Changeling Space Program Mission Forty-Nine hurtled through the upper atmosphere in a cone of superheated plasma, the rocket being pushed to the very edge of survivability by an array of enchanted crystals hundreds of miles behind it. Inside the control capsule, its sole occupant repeated a single word, for no other reason than to remind the ponies on the ground that she was still alive and conscious.
“Okay!”
It was less a word than a grunt, but Chrysalis managed to get it out regardless, somehow keeping her hooves on the controls despite eight times the normal force of gravity pressing hard on her entire body.
“Okay!”
This, beyond all doubt, was the worst ascent she had ever piloted, worse than her first flight, worse than Mission Five, which more than one book had called “Chryssy’s Bad Idea”, worse than anything.
“Okay!”
Her muscles really, really ached. It took the kind of willpower that (in her own mind) made her the perfect ruler of her fractious subjects to keep one hoof on the engine throttle and the other on the joystick. But if she let her forehooves drop, she’d never be able to lift them to the controls again while the current acceleration lasted.
“Okay!”
With this kind of monstrous acceleration, it seemed madness to add to it by firing the sole engine on the short, single-stage test vehicle. But the engines were required to turn the flight from a purely vertical flight into a shot to orbit. The capsule reaction wheels, mighty as they were, would only put the ship on its side; the fifteen magical repulsor pylons would continue pushing the three comparatively small crystals tucked behind the engine bell directly away from themselves, regardless of which way the ship was actually pointed.
“Okay!”
By itself, the ship might just be able to lift itself off the ground on a half-full tank. With the addition of the enchanted ring of rocks on the ground far, far behind her, Chrysalis was now bound not just for orbit but for a rendezvous with Concordia and her long-overdue shift on station there. Her three-person capsule (the other two seats currently empty) would replace the one that would take Cadance and a certain stowaway back to Equus.
“Okay, six point five gees and falling,” Chrysalis said, getting something more closely approaching a deep breath for the first time in three minutes. “On course ninety by fifty, fuel at sixty percent, all systems nominal.” All ship’s systems, that is. The pilot’s systems felt like she’d just been popped out of the cardboard in some pony toddler’s activity book. She could be her own drogue parachute.
“Horseton copies, Forty-Nine.” Chrysalis forced herself not to frown at the sound of Rainbow Dash’s voice. Yes, it was joint operations these days, and yes the little showoff was the second most senior pilot remaining on the planet, but it just felt wrong to have any pony other than the pony as capcom for what was, at least in name, a Changeling Space Program flight run from Horseton Space Center. “Twilight confirms you are go for orbit and Concordia rendezvous, repeat go for Concordia.”
The acceleration was tapering off rapidly now, and Chrysalis checked her speed indicators, then opened the taps on her chemical rocket engine a little more. For a moment she’d wondered if those stupid enchanted rocks would let her stop at Concordia, or if their creator had decided to surprise the changeling queen by making her commander of Equestria’s first permanent moon base, population one.
“Forty-Nine, ESA speaking.” Ah, and speak of the pony herself. The idiot genius must have taken the headset from Rainbow Dash. “If we restrict the mana flow a little more, the extra weight of the NASA ship should reduce acceleration even more, making the system safe for the Amicitas crew to use for escape. I think we’re almost ready to send them the specifications and await results of their own local testing.”
That made Chrysalis smile. As much as the perfect pony princess of Putting Her Nose Into the Private Business of Evil Masterminds annoyed her, it felt good when Twilight Sparkle’s plans worked… because when she failed she tried again, and when she succeeded she literally knocked the ball out of the park.
Yes, she could live with Twilight Sparkle’s plans, so long as they weren’t pointed at her.
“Sounds good to me,” she said. “Hurry up with the bookwork, and let’s bring our people home!”
Good chapter.
Heading I-35 north soon. Going home to Wisconsin.
know what? I think as much as Chrissy would refuse to admit it aloud. she considers Cherry one of her (if not her only) best friend. It would not surprise me if when Cherry and Dragonfly get home, the first thing Chrissy did was hug the pair the first chance she got.
Oof, eight gees sustained for several minutes? That's a bit beyond the upper limit of human tolerance for horizontal gees. Chrysalis is lucky changelings are so durable, or she'd be crapping out her (possibly-nonexistent?) spine.
Good stuff. Welcome back :3
One step closer to rescue!
9036122
That's where I am! Small world, isn't it?
So, they've got themselves a winner for solving the the thrust to weight issue.
And the ESA and CSA now have a system for putting payloads and crew into Equis orbit; that beats the pants off of even the 'Bifrost Bridge' (combination mass driver and ground laser launch system concept, theorized to be capable of launching large payloads at a cost of $20/kg).
projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/images/surfaceorbit/bifrostDiagram.jpg
Taking the Gs like a pro.
Love Twilight's new title.
Yep, even though she'd never admit it, she totally sees Cherry as her best friend.
Ah, the Concordia should be much safer without the thing that should not be.
9036195
Where in Wisconsin are you?
9036135
And for her that touching moment, her body punishes her by giving her sparkling wings.
i know there closer..... but why i get this feeling there going to end up in that world like the others.......
9036197
It's not as much of a boost as you might think; IIRC spacecraft launches use about 10% of their Delta-V getting out of the atmosphere and 90% getting up to orbital velocity. So even a perfect vertical launch system would only reduce delta-v requirements by 10%.
On Earth, anyways. Kerbin in KSP has a super dense atmosphere and extremely high gravity for its size, which would shift that up a bit; if Equus in the story carries over those traits compared to Earth the launch system would probably benefit them more.
NASA, incidentally, is going to be having nightmares about launching the MAV with this system. It's an experimental launch method, assembled on site with parts salvaged from a shipwreck, and they can't even test it because they can't recharge the crystals without the cave. The only actual test was done with a professionally assembled system in a different dimension with different laws of physics.
9036138
Thankfully, changelings are basically Kerbals, who are known to survive high velocity impacts, atmospheric reentry, and spaghettification.
(PS did they change Kerbals being able to survive reentry in one of the more recent patches?)
9030417
Okay, I will settle on 'Ew-and-a-half'
9036288
For the MAV a vertical launch boost with minimal added weight is exactly what they need.
But for adapting this system for dedicated launch use; wherever in the last few chapters did they say this system will only work in a purely vertical direction? I imagine a dedicated commercial version of this system would be configured to launch at an angle, thereby allowing the projectors to fully contribute to first stage orbital acceleration. In space flight, every gram counts, and even a mere 10% unilateral reduction in delta-v requirements to launch a payload to orbit, would be a godsend for any space program.
Dang, I'm really impressed by what you can do in half an hour. This chapter a day posting you've been doing is a very aggressive schedule, and to make such an amazing story with it is nothing short of brilliant.
you can launch perfectly vertically into orbit, because you are forgetting that the planet is rotating, and therefore you have a geostationary orbit. As in if you can keep the tracking launcher applieing enough crrective side thrust, eventually it will reach that height, with enough sideways speed to remain stationary relative to teh surface. Otherwise you have to aim for L1 as the moon goes over.
Could be worse, Soyuz when running on pure mechanical reentry when the computers fail reach 10 g plus, which is a lot better than spinning out and disintegrating as you have a reasonable chance of surviving till recovery on the ground.
Exponential mass ratio but linear launch and exhaust delta v is reasons why Im confused Ive never heard of even research into airbreathing drop collars. 2nd and top stage of a Saturn V is 1500 tons, which is a lot of high subsonic turbofans, but thats an extra Mach 1 you havent been burning rocket fuel, and the best turbojets get you to low end first stage burn out.
If you can airbreath to Mach 7, you only need Mass ratio of full to empty of rest of vehicle less than 3. Redstone orbital launch were modified WW2 V2 rockets, so somethings been messed up somewhere?
If you tilt the craft and repulsors at 45 degrees before launch, you don't go up, but upwards and sideways - the craft remains going directly away from the repulsors, just not vertical.
If you launch vertically, you don't quite get to a geosynchronous orbit, simply, even if you reduce the thrust - because the craft is moving initially at some 500m/s east, due to planetary rotation, and the launch site is rotating. At twice the distance from the centre of the planet, you should be going at 1000m/s east, in order to be on track for geosynchronus orbit, but you're at 500m/s.
If you were to launch vertically, you can only ever (*) end up in an orbit with a 500m/s horizontal velocity at apoapsis.
If you want to also miss the planet, you end up in something like an orbit 200000km*100km altitude from the surface, at a total delta-v of some 11km/s.
Figures for earth, for Mars, it's going to be more like 5000m/s, and 100000*100. (from the surface).
If there is no constraint on launching directly vertically, and you can launch at an angle, you can end up with either the orbit having a much lower apoapsis, or even launch directly to earth injection simply by tilting at the appropriate angle before launch.
*) Because the planet is rotating, if you launch vertically initially, if you take long enough to accelerate, your launch site will have moved ahead of you, and you will actually end up pushing backwards a little, reducing your horizontal velocity. For rapid continuous acceleration, this is negligible.
Being able to modulate the thrust at very long distances changes this - if you can turn the acceleration down to almost zero, you could in principle end up in low orbit by boosting the craft to an orbit with a 3/4 day period, waiting till it nearly impacts, and then turning up to boost away from you - at which point that thrust will be sideways as your launch site is now 'horizontally' away, not vertically away.
9036288
"It's not as much of a boost as you might think; IIRC spacecraft launches use about 10% of their Delta-V getting out of the atmosphere and 90% getting up to orbital velocity. So even a perfect vertical launch system would only reduce delta-v requirements by 10%."
Well, this version does. It may well be possible to have two repulsor stations, though, in which case one directly below the payload could be used for initial lift with another station a ways back along the desired orbital track then being cut in to give the acceleration a strong horizontal factor. Though there'd be a little of that already, I think; as the engines fire, the ship will move off from directly over the life station, giving at least some horizontal vector.
9036325
Hm, going up at an angle might work too, yeah. More time in atmosphere, though; I'm not sure how the tradeoffs work out, but I suspect that multiple stations would probably end up being cheaper and safer in the long run.
I'll also remark on just how important it is for those mentioned mighty reaction wheels to work properly, and it'd probably be good to design future ships using this system so that their target crystal are as close to their centers of mass as possible, rather than down by the engines. I'm guessing that this won't be an issue on Mars due to the magic for the repulsor system running out before the thrust and engine-CoM axes part ways, though.
edit:
9036393
Geostationary orbit has the same angular, rather than tangential, velocity, unfortunately. From a bit of quick research and calculation, I got a circular orbit with Earth equatorial tangential velocity being well outside Earth's Hill sphere (so not an orbit bound to Earth; the ship has escaped into interplanetary space).
That's for a circular orbit, though. If all you want is for your periapsis to clear atmosphere, then just going straight up and adjusting the orbit later could potentially work, I think. Might be an inefficient use of energy, but the energy could be Equestria's abundant and cheap magic with the power supply and most of the engine left on the ground; overall efficiency might still be much better than a more efficient engine that has to be mounted, with all its support and supply equipment, on the ship itself. Probably depends on exactly what's being launched, though.
Chrysalis manages to simultaneously be the most adorable character in Equestria and also the most impressive one
9036306
nope... that is not a great one...
9036504 I was trying to make her the most sarcastic one...
9036614 I think that is part of why she’s also the most adorable and the most impressive
Surrounded by idiots, having to do it all herself, being their toughest pilot while also running their whole hive and maintaining diplomatic relations working alongside Twilight. One botched invasion aside, she’s the most competent creature in Equestria.
And then Chrysalis was replaced by Life...
this-is-cool.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/life-2017-scifi-movie-trailer.jpg
Chrysalis wails as the alien goo devours her, "NOOOOOOO!!! THAT MOVIE SUUUUUUUCKED!!! GARBLEBLARG!!!"
9036619 Maybe in this Equestria... in the canon one, she constantly both overplays AND underplays her hand with grandiose schemes she never completely thinks through and loses mainly to her obsessive grandstanding and gloating.
Typical mustache-twirling villain.
Mission 49, eh? Convenient timeline touchstone.
In any case, Repulsorhenge seems to be working quite nicely. Now to see how it'll go wrong...
So I'm kind of curious how long it'll take Mark to figure out all these Equestrian names translate to terrible horse puns of Earth things/places in English.
9036722
I'm guessing conversion failure. Something the ponies take for granted will work differently on Mars.
9036504
Hmm. Flesh-tearing, teeth-gnashing and bitter speaking. Yeah, most of that fits.
I think Concordia is in danger of freezing out. When, after such a "fun" couple of weeks, Cadance gets to be releived of duty by Chrysalis who nearly got squashed on ascent... with neither wanting to show weakness by blowing up, even the shortest exchange of words will be dipping all the way down to absolute zero.
9037052
You have no idea
9037117
Well, AJ is an odd fellow, but I must say:
She steams a good apple.
9037052
Errr... Said slime makes one of the layers of their spacesuit, that's why Dragonfly is responsible for maintenance. And because of that Dragonfly being temporarily unavailable was becoming a big problem.
My favorite evil overlordress imitates a pancake! I still vote for Dragonfly's eventual queeniness, for to hear Chryssy say "Bah! HUMBUG!"
9036784
Kris seems to be taking the inverse approach, where the terrible horse pun names aren't their actual names but rather are English names invented by wordplay-loving, English-speaking ponies (I'm looking at you, Starlight) as a close-enough approximation to the meaning and tone of the originals. Meaning that people's reaction is going to be less, "Pony world has a copy of Manhattan? lolwut?" and more, "We know we can't pronounce the original, but for the love of lexicography can we PLEASE stop translating names into English horse puns?!"
We as the audience are just getting all of the English pun names upfront because we don't speak Horse.
9037656
Well, to use a recent example, "Cloud Valley". Cloudsdale. Clydesdale. I suspect that the magic pony word for "Clydesdale" is nothing like "Cloudsdale". It only becomes a pun when translated. The improbability of having "reverse translation puns" and how common they'll end up being will blow some minds on both worlds when they're discovered.
9037070 For that and more urgent reasons, Cadance will undock her capsule and depart just before Chrysalis docks, so they never have to actually meet face to face.
That's right. Cherry Berry? The pony.
that had to be one hell of a ride.
So, Twilight has proven that the repulsor system works provided it has an active target. Now, if she can reverse it to create a tractor system with the same kind of range, they can set up Concordia with a skyhook. And by combining the repulsor and tractor systems, they have precision manipulation of large masses at a substantial distance.
9038663 Wouldn't that just pull Concordia out of orbit?
9040663
9038663
The idea suggested here is for the Concordia space station to use a weaker tractor beam to constantly tug on the rocket during the repulsor stage and beyond, providing the rocket with free gravity turn delta-v while the concordia space station leeches some of the repulsor effect from the rocket to avoid having to fire stationkeeping thrusters.
Imagine this as if you were creating an ocean current or jetstream out of magic, which naturally captures the rocket into its flow and boosts it forward like a ship or plane would get boosted by a hindwind, but the flow of the magic current bends with the relative change in vectors of the launch pad and rocket and space station.
Its not like that at all of course, but the end result will operate like that to the reference frame of the rocket.
Chryssy feeling so fly like a G8...
9036291
Still can survive re-entry, just not in only EVA suit. You need chair with heatshield attached to survive hypersonic re-entry. And if you have seat and shield, it's the most logical to attach at least braking chute to it.
Actually, you probably will want braking chute and not landing chute, because your mass will be less than 500 kg and braking chute have higher terminal velocity.
9089015
Lol.
Holy crap, 8G sustained?! I thought launch regs limited it to 3G. I know fighter pilots pull up to 9 or so, but only briefly, not constant for a whole space launch (and most of them wear compression clothes to help with that).
I'd say Chrysalis needs a hug after that, and on second thought she may need it more than I thought -- to squeeze some blood back into her pulverized buggy brains
9370610
Going by human tolerances, 8Gs for a maximum of 40 seconds. Safe to assume based upon descriptions and analogues to IRL animals that Changelings can survive quite a bit more.
Wikipedia's handy chart for reference:
upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/97/Human_linear_acceleration_tolerance.svg
She's piloting the 'shield-bounced' test vehicle herself? Wow! Didn't quite expect that
Ooh, the pylons now only affect specific enchanted crystals on the vehicle. That's great progress!
I see. Testing the new ascent method and finally going back to relieve Cadance's shift. Efficiency!
I am perfectly, absolutely fine with a Twilight Sparkle Plan™ being pointed at Chrysalis. It'd be carthartic.
Bloody hell! 8 G ? I dont think i could take that ever.
Chrysalis is a powerhouse that i doubt other could emulate.
Nice chapter.
This is one of those lines that means a lot more after reading the original story
Chryssi remains the best thing.