February 13, 2014
Philmon Kerman, Every Kerbal's Hero
Ladies and gentlekerbs. Astronauts, engineers, scientists. Family. Dear friends all, gather round. Today I am here to tell you the story of my friend, Philmon Kerman.
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Others will tell you of his childhood, of his life as a young Kerbal, of his excellence as a son, husband, father. I will tell you of his life as an astronaut, as a member.. no, as an exemplar of the Royal Squirrel Patrol Space Force.
Philmon came to us in the very first class of recruit astronauts. He was already a household name at the time, no doubt many of you gathered here today had seen one of his performances with the Karnum & Kailey travelling show. I well remember watching him fired out of a cannon many years ago. But once Philmon saw the reports of our initial flights to the edge of space and beyond, he lost all interest in being launched out of cannons, or leaping motorcycles through rings of fire, or any of the other amazing things he'd been pleasing crowds with for years. Philmon caught what we call the "space bug," and there is no cure.
Philmon's first flight was the Kerbetheus VII mission.
The Kerbetheus VII looks like a primitive toy today, but at the time it was the cutting edge, the most powerful rocket we'd launched to date. Derived from the sub-orbital version that Bob, Bill, and myself had flown several times, this version had the extra power to put it into a stable low Kerbin orbit.
Philmon launched in the early dawn light, keeping his rocket on a clean, straight ascent, right down the line of the profile. He kept it on course, with his speed right on the target, and put his orbit right on the 22 degree inclination necessary for his mapping mission. With the rockets of that time, it was an impressive performance.
A few weeks later, Philmon was headed into space again, this time aboard the Ikerbus IV, headed for the midlands plateau of the Mun.
Again, Philmon launched at dawn, and kept his rocket right on the line with a picture-perfect ascent and Munar transfer. Then he brought his lander down right in the middle of his target landing area, a landing that made it look like he'd been doing this for years.
What really put his name up there in lights though, moving him from backup pilot to his role next to Bob, Bill and I was his return from the Mun. His ascent from the Mun was just as clean as the pre-plotted ascent from Kerbin, and he didn't just bring his capsule back to Kerbin, he did every burn with precision, used every drop of fuel with a miser's perfection, and put his entire lander down on the green a few hundred yards from the launch pad at KSC.
I won't bore you with his recent missions that you're all familiar with: the Kelfin rescue attempt to the Mun, or the recent Keptune and Kerbis & Klark intensive exploration trips to Minmus and the Mun. I will say that it was a pleasure and a privilege to work with Philmon on those missions.
Now, finally, I have to come to his final mission. Philmon was naturally the obvious pilot to work on the development of the Kassie lander that will be used to go down to the surface of Eve and come back up with Bill.
The Kassie lander is a beast, with dozens of stages, some lasting as little as five seconds. It's designed to shed weight at every opportunity, and the central core that will go into orbit has nothing it doesn't absolutely need. If it isn't absolutely critical to that part of the Kassie flight, then it isn't there. If it can be used for a short time then discarded, it will be. Even the landing gear is designed to fall off as soon as the lander is airborne, as shown in the picture above.
But with his usual flair, Philmon's first flight with the full Kassie lander went up to Kerbin orbit, leaving just before sunset, and he brought the mission return capsule down on the grass at KSC with his usual efficient style.
With the basic operation of the Kassie lander demonstrated, the next launch was to test the lander intended to put the full fueled lander into Kerbin orbit, and then to test that he could indeed pilot the full, massively heavy lander down to the surface with full tanks, as will have to be done on Eve.
I described the Kassie lander as a beast. There are no words to describe to full Kassie launcher stack. 1,785 tons of metal, composites, and fuel. Over 100 rocket engines of various types. So many small metal parts that the construction of two of these vehicles has caused a national shortage of small machined parts. So many reinforcing struts that the engineering plans for their placement and tensioning occupies several binders.
We still don't know what went wrong. All we know is that something on the inboard side came loose in the first second after ignition, and then the whole connection between the lander and the inboard launcher stacks failed. Even with thousands of thrust on his outboard side and nothing inboard, Philmon nearly pulled off a miracle. Up to the last second, he was calm, cool, in control. He nearly stabilized the spin, had the nose pointed into the sky, and was going to drop the launch stack to fly the lander clear, when a loose booster from the inboard stack impacted the lander.
Philmon did not survive the explosion. All Kerbin mourns the loss of a hero, and the Royal Squirrel Patrol Space Force mourns the loss of an exemplary pilot. We intend to commission monuments in his honor, one to be placed here at the KSC, and another to be placed on Eve when we land to retrieve Bill.
Kod speed, Philmon.
Posted by: TheSquirrelPatrol at
04:22 AM
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