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Additional multispectral scans of the Mun revealed another anomaly. Rather than being fooled as had happened on Minmus by an anomalous anomaly, a Zenit photographic satellite in Munar orbit was employed to ascertain whether there was anything at the munar highlands location to be seen.

The results were inconclusive so Lunakhod 16 was dispatched.

Those results were disappointing. Nothing anomalous was found. The scientists at the Academy of Sciences of would object vigorously to have the site be characterized as “just mun rock” but that’s what was found.

While the first Dolgovremennaya Orbitalnaya Stanziya of a new modular space station has been launched into a high Kerbin orbit, nearly everyone, with the exception of the administrators in the Ministry of General Machine-Building, is agreed that the name Mir 2 is a dumbass name. The designers and engineers insist on calling it Zvezda (star), which is strange because the KBOM munbase had been officially named Zvezda but was now universally recognized, even in official documents, as Kermangrad. The ministers think it’s because the engineers really want to name SOMETHING Zvezda and will keep doing so until the name sticks.

The crews, however, may throw a spanner into that plan, as they have done before.

An LK-560 (one of those cone-shaped capsules) carrying Pilot Cosmonaut Ilya Nickovitch Kermanov, engineer Yirina Olegovna Kermanov, and scientist Fedor Grigorevich Kermanov arrive at Kermangrad to relieve Hero Pilot Cosmonaut Alexi Arkhipovich Kermanov, engineer Konstantin Petrovich Kermanov, and scientist Yevgeni Alexandrovich Kermanov, who return in their Dobro LK after 200 days on the Mun.

Cosmonaut Pilot Tatyana Raskolnikova Kermanov, Engineer Boris Valentinovich Kermanov, and Scientist Viktor Vasilyevich Kermanov arrived at Minmus to investigate several overlooked anomalies. While not difficult to get to delta-V wise, the tiny moon is considered something of a deep-in-the-weeds part of the back yard, quite a ways out there, and not on the front burner, to mix as many metaphors as possible.

As with most flights in craft designed for the Mun, the Liga LK’s Blok G transfer stage had enough delta-V remaining for Pilot Tatyana Raskolnikova to carefully land on the Great Flats, balanced on the engine bells so that Scientist Viktor Vasilyevich could exit the craft to gather science.

A suborbital hop (and discarding of the then empty Blok G) brought Lunnik 27 to land near a monolith in the midlands. Like all the other monoliths discovered, this was a 15 meter tall solid and, so far, impenetrable semi-trapezoid. This one was a dark green, like the one already discovered on the Mun’s farside, rather than the black ones that seem more common (8 known monoliths, 2 on Kerbin, 4 on the mun, and 2 on Minmus, of with 2 are green and the other 6 are black).

An LZhM base will be prepared and sent to establish a Soviet presence.

Science packages were deployed and the Liga LK was then sub-orbital hopped 68 km to the northeast to land in the Greater Flats to investigate another anomaly.

There was nothing.

The hard, crunchy nature of the Minmus surface does not record every footstep, as would the dusty munar surface. It could be that the Amerikanskis discovered whatever anomaly was here and took it with them. Perhaps, like some of the geological anomalies discovered on Kerbin, this was something buried. Given that two detected anomalies were alien flying saucers, it is entirely possible that the anomaly was there and was no longer, although the saucers and monoliths appear to have ancient and inactive histories. What seems most likely, given a new multispectral scan of the region from orbit, was that the anomaly was anomalous; a false positive reading.

Given the Cold War, landing crews too close to any Amerikanski presence on the Mun or Minmus has been. . . deferred. By convention, if not by law, automated craft have not ventured to within three kilometers of Amerikanski sites, in deference to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, but cosmonauts have stayed further off (generally) so as not to antagonize the west.

However, the science available available from the Mun’s East Crater was too crunchy to keep passing by. The mission planners could have chosen anywhere within the 7,500 square kilometers of the crater to gather the “biome” science but they chose instead to direct the crew to land as close to the Amerikanskis as possible because that was also closest to the East Crater Arch (which is actually on the crater’s rim and not in the crater itself). They denied that they chose to antagonize the Amerikanskis intentionally.

Hero Pilot Cosmonaut Pavel Romanovich Kermanov, Engineer Artyom Mikhaylovich Kermanov, Scientist Svetlana Yevgenyevna Kermanov were flying in the newly designed Liga LK launched atop an N-III booster. The previous Dobro LK, a Soyuz capsule mounted to a Blok D with landing legs, had been replaced with larger fuel and oxidizer tanks in a conical fairing. The landing legs were also replaced with the OKB-52-style long landing skis. These changes were made to address crew concerns over tight delta-V tolerances for the direct return.

It was not off to a good start as, several minutes into the flight, an engine alarm sounded for imminent failure of one of the five N-III first stage engines. If the engine simply stopped working, things would be acceptable and the remaining four engines would be sufficient to achieve orbit. If the failure was catastrophic then, hopefully, the launch abort system would engage and they would land somewhere in Siberia.

Neither of those things seemed to have happened before staging so it may have been a false warning.

The rest of the flight, from orbital insertion to munar landing went according to plan. The landing was on a bit of an incline, being so close to the north end of the East Crater rim, so the wide landing skids were appreciated.

With scientist Svetlana Yevgenyevna collecting data from the assortment of attached instruments (the primary goal of the mission), and engineer Artyom Mikhaylovich checking the craft itself, it was Hero Pilot Pavel Romanovich who discovered the levitating rock.

It seemed a common Mun rock thrown onto the surface by countless impacts, approximately 15 centimeters in diameter, but hovering above the ground. Maintaining communication silence as close as they were to an Amerikanski-controlled site (five kilometers to the north, though not in direct line-of-sight) he returned to the lunniy korabl and retrieved a cargo bag, unceremoniously dumping its contents about the orbital module. By the time he exited the capsule, his comrade crewmembers, curious at his behavior, were waiting at the bottom of the ladder. His gesticulations conveyed to them that they, too, should maintain radio silence and the three of them moved quickly to the mystery rock.

Pavel Romanovich did not investigate or experiment with the rock but threw the bag over it, zipped it up, and immediately began his return with it to the lander. Once they were all aboard, he reported to the Main Test and Space Systems Control Center that the craft was experiencing an oxygen leak. It was a slow leak but in a location that engineer Artyom Mikhaylovich could not reach to repair and so the mission which would have lasted a full week would be cut short and they would return immediately.

Not quite immediately, though. They waited half an hour for local sunrise because, in spite of the new design, battery capacity was on the low side and the night landing required sunrise for the solar charge to restore the batteries.

What was not on the low side was surplus delta-V, a complaint applied to previous lander designs.

On return to the Cosmodrome, the crew was debriefed and warned that, if they spoke about this with anyone, it would be off to the gulag. They did not know that a year previously, two kilometers east of the Kermangrad munbase, a similar levitating rock was discovered. In that case, it was a much larger boulder, 9 meters across, and in no way portable.

A coded message was sent to Kermangrad, directing them to re-investigate this previous find. Or rather, investigate for the first time as a previous crew had investigated but, due to secrecy directives, had not passed on that information to the rotation. On driving out to that site, the Kermangrad crew found the boulder had apparently broken up in the meantime and was now several large stones floating above a crater rim.

There were now nine cosmonauts who had encountered these floating rocks and been ordered to secrecy. Other cosmonauts have encountered alien spacecraft, mysterious monoliths, anomalies of physics, even the Commissars realized that the conspiracy was becoming increasingly unsustainable and the Cosmonaut Corps would need to be brought on board with policies and procedures beyond just the threat of the gulag.

Hero Pilot Cosmonaut Ivan Nikolayevich Kermanov, engineer Oleg Ivanovich Kermanov, and scientist Gherman Stepanovich Kermanov set out from the Cosmodrome aboard the Airship Kerbina to perform a tour of Siberia and the Arctic regions, collecting science and the capabilities of the Sovietski’s derrigable. Their first investigation wasn’t really anomalous or particularly special but nearby in the Kolyma Mountains just east of the Cosmodrome. There is a tall peak with a fairly flat top. Not a mesa or plateau, just flattish and C-shaped. The central core of a mountain that was likely volcanic has eroded through the crater wall to produce an extremely high, perhaps formerly glacial valley.

Neat.

Further east, just across the Blackish Sea, is another mountain with a likely similar geologic history but larger, with a larger central valley and a very tall spire rather than the flattish top.

Satellite radar scans of the north shore of the Blackish Sea report a very distinctive structure. A truncated pyramid, over 6 kilometers on a side. The sides slope at a consistent 20 to 22 degrees up to a flat plateau 3,000 meters above the surrounding train.

A massive structure that does not actually exist. Assuredly there must be something there as both radar and multispectral scanners map its dimensions precisely and consistently. Yet, there is nothing on the surface. The suspicion is that it may be a buried artificial structure that, for some mysterious reason, fools scanners into reporting it above ground.

Under the Northern Ice Shelf, halfway to the North Pole, is another buried structure. A little over eight kilometers long, 150 meters wide at its southern end and 125 meters at its northern end, it is a zone of Ice Cap that points straight at the North Pole, aligned along the 180th degree of longitude. Again, while nothing appears above the ice, multispectral scans indicate this wall of structure rises above sea level to less than 30 meters below the ice shelf surface.

Neither of these megastructures can be natural.

The Airship Kerbina visited the North Pole and the crew experienced for themselves the anomaly there. Step within half a meter of the geographic pole and one experiences a profound disorientation and will find themselves lying on the ice, staring at the sky.

The final landmark visited was south (of course) and off the eastern Canadian coast. Near the edge of the ice shelf is an egg shaped hole of open water. Aligned somewhat northwest to south east, 5.7 km long and 3.7 km wide, this hole in the ice suggests an impact of a meteor at an angle punching through the ice. A geologically very recent occurrence as the ice flow has not moved south enough for warmer waters to calve and melt it away.

Having spent eight days touring the arctic, and experiencing recurring engine troubles, the Airship Kerbina traveled to Vladivostok for repairs.

Watch on YouTube

Near the close of the Great Patriotic War, an Amerikanski Boeing B-29 “Stratofortress” strategic bomber was forced to land in Soviet territory. Lacking a comparable aircraft in their arsenal, the Soviets did not give it back.

Instead, they set about dismantling it and, piece by piece, replicating it. The airframe? Replicated. The engines? Replicated. That the dorsal tunnel that allows crew to climb past the bomb bays to get to the back of the aircraft? Replicated. The paint scheme that changed half way down the tunnel because the worker ran out of one color and needed to use something different? Replicated. The rivet hole accidentally drilled into a wing panel where a rivet wasn’t going to go? Replicated. The only thing not precisely replicated was the star on the tail fin. That was painted red rather than the Amerikanski white.

So was born the Tupolev Tu-4.

Actually, they had three operational B-29s and one crashed machine so, cross referencing those, engineers were not adding random holes. Even so, their duplicate wasn’t exact. The B-29 was built with Imperial measurements and the Soviets used Metric. Rather than retooling machinery to produce at fractions of a fraction of an inch, metric equivalencies were used. Those fractions of fractions of an inch built up over the entirety of the aircraft making the T-4 a little heaver and so lowering its performance by as much.

But, before the Tu-4 even took flight, a variant was being developed. Without the high performance parameters of a strategic bomber, this variant was to be a passenger aircraft. The pressurized cabin was expanded, the wingspan was a little wider, Russian-design engines were used rather than the duplicates (which tended to overheat and catch fire the way the Amerikanski originals did).

The Tu-70

It never left the prototype phase. I think they should have kept the cool bomber cockpit windows.

The delayed-for-a-month-because-bad-math mission to Moho rolled out to the launchpad on the 80th day of the year atop an N-III rocket.

The Konstruktorskoye byuro khimicheskogo mashinostroyeniya 4D bus was originally designed for a missed Eve mission, was successfully reused for a mission Duna, and now was being used again for Moho. The main engine was encircled by a conical instrument compartment. Above that the central section of the bus contained propellant tanks for the main propulsion unit and had solar panels and a high-gain antenna attached. This orbital section also included cameras, radars, and multi-spectral scanners for mapping of the planet. Atop that, instead of the pressure vessel used to protect equipment from the crushing pressure of landing on Eve or the oxidized dust of Duna, the Moho lander (the P in Merkuriy-P is posadka) is a recycled test platform for the Blok-E N1-LK lander.

Counter to recent trends, the launch, orbital insertion, and transfer burn were executed without incident.

Two days after the successful launch of the Merkuriy-P, a craft designated Merkuriy-R or Merkuriy-2 launched. It consisted of a deepy space relay communications antenna on an FGB Tug, and that atop an Energia-M launcher. Its mission will be to act as a more powerful communication link to the posadka and any future missions to the inner-most planet; those missions to include a rover and another, more powerful scanning and imaging satellite.

Both of these probes will arrive at Moho in a little over 100 days.

The desire for larger capacity spacecraft has led to what is being called “Bolshoi Soyuz”, essentially, an upscaled version of the workhorse Soyuz capsule.

The original concept was called Zarya and involved not only a larger capsule (1.9 m diameter, up from the 1.3 m Soyuz capsule) but integrated engines and reaction control. It would retain fuel for a powered landing rather than using parachutes. And, as reusability is becoming all the rage (in the Amerikanski West, at least), it would be able to be refurbished and placed atop a new rocket for re-launch. But, after preliminary study, it was decided that powered landings were more risky and resource-intensive (i.e. expensive) than just continuing to use parachutes. Having that much fuel and engine hardware integrated with the crew capsule meant less space for crew as well.

Even though the larger capsule hull was retained, this first production version would carry five crewmembers, it was expected that later versions would carry six. The first mission, atop a Soyuz R-7 Semyorka with Pilot Cosmonaut Nikandr Vasiliyevich Kermanov, engineers Vera Petrova Kermanov and Andrei Yevgenyevich Kermanov, with scientists Radimir Valentinovich Kermanov and Oksana Andreevna Kermanov. They would be relieving the crew aboard the Mir space station.

Issues began immediately on liftoff.

There was an unexpected and unaccountable vibration in the strap-on boosters. And, while there was sufficient delta-V in the core stage, it was underpowered for the payload meaning the standard ascent profile would be insufficient. Had a steeper assent been chosen, the craft might have made orbit, as it was, that was not going to happen. Pilot Cosmonaut Nikandr Vasiliyevich activated the abort procedure, the Jetisonable Emergency Escape Head Section activated, but the capsule decoupler failed to stage properly and had to be activated manually, leaving the capsule dangerously close to the rest of the stage during the freefall descent. The landing was in the Kolyma Mountains.

There are no photographs. The Soviet Ministry of General Machine-Building habitually does not offer comment or even acknowledgment of any operational system failures.

Besides, it was dark.

To say the crew was unhappy was an understatement. But no time for that. The next day, a reliable Soyuz TM was rolled out to the launch pad and Pilot Cosmonaut Nikandr Vasiliyevich Kermanov, engineer Vera Petrova Kermanov and scientist Radimir Valentinovich Kermanov ascended into orbit without issue, rendezvoused with the Mir station, and Pilot Cosmonaut Ilya Nickovitch Kermanov, engineer Grigori Grigoryevich Kermanov, and scientist Fedor Grigorevich Kermanov returned to Kerbin.

The Chief Designer was already working on refining the Bolshoi Soyuz.

The brand new 100G communications relay satellite built on the FGB (Funktsionalno-gruzovoy blok) Tug platform failed at staging, the debris crashing into the Sea of Okhotsh. This was not an ideal start to the building of a deepy space network constellation to support interplanetary missions. The second craft that was finishing production at the time was re-tasked and it’s staging was adjusted to fulfill the mission; setting itself in geostationary orbit at the Cosmodrome’s longitude.

With the staging issue sorted, the constellation will include several more satellites in equatorial geostationary orbit.

On the eve of launching a mission to Moho, an urgent message came to the Mission Control Center that previous trajectory calculations were incorrect and that the mission would need to be delayed a month. A number of mathematicians who had provided those previous calculations would no longer be working for the Institute of Applied Mathematics.

Even so, the delay only negatively impacted the propagandous objectives of the mission, that is, sending a mission to the difficult target of Moho while the Amerikanski’s were apparently neglecting to rise to that challenge. Positively, the additional time could be used to reasses the rocket itself and perhaps apply improvements. The Scientific-Research Institute of Micro-Instruments had recently finalized designs for a new 100G relay antenna that, while not necessary for the Mono mission, would add to its capability and, given the delay, may even be able to be fit upon a platform to also be sent to Moho, establishing a true interplanetary communications network.

And finally, the crew rotation of the Morozhenoye station orbiting Minmus, delayed because of the Moho mission, would be able to proceed. Cosmonaut Pilot Vadim Petrovich Kermanov, Cosmonaut Engineer Maksim Valentinovich Kermanov, and Cosmonaut Scientist Natasha Romanova Kermanov would be able to return home sooner rather than later.

The TKS LOK that brought them had the delta-V to bring them back but, just as their fellow cosmonauts had complaints about the deficiencies of the Dobro LK, this crew also had concerns and would like to have had another hundred or so m/s of dV for the return. The Chief Designer assured them that, not only were their concerns valid, but they had already been acted upon as the TKS LOK on the production line had been upgraded with more fuel. However, he warned them, that that additional fuel was at the cost of the aft crew compartment space. It would be up to the crews to decide if the additional fuel was worth the loss of 8 days of extra legroom for the trip to or from Minmus.

For seven months, Cosmonaut Pilot Vadim Petrovich Kermanov, Cosmonaut Engineer Maksim Valentinovich Kermanov, and Cosmonaut Scientist Natasha Romanova Kermanov have crewed the Lunnayna Orbital’naya Stantsiya Morozhenoye in orbit above Minmus and it is time for them to come home. Except that no one wants to go. Things have not been going well recently with the Dobro LK munar landers and the Soyuz 7KD-LOK is essentially the same craft but without the landing legs so crews were hesitant.

The Chief Designer had to reiterate that the nearly 600 m/s of delta-V that would be used in the Soyuz 7KD-LOK for landing and return to orbit would instead be available for returning to a more favorable Kerbin orbit and so the craft is in no way like the Dobro LK. When it comes to the rocket equation, design appearances are only superficial.

“But what about the issues with the launch platform?”

“Get in the rocket, Igor.”

And so, Cosmonaut Pilot Igor Andreevich Kermanov, Cosmonaut Engineer Vladimir Mikhaylovich Kermanov, and Cosmonaut Scientist Nikolai Nikolayevich Kermanov got in the rocket.

Their concerns were unrealized as the craft launched, attained orbit, transferred to Minmus orbit, and rendezvoused with the orbital station all without issue. The previous crew will remain on station for an additional week before returning in the TKS that brought them there because the Cosmodrome will be launching an important interplanetary mission and do not want any distractions, such as a return from Minmus.

The Lunnik 34 mission was plagued with issues before it even started. The Dobro-LK lander atop its Zenit booster rolled out to the pad for it’s trip to the Mun but then had be to be rolled back because of undisclosed issues with the gantry. And then, a few days later, it was rolled out again, only for there to be additional problems with the gantry. And then again. Only on the fourth rollout did everything seem ready for launch.

The launch was acceptable (though a bit noodly), the munar transfer proceeded appropriately, the craft entered orbit as expected. The crew, stayed on orbit for several days waiting for the landing area to become available. It was initially considered to touchdown in the northern region of the East Crater but this was deferred as being too close to the Amerikanski presence at the East Crater Arch just after the publicity of the Premier’s airship tour. Instead, they remained in orbit for a few more turns to land at the southeast end of the Northern Basin.

The deorbit an descent seemed to be going well but when Cosmonaut Pilot Tatyana Raskolnikova Kermanov attempted to hover and translate away from a rock field, the assist computer failed to disengage when the craft began to ascend and caused the vessel to flip to realign the retrograde marker. Tatyana Raskolnikova disengaged the computer and wrestled the craft around to its proper gear-down orientation. It was too late and the craft hit a large boulder with too much horizontal motion and flipped again.

When the lunniy korabl came to a rest, it was sideways atop a bolder in a field of boulders. Luckily only the materials science apparatus had been torn from the top of the craft without compromising the integrity on the orbital module. Reaction control gyros and thrusters would be insufficient to right the craft.

Back on Kerbin, the Chief Designer added this to the list of detriments of the Dobro LK class of mun ships. He also directed swift work to begin on retrofitting one of the Dobro Lks on the factory floor with remote controls as a replacement and “rescue” vehicle. There had been a brief consideration to deploy the L3M lander from the Udacha station in orbit but, while the structural integrity of Lunnik 34 remained intact, he didn’t consider it necessary, held in reserve in case of a more pressing emergency. And besides, using another Dobro LK would reduce the stock of those problematic craft.

A day for the retrofit, a day for the launch and transfer to munar orbit, and another day on orbit waiting for a proper landing solution, and Lunnik 35 had arrived. . . but landed a kilometer and a half to the west, precariously on the rim of a large crater, having just missed a large boulder. Tatyana laughed at the imprecise landing of the machine as compared to a living Kerbal but did not laugh out loud because she had precisely crashed her own machine.

The automated lander had brought explosives with which to blow up the wrecked lander and prevent salvage of state secrets by Americanski treasure hunters. But, with the lander so far away, the crew would not spend the day-plus hiking back and forth. So, they unscrewed the navigation computer and radio from the console, shut out the lights, left a note on the hatch saying to any Americanski astronauts not to be jerks and take anything, and so began the walk to the “rescue” craft.

The return from the Mun was as expected but also bad. The Dobro LK, on leaving munar orbit, had approximately 550 m/s of delta-V remaining, which would be insufficient for a good lower orbit of Kerbin to afford reentry where and when wanted. This was an admitted design flaw. They used half of that dV to get into a high elliptical orbit and then the rest for the deorbit burn, which, though they were on target to land west of Yakutsk, would be coming in at a steep angle. There was no risk of overheating but all three of the crew blacked out as the deceleration pegged the meter at over 15 Gs.

They regained consciousness as the chutes deployed.

The crew recommended to the Chief Designer to either scrap the Dobro Lks still on the factory floor altogether or retrofit them with more fuel in both the lander and in the Zenit booster to provide proper delta-V for the entire trip.

The Chief Designer advised them that he was already working on a solution.

How does the Kerbal calendar work? How longs are weeks or months? Doing an airship flight to the temple of Tut-Ur Jeb-Ahn has me thinking about how those conventions might have established themselves.

Astronomically, I think it would be munar, based on the orbits of the Mun and Minmus, and, with the rough times of the Mun’s orbit being a little over six days and Minmus’ orbit being almost 48 days, that would very easily define weeks and months respectively. A six day week compared to the human 7 day week and the 48 day month compared to the 30 or 31 day earth month is intuitively comparable.

But the detailed math is a little more tricky.

The Kerbin year is 426 days, 32 minutes, 24.65 seconds (9,203,544.65 s)
The Kerbin solar day is 6 hours exactly (21,600 s).

However the calendar is divvied up, there will need to be a leap day added every 12 years.

The Mun’s siderial period is 6 days, 2 hours, 36 minutes, 24.377 seconds (138984.377 s), that is, how long it takes to go 360 degrees or once around based on the assumed infinitely distant background stars. But, and this is the thing, you would need to be an astronomer to have worked this out. Carefully watching the skies and measuring the Mun against the background stars. Kerbin, however, orbits the sun with zero inclination and the Mun orbits Kerbin with zero inclination, leading to a solar eclipse every time the Mun goes around Kerbin. And because Kerbin will have moved in it’s orbit a little bit compared to where it was at the beginning of the Mun’s orbit, the time eclipse to eclipse would be based on the Mun’s synodic orbit, which is 35.51705 minutes.

I think. This is a bunch of math and I’m not sure I’m doing it right. I have also seen people out on the web doing similar math and getting slightly different answers. I’m just going to keep going and while I am taking my math out to multiple decimal places, when I get to the end and finalize the calendar, I think these numbers will come back down to integers.

Anyway, back to the math.

The Mun’s synodic period (from the Wiki) is 141,115.4 seconds. That’s 6.53312037 days. Every six and a half days, the Mun passes in front of the sun in a total solar eclipse.

You don’t need to be an Kerbal astronomer to see that. Everyone will see it. Well, not exactly. At six and a half days the next eclipse will happen on the other side of Kerbin. A ancient kerbal peasant or shepherd living in one place will see the next eclipse when it comes around again six and a half days after that (and almost 24 minutes later in the day). Their “week” might naturally settle out to 13 days. Eclipse to eclipse.

To us humans playing in the kerbal world, having a 13 day week won’t be intuitive so let’s go back to the shorter timeframe. And, to keep the calendar closer to the astronomical occurrences, one defined week will be 6 days and the next will be 7 days. Alternating through the year.

Minmus has a synodic period of 1,220,131.7 seconds or 56.4876 days. Divided into the year, this might sort itself out to there being seven and a half months. That’s a lot of days left over but, if we want to try to get the calendar closer to what’s going on in the sky, we can double that, like we did for the “week” and have 15 months of 28 days each and then only 6 days left over.

Then, to even that out, we need to place those extra days. What I think works best is to have 9 months of 28 days and 6 months of 29 days set out in a pattern of 28, 28, 29, 28, 29 that repeats three times over the year.

Kerbin does not have any axial tilt and so the idea of “seasons” as they are on a tilted Earth would not apply but these three repetitions of the monthly format breaks the year into Early, Middle, and Late.

As to week and month names, this would be all speculation and personal preference. The Internet already has several versions proposed.

The “Western” week is mostly based on Nordic gods, which were probably based on the Roman and before them Greek gods, each associated with the visible planets (and the sun), overlaid onto days of the week. To keep with my ancient astronomers trend, there would be 7 objects visible in Kerbal skies; the sun, the Mun, Minmus, Moho, Eve, Duna, and Jool. I should think Dres and Eeloo to be too small and too distance to be visible with the naked eye. Days of the week would map Kerbal “gods” perhaps associated with each of those bodies onto the 6 days of the week with the Sun-day occurring every other week. Munday? Senul (Moon in backwards Spanish)? Again, back to personal preference.

And the names of the month would be even more up to preference. Many human months are based on numbers, for example, December translates out as the “tenth month” but isn’t actually the tenth month because months honoring a few Roman emperors got squeezed in there. Plus, the Romans threw some other differences in. Other calendars have their months named after star constellations, adjusting the intuitive lunar calendar into a non-shifting solar calendar. The Baha’i’ calendar names its months after the attributes of God. Some calendars use month names to identify changing seasons, specific holidays, highlight moral codes, tasks like planting or harvesting, and pretty much anything else that changing history and language can lead to.

There are Internet suggestions out there but I don’t think any of them have as many as 15 months.

So, to summarize.

The Kerbin year is 426 days.
The Kerbin year adds a leap day every 12 years.
The Kerbin week alternates with either 6 or 7 days.
The Kerbin year has 15 months.
The Kerbin month has 4 full weeks plus 2 or 3 additional days.
The Kerbin seasons have 5 months each.
The Kerbin month has either 28 or 29 days with a repeating pattern of 28, 28, 29, 28, 29.

It was time for the LZhM munbase crew researching the alien saucer crashed on the Mun to rotate home to be replaced by a crew aboard another Dobro LK.

While the Dobro LK is a capable muncraft, the Chief Designer has been thinking. That should not surprise anyone as he is always thinking, often to the exclusion of almost everything else. Sleep. Snacks. Lots of thinking. In this case, he was increasingly dissatisfied with direct return.

The Amerikanskis have it easy in that they launch and return at the Kerbin equator and, in so doing, have a much lower fuel usage for any trip to the Mun or Minmus. For the Sovietski cosmonautics program, they must launch and return at higher, almost polar latitudes, and that takes additional delta-V. Ideally, the Chief designer would like to have enough fuel to go from Munar orbit to a low polar orbit above Kerbin so that any landing area can be precisely selected. The less extra delta-V available, the more elliptical the orbit and the more challenging to land back in the Union.

The Dobro LK has 2,533 m/s of delta-V in the lander and 2,019 m/s in the transfer stage. Whatever is left in the transfer stage on reaching Munar orbit is used to deorbit so that, when the Dobra lands it has about 1,750 m/s give or take depending on the skill of the pilot. That is plenty if it was only going to return to munar orbit and then return to Kerbin to land anywhere. It is even sufficient to get into a usable polar Kerbin orbit, but to get to the Chief Designer’s ideal, it could use an additional 500 m/s of dV.

Using the technique of the LK-500 series of landers with a multistage lander would solve the problem easily but landing repeatedly at a munbase and leaving a landing module behind each time would not be sustainable. Previous iterations would have the craft launch with the lander stage still attached and discard it before reaching orbit to crash somewhere in the munar wilderness. Every flight does the same thing inbound with the transfer stage, but something about dumping twice as much debris onto the Mun gives the Chief Designer itchy skin.

He may need to allow that itchiness as he thinks on how best to maintain the Sovietski presence on the Mun.

In the pre-dawn hour of New Year’s Day, a behemoth was rolled out of a hanger at the Cosmodrome. Not one of the mighty N-1 mun rockets but a majestic callback to a previous era: an airship.

The Ruskies had airships previously, and they were fully capable craft but the costs and accidents had caused them to fall out of fashion, not only in the Soviet Union but worldwide. With the foundational developments of “new technologies” by Institute 22, the USSR State Commission of the Council of Ministers assigned the Dolgoprudny Design Bureau of Automation (DKBA) the task of developing a return of airships to the sky. The Dirizhabl' Kerbina had already established the soundness of the technology, and was currently being refit to move from experimental to practical applications but this new craft, the Dirizhabl' Kermanov, was much larger, more capable, and its maiden flight would introduce this prestige method of transportation to the world.

The set out on the first leg of its journey with its core crew from the Cosmonaut corps lead by Hero Pilot Cosmonaut Ivan Nikolayevich Kermanov. There were several engineers OKB-23 who had worked directly on the airship’s development and construction. The Assistant to the Chief Designer and two members of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party. A high ranking general of the Red Army and another of the Military Transport Aviation Command. A chef and several porters and secretaries. One journalist from Pravda. A political commissar. And two factory workers, one with his wife and the other with his son and daughter (because airships are for the people).

The trip from the Cosmodrome, over the mountains, to Moscow was without much fanfare and uneventful aside from the excitement of the participants. Once arriving in Moscow, however, was when the real excitement began. Huge crowds turned out as the majestic craft settled in Red Square and the motorcade of the First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union arrived. He toured the Kermanov and when the airship lifted off a short time later, everyone was surprised when the Secretary and a small staff remained aboard. The New Year’s surprise was revealed that the First Secretary would personally tour the Soviet Union.

The Kermanov flew low, only 200 meters above the ground, to the Okhotsk Sea, then north along the coast. Through the Ruskie breadbasket heartland to Leningrad. Day three was inland, over the dachas of the oligarchs on the shores of the Blackish Sea, around the Altai Mountains and then east to Novosibirsk. Day four north to Yakutsk then returning southward to Rekagrad. The final leg across the great Soviet Union was around the the Stanovoy Mountiains then on to Vladivostok.

All along the way, huge crowds turned out to watch it’s stately passage across the sky. Factories and schools ended work for the day to allow spectating as if it were in impromptu national holiday. Pravda reported that the General Secretary did not once raise his voice or pound his shoe on a table, spending his time waving out the window, snacking extensively, and pointing out landmarks to his fellow passengers as if he were a tour guide.

A question he would not answer was what would happen after arriving at Uglovoye Northwest Airbase near Vladivostok. Would the Premier return to Moscow aboard the Kermanov? Would he take the train or a conventional jet aircraft? What would be the airship’s next destination? Just as the itinerary of the grand tour had not been announced in advance of the Premier boarding the airship, it wasn’t until the morning of the fifth day of the grand tour that all was revealed.

The workers and their families were put off the airship and would return to their homes on the Trans-Siberian Railway. They would be replaced by several Red Army guards. The Dirizhabl' Kermanov’s next destination: Peking!

Relations between the Soviet Union and China had not been very cordial as of late. In point of fact, they have been strained since the start of the Cultural Revolution because of differences in the interpretation of Marxism.

Late in the afternoon when the Kermanov gently touched down in Tienanmen Square, large crowds had already begun to gather and the motorcade of the Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party arrived. He toured the Kermanov and when the airship lifted off a short time later, everyone was surprised when the Secretary and a small staff remained aboard. The New Year’s surprise was revealed that they would visit the World Heritage Site of Tut-un Jeb-Ahn.

Though the two leaders has several private meetings, and the topic of those discussions were not disclosed, Pravda reported that at all other times they were cordial and downright friendly. The Chairman spent much of his time aboard waving out the window, snacking extensively, and pointing out landmarks to his fellow passengers as if he were a tour guide.

After overnighting at the 27th Experimental Training Base at the edge of the Great Desert, the airship crossed the border, to later gently touch down before the great temple pyramid of the ancient self-declared king of kings; Tut-un Jeb-Ahn.

The world press and assembled archaeologists were presented with statements from the two leaders praising each other, rededicating their two nations to the Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship, Alliance and Mutual Assistance, praising the scientific work ongoing, supporting the workers doing the digging, decrying monarchy, and pledging support, separately and then jointly, to the United Nations Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Culture and National Heritage.

On the return trip, a different route was taken and, while the Pravda journalist was locked in his cabin, the Kermanov overflew the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, under construction.

The rest of the journey was anticlimactic, returning the Chairman to his capital, to Rekagrad, then proceeding down the Great Amur River, past the massive Three Rivers Gorge Dam, to the river’s outlet on the Okhotsk Sea, Leningrad, and finally home to Moscow. A little more than two weeks aloft.

The expectation at the Cosmodrome is that the General Secretary’s grand tour represented not only continued support of the cosmonautics program but support for neighboring China’s budding space program. The spaceport they are developing would, if shared with the Ruskies, provide easier access to the prime space in Kerbostationary orbit. There will surely be many economic and political opportunities, and they do dig giant airships as well, but the nerds at Scientific Research Test Range No. 5 care less about that then they do about rockets and more rockets.

In March of last year, I returned to Red Skies after a five year hiatus. I had to rebuild pretty much everything because mods had changed, virtually destroying my save file. Then, I was only able to continue the story for a few months before not doing it any more. Honestly, Valheim came out with a new update and I was playing that a lot. Then Windrose released and I was playing that.

Both those games are waiting for a major release and I have found out that “Star City”, a spinoff of the “For All Mankind” series, has released. I have not watched any of that yet other than YouTube clips but that has inspired me to return to the Red Skies Cinematic Universe. One of the good things about this reboot is that, this time, my save files and mods are intact and I will literally be able to just pick up where I left off.

Cosmonautics is an inherently dangerous endeavor. Fundamentally it is taking small and fragile creatures, encasing them in a thin aluminum can, and hurling them into the deep, black, vacuum of space atop a massive cylinder of explosives. No one within the Soviet program would ever dare categorize such a thing as “routine.” And yet, Pravda did just that in its summary of the fourth year of the new cosmic era of kerbalkind.

In only the past half of that year, a Soviet probe has landed upon the distant world of Duna, beating the Amerikanski to the red planet. Three rovers have been landed on the Mun plus seven crewed missions to the surface. Crews that had spent half a year in bases on the surfaces of the Mun and Minmus were brought home and replaced with crews to spend the next half year. The four permanent space stations in orbit had their crews similarly rotated. The Kerblikovsky Orbital Telescope has been delivering unprecedented images of deepy space. Several asteroids have been captured into Kerbin orbit and Soviet rockets have been maneuvering them into lower orbits where the will serve as the foundations of orbital industry and the expansion of space usefulness to all people.

All this without a single major incident or fatality (at least in the past year). No wonder that Pravda felt comfortable using the word “routine.” And even the Chief Designer would admit that Soviet Cosmonautics had entered something of a “middle-age” where the exploration and innovation of hits youth gave way to utilization and exploitation of adulthood. Space stations and munar bases would be expanded. Space resources would be optimized for use. New technologies would not be so much invented as perfected.

However, the next year will bring the next giant step forward. Transfer windows to every world in the solar system will open and, at the very least, probes will be sent to each of them. A crewed mission to Duna will be launched. In fact, although some of the particulars have yet to be worked out, an entire fleet of craft will be sent to Duna. Mapping satellites. Communication satellites. An orbital station. A lander with a rover.

And, in the near term, the Chief Designer has announced a New Year’s surprise.

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The Sky Calls

A Kerbal Space Program Blog

Recent Entries

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