Let's play: Buzz Aldrin's Race Into Space

[HMS Sophia]

You have a problem.

Oh yeah. Forgot that was you
Swap modemjr for flashheart as a backup.
But I really don't want flashheart going into space. Hell, it might be a case of scrub if cunster cant fly

[Simon_Jester]

[OOC: A plan, but let's take it slow; let Eternal Freedom come back, and let us do all kinds of zany antics in the spring like the ones we've already been up to]

Baikonurek Cosmodrome
January 3, 1961

Comrade Chief Designer Syrgy Pavylyvych slumped over his typewriter. He fished through his desk and found the bottle of aspirin and chased down two tablets with a glass of water. Hopefully that would do something for the throbbing at his temples and the ache in his chest. His final version of the report was almost done; he started pecking at the typewriter to finish it off.

Plan Pavylyvych, Spring 1961

The marvelous successes of the program are known to all. However, all is not well.

At the same time as the triumphal launch and retrieval of Comrade Faaabio, we have suffered another catastrophic setback in the beloved and much-abused Semyorka rocket. The factory responsible for fabricating critical tubules and fuel lines for the rocket has utterly failed its quality control, and many tubes which must be strong, durable, and rigid are instead kinked, cracked, twisted, and brittle. This makes the rockets dangerously unreliable, even when we go through the entire lots of tubing and pick out the portions that reveal the fewest microfractures under a microscope. At the most optimistic, I expect a failure rate of at least forty percent among A-Series rockets launched this season using the hardware from the Derevnya Gadyukino Precision Alloy Tubing Plant.

For this reason, it is with a heavy heart that I must cancel the scheduled manned earth orbital launch for this upcoming season (I. I. Ivanov, Sr., as primary; G. Titov as backup). We will work as fast as possible to find a superior quality of parts with which to revitalize the rocket program, but blowups must be expected until these new engineering problems are resolved, and the Semyorka cannot be considered man-rated until these problems are fixed.

However, we will proceed as planned with unmanned launches, within reason. In addition, the new funds released by the Politburo will permit us to move forward with a number of research programs which will carry the program forward through 1962 and 1963. We must look to the future!


BUDGET: 132 MB


Scrub manned orbital launch for Spring 1961.
Continue with unmanned orbital test flight for Spring 1961.

6 MB: Purchase 1 A-Series rocket and 1 Vostok capsule for test flight.

1 MB for 1 team on Vostok capsule research (just to max it out- you never know, the difference between 75 and 76% reliability might matter)
10 MB for 5 teams on A-Series rocket research
6 MB for 3 teams on Booster Stage research

Schedule an unmanned suborbital Vostok/A-Series launch for Fall 1961.



Check A-Series rocket reliability.

IF A-Series reliability is greater than or equal to 63%, schedule a manned orbital flight for Fall 1961 with the same crew if possible (I. I. Ivanov for primary, Titov for backup). If the same crew cannot be chosen, select Karzanovski as primary and Nikov as backup.

IF A-Series reliability is less than or equal to 63%, schedule another unmanned suborbital Vostok/A-Series (yes, I am intentionally pushing up Vostok reliability by tiny increments at considerable expense while I have funds to do so; I don't want to blow up my Yuri Gagarin-equivalent if I can help it, and I have nothing else to do with the pads). We're not launching those rockets unless we have a fairly solid expectation of 80%+ reliability on the rocket by the time of launch.



Budget 12 MB for these launches which must not be considered for purposes of other expenses.
Budget another 10 MB for continued research into A-Series rocket for Fall 1961.
________________

So far, my budget adds to 45 MB for procurement and development of existing hardware for the year, leaving me with 87 MB to play with.

I had been seriously considering starting the Proton project this year, but in light of our reliability problems with the simpler A-Series I am reluctant to do so. If I delay that I should spend the money on other things. So:

24 MB: Begin Voskhod Capsule research
10 MB: 5 teams research on Voskhod Capsule
20 MB: Begin Cosmos Satellite research
6 MB: 3 teams research on Cosmos Satellite

60 MB cost total.

We're going to need the rest of the money to continue research next season and to deal with any contingencies that may arise, so that's it.

[FaxModem1]

Spoiler

Question for PeZook. Are the Zenobians too far ahead of the Murcans that unless some real bad stuff happens in random events, there's not really a chance?

[Simon_Jester]

Actually no; you might beat us to orbit, even. That random effect from the rocket reliability breakdown is going to set back our program at least a full season, more probably two.

You're no farther behind the Zenobians now than the US was behind the USSR during the same period.

[PeZook]

Yeah, the race is rather head to head. Also, the Atlas is now at 91% reliability, and the Mercury can be gotten up to 88% with research alone. The possibility of a catastrophe is NOT small for the Zenobians.

[HMS Sophia]

Damn, I like those rates. I still believe the game has issues with the mercury capsule. I fail the re-entry so much... Spoiler

Also, I really want to know if fax and drago manage to escape

[PeZook]

Okay, the plans are good.I will run through them Monday evening, giving us time to goof off during the air show and whatnot.

[PeZook]

Damn, I like those rates. I still believe the game has issues with the mercury capsule. I fail the re-entry so much...

That is true, but less so for manned flights. Top research plus a guy with capsule 4 gives you 92% ;Zenobians can't get more than 80% with that combo.

Of course the cowardly communoids eject before landing to circumvent this most just punishment for the deficiencies of their foul economic system

[HMS Sophia]

How do you work out the rates of success?
Also:

Sam, working hard on the plans for a minishuttle, shuffles some papers and finds an advert for the international conference. He grins, seeing the chance for much sharing of knowledge, and talking of long, hard, rockets. He gets on the phone and charters a cross-Atlantic flight, excited to be doing something to distract him.

[PeZook]

How do you work out the rates of success?

It's really simple: every mission has a number of stages. Each stage is rolled against the reliability of a given piece of hardware. If the roll is below, you're good. If it's above, the game rolls for failure. Some failures are critical and make things blow up and people die, while some are recoverable and don't affect the mission.

Most rocket failures are of the "whoops dead" variety of course.

[HMS Sophia]

I mainly meant the astronaut skills
How do they affect things?

[doom3607]

Check A-Series rocket reliability.

IF A-Series reliability is greater than or equal to 63%, schedule a manned orbital flight for Fall 1961 with the same crew if possible (I. I. Ivanov for primary, Titov for backup). If the same crew cannot be chosen, select Karzanovski as primary and Nikov as backup.

IF A-Series reliability is less than or equal to 63%, schedule another unmanned suborbital Vostok/A-Series (yes, I am intentionally pushing up Vostok reliability by tiny increments at considerable expense while I have funds to do so; I don't want to blow up my Yuri Gagarin-equivalent if I can help it, and I have nothing else to do with the pads). We're not launching those rockets unless we have a fairly solid expectation of 80%+ reliability on the rocket by the time of launch.

OOC, and if it's equal to do both, then?

[PeZook]

I mainly meant the astronaut skills
How do they affect things?

I think they straight up add their skill to the check, though they may be some hidden effect on the emergency recovery rolls.

[HMS Sophia]

I think they straight up add their skill to the check, though they may be some hidden effect on the emergency recovery rolls.

Ah fair enough
See now I think we should go beyond the space race, and go past the game doing other projects and such.
I think it could be done, seeing as this is all dice roll based. (I think researchers each add 1d6 per team, though I may be missing how big the dice is)

[Simon_Jester]

Excuse me, delete "equal to" in "less than or equal to 63%."

But yeah, between our having gotten a delayed start on rocket research because Doomy gave it a rather distant second priority to spamming launches in 1957*, and this new thing kicking us in the balls on the rocket reliability, we are in serious trouble despite our initial lead. My basic strategy for the moment is a mad scramble to use the prestige funds we got from that lead for R&D that will let us leapfrog ahead of the Murcans even if they do beat us to orbit.

*I checked. We lost several team-seasons' research, at least five to ten, because of the money he spent speeding up launches, which is why we didn't hit full reliability on the A-Series until 1960 whereas the Murcans had it earlier. Jesus Christ our rockets have been consistently less reliable than the fucking Atlas rocket... [weeps]

[LaCroix]

Grzegorz Brzęczyszczykiewicz whistled as he scraped some birdshit and bugs from one of the signs with the knife he was given for this purpuse (And as cutlery - The great nation of Zenobia has created multifunctional tools that can be used for various purposes!)

His time would come, soon. In the latest speech he had witnessed through the fence - he had even been issued a binocular and a a radio to be able to take part - the Chief Designer had singled him out in his praise to all the patriotic Mangs working at BAIKONUREK!

Well, he had thanked the sign cleaners, but Grzegorz had clearly seen that the Chief Designer had looked straight at him when he said this.

"What a great man, intelligent and eyes like a falcon, able to make out my lone form over such a distance," he thought, full of reverence for his idol.

He felt a surge of Zenobian pride swell in his chest, and instinctively, he began to intone the Zenobian hymn. Of course, like most Zenobians, he sang the alternative version. (Created by the same great committee that also invented the Bloody Ztalin drink who made up this new lyrics so that any proud Zenobian Mang could sing it, whether he was in a state to remember the proper lyrics or not. Coincidentally, like the drink, it quickly became popular enough that it was adopted as the official NKVDVDROM version....)

"ZeeeeeeEEEEEEEEEENOOOOOOOOOooooBIIIIAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaa!
ZEEEEEEEE - EEEEEEEEEEEEEEENOOOOOOOOOOOOOBIIIIIIIIAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!
ZEEEEE-HEEEEE-HEEEEEEE-HEEEEENOOOOOOOOOOOO-BIIIAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaa-haaaaaaa......"

[FaxModem1]

On a ranch, somewhere in Mehico



Fax Modem corralled the horses back into their stable. He was getting back to his roots, it was warmer here, but it was pleasant. With the money they had left over, they could acquire a bit of land, new identities, and enough supplies to start over.

Drago was in the house, drawing. He was a scientist, and would always be one. Their lives, for now, were happy. Drago had finished several designs and improvements for the Atlas rockets as well as several possible schematics for mini-shuttles.

Once the chores were done, they went to the post office. After reading in the paper about an international space conference, they decided to help Sam Francisco, as he had helped them. The package full of notes and designs was given to a freelance courier, who took the package and agreed to deliver it. The courier ran, a trail of dust behind him.

The Cape, one day later



The courier ran to Sam's office, signing over the package to him, before running away, papers flying in his wake.

[HMS Sophia]

The courier ran to Sam's office, signing over the package to him, before running away, papers flying in his wake.

Sam opens the box, pulling out a short letter. He smiles, happy to see that the pair had escaped and were doing well. He next pulls out a set of plans, and his eyes widen. Drago never ceased to surprise him with his work. The mini-shuttle plans were certainly going to cause some upset at the next general staff meet. Well, better to be aerodynamic and fly, than to drop out the sky...

[Eternal_Freedom]

Johnny von Braun strolls nonchantly back into the building, smiling at the guards and shouting "I'm back bitches!" to no one in particular.

He stops in his office, leafs through the papers waiting on his desk for a bit, sees the plans submitted by Sam Francisco, gets his "approved" stamp and approves the plan.

He then strolls down the hall, kicking open Francisco's office door in a manly way, only to catch Sam in the midst of reading through the package of drawings.

"Whatya got there Sam? And whatever happened to that Drago bloke we had kicking around?"

[HMS Sophia]

He then strolls down the hall, kicking open Francisco's office door in a manly way, only to catch Sam in the midst of reading through the package of drawings.

"Whatya got there Sam? And whatever happened to that Drago bloke we had kicking around?"

Sam jumps at the door kick-inning, but then grins when he sees it is Johnny back again.
"Some more plans for that mini-shuttle. I left a proposal on your desk, did you see it?" he says, still focused on the papers
"Drago went away somewhere. Not sure where. I think the NSA had something to do with it or something..."

[Eternal_Freedom]

"Really? Oh well, someone else's problem..."

Johnny glances at the plans, mutters under his breath something distinctly Thanasian that translates as "most intrigueing."

"Oh, that plan?" Johnny holds up the paper, with the giant red "APPROVED" on it. "Good plan. Write it up neatly and we'll get it submitted ot the contractors and the White Dwelling and all that other shite."

Johnny then notices the Conference leaflet.

"Hello, what have we here?"

[Simon_Jester]

Baikonurek Cosmodrome
Quarters of the Chief Designer
February 17, 1961
6:30 AM

Syrgy Pavylyvych awoke with a start in the darkness- the bear! the terrible bear! To this day he had nightmares about that day in the gulag, back in the summer of '39. Worse than the gold mines, worse than the interrogations... the bear. None could explain its presence, but it haunted the woods around the camp at Kylhima like the rumored Abominable Snowman of Tibet.

There were horrible rumors in that camp: that the bear had been signed on as a junior commissarial cadet, that the bear was intelligent and hated all prisoners, or indeed all men, that it was a man-eater, one that knew how to open doors and other things no bear should be able to do.

And one day, as part of a wood-cutting party, trying to bring in firewood for a labor barracks, Syrgy crossed the path of the bear.



The bear had rushed at him and started bludgeoning him with a massive beating-stick, bellowing in inexplicable rage: "BRAAAGH!" Stunned and thrown to the ground immediately, Syrgy could do little more than roll and clutch at his injuries as the bear delivered a ferocious stickbeating, then charged off into the woods. He'd been found by his fellow prisoners almost half an hour later and taken to the camp infirmary- but the wounds stayed with him to this day.

Syrgy took a moment to fight back to himself- there was something else, something almost as prominent in his mind as the memories of stickbeating. What was it... ah! He could never forget, on going home, if there was something wrong with a technique. Now he remembered what the matter had been.

After the colossal failures at the Derevnya Gadyukino Precision Alloy Tubing Plant- and Syrgy Pavylyvych would dearly love to know who was responsible for that- a tremendous amount of effort had gone into testing assembly processes and whatnot. Yesterday he'd signed off on a set of welding jigs to be put together in Machine Shop Seven, but something was bothering him about it... and now he knew what.



Baikonurek Cosmodrome
Machine Shop Seven
February 17, 1961
7:45 AM

Grzegorz Brzęczyszczykiewicz was overjoyed! Observing his commitment to the task of proper sign-cleaning at ten degrees below zero, and his manifest yet touchingly simple loyalty to the Zenobian Onion, the security staff had cleared him to work inside the fence, and at a job which sometimes involved being indoors: loading trucks!

So here he was, in Machine Shop Seven. This had been tacked onto the main production complexes as something of an afterthought, in a large building originally intended as part of the motor pool. Many of the building's timbers still smelled and looked fresh, save for the faint sheen of industrial lubricants and metal shavings begin to permeate all surfaces. Many of the machine tools had been shipped in from elsewhere, some of them relics that had to predate the Great Patriotic Salvation War, like the drill press in front of him. The haste with which the Baikonurek facilities were expanding also extended to the machinists; some of the metalworkers looked to be relics that predated the Great Patriotic Salvation War, too... especially their hats. That hat might even be as old as the Zenobian Uncivil War; it looked like the headgear warn by the early commienist troops in their battles against the imperialists, paleomonarchists, and other enemies of the state.

It was a nice hat.

A sheet-metal worker leaned over to Grzegorz. "Hey, I heard a couple of Youkrainian shepherds the other day. The first shepherd, had heard about Comrade Faaabio's launch a few months ago. So he got up on top of a hill, and shouted over to another Youkrainian on the next hill over to tell the news. He said "Mykola!""

Then the worker spoke in an mock-echo, as if his voice was shouted from a long way away. "Yes?"

"The Zenobians have flown into space!"

"What, all of them?"

"No, just one."

"So then the second Youkrainian says "So why are you bothering me then?""

Grzegorz smiled. "Good one, where did you hear it, comrade?"

"It just came to me... holy fuck." He pointed behind Grzegorz, who spun round; it was the Chief Designer! What was he doing in the shop all of a sudden? Wait, he was talking over something with the foreman. Pointing at a stack of papers, saying something Grzegorz couldn't quite make out over the sound of a lathe running behind him.

At first glance, the Chief Designer was a big, burly fellow who looked powerful and dynamic. But after watching him for a little while, Grzegorz was struck by just how slowly and stiffly the man moved. How his jaw bulged lopsidedly, as if it'd been broken and never quite set properly. When he turned to look someone in the eye, he swiveled his entire body and shuffled his feet slowly, rather than turning his neck.

The shop wasn't especially strongly heated, just enough to keep the machinists' fingers from getting stiff in the cold, but the rocket scientist was sweating slightly. He raised his fingers to his jaw and grimaced, then exchanged a few more words with the foreman, nodded, and went to sit down on a workbench. He slumped forward, bracing himself with his forearms.

Grzegorz checked the lathe crew who were working on the parts he was supposed to help deliver to the warehouse- not done yet, there'd been some kind of mixup and the foreman had told Grzegorz that he and the truck driver would have to wait. This could be a chance to speak to the great engineer! Or at least ask him if he was all right; he really didn't look too good.

But as he approached, feeling a little awkward, a young man in a security guard's uniform, who had been waiting by the personnel entrance, darted to intercept him in four quick strides. He didn't look happy. "Do not trouble the Chief Designer, Comrade."

"Da, da, sorry, but... are you sure he's all right? Look at him!"

"What?"

Then the Chief Designer waved an arm. "Nyet, is nothing, I just have a headache. And I'm tired. It'll pass, give me a few minutes..." His chest rose and fell very visibly as he took deep breaths.

Grzegorz whispered to the guard "I don't know, comrade; I remember when my grandpa Krzysztof looked like that. About four hours later he keeled over and died..."

"Shit! You don't think-"

"You'd better talk to him."

The guard took a few more quick steps to reach the Chief Designer, then whispered back and forth with him. Grzegorz couldn't follow what was said, but finally the Designer nodded slightly and started pushing up from the bench. At first he looked like he was starting to snap out of it, and the set in his eye looked fairly lively. He nodded again and said "Let us get back to the testing labs, Dmitry."

"Of course, Comrade Chief Designer."

The rocket scientist got about three steps before he blinked and staggered, grunting in confusion. The guard darted up to steady him, but with a strange glint in his eye, the Chief Designer stumbled over to a nearby sink. He leaned down... and threw up into the basin. Now Grzegorz knew something was wrong, and he ran up to the sick man himself.

"Comrade Chief Designer! Comrade Chief Designer!"

"I don't feel so good..."

Grzegorz and the guard helped lower him to the chilly floor of the machine shop. Then the guard turned to Grzegorz. "You! Get on the telephone and call the infirmary!"

---

Moosecow, OSCR*
The Kremlin
February 17, 1961
8:50 AM Moscow Time

*Onion of Soviet Commienist Republics

Comrade Shroomanski looked up from his breakfast of blyny pancakes, made with experimental cornmeal flour, at the knock on the door. The guard showed in one of his aides.

"What news?"

"Your Excellency, Syrgy Pavylyvych is in the hospital at Baikonurek. They say his condition is stabilizing, but he's had a heart attack."

[Simon_Jester]

OOC:

What can I say, it was overdue.

LaCroix, I hope you don't mind me appropriating your character for this.

[PeZook]

It is some strange coincidence, but I guess in an infinite universe, such are bound to happen!

[FaxModem1]

I'm missing a joke here.