The Eve of the Crash

No one would have believed, during the grand years of Kerbalkind's colonization of space, that Kerbal ineptitude would lead to one of the greatest adventures ever lead on an airless world.
No one would have dreamed that it would be a simple course error, easily corrected if it were noticed in advance, that nearly doomed the great starship Manifest Destiny to oblivion.
Few kerbals even considered the possibility of life on a planet like this.
And yet, across the gulf of space, minds immeasurably more knowledgeable than ours regarded this world with nary an eye.
And slowly, and surely, their descendants drew their plans to return to the heavens.

[Music begins]

At midnight, on the 12th of Blaugust
A huge mass of luminous plasma erupted from the Manifest Destiny, slowing its path towards Mesbin
Across thirty four billion miles of void
Invisibly hurtling towards it
Came the great star ship which would have such a problem in the new system.

As I watched from its top deck, there was another jet of plasma
Another pulse, slamming us into the deck.
And that's how it was for the next ten weeks.
A flare, spurting out from the back of our starship.
The bright blue Kaywell dimming to white, as Kerbol grew paler and less orange.

Bobbilly, the navigator, assured me we were in no danger.
He was convinced that there could be no problem with the course planning to that remote
forbidding Mesbin.

The chances of anything going wrong
Are a million to one, he said (ah, ah)
The chances of anything going wrong
Are a million to one, but still, it's wrong

Then came the night we were to curve our path around Mesbin to reach its moon
It was thought to be a routine science flyby
But the next day we found the bulk of Mesbin's bulge flying towards us.
And Bobbilly came to examine what could be done.

Our cylinder, three hundred meters long, glowing from its tail
With the powerful blasts of the engine pushing us into the deck
Slowed us down to a halt above Mesbin's surface.
And Bobbilly feared that we would be unable to avoid a crash.

He rushed to the command deck, but the intense crash stopped him before
he could make it to the ladder.

The chances of anything going wrong
Are a million to one, he said (ah, ah)
The chances of anything going wrong
Are a million to one, but still, it's wrong