StarDestroyer.Net BBS

Fall 1961

THE CAPE
Murca

"Okay...", Johnny von Braun murmured, still fighting his jet lag, "So we move on to the mission schedule for the spring...I'd like to do two manned Mercury launches, one with McCain and Kelly, another...how about OhJesus and Hardbeef? Sam, can we do that?"

Sam Francisco flipped through his notes with a certain slowness. He accompanied the Director to Stenchia for a while, and that week away from the nuts and bolts of THE CAPE resulted in him lagging a bit behind.

"Uh...let's just ask Wehrner, okay?", the Director of Research said, rubbing his temples.

"Who the hell is Wehrner?"

"Jawohl!", one of the men gathered in the room reported. He was old and very scrawny and still wearing a hard hat and launch pad coveralls. There was a huge dog sitting right next to him. The dog had a pen and notepad prepared in front of it for some reason.



When his sudden appearance and report met with shocked silence, the man turned to his dog. The dog barked a few times.

"Jawohl, Wehrner von Shapp reporting, Director Of Flight Crew Operations! I've been here for a while, ja, aber since no need was to use exposition I remained silent."

"Just get to the point!", the Director said impatiently. His headache was getting worse.

"Naturlich, herr director. Mein hund here, Maximillian, says zat the astronauts vill not be able to properly rest up and train between Mercury IX and Mercury XI or XII. And ve do not have enough free crews to do it with fresh astronauts. I am sorry, but I must veto that plan."

"Can he do that?", von Braun whispered to Sam

"Uh...", Sam quickly glanced at MASA's organizational chart, "It says here that he can."

"Well, damn. Now what do we do?"

--------------------------------------------------------

Note: Unfortunately, you can't reuse crews that fly this season for missions planned for the next. Therefore, MASA cannot fly two manned missions this fall: four crews are tied up in Mercury IX and X, two are needed for Mercury XI, and you only have one spare.

The currently unassigned crews are I (Modem), IV (McCain) and V (Kelly).

Also, I must ask you for mission rules. It is possible your first launch this fall will catastrophically fail, reducing capsule or booster safety ; I need go/no go rules for the second manned launch, since it is possible to scrub a mission right before launch.

So for those launches we can use McCain, Kelly or Modem?
So we don't have enough pilots. Ok, scrub the second launch, as we dont have enough crews.

As for mission rules. If there is a sudden risk of manned missions being dangerous (say due to a catastrophic failure the launch before) cancel it. We will not risk astronauts.

Good. I will be simulating shortly.

The haxxoring might take a while, though.

Oh man. This is bad.

Oh man.

PeZook wrote:Oh man. This is bad.

Oh man.

What have you done....

There's bad news for the Murcans. Stand by.

I'm guessing the Murcan capsule crashed and burned after suffering a catastrophic failure, setting them damned Jankees even further behind.

"Hey man, how about a prayer to get us off to a good start?"

There was a chuckle on the radio. It was well known to the people on base that Astronaut OhJesus was a bit of a religious freak. He didn't even partake in the industrial lubricant, so devoted he was to his faith. While some thought him to be a freak, many admired his dedication.



"And lo for the lord sayeth, let us hope you guys did not mess anything up!"

Chuckles erupted through the control room. Switches were thrown. Buttons were pressed, professional sounding sentences full of techspeak were exchanged. All the rites were sealed.

"We are go for launch.", the flight director announced bombastically. They would show those Zenobian bastards how it was done!



"Rocket ascending...ascent nominal. Check out this bitchin' new camera we have on the rocket body! It's in full color, too!"

"FUCK YEAH! How's that for Murcan engineering?!"

The capsule rose high into the heavens. With nail-biting anticipation, the flight controllers checked out all systems for reentry. It was just a suborbital flight, like so many before it, but everything was still tense.

"Okay Oh, how's your descent rate?"

"A little bit fast...nothing too bad. I am getting a slight...vibration here...the spacecraft is shaking up a bit..."

"Come in Nine, say again?"

"There are...strange things...by my window..."

The Flight Director leapt out of his chair, "FIDO, status!"

"I've lost telemetry!"

"No telemetry, repeat, no telemetry!"





"What's going on? Why don't we have a signal?"

Everyone knew what that meant. Nobody wanted to say. It would've been hours before they learned what happened: the Murcan Navy eventually located the capsule, floating off-target by a hundred miles...scorched and melted due to re-entry.



After the Navy divers cut open the sealed hatch, all they could do was stare into the black eyes of the charred body of Astronaut OhJesus.

The heat shield had failed.




Murca had lost an astronaut.

"Director...", Sam Francisco held up the phone, "It's the President..."

MASA Press Release wrote:Due to recently discovered teachnical trouble with the heat shield on the Mercury spacecraft, the Mercury X mission has been scrubbed.

An entirely unremarkable mission. All systems worked perfectly.

It didn't put director Pavylyvych at ease, though. News of the Murcan casualty have raced across the world with terrifying speed, and they made the risks of the space program all too apparent to everyone involved.

And they have lost a brave cosmonaut, too! A very angry comissar Omeganski had visited Syrgy's office in order to get his signature on comrade Karzanovski's transfer papers.



It would appear the Central Comittee had issued orders to relocate the cosmonaut to a "more fitting" post somewhere beyond the Polar circle. The space program's funding would also be cut - most likely due to the massive string of desertions, sabotage and failures it had been experiencing so far.

Syrgy could swear the comissar was angry because he didn't get to execute the man for treason. Or something similar - the Chief Designer could tell by now how the Comissar's mood swings went.

[/size] It was really hard to describe the mood at THE CAPE at the time of the Spring budget meeting.

Gone were the innocent days of butt-slapping and high-fiving and the careless, innocent frolicking between the astronauts.

One of their own was dead. A bunk stayed empty, OhJesus's personal belongings nicely packed in a small cardboard box, waiting for his relatives to come and pick them up. They'd have to be removed: nobody came for them since that ill-fated mission.

But they would persevere. They'd have to. Murca still believed in them, and by Jeebus, it showed it by shoveling money at the program!



The techical reports looked grim, however. Much would have to be rethought, much would have to be redone. Especially since astronaut Hardbeef decided to leave the program, leaving the astronaut corps two men short.







[/size] The rocket was sitting, right there, inside a warehouse. Completely unused. Secured with all the proper seals and fastenings. Never used ,never deployed to a launch pad.

It was an extra rocket.

Syrgy Pavylyvych stared at it in disbelief. He was holding, in his hand, a launch report showing results of a failed launch in the fall of 1961. Booster problem on the pad, it said. Launch aborted.

But that rocket, one of the new A-Series refurbished with proper fuel tubing, never left the warehouse. What's more, none of the myriad documentations about a launch, even a failed one, seemed to have existed.

And nobody remembered putting the rocket on the pad, either.

That was strange. Very, very strange. Or maybe the Chief Designer was hallucinating? Maybe he wasn't running the Zenobian space program, perhaps it was all some fevered dream, dreamt on a hard wooden cot inside a worker barracks in Khylima?

It wouldn't be that bad. At least a man would still be alive.

That thought nagged on Syrgy. He knew the Murcans were the enemy, the capitalist arch-fiends using the work of the proletariat to get fat and rich, but he couldn't help but feel bad for the young man, burned to death inside his capsule.

Part of him felt relief, as the failure meant Zenobia had a chance to be the first to orbit ; But some other part felt guilt...and dread.

For something like that could happen to one of his cosmonauts, too. He suspected comrade Karzanovski wasn't an actual traitor ; That he quietly requested relocation to another posting, any posting...out of fear.

Official documents would never say that, of course. They had an image to maintain.







Notes:

As you can see, in this game, nothing is definitive. Murcans had every chance to expect their launches to go well ; But it's still possible to fail.

The "launch nobody rememebers" failed in the first stage, with a 92% roll on launch. So it was scrubbed, except nobody remembers it even happened. The hardware is in Zenobian inventory for later use.

Astronauts have began dropping out of the program for various reasons ; You should plan for that.

As it is, the race goes on, though Murca will have to work hard to regain their lead again.

Current prestige summary:



Current director rankings:



The Politburo seems downright gleeful a young Murcan died in space last year.

They might even gloat.

Oh shit. Oh shit oh shit oh shit.

*Cackling quietly in a corner in an empty room*

"One untermenschen down, a billion or so more to go..."

Can I say "space gap"?

The good doctor should remember he is still nominally the director.

Shroomanski hasn't made his move yet ; If von Evilstein wants to make a move on Pavylyvych's position, now is a good time.

Or next season if the manned orbital fails.

If he wants to defect, though, it would be better to do it now. If the orbital shot fails, the NKVDVDROM will be locking down the facility and looking for saboteurs, as usual.

You know the Commissar after all, any excuse to lock down the base is a potential oppertunity to execute someone.

Also it's quite amusing to compare this space race with the actual space race, for want of a nail indeed.

The actual space race did have a few moments when things could go terribly wrong ; The game is much, much deadlier for the astronauts, though. Expect more deaths before all is said and done.

I actually feel kinda sad for Ohjesus. He was a caring fellow, even if not much of a character...

Narkis wrote:I'm guessing the Murcan capsule crashed and burned after suffering a catastrophic failure, setting them damned Jankees even further behind.

Syrgy Pavylyvych glares. "Do not cheer. Men are dying."

That...is an incredible poem.

OOC:
A) von Evilstein can cheer all he wants when he's alone. As he's doing right now.
B) And how, exactly, would I try to take over the space program? I don't even know who my goddamn supporters are, let alone how to get them to overrule Shroomanski.

Okay, I will prepare a short brief for you tomorrow.

EDIT: Also, it's probably not necessary to remove the comissar per se, just make him not obstruct you. Omeganski probably sees no particular loyalty towards Pavylyvych ; Syrgy just delivers results. So far.

Maybe threats of Zyberia from his supporters will make von Evilstein "learn" that trying to kill off the untermenschen in that fashion is never going to work?

The Politburo members are not really supporting von Evilstein's plans ; It's more about opposing Shroomanski. Evilstein had the good luck that his plans hadn't killed anybody before he was deftly replaced, and for some poliburo members like Beznov, loss of rockets and payloads wasn't of much concern as long as Murcans were beaten. Had shit happened and the Politburo became annoyed with the loss of face...well, von Evilstein could always be replaced with somebody else.

That of ourse means Syrgy could deftly outmaneuver the politburo's hatred by siding with the anti-Shroomanski faction

So in other words von Evilstein is screwed anyway because if I manage to get Shroomanski overruled Pavylyvyvh'll just switch sides to the people who were about to put me in charge since they'd undoubtedly prefer him to me anyway. Great...

In that case, any way to defect and ensure the rocket blows up?