Long ago, around a distant star, there once lived a people called the Kerbals. These Kerbals were a curious people, and dutifully watched the planets around their star dance around the sky in a state of glee and wonder. But, of course, all things must come to an end and eventually their star exploded, killing them all.

In a moment of pity, the almighty Krakens that be took a small group of Kerbals to a new star, and to a new planet “Rhode” so that once again they could watch the stars above in peace.

Or so it is Believed…

Welcome to Kerbal Space Program: She’s Leaving Home, a Career Mode Screenshot Let’s Play of Gameslinx’s Beyond Home planet pack.

Long ago the Kerbals fled their dying home system to a new system. The Tempus System, a binary star system with two stars, Destiny and Fate. Unfortunately during the colonisation efforts Kerbal society has kind of stepped backwards into the pre-space age, with many believing that the idea of Kerbalkind ever having had the power to travel the stars being lunacy at best.
In defiance of this an intrepid group of rocket enthusiasts have begun a new space program, in hopes of reclaiming what once was Kerbalkind’s greatest achievement.

We have:
Two Pilots – Program Director Tamwell Kerman and Helsy Kerman
One Engineer – Leatrey Kerman
Two Scientists – Madkin Kerman and Virvan Kerman
Two Mechanics – Wilcal Kerman and Barory Kerman
One Farmer – Newski Kerman

Mechanic is a USI Kolonisation class that from reading the USI Wiki seems to be equivalent to Engineer, but with less EVA and Kolony thing they can do, but they can still repair things and still pipe things with Kerbal Attachment System so they’re still useful to me early game. Newski the Farmer on the other hand… Well, I’m sure he can tend to the Space Centre gardens for the moment.

Reclaimer Program: Reclaimer 1

Our first mission is Reclaimer 1, it’s what could be best described as a simple crude crewed firework. Our pilot for this mission is the steely nerved Helsy Kerman, the only qualified pilot we have brave (and stupid) enough to climb into this thing

The launch is a success, with the SRB kicking Helsy up almost 5 Kilometres into the air. We get some pretty good data on what it’s like to fly in Rhode’s lower atmosphere too. That could be useful…

Unfortunately, coming back down didn’t go exactly as well as getting up there in the first place did.

Despite a few mishaps Helsy does land safely in one piece, and with her flight data and world firsts nets us a neat 20 science points to invest into research

Reclaimer Program: Reclaimer 2

The R&D team seems pretty pleased with how our first Reclaimer mission went, and while we had been hoping to move on to Liquid Fuel rockets, Chief Mechanic Wilcal was quite insistent on pushing his idea to scale up the already proven Reclaimer 1 rocket engine to twice the size. Arguments were had, bets were made and eventually a copromise was reached when the Director approved a plan to mash all of the proposed designs for Reclaimer 2 together to make the final rocket.

Reclaimer 2 is a hybrid Firework/Rocket complete with many new features Such as a multi-point temperature measurement system, steerable liquid engine plume and stylishly survivable airtight cockpit. Also included are more durable stability fins, developed in house and sadly attached to the disposable part of the rocket.

Yet again Helsy is our Pilot, her experience from the previous Reclaimer mission ought to help her with controlling this strange amalgam rocket.

Unfortunately it seems our choice to use solid fuel rockets for the device’s lower stage has limited our ability to turn during the initial ascent, which sadly means the design won’t be that great at getting into orbit.

We do however make it to space today. Apparently the atmosphere ends at 50km above sea level. That’s useful to know. (I’m going into Beyond Home blind so while I knew Rhode’s atmosphere was smaller and thinner than Kerbin’s, it’s good to have some solid figures)

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Sadly Helsy’s trip into space cannot last forever, and she eventually falls down back to Rhode. As we haven’t quite figured out the whole “Heatshield” concept yet, the safest plan seems to be to use the Reclaimer 2’s engine bell to absorb most of the aerodynamic heating and jettison it once its served its purpose.

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Reclaimer 2 is a success, with Helsy’s return from space ushering in a new era of spaceflight amongst kerbalkind, and brings us enough data to develop our next rocket, a rocket that will bring us into orbit.

Reclaimer Program: Reclaimer 3

This is the big one, a vessel capable of making it into Low Rhode Orbit. Given how close we were last time, and how much our initial uncontrolled upwards flight cost us trajectory wise, the Reclaimer 3 uses a fairly similar design to the Reclaimer 2. With a little more fuel on the upper stage, a slightly more efficient upper stage engine, the Wildcat-V, and a special modification on the left facing booster rocket…

The Reclaimer 3 follows a similar ascent profile to before, but its pushed into a turn during its early flight by the adjustment motor.

As the first Kerbal in orbit, we decide it best to let Helsy stay up there for a day or two to see how well she fares in space, and aside from a little bit of starvation, nothing terrible befalls her. It is around this time that we notice that the length of a “day” seems to be less than half the length of the rotation of our planet. We’re not entirely sure how that happened…

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We attempt to land Reclaimer 3 close to the space centre. It should make recovering the capsule easier.

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By almost all accounts Reclaimer 3 is a success.
Almost. R&D doesn’t seem to think so.

Reclaimer Program: Reclaimer 4

So because the R&D team isn’t quite happy with the orbital data we got from our last mission, and want us to study what being in space does to our space craft from the outside, before they’ve been lightly toasted on the way back down, we’ve adapted our space suits to allow them to function outside of the atmosphere. Revolutionary, I know. Hopefully the Data we get back from this mission will actually let them work out how to develop some new rocket parts.

We’re also letting our only other pilot, Program Director Tamwell Kerman, fly this rocket. Helsy’s been doing all of our flights up to this point so it’s well past time that someone else got some flight experience

Reclaimer 4 makes orbit, and orbits higher above Rhode than Reclaimer 3 managed, netting us both low orbit EVA studies and High Orbit science.

After a couple orbits Tamwell returns to the surface, and unlike Reclaimers 2 and 3 manages to pick a daytime landing spot.

And with that R&D are finally happy.

Next Time: Space Probes