The Kerbysseus lander is destined to be my home away from home as I journey to the Mun. In addition to the now standard capsule and mystery goo pods, the engineers have added a pair of materials science bays, and a pair of efficient, but low power rocket engines. They've also attached landing legs, more parachutes than seems quite right, and some solar panels to keep all the electronics running. There is a ladder running down the front so I can get back inside from the ground. And since I complained about the way the Kerbetheus rocket flexed and wobbled, they've bolted everything together with some big rods to keep it all together.

All of this sits on top of an Ikerbus I launcher. In spite of the name, I have no intention of getting anywhere near Kerbol.

The Ikerbus launcher is a stretched version of my Kerbytheus II launcher, with several enhancements.  The engineers really like that "come apart on purpose" concept, and this rocket will do it lots.  At launch, I'll have seven rockets firing: a central core, three rockets around that, and on the outside, three solid fuel boosters.  The last time I used one of those was years back when I put one in the back of my truck and crossed a dry lake in the desert faster than I really wanted to, but for this purpose they should work well.

The solid boosters will run dry and fall off first, and not long after the exterior liquid boosters will likewise run dry and fall off.  The engineers have arranged to that they will be dumping their fuel into the central core, keeping it topped up as they go, so that when they drop off, the central core will still have a full tank.  It will run that out pretty quick, and then the bottom half of it will drop off, leaving me with one final stage to get me headed to the Mun.  I'll drop that stage on approach to the Mun, and use the lander's rockets to get me down onto the Mun, then back up into space and back to Kerbin.

The flight controllers spent a lot of time in the planning room with balls and string, and lots of paper and pencils, and determined the best time for launch.  It will be quite the show, with the Mun just under the horizon in the middle of a dark night.

This time when I hit the launch button, the rocket fairly leaps off the pad, the Ikerbus-Kerbysseus might be a heavyweight at 86 tons, but the seven engines lift me into the air with 1,985 kilo-newtons of force, enough to lift more than twice that weight.

With all the rods and bars, and a few extra layers of duct tape, the rocket is quite stable beneath me as we lift into the skies of Kerbin.  Flight control has my course plotted out in detail for me for this trip; I keep the pointy end of the rocket straight up until 10 kilometers up, then I slowly turn east, coming to a 45 degree angle of attack as I pass 15 kilometers.  I throttle up during that turn, and begin to gather some serious speed.  

The launch stage has me on an arc that tops out around 75 kilometers over Kerbin.  The Kerbysseus IV flight flown by Bob Kerman leveled out and thrusted east for a while to go into orbit at this point of the flight, but I see the Mun rising over the horizon in front of me, and there is no time to waste orbiting Kerbin.  I burn out the last of the launch stage, then fire up the transfer stage.  Soon I can note another first in my log book, I'm officially the fastest Kerbal ever.  It's been about 12 minutes since launch when I shut down the engines, the flight controllers back at KSC confirm that I'm on a course to rendezvous with the Mun.

It's a long coast to the Mun, but as I'm finishing lunch the next day, the instruments notify me that I'm now officially in the Mun's sphere of influence, it's gravity is affecting me more than the gravity from distant Kerbin.  I use the last fuel in the transfer stage to get me into a Mun orbit.  It's not a very good orbit, the apoapsis is nearly 1 million kilometers above the Mun while the periapsis is a mere 6km over the east far side crater, but it's good enough for the purpose.

A few hours later, the Mun fills the view outside the capsule window.  I perform a quick EVA to take a good look, and plan my landing approach.  There is a nice flat spot on the far end of the massive east far side crater, not far past my periapsis, and that's where I'll try and land.

I'm flying over the Mun at about 600 meters per second as I approach my landing area, so I burn a good chunk of the lander fuel to cancel that out.  Soon, I'm floating 3 kilometers over my landing spot, with the slight gravity of the Mun gently pulling me down.  Despite the many times I crashed in the simulators back at KSC, it ends up being a simple matter to set down, I place the lander on the Mun with the gentlest of touches, and I've still got more than half my fuel left to get me home.

As I make my way down the ladder to the fine grey dust of the Mun, I review my prepared speech in my head. The boss was very firm that I'm not allowed to improvise this one.  "That's one small step for a Kerbal, and one giant leap for Kerbal kind."

The plaque reads "Jeb was here."

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