The Flight Director's Desk

Greetings!

Thank you for visiting Enlas Space, where you will find my endless ramblings about the Kerbal Space Program, the wonderful space simulation game from Squad.   If you have never heard of the Kerbal Space Program before, I highly suggest you visit the Official Kerbal Space Program website without further delay!

We'll be talking about anything Kerbal that comes to my mind.  Design notes, flight techniques, latest kick-ass mods, accomplishments, tales of interest!

So anyways what is KSP?  To introduce KSP, one must first learn about Kerbals.  Kerbals are little green men that live on the planet Kerbin, which orbits the star Kerbol.  Kerbals have advanced far enough in their civilization to begin to reach for the stars, so they founded the Kerbal Space Program, and they put YOU in charge!   However, reaching for the stars is not something these little green men can do overnight.   At first, they will take small steps, flying within their atmosphere and in sub-orbital flights.  As their knowledge grows, they will reach further into the heavens, achieving orbit around Kerbin, and then from there to places far beyond!

While managing the space program, your job will be to design the space craft (and aircraft) that will slip the surly bonds of Kerbin and plunge deep into the mucky (and delicious) pudding of the Mun!   Spacecraft are assembled from parts such as engines, fuel tanks, command pods, or even specialized parts that can perform science, and experiments, and other....things.   As every Kerbal knows, space craft design is mostly stacking things and pushing the ignition button to see what happens.  Presumably, that's obvious.  Even so, each craft has to be designed with some purpose in mind building on the lessons learned from previous disast...erm, educational flights.  Care must be taken to ensure that each rocket has enough thrust and fuel to reach its destination!

After designing spacecraft, your next job is to assist the brave kerbonauts (the green men that fly rockets) in flying the rocket designed for them.   This includes performing engine burns, separating rocket stages, deploying solar panel arrays, and even taking the pilot for an EVA (that's Extra-Vehicular Activity for the un-initiated!) in the blackness of space. Just remember your training---never EVA behind an armed engine nozzle a few seconds before the next maneuver.   Bad.

But managing a space program is more than just designing and flying rockets.  For one thing, all of these rockets cost a lot of money to build and Kerbals really don't know anything about rockets anyways despite wanting a first class (or perhaps second class) space program.   This means that your program will need to perform contracts for companies on Kerbin to raise funds to build new rockets.  Additionally, on each mission (or at least some of them) your kerbals will need to perform scientific research, which, when returned to Kerbin, can be used to unlock more advanced parts for your latest rocket designs.   Eventually under your management of the program, Kerbals will steadily advance in their exploration of their solar system at an minimal acceptable cost of lives.  (note from GK: just remember, even kerbonauts have families, so be kind to them.)

So there you have it.  The first ramblings of a kerbal space program director.

Smooth launches!

Enlas