New Year's Day was tomorrow, but the people of the IEC had had the last three weeks off. You, yourself, were happily enjoying a change in scenery, having decided to travel to New York for the holidays simply because you wanted to see the still-big city. It had been an eventful quarter, in some ways more than others, but you still looked forward to the Big Things you knew were coming - some of which you'd already given the green light to set into motion. Soon, you knew, you'd have to be at the World Council, arguing for your program. This year, the Council was meeting in Baghdad. Next year, it would be New Delhi.
If nothing else, being the Director of the IEC gave you an excuse to travel.
Resources:
60R (+55R/turn)
50 Political Support
1x 22kt Mark 4 Atomic Bomb(?!?!?!)
Facilities:
1 Launch Stand (0-5 tonne) (+1 Operations die)
1 Assembly Complex (+1 Build Capacity)
1 Engineer's Hall (+2 Engineering Dice)
1 University Affiliate (+2 Science Dice)
1 Materials Lab (+5 bonus to projects tagged [MATSCI])
1 Chemical Plant (+5 bonus to projects tagged [CHEM])
1 Electronics Cooperative (+5 bonus to projects tagged [AVIONICS])
1 Construction Union Hall (+1 Facilities die)
1 Publications Office (+1 to all science and engineering fields; coinflip each year to get an additional +1)
1 Hardened Tracking and Observation (T&O) Complex (+3 to Operations)
1 Engine Test Stand (+2 to PROP projects)
Scientific Advances (name TBD)
Improved Instrumentation - Gain +1d2 bonus to a random field every 2 launches. Gain +1 to AVIONICS immediately.
Regenerative Cooling - Starts down the path to more powerful and advanced rocket engines.
Second Stages - Can now build 2-Stage Sounding Rockets.
Combustion Instability Research - Turns the initial success roll for a rocket from a >60 to >50.
Scientific/Engineering Specific Field Bonuses
AERO - +7
AVIONICS - +8
CHEM - +7
CREW - +0
COMP - +2
MATSCI - +7
PHYS - +0
PROP - +4
Operations
Construct a 2-Stage Sounding Rocket (71/50)
-[X] And launch it (100%>40% (non-natural 100))
The Two-Stage Sounding Rocket Little Buddy lifted off the pad at 0845 on November the 1st, streaking off into the upper atmosphere and out to space. It was built quickly and without fuss, and the launch went beautifully. This sounding rocket carried a payload of fruit flies, investigating how they handled the shock of launch and the brief weightlessness at the top of the rocket's arc. A Geiger counter took up its remaining payload space, to measure the radiation dose the insects received during their trip.
Your scientists recovered the capsule two hundred kilometers offshore later that day, picking up the floating device with its parachute and water marker helping it stand out from the water better. They reported good results - most of the flies had survived, and the radiation dose was fairly minimal - higher than background, but not a lot. It seemed to get more intense the further away from the atmosphere the rocket had gotten, according to the recorder tape the counter and altimeter had fed into. They felt there was a better design to be had for re-entry vehicles, however, especially as they expected total heat loads to greatly increase at higher speeds.
[+2 to AERO]
Facilities
Construct a Heavy Sounding Rocket launch site (8/60)
The new launch pad was experiencing technical difficulties. It seemed the initial site had been improperly surveyed, and was far too sandy to actually build anything on. Thankfully, this was determined before too much actual work had been done, but surveying a new site and double checking it left you without any real progress to speak of made on building out the pad once things had been settled. Work would have to continue in the next quarter.
Engineering
Conduct Design Studies (Platform) (Heavy Sounding Rocket) [AERO] (49/80)
Design work on the new Heavy Sounding Rocket was well underway and proceeding at a brisk pace. The engineering teams assigned to the project split up into groups based on their personal proficiencies, some attaching themselves to the propulsion team sussing out the tankage requirements for their new engine, others performing extensive calculations on the aerodynamic properties such-and-such shape would have at so-and-so speed… it was, in a few words, fairly chaotic, but the engineers were happy with it and they were starting to produce results by the time the various holidays came around.
They were settling towards a fifteen-tonne design powered by a (relatively) conventional alcolox engine only slightly upgraded from an Imperial ballistic missile's, with the addition of regenerative cooling allowing for much higher chamber temperatures and pressures and an increase in performance. It wouldn't quite be able to go into orbit - anywhere close, really - but it could get really, really far down-range, nearly fifteen hundred kilometers if it flew right. This provided for a much longer in-space flight time in which experiments could be run.
Engine Cycles (Tech) [MATSCI, CHEM, PROP] (114/250)
Meanwhile, other engineers were working on collating a number of different ways in which engines could be powered. There were, of course, pressure-fed rockets, where high-pressure fuel and oxidizer would simply have their tank valves opened to allow the two to mix in the combustion chamber. These were extremely simple, but very low performance. Then there were the (many) different ways one could utilize turbopumps to force fuel and oxidizer into the chamber at controlled rates, which benefited from much higher performance but correspondingly higher complexity and issues with stress and materials science having to keep up with what the machine wanted to do. Different cycles also were better with different fuels, apparently, though in the end it was a preference, not a hard and fast rule of 'x fuel must use y cycle or you will be doomed.'
It was all, frankly, a bit over your head. The important bit, though, was that your engineers were starting to come up with a variety of engine proposals for further study. One was a kerosene/liquid oxygen fuel-rich staged combustion design, another was a methane/liquid oxygen expander cycle, still another was a hydrogen/lox closed cycle… and there was one madman who was proposing a chlorine tetrafluoride/liquid oxygen engine that the rest of your engineers were all insisting very, very loudly was a bad idea.
Science
Research Program Outreach 147/120
The science teams reported good news to you at the end of the quarter - they had gotten lists upon lists of experiments that their colleagues in academia wanted run, along with cooperation agreements with various universities around the world. It was currently being run as an affiliate program, with all parties involved agreeing to share any discoveries made using IEC data, and the institutions themselves agreeing to sending staff to Mogadishu. You didn't quite have enough new faces for a whole new science team - and a lot of those new faces weren't actually terribly big on the more hands-on side of the IEC's work any way - but their expertise was invaluable.
For example, Mr. Turing's group from the old UK attached themselves to the avionics and computer teams and made good use of themselves, a group of materials scientists from Philadelphia brought new ideas on aluminum tankage, and several dozen Chinese, Indian and Persian mechanical and electrical engineers attached them to your aerospace team - along with your first dozen-or-so new research assistants from African universities. Most of them were coming from Cairo or South Africa - you'd have to see what the deal was with that.
Weather Studies (Phase 1) 147/80
The big, silver balloon wafted off into the sky after it was released by the team on the ground, bearing a radio transmitter, several instruments, and a battery to power it all. It ghosted up, up, up, never quite out of sight due to sheer size, but no more than a pinprick in the morning sky. It was the third such balloon your scientists had sent up, and each of them had taught them something new about the atmosphere and, additionally, balloon construction. The first balloon had exploded once it reached a certain height. The second one, lightly reinforced, went higher. This third one would hopefully go even higher still, up to the top of the stratosphere.
By measuring the pressures, temperatures, humidities and windspeeds at the various heights, your scientists were gleaning a great deal of information on how the weather worked. There was also a ground radar scanning the general area in which the balloon was flying, correlating the data the balloon gathered with what that looked like in a radar reflection. The technique had been adapted from observations during the Third Great War, where operators noticed weather interfering with their radar pictures - and now, rather than searching for enemy warplanes, the radar was searching for dangerous weather formations. Granted, in Mogadishu, it wasn't so much of a problem - however, a few hours south in Kenya, it would be very valuable for dealing with their wet and occasionally wild weather.
[+5 PS]
[Weather Studies (Phase 2) 67/160]
Politics
Council Liaison Office (Auto)
One of the more personally-useful things you'd done this year was establish the Council Liaison Office. Staffed with a dozen or so aides and secretarial staff, their sole purpose was to observe and report on the goings-on inside the council to inform you of what that body's plans, goals and problems were. It would take another few months for them to fully settle in, but you expected by the next quarter they would begin reporting their findings to you.
[Unlock more information at the start of turns]
Bothering Councilors (-10 PS Auto) (Rolled 43)
You had also made it your mission to continue being a polite but ever-present pest, lobbying for more resources to be directed to things you thought would directly benefit the IEC, and thus the WCC. Things like:
Pick Two; an option may be picked more than once
[] More African Transportation Infrastructure - You lobbied hard for roads and rails to be built across Africa. This, of course, directly affected how easy it was to get components and materials to Mogadishu, as well as people, but you were deliberately broad with your demands so that the benefit would reach as many people as possible. (+1 to Infrastructure score for Africa; will add regional stats and their effects in the next quarter when the CLO becomes active)
[] More African Educational Infrastructure - The Rocket Boxes were a hit amongst the schoolkids of Africa - but there could be more of them. A lot more. A lot, lot, lot more, and universities besides. The marks of colonialism showed in the general disrepair of the continent's educational system in the places formerly claimed by imperial powers. By pouring resources towards righting that wrong, the WCC and the IEC could start to fix what was broken. (+1 to Education score for Africa; will add regional stats and their effects in the next quarter when the CLO becomes active)
[] More African Manufacturing - One thing you were always having to have shipped from overseas was high-quality tooling, parts and materials for your rockets. By investing in African manufacturing, not only would the continent start to not have to rely on its former masters for a great many manufactured goods, but you'd be able to get your parts quicker and easier. (+1 to Industry score for Africa; will add regional stats and their effects in the next quarter when the CLO becomes active)
[] More African Electrical Infrastructure - The IEC's space facility took up a not-inconsequential portion of Mogadishu's power budget. There were villages without electricity within a quick drive's distance of the facility, too. By investing more in building up more generation capacity, the electrification of Africa would improve, thus helping basically all other efforts to be made in the area. (+1 to Power score for Africa; will add regional stats and their effects in the next quarter when the CLO becomes active)
[] More IEC Budget - Your budget, as it was, was rapidly becoming insufficient for the task you'd been given. If it hadn't been for your shaking trees to make demilitarization committees cough up whatever they could spare, the IEC would be in a very tight spot resource-wise. You could try and get them to give you just a bit more budget from various discretionary funds… (+5R/turn)
Rocket Boxes (Phase I) (175/200)
Your first tranche of Rocket Boxes was almost completely out the door, and had been seen as far south as Cape Town, as far north as Cairo, and as far west as Guinea. Those were, of course, just the furthest out. Within another couple of months of present funding, the first tranche would be complete, and work could begin on setting up the second for distribution.
It had been decided, given their popularity, to make the Rocket Boxes a recurring program - so, once this tranche had been finished, the factories and workshops that had made all the parts would continue to do so, supplying new Rocket Boxes yearly to the educators of Africa. That did mean there would be duplication of work for other tranches serving other regions, but that was perfectly fine by you.
