Episode 10 of the GopherCraft Great Space Race opens in the VAB with Orbit III. "This worked out pretty well, held together pretty well. Let's see if we can make it crazy." The result is Orbit IV, a much heavier rocket with solid boosters, a Mobile Processing Lab and three kerbals aboard. It never reaches orbit. The climb goes almost straight up, the rocket will not turn, and it comes back down in the highlands, where Basket runs the science and recovers it.
Making it crazy
Basket adds solid rocket boosters around the core, finds the angle snap ("Oh, look at that"), and fights to line up struts and decouplers. "I can't tell what it's actually snapping to." A light comes off and ladders go on, a pair of launch towers goes beside the base, and the name field changes to Orbit IV.
The lab has empty seats, so the crew screen fills up: Lemgas Kerman in the Command Pod Mk1, Anton Kerman and Matgan Kerman in the Mobile Processing Lab MPL-LG-2. "This mission might go bad entirely." Before launch Basket adds, "I should check on Jebediah sometime."
Straight up
Orbit IV lifts off. "It actually goes up. How amazing is that?" It banks a little but holds together, the boosters drop on cue, and SAS "should have been on a long time ago." On the way up Basket explains the lab as far as it is understood so far: left in orbit, it should gather science slowly over time.
The rocket keeps climbing nearly vertically. "These, all these engines here kind of makes it tough to try and maneuver."
No way to turn
With the engines off, map view shows a Kerbin periapsis of 43,912 meters. Basket drags a maneuver node and one try puts the apoapsis at 29,478,522 meters. "That's really high. Holy cow. That's not what I want at all." The next plan needs a two-minute burn with the apoapsis 23 seconds away, and the rocket turns too slowly to line up. "This guy doesn't turn very well."
Basket burns anyway, then admits, "We're not going up anymore." Stages drop, another node gets tried, and the craft heads back into the atmosphere wrapped in flames. "I didn't think about adding on extra parachutes for this gigantic thing."
Highlands again
The parachutes open and the craft lands on a slope and rolls. "I think I lost the antenna." The biome is the highlands again. The Materials Study reads that "one of the samples appears to be judging you silently," and the dialog offers to process it in the lab for a better transmit value. "Now I actually have an idea of what the lab does."
Where it ends
Once the craft stops rolling, Basket recovers it. The Science Summary for Orbit IV lists three results, the Materials Study and the Mystery Goo from Kerbin's Highlands and the recovery after a sub-orbital flight, for 1.8 science and a total of 34. A "To be continued..." card and the end card follow.