AMICITAS FLIGHT THREE – MISSION DAY 372
ARES III SOL 366
“This is dumb.”
“I’m not arguing the point,” Mark replied, working the ratchet wrench while Fireball held the engine bell (one of those salvaged from the MAV descent stage) upside down on top of its normal mounting point on the Amicitas engine. “But if we don’t want this thing to flip over in midair, we have to do it.”
Fireball couldn’t argue with that. They’d considered just sending the rocket motor up as is, all one point four tons of it. After all, Mars had so little air that wind resistance was a non-factor, right? Then Starlight Glimmer had passed on the numbers from the launch tests on Equestria, particularly the launch that sent Chrysalis up to the new giant orbiting spaceship. Mark had done some quick and dirty math and worked out that the test vehicle, being something like eight percent the launch weight of the vehicle used on Chryssy’s flight, would leave the pad at something like seventy G’s of acceleration…
… or, to put it in terms of meters per second, almost seven hundred meters per second per second if they used the same system. Even with the more restrained system Twilight Sparkle had recommended, the test vehicle would break the Martian speed of sound roughly two-thirds of one second after liftoff.
Fireball knew himself to be a dragon of only moderate intellect, but even he could see two things here. First, every bit of Mars’s ability to throw the flight off course by air resistance would come into play practically immediately, and so the engine had to be made at least vaguely aerodynamic if they didn’t want it to drop right on top of their heads in several uncomfortably heavy pieces.
Second, even with the aerodynamic shell they were bodging together, only an idiot would be anywhere close to the thing when it launched.
All of that was obvious. But putting the engine bell on a rocket motor backwards, so that the open end just barely fit over the guts of the motor, was just about like that one pony you always got at a party who thought it was the funniest thing in the world to put a lampshade on her head. Again.
Yes, it was a way of saving on scrap metal- not that that was as urgent as it had once been, since they weren’t going to be strapping this rocket and its two siblings to the Ares IV MAV anymore, but you didn’t need to be a dragon to see the sense of hoarding useful material on a hostile, unpredictable world.
And yes, the material the bell was made of had been specifically designed to withstand tremendous temperatures, air friction, and anything else ponies, dragons, or deranged changelings could throw at it.
All true, and yet it still looked dumb.
“Okay, that’s got it,” Mark said, giving the last bolt a final tug with his ratchet. “Let’s go inside and make the cap and fins.”
They’d taken the engine out to Site Epsilon, just east of the cave farm, for launch. It wasn’t an absolute guarantee that moving east would prevent the engine from hitting the Hab in case of a mishap, but it helped. Any misfire of the launch system would need quite a bit of help to overcome Mars’s rotational velocity.
As for the cave farm and Site Epsilon… well, it could take a direct hit better than the Hab could. Meters of dirt and rock beat a canvas dome for impact resistance any day.
Fireball and Mark wasted no time divesting themselves of their space suits once the airlock finished pressurizing. The interior temperature of the cave now matched that of the Hab, and the valve on the water heating system was being closed off bit by bit as the extra sun crystals throughout the cave did their work. Besides, it was more comfortable out of the suits than in.
“Hey, Starlight!” Fireball shouted. “We taking battery for two minutes of field.”
“What for?” Starlight was studying the designs she’d drawn on the whiteboards, making sure she had the adjustments for the launch-test crystal enchantment clear in her mind. She didn’t even look up at Fireball’s shout.
Fireball almost used the Equestrian word, and then remembered the English, thanks to several episodes from entirely different series that mentioned or showed it being done. “Welding,” he said. Thank you, stupid human television.
“Take one of the amethyst batteries,” Starlight said. “I drained them day before yesterday. Less than ten percent charge. Two minutes is about all you’ll get.”
“Good.” Most of the batteries were clear quartz, since most of the crystals large enough for the purpose were clear quartz, but a couple of large amethyst chunks had been trimmed and turned into batteries, and they were easy to pick out from the others. Fireball picked it up, ignoring how everything seemed a little heavier than it ought to despite Martian gravity, and carried it over to where Mark had laid out five pieces of pink-painted metal- originally pieces of Amicitas’s thin outer hull.
“Okay,” Mark said, taking a marker and drawing a not-quite triangle on one of the bits of metal, leaving a square bit on the end that could be bent and bolted to the engine. He then handed the last piece of metal to Fireball. “Are you sure you’re up to this? I remember the first rover test.”
“It won’t hurt anything if not.”
“Right. Let me get Starlight to cut these, and I’ll be right back.”
Fireball watched him go. Yes, Starlight’s magic was more efficient, strictly speaking, at cutting. That was fine for the fins. But the nosecone required a little special work.
Fireball stuck the aerials on the battery terminals, switched the battery on, and felt pure magic radiating out from the battery with every sputter and buzz of rainbow sparks. He coughed a couple times to get his inner pilot light re-lit, and then puckered his lips as tightly as he could, breathed in through his nostrils, and spat his tightest, hottest flame directly at the scrap metal in front of him.
It wasn’t as hot as the flame from that huge dragon in the Discworld book. No dragon had flame that hot. If they had, more dragons would have challenged Celestia for her throne, and no doubt there’d be a bunch of dragons on the moon or pretty dragon “sculptures” in the Canterlot royal gardens.
For that matter, he couldn’t sustain a cutting flame for long even back home, never mind here. He had to move quickly. He cut a quick circle out of the metal- not perfect, but pretty close. He then cut a wedge out of that- like a large slice taken out of a pizza. This took about a minute.
Mmmmm… malachite and anchovy pizza. He’d order five of them the minute he set foot on Equus again. Charge them to Twilight Sparkle or Chrysalis or Ember, whichever was most convenient, just before he handed his resignation to all three.
No. Focus. Cutting is done, but you still need to weld the seam.
The outer skin metal was thin enough for a dragon to bend it easily by hand. Fireball did so, closing up the open wedge so the edges overlapped. Voila- a quick and dirty cone shape. He crimped the seam in a couple of places with his claws to give the seam a bit of a bite, and then he applied the flame again, not quite as hot this time but close. Carefully running the flame up and down the seam, he held the metal edges as tightly together as he could, slagging the overlapping edge so that it melted and bonded to the lower edge.
There. Two minutes and loose change, and he had a metal hat. It was irregular at the mouth of the cone, of course, and a bit wider than the open area on top of the inverted engine bell. That was on purpose. The overlap could be bent over the edge and then fastened onto the engine bell. So long as the weight was close to balanced, and so long as the overall shape was pointy enough to go more or less straight through the thin air of Mars, that was good enough.
If he’d actually been planning to ride inside the thing, he’d have been a lot more careful. Heck, he’d probably hand the whole thing to Starlight or Dragonfly or Mark, go find a corner, and sit on his claws unless asked to lift something. But this was just throwing a dumb object away. Nothing complicated about that.
“Huh. Yeah, that’ll work.” Mark had returned with four newly cut fins. Starlight now had her own field generator going as she began enchanting the nine small booster blocks and three little target blocks for the test launch.
Fireball switched off his- it had begun to sputter anyway, having run out of stored power.
“How do you get a flame that hot anyway?” the human continued, setting down his load of metal so he could more closely examine the nosecone.
“Think hard. Then make more pressure to breath,” Fireball said. “More pressure means hotter flame. Big ball of fire, like show off, like car crash on TV show, not very hot. Little bitty flame, fast air and lots of it, that very hot.”
“Huh.” Mark gave Fireball a look the dragon couldn’t interpret. He just hoped it didn’t mean If you die, dibs on dissecting you. “Well, let’s weigh all of this. Need to know how much weight we’re adding to the payload, after all.”
Fireball shook his head. That was humans for you. They’d find a way to take throwing a brick into the sun from two hundred million miles away, add math and science and junk, and make it boring.
He then considered the pony and changeling way of doing things, and then the dragon way, and how various combinations of those had got him here, and he decided he could stand a little boredom.
“I go get scale,” he said.
Dang, I'm getting hyped for this test launch. I just hope Mars doesn't do anything to make things worse...
I find it stupid how Spike can’t do squat about timberwolves but can somehow melt a giant chunk of ice.
9063182
You've doomed them all.
I am kinda curious to what the count down is to the day of escape is.
9063215
Things going according to plan is boring. Fight me.
9063207
My theory is that if you set a timberwolf on fire, then it just turns the timberwolf into a fire-and-ash wolf, which is just like a timberwolf except it's made of fire.
9063225 I keep forgetting that the world of MLP has a different law of physics, which is constantly being violated by the likes of Pinkie and Discord all the time!
Well, there's always plan 'G'.
Hit one of the Timberwolves near spike with a Want-It-Need-It spell, close your eyes, and DUCK.
"I... Want it. I NEED IT!"
"SPIKE... WAAAAAAAAAANT!!!!!"
(We try to avoid having to use plan 'G' for obvious reasons.)
9063182
Its MARS. Of course something is going to go wrong and make things worse. It is practically a guarantee at this point. 'Doing something important related to survival? Hello Martian death strike!'
Or maybe nothing will happen, but will look like it is happening, just to mess with everyone's heads.
Just Amethyst? No Garnet or Pearl? ;)
Fireball's POV is always fun. His distracted musings are a lot like what I have going in my own head when I'm bored.
Am l missing something? How is he breathing fire with his helmet on?
So, dragons can produce oxidizing and reducing flame at will?
9063207
And he can burn a yeti to death too.
It might just be that as a child burning his enemies alive doesn't really occur to Spike.
9063261
They're in the cave.
9063216 In this world, since Hermes's late departure from Mars delayed their return trip to Earth by two days, the Hermes second flyby of Mars is Sol 551. The planned departure from the Hab and cave farm is Sol 451, because one hundred sols is considered enough time to get to Schiaparelli and make the modifications necessary to the Ares IV MAV for the Hermes rendezvous. Leaving for the MAV sooner takes them away from the comparative safety of the Hab and the cave.
9063261 He's not. They went into the cave for the cutting and welding. The engine is outside, on the surface, where it will stay until it's time for it to no longer be on anything's surface ever again.
9063275 If you're going by the movie, I think that's more like burning one's enemies to mild inconvenience.
9063261
They desuited once they got in the cave farm.
9063261
They went into the cave to work.
Nearly everything is.
9063314
I dunno, they showed one yeti that Spike burned covered in flames, running away until he collapses in a pile, still on fire. That's extremely inconvenient.
Not quite an open-air gun, but close!
"Mark watched him go. Yes, Starlight’s magic was"
"Fireball watched him go. Yes, Starlight’s magic was"?
"his claws to give it the seam a bit of a bite"
"his claws to give it a bit of a bite"?
NOW he’s getting it. Humans may not do it flashy, humans may not do it fast, heck, they may not even do it the best. They do it RIGHT.
Fireball hasnt got to that point in Discworld then.
Young people tend to look on going to war as long periods of boredom followed by short periods of exitement.
Old people look at war as shorts periods of exitement followed by very long periods of being dead.
May you live in Intresting Times.
9063490
Natural Selection at work: in our Universe, physic laws are absolute and unnegotiable. Ignoring them doesn't mean they will ignore you.
Science is pretty much figuring out these rules and how to make them work in our favor
9063331
That's incorrect. Eastern and Pacific time are 3 hours apart, not 4.
That was pretty cool. Fireball is growing on me a lot.
Just put the pizzas on Twilight's tab.
NOTHING is 100% proof against changeling stupidity.
Yeah, the human way might be awfully slow compared to pony or changeling methods, but it gets reliable and much safer results. Not exactly safe from an objective perspective; you're still throwing crap at the sky while people sit inside of it. But at least you have a better idea of what the crap will do in theory before finding out in practice.
9063275
Especially not one raised in a series of libraries.
9063356
Yeah, if Aligern is saying it, it must be true.
Maybe.
Well of course he doesn't do anything to the timberwolves; they're on the wrong side of his Manton limit. You don't see dragons burning ponies to death, do you? Same principle: dragonfire can't harm living things.
9063793
It kind of reminds me of Jackie Chan’s impression of American filming procedures, and how all the safety measures felt excessive and pointless. Then, after US filming for Rush Hour was finished and they finishing up filming in Hong Kong, he almost gets crushed by a metal shipping container.
“Ok. American way is better.”
9063207
My thought was that a timberwolf being a living being, it has a degree of inherent resistance to magic fire that a chunk of ice does not, plus Spike hasn't actually learned how to focus his fire breath properly; he's just using the basic raw form.
9063901
oh, i read an "alternate-reality" story where Spike actually tried to breathe fire at the Timberwolves, but they were made of "green" wood that doesn't burn well...so he got beaten up rather badly!
9063793
Throwing crap at the sky via continuous high-energy explosion at that.
There have been 18 fatalities during manned space missions due to Bad Days. And quite a few more that have suffered various injuries and accidents during space flight.
If I recall correctly (I probably am off by a couple hundred) there have been about 1000 people sent into space.
This means that we've gotten "Riding an explosion at super sonic speeds out into space" to just under 2% fatality rate, which is (give or take) two orders of magnitude higher than the fatality rate of cars. (That's .016%).
I think, on a technicality, the pony way has been safer. But that's just because magic is bullshit.
9064057
I WOULD like to point out, however, that exactly zero of those 18 fatalities were outside the Earth's atmosphere, so technically we've never lost a (wo)man in space...
Are they seriously expecting to kick this thing off at over 24 km/s? Because that's the orbital velocity of mars, which is what they'd need to counteract to, as they keep saying, drop it into the sun.
9064398
Thats 34 seconds of thrust (excluding losses). Sounds reasonable.
9064417
That would be at the acceleration the author's note specifically says they're not using. And would require it sustain that acceleration out to over 400 kilometers.
With the actual thrust being roughly half that, it would require twice that time and range.
I would point out that with only a little bit of refinement, that's beyond the long term Holy Grail of single-state-to-orbit; it's ZERO stage to orbit, using a completely reusable ground based launcher to launch payload into orbit.
Someone at NASA needs to flip out big time over this. "Wait a minute, they can GROUND BOOST with nearly unlimited delta-v? And they JUST INVENTED that from scratch?"
9064618
You mean like those laser-based ground launch stations, space guns and mass drivers right?
Yeah NASA would be flipping to gather all data from the test launch and actual launch.
9064618
It's good, but it would be hard to get the actual orbital insertion done this way. For that you really want a horizontal burn, which can't be achieved by pushing off a ground station.
It's not impossible to make it work if the system actually can act from hundreds of kilometers away and can have multiple ground units to a target - you could have a belt of ground stations around the equator and get horizontal vector by pushing from off to one side and letting gravity eat up the extra vertical - but it'd be quite a mess.
Being able to get rid of the initial launch stage would be a pretty big present, though even if that was all you got. And if you can actually hammer payloads to escape velocity with it (Earth escape velocity is less than half Mars 'throw it into the sun' velocity) you could use it to launch interplanetary probes without ever inserting them into earth orbit in the first place.
(Remember the Equestrians already have a reactionless spacedrive and a warp drive. This isn't really their most shocking feat to a human rocket scientist. But it might be one of the most practical for Earth space missions, because it doesn't rely on having the magic available in space. Though the life support hack, while less rocket-y is also highly useful.)
9065199
Actually, you could do an orbital insertion this way—you’d just be limited to doing it one or two days per month for any fixed location and desired orbital inclination: three or four days a month once every few years. The trick? Use an Earth launch site to go up, but then use another set of repulsor pylons on the Moon! Obviously, the issue there would be charging them, but if Watney, et al. could start a small garden using just what viable seeds were at hand and a convenient giant geode to charge mana batteries, imagine what could be done with a deliberately built green house. Yes, there’s the distance fall off, but if it could give a vehicle enough of a kick for any kind of low orbit, the process could be repeated each successive orbit to raise the apogee. Then only a small burn would be needed to raise the perigee and circularize the orbit.
9063314
Which reminds me: Kris, has anyone on Equestria or on Mars ever measured the speed of Magic?
9065661
Question inspired by Discworld?
Apparently Fireball implies that all humans are twilight sparkles.
That's probably not a good sign.
I'm probably just being paranoid.
9065199
this reminded me of a book, "the barsoom project" by Larry Niven and Stephen Barnes. one scene talked about space-elevators and such. one proposal was a "space whale", a device in orbit that would help spaceships get into a higher orbit. BUT one problem was that doing this would cause the "whale" to SLOW DOWN, possibly making it fall out of orbit.
it also said that having a cable-style elevator to orbit would probably pull the station down unless it also had a second cable going OUTWARD so the center of mass was at a geo-stationary point!
If it looks silly, but it works, it's... still silly, but at least in a useful way
Dragon = heavy lifting , welding and handy work. Nice
Nice chapter
Apparently, dragon breath works according to Roger Rabbit Rules.