updated ION engines, the ship has a great amount of capability. The nuclear engines gets the KERMIT into and out of orbit, with the ION engines providing extended burns in transit, and possibly minor orbital corrections – but they do take very long to do this, so it is only likely to be done when back at Earth, when it have months to complete a manoeuvrer”.

“The Mars transit itself require a very large amount of fuel though, and for this, the KERMITs are fitted with 4 drop-tanks of liquid hydrogen”.

KERMIT-1 with drop-tanks.

“These drop-tanks are jettisoned two at a time, after executing the two serial burns needed for the initial Mars injection. After that, the KERMIT proceeds with full tanks towards Mars, completing an extended burn with the ION engines, before using the nuclear engines again to capture at Mars. The ION engines are supplied by the nuclear reactors, with life support mainly drawing power from the solar panels”.

“At Mars, the tanker tops up the KERMIT, while it docks with the Mars Station One, readying it for the return trip. All in all, the components of the KERMIT-1 is the Drive Section, Hab section and Emergency pod”.

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“As the KERMIT is ready in Earth orbit, it is a nearly 400 T vessel – so we will be using our new Proton-B series of rockets extensively for the launches and future resupplies of the KERMIT vessels when in Earth orbit”.

As Wernher finishes, Gene joins him at the podium, explaining further “now, the KERMIT-1 will go to Mars and oversee final assembly of the Mars Station One. There it will deliver an experienced station crew from the KSS, while the command crew returns the KERMIT-1 to Earth. Yes, the ship supports cycling of 6 crew at a time”.

“The KERMIT-2 will be accompanied by exploration vessels to have crew visit the Martian moons, and we are currently developing a crewed lander as well to accompany this mission, beyond possible unmanned landers that the crew there can land at specific sites to explore further – and in the future, we are considering small outposts to allow landed crew to stay at the surface for extended periods of time”.

“Now, as we wrap up, are there any questions”, Gene asks the assembled reporters, who are all looking wide-eyes, much to the delight of the Minister of IT present on the stage.

Planes again?

January 3rd, 1962; Gene’s office, Baikonur Kosmodrone.

As Gene is finishing up some paperwork, Wernher arrives at his office for their planned strategy meeting about Low Earth Orbit transportation, and what the future focus of the programme should be here.

Gene: “Welcome Wernher, I hear that the students were very excited yesterday for your presentation as always”, Gene commented while smiling and putting his papers away.

Wernher: “Yes, always seem excited about large rockets though, so nothing new here. And I didn’t even go into how the same concepts has been used for an update of the Kosmos-series”, Wernher said with a smile, while sitting down at the desk.

Gene: “Well, that’s for another time, just as the whole Energia concept. For now, it’s the smaller LEO things, and especially related to the KSS. How are we progressing on the experimental spaceplane?”.

Wernher: “Well, we ran a number of simulations, and while we can easily make one, and get it up – the biggest hurdle is getting back”.

Gene: “The planes can’t stand the heat? I thought we had designed them to?”.

Wernher: “It’s not really a heat issue, while that is ultimately what is the direct cause of failure – it’s the stability. Keeping the planes stable for longer periods as needed to brake is just really really difficult – because unlike our capsules, they are not inherently stable in the right direction no matter what”.

Gene: “Well, difficulty is not something I can use as an argument to the powers that be, I need something much more substantial – they think we’re miracle workers who can do anything they ask after all”.

At Gene’s comment Wernher makes a low grumble, knowing perfectly well that it’s their good track record that’s to blame.

Wernher: “You can use money as an argument then Gene. We looked at the estimated costs of launching like that, and even getting to orbit empty the parts we end up disposing are more costly than our optimised rockets for KSS”.

Gene: “Oh? Money is something they really care about, so any argument here is gonna have a nice impact. What are the numbers?”.

Wernher: “Even if we disregard the million or so needed to develop the parts, it’s just much more expensive. The mk.1 Sparrow alone is 43.000”.

Gene: “But it can be reused indefinitely, right?”.

Wernher: “Yes, but launching it costs 20.000 in recoverable boosters and 40.000 in non-recoverable boosters. Bringing the total launch cost up to at least 50.000, assuming we can re-use the Sparrow completely. And while it can deliver as much as twice the number of kerbonauts in a single run, along with 20 % more supplies than our supply rocket, it’s a limited improvement”.

Gene: “So let’s make the most optimistic assumption of rapid changes in station crew and supplies. That’s 50.000 to do a single supply mission and 6 kerbonauts switched. What’s the current cost with rockets?”.

Wernher: “With both optimised to use the very cheap Proton-3, about 20.000 per launch – so it’ll cost about 60.000 for 2 crew launches and a single supply launch. In practice we do spend a bit less on the regular rockets, and the Sparrow will likely cost a bit extra – so all in all, we’re likely looking at the same price”.

Gene: “How did it get that far down? And that is certainly an argument, but it’s really close”.

Wernher: “True, but the flexibility is much greater, and the current system is much more reliable. There is just too much room for things to go wrong with a spaceplane. And before they consider money, consider the potential for loosing kerbonauts. A modern rocket might even turn out to be cheaper than the Proton-3 at some point as well, or more micro-optimization of especially the supply pod might be possible”.

Wernher: “As for the cost reduction, the Proton-3 is only around 20.000 in itself, with most of the rocket recovered. Only the second and orbital stage is not recovered, so we recover at least half of it. The transport we also recover the pod, which is the most expensive part here”.

Wernher: “And lastly there is the flexibility. If we need to resupply the station without changing the crew, the Sparrow is more than twice the launch cost – and we do resupply much more often than we change crew – the Sparrow can only compete in combined launches”.

Gene: “Alright, that seems to put the whole spaceplane concept off the books for me at least. Can’t say I’m unhappy about that, and I suspect Valentina and possibly Jebediah are going to be the only ones really disappointed”.

Wernher: “I do have another project – part for the military and Ministry, but a possible version for us to use to fly between the space centres. How would you like to cut maybe as much as 80 % off your flying time?”.

Gene: “I would love that, and Val might even volunteer to fly me everywhere – that is if we don’t send her off into space for a long time soon”.

Wernher: “Soon, perhaps, yes”.

As the meeting is over, Gene starts putting together the details of the economics to send to the other Ministry.

Moulding in green

January 2nd, 1962; Moskow Polytechnic University.

“Welcome to the new semester everyone”, the professor began as the students were quieting down. “This time, we have again managed to lure Wernher Kerman away from the grand national space centre, to come and give everyone a small preview of what the engineers there are working on as the newest in rocketry”, the professor said, while stepping aside on the podium, making room for Wernher who joined him.

“Yes, a new semester, and new times. This is the sixties, and one of the modern things today is the environment”. The mention of the environment seemed to make everyone in the room look more dubious, as they had all hoped for bigger and more powerful rockets.

Seeing their faces, Wernher smiled as he continued: “Which I will be combining today into the presentation of our update to the Proton-series of rockets. As a matter of fact, the entire line from 1 through to 5 is getting a b-variant. Even number 3, which never got an a-variant”.

As Wernher takes a sip of water, an image is placed unto the projector.

The new Proton-b variants, starting from the Proton-1b on the left through to Proton-5b on the right.

“As you can clearly see, this series has been designed as a whole, instead of one at a time like the previous iterations of the proton-series. Even the engines are two types all the way through, compared to the 3 different ones in the base and a-series”.

“And this is where the environment comes into play, as they’re all 100 percent hydrolox fuelled, making them essentially spew water only into the atmosphere. The tiniest exception is the retro-burning solid boosters that ensure that the core of the rocket falls back into the atmosphere, also keeping space clean”.

“For Proton-1b to Proton-4b, the design is remarkably similar. A single core sustainer stage with our brand new RS-25D engine that starts at launch, and propels the payload into orbit. Each rocket then have a variable number of boosters, each with 2 or 3 LR87 engines, of a new improved sustainer-variant”.

“As you see the number of boosters starts at 3 for the Proton-1b each with 2 engines, moving up to 4 on Proton-2b and Proton-3b, and finally 6 on the Proton-4b. On the Proton-4b, the number of engines on the booster increases to 3, in order to maintain the required TWR”.

“The Proton-5b is a bit different. We did need a second stage where we have our trusty J-2 engine. But on the main rocket, we also see some radical changes. It still has 6 boosters, but here the RS-25D is the engines driving the boosters, with a single one on each. The sustainer core has also switched engines to 8 LR87 engines instead – and while there is a switch, this means the entire b-series of Proton rockets, except the 2nd stage of the Proton-5b, is limited to the same two main engines, simplifying logistics greatly”.

“Payload-wise they all fall within the existing proton-line, ranging from 10T to LEO for the Proton-1B placing it between the Proton-1a and the Proton-2 up to a massive 75T to LEO for the Proton-5b, exceeding the capacity of the massive Proton-5a, but still quite falling short of the capacities of the Kosmos-series”.

“So, in short, we have once again improved the Proton-series rockets immensely, while making the entire range of those launchers environmentally friendly. I believe that your tutors have some interesting design tasks for you all during the semester, and I will be helping them examine your solution”, Wernher ends his lecture, smiling to the assembled students.

“Now, professor Kerman will join me and it is time to take questions from everyone, both technical and about your future careers”.

The making of KSS

October 27th, 1959; Baikonur Kosmodrone.

“Welcome to today’s technical briefing everyone. I will begin simply by announcing the 3 month mark of KSS being live and manned, and then I will hand you over to Wernher to explain our long term plans for KSS, while you see the newly added Laboratory Module docking to the station”, Gene announced.

View from the Laboratory section docking kamera during docking.

“Thank you Gene”, Wernher began, “now as far as the plans for the station, those are permanent plans – we don’t intend to de-orbit the station any time soon, and we expect it to be manned constantly. As to the future plans, we now have all our plans finalized and in various stages of construction – but the final station should look like this”.

Blueprint of KSS as the end of phase-2 is planned.

“Besides additional power and cooling, you can also see the recyclers attached on the top and bottom of the Supply Module, along with the tool-kit on the side”.

“Opposite the SM, you see the newly added Laboratory Module, with two advanced laboratories to be staffed. Extending out from the LM is the Laboratory utilities, including a particle accelerator. Off the side of the LM, the Computer Core Module is attached”.

Split view of the modules of the KSS phase-2.

“What you don’t see here is the return transports, where the first one is attached off the Habitation Module”.

“We are of course considering various additions later, such as a medical bay, more laboratories, more crew space and so forth – possibly even a workshop with limited prototyping capacity – but all those things are off in the future at this point – they are still possible though, as you can see numerous available docking ports for additional modules”.

With the technical explanation out of the way, Wernher indicates that he is ready to take questions. The first reporter immediately puts up his hand.

“How many kerbonauts are you planning to have on the station?”

Smiling, Wernher begins his reply, “the permanent crew will be 9 in total. The station commander and her right hand man, Two engineers to maintain the station and five scientists working in the labs. The living quarters for now support a total of 12, allowing room for crew exchanges without it having to feel rushed – but the space and life support can in theory support as many as 30 kerbonauts at the same time”.

“But what if something goes wrong?”, another reporter asks.

“Then the engineers are there to fix it, under the diligent watch of the station commander or her deputy”, Wernher begins, “there is a reason why there are at least two in any position – both allowing 24/7 running of the station, but also to always have someone who knows what to do if things go wrong”.

“Of course, if worst comes to worst, they can evacuate the station. And even here, we have additional safety measure, as the 9 kerbonauts have a total of 4 pods, each holding 3 – so even if a pod malfunctions, there is enough to evacuate everyone safely”.

“Any other questions?”.

Travelling in green

August 19th, 1958, Baikonur Kosmodrone.

“Greetings everyone, and welcome to Baikonur. I know it’s been a while since you have all been here to see a launch, due to the focus on LEO from this site – so you often observe exciting new launches from Satish”.

“But today that is in for a change. As you can see, today I am not alone on the podium, with me to usher in yet another groundbreaking era in space launches in Greene Kerman, the director of the International Kerbinian Environmental Agency, Greene?”.

“Thank you Gene. Yes, today we are launching the rocket you can see on the pad in the background”.

Earth MapSat-2 on the Baikonur launchpad.

“This rocket represents several steps forward. Firstly, the increased resolution of the mapping satellite will give us better knowledge of the Earth, but it is so precise that we can use it to track ships and pollution at sea – in order to find and catch those opportunistic kapitalists who would pollute our dear planet, Gene?”.

“Thank you Greene. Now to launch this fine project we could have taken any existing launcher, but given the nature of the launch, it will debut our new environmentally friendly Proton-1a. You, you heard me right, an environmentally friendly launch vehicle. To explain how we managed that, I’ll turn you over to Wernher”.

“Thank you Gene, well the process is rather simple. Firstly both the first and second stages are Hydrolox engines – so the only fuel they’re burning is Hydrogen and Oxygen – essentially it’s spewing water out. We do sadly not have Hydrolox separatrons, but are looking into that – so it does unfortunately pollute very slightly”.

“As always, we’re also recovering, and re-using, the first stage – and are looking into the possibility of doing so with the second stage as well – both for the environment as well as limiting the amount of orbital debris, that especially the Illyriens seems to leave a lot of”.

“The upper stage do have a non-Hydrolox fuel, but that is only used in space. All in all, IKEA are quite impressed with our concept, and we’re planning to see how much of our regular launches can be moved to this new concept, Gene?”.

“Thank you Wernher. In other news, Valentina Kerman have transmitted a picture of her ship set down in the Lunar Seas. She is already on her way back, and while the lower section of the lander unfortunately tipped over when she launched, it is still intact with enough power generation and communications capacity that we can gather data from it in the long term”.

Lunar-2 lander, landed in the Lunar Seas (no water here).

“Well ladies and gentlemen, I that was it for today. Now we will all answer some questions, before the launch in 42 minutes”.

 

Later, in Gene’s office, after the launch, Gene and Wernher is meeting with a couple of officials from the Ministry of Information and Truth.

“And you’re sure no one suspects Director Kerman?”

“Yes, as both Wernher and I have explained, not even the Director of IKEA knows that the mapping satellite also has a system to gather further signals intelligence on the Illyriens. I still think we should have used the cover of it being to triangulate ship transmissions though – would have worked better”.

“Yes, well, the Ministry does not think so”, the men clad in black suits said knowingly, as they left Gene’s office”.

Return to the Moon

August 12th, 1958; Satish Dwahan.

Outside the Satish Dwahan launch site, Gene Kerman is standing on a podium, talking to the assembled reporters.

“Welcome everyone, for a special occasion here at the KSA. For the past year you’ve heard almost nothing beyond us building and sending up shorter missions around the Earth. Well, today I’m proud to announce that with the Kosmodrone finally being able to take over all things related to LEO, Satish have gone back to a more outward orientation”.

“You all reported the Mars launch earlier this month, but at that time, the rocket we’re launching today was already well under way. And no, this is not some probe to an exotic new location – though it is more back to exploration, it is also something we’ve done before. Today, Valentina Kerman is launching upon a new rocket, setting course for the Moon”.

While not a standardised rocket at this point, the Lunar-2 is much more thought through than the original Bear-1, and will likely see several launches towards the Moon before retirement – although the launcher capable of putting an impressive 150 tonnes into orbit may be continued”.

“Without further comment, I suggest we go see the launch, because they’re not waiting for us – so if you’re not all in place to take pictures, you’ll all miss it” Gene said, smiling.

At that comment, any questions that the reporters may have had were immediately quelled, to go see the launch.

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As the launch were over, several of Wernhers engineers were forced to answer technical questions from the reporters – including the revolutionary use of massive solid rocket boosters to help the massive vessel get off the ground, as opposed to doubling the engine numbers. As the reporters explained, only four F-1 engines were needed in the first stage, with the 8 boosters, providing the majority of the initial thrust actually.

No borders in space

August 8th, 1958; Baikonur Kosmodrone, Genes office.

Gene: “So Wernher, I hear the Ministry gave your people a hard time when you got back from the conference?”

Wernher: “Yes, the Ministry are a strange bunch. They didn’t mind the ideas for automated launches that we got from the Illyriens, but that we pointed out how our interstages have always been done, it is wrong?”

Gene: “I don’t get it either, we know the Illyriens have our designs anyway – so they’ve had access to the solution to their problem for years – apparently no one bothered checking.”

Wernher: “True, we also have some automation, but haven’t done much in that area lately. I suppose we should start looking into it? At least for our most common launches?”

Gene: “Possibly, though we may end up tailoring it to the newer series of rockets – little sense in doing it for things we’re not planning to use much anyway.”

Wernher: “True, but it won’t be in August – we’re looking at a handful of launches at least so for, so it’ll be a busy month. We may want to do the automation soon for the Proton-3 though – we’re sending up a lot of those.”

Gene: “True, but that one’s complicated due to the workings of the boosters, is it not?”

Wernher: “Yes, but if the Proton-1a is a mark of things to go, we may evolve a Proton-3a as well, that is more easily automated – or a Proton-2a may be enough, given the capacity increase of the Proton-1a over the Proton-1?”

Gene: “We’ll see. How about the Illyrien using Hydrolox engines now?”

Wernher: “Well, we’ve been using them for a while – ever since the Venus-3. And we do also have the J-2 plans, and have had them for a while – we’ve just not bothered prototyping it yet. But if you can spare the cash, it might be worth it to get a powerful engine capable of re-starting?”

Gene: “I’ll see about finding them Wernher. See you later.”

Who designed this?

December 25th, 1957; Baikonur Kosmodrone.

Gene was sitting at his desk, with Wernher and Bill in front of him, holding a smaller than usual engineering meeting.

“How could you make a mistake like this? The mistakes that are usually made are excusable, but this?”, Gene told them in a voice as calm as he could muster.

“Planned burn times that in total are nearly twice the time it usually takes to get a rocket into orbit – how could that even pass the initial design specs?”, Gene continued.

“If this continues we might as well close the program and leave space to the blasted Illyriens! We’re lucky that once again, our emergency procedures worked – it sometimes seems the only thing that works on a consistent basis – perhaps we should leave them out and have the engineers focus on the rockets instead?”, Gene went on, not allowing neither Bill, nor Wernher, to say anything.

“It’s almost fitting the scientist on Kerlab panicked, because he’d have had to take the emergency pod back now anyway. You are both dismissed, as I assume you have to go re-design the Proton-4 completely.”, Gene ended the conversation, making it clear that the two were to leave the office.

As they left, Gene leaned back, and began pondering the coming year. Perhaps after the station was operational and working, they should look at some more probes? There had to be some launch windows coming up soon.

Or perhaps a return to the Moon? That might lift spirits as well?

 

 

Year-end status:

About 1000 science still left, to be spent soon – making 2.289/day – all things costing less than 160 has been researched by now, I think I’ll be taking most nodes in part because.

Two operational VABs, with 14 and 9 BP/s respectively, but only about 47k funds to spend.

StageRecovery added (DR 3000 +500 per year until 5000) and Hab multiplier set to 4.

Moulding newer minds

February 4th, 1957; Moskow Polytechnic University.

As Wernher looked around the grand auditorium, thinking that it felt like only yesterday he were here, giving a lecture on the first three Proton rockets, two young female Kerbinians comes up to the podium giving him and apple, and telling him how much they enjoyed the presentation of the Bear-1 rocket – all the while looking wide-eyed as though they had just met a famous celebrity.

As the students all sit down, and become quiet, Wernher begins presentation.

“Greetings young students, again for some of you I can see, and welcome to another guest lecture to update you on our continued efforts at the Kerbinian Space Agency – to explore space and learn all we can about, well, everything really”.

“Today’s lecture will be about the further development of our Proton series, namely the two newest models, and we will end with a small surprise. Here you see the new rockets, compared to the old ones”.

Proton series of rockets, starting with Proton-1 on the left going up to Proton-5 on the right.

“As you can see, the still get progressively bigger, and indeed the Proton-4 and Proton-5 can take payloads of 30 and 50 tonnes to low Earth orbit respectively”.

“The Proton-5 was actually developed first of the two, as we have a large, and rather heavy, payload in the works. Though not nearly as heavy as the Bear-1 payload, it utilize the same configuration of four F-1 engines on its first stage producing an initial 27 MN of thrust, and indeed continues with the same single F-1 configuration of the second stage. It is consisting of smaller stages though, and no boosters”.

“At the very top, four brand new RD-0210 engines propel the payload fully into LEO. The fins are a newly added design choice, given the price of loosing such a rocket and payload, coupled with recent experiences regarding rocket stability during the early part of the first stage launch”.

As a student raises his hand and is acknowledged, he asks a question: “I’ve heard it that the Illyriens have a rocket that can lift 50 % more than the Proton-5, aren’t they ahead of us then?”.

“Of course not”, Wernher answers with a puzzled look, “that rocket is highly experimental with multiple sets of boosters – even though it has 50 % more lift capacity than our largest series-produced launcher, our experimental Bear-1 had 75 % more lifting capacity than theirs – and they use an obscene amount of main engines as well to do only a little more than half of what we can do with 8 engines and that includes the ones in our, only single set of, boosters”.

“Speaking of boosters, let’s turn to the Proton-4, a design where we consciously decided to keep it at a single F-1 engine in the first stage, necessitating a set of boosters with four E-1 engines, of the same type as used on the Proton-3. Unlike the boosters of the previous Proton-rockets, these are well designed, with rockets to ensure clean separation of the boosters after they’re expended – we’re even considering putting parachutes on them, to re-use them, or developing larger solid fuel boosters that may be cheaper in the long run”.

“The second stage of the Proton-4 obviously doesn’t need an F-1 engine, that would have been quite a waste, instead if has two LR105 engines, with the third stage putting the payload fully into orbit having a single LR105”.

As Wernher finishes the presentation of the Proton-4, another student ventures to raise his hand with a question, and after being prompted to proceed by Wernher, asks: “But why multiple stages sir? Why not just use an F-1 and all the fuel for that?”.

“Excellent question, and we could do that. It’s just not very efficient, and we would be able to launch less weight. The engine efficiency changes through the atmosphere, so we need different types of engines at launch and in space. And we could do with two stages, indeed earlier Proton-rockets still do, but once we get to the levels we are at, three is simply more efficient and flexible”.

“Remember that most of our engines can only ignite once – so it’s a matter of carefully timing the lengths of the engine burns to get into the correct orbit. Three engines like this also gives us a bit more leeway in the flight path”.

“Now, as we’re nearing the end, I believe I promised a surprise. Recent gains in technology and other developments are making us take a look at the early Proton-series rockets. Specifically we’re looking at an A-variant of Proton-1, that at least doubles the payload capacity without increasing the size – as well as an A-variant of Proton-2 and Proton-3 that replaces the boosters, while maintaining their lift capacity”.

“Your professors will all be handing you an assignment varying depending upon your classes, and will judge the technical merits on your projects along with KSA engineers. The winners will have a 3-year intern-ship at the KSA upon their graduation. And remember to look at the course-work, which includes not only our latest kerosene based rockets but also a few white papers on the initial liquid Hydrogen engines we’re currently developing. Please don’t try to use UDMH engines in the first two stages though, we prefer our employees live and healthy at the KSA”.

With that bit of news, the students completely forget about any questions they may still have had, and start talking amongst themselves eagerly about the sudden shift in their future prospects.

Science Bear fruit

End of January, 1957; Baikonur Kosmodrone.

As Gene Kerman leaves the podium after explaining that the press conference was called due to the unfounded Illyrien claims that the recent landing on the Moon was a completely premature thing, that was not tested at all, and needlessly endangered Jebediah – he hands things over to Wernher von Kerman to explain the technical details of the mission.

“As you can see from this initial image, the Bear-1 was truly a massive rocket. Here it is compared to a Proton-1, which we still use this day to put small payloads, and single kerbonaut pods, into low earth orbit.”

Proton-1 launcher next to the full Bear-1 rocket.

“As you can see, the Proton-1 is smaller than just the boosters of Bear-1, but moving beyond this, I will now go through the mission to explain why every aspect was well known and tested already. To make things more simple, I will be going through the mission backwards.”

“The last step is the return from the Moon, something that Valentina had accomplished on a previous mission. Knowing how much fuel it takes to make orbit, also lets us know how much fuel we needed to get back – so the return was already tested. Incidentally the command module turned out to have way too much fuel, as the return burn was planned taking the weight of the entire lander into account, when in fact it was left on the surface and in orbit respectively.”

“Before that, the challenge was to take off from the Moon and re-dock with the command module. Jebediah tested our intercept and docking procedures prior to launch. We know from previous landings on the Moon how much fuel it takes to get down – and with no atmosphere it’s the same to get up. We of course added a 10 % buffer of fuel here, just in case. As backup, we even had a RCS system that could technically manage the entire intercept and docking procedure.”

“But before intercepting and docking, we had to land – this had been done before with probes, and have both succeeded and failed on different occasions. To ensure our success here, we had built a brand new descent engine, one that could radically throttle down – all the way to 23 % thrust. While the lander still had a thrust to weight ration above one, firing the reaction control system retrograde put this below one. This way, we could aim the braking burn for completion a bit above the surface, and coast down to the surface using low thrust and the RCS system to maintain an exact descent speed.”

“This landing procedure allowed us to land at a mere 1.2 m/s, touching down so softly Jebediah could hardly feel it. Like the ascent stage, the landing stage had 10 % more fuel than we expected it to utilize. Both the descent and the ascent engine further made use of the same fuel mix, for increased flexibility. As Jebediah docked back in orbit, just below 5 % of the fuel were left – and the landing had even drawn a bit from the ascent stage, but not overly much, and we didn’t expect to utilize much of our ascent reserves.”

“The landing and the getting back to the command module were the most tricky parts of the mission, before that we had the Lunar orbit circularisation stage, which we’ve tried many times before, and was handled as a routine matter by the command module and its advanced AJ10 engine. The Trans Lunar Injection burn was also a routine, although the Bear-1 design had a separate LR-105 engine and fuel mix for this – which again had a 10 % reserve of fuel that weren’t utilized.”

“This merely left the orbital insertion from Earth, another operation that we have done many times, although never before have we placed a 130 tonnes payload into orbit. The first stage and boosters had a total of 8 F-1 engines combined, while the second stage doing the final orbital insertion had a single F-1 engine.”

“We are currently looking into a way to design future Lunar missions better, but that is going to require two things: Firstly we need more efficient engines for the upper stages of the rocket, and secondly we need it to be capable of at least limited restarts. That way we can use the same engines for circularisation around earth and the TLI burn and save the weight of lugging an entire extra engine into orbit. All in all, we expect that our next Lunar rocket will not be until we have developed these engines, and will be substantially lighter overall.”

With the presentation ended, Wernher left the podium to allow Gene to answer the various questions from the assembled reporters – most of which weren’t really of a technical nature either.