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Per Aspera (Space Agency Plan Quest)

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[X] Alan Turing - The father of modern computing was also a contender for Chief Scientist, striking a more middle-ground position than Parsons or Glushko. He was somewhat… socially inept, and prone to focusing on his own projects, but when he could be pulled away from them he tended to listen and weigh the pros and cons of any given proposal quite fairly. (+3 to Science rolls, +5 to COMP, -5 to CHEM, will roll a dice every turn to see if he focuses in on a single project; if he does, add +20 to that project. This project will always be a computer project if there is one available.)

getting computer technology as advanced as possible will be really helpfull
 
Wooooooooooo update!

[X] Jack Parsons

Lets. BLOW! UP! STUFF!

also more serious reminder that we are the Interplanetary Exploration Cooperative, not the Informatic Experimentation Cooperative but anyway that's not as important as occult rites that involve blowing stuff up
 
[X] Jack Parsons

A suggestion: IOTL, the "muttniks" and their descendants were given out to prominent political figures as a way to boost support for the Soviet program. It would make sense to do that here.
 
[X] Alan Turing - The father of modern computing was also a contender for Chief Scientist, striking a more middle-ground position than Parsons or Glushko. He was somewhat… socially inept, and prone to focusing on his own projects, but when he could be pulled away from them he tended to listen and weigh the pros and cons of any given proposal quite fairly. (+3 to Science rolls, +5 to COMP, -5 to CHEM, will roll a dice every turn to see if he focuses in on a single project; if he does, add +20 to that project. This project will always be a computer project if there is one available.)
 
[X] Valentin Glushko

I don't like Turing as a choice, since I think he's better served as the head of the computing centre - he's a good computer scientist, but nothing to suggest he's the kind of polymath that'd make someone useful for a program where the majority of the work is not relating to computer science, but Parsons' requirement that we spend at least one die per year on him means he's not a huge boost - he gives us a net +3 bonus to science rolls, or 4*7*3=84 points of progress, but we need to spend at least one roll, or 50.5 progress, on something we wouldn't normally do.

Ideally I'd pick Glushko, but it seems nobody's going for him, sadly.

I guess we go for Turing now, then in a decade or two he'll probably jump off to work on stuff more specific to his interests, and we'll replace him with someone else?
 
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C_Z said:
[X] Alan Turing

I don't like Turing as a choice, since I think he's better served as the head of the computing centre - he's a good computer scientist, but nothing to suggest he's the kind of polymath that'd make someone useful for a program where the majority of the work is not relating to computer science, but Parsons' requirement that we spend at least one die per year on him means he's not a huge boost - he gives us a net +3 bonus to science rolls, or 4*7*3=84 points of progress, but we need to spend at least one roll, or 50.5 progress, on something we wouldn't normally do.

Ideally I'd pick Glushko, but it seems nobody's going for him, sadly.

I guess we go for Turing now, then in a decade or two he'll probably jump off to work on stuff more specific to his interests, and we'll replace him with someone else?
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I'll vote for Glushko if you do to.

[X] Valentin Glushko
 
[X] Jack Parsons

To use a quote popularized in the modern day by Roald Dahl, "A little nonsense now and then is relished by the wisest men". At least a fair few of the projects Parsons would make us take might not work out long term, but we'll undoubtedly learn quite a bit from the attempts. Look at how the quest to turn lead into gold help lay the groundwork for the science of chemistry IRL, or how launching a successful spaceplane will boost our aerodynamics knowledge.
 
Vehrec said:
Something that is revealed to you after taking five dry grams of magic mushrooms, going to a dark room, and speaking to the universe.
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Close, quoting from his obituary:

Old police reports yesterday pictured the former Caltech professor as a man who led a double existence—a down-to-earth explosives expert who dabbled in intellectual necromancy. Possibly he was trying to reconcile fundamental human urges with the inhuman, Buck Rogers type of innovations that sprang from his test tubes.
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After rereading, I noticed some things:
  • Glushko has a -5 to nuclear projects and is anti-hydrogen, not just pro-hypergolic. This is bad, given our investment thus far into nuclear energy and high-energy upper stages which make use of hydrogen propellant. We can overcome this resistance, but...
  • Parsons is, notably, the only one of the three that doesn't have a negative modifier. Instead, he consumes 1/28th of a science die, which may or may not be on something useful to us; this makes for a far smaller cost than what I originally thought when I thought he had a -5 as well.
  • Turing is noted as being "socially inept" and "prone to focusing on his own projects". Putting this man in a managerial position where he can't spend time on his pet projects and insetad has to deal with people all day sounds more like a punishment than a reward.
As such, I'm changing my vote to:
[X] Jack Parsons

It's so over, glushkobros.
 
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