They finally made it.
Almost a decade after founding the Kerbinian Society for Astronavigation, after almost endless discussions, research, planning, more discussions, scrabbling for money, lobbying, convincing investors and sponsors, calling in all favors any of them were owed (and now owing quite a lot of favors themselves), they finally had a launch site and research center. A former aircraft test site, conveniently located in the middle of nowhere (but smack on the equator!), complete with runway, hangar (a bit decrepit, admittedly), a small office building and a shed (now serving as mission control and admin office), a barracks building (newly renamed to "Astronaut Complex", and their home for the forseeable future) and a couple of nissen huts clustered around another office building (the "Science Center"). Always optimistic, they changed its old name to "Kerbin Spaceport Complex" (and to be honest, that does sound better than "Aeroplane Research Site Four"), and spent almost all of the societies' remaining funds on a brand new rocket assembly building (planned for a bright future, and way too large for what they could actually build) and a tracking station. And, of course, a launch pad (to be brutally honest this time, really just a patch of roughly graded dirt hopefully far enough away from everything else that accidents could happen without causing too much damage).
Who they were? A bunch of eccentrics, convinced that it was possible to use rockets to not only leave Kerbins atmosphere, but to actually "fall around the world" and stay up in the skies forever. And to go even further, to Kerbins moons, to other planets, and even other stars! The "space fool Kermans", they were sometimes called (and yes, even though Kerman is a very common name, there were an unusual number of Kermans in the society). Wernher von Kerman. Jebediah Kerman (no relation to Wernher). Gene and Mortimer Kerman (cousins, but not related to either Wernher or Jeb). Max Kalier. Robert Krussel. And last but by no means least, Valentina Korova.
The founding members of the Kerbinian Society for Astronavigation.
And as of today — day one of year one of the space age, because of course they had started a new year count for the occasion, in good kerbinian tradition — they were officially in business. The business of guiding Kerbalkind to the stars, as stated in the societies' bylaws.