Current distance from sun: 0.033 lightyears (2,100 AU)

I woke up this morning around 10:30, to find that the xenon tanks had finally run dry. With the engines shut down, it was finally time to start accelerating time in earnest. I set it to 100,000x, and watched as the sun rapidly diminished from a huge scary ball of fiery death to a pleasant little disc.

After mere seconds, I switched to map view and saw that my little Kerbals were already out beyond the orbit of Eeloo. I’m familiar with agonizingly slow Hohmann transfers out to that little icy world, so this speed is a little unnerving.

From the spaceship’s current location, 311,000,000,000 km out from the sun, it’s still the brightest thing in the sky, but it’s closer to a tiny sad dot now.

So far, it looks like the Mission Elapsed Time counter is broken, but everything else seems stable. I think perhaps it’s time to send my most expendable crew member on an EVA to see what the weather is like outside. Ludrie, you’re up!

No physics engine glitches detected out here, captain. Ludrie has no trouble reboarding the vessel.

Suddenly, disaster strikes. My eyes lock on the speed indicator. Oh no!

This far out from the sun, it seems that if you exit timewarp, the game forgets how fast you were going. Crap! Godspeed to our brave crew, doomed to drift forever in the cold reaches of the Kuiper belt. This ship is not going to be the one to go a lightyear.

But from every setback, opportunity arises. I kept thinking today about how to make a more efficient spacecraft, and squeeze a little more speed out of it. Now is my chance to go back to the drawing board (which would be proverbial except that I’m literally using an old drafting table as my computer desk).

Sorry for the short update, but a mission failure is a mission failure. Check back tomorrow for Polymakria II: Better, Faster, Stronger.