These are the Tales of the Royal Squirrel Patrol Space Force
As I sit here in my command chair, my ears are filled with the creaks and bangs of the metal beast that has engulfed me, the gentle moan of the wind on my capsule, the occasional bang and rumble of pumps filling various tanks, and over it all, the chatter of the many engineers and flight controllers reporting over my headphones. My name is Jebediah Kerman, and I am about to fly into space. Or perhaps I’ll be blown into smithereens and scattered all over the coast here at the Kerbal Space Center. We’ll see.
My Kerbetheus capsule is the very best that the fine engineers of Kerlington Model Rockets and Paper Products, Inc. It was intended to be just used for the publicity photos, but the crew here at the Kerbal Space Center determined that it was the best product available, so here we are.
For this mission, the Kerbetheus capsule is mounted on a simple launch vehicle. I’m told this design was originally for delivering mail over medium distances. The mission profile calls for me to boost straight up, and after the fuel runs out, continue coasting all the way up to the edge of space. There, I’ll run a few experiments, and then I’ll fall back to Kerbin. Hopefully the parachute will keep me from experiencing that "sudden stop at the bottom†that makes falling so unpleasant.
Back at the command center, the last of the checks have been cleared, and none of them bounced. I slide the throttle forward to "maximum safe power†and then settle back into the chair, checking my harness one more time. My right hand rests over the launch button, and my left hand sits on the abort handle. We are go for launch in 10…9…8…7… oh why not, LAUNCH!
With a roar that scares the feathers off every bird near the Kerbal Space Center, I lift off the pad, blasting into the air on a pillar of flames.
The engines carry me around 30 kilometers into the air, then with a pop and a hiss, cut out, leaving me floating against my harness in the sudden quiet. While the capsule continues to rise on it's momentum, I reach for the science console. Attached to the outside of my capsule are two containers of "Mystery Goo." The scientists are highly curious to see what it will do in this new environment. I take observations from the first container while we're still rising, then at the peak of our flight, as my breakfast tries to keep rising in the momentary weightlessness, I take the observations from the second container.
Now the capsule is falling, and the brief quiet ends with a growing rush of air against the capsule. The stability system proves unable to match the buffeting of the wind, and soon after that my breakfast travels through my throat and mouth a second time. I note for the log that the KSC hashbrowns actually taste better this way. As I'm sealing up the mess in my flight bag, there is an enormous bang above me, and the capsule jerks like the very hand of Kod has grabbed me to keep me from smacking into the ground. I realize that dealing with my breakfast had actually distracted me from wondering if I was going to splat. I note this in the log as well, it might prove useful on later flights.
A few minutes later, the capsule comes to rest gently in the grasslands a dozen kilometers west of the KSC. I open the hatch and step outside into the fresh air. Already I can see dust plumes in the distance as the recovery trucks come for me, but for now I stand alone next to my capsule, contemplating the fact that for the first time ever, a Kerbal has gone to the edge of space, then come safely back to Kerbin afterwards, and I am that Kerbal.
Posted by: TheSquirrelPatrol at
06:46 AM
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