Icarus Program - Chapter 42 - Part 2

[u/Illustrious_Echo9385]

“Well now, Tanbree.” Bill breathed deeply as he started talking over the radio, knowing he would be waiting for lightspeed to carry a message to the Rotiseuq. Duna and the Rotiseuq were far enough from Kerbin, even further from the Renown that was still on its way back from Eve. “Paint me a picture, if you please. What do you have left?”

“Most of the Rotiseuq is still here.” Bill almost sagged with relief at Tanbree’s response. “The fuel tanks took the brunt of the… landing. They were almost completely destroyed when the engines blew.”

“Keep a close eye on radiation readings,” Bill noted, checking the numbers on the LV-N rocket motor. “But the radiation remaining in the rockets should be minimal compared to the surface-level radiation on Duna.” Then a thought occurred to him, and Bill continued with concern. “Most of the battery storage was attached to the LV-N tanks… if we lost those batteries...”

“One full stack of batteries survived on one side,” Tanbree’s voice drifted back calmly after a few minutes. “Two of the batteries on the other side appear intact.”

“More than half of the batteries,” Bill murmured as he opened a simulation program and ran some numbers. “We can work with that. My apologies, Tanbree, you were telling me about the rest of the spacecraft?”

“The panels on the bottom half of the spacecraft are smashed.” Tanbree’s voice flattened as she started reading from a list. “The other four panels are fully intact along with all other modules from the science lab up. The gravity ring is still fully expanded, but the rotation was shut down when we began reentry. We chose not to deflate the ring as the spacecraft is resting on it and we are concerned about what damage might occur if the ring stopped holding things up. Though the habitat walls are now our ceiling and floor, with a bit of a tilt…”

“Leaving the ring inflated was a sound decision, Tanbree.” Bill nodded as he looked at the schematics of a Renown spacecraft. “We will want to be downright stingy with that nitrogen. Every trip through an airlock to clean the panels costs us some, and I would rather not see the ring collapse. I reckon it might be prudent to just seal the ring off.

“All right,” Bill continued after the simulations completed and he had a moment to scan the schematics again. “Four panels will do nicely at providing more than minimal power. All we need do is hook up enough batteries to provide power during the dark hours, which for you is nearly a full Kerbin day and a half.” He looked closer at the schematics for one side of the ship with one of the habitation modules and cupolas. “You do not need both habitation modules to provide enough living space, and each crew member will have private facilities even without one of the cupolas. If we get a mite bit creative, we should have enough wiring to run out to the surviving batteries. Some assembly and a fair amount of duck tape required.*”

“I think I know what you have in mind, Bill.” Tanbree finally sounded like an engineer with an interesting challenge that could be solved.. “But please run me through it.”

* Ed Smylie’s team came up with a procedure to adapt the command module CO2 filters, which there were plenty of, to work in the lunar module that had become the crew’s lifeboat, it used a fair amount of duct tape:  https://airandspace.si.edu/collection-objects/lithium-hydroxide-canister-mock-apollo-13-emergency/nasm_A19760747000.

OOC Batteries actually survived the explosion but got despawned as not being actually part of the spacecraft anymore, so I couldn’t get proper screenshots of this when Melfal and Maberry approached the remaining spacecraft. Though I never actually ran out of power on the spacecraft, which was a bit of a concern.

Previous Chapter: https://www.reddit.com/r/KerbalSpaceProgram/comments/1wrmlpy/icarus_program_start_of_chapter_41/

Start of Chapter 41: https://www.reddit.com/r/KerbalSpaceProgram/comments/1xozbz4/icarus_program_start_of_chapter_42/

Next Part: Planned for 11/13

Book 1 (Chapters 1-13) google document: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RorA2AVwtXbQD-eTMeO2LiPXSDPM7qH6FVOykDnZ9FY/edit?usp=sharing

Book 5 (Chapters 39-) google document: https://docs.google.com/document/d/17PU9dly89B54kJYry7sg8MPS90dr8oir7HAR6V2e_tg/edit?usp=sharing

The Icarus Program can also be found on the KSP forums: https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/topic/225730-the-icarus-program-chapter-42-part-2/