The Second Moon

"Jeb will definitely fly to another moon. He won't miss out on an adventure like this. Ever." Thiakin Kerman, a young designer, who had been designing the probe payload now mapping Kerbin, had been coming up with a small one-crew Mission orbiting Ceti. "But not that small. I'll need Bob and Bill this time, and we'll probably need some more scientists to fly to Iota. We should definitely be prepared for long-term Missions, and I plan with eight to ten crew members all at least with a bit of Experience. A second Iota Mission with the rest should help." "Bill isn't able to go on a mission for now", Desmond told Jeb, "he's busy with testing Runway Materials on the continent. But we've got a second scientist already. Gemet Kerman is only forty-one, and has been doing Material Science for ten years. She will be a great addition to the roster." "I'll take her and Bob to Ceti. They will get to walk on a distant, barren moon."

Some time later Thiakin came back with an adjusted Payload design. Fitting three Kerbals in separated cabins, where they would be able to spacewalk and collect delicious Science(and actually make them reusable on-site). In the meantime, while being in contact with Thiakin, Desmond created a Launcher for the Project.

And so, as the calculated plane got the least inlination to Ceti's Orbit, Jeb fired the Engines, leaving the Launch Pad behind. The Ceti I Mission was planned to be launched eastward, into a low Orbit, to then fly to Ceti. While flying into space, they detached the outer Liquid Boosters in stacks of two to keep empty ballast as low as possible. Soon they began rollover, and by the time they got into Orbit, the rocket ran only on a single central "Skipper" Engine, which had fired all the way up here. Now they began transfer planning: they set up a node to bring them to a low encounter with Ceti. While firing the main Engine burned its last fuel, needing to switch to the landing Engines, three LV-909 sixty-kilonewton vacuum Engines. Now they needed to wait multiple Days.

"Mission Control here. Where are you?" "We just passed eleven thousand kilometres. We'll lose connection soon." Jeb gave a few not-so-nice words to the Engineering team for not supplying an antenna. He was able to fly this craft himself though, thanks to his piloting skills.

Four days later, Mission control

"No connection for four days now, Sir. We have to declare them Missing in Action.

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Jebediah Kerman, age 2174, Bob Kerman, age 2153 and Gemet Kerman, age 41, haven't been in connection with GSC for more than four days and are thereby declared Missing in Action. If they return to GSC or recover contact with it, this document is rendered invalid and any returning kerbonauts can return to business following Protocol 2, Section IIIa "Contact Re-Aquiring".

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Jeb, Bob and Gemet meanwile waited for Ceti Insertion. "They should've declared us MIA by now. Not a problem however, as we'll be recovering contact about a day before we return.", Jeb said into his microphone.

Jeb spotted Ceti on the map first. Having piloted more than one thousand flights outside the atmosphere, and countless hours inside it, he really knew what he was doing. As they got close to Periapsis, he burned retrograde to capture in orbit. After capture Gemel got out to collect the science and then restore the Experiments. Then Jeb began the Descent Burn. And got into a problem: The Ceti lander had too much descent speed. No problem for Jeb though, who simply switched to manual control and pitched the vessel up a bit. After a short time they had landed on Ceti.

Standing on the ground, everyone got out for a group photo with flag. Bob collected the Science for this Mission before returning into his capsule with his crewmates. They launched quickly from that moon, heading directly eastward into Orbit. After Orbital Insertion, they just had to wait until they were about between Ceti and Gael to then burn until Perigael dropped below 70 kilometres. They then waited until they could gain back communication.

"Sir! Ceti I is back on screen!" "Good. Call them and ask what they did the last days." "Mission Control here. We have got communication with you. Can you confirm?" "Confirmed. We'll be back in about a day. Damn Engineers. Not even an Antenna they'd got spare. But we can talk when I've landed this thing. Still got a crapload of Fuel left." The second time they tried to get a communication Jeb was in the middle of Re-Entry. But they landed safely, even if they landed far from the GSC.

Science Earned: 783