The Earth in High Resolution

1955 July 18, Illyrien Space Center, Prometheus Lounge

“So Bob, any update on the Bird’s Eye probe we lost over the north pole? ”

“Nothing definitive so far Gene, Margaret is working with the analysis team, trying to figure out the what the probe data means. She is working on the assumption, that something happened with the avionics, which the kOS code could not happen. That this meant the probe did not achieve a stabile orbit, but rather got too high, and then hit the lower atmosphere too rapidly. At which point it disintegrated. ”

“Right, nothing much we can do about that now. We are just going to have to update the design, and relaunch more missions. In the meanwhile, I will send our current pictures to Parlament Hill. The widescreen photo pod is pretty impressive, but that orbital telescope looking down, from a polar orbit. Now that is just amazing. I am sure the military is going to want a lot more of those.”

Some 3 month’ish earlier, at a status meeting in the Prometheus Lounge.

Bob: “Gene, there is something else, need to consider, and consider now. We have amassed a large amount of scientific data earlier, but with our recent recruitment drive, we also have a large amount of researchers and PhD’s processing the data. They are doing so quite quickly. It is of cause pretty great with this kind of rapid technological progress, but we cannot sustain it for long. We need more science, and soon.”

Gene: “Understood. How about the upcoming polar science mission, is that enough? Or do we need more? Is it urgent?”

Bob: “Its not that urgent, but we need more. We have less of a years worth of science left. So we must be mindful about this.”

Bill: “Well, if we want some science, how about we send camera’s everywhere? We got those we got for the recent Moon contract. Though this time I suggest we build them for reentry. I got a simple design on a napkin somewhere. We can use that, and send photo missions all over the planet.”

Gene: “Including the Kerbinian launch centers.. the intelligence service would be rather happy about that.. All right, I authorize 3 missions, put them into the queue right after the current Moon mission.”