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

[ChaserGrey]

And my plan for the Fall. RP segment coming soon, but I have a few minutes and want to get this posted. Largely the same as posted but I do want to make some modifications to spend that extra 10 MB

Fall

Starting Budget: 32 MB

Hardware Purchases: None

R&D:

• 5 Teams on Titan- 20 MB
• 3 teams on Ranger- 12 MB

Astronaut Office:

• Remove Cuntser and Kelly from flight crew status.
• Transfer Barnesti, Ravensburg, and Brown to fill out Mercury flight crews. Probably won't use them, but hopefully it will keep morale loss down.

Flight Operations:

• Duration flight with Johnson/Conrad is GO for launch as planned. Hardware should have been bought already last season, unless I'm forgetting something.
• Schedule a Lunar Flyby for the Spring. There's a decent chance the hardware will be ready after two more R&D cycles. If it isn't, the mission can be postponed. Hardware purchases will be made in the Spring if the mission is a go.

EDIT: As mentioned above, we may do one more Mercury EVA flight, but I'm not sure enough yet to schedule it. I may want to make it a Duration reattempt if this month's flight fails non-catastrophically. Pencil it in for fall next year, with a question mark.

[ChaserGrey]

Grey sat at his desk, staring at a single sheet of paper. After a long moment, he took pen in hand and scrawled his signature at the bottom. Mercury 16 was a go. He might have his doubts- hell, he did have his doubts after the near-disaster of Mercury 15- but the program's scientists and engineers swore that the landing bag incident had been a freak occurrence, one in a million, and that additional R&D would only waste money without guaranteeing that bug or another might strike again. With so many new programs needed to reach the Moon- Titan, Ranger, XMS-2, Eagle, the proposed upper stage the engineers were already calling "the Kicker"- they didn't have the budget for another round of test flights of an obsolete spacecraft.

It was press forward or abandon the program- or, Grey thought, be damned for doing or for not doing. He'd decided long ago that if he was going to be damned, it wouldn't be for sitting on his backside.

Grey picked up his phone and dialed. After a long moment he spoke.

"Johnson? Acting Director Grey here. I wanted you to hear this from me. Mercury 16 is go for launch. Don't let us down."

After Johnson wound down, the Director added, "Oh, and one more thing. Tell Fox Modem that if he ever waits that long to tell me everything's okay on a mission again, the closest he'll ever get to another spacecraft is swabbing out the relief tube. I'm too old for that kind of shit."

Pause.

"Yes, I know I'm twenty-eight. That's still too old."
Spoiler

Maya, if you want to add some dialog I'm game- we can assume it went between the start and end of the call. And yeah, 28 might seem young, but the Apollo engineers were a young bunch and I decided on some truth in advertising.

[Simon_Jester]

Oh!

Excuse me, I forgot to mention some astronaut things- I want to organize more crews because why not?

Basically, my current priority is on pairing high Capsule ratings with EVA ratings. Pilot candidates are Brzęczyszczykiewicz and Digaditch. Mission specialist candidates are Faaabio and Belyayev. Pair them up whichever way works best; my preference and default is Brzęczyszczykiewicz/Belyayev and Digaditch/Faaabio.

That leaves Petrov and Beregovoy, both of whom are... unimpressive except for high docking skill, which leaves them without an obvious mission. What I'd like to do is stick them in advanced docking training- the most useful place I can think of to put them is as the docking specialists for Lapot flights, since that doesn't require them to be good at anything else. But there won't be any Lapot flights for at least another couple of years, so I might as well stick them in advanced docking training for now.

If I didn't suspect I was going to need him, I'd assign Brzęczyszczykiewicz to advanced capsule training, because I need all the CAP 4 pilots I can get... but he's also a very logical candidate for a manned Voskhod docking flight, though Digaditch is probably superior in this regard since CAP 4/DOCK 2 is more likely to prevent a catastrophic failure than CAP 3/DOCK 3.

So...

Plan Pavylyvych PLUS APPENDIX, Fall 1964

Let us salute comrades Nikov, Mametov, Karzanovski, and Yebanov for their bravery and dedication! These valiant men, soon to ascend into the heavens on the Voskhod capsule, bear on their shoulders the future of Zenobian spaceflight. All technical staff, administrative departmentologists, and maintenance personnel are thanked for their efforts to make the upcoming launch a success, and are asked to continue their efforts at a high pitch of activity in the coming months.

---

Starting budget: 52 megarubleoids

Hardware Procurement
(All this hardware is for the launches this autumn)

Purchase 2 Booster Stages
Purchase 2 A-Series Rockets
Purchase 2 Voskhod Capsules
Purchase 5 EVA Suits (negligible cost and why not?)

Total cost: 26 MB
Remaining budget: 26 MB

Research and Development
Chief priority is getting EVA suits up to snuff for the Fall 1964 manned launch, and working the kinks out of the Proton rocket. We are also re-initiating Cosmos research on a small scale, since I'm hoping to launch Cosmos probes next year.

5 MB for 5 teams on EVA Suit research.
9 MB for 3 teams on Cosmos Probe research.
12 MB for 3 teams on Proton Rocket research.

Remaining budget: 0 MB.

Cosmonaut Management

Create Voskhod crews 3 and 4:
Brzęczyszczykiewicz/Belyayev
Digaditch/Faaabio.

(Switch capsule pilots if necessary to avoid undue friction)

Assign Petrov and Beregovoy to advanced docking training.

Launch Scheduling
As I recall, there is no prestige boost for being first to a duration milestone- you need to do it, but you don't get extra credit for doing it first. Moreover, I don't feel like I can count on beating the Murcans to Duration B- the only way that's happening is if Johnson/Conrad fails, and I choose not to gamble against his (whichever) survival and success.

So I will not be scheduling Duration B next season, as I'd rather further improve systems reliability using unmanned launches- we've got several components of the system that are all less reliable than I'd like, and my main reason for launching is that the strategic situation created by waiting another year for the next manned flight is virtually intolerable. I will seriously consider another manned launch aimed at the duration milestone in Fall 1965; if not, I will be attempting other prestige-making things.

Schedule two unmanned suborbital Voskhod launches for Spring 1965. Hardware will be purchased in the spring; alternatively, the launch(es) will be cancelled.

[PeZook]

Probably because the Muricans don't help thier case. At all.

Well, uh...



Zenobians are not all that much better

[OmegaChief]

I was refering to Murican Degeneracy <.<

[doom3607]

I think the good Commisar means more along the lines of the industrial lubricant, and what we know our friendly neighborhood lucky bastard to escape the Onion traitor to the proletariat, better known as Fax's boyfriend, did while in Murca.

[fnord]

OOC - As one of those possible heroes of Zenobia who might be raining down on the Boratistani plains, I must observe that the General Secretary's puns have gone from bad to off the deep end.

[ChaserGrey]

Tell me about it. The General Secretary couldn't joke his way out of a paper ba*BLAM*

[Mayabird]

Also, the break room! Where'd the robot made of stone come from, Amy?

He's a character from one of my D & D campaigns, a Warforged named Notfour (the name inspiration for Notsix who had a somewhat similar background, although not similar at all whatsoever - in fact it's probably a connection only I can see). He wasn't actually a robot made of stone, but Bob isn't exactly the most accurate narrator - note how he's already convinced himself that whatever he did at the bar while drunk was actually part of his dream (and he probably poured the beer on the girl instead of the other way around too, but after enough shots reality starts getting really blurry).

ChaserGray: Johnson is just happy that he's going to space so you can assume whatever crazy dialogue you want there. I do know what thoughts he'll have when he's in space (assuming the rocket doesn't just blow up on the pad), and have ideas for successful missions, a really funny sequence if he gets injured but survives, and his last words in the event that he doesn't make it, though that would make me really sad because I like him.

Pezook - will I get a chance to PM you any lines before you post Bob's big event? I could write up the different alternatives and send them over tomorrow my time. I'm going to bed in a few minutes here.

[PeZook]

Pezook - will I get a chance to PM you any lines before you post Bob's big event? I could write up the different alternatives and send them over tomorrow my time. I'm going to bed in a few minutes here.

Yeah, go ahead. It's unlikely you will fly today, anyways, reality keeps getting in the way

[FaxModem1]

Fax watched his younger brother's parade on the television. He was proud of the kid. The young man was waving to the crowds, smiling to the cameras, and it was proud day to be a Murcan.

However, for Fax, he was in some sort of detainment room, where after he had agreed to whatever deal they had offered, they had shipped him here and now he waited, for whatever favor or until he got the chair. Whichever they felt like.


----

In the Cape, Rex left a bottle of champagne next to Johnson's cot. The man went wild the previous night, and it was hilarious. Rex wanted to see more of it, hence the bottle. MASA was giving him more responsibility with the computers and everything, so he had less time for mischief, but he could still have his fun.

[LaCroix]

Gzregorz had the biggest smile possible in his face. He was assigned to got to space! His daydreams were interrupted when the gym's door opened and the hollering of the others began. His smile tried to cover even more area when Irina ignored those as she purposely walked towards him, handing him a order form.

"Comrade Brzęczyszczykiewicz," she said in that sweet Zenobian accent. "You are assigned to extra training in preparation for your upcoming mission, Comrade director's orders," she told him, made a face-about and walked out, each sway of her hips in the short, tight uniform skirt accompanied by cat-calls and shouts.

"More training?" Digaditch joked. "I bet it's capsule training, seems they'll try to make a real pilot out of you," he teased Gzregorz from across the room.

Gzregorz ignored the dig from the best pilot in the program, he knew he wasn't that bad. Unfolding and looking at the paper, he gave a small laugh. 'My quarters, 10 pm,' it said.

"Nyet, more docking," Gzregorz replied evenly, with only the slightest smile...

[PeZook]

Cosmonaut Management

Create Voskhod crews 3 and 4:
Brzęczyszczykiewicz/Belyayev
Digaditch/Faaabio.

(Switch capsule pilots if necessary to avoid undue friction)

Flight psychologist report, August 21st 1964

According to flight regulations, I have prepared a compatibility report on comrade cosmonauts Brzeczyszczykiewicz, Belyayev, Digaditch and Faaaaaaabio.

In prepration for this report, I have interviewed all cosmonauts, and questioned them about their personalities and opinions of their fellow cosmonauts. No particulalry difficult work was required to establish the following facts:

Comrade cosmonaut Belyayev hates pronouncing "That stupid Polackistani's absurd name", and is very vocal about comrade Brzeczyszczykiewicz's habit of "breaking into long-winded stories about family relationships in his home village.". I have confirmed that the stories are indeed long winded and somewhat disturbing.

During interview of comrade cosmonaut Brzeczyszczykiewicz, he indicated everyone on base makes fun of his name, and thus he hates every other cosmonaut assigned to the space program. Other comrade cosmonauts, however, are angry at having to pronounce comrade Brzeczyszczykiewicz's name.

I do not recommend pairing comrade cosmonaut Brzeczyszczykiewicz with anyone.

On comrades Faaaaabio and Digaditch, the calm and introvertic Faaaaabio is, in my opinion, a poor match with the Zhtalingradian. The two personalities are too different to work well together. On the other hand, comrade Belyayev is outspoken and even louder than comrade Didaditch. I can recommend they be paired together, although flight controllers and NKVDVDROM operatives should be warned to turn down the volume of their headsets while monitoring their conversations.

The only other compatible pair I could find amongst our brave and most patriotic cosmonaut corps are comrades Petrov and Beregovoy.

- signed, Grigorij A. Saakashvili, flight psychologist, Baikonurek Cosmodrome

-----------------------

Yes, everyone hates Brzeczyszczykiewicz, and he hates them right back

[fnord]

OOC - I get it, the Fabster doesn't like can't handle either of my characters.

Looks like Digaditch is a local - I originally had him pegged as a Zhtalingradite, but whatever. Guess that honour will nick off to Nikov.

Brzeczyszczykiewicz, or Brazzamatazz for short - is he Zenobia's version of Nobby Nobbs, disqualified from the human race for shoving?

[PeZook]

Digaditch wasn't supposed to be Boratistani? Please clarify that, I can still fix it up

[fnord]

OOC - Not originally - Digaditch was an escapee from Zhtalingrad, while Nikov was from Novosibirsk.

Now to get this picture of a grinning Sacha Baron Cohen above a caption reading "Major Digaditch, PVO Strany" out of my head.

[PeZook]

OOC - Not originally - Digaditch was an escapee from Zhtalingrad, while Nikov was from Novosibirsk.

So I fixed it

Now to get this picture of a grinning Sacha Baron Cohen above a caption reading "Major Digaditch, PVO Strany" out of my head.

Yeah, I think Borat was part of the reason why I assumed someone with a name like "Digaditch" must be a Boratistani

[LaCroix]

Yes, everyone hates Brzeczyszczykiewicz, and he hates them right back

What can I say - they are just jealous about Irina, and I don't like that they don't stop trying to get docking training lessons with her, as well.

I hereby volunteer for a solo lunar flyby! All other cosmonauts will probably approve of this, or want to modify it to a lunar landing, without return leg...

Edit: Or you could hire more cosmonauts, and when there is a compatible in there, make her female and call her Irina... We'll take the milestone for first sex in space! (OOC: Has this milestone been granted IRL, already? )

[Simon_Jester]

<snip>

If Brzęczyszczykiewicz can't work with the others, I'm not sure what to do with him. There's no such thing as a solo manned lunar flyby, so I don't know... [thinks]

He's a fine cosmonaut candidate, but if I can't form a Voskhod crew with him... okay, I think I'll assign him to advanced capsule training. By the time Lapot is online he'd be out already, and I can really use all the CAP 4 pilots I can get. A CAP 4 pilot is worth risking crapped-out team morale for a season or two, unless of course the morale decay for working with Brzęczyszczykiewicz is really high, so high that a team with him on it will fall apart between being assembled to fly a mission and flying it.

Also, begin covert attempt to subtly encourage base personnel to call him by his first name of Gzregorz, which is significantly easier to get the hang of. As an alternative, or in a supplementary way, try to lend quiet approval to the idea of Brzęczyszczykiewicz being nicknamed something relatively short and related to his name, such as "Buzz." Encourage Brzęczyszczykiewicz to accept this in good cheer, on the grounds that if nothing else, it saves time. This will hopefully ease our personnel difficulties.


That leaves Belyayev, Digaditch, Faaabio, Petrov and Beregovoy.

If Digaditch/Belyayev works, then we can use that pairing- I'd hoped to split up my high-CAP cosmonauts more, but I can work with that.

But now Faaabio, Petrov and Beregovoy are the odd men out.

A Petrov/Beregovoy pairing doesn't appeal to me, because neither of them is a good pilot, or for that matter good at much of anything else except docking.

Did you check to see if Faaabio work with either of them? If so, I could send the odd man out to advanced docking training (potentially making him more suitable for a moon mission in the 3-man Lapot), while holding the other two together as a backup crew (so that I have enough crews to fly two manned missions at once if need be).

I also need to seriously look into recruiting the Group III cosmonauts... aargh.

Comrade Syeriy, any thoughts?




...

[Scottish Ninja]

The funny thing is, I feel like I've almost sort of got a handle on "Brzęczyszczykiewicz", but I can't remotely manage "Grzegorz".

[LaCroix]

OOC: Can you hack this? Pretty please? Figures that I get the one that nobody likes. LIVE HATES ME!!!!!

[ChaserGrey]

Given how antisocial the cosmonauts are, Comrade Syeriy's recommendation would be to just form the crews. The 'nauts will be unhappy, but at the end of the day we all must serve the glory of the Zenobian Onion. Plus, we'll need to recruit another group for the Lapot program anyway, so if one or two quit...we live with that.

Compatible crews are good, but generally I think it's better to have a problem crew that can get the job done than a happy crew that just can't cut the mustard.

Too bad there isn't an "Advanced Compatibility" training option. Although I shudder to think what form that would take in Zenobia. The Murcans would probably just use an extended beach volleyball scene.

[Shroom Man 777]

They recruit the bear with the beating-stick to improve morale amongst the cosmonauts!

[OmegaChief]

But Comrade, is that not my job?

[FaxModem1]

Rex continued working. Apparently the engineers and the bureaucrats had invented more and more paperwork for him to fill out. As he did so, he looked at the roster. Conrad and Johnson were going to fly next time. Rex got a smile on his face. He needed to make sure that their night before launch was a special one.