Part 11: Spring 1959: Post-Vote

Alright, let's get this Spring thing done and dusted, shall we? First, the things that require me to do the least amount of work: Research and Purchases.



Mercury gets up to being just slightly better than a coin toss chance of death on every check...




EVA suits are invented and researched a bit as well. Now that they've been bought, aside from the minor research fee you basically never need to factor these things into budget calculations again, which is nice.



Slayton and Wood are dismissed from Basic early for being good little Astronauts and assigned as Flight Crews I and II for the Mercury. You can't see that last part here, but trust me on that one.

Now that you have some people out of training, it's important to note that they have a 'Mood' stat. Wood and Slayton are both in high spirits at the moment... but the longer they sit around NOT being strapped to rockets, the pissier they'll get until they just up and quit. This counts for ALL Astronauts, so it may be better to hold off on hiring the second set for a little while unless you're in desparate need for more bodies. Also they're not available yet anyway, but consider this a thinking point for the future.

With that all done, it's time for SOVIET RUSSIA to make its move.

MEANWHILE, in the land of the Reds...




I get my version of 'Operation Paperclip' for an R&D boost, and a failure Cosmonaut. Kind of a backhanded favor, but I'll take what I can get at this point.



It's been a while since you guys got to see Baikonur, so I figured I'd give you a recon shot. It's rather busy at the moment. 70MB is... really not going to get me very far, but you gotta take what you can get, I suppose.




I'll be honest here, if I hadn't gotten that research bonus event, I probably would've done something rather insane and just called 1959 as a whole a loss to build up money to do something risky in the 60s. With that little bit of bonus, maybe the race to get a human up into the stars will be a little closer than previously expected.




Figured I might as well start this guy on up too. He who hesitates is lost, after all.

24 MB are left over after this wave of purchases and research... I think I'll keep that in the safe for now and call it a turn. (Also holy shit, I've got a few ridiculous Cosmonauts out there. 4 Cap and 3 EVA? Nice.)