And one would almost forget about the Discovery program.
On year 6 Day 397, the S202B Discovery 03 arrived at Jool. Orbital mechanics had become more routine for KSC and it would use gravity breaks using Laythe and then Tylo to get in excentric an orbit. Now there were other options but this craft had plenty of fuel, and so it burned 340 m/s for an encounter with WH-17823. Teams were very excited as the Discovery had enough reserves to do more than just a flyby.
The craft entered orbit started collecting data. All in all, measurements were not much different from the Explorer mission, but now they covered the whole phenomena. It was a sphere-like shape, with no distinct entry or exit point. KSC decided to lower the orbit to 7000 meters before attempting a landing. That’s where it got sucked in.
“We lost sensor data Sir.” Gene looked up. “What happened? did we crash?” The looked at the data. “No Sir, after the Ap burn the craft glided towards the Pe but then started to shake violently.” Gene looked at the data. “It seems we lost the craft. Keep trying, I’ll inform the council of this disappointment.
But Discovery 03 was not a disappointment. It stopped shaking in a very strange place. Once the shaking stopped, it started using its star tracker to get an alignment but failed to do so. It then focussed on the strongest light source which had an odd form for a star.
It also picked up another strong light source but it did not correspond with known planets in the Kerbol system. It scanned the gravioli spectrum and did autonomous readings, trying to determine where to direct its antenna. That is when it hit the wormhole portal for the second time. It had past through the highest point in the orbit and dropped back to the 7 km mark while being punched back into the Kerbol system.
There it aligned and went into recovery mode, which meant circularize at Ap. Hence 12 km, well beyond the threshold value. Startrekkers found Kerbol and then Kerbin and the little spacecraft decided to say: “hello”
Two days later there was a science conference at KSC.
“Gentlekerbs, we have completed the analysis of the probe’s data. As you can see in the image there is a G2-type star not too far from the wormhole’s exit point and we have spotted a black hole.” The room buzzed. “There is also a large gravioli distortion as if time and space were bent there. The distance to this star system is unknown, we believe we have seen a white dwarf in the last image. We can’t be certain but this might be the Murph system.”
The confirmation would be tough though, automated probes lost control when they exited the wormhole, the only way to really explore it, would be to send a manned craft through it.
“A manned craft,” Gene said out loud, “that will take years to build! the Shadowmage is in no shape for such a journey.” Journalists start asking questions, would traversing the wormhole kill us? would there be aliens on the other side? would they be friendly? was it the doorway to the Kraken and what kind of Kerbal would be brave and stupid enough to even consider a journey like this?
“Fortune favors the bold,” Jebediah replied. The phrase would stick.
KSC Archives 