Five Year Plan
Mar. 16th, 2025 06:37 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
the_sky_callsThe General Secretary loves plans. Economic plans. Floor plans. Dinner plans. He has a drawer full of plans, right underneath the drawer he has full of extra shoes he uses to pound on his desk to emphasis. But if there is one plan he loves more than all the others it is Five Year Plans™. Five Year Plans have in their nature a goal that, in the short term, seems absolutely attainable while, at the same time, being far enough out in the future that, if they are not achieved, can be blamed on outside extraneous factors and not to any deficiency in The Plan itself.
The Chief Designer knowing this, rather than letting the General Secretary come up with his own plan for advancing the great socialist revolution into space, provided the General Secretary with a Five Year Plan of his own making, based on the best available expertise on space programming (namely, the Chief Designer himself) and a realistic expectation of what could be achieved in that time frame, all written in marker on a brown paper grocery bag.
As the Soviet Union had just recently launched its first interplanetary mission in the form of two automated probes to Duna, the Chief Designer declared that, within the five year time frame, missions would be sent to all the major planetary systems in the Kerbol system. An Eeloo launch window was coming up before the end of the coming year and would even arrive at Eeloo before the end of the five year plan. All the other planets, being closer, could also be visited within that time.
With that first interplanetary mission to Duna, and intelligence that the Amerikanskis were considering that their first mission to Duna be crewed, the General Secretary wanted a crewed mission to beat the Amerikanskis there. The Chief Designer attempted to explain that, given the nature of orbital mechanics, the next launch window would be available for both the Soviets and the Amerikanskis at the same time and so too arrival would be at the same time. The General Secretary, while not an ignorant or simple man, could not understand the math involved, and so settled for the Chief Designer writing into the Plan in all capital letters and using an extra-thick marker “GET TO DUNA TO LAUGH AT AMERIKANSKIS!” That seemed to satisfy the General Secretary while, in private, the Chief Designer was formulating multiple missions to Duna. A veritable fleet of craft.
The Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti also reported that the Amerikanskis were working on building a permanent base on the Mun at the anomaly codenamed Kvartira to the north of the Soviet Zvezda munbase. The Amerikanskis had the Kvartira and the three munar arches on the mun, plus at least one monolith on Kerbin within their sphere of influence while the Soviets had four monoliths and two crashed saucers within theirs. “We must not allow an anomaly gap!” yelled the General Secretary, while pounding on his desk with a shoe. The Chief Designer assured him that the LOS-2 Udacha mun orbital station had powerful surveillance telescopes on board for just that purpose and the Leningradskoye Optiko-Mekhanicheskoye Obyedinenie was working on advanced optics for even more capability. There would be new satellites to not only look over the Amerikanski’s shoulders, but to seek out additional anomalies.
Asteroids. The General Secretary wanted something done with asteroids. He didn’t know what, but he wanted something. And aircraft. More aircraft. And boats. And submarines. And. And.
The Chief Designer recognized that the meeting was getting late in the afternoon, approaching supper time, and the General Secretary was probably getting hangry, and so he made some broad, vague promises and handed over his plan, assuring the General Secretary that he would get right on all of these things. And more.
The plan immediately went into the desk drawer.
The Chief Designer knowing this, rather than letting the General Secretary come up with his own plan for advancing the great socialist revolution into space, provided the General Secretary with a Five Year Plan of his own making, based on the best available expertise on space programming (namely, the Chief Designer himself) and a realistic expectation of what could be achieved in that time frame, all written in marker on a brown paper grocery bag.
As the Soviet Union had just recently launched its first interplanetary mission in the form of two automated probes to Duna, the Chief Designer declared that, within the five year time frame, missions would be sent to all the major planetary systems in the Kerbol system. An Eeloo launch window was coming up before the end of the coming year and would even arrive at Eeloo before the end of the five year plan. All the other planets, being closer, could also be visited within that time.
With that first interplanetary mission to Duna, and intelligence that the Amerikanskis were considering that their first mission to Duna be crewed, the General Secretary wanted a crewed mission to beat the Amerikanskis there. The Chief Designer attempted to explain that, given the nature of orbital mechanics, the next launch window would be available for both the Soviets and the Amerikanskis at the same time and so too arrival would be at the same time. The General Secretary, while not an ignorant or simple man, could not understand the math involved, and so settled for the Chief Designer writing into the Plan in all capital letters and using an extra-thick marker “GET TO DUNA TO LAUGH AT AMERIKANSKIS!” That seemed to satisfy the General Secretary while, in private, the Chief Designer was formulating multiple missions to Duna. A veritable fleet of craft.
The Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti also reported that the Amerikanskis were working on building a permanent base on the Mun at the anomaly codenamed Kvartira to the north of the Soviet Zvezda munbase. The Amerikanskis had the Kvartira and the three munar arches on the mun, plus at least one monolith on Kerbin within their sphere of influence while the Soviets had four monoliths and two crashed saucers within theirs. “We must not allow an anomaly gap!” yelled the General Secretary, while pounding on his desk with a shoe. The Chief Designer assured him that the LOS-2 Udacha mun orbital station had powerful surveillance telescopes on board for just that purpose and the Leningradskoye Optiko-Mekhanicheskoye Obyedinenie was working on advanced optics for even more capability. There would be new satellites to not only look over the Amerikanski’s shoulders, but to seek out additional anomalies.
Asteroids. The General Secretary wanted something done with asteroids. He didn’t know what, but he wanted something. And aircraft. More aircraft. And boats. And submarines. And. And.
The Chief Designer recognized that the meeting was getting late in the afternoon, approaching supper time, and the General Secretary was probably getting hangry, and so he made some broad, vague promises and handed over his plan, assuring the General Secretary that he would get right on all of these things. And more.
The plan immediately went into the desk drawer.
