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- Jul 31, 2009
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Kevitopia Aeronautical and Space Administration Log #1
After many days of research, development, minor victories, small success, great strides forward, rolls of duct tape, and catastrophic failures, mostly catastrophic failures though, KASA has finally developed an atmospheric craft capable of reliable continental flight!
We see below the flight log of the brave Captain Jebediah Kerman on the Lazarus's shakedown flight.
--Begin Captains Log--
00:00 - We have taxied out onto the runway and are prepared for launch. Awaiting final clearance from control, debris is still being cleared off the strip from previous failures. The copilot, Bill Kerman, has it in his head that we will not make it off the ground and will crash into the ocean. His fears are understandable seeing as this model features less duct tape and most notably fewer engines than the majority of KASA craft. I must say the deviation from the standard 9 engine, 134 duct tape roll design is a bit worrying, but I am assured we had our most competent scientists and engineers construct the craft. Due to that fact, I am confident that if our mission fails it will be in a colossal ball of flame rather than a simple dip in the drink.
00:00 - The debris has finished being cleared from the runway and we have been given the final go ahead by control. Engines are spinning up nicely at 30% power. Bob Kerman, the navigator, informs me that all systems are operational, the runway appears to be mostly undamaged, he has his abacus ready to calculate the heading, and most importantly the duct tape appears to be holding.
01:00 - Liftoff was a success! We just cleared at the edge of the runway and have begun our ascent to cruising speed and altitude. Our target is the continent on the other side of the large ocean spanning ahead of us, with any luck we have enough fuel to make it the whole way. One of the advantages of our design philosophies is that every single space possible is stuffed with fuel. In fact they had us drink some jet fuel immediately before we boarded so that several hours into the flight we can hopefully replenish our tanks a bit! No bit of space is wasted!
15:00 - We have reached cruising speed and altitude, and are approximately halfway to our destination. Looks like the extra fuel storage was unnecessary, we still have 2/3rds of our tanks full! Several minutes ago I thought that we had hit some particularly strong turbulence until I looked over and saw Bill asleep on the stick drooling all over the instruments. I had Bob take care of him and he is now laying in one of the drained fuel tanks to recover. The medical officers back at base kept muttering things about fumes and possible health hazards to this course of action, but ever since they stopped using duct tape as part of their treatment I stopped trusting their judgement.
21:00 - Land sighted! I can see the other continent through the windows now! It won't be long until we land, unfortunately I do see any structures on the map, and my landing location has been described as 'a grassy field'. Unfortunately the entirety of the continent, and in fact the planet, can be described as 'a grassy field'. I am informed that the terraforming boys are working on this with all urgency though.
23:00 - We are now over land, gear is down and all systems are go. A strange little red light is flashing next to my airspeed indicator though. Oh well, those things tend to flash for no reason anyway.
26:00 - We have landed safely on the adjacent continent from the KASA Space Center! I also found out what the blinking red light meant! Apparently it is inadvisable to land at 170m/s with the brakes on, no matter how soft the grass looks!
Will be sure to slow down a tad more before touching down and engaging brakes on the next flight, and glad to say that I'm one of the few Kerbal's to have a 'next flight' to look forward to! I'm sure you know the majority of KASA missions are one way! I hear I'm Captaining a Mun landing ASAP!
--End Captain's Log--
For anyone who thought this was interesting, the game I was playing is Kerbal Space Program. It is an open world sandbox game where you construct your own planes and rockets and fly them. It takes into account aerodynamics, physics, and gravity. The game is mostly a space simulator flying missions to Mun or Minmus (two moons that orbit Kerbin, the main planet), but it is possible to escape Kerbin's gravity and crash into the Sun at the center of your solar system. Unfortunately those are currently the only celestial bodies, but much more is planned for the game (it is only in version .15 at the moment) and it is being updated monthly (this last update added horizontal aircraft and a couple dozen new parts, I believe they are hoping to release docking/space stations in the next update, but that depends on whether they get them done in time or not). The game also features an active modding community who is constantly at work making new parts, models, modes, and tools.
http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/
If there is enough interest I will write a new Captains log for Jebediah's attempted Mun landing.
