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

[Simon_Jester]

Aack.

I honestly forgot about launch scheduling in Plan Pavylyvych. Please hang on and gimme a minute to think.

[Simon_Jester]

On reflection, no, do not want to schedule launches for Spring 1963; I will probably need money for R&D and Voskhod tests in 1963, with little or nothing to spare for more Sputniks.

[Simon_Jester]

NEIN NEIN NEIN Percent Reliable!

Baikonurek Cosmodrome
EVA Suit Testing Facility
August 1962

Dr. Doom von Evilstein growled. Confined to quarters, then his quarters reduced to eighths, and finally to sixteenths! Little more than a prison cell, with a bare floor and a bed that was little more than a cot! It was intolerable! It was an INSULT!

But he'd get his own back. He would have revenge on all his enemies, on Pavylyvych, on Omeganski, even on Shroomanski himself. Yes, yes, he would cackle with proper Thanasian glee as he swung the tip of his indefatigably lethal pickaxe into their soft, crunchy knees, yes, yes!

Just as soon as he triumphed politically. He would do it, somehow! He was very very interested in politics. He didn't know exactly what he could do, for some reason all his plans failed due to catastrophically bad working assumptions, as when he sent a letter to Shroomanski asking for help, only to remember later that Shroomanski hated him and would never help him in any way. But somehow he would triumph, and all his enemies would be discredited, and the Zenobians would let him burn all the incriminating evidence and then oh yes the pickaxe...

Von Evilstein's reveries about the time he first introduced himself to the joys of the pickaxe back in '43 were rudely interrupted when a man barged into his little room, shoving the door aside and looking at the Thanasian in a most peculiar way. He leaned against the wall, going through the practiced motions of lighting a cigarette before speaking to von Evilstein.

"Hello. Call me Dr. Vanko. Let me explain why you are here."

"I recognize dich nicht."

"I am... recent addition to program. Was once a researcher in experimental power sources, a joint Zenobian-Murcan project, but that smarmy fucker Howard Strak stole all my work. Joke is on him, though, because he'll never get the thing small enough to be cost effective until... heheheheh. Anyway. You, Comrade Fucking Ratzi Slimeball, are here to play an interesting role in our development of experimental EVA suit hardware. It will be like tests your friends in the camps did, sticking Joos into vacuum chambers, only we are kind, and will give you space suit before removing all the air, da?"

"Nein..."

"Oh, da. Don't worry. This suit has been tested before, except for some experimental seals at the thighs. Also, catheter modifications. For to piss on Murca from orbit, da?"

"Nein..."

"Da, da. Don't worry. System reliability is projected to be man-rated, according to your own ideas about necessary factors of safety for suit, also according to safety standards you yourself set back in '59, the ones that made rocket explode on the pad and kill my friend Yorgi, da?"

"Nein!"

"Well, if you don't like the safety standards you had plenty of time to rewrite them, da? Da? Always you Thanasians say "these are the orders, I must obey!" But put you in charge and you just keep giving same shitty fucking murder orders, da? Because pack of slave drivers and butchers you are, da! You must kill innocent people, is like compulsion! Poor Thanasians, they cannot help it, is like scorpion stinging frog, I know, I understand. Is okay, da."

"Nein..."

"But we Zenobians, we beat this out of you, da? We teach you to be good little commienists, good little producing proletarians instead of pompous Preussen assholes, da? It is like I tell my wonderful little son Ivan, when I bounce him on my knee. If you can make God bleed, people will cease to believe in him, there will be blood in the water, the sharks will come. And all we have to do is sit back and watch as the world consumes you, and when we are done, butchering Thanasian slavers and thieving Murcan scientists will study war no more!" Vanko beamed. "Me and my little Ivan, we are such a happy little family together. He will make me proud one day, I know it. Anyway, time for the team to suit you up, comrade! Have fun! This may be your greatest contribution to Zenobian science yet, testing experimental hardware! Heheheheh..."

Vanko turned to leave, and von Evilstein shouted one last word.

"NEIN!"

Vanko turned. Would there be mercy?

"One thing, before I go. Explosive decompression in the groin. Painful way to die."

Von Evilstein shivered. Vanko took a long drag on his cigarette, chuckled, and left.

---

Dr. Anton Vanko tapped the pressure scale. "Old scale. Marked in pièze? Eh. Works." Tons per square meter was probably better than kilos per square meter anyway, whatever the Bureau of Standards said.

"Turbopumps are running, and all telltales are green, Comrade Vanko."

"Good, good. How about communications. You all right in there, Herr von Evilstein?"

"NEIN!"

"Good, communications are working. Switches are working, da? Drop pressure to seventy pièze. Characteristic atmospheric pressure at three thousand meters. Like hopping on a plane, his ears be popping if we get this wrong, da?"

Von Evilstein's shouts of dismay were still audible as the pressure gauge went down. "NEIN! NEIN!"

"Breathing systems working, respiratory leakage zero. Joint sensors nominal, ballooning levels nominal...ish."

"Hokay, drop to forty pièze. Like might see on top of Mount Tall, da?"

"NEIN NEIN NEIN! ICH WILL RAUS!"

Dr. Vanko laughed. He fucking laughed. "He wants out? Like Zenobian and Pollackistani slave workers in rocket factory want out, da! Drop pressure down to one pièze. Like vacuum of outer space, practically enough."

"NEIN NEIN NEEIIN!!!!"

Vanko glanced at the control board. "Vital signs unfavorable, telltales condition amber, but could be instrument problem, give it some more seconds, eh?"

Even over the cable connecting the suit microphone to a BNC connector in the wall of the vacuum chamber, Dr. von Evilstein's cries were LOUD and PITIFUL to hear. Also kind of squeaky.

"NEIN NEIN NEEEIIIIN!!!!"

In a control room separated by a panel of one-way glass, Dr. Anton Vanko hovered over a clipboard with a pencil and mumbled. "Viability of experimental piss-on-Murca-from-orbit system... nyet. Or should I say... nein! Oh. And restore chamber pressure. Get some medicoes in there, we have orders to try and keep him alive and in roughly one piece. Don't ask me why."

---

Baikonurek Cosmodrome
Office of the Chief Designer
Two Weeks Later

"So, the surgery was a success. He will make a full recovery, doctor?"

"Approximately full, Comrade Chief Designer."

"...Approximately?"

"In all respects that you would care about, certainly. You are not degenerate Murcan, after all."

"Good."

"Well. His back may display a slight hunching due to lingering distortionate effects caused when suit pressure failed, but nothing especially crippling."

"A hunch... I see. So, explain to me this heading in Herr Doktor's medical report- 'serum compatibility results.' I've heard the summaries, from Preobrazhensky and his medical team, but not the details, you see, and this is... perversely interesting..."

[Dave]

Dave Conrad raises his hand from behind Johnson's impromptu tour and asks, "Where the hell do you fit the champagne bottle in those things?"

[Shroom Man 777]

[Simon_Jester]

[bows]

And that, comrades, is how a mad scientist is supposed to be written.

[FaxModem1]

Rex Modem looks at the bald man, who had just joined the tour group.

"Got enough cigarettes or other contraband and I'll make sure its in the rocket you go up in." Rex said as he smiled.

He had become the head of the Cape's black market. Booze, tobacco, reefer, even certain magazines, all of them Rex was able to find and get to his customers, for a certain price.

"So, who wants lunch?"

[FaxModem1]

Spoiler

Also, Johnson isn't the one giving the tour, its Rex Modem.

[Dave]

Spoiler

You didn't seem to be terribly specific, so I guessed.

"I dunno -- you got catfish?"

[FaxModem1]

Spoiler

Aside from the Drago character, I play the Modem family.

Rex thought about what they usually served in the mess.

"On Tuesdays, the beef can taste like fish."

He led them to the Cape's mess hall.

[doom3607]

1. Nice work finding that picture, PeZook!
2. So now he's a hunchbacked neuter, Simon? Why? Whyyyyy? But seriously, nice jpb writing that.

[Simon_Jester]

Honestly, the character's such a miserable little shit that I can imagine the control room cheering. Didn't write it in, though.

If you want to kill Zenobians, Zenobians aren't going to be kindly to you.

[PeZook]

*sigh*

I have just finished watching "From Earth to The Moon", and I am fucking depressed.

We were just getting good at it. The hardware has been proven, and it was only getting better...The only reason we haven't gone back to the Moon was politics.

Goddammit. I'll go and run Fall 1962 now.

[FaxModem1]

Spoiler

So, we can make this an alternate timeline with moon colonies?

[Simon_Jester]

[gives PeZook a hearty backslap]

There are two obvious futures for this timeline. One evolves into the Murcaworld of SDNW4, the other evolves into SCRAMming up! Or a mutated version thereof.

In the latter case, we get moon colonies. In the former case, we get very complicated things happening that are classified at this time.

Hard to say.

[ChaserGrey]

Wow. How did I miss a LP of one of my most incredibly fucking frustrating favorite computer games of all time? Ahh, the good old days of high school, when I could scream in frustration as my painstakingly R&D'd rocket barbecued an entire crew of cosmonauts, knowing that all the rest would have quit in disgust by the time I got it working again...

Anyway, I wish to volunteer if there are still some 'naut slots open. Murcan by preference, but I'm not picky. It's not like I have a long life expectancy anyway.

[FaxModem1]

Rex sees the new recruit, who has just now joined the pack of potential astronauts.

"Name?" he asks.

[ChaserGrey]

Spoiler

Let's wait and see where I get assigned first, shall we?

[Dave]

Spoiler

Let's wait and see where I get assigned first, shall we?

Conrad suppresses a laugh when the new recruit doesn't say anything.
"What's the matter, son, ain't got a name? Don't worry, MASA will take ya in, name or no name."
"[stage whisper]I hear they're short on people![/stage whisper]"
"How else would I get accepted after leaving a used enema bag on the flight director's desk?" Spoiler

I don't even have to make it up! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pete_Conrad#cite_ref-6

[Mayabird]

Bob Johnson slipped away while the new guy distracted the others. He returned to the hangar to get another look at the rockets and capsules.

He shot the breeze with some technicians, who were ridiculously happy to have one of the jocks actually openly interested in their work and asking surprisingly intelligent questions. Eventually they left him alone to just look around.

Johnson rested his eyes on an incomplete capsule, or some sort of setup for one. Close enough.

Hey there, babe.

Wanna go with me on a trip?

I know a great place we can go.

Best view in the world.

Spoiler

OH man, we got ChaserGrey! Time to really get this par-tay started!

Also I'm basing Bob's background on that of astronaut John Young though not the personality. Probably. I only know about him through some friends of mine who worked for him at NASA and only met him once, though he let me be the clicker for his slideshow because I was the first one to show up (having skipped a history class to get there early) so that was awesome.

[fnord]

I've had a fully R&D'd Saturn V, mounting a Ranger probe, BLOW UP ON THE FUCKING PAD TAKING EVERYTHING WITH IT - I may or may not be still somewhat sore about it.

[ChaserGrey]

"Brown. Mad Dog Brown, U.S. Navy." He gives the guy at the desk a semi-tolerant grin. "And yeah. I almost missed out on this assignment when I told the psych guy one of his inkblot cards was upside down. Shouldn't have done it on the blank one."
Spoiler

Okay, so I'll assume that I head for MASA for now. And I'll see you a Pete Conrad story and raise one.

And fnord? I had a max'd out mission go all the way around the Moon, head for home...and burn up on reentry, putting me back to square one in 1972. For miles around they could hear me: "FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCC-"

[FaxModem1]

Spoiler

Nice, just when I thought the Zenobian side outnumbered the Murcan side, we get reinforcements.

[PeZook]

I've had a fully R&D'd Saturn V, mounting a Ranger probe, BLOW UP ON THE FUCKING PAD TAKING EVERYTHING WITH IT - I may or may not be still somewhat sore about it.

Why would you use a Saturn V for the Ranger, anyway?

Fortunately that particular rocket doesn't fail very often, since it had a max reliability of 98%.

I'd worry far more about the lunar landing capsule, since it has so many, many, MANY more missions steps to roll.

And man, I am still not done with the next round. It's pretty complicated with all the new astronauts being edited in. BTW, Murcans now have five custom people while Zenobians have six. It's almost even now

I will probably get it done by monday at the earliest.

[fnord]

It was a test launch, with Ranger working out cheaper than an unmanned Apollo shot.