HERMES – MISSION DAY 669
“Commander, could I have a minute of your time?”
Lewis walked over to Martinez’s station. In a couple of weeks they’d have to stop Hermes’s rotation in preparation for docking with the MAV- with Phoenix, as the ponies now called it- so for now they’d enjoy the artificial gravity while they could. “What’s the matter?” she asked. “That looked like a successful sim run to me, even if you and Johanssen ended up having to take Hermes to them rather than the other way round.”
“Yeah,” Martinez said quietly. “That’s kind of the problem. It should have failed.”
Lewis cocked her head. “Explain.”
“We were throwing what we thought was a no-win scenario at them,” Martinez said. “Two-thirds booster failure. That by itself should have meant no rendezvous. Sparkle Drive failure. And a fuel leak in the second stage that reduced its burn time by ten percent.” He called up the MAV’s internal camera recordings and rewound through the simulation. “But they worked the problem, and I mean radically. They dumped the Drive and all its batteries out the airlock before igniting the second stage. Their food, too. And one of the RTGs. Freed up six hundred kilos. Then they burned the second stage, then exhausted the primary maneuvering thrusters and the magic thrusters, then found a way to hook up their last magic battery to recharge the magic thrusters, and ran through that.”
“I had to reprogram the sim on the fly to account for all the changes,” Johanssen said. “It wasn’t made to account for such radical measures.”
“And once Johanssen put the numbers in- the lighter MAV, the estimated delta-V of the maneuvering thrusters, all of it- the sim says they made it. Just barely within the ability of Hermes to go to them for a docking one day later than scheduled.” Martinez shook his head.
“They were talking about getting out and pushing if necessary,” Johanssen said. “The pony suits have MMU systems built in. They figured each suit would give about 1.5 meters per second more delta-V to the MAV capsule.”
“What did the computer say?” Lewis asked.
“I didn’t try it,” Johanssen said. “We have no data on pony suit thruster performance. And they didn’t need to do it in the sim.”
“And that’s not the weirdest thing,” Martinez said. “Look at their faces. Cherry’s especially.” He called up the interior cam view of the pilot’s station, of Cherry Berry grimly giving orders, facing one setback after another without even blinking. “She didn’t get angry. She didn’t even get rattled. Hell, commander, I would have gotten pissed off after the third system failure!”
“I am failing,” Lewis said dryly, “to find a problem with this situation, Major.”
“The problem is, what do I tell her?” Martinez said, throwing his hands up at the screen. “Congratulations, you beat the no-win scenario? Could you give me Captain Kirk’s autograph while you’re at it? This shouldn’t have happened! There must be something wrong with the sim!”
“What you say,” Lewis replied, “is Good job, Commander Berry.” She pointed at the screen. “Broken sim or not, she did exactly what she ought to on launch day. She stayed calm, worked the problem, and tried unorthodox solutions. If you call that cheating… well,” she shrugged, “it’s not like space plays fair, either.”
Martinez nodded. “True,” he said. “But it’s still a cooked result. It has to be. I don’t like having it stand as something they can rely on during the real launch.”
“Which is more important?” Lewis asked. “A pilot who knows something can’t work, or a commander who will try anything if it means the survival of her crew?”
“Trick question, commander,” Martinez said. “You need both. But I get your point.”
Lewis gestured at the screen again. “How’s she coming along overall? Is she ready to fly?”
“She never makes the same mistake twice,” Martinez said. “And she has the reduced control systems down cold. Spitfire and Starlight Glimmer are coming along well. And Dragonfly has done okay in about a dozen sim runs substituting for any one of the three.” He shrugged. “You can never have too much sim time, but I’d certify Cherry to fly right now, for sure. Especially after…” He shook his head and gestured helplessly at the screen again.
“The words are, Good job, Cherry,” Lewis repeated, returning to her own station.
Martinez shook his head again and keyed on the outgoing comms. “Good job, Cherry,” he said. “We took some extra time to look things over, but we just can’t suggest anything to improve on your performance. That was really amazing.” He grinned and added, “We especially like how you stayed calm through all of that. You didn’t even blink. Excellent work. Over.”
“I’m going to archive this sim and send it to NASA for deeper analysis,” Johanssen said. “I still think my adjustments to the sim glitched.”
“Yeah, good idea,” Martinez said. “Be sure to include a note that I didn’t make this up.”
“Why don’t you tell them?”
“Because if I tell them, they won’t believe me.”
The delay between Hermes and Mars had closed to only about a minute, so Cherry Berry’s reply came only moments later. “Thanks, Rick,” she said. “As for staying calm… well, you kind of have to. Fear catches, you know? Besides, I’ve done all of that before. It wasn’t anything new. Over.”
Martinez froze. Johanssen looked up from her console, eyes wide. Lewis got back out of her seat and walked back over to Martinez’s station.
Martinez, after a quick look at his crewmates, keyed on his microphone. “Er, could you repeat that last, commander? Did you say you’ve thrown stuff out of a spaceship before? You’ve burned maneuvering thrusters for delta-V before?” A hesitation, another glance at the other two. “You’ve got out of a spaceship and pushed before? Over.”
A minute passed.
“Yes, I’ve done all of that,” Cherry said. “It kind of sucked- that is the right word, yes? It kind of sucked at the time, but anything that gets you back home safe is good. Over.”
Martinez looked at Lewis. “You know what that tells me?” he asked. “It tells me that she was in at least one situation where she had to do all that before. And she lived.”
“And they let her go up again,” Lewis added. “I don’t know what that says about their space program.”
“I think I understand now why she stays calm in all the sims,” Johanssen said.
“You think this launch is going to be as bad as whatever that was before?” Lewis asked.
Martinez threw up his hands in surrender. “I don’t think it can be worse,” he said. “But now I have another problem.”
“What now?”
“When I write my report to NASA certifying Cherry to pilot a MAV,” Martinez said, “I’m gonna have to give my reasons. How do I phrase it so they don’t ground her for reasons of obvious insanity?”
Lewis nodded judiciously. “That’s a real problem,” she said. “But it’s not mine.” With a little smirk she turned and went back to her own station.
“Muchas gracias, Commander,” Martinez muttered.
"Always check yo' staging!"
Changeling Space Program - You don't have to be crazy to work here... Well, actually you do.
Screw flying like Iron Man, push the damn ship!
"Check. Yo. Staging."
I've had to get out an push far to many times in KSP. Sometimes over and over and over again, but I got 'em home :)
Remind me, are the Hermes crew aware of the sheer amount of Cherry's experience? The whole 28 flights thing?
Cherry Berry is a Steely Eyed Missile Mare!!
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Hey, was just rereading/catching up on some chapters and this comment leapt out at me from below. Just wanted to say that this is one of the nicest compliments I've ever received, and I'm actually seriously humbled by it. Thanks so much, man!
Humanities most insane sim is Cherry's tuesday.
9213373 Aware of the number, yes. Aware of some of the truly horrendous risks run during many if not most of those flights, not so much.
Until now.
I have yet to reach the point of a delta-v budget where I get out and push...
But I have forgotten to stage the parachutes. That sucked, and I haven't done it since.
9213386 And by comparison, any lesser scenario is a Cherry Sunday.
I've only used the Manley Maneuver once in a serious game, and I decided after going through three tanks of EVA propellant that it wasn't going to work. Instead, I launched a new spacecraft to rendezvous with the old one, which was on an escape trajectory fro Kerbin due to a poorly managed Mun escape, recovered the crew and science in that, and returned to Kerbin. Which, now that I think of it, is pretty similar to The Martian.
Well at least they won’t have to blow out an airlock this time around I was at least there’s that
Especially when one of your crewmates can double as a literal fear-detecting radar
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Chrissy did say neither agency had shrinks, because they’d ground most of both as insane if they started working there.
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The details are probably in the backlog of Mark's reports to NASA. I'm pretty sure he knows how crazy the CSP is.
Though given things like the situation Neil Armstrong had to survive during Gemini? It might look a bit like the early days of NASA, only with a much more aggressive launch schedule.
How much is left to do for Launch Day, besides sim qualifications? The Phoenix is pretty much ready to go now? Just waiting to top off their magic batteries and for the Hermes to be close enough for a rendezvous?
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"Never give up! Never surrender!"
And somewhere, the ghost of William Shatner is smirking so hard, his ectoplasmic face hurts.
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"Boy we just got back from the moon and our arms sure are tired!"
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I just googled it - William Shatner is still alive.
Ah, maybe you mean in the time-frame of this story.
Haha, Cherry manages to be so casually hardcore. I'd love to see Venkat deal with this report.
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"You don't have to be crazy to work here; we provide on-the-job training."
Once they get to Earth and actually tell NASA about their crazy space exploits Cherry is going to become an even greater legend and she already is. It's not every day you hear a fellow astronaut saying that "going out there and pushing" is not only a valid strategy, but also tried and true
Cherry is going to go down in legends with a “The” in her name. Cherry is going to have to change her middle name to ‘bucking’ and hang with Amanda Palmer. Cherry is the space babe Kirk is too starstruck to hit on.
She is...the most interesting mare in the world.
It’s muchas gracias. Female noun.
Ah, yes, the good old Manley Maneuver, for when you just need that little extra bit of dV to skim into reentry.
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How about "Much Grass", ponified.
I 💗 multi-interpretables.
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Sadly, unless medicine really gets its arse in gear, Bill will be over 100 by the time the novel takes place, and most likely will have joined the rest of the crew of the NCC-1701.
And despite all the tell-alls, despite all the problems, it will be a sad day when that day comes.
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Ponies!
Tonight! We dine! On hay!
What exactly is the Scott Manley maneuver? I'm aware of the guy, but I can't find any reference to a specific maneuver that's earned his name, or a video of him actually doing it.
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https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/61684-the-scott-manley-maneuver/
9213503 The Scott Manley Maneuver is getting out of a spacecraft and pushing, using your suit MMU thrusters. It's a valid tactic in KSP for two reasons: (1) the suit thrusters are ridiculously OP compared to the real life MMUs NASA has experimented with in the past, and (2) every time you return to the spacecraft cabin your thruster fuel is refilled- indefinitely. So, if you are REALLY REALLY patient (and have some system to prevent the spacecraft from tumbling, as usually happens with 1.1 and later builds of KSP), the tactic provides potentially infinite delta-V... about two meters per second at a time, give or take.
Woah! Woah! Woah! Spoilers, dude! And I don't mean the "they make the moon, land on some random celestial body, put a space station into orbit, and almost visit their version of Mars" type of spoilers, I mean actual Mission-Nearly-Turned-Bad-Day-But-We-Got-Away-With-It spoilers that would be the bread and butter content of CSP...
Okay, now that I have that out of my system, I'm just gonna come out and say it: I honestly don't think this story was ready for that sort of revelation, and I especially feel that this sort of character growth for Cherry would've been better put into CSP than this story. Now I don't think I can truly read any further updates to CSP without anticipating the very flight that Cherry herself has to actually eject that much mass, burn the thrusters like outboard engines, and then STILL have to get out and push to get home safely... in other, more immortal words, too soon!
9213530 As I said, the specific instances might not even HAPPEN in the CSP story proper. But they also might, so I don't make a flashback scene or anything like that for fear of crossing myself up once I get back to that project.
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I don't know for sure either; but if i had to guess, he probably had a Kerbal get out and push the ship using their pack thrusters.
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It's when you leave the spacecraft on an EVA and use your monopropellant to get home by lowering your projected periapsis.
Ah Scott Manly, if Morgan Freeman's voice turns microphones to solid gold surely Scott's turns them to brass. Cause it's too deep to be silver and too smooth to be bronze.
Ahh yes, I made it all the way from Münar orbit to Kerbin with a little aerobraking and a lot of pushing. Good times, as long as you're only pushing the command capsule and not any of the rocket!
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Dunno abut Gemini but daaamn, Voskhod 2... that was one legend!
Given the option between waiting in a tin can to die, or getting out of the can to push it where it needs to go...yeah I'll go with the latter as well. That's not crazy, that's being crazy resourceful
Now that's the kind of can-do attitude we need!
Wow, cherry must have had a really "fun" trip to the moon with chrissy. I would love to see that finished sometime. In the meanwhile, keep up the good work. I've loved this story for a long while now, and thank you for your hard work and creativity.
😃
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Ah yes, my normal first Mun launch.
With margins so tight I have to go out and push on the way back to drop my peri into the atmosphere.
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Not much competition for that title on Mars. There's only four mares total at the moment.
Though you do remind me of an early comment I made here: 8674337
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It's not crazy if it works.
Well then, Cherry seems ready to go.
And she didn't even need to remove the nose airlock.
Oh my god, is it really called that now?
This chapter amused me the most of any in months.
NASA is not prepared for a CSP trained pilot. They cannot possibly rattle her, and she can respond to supposedly worst case scenarios with inhuman speed.
Dumping everything out the airlock immediately mid launch before igniting the second stage is brilliant.
I wouldn't be surprised if the only reason she didn't dump the seats out the airlock was that she knew they wouldn't need the extra bit of mass reduction. (The highest g portion of the flight would have already passed and the seats would be less needed at that point.)
I like that Martinez' conclusion is that she must have cheated somehow just like Kirk did.
I'm kind of curious as to NASA's reaction to this.
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You know something that works can still be crazy.
A person in a wingsuit catching up to a plane in a nosedive and getting in that plane, is crazy. People did that and it worked, but you can't tell me that that's not crazy.
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You don't have to Just be crazy to work here, that's only one of the requirements. Insanely lucky is another one.
You reckon it would be possible to mod KSP and replace the Kerbals with Changelings? If you had the models for them.