“Date, 08.034 Nova Navigation Log, getting ready to detach from the spacedock,” Jeb looked at the team, ‘Navigation check, power check, gravitic generator check, propulsion check, life support check, comms, check, hot coffee check,”
“Forrester here with Korolev, you are clear for undocking.” she then looked at Bill. “You better hurry young man, you don’t want to miss that flight.” Bill left his seat and smiled, “not happening without my departure codes Sir.” He then hurried to the Nova and released the docking clamps. “Powering up the automated craft stabilizing and orienting system,” Bill said. “You mean you pressed ‘T'” Jeb said. “Essentially yes Sir.”
Jeb laughed, “all right crew, power up the RSC. Take her out, slowly please, we don’t want to scratch the paint.” Bill laughed, “You are going to hold that against me forever right?” The Nova moved at 0.3 m/s, systems seemed to hold up.
Slowly the craft moved from the cradle, it was a tight fit but nothing bumped into something. Dr. Forester looked from the observation deck, “Safe travels my friends.” Dr. Korolev said.
“Alright, we have cleared the dock, let’s give her an additional push and power up the new fusion generator.” Jeb was confident. “Reactor is running, lots of power and plasma. Gravitic waves are being generated, engines are running.” Bill read out the display, “Course laid in for raising our orbit to 1,000 km.”
The NX-10 was truly a beautiful sight. The promotional pictures would feature many postcards in the years to come.
Though she could run on both SAFER reactors, the new fusion generator made sustained gravitic wave generation possible allowing for continuous burns. It used propellium and no-one knew how much, perhaps it would all be gone by the time they reached Jool, but engineering was confident that they would only need a little.
“Course laid in, firing engines,” Bill said. The new upgrades had dampened the effects of the acceleration but still, the 2-G felt like a shock. All systems checked out fine, the team was ready for the big jump.
“All right team, take one last look at Kerbin because we won’t see her for quite some time,” Jeb said. The smiled and felt sorry at the same time, they would miss the place but exploring new star systems was the ultimate adventure. Not to mention that science is what drives all Kerbals.
The two engines fired up nicely and created a gravitic field that allowed to vessel to accelerate without the use of conventional propulsion, allowing for a far greater range than anything before.
In less than 20 minutes they had completed a 30km/s burn, which had put them on a trajectory to reach Jool in 93 days. A record by any measure. They would overtake the Nathan Kell and the Linux that was also traveling to the Jool system, it was even uncertain how much gravioli Jooltopia Planetia Station could harvest in such a short time.
As they powered down the systems they put the craft in silent mode, there were tons of reports to file and systems to check, and since they were running on a skeleton crew they would have to do all that themselves. Mito and Jeb would focus on science, Bill would do navigation and systems. There was a beauty in the journey itself, Jeb had once explained to Mito, the destination is not always what you should be thinking about.
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