Kerbin First Daily

Council Resolution №412 supposedly fixed it last spring. Gerald is deeper now - KFD measured 34 cm.

It has a name now. The neighborhood calls it "Gerald." Council Resolution №412 supposedly fixed it last spring. KFD photographers report Gerald is, if anything, deeper. The Council declined to comment.

We measured it: 34 cm. For twelve years the city has "been aware." Awareness does not fill holes. It fills campaign envelopes.

If your street looks like this, send photos. We publish names.

After three hundred years of the Pothole Question, this publication has photographed the pothole from orbit. It is worse than it looks from street level.

Readers. We have done it. After three hundred years of the Pothole Question, after 412 Council resolutions, after the Graeber administration and all subsequent administrations, after every single column this paper has run on the subject of Kerbin's road infrastructure - we have photographed the pothole from orbit.

The POTHOLE module, launched at this publication's expense on a KeedMartin Final Stage Orbital Maneuver Engine aboard a KOEING SLS2 rocket, is now attached to the Large Station Initiative 1 in low Kerbin orbit. It has a camera. We pointed it at the road. The pothole is approximately 0.6 metres across and is visible in extraordinary detail from 380 kilometres above Kerbin. It is, if anything, worse than it looks from street level.

'The pothole from space. Finally. Someone did it.'

We are told by the station crew that our telescope is also very good at looking at things in space. We have filed this information under 'not our department' and returned to the pothole. The pothole remains on page 1. Everything else is on page 8.

The Council has been notified. The Council has not responded. The pothole has not been filled. We remain.

Valentina Kerman stepped on another world. Gerald stepped deeper. One of these things received a press conference. Guess which one.

We will acknowledge it. Valentina Kerman walked on the Mun. Huddin Kerman was there. Katdorf Kerman did science. They came home. Zero crew lost. We at KFD are not made of stone. It was an achievement. We have said it. Print it. Frame it. Move on.

Now. The pothole outside this building is twelve years old. We measured it again this morning: 34 cm. Gerald is deeper than it was when they launched TRANQUIL. Gerald has been deepening throughout the entire Mun program. Gerald was deepening when they launched SOLARCOM. Gerald was deepening when they built LSI 1. Gerald was deepening when they landed on the Mun. Gerald does not care about the Mun. Gerald cares about the road. The road is what Gerald is.

They spent - and we are estimating here because NASA's budget is classified in ways that should concern you - enough to land three kerbals on the Mun and bring them back. We cannot fill a hole. The Council defeated the roads motion 411-1. The one vote was the Roads Party. The Roads Party has one seat. The pothole has twelve years.

We will say this once more: the Mun did not fix the road. Nothing that happens in space fixes the road. We are happy they came home. Fill the hole.

HESTIA is en route to Duna. It cost more than every road in Kerbin. We did the math. The Council did not.

HESTIA is en route to Duna. Eight kerbals. Fifty-eight days of transit. The propulsion system is classified. The launch sequence - which we will summarize because nobody else will - involved three failed BelugaX flights, one lost Unity vehicle, an EVA into a falling cargo bay, and two crew launches on a vehicle that had a 25% success rate until its fourth attempt. This is what your tax funds paid for.

We do not have HESTIA's cost figure. NASA does not publish cost figures. We have submitted a Freedom of Information request. We have received a PDF titled "Budgetary Overview: Interplanetary Program Phase 1" which contains 43 pages and zero numbers. We are not making this up. Forty-three pages. No numbers. We read all of them. There is a section called "Resource Allocation Framework" that uses the word "synergy" nine times.

Meanwhile: the Dricken Valley road survey documented 34 potholes in a 4.2 kilometre section. Council motion KV-2241 to fund repairs was defeated. The HESTIA program launched eight kerbals to another planet on a vehicle with a classified propulsion system. The pothole is still there. Gerald is still there. The road budget is still zero.

KFD's position remains consistent: we are not opposed to space. We are opposed to space instead of roads. Fill the hole. Then go to Duna. Is that so hard.

LLS-2's engine failed. Three kerbals stranded. NASA launched a rescue and called the whole thing a win. KFD calls it what it is: the closest this program has come to a funeral.

Let us be clear about what happened on the Mun. An ascent engine failed. Three kerbals were on the surface of another world with no way home. NASA launched a rescue mission - RETRIEVAL - and recovered them. All three came back. Zero crew lost. The press called it heroic. The Herald called it "the mission the program will be remembered for." KFD calls it the closest this program has come to killing three people.

The engine failed. The engine. On a vehicle carrying crew. The ascent engine - the one part of the lander that absolutely, categorically, without exception has to work - did not work. NASA's response was to launch another vehicle, which also used an ascent engine, which also had to work, and this time it did. That is not a success. That is a near-miss followed by a gamble.

We are glad they came home. We have said this. We will say it again: we are glad they came home. But a program that normalizes "the engine failed but we rescued them" is a program that has decided engine failure is acceptable as long as a rescue is available. What happens when the rescue fails? What happens when the rescue vehicle's engine fails? KFD asked NASA. We received a statement about "redundancy protocols." Redundancy is not a substitute for an engine that works.

Fill the pothole. Fix the engine. Stop almost killing people.

The universe is bigger than anyone thought. The pothole outside KFD headquarters is the same size. These facts coexist.

NASA confirmed that the Juno anomaly is a traversable wormhole to another star system. The LIMINAL mission sent probes through it. Administrator Clane said "we were building infrastructure for a solar system, it turns out we were building it for a galaxy." The Herald printed that sentence without commentary. KFD will provide the commentary: a galaxy that has roads this bad is not a galaxy worth reaching.

We have been told that the SOLARCOM relay network - the one this newspaper asked about repeatedly, the one NASA would not explain - was built to communicate with probes sent through the wormhole. So: NASA built an interstellar communications infrastructure before it built a functional road in Dricken Valley. We have noted this. We have noted it in a frame on the wall. We have notified the Council.

The wormhole does not fill the pothole. The galaxy does not pave the road. Another star system does not have a road budget for this one. Gerald remains. The Council remains unresponsive. KFD remains.

In unrelated news, the POTHOLE-CAM telescope module is still operational. We have pointed it at the road. The pothole is visible from space. It is also visible from street level. It is visible from everywhere. NASA found a wormhole. We found a pothole. Both are still here.