It is the year 1957.

Murca and Zenobia, two terrifyngly powerful and also incredibly ideologically stubborn nations, are engaged in yet another contest of nationalistic chest-beating and dick-waving.

Murca, fresh after its victory in Salvation War: Part Deux, where it saved the stupid cowardly Stenchies and Anglians from the evil Thanasians, is crossing eyes with the communoids from Zenobia - who might have helped a bit with the war, yeah, but are freedom-hating communoids and must be destroyed. They kinda have a lot of tanks and nukes, though, so Murca will settle for humilitating them a bit.

Zenobia, on the other hand, must prove the superiority of communistic thought and worker's liberation and universal healthcare to the moustache-twirling Murcans. They both thought long and hard about how to do this, and while some Murcans wanted to try this newfangled "nuclear war" thingie, most thought this a little too over the top.

But if not by annihilation of millions in nuclear fire, then how to prove that one nation had the bigger of two dicks? How to show which country was the more manly and well-oiled one?

Then it struck them. They'd have a fucking RACE TO THE MOON. Hell yeah! Unfortunately, since there was cold dead space between Earth and the Moon, both nations would have to work at it. But there'd be rockets involved. Lots of rockets, and macho exploits in outer space. Also, explosions.

But before they flipped their opponents the bird, the two mighty nations would have to decide who to appoint to the role of "the guy charged with proving to the other guys we're the best".

Also, someone would probably have to straddle the mighty steel tubes full of high explosives to plant a flag in lunar soil and do the actual bird flipping. Finding such insane idiots larger than life heroes would probably be difficult indeed.

Hello, Directors! It is I, Hans von Smallhausen! You might remember me, for I have worked as your administrative assistant during Salvation War: Part Deux! Those were the times, when we abused the untermenschen and had them build weapons of terror for the Fuhrer, ja? Ha, ha!

Anyways, I now reside in Stenchia. I am taking a break from drinking champagne and fornication (I am trying to colonize Stenchia with a race of supermen, you see!) to write this quick primer, because Murca and Zenobia possess lots and lots and lots of nuclear weapons. So you understand that it is imperative that their schniedel-measuring contests are performed according to clear and agreed upon rules. Otherwise egos will be hurt and accusations of cheating will fly both ways and blow up cities, which my current employers would really prefer to avoid if possible, thankyouverymuch.

So, I have been asked by the International Aviation Federation to prepare this primer for both Directors participating in Murcan and Zenobian attempts to race to the Moon. Isn't it funny how the superpowers have to rely on Thanasian minds to do their heavy lifting? Ha, ha, even in victory they need the ubermenschen! Take that stupid monkeys!

But err, let me go to the basics, mein herren. The race into space is budgeted in six month intervals. Funds, measured in Megabucks (MB) are deposited in Spring, and can be spent for Spring and Autumn activities. Things are accomplished during the race via performing Missions. Here is a brief explanation of Missions:

A Mission is flown after it is planned. Missions have to be planned a season ahead - so a Mission that's planned in Spring will not be flown until Autumn. Do plan ahead!

In order to do a Mission, you need to develop appropriate Hardware. This is done by research teams composed of the brightest Thanasian minds that the superpowers stole from us. Initiating a program costs a lump sum, for which you get a device at a certain low reliability. Then research brings reliability up to a higher level, and succesful flights even higher. Catastrophes lower reliability. Starting a research program for a system after fully researching a previous generation will give a bonus to reliability.

You then fly missions using this developed Hardware, which you have to pay megabucks for before every Mission. However, you pay a Unit Cost, rather than the program startup cost. No need for kickbacks once a program is up and running, you see.

You can fly several Missions at a time, but you need to be able to provide Hardware, Astronauts and of course the launch pads to do that. Mission are flown simultaneously, that is both Murca and Zenobia launch theirs at the same time. Murca gets first dibs on launches planned for the same month (They must've bribed someone to do that, the bastards! You'd never see that sort of corruption in old Thanasia!), that is: if a Milestone is accomplished by Murca, then Zenobia does not receive extra Prestige points. Rushing allows you to perform a Mission earlier and thus beat your opponent to the punch, but imposes penalties to success rates.

Missions are divided into two basic types: Manned and Unmanned.

Unmanned missions are done to test equipment and accomplish certain Milestones. I will write more about Milestones later. You can fly all your equipment unmanned, if you don't want to risk astronauts, but need to build up reliability.

Manned missions require astronauts as well as hardware. Astronauts have certain Skills, which strongly influence the chances of a mission succeeding. These Skills are: Capsule, Lunar Module, Docking, Endurance and EVA. Each of those influences different parts of the mission.

Astronauts cannot be recruited before two seasons have passed. They must make sure their respective agency does not crash and burn in the first year, you see. Recruiting a class of astronauts costs monies, twenty megabucks to be exact. Each class provides a number of Astronauts - the later the class, the more Astronauts you will receive.

The Astronauts are from undermenschen nations, so they have to go into basic training after recruitment. The stupid apes cannot even produce test pilots worthy of flying their inferior equipment! You can yank astronauts from training early, though. The Federation allows that, even if it leads to sudden death and explosions and whatnot, but whatever, it's not like Thanasians die in a failed flight, ja? Ha ha!

Astronauts must be assigned to a manned program before they can fly. They have to train even more (Just how stupid are those apes?), so you can only plan mission the following season, and fly them even later on! Shake heads with me, mein herren, for this is pathetic. Back home we'd have stuck a Pollack or Zenobian in a rocket and just flown it! Don't tell them we did that, though. They might not appreciate the sacrifices we had to force others into for science.

Anyways, a few words about Prestige. The Federation will keep score of Milestones, and award Prestige for them. Your new national leaders will give you more cash if you accomplish these Milestones first, but watch out! A Milestone takes with it penalties to probability of success. Trying to leap across several milestones will doom your missions to fail!

Some of the milestones are:

- First satellite
- First suborbital flight
- First manned flight
- First manned orbital flight
- Duration flights
- First EVA, first orbital docking
- First lunar flybys (manned and unmanned)
- First lunar orbit
- First planetary flybys (unmanned)
- First lunar landing (first one to do that wins the race!)

Try to snatch as many of those as possible!

If you have further questions, mein herren, feel free to give me a call! I always have time for you. Now I am off to sip champagne from slippers of fine Stenchie women!

Always faithful,
Hans von Smallhausen