This Season 2 stream on GopherCraft's multiplayer server is about one idea: a Mobile Processing Lab can turn experiments into a lot of science, but sending that science home takes power. So Basket packs a rocket with batteries and solar panels, flies it to the Mun with two scientists aboard, and transmits 500 science from orbit. Then a landing attempt comes down too fast, and the stream ends with Jebediah Kerman's capsule on its side on the Mun.
More batteries, more solar panels
The stream opens in the research tree, where better battery packs and solar panels cost more science than Basket has, so it is back to the Vehicle Assembly Building with what is already unlocked. The name field reads The Success 2007 XLT. The top layer of boosters comes off, nose cones and struts go on, parachutes go to the top, and then the hull fills up with battery banks and solar panels. "We want the science and we have no budget."
The plan, in the commentary's words: "to transmit it you need a lot of power so that's why I have too many battery packs and solar panels." By save time the name field reads The Success 2008 XLT. At the Astronaut Complex, with the Science counter at 126.5, Basket hires Sherby Kerman, a scientist. The crew panel puts Jebediah Kerman, a pilot, in the Mk1 Command Pod, and Natalin Kerman and Sherby Kerman, both scientists, in the Mobile Processing Lab MPL-LG-2.
Waiting on the pad
The rocket fires and goes nowhere. Twelve engines are running and the ship is still too heavy, so the plan is to sit there until it burns off enough fuel. "What we learned last time was that eventually I burn off enough fuel sitting here then I start going up." After a couple of minutes wrapped in smoke, it does.
Dropping the first big engines sends the ship into a spin, and for a moment it is falling instead of climbing. Basket cuts the engines, lets it settle, and throttles back up. "Okay, we turned it around, everybody." The ship reaches orbit, burns for the Mun and settles into "a nice little orbit" around it.
500 science from orbit
Basket runs everything aboard: Mystery Goo, materials, a crew report ("You look at the surface of the Mun and try to find a good landing space"), an EVA report, temperature and pressure. The results go into the lab, and the scientists start turning them into science. By the commentary's count, a test upload of 50 uses about 300 charge, so the batteries should handle a full load. Basket lets the lab fill to 500, waits until the ship is in the sun, and hits transmit. The game reports "500 Science added." "We actually just transmitted all 500."
Trying to land
Minmus sits on an awkward orbit for a quick trip, so Basket weighs a burn back toward Kerbin against a Mun landing. A viewer suggests landing, and Basket agrees. "We've gotten like 750 science already so it's already a great trip even if this doesn't work."
The first try goes wrong when the ship does something Basket did not ask for. "Stop stop stop." A manual retrograde burn puts it back in orbit, and Basket plans the descent again. The last engine is small for such a heavy ship, so the braking burn is long and slow. "This might just be too heavy for this little guy."
The legs go down and the ship drops straight toward a flat-looking patch, still a little too fast.
Where it ends
The touchdown is hard. The game reports the landing struts as overstressed, the ship bursts into flame and smoke, and when it clears only the capsule and a few parts are left, lying on their side. From then on, only Jebediah Kerman's portrait is on screen. "Oh, the science thing broke." The antenna is gone too, so nothing more can be sent home. "Poor Jeb is stranded again." The stream ends there, with Jebediah Kerman's capsule on the Mun and no ship on the way to get it.
